The Merchant's Tale

by Simon Partner

  Bemusedly, Chūemon added, “The common people do not seem to care at all. Everyone is walking around as carefree as usual. However, prudent people are making preparations and not taking any chances.”55

  A month later, Chūemon briefly reported the final act in the drama. “Prince Arisugawa and his army are staying tonight in Kawasaki. They will shortly enter Edo. There are around two thousand of them. Lord Hitotsubashi [the ex-shogun] was sentenced to death, but he has been pardoned and ordered to retire to Mito. He left Edo on the tenth.”56

  There were many, many changes to get accustomed to. The shogun, whom Chūemon had always known as the ultimate authority, was now a disgraced rebel (after a brief period in Mito, Yoshinobu and his retainers went into permanent exile in Shizuoka). The emperor, who had never been anything but a remote figure in Chūemon’s imagination, was now to be his sovereign. Edo, the massive economic and political hub that had been the backdrop for so much of Chūemon’s work and play, was a ghost town. On top of the hundred and fifty thousand or more residents who had left in the previous few years, more than three hundred thousand people fled in the months after the collapse of the shogunate, including one hundred thousand retainers who were forced to follow Tokugawa Yoshinobu into exile.57 After losing half its population, Edo (which was shortly to be renamed Eastern Capital, or Tokyo) was a shell of its former self, inhabited by roaming thieves, bandits, and uncouth western samurai. As Katsu Kaishū wrote, “The once great castle is today overgrown with weeds. Its towers are crumbling, and its enclosures have become a den for beggars and outcasts … At night thieves wander about and cut down the unfortunate, the aged are left to die on the streets, and bands of young men gather in the outskirts of the city to pillage and plunder.”58

  EXPANSION

  In spite of the upheavals of the Mitsui trial and the Meiji revolution—one of the most epochal moments in all Japanese history—life, and business, went on. Amid all the political turmoil and military conflict—including the advance of hostile armies into Kōshū and the Kantō Plain—the transport routes between Kōshū and Yokohama remained open, and silk egg cards and other valuable produce continued to travel down the roads. Certainly, Chūemon was concerned at times about security. Money, in particular, was a worrying commodity to transport. The Edo-based transport company Kyōya would ship money for an extra fee, but Chūemon preferred to send it with a trusted associate—if he could find one who was traveling to Kōshū. Chūemon also urged his son to stick to the main roads for both security and speed—even if the post stations were extortionate: “It is definitely not a good idea to use any other roads. If anything should happen along the road, it would not be an easy matter to take care of it.”59

  But even with armies on the move, as the season came around for the new silkworm egg supplies, Chūemon urged his partners to travel to Shinshū to buy top-quality cards (by this time his purchase needs had long outgrown the capacity of his village network).60 By the end of April, with Edo surrounded by imperial forces and Kōshū in the hands of the enemies of the Tokugawa, Chūemon wrote, “Are you buying egg cards? I want you to try hard again this year and send many of them. The foreigners are contracting for them at one ryō two bu, and they are handing over half the money in advance. That contract can be used as security for a loan … According to the foreigners, they will buy double this year compared with last.”61 Chūemon’s business partners scoured both Kōshū and Shinshū in search of egg cards (“Once you have the cards, as I said the other day, you must pack them in boxes or in frames to prevent damage.”).62 Chūemon reported that the prospects for the egg card market had never looked so bright. “As usual, the foreigners are coming here [to Chūemon’s shop] in search of egg cards. We can certainly sell whatever you send. You should plan for a sales price of one ryō each, but people are saying that the price is likely to rise to one ryō two bu or even two ryō. But that’s just speculation, it’s not there yet.”63 Shōjirō responded to his father’s urging and put together two large shipments totaling more than twenty-three hundred cards. By that time, prices had indeed risen. A delighted Chūemon wrote, “The foreigners’ demand is not so strong and prices are declining a little, so I will hold off selling. However, the price will not go below two ryō per card.”64 And several days later, “Because of the poor silkworm egg crop throughout Japan, Yokohama is ten thousand cards short. Edo and other cities have none. The foreigners had been planning for large shipments, so now the price is likely to go up. Today there are no sellers. This is the recipe for success.”65

