0.88
1.31
Koku
121.00
153.00
163.00
147.00
164.00
202.00
347.00
944.00
996.00
565.00
Mexican dollars
36.00
37.00
35.00
35.00
36.00
33.00
37.00
46.00
48.00
45.00
Sources: Shinohara archive; Takeo Ono, Edo bukka jiten (Tokyo: Tenbōsha, 1991).
Table 4
Relative monetary values, 1865
Ryō/koban
Bu
Monme
Kan
Mon
Tenpō
Koku
Mexican dollars
1 ryō/koban =
1.00
4.00
101.00
15.12
15,119.76
151.20
0.29
2.73
1 bu =
0.25
1.00
25.25
3.78
3,779.94
37.80
0.07
0.68
1 monme =
0.01
0.04
1.00
0.15
149.70
1.50
0.00
0.03
1 kan =
0.07
0.26
6.68
1.00
1,000.00
10.00
0.02
0.18
1 mon =
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.00
1.00
0.01
0.00
0.00
1 tenpō =
0.01
0.03
0.67
0.10
100.00
1.00
0.00
0.02
1 koku =
3.44
13.74
347.00
51.95
51,946.11
519.46
1.00
9.38
1 Mexican dollar =
0.37
1.47
37.00
5.54
5,538.92
55.39
0.11
1.00
Sources: Shinohara archive; Takeo Ono, Edo bukka jiten (Tokyo: Tenbōsha, 1991).
Note: Edo monetary values are notoriously complex. In the Kantō region, merchants used the ryō as the basic unit of computation. Although this was notionally equivalent to the gold koban coin, gold coins were seldom used in merchant transactions. The currencies in common circulation were the silver bu and the copper (or iron) mon. Because of recoinages, the actual specie content of these coins varied greatly. Hence, merchants used the monme (a weight of pure silver) as a functional standard. For a fuller explanation, see E. S. Crawcour and Kozo Yamamura, “The Tokugawa Monetary System: 1787–1868,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 18, no. 4 (July 1970): 489–518.
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
Table 5
Weights
kan
kin
piculs
monme
pounds
ounces
1 kan =
1
6.25
0.0625
1,000
8.27
132.3
1 kin =
0.16
1
0.01
160
1.32
21.2
1 picul =
16
100
1
16,000
132.3
2,116
1 monme =
0.001
0.0063
0.00006
1
0.008
0.13
1 pound =
0.121
0.756
0.0076
121
1
16
1 ounce =
0.0076
0.047
0.0005
7.56
0.0625
1
Table 6
Volumes
koku
to
shō
gō
gallons
pints
1 koku =
1
10
100
1,000
40.95
327.6
1 to =
0.1
1
10
100
4.09
32.76
1 shō =
0.01
0.1
1
10
0.409
3.28
1 gō
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
0.041
0.328
1 gallon =
0.024
0.244
2.44
24.4
1
8
1 pint =
0.003
0.031
0.305
3.052
0.125
1
Table 7
Areas
1 tsubo =
1
35.6
1 sq. foot =
0.028
1
NOTES
1. Out of Thin Air (1859–1860)
1. 間五十年、化天のうちを比ぶれば、夢幻の如くなり. From the Noh play Atsumori, by Zeami.
2. Akira Shimizu, “Eating Edo, Sensing Japan: Food Branding and Market Culture in Late Tokugawa Japan, 1780–1868” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011), 109.
3. Ibid.
4. Francis Hall, Japan Through American Eyes: The Journal of Francis Hall, Kanagawa and Yokohama, 1859–1866 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 594.
5. http://www.imes.boj.or.jp/cm/history/historyfaq/a5.html, accessed August 2, 2015.
6. Interview with Shinohara Yukio. This information is corroborated by the inscription on Chūemon’s gravestone.
7. Isawachō Chōshi Hensan Iinkai, Isawa chōshi, vol. 4 (Isawachō: Isawachō Kankōkai, 1987), 913–14.
8. Yokohama-shi, Yokohama shishi, vol. 2 (Yokohama: Yokohama-shi, 1958), 580.
9. Memorandum by Hotta Masayoshi; see W. G. Beasley, Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, 1853–1868 (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 165–67.
10. Quoted in W. G. Beasley, “The Foreign Threat and the Opening of the Ports,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 5: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Marius B. Jansen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 279.
11. Cited in Michael R. Auslin, Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 38.
12. Yasuhiro Makimura, “The Silk Road at Yokohama: A History of the Economic Relationships between Yoko
hama, the Kantō Region, and the World Through the Japanese Silk Industry in the Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2005), 41–42.
