Ｔhe Untold Story of Suya Shoten

[Nick Komiya]

Eulogy for a Militaria Pioneer, the Untold Story of Suya 壽屋

Foreword in tribute to Bob Coleman

In hearing about Bob Coleman’s sudden passing, I thought I owed him a special send-off in the form of a story celebrating his long and passionate support of the hobby.

Although I came to know him only very late in his life, since 2015, when he invited me to this forum as a Lifetime Member, others have obviously known him forever, considering Bob to be one of the pioneers of militaria collecting.

So I thought it might be a befitting gesture to recall the life of another pioneer in the world of militaria, who left an immeasurable footprint in our hobby of today, making the name of his business familiar to collectors whether one collects Type 95 swords, medals and badges, flags or daggers. The story behind the name is today largely forgotten, but the relics he left behind are cherished by collectors of Japanese militaria of today as the best of their kind in quality.

This is the story of Suya, a supplier of military goods that had their fingers in almost everything. Nowadays they are mainly known as a prime supplier of Guntos during WW2, but they also dealt in insignia, uniforms, badges and even were the exclusive supplier of the prestigious regimental banners of the Imperial Army that were intimately bestowed to a new regiment by the Emperor in person.

There is a good reason why Suya was such a special and respected name among suppliers to the military; they were not mere merchants in for a quick profit, but had been to the army and navy an indispensable and loyal partner in the early days of their development.

The truth is that without Suya, the Army and Navy would have been wearing swords all supplied by makers in Solingen Germany and clad in uniforms made of material imported from England or some other country.

Suya truly and firmly believed that Japan had to be self-sufficient in the supply of military goods and had fought the historical tendency of the army and navy to simply rely on imports from outside the country.

[Nick Komiya]

Shigesuke Komatsuzaki, the Game Changer

It was in the late 1820’s, the Bunsei era of the Edo period, that 30-year old Rakuju Komatuzaki (小松崎楽寿), a native of Ibaraki came out to Edo (Tokyo) to seek an apprenticeship position as a merchant. The shop that took him in was Suya, a vinegar brewer with a long history, what the Japanese call a “Shinise”, a shop that had prospered for generations.

However, as it turned out, in about 10 years of Rakuju’s arrival, Suya would sadly go out of business in the Tempo era, without having a son to inherit the business as heir, and Rakuju became jobless.

But then he determines to start up his own business, this time, as a merchant dealing in Samurai swords rather than selling rice vinegar. Because he had long been known as “Suya” in Edo, he decided to continue using that name of his former employer in his new business. And it was not long before he made himself a name as a dealer of Samurai swords, and among his clients was the Ikeda family, the former lord of the Bizen Domain of Okayama, who greatly appreciated his qualities and took Komatsuzaki under his wing, also recommending him to change the kanji for “Su” from the original 酢 (rice vinegar) to 壽 (good fortune), which was also the second kanji from his own first name.

That was the reason why the shop’s name 壽屋 is read as "Suya" instead of the more common reading of “Kotobuki-ya”; to remind himself of Rice Vinegar which was his initial livelihood in Edo. There are accounts that attribute this changing of the Kanji to General Iwao Oyama of the army, but that is not correct. Oyama was involved in yet another episode to come soon later.

His first son, Shigesuke (小松崎茂助) was born in October 1841, an extroverted friendly child, liked by all. Already as a little child, he proved himself especially gifted and excelling in accounting and Chinese literature. At the age of 13, he started as an apprentice at Murataya, who were in the same line of business as his family, namely swords.

At the age of 20, Shigesuke would finally take over the Suya business from his father Rakuju, and soon earned a reputation as the top sword appraiser in the trade.

However, just when things were really looking up business-wise, the untimely 1872 prohibition of ex-Samurais from wearing swords dealt a disastrous blow to everyone in that business, causing a depression which also forced Shigesuke to seek other sources of income. But as he gradually recovered from this fateful setback, he started to contemplate getting back into the sword business from a new angle.

Although, the Nihontoh business did not seem to have any future left, alternative sword designs in saber-form, as borrowed from Prussia, were now coming into style and were being worn by Army and Navy officers. So Shigesuke decided to fashion the best he could in that style of sword for two of his acquaintances, a Kuranosuke Nakamuta (中牟田倉之助) and Nagayoshi Maki (真木長義), who would both later advance to Vice Admirals in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Thus these two sabers were the very first examples of “made in Japan” sabers, rather than being imported from Europe.

