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The shogunate tried to repair and regulate the economy, in particular the monetary supply and monetary value of rice, but to no avail. Seemingly, if anyone understood the economic developments incurred by the rice-brokers, it was the rice-brokers alone. Since the samurai's income was in fixed amounts of rice, not monetary value, the debasement of the value of rice affected their wealth drastically, and the inflation created by governmental attempts to control the supply of metal coinage had similar effects. In all of this turmoil, the rice-brokers were nearly the only ones to profit.
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powerfully but indirectly, prices across the country. This effect was enhanced by the tight monopolistic control of the merchants of this central market over the rice trade across the entire city; nowhere else was wholesale trade in rice permitted. As the business grew, the rice dealers developed among their membership transporters and guards who tightly controlled the flow of rice into the city. These jobs would become more specialized and organized as the 15th century went on, developing into distinctly separate branches of the guild.
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serving as reserve backing. This, however, quickly led to the problem of samurai living beyond their means, spending more in order to maintain the kind of lifestyle expected of their status than they could hope to repay. The rice brokers, more often than not, found it easiest to simply allow samurai and
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became less and less able to pay back the loans, and an incredible volume of debts were simply rolled over or ignored. The money supply the banks had created also grew out of control, becoming an essential aspect of the nationâs economy, causing serious economic consequences whenever it was altered.
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At the beginning of the 19th century, in response to growing inflation, and to the power of the rice brokers, and the merchant class in general, the shogunate once again imposed a series of heavy regulations and restrictions. Easily one of the most damaging was a proscription against receiving loan
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Rice dealers in Kyoto gained business very quickly, and became increasingly organized over the course of the 14th century; by 1400, the need for a central rice market was felt. Established sometime around that year, the Kyoto central rice market set rice prices by an auctioning system, determining,
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ideals and seeking reform. Thus, the shogunate stepped in, and sought to control the country's economic development, and the growing wealth and power of the merchant class, by organizing and regulating a series of guilds, and by passing strict sumptuary laws forbidding merchants from behaving like
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Cattle brokers, and merchants of marine products such as salt and fish saw significant growth and development in this period as well. Kyoto also saw the continuing emergence and development of a monetary economy. Rice would not be fully replaced by coin, however, until the late Edo or early Meiji
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An incident in 1431 illustrates the power of the Kyoto rice merchants; they conspired to cut down on the supply of rice to the market, in order to drive prices up. Ordered by the
Imperial Court to resume selling rice at a fair rate, they did so for one day and then stopped selling rice altogether.
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could be transported easily in a cart, most crops were harvested in such volume that a caravan of packhorses or carts across the rough and dangerous roads, transported by the individual farmers, simply could not work out. Thus, a number of towns served as waystations where merchants would act as
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s rice and issued paper bills, representations of value, in exchange. This was probably the first paper money in Japan, but the concept was picked up quickly, and the credit of the brokers was good enough to warrant the kind of trust that such a system relies upon. Many merchants throughout the
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and samurai, who promised to pay it back with the tax revenue of future seasons. For a time, this worked quite well for both samurai and brokers, whose system developed into something much more akin to a modern bank; transactions began to be done entirely in paper, with the rice only nominally
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As urbanization and other economic shifts became significantly widespread and powerful in the 14th century, the growth of towns created a growth in demand for the transport of produce, particularly rice, into the towns, from increasingly larger and further rural areas. As a result, a system of
189:, however, in 1467, brought these developments, and the merchants behind them to an abrupt halt. The various shops and warehouses that made up the central rice market were quickly sold for very low prices, and the city saw terrible violence and destruction in the ensuing years.
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was sent to arrest and punish the ringleaders, little was done, as the Deputy-Governor was party to the conspiracy. The merchants continued to abuse their power, encouraged by the ease of doing so and the rampant corruption which spread as high up as the wife of ShĆgun
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of rice, an amount equal to the amount of rice a man eats in a year. Though there was a unified national system of coinage, every feudal domain was free to mint its own coinage as well. Thus, paying for hotels, inns, and food were complicated and difficult affairs for
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middlemen, storing farmersâ goods and transporting them to major trade centers such as Osaka, for a price. However, increasing supply and demand towards the end of the 17th century necessitated a better method of transporting goods in large amounts. Merchants in
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several hundred years earlier; the early rice brokers of Kyoto, however, operated somewhat differently, and were ultimately not nearly as powerful or economically influential as the later Osaka system would be.
