The were Japanese
teamsters or cargo carriers who used horses to transport their shipments. They were chiefly active between the
Heian Period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...
and the
Sengoku Period
The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615.
The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...
. Images of the bashaku are famously drawn on the
emakimono
or is an illustrated horizontal narration system of painted handscrolls that dates back to Nara-period (710–794 CE) Japan. Initially copying their much older Chinese counterparts in style, during the succeeding Heian (794–1185) and Kamak ...
depicting the founding of
Ishiyama-dera.
During the same time period cargo carriers who used cows instead were known as shashaku.
Transportation methods
The transportation method of the bashaku was to hang the cargo from the back of their horses and then drive them to their destination. In the beginning farmers did this job during their free time on off-seasons but from the
Muromachi Period
The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...
and onwards it became a full-time occupation.
The bashaku lived in groups in towns along major highways and important sites of water to land traffic including Otsu, Sakamoto, and Yodo, and they carried goods brought by boat to areas where consumption was at that time high such as
Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...
and
Nara
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
.
Uprisings
Because of their organizational strength and the ease with which they could get news, and eventually their employment of armed escorts due to poor public security, they also became a source of rebellions during the Muromachi Period. The most famous of these revolts are the
Shocho Uprising and the
Kakitsu Uprising. However, when
Mount Hiei’s
Enryaku-ji became the target of attacks in the latter uprising, the bashaku of
Omi Province, who had received the temple's protection seceded from the rebels and the power of the bashaku split.
During the Hokke Rebellion of 1532, Enryaku-ji took the lead in suppressing the bashaku. Bashaku members blockaded checkpoints connecting to Kyoto and thus imposed an economic embargo on the city where the power of militant Nichiren Buddhists held sway.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bashaku
Sengoku period
History of transport in Japan
Economic history of Japan