And as luck would have it, His Majesty, Emperor Meiji, graced the Imperial Naval Academy with a visit at this time, in 1873, where he happened to notice two officers wearing these sabers made in Japan, took them in his hands to inspect them in detail and asked how they had come to own them. The Emperor was greatly impressed that these sabers were made in Japan and he immediately dispatched Navy General Sumiyoshi Kawamura of the Ministry (河村純義海軍少輔) to visit Shigesuke at his home to place an order for 300 naval officer sabers as well as one saber for the Emperor himself.
　
Next year, in 1874, he was once again tasked with a special mission by the navy, this time, to produce epaulets in gold bullion in the style of the British Royal Navy to be used on new Japanese Imperial Navy uniforms. The problem, however, was that, back then, there was no one in Japan that had any know-how on how to make bullion insignia. So it was only after much trial and error that he was finally able to achieve this feat. This was also the time when dress uniforms were being developed for government officials as well as the military, so Shigesuke was also given the contract to supply the government with all these new bullion-adorned uniforms.

[Nick Komiya]

Shigesuke overturns the Imperial Army's Plans to source all its swords from Germany


Then in 1875, when Aritomo Yamagata was head of the Army, the army planned to unify the design of its officer sabers and planned to import them all through a German trading house located in Tsukiji, Tokyo.

Shigesuke was shocked to hear of this hugely embarrassing sell-out of Japanese tradition to the Germans and begged for a chance to show them what could be achieved within Japan. Army officers such as Taro Katsura 桂太郎 (later Minister of the Army as well as Prime Minister of Japan), Gentaro Kodama 児玉源太郎 (Hero of the Russo-Japanese War) and Goro Miura 三浦梧楼 all backed him up in full in this plea for a chance, but General Iwao Oyama 大山巌, the man behind the import scheme confided to Shigesuke that he had already examined a sample of Shigesuke’s work and had compared it against the German product and had decided to import, thinking the German product was superior. Thus Oyama refused to cancel the order to be placed with the Germans.

However, Oyama did have a soft spot for Shigesuke’s passion for his product and did finally agree to postpone the order to Germany for another 50 days. If within this time, Shigesuke could provide a sample surpassing the German product, the contract would be his, he said.

Shigesuke teamed up with Naotaka Tsuchino (土野直堯), Japan’s number one authority in this field, and after many trials, finally succeeded in coming up with a product that exceeded the German competition within those 50 days. Good to his word, General Oyama gave him the entire order for 3,500 army officer sabers, amounting to a contract of 40 thousand Yen, and cancelled the tentative order to Germany.

[Nick Komiya]

Into Wool, Export and Politics

Then 4 years later, in 1879, soon after the Satsuma Rebellion, the Army decided to renew its uniforms, and their prototype orders for the new German style Shoulder Boards and caps with bullion insignia, were all placed exclusively with Suya.

Another entrepreneurial challenge undertaken by Suya back then was to join hands with a Josaku Goto (後藤恕作), who was a weaver as well as dyer of wool located in Ohsaki Village in Meguro. Josaku had accompanied Arinori Mori (森有礼) to China when Mori was sent there as ambassador and learned wool dyeing and weaving from the Chinese.

The first project between Goto and Suya was to develop serge wool for Imperial Navy sailor uniforms. 2000 yards of hand-woven serge was purchased by the navy in this manner, which became the first example of serge fabric ever produced in Japan.

In 1883, the duo further tried to dramatically boost serge production by importing huge loads of wool from Tientsin, China. However, they realized, too late, that they had misjudged the quality of the wool, which was simply too coarse to be woven into serge.

Facing prospects of a huge loss in investment, they tried every possible alternative, and finally got a break in the form of producing Japan’s first wool blanket, an improvisation, which the navy happily bought from them.

This teamwork with Goto lasted until 1890, at which time Shigesuke came to realize that though he greatly admired Goto’s genius, they simply were not compatible as business partners. So Suya severed ties with Goto, and Goto instead tied up with big investors like Mitsui and Iwasaki to continue in the wool blanket manufacturing business, which continued to thrive for yet some years.

After parting ways with Goto, Shigesuke continued to fight against the import-oriented one-track mind of the Japanese military. In the civil wars preceding and following the Meiji Restoration, having the latest model import rifles like the Spencer rifles, with the highest rate of fire, had made the difference between life and death, and thus this preoccupation with the latest in imports was a hard habit to kick for Japan.

In this vein, Shigesuke’s latest challenge was now to supply single-handedly, summer sailor caps along with its accessories to secure that business for manufacturing in Japan.

In this way, he continued to gain business from the Ministry of the Imperial Household and the National Police in addition to both the Army and Navy.

And then, in 1898, Zhang Zhidong (張之洞) of Qing Dynasty, China sent his representative to the Ministry of the Army in Japan to ask for introductions to suppliers of military goods, which invited Suya to supply the Chinese with uniforms and other items ever since thereafter.