  The boom in the egg card market continued throughout 1868 and into the following year. Although in the early part of 1869 prices were trending lower than the previous year’s peak, by June Chūemon was reporting that he could sell cards even before delivery at two ryō per sheet. On July 17, as the market prepared to receive the new crop, Chūemon reported that “recently some assistants to the foreigners have been telling us that for small batches, they are likely to pay as much as five ryō or even eight ryō per card … If we obtain good-quality cards, we should not rush to sell them. We should wait until the prices are clearer.”66 When trading did finally open in mid-August, prices for Kōshū cards were around two to two and a half ryō per card—not the very high price some had been anticipating but still enough to give Chūemon and his partners excellent profits.67

  By this time, Chūemon was using the services of hikyaku (couriers) almost exclusively. He fully recognized the importance of speed in communications and transportation, and although the hikyaku services were expensive, Chūemon used them for their speed and reliability. If he could get information on market conditions to his associates a little more quickly, that could give him a crucial advantage in timing his purchases and assuring adequate supplies.

  On at least one occasion, Chūemon hired a special messenger to run nonstop all the way from Yokohama to Kōshū, an ultramarathon of more than ninety miles, much of it through the mountains. The messenger made the journey in less than twenty-four hours. Chūemon wrote,

  I have now sold around half our cards, and the market is looking strong. As soon as this messenger arrives, I want you to buy that same day and send the stock, even in the middle of the night … One person can carry around a hundred cards and should arrive in Edo within two days. I will immediately have the cards inspected and that same evening, even at night, I will bring them [to Yokohama] … If you wait to check up on the goods too closely, you won’t be in time. Even if it costs extra, have the goods expedited, traveling day and night … No matter what you have to do, make sure they arrive in Tokyo by the evening of the nineteenth so they can be inspected on the twentieth. I will transport them even at night to Yokohama, and on the twenty-first I will sell. I am sending this on the fifteenth at the hour of the dog [around 8:00 P.M.]. It should arrive without fail on the sixteenth by the western hour [about 6:00 P.M.]. If the messenger’s legs hurt, allow him to stay for up to three days. Of his wage of three ryō, I have given him one ryō two bu. Give him one ryō two bu when he arrives, provided he’s on time. And if he gets there before the seventh hour [4:00 P.M.], give him another two bu.68

  Three ryō (plus bonus) was an extraordinarily high cost for a messenger. Chūemon’s willingness to pay that sum reflects his recognition of the extremely high importance of speedy information flows, as well as the large sums of money involved in his transactions. According to one recollection of these express-messenger services, “For ordinary people of course [they] were only for exceptional circumstances, but large-scale merchants and traders often used them.”69 Indeed, on one occasion Chūemon felt that he had missed an important market opportunity because he did not get the news to Kōshū quickly enough: “If only I had used an express-messenger service,” he wrote, “we would have made an additional two thousand ryō in profits. It is truly a shame.”70

  As Chūemon’s business continued to prosper, he turned his attention to plans for expansion and diversification. The crystal-mining venture does not seem
to have gone anywhere (and anyway, the Ōshū region was the site of the bitterest fighting of the entire civil war, as the Aizu domain mounted a desperate stand against the Satsuma-Chōshū alliance), but on September 26, 1868, Chūemon wrote, “I have completed my application to open a money-exchange shop and a lending shop. This is a great joy. If I am able to open an exchange shop and trade in foreign currency, even if it’s a little at a time, I will have access to large amounts of money, and there will be profit in that. Unlike interest in Kōshū, the rates here are much higher.”71 The new venture had to wait, though, until he could find the right person to manage it. A year later, on September 24, 1869, Chūemon wrote to Shōjirō: “Since the government has announced it would like to decrease the number of village officials, you should consider giving up your position in the village and taking up trade as the basis for your family’s future … If you have time, you should come here and talk about it. If you were to run either a money-lending shop or a foreign-exchange shop, you would make far more money than you do in farming. Anyone would be able to confirm this.”72

