Yabushio: timeline

[opipik]

...iwanori...

What is iwanori?

---

Anyway, the cuisine looks interesting.

[clawgrip]

Comparisons:
itanori
iwanori

Onigiri with itanori
Onigiri with iwanori

For anyone who is wondering, the traditional stock I mentioned is made by simmering kelp with the unused portions of mackerel (i.e. this, this). The result is used as stock to flavour numerous dishes.

[clawgrip]

Anyone know much about currency? I'm trying to figure out the money situation, but it's a little confusing.

16th century Japanese currency is confusing to understand. It seems like in the late 16th century, gold, silver and copper coins were used, and their exchange rates and minting were standardized by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Tenshō ōban and ryō also existed. One tenshō ōban was equivalent to 10 ryō, and 1 ryō was equal to 3 koku. 1 koku was an amount of rice sufficient to feed one person for one year. I'm not sure how ryō related to the gold/silver/bronze coins at all, but clearly 1 ryō is of high value, and I imagine the coins were of progressively lesser value. In the Edo period, paper money specific to each domain, called hansatsu, was issued.

Yabushio separates from Japan less than 40 years after the beginning of the Edo period, but enough for Edo-style monetary influence to take hold. The Edo-period money had progressive problems, first debasement followed by arbitrage, and it was replaced by the yen at the beginning of the Meiji period, in 1868.

I have said that Yabushio had silver mines, but I think it will not have hugely profitable mines of other types. If there is a lack of sufficient coins in Yabushio, maybe bronze coins imported from China could be used to supplement native money during the pre-modern period, as happened in Japan as well. or Spanish dollars were also common in East and Southeast Asia, so this could be a possibility as well. Also, in Japan, the value of hansatsu was less secure than coins, because if a domain were seized or whatever, the new domain may not honour the old hansatsu. In Yabushio though, as essentially a single han, there is no such risk, so paper money might be more trustworthy and thus more widespread.

I figure in the 19th century there will be some sort of devaluation and a need to modernize the currency, but I'm not sure what or why. Anyone have any advice or suggestions?

I'm wondering if I should just call it 圓 yen, or maybe 錢 sen.

[Keenir]

Anyone know much about currency? I'm trying to figure out the money situation, but it's a little confusing.
In Yabushio though, as essentially a single han, there is no such risk, so paper money might be more trustworthy and thus more widespread.

I figure in the 19th century there will be some sort of devaluation and a need to modernize the currency, but I'm not sure what or why. Anyone have any advice or suggestions?

Maybe a "need" to modernize, without devaluation - modernizing in an attempt to be as modern as {or more modern than} their neighbors (Japan, Britain, etc)

[clawgrip]

I figured that a government dealing with dwindling silver resources coinciding with colonial occupation would cause trouble and incite currency reform. Also, as Yabushio entered the modern age, it would need to abandon foreign coinage and develop its own currency. I've gone with 圓 yen as the currency, since this root is the origin of real-world Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, and Korean won.

[Ethanxman]

What programs did you use to create those maps, they're beautiful!

[clawgrip]

Thanks, but make sure you are placing credit in the correct place, because I used a lot of screenshots! The topographical maps are screenshots of Google maps terrain with colours added in Photoshop. The coloured elevation map is from http://www.maps-for-free.com. The municipality map and density map were done in Photoshop, and the train map in Illustrator.

[Ethanxman]

Ah cool, thank you.

So if Yabushio wasn't in free maps.com how did you make it? and have it matching all the terrain stuff of the others?

[clawgrip]

Okinoshima Department comprises the real-world Oki Islands, so I can just use the real-world map as is for that. Yabushiojima Department is a relatively sparsely-populated island I stole form Indonesia and scaled appropriately for the changed latitude. I altered the various surrounding islands somewhat as well, and added a bay in one area. So I can use map data for that island.

[Ethanxman]

Ok cool, that's really clever! Love it!

[Yiuel]

A comment on your transit system : it will be prone to congestion, if population densities are high in the central region, as all lines lead to a single point, which is the only transfer between your major lines.

Otherwise, that maps-for-free thing is awesome; now I can finally have fun and create Sevy.

[clawgrip]

A comment on your transit system : it will be prone to congestion, if population densities are high in the central region, as all lines lead to a single point, which is the only transfer between your major lines.

