Merchants are people with no steady livelihood and without a steady mind. Their status is low to the extreme, and they are inferior to warrior houses, farmers, and all others. They make a living by stealing a profit from the process of buying and selling. In the course of more than two hundred years of peaceful government, the profits that they have embezzled have accumulated to such an extent that nowadays the financial means of townspeople have become vast. There is a limit to the financial capacity of warriors, who offer their lives for the state. Farmers pay a large proportion of their harvest, won by hard work in cold and hot weather, in the annual land tax; they perform corvée labor, produce various kinds of goods, mingle with soil and excrement, and suffer all the hardships of this world. An artisan can earn only so much in a day’s wages, and it is impossible for him to exceed that limit. For a merchant there is no such limit. His earnings depend solely on the profit he gains and on the extent of his greed. He is not affected by wind, flood, or drought; he pays no annual land tax; and he has no service obligations. Surely, he enjoys the greatest freedom of any in our world.
Favored by the system, merchants are free to move their goods to any province or city and to increase their wealth by bargaining wherever they want. Edo has thus become awash with merchants over the more than two hundred years that have passed since the Divine Lord established it as his seat. Since the beginning of Tokugawa rule, the number of people, households, and blocks has increased also in Kyoto and Osaka, where merchant prosperity is beyond words. Merchants thrive also in the castle towns in the provinces and in all corners of the country. They handle all goods with complete freedom and keep daimyo and fief holders in the hollow of their hand. Their splendor and extravagance increase every day and month that passes; it is easy for all to see that nowadays they have exceeded the farmers and sit on top of the world.
First of all, all warriors of Japan, from daimyo great and small down to the lowest samurai, gather in Edo, where they spend gold, silver, rice, and copper cash. Because of this abundance, the Way of commerce thrives to such an extent that nowadays it puts the warrior houses in the shade. In expediting all matters, merchant ways are more effective than military might, and merchants do their bargaining throughout the country from the comfort of their homes. It is the way of our world that townspeople have come to handle all shogunal needs, from money exchange and the management of rice payments to the shogunate down to the supply of all kinds of goods. Even matters of military importance such as the hiring of men-at-arms and foot soldiers, travel preparations, and the purveyance of military, equestrian, and other goods can be arranged only by townspeople. As a result, townspeople have become even more conceited. All warrior houses, temples and shrines, and farmers, together with everybody else in the land, are dependent on the townspeople, who rob them for profit. Because these ever more arrogant merchants steal all the surplus in the world, down to the tiniest crumb, warrior houses, farmers, and others are all in straits. Because of this tendency of our time, townspeople have in recent years become haughty, scorning warriors and looking down on farmers; their arrogance goes beyond all bounds.
While the townspeople have grown conceited in our age, there are two tendencies among them, one that inspires abhorrence and another that arouses pity. The latter is the imbalance between the poor and the rich. But let me first give a rough description of the matters that are to be abhorred.
Shogunal Purveyors and Wholesalers
Townspeople who are shogunal purveyors, such as those who handle bills of exchange on behalf of the shogunate, the shipping of shogunal rice and other products from shogunal lands, or the purveyance of other goods to the shogunate, without exception lead lives of luxury.1 When they do personal business they pretend it is official, and when they travel they label even goods that they trade privately as shogunal purveyances. Referring to their right to carry swords on the road, even the overseers of their goods trains travel in palanquins, using more men and horses from the post stations than they are entitled to and thus causing harm to the farmers. They see no difference between the authority of the shogunal government and the authority of their own wealth, and because even great and small daimyo employ them to solve their problems and treat them with the greatest respect, they grow ever more arrogant. A shogunal purveyor of my acquaintance who is stationed in Kyoto travels to Edo every year; because he does not like to drink a different kind of water on the road, he carries all his water with him from Kyoto. Such extravagant behavior would not be possible for a daimyo holding less than a hundred thousand koku. This is how it is in all matters.
When these merchants make loans, they bring their status as shogunal purveyors into play and set the same conditions for these loans as if they were lending on behalf of the shogunate; here too they act out their greediness by relying on both their private and their public influence. They think lightly of others, make no allowances whatsoever, and demand huge profits. In all matters they abuse their official capacity in this same manner. They mark their chests, their luggage boxes, their lanterns, and even their wrapping cloths with the shogunal crest. Even when they take their wives, concubines, and clerks out for a pleasure excursion, they use goods marked with that august crest.
These shogunal purveyors leave all their official business to their clerks, and they know nothing at all about their own trade. They make it their business to engage in various pastimes and to visit the amusement quarters. They keep concubines in lodgings here and there, use the best clothes and eat the best food, and steep themselves in extravagance. When warriors are dissolute, the shogunate will reprimand and punish them, and on occasion it will order those warriors who are rich to carry out various tasks. Moreover, a rich warrior will not be praised but rebuked for his selfishness and vulgarity. No one, however, will reprimand a townsman for debauchery, whether he is a shogunal purveyor or not, and nobody will begrudge him, however high his piles of gold, silver, and jewels may reach. Compared with warriors, they have a much easier time of it.
Because the shogunal government makes no attempt to control these townspeople, nobody points a finger at those shogunal purveyors, or at any other rich townspeople. Therefore they fear nobody in the world. They exhaust themselves in dissolution, and they constantly go out, spending the night elsewhere and absenting themselves from their residences for days at a time. The clerks who accompany them become equally dissipated. Both master and servant make light of the services they perform for the shogunate and forget the gratitude that they owe for the favorable treatment they are receiving.
With both master and servant going to extremes in outrageous behavior, all control both inside and outside [the household] is lost. The purveyor incurs debts that are beyond his position, or he embezzles shogunal money, and ends up being unable to perform the functions on behalf of the shogunate with which he has been entrusted; then, seeing no other way out, he hands his share of membership in the purveyors’ association over to others. If he has an heir of his own bloodline, he claims that son is ill and takes him out of the succession, and while outwardly he pretends to seek permission to adopt a son, what he actually does is sell his share.2 These official purveyors have for generations received great favors from the shogunate and have been able to live in great splendor because of their ancestry; yet they put the house name that they have inherited from their ancestral bloodline up for sale. With the arrangement that they will receive a portion of the house income as a retirement allowance,3 they sell [their membership share] to persons without any pedigree or to people from distant provinces without even looking into their background and put them in charge of important services on behalf of the shogunate. That is an outrageous way to behave, and it shows utter disdain for received favors. This is what happens when excessive privilege is bestowed on people of low status.
Townspeople who hold membership shares in wholesalers’ guilds trading in various goods receive shogunal recognition for their guild in return for paying modest license fees or performing minor services for the shogunate. As a result, they monopolize all transactions in that particular line of trade, and they use the august authority of shogunal recognition to set prices as they wish while taking a set cut that they call “commission.” They never make a loss and simply rake in a secure profit. If somebody outside the wholesalers’ guild begins to sell the same goods, they lose no time in sending a complaint to the shogunal authorities and having him reprimanded. They truly seize [profits] by force. Those closed guilds are of meager benefit to the shogunate, but they do great harm to the world. It is a case of “wrangling with one’s people, and teaching them rapine.”4
Seeing the example set by the shogunate, even merchants in the provinces seek to borrow authority for their trade. They have their trade recognized by a daimyo, or they borrow the names of imperial princes and imperial cloisters. They lend out funds they call “stock money” or “reserve money,” squeeze the poor, and seize the various goods [that these produce], inventing new ways to raise a profit.
The sources of the profit that such merchants gain in all these ways are none other than the warrior houses above and the poor below. Only the townspeople, who stand in the middle, have free access to it. Some of them fill their storehouses with gold and silver and own tens of properties. They do not actually engage in any business but live in comfortable retirement. They are businesses in name only, while in fact they collect a set amount of monthly rent from the properties they own. Others lend money against pawned goods. They do not engage in any physical labor, nor do they have a need for large numbers of clerks. Without having to worry about fluctuations in weather and crops, they gain a great amount of profit year after year and gradually stockpile gold and silver coin in their storehouses. In the end, it is completely up to them whether they want to lie in their beds or get up; their situation is truly without compare.
Domainal Purveyors and Storehouse Agents
Merchants also take on the management of the finances of daimyo great and small (they call this “domainal compound purveyance”) and lend them money against high interest. More than that, they receive rations or stipends, they are allowed to use family names and carry swords, and they are granted high status comparable to that of chamberlain or domain elder. They lend money when a daimyo is asked to perform services for the shogunate, when his compound has been destroyed in a fire, or when the harvest in his domain has been bad, and therefore they are treated with an intimacy as though they were a relative. When they visit the compound they are welcomed as honorable guests; they may be invited to the lower compound or on pleasure excursions, where high domain officials serve as their hosts.5
Lately, large and small daimyo have tended to skimp on their official responsibilities, claiming to lack the funds; but at the same time, they spare no expense in what they call the entertainment of their “money masters.” They treat them more lavishly than even intimate members of their own house or the domain elders. They send for geisha and beautiful women to pour the sake, mingle with these money masters at drinking parties, and make sure that there is plenty of lewd singing, music, and other performances. When the party is over, they arrange a palanquin for their townsmen guests and send delicacies to their houses as “presents.” At times, those townsmen reciprocate by inviting domain officials to their villas and treating them to a feast, where they show off their wealth and display their beautiful concubines. They are always reaping profits from daimyo requests for goods, and it is their business to be invited to exquisite dinners and be given various products, clothes and textiles, and delicacies from the mountains and the sea. They truly live their lives in paradise.
Domainal purveyors also handle the tax rice collected by the domains every year. They single-handedly take control of the tens of thousands of koku of tax rice that hundreds of thousands in the domains shed tears and blood and exhaust all their energy to grow. They manage this tax rice at their leisure, using just one ledger and an abacus. Even when they have already received all the tax rice there is, they prompt for more if it is insufficient [to compensate for the loans they have extended]. Because these purveyors will not provide services to the daimyo unless they stand to gain substantially from it, daimyo large and small are afraid of future problems. They either cut back the stipends of their retainers or impose unreasonable extra levies on the farmers in their domain, just to fulfill their obligations to those townspeople. Thus, these get their hands on rice and gold aplenty and help themselves to profits as they wish. If one were to look for the bold and brave of the state in our age, it would be they.
These townspeople’s power makes them conceited, and they look down on daimyo houses’ financial situation. They disregard protocol, are unaware both of the obligations of the world and of any other form of refinement, and behave with unwarranted arrogance. They misread the civility of warriors and despise them as inept, stupid, destitute, and fawning. Should a daimyo house happen to fail to pay up as expected, they show no consideration for its troubles and care not at all if the official in charge of the matter ends up in a real pinch. They dupe him by saying that they will immediately make a new loan if only the present loan and interest are both repaid first; in that way, they change the agreement. They do not hesitate to break a long-standing relationship and boast of their toughness. It is their nature to be selfish and willful, and if something does not suit them, they will not even agree to see persons of high status and rank who ask for a meeting. No matter how often one offers them an apology, they will not accept it, but merely take a haughty attitude. If any in the realm deserve to be called callous, inhumane, and immoral, it must be they. Let me give a few examples of their callous, outrageous behavior.
Recently, a rich townsman in Osaka served as the storehouse agent of a certain province-holding daimyo. The official stationed at the domain storehouse office asked this agent for money to send to Edo for the management of the compound there, but the agent dismissed this request out of hand. The New Year drew near, and if this money were not sent, it would disrupt both this daimyo’s duties to the shogunate in Edo and the end-of-year expenses of his house. Therefore the domain representative sent both goods and bribes to the clerks of that agent, imploring him to expedite this money, but still the agent would not listen. Left with no other choice, the representative humbly asked the agent for a meeting, but the agent replied that he was too busy. Since the agent would not receive him, even though he visited his house many times, the representative at last sat down and refused to leave, and so he was granted a meeting. Yet even though he presented his request in various ways, the agent still refused.
Finally, the representative could bear it no longer and said, “This is a regular transaction of our house; it is established practice that you send this money to Edo every year. Yet ever since I have been given this duty and posted to this place, you have never accepted a single one of my requests. This matter in particular is obviously urgent now that the New Year is near. Why do you close your eyes to that fact?” His face clearly showed that he had reached a firm resolution to do whatever was necessary. Pressed in this fashion, the storehouse master replied, “I don’t like your manner of asking. That’s why I won’t send any money.” Shocked, the representative apologized: “Then how should I ask? I am from the countryside; I can somehow follow others’ example when it comes to military matters, but I have never before conducted such negotiations as this in the big city. Please forgive my discourtesy up to now and teach me the proper formalities.”
The master said, “First of all, you must know that I am in charge of all your lord’s financial affairs. It is thanks to me that he can perform his duties to the shogunate and manage all his household and public business. I am an important person to your lord. These days, a daimyo can do without the domain elders, but he won’t be able to manage without an agent like me. When you make important requests for your lord to such an important person as myself, it is no trivial matter. You ought to put your hands neatly down on the floor and bow your head when you make such a request.” The representative flushed. Immediately he pressed his forehead against the tatami mat and expressed his regret: “This was extremely incorrect of me. Please forgive the thoughtlessness of an ignorant country bumpkin.” “Now sit there like that for a while,” the master said, and he coughed on the representative’s head. “It is unthinkable in this world to loan one’s important resources to someone who even has to be taught how to make a request. But then again, although you are of no concern to me, I can’t abandon your lord. So I will send him this loan.” With that, the agent yielded. The representative could not stomach this treatment and considered cutting the man down and then committing seppuku, but his lord’s business was more important. Further, he could not bear the thought of ending his life in such a place, so he restrained himself. He saw this business through, and shortly afterward he resigned from his office and retired to his home in the countryside.
There are hundreds of this kind of strongman in Osaka: the Kōnoike group, the Hiranoya, the Tatsumiya group, the Tennōjiya, the Kashimaya group, the Sukematsuya, the Sumiya, the Komeya, and so on. They are all as arrogant as that storehouse agent. When one asks them for even a small loan, one must invite their clerks to places of amusement many times, treat them, and ingratiate oneself with them before one can secure the funds. He who offends them will be unable to conduct his lord’s business and will run into trouble; therefore, everyone does his utmost to curry favor with them. The wealthy in Kyoto and Osaka are all of this disposition, and they believe that the daimyo large and small all depend on their power. This is the ultimate in impropriety.
Similar things occur also in Edo. Admittedly this happened a rather long time ago, but once a certain daimyo had promised to return a loan he had received by the end of the year. Because there would be problems with his general year-end bills if he settled this loan, however, the daimyo had no choice but to send one of the officials in charge of the domain’s financial affairs to that townsman and explain the situation. The official told the townsman that unexpected problems had occurred due to a poor harvest in the domain and asked him to accept a payment of just the interest for that year, to revise the loan documents, and to extend the loan for another year. However, the townsman would not agree to this. When the official visited him a second and a third time, repeating his request, the man demanded that the domain first repay both the loan and the interest; once those obligations had been fulfilled, he would immediately supply them with a new loan. With this they reached an agreement, and the official brought out all the money allocated for the [domain compound’s] year-end bills to cover both the loan and the interest. The townsman took all this money, asked the daimyo’s official to wait a little while, and disappeared with the money to the back of the house. Even though he had said he would renew the loan immediately, this did not happen, and the official had to press him. The townsman told him that the law required the money to be kept overnight and asked him to return the next day.
Having no other choice, the official went home and came back the following morning with the contract. This time, the townsman claimed to be ill and unable to see him. Instead, a clerk passed a message to him saying that as unexpected problems had occurred with the cash flow, he was sorry to tell him that he could not be of service. The official was stunned. He protested that if he did not obtain the money now, it would be impossible to manage his lord’s affairs. “We have put ourselves on the line by repaying this money,” he declared. “Things cannot be left as they are.” If the man did not give in, the official would have no way out but to commit seppuku. “I am astounded that you should mention seppuku,” came the reply. “That word alone convinces me that I should never renew the loan. One should never lend valuable gold and silver coin to a person so unreasonable as to be ready to commit seppuku at the drop of a hat; after all, such a person may be gone at any time. A debt of that sort is too risky; I cannot accept your request under any circumstances.” Even the townsman’s clerks would not pay the official any heed, and he could only go home. He tried to solve the matter in various ways, but it was the end of the year. Whatever clever plan he devised, there was no way he could settle all the domain’s debts, and this caused great problems for his lord. The official fell into the trap of that broken promise, and I have been told that in the end he was pressed into suicide, ruining his house. He was totally swindled by that townsman.
