VUIKU (撫育) means “incubation” in English and is directly translated as “care” or ”tending” in Kanji (Chinese characters).

 

    The incubation office, a way of investing established among Choshu Han and a few other Hans (local governments) of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period, was a public fund. It had an extremely close role in the startup investment of modern society, thus money could be contributed to lots of new businesses by the VUIKU fund. 

 

    The incubation office worked well to develop the economic power of Choshu Han, therefore, could save plenty of financial resources to overthrow the Tokugawa regime at the end of the Edo period, while almost all other Hans and the Edo shogunate were suffering from financial difficulty.