A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

ENGRAVING: VARIOUS OCCUPATIONS OF WOMEN, KYOHO EHA

THE CURRENCY

From the first day of assuming administrative power, Yoshimune gave earnest thought to reform of the currency. His ambition was to restore the gold and silver coins to the quality and sizes existing in the Keicho era. This he effected, though not on a sufficiently large scale. Each of the new coins was equal in intrinsic value to two of the corresponding kenji coins, and the circulation of the latter was suspended, the new coins being called Kyoho-kin after the year-name of the era (1716-1735) when they made their appearance. It was a thoroughly wholesome measure, but the quality of the precious metals available did not suffice. Thus, whereas the gold coins struck during ten years of the Kyoho era totalled only 8,290,000 ryo, a census taken in 1732 showed a total population of 26,921,816. Therefore, the old coins could not be wholly withdrawn from circulation, and people developed a tendency to hoard the new and more valuable tokens.

Other untoward effects also were produced. The shogun paid much attention to promoting agriculture and encouraging land reclamation, so that the yield of rice increased appreciably. But this proved by no means an unmixed blessing. Side by side with an increase in the quantity of rice appearing in the market, the operation of the new currency tended to depreciate prices, until a measure of grain which could not have been bought at one time for less than two ryo became purchasable for one. In fact, the records show that a producer considered himself fortunate if he obtained half a ryo of gold for a koku of rice. This meant an almost intolerable state of affairs for the samurai who received his salary in grain and for the petty farmer. Thus, a man whose income was three rations of rice annually, and who consequently had to live on 5.4 koku for a whole year, found that when he set aside from three to four koku for food, there remained little more than one ryo of assets to pay for salt, fuel, clothes, and all the other necessaries of life.

So acute was the suffering of the samurai that a rice-exchange was established at Dojima, in Osaka, for the purpose of imparting some measure of stability to the price of the cereal. Just at this time (1732), the central and western provinces were visited by a famine which caused seventeen thousand deaths and reduced multitudes to the verge of starvation. The Bakufu rendered aid on a munificent scale, but the price of rice naturally appreciated, and although this brought relief to the military class, it was misconstrued by the lower orders as a result of speculation on 'Change. Riots resulted, and rice-merchants fearing to make purchases, the market price of the cereal fell again, so that farmers and samurai alike were plunged into their old difficulties.

Ultimately, in 1735, the Bakufu inaugurated a system of officially fixed prices (osadame-soba), according to which 1.4 koku of rice had to be exchanged for one ryo of gold in Yedo, the Osaka rate being fixed at forty-two momme of silver for the same quantity of the cereal. Anyone violating this rule was fined ten momme of silver for each koku of rice purchased or sold by him. It is related that the osadame-soba was operative in name only, and that the merchants secretly dealt in the cereal at much lower prices than those officially fixed. The Yedo financiers now concluded that the quantity of currency in circulation was insufficient and its quality too good. Accordingly, the gold and silver coins were once more reminted, smaller and less pure tokens being issued under the name of bunji-kin with reference to the Genbun era (1736-1740) of their issue. Thus, the reform of the currency, achieved with so much difficulty in the early years of Yoshimune's administration, had to be abandoned, and things reverted to their old plight.

If this difficulty operated so acutely under a ruler of Yoshimune's talent, the confusion and disorder experienced when he withdrew his able hand from the helm of State may be imagined. The feudatories were constantly distressed to find funds for supporting their Yedo mansions, as well as for carrying out the public works imposed on them from time to time, and for providing the costly presents which had become a recognized feature of ordinary and extraordinary intercourse. As an example of the luxury of the age, it may be mentioned that when the fifth shogun visited the Kaga baron, the latter had to find a sum of a million ryo to cover the expenses incidental to receiving such a guest. In these circumstances, there arose among the feudatories a habit of levying monetary contributions from wealthy persons in their fiefs, the accommodation thus afforded being repaid by permission to carry swords or by promotion in rank. The poorer classes of samurai being increasingly distressed, they, too, borrowed money at high rates of interest from merchants and wealthy farmers, which loans they were generally unable to repay. Ultimately, the Bakufu solved the situation partially by decreeing that no lawsuit for the recovery of borrowed money should be entertained—a reversion to the tokusei system of the Ashikaga shoguns.

Of course, credit was completely undermined by the issue of this decree. It is strange that such conditions should have existed under such a ruler as Yoshimune. But even his strenuous influence did not suffice to stem the current of the time. The mercantile instinct pervaded all the transactions of every-day life. If a man desired to adopt a son, he attached much less importance to the latter's social status or personality than to the dimensions of his fortune, and thus it came about that the family names of petty feudatories were freely bought and sold. Yoshimune strictly interdicted this practice, but his veto had no efficiency; wealthy farmers or merchants freely purchased their way into titled families. From this abuse to extortion of money by threats the interval was not long, and the outcome, where farmers were victims, took the form of agrarian riots. It was to the merchants, who stood between the farmers and the samurai, that fortune offered conspicuously favourable opportunities in these circumstances. The tradesmen of the era became the centre of extravagance and luxury, so that in a certain sense the history of the Yedo Bakufu may be said to be the history of mercantile development.

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS

Yoshimune devoted much attention to the encouragement of industrial progress. Deeming that a large import of drugs and sugar caused a ruinous drain of specie, he sent experts hither and thither through the country to encourage the domestic production of these staples as well as of vegetable wax. The feudatories, in compliance with his suggestion, took similar steps, and from this time tobacco growing in Sagami and Satsuma; the weaving industry in Kotsuke and Shimotsuke; sericulture in Kotsuke, Shinano, Mutsu, and Dewa; indigo cultivation in Awa; orange growing in Kii, and the curing of bonito in Tosa and Satsuma—all these began to flourish. Another feature of the time was the cultivation of the sweet potato at the suggestion of Aoki Konyo, who saw in this vegetable a unique provision against famine. Irrigation and drainage works also received official attention, as did the reclamation of rice-growing areas and the storing of cereals.