Revisiting the legacy of Mitsui Takatoshi (1) — Introduction

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Revisiting the legacy of Mitsui Takatoshi
Part 1
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Revisiting the legacy of Mitsui Takatoshi (1) — Introduction

Over two hundred years before the advent of Japanese capitalism, Mitsui Takatoshi (b. 1622) transformed the business practices and economy of the city of Edo and came to be revered as "the great-merchant ideal." The business that he founded survives to the present day as the Mitsui Group.He came into his prime just as the last traces of the sixteenth-century wars were receding. The culture of Edo’s townspeople was entering its heyday. Takatoshi read the current of the times and　his new venture, called Echigoya, captured people’s hearts with excitingly novel business practices. Takatoshi was already 52 years old when he opened Echigoya, but in the remaining twenty-odd years of his life, he revolutionized the social world of Edo. The following pages explore his remarkable life and the later developments of the Mitsui family and the Mitsui Group. Join us in exploring what we can learn today from Takatoshi’s enterprising spirit.

References: Mitsui Bunko, ed., A History of Mitsui in Documents: From Echigoya to the Mitsui Zaibatsu (Mitsui Bunko, publ.). Kagawa Takayuki (Mitsui Bunko), ed., The Matsusaka Merchant: Wisdom is Wealth (Matsusaka Seinen Kaigisho, publ.)

Revisiting the legacy of Mitsui Takatoshi (1) — Introduction
Surugacho Echigoya shogatsu fukei zu[Surugacho Echigoya at the New Year] (artist unknown). Mitsui Bunko collection.
Revisiting the legacy of Mitsui Takatoshi (1) — Introduction
Takatoshi and his wife, Kane, were the founding generation of the Mitsui family. These portraits date to 1731 after Takatoshi's death. Note the gentleness of his expression. The portrait is said to have been created as an image of "the merchant ideal." (Mitsui Bunko collection)

The story of Mitsui Takatoshi as told in documents

The Mitsui Bunko (Archive) is dedicated to preserving and researching a vast collection of historical materials related to Mitsui businesses.
We asked Senior Researcher Shimomukai Norihiko to tell us about the innovative Takatoshi as revealed in the historical record.

So rich an historical archive of a business is a rarity anywhere in the world

Mitsui has for centuries stressed preserving business records to help the business survive and thrive through good times and bad. The Mitsui Family Records Office was established in 1903, 230 years after Echigoya’s founding, to assemble the business’s vast historical archive and compile a Mitsui history. Today, Mitsui Bunko preserves and researches the collection, which totals over 100,000 items, including documents from Echigoya’s dry-goods and financial businesses and from post-1800s Mitsui-affiliates. The records reveal how these businesses survived and prospered through 400 years of change. So detailed a business archive, extending from early modern times to the present, is a true rarity anywhere in the world.

Make business your life's delight The foundations of the Mitsui business

Mitsui Takatoshi is regarded as the founder of the Mitsui house. His ancestry lay in the samurai class, but his father and mother established a pawnbroker's business and a sake and miso shop in the town of Matsusaka in Mie Prefecture. Takatoshi was just 12 when his father died. His mother, Shuho, became sole manager of the businesses and a very successful one, as documents in the archive attest. Takatoshi's later success may have been thanks to her tutelage.

We know about Takatoshi's views and management practices only from documents left by his sons. He is quoted in his third son's Record of Business, for example, as instructing: "Do not get drawn into artistic amusements; instead, regard business as your life's delight." After opening Echigoya at age 52, Takatoshi left the Edo and Kyoto shops in his sons' care while he himself traveled between Matsusaka and Kyoto, gathering valuable information and issuing detailed instructions to his sons. The new business practices he introduced, such as "cash sales at fixed prices" (see page 16), were so groundbreaking that they overturned the prevailing customs of the Edo merchant world. His talented sons supported his innovations and later banded together to carry on his legacy and further grow the Mitsui business.

In his later years, Takatoshi moved from Matsusaka to Kyoto. The graves of Takatoshi, his wife, and generations of their successors are located at Shin'nyodo Temple in Kyoto's Sakyo Ward, along with a memorial tower engraved with the posthumous names of 2,321 Echigoya employees

In his later years, Takatoshi moved from Matsusaka to Kyoto. The graves of Takatoshi, his wife, and generations of their successors are located at Shin'nyodo Temple in Kyoto's Sakyo Ward, along with a memorial tower engraved with the posthumous names of 2,321 Echigoya employees.

Mitsui Bunko Senior Researcher Shimomukai Norihiko. Born 1983 in Hiroshima Prefecture. Researches the economic history of distribution in early modern Japan

Mitsui Bunko Senior Researcher Shimomukai Norihiko.
Born 1983 in Hiroshima Prefecture. Researches the economic history of distribution in early modern Japan, with a focus on Echigoya’s purchasing, sales, and advertising, and the urban/provincial distribution operations revealed by Echigoya’s purchasing activities.

*Information as of the interview date.

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