Their Dissaperance
The quality of customers had influenced the poor management of Yoshiwara Yūjo -yas
Customers of Yoshiwara Yukaku in Edo and the government’s regulations expectations toward Yoshiwara functioning as a supervisor of a yūjo -ya had changed over time. The main customers of Yoshiwara changed from upper-class bushi to middle or even lower-class chonin due to the massification of Yoshiwara and the disappearance of high-status yūjo such as Tayū and Kôshi.
This made Yoshiwara difficult to function as a supervisor of a yūjo -ya as it lost customers who spent money extravagantly but had low-status customers deteriorating the order of Yoshiwara. While the government kept strict regulations on Yoshiwara after its deterioration, it exacerbated Yoshiwara’s decline and poor regulation ironically.
Yoshiwara had been changed and influenced by social and economic factors at that time [1].
Arsons
As the business of yūjo -ya went into a spiral of decline, the treatment of yūjo became increasingly harsh and coercion of yūjo escalated as well. It was to the point that yūjo -ya themselves would refer to this treatment as "nefarious doings". This led to yūjo's attempt to repel and escape by setting yūjo -ya on fire. In Yoshiwara and in Shin-Yoshiwara, there are said to have been approximately 27 cases of fire, 19 of which completely burned down the city.
Liberation Order
In 1872, emancipation order for prostitutes was announced. It was an attempt for the Japanese government to modernize, but at the same time it was to show the international community that Japan no longer tolerated human trafficing or slavery. This event struck Shin-yoshiwara as well as other locations with similar systems with devestation. This order prohibited human trafficking all together and only allowed prostitution in agreement with the prostitutes. Due to this order, there was no longer useage of the names yūjo and yūjo-ya, instead they were called 娼妓 [shogi] and 貸座敷業者[Kashizashiki-gyosya]. After the announcement of this order, more than 3500 yūjo were liberated.[2] Those who returned to Shin-Yoshiwara by choice were less than the tenth of the original number. Now that they had the choice of which brothels to work for, this caused antagonization between the brothels, and ultimately led to the collapse of yūkaku.
[1] Takagi, Madoka, 2018, p.2, 16
[2] Yokoyama, Yuriko 2016, p.185