There are many similar instances. Even if it does not come to suicide and ruination, it often boils down to much the same thing, and in many cases it affects warriors’ official duties and status. Those townsmen do not even recognize the favors they are granted—the respect and courtesy with which they are treated, and the extraordinary payments that they receive; they are champions of greed and immorality. If that warrior was driven to suicide, he could have taken some revenge by killing that townsman too, or at least by sitting down to kill himself in that townsman’s house; there was little point in dying in his own quarters. However, rear vassals are particularly fearful of the shogunate. If a rear vassal kills someone outside his domain’s jurisdiction, the shogunate is sure to take the matter up, and it will affect his lord’s name. Quarrels connected to the house’s financial affairs and to lack of money are especially shameful to warriors; therefore the official did not want this matter to come out and decided to put an end to it by taking total responsibility. When samurai put up with the shame of being swindled by townspeople, it is almost always out of fear of the shogunate. This is the underlying cause of the weakening of the samurai spirit. It would take too long to explain all the circumstances of this particular case, so I will stop here.
They say that this particular townsman committed so many outrages that he later went blind. I have recently heard of another similar incident. In that case, too, [a rear vassal] killed himself without doing anything to the townsman [who had put him in a fix]. Rear vassals are in a miserable situation, hemmed in on all sides. If they were townspeople, they would not feel any shame and would make an official complaint immediately; but samurai cannot complain, and therefore they take the blame upon themselves. I have all the names—for the affair in Osaka, for the one in Edo, and for the other one as well—but because these matters concern warriors’ reputations, I will leave them out of my account. The rich are all like this: ultimately, they are coldhearted and completely lacking in trust and honesty. They are corrupt and haughty and look down upon others; such a person shows no consideration for anybody, high or low, who does not put his hands on the floor and bow low, showing deference as though he were his lord.
In these days of luxury, not only daimyo great and small but all samurai have great expenses, and each and every one of them is in need. They are in awe of those greedy and immoral men of wealth and suffer their behavior with the greatest respect. If they do not show respect, they are deprived of benefits. It is written that Emperor Wu [156–87 B.C.E.] of the Han dynasty loved beauty, and that the feudal lords all fell into poverty and bowed their heads in appeal to lowly merchants. In Records of the Grand Historian and the History of the Han, it says, “The feudal lords were forced to go to them with bowed heads and beg for what they needed.”6 This is how it is today. As I have already explained, the great and small daimyo hand all the tax rice from their domains over to the townspeople, and if that is still not sufficient, they cut the rations allocated to the samurai of their house. They make the people suffer by imposing extra levies on them, or by issuing paper certificates called gold and silver bills in their domain and confiscating all real gold and silver. They send all their domains’ resources to those townspeople and treat them with the greatest respect, both when they borrow from them and when they repay them. Not only do the daimyo incur massive expenses; great profits are extracted from them. The samurai below them are likewise robbed of the greater part of their annual income by rich townsmen. The History of the Han shows that this happened even in antiquity, but nonetheless, things cannot continue like this.
In our time, people look upon the rich as though they were treasures of the state. Both high and low are partial to them and respect them, and no one abhors them. But it is the farmers who are the treasure of the state; the rich are great criminals who steal the wealth of the world. The wealth that is stolen by the rich in the three cities and elsewhere in our time is enormous. In many places there are those who make hundreds of ryō a day—that is, each makes tens of ryō per hour,7 thousands or tens of thousands of ryō per year. Day and night they hunt down all the gold and silver that circulates in the world while bringing suffering to tens of millions of people. They are the greatest plunderers of the state.
The laws that were laid down when Tokugawa rule began abolished all luxury and wasteful spending. This applies to every single law that was issued. Neither the high court nobility nor imperial cloisters were awarded grand stipends, and the stipends granted to temples and shrines were miniscule. Even those vassals who served the Tokugawa most loyally and the heirs of fathers or grandfathers who had given their lives in the service of the Tokugawa were not granted excessive domains or stipends. I have heard that hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa were given only small domains and stipends because of the Divine Lord’s wise judgment that lavish grants naturally lead to extravagance, and that extravagance not only exhausts the state’s means but also weakens people’s disposition and undermines their sense of duty and righteousness.
In our age, however, some among the lowly townspeople enjoy grand incomes, and their luxurious spending exceeds even that of the highest court nobility and imperial cloisters. They live lives of greater opulence than the houses of loyal vassals of distinguished service. This is against the intent of the codes. Is it not contrary to the state’s eternal statutes for so many to live in wealth? Because these wealthy plunderers of the state grasp after ever more money day and night, the world has become destitute. As a result, in distant provinces and in the countryside there are many without any family to rely upon who suffer from hunger and cold, and many die untimely deaths. Wealth and poverty are two sides of the same coin.
The Wealth and Arrogance of the Kuramae Rice Agents
Among moneylenders are the rice agents of Kuramae in Asakusa, who earn an immense income and are astonishingly wealthy. They take care of the disbursement of the stipends of bannermen and shogunal housemen and lend them money with those shogunal allocations as collateral. Without any effort, and without any delays, they seize control of these resources. At this time there are ninety-six rice agents. Ninety-six persons take charge of the financial means of tens of thousands of bannermen and shogunal housemen—hundreds for each of them. They give loans based on the size of the stipend, taking a fourth or a third of it as interest—or even half, if the holder is in much debt. As I noted earlier, they are not in the least flexible about the repayment schedule; they simply seize their share as soon as the rice stipend is paid, three times a year. They have a full grasp of the financial affairs of every single bannerman and houseman. They have no qualms about causing a man so much trouble that he can no longer exercise his duties. Even if a man is in such trouble that he hardly has a chance to survive, they close their ears. They break all protocol, rob the warriors to their heart’s desire, and lay their hands on huge profits.
Each of these ninety-six houses indulges in great extravagance. Even if we estimate their income at only 1,000 ryō per year, that adds up to 96,000 ryō for all ninety-six houses taken together. All this is stolen from tens of thousands of bannermen and shogunal housemen. I have been told in confidence that in actual fact, the amount is nothing like 96,000 ryō but rather is close to 300,000 ryō. Even if we hold to an estimate of 96,000 ryō, that corresponds to some 300,000 bales of rice at the current rate. How many hundreds of thousands of people of the soil have exhausted their energies to grow those 300,000 bales? If we adopt the actual number of 300,000 ryō, that amount must represent the sweat and flesh of a million farmers. A mere ninety-six men seize all this through the power of money. In the style of those townspeople, they grab hold of the sweat and flesh of a million farmers who work for the realm and the state, and they do so without performing any service, without paying any annual land tax, without making any physical effort whatsoever. Tens of thousands of bannermen and housemen who stake their lives to serve the state are robbed of the larger part of their resources. Unable to receive even their thrice-yearly rice stipends, they fall into destitution. Some among them commit evil acts because of excessive poverty. Some may break the law, and some are forced to sell their house name to others. All this can be attributed to those rice agents.
In the old days, this business was conducted at tea stands made out of rush mats, which served as resting places for samurai who had gone to receive their rice stipends. It is said that those stand holders began to lend small amounts of money and, as this business began to generate a considerable income, gradually became more and more powerful until in the Kyōhō years they gained shogunal recognition as a guild. From that point on their influence has increased year by year until matters have reached their current state.
Nowadays these rice agents treat the bannermen and shogunal housemen—who after all are important customers for them—in an extremely coarse manner, simply because they make such huge profits. They lead their warrior customers to a cramped space on the second floor and make them wait there for a while. They do not put in an appearance themselves but leave it to their clerks to receive them. Whatever notice one may give, they claim to be ill or away and refuse to arrange a face-to-face meeting, while in fact they spend their days and nights indulging in all kinds of amusements. The only task they perform personally is when it is their turn to serve as one of the monthly managers of the guild: then they go to the guild office, known as the “inner gate of the shogunal storehouses,” at the fifth hour in the morning, manage the processing of rice bills, and then leave again after the eighth hour.8 Before, they had their clerks do this, too, but at the time of the Kansei reforms they were ordered to perform at least this task themselves.9 The association of ninety-six rice agents is divided into six groups, each consisting of about fifteen persons. The rice agents serve as monthly managers of these six groups by rotation, a month at a time.
They say that the association office’s monthly expenses used to be enormous because drink and food were so extravagant, but lately they have been reduced and set at 100 ryō in “lunch fees” per month. Today, a warrior of five hundred koku cannot sustain a lifestyle based on the assumption of having 100 ryō for a full year.10 Those rice agents spend an amount meant to cover the living expenses of a warrior of five hundred koku for one year on a month’s lunch fees for one person. It is true that they take their clerks along to the office and put them to work; but the rice agents themselves merely spend their time deliberating whether they will send for food from this place or that today, savoring the delicacies of all the famous establishments throughout Edo, or they discuss various places of amusement they might enjoy. When they get bored they play go or shogi for money, or even worse, they line up gold 1-ryō coins and start gambling. This will suffice to show the extent of their extravagance. The rice agents perform only this month-long duty in person; all other business they leave to their clerks, assuming the disposition of a daimyo. It is their everyday practice to have their clerks extort money, which they then squander. The bannermen and shogunal housemen do all their dealings with clerks. These clerks are called receptionists; they are selected for their pigheadedness and behave with extreme discourtesy.
As I have already mentioned, today’s lending and borrowing puts the etiquette of high and low on its head. Even persons of high rank and status behave with great courtesy and politeness in the presence of these rich townsmen and their clerks; they never complain about any discourtesies because they will not be able to conduct their affairs unless they put up with such behavior. Instead, they exhaust themselves in displays of respect and concentrate solely on getting their business done. But even if they put up with discourtesies, stay polite, and offer apologies, rarely are their interests attended to; mostly they return home without having achieved anything. The discourtesy of those rich townspeople in the face of the needs of bannermen and shogunal housemen makes it clear that the etiquette of high and low has been turned upside down. This is most regrettable.
It is true that once or twice a year a quick-tempered man who can no longer put up with rudeness and insults, who is pressed to the brink by his problems, and who cannot accept that no heed is paid to the honor of his house may beat some of those clerks or hit them with the blunt side of his sword. Although people’s immediate assumption is that such behavior is totally out of bounds, such a reaction is in fact most reasonable if one knows of the circumstances. Everyone encounters such problems, but people endure them, setting aside the samurai code of behavior out of concern that rumors may get about and the shogunate hear of it.
Only two or three out of tens of thousands of bannermen and shogunal housemen take action of this sort. Yet it appears that those townspeople have made a complaint about it, and recently a shogunal order has been issued stating that if [warriors] raise matters about loans with undue force and the agents cannot cope with them, the agents should send a sealed letter naming the warriors to the town magistrate’s office. The rice agents have copied this order in large letters and pasted it on the wall of the room [at the storehouses] where the bannermen, shogunal housemen, and such wait to collect their stipends, just at the level to be right in front of their eyes, so as to intimidate them.11 When townspeople threaten warriors with this order—as if to say, “I will make a complaint about you to the shogunate if you do not behave yourself!”—they are humiliating their own long-standing clients. Because samurai cannot make complaints, the discourtesy and immorality of those townspeople know no bounds. The townsmen’s troubles amount to mistreatment by a mere two or three bannermen and shogunal housemen out of tens of thousands and is something that occurs only once or twice a year at most; yet they make a complaint about it. Apparently they have an easy time making their wishes known to those above, and their complaint seems to have gone right through, causing that order to be issued. Thus we find that in these latter days, matters are turned on their head, and now shogunal laws have been issued by which townspeople control warriors.
Because of this institutional arrangement, a samurai simply cannot win. Among those rice agent clerks, some receive wages of 50, 100, or even 150 or 200 ryō; this is more than the income of a warrior with a stipend of 300 to 500 koku. Their means exceed that of the bannermen who serve on the shogun’s personal guard. They lead a life comparable to that of a shogunal houseman drawing 20-man or 30-man rations,12 and they are so sure of themselves that there is no way a poor samurai can simply cut them down and dispose of them. Their might is such that were a warrior to turn on them, they could easily restrain him. While they were already strong enough as it was, they have now received the shogunal permission I just mentioned and thus added even further to their authority. Many similar matters have occurred, and because only laws that benefit the townspeople are instituted, they have increased their power even more.
Profligates and Hoarders
Due to this tendency of our age, the wealthy in the towns become more and more conceited, and their might is such that they are like townspeople’s daimyo. They delegate both their services to the shogunate and the business of their own house to their clerks, and they do not do any work by themselves. Never in their life do they experience difficulties, and they do not know the taste of poverty. There is no chance whatsoever of them being punished by the shogunate for their crimes. If some trouble involving the shogunate does occur, people will emerge from all directions to offer them help. A depressingly large number of people will turn up to support them, and everything will be smoothed over in a manner that is in their interest. Because of this they know no hardship; day and night, they can enjoy pleasures of mind and body in much greater luxury than even a daimyo. The splendor of the rich in our age is unparalleled in history; never has such a thing been seen since the beginning of Heaven and Earth. This is the vice that comes with orderly rule.
These people at the zenith of prosperity have grown numerous, and there are many who live in such comfort that they could not suffer hardship even if they wished to, nor be caught committing a crime even if they tried. On the other hand, there is also a growing number of people who are so used to constant hardship that they are not even aware of their own misery, and who do not have the luxury of avoiding shogunal punishment because they have no alternative to crime. The rise of some and the fall of others are two sides of the same coin—such is the unbalance of our age.
[Yet detestable as the rich who live lives of splendor are] even more hateful are those who amass great amounts of money and property but make no attempt to lend it out, who do not indulge in luxurious spending but live frugally, hiding away gold and silver coin year by year without a thought for others. These are the chieftains of all the plunderers of the state. They seize all the money that is circulating in the land; it runs into their storehouses as though it were water. They take possession of all this money and refuse to let it move, keeping it as a guarantee for the eternal welfare of their house. Many such persons have appeared in the provinces. People like these are even more reprehensible than those who pride themselves on the clout they derive from lending money to others. They are as bad as a warrior who holds a large province and yet shirks all duties, is absorbed in the pursuit of amusements, neglects government, is ignorant of the governance of his domain, increases taxes, and harasses the people with additional levies.
It is forbidden for merchants to buy up large quantities of rice, cotton, oil, medicines, and the like and monopolize the buying or selling [of these goods], and there have been various cases in which merchants have received shogunal punishment for this. However, the wealthy are never punished, no matter how much money they bring in or how much they hoard. The law against cornering the market on goods exists because goods become expensive when they are in short supply, causing trouble in the world. When gold and silver coin are hoarded, the circulation of money in the world stops and trouble arises; is this crime thus not more grave than that of buying up goods? This is a world where people become separated from their parents, spouses, and children for one or two ryō. There are those who sell their children, hang themselves, throw themselves into a river, or commit crimes that cost them their life. Those plunderers of the state who hoard hundreds and thousands of pieces of gold and silver do so in the midst of all this hardship; therefore, might not one call it benevolent government when at times they are forced to provide funds to cover shogunal expenses? As things are today, they are certainly the most privileged in the world.
Pawnbrokers are another type of moneylender guilty of extreme greed and immorality. In their craving for high interest they take as pawns even the precious treasures of great and small daimyo as well as of other warrior houses. They pretend to be bad judges of armory, horse gear, short swords, and the like and feign ignorance of their real worth. Therefore they take them into pawn for an extremely cheap price. They treat them carelessly, disregarding the fact that a samurai’s life depends on these objects, and they do not hesitate to put them up for sale when the loan is not repaid. They take profits of 100 or even 200 percent: an item that they acquired for a loan of ten ryō will be sold for twenty or thirty ryō. They also do dealings with the poor, making loans against clothes or tools and extracting high interest. In contrast to loans guaranteed by a contract, they take excessive collateral and never make a loss. Even when they sell a pawned item for ten times the loan, they will conceal this from the original owner and keep all the profits. Now that there are so many poor, only pawnbrokers flourish, and their storehouses are grand; they even target places where there are many poor and build new pawnshops there. It is their guiding principle to prey on the poor, and theirs is an altogether greedy and immoral business. One may well describe them as the state’s poisonous vermin. In addition, they live in such extravagant luxury that words cannot describe it.
