Originally, it was a private group consisting of peer warehouse merchants and the Edo bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun) feared that this kind of organization would control the distribution system and pose a threat to them because the Edo bakufu adopted the commercial policy inherited the course of rakuichi-rakuza (free markets and open guilds) at first.
当初は同業の問屋による私的な集団であり、江戸幕府は当初は楽市楽座路線を継承した商業政策を方針としており、こうした組織が流通機構を支配して幕府に対する脅威になる事を恐れた。