He introduced many economic reforms including use of double-entry accounting, joint-stock corporations and modern note-issuing banks.

[6][7] Shibusawa was born on March 16, 1840, in a farmhouse in Chiaraijima (located in the present-day city of Fukaya in Saitama Prefecture).

He grew up helping with the family business of dry field farming, indigo production and sale, and silk raising and later studied the Confucian classics and the history of Japan under Odaka Junchu, a scholar who was his cousin.

Under the influence of sonnō jōi (expel the barbarians; revere the emperor) sentiment, he formulated a plan along with cousins and friends to capture Takasaki Castle and set fires in the foreign settlement in Yokohama.

Shibusawa left his hometown at the age of twenty-three, and entered the service of Hitotsubashi Yoshinobu (then in line for the position of shōgun).

When he was twenty-seven years old, he visited France and other European countries as a member of Tokugawa Akitake's delegation to the Exposition Universelle (1867).

On this trip Shibusawa observed modern European societies and cultures for the first time, and realized the importance of industrial and economic development.

After returning from Europe at the news of the change of governments now known as the Meiji Restoration, he established the Shōhō Kaishō, one of the first joint-stock companies in Japan, in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Eiichi Shibusawa had invited these U.S. representatives to visit Japan to bridge their nations diplomatically and to promote increased business and commerce.

During the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, Baron Shibusawa is shown actively engaged in assisting many of the Japanese who were injured during that major disaster.