The blue sea and the sky, people will always find themselves small under the magnificence of nature, and everyone is difficult to suppress happiness when they go to sea for the first time. However, the space utilization rate of the return ship is very high, and there is not much living space left for the crew, and the bow of the ship is also advised not to walk at will when the sea is stormy.

The purpose of the study tour was to broaden one's horizons, and the ship was not allowed to move around at will, so from the first day, Naohide took the opportunity to introduce the two students to the origin of the ship and the human history of each country on the route (the country of Fuso is a concept of geographical scope, and the local administrative division established under the Ritsuryo system in the Nara period (710-794) was redivided into prefectures after the Meiji era).

A return ship is a vessel that transports passengers and goods to and from the coastal route. Hiragaki and Tarufune are cargo ships that regularly travel between Edo and Osaka with more than 100 stones, and belong to the Edo 10 Tsumiya and Osaka 24 Kumiya, and are dedicated to transporting goods related to the two places and the goods of the shogunate and feudal domains, and are protected by the government.

In the 5th year of Motowa (1619), the Sakai merchant Kii Tomitaura chartered a ship to carry cotton, wine, and oil to Edo, and was the first to sail back to Edo. During the Kanei period (1624-1643), Osaka merchant Izumiya Heiemon established the "Sekifune Homonya" (shipping wholesale store), and the Hinogaki Ship Organization was formally formed. During the period of 1661-1672, Osaka merchant Moma established the Bottle Boat Organization, which received the support of liquor merchants from all over the world, and mainly sold soy sauce and paper. The bottle means sake barrel, hence the name of the bottled boat.

In order to solve the conflict in freight transportation, in the first year of Ernaga (1772), the Edo 10 Group and the Osaka Group 24 Group agreed that in addition to the special transportation of liquor as a "bottle ship", seven kinds of goods such as rice would be transported by both parties.

The initial cargo capacity of the return ship was 200 to 400 stones, and it has reached 1,000 stones so far. Common goods are rice, cotton, oil, wine, soy sauce, coating, paper, etc.

The type of Hinogaki ship that I am riding on now is a Bensai ship, and some people in later generations have translated it as a Bencai ship, but it is actually the same thing. After the Buddhist dialectical goddess was introduced to Fuso, it became one of the seven gods of Fuso's folk beliefs. The name of the ship means to pray for blessings and wealth.

Many Hiragaki ships are equipped with diamond-shaped fences on their ships, hence the name Ryogaki Ship.

From the early to mid-Edo period, there were many types of ships, such as Ise ships and Hokkoku ships, among which the Hokuni ships can be said to be representative of the large ships of the time. However, by the middle of the Edo period, however, these large ships gradually disappeared, and the ships spread throughout Fuso.

Toranosuke and Gakujiro had never left Edo, and at this time they listened with relish, and from time to time they raised various questions about the differences between ancient and modern ships, and Naohide was able to answer them one by one, and finally alarmed the bow Yasuke. At this time, in addition to practicing martial arts and learning Confucian culture, the samurai were either addicted to drinking, gambling, tea art or studying Buddhism and Shinto, and paid little attention to agriculture, handicrafts and shipbuilding, because if the family was not down, then the position of the samurai was hereditary, and the class was fixed all his life, so why learn these "boring" things.

Although Yasuke is very polite to Naohide and the others, and usually laughs at Mimi, but the bow of the ship, as the captain, is both a businessman but more inclined to the technical and management side. From the bottom of his heart, he didn't welcome the three of Naohide, because the living space of the Buncai ship was very small in order to load more cargo, and the crew of nine to twelve people was already crowded, and life at sea was inconvenient, just because the samurai of the Uraga Enclosure and the owner of the ship greeted him, and Yasuke, as a subordinate, could not refuse. But after listening to Naohide's explanation, Yasuke felt that although this samurai's status may not be high (a high-ranking samurai would not agree to rest in the same cabin as Naohide did), his tone was kind and polite, and now it seems that his knowledge is extraordinary.

Although there is a difference in the identity of the bow and the lower-level samurai, he is not so particular when he goes out, and Naohide seems to be a good talker.

Yasuke deliberately made friends, and Naohide also gave a positive response, and also took out the food seasonings he carried to improve his life, so during the seven-day voyage, everyone could not be called happy but also a pleasant journey.

Before disembarking, Naohide offered the fare of ten small judgments, and gave Yasuke a small judgment of thanks, and after noting down Yasuke's address in Osaka, the two sides politely bowed goodbye.

Osaka, the name was not Osaka at this time, according to folk rumors, the Meiji government looked at the character "Shiren" in the future - samurai rebellion, because of bad luck changed "saka" to "saka".

During the Edo period, Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka were called the three largest cities in the country. Edo was the seat of the shogun, the political center of the country, and one of the largest cities in the world at that time, with a population of one million; Kyoto, formerly known as Heiankyo, was the residence of Emperor Fuso, a religious and cultural center, and a well-developed textile industry and other handicraft industries, with a population of about 400,000. Osaka, formerly known as Namba, was the largest industrial and commercial city and financial center at that time, with a population of about 300,000.

"When the merchants of Osaka were angry, all the princes of the world were shocked", Osaka played a pivotal role in the economic map of Fuso at this time. Why did Osaka occupy such an important position at this time?