Otherwise, that maps-for-free thing is awesome; now I can finally have fun and create Sevy.

Yes, I am considering having some sort of light rail or something within the city itself. Haven't decided yet what to do.

[Yiuel]

A comment on your transit system : it will be prone to congestion, if population densities are high in the central region, as all lines lead to a single point, which is the only transfer between your major lines.

Otherwise, that maps-for-free thing is awesome; now I can finally have fun and create Sevy.

Yes, I am considering having some sort of light rail or something within the city itself. Haven't decided yet what to do.

I'm planning to study transit as a degree.

As far as I have seen from Toyama, which works exactly like your idea (long range system decoupled from its short range counterpart downtown), it is highly inconvenient; the double system will only work with efficiency at the places where both systems connect.

You can see this in Tokyo, with which you are familiar. There is a reason why downtowns evolved at many of the stations along the Yamanote line: they were actually former terminals, where suburbward lines connected to the JR line, which delimited a section in which the private lines were forbidden to pass through. This created a series of change-of-trains along the railway system, and these are known to slow transit. This led to many businesses to conglomerate at these exchange centers, eventually leading to the famously booming sub-downtown from Shibuya to Ikebukuro, and the booming of Shinagawa and Ueno on the eastern side. Yet, only these nods became sub-downtowns, and now you have many partnerships between the subways and private lines to offer direct links with the suburbs.

This means that, if you want to promote transit, it is better to have an integrated system, where there is no exchange. (Kanazawa's curse, which relies heavily on the buses leading to Kourinbou, which is separated from the main train station. and therefore the prefecture and the region as a whole.)

Having nods is not a bad thing, though. Having people change lines is an ideal way to promote centers. The quintessential nod in Japan, as you know, is the train station. The reason why it is so ingrained is because the train station is not simply where you get off the train, it is where you get off the train to, eventually, get on a local system to your little dwelling; that is, buses.

So, in Japan, train/metro system distinction notwithstanding, you generally have a system with three levels.

The local level is the bus system; it shares the way with local delivery and other local transit, as there is not enough need to justify distinct systems at such a level (at least in residential areas; this is less true when you get near the nod, where distinct, separate bus lines might be a boon). Its purpose is to bring people from residential areas to hubs, and from hubs to to decentralized unspecialized industries (which, by virtue of being unspecialized, benefit best from decentralized locations, as the closer you are from downtown, the bigger the competition for space.)

Beyond the local level, you have the intraurban level, in Japan usually a train system, except in the downtowns of some cities which have subways or ground level tramways (or their modern variants). Its purpose is to bring people from their residential locales, which are brought to a nod by the local system, towards downtown. This system usually benefits from a separate network. In a small town, this system will simply bring people towards a center. However, as demonstrated by Tokyo, the system needs to decouple and create multiple distinct nods to alleviate the pressure of centrality, by offering semi-specialized or highly innovative enterprises locations where they are neither too central (where the center is left to highly crucial services that the city may only need in one single copy), nor too decentral (where people are mor difficult to bring in, and where you actually want to have your citizens live their life). The bigger your city, the wider you want that decoupling to occur, because it offers a lot more possibilities.

This second level can be given levels to enable fast-distance traveling between the neighborhoods; this is the purpose of all the expresses on the suburban lines of Tokyo, to have faraway neighborhoods be closer to downtown and, therefore, place more space into the non-specialized residential areas.

The third and last level is intercity level, which people should not be using on a daily basis; this is the purpose of the Shinkansen on many levels, even though it also provides faraway locations to be given industrial plants from transplanted businesses from the cities as well as serving as a general way for tourism (which in Japan is simply having fun away from your city).

The local and intracity levels create nods where you still have to change systems. You'd want to avoid them as much as possible in a system where there is no downtown-suburb distinction, but they are not that much of a bad thing. Indeed, if Los Angeles and Silicon Valley are any indication when it comes to downtown implosion, it's not good news at all for transit... Also, the more distinct nods you have, the more space can be involved in downtown life (that is, specialization, innovation and economies of scale), especially if you make sure your system is multicentered (as Tokyo is today).

