12 CHAPTER 2 The History of Candlesticks DEFINITION: Shogunate A Shogunate was a warrior class in Japan, in which the ruling military created a rank of general (Shogun, an abbreviated name of the seii taish ogun, or force commander ) to control various tribes within the country. maintaining class distinctions, Keian's success as a mer- chant drew attention to him. He had become wealthy, but all of his assets were taken from him by the govern- ment, which was led by the military and, especially, by the Shogunate warrior class. A wealthy merchant was not acceptable under the rigid class system of 17th cen- tury Japan. Keian was accused of living a lifestyle above his rank of merchant, and this reflected a general distrust among the military of the entire merchant class. When a group of merchants had tried to corner the rice market, the government reacted by executing their children, exiling the merchants, and seizing all of their wealth. The importance of rice (and rice futures) enabled the "empty rice" contracts, and today the worldwide commodities market functions on the same methods. The God of the Markets By the mid-18th century, trading in rice futures was for- malized and the first appearance of the candlestick oc- curred. Munehisa Homna (also called Sakata) was called "the god of the markets" because he was the most suc- cessful trader of the time. He moved his family's firm to Edo (Tokyo), where he began researching and correlat- ing price movements, crop yield, and weather condi- tions. Recognizing repetitive patterns in rice commodi- ties pricing, he devised a system for identifying trends,