Koku

Hello. I have a question about koku. If someone was retained at 1500 bushels of rice, what exactly does that mean? Is it equivalent to being hired at $15,000 a year? In other words the retainer would be given coin to the value of 1500 bushels or rice.. Was that amount given in one lump sum, or was it parceled out during the year?

What I'm after is to understand how koku actually worked within Japan at the time.

Thank you

The key phrase is "at the time"--it varied wildly from period to period and even place to place within that period. If you're more specific with time I can help you further, but to quickly give you the simple answer:

1. If someone was hired at 1500 koku (a koku wasn't a bushel, by the way, but the amount generally calculated to feed 1 man for 1 year--can't pull the estimated bushel total out of my wheelhouse at the moment, and my resources aren't close at hand), then he was hired at 1500 koku. You can't calculate the dollar amount without knowing a VERY specific time, because rice prices changed so often, and even then you're calculating into contemporary currency, not today's figures.

2. Generally speaking if the kokudaka system was used, the retainer was paid in rice. During the mid to late-1500s many daimyo instituted the kandaka system, where taxes were collected in kan (coin) and it was the taxpayer's responsibility to convert their produce (not just rice, but whatever they had) into coin. Under that system, a retainer would have been paid in coin. Hideyoshi and then Ieyasu reverted back to a koku of rice being the standardized taxation unit, and therefore what retainers were paid in.

3. Lump sum, yes. This is why you hear so many tales of the women of the house having to shave their heads and sell their hair, or do other things to make ends meet--call it poor budgeting.




________________________________
From: ldsheridan <ldsheridan@...>
To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, December 24, 2009 6:42:44 PM
Subject: [samuraihistory] Koku


Hello. I have a question about koku. If someone was retained at 1500 bushels of rice, what exactly does that mean? Is it equivalent to being hired at $15,000 a year? In other words the retainer would be given coin to the value of 1500 bushels or rice.. Was that amount given in one lump sum, or was it parceled out during the year?

What I'm after is to understand how koku actually worked within Japan at the time.

Thank you







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi, everybody,

I know this is my first post here, but I've been signed up for quite awhile. I just could never keep up before! Anyway, I had the serendipitous occurrence this morning of randomly picking up a book as I was searching for my lost checkbook (happens a lot), and I opened said book (Women of the Mito Domain by Yamakawa Kikue) to the index area and there before me is the technical equivalence of a koku: it is 5.1 bushels or 180 liters of rice.

Upon checking the index of this work (which was my initial intention anyway), I found a passage concerning the "real" value of koku grants:

from page 150, a quote internally from An Oral Record of Mito History, pub. by Takase Shinkyo in the early 1900's:

"According to what an old man told me when I was fourteen or fifteen about bushi income, a family with a stipend of less than 100 koku could just make do if the household was limited to the man, his wife, and his parents. If, in addition, there were two or three children, they could not make ends meet unless the couple engaged in side jobs. Without such additional income, they would go deeper and deeper in debt. To lead a decent life, a samurai, the old man said, had to have a stipend of at least 300 koku. Asking further about this, I learned that until the time of Lords Harumori and Harutoshi (reigned 1766-1805 and 1805-16, respectively), a retainer with a stipend of 100 koku received as his actual income 72 bales of unhulled rice. This rate for stipends paid from the domain storehouses was better than that obtained by fief holders who collected their income directly from the peasants working their holdings. During the time of Lord Nariaki however, the
domain withheld 4 bales under the pretext of "borrowing back," leaving the retainer with 68 bales. This "borrowing back" was not limited to just one year but continued for three or even  five years at a time. Thus the sale of the actual amount of rice received from a stipend of 100 koku would not bring even twenty ryo. ...And out of this one had to pay the domain a military levy of one-half ryo for every 100 koku of one's stipend. Although at the time prices were very low, a bushi had to keep up a certain lifestyle and couldn't neglect training in the civil and martial arts. What with these pressures on his budget he had difficulties making ends meet."