You want to avoid, however, the mixing of intracity with intercity. This one has another important purpose, which is bringing new people and, most importantly, new resources to the city. The intercity may be a backbone of further intracity transit expansion (as the Chuuou line is, from Mikata to Hachiouji and Oume, to keep the Tokyo example), but there is a risk of congestion with the very distinct purpose of intercity transport.

[clawgrip]

Probably, the best thing to do is merge the Kakushu line with the Airport Express line, extending it to Manda (skipping Takenoshita and Usuda), and making a parallel line that hits all the local stops. I can't make it too complex, tbough, because I don't think the population's big enough to support it.

[Yiuel]

Probably, the best thing to do is merge the Kakushu line with the Airport Express line, extending it to Manda (skipping Takenoshita and Usuda), and making a parallel line that hits all the local stops. I can't make it too complex, tbough, because I don't think the population's big enough to support it.

Your airport line is actually the equivalent of a rapid bypass on your train system, to bring the airport (a highly specialized service) closer to downtown. As such, when planning your lines, you need a specific set of stops that will lead to the airport. Ino's position outside the express is a big no-no and a cardinal sin when planning your intercity system; you have a regional line, Onji line, that goes into the countryside from Ino, so you want to have it connected as soon as possible to the airport. It may add an unwanted stop between the airport and downtown, as was probably your plan, but I don't think it would be a bad thing; it might indeed, in the future, become a regional center, as urbanization (and immigration) progresses in your country.

However, I would keep the line airport line itself, but have it explicitly be a third bidirectionnal track between the airport and the end of your urban area (which, from your post, I believe would be Manda), with a switch of direction happening between "end of lunch" (around 2 pm) and end of class (around 3 pm). This triple line will enable a double traffic line at rush hour, where you can have expresses in the middle, and slow trains on the side for more local work. (Your local trains would go from or towards Onji line at rush hours, while expresses would end into the Airport, as befit a rapid link between downtown and the airport, secondarily serving as an express for locals going to Onji line in the future) I would also have your airport line continue on paper beyond Manda all the way to Morio, but here, there are only two tracks, one for each direction, in effect merging your lines.

I would also extend your Onji all the way to downtown as well; as capital of your country, you want every sector be linked to it if possible. Also, because of your country's size, the ultimate goal for planning would be an actual socioeconomical merger of everything, as competitiveness will rise as the population size will grow. It should probably merge physically with the main Kakushu line for now, but it should be clear for passengers that transit from Onji line that they will go into Kakushu line and ultimately go all the way to downtown.

In the future, the merged Onji-Kakushu lines could be separated, having Onji line create a loop through future development around your main city, going from Ino, crossing the Chuo line somewhere south, maybe Fosoko, crossing again Kakushu line at Kurashiba, crossing again Chuo at Urashino, crossing again Kakushu line at Fuchimi and finally rejoin the Onji line as a dead end; this would create your Yamanote, in a densily packed downtown.

The Chuo and Sasayama should be one single line; I saw what you did there (Uchibou and Sotobou, in Chiba), but in this case, the change of name does not seem to be more than a branding (which is not that bad of itself, but beats the purpose of an interurban transit system). The Takayama line, which runs from Gifu to Toyama, is quite similar in design to your Sasayama line; the local trains stop at several stations along the way, with mandatory transfers (Inotani, Takayama, Gero, for those that I am sure of), but the line is still united in terms of track.

Morio is your southern urban center, as I can see, so ending a line there is not a bad thing. However, if possible, I would have made both lines distinct all the way to Morio, to give a third approach to Morio and extend its hinterland from a third direction. While I know your system is designed as an interurban transportation system, if you use it as a backbone for your further development, having that third approach, creating a conspicuous nod, you'll have a strong second center available.

Your Chuo-line may benefit from the same triple-track idea within the urban portion, if you use your regional lines as the backbone of your intraurban transit within your main city.

However, if you do create a distinct intraurban transit system for both Tadzuru-Shibakura and Morio, then you need only a third track from your downtown to Ino to the airport, everything left being a double-tracked system crisscrossing your country side. Your intraurban transit then need not follow your interurban transit system, but it is good form to at least have it intersect, and I would even say that having all stops of your interurban system intersect with your intraurban system is a must, to make sure people can transfer easily from the interurban to the intraurban system upon entering the city limits.