Since ancient times, the shogun have detested daimyo who live in luxury beyond their means, and also domain and fief holders who impose special levies on the people of the soil and thereby cause hardship in the world; it is said that many such have been punished. The townspeople of today and the wealthy in the cities and the countryside steal great amounts of profit and commit immoral acts of greed. Some cause hardship for others by hoarding money, while others live in grand style far beyond their status. Even though these people live in an arrogant extravagance that is incongruous with their position, the authorities turn a blind eye to this, and as a result they behave with arrogance to their heart’s desire. It is truly as though the rich have become the treasure of the world, spending their lives in perfect comfort.
It is true that at times the wealthy are asked to supply funds to cover shogunal expenses; but for them that is no cause for concern whatsoever. Recently, I heard about the internal affairs of a man who had made a contribution of 2,000 ryō. The son of this man was a profligate who had been formally expelled from the household because he wasted too much money. That son spent a year elsewhere as a drifter, but there were many who thought that since this expulsion was meant as a disciplinary measure, it would not last long, and so they lent him money. They reckoned that this son would soon return to the household, and even if he did not return, his family would not abandon him completely if he were to run into trouble with the shogunate. Thus, that son collected loans of more than 14,000 ryō. When his parents heard about this, they knew that there would be trouble. Shocked at the extraordinary extent of the matter, they recalled him, locked him up in a room, and immediately repaid all his loans.
Recently, it is said, when this man was ordered to contribute 5,000 ryō to shogunal expenses, he claimed to have numerous difficulties and handed out bribes so that, in the end, he got off with a contribution of 2,000 ryō. Those townspeople pay up enormous sums of more than 10,000 ryō to cover a son’s profligacy, but when asked for a shogunal contribution, they begrudge spending even a tenth of that amount. They complain and are filled with resentment, and they rail against the shogunate. The contrast could not be greater when we compare them with warriors, who use all their financial means for the performance of public duties, or with farmers, who have more than half their hard-won harvest taken away in the annual land tax and in various levies.
Edo Merchants
Townspeople take many things and give none. That is why they have become ever more overbearing in Kyoto, Osaka, and elsewhere starting from when the country was put into order, and why so many have become rich. This city of Edo, especially, has flourished ever since the Tokugawa moved here, and more and more people have gathered in the city; even those who came from the provinces empty-handed, with only the clothes on their backs, have become men of great means.
Mitsui Hachirōemon of Suruga-chō in Edo is said to be the greatest merchant of Japan.13 His ancestor came to Edo from Matsusaka in Ise province in the Kan’ei period and went into service here. After he had gathered a small amount of capital, he returned to his hometown in the countryside, made an agreement with a partner, and started a business: he and his partner took turns transporting cotton to Edo, one horse load at a time. He gradually expanded his trade until [his house] became the wealthiest in Japan.
Mitsui owns three great stores and employs more than 1,000 clerks. It is said that the house has a celebration on days when the business of that single day amounts to 2,000 ryō. That amount of gold buys 5,000 bales of rice. It takes 5,000 farmers a year of hard toil to grow 5,000 bales of tax rice. In a day, this merchant earns the same amount that costs 5,000 persons a year’s worth of hard work, and he does this just by sitting comfortably on a tatami mat. Moreover, I am told that Mitsui’s property brings in 20,000 ryō [a year]. This corresponds to the income of a daimyo with a domain of 50,000 koku. They say that Mitsui buys 50 barrels of sake for the celebration of the Ebisu confraternity in the tenth month, and that they spend 100 ryō on duck meat to be used in the soup.14 From that, one may guess how extravagant they are in all things. In addition to Edo, Mitsui has branches in Kyoto, Osaka, Sakai, Iga, and Ise. In addition, they have so-called purchasing agents in the provinces,15 and it is said that these are listed as the foremost merchants of the region everywhere.
The ancestor of the textile merchant Daimaru Shōemon was a townsman from Fushimi.16 It is said that one day he passed by the gate of a financier and happened to see an apprentice who put 40 ryō of gold coins in his pocket and set off on an errand.17 He followed after that apprentice and stole the money from him, with the intention to use it as capital and start a business. He asked a fortune-teller what kind of trade would be best but was told that since his capital was false, it would not bring him wealth. With that, he confined himself in Takeo Shrine in that town to fast and pray. He received a revelation in a dream, and at dawn the following day he picked up a hand towel with the character “great” written in a circle.18 From there he traveled to his wife’s hometown of Nagoya in Owari, where he opened a shop selling hand towels and cotton fabrics. Bit by bit he grew prosperous, established a shop in Edo, and opened businesses in Kyoto, Osaka, and Fushimi as well. This is another of the great houses of our time, with more than 500 clerks, and they say that Daimaru celebrates when this house has done 1,000 ryō worth of business in a day. Daimaru’s annual living expenses may be compared to that of a daimyo of 100,000 koku.
As for the Shirokiya store, it is said that the founder traveled from Ōmi province to sell pipes when tobacco first came into use and also sold Kyoto needles. Not owning his own shop, he did his business under the eaves of other merchants.19
Among the rice agents of Kuramae in Asakusa, whom I discussed earlier, the ancestor of Iseya Shirōzaemon came from Ise province. They say that he used to sell brushes and ink from a tea stand to samurai who came to collect their rice stipends. Nowadays Iseya has four clerks who take home salaries of 200 ryō each. In addition Iseya pays excessive sums to lower employees. A salary of 200 ryō corresponds to the financial means of a warrior of 1,000 koku.20
[As for other wealthy Edo merchants, the forefather of] Mitani Sankurō was one of a pair who came from Ise province.21 One of the pair took the tonsure and became chief priest of the Shingon temple Myōōin in Yanaka. The other became a townsman and is the ancestor of the Mitani Sankurō of today. It is said that until four generations ago, the ancestors of Takehara Bun’emon were peddlers selling tobacco. I have heard that the first Senba Tarōbei started out as an oxcart driver. Tobaya is today one of those wealthy ten specially appointed shogunal purveyors; its master uses a family name and calls himself Mimura Seizaemon.22 They say that his ancestor was the son of a woodcutter who went into service at a timber yard.
The great-grandfather of Kōnoike Gihei was a peddler selling sake by the cup in Funamachi [near the port of Osaka]. His wife used to work as a servant to a lady-in-waiting at the women’s quarters of a high-ranking house. He borrowed three hundred ryō from this lady-in-waiting and started a business in hulled rice, but soon this lady who was his patron died unexpectedly, and so the loan was canceled and the money became his. Later, during the famines of the Tenmei years, he won the favor of Ina Tadataka and was charged with buying up rice and miscellaneous grains from the eight Kantō provinces.23 It is said that he made a profit of more than ten thousand ryō from this. The death of his patron was his lucky break, and then the famines brought him great profits. Echizen’ya in Ichigaya came from Echizen province to work in a warrior household as a servant, became a townsman later, and sold ground incense. Even today, nobody calls him by his real name and just refers to him as the “incense man.”
Echizen’ya Matazaemon of Kōji-machi, too, began as a servant in a warrior household, and so did Morikawa Gorōemon of Sakuma-chō. The ancestor of Kawamura Denzaemon came from Chikuzen to work as a servant for his daimyo, the Kuroda house. Later, he became the apprentice of a carpenter who frequented that daimyo’s compound, and after that he won the favor of an official at the domain compound. He took on a minor construction job and made a small profit; he was then given larger jobs and gradually built up his financial position. He set himself up solely by depending on the domain compound; yet they say that on his deathbed he told his sons that they must keep away from the compound after his death, and he gave them strict instructions that whatever requests the domain might send, they must not offer a single gold coin. He may have been clever in winning a great fortune, but apart from that he certainly had a talent for immorality.
The aforementioned Surugaya [Mitsui] is among the richest merchants in Edo and has great influence and power. All these merchant houses emerged one after the other over the past two hundred years. Up to this day they have never made themselves useful to the state. It is certainly strange that persons who have no merit whatsoever for the state are brimming over with wealth and fame in this manner. It is a great mystery. What is worse, they cause harm to the world through the power of their money, and they waste excessive amounts of rice and grains. In years of bad harvests and famine, especially, shortages of rice and grain occur because, with their money, they buy up those foodstuffs that the world so sorely needs, causing great suffering. It is impossible to count or list up all those who have become rich within a matter of a few years or months. Edo is full of them, but because the same applies to them all, I have merely given this rough outline here.
The same goes for Kyoto, Osaka, and everywhere else across the land. After order had been brought to the world, [merchants] increased their influence and grew rich. Among these places, Edo and Osaka are the cities where it is easiest for merchant houses of great wealth to arise. It is true that there have been quite a few recently who first won a fortune and then ruined themselves through extravagance and pride, but they are soon replaced by others. It is a sure sign of the splendor of this city of Edo that so many townspeople vie over its wealth day and night.
Most of the merchants of this city originate from the provinces of Ōmi, Ise, and Mikawa. There are not so many of great wealth among those who came from Mikawa, while those who derive from Ōmi and Ise have all made fortunes. Today, there are many pawnshops, financiers, and sake shops that are called Ōmiya or Iseya, and they all run main shops and branch shops, set up extended family enterprises, and do very well. Some make the Edo shop a branch and continue themselves to live in their own province; every year they take in a large sum of money from Edo without dirtying their hands. Those proverbial “Ōmi thieves and Ise beggars” came here with just a single padded cotton garment to their name, but since then they have become more and more conceited.
Merchants’ Extravagance
Merchants are thieves who keep their stealing within “appropriate bounds.” Merchants who do not have the disposition of a thief or a beggar cannot make a profit. As the times became more prosperous and extravagance increased among both those above and those below, all lines of trade that were related to luxury, such as clothing and silk, flourished and expanded even into the provinces through branch shops. Merchants selling medicines, women’s accessories, and tools; wholesalers dealing in rice, sake, and oil; pawnbrokers and financiers—they all rake in huge profits day and night and gather a fortune. They build residences in the grand style of whitewashed warehouses, using huge timbers of zelkova and oak and putting roofs on them that are like those of temples and shrines or castle turrets. It goes without saying that they furnish their houses and adorn themselves extravagantly. All this extravagance has its source in the favors they have received from warrior houses and in the lifeblood of the farmers.
Warriors and farmers spend money depending on the world’s fortunes or misfortunes; townspeople make profits from the world’s fortunes or misfortunes. That is why they have reached such prosperity. What this means is that the circumstances of warriors and farmers on the one hand and townspeople on the other are as far apart as Heaven and Earth. Townspeople have become magnates who look down upon farmers and show nothing but disdain for warrior houses’ financial state. It is as in that popular saying: the one to whom one rents a shop ends up the landlord.
Not only in the castle city of Edo but also in Kyoto, Osaka, and all over the country, there are cohorts among those townspeople who live in even greater comfort and indulge in more self-importance than a daimyo. They keep great numbers of men and women in their service, and they even have hereditary retainers. Their managers and clerks are full-fledged house owners and are paid huge salaries. These wealthy merchants pursue the ultimate in personal extravagance and splendor. They go out on pleasure excursions as they wish. They fix up residences that they call their villas and design “scenic spots” for their wives and concubines where they can enjoy views of the sea or the countryside. They gaze from afar at fishermen who work their nets or cast their fishing rods and admire the fires the fishermen light in their boats at night. They rest their eyes and refresh their minds by watching the travails of farmers who, wearing straw hats, transplant rice seedlings, plough the fields with their oxen from morning till night, or carry heavy loads on their backs through the snow. For their own amusement they savor scenes of the poor suffering to survive.
Recently, the clerk of a rich man in the vicinity of Nihonbashi passed on some boasts to me in private. Talking about a daimyo of more than 100,000 koku, he said, “Some time ago we were asked to take care of the financial affairs of a certain daimyo, and we went up to his compound to investigate his household and external expenses. The personal budget of that lord is one thousand ryō per year, and even hospitality expenses for his guests are included in that sum. Our own master is a townsman, but he has one thousand ryō as well, and expenses for hospitality, travel, and the like are paid from a separate budget. Being a daimyo is not a good deal at all!”
A midrange townsman in the Kanda area has a villa in Komagome. When I stopped off to see that house, his retired father was staying there. He took me to the tea pavilion, prepared tea for me, and showed me his tea utensils. When I praised the charcoal that was burning in the hearth, that old man told me, “The fire of this hearth is a lucky fire indeed. Let me tell you why. When there was a great fire in Kanda years ago my house was in danger, so I fled with my whole family and came here. I thought it would be in bad taste to give up so easily; the Way of tea was meant exactly for times like this! So I started a new fire in the hearth, added charcoal, prepared tea, had my family come into the enclosure, and served them. As we were sitting in meditation, a clerk arrived saying that the main house had survived the fire. What good fortune! Because I lit a fire in this hearth and sat in meditation, fixing my mind in the cinnabar field,24 the fire that would have burned up my house must have been extinguished. Therefore I decided to keep this lucky fire burning eternally, and I have been feeding it for twenty years and kept the kettle boiling continuously. Recently, I told this story to the retired father of a daimyo of 30,000 koku who was visiting me. He said, ‘That is a lucky fire indeed. I envy you. I am fond of tea, too, but I cannot afford such artful eccentricity. It would be impossible for me to keep a kettle boiling for twenty years.’” This old man, then, was bragging at the expense of a retired daimyo of 30,000 koku. After all, one needs to have a lot of money and be stalwart to keep brewing tea while one’s house is about to burn down. A person without money would turn pale and flinch, like that rebel who came forward only to find out that he had no followers.
A wealthy man from the neighborhood of Kayaba-chō wanted to make a sightseeing journey visiting the Ise Shrines; next touring Kyoto, Osaka, and Yamato; and then continuing on the Harima road to Konpira in Sanuki and finally Itsukushima in Aki.25 He planned to take along a large following of jesters such as jōruri performers, poets, samisen players, scholars, doctors, and masseurs.26 To start off his tour, he first traveled via Hakone to Atami, where he visited the hot springs, even though he was not ill at all. After a few days of pleasure he traveled on. This happened to be in the spring after a winter of floods in the provinces along the Tōkaidō road, and the farmers along the road were in great need. Unable to endure the hunger and cold, old men, women, and small children had come to the road to beg passers-by for alms. When he saw this, that wealthy townsman began to sing his own praises, saying, “I too will hand out some merit,” and he gave away a large sum of money. Before him a certain daimyo had passed through on his way to Edo for his alternate attendance. It was rumored on the roads that he too had been moved by the sight of the famine’s victims and had handed out copper coins. That rich townsman thus boasted at this daimyo’s expense, claiming that his alms were double those handed out by the daimyo.
However rich townsmen may be, at bottom they are all misers and lack all sense of compassion. Those alms I just mentioned were inspired by self-importance, and it would be wrong to believe that they stem from a “tear in the eye of the demon.” This condition, in which the townspeople have too much and offer assistance to the farmers, is the direct opposite of the way things were in the past. When did the shape of the state become so warped? This is a matter of great consequence for the state’s statutes. Those who deserve our pity are the farmers. When men who are without compassion to the marrow of their bones give away large sums in alms to feed their own self-importance—then we know that they indeed have too much.
When this same townsman had admired the famous places and ancient sites on the Harima road and was about to cross over to Shikoku, he received a message saying that the house he had left in Edo had burned down. Yet he appeared quite unaffected and said, “It doesn’t matter even if the house and the warehouse are all gone. Even if I turn back now there is nothing I can do about it anyway.” I am told that he visited Konpira and Itsukushima as planned, and that he returned by a roundabout route, taking in the Mino and Kiso roads.27 When the residence of a daimyo burns down, not only his household but also the whole domain will be thrown into confusion, and it will not be possible to start rebuilding immediately. Yet for those rich townsmen a fire is a simple matter, and when they rebuild, they will do so with even more extravagance.
