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This week, I'm going to recommend the Mungza with selections from traditional commentaries

by Brian W. Van Norton.

The Mungza, or Mensius, is probably the second most important text in the Confucian canon,

and this is the translation I actually use when I teach it, which I'm going to be starting to do this very week.

So if you've ever been curious to learn more about Confucianism, this is a really interesting place to start.

Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your copy.

Music Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 372, The First Frontier, Part 2.

We don't usually think of Japan as formally integrating Hokkaido into its control until 1868 or so,

at the start of the Meiji period.

But I think it's fair to say that, for all practical purposes, the island was already under Japanese control by the mid to late Tokugawa period.

Economically, the Ainu natives were more and more dependent on trade with Japan.

From the Japanese-ruled enclave on the Oshima Peninsula, the southernmost point of Hokkaido itself,

merchants backed by the Matsumai family had built up trade networks ranging across Ainu lands, not just on Hokkaido itself,

but all the way up to the Curl Islands and Sakhalin.

...