This is because Osaka was the most important logistics, financial, and industrial and commercial center in Fuso at this time.

Later generations have data showing that during the Shotoku period (1711-1715), there were 5,655 wholesalers of various types. There were 8,765 buying and selling agents, 2,343 merchants, 9,983 craftsmen, 481 contractors and 483 feudal contractors. It can be seen that the core power of the people of Osaka is the typical commercial usury capital such as wholesalers, buying and selling intermediaries, and the financial industry, and they extract profits from the circulation of goods throughout the country, and they are the merchants who are most like merchants, hence the name "merchants of the world".

Rice, for example, was the main food crop in Fuso at the time, and Osaka was the nation's trading and logistics center at that time.

According to a data from Naohide Hara World, rice fields accounted for more than 55.5% of the cultivated area during the Edo period. The samurai, merchants, townspeople, and landlords of Fuso, as well as the landed people (rich peasants and middle peasants), ate rice as their staple food, and the "water swallow" and "komae" (landless poor peasants) ate less rice, and ate wheat, chestnut rice, weeds, and vegetable leaves.

In addition, most of the samurai's skuroku were distributed in the form of rice. The salaries of the majority of middle- and lower-ranking samurai, which supported the state system of the shogunate, were converted and paid by rice, and according to the status of the samurai, they were "Kura Rice Tori", "Cash Rice Tori", and "Support Tori". In order to obtain currency for daily necessities and consumption, middle- and lower-ranking samurai had to find "zacha" merchants to exchange rice for gold, silver, or copper coins.

The peasants' land rent, Tianling and most of the land, was based on rice as a tax in kind and a small amount of cash, and sometimes the peasants had to exchange other crops for rice to pay the rent.

Later, people even called the economy of the Edo period the "rice-standard economy".

Due to the navigation conditions at that time, and Osaka's role as an important logistics center, the materials transported to Edo from Fuso in the northwest and even from Hokkaido had to pass through Osaka and then be transferred to Edo, so the cargo throughput of Osaka, especially the transportation of rice, was extremely large, and according to some later Fuso scholars, it reached 3 million koku during peak hours, accounting for about 10% of the country's rice production at that time.

In addition, in order to control the nationwide rice market, the Edo shogunate established the official "Dojima" rice market in Osaka. In the fifteenth year of Xiangbao (1730), the Dojima Rice Club was established, and there were "Rice Merchants" and "Rice Merchants". Among them, the "Zhengmi Shangnei" is responsible for the issuance of rice coupons, and the "Account Rice Merchant" is engaged in securities trading activities equivalent to futures trading. Every year, more than one million koku of rice from Kinai, Kyushu, Shikoku, and even Tohoku is concentrated in the "Kurayashiki" (warehouse), and the "rice coupons" (rice coupons) purchased by rice merchants are exchanged for rice and sold at the Dojima Rice Market. As a nationwide rice market controlled by the shogunate, the price of rice in Dojima has a huge impact on the price of rice in the whole country, and even the price of rice in the whole country.

In addition to being the most important logistics center at the time, Osaka was also the most prosperous commercial city.

At that time, there were a large number of privileged merchants, and the shogunate and various feudal states granted merchants various monopoly privileges for the convenience of management and various benefits, and "monya" (wholesale merchants) appeared. They played a major role in the nationwide circulation of goods, and through intermediary merchants, they single-handedly handled the purchase, transportation, storage, and sale of goods. Different houses formed various monopoly guilds "Zhu Zhongma". During the Tenmei period (1781-1788), more than 130 industries were developed in Osaka alone, and the famous Osaka 24 Group Question House was one of the best.

The Edo Shogunate was the largest economy, and each feudal kingdom had to trade with the privileged merchants of the Shogunate in order to achieve nationwide commodity circulation, so it gradually formed a logistics center and commercial city with commercial cities such as Osaka, Edo, Kyoto, and Nagasaki.

During the shogunate period, the currency was gold, silver, and copper, collectively known as the "three goods". In the Gyeonggi region, centered on Osaka, silver coins are widely used as a value scale, which is called "silver send"; In the area centered on Edo, gold coins were used as a value scale, which was called "golden send". The exchange ratio between the three goods is roughly 1 tael of gold is equal to 50 taels of silver and 50 taels of copper coins (匁 is another name for weight unit money), but it is often affected by various aspects and fluctuates, especially the metal content and casting quality of various gold coins, silver coins and copper coins are different, which greatly affects the smooth progress of commercial transactions. In large cities such as Osaka and Edo, wealthy merchants were mainly involved in the exchange of goods, and in addition to the exchange of goods, they also accepted public funds, loans, bills, and so on.

The nationwide credit system consisted of the "ryoshiki" merchants, which were aimed at ordinary merchants, and the "Kurayashiki", "Kakeya", and "Sazasha" which were aimed at the lords of the shogunate. In addition to credit, most of them are also engaged in commercial and loan sharking. The shogunate used the two merchants to engage in financial activities to make profits and make up for their finances.

Led by transportation, commerce, finance, and copper refining, the various products of the feudal domains continued to pour into the Kurayashiki of Osaka, which was then redistributed and shipped to the vast markets throughout the country. At that time, people believed that Osaka, which was full of goods, was like the kitchen of Fuso, so they called the city "the kitchen of the world".