The wife of a rich townsman in Kanda went on a similar tour of the Ise Shrines, Kyoto, Osaka, and Yamato. Before she left, her travel budget had been set at 1,000 ryō of gold, but the clerk who served as the tour’s overseer was an extremely stingy man, and by the time they had reached Kyoto via Ise, he had managed to use up only 200 ryō. She sent an express messenger from Kyoto to inform her husband about this. The overseer was stupid, she wrote; he was too stingy to spend sufficient money on inns, he did not allow her any amusements, and she was most annoyed with him. The husband was livid and said, “It would have shown some sense had he spent 2,000 ryō on a budget of 1,000 ryō, but he hasn’t even managed to get through the original 1,000! What a spineless fellow! We travel to other places and indulge ourselves throughout the year; a woman can do so only very occasionally. This is a once-in-a-lifetime tour. If she cannot enjoy the sightseeing and the amusements to the full, or if she is forced to put up with any unsightliness, this will affect our reputation and soil our good name. A man must be sent who can take proper care of things.” He dispatched another man to Kyoto immediately. One thousand ryō in gold corresponds to the annual income of a warrior of 3,000 koku. A warrior with holdings of 3,000 koku receives that amount to support both himself and his many retainers. He is granted this stipend in return for putting his life on the line, and he uses it to perform his duties. Meanwhile, a woman runs through this same sum without a care in the world. This is truly too shocking for words. The wife of a daimyo would never be allowed such lavishness.
Recently, a daimyo of 20,000 to 30,000 koku with a domain in the western provinces of Honshu had financial troubles and was unable to raise travel expenses. If he could not make it in time for his alternate attendance, this would cause problems with the shogunate, and as time pressed, he finally arranged some funds and made it to Osaka. He explained the situation to townspeople there and borrowed 200 ryō. Using that money to cover expenses on the road for his large entourage, he set off for Edo. However, on the way his entourage was delayed because of swollen rivers and the like, and soon his limited travel budget was used up. There was no way he could afford to stay at the main or secondary official inns, or even in an inn for common travelers, so he stopped at temples and borrowed both lodgings and food.28 In that way, I am told, he finally made it to Edo. Rumors about his unseemly troubles passed from one post station to the next, and his humiliation was complete. Other daimyo face similar problems every time they travel to Edo, and few have sufficient travel funds at their disposal. One should compare the situation of that townsman’s wife and these daimyo, who are fief holders of districts and domains.
The travel funds not only of daimyo but of lesser samurai as well are extremely inadequate, and this causes problems for all. Therefore, those who run inns along the roads dislike offering lodging to warriors, while they regard rich townspeople as the best kind of customers and do their utmost to please them. What used to be roads for warriors have now become townspeople roads.29 Townspeople take along great numbers of good-for-nothings, spend large amounts of money, visit famous places and historical sites, make poems, drink sake, enjoy any number of delicacies, and stay put for any number of days if it rains. They are pandered to by the inn and offered one treat after the other. A warrior will never obtain any of this. Everything that has become a luxury for warriors is commonplace for today’s townspeople.
Townspeople further engage in pursuits that in the past were regarded as luxuries even by those courtiers and warriors who specialize in ceremonial etiquette, such as Noh theater, Noh dancing, the tea ceremony, poetry, and linked verse. Collecting Japanese and Chinese calligraphy and paintings, antiques, and precious ceramics, which before were pastimes reserved for daimyo, have now become their hobbies, and because of the power of their wealth they engage in collecting items of this sort without worrying about the cost. Therefore such objects have become extremely expensive, and prices have risen tenfold. Let me give two or three examples. Recently a Kannon scroll by the brush of Kose no Kanaoka was sold for 1,000 ryō.30 A scroll with a painting of a plum tree with doves by Emperor Huizong [1082–1135] of the Song, a bare five or six sun high and six or seven sun wide, was also priced at 1,000 ryō. Both of these objects were the treasured heirlooms of a daimyo, but when he ran short of funds they were put on sale and bought by a townsman. In addition, it has become a common event for a set of two scrolls by Ma Yuan [d. 1225] or a work by Mu Qi [ca. 1200–1270] to bring 500 ryō; one can only be shocked at such high prices. When it comes to tea utensils, too, a tea caddy whose maker I forget was priced at 1,500 ryō. A water jar from Indochina with a rope pattern went for 300 ryō, and a shonzui incense holder from Ming China for 200 ryō.31 A handful of baked clay is sold for that kind of exorbitant prices.
Townspeople have even begun to toy with metal objects made by the Gotō house of smiths. Recently, a certain townsman’s clerk bought a kozuka sword fitting for 100 ryō.32 That clerk, then, is carrying around an item that all but says it cost 100 ryō. Certain townspeople make a hobby of collecting old copper coins. Some such coins are priced at 50, 100, 200, or even 300 ryō each; I am told that a single [defective] old Chinese copper coin of the sort called “half face” has been bought for 600 ryō.33 A Korean ōido teabowl was bought for 600 ryō in Osaka not long ago, and a set of two scrolls by Naonobu for 120 ryō—there are plenty of rumors about such things, and there is no precedent for this past or present.34 If a first-class object is in pristine condition and of superior quality, they will pay a fortune for it without worrying about the price. A daimyo such as the one from the western provinces that I mentioned above can in no way compete with the power of today’s townspeople.
Weaponry and equestrian goods are already exceptionally cheap; so are sword blades. A blade is a tool on which one’s life may depend, and a first-class blade in excellent condition should by rights obtain a high price, but because blades do not catch townspeople’s fancy, few make high bids on them. A blade accompanied by an appraisal document from the Hon’ami house is worth 300, 200, or 500 gold ryō,35 but in fact I have never heard of a piece being sold for more than 100 ryō, even if it is worth 2,000 or 3,000 ryō in gold. This shows the strength of townspeople, who buy objects that they like for any price, and the weakness of warriors, who are unable to pay a large sum of money for things that please them.
Concubines and Kept Women
Recently townspeople have taken to the custom of having many concubines. Also, what they refer to as “kept women” have become popular, and townsmen bestow their favors on any number of those. Therefore those who seek service as concubines shun warrior houses and prefer to become kept women of townspeople.
Let me give an example of the situation of these kept women. It is said of a certain kept woman of a rice agent in Asakusa that the koto she is always toying with cost one hundred ryō. The plectrums she slips on her fingers to play it are decorated with gilded carvings. Her clothes and hair ornaments are of the same standard: extravagant beyond words. By contrast, a certain great daimyo does not allow his daughters ivory plectrums before the age of thirteen, and they use deer horn instead. As the woman’s shocked koto teacher put it, “Clearly, [rice agents] are very different from great daimyo.”
I asked about the background of that kept woman and was told that she used to be a celebrated prostitute known as Tsukioka of the Hyōgoya in the Yoshiwara. Not so long ago she met a good client, who bought out her contract. She led a comfortable life until that man died of an illness, leaving her without means of support. She married yet another man, but he too went to ruin because he took such a plaything for a wife. By that time she had three children, and she lived in great poverty peddling dango dumplings in Yotsuya. The rich townsman noticed her when he passed through that place. He thought she was a woman of special looks indeed, in spite of her poor and dirty clothes. When he observed her more closely, it seemed to him that he had seen her before, and after he had pondered the matter, he realized that she must be the first woman he had ever slept with when he was invited along to the pleasure quarters for the first time, as a youngster with his forelock still in place.
The townsman wondered how the woman could have fallen to such ruin, and after returning to his residence, he immediately told the whole story to the man who came to his house as a hairdresser and asked him to find out where the woman was living. The hairdresser came back with the information that she was the wife of a day laborer, had three children, and had previously worked in the Yoshiwara under the name of something-or-other. The townsman found that he still had warm feelings for her and began to long for her. Through the hairdresser he made various arrangements, and in the end he invited the woman out for a secret assignation and succeeded in making a private agreement. If only he would give assistance to her present husband and her children, she was quite prepared to be separated from them. Thereupon the townsman sent an agent to her husband and paid him and those three children three hundred ryō as separation money. In return, he won her as his concubine and installed her in a town house nearby, where he amuses her with sumptuous luxury as I have already mentioned. Using money to separate a wife from her husband—this is something that never would occur were people’s dispositions as they used to be. It goes to show that nowadays the wealthy use the power of their money to do exactly as they please and turn their backs to the Way of Heaven.
Recently the widow of a rich man in Kanda fell in love with a theater actor. She sent him great sums of money, presents, and clothes, and she had her villa in Mukōjima refurbished as a secret meeting place, going to an extreme in extravagance. In the case of a warrior house, severe punishment would be meted out if a man were to court another man’s wife or a widow go crazy over a man; the lord might even strip the house of warrior status and its stipend. Townspeople, however, can do as they like, and, for whatever reason, it appears that the shogun even made a visit to this villa when he passed through the area. Townspeople get away with anything. The concubines and kept women of the rich are all like this: chosen for their beautiful looks and bought for lots of money. There are those in the distant provinces and the deep countryside who pile hardship upon hardship only to suffer still more destitution—and then there are those who have such an excess of luxury and comfort that they can never exhaust it; their lots are related to each other as two sides of the same coin. In the Genroku years, a certain Yodoya Tatsugorō in Osaka was sentenced to forfeiture of all his property because his extravagance and his frequent visits to the pleasure quarters were found excessive.36 Yet in comparison with the acts of today’s rich, Yodoya’s extravagance was paltry indeed.
Palanquins
These days, it has become customary for wives and concubines and also clerks of townsmen to move around in palanquins. This began in the Keian years, with a certain Gotō Shōzaburō Mitsutsugu.37 At that time trouble between Inaba Norimichi, lord of Fukuchiyama Castle in Tanba, and his retainers somehow caused rumors to spread in the world about a possible conspiracy, and these rumors reached the ears of the shogunate.38 The aged Gotō Mitsutsugu left for Kyoto with the intention to deal with this matter in a confidential manner. He went to the Kyoto governor Itakura Shigemune to tell him what he knew about the matter and made arrangements for a meeting. However, Shigemune heard that Mitsutsugu had traveled to Kyoto in the comfort of a palanquin and chastised him for that. He accused him of overstepping the bounds of his status and scolded him for his inappropriate conduct. Mitsutsugu thus lost face, and, unable to discuss the matter of Norimichi, he had to return home without achieving anything. When he heard that Shigemune had reported his extravagance to the shogunate, he was so alarmed that he did not dare to enter the city of Edo and chose to stay in Shinagawa for the sake of discretion.
This Mitsutsugu was in fact a talented man to start with. He served as a negotiator at the time of the siege of Osaka Castle [1614–1615] and became close to the Divine Lord after that. He created the system of gold one-ryō and smaller coins, and as an old man of merit who had been of service to the state, he mixed freely even with the senior councilors of the shogunal government. As a result, he forgot to observe deference and lapsed into extravagance, as with his use of a palanquin. Shigemune was like his father, a person who attached great importance to simplicity. Having already heard that Mitsutsugu had recently been given to luxury in Edo, he harbored distaste for his behavior. When Mitsutsugu visited him, he used the occasion to chastise him and to raise the matter of his extravagance and also informed the shogunal authorities in Edo. This must be an example of a loyal servant’s hidden service to the shogunate. More than thirty years had passed between the death [of Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1616] and the Keian years. By that time, extravagance had already emerged.
Yet at that time the use of palanquins by townsmen was [restricted] in this manner even for the likes of Gotō Mitsutsugu. In contrast, the townspeople of today ride in palanquins on a daily basis. This is in breach of the shogunal laws. Even unregistered loafers and troublemakers go around in palanquins. The wealthy, in particular, do not use the normal four-handed palanquin but palanquins with square poles, which commoners are prohibited from using.39 The same tendency occurred toward the end of the Ming dynasty [1368–1644]. In the Wanli years [1573–1620] a certain Zen master called Yunwu regretted this and tried to stop it, arguing that the use of palanquins by merchants was the extreme of extravagance and that it would lead the state into chaos.40 He did not achieve his aim, however, because such a prohibition would have affected the livelihoods of countless palanquin owners and bearers. Soon after, the Ming dynasty fell. How regrettable that even though someone had noticed what was happening, his warnings went unheeded! There is a method to correct this—a profound secret.
Townspeople’s Ceremonies
The rich pursue the ultimate in luxury when it comes to the clothes and paraphernalia they use for festivities such as weddings, the adoption of a son-in-law, a son’s coming-of-age, the first hair-growing ceremony of a toddler, the ceremony of wearing hakama trousers for the first time, the dolls’ festival of the third month, and the banner festival of the fifth month. Their wives dress up as if they were the spouses of high-ranking warrior houses, their sons as if they were warrior heirs, and their daughters as if they were princesses or ladies-in-waiting. Before, the daughters of townspeople were so keen to become the wives of warriors that the shogunate went so far as to prohibit such matches, but today they dislike even the semblance of becoming warrior wives. In the old days they envied the apparel of warrior houses and imitated it, but today their attire is so sumptuous that they scorn the warrior style as unfashionable. Instead, the wives, brides, and daughters of warrior houses have become fond of townspeople fashions.
Indeed, it is most reasonable that warrior women should envy and mimic the townspeople, since, as I have already noted, the latter’s clothing and hair ornaments and the fashions they adopt for pleasure excursions, summer trips to the riverbank, boating trips, or going to the theater are much more elaborate than those used by warrior houses. These days all warrior houses, and especially the great and small daimyo, are weighed down by the costs of their public duties and driven into poverty. They impose cost-cutting strategies that run five or ten years into the future, and they limit the allowances for their wives and children in order to reduce house costs, with the result that sometimes the whole household—both family members and retainers—has to dress in cotton. Things have steadily become worse than before.
Townspeople have no expenses for public duties; their public duty is to be extravagant. Those who used to be banned from wearing even silk pongee today wear only silk crepe and never touch cotton. Cotton is worn by those who should not be wearing it, while those who should not wear silk crepe use it every day. Townspeople even use foreign textiles such as striped sateen and Dutch imports. They frequently wear felted or worsted wool, velvet, and striped sateen.41 I am told that the use of felted wool even for spear scabbards was once restricted to province-holding daimyo. Later, it was allowed to lesser daimyo, and subsequently to those holding fiefs of over three thousand koku. Today townspeople use it for their haori, for bedding, and even for the thongs of their geta. This shows how radically customs have changed.
When it comes to the betrothal gifts presented at weddings or on the occasion of the adoption of a son-in-law, warrior houses cannot compete with townspeople. Townspeople provide as dowries not only clothes and various paraphernalia but also large amounts of money and property. Likewise they take beautiful daughters of low-status families as brides, give them large amounts of “preparation money,” and provide their parents with living expenses for the rest of their lives. Warriors pay no attention to the personality or the looks of their adopted sons or brides; they prefer those who bring the largest dowries. Townspeople do not care about the amount of money involved; they make their choice on the basis of personality and looks.
Riding on the power of wealth, both the sons and daughters of townspeople naturally become conceited. The children of warrior houses have a lord who supplies their house with its livelihood; therefore they are aware that they owe gratitude to that lord for their having a place to sleep and food to eat. They exert themselves in the literary and military arts, and, knowing that they, too, like their fathers, are destined to go into service, maintain an attitude of discreet self-control. In contrast, the children of townspeople do not depend on others for support at all. Throughout their lives, townspeople employ others rather than being employed. Is this not why they do not know loyalty and rectitude? They are never short of anything, and thus there is no need for exercising filial piety. They never suffer any hardship and are used to making selfish demands. When it comes to filial duties, they do not apply themselves to any kind of art. In all this, they are very different from the children of warrior houses. They have no sense whatsoever of self-control or duty; they are strong-willed, and their blind sons and their wives and daughters are similarly wayward and selfish.
When townspeople children participate in festivals such as those of the Sannō and Kanda shrines, their attire is shocking to behold.42 The parents dress up their sons and daughters as great generals such as Jingū Kōgō, Hachiman Tarō, Yorimitsu, or Lords Yoritomo and Yoshitsune,43 or they have them perform the “grand hunt at Mount Fuji.”44 The children wear 10 or 12 layers of robes of multicolored and gold brocade, crepe, damask, and silk gauze. By way of an entourage they are surrounded by numerous good-looking youngsters, and even their humblest attendants are dressed in felted or scarlet wool, velvet, or Dutch grogram.45 They are accompanied by their parents and a large number of servants, all of them wearing beautiful outfits and equipped with the most exquisite swords, pouches, and hair ornaments. In short, all are decked out with the very best that is available. In addition the parents hire whole groups of prostitutes such as geisha and dancing girls, and they pay musicians to play the samisen, kokyū, flutes, and drums. All these they supply with hair ornaments and robes of thick and thin silk. Purportedly, the costs of all this amount to more than 500 ryō, or even 1,000. For one child’s participation in a festival, lasting only one day, they spend the same amount that a warrior of 2,000 or 4,000 koku will receive for a whole year.
