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The rural commodity economy in the Edo period developed by leaps and bounds under the influence of institution, policy, technology and other factors. From the mid 17th century, the specific area of cash crops gradually took shape in Japan and the largescale cultivation of cash crops gready promoted the development of rural handicrafts, thereby creating the conditions for the initiation of the capitalist relations of production. The development of rural commodity economy not only changed the traditional mode of operation and production of Japanese farmers, but also accelerated the class differentiation, shook and disintegrated he economic foundation and class basis of Bakuhan society, and created the preconditions for the later Meiji Restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]