Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
relations who had a drapery there, but in 1627, at the age of 20, he opened a small shop
himself, followed shortly afterwards by another in the same district. He hung over the en-
trances the indigo-dyed cloth, the
noren,
which keeps out the dust and heat of the streets,
and at the same time serves as a symbol of the independence and entity of the business,
decorated with the sign of the house (
62
)
,
in this case the three horizontal strokes for
mitsu
(“three”), and the diamond representing the four edge-boards of the well (i), which togeth-
er make the name Mitsui. Commercial houses very often had a “shop name,” ending with
-ya
(“house”); Mitsui called his “Echigoya,” as his family business had been. He also es-
tablished a shop in Kyoto, which was eventually to become his main branch.
Meanwhile, Takatoshi was growing up, and in 1635 his mother gave him ten
ryō
worth
of cotton to start him off and he went to Edo to work as an assistant in one of his brother's
shops. He had a flair for the work, and the takings at the shop started to improve. In ten
years he increased the capital resources of this store from just under 100
kanme
of silver
(1,670
ryō
of gold) to 1,500
kanme.
He was also operating on his own account; in 1649
he invested 800
ryō
in one of the other Edo branches while the ten
ryō
of his own original
capital had swollen to ten
kanme
of silver, and he was planning to set up on his own.
His brother, however, heard of this, and was afraid that, if Takatoshi's skill was used in
rivalry to his own business, he himself might suffer. So he persuaded his mother, widowed
since 1633, to recall Takatoshi to Matsuzaka to take over the family business, and the au-
thority of the older generation being what it was, Takatoshi was unable to disobey, in spite
of the fact that he was now 27 years old. On his return he got married, to the daughter of
another prosperous Matsuzaka merchant; she bore him ten sons and five daughters.
