Rice broker

Rice brokers, which rose to power and significance in Osaka and Edo in the Edo period (1603-1867) of Japanese history, were the forerunners to Japan's banking system. The concept actually originally arose in Kyoto several hundred years earlier; the early rice brokers of Kyoto, however, operated somewhat differently, and were ultimately not nearly as powerful or economically influential as the later Osaka system would be.

Daimyo (feudal lords) received most of their income in the form of rice. Merchants in Osaka and Edo thus began to organize storehouses where they would store a daimyo's rice in exchange for a fee, trading it for either coin or a form of receipt; essentially a precursor to paper money. Many if not all of these rice brokers also made loans, and would actually become quite wealthy and powerful. As the Edo period wore on, daimyo grew poorer and began taking out more loans, increasing the social position of the rice brokers.

Rice brokers also managed, to a great extent, the transportation of rice around the country, organizing the income and wealth of many daimyo and paying taxes on behalf of the daimyo out of their storehouses.

As urbanization and other economic shifts became significantly widespread and powerful in the 14th century, the growth of towns created a growth in demand for the transport of produce, particularly rice, into the towns, from increasingly larger and further rural areas. As a result, a system of material transport and warehousing in Kyoto emerged. This process was much the same as the one which would catapult Japan into the modern era in the Edo period, but on a smaller scale, more localized around the Kinai area, and centered at Kyoto instead of Osaka, which would become the commercial center of a nationwide trade system three hundred years later.

Rice dealers in Kyoto gained business very quickly, and became increasingly organized over the course of the 14th century; by 1400, the need for a central rice market was felt. Established sometime around that year, the Kyoto central rice market set rice prices by an auctioning system, determining, powerfully but indirectly, prices across the country. This effect was enhanced by the tight monopolistic control of the merchants of this central market over the rice trade across the entire city; nowhere else was wholesale trade in rice permitted. As the business grew, the rice dealers developed among their membership transporters and guards who tightly controlled the flow of rice into the city. These jobs would become more specialized and organized as the 15th century went on, developing into distinctly separate branches of the guild.

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