If you make sure not to crowd your interurban system with plenty of passenger trains, reserving all extensions to an integrated separate system, rurbanization will be avoided, and people will limit themselves to transit via your intraurban system. This will leave your interurban system for merch transit with the occasional passenger train, which is not a bad thing. To ensure total segregation, you might want to actually kill all stations on the main lines as they integrate the urban tissue. (Though hourly trains usually do a good job when confronted to a 10-minute-or-less system.)

If you do, however, make your interurban system highly convenient, as Tokyo did with the Touhoku, Soubu, Chuou and Keihin lines, beware that its stations may easily become focuses, becoming nods of your whole system, and leaving no place for merch transit (which is the bane of Tokyo now).

(Note that your Morio dilemma mirrors the problem with the current Hokuriku Shinkansen. The reason why it was not completed yet is because the locals cannot decide on whether to have it go through Maibara and follow toward Kyoto, Osaka and maybe Kobe, or have it run all the way to Obama and have it cross at right angles with the Tokai and Sanyou lines right at Osaka. I would personally favor the second option, but for a reason completely unrelated to either Obama or Maibara: It would be to give a direct link further south to the Kansai International Airport and have it end in Wakayama, giving a straight access for all the Hokuriku region from Kyoto.)

[Salmoneus]

I figured that a government dealing with dwindling silver resources coinciding with colonial occupation would cause trouble and incite currency reform. Also, as Yabushio entered the modern age, it would need to abandon foreign coinage and develop its own currency. I've gone with 圓 yen as the currency, since this root is the origin of real-world Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, and Korean won.

I think you may have a bit of a problem. In your initial post, you say that Yabushio traded with both Japan and Europe. A brief search for 'sakoku' doesn't seem to indicate that you've changed your mind. But this is impossible, because it would mean that trade between japan and europe was possible via yabushio. This may seem like a minor loophole, something that wouldn't be exploited on a large scale. But it's not, it's something that would completely change history. Because of how currency works. At least, bullion and currency trades between japan and yabushio would have to be prohibited.


Gold, Silver and Bimetallic Standards
A gold standard means your currency is 'backed by' gold. You promise to pay your citizens a certain amount in bullion for each coin they give you. This is easiest if your coins actually are gold of that weight. Otherwise, your citizens are essentially loaning you money, and if they all ask for it back at once then you're stuffed. A silver standard is the same, but with silver. A bimetallic standard means that you'll pay in either metal if they ask for it, and generally means you have coins of both types circulating.

[But do be aware, there are actually four different things here. One is 'legal tender' - you accept certain coins as payment of taxes, and may force private citizens to accept them as payment of debts as well. Another is backing - you give bullion in exchange for the coins. A third is free coinage: traditionally, you would accept bullion and turn it into coins for a fee, no matter how much bullion they brought. And a fourth is trade money, what actually gets circulated in the economy. Generally, earlier societies could have more complicated trading currencies. But as the government got more powerful, what the government defined as 'legal tender' became more important.

Europe had a variety of standards. Usually a place would have either a gold or (more often) a silver standard - in that they would only repay with silver (and tried to keep the silver the right weight), and would only freely coin silver (you gave them silver, they gave you it back in coins, minus a fee, but they wouldn't do it for gold, or at least would only coin a certain amount of gold) - but they would still accept gold as legal tender at a fixed price ratio with silver.

Pretty much everywhere adopted a silver standard in the early modern period, after the discovery of Pitosi.

Deflation/Inflation
Now, all metallic standards tend to produce deflation - that is, the coins get more valuable over time (i.e. things get cheaper). This is because a) there is a finite supply of precious metals, so as the economy grows there is less currency to go around, and b) people hoard a percentage of their precious metals, either in big piles of shiny gold, or by turning it into jewellery, statuettes, dinner plates, etc.

Deflation is bad. It produces depression - there is less investment, because why invest your money if you know your money is getting more and more valuable just being left in your hoard? Before fiat currencies, depression was the norm, but varied seasonally depending on how good the harvest was.

Inflation is the opposite - your coins get worth less and less. So there's a lot of pressure to invest them, so the economy grows. However, not everyone benefits equally. The poor don't care if there's inflation or deflation, because they have no money anyway. But the middle-classes hate inflation, because the middle-classes like to save up their money, and inflation obliterates savings. The landed aristocracy don't much like inflation either, because they're the people with big hoards of gold who would be benefiting from deflation ("idle holders of idle capital", as the saying goes).