  Meanwhile, Chūemon also undertook a project he had had in mind ever since he had first come to Yokohama. In January 1869 he broke ground on the construction of a high-class inn that would offer rooms and meals to wealthier travelers. “My inn will be mostly for Kōshū people, which makes me very happy. However, many other travelers are arriving, so we will be very busy with visitors from Kōshū and others.”73 The inn opened on March 21, and from the beginning it seems to have prospered. The inn accommodated up to fifty guests, or sixty if they were willing to crowd into the rooms. Shortly after opening, Chūemon wrote, “The construction cost around five hundred ryō. However, what I hear from the people who stay here is that my rooms are the best both on the Tōkaidō and in Yokohama.”74 In September, six months after the inn’s opening, Chūemon wrote, “At present, if we only had more rooms, we could have a hundred people staying here every night.”75

  Chūemon’s dreams of grandiose new ventures were not confined to his business activities. Since the abandonment of the requirement that daimyo should live in Edo every other year, the daimyo, their wives and children, and their samurai retainers had begun a long-drawn-out exodus from the city, leaving many of their huge compounds empty. In January 1865 Chūemon had raised the possibility that he might move into one such compound. Lady Tōkōin, one of the official wives of the shogun, was looking for a safe place to live amid the growing disorders in the shogunal capital. Her retainers had identified a secluded compound that was currently unoccupied.

  This place is sixty-eight hundred tsubo [more than two hundred forty thousand square feet] in size. They are looking for someone to work as the guardian [shugo] of this place, and I have secretly applied for this position. Whoever holds it would have the same rank as a senior minister. If I had this position, my status would be very different from that of a minor official in Yokohama! Moreover, this would not be a job just for the sake of appearances. I would truly provide the retired lady with peace of mind. There are roughly twenty-five rooms of up to fifty tatami mats. Inside the compound there are rice fields that produce fifty bales of rice. There is also a pine mountain, a spring, a plum garden, a cherry garden, stables, and so on. It is truly a huge place. If I moved here, your mother, the children, and others could all come. Please keep this very secret!76

  Although that plan came to nothing, in late 1869 Chūemon did buy a piece of land in another part of Edo, and he subsequently built a house there.77 Chūemon had gone from being a humble farmer seeking permission to sell a few local goods in the new port city to a wealthy merchant with deep ties to the shogunal capital. With his large business and his widely varied business ventures, in spite of all the turmoil, his future must have seemed bright indeed.

  It is remarkable, however, that after years of business success, Chūemon still had to resort to borrowing to tide him over in periods of cash shortage. For all his success and prosperity, Chūemon remained at heart a risk-taking entrepreneur. Given his lack of capital, he could never have prospered as he did without taking big risks in response to new market opportunities. In spite of his many crises, he and his business partners had achieved extraordinary success in the dynamic global marketplace of Yokohama. But Chūemon’s entrepreneurial optimism also led him to continue risking his own and his associates’ capital even when he might have pursued a more cautious policy of consolidation. In a hint of how overextended he was becoming, Chūemon admitted at the end of 1870 that despite his prosperity, he was still short of ready cash. “I understand that I need to send fifty ryō [to a business partner in Kōshū], but at present I have nothing on hand. When I looked into the expenses of feeding our guests in the hotel, I found that it comes to one hundred fifty ryō [per month].”78 And indeed once again Chūemon was unable to settle his debts by the end of the year.

