ABSTRACT
WHAT IS A FUDASASHI ?-When Tokugawa Iyeyasu established a complete military feudal system, the cleverer of the merchants, who had been oppressed by the samurai class for hundreds of years, established what may be called an economic feudal system within the wall of the military feudal system, and were as much lords of it as the Daimyo in his sphere. The most luxurious of these economic lords were the Fudasashi of Edo, whose business it was to take charge of the rice that was paid to the Hatamoto by the Shogunate, and dispose of it on commission, or lend money to the Hatamoto on the security of this rice. They were thus the monetary organs for the Hatamoto samurai in Edo, as the kake-ya were the monetary organs in Osaka for the feudal lords. To realize the position of the Fudasashi in the economic history of Japan one has to examine the official systems of the Tokugawa Shogunate, with which the Fudasashi had close connections.
