Keijiro Amemiya

Japanese: 雨宮敬次郎 - あめのみや・けいじろう

Year of death: January 20, 1911 (Meiji 44)
Year of birth: 1846.10.24 (Koka 3.9.5)
A Meiji-era businessman. He experienced ups and downs in the stock market and trade, but managed pioneering businesses such as railways and hydroelectric power generation, and became a part of the Koshu zaibatsu. Commonly known as Ukei, he was born in Higashiyamanashi-gun, Kai Province (Yamanashi Prefecture). His family had been village headmen for generations. He aspired to be a merchant at a young age, and began as a broker for raw silk seed paper and other products in his hometown, before moving to Yokohama in 1872 (Meiji 5) to work in currency exchange and the German silver market. He married the following year and began selling raw silk and other products, but in 1876 he learned that the government was exporting silkworm egg paper to Italy, and traveled to Italy to buy up hundreds of thousands of sheets of silkworm egg paper and resell them. His plan failed, and he returned to Japan the following year penniless, but this experience in Europe and America marked a turning point for him, and in 1889 he purchased wheat milling machinery and built a flour mill in Tokyo Prefecture. He amassed a huge fortune, cultivated the wilderness of Karuizawa, created a village called Amemiya Shinden, and embarked on the management of hydroelectric power plants on the Katsura River in Yamanashi Prefecture, the Kobu Railway, and the Kawagoe Railway, but was implicated in the Tokyo City Waterworks Iron Pipe Incident in 1928 and imprisoned. After his release, he planned a Tokyo city railway, realizing a flat fare of 3 sen, and devoted himself to the construction of the Kobu Railway (later the Chuo Line between Ochamizu and Hachioji). <References> Sakurai Yukio (ed.), "The Past Sixty Years of Amemiya Keijiro (Biography)"

(Mitsuo Sekii)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：明治44.1.20(1911)
生年：弘化3.9.5(1846.10.24)
明治時代の実業家。相場,貿易で浮沈をくり返すが,鉄道,水力発電などの先駆的な事業を経営,甲州財閥の一翼をになった。俗称雨敬。甲斐国東山梨郡(山梨県)生まれ。生家は代々の名主。若くして商業を志し,郷里で生糸種紙などの仲買をはじめ,明治5(1872)年横浜に出て両替・洋銀相場の仕事についた。翌年結婚して生糸などの売込業を営んだが,同9年政府が蚕卵紙をイタリアに輸出することを知り,数十万枚の蚕卵紙を買収して転売を目的にイタリアに渡った。目論見が外れて翌年無一文で帰国したが,この欧米体験が転機となり,同12年小麦の製粉機械を購入して東京府下に製粉所を建設。巨万の富を築いて軽井沢の原野を開墾し,雨宮新田という村落を作り,山梨県桂川の水力発電,甲武鉄道,川越鉄道の経営に乗り出したが,同28年東京市水道鉄管事件に連座して入獄した。出獄後は,東京市街鉄道を計画して3銭均一の電車料金を実現し,甲武鉄道(のちの中央線・御茶水―八王子間)の敷設などに尽力した。<参考文献>桜井幸雄編『過去六十年事蹟(伝記・雨宮敬次郎)』

(関井光男)

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