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Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, these Osaka-based institutions grew more solidly into what can legitimately be called banks, focusing their efforts largely on loans to the
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were so indebted to the brokers that they could never hope to be able to pay them back; this was a huge problem for the brokers. A new shĆgun came to power at this time, motivated by
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system. A major obstacle to the development of a modern capitalistic system in Japan at this time was the problem of transportation. While some commodities, such as woven silk and
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Thus, a system of rice warehouses arose, evolving naturally out of the rice storehouses which formed a part of this trade network. Centered in Osaka, the rice brokers bought the
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was born, incorporating and organizing the rice brokers in the north of Osaka. The system became formally backed by the shogunate, who acted through the Rice
Exchange to affect
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Soon afterwards, these rice brokers took the next natural, logical, step towards becoming true financial institutions. They began to loan the paper money to
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country were willing to exchange the paper bills for metal coins or bars, recognizing that the Osaka brokers would take back the bills, as payment for rice.
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The economy of Kyoto, at least in the eyes (and coffers) of the merchants, flourished in the first two-thirds of the 15th century. The outbreak of the
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This inflated economy came crashing down at the end of
Genroku, in the first decade of the 18th century. By this point, many samurai and
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Rice brokers also managed, to a great extent, the transportation of rice around the country, organizing the income and wealth of many
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and samurai spent beyond their means, and merchants, who on the whole enjoyed immense profits, spent frivolously as well.
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By 1700 or so, Osaka had become the mercantile center of Japan. Osaka merchants had organized themselves into a national
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to postpone repayment of the loans, or to default on them entirely. The last decade or so of the 17th century, the
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emerged. This process was much the same as the one which would catapult Japan into the modern era in the
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s rice in exchange for a fee, trading it for either coin or a form of receipt; essentially a precursor to
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grew poorer and began taking out more loans, increasing the social position of the rice brokers.
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higher-class citizens (i.e. samurai, nobles). Sanctioned and encouraged by the shogunate, the
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period, is today widely considered to have been the peak of Edo period extravagance;
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tax payments to the shogunate. The rice brokers, like other elements of the
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https://web.archive.org/web/20061130143059/http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~kaplan/
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pleasure district, and other aspects of the urban culture of the time.
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Nihonbashi bridge in Edo, Rice brokers." 36 Views of Mount Fuji "
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traveling to or from Edo as mandated by the shogunate's
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The
Cultures of East Asia: Political-Material Aspects
320:(æć·ź, "note/bill exchange"), and were located in the
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376:. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
117:. Many if not all of these rice brokers also made
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46:Rice polishing by water mill in early modern
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324:(è”ć, "before the storehouses") section of
61:, which rose to power and significance in
102:in Osaka and Edo thus began to organize
220:income at this time was in the form of
157:area, and centered at Kyoto instead of
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27:Forerunners to bankers in feudal Japan
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316:The rice brokers in Edo were called
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132:and paying taxes on behalf of the
81:. The concept originally arose in
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237:(alternate attendance) system.
169:When the Deputy-Governor of the
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381:A History of Japan: 1615â1867
374:A History of Japan: 1334â1615
365:. Chap. 16. 09 Nov 2006. <
50:. " 36 Views of Mount Fuji "
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379:Sansom, George Bailey.
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151:Edo period
71:Edo period
350:Yoshiwara
348:theatre,
330:fudasashi
318:fudasashi
277:Confucian
182:periods.
100:Merchants
388:See also
187:Ćnin War
334:usurers
326:Asakusa
322:kuramae
306:daimyĆs
297:daimyĆs
293:daimyĆs
273:daimyĆs
266:daimyĆs
262:Genroku
258:daimyĆs
253:daimyĆs
229:daimyĆs
134:daimyĆs
130:daimyĆs
123:daimyĆs
91:DaimyĆs
69:in the
52:Hokusai
36:Hokusai
395:ton'ya
346:kabuki
342:chĆnin
338:daimyĆ
242:daimyĆ
218:DaimyĆ
212:guilds
108:daimyĆ
369:>.
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208:Sakai
193:Osaka
159:Osaka
155:Kinai
147:Kyoto
140:Kyoto
119:loans
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83:Kyoto
63:Osaka
48:Japan
223:koku
203:sake
96:rice
65:and
312:Edo
67:Edo
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403:za
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