Short history of Japanese Technology

SHORT HISTORY OF THE JAPANESE TECHNOLOGY HOSHIMI UCHIDA THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY LIBRARY MITAKA, TOKYO 1995 1 CONTENTS NTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................5 CHAPTER 1 ...............................................................................................................................7 A BRIEF HISTORY UP TO 1600..............................................................................................7 Geography.........................................................................................................................7 Division of the Japanese history into period................................................................8 Johmon period ..................................................................................................................9 Yayoi Period: Origin of Rice Culture and...................................................................10 The Kofun Period ...........................................................................................................11 The earliest histories and introduction of culture from China ................................12 The Nara and Heian Periods ........................................................................................13 Emulation and originality.............................................................................................14 Wooden Temples, Bronze Statue and The Treasure Store .......................................15 Engi-shiki, the oldest quantitative technical record..................................................17 The Kamakura and Muromachi Shogunates..............................................................17 Technological and Economic Progress in the Feudal Society..................................18 The picture scrolls of crafts...........................................................................................19 The first contact with West ...........................................................................................20 CHAPTER 2 .............................................................................................................................22 TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMY IN THE TOKUGAWA PERIOD .............................22 Political and economic order ........................................................................................22 Technical Literature .......................................................................................................23 Development of specialized local industries .............................................................24 Castle and City................................................................................................................24 Rice culture utilizing natural energy...........................................................................25 Industries of Mountainside: (1) Forestry and charcoal.............................................27 Industries of Mountainside: (2) Papermaking ...........................................................27 Industries of Mountainside: (3) Ceramics...................................................................28 Industries of Mountainside: (4) Gold, Silver and Copper........................................29 Industries of Mountainside: (5) Tatara Irons melting ...............................................31 Industries of Seaside - Salt ............................................................................................32 Textile Manufacture.......................................................................................................33 Fermentation Industries ................................................................................................34 Communication ..............................................................................................................35 CHAPTER 3 .............................................................................................................................37 2 ADOPTION OF WESTERN TECHNOLOGY, 1850 - 1914................................................37 The End of Bakufu and Introduction of Western System.........................................37 Ways of Technology Transfer.......................................................................................38 Rise of Capitalistic Enterprise ......................................................................................40 Economic Growth in the Meiji Period 1868 - 1912.....................................................41 Engineering education...................................................................................................41 Innovation in Land Transportation .............................................................................43 Transformation of Mining.............................................................................................43 Tradition and Innovation in textile manufacture ......................................................45 Arsenal, shipbuilding and iron ....................................................................................46 Introduction of electricity..............................................................................................48 CHAPTER 4 .............................................................................................................................50 TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY .......................................................................................................................50 The Impact of The First World War.............................................................................50 Extending Technical Education....................................................................................51 Beginning of Industrial Research.................................................................................53 Inventions 1910 - 1940....................................................................................................54 Self-sufficiency of Machines .........................................................................................56 Introduction and Development of Chemical Technology........................................57 The Second World War and Rivalry to the U.S.A. ....................................................58 Aeronautics .....................................................................................................................58 The automobile gap .......................................................................................................59 The radar handicap ........................................................................................................60 Inter war Research and Development.........................................................................61 CHAPTER 5 .............................................................................................................................63 THE POSTWAR MIRACLE OF JAPAN ..............................................................................63 Social Reform and Technical Change..........................................................................63 Massive Introduction of New Technology .................................................................64 Revival of export-oriented industries .........................................................................65 Transition in Energy Sources........................................................................................66 Mass Production of Consumer Durable .....................................................................67 Innovation in agriculture and daily food ...................................................................69 The Super Express Train and Motorization ...............................................................70 Research as the necessary element of business..........................................................71 The end of traditional technology................................................................................72 CHAPTER 6 .............................................................................................................................73 3 TOWARD THE HIGH TECHNOLOGY ..............................................................................73 Japanese technology in the World 1970 ......................................................................73 Nuclear technology in Japan ........................................................................................73 The semiconductor race ................................................................................................74 Development of Computer in Japan............................................................................77 Mechatronization and Flexible production ................................................................78 Automatic Camera, Quartz Watch and Video Cassette Recorder ..........................79 Environment technology...............................................................................................80 Technology transfer to Asian countries ......................................................................81 LITERATURE ..........................................................................................................................82 INDEX.......................................................................................................................................83 4 NTRODUCTION Technical advance of Japan during the second half of the twentieth century is so remarkable an event in the world history that it would seem for the common people of the other nations as if Japan should have risen from an underdeveloped state to the height of technology within a few decades by means of some miraculous way. But it was not the case. Japan is not a young nation, but it has long had world's most distinctive and sophisticated culture. The object of this small book is to explain how the Japanese developed technology during more than a thousand years to the present position, which everybody interested in technology and world economy would like to know but nobody including the Japanese and the foreign scholar has yet given a satisfactory answer. As the Editor of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan, published in 1993 tells in the Preface; 'Today the need for more information about this country, that is Japan, its history, and its people, must be obvious to all. The size and power of the Japanese economy - I will add, its higher technology - is such that hardly anyone, of any nation, remains untouched by decisions made in Tokyo, and there is every indication that this will continue to be the case for the future. --- For the first time in modern history Westerners in Europe and North America are being forced to come to terms with an entirely unfamiliar culture from a position of weakness.' 'It would be a pity, however, if one were to approach Japan merely as an economic giant. Present realities can only ever be correctly understood in the light of history --- The so-called miracle of Japan's rise to great power in the late 20th century was astonishing indeed, but it was no miracle; it was based on a long tradition of impressive achievements in the past.' So I will start the history of the Japanese technology from the ancient times and, making use of much of the recent academic studies, try to make clear the formation of indigenous and peculiar aspects during the pre-modern times. Japan's encounter with the Western technology in the middle of the nineteenth century was 5 dramatic, and I will describe in more detail the course of technical change caused by this event, in particular the ways how they digested the Western technology, and the remaining tradition as the supporter or complement to the imported ones. Next I will examine the comparison of technology during the Second World War between Japan and the U.S. to test how far the former had developed and what was lacking. In the last two chapters I tried to tell the true story about the postwar development which led Japan at the top of industrialized nations. This part relies more on my own observation and hearing of the facts as an industrial analyst and a business historian, than on common opinion or official publication by the Government or industry. I also owe much to informal discussion about the matter with many historians, economists, engineers and businessmen. This book is a revision of the draft of lecture given at the Marburg University during the Summer Semester of 1994. It also is based on the text of History of Technology at the Tokyo Keizai University written in Japanese. At the lectures to the Japanese and German students I used to exhibit a number of visual materials to help them better recognize the subject of technology. To our regret I had to omit illustrations in this booklet. To make up for this shortcoming, I recommend the illustrated books at the end of the literature. Tokyo, Spring 1995. H. Uchida 6 CHAPTER 1 A BRIEF HISTORY UP TO 1600 Geography Japan is located at the eastern edge of the Eurasian Continent, while Western Europe lies on the opposite, western edge. Both have temperate climate which makes the land arable and comfortable for a lot of people to live, in contrast to the interior of the Continent where it is too dry or cold, or to the southern tropical regions where it is too hot. One of the principal differences is that Japan is separated from the Continent farther out to the ocean than the British Isles. It consists of four main islands and innumerable small islands spreading some 2000kilometer from the northeast to the southwest on the western Pacific Ocean. Another difference with Western Europe is, that Japan has more variable climate: while its southern extreme, the Okinawa islands are subtropical the other end, Hokkaido is very cold and has much snow in winter. Most large cities lie on 35-degree north latitude, about 10 degrees nearer to the Equator than European cities. Such southern location makes difference in the day hours between summer and winter smaller than in Europe. Also we have longer spring and autumn. March and November in Japan is very comfortable. The directions of the seasonal winds in Japan and Europe are contrary to each other, so that we have much rain in summer and less in winter while in Europe they have dry summer and wet winter. That made crucial difference in agriculture and daily foods. In Europe they grow wheat or rye in winter, while in Japan they grow rice in summer. Total area of Japan accounts for 430 thousand square kilometers, somewhat larger than Germany and almost equal to France; but more than 70 per cent of its territories is mountainous, and arable area is smaller than Germany. Such mountainous character is due to the geological origin of the Japanese archipelago. Moving tectonic plates under the Pacific Ocean and the Eurasian land mass have 7 been intersecting on this area pushing up volcanoes which resulted in the central mountains stretching throughout the archipelago, the height of which is more than 2000 kilometers, the highest Mount Fuji standing 3776 kilometers above the sea level. Underneath rivers made many small alluvial plains by the seas on both sides of the mountain range. In spite of the deficiency in flat lands, Japan has a population of 120 millions according to the recent Census, larger than Germany and almost twice as many as France, Italy or Britain. It makes Japan the seventh most populous nation in the world, after China, India, Russia, the United States, Indonesia and Brazil. Historical studies tell that the Japanese population was already as many as the total people in the contemporary Holy Roman Empire throughout the Middle Ages: Although in terms of territory Japan occupies a very small portion of the earth, Japan is not, and has never been, a small nation in the world. Division of the Japanese history into period Many hundreds thousand years ago our common ancestors, the first Homo Sapiens, appeared on the Savannah of East Africa, and in the course of time they spread all over the earth. Meanwhile they are branched into several races; recent genetic analysis guesses the colored race first separated, the rest being later divided into Mongoloid and Indo-Europeans. Soon the eastern half of the Eurasian Continent was filled with the Mongoloids, a portion of whom spilled into the American Continent and made the forerunners of Indios, for during the Ice Ages much water was solidified into the iceberg around the North Pole, and the sea level of the Pacific Ocean was lowered transforming islands into land bridges. At that time Japan was also connected with the Continent, and Mongolian tribes came to this country on foot. Archeology tells us more than 2000 sites are known in Japan for the Late Paleolithic period (30 thousand -12 thousand years ago). The end of the last ice age resulted in melting of ice and rising sea level. The Japanese archipelago was again separated from the mainland, and ever since Japan remained an isolated unit in the world except for the influence brought on boats, making its own way of development. Japanese historians usually divide the following 10 thousand years into 8 several units described below: PREHISTORIC AGES 1. Johmon Period (10,000 - 300 BC) ---neolithic 2. Yayoi Period (300 BC - AD 300) --- early metal age 3. Kofun Period (AD 300 - 710) HISTORIC AGES 4. The Nara Period (710 - 794) 5. The Heian Period (794 - 1185) 6. The Kamakura Period (1185 - 1336) --- Feudal System(Shogunate) 7. The Muromachi Period (1336 - 1573) 8. The Edo (Tokugawa) Period(1600 - 1868) 9. Modern Times (1868 - ) Johmon period --- Centralized Dynasty --- Centralized Modern State Although the earliest histories of Japan, 'Kojiki' and 'Nihonshoki' were written in the 8th century AD, and the Chinese official history of 4th and 6th centuries solely left a few passages about the state of Japanese people, archaeologists have already succeeded in reproducing the life in the foregoing prehistoric periods considerably well, and recent excavations uncover new evidence every year. With the progress in archeology in the neighboring regions on the Asia mainland applying scientific methods such as radioactive carbon 14 dating we can expect to have more detailed knowledge of the origins of Japanese material culture in the coming decades. Johmon Period is the Japanese neolithic age, which is identified by the use of smooth stoneware and introduction of earthenware. In fact, Johmon is named after the unique Japanese pattern on the earthenware, rope-mark pressed on the surface of a vase or a bottle. The beginning of Johmon period was as old as any other neolithic culture of the Eurasia: It is universally accepted that the earliest earthenware in the world was a Johmon vase dated about 10 thousand BC found in Fukui prefecture. The Johmom people left thousands of ruins of settlement, which is another aspect of the neolithic culture. Man could not wander carrying heavy earthenware but he should keep it on the same place to preserve food or drink. The problem is that the sites of settlement of the Johmon people have not left the evidence of crop farming until the end of 9 the period, but they seemed to have continued living on fishing, nut and shellfish gathering and hunting dears for 8 thousand years, while the neolithic people in China, India and Near East changed to agrarian society which led to magnificent ancient civilizations incorporating metals, cities, writing, large scale construction and empire. Recent anthropology suggests settlement without agriculture as the Johmon people had were no exception in neolithic culture: they might have so much natural endowment around them enough to keep the same way of life that they did not need to change to the hard work of land cultivation. In fact they were not so primitive. Artists and antiquarian lovers highly admire the vivid representation on the Johmon ceramics. Moreover, there was beginning of commerce: sharp obsidian arrowheads from certain mountains were carried hundred kilometers away. Yayoi Period: Origin of Rice Culture and Around 300 BC remarkable progress occurred on these islands: archeological mark of transition from Johmon culture was a different form of earthenware: 'Yayoi' is derived from the name of the first site where an archeologist found earthenware, which was simpler and smoother than the Johmon ones. They were no doubt fabricated on potter's wheel in contrast to the irregular form of the Johmon ware which was rolled up cord of mud Potters' wheel, together with spindles found in the Yayoi ruins signify the first use of rotary motion. Introduction of rice plantation and metal tools was more important event in the Yayoi period. No doubt both were brought from the Asian mainland. Botanists have identified eastern India or northern Indochina as the original home of wild rice, which is a subtropical plant grown in swamps under much sunbeam. Recently Chinese archaeologists discovered rice grains dated about five thousand BC by the Yangtze River. This meant the ancient Chinese has been growing rice on the humid southern territories as old as millet and sorghum on the cold and dry northern Yellow River basin. The suggested course of transfer of rice from southern China to Japan was via Yellow Sea, south Korea and Korean Strait. The first evidence of rice in Japan went back to the late Johmon period and the large remains of rice field in the Yayoi period such as Toro, Itazuke, Karako or Yoshinogari with the arrangement of waterways, wooden fence and storehouse, displays 10 so advanced stage of agricultural techniques that it is natural to guess a host of people who had used to rice cultivation at their homeland immigrated Japan at the beginning of Yayoi period. Difference in the geographic distribution of both culture, that is, concentration of Johmon remains to the eastern Japan in contrast to the Yayoi remains centering to the west, also supports this hypothesis. There is anthropological evidence, too. Skeletons found in the graves of Yayoi people at the beach of Nagato region show they were remarkably taller than Johmon ones, and akin to the present Koreans. The means of transport from Asia mainland to Japan is the next problem. Dugout boats which could take dozen of people on board were found in Yayoi ruins, and it would not be difficult for the ancient people to pass the Korean Strait with such boats by way of two islands, Iki and Tsushima. We also find a picture of a boat carrying men and horse on the surface of a bronze ware belonging to Yayoi culture. As rice farming gradually spread all over the Japanese islands and became staple food, crossbred of the Johmon and Yayoi tribes should proceed forming the present Japanese nation. Bronze and iron were in wide spread use among Yayoi culture for tools and ritual objects. The techniques were no doubt originated in China, where magnificent bronze casting as you can observe at the museums in Taiwan and Japan was made as old as the third millennium BC, and where iron was introduced much later around 500 BC but in a short while world earliest iron melting and casting techniques were invented in China. We have many bronze swords, small bells and mirrors for ceremonial purpose of the Yayoi period: iron is much more corrosive so that it is difficult to identify the original feature; it seems that most iron tools were knives and swords for practical use. At first finished goods were imported: The first Chinese description about Japan, 'Gisi-Wajinden' in the 3rd century AD writes that the Chinese emperor had given bronze mirrors to the embassy of queen Himiko of Yamatai. Then the Japanese learnt to recast and reforge the imported material. Recently we found stone molds for casting bronze sword and bell. A mass of iron strips also was excavated, which is supposed of Korean origin and formed into tools. We are not certain whether the Yayoi people mined and refined metals for themselves. The Kofun Period The next period was actually the continuation of Yayoi culture. 