Koshinzan Kotokuji Temple (Yamagami, Minakuchi-cho, Koka City, Shiga Prefecture) is a Tendai sect temple founded by Saicho in the second year of the Enryaku era (783), but it also has another aspect as the god of brass. According to legend, in the second year of the Bunroku era (1593), a farmer from the foot of the mountain, Tozaemon, fasted and prayed, and on the night of the 17th day, a young boy appeared in his dream and taught him the teaching that "if you mix copper with zinc and blow it away, you can obtain golden gold." According to the "Origins of Brass Blowing," a document formerly held at Kotoku-ji Temple, brass-blowing began in Kyoto six years after this reimu, when Tozaemon, who had achieved success in brass-blowing in 1599, had the main hall of Kotoku-ji Temple rebuilt in 1615. Since then, he has been regarded as the founder of brass-blowing and has attracted believers, including the Koshin-ko, which later took on the characteristics of a trade guild, to this day. Following Tozaemon, Kyoto's brass-blowing industry came to dominate Japan until it was permitted in Edo and Osaka in 1780.
According to the Shinekikyo Habutae Ori-dome (New Kyoto Habutae Weaving), published in 1754, there were 39 blowing houses in Kyoto. Kyoto holds great authority as a copper production center, and the techniques of hammering sheets and combining copper and zinc to form brass also originated in Kyoto. Similarly, as mentioned above, the use of waterwheel power also began in Shirakawa and Kurama in the upper reaches of the Kamo River. It was in the early Meiji period that metal merchants, metal blowers, and sheet metal rolling craftsmen scattered throughout Kyoto began full-scale waterwheel copper rolling in the upper reaches of the Kamo River. In today's industrial terminology, "copper rolling" refers to the primary processing of copper or copper alloys. However, originally, copper rolling was merely one step in the copper industry, which produced everyday copper items such as pots, kettles, and hairpins, and intermediate materials such as sheets and wire were made by craftsmen by hammering the base metal.
Then, in the early Meiji period, modern factories appeared, and copper rolled products began to be mass-produced. It was not until the end of the 1880s that the process was separated from refining and the term "copper rolled" was coined. The term "copper rolled" was no longer used to refer to processing using water wheels, but was used exclusively for modern mechanized factories that comprehensively produced sheets, wire, and other products from raw metal. At the time, the copper industry, which had moved to the suburbs upstream of the Kamo River to use waterwheels, was driven back into the city by the completion of the Lake Biwa Canal, which connected Otsu and Kyoto and reached the Kamo River in 1890. The greatest economic effect of this canal project was the supply of electricity, and the following year, electricity transmission began from the Keage Power Station, Japan's first hydroelectric power plant, which brought streetlights to the city, streetcars to the streets, and brought about a major change in the lives of residents.
The copper rolling industry is also entering a new era. Following the start of electric motor-driven brass sheet rolling at Tawara Brass Manufacturing (acquired by Mitani Shindo in 1932) in 1892, Mitani Usaburo, who established the foundation of our company, Mitani Shindo, also established a factory in Rengezocho, Shogoin. Reizen-dori, beside the canal in Okazaki, Kyoto, has transformed into "Shindo-dori," lined with modern copper rolling factories, but among these, the copper rolling factory of Mitani Usaburo, who founded the prestigious Kyoto company Mitani Shindo, which still exists today, has experienced remarkable growth.
According to the Mitani Family Biography held by Mitani Shindo, during the Ansei era (1772-1780), the second head of the Yamashiroya Mitani family of Kyoto, Zenroku, moved to Tokyo from Hitaya Village, a tributary of the Mitani River in Enuma County, Kaga Province (now Hitaya Town, Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture), and ran a firewood and charcoal business. The fourth head, Yohei, then opened a metal bullion business, but in 1865, while the family business was still growing, he died of illness, leaving behind his eldest son, Usaburo, who was only 10 years old. Entrusted with the task of reviving the business, Usaburo began his 10-year apprenticeship at Yomenami Shoten, a metal bullion merchant in Osaka. Returning to Kyoto at the age of 21, Usaburo established waterwheel factories in Shirakawa and Yase, and embarked on the copper rolling industry. This appears to have been a defining feature of the electric-powered factories he would later establish in Kamigyo. As evidence of this, a photograph from the early Showa period shows the factory equipped with a waterwheel, a rare sight for a modern factory. Even after the main power source was changed to electricity, it appears that the waterwheel continued to play a supplementary role, such as supplying air to the annealing furnaces. This unique factory, which used both electricity generated by the canal and water power, was apparently inimitable by other factories that had no experience using waterwheels. Furthermore, a few years later, a hydroelectric power station was constructed just a few dozen meters upstream from the Kamigyo Factory, indicating that this was an ideal location for installing a waterwheel. It can be said that Usaburo's keen eye, cultivated through his experience in waterwheel copper rolling, was also sharp when selecting the site for the new factory.
After establishing the Kamigyo Factory, Mitani Shindo added waterwheel factories in Kurama and Uji, and solidified its integrated production system for processing materials produced at the Kamigyo Factory into wire and sheet, solidifying its superiority. The number of employees, which was initially around 30, grew to 240 by 1920, far surpassing that of other companies, thanks to the economic boom caused by World War I. According to a postwar in-house newsletter from Mitani Shindo, the Yase Factory continued to operate until 1935, and the Kitashirakawa Factory until 1940. Their longevity was in stark contrast to other water mills, which had almost completely disappeared by the Taisho era with the arrival of the age of electricity. In 1932, the year the number of production bases had increased to six, Usaburo passed away at the age of 78, 67 years after he began his apprenticeship. He had lived his final years in rough clothing, maintaining the frugality he had maintained since childhood.
Fifteen years before Usaburo's death, in 1924, his eldest son Yoichiro took over the family business from Usaburo as president of Mitani Copper and Brass. While maintaining a solid base in the Kansai region, he also sought to expand into Tokyo, the center of Japanese politics, economy, and the copper and brass trade, which was in the midst of a rapid recovery following the Great Kanto Earthquake. He opened the Tokyo branch of Mitani Shindo, the predecessor of what would later become Mitani Shokai, in Kanda Iwamotocho, and began a wholesale business of a wide range of copper and copper alloy products, not only for Mitani Shindo but also for Furukawa Electric and Kobe Steel, Ltd. However, during the wartime national economic controls, he temporarily suspended business, but his passion never faded. In 1948, after Tokyo had been reduced to ashes after the war, Tsuneo returned to the city with a strong desire for post-war reconstruction and a pledge to develop the copper and copper alloy industry, and founded the present-day Mitani Shokai in Kanda, the place he returned to. However, as a price to pay, he had to resign as representative of Mitani Copper and Brass due to the Corporate Accounting Control Order. Mitani Shokai has a history spanning more than 130 years since Usaburo started the copper rolling industry at Shirakawa Waterwheel in Kyoto, and has grown into the 21st century by being involved not only in copper rolling but also in a wide range of non-ferrous metals.
As the whole of Japan is now devoting all its efforts to earthquake recovery, we at Mitani Shokai have shed our skin and reborn many times in the past as part of the recovery process, and we are working hard to write a new page in our history in line with the demands of the times.