Of course, these are the doings of the leading townspeople of the area, but also those below them willingly waste sums corresponding to the taxes from 300 or 500 koku of land on one day’s competition. The households of a single city block spend hundreds or even thousands of ryō on the entertainment of guests and other miscellaneous matters. Their spending matches the annual living expenses of a small daimyo. For such children’s festivities as the ceremony of wearing hakama for the first time, the first hair-growing ceremony, the dolls’ festival, and the banner festival they invite guests day and night over many days and stage performances of danced drama and comic skits, spending hundreds of ryō. It is because so many children grow up in such an excess of luxury and splendor in this city that others in distant provinces and in the countryside are forced to abandon their children to work the land, or to send them to other provinces at an early age, or to sell them, or even to kill them because they are unable to bring them up. How striking the difference between the city and the countryside, the imbalance between rich and poor!
In recent years, townspeople funerals have become extravagant as well. The so-called chief mourners all wear “pure attire,” and the inner and outer coffins are richly decorated. Food and drink are provided for those who see off the deceased—say 2,000 or 3,000 portions of manjū buns, sweets, and rice mixed with azuki beans. Adding the donations payable to the monks, they spend the equivalent of 200 or 300 bales of rice. Therefore temples depend on the favors of a single great townsman among their parishioners rather than on powerful patrons among the great and small daimyo. They treat such townsmen with great care, give them posthumous names on a par with people who carry official titles, including the characters inden and ending in koji or daishi,46 and always do their utmost to please them.
Townspeople’s Advantages
This is how it is in all things. The tax income of a warrior holding 500 or 1,000 koku is meager indeed compared with the resources of townspeople. A retainer who is paid 30 or 50 bales is worse off than even the steeplejacks employed by townsmen’s blocks.47 A clerk or an apprentice spends that sum on unnecessary things without a second thought. The income of a samurai, who puts his life on the line to serve and may lose his position for a single wrong word, is such that a townsman does not even consider it worth counting. Is it not disgraceful that things have come to be this way?
The house stipends of warriors are awarded for loyal service, and hence nothing should be more cherished in this world. But in people’s eyes, these stipends look shabby in comparison with [townspeople’s] income; this is the way things are today. It goes without saying that a samurai, even if he receives no more than a single scoop of rice, must throw away his life when circumstances demand it. When such circumstances arise, there can be no thought for “price”: no samurai may assume that since his income is not high, he will not have to risk his life.
Such is the law of the state even for those with minimal stipends. Yet even though townspeople make profits that are counted in thousands or tens of thousands of ryō, they render no services deserving of such a benefice. Even in times of crisis they perform no corvée labor; to the contrary, in such circumstances they raise the prices of their wares. They pride themselves on their ability to stay composed and sell at a high price in tense situations where needs are acute, and they are always hoarding all kinds of products and waiting for situations of this sort to occur. It is outrageous that people who are of no use to the state make profits when warriors face a dangerous crisis. Here, fortune and misfortune go against the principles of Heaven.
Then there is the matter of lawsuits. As I have already written, the farmers wear coarse clothing, suffer cold and heat, and toil day and night to perform corvée duties to the shogunate [as well as to their immediate lord]—and yet they cannot undertake lawsuits.48 Even if they face injustice and cruelty, they take this upon themselves and end up assuming the blame for their own fate. Townspeople perform no such corvée duties or services to the shogunate, and yet they bring suits even about minor matters. What is worse, they pretend to be ill and do not attend the court in person, sending a clerk or an employee instead. They regard a lawsuit as a form of amusement, make selfish claims designed to serve their own greed, and use the officials to further their own business interests. They gain large profits by trading inside their own guild or with favored customers, or they take great sums in interest by lending money; yet they do not pay the shogunate any license fees or annual land taxes. But if there is any glitch in their business, however small, they immediately bring a suit and bother the shogunate with their problems. Relying on the shogunate’s authority, they even have people summoned from distant provinces so as to make up for their losses. When they do reap the profits that they have set their minds on, they will not report this to anyone and will keep it well hidden; but when things do not go as they wish, they spread the news to the world; deceiving the authorities, they submit a plea and use the shogunate’s assistance to get what they want back. Their self-serving behavior is without parallel.
Farmers pay large amounts of annual land tax and levies when the harvest is good; and even when their crops are damaged by storms, floods, or drought, they will not submit a plea asking the authorities to retrieve the lost fruits of their honest labor that began with planting in spring. Of course, such a plea would not be heard even if they did submit it. This shows how self-serving are the townspeople, and how powerless the farmers.
Because of this, warrior houses and farmers suffer both when the harvest is good and when it is bad. In good years, they have problems because the price of rice is low. In bad years, they have problems because the tax takings are not good. Townspeople, on the other hand, benefit from low food prices in good years and make money off the chaos that is caused by bad years; both are to their advantage. Townspeople take the profits they wish, whatever turn events may take. Warriors and farmers are robbed of profits whatever happens. Therefore the townspeople, who take profits, become ever richer, while the farmers, who are robbed of profits, become poorer. This is the cause of the division between loss and gain, wealth and poverty in the world.
Pricing
The root cause that gives rise to loss and gain, wealth and poverty, is to be found in the pricing of goods. Calculating the market price of goods is a merchant’s most important skill. Among all goods, the pricing of rice is most important to the state. The house stipends of warriors consist of rice and grains [which they sell to obtain cash to buy other goods]. Also, rice is vital because the lives of all the people in the state depend on it. Yet as things are today, it is the merchants who settle the price of rice in competition with one another, depending on auspicious and inauspicious events in the world and on harvests in the provinces. The warriors and the farmers are the source of rice and grains, but they are powerless when it comes to pricing. For this they depend on the townspeople, and, as a result, warriors and farmers suffer even when the harvest is good. The townspeople have monopolized the fundamental commodity of the state at the expense of the farmers and the warrior houses. Turning it into merchandise and a rare item, they steal profits. The misfortune of the world becomes their fortune, and the hardship of others has become their main method for making money.
The prime source in all of Japan for the pricing of rice is a place called Dōjima in Osaka.49 In that place there are powerful people called brokers. Great merchants from many provinces converge here, and any one of them will be selling or buying as much as 100,000, 200,000, 500,000, or even 1,000,000 koku of rice and grains. They will not have even a single bale of actual rice at hand; they make all their deals purely on paper, in their ledgers, winning or losing while competing on their wits and luck. This is an enormous gambling party, and their stake is the whole of Japan. They engage in a grand battle by betting whether the weather will be good, wind and rain favorable, and harvests plentiful—or whether there will be natural disasters and bad crops. Betting on the weather and buying and selling the wealth and poverty of the world: the deeds inspired by human greed are frightful indeed!
Human greed likes things to go forward and up, so these brokers do not mind high prices. They call high prices “good trading” and low prices “bad trading.” Seven or eight out of ten are buyers. When the harvest is good, prices go down and trading is “bad”; therefore, they prefer bad harvests and rejoice over storms, floods, droughts, and locust plagues in the provinces, because such events add to the competition in bidding and invigorate trading. They wait for disturbances in the world and pray for misfortune in the realm. When the market calms down because of a balance between good and bad harvests, they devise various stratagems to get the bidding going again and move prices up or down. This is called broker-induced bidding. If one were to send covert inspectors to the provinces today, one would be able to disclose how those brokers disturb the process of pricing by various evil schemes. To be sure, since those involved are organized in large groups and conduct their scheming in secret, it is not easy to expose their actions. What is clear, though, is that by organizing themselves in large groups these merchants upset the pricing process; they set out to swindle people from the provinces who have come to participate in their great game; and they try to draw amateurs into that game, stripping them of all their financial means and crushing them. They carry such evil schemes through to their final conclusion and flay people to the bone.
Nowadays, there are two thousand rice wholesalers in Dōjima and several thousands of middlemen. Moreover, several thousands of brokers running so-called cash shops live lives of luxury in Osaka’s Edobori.50 The bidding that arises in Osaka spreads to Kyoto, Edo, and to all corners of the land, and the number of persons who live the good life in this line of business is enormous. Medicines, cotton cloth, cotton wool, oil, coin, and many other goods are all subjected to bidding in Osaka, assessed for value, and priced up or down. All lines of trade have their basis in Osaka. Therefore it is unavoidable that money accumulates in that place, and that people there grow rich.
People say that this bidding and pricing is a natural process that is beyond the control of the authorities. That is wrong. It cannot be so. The fact is that this matter has not yet been subjected to shogunal management. It is unthinkable that the workings of merchants should be beyond the power of the authorities. The authorities have not taken the trouble to manage these matters and have left them to merchants; as a consequence, merchants have acquired such great power that they have ended up measuring Heaven and planning the affairs of the state. Rice and grains are a matter of life and death, have a direct effect on wealth and poverty in the world, and are the prime commodity of the state. How can the pricing of this commodity be entrusted to the workings of townsmen?
To rule the realm, one must consider three matters: the realm, the people, and provisions. The shogunate gives thorough consideration to the first two but has yet to establish a system for controlling provisions. Even among the first two, much remains to be desired as long as this vital matter is not attended to.
To be sure, it appears that this matter has in principle been regulated, since there is an official limit to the amount of rice that large and small daimyo are allowed to transport to Osaka and Edo.51 However, there is no limit on the amount of rice that can be transported by merchants. It seems that this was left unregulated because in the old days the merchants were weak and did not engage in excessive transportation of rice and grains. In recent years, however, merchants have grown powerful, and they sell and transport enormous amounts of rice. Is it not wrong to continue to leave this situation unregulated? Today there is a limitation on the selling of rice by large and small daimyo, while townspeople are totally free to sell rice as they wish. Because townspeople can transport rice to any place in any province, large and small daimyo depend on their services. Daimyo borrow townsmen’s names to sell rice in excess of their quota; this they call “barn rice.”52 In this matter, once again things are the wrong way around: townspeople are free to do what daimyo may not. If this is left as it is today, there will always be a shortage of rice and grain in the provinces. Moreover, it will be a source of disaster when there is a famine or a bad harvest.
Townspeople’s Freedom, as Compared with Warriors and Farmers
These days, as I have repeated again and again, all things are geared toward the convenience of townspeople. A warrior cannot leave his own domain and travel elsewhere to make a profit. A farmer’s yield may be transferred to another a village, but the farmer himself cannot build a house somewhere else and till the land there.53 Land that may be brought under the plow is also limited. In all other occupations, too, there is a certain maximum limit to the profits that can be generated. Only merchants have no such limit. For them, there is no difference between their own province and other provinces, and they travel from one province to the next, setting up branch shops. What is more, they do not even tire themselves by going there in person. They send some clerks, hire servants locally, and gather up profits at will.
There are lots of examples of this kind of activity these days. Merchants set a sum in hundreds or thousands of ryō that their branch shops in the provinces must pay and claim this money as a fixed annual license fee. Every once in a while they visit their branches in the provinces and check that they keep to their rules; they call this “inspection.” This is a leisurely and elegant journey indeed. Many have already received some official rank from their daimyo. They have the right to use a family name and carry two swords, and they travel by palanquin. They have what they call “a wife in Kyoto, a woman in Osaka, and a concubine in Edo.” They install women wherever they go and enjoy life. In addition, it is a common practice for them to send their clerks off on trading trips and raise profits from other provinces. Making a profit in other domains or provinces is impossible for warriors or farmers.
Merchants do not pay an annual land tax, nor do they perform corvée or services on behalf of the shogunate, and they are free to pursue profits throughout the world. Theirs is certainly a most gratifying occupation. It is true that depending on the line of business there may be some license fees [to pay to the shogunate or a domain], but these amount to no more than one-hundredth of their profits. This stands in stark contrast to the situation of warrior houses and farmers. Because only townspeople are free to collect profits in other places without any kind of limitation, their numbers grow more and more, many become rich, and now they have come to assert their place in the world arrogantly. Temple or shrine priests and other idlers are also free to move as they please in the world, and they too live lives of comfort. Warriors and farmers, who cannot cross the limits set by their status, are pressed from all sides and decline steadily.
Let me outline the gap between the poverty of warriors and farmers on the one hand and the comfort enjoyed by townspeople on the other. Warriors cannot do without a sense of duty and propriety and an awareness of the forms proper to rank, and they cannot engage in deceit. They should have no greed whatsoever, and should a dispute arise, they must not run away. Yet it will not do to suffer a beating at their opponent’s hands, let alone be wounded. If they are killed, not only will the name of their house become extinct but also their descendants will suffer from the shame and difficulties this causes. The things that it is unacceptable for a warrior to do are numerous; they are caught in such a narrow spot that they can hardly move.
Farmers, especially, are in a dire state. Wearing their rough padded cotton garb, they mingle with oxen and horses, handle excrement and manure, suffer cold and heat, lose their takings to taxes and other expenses, lack sufficient food, and are unable to feed themselves even on miscellaneous grains. They truly suffer the worst kind of deprivations and toil throughout the year without respite.
The situation of warriors and farmers stands in stark contrast to the comfortable lives of townspeople and idlers. These people are not expected to know anything about duty or propriety, and for them greed is taken for granted. Deceit is a matter of course. They falsely assert poor items to be good, they claim that expensive goods are cheap, they say that they lose money when they are making a profit, they fix their scales and take what they want, they disguise shoddy goods as high-quality merchandise; all this is accepted practice. They also get away with wearing showy dress and decadent behavior, or, if that suits them better, with dressing casually in coarse clothes. They do not need to wear hakama in their daily affairs, they do not need to move around with an escort, and they can run away whenever they want. When they get beaten up, there is no problem, and should they be wounded, they do not see this as a humiliation. To the contrary, they turn defeat into victory by charging the assailant for their medical expenses and taking a profit in that manner. Even if they are killed, this does not affect the name of their house or the fate of their descendants. In truth, it is scoundrels such as these who live with ease in the world. They get away with everything.
Because the codes of conduct and the mental dispositions of warriors and townspeople are so different, the warriors always suffer defeat and take a loss when the two confront each other, while the townspeople win victory and make a profit. It is true that warriors have retained their authority through their prerogative to use force: when those townspeople affront or cheat them, they may cut them down. Recently, however, the common understanding has become that one cannot cut people down for such behavior. This single matter has led warriors to be overly cautious. They have lost the will to win, there is no longer a way for them to overcome their shame, and they have all become cowardly. They take care to avoid unexpected situations and humiliations and not to get in a situation where they might be put to shame by being cheated. As a result they have become even more timid. They have begun to treat townspeople with polite carefulness; they make sure to observe duty and propriety in their dealings with townspeople, ignore impropriety and affronts, and forgive and forget even when they are cheated. The wealth of townspeople makes them vigorous and ensures that they will never yield; warriors are always poor in assets and lacking in vigor, which makes them quick to withdraw. Their attitude is that they would not prevail even if they were to make a resolute stand. In their dealings with the other party it is they who end up bowing lowest, and in their correspondence they always address townspeople as “Mister” or “Sir.”54 In the worst case, they will even flatter them and try to win their friendship.
Townspeople, on the other hand, tend to keep their distance from warriors, fearing that they may ask for money. High and low are turned upside down, and if townspeople hold to [what they regard as] a proper measure in their dealings with warriors, the latter feel it to be insufficient. Townspeople and idlers take advantage of this, and as they rise above their status, they look down on the samurai. The samurai concentrate their efforts on weathering their contempt. In the street, townspeople and idlers bump into samurai. They walk down the middle of the street, while the samurai veer away from them and pass by the side. Warriors are exalted and strong only in name. They have been defeated by the world, grown weak, and suffered losses. Townspeople and idlers are lowly and weak only in name. They have triumphed over the world with their strength and are making profits.
As I have already noted, warriors are vulnerable to the various tools of torture employed by townspeople and must always be on guard. All affronts stick to them, so they must always take care to avoid being put to shame. Worrying what is and what is not in people’s minds, they become weak. Townspeople and idlers care nothing about obligations or humiliations. With deceit as their capital, they pay no annual land taxes nor do they perform corvée labor. They can go about their business free from worries about drought or floods, and, moreover, they have the warriors to defend them against robbery and the like. Guarding their storehouses and their gold and overseeing the transportation of their goods are tasks that they leave to warriors.