<b>Good and bad money</b>
Silver standards produce less deflation, because there is more silver and it is less desirable. Gold standards produce more deflation. In theory, bimetallic standards would be the most stable of all, because the money supply would be greatest. But they're a bugger to get to work.

The problem is, there's a thing called 'Gresham's Law': bad money drives out good. What this means is that there is a natural price ratio between gold and silver, and if the legal price ratio between gold and silver coins differs from this (either because they were fixed wrongly in the first place or because one type of coin has become more debased than the other), the more-overvalued coin will be used, and the more-undervalued coin will disappear out of the economy. This is because people will hoard the undervalued coins, but will spend the overvalued ones. [Or, in a world economy, they'll spend the undervalued ones abroad, in a place where they're worth more]

This is what happened after Newton in the UK. Officially, gold and silver were both legal tender; but because the legal ratio between them was fixed at the wrong level, silver stopped being used and the country adopted a de facto gold standard.

<b>Japan</b>
Japan around 1600 adopted a bimetallic standard: both gold and silver were legal tender and I believe freely coined, at a fixed ratio. Over time, all the coins were progressively debased, creating troubling inflation, with occasional increases in weight resulting in devastating deflation.

Now, debasement isn't just to make the government richer. It's also to increase the money supply and combat deflation. Because it's really awkward when your currency is stupidly expensive - it's hard to carry around 1/1000th of a gold coin, after all. Japan tried to get around this by using very cheap brass or bronze coins, mon, at 1000 (or later 4000) mon to the ryoo, but that was still awkward for paying for expensive things [250 bronze coins make for a heavy purse]. So in the 18th century, Japan moved to an underlying gold standard. This allowed them to keep relatively sound gold coins while heavily debasing the silver coinage. This presumably would have had the effect of creating a de facto silver standard in terms of trade money, as people hoarded the gold.


But Japan had a huge problem. Japan had fixed the value of gold at five times the price of silver. But ever since the discovery of Pitosi, the European price of gold was between 15 and 16 times the price of silver.

This is why you can't have Yabushio as a portal between the two economic spheres. Europeans would take a tonne of gold, buy 15 tonnes of silver, take that silver to Yabushio and exchange it for 5 tonnes of gold, and get a 500% profit. That is, indeed, exactly what happened as soon as Japan relaxed her borders. All the gold flooded out of the country. Japan had to respond by overwhelmingly debasing its gold coins to reach the correct ratio, which caused inflation. They didn't have the gold reserves any longer to back the debased currency, and had to resort to unbacked paper money, which caused even more inflation, and a general collapse in faith in the government. The government collapsed, the Meiji restoration happened, and the first thing the new regime did was create a new currency.

[In fact, I see you've copied the "we'll steal all your underpriced gold!" clause into the Treaty with the British - Article VIII.]


The yen wasn't really an independent currency - basically, it was a japanese-minted dollar, the same way that euros are made in different countries. The Japanese chose at first to adopt a bimetallic standard, in common with Europe and south america. When Germany joined the UK on a gold standard in 1871, and in the process crushed the armies of bimetallist France, silver prices worldwide fell. As a result, the bimetallic Japanese dollar (the 'yen') fell to only half the value of the gold standard american dollar, before japan finally rejoined the gold standard.


<b>Yabushio</b>
Yabushio would face a choice early on: either freely trade with the Europeans, or seal themselves off (or, at least, insist only on barter trade with the rest of the world). With trade, their Tokugawa currency system would collapse with the influx of Spanish silver. This would a) cause inflation, which would not be welcomed by either the aristocracy or the middle classes (artisans, etc), and b) diminish the significance of control of the silver mines. Free trade in bullion with Europe would also mean no access to Japanese gold. They could then either abandon the currency system and just use dollars (or their local equivalent), or they could heavily debase their gold, use that as a currency (along with the cheap mon, of course) and ship all their silver abroad in exchange for foreign goods.

Alternatively they could remain more or less isolated. Or, they could try to barter worked goods for foreign goods. In that case they could keep their traditional currency system, and would presumably follow Japan's move to a legal gold standard (but probably more widespread use of debased silver).

