Changes

*''Japanese'': 北前船 ''(kitamaebune)''

*''Japanese'': 北前船 ''(kitamaebune)''

The ''kitamaebune'' were cargo ships which ran from the mid-[[Edo period]] into the [[Meiji period]], connecting [[Osaka]] and [[Ezo]] ([[Hokkaido|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.<ref>Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 129.</ref><ref>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.</ref>

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]] ([[Hokkaido|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.<ref>Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 129.</ref><ref>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.</ref>

 

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 (''[[tonya|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.<ref>Martin Dusinberre, Hard Times in the Hometown: A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan, University of Hawaii Press (2012), 25.</ref>

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.

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.