title: Hokuriku Tales vol.3

Summary

A book of five stories about Fukui, Ishikawa and Toyama with useful data vol.3

the Kaga Domain (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture). In 1639 (the 16 th year ofKan’ei) he opened the route to ship rice to Osaka more efficiently. This gavebirth to the Kitamaebune trade that thrived for two centuries.Kitamaebune was operated not as a shipping service;rather, the ship-owner was what may be today called a“trading firm,”procuring merchandise at his own riskand selling it at ports of call.One voyage was said to have generated onethousand ryo, roughly equivalent to t one million U.S.dollars today. Kitamaebune was also known as“baisen”(double boat), allegedly because it was twice asprofitable as before. Kitamaebune’s ports of call as wellas the hometowns of the ship-owners and crews werebustling“trading posts”A Driving Force in HistoryKanaiwa/Ono (Kanazawa)ShimonosekiZeniya Gohei of Kanazawa who won the name of“Sea Magnate”accumulatedtremendous wealth and greatly helped the Kaga Domain rebuild its economy.The stories of his then-prohibited international trade with countries as far awayas the United States and Australia are truly exciting, although he died anunfortunate death --- Gohei died in prison on the wellknownallegation of“farm poisoning”in connection withhis Kahokugata Bay land reclamation project.It is not well known that Kitamaebune played aninstrumental role in the Meiji Restoration. To solve itsfinancial difficulties, the Satsuma Domain (present-dayKagoshima) resorted to the illegal export of kelp to Chinawhere it was in strong demand as the elixir of life. Thekelp was transported from kelp-producing Hokkaido allthe way to Kagoshima on board Kitamaebune by a groupof travelling medicine salesmen from Toyama called“Satsuma-gumi.”The Satsuma Domain used the profit torebuild its economy and build factories for textiles andWestern RouteWajimaNanaoIwaseMikuniHojozuFushikiTsurugaObamaOsakaA wooden votive plaque offered to alocal Shinto shrine praying for safevoyage (Kitamaebune-no-Sato Museum,Kaga city)EdoEsashiAomoriHokkaidoEastern RouteDuring the Edo Period, the majorcoastal shipping routes includedthe Western and Eastern SeaRoutes. The Western Routewas safer to take, because thewesterly waves would drift theboat ashore even if control waslost; a boat on the Eastern Routewould drift away into the PacificOcean. Accordingly, a studyestimates that 90% of cargo wasshipped by the Western RouteShipwrights made a miniature boat like this one as a gift to the shipownerwho placed an order. (Kitamaebune-no-Sato Museum, Kaga city)Chapter I History of Hokuriku Kitamaebune --- the coasters that moved Nippon forwardHokuriku Tales vol.3 5