- Other Names: 西廻り航路 (nishi mawari kouro)
- Japanese: 北前船 (kitamaebune)
The kitamaebune were cargo ships which ran from the mid-17th century (early Edo period) into the late 19th (Meiji period), connecting Osaka and Ezo (Hokkaidô) via various ports in the Inland Sea and the Sea of Japan coast. Their route, the Western Sea Circuit, or nishi-mawari kôro, was the longest, and busiest (in terms of volume of goods) of the three major domestic maritime shipping routes, in contrast to the Kamigata Shipping Route, or Kamigata kôro, connecting Osaka and Edo, and the Eastern Sea Circuit, or higashi-mawari kôro, which carried a lesser but still major volume of goods, connecting Osaka and Ezo along the eastern (Pacific) coast of Honshû.[1][2]
The route got its start in the 1630s, when a samurai from Kaga han found that it could be as much as three times cheaper to ship rice (or other goods) from the Hokuriku region (on the Sea of Japan coast) by sea, around Shimonoseki and through the Inland Sea, rather than as had typically been done up until then, shipping goods to Obama or Tsuruga, and then transporting them overland, roughly one hundred kilometers, to Osaka. By 1672, lighthouses had been constructed along the new "western circuit" route, corvée obligations for seaside villages to provide aid to troubled vessels or sailors had been put into place, charts of the route were available in greater numbers, and navigators/sailors had begun to more regularly ply the route. The amount of rice transported through the Inland Sea increased dramatically, with rice from Kaga alone more than doubling between 1682 and 1691, from 80,000 koku to 200,000. Similarly, the Osaka-based warehousing guilds (ton'ya) handling rice and other goods from these regions grew in number from fewer than 400 merchant operations in the 1670s to as many as 5500 in the 1710s.[3]
The ships themselves included sengokubune (ships capable of carrying 1,000 koku of rice), as well as benzaisen and donguri-bune. Originally, the ships traveling this route carried roughly 200-500 koku worth of goods, but by the Meiji period, a class of ships carrying up to 2000 koku worth of goods came onto the scene.
Goods from Hokkaidô which were brought to the Sea of Japan coast ports, Inland Sea, and Osaka were chiefly marine goods, including herring, konbu (seaweed), and the like. These goods then circulated further throughout the archipelago, making it even as far as Ryûkyû, and via Ryûkyû, to China, as tribute goods. Meanwhile, goods traveling in the other direction, from Osaka and elsewhere to the Inland Sea, the Sea of Japan coastal ports, and Hokkaidô, included rice, salt, textiles, and saké, as well as Chinese medicine ingredients obtained from China via Ryûkyû.
Many of the ships were owned and operated by merchants based in Osaka or Sakai, but many were also owned and operated by individuals based in ports elsewhere along the route, including some from rather small ports. Several domains, including Toyama and Kaga han, made concerted efforts in the early decades of the 19th century to become prominent regions for the construction of ships which could carry goods along this route.
References
- "Kitamaebune," Sekai daihyakka jiten 世界大百科事典, Hitachi Solutions, 2012.
- Gallery labels, Gallery 3: Early Modern Japan, National Museum of Japanese History, Sakura, Chiba, July 2013.
- ↑ Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagement, Harvard University Press (2009), 129.
- ↑ Moriya, Katsuhisa. Ronald Toby (trans.) "Urban Networks and Information Networks." in Chie Nakane and Shinzaburô Ôishi (eds.) Tokugawa Japan: The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan. University of Tokyo Press, 1990. pp97-123.
- ↑ Martin Dusinberre, Hard Times in the Hometown: A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan, University of Hawaii Press (2012), 25.