'Kofun' means old burial 11 mounds of local and central political leaders after 5th century AD. Hundreds of such mounds lie on the western and middle part of Japan, and the largest one near Osaka City measures more than 400 meters in length, and several tombs of almost the same size exist in its neighborhood and in Okayama district. No doubt they rank among the largest ancient engineering works of the world. The kings' mounds symbolize concentration of power in a few parts of Japan and early formation of states during the first centuries AD, as well as highly developed design and work organization in the construction engineering. One of the leading civil engineering firm (Ohbayashi-Gumi) recently simulated the process of building the largest mound and estimated that they should have moved 740 thousand cubic meters of soil and 14 thousand tons of stones. It would take 15 years, employing 7 million man days of labor and it would cost 8000 million dollars. Most large mounds are destined to the graves of the ancestors of the present Emperor: That is the reason why they are well kept for 15 hundred years on the one hand, and why they reject the scientific excavation on the other. But the harness and armors which have been dug out by chance are similar to those found in the old Korean kings' tombs. I was thrilled to recognize the resemblance at the Seoul National Museum. The fact seems to support the view that Korean horse riding kings conquered Japan. But Korean king's tombs were not so large, having round shape: In contrast Japanese mounds have an original form like key hole, square in front and circular at the back, and usually surrounded by moats which contain rain water, sometimes used for the irrigation of rice field. Anyway we cannot deny that cultural, racial and political influence from the Continent during the Yayoi and Kofun period made a great progress in Japan and helped to form the Japanese state and nation. The course was more clearly identified at the next stage, the beginning of the Historic Times. The earliest histories and introduction of culture from China Historic Age of Japan opens with the publication of the first two official histories: 'Kojiki' (Chronicle of old facts) in 712 AD and 'Nihon Shoki' (Record book of Japan) in 720. From that time on the Japanese has been calling their own country 'Nihon' or 'Nippon', which means the root of the sun. The Chinese also used the same country name, but 12 unfortunately the Europeans misheard it 'Japan' which became widespread use. Both books were written in Chinese characters because the Japanese had no indigenous letters for writing. It was almost the same for contemporary Germans who met the Latin alphabet. Introduction of writing was the key fact in the extensive influence of the Chinese culture. Throughout the first millennium AD China was the most heavily populated, politically and technically the most developed empire in the world. The largest Chinese contribution to the human technology was the invention of spinning wheel, silk, paper and printing. Most part of Kojiki and Nihonshoki tells of myths and episodes of the legendary kings: most historians agree that the accounts before 550 AD were imaginary. But we can trace many symbolic description about the immigration of Koreans to transfer technology which had Chinese origin: AD (276) Digging ponds for irrigation (283) Sewing clothes (284) Horse riding (360) Canal and embankment (470) Weaving (471) Brewing (472) Sericulture (493) Tanning rawhide 552 Buddhism 577 Sculpture of Buddhist statues: Building temples 602 Calendar and Astronomy 607 (Mission to the emperor of China) 610 Paper: Waterwheel 663 Loss of a sea battle against the Chinese fleet The Nara and Heian Periods After the introduction of Buddhism cremation (burial of ash) became a rule and put the construction of Kofun to an end. In 694 the Japanese emperor built the first Capital city (Fujiwara Kyo) and in 710 moved to nearby Nara (Heijoukyo), and again in 794 to Kyoto 13 (Heiankyo) where the emperors settled until as late as 1869. Therefore we call the period from 8th to 12th century Nara and Heian Periods, which were the age of the first centralized dynasty. Actually the Nara and Heian state was the rule by a handful aristocrats living in the capital city the emperor family and Fujiwara clan at the top over millions of local farmers who lived in dugout huts or humble cottages. The rulers emulated everything of the great Tang empire of contemporary China to organize the state. They adopted square, chessboard like city plan into Heijokyo and Heiankyo after the Chinese capital. At present streets of Kyoto city, which cerebrate the 1200th anniversary since its foundation in 1994, keep the same grid arrangement, with former emperor's residence in the middle of the northern end. The Chinese characters and language played a crucial role to establish state system. The rulers introduced legal bureaucracy described in Chinese style. The official title of the Japanese emperor 'Tenno' was also derived from the two forms of the Chinese title, Tenshi (son of the heaven) and Koutei (emperor). Edition of six official histories following Nihonshoki also was imitation of the custom of Chinese empires. The law simulated the state ownership of land of the Chinese empire and the state leased equal portion of it to every farmer, in exchange for a three kinds of yearly tax - fixed amount of rice, textile material and labor on the site of public works. We can survey the traces of square land division from the air at several provinces around the old capital. Archaeologists found a lot of wooden tablets in the ruin of Heijoukyo. The record on these tablets, written in Chinese characters tells the name of taxpayers and amount of their tribute. Emulation and originality The late Edwin Reischauer, the great Japanologist at the Harvard University and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, explained the relation between Japan and China in the following way in his book 'Japan, the story of a nation.' “Japan is part of the East Asian zone of civilization, which centers around China and includes Korea and Vietnam. This is the part of the world that has derived most of its basic culture from the civilization developed in ancient times on the plains of North China. Culturally Japan is a daughter of Chinese civilization, much as the countries of North Europe are daughters of Mediterranean culture. The story of the spread of Chinese 14 civilization to the peoples of Japan during the first millennium after Christ is much like the story of the spread of Mediterranean civilization to the people of North Europe during the same period. And he stresses the Japan's transition from imitation to original development.” But the greater isolation of Japanese from the home of their civilization and from all other people meant that in Japan the borrowed culture had more chance to develop along new and often unique lines. One popular concept is that the Japanese have never been anything more than a race of borrowers and imitators. The truth is quite contrary. Although geographic isolation has made them conscious of learning from abroad, it has also allowed them to develop one of the most distinctive cultures to be found in any area of comparable size. In effect, in the course of 400 years of the Heian period, the Chinese-like centralized state system became nominal and private ownership of land by nobles and temples revived: the building style, modes in clothes, and fashion in painting all separated from the Chinese taste. Even in the writing system, the Japanese overcame the difficulty of expressing their own language in Chinese characters caused by the grammatical and phonetical difference between both languages through the invention of Kana, alphabet-like 48 phonogram by means of which women in the court created Japanese own literature including romans such as the Genji Story in the 11th century and Waka (Japanese Song), 31 syllables short poem, in addition the imitation of Chinese Poems which had been the symbol of the status and learning of noble men. Wooden Temples, Bronze Statue and The Treasure Store The Nara dynasty has left invaluable heritage which represents the accomplishment of Asian technology in the 8th century. The most eminent were the Horyuji temple, the Great Statue of Buddha (Daibutsu) and the Imperial Treasury (Shosouin). The last two are located in Todaiji, the national temple of Nara. Japanese Buddhism was closely related to the emulation of the Chinese dynasty, and Buddhist culture involved the highest level of contemporary arts. About 500 years after the death of Buddha his followers in India split into two sects which are called Daijo and Shoujo respectively. The former had the principle of salvation of common people by the church, and in the course of its spreading through 15 Central Asia to East Asia it acquired the feature of the guardian of states. Chinese monks translated a number of Sanskrit scriptures, most of which were copied and brought to Japan. In fact, one of the oldest extant printed paper is Japanese made sentences of scripture, dated 770 AD, printed and rolled in a million pieces and kept in small tower-like containers (Hyakumanto). The relation between the Nara dynasty and Buddhism was much like the relation between the later Roman empires and Christianity. The state built Buddhist temples and monuments, and the emperors and queens personally believed in Buddhism. The three technical monuments also symbolize the state-religion at the Nara Period. Horyuji is the oldest remaining wooden building in the world, standing a few kilometers to the West of the Nara city. It was founded in 607 AD in memory of Shotoku Prince, the introducer and protector of Buddhism in this country, and rebuilt during the Nara period. Its five storied pagoda shows aesthetic as well as structural perfection and it is a forerunner of wooden architecture preeminent in this country whereas the Chinese preferred brick structure. Daibutsu is the largest bronze casting in the world at that time. It is 15 meters high and weighs 250 tons. According to the record of the Todaiji Temple, Emperor Shomu ordered its construction in 743 and completed 25 years later. The principal material should be domestic, for it was recorded that several years before they found in Chichibu and Nagato districts the first domestic copper, from which the dynasty cast the first indigenous coins (Wado Kaiho). Metallurgists and artists suggest the procedure of casting the large statue as follows. The founders should pour the molten mixture of copper and tin between the inner and outer mold of the separate parts applying the lost-wax method, and gave the surface coat of gold dissolved in quicksilver, then evaporate the latter with heat. Shosoin consists of three wooden warehouses built in 756 AD to store about one thousand items of daily articles used by late Emperor Shomu and Queen Komyo. The astonishingly well reserved goods include arms, furniture, stationery goods, tableware, clothes and musical instruments. They represent every feature of wood and metalworking, ceramic, japanning and textile technology at that time. We consider a number of those were brought from China and as far as from Iran, so that they not only show the technical and artistic achievement 16 of 8th century Japan but also they constitute the best collection of artifacts in the world during the first millennium A.D.. Every autumn The National Museum in Nara exhibits a portion of them for the public. Engi-shiki, the oldest quantitative technical record The oldest Chinese technological text, Shurai-kokoki (book of standard technic in the Chou dynasty) describes the techniques of artisans within the Chinese court around the second century BC. A Japanese code book named Engi-shiki, enacted in the 10th century A.D. gives similar information about the workshops in the court of Heiankyo which provided every kind of article for the nobles' use such as paper, silk garments, silverware, mirror, oxcart, wine in addition to the architectural work. The distinctive feature of Engi-siki was that it tells what kind of material, and how much should be consumed to make a certain volume of a finished product, and at the same time the amount of necessary labor. For this reason it is a rare document of quantitative technology in the world history. The Kamakura and Muromachi Shogunates During the later Heian period the centralized system gradually became nominal, and the state ownership of land and tax gathering system were replaced with private manors of aristocrats (shoen), which in turn fell into the hands of the warrior class called 'samurai' or 'Bushi'. Thus decentralization of power, or feudal system became predominant. After repeated civil wars, Genji, a leading family of Bushi took the tile of 'Shogun' which meant General, as the de facto ruler of the whole country, opening their government or Bakufu in 1185 AD at Kamakura, a seaside town in Kanto region which is the largest plain in this country lying 600 kilometers to the east of the old capital Kyoto. It was the first time that Japanese government moved to the Eastern half of Japan. Thenceforth the cultural and dialectic duality continued to the modern times, the political center swinging between East and West. In 1336 Ashikaga family succeeded Kamakura Bakufu, opening their government at Muromachi, Kyoto. The Muromachi Shogunate was very unstable and after decades of civil wars among local lords, the Tokugawa family reunited the country and their more stable and centralized Shogunate continued until as late as 1868. 17 The age of Kamakura and Muromachi Shogunate roughly coincides with the European feudal age, the Shogun taking the comparable status with the Holy Roman Emperor. The Japanese historians usually name the Kamakura and Muromachi periods Japanese Middle Ages. Technological and Economic Progress in the Feudal Society We have less written record of this age concerning economy and technology because the central government ceased to edit official history since the later half of the Heian period and most of the remaining paper are letters and diaries of Kuge class in Kyoto-decendants of the ancient nobles in Kyoto - who were isolated from the political and economic activity. To our regret most warriors, artisans and farmers who were engaged in the production and utilization of technical matters were illiterate, so that they scarcely left written materials. Moreover, handicraft skill was kept secret by masters who transferred it to limited number of successors through speech or on the job training. Although several rolled writings on mysteries of sword smith remain, most of them only tells control of mind, but actual techniques were carefully concealed. Nevertheless material evidence i.e. inherited goods and excavated site supports the view that it was not stagnated or retarded dark ages, but it was the time when the Japanese style of life and techniques were established out of the ancient imitation of Chinese culture. Reflecting the age of warriors, sword and armor were the most brilliant products of the time approving the advancement of steel, leather and allied techniques. The sharp and tough Japanese sword was as famous as the contemporary dagger made in Damascus,Syria, and a lot was exported to China and nowadays everybody may have a look at many masterpieces at the Tokyo National Museum. Metallurgists have found that the smiths should have covered the tougher steel inside of harder blade, and repeatedly hammered and tempered in water. The Ohmishima shrine standing on the former pirate base in the Setonaikai (The Inland Sea) keeps dozens of peculiar and beautiful armors made of iron and leather strips tied and covered with colorful thick silk cords. Another treasure in the museum from these ages was the costumes of NOh theater, the feudal lords' favorite and the forerunner of Kabuki. They represent the highly developed textile technology, including figured fabrics, dyeing and embroidery. 18 Apparently their pattern carried the Japanese taste quite different from that of Chinese. A great many remaining parts of temples built in these periods tells the development of design in wooden architecture as well as the improvement in woodworking tools. We conclude from the observation of cut and scratch on the surface of pillar and floor that the carpenters substituted plane for large knife (Yariganna ), and used big saw operated by a couple. The workers seemed to pull the tools to cut wood rather than to push, which has been the way Chinese and Western wood workers used to do. Maybe the two specific features of the Japanese life, standard division of living space and standard cutting of clothes originated during these periods. 90 cm x 180 cm became the standard size of tatami, a aquare pack of hay covered with straw mat, and the rooms also was standardized by the number of tatami contained, for example 3, 4.5, 6, 8, 10, jou etc.. According to the evidence we conclude that the Japanese style of life and Japanese style of technology was established in these periods. Of course continued flow of the Chinese culture has enriched the Japanese technology and economy, just as the Islamic culture of the same time brought to Western Europe much novelties as sugar, silk, paper, alcoholic liquor etc., the vegetarian Zen priests carried various fermented soybean foods (miso, shouyu and nattou) and tea to Japan. The picture scrolls of crafts Painters in the Muromachi period left pictures of various professions arranged on scrolls, which were similar to the Jost Amman's 'Beschreibungaller Staende' in the European Renaissance. They were the most important contemporary evidence of technology. We call them Shokunin-zukushi-e. The jobs on the scrolls include: woodcutter, charcoal burner, carpenter, thatcher, wheelwright, sculptor, bucketmaker, turner, combmaker, bowmaker, saddler, shoemaker, umbrellamaker, writing-brush maker, straw-curtain knitter, arrowmaker, straw-mat sewer, basketmaker, papermaker, japanning painter, hatter, weaver, tailor, dyer, brewer, salt boiler, tanner, armorer, goldsmith, silversmith, coppersmith, blacksmith, swordsmith, needlesmith, founder, mirrorpolisher, potter, roofing-tile burner, mason and so on. Some professions were difficult to translate into European language because the objects did not exist outside Japan, or the materials were different because of the 19 difference in natural endowment. The Japanese commonly used bamboo, rice straw and stripped wood for various objects. The pictures tell that division of labor in handicraft similar to the late Middle Age Europe, did exist in contemporary Japan, and the tools and the methods of working seem much alike, even though the Japanese craftsmen often sat and work and the workbench was much lower. In terms of industrial organization small shop with a master and a few apprentices was dominant on both sides of the world. Although Kyoto remained the center of luxury production, the feudal system supported local production of common goods, and craftsmen such as smiths, founders as well as peddlers travelled around the country. We found four local kiln sites Tanba, Bizen, Shigaraki and Seto - where the potters supplied big ceramics jars. No doubt commerce expanded during these periods, although people used imported Chinese copper coins as the common means of payment. The first contact with West At the end of the period Portuguese ships came to the western part of the Japanese archipelago. It was the first direct cultural and technical contact between Japan and Europe. Two hundred years earlier an Italian traveler named Marco Polo had described of Japan as a golden country according to the rumor of the Chinese in the Yuan dynasty; It is said that Columbus made Japan the destination of his voyage round the globe. But the Portuguese led by Vasco da Gama and Bertholomew Diaz sailed the opposite way over the Indian Ocean and won the race to this country. Recent research on the East-West relations made clear that the Arab and Chinese seamen had already developed the southern sea route before the arrival of the Westerners. The Japanese pirates or tradesmen, too, had sailed the China Sea toward Thailand and Indonesia. There should be advances in the techniques of ship-construction and navigation within Japan although we have little evidence. It was the time when the Japanese was curious for overseas culture. In 1543 a Portuguese captain showed a firearm, a European novelty, to a Japanese lord of a small island named Tanegeshima, who in turn copied it, and it was a wonder that in a few decades gunmaking diffused into the Japanese mainland and tens of thousand pieces were in use at the battles among the feudal lords. One of them, Oda Nobunaga was most 20 progressive and aggressive in applying the gun, and by means of the new weapon he succeeded in overcoming the Ashikaga shogunate. His follower, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, conquered the whole country. Tokugawa Ieyasu succeeded him, became Shogun and reopened the Bakufu in Edo. This was the way new technology from the West played a crucial role in the Japanese history. In the course of time Jesuit fathers settled at several towns, who presented the Japanese lords with western curiosities, including mechanical clock, which the Japanese craftsmen imitated and changed to an original style, the Japanese clock. Afterwards the Tokugawa Shogunate changed to national isolation policy prohibiting overseas travel of the Japanese people, expelling Catholic fathers and limiting international trade to China and Netherlands. The wave of Western influence in the application of practical technology came to a still, resulting in the perfection of indigenous technology during the Tokugawa period. Nevertheless curiosity about the Western culture and science remained among a few intellectual persons, which made the base for the massive acceptance of Western technology in the nineteenth century as will be shown in the Chapter 3. 