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Born in Chiaraijima Village in present day Fukaya City in Saitama Prefecture to a farming family which made indigo balls and cultivated silkworms, Shibusawa Eiichi, the man whose face will be on Japan’s new 10,000 yen bill, is known as the father of Japanese capitalism. He was involved in the founding of almost 500 companies, and at the same time some 600 social welfare organisations. Shibusawa lived in a time of turbulent change. He began as an advocate of anti-foreign sentiment, but recognising the momentum of history he came to embrace Western ideas. Born to a farming family in a rural area, Shibusawa became a vassal of the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu. But with the demise of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, he found himself unemployed. Shibusawa ended up serving the new Meiji government despite himself. After waging a great battle in the political arena, he eventually resigned at the age of 33 and became a civilian. As an industrialist, he kicked off towering