Changes

A network of rice brokers centered at the [[Dojima Rice Exchange|Dôjima Rice Exchange]] in [[Osaka]] represents an [[Edo period]] precursor to the modern banking system, and the first instance of a futures market (延べ米, ''nobemai'') in Japan. Emerging in the [[Genroku period]] (1688-1704) and developing and expanding over the course of the 18th century, rice brokers operated a network of storehouses where customers - mainly samurai, whose stipends were paid in ''[[koku]]'' of rice and not directly in gold or silver - could store and access their wealth. A system of credit was also introduced allowing customers to pay for goods and services not in gold or silver [[currency]], but with bills of exchange - these were pieces of paper that functioned, perhaps, not entirely unlike a personal check, which the merchant could then take to a rice broker and exchange for the actual value in gold, silver, or rice.

A network of rice brokers centered at the [[Dojima Rice Exchange|Dôjima Rice Exchange]] in [[Osaka]] represents an [[Edo period]] precursor to the modern banking system, and the first instance of a futures market (延べ米, ''nobemai'') in Japan. Emerging in the [[Genroku period]] (1688-1704) and developing and expanding over the course of the 18th century, rice brokers operated a network of storehouses where customers - mainly samurai, whose stipends were paid in ''[[koku]]'' of rice and not directly in gold or silver - could store and access their wealth. A system of credit was also introduced allowing customers to pay for goods and services not in gold or silver [[currency]], but with bills of exchange - these were pieces of paper that functioned, perhaps, not entirely unlike a personal check, which the merchant could then take to a rice broker and exchange for the actual value in gold, silver, or rice.