Nakaiya Jube

Nakaiya Juubee was born in 1820 in Nakai village, Agatsuma, Kamitsuke Provice (now Tsumagoi village in Agatsuma, Gunma prefecture). "Nakaiya" was actually a yagou, a sort of guild-name, and his real name was Kuroiwa Sennosuke. It can assumed that he was from a samurai family.

In 1840, at the age of 20, he moved to Edo where he immersed himself into studying under the bookstore-keeper Izumiya Zenbei, and learned many things including Confucian studies, medicine, Western studies, general science, and firearms. He also had the Western scholar Kawagi Yukio and Philipp von Siebold (the first man to teach Western medicine in Japan) as his mentors. Nakaiya succeeded in actually making a gunpowder that was on par with, if not better, than foreign versions.

He finally set up a shop in 1854 at Nihonbashi, and in 1855 at the age of 35, published the book "Kodomo Kyousou" Teachings for Children, in which he wrote the line "One gains nothing with intentions of profit, only with intentions of honour", an expression of his own philosophy in life.

At the same time he published "Shuuyou Houyaku Shinsho" An Essential New Collection of Firearms and Gunpowder, a book that had all the secrets of the business written inside. The times were heading towards unrest and conflict and as such Nakaiya would be approached by samurai looking to learn something about firearms.

After the port of Yokohama was opened as a result of the Harris treaty in 1858, Nakaiya arrived from Edo, at the invitation/suggestion of Shogunate officials who were looking towards the development and enrichment of Japan through foreign trade. There he famously set up a shop so large and extravagant it was known as the Bronze Palace (Akagane Goten).

He was a pioneer in the trade of raw silk at a time when the material was in demand in European countries, and in fact had a sort of monopoly on it. It is recorded that out of the 35000 kin (about 21000 kg) of raw silk exported between July to October 1859, Nakaiya sold about half of it. Since trading of this sort was quite impossible prior to Perry's arrival in 1853 due to isolationist policies, one could say that he placed the foundations for all future trade in silk from Japan.

Incidentally he dealt in Joshuu raw silk, which came from the area around his hometown (Joshuu was another name for Kouzuke, the province where Nakaiya was born.) As an important businessman who was at the same time a learned scholar, he was sometimes respectfully called "The Head Priest Of 'Hama"(Hama no Monseki-sama).

In 1861 Nakaiya mysteriously disappeared and never returned again. Perhaps his disappearance had something to do with him being the supporter of anti-Tokugawa-Shogunate group.