Sotan Kamiya was a wealthy merchant and tea master of the early Edo period.
Background
Sotan Kamiya was born in 1553. His family for generations had been residents of Hakata in Kyushu. His grandfather Kamiya Jutei studied processes of metal refining in Ming China and opened up the Omori silver mines in Iwami Province, acquiring great wealth as a result. In 1569 the city of Hakata was reduced to ashes by the contending armies of the Otomo and Mori families, but Sotan managed to escape harm by fleeing to Karatsu in Hizen. Thereafter he traveled to various ports of Korea and China, conducting trade, accumulating wealth, and gaining a through knowledge of the situation abroad.
Career
In 1586 he entered the priesthood at the Zen temple of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. He became an expert in the tea ceremony, associating with such other tea masters as Sen no Kikyfi and Tsuda Sokyu and from time to time being invited by Toyotomi Hideyoshi to the latter’s famous tea parties, where he mingled with the great lords of the nation. At the time of Hideyoshi’s campaigns against Korea (1592 and 1597), he helped in the construction of the military installations at the port of departure for the troops at Nagoya in Kyushu and thereafter busied himself with the supplying of arms and other necessities to the Japanese armies. After the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he was well treated by Tokugawa Ieyasu.
He was called upon by the Kuroda family, lords of the domain of Fukuoka, where his native city of Hakata was situated, to take charge of the supplying of funds and laborers for the construction of Fukuoka Castle.