Japanese Capitals in Historical Perspective

Place, Power and Memory in Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo

Nicolas Fieve, Paul Waley, Nicolas Fiévé

• Publisher: Routledge
• Edition: 1
• Year: 2013
• Topic: History
• Print ISBN:
  9780415405812
  9780700714094
• Subtopic: Japanese History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136624827
• Index: History

Japan's ability to develop its own brand of modernity has often been attributed in part to the sophistication of its cities. Concentrating on Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo, the contributors to this volume weave together the links between past and future, memory and vision, symbol and structure, between marginality and power, and between Japan's two great capital cities.

PART ONE

 

 

 

Power and the Spatial Imprints of Authority

CHAPTER 1

Castles in Kyoto at the Close of the Age of Warring States

The Urban Fortresses of the Ashikaga Shoguns Yoshiteru and Yoshiaki

Takahashi Yasuo, with Matthew Stavros

Introduction

One of the most enduring images of Japan during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is probably that of its prodigious castles. These forbidding stone fortresses with high ramparts and soaring towers, served as regional nerve centers where provincial warlords built their headquarters and based their armies. During this time of protracted civil strife, would-be rulers vied for power, capturing, destroying, and rebuilding various fortresses throughout the countryside. Castles were not merely a backdrop to events but indeed a component in the shaping of history. Without question, these architectural marvels command a significant profile in the history of Japan’s long age of civil war.

In the study of fortified architecture in medieval Japan, it is important to keep in mind that the mighty castles we likely envision, with deep moats, high walls, and looming lookout towers, did not actually come into being until quite late in the period. In fact, the first wartime structure that exhibited significant martial potential was the headquarters of the thirteenth Muromachi shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru, who built a fortress in the center of Kyoto in 1559, a whole century after the onset of what became known as the Age of Warring States (sengoku jidai, 1467–1573). Until then, provincial warlords (and the shogun himself) often barricaded themselves within makeshift mountain forts which boasted neither formidable defenses nor favorable locations. These were rudimentary camps that capitulated easily to any determined aggressor.

During the Age of Warring States, nowhere were the signs of civil strife as visible as they were in the capital. Throughout this period, the townspeople of Kyoto hid their lives behind walls, barricaded their homes, and carved a system of moats throughout their city. The urbanized portion of the city itself shrunk into two main fortified islands known as Kamigyō and Shimogyō, situated in the north and south of the city respectively. Into these, the population densely compacted itself. In time, collaborative, self-governing ‘block federations’ (machi-gumi) were formed out of affiliations between townspeople who shared common hardships and together took on the task of defending their neighborhoods.

On an administrative level, the Muromachi shogunate, a military government that had first come to power in 1336, was in shambles as a vanquished shogun moved from shelter to shelter in search of allies. A lack of central authority gave rise to a national theater of civil war, animated by the profiles of numerous powerful provincial warlords who maintained castles and armies in disparate fiefdoms throughout the land.

After a century of general chaos following the Ōnin War (1467–77), endeavors toward peace began where the fighting had started, in the capital city of Kyoto. Here, the surviving members of the Ashikaga line of hereditary shogun were at work to reestablish their nearly defunct military administration. In 1559, the thirteenth Muromachi shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru (1536–65), constructed a castle-headquarters in the central section of Kyoto. Six years later, Yoshiteru was killed and his fortress destroyed. Later, Yoshiteru’s younger brother, Yoshiaki (1537–97), became shogun and built the massive Nijō Castle at the same location.

With the construction of Yoshiteru’s, then later, Yoshiaki’s Nijō Castle, Kyoto underwent a significant wartime evolution, and, moreover, a major transformation was affected regarding the conceptualization of wartime martial architecture. Following the example of these structures, fortified bases throughout the country came to be places of far greater military potential and, furthermore, were no longer built outside urban settlements. The scale and military potential of fortified architecture changed and ushered in a period of castle construction that created the legacy that remains with us today (such as the grand structures in Matsumoto, Himeji, and Hikone).

In previous work, I have considered this shift in castle construction from outlying areas to the city, looking at the turning of political attention back to Kyoto during the years leading up to national unification at the end of the sixteenth century (Takahashi 1996). In this chapter, however, I intend to take a more focused look at the castle-fortresses of the shoguns Ashikaga Yoshiteru and Ashikaga Yoshiaki in an attempt to put to rest various arguments about their size, location, and architectural character. Also, and perhaps most significantly, I intend to discuss the effect each structure had on the urban landscape of Kyoto, the role each played within the context of the city’s history, and the way both contributed to the transformation of Kyoto from a medieval, war-time city, into an early-modern castle-town.