I also remember reading about the pitiful travails of the Tosa retainer Tani Tannai, as he wrangled with his merchant moneylender in an attempt to pay down his debt. Somehow, the debt kept getting larger. This chronicle appears in Constantine Vaporis' excellent Tour of Duty book. I felt sorry for poor old Tani, as he really had no clue about budgeting. One need only look at how Tani spent money to realize the irony of the term "samurai economics."

Cheers to all!

Onnamusha

--- On Fri, 12/25/09, Nate Ledbetter <ltdomer98@...> wrote:

From: Nate Ledbetter <ltdomer98@...>
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku
To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, December 25, 2009, 1:37 AM







 









The key phrase is "at the time"--it varied wildly from period to period and even place to place within that period. If you're more specific with time I can help you further, but to quickly give you the simple answer:



1. If someone was hired at 1500 koku (a koku wasn't a bushel, by the way, but the amount generally calculated to feed 1 man for 1 year--can't pull the estimated bushel total out of my wheelhouse at the moment, and my resources aren't close at hand), then he was hired at 1500 koku. You can't calculate the dollar amount without knowing a VERY specific time, because rice prices changed so often, and even then you're calculating into contemporary currency, not today's figures.



2. Generally speaking if the kokudaka system was used, the retainer was paid in rice. During the mid to late-1500s many daimyo instituted the kandaka system, where taxes were collected in kan (coin) and it was the taxpayer's responsibility to convert their produce (not just rice, but whatever they had) into coin. Under that system, a retainer would have been paid in coin. Hideyoshi and then Ieyasu reverted back to a koku of rice being the standardized taxation unit, and therefore what retainers were paid in.



3. Lump sum, yes. This is why you hear so many tales of the women of the house having to shave their heads and sell their hair, or do other things to make ends meet--call it poor budgeting.







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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Nice find! Interesting anecdote about the worth of a stipend in the early 1800's. It's important to remember that by that point the Tokugawa Bakufu had been regulating things for 200 years, and everything was standardized. In addition, inflation due to the urbanization of Japanese society meant that in 1800 one koku purchased significantly less than it did in 1600 or before. This is why it's impossible to say "1 koku = X" without identifying a specific time, and usually a specific place.

For anyone interested in the nitty gritty of taxation systems (you can't understand stipends without understanding how the money/rice came in, after all), I *HIGHLY* recommendGovernment And Local Power In Japan 500-1700: A Study Based On Bizen Province by John Whitney Hall. Government in Japan from the earliest beginnings up through the end of the Tokugawa period revolved around controlling the output of agricultural production. From the extension and consolidation of Imperial control over the country, to the takeover of local Jizamurai from their absentee noble landlords, to the constant struggles between the central military government and the regional power brokers, it's all focused, in essence, on authority/ability to tax rice. Because the political system changes so drastically from one period to another, and the systems of taxation and methods of stipend payment change with it, it's worth reading to understand why the answer to the question given
1190 as a year is radically different from the answer to the same question in 1800.






________________________________
From: Deborah Hartman <goatndogg@...>
To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, December 25, 2009 5:00:10 PM
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku


Hi, everybody,

I know this is my first post here, but I've been signed up for quite awhile. I just could never keep up before! Anyway, I had the serendipitous occurrence this morning of randomly picking up a book as I was searching for my lost checkbook (happens a lot), and I opened said book (Women of the Mito Domain by Yamakawa Kikue) to the index area and there before me is the technical equivalence of a koku: it is 5.1 bushels or 180 liters of rice.

Upon checking the index of this work (which was my initial intention anyway), I found a passage concerning the "real" value of koku grants:

from page 150, a quote internally from An Oral Record of Mito History, pub. by Takase Shinkyo in the early 1900's:

"According to what an old man told me when I was fourteen or fifteen about bushi income, a family with a stipend of less than 100 koku could just make do if the household was limited to the man, his wife, and his parents. If, in addition, there were two or three children, they could not make ends meet unless the couple engaged in side jobs. Without such additional income, they would go deeper and deeper in debt. To lead a decent life, a samurai, the old man said, had to have a stipend of at least 300 koku. Asking further about this, I learned that until the time of Lords Harumori and Harutoshi (reigned 1766-1805 and 1805-16, respectively) , a retainer with a stipend of 100 koku received as his actual income 72 bales of unhulled rice. This rate for stipends paid from the domain storehouses was better than that obtained by fief holders who collected their income directly from the peasants working their holdings. During the time of Lord Nariaki however, the
domain withheld 4 bales under the pretext of "borrowing back," leaving the retainer with 68 bales. This "borrowing back" was not limited to just one year but continued for three or even five years at a time. Thus the sale of the actual amount of rice received from a stipend of 100 koku would not bring even twenty ryo. ...And out of this one had to pay the domain a military levy of one-half ryo for every 100 koku of one's stipend. Although at the time prices were very low, a bushi had to keep up a certain lifestyle and couldn't neglect training in the civil and martial arts. What with these pressures on his budget he had difficulties making ends meet."

I also remember reading about the pitiful travails of the Tosa retainer Tani Tannai, as he wrangled with his merchant moneylender in an attempt to pay down his debt. Somehow, the debt kept getting larger. This chronicle appears in Constantine Vaporis' excellent Tour of Duty book. I felt sorry for poor old Tani, as he really had no clue about budgeting. One need only look at how Tani spent money to realize the irony of the term "samurai economics."

Cheers to all!

Onnamusha

--- On Fri, 12/25/09, Nate Ledbetter wrote:

From: Nate Ledbetter
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku
To: samuraihistory@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Friday, December 25, 2009, 1:37 AM



The key phrase is "at the time"--it varied wildly from period to period and even place to place within that period. If you're more specific with time I can help you further, but to quickly give you the simple answer:

1. If someone was hired at 1500 koku (a koku wasn't a bushel, by the way, but the amount generally calculated to feed 1 man for 1 year--can't pull the estimated bushel total out of my wheelhouse at the moment, and my resources aren't close at hand), then he was hired at 1500 koku. You can't calculate the dollar amount without knowing a VERY specific time, because rice prices changed so often, and even then you're calculating into contemporary currency, not today's figures.

2. Generally speaking if the kokudaka system was used, the retainer was paid in rice. During the mid to late-1500s many daimyo instituted the kandaka system, where taxes were collected in kan (coin) and it was the taxpayer's responsibility to convert their produce (not just rice, but whatever they had) into coin. Under that system, a retainer would have been paid in coin. Hideyoshi and then Ieyasu reverted back to a koku of rice being the standardized taxation unit, and therefore what retainers were paid in.

3. Lump sum, yes. This is why you hear so many tales of the women of the house having to shave their heads and sell their hair, or do other things to make ends meet--call it poor budgeting.

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Thanks for the replies, and especially the references, Deborah. And sorry
Nate for not being clearer in my phrasing. I knew the definition of koku,
and that generally - at least in the literature I've been reading - that
term isn't used, just the number of bushels or rice of the stipend. I did
locate a couple of online sources that indicated that samurai were paid
either directly in rice, or, in non-rice growing regions, in coin. And that
really is what had me confused. As in the source Deborah quoted, I'm not
understanding the mechanics of this rice economy. It seems to be terribly
inefficient.

In any given daimyo, the farmers have to grow the rice, then harvest it,
then it is gathered to the granaries, then distributed. So to use Nate's #2
when kokudaka was employed if I understand correctly: each year people show
up at a samurai's door - or barracks if they are castle samurai - with all
these koku? Where would one keep 500 or even a thousand koku? How do they
convert the koku into the money they would need to purchase household goods,
clothes, etc? Would samurai living in households pay their staff with rice
in the same way they are paid? Would the staff convert their rice to coin
the same way? How do people who are not paid in rice get their rice?
Specifically, the poor, who are barely surviving? From what I've read they
don't eat much rice at all, mostly millet and other poorer grains.

