Requires
- Arts:
Enables
- Buildings:
- Arts:
Effects
- Provides food: 2
- Increase to trade income (tariffs only) by +20%
Description
Although considered to be a lower class of people than the honourable samurai, merchants are incredibly important to the clan's coffers. Chonindo argues that the merchant class' quest for wealth is just as honourable as the samurai quest for glory on the field of battle. The introduction of a moral code that glorifies the pursuit of profit whilst stressing the importance of thrift and frugality helps increase trade income for all provinces and encourages economic growth amongst the merchant classes.
The ethics of chonindo were developed by Ishida Baigan, a man with a particular interest in the problems faced by the merchant class. According to formal Edo ideology, merchants were considered to be one of the lowest social classes. Ishida Baigan believed that the ideas of chonindo or "the way of the townsman" were equal to that of "the way of the warrior" and no less valid to all members of society. He argued that morals transcended the class system; therefore a merchant could nurture morality in exactly the same way as a samurai. He encouraged his followers to devote themselves to the pursuit of profit whilst remaining scrupulously honest and cultivating the virtues of thrift and frugality. If merchants lived their lives according to these values, then their profit driven motive was in accord with the way of heaven.