21 CHAPTER 2 TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMY IN THE TOKUGAWA PERIOD Political and economic order The Tokugawa Shogunate was a form of government far more orderly and efficient than any other Japan had ever seen. It also gave the national unparalleled degree of centralization. It came quickly to accumulate many of the functions of a national government - control of foreign affairs, of currency, of weights and measures, of religious organizations. It controlled a large part of Japan's resources. It held about one fourth of the country as direct territory (Tenryo) including the largest and most fertile Kanto plain together with the most productive gold and silver mines. To these resources it added Japan's major cities: Edo (now Tokyo), seat of the Shogun's government; Kyoto, home of the emperor; Osaka, the nation's commercial center, and the Port of Nagasaki, where Tokugawa Japan's foreign trade with China and Netherlands was conducted. The remainder of Japan was left in the hands of about 300 local lords (Daimyo), who did homage to the shogun. In 1635 the shogun introduced a form of daimyo control named sankin kotai ,or system of alternative attendance, by which every daimyo was forced to shuttle between his own domain and the shogun's court at Edo every other year. The dual residence and journey costed him too much to plot rebellion against the shogun. Vassals of shogun and daimyo were bushi, or samurai, who ruled the other three classes: farmer, craftsman and merchant. The class order was strictly kept and the rule of succession of jobs was predominant. But social mobility did exist by means of son-in-law contract. Only samurai class was allowed to bear swords to show force over the subordinate classes. In the 260 years of peaceful and stable state samurai was no more a worrier, but became bureaucrat, supported by the Konfusian ethics which was made the orthodox learning. The Tokugawa Japan was not a feudal state in its strict sense: it bore resemblance 22 to the French kingdom before the revolution. Technical Literature We know the technology or material life in the Tokugawa Period far better than those in the preceding periods by two ways: checking the survival of Edo culture, especially traditional crafts on the one hand, and by reading increased contemporary technological literature on the other. We have a number of such books on general or specific technologies published during the period, as never existed in the preceding era. Progress in printing and the demand for information from industrialists stimulated their publication. Number, variety and contents of these books far more superseded those written in the contemporary China, and we may compare them with the Renaissance and Baroque technical books of Europe. Most of them are reprinted with commentary and notes by modern editors. We can classify these books in several categories: first, compendium or encyclopedia; second, picture book; third, practical text; and fourth, memorandum of practioner. (Encyclopedia) Jinrin-kimmou-zui 1690; Wakan-sansai-zue 1713; Shika-suyo1822. (Picture book) Karakuri-kimmo-kagamigusa (automaton) 1730; Nihon-sankai-meibutsu-zue (general) 1754; Hizen-sanbutsu-zukou (ceramics) 1784; Karakuri-zui (clock & automaton) (general) 1796; 1799; Kamisuki-chohoki Kodou-zuroku (paper) (copper) 1798; 1801; Nihon-sankai-meisan-zue Isanatori-ekotoba (fishery) 1829. (Practical text) Genna-koukaisho (navigation) 1618; Hyakusho-denki (agriculture) ca. 1680; Kouzan-shihou-youroku (mining) 1691; Nougyou-zensho Toukou-hitsuyou (agriculture) (ceramics) 1697; 1737; Mankin-sangyou-bukuro Shinsen-yousan-hisho (general) 1732; 1757; (sericulture) Satou-seisakuki (sugar) 1797; Yousan-hiroku (sericulture) 1803; Sansi-kenshoku-taisei (silk) 1813; Ensei-hiroku (salt) 1815; Koueki-kokusankou (general) 1817; Nougu-benriron (farmer's tool) 1822; Sansou-hiroku (mining) 1827; Kishoku-ihen (textile) 1829; Menpo-youmu (cotton) 1833; Seiyuroku (vegetable oil) 1836; Taihou-chuzo-hou (cannon) ca. 1840. (Memorandum) Innai-ginzanki (silver mine) ca. 1700; Wakan-senyoushu (ship-building); Tetsuzan-hitsuyoukiji (Iron) 1784; Iwami-ginzan-kyuki (silver) 1815; Hitoriaruki (gold) 1830. In addition to these books local historians are searching for materials of related subjects in unpublished letters or 23 reports. Development of specialized local industries After the 17th century production of specialized goods spread all over the country. The goods were shipped to Osaka or Edo, and redistributed to every districts. It meant regional division of labor at the same time expansion of commerce. Local lords supported commercial production to add monetary income and tax within their territory in order to finance ever increasing expense of feeding vassals and keeping their luxurious life in their castles and in Edo. Local merchant as well as dealers of large cities practically organized the trades. Specialization and market requirement promoted design and skill in each industry, resulting in the enrichment of consumer life. Most Japanese indigenous crafts which foreigners appreciate today are descendants of local specialized industries established during the Tokugawa period. Castle and City We can divide the Tokugawa Japan into four geographic sectors: city, farmland, mountainside and seaside. This classification is based on the peculiar geographic condition of Japan and on the historically developed role played by each sector for the national economy. Urbanization was in a way the consequence of the ruling policy of the samurai class. When Tokugawa Ieyasu settled in Edo in 1590, it had been nothing more than a collection of fishing communities; To transform it to the new capital of Japan, Bakufu did through an ambitious engineering program, draining marshlands, constructing the great Edo Castle nowadays used for the Imperial Palace, surrounded by a network of canals, attracting merchants and craftsmen. Within a century, thanks to the alternate attendance system of Daimyo,the shogun's capital had developed into the largest city in the world, with over a million residents, which exceeded contemporary population in Paris or London. Other provincial cities followed a comparable way. The vassals (samurai class) lived close to their lord's castle to do daily service as bureaucrats or attendants. These communities inevitably attracted merchants and craftsmen. Kanazawa, the largest of such 24 castle towns, had a population of 70 thousand by the end of the 17th century, making it larger than contemporary Berlin. More than hundred less populated castle cities grew up, which make up most of the present Japanese cities. These castle cities, jokamachi, had different plan from those of the European and Chinese cities. They had neither city walls nor gates, the lord's castle with moats standing in the center surrounded by the houses of samurai, merchants' and craftsmen's shops and Buddhist temples. Today the castles remain as the most remarkable monuments of civil engineering from the Tokugawa Era. In their number, scale, design and beauty they are peculiar in the world. Most of them were constructed in the 17th century. Talented designers, most of whom belonged to samurai class, in charge of the daimyo first decided the location of castle and the arrangement of necessary buildings, fields, stonewalls and moats taking advantage of landscape, then stretched rope along the borderline of every part. Skilled masons, carpenters, thatchers in addition to a host of laborers in turn worked according to the plan. Most castle areas are now changed to city parks or cultural and recreation center for the citizens, as the Europeans are reusing the residence or garden of the Baroque and Rococo age. In Tokyo, every park in the city center is the reuse of former residence of larger daimyo or temple for the family of Shogun. Bakufu and daimyo also constructed water-supply to the cities. The longest waterway, the Tamagawa Canal was excavated in 1654 as long as 43 kilometers from the upstream of a river and its end branched into a network of wooden pipes leading to common wells for every dozen households. Rice culture utilizing natural energy About 80 % of the total population were farmers growing rice. Rice was not only the principal food to the Japanese but also the base of policy and economy in the Tokugawa period, because the income of the daimyo or Shogun consisted of tax in kind of rice imposed to farmers, and samurai was also paid with fixed amount of rice in kind. Magnitude of each daimyo was officially approved as the amount of rice produced within his domain measured by the volume unit, koku (180 liters). The shogun held about 8 million koku, or a quarter of national rice output, and the largest daimyo at Kanazawa 25 castle held 1 million koku. Rice growing has a quite different feature to the European agriculture, which consisted in wheat or rye field without irrigation and in cattle breeding. Such European way is not majority in the world agriculture: about half as many human being has been living on rice in India, Southeast Asia, China and Japan. Irrigated rice has proved to be the crop best able to support a dense population. However, its cultivation requires both intense labor on the part of farm workers, and careful maintenance of irrigation facilities on the part of community to provide controlled supply of water to each paddy field. The construction of such an infrastructure demands considerable planning and investment of labor . Such system of irrigation had been formed since the Yayoi period and completed during the Edo period. And at the preceding Muromachi period growing winter wheat on the dried up field, and transplantation of young rice plant in later spring on the re-irrigated land became familiar, resulting in increase of crop production from the same area. The normal calendar of a farmer's family in the Tokugawa period was like that: March-April: Sowing rice on a small field, Ploughing with ox, Fertilizing May-June: July-September: October-November: Transplantation, Picking out weeds, Harvesting wheat Weeding, Raising water from streams Harvesting and threshing rice, Sowing wheat December-February: Making daily goods from stalk, Taking care of wheat The farmers' life in the Edo period represented a complete system of self-sufficiency. They took nothing except small amount of iron and salt from the outside society. Japanese natural endowment, ample sunbeam and rainfall could grow rice provided that the artificial facilities such as waterways, paddy land and water-raising wheel were ready. The sun and rain also grew grass and woods. The farmers made use of everything the nature has endowed including every kind of waste. They fed cattle, the animal machine, with picked out weeds and cutdown stalk, and mixed dung with weeds to return to the field as fertilizer. They made every kind of necessary goods from the rice-stalk : roofing, wall material mixed with mud, knit bag to pack rice, rope, mattress, footwear and raincoat. They built their houses and wooden tools themselves taking materials from the surrounding wood. In short, the farmers transformed the solar energy 26 and flowing water into everything they needed in addition to the rice tax for the samurai class in the castle city, who in turn sold the surplus rice at the Osaka and Edo market to feed people of the other occupations. In other words, the rice-farmers in the Tokugawa period were not only subsistent but also they fed the total nation in a self-sufficient economy. It is estimated that during the Tokugawa period Japanese population was doubled from 15 million to 30 million. It meant that the supply of food increased at the same rate. Development of new arable land by means of irrigation or drainage and at the same time development of agricultural technology including selective breeding of rice contributed to feed the increased production. Industries of Mountainside: (1) Forestry and charcoal Topographic conditions of Japan provided two economic sectors other than the cities and plain rice-farming: mountains and seaside, where the inhabitants in the 17th and 18th centuries also developed technologies utilizing natural endowments appropriate to the geographical conditions. On the mountains trees grow thanks to the ample sunshine and rainfall enough to provide for the whole nation with wooden materials as well as fuel every year. Forestry was a common profession for the people living on the higher lands. By the 17th century they adopted rotational planting of soft woods every twenty or thirty years . They cut down lumber, let it flow on the stream in the form of raft to the seaside port. The largest demand of lumber came from architecture, since houses, temples and public buildings in the Edo period were without exception wooden. In addition, joiners fabricated various wooden furniture and containers, and shipwrights on the seaside built wooden boats. Wood was also useful as fuel for ceramics, metallurgy and papermaking on the mountainside. A large number of people were engaged in burning charcoal, part of which was shipped to the cities to warm houses in winter and to cook daily foods. Industries of Mountainside: (2) Papermaking Japanese handmade paper is famous for its beauty, toughness and durability. The Japanese learnt papermaking from China in the 7th century, much earlier than the date of the transfer of paper to Europe and its manufacture and use were far more widespread 27 than in the contemporary West. Paper was not only used as writing and printing materials but also as moving screen in every home. While the Chinese used originally rugs, and later bamboo as paper material, Japanese papermakers invented the technique of making pulp from wood, and superior way of screening from a bath. Dr. Kaempfer who had visited Japan on a Dutch ship wrote about the Japanese papermaking in a book titled Japan published in 1690: The Japanese make paper from the inner skin of a bush they call Kouzo. In October when the leaves fall they cut down and bundle young branches. After steeping them in cold water for 24 hours, they arrange them in a large pot filled with ash and water, and boil until the bark softens. After cooling they take out the skin and keep it. They take it just before making paper, soak in cold water for a few hours to soften and take out dirty bark with a knife. They steep and boil it in lye, stirring until the fiber comes to loose. Then wash the material very carefully in a stream to make it into woollike pulp. Put it on a table and two or three workers beat it with hard wood sticks. They soak processed pulp in an oblong bath, add rice powder and a sort of very viscous in gradient pound from a kind of root, and disperse pulp and additives evenly in water. Transfer the content into another, a little bigger bath and make paper filtering through a bamboo screen. They pile up the thin layers one by one, and put a heavy stone on the top to spill out water contained. The next morning they take out pieces of paper, and stretch each piece on a standing board to dry it under the sunshine. Industries of Mountainside: (3) Ceramics Introduction of porcelain manufacture in the Tokugawa period in addition to the traditional pottery was one of the most exciting event in the history of art in Japan. Porcelain was first made in this country in the early years of 17th century around the valley of Arita in northern Kyushu by immigrant Korean artisans. Decoration involving painting in cobalt blue under the high-fired clear glaze was applied, and soon over-glazed wares in gold or red was developed. Since Arita porcelain was so beautiful and so much thinner, lighter and tougher than pottery, it was made the principal item of export to Europe shipped from the nearby Nagasaki port on board the sailing ship of the Dutch East India Company. We meet a lot of imported Japanese porcelain of 18th century in the museums and palaces of European cities. The Meissen ware was actually imitation of 28 such goods. Porcelain was also made in Kyoto, Seto and Kutani (near Kanazawa) where the artisans found appropriate material named Kaolin, which is actually powder of pure white stone, while pottery was made from tinted clay. The process of porcelain manufacture in Arita was as follows: After crushing the white material under the hammer by hand or waterwheel, female workers mix the powder with softer clay, soak and stir in a pool, then filter and settle in another pool. They take the upper part of precipitate dry it on a indoor furnace and make small balls. Male artisans transform the ball into cup or dish on a turning wheel and bake it for the first time before glazing in the indoor furnace. After cooling they paint picture with colors and glaze on the surface. Bake 100 bales of wares at one time for several days in a large inclined furnace on the hillside, which has six compartments of 100 square meters connected to each other so that the fire would flow upwards from down to the top. It takes 20 thousand sticks of wood as fuel. After cooling, take out the porcelain and wash it. In total there are 72 steps of process. Industries of Mountainside: (4) Gold, Silver and Copper About 1300 A.D. Marco Polo introduced Japan to the West Europeans as the country of gold. Of course he exaggerated, nevertheless it was true that Japan was considerably rich in various precious metal resources. Gold, silver and copper veins were abundantly distributed along the volcanous mountains which traverse the Japan-mainland from northeast to southwest. By the time of Marco Polo men should pick up alluvial gold and find out crops of pure silver or copper at numerous sites. But it was not until the dawn of the Tokugawa period that they opened large scale mines and smelting works of metals. Bakufu established a national currency system of casting gold, silver and bronze coins at its own mints instead of importing Chinese coins. In order to keep the supply of metals, it took the principal gold mines (Sado, Izu) and richer silver mines (Handa, Ashio, Ikuno, Omori) under direct control and purchased the whole amount of copper from the mines of Shikoku (Besshi) etc.. A lord of Tohoku district ruled silver mines (Innai, Ani, Osarizawa). The policy largely promoted the development of technology and organization in metal mining. 29 The rise of Japanese mining roughly coincides with the prosperity of German mining at Tyrol and Erzgebirge as described in 'De Re Metallica'. It is said that introduction of Western technology through the Spanish should play a crucial role, in particular the partition of gold by quicksilver, and separation of silver and copper by lead. Actually the Japanese metallurgists at that time called the latter method 'Nanbanshibori' suggesting its origin, for 'Nanban' meant aliens from the south seas. Hundreds of miners and their assistants, together with as many laborer in charge of pumping up water in the pits, worked at each of those mines. We have a lot of drawings which represent the reality of hard works as well as the equipments actually used in various mines . According to 'Kodou Zuroku' the process of mining at the Besshi copper mine was as follows: The miners call the entrance of a gallery 'Yotsudome' (square support). As they dig in they plant pillars and cross-beams and fill pebbles on the wall to prevent downfall. Each miner carries a lamp made of oyster-shell and dig out ores with hammer. Female workers crush and sort out the ore outside the gallery. The true ore weighs only one tenth or one twentieth of the total dugout stones. Since the ore (chalcopyrite) contains sulfur, they have to remove it by roasting. They build an indoor furnace, pile up wood and ore alternately in layers, let the air in from a lower hole and set fire. The fume is too odorous to stand by. After ten nights put out the fire and leave it cooling, and take out the burnt ore. Then they have to remove the impurity (iron compound and stone). To do so, the smelters build an outdoor hearth, make a canal before it, and set a couple of bellows. Put the burnt ore on the charcoal in the hearth. Two assistants blow bellows and the master handles a long stick of iron. As the material melt, the lighter slag flow out into the canal. The master adds charcoal and ore alternately until the melted material fills the hearth. Then he removes charcoal and slag, pours water on the surface and takes out the cooled layer with the stick. It should be reduced to crude copper with heat of charcoal in another hearth, which is shut out from the air with mud. Crude copper from the mines was sent for refineries in Osaka, where the masters remelt, remove impurities and get disks of refined copper 30 cm diameter and 1.5 cm thick. 30 A master operates three times a day and yields more than 1 kg of copper each time. When crude copper seems to contain silver, specialized masters remelt it with a certain amount of lead in the hearth, and put the mixture in a cooler hearth. Silver and lead flow out and solidified copper remains. Then another master put the mixture of silver and lead in hot ash to dissolve lead into it and recover the remaining silver. The purified copper is remelt in a crucible and cast into bars about 25 cm long. The bars of copper were delivered to the Copper Office of Bakufu in Osaka and they were in part recast into coins and in part exported from Nagasaki. Actually Japan was the largest exporter of copper in the 17th century, and a Swedish historian found many church bells of European countries were made of Japanese copper. Industries of Mountainside: (5) Tatara Irons melting One of the shortcomings in the natural endowment of Japan was lack of iron resource in contrast to the richness in nonferrous metals. Although ironmaking started in the prehistoric times, Japanese people could not make iron from ores containing 40-50 % of iron, as was the case in China or Europe. Therefore iron supply seems very short throughout the history and its use was almost restricted to warfare and edge tools. Nevertheless the weakness did not mean technical retardation or backwardness. Instead, the Japanese developed a unique and ingenious method of making iron from the poorest ore, iron sand, which contains only a few % of iron. This method is called 'Tatara' (originally means foot-bellows). If it did not produce cheap iron in quantity, it could bring the best quality steel as approved by the fame of the Japanese sword . Archaeologists have found a lot of ruins of small ironmaking furnace before the Edo period in many districts indicating the use of sand and charcoal. During the 17th century the industry concentrated on the Chugoku mountains due to the technical innovation and to the progress of large scale enterprise employing hundreds of workers . The process consisted of charcoal-burning, concentration of sand ore, building indoor furnace, feeding air by means of a pair of treadle bellows, careful smelting operation, crushing the product and refining at another hearth. The ironmaster chose the factory site for the availability of charcoal rather than for the access to ore, since the necessary traffic of packhorse of the former was more often than the latter. 