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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 — based in Nagasaki, the only sea port authorized to conduct trade between Japan and the outside world. Under his strong leadership and savvy business practices, the clan’s business operations were eventually moved to Osaka it became more involved in international trade and shipping, a move that made 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 a 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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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 became the central access for commerce, replacing Nagasaki as Japan’s only officially designated open port facility. 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, conducting business primarily as a shipping and trading company, Yataro Iwasaki skillful moved Mitsubishi Shokai 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 skillfully business visionary further moved Mitsubishi into other businesses that included ship repair, warehousing and exchange, 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 Shipbuilding Yard and later purchased the facility from the Japanese government, heralding in an era of growth that made Mitsubishi one of the world’s leading shipbuilding companies. |
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