the tan
and the expansion of the rate. Both had already been put into
practice by other daimyo. It must further be noted that Hideyoshi's
era was essentially one of war. The outlays that he was obliged to
make were enormous and perpetual. He became accustomed, as did his
contemporary barons, to look lightly at vast expenditure. Not
otherwise can we account for the fact that, within the brief period
of eleven years, he undertook and completed five great works
involving enormous cost. These works were the Osaka Castle, in 1583;
a palace for the retiring Emperor Okimachi, in 1586; the palace of
Juraku, in 1587; the Kyoto Daibutsu, in 1586, and the Momo-yama
Palace, in 1594. What sum these outlays aggregated no attempt has
been made to calculate accurately, but the figure must have been
immense. In fact, when Hideyoshi's financial measures are considered,
it should always be in the context of his achievements and his
necessities.

COINS

Another important feature of Hideyoshi's era was the use of coins.
During the time of the Ashikaga shogunate, two kinds of gold coins
were minted, and both were called after the name of the era when they
first went into circulation; they were known as the Shocho koban
(1428-1429) and the Tembun koban (1532-1555). But these coins were so
rare that they can scarcely be said to have been current. As tokens
of exchange, copper coins were imported from China, and were known in
Japan as Eiraku-sen, Eiraku being the Japanese pronunciation of the
Chinese era, Yunglo. These were of pure metal, and side by side with
them were circulated an essentially inferior iron coin struck in
Japan and known as bita-sen. Oda Nobunaga, appreciating the
disastrous effects produced by such currency confusion, had planned
remedial measures when death overtook him, and the task thus devolved
upon Hideyoshi. Fortunately, the production of gold and silver in
Japan increased greatly at this epoch, owing to the introduction of
scientific metallurgical methods from Europe. The gold mines of Sado
and the silver mines of Ikuno quadrupled or quintupled their output,
and Hideyoshi caused an unprecedented quantity of gold and silver
coins to be struck; the former known as the Tensho koban and the
Tensho oban,* and the latter as the silver bu (ichibu-giri) and the
silver half-bu (nishu-gin.)

*The oban was an oval plate measuring 7 inches by 4, and weighing 53
ounces. It contained 63.84 per cent, of gold and 20 per cent, o