31 Miners dug out iron sand on mountain cliffs or from riverbed, others made a canal with traps to let the sand flow with water and to precipitate iron-rich parts on the traps, and brought the concentrated ore to the furnace, which had a dry underground structure and upper hearth of clay built for each operation. It had a bath-like, very low shaft form measuring 2-3 meters long, 1 m wide and 1.5 m high. A master smelter set fire and kept feeding irons and charcoal alternately for three nights while his assistants kept treading on the bellows, until pig iron run out and a viscous mixture of slag, wrought iron and steel weighing 1-2 ton remained. The yields of three kinds of iron depended on the quality of ore and skill of the master. They broke the furnace, drew out the red-hot mass to cool in water, and crushed it with a heavy iron hammer. They took out lumps of steel, and pig- and wrought iron were refined in a smaller hearth with hand bellows. The billets of iron thus produced were shipped to Osaka from where they were redistributed by wholesalers. Industries of Seaside - Salt People living by the long coastline of the Japanese archipelago exhibit another style of economic activity, getting various products of sea and supplying them to the other sectors; farmers, mountainmen and citizens. The Japanese fishers in the Edo period developed manifold arts: diving, hooking, and catching fish into many forms of nets. They marketed more than hundred kinds of fish, and made them principal source of animal protein for the nation who seldom took meat of animals partly because of the Buddhist taboo and partly because of the short supply of land to feed livestock. In fact, the sea was for the Japanese the meadows for the Europeans. Moreover abundant and cheap herring or sardine were dried and sold to the farmers as fertilizer to grow cotton or other industrial materials. Salt was another necessity of nation which only seacoast could supply. From the ancient times people on the seaside boiled saltwater in small earthenware or burnt seaweed. In the course of time they developed salt beach, where they carried up seawater and evaporate to make salt. During the Edo period they developed more labor-saving system called Irihama process and saltmaking was concentrated among the large enterprise on the coast of the Inland sea, as described in 1826 in a book 'Nippon' written by a German natural historian and doctor, Philipp Franz von Siebolt. The equipment and method of saltmaking in Japan are far ahead of those practiced 32 in Europe. They enclose a flat area by the sea, usually 225 m by 70 m, with an embankment of granite. A watergate leads seawater into a canal crossing the area, then into the branched ditches to any level. They cover the area with three layers, sand-clay-sand. Every evening they introduce high tide which is evaporated next day under the sun. They gather the surface of sand rich in salt with rakes, pour sea water to dissolve salt into a batch of condensed brine. The saltboiler evaporate the brine in a large iron pan (3 m in diameter). They filter the crystallized salt on a bamboo basket to drip out bitter content (magnesia). Textile Manufacture Since the end of the 17th century manufacture and commerce of consumer goods diffused among the villages to fill the increasing demand from the cities. The principal products were textile and foodstuffs. Clothes for the upper and richer class was made of silk. By the early Edo period silk industry was specialty of Nishijin (Kyoto), where artisans wove and dyed white silk imported from China . In the meanwhile the technic of silk fabrics was transferred to Kanto, and several other districts, to form producing centers of specialized fabrics. Domestic production of raw silk also developed among the villages of central Japan until import from China came to an end. Sericulture started from growing mulberry tree. The farmers' family fed its leaves to silkworms for dozens of days until the worms formed cocoons. By the end of the Edo period they succeeded in repeating this procedure two or three times every year. Woman reeled silk from cocoon in a hot bath. The stages of technical development in reeling was as follows: At first they turned the bobbin by tapping it with the left hand while drawing and twisting the filament with the right fingers. The next stage was turning the axle of bobbin frame by means of a crank. At last they devised gearwork or pooley and squeezing ring in order to accomplish quick and continuous winding. This contrivance was called Zaguri , by which means the Japanese mass-produced silk for export to Europe and America after the revival of trade. In 1783 an ingenious machine named Hatcho was invented to twist silk yarns from 20 - 30 spindles at a time by waterwheel. In the first decades of the 17th century cotton plantation and weaving cotton goods 33 diffused throughout the Pacific- and inland sea coast, driving hemp or ramie out of the common cloth market. The farmers of the Edo period picked cotton crop in early autumn, took out seeds through a pair of wooden rolls, disentangled and softened the mass of cotton fiber by means of bowstring, stretched and rolled it upon a stick. Then they span the cotton on a spinning wheel. Weaving cotton also became domestic manufacture in the village. Women worked with hands sitting before the shorter width (less than 1 m) loom. There were yarn dyed (stripe and motted) cotton fabrics and white cotton which could afterwards printed by the artisans of cities. Dyestuff manufacture, too, became a big trade. The most popular dyes were indigo (blue) and safflower (pink or red), which specialized districts supplied to every cotton manufacture. Fermentation Industries The characteristic of Japanese fermentation technology is application of mold (very small fungi) in addition to yeast. The Japanese had never brewed wine or beer until they learnt the methods in late nineteenth century, but they had been fermenting rice into sake . By the fourteenth century sake brewery had grown up to be a profitable private business around Kyoto metropolis next to moneylender. Brewers of Itami and Nada invented the techniques of clarifying liquor and pasteurization, which made them nationwide supplier of sake in the Edo period. The brewing process in the 18th century as described in Nihon-Sankai-Meisan-Zue was as follows: The brewers first made a certain amount of white mold (aspergirus orizae) on steamed rice, and increased the amount of material step by step, mixing boiled rice with white mold and water in vats and spreading them on the floor alternatively. Meanwhile invertation of starch into glucose with the action of mold, and fermentation of glucose into alcohol with the action of yeast which existed in the atmosphere, were simultaneously proceeding. In two weeks the mixture changed to delicious drink in a large barrel. Then they squeeze the liquor through filter cloth by means of wooden lever pressed by manpower and weight of heavy stones. They brewed sake only in winter employing a 34 number of seasonal workers from the specified villages. Manufacture of other ingredients of Japanese daily foods, miso and soybean sauce, also depended upon fermentation of wheat and bean with mold and salt. They not only gave flavor and taste to cooked foods but miso was also important amino acid source for the nourishment of the nation. The manufacture, too, became larger enterprise in the neighborhood of large cities. Communication Transportation was a hard problem to the people in Japan on account of its geographical conditions. On the long and narrow extended islands with steep mountains lying like a backbone and with small plains segregated from each other, highways and great canals such as constructed in China or Europe were difficult to develop. Horse-drawn carriage was scarcely in use and men generally went on foot and goods were carried by packhorse, which should be the only means to transverse the mountains. The rivers crossing the road flooded so frequently that it was unpractical to lay bridges upon them. Therefore the speed and efficiency of transport on land were small throughout the ages. For all these shortcomings in the hardware, social system of transport was well organized in the Edo period. Thanks to the alternated service of daimyo, five main routes leading to Edo had frequent traffics and were maintained by the public. On the trunk route between Edo and Kyoto (Tokaido), along which nowadays Super express rail (Shinkansen) runs. There were 53 relay stations as printed in the picture of Hokusai and Hiroshige, where almost every accommodation was ready for the travelers: inns, restaurants, horse, kago-bearers (a small sitting room carried by two men) and entertainment. Journey was safer in Japan than those in the contemporary Europe. By the end of the 18th century hundreds of thousands citizens and farmers from various districts visited the Ise Shrine (50 km from the trunk route) partly to worship and partly for leisure, and a long comic story describing the travelling couple throughout the country was a best-seller. By the 16th century Japanese seamen sailed overseas on wooden ships with three masts. The difference of structure with the contemporary Western ships was that the Japanese ship had no rib but lay partition boards to support the side planks. Although it limited the draft and length of a ship, it resisted shipwreck confining leak- water within a 35 compartment. In 1639 the Bakufu prohibited the construction of ships other than those with single mast and with displacement less than 1000 koku (about 200-300 tons) to prevent the overseas voyage of people. Within the limit the shipwrights contrived to build ships for domestic trade, and liners sailed from the northern end of the territory via the Sea of Japan and the western end of the mainland to Osaka terminal port, as well as from Osaka along the Pacific coast to Edo transporting rice and sake. Inland river traffic also flourished by means of flat-bottomed boats or tugboats drawn by horse or men along the banks. Mail service between the capital- and castle cities was as developed as in contemporary Europe. Relay of professional runners dispatched the letters posted at the terminal stations. Even if it took long days and the charge was not cheap, the system was reliable enough to support, for instance, the communication between a writer in Edo and a publisher in Osaka to send back and forth the draft, test print, correction, finished book and, to our astonishment, the copy money ! 36 CHAPTER 3 ADOPTION OF WESTERN TECHNOLOGY, 1850 - 1914 The End of Bakufu and Introduction of Western System In 1854 a steamed U.S. fleet led by Commodore Matthew Perry came to the Bay of Edo to establish trading and diplomatic relations with Bakufu. Britain, France and Prussia followed. The encounter with the Western powers greatly changed Japan within two decades in two ways : First, the foreign policy caused a political turmoil between the Bakufu and several opponent daimyo till at last a coup d'etat and short civil war in 1867 destroyed the rule of Tokugawa Shogun and much more centralized new government was born, with Emperor Meiji at the head. This seemed at a first glance a revival of the Heian state 1000 years ago - actually it was called the Meiji Restoration, bringing back the emperor- but in fact the government stayed in Edo which was renamed to Tokyo, the Eastern Capital, and the political system was made much similar to the modern kingdoms of Europe. The second big change was technological progress through the collective introduction of Western knowledge and machines. In the latter half of Tokugawa period learning of Western natural science and medicine through Dutch books spread among intelligent samurai and merchants. Terrified by the war between Britain and China in 1839 Bakufu ordered to build fortress with Western style guns along the coast of important ports to defend the country against Western invasion. After 1853 a dozen reverberatory furnaces were built to melt and cast iron guns according to the translation of a Dutch book describing the practice of the Armory at Liege in the early 19th century. Although not all furnaces were successful and the guns could not defeat the Western navy, the attempt was the first realization of modern Western technology in this country, and we may rate the ability of the Japanese highly for they did it without the aid of foreigners. After the conclusion of treaties with a number of foreign countries and opening ports to their ships, Bakufu introduced military technologies directly from them. In 1954 37 Japanese shipwrights built a Western style wooden sailing ship at Heta beach according to the design of Russian naval officers. The next year Netherlands gave Bakufu a steamship, and at a naval academy in Nagasaki Dutch officers taught navigation and engineering to the students from various parts of Japan. Meanwhile Bakufu opened the first shipyard with imported machinery at the same port. Fifteen engineers and craftsmen went to Netherlands to learn shipbuilding and related jobs in 1862. France also assisted Bakufu to train army, to make armory as well as to construct a naval shipyard at Yokosuka in 1867. By the way the daimyo of Kagoshima built an industry complex (Shuseikan ) in addition to a Japan's first cotton mill equipped with British machinery. In each case foreign engineers played crucial roles. The new government succeeded the same policy from Bakufu: introducing western technology by means of hiring foreign engineers and importing machines in government-owned business, at an enlarged scale. 1868 - introduction of Western methods into mining 1869 - lighthouse 1870 - laying telegraph line 1871 - Royal Mint in Osaka 1872 - Railroad between Tokyo and Yokohama, silk mill at Tomioka 1873 - Ministry of Public Works, Imperial College of Engineering 1876 - Beer brewery in Sapporo 1878 - Port design 1879 - Woollen mill at Senju 1880 - Royal Printing Office 1881 - Cotton Mill in Aichi 1882 - Crucible steelmaking and powdermaking at the navy plant Ways of Technology Transfer In the course of time grafting of western technology on the traditional culture went in progress. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Japan in the Edo period had developed an original technical system enough to support a stable economy. Then which aspect of the Western technology attracted the Japanese so much? 38 When for the first time they saw the U.S. fighting ship, they were very much frightened and called it 'Kurofune' (black ship ), and they used the word as a symbol of the challenge by the Western technology. It embodied steam engine, big guns and iron structure, symbolizing the western superiority in power, arms, metallurgy and transportation, which were the principal achievements of the Industrial Revolution in western Europe and which made the major European countries and the United States industrial as well as military power in the world. The Japanese leaders, both in Bakufu and in the Meiji Government, recognized their shortcoming in these respects and tried to adopt these technological elements through import of machines and learning their use, and they succeeded in such way as described in the following. The leaders hastily introduced western social system including parliament, banking, insurance, joint stock company, civil and commercial code, army and navy, modernized means of national- and international communication. Each element implied advanced technology developed among the European Industrial Revolution. The course of economic transformation of Japan during the last decades of the 19th century was similar to those occurred in France, Germany and the United States during the first half of the 19th century industrialization through borrowing technologies developed by the forerunner nation, Britain. And by the outbreak of the first world war, Japan had become an industrial nation with the same aspects as the western countries - factory system and mechanical production under the capitalistic enterprise, strong army and navy equipped with mechanized means of war. The so-called Gershenkron model, that means the advantage of later developing countries in the availability of achievements of the advanced countries, is in principle applicable to explain the success of the Japanese industrialization as it was for Germany. But there also was difference between Japan and Germany or the United States. It was easier for Germany to imitate Britain than for Japan to learn from the Western countries: because historically the former shared with Britain the same cultural tradition, the ethnic and linguistic barrier being much smaller among western nations than between West and East. In fact immigrant capitalist, engineers and scientists played important roles in creating new industries for U.S. and Germany. Although two British capitalists, Glover in coalmining and Hunter in shipbuilding, settled in Japan, they were exceptions. To fill the gap, the new Japanese Government took a bold and effective policy of 39 employing a great number of Western engineers and skilled workers for a short term, but for a very good pay, to initiate such new industries as railroad, telegraph, iron shipbuilding, armory, mint and coalmining. Some of the highest rank engineers were paid as much as the ministers. They realized the same way as they did at their home, designing the facilities, choosing the machines to import, and directing Japanese assistants and workers how to do. The Japanese called them Oyatoi Gaijin, i.e. foreign employe. In 1875 they numbered 250. Most of them were Britons, although there were several mechanics and engineers from other countries. At the second half of the 19th century the British engineers used to work in the colonies, as Professor Buchanan called the 'diaspora of engineers'. The Japanese government caught the chance to employ a part of them through the British merchants and banks as their agents. Rise of Capitalistic Enterprise Although the Government initiated the first enterprises introducing Western technology, most of them were denationalized and sold to the private business by 1890 except military and communication facilities. At the same time private companies grew in navigation, finance, and cotton industry. From the time on Japan has been principally a capitalistic society managed by the rule of market economy. Capitalist enterprise and national market did exist in the Edo period in commerce, iron, brewery and salt manufacture as described in the previous chapter. After the Meiji Restoration banking system and joint stock companies accelerated the capitalism. Textile and metalworking changed from previous domestic production to factories thanks to the imported machines. From the early phase of industrialization integrated business called Zaibatsu (wealthy group) grew up to be the core of the capitalism in Japan. Two of the three largest Zaibatsu - Houses of Mitsui and Sumitomo - had roots in the Edo period, while Mitsubishi was founded after the political change. They extended the scope of business to mining, manufacturing such as shipbuilding, machines, metal as well as banking and insurance. Their integration was partly due to the purchase of government owned mines and factories equipped with imported technology. 40 Economic Growth in the Meiji Period 1868 - 1912 The era name system has been changed since the Restoration to keep the same name during the reign of an emperor. Therefore we usually call the 45 years until the death of Emperor Mutsuhito the Meiji period, which corresponded to the era of the first stage of industrialization, introduction of Western technology and the rise of capitalism. During the half century population of the Japanese nation nearly doubled from 30 million to 60 million. Reform of the law relating to land tenure and money land tax instead of tax in rice in the Edo period, promoted greater productivity on the land, although the basic method of cultivation and harvesting little changed except the advanced use of fertilizer (phosphates, kali, and guano) and improvement in tools. Growth in agricultural production kept pace with population increase. The traditional sectors including agriculture and handicrafts kept growing, and as late as 1912 they still accounted for by far the greater portion of economic activity. However, Western-style factories were established and mining operations were expanded and modernized under the management of Zaibatsu. The silk and cotton industries underwent technological transformation and these two commodities were Japan's staple exports. Growing number of textile factories employed mainly girls from the country, who worked day and night at two shifts, representing the darker side of industrialization, until the enactment of the Factory act in 1926. Engineering education After the return of foreigners from the Government works domestic engineers took the seat, and led the way of industrialization in the public and private business. The rise of modern engineers capable of realizing western-born technology in this country is one of the most important factor in the success of Japanese industrialization. The earliest group of engineers consisted of those who learned European language in the Edo period (Yogakusha) and worked under the foreign engineer as interpreter or assistant; those who had chance to learn a bit of engineering in Europe or in the United States (ryugakusha); and those who studied at the attached schools to the Yokosuka Shipyard, Railway, and the Telegraph Office. These engineers contributed to the first introduction of Western technology, but they were few in number and had little systematic knowledge. 41 In a short while the Government established a system of engineering education. The Imperial College of Engineering was founded in 1873 and after six years a number of students graduated from its divisions of civil- mining- mechanical- chemical- and electrical engineering. Most teachers were British, of whom Henry Dyer, mechanical engineer and the Principal, tried to give the Japanese students lecture and training never existing in his mother country and not inferior to grands ecoles of France and German Technische Hochschulen. In fact the school had the world first division of electrical engineering, taught by J. Ayrton, a British Physicist. Most graduates worked for the Government-owned mines, railroad, telegraph and factories to succeed the foreign engineers. Others continued their study abroad and after their return inherited the chair of professor from their British teachers. The College was amalgamated into the Tokyo Imperial University as the Department of Technology in 1886. At the time no Western University had such department except a few American schools, because traditional European universities rejected modern and unacademic learning. On the contrary the recently founded Japanese university had no reason to discriminate technology against medicine or law. The unified system made the graduate engineers social elite equal to lawyers, doctors and scientists. The Government took the next step to found a school of practical, non-elite engineer in 1884, which was promoted five years later to Technical High School much similar to the German Technische Hochschulen. Nowadays this school is renamed Tokyo Institute of Technology, one of the largest center of engineering education and research in the world. By 1900 Japan had 860 university graduate and 650 high school graduate engineers according to my own statistical research. Thereafter university departments and high schools increased, and total number of graduate summed up to 5000 in 1910 and 14000 in 1920, about one fourth as many as the contemporary German TH graduate engineers. Soon the high school graduates outnumbered the university graduates. While most university graduate engineer chose their job in the government or in large zaibatsu business, the high school graduate found their work place in every branch of private industry. 