13. Quoted ibid., 42.
14. Cited in Auslin, Negotiating with Imperialism, 58; translation by Auslin.
15. Ishii Takashi, Kōto Yokohama no tanjō (Yokohama: Yūrindō, 1976), 55.
16. Yokohama-shi, Yokohama shishi, 206.
17. Yokohama Zeikan, Yokohama Zeikan hyaku nijū-nenshi (Yokohama: Yokohama Zeikan, 1981), 74–75.
18. Kanagawa Prefectural Government, The History of Kanagawa (Yokohama: Kanagawa Prefectural Government, 1985), 177.
19. Quoted in Hugh Cortazzi, Victorians in Japan: In and around the Treaty Ports (London: Athlone Press, 1987), 55–56.
20. Abe Yasushi, “Bakumatsu no yūkaku: Kaikōjo no seiritsu ni kanren shi,” Hakodate: Chiikishi kenkyū 25, no. 3 (1997): 18.
21. Quoted ibid., 16–17.
22. Ibid., 17.
23. Quoted ibid., 22.
24. Ibid., 23.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., 24.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., and Yoshida Tsuneyoshi, “Taigai kankei yori mitaru Yokohama kaikō no yūkaku,” Meiji Taishō shidan 9 (1937): 3.
29. Isawachō Chōshi Hensan Iinkai, Isawa chōshi, 916–17.
30. Yokohama-shi, Yokohama shishi, 220–22.
31. Letter 9, Ansei 6/3/23 (4/25/1859), to Hatsushikano Iyokichi, in Ishii Takashi, ed., Yokohama urikomishō Kōshūya monjo (Yokohama: Yūrindō, 1984). Please note that all cited letters relating to Chūemon are collected in the Ishii volume.
32. Letter 10, Ansei 6/5/15 (6/15/1859), to Murata (given name unknown).
33. Ishii Takashi, “Shoki Yokohama bōeki shōnin no sonzai keitai Kōshūya Chūemon o chūshin ni shite,” Yokohama Shiritsu Daigaku kiyō, series A, 18, no. 85 (1958): 3.
34. Letter 11, Ansei 6/5/29 (6/29/1859), to Genzaemon of Kurokoma village.
35. Aogi Michiō, “Tōkaidō Kanagawa-juku to Yokohama kaikō: Chiikiteki Shiten de miru bakumatsu Nichibei kōshōshi,” Jinbun kagaku nenpō, no. 32 (2002): 33.
36. Yokohama-shi, Yokohama shishi, 214.
37. Quoted in Cortazzi, Victorians in Japan, 56.
38. C. T. van Assendelft de Coningh, A Pioneer in Yokohama: A Dutchman’s Adventures in the New Treaty Port, ed. and trans. Martha Chaiklin (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2012), 35.
39. Ibid., 44.
40. Rutherford Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon: A Narrative of a Three Years’ Residence in Japan, 2 vols. (New York: Bradley, 1863), 1:144–45.
41. Quoted in Cortazzi, Victorians in Japan, 66.
42. Quoted ibid.; see also Hall, Japan Through American Eyes, 69.
43. November 2, 1859, in Hall, Japan Through American Eyes, 68.
44. December 13, 1859, ibid., 87.
45. Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa kushi (Yokohama: Kanagawa Kushi Hensan Kankō Jikkō Iinkai, 1977), 234–36.
46. Utagawa Sadahide, Yokohama kaikō kenbunshi biyō, ed. Kida Jun’ichirō (Tokyo: Meichō Kankōkai, 1967), 3, 5.
47. Ibid., 4.
48. Ibid., 10.
49. Ibid., 4.
50. Quoted in Pat Barr, The Coming of the Barbarians: The Opening of Japan to the West, 1853–1870 (New York: Dutton, 1967), 105.
51. Assendelft de Coningh, A Pioneer in Yokohama, 103.
52. Jardine Matheson Archive, MS JM B10-9, reel 437, Cambridge University Library.
53. December 13, 1859, in Hall, Japan Through American Eyes, 87–89.
54. Ernest Mason Satow, A Diplomat in Japan: The Inner History of the Critical Years in the Evolution of Japan When the Ports Were Opened and the Monarchy Restored (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1921), 29.
55. Letter dated November 22, 1859, in J. C. Hepburn, The Letters of Dr. J. C. Hepburn, ed. Michio Takaya (Tokyo: Toshin Shobō, 1955), 28.
56. Letter dated November 22, 1859, ibid., 21–22, 27.
57. Margaret Tate Kinnear Ballagh, Glimpses of Old Japan, 1861–1866 (Tokyo: Methodist Publishing House, 1908), 37.
58. Letter dated November 22, 1859, in Hepburn, Letters of Dr. J. C. Hepburn, 21.
59. Yoshida, “Taigai kankei,” 4.
60. December 13, 1859, in Hall, Japan Through American Eyes, 88.
61. Quoted in Hugh Cortazzi, Collected Writings of Sir Hugh Cortazzi (Tokyo: Edition Synapse; Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Japan Library, 2000), 203.
62. J. E. Hoare, Japan’s Treaty Ports and Foreign Settlements: The Uninvited Guests, 1858–1899 (Folkestone, Kent, U.K.: Japan Library, 1994), 52–65.
63. For a comparative discussion of extraterritoriality in China and Japan, see Pär Kristoffer Cassel, Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), chapter 2.