There is no way to count all the matters in which townspeople stand in debt to the shogunate: from the regulation of matters throughout the country, beginning with the transport of goods from the provinces, to their ability to make their livelihood through commerce and trade. Throughout the year, warriors do nothing but serve the townspeople’s Way of profit and greed. Farmers are the basis of the state, but nevertheless they do not receive anything like that kind of assistance either from the shogunate or from others; nor are they a burden on provinces other than their own. Townspeople and idlers behave abominably: they waste the resources of the state while imposing upon it for immense amounts of assistance. They conduct their greedy business with complete freedom, take as much silver as they want, act as arrogantly as they want, and steal with impunity. In truth, their splendor is beyond compare in the world.
For this reason, when Tokugawa rule was first established the number of townspeople was kept small. They even say that there were not enough houses to fill the 808 blocks that had been laid out in the city, and that the shogunate resorted to paying ten ryō of gold to those who were willing to build a house and start a business in Edo. In the course of more than two hundred years of shogunal rule the city has been filled to the brim, and today there are over thirty-six hundred townsmen’s blocks.55 The same happened in Kyoto, Osaka, and other places, and every year more of the world’s wealth falls into the hands of townspeople and idlers, causing them to become even more extravagant and self-important.
As the number of such extravagant and self-important people grew, this gave rise to an increase in the number of prostitutes, brothels, restaurants, tea stands, pleasure-boat inns,56 palanquin bearers, and male and female geisha, all of whom live lives of splendor. Even places where warriors used to go for amusement have now been taken over by townspeople. Precious treasures that were once the domain of persons of high rank and status now fill townspeople’s storehouses. Secondary compounds that large and small daimyo have built in Edo on privately purchased land have been taken over by townspeople in exchange for a loan and turned into villas of their own.57 When samurai visit places of amusement, they are shunned and treated with disdain, while townspeople are feted as important guests.
In the Yoshiwara, townspeople spend hundreds or thousands of gold coins on presents of clothes, hair ornaments, and bedding that they give to prostitutes on so-called fete days such as New Year’s, the first day of the eighth month, moon viewings, blossom viewings, and so forth.58 Only townspeople can afford to buy out a prostitute’s contract for five hundred or a thousand ryō. In the past, a warrior would occasionally do such a thing, but today that is out of the question. Among townspeople there are those who have bought out two and three prostitutes.
It is like this in all things. The pouches of warriors are light, and warriors themselves lack vigor. Townspeople are stalwart and full of vigor, and their pouches are heavy. For every ryō a warrior spends, a townsman spends two or three. Therefore he glows with importance wherever he goes, and all are attracted to him. All kinds of idlers, such as performers of waka, linked verse, and haikai, tea masters, flower arrangers, and players of the koto or the samisen, shun warriors and adore townspeople. Neither high nor low can make a living anymore unless they hold hands with townspeople.
This is particularly the case with samurai receiving meager stipends, men-at-arms, foot soldiers, and those below them, who take on various kinds of side jobs in between their service duties: they glue paper on umbrella frames or on lanterns, make thongs for geta and sandals, or engage in similar piecework. Even their wives and children do this kind of work. They depend on the goodwill of townspeople to eke out a living, and as a result, they end up regarding the townsmen they deal with as their master rather than the lord they serve, and they ignore the obligations that adhere to their status. The whole world adores the townspeople for their money. People would rather become a townsman than a warrior. Samurai mingle with the households of townsmen, and those who like to play hard learn some art of amusement and turn into townspeople themselves. Farmers, too, grasp at every opportunity to enter a townsman’s household. The children of farmers are hired as servants by townspeople and end up becoming full-fledged townspeople themselves. Not a single townsman child is ever sent to work for a farmer.
The children of townspeople live their entire lives in the city, indulging in fast living and extravagance. Not even those who have gone to ruin and fallen into acute poverty, or sons who have been formally expelled by their parents for their profligacy and have become drifters, will leave the city for the countryside. They become troublemakers who pester others, or they commit so many crimes that they are punished by the shogunate. Whatever happens, they never aspire to become warriors or farmers. Because of the splendor of a townsman’s life, they can never get rid of the vices ingrained in them by their leisurely upbringing. If they were to become warriors, they would no longer be allowed even one-tenth of their willfulness, and if they became farmers, they would encounter so many hardships that they would not survive even for a single day. Therefore they will never leave the city, even if their life depends on it. The whole world has become the property of the townspeople. Everybody wants to look like a townsman and act like a townsman. Observing duty and etiquette in a strict manner has become “dull” and “unnecessary.” Instead, it has become a fine thing to pursue profit at all cost, to be frivolous, to know no shame, and to waste money on selfish extravagance.
Growing Numbers
Because the townspeople are doing well, their numbers keep increasing. The number of households has doubled year by year, and as a result, property prices in the blocks of the city have shot up. This is very different from the way things were in the past. Today, land near the Nihonbashi and Edobashi bridges in Edo is bought and sold for 1,000 ryō gold per ken in width. The monthly property rent per tsubo is 5 or 10 monme of silver, so I am told. The rent for a shop or a house is about the same. The various blocks within the 4 ri square area of Edo differ in price depending on the prosperity of the locale, but everywhere the prices go up year by year and have become ridiculously high.59 A plot of land in Ginzamachi at Kyōbashi was bought for 45 kanmon of coppers in the Manji years; it is now worth more than 1,000 ryō. In those days nobody would pay more than 7 or 8 kanmon a year to rent a piece of land or a shop; now prices have risen as high as 60 ryō. This shows how much the population has increased, and how wealthy people have become. Forty-five kanmon of coppers corresponded to 10 ryō of gold. Those 10 ryō have become 1,000 ryō, a hundredfold of the original amount. Some 170 years have passed from the Manji years until today. In the course of those 170 years, the land has increased a hundredfold in value. I am told that a property in Fukagawa that was worth 180 ryō in the Kyōhō years was recently sold for 3,500 ryō. This shows how property prices have shot up as this city has become wealthier. People pay such expensive rents and cover various other expenses besides and still live lives of splendor. So great is the abundance and the profit generated by trade!
Shogunal physicians, attendants, castle servants,60 purveyors, and artisans were once granted townsman land within the city for their residences. Now that land rents in such areas have become so expensive, they have moved to rented plots in other parts of the city and rent out to townspeople the land granted them by the shogunate. A plot of 100, 200, or 300 tsubo not even as big as a rice field of 1 tan brings in the equivalent of a warrior fief of 100 or 200 koku, and the rent that they raise from such a plot corresponds to the taxes of one or two villages.61
In the blocks of this city, a property of 120 tsubo, 6 ken wide and 20 ken deep, has become as valuable as 1 ri square of farmers’ rice fields. Townspeople who own property collect huge rents without any expense or effort. A property of 6 by 20 ken is called one plot. This was the original space for one house in a block, awarded by the shogunate to one person. As time passed, gradually larger properties of 10 by 20 or 30 ken appeared; these are worth up to 10,000 ryō. There are those who own five, fifty, or even one hundred such properties. It seems that the largest among the magnates of Edo hold some two hundred properties. These bring in an amount equivalent to the resources of a warrior who holds 5,000, 10,000, or even 50,000 or 60,000 koku—without the holder having to pay any corvée services or annual land tax or dirty his hands.
This is a sure sign that the city and the countryside are as different as black and white. Because this city is full of wealth, poverty has grown rife in the countryside. Every year farmers from the provinces gravitate to the cities in great numbers, causing the rural population to dwindle and fields to be abandoned. In the cities the population increases. Houses are crowded together without a sun to spare, land has grown expensive, and people fight over the cost of each and every sun.
In this manner, the numbers of those who pay no annual land tax and perform no corvée labor or service on behalf of the shogunate grow, and their wealth increases. At the same time, the numbers of those who do pay tax and perform corvée labor go down, and villages are abandoned. The basis, consisting of the people who sustain the state, becomes weak, while the idlers who are extraneous grow rampant. The realm and the state are truly out of balance. One may say that while the basis has been left to rot, all have made a run for what is extraneous. In the future, too, the one is sure to continue to decline while the other will flourish. Should not the rampant rush to what is extraneous be stopped and the number of idlers be brought down? Should not those who sustain the state and constitute the basis be restored to strength? The Way of Heaven is to remove what is overflowing and supplement what is lacking. Such is also the will of the gods and buddhas. The wasteful extravagance and greed for profits of those rich townsmen is at odds with the principles of the Way of Heaven, and Heaven detests it. Do not the gods and buddhas, too, abhor it? Must not the method for transforming the state lie precisely here? If renewal of Heaven’s mandate through fundamental reform is delayed, will we not be struck by heavenly calamities and earthly disasters?
The above explains how more than two hundred years of great peace have caused the cities to become more and more affluent, giving rise to ever more wealthy townsmen; how these townsmen have risen above the warriors and the farmers, who form the basis of the state; and how they indulge in excessive extravagance and exert great power. This is the state of the richer half of the townspeople. Below I will describe how the poorer half among them behave.
As cities have grown increasingly prosperous, many people have moved there from provincial areas year after year. As I have described above, some have succeeded in accumulating wealth and live more luxuriously than nobles or people of high status. And because many want to become wealthy like them, the cities are full of greedy people who resort to nefarious means. It is their wont to seek to be rich without making any particular effort. Unlike warriors, they neither learn military arts nor pursue learning. Unlike farmers, they never undertake backbreaking labor nor stain their hands with night soil. They believe that the Way of the merchant is to thrive by abandoning all sense of obligation and sympathy for others, ignoring the difficulties faced by one’s own parents and brothers, deceiving people without any qualms, suppressing any view of one’s own even when white is made out to be black, and cheating and swindling others. Those who are heartless and greedy and whose avarice is insatiable succeed in accumulating money. They cannot do this if they pay due heed to their moral obligations, devote themselves to the arts and learning, or exhaust themselves and dirty their hands in tilling the soil. They can easily do so, though, if they heartlessly cheat and harm others. This is something that particularly the low and the vulgar find it easy to do.
At present, not only the three main cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo but also the provinces are full of people who adopt this style of doing things. It is indeed a sign of the decline of the Way of Heaven and the complete demise of the Way of man. It seems that even Heaven cannot overcome selfish desire, for this style has become more popular by the day and has spread everywhere.
As these vile sorts steadily increase and flourish, lawlessness and disorder become rampant throughout the state. In the end this will cause the wrath of Heaven and bring confusion to the world. Is it not deplorable that people should prosper by engaging in greedy and selfish machinations that stand in the way of moral obligation, humility, learning, and the arts? The fundamental causes for this situation are, as noted above, the decline of the provincial areas and the emergence in cities of wealthy merchants who lead lives of extravagance and luxury. Taking these as a model, other townspeople similarly concentrate on pursuing greedy and evil means. Those who are not sufficiently greedy can never escape from poverty, while those who become caught up in greed and indulge themselves in drink and delicacies are unable to take proper care of their wives and children. In the end some of them become debauchees, and others become troublemakers. Whichever path they take, there is no stopping the pace at which the people of the world are falling into a state of boundless immorality.
Shop Employees
The managers, head clerks, and clerks of wealthy merchants know nothing of want, since their masters trust them with the management of their plentiful resources. Arrogantly self-confident, they have no sympathy for others; they forget that they were born in the countryside and grew up in poverty and pay no attention to their own parents’ distress. Instead, they waste great sums indulging in debauchery, make constant visits to brothels or keep mistresses, and, behind their master’s back, wear luxurious clothes, eat delicacies until they are surfeited with them, and make extravagant sightseeing excursions. This is the common style today. They pursue such a style by stealing from their master’s operating funds. To be sure, occasionally one finds an employee who is loyal and faithful to his master. The sort of loyalty and faithfulness he shows, however, is not the same as that expected of warrior houses. For merchants, the man who abandons moral obligations and sets aside any sense of shame, who adopts devious means and uses tricks to cheat and steal, counts as an able and loyal employee.
The same is true in the training of apprentices. Masters tell their apprentices not to be overly concerned about adhering to ordinary moral principles and not to worry about inconveniencing others. Rather, they should never be second to others or make the slightest loss. In short, masters train their apprentices to be as self-serving as possible. Therefore those who grow up in a merchant house would never be able to live as a warrior or a farmer. They are of no use to the state. Self-serving throughout their lives, they simply are a burden on the world at large.
Those employees who in this way learn nothing but selfish greediness tend to become more and more unrestrained after tasting the pleasures of luxury. As they grow greedier, they become ever readier to rob others. They appropriate goods belonging to their masters and cheat their own parents to indulge in debauchery without restraint. Some of them embezzle money from their master’s enterprise and either are formally disowned by their parents or simply abscond. A warrior who steals from his lord, no matter how small the sum, puts his life at risk. A clerk in a townsman firm who steals from his master receives no punishment harsher than dismissal, however large the sum. In fact, if the sum embezzled is very large, the master is likely to report officially that the amount is small so as not to damage the house’s reputation, and also to conceal that he has money to spare. Counting on this likelihood, many employees of townsman firms indulge themselves in luxury, dissolution, and embezzlement and then run away. Employees regard as meaningless their obligation to work gratis for their master for a time after their contracted term of service has expired. Believing that it will be a loss not to steal from their master’s shop, they all end up as thieves. While the master indulges himself in pleasure, his employees become thieves. They alike squander the money that the firm’s founders accumulated through industrious effort, to the destruction of not a few firms.
Sons and Daughters of Lower Townspeople
Since the employees of townsman firms indulge themselves in debauchery in this way, wasting enormous sums of money, the sons of lower townspeople who live in rented quarters come to envy this manner of life. Abandoning all thought of their parents as well as their moral obligations to others, they too engage in various forms of debauchery. In some instances they borrow large sums of money for this purpose, bringing about their parents’ ruination and causing trouble to their relatives. Some go on to become troublemakers. They pick quarrels and beat up people, or join together in a gang and wreck people’s houses. Then they approach those they have attacked, saying they want to repair relations, and pester them for wine and food. Since they were born in poor families, they are never satisfied with what they can get. The lowest stratum is filled with people of this sort who prey on others.
Young men of this class become particularly excited on the occasion of the festivals of their community’s shrines. Determined not to appear in any way inferior in style to those of great wealth, they spend beyond their means to adopt a mode that does not befit their station. They dress themselves in layers of gorgeous clothes and vie with one another in making decorations of crests or patterns cut out from expensive imported cloth such as felted and scarlet wool; in this way the cloth is ruined and cannot be used for other purposes. They consume such large sums of money that they cause their parents financial problems, or they beg and press their relatives and acquaintances to lend them money. They also raise funds by having their sisters, wives, or daughters serve as prostitutes in brothels. Once the festival is over, they abscond or resort to stealing or swindling, crossing the boundary of possible return. All these problems arise from their wish to live in the same manner as wealthy townspeople.
Most young men of these days live in such a manner. Loyalty and filial piety have completely disappeared from their minds. Sons who are too honest and dull to be recognized as full-fledged adults may stay with their parents, but normal sons begin to devote themselves to dissolution before reaching adulthood and engage in all sorts of outlandish behavior. Some of them are officially disowned by their parents, while others run away on their own; in this way they join the ranks of the unregistered or sponge off others. Good-for-nothings who have come in from the provinces form bands of troublemakers. They pick quarrels or keep an eye out for others’ wrongdoings so as to blackmail them. Or they entrap the wives or daughters of others in illicit affairs so as to cheat them out of money or goods. Some marry young women they have seduced, only to divorce them and extract consolation money from their parents. Or otherwise they contract with brothel keepers to have their wives serve as prostitutes. As soon as the wife’s term of service at the first place has expired, they conclude a new contract with a different brothel keeper and continue to live off her wages.
In this way such men force women to suffer hardship for their entire life. They also go around to various brothels and other unsavory places and cause trouble there, in the expectation that the shop managers will offer them free wine, food, and women. They bother these managers in various ways to squeeze money out of them. Should the authorities begin to investigate their outrageous activities, they flee and continue to run rampant wherever they go. In these days honest sons are regarded as useless, while those young men who engage in such outrageous deeds are regarded as normal. From this we can gauge the world’s decline.
In today’s world the number of unruly and disowned sons is enormous. What sorrows and tribulations do their parents suffer! The world is flooded with disruptive unregistered persons and troublemakers. Daughters also cause problems for their parents when they are seduced and sold. Foreseeing the likelihood of this happening, some parents act preventively and sell their own daughters first. Others manage somehow to get their daughters back before the seducers sell them but end up having to sell them anyway so as to pay the seducer his consolation money. Since in the end they have to sell them anyhow, the efforts of these parents to retrieve their daughters seem pointless, but it is better for a daughter to be sold by her own parents, because parents usually contract their daughters for a limited term of service, whereas others will doom them to such servitude for their entire life.
