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When we look back on
history, there have always been new businesses arising during times of political
and social change. The final days of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration
that followed in 1868 was one such period, and it was Yataro Iwasaki who had
the knowledge and the vision to see a new era coming, and with it the need for
strong and organized international commerce.
Yataro Iwasaki was born in 1835 and as a young man worked for the Tosa Clan,
a powerful merchant clan of the time. Exporters of specialty goods such as camphor
and dried bonito flakes and importers of warships and weapons, the clan initially
conducted its business operations in Nagasaki, the only sea port authorized to
conduct trade between Japan and the outside world. Thanks to Yataro’s strong
leadership and business savvy, the clan’s business operations were eventually
moved to Osaka. The clan then became more involved in international trade and
shipping, making it immensely wealthy. In an effort to win over growing competition
at the time, Tsukumo Shokai, one of Japan’s first trading companies and
Mitsubishi’s predecessor, was established in 1870. In 1873, the new government
abolished clan rule and in the turbulent period of change that followed, Yataro
Iwasaki took over the management and formed Mitsubishi Shokai, making him one
of the most successful and powerful businessmen in the new Japan. |
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| Very early in his life, Yataro Iwasaki
understood the importance of a good education. Studying under a noted scholar
of the time, Neiho Okamoto, the boy received an education only the very privileged
of his day could have access to, all the more remarkable because of his roots
in a small village in Tosa, Japan. Moving to Tokyo under the tutelage of another
prominent scholar of the time, Zosai Okunomiya, of the famed Wang Yang-Mining
School, Yataro Iwasaki was destined for greatness. |
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In 1867, Yataro Iwasaki
was appointed manager of the trading operations of the Tosa Clan’s business
interests in Nagasaki. As Japan continued to open to western trade, ports in
Osaka, Kobe and Yokohama emerged as centers of commerce, replacing Nagasaki,
which had long been Japan’s only officially designated open port. In 1869,
Iwasaki was assigned to Osaka and became manager of the clan’s Osaka operations.
In 1870, Tsukumo Shokai was established with three steamships chartered from
the Tosa Clan, and three years later changed its name to Mitsubishi Shokai. The
following year its headquarters were moved to Tokyo and the company was renamed
Mitsubishi Jokisen Kaisha.
Under an exclusive contract from the government, Mitsubishi provided the ships
that carried Japanese troops to Taiwan in 1874, and later to Satsuma when the
Southwestern Rebellion broke out in 1877. This business earned Yataro Iwasaki
the trust of Japan’s government and the financial rewards of this business
relationship solidified the financial base for the company for the future. During
this period, Mitsubishi owned 61 ships, or 73% of the gross tonnage of Japan’s
steamship fleet. |
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Established in 1873,
Mitsubishi Shokai originally conducted business primarily as a shipping and trading
company, but Yataro Iwasaki skillfully moved the company in the direction of
diversification, and into mining early in its history. With the purchased of
the Yoshioka Copper Mine, in Okayama, the company introduced new technology that
resulted in the discovery of previously hidden rich veins of copper, transforming
the mine’s dwindling production to one of Japan’s highest producing
copper mines.
This remarkably skillful business visionary
further moved Mitsubishi into other businesses that included ship repair, warehousing
and exchange services, offering documentary financing. In 1881, the company purchased
a highly unprofitable coal mine owned by Shojiro Goto, in Nagasaki, and with
the introduction of new mining technology developed by Mitsubishi, the business
became highly profitable. In 1884, Mitsubishi leased the Nagasaki Shipyard and
later purchased the facility from the Japanese government, heralding an era of
growth that made Mitsubishi one of the world’s leading shipbuilding companies. |
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