(^358) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
nate. And although the lord himself obviously had to live and attend
to business in his domain, he was required to divide his residence be
tween there and Edo—a year alternately in each. The lord in turn
brought many retainers along with him: better to have them in view
than making mischief far away. In emergencies, the lord could ask for
temporary leave to return to the h an for a specified period. The Bakufu
posted troops at key points of passage to check on all comers and make
sure the trip was authorized. Dual residence plus travel cost a small for
tune. Sankin kotai aimed not only at keeping an eye on these poten
tial troublemakers but at draining their resources.*
Along with these personal controls went a deliberate exclusion of
foreign things and knowledge. European books, of course, were
banned, and Chinese books, a traditional source of morality and sci
ence, were now subject to careful scrutiny. Christian doctrines might
lurk between their covers.
Even potentially useful things were proscribed. Of the European ar
tifacts that had so startled and impressed the Japanese, the most potent
and tempting was the gun; but this too was banned. The gun had
helped settle the battles of the civil wars. So well had the Japanese
taken to it that they learned to make their own and improved on Eu
ropean models. Indeed, at one point in the late sixteenth century the
Japanese may well have been manufacturing more muskets than any
single European nation.^8 Once these wars were settled, however, and
the nation united under a single government, guns no longer served a
useful purpose. On the contrary, they could only make trouble. Worse
yet, the gun was an equalizer. With it, the merest commoner could slay
the finest samurai swordsman. One couldn't have that. So, no guns.^1
(But the skills that went into making guns were pertinent to a whole
range of machinery production and work with metals: screw fasteners,
mechanical clocks, eventually rickshaws and bicycles. One Japanese
scholar has argued that these guns were "the roots of Meiji technol-
ogy.")^9
- In some instances, these expenses consumed over half the revenues of the han. An
additional expense was the cost of rebuilding after fires—a perennial threat in a city of
wood and paper houses. One domain had to rebuild its compound sixteen times. In
the absence of insurance, it should have learned from experience and built differently.
Cf. Nakamura and Shimbo, "Why Was Economic Achievement... ?", p. 8. - A few were kept in public arsenals, under seal, just as a few cannon were mounted
in seaports to fend off unwanted arrivals. On this story, see Perrin, Giving Up the
Gun.