In some cases parents manage to get their daughters back by filing a lawsuit at the office of the town magistrate. But these days those who file suits must pay for the various expenses incurred during the investigation, and they have to spend a great deal on gifts to the block officials and others who assist them in the suit.62 Because of this evil custom, parents who file a suit often end up ruined. And once a daughter or son has succumbed to the temptations of dissolution, it is difficult for them to regain their original state of mind. Sons become troublemakers and daughters descend to becoming prostitutes. This is the result of the current mood of the times, where both men and women are easily tempted by dissolution. Has such a dire situation ever been known where so many young people become unfilial or are disowned, and so many parents sell their own children? It is all the result of the appearance of large numbers of wealthy people in the cities.
The Enterprises of the City Poor
Just as there are twenty or thirty poor farmers in the countryside for every well-to-do one, there are many poor people also among townspeople. As I said above, some have left the provinces because of extreme poverty. Some young men leave because of their dissipation, or because they are drawn by dreams of splendor and wealth. Gathering in ever increasing numbers, they fill the cities and sink into destitution there. Even so, they find life in the cities better than life at home. In rural areas those who are extremely poor cannot find any means of survival and have nowhere to turn. In prosperous cities, where there are various businesses, even the poorest can at least find some way to live from hand to mouth. Moreover, they find it easier to survive in the cities because, unlike the countryside, life there is not constrained by moral obligation and a sense of shame. People gather in cities because it is easy to do evil or rob others there. Since people have lost their means of survival in the countryside, they crowd into the cities in ever greater numbers, but the more poor people gather in cities, the more difficult it becomes for them to live there, too. Therefore evil deeds grow ever more rampant. Those who fail to make a living in the cities have no means of returning home either, so the only path left for them is to engage in evil crimes.
Let me briefly explain why there are so many poor people in cities and why it is difficult for them to make a living there. First of all, one cannot freely start a new business in a city nowadays. Those in the neighborhood who engage in the same kind of business will protest against any attempt by someone to open a new shop. Should such a person persist, those operating existing shops will appeal to the shogunal government, and the authorities’ decision will be in favor of the latter. Wholesalers and brokers have long organized themselves into officially recognized guilds, and since the rules of such guilds prohibit anyone who is not a member from starting the same kind of business, it is natural for such objections to be raised.
Nevertheless, considered from the perspective of the great Way of the realm as a whole, such rules and laws are too narrow-minded and intolerant. Backed by such narrow-minded rules, guilds of wholesalers and brokers monopolize the sale of goods and arbitrarily decide market prices. Should a person buy goods from someone who is not a guild member, the shogunal authorities will take up the matter and levy a punishment. Therefore no one can secretly buy rice, charcoal, firewood, oil, or any other kind of daily necessity from provincial sources, even if the price of such goods is lower there. Nor can people from the provinces sell such goods. Nowadays even groups of merchants that are not officially recognized guilds file complaints and make it difficult for a newcomer to start the same kind of business.63
Because so many people have gathered in cities and townspeople are crowded all together, it is not easy to find a way to make a living. Even should one manage with great effort to put together the necessary capital, one cannot readily open a new shop for the reasons I have described above. The fact that people cannot freely use their own money to buy cheaply priced goods shows that shogunal law is too narrow and restrictive. Nowadays, whatever the line of business, many people are already engaged in it, and there is no space for someone new. It is thus impossible to start up an ordinary kind of enterprise, and many are at a loss about how to make a living, even if they do have considerable capital to invest. In the end they start up hitherto unknown, unusual enterprises. Much less can those who lack capital engage in a proper enterprise; instead they embark on various aberrant lines of work.
Those who cannot find a proper means of making a living or who lack capital try their hand at various types of jobs. Clever and sharp-witted people scheme to engage in something in tune with the times. Some dupe others. Some cheat others out of their money by taking on lawsuits and turning a lost cause into a victory, or by assisting one of the parties, or by mediating between them. Some contract to undertake a construction project of one sort or another. While knowing that the project will be difficult to carry through, they petition the shogunal authorities to give them the contract; then, with the contract in hand, they entice wealthy investors by making it seem as if the project is about to come to fruition according to plan. Some defraud others by producing and selling worthless things.
There are many people of this kind, all making a living without hard work; they are known as swindlers. Their cleverness and ingenuity are their capital, and they turn everything they see or hear to their own advantage. When they engage in matters under the authority of the town magistrate’s office, they tailor their plans to fit the inclinations and habits of the magistrate and the officials in charge, of which they are well informed. They know well how to get along in life. They cheat the gentleman by adopting the ways of gentlemen, the petty person by acting petty, the wise by acting wise, and the greedy by making use of their greed. They bilk whomever they encounter, even using the Way of the buddhas and gods to bilk buddhas and gods. As a result they get on in life wearing the clothes of a man of leisure, consuming as much wine and food as they like. This is the fashion of the day, and perhaps we should not despise those who pursue it. As I have explained above, they have become swindlers by drawing on their own cleverness and ingenuity as their capital, because the constricted circumstances of the world leave them little room to pursue some other means of living.
Money Lending
Nowadays those who have a small amount of capital or have acquired money by swindling others often start lending money at high interest. In principle, as I have said earlier, the lending of money should be a form of circulation to the mutual benefit of all parties, based on mutual sympathy and sincerity. In today’s world, however, borrowing and lending is not in the least based on sincerity. Moneylenders will not lend money even to their childhood friends if the latter lack substantial property, but they will lend readily to a complete stranger so long as that person has ample possessions. Money lending is simply a means to squeeze out a profit, and it has nothing to do with sincerity. Were money lending to be conducted on the basis of mutual sincerity, lenders would not take interest from borrowers. To set interest at such-and-such a rate is contrary to moral principle. When did the concept of interest appear in the world? It seems that it was the doing of those engaged in the marketing of goods. How contemptible!
Recently, however, even the noble houses who serve as imperial regents, imperial cloisters, and other high-ranking houses have begun to make their living by engaging in money lending. [Other lenders] borrow the title [of a noble house or cloister] to add authority to their own money and use that as an excuse to seize exorbitant interest.64 Imperial regent houses, being of the highest status, should take pity on the indigent, but nowadays, quite to the contrary, they exploit the poor. Imperial cloisters, which stand at the head of the Buddhist world, are supposed to come to the aid of all sentient beings, but instead they act in a totally unconscionable manner. Avaricious swindlers borrow this villainous authority to collect usurious interest to their heart’s content.
Let me explain how such usury works. When a moneylender lends a sum to a borrower, he first sets the due date—say in three months—and deducts the interest, 10 or 20 percent, for that period from the sum lent. In addition he extracts a service charge, which comes to another 10 or 20 percent of the principal. Therefore when the borrower contracts for a loan of 10 ryō, the lender in fact hands over only 6 or 7 ryō. At the end of three months, when the term comes due, the borrower has to “return” the principal first and then borrow it once more. At that time the lender again extracts interest and service charges in the same fashion. In this way, if a moneylender lends a sum for a year, its value doubles; he gets a return of 20 ryō on 10, 200 ryō on 100. No other business would produce such a large profit. This shows how moneylenders utilize all manner of nefarious means.
In the name of encouraging the circulation of funds throughout the world, the shogunal government, too, engages in lending money.65 Since the government loans money at lower interest than private moneylenders, it may serve in a sense to encourage circulation. Yet such governmental loans seem to have appeared only after the Kyōhō years. There was no official arrangement of this kind in earlier periods. Those who receive such loans must put up some sort of security in return. If they have no security to offer, the government will not yield, even if they starve to death. This is far from benevolent government. Should a warrior undertake this kind of activity, it would be regarded as a culpable offense. How is it that the shogunate engages in activities that it holds to be a culpable offense?
Quite a few temple and shrine priests do not bother going through swindlers but lend money at high interest themselves, under the pretext of raising funds for repairing a temple hall or paying for its preservation.66 Such conduct is not appropriate to one who is a priest. As I mentioned earlier, the buddhas and gods are supposed to save people. How could it please them to know that priests are causing hardship to the poor and snatching money from them? Nowadays those in financial difficulty are often forced by necessity to borrow money at usurious rates. What with double the amount they borrowed being sucked out of them, they ultimately come to ruin. Bitterly they come to rue that what they received in the name of a benefice was in fact a poisoned cup. How grievously wrong it is that the shogun’s government should profit from the ill-gotten gains that are the source of this bitterness, and that temples and shrines should make a business of dealing in such matters.
In today’s world even the shogunate, people in important positions, and people who lead the worship of the buddhas and gods—persons who are revered and looked up to throughout the world—are eager to gain the profits of usury. How much more is this true of townspeople and farmers of even the slightest means. They do not hesitate in the least to pursue this path as far as they can. They accept as security the houses in which people live, their land, their …67 tools, their business rights, or guild membership, and they build their own fortunes on pressing poor people mercilessly. Moneylenders do not complain if someone else starts up the same business. There is no problem even if someone opens a new money-lending shop next door to an existing one. Yet another convenience compared with other forms of business is that a moneylender need not employ many clerks and apprentices. And since the profits are large, it is a popular business. But only those of a cruel and harsh disposition can make a success out of this path. The popularity of money lending fosters the rise of evil means throughout the world and is the source of the people’s impoverishment.
There are various special forms of lending money: monthly installment loans, daily installment loans, chattel-lease loans, and crow loans. These are exceptionally usurious loans made to poor people of very limited means. With crow loans, money lent in the early morning when the crows begin crying has to be returned by evening when the crows go home. From a single day’s circulation of funds, the lender gains as much interest as an ordinary loan would bring in a month. In the case of chattel-lease loans, the lender leases clothes, nightclothes, bedding, mosquito nets, and the like for a set daily fee. The destitute borrower then pawns the leased goods; he thus has to pay double interest, on both the leased goods and the pawn.68 In tune with the times, evildoers can thus turn a small amount of cash into a large fortune in no time at all by lending money. The good-natured, who tend to lag behind the times, borrow money, pay interest on top of interest, and soon become destitute. Seeing how the fates of the good-natured and evildoers run contrary to the principle of Heaven, we can gauge the right and wrong of today’s world.
Quite a few people earn their living by collecting a service charge for mediating between lenders and borrowers. Some, falsely claiming that they will arrange a loan, extract money from potential borrowers by charging them for so-called miscellaneous costs. Others defraud poor people by demanding that they pay a service charge in advance. They are nothing more than smart-looking muggers, and the turmoil presently caused by borrowing and lending is immense. Out of ten lawsuits, eight or nine concern loans. As I have repeatedly pointed out, loans are the medium that has brought about the imbalance between rich and poor. Evil people become lenders, and many succeed in becoming well-off without working hard. With the disposition of a demon, they act as if they were offering solace to the needy when in fact what they offer is the poison with which they wring profit from their victims.
Good people borrow money with the expectation that it will take them through a time of need, only to find, like those who have fallen into the realm of hungry ghosts, that the solace they sought has turned into the flames of usurious interest. Should the borrower be late in paying back what has been borrowed, the lender will with demonic force take possession of his house and storehouse, seize his furniture, tools, clothes, and cooking pots, or force him to sell his wife or daughter to raise the necessary funds. Should these measures fall short, the lender will bring suit with the shogunal government. The borrower will undergo interrogation at the magistrate’s office, and whatever he owns will be confiscated. He may be handcuffed or jailed.69 Not only the borrower but also his relatives and guarantors may find themselves in trouble. The staff of the magistrate’s office responsible for investigating the case will act as mercilessly as demons so as to force the borrower to repay. In today’s world, evil people exhaust their own means to strip their victims to the bone. When their own efforts are insufficient, they rely on the power of the magistrate’s office. Using the staff of the magistrate’s office as the agents of their own greed and wickedness, they press the borrower to pay. How much more audacious can one get than to use even the shogunal government as the agents of one’s greed and villainy?
The Lives of the Poor
Let me describe the circumstances of those who have sunk into destitution as the result of such avarice and villainy. Those who live in rented rooms in back alleys or on the outskirts of downtown areas peddle vegetables, fish, or miscellaneous items, or else they work as day laborers, palanquin carriers, porters, oxcart pullers, night street vendors, dealers in wastepaper, or piecework artisans. All of them struggle at backbreaking jobs to make a living. Knowing nothing of greedy and evil means, they make their living honestly through physical labor and are not inclined to seek anything beyond their daily needs. Gradually, however, they come under the influence of those wealthy and vain townspeople I have described above. They pay them large amounts in rent, borrow money from them at compound interest, or suffer the extortionist ploys of those who lease chattels. These people are never able to triumph over others. Whatever outrageous treatment they may suffer, they lack the time and cash to file a suit. Should they be sued as the result of some unavoidable problem, they will soon give up because they cannot pay for the costs of fighting the case. They must put up with a wrong decision in favor of the other party, even when they know that it means losing all they own. Unable to endure this, they may exchange blows or grapple with their opponents, but the end result is that they will have to depend on someone to act as a mediator. Then they will have to buy wine to drink together as a pledge of reconciliation. Loss thus piles on top of loss. These are the people who deserve our pity.
The destitute of distant provinces and remote regions suffer in similar ways. They too are pushed under by others, and poverty leaves them with no place to stand. However, poverty in such places is of a different nature than that in towns. Being destitute in the provinces means to starve, to be unable to eat even coarse miscellaneous grains three times a day. As I mentioned earlier, the poor in the provinces have to leave their parents, wives, and children behind and go off to distant cities to gain even a meager yearly wage of three ryō. The destitute in towns receive the wages for their daily toil immediately, on the spot. Such work can be found easily, and they can eat rice instead of coarse miscellaneous grains. In the past, all classes of people, including warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants, were satisfied if only they could eat rice three times a day. These days, though, the dwellings and food found in the flourishing urban areas have become so luxurious that even the poor have come to take tasty side dishes for granted. The difference with the situation of the poor in the provinces, who cannot take even coarse meals three times a day, is like night and day. From this we can know the splendor of this city of Edo and understand how much easier it is to make a living here than in distant provinces and remote regions. This is the reason why so many people have come to live here.
At present, the excessive number of people gathering here has led to tumult. People commit all sorts of evil deeds. Those with a minimum of cleverness devise ways to snatch others’ property and take more than their proper share. Those who lack cleverness or are too upright, inflexible, or stupid fall into poverty. They wrack their bodies and exhaust themselves to somehow scrape together enough to live for a day. They cannot set aside anything for the following day. Should their aged parents fall ill, they cannot afford to buy medicine for them. Some of them become so weary taking care of a chronically ill parent that they welcome rather than bewail their parent’s death. Should they meet with fire or be unable to do manual labor for thirty days or so, because they have contracted syphilis or another persistent disease, they are left totally at a loss and resort to some illegal scheme.
Some abandon their parents, wives, and children. Others leave their infants at the roadside or a crossing. Still others adopt infants, despite having no milk to feed them, simply to get from the parents the sum meant to cover the expense of bringing the baby up. In some cases they kill the babies after adopting them. Others do such …70 things even when their parents are dying of illness. Some engage in crimes such as stealing and fraud. Others commit arson and burn down tens of thousands of houses. In this way they cause disturbances, bring suffering to untold numbers, and trouble the shogunal government, which then has to waste its resources to deal with the problem. They themselves meet with punishment, and the parents, wives, and children that they leave behind are thrown out on the street.
City Crime
In old tales, there is the story of Umewaka at the Sumida River,71 the well of Hori[kane] … in Ushigome,72 and the story of the stone pillow at Asajigahara.73 In the Genroku and Kyōhō years people praised the Edo of their own time by comparing it with what was depicted in these old tales, saying that although in the past Edo was a notorious place where lost children, stepchildren, and travelers were killed, it had now become a prosperous and peaceful city full of warmhearted people. Today, however, we can see evil deeds in this city that are far more heinous than those described in those old tales. How deplorable! The destitute in distant provinces and remote regions do not commit evil deeds of this sort, no matter how desperate they may be. Even if they are forced to become beggars or end up dying in misery, they put up with their fate.