  MODERN YOKOHAMA

  On October 13, 1872, Chūemon wrote to his son of the completion of a grand new project: a railway line—Japan’s first—running between Tokyo and Yokohama. The emperor himself would attend the opening ceremony the following day, and Chūemon would be present.

  Tomorrow they will hold a great ceremony, which will be attended by the Son of Heaven [Go-Tenshi-sama] … They are making great preparations at the railway station, preparing a pavilion for the festival. Townsmen and samurai alike will be given one tag per person, and whoever is carrying one of these tags will be allowed to enter the pavilion and pay obeisance to the emperor. Altogether there will be about five thousand people … On one side there will be a section for foreigners. Throughout the town, the railway company and others have hung around a hundred and fifty thousand paper lanterns. The townspeople have decorated the lanterns with chrysanthemums and rising-sun emblems … There will be theatrical performances throughout the town … It will cost me around twenty ryō in expenses. Naotarō will go too. From now on, you will be able to travel from here to … Edo by railway. A third-class round-trip ticket is one bu two shu [about $0.40]. There are also second and first classes. I, too, plan to try riding it. It will be so fast!79

  The opening of the railway was the symbol of a momentous period of modernization for Yokohama, announcing its arrival as one of the great cities of Asia. Like many periods of great change, the transformation began with a disaster. The massive fire of 1866 destroyed much of the foreign settlement and all the Japanese official buildings, including the customs house and town hall, which had been the nerve centers of the Japanese administration. In the aftermath of the disaster, there was agreement among both foreign and Japanese officials that the city should be rebuilt on much more ambitious lines, as befitted one of Japan’s major cities and its window onto the world.

  Yokohama was rebuilt in the image of a modern city. The road along the waterfront was paved and widened, turning it into a fashionable promenade. The customs house was rebuilt in Western style, a grand two-story building of cut stone, its windows glassed and decorated with neoclassical pediments.80 The avenue separating the Japanese and foreign communities was widened into a “noble road … lined, on the one side with Japanese official buildings—the Custom-house, the Post-office, the Ken-cho [prefectural office], and the Central Police office; on the other, by the British and American Consulates and other buildings, with a pretty shrubbery bounding the road in front of the edifices, throughout its entire length.”81 The avenue, which was surfaced with macadam, extended beyond the original boundaries of the settlement, all the way to the site of the former licensed quarter. The marsh that had separated the licensed quarter from the settlement was filled in (“thus removing a source of rheumatic and febrile complaints, then very common”)82 and turned into building lots, for foreigners on the south side and Japanese on the north. The ruins of the licensed quarter were never rebuilt. The brothel district itself was removed to a new location further from the town, while its former site was turned into a recreation ground, used for cricket matches and other leisure activities (today the site remai
ns one of the largest parks in central Yokohama and houses the Yokohama BayStars’ baseball stadium).83

  Much of this reconstruction was carried out based on a master plan by the British engineer Henry Brunton. Brunton came to Yokohama in 1868 to build lighthouses, but he ended up playing a major role in the technological transformation of Yokohama’s urban infrastructure—which in turn became a model for urban development throughout Japan. In addition to land reclamation and road improvement, Brunton also designed and built the first iron bridge in the Kantō region, and he supervised the installation of a modern drainage system, the development of gas-powered street lighting (though this project took many years to complete), the installation of flood-control barriers along the waterways, and the planning of parks and recreational spaces.84 Another significant force in the rebuilding of Yokohama was Shimizu Kisuke. A second-generation master builder from Edo, Shimizu opened a branch in Yokohama in 1859. He was employed by the Kanagawa commissioners to build their own headquarters, as well as Yokohama’s first iron foundry. After studying Western architectural models, he built the new German consulate in 1867 and worked on a variety of other reconstruction projects. After the Meiji Restoration, he took his skills in Western-style construction to Tokyo, building a number of prominent structures that blended Western designs with Japanese features. His company remains today one of Japan’s largest construction firms.85