Tone River
Kurobe was an active center of inland shipping. Tokugawa Ieyasu diverted the course of the Tone River to the east in 1654 to prevent flooding in Edo and exploit trade between agricultural areas along the Tone River, Chōshi and the Kujūkuri coast and the capitol Edo, now modern-day Tokyo. The Kurobe thus became a main trade route between the Tone and Edo in the Ed period. Numerous riverboats primarily transported rice through the region at this time. Merchants came to occupy both banks of the Kurobe, small piers were built along the length of the river to load goods from the surrounding villages of the Tone River region. Flatboats became the common mode of transport on the Kurobe.