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The Making of Modern Japan

keep the price of rice stable and high, for that was the koku currency in which its retainers were paid. At the centurys end, Tsunayoshis reform program sought out particularly wealthy traders as subject for conscation. In 1705 the conscation of the accumulated wealth of the house of Yodoya revealed with startling detail the kind of riches a commoner house could accumulate. Ofcials were confused and even alarmed by the evidence of merchant wealth, and did what they could to keep it within bounds. Edicts sometimes warned against the acceptance of tegata, or options and futures contracts, but largely in vain. Osaka was a merchant town without a samurai residential quarter, and the bakufu wanted it kept that way. Like Kyoto it was under direct bakufu ju . jurisdiction, administered by commissioners who reported to the Edo ro Tax income from the countryside around the city was assigned to bakufu hatamoto. Kyoto and Osaka led in the establishment of giant mercantile enterprises. Most of these stores concentrated on textiles; in the case of Mitsui, this was combined with a currency exchange house. As transfers of funds from Osaka, was the where the economy was based on silver, to Edo, where the gold ryo standard, were necessary for bakufu and domains alike, authorized exchange houses provided essential services. The Kyoto or Osaka store was often the headquarters for branches elsewhere, ideally in Edo. In this way these establishments contributed to the diffusion of goods from centers of production to those of consumption. These giant stores were very probably the worlds largest at that time, and they constituted prominent features of urban life recorded by contemporary printmakers. In time the Mitsui Echigoya, established in Kyoto, became the modern Mitsukoshi chain of department stores; Shirokiya, Matsuzakaya, Ebisuya, and several others have similar histories. The largest of these were giant establishments in space as well as staff. ko nin were typically young, single men who boarded in; they Employees or ho sometimes numbered over one hundred, and in one case close to ve hundred.12 In structure and organization establishments of this scale can be seen as a bridge between warrior houses and civil society. Founders left house codes to guide their successors, they specied succession procedures, and they enjoined them to keep the interests of the house in mind. There were also interesting differences. Samurai family codes stressed the importance of public service and duty, but the merchant was more inclined to be wary and remember his proper status and private interest. Succession could at times devolve on a woman, though adoption of an male heir was more likely. Occasional acts of