My instinct would be that, given their small size, they would probably swallow a lower deflation rate (which would, after all, actually be good for them anyway) and just adopt the spanish dollar/peso as their currency right from the 17th century on, or at least a localised variant of it, enabling greater trade with the wider world. After becoming a British protectorate, they would presumably switch over to the gold standard, and would probably introduce a gold coin. For convenience, the gold coins introduced would probably be equal in weight to British sovereigns or half-sovereigns (or double sovereigns).

At that point, the actual currency in use in Yabushio for normal purposes could continue to be the dollar (but heavily debased, purely as a token coin). Alternatively, they could use coins/notes given multiples of the mon. I think it would be something like 2000 mon to the sovereign? All else being equal, that would mean something like 1 mon to 5 modern pennies.

Personally, I would:
- start out with tokugawa kobans
- become isolated from japan and trade with the wider world, adopt the dollar, possibly calling it the peso.
- become british, introduce new gold standard based on the sovereign, with the yabushionese sovereign being called the 'yen'
- for small quantities, continue to use mon
- after independence, quietly drop the 'yen', or use it only for bullion purposes, and just use mon, with a lot of zeroes.

[clawgrip]

Thanks to both of you. Your interest is greatly appreciated. I have some things to think about. I will respond to Salmoneous first because the train one will take a bit more thinking.

Salmoneous, you have filled in some blanks in my mind about the history of currency in that area, so I appreciate it. I was intending to use yen as the currency, but if you think mon is better, I will consider that as well.

This would mean that 1 mon would be close to 10 modern Japanese yen, and ¥100 would work out to 10 mon.

I have been working on designs for actual money, so this is very helpful information, as it will assist me in determining the denominations.

[Salmoneus]

Well, I just went for mon because it felt cooler to me - an older currency, probably lots of zeroes by now (that conversion I gave was a guess at then-mon vs now-poun), some nationalism.... of course, you're the Japan expert!

You could also use yen, of course. Or they could go back to koban or ryoo, or whatever. Or still use the dollar/peso, or have converted entirely to UK currency (but perhaps never decimalised so still used shillings... or perhaps decimalised earlier, in 1945, but did it differently).


In terms of modern sizes... well, let's start with the mon as 1/4000th of a koban. The koban started off 18.2g, at 86% gold, so 15.7g of gold. That makes the mon 0.0039g of gold in value. Assume a 15.5 conversion rate and that makes it worth 0.06g of silver. A dollar is something like 25g of silver (they varied over time and space, obviously), so 420-odd mon to the dollar? Therefore let's say 420 mon to the japanese yen. (and to the dollar, and the franc, and divide by five for the peseta, etc).

Now, 1 yen in 1879 is worth (going by CPI, just) about 4,200 yen today. If we assume Yabushio has has the same level of inflation and hasn't revalued the currency at all, then it should still be about 420 mon to the yen, so 1 mon would be 0.00127p, or 790 mon to the penny, 79,000 mon to the pound. They would probably issue 1,000, 10,000, and 100,000 mon coins. They may, of course, have lopped a few zeroes off at some point, perhaps called it the 'new mon' or whatever, though I prefer the feel of 100k mon coins...

[clawgrip]

Actually I kind of like the mon idea. I went with yen primarily because China, Korea, and Japan all use the same Chinese root word for their currency, so I was just using it because it seemed logical. I didn't really want to use ryo, for whatever reason. Mon is an interesting one, so I think I may go with it.

Based on my intended coin/banknote scheme, this would result in the following denominations:

M1,000 coin
M5,000 coin
M10,000 coin
M50,000 coin
M100,000 coin
M500,000 bill
M1,000,000 bill
M2,000,000 bill
M5,000,000 bill

having it go up into the millions seems a bit excessive, though obviously not unprecedented. If I were to make a new mon, I would cut either two or three zeroes off, which would be much more manageable.

The highest coin would either be 100 mon or 1000 mon.

[clawgrip]

For aesthetic reasons, I don't really want any numbers to be over two characters in length (or three, including the mon sign). Cutting off two zeroes gives the largest numbers possible while staying within two characters:

拾文 10 mon
伍拾文 50 mon
佰文 100 mon
伍佰文 500 mon
阡文 1,000 mon

伍阡文 5,000 mon
壹萬文 10,000 mon
貮萬文 20,000 mon
伍萬文 50,000 mon