During the Edo period, higaki kaisen (trading ships) transported materials to Edo (now Tokyo), the center of political power in Japan. There, Fudasashi (brokers) would await the shipment of various specialty goods from Osaka, the mercantile center of Japan.

As traders, you will be responsible for the safe transport of the valuable goods that will let Japan prosper into the powerful nation it is today. Your ships will depart from Osaka and journey through dangerous waters on their way to Edo.

If your ship is caught in the Black Tide, you stand to lose precious cargo -a clever trader will invest in insurance to mitigate the possibility of such losses. For each successful delivery to Edo, you will be paid kindly. Who among you will profit most from this tireless work?

Components

• 1 Game board
• 4 Ships
• 108 Cards
• 48 Achievement tokens
• 4 Trader pieces
• 4 Reservation pieces

Object of the Game

You are traders who must sell as many goods as possible in Edo to earn Victory Points [VPs]. At the end of the game, the trader with the most VPs wins the game.

Setup

1. Place the game board in the center of the table.

2. Shuffle all cards and place them face down on the designated space of the board to make a draw pile.

3. Sort the Achievement tokens by color and set them aside as a supply.

4. Place all 4 ships in Osaka (on the board).

5. Draw 5 cards from the draw pile and place face up in a straight line to the right of the Market. Draw 3 cards from the draw pile and place them face up in a straight line to the right of the Farm.

6. Each player selects a color and takes the Reservation and Trader pieces in that color.

7. Each player draws and reveals cards from the draw pile, one card at a time, until the sum of their cards'values is 8 or higher. These cards make up a player's initial hand. After this, the cards in your hand are kept secret from the other players, but anyone may ask how many cards you have.

   The player who drew the smallest total value of cards is the start player. In case of a tie, the player with the fewest cards is the start player. If there is still a tie, decide randomly among the tied players.

   
   
   

8. Beginning with the start player, and going clockwise, each player takes one Achievement token of their choice.

Card's Functions

A. Value - How many coins this card is worth when n played from your hand to buy goods.

B. Goods type - The type of goods this card represents when bought from the market.

C. Insurance Icons - How many goods of that card color may be insured when discarded from your hand.

Game Play

Beginning with the start player and continuing in clockwise order, players take turns doing a variety of actions.

On your turn, select one of the three actions below. After completing your action, the next player in clockwise order takes their turn.

1. Buy Goods
2. Take Coins
3. Reserve Cards

A. Buy Goods

This hand is worth 2+2+3+5= 12 coins. You discard these cards to buy goods.

Spend coins [cards] from your hand to buy all goods [cards] in the Market (except other players' reserved goods).

The sum of your coins must equal to or exceed the value of all the goods in the Market (not counting goods reserved by other players).

Cards used for buying go into the discard pile face up. No 'change' is made if you overpay.

Goods (cards) bought are placed face up in front You discard these cards of you. Sort them by color for convenience.

Goods in front of you become your merchandise. You may have any number of merchandise.

Important: When goods are bought, corresponding ships must advance.

Advancing Ships

When a player buys goods, the ships corresponding to each bought good's color must advance one or two steps.

If only one good was bought for a given color, the corresponding ship advances one step. If two or more goods were bought for that color, the corresponding ship advances two steps.

Whenever a ship reaches Edo, a payment for the corresponding goods occurs.

B. Take Coins

Take one card from the Market (except another player's reserved card) and add it to your hand.This card now represents coins that you may spend to buy goods.

There is no limit to a player's hand size.

C. Reserve Cards

If you have your Reservation piece in front of you, you can put it on a card in the Market or Farm to reserve that card.

You cannot reserve a card that is already reserved.You cannot reserve a card if you do not have your Reservation piece (i.e., you already reserved a card). If you buy your reserved good or take your reserved coin, take back your Reservation piece; this is the only way to get it back.

Reservation Effects

Reserved cards can only be bought or taken by the player that reserved the card in question. A player cannot buy or take another player's reserved card.

When Buying Goods

You must buy all unreserved goods (cards) and your reserved card. Other players' reserved cards remain in the Market.

When Taking Coins

You must choose one unreserved card or your reserved card.

Refresh the Market and the Farm

The Market and Farm must be refreshed whenever one of these two situations occurs:

• A player buys goods from the Market, or

• At the beginning of a player's turn either the Market is empty or it contains only cards reserved by other players.

1. To refresh the Market and Farm, first move all cards in the Farm to the Market.

   Note: Reservation pieces remain on reserved cards.

   
   
   

2. Next, draw 2 cards from the draw pile and add them to the Market.

   
   
   

3. Then, draw 3 cards from the draw pile and place them in the Farm.

   
   
   

After refreshing, continue your turn. If the draw pile is exhausted, shuffle the discard pile to make a new face down draw pile.

Payment

When one or more ships arrive at Edo, a payment occurs.

1. Scoring

All players must sell all their merchandise [bought goods in front of them] of the corresponding color and score Victory Points (VPs).

If two or more ships arrived at Edo at the same time, a separate payment occurs for each of them.

Each player's goods of the same kind of merchandise form a set. The price of the merchandise is the highest card value in the set. Multiply this price by the number of cards in the set.This total is then rounded up to the nearest 5 or 10 to determine the total value of your merchandise.

For every five points, take one card from the set as a VP. The cards you take as VPs must be those of the lowest value in the corresponding set. Place these VPs face down under your Trader piece (keep how many VPs you have secret). Discard the remaining goods in the set.

During payment, all corresponding merchandise( insured or not) of all players must be sold.

Example 1: Payment for red and yellow

Bonus from Achievement Tokens

During payment, your Achievement tokens of the same type as the sold set increase that set's value. Simply add the number of Achievement tokens of that color you have to the value of the highest card you are selling.

As a result of this bonus, it is possible that the number of cards in your set is insufficient to track your VPs. In this case, take cards from the draw pile to make up for any missing VP.

Achievement tokens are never lost or spent.

2. Acquire Achievement Tokens

After scoring, for each payment that scored you VPs, get 1 Achievement token of the corresponding color.

If a shortage of Achievement tokens occurs, use some other substitute.

3. Sunk by the Black Tide

During payment, any ships on an Enshunada space (waves) are sunk by the raging waves of the Kuroshio Current (Black Tide).

All players must discard all merchandise of the same color (that are not insured) as the sunk ships..

Insurance

Insurance Icon Value '2' cards have 2 icons. Value '3' cards have 1 icon.

You may use cards with Insurance icons to insure goods of the same color as the card to protect those goods from sinking.

Starting with the active player (the player who moved the ship(s) to Edo) and proceeding clockwise, each player may insure as many goods as they can.

To insure a good, a player must discard a card with one or more Insurance icons from their hand; for each Insurance icon depicted on a discarded card, a player may insure one good of the same color as the discarded card.

To mark that a good has been insured, rotate it 90 degrees. This good can never be lost to sinking.

During payment, insured goods are sold as normal.

4. Return The Ships

Ships at Edo go back to Osaka. Sunk ships go back to Anori (the space with an anchor icon).

End of the Game

After Step 2 of a payment (Acquire Achievement tokens), the game ends immediately if at least one player has 8 or more Achievement tokens.

The player who has the most VPs under their Trader piece wins.

Remaining merchandise and cards in hand have no value. In case of a tie, the player with the greater number of Achievement tokens wins. If there is still a tie, all tied players win.

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