Kinokuniya Bunzaemon

Kinokuniya Bunzaemon, also known as Senzan, was a Japanese lumber merchant of the Edo period who was known for his great wealth and lavish lifestyle.

He was born in Kii province, now Wakayama Prefecture, and inherited his father's successful timber business in the Hatchobori district of Edo. He also traded in citrus fruits and salted salmon. He enjoyed the favoritism and protection of shogunal advisor Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and shogunal minister of finances Ogura Shigehide, and made a sizeable fortune as a result.

Reputedly he made his initial fortune shipping mandarin oranges eastward to Edo and fresh fish westward to Osaka and Kyoto. Subsequently he moved to Edo and set up a lumberyard. When a conflagration erupted one night and spread through the city, he reportedly sailed west even before the fire had died down to purchase huge quantities of Kiso lumber. When the wood reached Edo, he sold it at vast profit, using his wealth to live a wild life in the Yoshiwara entertainment district. Kinokuniya clearly was a major provider of lumber to the Tokugawa in the years around 1700, but his reputation for high living has surely grown in the retelling. He supplied lumber to large construction projects such as the Kan'eiji Temple in the Ueno district.

He was apparently an exceedingly colorful character. He was known as a generous host and entertainer for officials of the shogunate, as well as a frequent patron of the theater and brothel quarters. At one point, he was able to ransom Miuraya-no-Kicho, the most famous courtesan of the time.

But he spent money almost as fast as it came in. After an unlucky investment in coin minting in 1709, his fortune declined. He lived out the rest of his life as a pauper.