Higashikanbara

The country later called Higashikanbara lay around the Agano River and the approaches between Echigo and Aizu. In the Edo period, Tsugawa served as a transfer port where road transport met the river route to Niigata. Steep gorges made the journey above Tsugawa difficult, so travellers and cargo used a combination of boats and packhorses rather than an uninterrupted waterway.

Aizu's rice moved downstream toward Niigata and onward to distant markets, while salt produced in western Japan travelled inland in the opposite direction. Domain warehouses for rice, salt and wax stood near Tsugawa's landing place alongside merchants' premises and the boat-control office. Boatmen and town officials operated within a system supervised by the Aizu domain. These arrangements made the district's wooded interior part of a larger commercial network. River navigation depended on local labour and knowledge of difficult reaches, while the transfer port connected mountain production and demand with shipping on the Sea of Japan.