I've read previously that a family would need 250 - 300 koku to keep just
above the poverty level. But I'm getting the impression that families had a
much harder time than 'barracks samurai' who appear to have a fair amount of
disposable income even though they might be paid far less. So my dilemma is
in understanding how the mechanics of the economy worked. I understand a
gold economy, a barter economy. I am not understanding a rice economy. But
thank you for making it a little clearer


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

As I recall, the rice harvest in a certain domain would be collected by the daimyo's officials and kept in storehouses. Some would be sent to Edo directly to feed the retainers on sankin kotai duty, some would be sold in Osaka to raise funds for the domain's operating expenses (which I am thinking includes stipends for all those samurai) and some would be kept back for the domain itself. As I recall, the Shogun required all domains to pay taxes according to their assessed output, which was also measured in koku (kokudaka). This was terribly inefficient, as the Shogunate had no means to force audits in most of the domains; their power didn't extend that far. So those huge tozama domains like Satsuma, Choshu, Kaga and so forth, the largest domains, all underestimated their output near the values first assessed right after the Sengoku period ended. But undoubtedly the output had gone up over time. The fudai and shimpan domains, the ones more closely
associated with the Tokugawa, would be more closely monitored and drained of taxes, and thus domains like Mito would be poorer under the stresses of the shogunal system than a domain like Satsuma, who kept rebellions due to shortages and disputes controlled (non-existent in Satsuma's case) and also managed to undertake a fruitful black market trade in Ryukyu goods.

I know all that is long-winded and unresourced, but my main point is that koku became something of a chimera, more a symbol of rank and status than actual income, and it meant different things regarding actual wealth, depending on where one lived. Most domains ended up depending more and more on a merchant economy, turning their rice and other products into money, which was then pumped into improvements or just used to keep from going "underwater." The difficulties with the lord-retainer system with regard to stipends was the fact that the lords could "borrow back" any time the domain was in trouble, and thus the individual samurai had to rely on merchant loans to meet their needs, and they fell drastically into debt holes from which they might never emerge.

My main sources for this information are the two mentioned in the last post and also Craig's Choshu in the Meiji Restoration (which has an overview of how Choshu's output was measured), Ravina's Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori includes the note about Satsuma having never had a peasant rebellion and the "goshi" system of controls on peasant production. Totman's Early Modern Japan had quite a bit of information on economic and land use initiatives of the Shogunate throughout the Edo period.

Sorry I'm a zero on the Sengoku era, having not yet tackled it in enough depth to say anything meaningful without looking silly. I'm sorry to have been so long-winded and rambling, but the subject of koku is linked to the very fabric of the apparatus of government and was a constant bugaboo in the Edo era. I'm not sure how the system functioned before the Tokugawa; that would be interesting to know. My guess is that it was similar but more fragmented. As I recall, Osaka, as a rice and goods market, grew in proportion to Edo as a direct result of the centralization of the Edo era. So I imagine it must have had a different dynamic in the Sengoku times and before. Anyway, I hope this helped some!

Cheers!
Onnamusha

P.S. It is my understanding re: farmer income that each farmer is required to submit a portion of the harvest to the domain and can keep some of its output for living (some could be sold at market to bring money as well). Many farmers would do side-work like the impoverished lower samurai and many of the farmers were also "on call" to aid with reclamation or repair projects or for corvee duty along the main highways. They were compensated for their work (but never enough) and sometimes they had to take jobs that took them away from the land for a period of time (non producing seasonal jobs). The stresses of such work often caused the land-working farmers to go into hock and lose their lands to debtors, becoming tenant-farmers, who would not benefit from their harvests but would have to submit it to an overlord, who was the one to reap the benefits. (Basically wage-slavery)
_











.






















[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

You all make good arguments, but you are all thinking with a western mind
think oriental and simplify. You are making things to complicated , it
wasn't

On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 7:24 PM, Onnamusha <goatndogg@...> wrote:

