Chaya Shirōjirō (茶屋四郎次郎) was the name of a series of wealthy and influential Kyoto-based merchants who took part in the red-seal trade licensed under the Tokugawa shogunate.
Chaya was supposedly the one who informed Ieyasu of Oda Nobunaga's death in 1582,[3] and thus allowed him to escape the forces of Akechi Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi, who seized power in the aftermath.
Kiyotada fought at the battle of Sekigahara (1600),[3] and soon afterward was made head of all the merchants in the Kansai region, "with particular jurisdiction over the business community of Kyoto".
Kiyotsugu was assigned by Ieyasu to help oversee shogunal operations at the formal trading post in Nagasaki, where he could keep an eye on the foreign traders and Christian missionaries,[3] while working to his own commercial benefit as well.
[4] Beginning in 1612, the family obtained official licenses (shuinjō) from the shogunate to continue trade with Cochinchina (aka Dang Trong, present-day southern Vietnam); these merchant vessels thus came to be known as chaya-sen (茶屋船, "Chaya ships").