42 Innovation in Land Transportation Maybe the largest technological change affecting daily life of the nation before 1900 was those in transportation. In the Edo period people used to travel on foot or on kago, a seat carried by two men, and moved goods on horseback. Those who first visited Europe or the United States were most impressed by the speed and power of railroad,which by the time had been laid into network among those countries. When foreigners recommended to build railroad in this country in 1869 the new Government did not hesitate to employ more than one hundred foreign engineers, drivers and allied workers to open a line between Tokyo and Yokohama. Of course a great many Japanese laborers led by a domestic contractor engaged in the actual work of railroad construction by their traditional technic of civil engineering, which had approached perfection in the Edo period as shown in the castles and in the flood control work. William Potter, a British engineer, reported on the railway work in Japan to the Institution of Civil Engineers, London in 1878 that 'native example of engineering are remarkable and any trouble in the matter of foundation is considered superfluous...Workers are extremely intelligent and industrious....the survey assistants with little experience are soon made splendid foremen - cheerful, obedient, full of fun, and yet taking the keenest interest in their work.' By 1880 all foreigners were gone and the Japanese stuff in the National Railway took responsibility. By 1900 the trunk line connecting Tokyo and Kobe 600 km apart was complete, and trains ran regularly. An indigenous innovation on the road vehicle was jinrikisha, man-drawn carriage on bicycle wheels, which was invented by a Japanese named Akiba Daisuke around 1870. This vehicle soon drove away kago. Jinrikisha is a good example of appropriate technology invented in a developing country with labor surplus, and it was transferred to Asian countries, where it is still in use. Transformation of Mining In the Edo period there were dozens of silver and copper mines in Japan and until the 18th century Japan was one of the largest copper exporting country in the world. But in the course of time output from most mines were declining due to the flooding in the pits and to the exhaustion of rich ores within the reach of miners by the existing means of transport. 43 When the leaders of the Meiji Government inherited those mines from Bakufu their chief concern was to rehabilitate the mining operation to keep supply of metals enough to maintain new monetary system. For the purpose they employ a team of French miners led by Francisque Coigny at the Ikuno silver mine, and also invited several mining engineers from Britain and Germany to draw up master plans to improve each mines. We will explain how the mining operations changed in the Bessi copper mine, which was managed by a private business, the House of Sumitomo. In 1870's a manager named Hirose Saihei learned the French way of mining at Ikuno, and after his return he asked Coigny and another foreign engineer to prospect the amount of deposits according to the recent method of geology, and to make blueprints for the reengineering. Meanwhile he sent two stuffs to a French mining school to learn modern methods of mining and refining. It took about 30 years to transform the old mine. The means implied first, reuse of wasted poorer ore by the introduction of larger smelting furnace and of chemical separation of copper from the waste water, second to sink vertical shaft and to open horizontal gallery so that ores might be transported together to a large scale dressing plant, third, introduction of steam engine on the shaft to draw up water and to wind up ores, fourth, to construct oxcart road, steam railroad and rope way to transport smelted ores to the port. The actual means of miner's labor little changed except the use of gunpowder to crush the rock. By 1900 output of copper increased and about 10 thousand miners and their family lived on the mountain village. As they dug out all the upper vein, the management decided to move people and facilities to the lower spot on the other side of the mountain for easier excavation and transport of deeper ores. Other nonferrous metal mines experienced similar technological change. On account of concentrated transport, the subsidiary contract of pit became meaningless and direct management of labor by the central office gradually proceeded in every mine. The case of Ashio copper mine was especially interesting. An entrepreneur named Furukawa Ichibei bought the mine from the Government, and took a bold measure to reform it in cooperation with the Tokyo branch office of Siemens. They built one of the Japan's first hydroelectric station in 1891, connected several pit heads and shafts with aerial rope way driven by electric power to collect the ores together, and later built 44 Japan's first electrolytic refinery to make copper pure enough to be drawn into electric wire. Tradition and Innovation in textile manufacture Textile manufacture remained by far the most important industry in terms of the value of products as well as the number of employment. It played two roles for the Japanese economy until the early decades of the 20th century: on the one hand, to supply the increasing population with traditional clothes (kimono) and on the other, as the major item of export to earn dollars and pound stirling to pay for the increasing import of machines and industrial materials. Silk and cotton were two main textiles manufactured since the Edo period. By 1900 products, methods and industrial organization little changed. Millions of farmers fed silkworm and reeled silk at home orvillage cottage by the zaguri method , an indigenous invention in the beginning of the 19th century, in which a woman turned the reel through gearwork without interruption with the left hand, while she boiled cocoons in a vat and attached filament with the right hand. A greater number of village women wove silk or cotton fabric for domestic use with handlooms. Mechanization and factory system appeared only in limited process of the industry. Because silk was exported in great volume after the opening of port, the Government hired a French engineer and skilled workers to open a reeling factory in 1872 at Tomioka, where a steam engine supplied heat to each vat as well as power to wind filaments on the reel. Since the action of each reeler was not far different from the traditional hand reeling, Japanese female workers were soon accustomed to the work, and on their return home they helped in the establishment of a great number of simplified silk factories driven by waterwheel. The central and local government distributed good silkworm eggs and inspected fineness and evenness of silk for export. The largest transformation occurred in cotton spinning, which the cotton growing farmers used to do with hand wheels at home until 1880's. Since the hand spun yarn could not compete against imported British or Indian yarn, the Government imported a set of spinning machinery into a model mill and leased or sold a dozen of the same kind to private mills powered by water or steam. By 1900 larger mills equipped with British machines went on stream consuming imported cotton as raw material. At the time 45 domestic cotton farming and hand spinning almost vanished, instead young girls from the village worked in the mill. The merchant began to export cotton and silk fabric to the neighboring countries and by the turn of the century local loomwrights were supplying power looms to the weavers' factories. Arsenal, shipbuilding and iron During the long peace of the Edo period military technology stagnated. The ordinary arms were sword, bow and matchlock gun, while cast bronze gun was only ornamentary. Actually there was no navy at all, and the commercial ships were wooden and sailing, weighing less than 100 tons. The ruling samurai class, warriors in origin, had been transformed into bureaucrats, nominal guards and intellectuals. The visit of U.S. navy led by Commodore Perry in 1853 threatened the Japanese with its steamship and big guns. Bakufu and its successor tried in the first place to rearm their military power with modern technology to protect the nation against Western powers. They bought handarms and steamed warships from any country, and French and Dutch officers taught the Japanese personnel of army and navy. The civil war in 1867 which resulted in the fall of Bakufu was fought with imported weapons. The new Government fired the traditional samurai out of service, and established a military draft system from all adult male. By 1890 the army was organized after the German model, while the navy adopted British style. The government tried hard to produce weapons. The arsenal of Tokyo and Osaka developed and produced small arms and cannons with a host of imported machine tools, till at the Chino-Japanese War in 1894 and at the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 the army won with the home-produced weapons. Armament of navy aroused greater trouble. They had to start with the inexperienced techniques of building steam engine and iron ship. The Dutch and French officers taught the way at the Nagasaki and Yokosuka shipyards. In ten years the first iron gunboat was completed. During the 1890's and 1900's revolutional change in the design and construction of warship was going on among world powers induced by the invention of open hearth steel, superior powder, torpedo and turbine propulsion. The hull changed from iron to steel, the caliber of guns got larger and the range 46 longer, the armament grew thicker, the turret structure was completely transformed, the battleship became larger, heavier and faster. In short, the standard naval armament in 1900 was technologically much more sophisticated and financially too much more expensive than those when the Japanese navy started. To keep up-to-date fleet they could not but continue to import battleships - mainly from British docks, where most innovation was initiated - at the expense of more than a quarter of annual budget, while at the home dock they built smaller ships. Import of modern ships gave a chance for the naval architects and engineers staying at the dock or British Naval Office as client supervisors to learn the design and construction of modern ships. They gradually designed larger ships for themselves. In 1902 Miyahara Jiro a naval engineer-in-chief designed an improved type of marine tubular boiler which was equipped for every warship. Technical development of private shipbuilding followed almost the same way as in the navy at Nagasaki (Mitsubishi) and Kobe (Kawasaki), which were founded by the government and sold out around 1890. Beginning with the design and supervision of work by foreign engineers, their skill was soon transferred to the Japanese engineers and foremen. In 1900 the naval architects in Nagasaki for the first time succeeded in building a steel passenger steamer (Hitachi Maru) which passed the inspection by the international marine insurance (the Lloyds of London). Army arsenals, Naval shipyards and the two shipbuilding companies were exceptionally large engineering factories in Japan up to 1900 employing thousands of workers and powered metal working tools. These factories were training schools of modern mechanics and metalworkers, who diffused the skill among other smaller machine shops. Supply of steel was another problem for the army and navy. Since Japan had scarcely any iron resource except sand containing very small amount of iron, the masters in the Edo period invented an indigenous technology named tatara, to concentrate sand ore in the stream and smelt it in a small low shaft furnace with charcoal and a pair of foot-driven blast. This operation produced less than one tons of iron and steel in four days. After the opening of port most iron and steel was imported to construct railroad, ship, arms and every kind of goods. Oshima Takato, a pioneer engineer built a small 47 blast furnace at the Kamaishi iron mine as early as in 1859 utilizing charcoal as fuel and blast by water power. But British engineers failed to scale up the furnace on the same district with coke and steam power, till at last Japanese engineers first succeeded in making pig iron in 1894. Military factories concentrated their effort in steelmaking to attain self-suffuency in the gun material. The navy and the army succeeded in producing crucible steel in 1882 and 1890, respectively. During 1890's Naval ordnance and Army arsenal successively built open hearths. But the capacity of homemade iron and steel in 1900 was too small to fill the expected demand for the war against Russia. The next year the first government-owned large scale iron and steel plant was completed at Yawata by the design and personnel aid as well as equipped with the imported machinery from German Gutehoffnungshuette, Westfalen. This factory was the forerunner of the world largest Nippon Steel Corporation . Introduction of electricity Electricity was a new technology even in the Western nations. Its first practical use was telegraphy, invented in U.S.A. and Britain during the 1840's, only a quarter century before its introduction into Japan. Telephone and electric power appeared as late as 1880's. The timing suggests that Japan could have simultaneously developed electrical technology, but progress in the U.S.A. and Germany was too quick for the Japanese to follow without successive introduction of innovations. The first telegraph line was laid by the new Government in 1869, a year after the Meiji Restoration. At the Telegraph Office as many as 59 foreigners were employed, of whom 54 were British, led by George Gilbertas chief engineer. In a few years a 1200 km line from Tokyo To Nagasaki was completed; there it was connected with the submarine cables to send messages directly to Europe via Siberia or via Indian Ocean. The transfer of technology to Japanese went on the job training, as Yoshida Masahide wrote: When in youth I was a student of English conversation in Yokohama, that was why I was recruited into the telegraphy. But the British foreman never taught me the principle nor the working of the telegraph. I only imitated what he operated. In a few years I was moved to be a translator to a British engineer constructing long-distance lines to Nagasaki with the task of explaining to Japanese laborers how to install a pole and 48 how to connect wires. It was very hard and difficult. Through these experiences, however, he acquired necessary telegraph practice, and when all the British resigned 1881 the Japanese operators and technicians could manage and extend the business. But to catch up with the advances of electrical engineering in the West a different kind of manpower was necessary. The graduates of the Imperial College of Engineering played the most of role to realize new branches of electrical technology, as described earlier. One of them, Fujioka Ichisuke, became the chief engineer of the newly organized Tokyo Electric Co. and opened the first power station in 1888. In two years electric lightening started in seven large cities, led by graduate engineers respectively. In 1891 hydroelectric supply started in Kyoto, and by the end of the century high voltage and long distance power transmission began. The diffusion and technical advancement of electric power in Japan was not so much behind the U.S.A. or European countries. By 1914 total power produced in the country reached some 1555 kwh. The number of stations increased to 578, and the maximum capacity of a station grew to 700 thousand kW. The rapid expansion of electric utility owed principally to the import of machinery, most of which was made by GE, Westinghouse, Siemens and AEG. Growth of domestic electrical manufacture was slow as compared with electric utilization, because of their incapability in design and fabrication of large capacity machines. The revision of Patent Law and the enactment of the Commercial Code resulted in the licensing agreement accompanied by capital acquisition between the U.S. and Japanese electrical manufacturers. In 1899 Nippon Electric Co. (NEC) was formed to produce standard Western Electric type telephone apparatus. GE invested in the electric lamp business of Tokyo Electric Co. and in the power machinery manufacture of Shibaura Works. Thanks to the licensing the equipment, design and work organization of these joint ventures remarkably improved. While imported generator still ruled larger power generator market by 1912, domestic machines could fill the demand of small stations and motive power of small business. 49 CHAPTER 4 TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The Impact of The First World War In the First World War (1914 - 1918) Japan fought on the Allied side against Germany. Being far away from the battlefield in Europe, Japan suffered scarcely any damage from the war, but rather enjoyed the windfall profit caused by the interruption of export from both Germany and Britain. By the War Japan was a semi-industrialized country, relying heavily on the imported machinery and industrial materials such as steel and chemicals. Stop of the import was a challenge for the Japanese technology to develop these heavy-and chemical industry themselves, and they responded. Within a few years after the break of war, large and small factories increased producing steel, machines, dyestuffs and soda which were so long imported. In 1909 textile and food accounted for 70% of total industrial output, whereas the share of chemical, metal and mechanical industries was only 20%. By the end of war in 1919 the ratio changed 60% vs. 30%, respectively, although the cotton industry also was expanded during the war thanks to the increasing export to substitute European fabrics in the Asian market. When peace came back, the newborn industries had to face against the revival of imported European goods and the disappearance of wartime demand. They had a hard time, but most of the factories survived and new entry followed. The process suggests the technological potential for the heavy- and chemical industries before the World War I. It implies accumulation of knowledge and personnel including engineers and mechanics, as stated in the previous chapter. In effect several pioneers had been undertaking enterprises in the new technology to substituting imported goods since 1900 as depicted in the following: 1901 1903 Coal tar distillation Calcium Carbide 50 (Tokyo Gas Co.) (Fujiyama & Noguchi) 1904 1906 1907 1909 Locomotive tyre Steam turbine Power loom Cast steel anker Oil engine Calcium cyanamide Chlorate electrolysis (Sumitomo steel) (Mitsubishi Shipbuilding) (Toyoda-shiki) (Kobe steel) (Ikegai & Sanyo) (Nihon Chisso) (Nihon Chemical) (Terada - the forerunner of Oympus Co.) (Sakai & Nihon Celluloid Rayon) (Sankyo) (Mitsui Mining) 1911 Microscope Celluloid Vitamin B 1913 Alizarin Dyestuff The war accelated the innovative spirit which had been checked by the import. Remarkable innovations during the war were: 1914 Air compressor (Kobe Steel) Offset printing machine (Hamada) 1915 Alloy steel Aniline & phenol (Nihon Tokushuko) (Tokyo Gas) Caustic soda by electrolysis (Asahi Denka, Osaka Soda) Electric measuring instruments (Yokogawa) 1916 Aluminum X-ray apparatus Ammonia soda 1917 Vacuum tube Airplane 1918 Automobile Spinning machine Extending Technical Education (Nihon Keigin) (Tokyo Denki) (Asahi Glass & NIhon Soda) (Tokyo Denki & Nihon Musen) (Nakajima) (Ishikawajima ,Tokyo Gasden) (Kyodo Boki Kumiai) Schools for technical education steadily increased. The imperial universities of Kyoto, Kyushu and Tohoku founded after Tokyo had Departments of Technology from the beginning. Much more remarkable was the diffusion of the technical high school among every industrial districts. After Tokyo and Osaka (1898), Yonezawa (textile) Akita 51 (mining) Ueda (silk) schools were made in 1910, Kiryuu (textile) school followed in 1915. At first these schools educated the manpower for the local or traditional industries, and in the course of time added faculties of general engineering. In the midst of war the government drew up the long term extension program of technical high school, and by 1920 these were realized in Yokohama, Hiroshima, Kanazawa, Kobe, Hamamatsu, Tokushima, Nagaoka, Fukui and Yamanashi. In 1929 the oldest two technical high schools - Tokyo and Osaka - were promoted to Technical Universities. As the result supply of engineers increased exponentially. In 1910 Japan had 1920 university graduate, 3100 high school graduate, in total 5000 engineers. By 1920 the number had grown to 5000, 9100, 14100 respectively, and by the mid 1930's total number of graduate engineers reached 68,000, 14 times as many as a quarter century before. Most of the additional engineers worked in private business. While in 1910 44% of engineers stayed in the Government and 56% worked for the industry, by 1920 the ratio drastically changed to 27:73, which meant, three times as many engineers working in the private sector. Distribution of engineers among industries also changed. In 1910 mining employed the largest number of engineers, and textile, shipbuilding, power and commerce came after it. The five divisions employed 55% of total engineers. By 1920 the order little changed but the number of engineers in the new industries such as metal, machinery, electrical equipment and chemical industries increased by 6-7 times as many as ten years before. The statistical trend suggests that the economic activity in private industries more and more relied upon the school-educated engineers and new industries owed in particular to their knowledge and ability. Some engineers established their own business, or conducted a new division of large shipbuilding or mining concern. To such engineer-entrepreneur belonged Ayukawa Gisuke, a mechanical engineer who founded the Nissan group including motorcar business, Odaira Namihei, an electrical engineer and the founder of Hitachi Works, Noguchi Jun, originally an engineer at the Siemens-Japan who later build up Japan's largest chemical concern, Nitchitsu, Baron Okochi Masatoshi, professor of military engineering who supported the expansion of a large research institute (Riken, see below) and set up a number of factories to realize its innovations for himself. 