>
>
> As I recall, the rice harvest in a certain domain would be collected by the
> daimyo's officials and kept in storehouses. Some would be sent to Edo
> directly to feed the retainers on sankin kotai duty, some would be sold in
> Osaka to raise funds for the domain's operating expenses (which I am
> thinking includes stipends for all those samurai) and some would be kept
> back for the domain itself. As I recall, the Shogun required all domains to
> pay taxes according to their assessed output, which was also measured in
> koku (kokudaka). This was terribly inefficient, as the Shogunate had no
> means to force audits in most of the domains; their power didn't extend that
> far. So those huge tozama domains like Satsuma, Choshu, Kaga and so forth,
> the largest domains, all underestimated their output near the values first
> assessed right after the Sengoku period ended. But undoubtedly the output
> had gone up over time. The fudai and shimpan domains, the ones more closely
> associated with the Tokugawa, would be more closely monitored and drained
> of taxes, and thus domains like Mito would be poorer under the stresses of
> the shogunal system than a domain like Satsuma, who kept rebellions due to
> shortages and disputes controlled (non-existent in Satsuma's case) and also
> managed to undertake a fruitful black market trade in Ryukyu goods.
>
> I know all that is long-winded and unresourced, but my main point is that
> koku became something of a chimera, more a symbol of rank and status than
> actual income, and it meant different things regarding actual wealth,
> depending on where one lived. Most domains ended up depending more and more
> on a merchant economy, turning their rice and other products into money,
> which was then pumped into improvements or just used to keep from going
> "underwater." The difficulties with the lord-retainer system with regard to
> stipends was the fact that the lords could "borrow back" any time the domain
> was in trouble, and thus the individual samurai had to rely on merchant
> loans to meet their needs, and they fell drastically into debt holes from
> which they might never emerge.
>
> My main sources for this information are the two mentioned in the last post
> and also Craig's Choshu in the Meiji Restoration (which has an overview of
> how Choshu's output was measured), Ravina's Last Samurai: The Life and
> Battles of Saigo Takamori includes the note about Satsuma having never had a
> peasant rebellion and the "goshi" system of controls on peasant production.
> Totman's Early Modern Japan had quite a bit of information on economic and
> land use initiatives of the Shogunate throughout the Edo period.
>
> Sorry I'm a zero on the Sengoku era, having not yet tackled it in enough
> depth to say anything meaningful without looking silly. I'm sorry to have
> been so long-winded and rambling, but the subject of koku is linked to the
> very fabric of the apparatus of government and was a constant bugaboo in the
> Edo era. I'm not sure how the system functioned before the Tokugawa; that
> would be interesting to know. My guess is that it was similar but more
> fragmented. As I recall, Osaka, as a rice and goods market, grew in
> proportion to Edo as a direct result of the centralization of the Edo era.
> So I imagine it must have had a different dynamic in the Sengoku times and
> before. Anyway, I hope this helped some!
>
> Cheers!
> Onnamusha
>
> P.S. It is my understanding re: farmer income that each farmer is required
> to submit a portion of the harvest to the domain and can keep some of its
> output for living (some could be sold at market to bring money as well).
> Many farmers would do side-work like the impoverished lower samurai and many
> of the farmers were also "on call" to aid with reclamation or repair
> projects or for corvee duty along the main highways. They were compensated
> for their work (but never enough) and sometimes they had to take jobs that
> took them away from the land for a period of time (non producing seasonal
> jobs). The stresses of such work often caused the land-working farmers to go
> into hock and lose their lands to debtors, becoming tenant-farmers, who
> would not benefit from their harvests but would have to submit it to an
> overlord, who was the one to reap the benefits. (Basically wage-slavery)
> _
>
>
> .
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com, susan harkins wrote:

>
> You all make good arguments, but you are all thinking with a western mind
> think oriental and simplify. You are making things to complicated , it
> wasn't
>

You're joking, right? Mystic Orientalism has been out of vogue for decades.

One koku equal the amount of rice to feed one person for one year.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

-----Original Message-----
From: Deborah Hartman <goatndogg@...>
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2009 09:00:10
To: <samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku

Hi, everybody,

I know this is my first post here, but I've been signed up for quite awhile. I just could never keep up before! Anyway, I had the serendipitous occurrence this morning of randomly picking up a book as I was searching for my lost checkbook (happens a lot), and I opened said book (Women of the Mito Domain by Yamakawa Kikue) to the index area and there before me is the technical equivalence of a koku: it is 5.1 bushels or 180 liters of rice.

