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Updated: May 11, 2025
Nevertheless, on the whole Iemitsu must be regarded as an economical ruler. As for his successor, Ietsuna, he had to deal with several calamitous occurrences. After the great fire in Yedo, he contributed 160,000 ryo for the relief of the sufferers; he rebuilt Yedo Castle, and he reconstructed the Imperial palace of Kyoto twice.
Then Kane-uji called for inkstone and writing-brush, and wrote a love-letter, and tied it up with such a knot as love-letters are tied with. And he gave it to the merchant to be delivered to the lady; and he gave him also, in reward for his services, one hundred golden ryo. Sayemon again and again prostrated himself in thanks; and he put the letter into the box which he always carried with him.
Then was the woman much pleased. And receiving the nails in her left hand, she paid the money to the smith with her right, and bade him farewell, and went upon her way. When she was gone, then the smith thought: "Surely I have in gold koban the sum of a thousand ryo. But this life of ours is only like the resting-place of a traveler journeying, and I must show to others some pity and kindness.
It were better that you should ask elsewhere." "Nay," said she, "since I came first to you, I do not want to go elsewhere. Make them for me, I pray, sir smith." He answered: "Of a truth, if I make such nails, I must be paid a thousand ryo ." She replied to him: "If you make them all for me, I care nothing whether you desire one thousand or two thousand ryo. Make them, I beseech you, sir smith."
Everything possible was done to prevent any cases from being taken into court, which could be settled or compromised by communal arbitration; and the people were taught to consider the court only as the last possible resort. Ko, daughter of Chohachi, you are obedient to your parents: in consideration of this, the sum of five silver ryo is awarded to you."
It is recorded that when the famine was at its height, rice could not be obtained in some parts of the country for less than forty ryo a koku. Sanguinary riots took place in Yedo, Kyoto, Osaka, and elsewhere. The stores of rice-merchants and the residences of wealthy folks were plundered and, in many cases, destroyed.
The assistance of even Korea, Ryukyu, and Holland was requisitioned, and the Bakufu treasury presented 700,000 ryo of gold. The shrine was finished in 1636 on a scale of grandeur and artistic beauty almost unsurpassed in any other country.
The manner of paying taxes varied accordingly to localities. Thus, in the Kwanto, payment was generally made in rice for wet fields and in money for uplands, at the rate of one gold ryo per two and a half koku of rice. Statistics compiled in 1836 show that the revenue annually collected from the Tokugawa estates in rice and money amounted to 807,068 koku and 93,961 gold ryo respectively.
Tradition says that he abused the trust placed in him by his employer, and absconded with the sum of six ryo wherewith he had been commissioned to purchase a new kind of armour which had recently come into vogue in Owari province.
It is recorded that a peasant was exiled for throwing a stone at a pigeon, and that one man was put to death for catching fish with hook and line, while another met the same fate for injuring a dog, the head of the criminal being exposed on the public execution ground and a neighbour who had reported the offence being rewarded with thirty ryo.
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