As a result of World War II, Japan lost all of her colonies. One of which, Karafuto, was the main supplying area of pulp-wood in Japan. After the War only the Hokkaido Island has remained as the pulp-wood supplier. To compensate shortages of pulp-wood, broad-leaf woods and especially red-pine woods which grow in the southern Japan are being used.
The progress of chemical technical techniques made red-pine woods useful as pulp-wood. Many pulp-plants have been newly planted near the red-pine wooded regions, and then, the pulp industry area is moving from the nothern Japan to the southwestern Japan.
Now, there are six pulp-wood supplying regions, viz 1) East Hokkaido mountain region 2) South Ou mountain region 3) West Chubu mountain region 4) Chugoku mountain region 5) Southwest Shikoku mountain region, and 6) Southwest Kyushu mountain region. Except Hokkaido and Ou, other supplying region concentrate in the Southwestern Japan.
Chugoku mountain region is the top supplying region; especially Hiroshima prefecture plays the central role. Red-pine woods in the Chugoku mountain region are distributed to many pulp plants all over Japan, but those in other supplying region are transported exclusively to one plant.
The use of the red-pine wood was an epoch-making event in pulp industries in the world, and the use of red-pine in Southwestern Japan is one of the typical examples.

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Between the era of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the early part of the Meiji era (1800_??_1900), Bisai textile industry established an organized wholesale domestic industry while maintaining a self-supporting agriculture combined with a domestic industry. It further developed into a manufacturing industry, with the result that the self-supporting supply was gradually changed into the production of consumer commodities. It was about this time that the capitalistic management form came into existence and it became the foundation of the modern industrial revolution that took place in the last part of the 19th century.
Bisai area is one of the biggest textile areas in Japan with its old historical background. Hemp and mulberry were planted. Hard and has fibers as well as silkfabrics were woven in the agicultural and domestic industry system. Between 1800 and 1900 the textile industry area began to form itself around Ogoshi village (the presnt Bisai city) along the Kiso river, in the form of an organized wholesale demestic industry and manufacturing industry.
Silk fabrics were the earliest products. Cotton began to be produced some 300 years ago, taking the place of silk fabrics. And the fabrics of cotton mixed with silk were also produced. The reason is that cotton fabrics were practical and were suited for everyday clothes. The Tokugawa Government regarded silk fabrics as luxuries and forbade the use of silk fabrics, encouraging the raising of cotton and the use of cotton fabrics.
At first, they produced cotton fabrics for themselves, but as they produced more than they needed, they started selling them at a near-by market. Thus the organized wholesale domestic industry was established by those textile weavers who were landowners and at the same time farmers by side work, and by those merchants who accumulated the commercial capital.
These textile weavers owned weaving machines and cotton thread and kept some farmers under their subjection. The farmers offered their labor and were paid for their labor. This system was called “Debata”, meaning rending out the textile machine to the farmers so they could weave in their own homes. But with the gradual accumulation of industrial capital, some of those weavers came to own a factory called “Uchiki” and established a textile manufacturing industry which depended on the labor of the employees.
The factory of this kind had 10 workers at most and ordinary factories had 3 to 4 workers. Most weavers' management was based on both “Debata” and “Uchiki”, and so it had two different natures; commercial and industrial. This textile area was formed around Ogoshi (the present Bisai city) along the Kiso River. The reason is that Ogoshi developed as a post town as well as a river port, with the result that there was a great deal of exchanging of goods and an accumulation of the population, thus producing a surplus labor. The weaving machine used in those days was called “Izaribata” and it was a really primitive type of machine. The area developed further and the industrial revolution took place after 1900. In this way the Bisai area became one of the biggest cotton industrial areas in Japan.

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