64. Quoted in Yokohama-shi, Yokohama shishi, 208.
65. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 22.
66. Letter 15, Ansei 6/6/21 (7/20/1859), to Amamiya Tamesuke.
67. Letter 13, Ansei 6/6/21 (7/20/1859), to eight men, including Genpei of Sakurai village and Rinzaemon of Imai village.
68. Letter 20, Ansei 6/8/12 (9/8/1859), to Yamashita Magobeimon and Shōjirō.
69. Yuki Allyson Honjo, Japan’s Early Experience of Contract Management in the Treaty Ports (London: Japan Library, 2003), 76–81.
70. Ibid., 82–84.
71. Samuel Gower to Shanghai office, April 1, 1864, Jardine Matheson Archive, MS JM B10-9, reel 438.
72. Honjo claims that in most cases an up-front “bargain money” payment of 10 percent of the contract was paid to the seller, but I see no evidence of that in Chūemon’s correspondence. If he had received such up-front payments, it would have solved many of his capital problems (Japan’s Early Experience, 67).
73. Ishii Takashi, Kōto Yokohama no tanjō, 205.
74. William Keswick to Shanghai office, January 7, 1860, Jardine Matheson Archive, MS JM B10-9, reel 437.
75. Satow, A Diplomat in Japan, 22–23
76. James Barber to James Whittall, October 5, 1859, Jardine Matheson Archive, MS JM B10-9, reel 437.
77. Alcock, Capital of the Tycoon, 2:213.
78. Letter 122, Bunkyū 3/12/30 (2/7/1864), to Shōjirō.
79. Calculated based on the following assumptions: 1 packhorse load = 1.8 piculs, Yokohama market price per picul, $500–$800, purchase in producing area at 70 percent of Yokohama price, $1 = 0.50 ryō.
80. Letter 53, Man’en 1/11/5 (12/16/1860), to Shōjirō.
81. William Keswick to Shanghai office, June 26, 1860, Jardine Matheson Archive, MS JM B10-9, reel 437.
82. Samuel Gower to Shanghai office, April 1, 1864, Jardine Matheson Archive, MS JM B10-9, reel 438. Jardine, Matheson continued its relationship with Seibei in the hope that he would work off his debt to them, but in 1867 they were forced to write off a large sum. See Ishii Takashi, Kōto Yokohama no tanjō, 208, and Honjo, Japan’s Early Experience, 117–18.
83. Letter 24, Ansei 6/12/4 (12/27/1859), to Shōjirō.
84. Letter 21, Ansei 6/8/28 (9/22/1859), to Shōjirō.
85. �
� Letter 14, Ansei 6/6/21 (7/20/1859), to Yamashita Kunizō.
86. Letter 17, Ansei 6/7/8 (8/6/1859), to Shōjirō.
87. Letter 23, Ansei 6/11/26 (12/19/1859), to Shōjirō.
88. Letter 31, Man’en 1/3/4 (3/25/1860), to Shōjirō.
89. See Alcock, Capital of the Tycoon, 1:145–46.
90. Quoted in Barr, Coming of the Barbarians, 87.
91. Estimates vary very widely. According to John McMaster, the total amount was no more than $300,000 at the Japanese purchase price, which would have sold for perhaps $1 million in Shanghai or Hong Kong (“The Japanese Gold Rush of 1859,” Journal of Asian Studies 19, no. 3 [1960]: 283). However, Fujino Shōzaburō has estimated the total outflow as high as 8.2 million ryō, or some $16 million; see Simon James Bytheway and Martha Chaiklin, “Reconsidering the Yokohama ‘Gold Rush’ of 1859,” Journal of World History 27, no. 2 (2016): 288.
92. McMaster, “Japanese Gold Rush,” 276.
93. See ibid., and Peter Frost, The Bakumatsu Currency Crisis (Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1970). A thorough (though inconclusive) overview of the debate can be found in Bytheway and Chaiklin, “Reconsidering the ‘Gold Rush.’ ”
94. John M. Brooke and George M. Brooke, John M. Brooke’s Pacific Cruise and Japanese Adventure, 1858–1860 (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1986), 179.
95. Ibid., 178.
96. Ibid., 187.
97. Ibid., 191.
98. McMaster (“Japanese Gold Rush”) comes to this conclusion based on his analysis of the Jardine Matheson Archive.
99. William Keswick to James Whittall, November 16 and 17, 1859, Jardine Matheson Archive, MS JM B10-9, reel 437.
100. Keswick to Whittall, December 3, 1859, ibid.
101. Keswick to Whittall, December 10, 1859, ibid.
102. November 25, 1859, in Hall, Japan Through American Eyes, 80–81.
103. November 26, 1859, ibid., 81.
104. December 5, 1859, ibid., 87.
105. December 22, 1859, ibid., 92.
106. Assendelft de Coningh, A Pioneer in Yokohama, 82.
107. Ibid., 83.
108. Yokohama-shi, Yokohama shishi, 581.
The Merchant's Tale Page 32