52 Beginning of Industrial Research The expansion of engineering education accompanied the progress in the teaching method. Until the beginning of the twentieth century the university professors spoke before the students of the engineering department the established theory and practice according to the European texts. The students used to the treatment of simple gadgets at the laboratory and at the final school year they learnt the practice at the mines or factories. By and by the professors who had learnt in Europe the way of research on their return tried to keep it at their university. They consented that the title of doctor should be given for the originality of work in terms of the academic research. The bulletins of engineering societies were changing to contain more reports of original experiments than information of technology in the advanced countries. The professors also changed the school regulations that every student should complete his graduation thesis by experiment or by design. And in the primary course they put emphasis more on lectures in advanced mathematics, modern physics and theoretical chemistry, as well as related experiments, than explanation of individual topics in industry, so that the graduates might become scientific engineers who would develop new machines or process rather than tend and supervise existing equipment and work. The research-oriented attitude was not restricted to the universities but the Government and industry also recognized the necessity of expanding research organizations. The Ministry of Agriculture and Industry had already founded the Silk Laboratory (1884), Forestry Laboratory (1888), Industrial Laboratory (1900) and Fermentation Laboratory (1904). The Ministry of Communication set up the Electric Laboratory in 1891, and the National Railroad also had its own laboratory since 1907. Larger private companies also made laboratories; Shibaura Works (1906), Mitsubishi Shipbuilding (Test Dock 1908), Mitsui Mining (Chemical Labo 1909), Tokyo Denki (1914), Furukawa (1914), Mitsubishi Papermaking (1915), Mitsubishi Mining (1917), Hitachi (1918), NEC (1920), Mitsuwa (Chemical Labo 1921), Tokyo Gas (1922) and so on. It is generally believed that the German dyestuff industry initiated the research organization within the firm at the end of the nineteenth century, and electric companies of Germany and the U.S.A. such as Siemens, GE, AT&T, founded the laboratories in the beginning of the twentieth century. It appears at first sight that Japan was not far behind, 53 but the early phase of the public and private laboratories they only tested or analyzed materials and had never done research in its own sense. It was again the impact of the First World War that the big stride toward the research was made. In 1918 Ministry of Agriculture and Industry founded a Temporary Nitrogen Research Laboratory to develop an industrial process for the synthesis of ammonia, which a German Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber had invented in 1908 and the Badische Anilin-und Soda Fabrik had commercialized. The German basic patent being suspended thanks to the war, the chemical firms of Allied countries including Britain, France and the U.S.A. started to develop industrial process of ammonia synthesis without the know how from Germany. The chemists and engineers in the Temporary Laboratory took up the same task, and they completed a pilot plant in 1925. The laboratory transferred its process to a company named Showa Fertilizer. More general and basic research laboratory was the Physical and Chemical Research Institute (Riken), which was founded in 1915 and supported by the Government subsidy and public donation after the model of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut in Berlin. There in conjunction with the scientific research an effort was made to industrialize the results obtained. We shall find its inventions in the next paragraph. By and by the laboratories in the private firms also made a progress toward the research and development. At first they concentrated their effort to follow or improve the technology of advanced countries: Nippon Senryo and Mitsui succeeded in the synthesis of dyestuffs by 1930 to compete with the German chemical concern. Mitsubishi Shipbuilding developed KS Diesel engine, an improvement upon the Sulzer type. Inventions 1910 - 1940 Japanese patent system originated in 1884, and it was revised in 1899 to file the application of foreigners. By 1920 thousands of patents were issued every year, but most domestic patents were related to the improvement in the traditional technology. They include commercially effective inventions as tea-treatment machine by Takabayashi Kenzo (1885), Garabo spinning machine by Gaun Tokimune (1877), Jinrikisha by Akiba Daisuke (1870) as referred to earlier. The greater part belonged to the division of textile, food and agriculture, including the cocoon drying apparatus by Nakahara Sakutaro (1900), the world first multi silk filament reeling machine by Minorikawa Naosaburo (1899), 54 noodle extruder by Masaki Terusato (1888), silk power loom by Tsuda Yonejiro(1898) and cotton power loom by Toyoda Sakichi (1898). Most of the inventors were not school graduate scientists or engineers, but traditional craftsmen or amateur inventors. These suggest the inventive activity of the Japanese from the grass roots in the early phase of industrialization. During and after the First World War Japanese patent on mechanical- metalelectric- and chemical engineering increased, invented by learned person including corporate engineers. Important inventions between 1910 and 1940 were: YEAR ITEM 1912 1913 1914 1916 1917 1922 1923 TYK wireless telephone centrifugal pump Japanese typewriter permanent magnet steel battery lead Vitamin A frosted glass lamp Alumite 1924 automatic loom photo typesetting machine Yagi antenna 1927 magnetron tube photo transmitter 1929 MS Diesel engine calculating machine 1931 MK magnet steel small diesel engine 1935 1936 super high draft spinning super duralmin improved Cu-rayon spinning 1939 back-focusing camera INVENTOR Torigata &c. Inokuchi Sugimoto Honda Shimazu Takahashi Fuwa Kujirai Toyoda Ishii Yagi Okabe Niwa Shimizu Ohki Mishima Yamaoka Honda Kitahara Munakata Mamiya 55 ORGANIZATION Ministry of Communication Tokyo University Tohoku University Riken Tokyo Denki Co. Riken Tohoku University Tohoku University NEC Co. Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Tokyo University Sumitomo Metal Co. Asahi Bemberg Co. polyvinylacetal fiber ditto. Self-sufficiency of Machines Yazawa Sakurada &c. Kanebo Co. Kyoto University Substitution of imported equipment for home made machines were general target of machine makers, who kept trying to improve the performance, capacity, durability and the cost of their products to the level of the imported machinery. The users who had long been relying on the imported equipment gradually recognized the compatibility of domestic machines, and some of them, in particular Government institutions, changed their attitude towards encouraging domestic manufacturers through trial order or through cooperation in design. As early as in 1912 the National Railway established the principle of domestic production of equipment, and asked two makers of carriages to build locomotives by its own design. At the electrification of railway after the 1920's the National Railway ordered everything to domestic manufacturers. After the World War the spinning machine gradually changed from British made to domestic ones, and the cotton industry tried to rationalize their process to cover the rising cost induced by the abandonment of night labor, through the introduction of high-draft spinning developed in collaboration of machine shops. During the 1920's electric power companies built a number of large capacity stations by the dam on the mainstream of big rivers, to supply power to the industrial districts and to large cities by means of long distance transmission lines. U.S. and German manufacturers kept supplying highest capacity generators and the Japanese makers followed step by step, until by 1930 they succeeded in getting the order of the world largest hydroelectric plants. By 1925 the value of the following homemade machines and allied products already exceeded the value of import. electric cell, internal combustion engine, electric machinery(total), pump, loom, knitting machine, papermaking machine, printing machine, valve, telephone and telegraph apparatus. The devaluation of Yen against dollar or pound after 1932 strengthened the competitive position of domestic producers. The following is a list of machines and related products in which domestic production exceeded import at that time. 56 bearing, gauge, diesel engine, camera, microscope, cash register, sewing machine, large capacity power plant, vacuum tube, electric instruments, electric welder. Introduction and Development of Chemical Technology At the end of the nineteenth century Germany created modern chemical technology, including electrochemical, organic synthesis and high-pressure gas chemistry, and opened the door to the world of high-polymermaterials in the twentieth century such as manmade fiber, plastics and synthetic rubber. The Japanese chemical industry was several decades behind on the eve of the First World War; composed of a few sulfuric acid, phosphates, soap and rubber factories. But during the war a lot of new firms began to manufacture soda, dyestuff and various chemicals as described before. And by 1930 Japan became one of the largest suppliers of the two mass-productive chemicals, nitrogen fertilizer and rayon fiber. The sudden rise of the chemical industry, in particular the increasing number of firms and factories, owes much to the abundance in potential supply of chemists. In 1917 total number of chemists graduated from four universities and six technical high schools amounted to 3900 according to the estimate of Prof. Kamoi. And these schools were sending freshmen to the society at an accellated rate. Before the war when the job of chemists in industry was restricted, most of them worked as teachers or as inspectors at Government organizations such as the Custom House. After 1914 more chemist chose their job in the newborn factories, and some of them initiated their own factories. The entrepreneur and chemists in the new factories made use of various sources of technology. Some electrolytic- and ammonia soda companies designed and constructed their plant without the assistance by foreign patent holders or engineering firms, but in effect their process was development of existing technology in U.S. or Germany. Licensing of a patent was more general way of establishing new industry. For the synthesis of ammonia, in addition to the indigenous Nitrogen Laboratory process, Claude, Casale and NEC processes were licensed in the 1920's and much later IG licensed its patent and know-how to the Japanese companies. In the rayon industry Teijin developed its own technology, in contrast to Asahi Kenshoku which bought patents from the VGF. Kurashiki also acquired a French rayon patent but they had to develop most of the process by themselves. Toray, Nihon Rayon, Tokyo Rayon and Showa Rayon entrusted the 57 design and process of their plants to a German engineering firm named Oskar Kohorn, hiring several European engineers and skilled workers to help the start-up of operation for a few months. In these manner most Japanese chemical plants were copy of the European factories, with imported equipments at critical points. But in the course of time Japanese chemists and engineers in charge of the rayon factory invented a superior method of reclaiming waste chemicals to reduce the cost of production, which made the Japanese rayon industry the largest exporter of the world. The Second World War and Rivalry to the U.S.A. In the Second World War 1941 - 1945 Japan fought against the U.S.A. in alliance with Germany, until at last we were deadly damaged and lost. The war was fought on a much larger scale than the First War, and the battle area covered almost the whole surface of the earth, including the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. That was at the same time the war of science and technology. Aircraft and its carrier played the leading part in the fight, and revolutionary scientific weapons appeared during the war - radar, sonar, jetplane, rocket and nuclear bomb, which changed the course of history after the war. These achievements were based not only on the munitions industry in narrower sense, but also on the general level of science- and technology in the countries concerned. The victory of the U.S.A. meant their superiority in technology. But the fact that Japan could compete with the U.S. force for four years meant that the gap was not so great. Considering the late start in modern armaments, especially in aeronautics and electronics, the rate of catch up seemed higher as would have been expected. The comparison of war time record with U.S.A. would show the Japanese technological achievement by the time. Aeronautics The practical use of airplane at the First World War by the both sides of the European powers tempted the Japanese Army and Navy to have their own air force. They introduced planes and teachers from France and Britain to train the first flying corps, and ordered private firms to construct fuselage and engine for them. At first the maker copied foreign plane, and in a while they hired German engineers to design original models. Since the progress of aerodynamics, light metal materials and engine was very quick, basic research 58 was indispensable. Tokyo Imperial University set up the Aeronautic Laboratory and the faculty of aeronautics to bring up specialists, who soon found their job in military service or aeronautic industry to design planes and engines. By 1935 most airplanes of the world changed to metallic monoplane. By the time chemical companies including Sumitomo, Showa, and Nikkeikin succeeded in the electrolytic production of principal material, aluminum. Sumitomo also invented super duralmin, a tough light alloy of aluminum for the fuselage. The civil airline service started in this country much later than the air force, and since the airline relied on imported DC-3, it scarcely helped the advancement of domestic aeronautic industry. At the break of war with the U.S. in 1941 Japanese air force had tens of thousands fighters and bombers. Their performance was not so inferior to those in the U.S., German or British air forces. For example, the navy Zero fighter had longest range in the world, and rivaled the Grumman fighter on the Pacific for three years. But the Japanese aircraft industry could not supply planes enough to compensate for the loss as the U.S. industry did. The difference lay principally in the mass-production engineering. Whereas the U.S. factories applied the technic familiar in the automobile production, the Japanese design were too complicated for unskilled workers to build a plane within a short time, and they made considerable defective parts and engines. Too much variety of models designed during the war also embarrassed the production line. Liquid fuel was another problem. A few oil fields within the Japan mainland had almost dried up by 1930, and the Japanese economy and military force had heavily relied on imported petroleum. The U.S. embargo of oil drove Japan to conquer the colonial oil fields of South Asia, and it was a principal cause of war. In cooperation with the military several firms introduced German synthetic oil technologies, i.e. Bergius process of coal hydrogenation, Fischer-Tropsch coal gas synthesis and synthetic iso-octane. But Japan could not produce so much oil from coal as Germany did. The automobile gap Japanese and U.S. armies showed a sharp contrast in mobility; while most Japanese soldiers walked on foot, and if necessary, carried arms on horseback, the U.S. army moved on cars. That depended on the extant production capacity of cars. It took a host of 59 Japanese laborers several weeks to build an airfield with shovel and handcart, while the U.S. Corps of Engineers finished the same task in a few days with power shovel and tractor moved by engine. The difference was sometimes crucial for the battle. Motorization of army in Japan was far behind those in U.S. or Germany. It reflects the general delay in the private motorization and in the establishment of the motor industry. The Japanese army did have motor cars soon after the First World War, and it encouraged a few manufacturers to make military trucks, tanks and Diesel motors. These makers also supplied buses as a new vehicle of urban transportation. But private car remained a luxury, which two assembly plant of the U.S. big auto firms supplied. It was not until the Government expelled the U.S. capital out of the market in 193? that two Japanese companies, Nissan and Toyota, got a chance to manufacture private cars. The war interrupted their effort and the Japanese motor industry stayed immature. The trucks also made frequent trouble in transporting corps on account of inferior material and inadequate forming of parts. Rubber tyre was an important strategic material for both sides of war. Japan had already an established rubber-processing industry, and thanks to the abundant supply of natural rubber from its occupation territories, Malaya and Vietnam, they felt little shortage of rubber during the War. In contrast, U.S.A. was threatened by the loss of former supplier. Lest they should have their cars and planes standstill, they mobilized large corporations belonging to the rubber- petroleum- and chemical industry to build plants to synthesize rubber from oil as quickly as possible, making use of the German technology which had been licensed to ESSO, and they succeeded. The story symbolizes the potential ability of the U.S. industry in developing new materials, in which the Japanese should have been lacking. The radar handicap It is said most of the lost Japanese ships and aircrafts during the war were hit by the radar of the Allied forces, and the delay in the development of Japanese radar was the crucial cause of the final defeat. Radar is a reflective detector of ultra short electromagnetic wave, an extensive use of radio- or electronic technology. In this respect, the Japanese was not so late in applying radio in war, nor its technological potential so far behind the U.S. or 60 Germany. As soon as Marconi succeeded in the practical application of electromagnetic wave in 1897, the Japanese Navy and the Ministry of Communication Laboratory developed similar apparatus, and they used it at the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 earlier than any navy of the world. Soon after Fessenden announced the first broadcasting by radio in the U.S., Torigata and his collaborators made similar transmitting apparatus in 1912. At the same time Tokyo Denki began to manufacture vacuum tubes, which should become the most important element in radio technology, through the license from its parent company GE. There was amateur radio fever in Japan during the 1920's as in other countries, and NHK opened the Tokyo broadcasting station in 1925, only five years after the first commercial broadcast in the U.S.A. New electric manufacturers such as Matsushita and Sharp grew up with its receiving set. The Navy and Communication officials extended research on shorter waves for long range transmission. Scientists at the Tohoku University invented two important device - Yagi antenna and magnetron tube. The former has been universally in use for every TV receiving set, and the latter was indispensable in the radar circuit transmitting message in 10 cm wavelength. The failure of Japan in developing radar lay in the tactic concept of the Navy. The Japanese staffs did not take notice on the availability of radio detector. When at the beginning of the war Japanese occupation army discovered at the British base in Singapore an exquisite apparatus, which the military scientists found to be a radar, and tried to develop it themselves. But they were five years behind the enemy, and when the homemade radar was set up on the battleship and covered the defence zone of mainland, they had little fuel and aircraft to counterattack the invading U.S. fleet and air force. Inter war Research and Development During the wartime the Japanese scientists and engineers were shut off from the information and from the imported apparatus of the advanced countries except a few German blueprints carried on submarine over the Atlantic- and Indian Oceans. For the first time since their opening port one hundred years ago the Japanese had to develop everything by themselves. Because the military leaders recognized the importance of scientific weapons, they did not spare money and material to the research and 61 development. Although the effort did not always contribute to the immediate need of the war, it left a base for the new industry in the postwar Japan. The electrical engineers in schools and companies mobilized to the radar development utilized their experience to the expansion of electronic industry. Engineers of the Naval Air Force built at the end of the war a jet engine and a rocket plane after the German design. Polymer research was encouraged to substitute for imported resource and to provide specific materials for the war. Engineers in Nitchitsu and Furukawa prepared polyvinylchloride, chemists in Toray established the process of synthesizing nylon 6, independent of Du Pont in U.S. and Bayerin Germany. The scientists in the Kyoto University and Sumitomo who analyzed the white coating on the high-frequency cable of the captured radar discovered it to be polyethylene, a latest British secret invention and in a few years they completed small scale experiment in its manufacture. The three polymers grew up to be the largest chemical products of the postwar Japan. 62 CHAPTER 5 THE POSTWAR MIRACLE OF JAPAN Social Reform and Technical Change The war ended in the tragical damage by the world first (and maybe the last ) nuclear attack, and in the devastation of almost every city and in the collapse of the whole industry. From 1945 to 1952 the Allied Forces occupied Japan, dismantled its army, navy, munitions and aircraft industries, in addition to the dissolution of the large concerns commonly called zaibatsu -property group. Millions, including the veteran soldiers were unemployed and more people lacked in daily food or home. In spite of the miserable fresh start, economic recovery of Japan (and Germany) was very quick, for the postwar reform forced by the enemy was not always unhappy for the Japanese nation, but it laid a new course of technical development. An increased number of companies which were born in consequence of the dissolution of zaibatsu competed each other in the technical development game. The agrarian reform gave birth to ten millions of independent farmers who began to try to raise productivity of land and labor, and made themselves a rich market for machines and chemicals. The labor legislation resulted in the formation of union in almost every establishment and pushed individual wage. To cope with this pressure the managers had to mechanize and rationalize the process or to diversify into higher value-added market; in short, they had to advance technology. Change of national education system from European to American model also brought up more engineers than those in pre-war Japan. What the occupation forces did not also was an important element in the postwar recovery of Japan. Individual companies and government laboratories kept their human resource - scientists, engineers and skilled workers - in employment, and sometimes they were richer in talent thanks to the absorption of military engineers. The ten years after 1945 were hard times for the Japanese industries. They had to reconstruct the remaining equipment and produce goods for an uncertain market instead of 63 the military demand, strike of labor union under the extremist leaders threatened almost every industry. Technologically, short supply and irregular quality of materials were the largest problem. In those circumstances the managers of larger firms, especially leading engineers within industry sought the way of revival to equip themselves with the up-to-date technology. Massive Introduction of New Technology After the defeat most Japanese engineers thought they were twenty years behind the U.S.A.. They sought for foreign technological information, which they were lacking during the wartime, at the Civil Libraries of the Allied Forces and found that innovations were proceeding in the U.S. and other countries during and after the war. The management took the next action of sending the best engineer to U.S.A. and Europe to look for a best technology to strengthen their capacity from any country. Then managers went abroad to ask for license of the technology in question from foreign companies which held the patent right . Thus in the 1950's they made a great rush for the introduction of technology from abroad and signed hundreds of licensing agreement. Important technologies introduced into the basic industries were; (1) Steel (2) Shipbuilding (3) Automobile (4) Electric Power (5) Electronics (6) Petroleum (7) Chemical LD converter; Strip Mill Automatic welding; Block construction Production engineering; Shell mould Large scale thermal plant TV; Transistor Catalytic cracking and reforming Petrochemicals; Plastics; Synthetic rubber; Synthetic fiber; Synthetic detergent; Antibiotics Each of these was top level technology which had been seldom applied outside the original country or firm. Since almost every Japanese firm in the same trade introduced the same technology, in a short while the Japanese industry was more modern and rationalized than the industry of any other country. International situation