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In English, when we want to highlight the ubiquity and importance of some element in industry, or in the economy in general, we might use energy as an analogy: without oil or electricity, our economy ceases to function. In Japanese, the common analogy is to something just as important but culturally very different rice. While rice remains a nutritional staple in modern Japan, in the Edo period (1603–1867), it was much more. Rice was the life-blood of government, society and the economy.
With the shogun at its head, the shogunate included about 260 lords, called daimyo, as well as over 23,000 vassals directly under them. Their place in the feudal hierarchy was measured in units of rice called koku: one lord might have 100,000 koku, while another might have 3,000. A koku, equivalent to about 180 liters, is a unit of volume that was used in Japan from ancient times. The number of koku indicated an estimate of the volume of rice that could be produced from the land in a lord’s domain. Feudatory relationships were determined by military ranks, which were assigned based on the number of koku in a lord’s holdings. Lords also assessed taxes on farmers in their domains based on the number of koku, and farmers generally paid these taxes in rice.
While the lords used some of this rice for food, they exchanged the rest for currency, creating the impetus behind the development of the rice markets—discussed in Part III of this series—in “Japan’s Kitchen,” Osaka, and in Edo, today’s Tokyo. The Osaka rice market dates from about 1640, when rows of rice warehouses stood in the vicinity of the site currently occupied by the Sumitomo Building, home to the headquarters and branch offices of a number of Sumitomo Group companies. By around 1730, rice transactions akin to modern futures trading were already taking place in Osaka. These formed an important indicator of rice prices at the time.
Steady improvements in farming techniques, combined with the opening of new land to rice cultivation, created a long-term expansion of rice yields. From 18 million koku in the late 16th century, the rice yield grew 40% to 25 million koku at the end of the 17th century, and by another 30% to 33 million koku in the first half of the 19th century. |
