Many if not all of these rice brokers also made loans, and would actually become quite wealthy and powerful. Merchants in Osaka and Edo thus began to organize storehouses where they would store a daimyō 's rice in exchange for a fee, trading it for either coin or a form of receipt essentially a precursor to paper money. 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.ĭaimyōs (feudal lords) received most of their income in the form of rice. 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.
Rice polishing by water mill in early modern Japan.