favored the availability of up-to-date technology. The 64 initiator companies wanted to license their inventions in exchange for royalty to cover the expense of research and development. They never thought Japan might be their potential rival, for almost every licensing agreement limited the export of related products to the neighboring countries of Japan. In general licensing agreement implied not only the patent right but also the manufacturing know-how described in the blueprint of equipment and in the operating instructions. But in some cases the Japanese companies solely bought the patents and developed product and process for themselves, due to the patent situation after the war. Patents issued in the Allied countries during the war became valid in Japan after the peace treaty and were made effective fifteen years thereafter, and the Japanese companies which had independently invented similar product or process could not continue the business without license. A dozen of Japanese radio makers had to pay royalty to RCA for the patent on high frequency radio circuit. Toray, who had developed its own process signed an agreement with Du Pont on nylon in order to avoid a patent litigation and to import high speed winder suitable for fine filament. In most cases the Japanese scientists and engineers had already done independent research and development on the technology concerned in their laboratory before concluding licensing agreement. With these preliminary experience most of the introduced technology were smoothly applied to large scale production and soon led to commercial success. Sometimes foreign and self-made technologies competed in the market of the same new product. By 1955 half dozen chemical companies entered into polyvinylchloride market, of which two was joint ventures with the U.S. patent holder, two relied on licensed technology and the rest had developed technology of its own. Acrylic fibers were manufactured by two licensee companies and three independent companies, for foreign basic patent - Du Pont or Bayer - was not established in this country thanks to a patent by Japanese chemists during the war, and they only chose spinning solvent uncovered in the foreign patents. Revival of export-oriented industries As early as 1950 the Japanese goods came back to the world market. The forerunner was textiles,which were familiar to the world before the war. The postwar cotton industry introduced laborsaving devices from U.S.A., reformed finishing and dyeing and came 65 back to the position of world leader in price and quality. Yarns and fabrics of new synthetic fibers- nylon, polyester and acrylic fibers - followed. The shipbuilding industry suffered from the loss of its markets before the war - warship and passenger boat - but its survival was quick. It rationalized the process of construction and reduced cost as well as the time of delivery so astonishingly that most of the Greek ship owners ordered their big tankers from the Japanese shipyard. Soon it climbed to the top of the world in terms of launched tonnage. Transition in Energy Sources Hydroelectricity and coal was the principal source of industrial energy before and immediately after the war. The power industry introduced mechanized construction method of waterpower station from an American engineering firm at the Sakuma Dam in 1956, which promoted later development of civil engineering in tunneling and transportation, and gave rise to the homemade construction machinery. During 1950's big coal mines introduced German steel support system and moving coal cutter. But the rationalization in the traditional energy did not satisfy the need of consuming industries in quantity as well as in price. At the same time supply of petroleum increased. During the war the American and British major oil concerns found rich fields in Arabia and soon after the war they built affiliate refineries on the Japanese coast to consume Arabian oil. By 1960 the power companies changed their fuel from coal to oil, relying more on thermal station than on hydroelectricity. Other industries also changed from coal to oil, in consequence by 1970 hundreds of coal mines were closed and ten thousand miners lost their job. The household also changed their fuel from coal or charcoal to kerosene or liquefied petroleum gas. Transition in energy also affected chemical industry, which changed the material base from coal or hydroelectricity to petroleum. They built a number of petrochemical complex by the refinery on a reclaimed land under the licensing agreement with American chemical- and engineering firms to produce in mass not only basic organic chemicals but also such derivative new plastic materials as polyethylene, polystyrene, poly-propyrene and polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) . The process using liquid petroleum as fuel or feedstock brought to the industries 66 new category of technology - chemical engineering design and control engineering with instruments. Japanese engineers soon used to them and developed original process by themselves. Mass Production of Consumer Durable Mass production technology was generally called the American system or the Ford system for it had been developed in the United States as interchangeable parts and as moving assembly line. The fault in this technique in Japanese industry was described in the war time aircraft production. After the war the Japanese industry tried to change from arms production to the mass production of consumer durable goods imitating American methods. During the 1950's a number of business missions visited the factories of U.S.A. looking for the model of high productivity, in particular to learn the factory management, and applied the principle and methods into the design and control of their own production. By 1960 sewing machine, watch and camera factories introduced belt conveyer to assemble interchangeable parts into standardized products in a large lot. Before long they were sold at reasonable price and exported around the world. As described in the preceding chapter Japan had a tradition of electrical manufacture and development, and the radar race in the wartime left a great number of big and small parts makers and assemblers. The postwar social change - more uniform distribution of income among the nation - provided them a large potential market for various mass-produced home electric appliances - washing machine, refrigerator, room cleaner, air conditioner, radio, TV set, audio set, tape recorder, and so on. Every electric manufacturer who had been specialized in telephone, power generator or radio set diversified into this consumer durable market. In addition to Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Matsushita, NEC, Sharp, new manufacturers for instance Sanyo and Sony joined the game. They established assembly line which specialized parts makers supplied with standard components. Although the basic design of most home appliances were taken from the well known American model and it mattered for the Japanese manufacturers only to make them in mass, there were chances for indigenous technology. The NHK laboratory had been developing their own TV broadcasting system and there was debate among electrical engineers at the opening the TV stations in 1952 whether they should adopt NHK system 67 or accept the NTSC system established in U.S.A. At last Ministry of Communication chose the latter because of the availability of related facilities. The success of Sony was another story. It was founded after the war by two engineers who had engaged in the wartime military electronic research, and made Japan's first magnetic tape and recorder avoiding the patent litigation against a U.S. firm thanks to a prewar magnetic powder patent invented by a university professor. Then it acquired the basic patent of transistor from the Bell System and developed its manufacturing technique. Sony's innovation was to use it as the component of cheap, mass-produced pocketable radio for the first time in the world in 1956. Factories specified in parts collaborated Sony by reducing the size of their products. The transition from small lot to the mass production meant for the factory not only replacement of machinery but also reorganization of labor. Before and during the war casting, forging and machining shops increased in number to meet the demand of munitions production, skilled and semiskilled workers in related jobs multiplied, and these made the base of postwar mass productive durable goods production. But the skill generally consisted in the ad hoc solution of trouble by laborious hand finishing and by the selection of tools, and the foreman who had such talent and experience ruled each shop, asking semi- or unskilled workers to follow his way. There was no written nor unwritten standard of doing jobs throughout the factory. And the engineers did not know exactly what was happening on the shop floor. A mass-production factory should not be an assembly of such individual shops, but it should be such organization as every unskilled worker could achieve an assigned job according to the predetermined standard. At the transition period to mass production there was struggle between engineer and skilled worker, until at last the former won. In the course of time manufacturers introduced Quality Control method. Immediately after the war the telephone factories for the first time applied statistical method into production control to meet the quality requirement of U.S. army. The federation of Scientists and Engineers promoted statistical control movement among the industries. Factories put quality control in practice not only by the specified production engineers, but in the collaboration of every worker concerned. This indigenous way was called Total Quality Control, which contributed very much for keeping good quality as well as for reducing cost in the mass production by avoiding every waste from the 68 workplace and accumulating small improvements in the facilities. Innovation in agriculture and daily food Until 1950's Japanese agricultural technology was basically little different from the Edo period. The farmers cultivated rice turning the paddy land with ox-drawn hand plough, transplanting young rice in a line, picking weed by hand and reaping the crop with hand sickle. Although small internal combustion engine or electric motor had been introduced, their use was restricted to threshing crop or pumping up water. Thanks to the land reform after the war eliminating absentee owners and to the government's rice price supporting scheme, the farmers got richer and could invest money to reduce the toil and hardship in the farm labor. They introduced a system of labor-saving technology into rice culture. Agricultural machine shops contrived specific devices for the paddy land and rice stalks such as tractor, harvester and transplanting machine. Chemical industry supplied them with insecticide, weedkiller and plastic film to protect young rice from cold. By 1960's they could raise more crop for two weeks labor in a year than they had for half-a year. There was also innovation in food processing and distribution. Until 1960 food processing remained small scale handicraft industry for local markets. Large scale manufacture and nationwide distribution was limited to bottled beverage, soy-sauce, canned fish and paper packed candies. The social change in the 1960's, concentration of population in urban and suburban areas called for a new system of distribution of food in large quantities, that would at the same time reduce the distribution cost. The self-service supermarket met the need, where each merchandize was sold in prepacked form. The food-processing industry undertook mass production and development of new kinds of food, supported by the development in the cold-chain system. Plastic packaging material for food not only substituted paper, glass or tin can but also they helped the birth of new food. Plastic film is a barrier to protect perishable food from air, water, fungi and bacteria. It made possible to keep mass-produced cooked as well as semi-cooked food safely from a food factory to final consumers. In 1955 a fish sausage factory attempted implant plastic packaging with polyvinyliden chloride film. Then food processors tried to pack 69 sticky, viscous Japanese foods in polyethylene- cellophane laminate film. In the middle of 1960's an anonymous fermenter sold miso (bean paste) in such pack, making it from local to national brand. Precooked noodle is another success story. In 1958 a processor invented a way of cooking Lahmen (chinese noodle) continuously in a hot oil bath and packing on a belt conveyor. They named the product 'instant lahmen' which the consumer can take only pouring hot water on it. By 1970 the factory had a capacity of two million packs a day,and the technology was transferred to Southeast Asian countries. The Super Express Train and Motorization Since the 1930's the National Railroad had a plan of running super express train between the two economic centers - Tokyo and Osaka -. After the war they resumed the research and development on the theme, employing aeronautic engineers in the Laboratory to make the design on a scientific ground. After years of effort the Shinkansen opened its operation in 1964, running trains at the rate of 230 km/hr, the fastest in the world at the time. They derived from the aeronautic engineering such breakthrough as streamline style and monocock structure of light metal body, as well as the minimum vibration design of carriage, rail and basement. They also devised an automatic remote control system to stop every train in an emergency, and on line real time seat reservation system. The line has been making profit for the JR without any human damage for thirty years. Its rival, the domestic airline also expanded after 1950, introducing American Boeing jet planes. Aeronautic engineers jointly designed a model of STOL (short take off and landing plane) named YS-11 in 1962. By 1973 182 planes were sold home and abroad. By 1960 two engineering firms also developed indigenous jet engines. But the airlines have been clinging to the imported planes and jet engines, as was the case in the European lines, postwar Japanese aircraft industry was in the main restricted to the licensed assembly of American jet fighters for the Air Force. As described earlier, the attempt of Nissan and Toyota to mass-produce passenger cars had been hindered by the war. During the postwar recovery years when per capita income was still low, many machine shops produced motorbycycle to convert from munitions to peacetime industry. Honda was one of those small scale entrepreneurs, and was technically most progressive in the design of two cycle engine. He took mass-production factory around 1960 and soon won the championship in the world 70 market. By the way the success of Volkswagen encouraged the four-wheeled car manufacturers to design and build compact cars. At first Taxi was the most promising market, but they also intended to sell cheaper cars for the millions of families. There were many metalworking and machine shops who had skill in fabricating every automobile part. What was lacking in for the auto builders was experience in the design and mass-production engineering of passenger car. They bought the know-how from European firms such as Austin (Nissan), Renault (Hino), Wootz (Isuzu) and made rehearsal by assembling the same type of car as the licensor. It is said Ford rejected similar proposal from Toyota. By 1955 Nissan and Toyota, who had taken passenger car business before the war, succeeded in designing and selling the first mass-produced cars. Soon two former aircraft manufacturer, Fuji Juko and Mitsubishi Motors, followed. During the first half of 1960's they built large scale rationalized car plants, producing ten thousand of the same car a month. They at the same time asked the parts factories to renew their process in order to supply them in mass and at a low cost. By 1965 the Japanese car industry was one of the most rationalized in the world. The failure of Toyota at the first export to the U.S. market because of fragileness on the highway was also a good lesson. A smaller car builder, Mazda, challenged the mass-production of rotary engine originally invented by a German engineer, Wankel. In the meantime the per capita income of the Japanese increased to a level enough to have a car, and by 1970 motorization proceeded at an astonishing rate in towns as well as in the country. Research as the necessary element of business During the 1960's a boom of making research laboratory aroused among the Japanese industries. As stated earlier, larger companies had their research organization before the war. Now the trend diffused into almost every company. Large corporations multiplied laboratories specified to basic research, to applied research, and to the development of demand etc.. As a result the number of scientists and engineers employed in the corporate laboratory increased. 71 The distribution of research budget also reflected the tendency. In fact there was a sharp contrast in the postwar research expenditure between the U.S. and Japan: while in the former country the government spent in research and development more than private industry, in the latter private R & D far exceeded the government spending. Thus in postwar Japan private business led the industrial research in terms of money and manpower. In consequence more market oriented, product development research ruled in Japan than in any other advanced country. The end of traditional technology 1960's was a turning point in the Japanese life. New technologies in agriculture,consumer durable and polymer materials changed the everyday life of common people. A great many traditional everyday goods which constituted the Japanese style of life lost their market, and at the same time indigenous technologies, most of which were accomplishment of the Edo Period, also lost their practical meaning, partly because of the change in consumer demand and partly because of their laborious and skill oriented work. They remained only as precious art or as souvenir goods to be appreciated by antiquarian lovers and foreigners. 72 CHAPTER 6 TOWARD THE HIGH TECHNOLOGY Japanese technology in the World 1970 By 1970 Japanese technological situation in the world was very much strengthened. Japan exported electrical appliances, synthetic fiber, ship, camera and watch more than any other country. Export of Steel, chemicals motorcar, machine tool also increased. It meant that the Japanese goods incorporating complex and scientific technology were competitive in price and quality. It is argued the fixed exchange rate under the postwar international economic scheme favored the Japanese export, but even after 1973 when system changed to floating rate and yen was revalued, Japanese export continued. In terms of GNP and output of basic industries Japan exceeded any of the European nation and ranked next to the U.S.A. Japanese industry were still introducing technology from U.S.A. or from European countries, but cross licensing agreement by and by increased, and Japan was exporting technology in steel or fiber to Europe. Nuclear technology in Japan During the war Nishina took up the basic experiment of Uranium fission with a cyclotron at Riken but it brought scarcely any result. In contrast in August 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki fell victim of the atomic bomb by the U.S. Air Force. In consequence the antinuclear feeling was very strong among the postwar Japanese nation. When in the 1950's politicians proposed the need of nuclear energy development there was debate among scientists and opinion leaders. It ended in the recognition of the three principle as the national consensus: limiting nuclear research and development to peacetime needs; the Government control; and opening information to the public. Under these principles the National Nuclear Research Laboratory was founded in 1955 to develop indigenous power technology. By 1965 it built two experimental reactors and a Calderhall type small power plant. In the meantime it was reported that light water- enriched Uranium plant went in commercial operation in the United States selling 73 electricity at a comparable cost with coal- or oil burning thermo electric power. The Japanese power companies decided to introduce those technology from GE and Westinghouse consuming imported enriched Uranium instead of waiting for the national technology. By 1970 imported reactors, then home made plants were completed and by 1980 they supplied about one fourth of total electricity in the country. The national dependence on nuclear energy is second highest in the world next to France. The Japanese nuclear technology is safety-oriented in operation, maintenance as well as in design and manufacture of equipment. There has been no accident like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. The government fund is devoted to the development of high-speed breeder and more basic nuclear fusion research, both of which has no prospect as in other advanced countries. The semiconductor race History of semiconductor in Japan had its origin in 1948, shortly after the war when a joint study group of government- university- and corporate scientists and engineers was formed at the National Electric Research Laboratory, only two years later than the Bell Laboratory of the U.S. announced the discovery of transistor, the largest breakthrough in electronics. By 1952 the Communication Laboratory of NTT succeeded in the experimental production of point-contact and PN junction transistors. During the 1950's six companies, including Toshiba, NEC, Hitachi, Sony, Mitsubishi and Fujitsu signed patent licensing agreements on transistor with Western Electric and RCA of the U.S.A.. By 1956 they succeeded in the mass production of transistor and its application to personal radio set, as described in the previous chapter on Sony's innovation. By 1960 transistor displaced vacuum tube out of the heart of electronic circuit, and the quality of Japanese product outstripped the U.S. made. Japan became the world largest producer of transistor. By 1962 Sony marketed world first microtelevision with silicon transistor and Sharp produced world first transistorized calculators. At the same time two U.S. ventures, Texas Instruments and Fairchild invented the solid state circuit, integrating thousands of transistors and other elementary parts on a silicon chip. The Japanese companies quickly changed to the research on the integrated circuit, and the National Electric Laboratory succeeded in the production of the first IC in 74 this country independently of the foreign technology. But it was not until NEC signed with the licensing agreement of planer patent with Fairchild in 1962 that large scale manufacture was possible. By 1966 Texas also made its patent available to the Japanese companies in exchange for the license of its own production in this country. By 1968 NEC, Toshiba and Hitachi produced the world first 144 bit IC memory. Thereafter the Japanese companies accumulated many innovations in the processing of IC chip. By 1970 they succeeded in the manufacture of large scale integration (LSI) at the same time as the U.S. producers. During the 1970's the U.S. and Japanese semiconductor manufacturers competed against each other in multiplying integration and in improving the yield of production, and the Japanese won on the both ways. They developed 1 kilo bit memory chip in 1972, almost at the time as U.S., and by 1977 they surpassed