AKEO Keizō (Osaka University of Commerce) 明尾圭造（大阪商業大学）

The establishment of domain warehouses (kurayashiki) in Osaka started from the Tenshō era (1573- 1592). During the Tempō era (1830-44), the number of such domain warehouses reached 124 in the city of Osaka, with the vast majority nestled in and around Nakanoshima. This trend was spurred on by the development of the westward maritime trade route by Kawamura Zuiken (1618-1699). The accumulation of goods traded by the kitamae-bune (northern-bound ships) pushed Osaka to become the 'kitchen of the world'.

The term kurayashi conjures the image of a facility for storing and selling products of the domain. The main commodity was rice, but other products such as bonito flakes from the Tosa domain, sugar from Satsuma, and indigo from Tokushima were also important commodities. On the other hand, warehouse managers were also responsible for procuring goods that could not be supplied within the domain. Furthermore, for feudal lords of domains in the southwest, warehouses also served as lodgings during their travels to and from their official residences in Edo. The functions of domain warehouses were thus wide-ranging. While domain warehouses in Edo had a political role in negotiations with the shogunate, in Osaka their role was primarily financial.

When domain warehouses were first established, domains appointed samurai officials to take care of these warehouses (kuramoto). Gradually it became customary for specialist merchants, such as rice wholesalers and money changers, to run the warehouses as kuramoto. Furthermore, with experienced money changers also appointed as accounting managers (kakeya) to handle the money received from sales, domain warehouses and Osaka merchants became inseparable.

I would like to introduce two key figures. One was Kimura Kenkadō (1736-1802) who had close ties with both Satsuma and Tosa domains. He was born into a family that had been engaged in the sake brewing industry for generations at Kita-Horie in Osaka. He was commonly known as Tsuboiya Kichiemon. He had assembled an encyclopedic collection of objects that was celebrated throughout the country. Kenkadō's Diary (Kenkadō nikki, 1779-1802, with the years 1781, 1792, 1795 missing) offers a glimpse into Kenkadō's varied and extensive social interactions. It was through these merchants that specialist products of the western domains, as well as Chinese products (karamono) and medicines imported via Nagasaki and the Ryūkyū kingdom, were distributed around the country via the warehouses. Another interesting figure--the rice dealer/literati artist Komeya Hikobei (1744- 1820), also known as Okada Beisanjin--was appointed as an official under the manager of the Ise-Tsu domain's Osaka warehouse of the Tōdō family around 1790. Although officially responsible for the distribution of warehouse rice, he was also engaged in literary roles as a Confucian scholar and a painter.

The domain warehouses became sites (salons) for interactions and relationships that transcended both their roles as centres of capital accumulation and the social status of the participants, bringing a new cultural dimension to Osaka. It can be said to have been the cradle that fostered many urban literati (the emerging bourgeoisie), such as Kenkadō and Beisanjin.