Have you ever heard of a Shosha?
“Commercial trading” is the activity of importing things that are needed into Japan, and exporting things that other countries need from Japan. A Shosha is a kind of company that conducts commercial trading as one of their main business activities.
The Shosha become partners with other companies in many different countries, and trade lots of different products all over the world.
They also operate other businesses, like making investments to ensure the supply of important natural resources that are needed in Japan, such as oil, natural gas, coal and iron ore, as well as operating convenience stores and supermarkets, and providing support for medical treatment and nursing care.
Shosha also help other countries develop by building things like power plants, water plants, airports, shipping ports and railroads.
This means that the Shosha are helping not only Japan, but also many other countries to build a more comfortable society.
This kind of Shosha was first started about 150 years ago, during a period in Japan at the end of the reign of the Tokugawa shoguns. There was an organization called Kameyama Shachu started by a famous man named Ryoma Sakamoto that is considered to be the roots of the Shosha.
What was it like at the time that Kameyama Shachu was started? What was Ryoma thinking when he created Kameyama Shachu? What kind of business did they do?
Let’s look closer at the roots of the Shosha, together with Shoma and his little sister Osho.
The year was 1853. Huge, black warships appeared off the coast of Uraga in Kanagawa prefecture. This was the first time that such large steamships had ever been seen in Japan.
The American Commodore Perry was leading a fleet of 4 warships that were the largest and most advanced in the world at that time. His mission was to open Japan to the outside world.
At that time, the shogunate was limiting the contact with the West. The only concession was for the Dutch on the island of Dejima in Nagasaki prefecture. The Japanese people were prohibited from travelling abroad, and were not even allowed to build large ships.
However, the shogunate knew about the Opium Wars between the United Kingdom and the neighboring country of China that had occurred about 10 years earlier. They realized that refusing the demands of the Western powers with such military strength could lead to the occupation of Japan if there was a war. Therefore, in 1854 the Convention of Kanagawa was concluded, and in 1858 the Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed with the United States, ending more than 200 years of isolation of Japan.
In the year that the black ships landed in Japan, as a samurai from the Tosa Domain (now Kochi prefecture), Ryoma Sakamoto had the responsibility for the coastal defense of Edo Bay.
Ryoma was stunned when he saw the intimidating black ships, and asked “How are we supposed to fight a foreign power that has warships like that?”
Ryoma Sakamoto headed to Edo (now called Tokyo). There, he met Kaishu Katsu, an official of the Shogunate who had studied at the Nagasaki Naval Academy, visited the U.S. and was very knowledgeable about naval matters and foreign affairs.
Katsu strongly believed that Japan should establish itself as a unified nation and build a central navy, and that it was necessary to make money through trade with other countries. He was very persuasive, and Ryoma became a protégé of Katsu.
Under Katsu’s direction, Ryoma began collecting money to build the Kobe Naval Training Center and Katsu’s private naval academy in order to create a Japanese navy that could stand up to foreign powers.
He approached people in the highest levels of society, like Shungaku Matsudaira, one of the previous Fukui lords, and was remarkably successful in arranging the funding to establish the facilities.
In September 1863, the Kobe Naval Academy was established, and in February the following year, the Kobe Naval Training Center was built. Ryoma and his colleagues studied naval technology, like navigation, as well as foreign languages and Katsu’s naval concepts.
In the Kinmon Incident, the Choshu Domain wanted to drive out the foreigners, so they fought against the Shogunate. At this, Ryoma thought that if the Japanese fought among themselves and shed blood at a time when Japan was being forced to accept unequal trading conditions with foreign countries, they could never gain an equal relationship with the foreign powers, and decided that “Japan should be cleaned up.”
Ryoma and his associates were disillusioned by the Shogunate, and started something new. They formed the “Kameyama Shachu,” a trading company in the Kameyama area of Nagasaki. It is considered to be the start of the Shosha.
There was a good group at Kameyama Shachu; trusted companions since their days at the naval academy, including Chojiro Kondo, who spoke English and was good at negotiating with foreign traders, and Yonosuke Mutsu who excelled at accounting and trade administration (and later became the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Munemitsu Mutsu.)
Even during Japan’s long period of isolation, Nagasaki had a neighborhood called Dejima that was open to Dutch traders, as well as a good harbor. Many foreign traders gathered there, so it was an ideal location to set up a trading company.
In Nagaskai, Ryoma met an English trader named Thomas Blake Glover.
Glover had moved to Nagasaki as soon as the port was opened, and was a big power in the trade with foreign countries.
Ryoma seems to have been strongly influenced by Glover, and learned about the attitude toward business from him,
The Choshu Domain had suffered devastating damage from a powerful fleet made up of British, French, Dutch and American ships during a battle of the Shimonoseki Straits that occurred in 1864 during the same month as the Conspiracy of Kinmon.
The Satsuma Domain, on the other hand, was having trouble getting enough rice to feed their soldiers.
Ryoma had the idea of acting as an intermediary between the two sides to arrange for both of them to obtain the things they needed.
Through his friend Glover in Nagasaki, 7,500 of the latest European rifles and a steamship that the Choshu Domain needed were purchased in the name of the Satsuma Domain. The Choshu Domain prepared 500 bales (about 30,000 kg) of rice for the Satsuma Domain, with Ryoma acting as the intermediary.
In this way, Ryoma got these rival Domains to cooperate with each other, smoothing the way for the establishment of an alliance between Satsuma and Choshu (Satcho Alliance) to defeat the Shogunate.
After this fight between the Shogunate and Choshu, Ryoma thought there should be no more bloodshed by Japanese people fighting each other.
He continued to look for ways to resolve the conflicts without military force.
In 1867, while traveling to Kyoto on a Tosa Domain ship, Ryoma devised the “Senchu Hassaku,” a proposal for an eight point program of reform in which the Shogunate would return power to the Imperial court, without the use of any force.
One month after the restoration of political authority to the Emperor, Ryoma was attacked by assassins in Kyoto and was killed.
With the death of Ryoma, his Kameyama Shachu also disappeared; but later, various trading companies were born, and have continued to expand their trade with countries all over the world.
Ryoma’s big dreams were adopted by many young people, and their will and determination led to the Meiji Restoration, which transformed Japan. It was a time of great change.
The spirit of Kameyama Shachu is still a part of the modern Shosha, and continues to live in the mission statements and corporate mottos of the Shosha.