ON FOOD AND MONEY

Question: It is a well-known fact of recent times that large and small daimyo alike are impoverished and lack financial resources. They are said to borrow from between 10 and 50 or 60 percent of their retainers' stipends. If this proves to be inadequate, the people of the domain are prevailed upon to produce the necessary funds to save the day. As this is often still insufficient, they borrow on an annual basis from the large merchant houses of Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. Often failing to repay what has been borrowed, the interest on the loans accumulates several times. Some years ago during the Kanbun and Enpō eras [c. 1661–1681], Kumazawa Banzan estimated that the volume of cash borrowed by daimyo was about 200 times the total of the available money in all of Japan. Today, some seventy years later, the amount borrowed is a 1,000 times more. Should the daimyo seek to redeem their debts where would this cash, which exists in name only, come from? Given this predicament, all that can be done is to spend the time of day devising ways to face the emergency at hand. There are some retainers of daimyo who excel at this and have put their considerable minds to formulate specific plans. For various reasons, however, they have not been able to realize their aims. Perhaps they acted too hastily. Perhaps by contesting the views of higher ministers, they were accused of misconduct and had their plans withdrawn.