三井 高利
Takatoshi Mitsui was born in 1622. His common name was Hachirobei. From the middle ages, the Mitsui family had been retainers to the Sasaki family, lords of a domain in the province of Omi. Mitsui Takatoshi was the first Takatoshi’s fourth son.
At the beginning of the Edo period, a Mitsui Takatoshi set up in business as a sake merchant and pawn-broker in Matsuzaka in Ise. By lending money to the daimyo and to needy farmers and buying and selling rice, he managed to acquire a considerable fortune and in 1673 opened clothing goods stores in Kyoto and Edo under the shop name Echigoya. By demanding cash at the time of purchase rather than in the customary semiannual or annual payments and by selling goods at a low margin of profit and concentrating upon a large volume of sales he was able to succeed in business. In 1683 he opened a money exchange in Edo, and in 1691 set up businesses in Osaka.
He had many sons and divided them up into six families, the Kita-no-Mitsui, to which the eldest son succeeded and which acted as the head family, and five branch families such as the Rokke-no-Mitsui, etc.