Upon checking the index of this work (which was my initial intention anyway), I found a passage concerning the "real" value of koku grants:

from page 150, a quote internally from An Oral Record of Mito History, pub. by Takase Shinkyo in the early 1900's:

"According to what an old man told me when I was fourteen or fifteen about bushi income, a family with a stipend of less than 100 koku could just make do if the household was limited to the man, his wife, and his parents. If, in addition, there were two or three children, they could not make ends meet unless the couple engaged in side jobs. Without such additional income, they would go deeper and deeper in debt. To lead a decent life, a samurai, the old man said, had to have a stipend of at least 300 koku. Asking further about this, I learned that until the time of Lords Harumori and Harutoshi (reigned 1766-1805 and 1805-16, respectively), a retainer with a stipend of 100 koku received as his actual income 72 bales of unhulled rice. This rate for stipends paid from the domain storehouses was better than that obtained by fief holders who collected their income directly from the peasants working their holdings. During the time of Lord Nariaki however, the
domain withheld 4 bales under the pretext of "borrowing back," leaving the retainer with 68 bales. This "borrowing back" was not limited to just one year but continued for three or even  five years at a time. Thus the sale of the actual amount of rice received from a stipend of 100 koku would not bring even twenty ryo. ...And out of this one had to pay the domain a military levy of one-half ryo for every 100 koku of one's stipend. Although at the time prices were very low, a bushi had to keep up a certain lifestyle and couldn't neglect training in the civil and martial arts. What with these pressures on his budget he had difficulties making ends meet."

I also remember reading about the pitiful travails of the Tosa retainer Tani Tannai, as he wrangled with his merchant moneylender in an attempt to pay down his debt. Somehow, the debt kept getting larger. This chronicle appears in Constantine Vaporis' excellent Tour of Duty book. I felt sorry for poor old Tani, as he really had no clue about budgeting. One need only look at how Tani spent money to realize the irony of the term "samurai economics."

Cheers to all!

Onnamusha

--- On Fri, 12/25/09, Nate Ledbetter <ltdomer98@...> wrote:

From: Nate Ledbetter <ltdomer98@...>
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku
To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, December 25, 2009, 1:37 AM







 









The key phrase is "at the time"--it varied wildly from period to period and even place to place within that period. If you're more specific with time I can help you further, but to quickly give you the simple answer:



1. If someone was hired at 1500 koku (a koku wasn't a bushel, by the way, but the amount generally calculated to feed 1 man for 1 year--can't pull the estimated bushel total out of my wheelhouse at the moment, and my resources aren't close at hand), then he was hired at 1500 koku. You can't calculate the dollar amount without knowing a VERY specific time, because rice prices changed so often, and even then you're calculating into contemporary currency, not today's figures.



2. Generally speaking if the kokudaka system was used, the retainer was paid in rice. During the mid to late-1500s many daimyo instituted the kandaka system, where taxes were collected in kan (coin) and it was the taxpayer's responsibility to convert their produce (not just rice, but whatever they had) into coin. Under that system, a retainer would have been paid in coin. Hideyoshi and then Ieyasu reverted back to a koku of rice being the standardized taxation unit, and therefore what retainers were paid in.



3. Lump sum, yes. This is why you hear so many tales of the women of the house having to shave their heads and sell their hair, or do other things to make ends meet--call it poor budgeting.







-






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Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use



















.





















[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I guess the point of my way-too-long post was that, even though one koku is technically as you say, in real value, after domainal "borrowing back" and pay adjustments, that one koku ends up being significantly less than what it should be--enough rice to feed one person for a year. Thus, a stipend of such-and-such koku ends up being more a measure of rank but not of real income, which varied per retainer household depending on what the domain took out of it before the stipend was paid. And the percentage taken depended at any given time on overall domainal debt and financial condition.

Cheers,
Onnamusha

--- On Sun, 12/27/09, Mr Washington <mrwashington@...> wrote:

From: Mr Washington <mrwashington@...>
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku
To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, December 27, 2009, 7:22 PM







 









One koku equal the amount of rice to feed one person for one year.


Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed




























 





























The key phrase is "at the time"--it varied wildly from period to period and even place to place within that period. If you're more specific with time I can help you further, but to quickly give you the simple answer:











1. If someone was hired at 1500 koku (a koku wasn't a bushel, by the way, but the amount generally calculated to feed 1 man for 1 year--can't pull the estimated bushel total out of my wheelhouse at the moment, and my resources aren't close at hand), then he was hired at 1500 koku. You can't calculate the dollar amount without knowing a VERY specific time, because rice prices changed so often, and even then you're calculating into contemporary currency, not today's figures.











2. Generally speaking if the kokudaka system was used, the retainer was paid in rice. During the mid to late-1500s many daimyo instituted the kandaka system, where taxes were collected in kan (coin) and it was the taxpayer's responsibility to convert their produce (not just rice, but whatever they had) into coin. Under that system, a retainer would have been paid in coin. Hideyoshi and then Ieyasu reverted back to a koku of rice being the standardized taxation unit, and therefore what retainers were paid in.











3. Lump sum, yes. This is why you hear so many tales of the women of the house having to shave their heads and sell their hair, or do other things to make ends meet--call it poor budgeting.























-




















Going Green: Your Yahoo! Groups resource for green living

















Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use



























































.

































































[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]










[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

























[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Onnamusha, I really appreciate that you, and Nate and Deborah, have taken
the time to respond to my question. I have learned much from your
responses, and have references for further reading. So thank you! In my
limited reading, I get the impression the feudal system in Europe has
parallels in Japanese history. Both had a small population that controlled
most of the wealth and power, with everyone else left pretty much to thier
own devices - as long as there was no boat rocking.

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Onnamusha <goatndogg@...> wrote:

>
>
> I guess the point of my way-too-long post was that, even though one koku is
> technically as you say, in real value, after domainal "borrowing back" and
> pay adjustments, that one koku ends up being significantly less than what it
> should be--enough rice to feed one person for a year. Thus, a stipend of
> such-and-such koku ends up being more a measure of rank but not of real
> income, which varied per retainer household depending on what the domain
> took out of it before the stipend was paid. And the percentage taken
> depended at any given time on overall domainal debt and financial condition.
>
> Cheers,
> Onnamusha
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dennis--

There are parallels, but be careful of oversimplifying the similarities. Most serious scholars consider Japan's system semi-feudal in relation to the European model, and in reality the "feudal" period in Japan ended prior to 1500. Being as I'm in Afghanistan right now I don't have any access to my notes or books, so I can't quote anything for you, but if you're interested in the academic take on things, I highly recommend Japan Before Tokugawa, edited by John Whitney Hall, which covers a lot of the transition both into and out of the feudalistic system. Of course, I already mentioned Government in Japan 500-1700, also by Hall. In addition, it's worth checking out several of the books by both William Wayne Farris and Karl Friday--they tend to see things from different angles, but Hired Swords by Friday is an excellent explanation of how the warrior class came into being.

It doesn't matter what your primary area of interest is (mine happens to be the Sengoku, with some deviation into the Ashikaga bakufu), it's important to understand the economic system and how things evolved to that point. I was never really interested in pre-Nara period until I read Hall's book and saw how that initial formation of taxation and government systems laid the foundation for every thing that came after, including the social institutions and class systems. Now, personally I have no interest in the Edo period, so my research usually stops around 1615, but if that is your cup of tea, it's worth doing at least a little digging into what comes before it so you understand the framework and WHY certain things came into being.




________________________________
From: Dennis Sheridan <ldsheridan@...>
To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, December 28, 2009 8:13:52 AM
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku


Onnamusha, I really appreciate that you, and Nate and Deborah, have taken
the time to respond to my question. I have learned much from your
responses, and have references for further reading. So thank you! In my
limited reading, I get the impression the feudal system in Europe has
parallels in Japanese history. Both had a small population that controlled
most of the wealth and power, with everyone else left pretty much to thier
own devices - as long as there was no boat rocking.