The destitute in distant provinces and remote regions never engage in illegal acts, even when they [face difficulty] in settling their accounts on the specified days.74 Should a famine last for two or three years, and they have to eat tree bark and grass roots because they cannot get even coarse grain, they do not resort to the kinds of evil deeds that destitute townspeople often commit. In the rare instance that they do steal something, the crime is easily uncovered since they are not shrewd at all. Those living in towns are familiar with a luxurious mode of life. They have to maintain associations with their equals and keep up a style of life appropriate to their family rank. Consequently they cannot eat barley instead of rice but have to consume delicacies. If they do not maintain the same standard of living as their neighbors, they cannot stay in their current residence. Their expenses for rent and daily necessities are thus high, and should they be unable to keep up with the cost, they will be forced to move out. Confronting that likelihood, they can do nothing but resort to evil deeds.
There is another reason [why many crimes are committed in cities]. Since the people who have gathered in cities come from various villages and provinces, they do not share any bonds of mutual sympathy, even if they exchange pleasantries on the surface. Although neighbors are separated from each other by only a thin shared wall, either may move away unannounced to unknown parts the very next day. They share no sense of moral obligation or mutual encouragement …75 The young people I mentioned above may cannily avoid being arrested by keeping themselves hidden, but those who are honest and obstinate cannot manage such clever ploys and are caught and punished right away.
These days, true criminals never meet with punishment. They cause turmoil and rob others while sitting comfortably at home without dirtying their own hands. In today’s world the definition of who is good and who evil has been reversed. The laws of retribution for good and evil, pernicious and correct do not apply at all. In this world, those who are honest and kind to others will sooner or later find themselves stripped of their belongings by evildoers. Evildoers cheat them and snatch their possessions by counting exactly on that honest and kind nature. Many criminals who have been sentenced to banishment continue to live stealthily in this castle city of the shogun. They become the leaders of gangs of troublemakers, who admire them as gallants. Some of them manage gambling parlors or act as the banker there. Others extort money from people in a weak position, such as women living on their own, kept women, tea-stand operators, or entertainers. Keeping an eye out for those who have done something wrong, they intimidate such people into lending them money. Acting as if they were the ringleader of a band of thieves, they take kickbacks from them; they also swagger about and menace even those with no particular weak point.
Those who were admired as gallants in the past, such as Banzuiin Chōbei, Tōken Gonbei, and Ukiyodo Hyōe, sacrificed themselves to shoulder others’ burdens.76 I have heard that they let people with no place to live stay for free in houses they controlled. They challenged the strong and helped the weak. When others requested them to do something, they willingly took on the task if only it accorded with the Way of loyalty and filial piety, and they did whatever was required to accomplish it, regardless of the cost. Those known as gallants today are totally different.
First of all those called gallants today are troublemakers. They devote themselves to illegal matters such as gambling. In addition many become what are known as undercover agents or informants.77 In the past, the function of such people was to ferret out troublemakers such as arsonists or thieves and privately inform the officials responsible for investigating these matters. Now, however, they no longer stay behind the scenes to secretly pass information to the officials in charge; rather, they openly throw around their weight as if they were the officials’ agents. People are intimidated and dare not raise objection to what they do, so the agents become even haughtier. Since the officials depend on these agents to help them carry out their tasks, they tend to connive at the latter’s unlawful acts, and as a consequence the agents engage in wrongdoing all the more freely. Should investigation of one of their own crimes become unavoidable, they turn in their underlings as culprits in their place. Or should they harbor a grudge against someone, they trump up charges against him and have him imprisoned. When they find a fool with a little money, they encourage him to engage in illegal activities.78 Having cheated him out of his money, they then turn him in as a criminal. They steal others’ wives and concubines and use these women as bait to get their hands on yet others’ property. Such lowly deeds hardly befit the name of “gallant.”
Among both the upper and lower classes, it is those who are good at cheating others and taking advantage of people’s feelings who are regarded as skillful in getting through the world. Those who are not skillful at such things end up being cheated and taken advantage of. Therefore people want to be good at cheating others. For one who seeks to become good at cheating others, honesty and conscientiousness are obstacles. People who are concerned about moral obligation and shame cannot be good at cheating. Those who feel sympathy for others cannot, either. Nor can those who [adhere to] the Way of sages and worthies or who are afraid of the divine punishment of the buddhas and gods.79 Least of all can persons who observe the government’s laws be good at cheating others. Those who are skilled at cheating others regard such scruples as nothing more than tools to keep up appearances and are possessed solely by the desire to rob others.
This is the normal state of mind among today’s townspeople, and such customs have spread widely throughout the world. Confucian scholars, doctors, warriors, temple priests, and farmers all deviate from their own Way and have come to regard trustworthiness as nothing more than a signboard to keep up appearances and conceal that, inwardly, their only concern is to rob others. This is a serious problem. This bad custom is spreading more and more widely. Where will it stop? Will it continue to spread endlessly until the world falls into chaos? At this time, when the world is on the verge of decline, the customary cruelty and villainy of the people can explode at any moment.
Arson, Firefighters, and Robbery
Nowadays, should a fire break out, low-ranking townspeople all turn into thieves and feel free to steal the clothes and goods people keep stored away. They are always on the lookout for a fire, and on days when there are strong winds, they even set fires. In addition, the number of carpenters, plasterers, roofers, and steeplejacks has steadily increased.80 They find it hard to make a living if townspeople do not lose their residences to fire, but when a large-scale fire breaks out, they are elated and in high spirits, for at such a time the wages and costs they can charge almost double. Steeplejacks and their followers are organized into some forty firefighting groups, each of which is named for a letter of the syllabary. But instead of paying proper attention to their responsibility to put out fires, they regard it as an opportunity to loot. Recently they have begun to engage in a devious practice called “diverting the fire.” Pretending as if they are trying to prevent a fire from spreading, they lead the flames to a place where the fire would not likely reach by itself. They do so in hopes that after the fire, they will be employed to rebuild the houses. Quick-witted and rich townspeople manage to save their own houses by secretly bribing the head of the firefighters not to burn them—an unconscionable deed at a time of emergency.
Steeplejacks are known in the town as “the lads,” and they receive “felicitous gifts”—large sums of money for drink—when townspeople build new houses and storehouses, open shops, or have a wedding or funeral. If the sum is smaller than they expected, they are resentful and take revenge later. Should a townsman employ steeplejacks from another block, the ones in his own block will complain and create trouble by starting an argument or a fight. In the end they will get money from that townsman under the pretext that they need wine for a drink of reconciliation. In this way, steeplejacks treat the blocks they live in as their own designated territory.
Since they expect the block residents to employ them unquestioningly, they are lazy. With an eye to shaking down larger wages, they spend two or three days to complete a task that they could do in one. Because too many people have crowded into the cities these days, they struggle to make a living, and thus some long for fires. Townspeople have to pay a lot to hire opportunistic workers [from their own block] and cannot easily employ those of their own choice. They cannot manage their own affairs to their own liking. It does not stand to reason, a prime example of how tangled up things have become.
In the transition from autumn to winter, some poor people cannot change their clothes from thin summer ones to warm winter garments. Naked as trees in winter, year by year they cause ever greater disturbances by committing arson, robbery, mugging, and murder. Many engage in petty theft, such as stealing people’s clothes and belongings in the public bath. In this season the shogunal authorities therefore appoint additional staff to the office that deals with incendiaries and robberies. To be sure, in other seasons as well, night robberies, muggings, and murders have doubled in number in recent years. Thieves known as purse cutters rob passers-by of their purses, pouches, and other belongings; they also snatch hair ornaments from women. Particularly after dark, many troublemakers prowl about with an eye to snatching women’s hair ornaments and other possessions. This shows that towns are always full of robbers.
In this way, it is not at all uncommon nowadays to suffer theft or robbery. If a warrior or a townsman loses his possessions in the confusion of a fire or if he suffers an ordinary theft, he tends to keep this hidden. To submit a formal appeal to the authorities would cost him a considerable sum, and being summoned [for an official hearing] would be time-consuming and cause him to incur various expenses. In addition, a government investigation rarely turns up stolen goods. Seven or eight out of ten stolen items will be lost forever, and should a stolen article be found, it has often cost the owner more in the end than its worth. It is thus pointless to report a theft to the government. Further, since people tend to speak ill of the victims of thefts and robberies, wealthy people try to keep their losses from being known out of concern for their reputation. As a result, thefts and robberies go without being investigated, which means that they increase steadily.
The more numerous thieves and robbers become, the less effective the governmental system for controlling them. At present, thefts and robberies are so numerous that they have become a part of everyday life. I have heard that in Korea there are so many thieves and robbers that the government cannot punish all of them. If a thief whose crime comes to light returns what was stolen and negotiates with the owner, the owner may withdraw the charge. As a result, stealing has become a daily matter and is regarded as if it were something to be proud of. In recommending a woman as a wife, a matchmaker will often say, “She is good at stealing as well.” Will this not happen in Japan, too, before long? Since Korea is a small country, it may not be such a problem there, but Japan is a large country, and should things decay to the same degree here, gangs of scoundrels are sure to cause large-scale disturbances.
At present, in Japan the decay has not yet come to the surface, but it cannot remain hidden for much longer. Theft and fraud have become everyday matters. Things may look fine on the surface, but such appearances are not reliable. As I have described above, the world is full of troublemakers, many of whom are waiting for an opportune moment of disorder. Among the lowly there appear to be many bold men who think that if the world shifts further out of kilter, they will be able to take advantage of the situation to perpetrate villainous deeds. We must keep on guard.
Derelicts and Beggars
Apart from such problems, people without any family to rely upon for support are increasing in number in the city outskirts. There are large numbers of beggars such as lay devotees, nuns, the blind, the deaf, and the crippled. Although they may not commit serious crimes, they have been left behind and have exhausted ordinary means of making a living. Some have vainly used up their energy in trying to keep their daughters or sons from being lost to dissipation. Others fell ill. In the end they have become derelicts. Obviously there must be many people of this kind in both the provinces and this shogunal city.
Some of these people have resigned themselves to their fate; they turn to Buddhist teachings and see their current situation as a result of bad karma. Others bear a grudge against the world. Some rely on handouts from others and become a burden on the world as they leave the provinces for the cities. In other cases, they have left the flourishing cities for the provinces. Kneeling at people’s gates and doors, they beg for mercy, or else they grovel at the feet of passers-by. Since few willingly offer them a copper coin, they sink into a morass of cold and hunger. In the end, old and too weak to walk, they can no longer even beg. They do not even have a place to lay their dying body, nor a drop of water to moisten their lips. Lost on a roadside far from home, they collapse in misery and die.
One might argue, of course, that such people are the scum of the earth and do not deserve serious consideration. Flourishing and decay, rise and fall are the way of the world, it may be said, and if there are those who are noble, there are also sure to be those who are lowly. Or it may be said that outcasts and beggars have certain roles to play in the country, or that they do not deserve pity because their present state is the consequence of their own deeds. Should we take such a stance and pay them no heed, there is no argument to raise in opposition. Even so, we should bewail a situation where, because the Way of swindling runs rampant, people have been brought to ruin because they are old-fashioned, stubbornly honest, or slow-witted. If good people are brought to ruin because they are unable to trick others, this is indeed to be regretted for the state’s sake.
In an age of calm and order, all people, down to inconsequential commoners of the lowest rank, should be able to live in peace and security. People without any family to rely on should be few in number, nor should there be large numbers of human scum such as outcasts and beggars. It is said that if a country has many outcasts and beggars, this casts shame on the ruler. I heard that the Divine Lord declared that people should show pity for those without any family to support them, and that this is the foundation of benevolent governance. Is this not to say that benevolent government means to keep the numbers of people without anyone to rely on, outcasts, and beggars to a minimum? In fact, however, at this present time customs have degenerated and the ways of luxury and ease, greed and robbery run rampant, causing people to easily go astray, become ill, and fall into destitution. As a result, many such derelicts have appeared. Is it not essential to correct this absurd situation? Should it be left as it is, circumstances will arise that are beyond the capacity of the state’s institutions to control.
At the present time, to be sure, there are the Edo Town Office and the granaries founded during the Kansei era at the direction of the shogunal government as relief measures for the destitute. The shogunate carried out an investigation of the expenses of the city blocks of Edo, which had yearly been growing larger and larger, ordered the blocks to reduce their costs, took 70 percent of what was saved, and used it to buy and store unhulled rice. I have heard that the shogunate plans to distribute this rice in times of famine. In the town this arrangement is called the “70 percent.”81 Not only in times of famine but also in ordinary years, the shogunate distributes rice and money saved in this way for the support of destitute people who suffer from chronic illnesses, infants without parents, and those who are too poor to bury their deceased family members. In truth, this policy helps the weak at the expense of the strong and should be termed as an instance of benevolent governance. However, the fact that things cannot be managed without such a policy is a sign that the world is coming closer to the end.
It seems that the shogunal authorities enacted these measures after seeing the situation of the destitute during the Tenmei famine [of 1782–1788]. Before that time the shogunate was able to administer Edo without depending on such a policy. Henceforth, should a famine continue for two or three years, the government should be able to provide adequate relief by using the unhulled rice stored in granaries. But such measures will not suffice if people continue to move into the city from the countryside, if it is flooded with the destitute and derelicts, and if, on top of that, disasters such as storms, floods, earthquakes, and fires occur for five or six years in a row. Even under ordinary circumstances such acts of benevolent government are not sufficient, for as I mentioned earlier, destitution leads some to desert their parents or children, while others engage in various evil acts or become derelicts, and not a few die unnatural deaths.
The Danger of Serious Riots
Generally speaking, those living in towns are of no use to the realm and the state. These useless people fill both the three major cities and the provinces. Some of them proudly lead luxurious and indolent lives. Some fall into poverty and destitution. Others become heinous rogues. All of them use up huge amounts of rice, grains, and other products. Warriors and farmers have to cover what these people waste. Indeed they are great thieves of the realm and troublesome burdens on its lord, the shogun. Farmers, who exhaust themselves toiling in poverty, eat miscellaneous grains instead of rice. Therefore they are able to survive by licking sake lees and fermented rice-bran paste or by chewing grass and vines if there is a famine that continues for two or three years. They do not engage in wrongdoing or long for an upheaval to change things. By contrast, when townspeople and idlers encounter impediments to their livelihood for just twenty or thirty days, they begin to perpetrate outrageous acts. Should they not be able to earn a living for one hundred or two hundred days, they are sure to cause serious disturbances. Since they are accustomed to eating only rice, they will be a terrible nuisance for the shogunal government if bad harvests continue for two or three years, causing a shortage of rice. If the government should fail [to supply them with sufficient rice], they are sure to cause a major disturbance, and who can say where the matter will end.
At the time of the Tenmei famine, violent outbursts and riots occurred in Edo, and people broke into the stores of rich merchants and smashed them.82 Compared with that time the overall city population has increased, as has the number of the destitute. Further, people have become twice as evil-minded. Those of low status have become strong and bold, while warriors, who are expected to control them, have become weak-kneed. Will it thus not be difficult to [put down a riot, as the government] managed to do in the Tenmei era? To be sure, since the degree of evil-mindedness has increased, all parties plot against one another, so a riot may not easily occur. But if it does occur, it will be difficult to put it down. The lowly today are so cunning that they are certain to set fires, and they may even use swords and spears. At a time when things are still calm, people should be aware of this likelihood and prepare themselves for it.
The population of the cities is sure to continue to increase further. People’s taste for luxury will grow stronger, and destitution will become more severe. Competition among the greedy will be fiercer. People will prey upon one another without a moment’s pause. The desire to seize others’ property will well up, and heinous ways will flourish. Those who long for disorder and are willing to disturb the world will gain in strength, and the warriors will be exploited by them and fall deeper into poverty. As the warriors become weak-kneed, the military Way will decline. The people’s cooking stoves, which should be the felicitous symbols of everlasting peace and order, will continue to decay.83
Townspeople and idlers are all worms. During two hundred years of peace, myriads of worms have appeared, and ceaselessly they continue to consume the state’s wealth. Because of them, high and low in provinces far and near are brought to violate governmental laws, and perverse evil flourishes all the more. They should be swiftly subjugated. If we cannot reduce them in number, will not the state decline and its continuity be endangered? Is there no possibility of restoring the entire realm to a solid and proper condition? There is indeed a way for the government to reform the situation; I will describe it elsewhere.
Apart from what I have described above, there are numerous other examples of how townspeople have violated shogunal law and acted like brigands, but since the list would be endless, I will omit them here.