Background
Zuiken Kawamura was born in 1618 bom in the village of Ukura in the province of Ise; Zuiken is a religious name taken when he entered the Buddhist clergy; later he returned to lay life under the name Hiradayu.
Zuiken Kawamura was born in 1618 bom in the village of Ukura in the province of Ise; Zuiken is a religious name taken when he entered the Buddhist clergy; later he returned to lay life under the name Hiradayu.
He went to Edo at the age of twelve, at first working as a wagon puller, later as a pickle merchant, and finally, after becoming a head of day laborers employed in engineering projects for the shogunate, he opened a lumber business in Edo. In 1657, when the so-called Great Fire of the Meire- ki era destroyed much of the city, he hurried off to Fukushima in the Kiso region, bought up large quantities of lumber, and transported it to Edo, amassing a huge profit in the enterprise. Following this, he acquired further wealth by undertaking various engineering projects for the shogunate.
He was on close terms with such eminent scholars as Arai Hakuseki and others, often assisting them in their financial needs. In recognition of his services, the shogunate in 1698 made him a hatamoto, or direct vassal of the shogun.
Not content merely to carry out projects for others, he displayed his own skill and ingenuity by opening up a new route for shipment of rice from the Tohoku region of northern Japan to Edo, a process that had previously required a year to complete. By his new route, known as the higashimawari, or eastern circuit, rice was transported down the Abukuma River to Ara- hama on the Pacific coast, where it was carried by ship around the Boso Peninsula to Edo. In 1672 he devised a second route, the nishi-mawari, or western circuit, by which rice from northern Japan was brought around through the Shimonoseki straits, through the Inland Sea, and thus to Edo, a process that could be completed in three months. In 1683 he undertook a project to clear the outlets of the Yodo River in the Osaka region, conducting extensive work on the Aji, Nagara, and Nakatsu rivers.