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For more than two centuries after Japan closed itself off to exchange with the outside world in 1633, special exceptions allowed trade with Holland, China, the Ryukyu Kingdom (now Okinawa Prefecture, but an independent kingdom into the latter half of the 19th century), and Korea. Over several months spanning the fourth and fifth years of Genroku (1691–1692), Engelbert Kämpfer, a German doctor who worked for the Dutch at their trading post in Nagasaki, traveled the route between Edo and Nagasaki, the only port open to specially permitted outsiders at the time. During this journey, he observed life in 33 cities and over 80 small towns and villages along the way. Writing his impressions in a travel diary, he commented that he could not understand how there could be enough buyers to provide a living for so many merchants.
The truth is, even at this early stage, a national distribution network had evolved in Japan with Osaka and Edo as its principal hubs. With such a vast consumer market to ship to, regions were able to specialize in rice and other products that they could produce competitively, leading to balanced economic development in both urban and rural areas. Amid this prosperity, the urban merchant classes accumulated wealth, which supported the development of the arts. Kabuki theater, the ukiyo-e genre of art, and haiku poetry, now known around the world, flowered brilliantly during the Genroku era. |
