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Updated: May 11, 2025

As an example of the luxury of the age, it may be mentioned that when the fifth shogun visited the Kaga baron, the latter had to find a sum of a million ryo to cover the expenses incidental to receiving such a guest.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

It is said that the total of the coins thus bestowed amounted to 365,000 ryo, a vast sum in that era. A history of the time observes that the chief recipients of Hideyoshi's generosity were the members of his own family, and that he would have shown better taste had he made these donations privately.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

On the occasion of these progresses, Hidetada is said to have distributed a total of 4.217,400 ryo of gold and 182,000 ryo of silver among the barons throughout the empire. The third shogun, Iemitsu, was open handed.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

It is stated that the expenditures involved in producing this history, together with a five-hundred-volume work on the ceremonies of the Imperial Court, amounted to one-third of the Mito revenues, a sum of about 700,000 ryo.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

His mother received 3000 ryo of gold and 10,000 ryo of silver; his brother, Hidenaga, 3000 ryo of gold and 20,000 of silver; and his nephew, Hidetsugu, 3000 of gold and 10,000 of silver. To Nobukatsu, to Ieyasu, to Mori Terumoto, to Uesugi Kagekatsu, and to Maeda Toshiiye, great sums were given, varying from 3000 ryo of gold and 10,000 of silver to 1000 of gold and 10,000 of silver.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Thus, upon a guild of sake-brewers a tax of a thousand gold ryo was imposed, and a guild of wholesale dealers in cotton had to pay five hundred ryo. There was a house-tax which was assessed by measuring the area of the land on which a building stood, and there was a tax on expert labour such as that of carpenters and matmakers.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Twenty years passed before the ceremony could be performed, and means were ultimately furnished by the Buddhist priest Koken son of the celebrated Rennyo Shonin, prelate of the Shin sect who, out of the abundant gifts of his disciples, placed at the disposal of the Court a sum of ten thousand gold ryo,* being moved to that munificence by the urging of Fujiwara Sanetaka, a former nai-daijin.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Thus, whereas the gold coins struck during ten years of the Kyoho era totalled only 8,290,000 ryo, a census taken in 1732 showed a total population of 26,921,816. Therefore, the old coins could not be wholly withdrawn from circulation, and people developed a tendency to hoard the new and more valuable tokens. Other untoward effects also were produced.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

We find him making frequent donations of 5000 kwamme of silver to the citizens of Kyoto and Yedo; constructing the inner castle at Yedo twice; building a huge warship; entertaining the Korean ambassadors with much pomp; disbursing 400,000 ryo on account of the Shimabara insurrection, and devoting a million ryo to the construction and embellishment of the mausolea at Nikko.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era