Yodoya Saburoemon

Yodoya Saburoemon was a Japanese merchant of Osaka. He was a prominent merchant and financier who worked with daimyo, the powerful territorial lords. Daimyo and the Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi looked at his wealth as rising power to rival theirs and in 1705 Shogun confiscated all of his property.

Part of the property was 730 storehouses of which 10 contained beans, 80 red beans, and the rest contained rice. The value was 730,000 ryo of gold. Property also included 250 large junks, valued at 250,000 ryo of gold; 700 swords valued at 350,000 ryo of gold; numerous houses, farms, gems and art objects. Also the amount of money loaned to the feudal lords amounted to 101,533,300 ryo of gold. Combined with other property the grand total is estimated to 121,867,610 ryo of gold. Although this amount is debated, especially the money owned by feudal lords that might be 10,000,000 ryo of gold, it is tremendous amount nevertheless.