The 38th episode of the NHK Taiga drama " UNBOUND (Berabou) " (General TV, Sundays at 8 PM and other stations), starring actor Ryusei Yokohama , aired on October 5th. The episode depicts Matsudaira Sadanobu (played by Yuki Inoue), the head of the Shogunate Council of Elders, planning the construction of a labor camp as a trump card for restoring order to Edo. He orders Hasegawa Heizo (played by Nakamura Hayato), an officer in the Arson and Theft Control Department, to become the head of the labor camp, promising him a promotion.
At that time, Edo was flooded with a large number of "homeless people" from the provinces. Homeless people were people who had been removed from the family register. They were removed if they were banished for bad behavior. After the Tenmei famine, many people fled from devastated farming villages. As the commodity economy spread to rural areas and the gap between rich and poor widened, more and more people decided they couldn't afford to do honest farm work and headed for urban areas. These people also became homeless and lived in Edo. Mitamura Engyo (1870-1952), a historian considered the founder of Edo studies, pointed out that Edo at the time "looked like a garbage dump."
However, even if they came to Edo without any relatives, they could not find decent work and had no choice but to become impoverished or survive in the underworld. The Edo period case collection "Oshioki Reiruishu" contains many cases in which the Arashitsuki Tozoku Aramekata arrested and tried, but the overwhelming majority of thefts and robberies were homeless.
The purpose of the labor camp was to provide vocational training and moral education to homeless people who were seen as potential thieves, and to help them reintegrate into society. Heizo, who also served as the Arson and Theft Prevention Bureau and as the labor camp manager (director), began operations in 1790, just three months after construction began. When it first opened, it housed 132 homeless people.
◇The branded product "Shimagami" is a big hit. Heizo, the "entrepreneur" who realized increased profits
Heizo displayed exceptional talent in the construction and operation of the labor camp. The construction site was Ishikawajima (present-day Chuo Ward, Tokyo) at the mouth of the Sumida River. When work was being done to expand the island, cornerstones were needed to prevent subsidence. Heizo consulted with the Magistrate of Temples and Shrines, and had gravestones of abandoned dead bodies collected from Edo to use as cornerstones. The accommodation and work facilities were quickly constructed using modern "prefabricated construction" methods, in which vacant samurai residences were acquired, dismantled, transported to Ishikawajima, and reassembled.
At the labor camp, they received vocational training in various trades and sold the products they made. They were paid wages based on the sales revenue minus expenses, but were forced to save part of it, which was given to them as immediate living expenses when they were released after about three years.
Wanting to increase the wages of the prisoners, Heizo came up with a plan. He received a large amount of unnecessary documents from the shogunate government offices, refining them, and selling them as recycled paper. Because there was a high demand for paper, the cheap recycled paper became a huge hit under the brand name "Shimagami."
Heizo also planned to manufacture and sell rapeseed oil. Rapeseed oil was suitable for use in lanterns, but it was expensive. Common people often used cheap sardine oil, but its smell was a drawback. Heizo planned that if he could make rapeseed oil cheaper than the market price, it would become a hit like "shimagami" paper, but this required building a new facility, and it was not realized until after Heizo retired from his position as manager of the labor camp. By the end of the Edo period, rapeseed oil had become the labor camp's main product, producing 100,000 barrels a year.
◇Heizo, the “investor” who earned money from the money market to fund the operation of the labor camp
The labor camp's operating budget for the first year was 500 ryo of gold and 5,000 bales of rice (a total of approximately 250 million yen in today's value), but from the second year onwards, the budget was cut by 40% despite the increase in the number of inmates. As the Arson and Theft Control Bureau was a position that incurred a lot of expenses such as investigation costs, Heizo did not have the leeway to address the labor camp's budget shortfall. So Heizo decided to use some financial investment to raise funds.
At the time, cash consisted mainly of koban (ryou) used by merchants for settlement, and mon (mon), coins used daily by commoners. Initially, the official exchange rate was 1 ryo = 4,000 mon. However, as prices of everyday items and other commodities rose, the actual value of 1 ryo exceeded 6,000 mon, creating a "ryo high, coin low" situation. Heizo borrowed 3,000 ryo of official government funds from the shogunate and exchanged the entire amount for coins at a money changer, temporarily resulting in a high coin value.
He then gathered Edo merchants together with his close friend, the northern magistrate Hatsukano Nobuoki, and requested that the prices of various commodities be lowered, as the value of the coin had skyrocketed. This made it seem as though the shogunate was intervening in the market to lower prices and drive up the value of the coin. The value of the coin continued to rise, and when it reached around 5,300 mon per ryo, Heizo exchanged all of his 3,000 ryo worth of coins for ryo. He returned the 3,000 ryo to the shogunate, and is said to have used the approximately 500 ryo he made from the difference in value to cover the operating costs of the yokoba.
◇The background to his longest tenure as an Arson and Theft Control Officer
When the secret agent reported Heizo's financial strategies to Sadanobu, he was astonished. In his autobiography, "Uge Jingoto," Sadanobu wrote, "The public hates Hasegawa for his utilitarianism, buying up coins under the pretense of lowering prices. Coins have become more expensive, but prices have not fallen."
Meanwhile, the labor camp was running smoothly. "The number of homeless people decreased, and public order in Edo improved. This was due to Hasegawa's achievements, but he was also called a speculator because he was greedy for profit. However, without a man like him, the labor camp would not have been able to open. This was the unanimous opinion of the shogunate" (Uge Jingoto).
The term "speculator" was once used as a synonym for those who saw profit in Tanuma Okitsugu's industrial promotion policies. Sadanobu hated people who were suffering from "Tanuma disease," who pursued short-term profits, and condemned Heizō as being of the same kind, but he had to acknowledge his ability to get the labor camp on track.
Heizo also performed remarkably well as an Arson and Robbery Control Officer. One year before the opening of the Laborers' Home, he captured Shinto Tokujiro, the leader of a widespread gang of robbers who had about 600 subordinates and was wreaking havoc throughout the Kanto region, and was commended by the shogunate for his swift arrest. This greatly increased Heizo's fame. He also uncovered one ruffian after another that the magistrate's office had been unable to deal with, and the common people praised Heizo, saying that he was "more reliable than the magistrate."
Sadanobu's assessment of Heizo, that he was "competent but not a good person," was shared by the shogunate's high-ranking officials even after Sadanobu's downfall in 1793. Heizo retired from his position as a laborer's quarters officer in 1792, but continued to work as an arson and thief investigation officer, dying of illness in 1795 after serving the longest tenure of any shogun in history, some eight years in that position.
The background to this seems to be that the upper echelons of the shogunate were thinking, "They don't want Heizo to be promoted, but he has an impressive track record of apprehending thieves. The common people also admire Heizo, so they can't dismiss him from his position as Arson and Theft Investigation Officer." They want Heizo to continue in his position.
The labor camp that Heizo poured his heart and soul into later housed not only homeless people but also criminals. Since the Meiji period, it has undergone several name changes and relocations, and is now Fuchu Prison (Fuchu City, Tokyo). (Text by Komatsu Kenichi)