the latter by making the world first 64 kilobit memory. Thereafter the leadership in product innovation in memory IC has been kept in the hands of the Japanese firms. The integration increased from 256 kb in 1980 to 64 Mega bit in 1990, and the Japanese semiconductor producers supply more than half of total memory chips in the world. The cost performance of the Japanese LSI production was more remarkable: In 1980's the defect rate of the Japanese product was almost 0.00 per cent. while those in the U.S. factories from 0.09 to 0.19 per cent. Meanwhile most U.S. companies except IBM withdrew from the IC memory race, and a few companies such as Intel concentrate in the microprocessor chips. Related Japanese machine makers also developed various specialized equipment for processing silicon into the integrated circuit and exporting them to the world. The most important element in the success of the Japanese semiconductor industry was a rich manpower in applied physics. Since the design and manufacture of semiconductor was based on the modern aspects of physics, its development requires a great many scientific and technical personnel trained in applied physics in broader sense: electronics, solid state physics, information processing, physical measurement and material science. In the late 1940's a handful of graduate physicists challenged semiconductor research , and among them Nishizawa discovered PN junction in 1950, Goto invented parametron in 1954 and Ezaki found tunnel diode which awarded him a Nobel Prize. Since the number of physicists specialized in the field was of course restricted, 75 graduates of engineering faculties soon joined in the R & D. Such new type of engineer, or applied physicist, originated from a change of paradigm in engineering education in the universities: electrical engineering turned to electronics, chemistry and metallurgy into material science. Moreover faculties of aeronautics and military engineering changed its name to more fundamental terms as applied physics, precision engineering or mathematical engineering. As early as 1950 Japan had in the related faculties more than 3000 students including the future leaders of the semiconductor industry. As described before, the postwar reform of higher education changed a number of technical high schools, which had been training practical engineers, into university departments, and enlarged post graduate courses in the engineering departments. Most additional faculties established after 1960 were related to electronics, applied physics or information. As the result the number of students in these schools amounted to ten times as many as twenty years before. Of course not all of them were engaged in semiconductor industry after graduation, but they had more or less relation with it as consumer or as supplier of materials and equipment. The second important factor distinguishing the Japanese progress in the semiconductor development from the U.S. was its consumer-and mass market oriented feature. It reflected the difference in industrial organization of both countries. In the United States specialized venture business developed integrated circuit for the Government to supply miniature and reliable device in military and aerospace use. In 1965 70 % of the U.S. made IC was shipped to the defense market, while the consumer durable manufacturers were satisfied with the rest supplied by the specialized companies. In contrast, in Japan large electrical manufacturers took up semiconductor production for its own use, at their own risk. Common Japanese consumer enjoyed such goods incorporating semiconductor circuit as transistorized clock and tape recorder in 1960's, automatic camera, electronic calculator and quartz watch in 1970's, personal computer in 1980's. Since 1970 industrial use of integrated circuit followed the home consumption. Electronics computer played an important role, and various application of microcomputer in automobile or industrial robot as explained in the following. The third factor affecting the semiconductor development in Japan was the labor discipline. Although the U.S. and Japanese factories were equipped with almost the same high-standard machinery, the latter operates with far less defectives as compared to 76 the former. For dust is the fatal factor of defective, IC should be produced in an extremely clean condition. Human system of work is as important as the hardware requirement to keep cleanness within the factory. Historically cleanness has been esteemed among the Japanese common people, which reveal itself in the habit of daily bathing. But until 1950's factory was the dirtiest part of the country, dirtier than the house of the workers. Revolutionary change occurred around 1960's in modernized factories of every industry. They were not only new and clean in appearance but they were designed to keep the expensive automatic machines smoothly running, minimize the loss of materials, avoiding every obstacles in the workplace, providing better lighting and weather for the workers. Total quality control system and the pollution control as will be explained below also helped the worker to be clean-minded. The circumstance made managers and workers cooperate in keeping the dust in the air to a degree of PPM. In these general state of management in industries the premise of semiconductor factory to keep the dust density to PPM was not extraordinary. Development of Computer in Japan It is generally accepted that a German engineer named Zuse invented the first digital electronic computer in 1941, but the actual origin of today's computer was American ENIAC in 1946. Japanese public laboratories and big electrical manufacturers soon followed to designed prototype computers employing different components: MITI Electric Laboratory's ETL MarkI (1953) and Fujitsu Facom 100 (1954) using relay circuit, Fuji Film's FUJIC (1956) with vavum tube, NTT's MUSASHINO 1, Hitachi HIPAC, FACOM 200, NEC's NEAC 1101, Oki OPC (1957) applying parametron which was a Japanese invention, MITI EL MARKIII (1956) using transistor circuit, etc. Since the related companies were at the same time developing transistors, they were not so late in the introduction of semiconductor in computer design as UNIVAC or IBM in the United States. But in terms of software, input-output terminals, memory device, production and marketing technique, they were far behind IBM . IBM had been selling its punch card system to the Japanese business through its Tokyo Office, and after 1958 it brought commercial computer into Japanese market. In 1960 licensing agreement on its basic patent was signed with plural Japanese companies, most of whom gave up to extend the original research but to purchase the design of other 77 American computer makers during 1961-64 (Hitachi-RCA, Mitsubishi-TRW, Toshiba-GE, NEC-Honeywell, Oki-Univac ). IBM 360 and 370 conquered the world market in 1970's kicking European and other American makers including those who contracted with the Japanese firms out of the race. But six Japanese computer makers managed to survive, thanks to the order from the universities and Government organizations as well as from their affiliate corporations. Scientists and engineers in those organizations also helped their software development. In 1957 Hitachi and Fujitsu changed to IBM compatible design and achieved commercial success, but later they had to be involved into litigation with IBM. By 1980 Japan was the second largest market of computer next to U.S.A. That was largely due to the information minded mangers of the clients, who collaborated in the development of on line system, real time production system and marketing system with IBM and other suppliers. For instance the Asahi and Nikkei succeeded in the computer controlled editing and printing of newspaper. The highly intelligent user staffs - whether directly assigned to the computerization of jobs or not -were the base for the progress of Japanese information revolution. The downsizing of computer after the 1980's threatened the championship of IBM and Fujitsu, while NEC and Toshiba, who had been lost battle in the mainframe, came back with 9800 series personal computer and the Japanese word processor. The latter machine is actually a Japanese indigenous invention, which introduced typing and processing of over 3000 characters for everyday use. Mechatronization and Flexible production A distinguished feature in the Japanese engineering industry after 1970 was the combination of electronics and mechanical engineering. Its first idea was numerically controlled (NC) machine tool born in MIT for the delicate finishing of sophisticated weapons. The Japanese machine shops made and used the similar machine to the fabrication of common parts. A remarkable feature was the ability of workers who easily turned to programmer and operator of such machines. Soon NC sewing machine, NC knitting machine etc. were invented. Microcomputers were implanted in automobile engines. The trend toward the integration of machine and electronics was called 'mechatronics'. Design engineers of consumer 78 goods also introduced electronic circuit to make them automatic and reliable. Two familiar product innovations, auto focus camera and quartz crystal watch which will be explained later were actually combination of electronic circuit and machine. Programmed washing machine and temperature control of air-conditioner followed the same course of development. Automatic machines with sensor and servomechanism were invented in the tying thread movement in the cotton industry as early as in 1960's and automatic testing machine was introduced on the conveyer line of the different industries. Automatic control combined with minicomputer resulted in industrial robot in 1970's, which increased in number in the assembly plant of home electric appliance and automobile manufacture to substitute for the monotonous human labor. By 1990 Japanese industry used a majority of robots in the world. The NC machines and computer control of process changed the idea of mass production. The fabricating and assembly line was not restricted to the repetition of the same work on a single model any more, but the robotized machines could change to different treatment to each different pieces according to the direction of control computer. It made the small lot variable production as economical as the mass production of uniform model. This type of industry is called 'Flexible System of Manufacture' (FMS). The automobile factory introduced FMS so that different model, different color and differently equipped cars could be completed on the same line. The automakers had devised computer instructed parts delivery system to just in time to eliminate the dead stock between the process. This is combined with FMS to attain the 'Lean Production' which means to make no less and no more cars than the day's delivery plan to the consumer. Automatic Camera, Quartz Watch and Video Cassette Recorder High-technology oriented Japanese manufacturers gave birth to a number of product innovations in consumer durable goods. By 1955 Japanese cameramakers got out of the imitation of German model and sought their way in designing better lens through the exact calculation of optical formula with computer, and equip the body with novel mechanism. Full automatic camera was the fruit of their effort in the 1960's, combining optical sensing, electronic control circuit and precision work of the moving part. In theory, Through the 79 lens (TTL) measurement of brightness was a breakthrough. By 1965 the watchmakers caught up with the Swiss technology in the accuracy of time, reliability, miniaturization and mass-producing methods. Engineers in the Seiko Group turned to a development of new principle, to take in place of balance spring timing with the frequency of the vibration of quartz crystal, which Koga had investigated for larger time measurement device in the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1974 they succeeded in marketing the world first digital wrist watch with IC circuit controlling small step motor and liquid crystal panel. Citizen, Casio and even Swiss watchmakers followed the same way and in ten years quartz watch almost drove the conventional mechanical watch out of the world market. At the same time Sony and Japan Victor (JVC) were developing cassette video tape recorder. The idea was the combination of video tape invented by AMPEX in 1956 and audio cassette tape by Phillips in 1963, but no company of other country had succeeded in the application to the home use. In consequence both Beta (Sony) and VHS (Victor) was made the world standard of cassette tape recording. Environment technology Pollution was the problem which inevitably accompanied the industrial development of postwar Japan. Claim from the citizens, regulation by the local and central government, improvement in the industrial process and product promoted progress in environment technology step by step. In 1950's smoke was the largest hazard in the industrial town, and the regulation of city governments which implied stop of factory operation improved the combustion control of ovens and boilers which at the same time benefited the fuel economy of each factory. At the end of the 1950's a riot of fishermen against a paper factory induced the setting of quantitative limit of dirtiness in the waste water in the factory. Around 1965 the air pollution by the off-gas from the new petrochemical complex gave rise to the mass sickness among the citizens, and the nerve decease caused by the mercury compound in the water which flew out of a certain chemical process and by the cadmium in the waste of metal mining caused the largest environmental lawsuit in this country, resulting in unrecoverable damage to a firm on account of a great amount of compensation. The incident was so shocking for business managers that they tried to add waste treatment unit 80 voluntarily at every plant to reclaim every poisonous material; this movement accelerated the technical development of environmental business. In the 1970's air pollution by the So2, Co and NOx in the exhaust of motor car became the largest problem and strict regulation was carried out to the car makers. The U.S. parliament enacted similar restriction against the imported car. The manufacturers responded this challenge by adding afterburner with catalyzer and by controlling the combustion in the engine with microcomputer. In 1970's a law compelled every manufacturer biological test against any new chemical substance. Pollution of air by the fluoride compound is the most recent problem in the global scale. Semiconductor factories are changing the washing solvent from such liquid to clean water. Technology transfer to Asian countries Industrialization of East Asian countries including Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Coastal Area of China, is the most remarkable recent event in the world. Apart from the political change within these countries, transfer of technology from Japan played an important role in their development. At first loan by the Japanese Government assisted building up infrastructure such as dams, ports, power stations and telephone network in those countries, followed by the Japanese manufacturers to set up joint venture to produce consumer goods to substitute for the import. And the Japanese steelmakers assisted in making large scale modernized factory in Korea and China for political reason. The rising exchange rate of yen in the 1980's forced the Japanese export-oriented industry to make labor intensive product abroad. In the course of time most large electrical manufacturers turned their assembly and parts supply to other Asian countries to reexport to U.S. or Europe, or to import into Japanese home market. The policy required the subsidiary company to keep the same quality of product as in the home factory. In consequence Japan transferred to those countries a great amount of technology, which in turn made the base for their rapid industrialization. 81 LITERATURE Chamarik, S. & Goonatilake, S. ed.: Technical Independence; The Asian Experience. The United Nations University, 1994. Gospel, H. F. ed.: Industrial Training and Technological Innovation. Routledge, 1991. Hayashi, T.: The Japanese Experience. United Nations University, 1986. Jeremy, D. J. ed.: International Technology Transfer. Edward Elgar, 1991. Jeremy. D. J. ed.: Transfer of International Technology. Edward Elgar, 1992. Kobayashi, T. ed.: U.S.-Japan Comparison in National Formation and Transformation of Technology. Japan Science Foundation,1991. Okochi, A. & Uchida, H. ed.: Development and Diffusion of Technology. University of Tokyo Press, 1980. Ozawa. T.: Japan's Technological Challenge to the West. MIT Press,1974. Pauer, E.: Japans Industrielle Lehrzeit. 2 vols. Bonner Zeitschrift fur Japanologie Bd.4/1, 2. Reischauer, E.O. : Japan; the Story of a Nation. 3rd edition.A.Knopf,1970 Yonekura, S. : The Japanese Iron and Steel Industry. St. Martin Press,1994 Textile History 19/2,Anglo-Japanese Conference Issue. Passold Research Fund,1988. (Illustrated books in Japanese) Ishida, H. ed. : Shokunin-Zukushi-e. Nihon no Bijutsu 5. Shibundo,1977. Kikuchi, T. ed. : Zufu Edojidai no Gijutsu ( Picture Book of Technology in the Tokugawa Period) 2 vols. Kowa Shuppan,1988. Mukaibo, T.&c.eds.: Nihon no Gijutsu 100 Nen. (A Century of Technology in Japan) 6 vols. Chikuma Shobo, 1988. 82 INDEX airplane.............................................. 58 aluminum........................................... 59 architecture............................ 16, 19, 27 armor ................................................. 18 automobile ................. 59, 71, 76, 78, 79 boat.............................................. 11, 66 Britain........ 8, 37, 39, 44, 48, 50, 54, 58 bronze.............................. 11, 16, 29, 46 Buddhism............................... 13, 15, 16 Buddhist temple ........................... 16, 25 camera ................. 55, 57, 67, 73, 76, 79 canal ...................................... 30, 32, 33 capital.................. 14, 17, 24, 36, 49, 60 castle.......................... 24, 25, 26, 27, 36 charcoal ... 19, 27, 30, 31, 32, 47, 48, 66 chemical industry............. 50, 57, 60, 66 China .. 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 31, 33, 35, 37, 81 civil engineering .............. 12, 25, 43, 66 clock ...................................... 21, 23, 76 computer .......................... 76, 77, 78, 79 copper ...... 16, 20, 23, 29, 30, 31, 43, 44 cotton 23, 32, 33, 34, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46, 50, 55, 56, 65, 79 Daibutsu ...................................... 15, 16 dyestuff........................................ 53, 57 earthenware ............................. 9, 10, 32 electronics.................. 58, 74, 75, 76, 78 energy........................ 25, 26, 66, 73, 74 83 engineer... 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 64, 68, 71, 76, 77 Engi-shiki........................................... 17 fermentation ................................. 34, 35 fertilizer ........................... 26, 32, 41, 57 fishing .......................................... 10, 24 France .... 7, 8, 37, 38, 39, 42, 54, 58, 74 Fujitsu .................................... 74, 77, 78 furnace ........... 29, 30, 31, 32, 44, 47, 48 Germany7, 8, 39, 44, 48, 50, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63 Gold ................................................... 29 Heian period........................... 15, 17, 18 Hitachi ..... 47, 52, 53, 67, 74, 75, 77, 78 Horyuji......................................... 15, 16 Imperial College of Engineering . 38, 42, 49 iron.... 11, 18, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 39, 40, 46, 47, 48 irrigation .......................... 12, 13, 26, 27 jinrikisha ............................................ 43 Johmon period................................ 9, 10 joint venture ........................... 49, 65, 81 Kofun period ...................................... 12 Kojiki ................................................. 13 Korea ..................................... 10, 14, 81 Kyoto 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 22, 29, 33, 34, 35, 49, 51, 56, 62 labor.. 12, 14, 17, 20, 24, 26, 32, 43, 44, 56, 63, 64, 68, 69, 76, 79, 81 machine .. 26, 33, 46, 47, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 67, 69, 70, 71, 73, 75, 78, 79 manmade fiber ................................... 57 mass-production............... 59, 68, 70, 71 Meiji period ....................................... 41 military technology ............................ 46 mining23, 29, 30, 38, 40, 41, 42, 44, 52, 80 Mitsubishi40, 47, 51, 53, 54, 55, 67, 71, 74, 78 Mitsui .............................. 40, 51, 53, 54 Muromachi period ................. 18, 19, 26 Nara period........................................ 16 NEC......... 49, 53, 55, 57, 67, 74, 75, 78 Netherlands............................ 21, 22, 38 Nissan.............................. 52, 60, 70, 71 paper. 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 27, 28, 69, 80 patent . 54, 55, 57, 64, 65, 68, 74, 75, 77 petroleum............................... 59, 60, 66 plastics............................................... 57 pollution................................. 77, 80, 81 printing ................ 13, 23, 28, 51, 56, 78 quality control.............................. 68, 77 radar .......................... 58, 60, 61, 62, 67 radio .................... 60, 61, 65, 67, 68, 74 railroad ...................... 40, 42, 43, 44, 47 research laboratory ...................... 54, 71 rice...... 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 34, 36, 41, 69 Riken ............................... 52, 54, 55, 73 84 robot............................................. 76, 79 rubber..................................... 57, 60, 64 Russia ............................................ 8, 48 sake.............................................. 34, 36 salt ................. 19, 23, 26, 32, 33, 35, 40 Shibaura Works ........................... 49, 53 Shogun ............................. 18, 21, 25, 37 Shokunin-zukushi-e............................ 19 Shosoin .............................................. 16 Siemens............................ 44, 49, 52, 53 silk .... 13, 17, 18, 19, 23, 33, 38, 41, 45, 46, 52, 54 silver .............. 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 43, 44 skilled worker ............ 40, 45, 58, 63, 68 Sony................................. 67, 68, 74, 80 steel... 18, 31, 32, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 66, 73 Sumitomo ............. 40, 44, 51, 55, 59, 62 sword ............................... 11, 18, 31, 46 technical high school.............. 51, 57, 76 telegraph .............. 38, 40, 42, 48, 49, 56 Tokugawa period. 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 37 Tokyo Denki .................... 51, 53, 55, 61 Toyota.................................... 60, 70, 71 transistor ................................ 68, 74, 77 turbine.......................................... 46, 51 U.S.A. ..... 48, 49, 53, 54, 58, 60, 61, 64, 65, 67, 68, 73, 74, 78 university ............. 42, 52, 53, 68, 74, 76 vacuum tube........................... 57, 61, 74 watch.......................... 67, 73, 76, 79, 80 waterwheel ............................ 29, 33, 45 Western Europe ............................. 7, 19 wood.............. 16, 19, 20, 26, 28, 29, 30 World War I ...................................... 50 Yayoi period .......................... 10, 11, 26 zaibatsu ....................................... 42, 63 85