Suya had also been investing years of study in the German art of sword-smithing as practiced in Solingen and even succeeded in coming up with a beautiful Damascus-grained product, which he now had the honor of presenting to the Emperor with further examples for the Crown Prince. In this capacity as Japan’s prime supplier of swords, Suya also supplied many of the ceremonial Tachi swords dedicated to Ise Shrine every 20 years, as the Shrine gets rebuilt in a practice called Sengu. Thus it is very possible that the Jewel encrusted Tachi used in the 1889 Sengu of Ise, which got featured on the Order of the Golden Kite was supplied by Suya as well.

Not only swords, but as the supplier appointed by the Ministry of the Imperial Household, uniforms, hats, shoes and everything worn by Emperor Meiji was supplied by Suya.

This preferred supplier status was carried over into the reigns of Emperors Taisho and Showa, whose swords commemorating enthronement were also Suya Products.

He was not a mere merchant, but an entrepreneur, who was always actively involved in a product’s technical development, and through such efforts, developed Japan’s export industry as well.

From around the turn of the century, Suya started to export swords, uniforms and other accessories to neighboring countries such as Siam (Thailand) and Korea. Unfortunately such export activities had to be temporarily suspended by order of the government, which prohibited export of military goods during the Boxer Rebellion in China of 1900. However, they were back exporting once the ban got lifted again in August of 1903.

Export destinations included the USA and Qin Dynasty China in addition to Siam and Korea already mentioned, and their sales income at that time was roughly 60% earned through domestic sales and 40% through export sales.

In this way, the era between the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, was the heyday for Suya. They had two factories in Tokyo, one in Atago Shita Machi (芝区愛宕下町) and another in Shinsenza, both in Shiba Ward. They had a workforce of 38 floor supervisors and more than 200 artisans, including smiths, polishers, scabbard makers, metal casters, guilders, engravers, leather workers, lacquerers, saddlers, bullion embroiderers, weavers and other specialists. Saber production in Japan was being carried out almost exclusively by artisans in the employ of Suya or by its former employees.




Shigesuke had also been active in politics since becoming a member of the Tokyo parliament back in 1881. He particularly fought ferociously for improving public healthcare by building various hospitals in Tokyo and elsewhere.

For instance, he was once enjoying a short stay in the hot spring resort of Hakone, when he suddenly fell seriously ill, requiring immediate attention of a doctor. However, though Hakone, as a hot spring resort, already had a population of more than 1400 people, there was not even one doctor among those residents, and as such, it was only 30 hours later that a doctor rushed to his bedside. It went without saying that Hakone soon got its hospital through this deplorable ordeal that Shigesuke personally had to suffer there.

He was also active as a philanthropist, which ironically caused him to be tainted with false allegations of influence-buying and bribery. However, his true motives for generous donations actually had nothing to do with any ambition to gain influence.

He had a single son named Keitaro 銈太郎, who as a child of five, had unfortunately suffered a tragic accident of falling off a roof and smashing his skull. Though Keitaro survived this, he was crippled for life and Shigesuke permanently regretted that he could not repay his debts to the nation by having his son serve honorably as a soldier in military service. His donations had been a sincere gesture to make up for his son’s inability to serve his country in reciprocation of what he owed the military.

Unable, in this way, to have his son succeed him in running Suya either, he finally adopted a son, a Motokazu Saigo (西郷素一), 25 years old, who had once served as a floor supervisor at Suya for 3 years in the past.

In 1903, when Shigesuke won an entrepreneur award from the government at the age of 63, the organizers of this business award asked him to supply a photograph of himself, to which Shigesuke responded, “I have a policy of refusing to have photographs taken of myself until 1 hour prior to my death. And that hour is unfortunately nowhere near me yet.” And he laughed aloud.

Unfortunately Suya’s former glory could never be regained by Motokazu at the helm, and by WW2, they were no longer able to exclusively supply the huge material demands of the military, allowing many new competing players onto the field.

But despite the ever tougher business and declining profits, the privilege of being the exclusive supplier of army regimental banners remained firmly with Suya all the way until the end of WW2, at which time Suya closed its doors forever after being in business for roughly 100 years, serving the military beyond the call of duty as a supplier.

Suya had once been the Saber King of Japan and had Shigesuke Komatsuzaki still been alive in the 1930s, they might have been able to play a more central role in the comeback of the Nihontoh unto the battlefield, but that never was to be.

[Nick Komiya]

Bob, may you rest in peace. I'm sure you would have loved to hear this story of Suya earlier, but now at least it is dedicated to you to keep.

Nick

[Geoff Ward]

Gods Peace and blessings on Bobs family.I will always appreciate the congenial replies and sharing of his knowledge.A very fitting Tribute Nick.I am sure he is smiling. “Honor one. Help many.” Anonymous

Geoff

[Alan M]

This wonderful dedication to Bob Coleman has now been added to Nick's Brilliant pinned Master Index under the Swords section

RIP Bob , you are sorely missed here .

[donnywinardi]

a very good story backed with many data. Many thanks !!

[zook]

Superb story and fitting tribute for sure!