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Onnamusha wrote:

>
>
> I guess the point of my way-too-long post was that, even though one koku is
> technically as you say, in real value, after domainal "borrowing back" and
> pay adjustments, that one koku ends up being significantly less than what it
> should be--enough rice to feed one person for a year. Thus, a stipend of
> such-and-such koku ends up being more a measure of rank but not of real
> income, which varied per retainer household depending on what the domain
> took out of it before the stipend was paid. And the percentage taken
> depended at any given time on overall domainal debt and financial condition.
>
> Cheers,
> Onnamusha
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks much, Nate. I did mean "feudal" in the very broad sense. Much in both
cultures had nothing in common - the complete lack of mobility among
commoners in Europe and, if I understand correctly, freedom of movement in
Japan as just one small example. I really appreciate the reading
references. My problem has been what authors to read and is it in English.
Your recommendations are of enormous help.

On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 9:01 PM, Nate Ledbetter <ltdomer98@...> wrote:

>
>
> Dennis--
>
> There are parallels, but be careful of oversimplifying the similarities.
> Most serious scholars consider Japan's system semi-feudal in relation to the
> European model, and in reality the "feudal" period in Japan ended prior to
> 1500. Being as I'm in Afghanistan right now I don't have any access to my
> notes or books, so I can't quote anything for you, but if you're interested
> in the academic take on things, I highly recommend Japan Before Tokugawa,
> edited by John Whitney Hall, which covers a lot of the transition both into
> and out of the feudalistic system. Of course, I already mentioned Government
> in Japan 500-1700, also by Hall. In addition, it's worth checking out
> several of the books by both William Wayne Farris and Karl Friday--they tend
> to see things from different angles, but Hired Swords by Friday is an
> excellent explanation of how the warrior class came into being.
>
> It doesn't matter what your primary area of interest is (mine happens to be
> the Sengoku, with some deviation into the Ashikaga bakufu), it's important
> to understand the economic system and how things evolved to that point. I
> was never really interested in pre-Nara period until I read Hall's book and
> saw how that initial formation of taxation and government systems laid the
> foundation for every thing that came after, including the social
> institutions and class systems. Now, personally I have no interest in the
> Edo period, so my research usually stops around 1615, but if that is your
> cup of tea, it's worth doing at least a little digging into what comes
> before it so you understand the framework and WHY certain things came into
> being.
>
> ________________________________
> From: Dennis Sheridan <ldsheridan@... >
> To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Mon, December 28, 2009 8:13:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku
> Onnamusha, I really appreciate that you, and Nate and Deborah, have taken
> the time to respond to my question. I have learned much from your
> responses, and have references for further reading. So thank you! In my
> limited reading, I get the impression the feudal system in Europe has
> parallels in Japanese history. Both had a small population that controlled
> most of the wealth and power, with everyone else left pretty much to thier
> own devices - as long as there was no boat rocking.
> ._,_.___
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dennis--glad to be of assistance. Matter of fact, you inspired me to have my wife send the JW Hall book to me here in the hinterlands of the earth.

Careful, though, making assumptions--peasants didn't have freedom of movement in Japan, either. As the producers for the entire nation, it was a major concern of local and national landholders if the peasantry up and left their plots. Hideyoshi's formalization of societal division was as much to keep the farmers on the land as farmers as it was to keep the samurai class in check, if not more. Laws across the country for villages to report "unknown suspicious persons" were as much about identifying absconded peasants as it was for preventing nefarious types shelter.

It's important to distinguish the peasant from the townsperson, the chonin, who was not under any such restriction--as they were viewed as parasites rather than producers, it really wasn't cared if they moved around. Of course, much of what BECAME townspeople, as in Edo, were peasants who left to escape oppresive conditions, but the bottom line is that especially from the time of Hideyoshi on, it was very clearly illegal for peasants to leave their lands.




________________________________
From: Dennis Sheridan <ldsheridan@...>
To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, December 31, 2009 12:29:35 AM
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Koku


Thanks much, Nate. I did mean "feudal" in the very broad sense. Much in both
cultures had nothing in common - the complete lack of mobility among
commoners in Europe and, if I understand correctly, freedom of movement in
Japan as just one small example. I really appreciate the reading
references. My problem has been what authors to read and is it in English.
Your recommendations are of enormous help.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]