1 Bu – Kaga Domain

In 1866, the Kaga Domain (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture), one of Japan's wealthiest and largest han, faced a complex and strained currency situation emblematic of the late Tokugawa period's economic turmoil. Like all domains, Kaga issued its own paper scrip, known as hansatsu, which circulated alongside official Tokugawa gold, silver, and copper coinage. However, the domain's finances were heavily burdened by the shogunate's mandatory levies for national defense and modernization projects following the arrival of foreign powers. To meet these extraordinary expenses and cover its own substantial costs, the Kaga domainal government was compelled to engage in repeated currency debasement and the over-issuance of hansatsu, leading to severe inflation and a loss of public confidence in the domain's notes.

This monetary instability was exacerbated by the broader national crisis. The value of Kaga's currency was not only dependent on the domain's own fiscal health but also on the rapidly depreciating value of the shogunate's coinage and the chaotic exchange rates between different domains' notes. Furthermore, the domain's economy, heavily reliant on the production of kutani pottery, silk, and rice, suffered from market disruptions and the increasing demand for scarce specie (hard coin) for external trade. This created a multi-tiered currency system where domain notes traded at a significant discount to official coinage, harming merchants, peasants, and samurai on fixed stipends alike.

By 1866, the situation reached a critical point, forcing the domainal authorities to implement currency reforms in a desperate attempt to restore stability. These measures likely included recalls and reissues of hansatsu, attempts to bolster reserves, and strict regulations on exchange. However, these were largely stopgap measures within a collapsing system. The fundamental pressures—the shogunate's demands, the costs of military preparedness, and the integration into a volatile national market—meant that Kaga's currency woes were inextricably linked to the final demise of the Tokugawa bakufu, which would fall just two years later, rendering all domainal currencies obsolete.