The Castle of Yoshiteru: From Fort to Fortress

Throughout the early part of the Muromachi period (from 1336 to the outbreak of the Ōnin war in 1467), the shogun customarily took up residence in palatial estates within the capital. The opulent Muromachi dono and Sanjō bōmon dono, for example, were palaces of luxurious design and amenity. As the urban landscape of Kyoto was transformed by the destruction of the Age of Warring States, however, so too were the headquarters of the shogun. In fact, after 1527, due to the random violence and lawlessness characteristic of the age, Ashikaga Yoshiharu (1511–50), the twelfth Ashikaga shogun, kept himself largely removed from the capital. Even while in Kyoto between 1534 and 1542, Yoshiharu avoided official residences, opting to live in temples such as Nanzenji or Shōkokuji, located outside the urbanized city center. Several outlying, rudimentary forts were also used as residences after about 1547.

Yoshiteru’s decision to move back to Kyoto in 1558 was therefore a bold statement of his intention to retake control of the capital, reassert the dominion of his office, and unify the country under a rejuvenated administration. Despite the eventual failure of his plan, Yoshiteru did, nevertheless, succeed in turning national attention back to the capital. It henceforth became clear to the numerous would-be rulers who vied for power mainly out in the provinces that national unification was not feasible without first securing control of Kyoto.

Yoshiteru’s castle was the first significantly fortified shogunal headquarters to be built within an urban setting. By not avoiding the city, but rather utilizing the urban landscape as an element in the calculation of his own safety, Yoshiteru’s example revolutionized the way shogunal and even daimyō bases were henceforth conceived and built. Furthermore, Yoshiteru’s castle in Kyoto transformed the cityscape into the precursor of the early-modern urban phenomenon known as the jōkamachi, or ‘castle-town.’ Let us begin our study with an overview of the history of Yoshiteru’s castle, from its construction in 1559, to its fall, six years later.¹

Construction, Expansion, and the Fall of Yoshiteru’s Castle

In the winter of 1558, having made peace with the warlord Miyoshi Nagayoshi (1522–64), Yoshiteru was able to return to Kyoto from Ōmi, where he had resided in exile for five years. Without appropriate quarters of his own in the city, the shogun took temporary lodging at Shōkokuji temple, then later in the sprawling Nichiren temple of Honkakuji (also known as Myōkakuji).

Before the autumn of 1559, sources tell of a grand ceremony marking the beginning of construction on a new shogunal headquarters within the city. The property of the former Buei residence (Buei-tei), was chosen for the site of the new castle (Mokudai nikki [Mokudai journal], 1559.8.1).² On that occasion, public officials were assigned various responsibilities while labor duties were distributed to townspeople (Tokitsugu kyōki [Noble journal of Yamashina Tokitsugu], 1560.2.24). Kitano Shrine, for example, was ordered to dispatch a number of workers from each home within its proprietary lands to work on the castle’s construction (Mokudai nikki, 1559.8.1). In the 11th month, Yoshiteru specifically conscripted the townspeople from the block-federation of Roku-chō to begin digging the castle’s moats, while at the same time issuing a citywide order requiring the donation of various garden trees to adorn the palace grounds (Oyudononoueno nikki [Oyudono courtly journal], 1559.11.3; Genjoō nenki [Genjoō annual], 1559.11). In a journal entry written six months after the beginning of construction, imperial treasurer Yamashina Tokitsugu (1507–1579), commented on the splendid condition of the shogun’s inner residence, the moat, and the palace of Keijūin (Yoshiteru’s mother) which stood on the grounds (Tokitsugu kyōki, 1560.2.24).³ Though the castle was not yet finished in its entirety, the shogun moved from Honkakuji into the completed main palace on the 19th day of the 6th month, 1560.⁴

Construction of castle fortifications continued long after Yoshiteru’s move to the new residence (Ise Sadasuke ki [Journal of Ise Sadasuke]; Oyudononoueno nikki, 1559.11.3). In fact, records indicate that completion of the moat was delayed until the winter of 1561 due to a diversion of labor to a particular ‘imperial project’ (Kanemigi kyōki [Journal of Yoshida Kanesuke], 1565, date unknown).⁵ We also know of continuing progress on a so-called ‘outer fortress’ as late as 1564. Yamashina Tokitsugu makes reference in his diary to ‘an enormous campaign organized to gather stones for a castle wall’ at the end of the 10th month, 1564 (Tokitsugu kyōki, 1564.10.26).⁶ Within the shogun’s palace, constructio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Introduction: Kyoto and Edo-Tokyo: Urban Histories in Parallels and Tangents
• PART ONE: Power and the Spatial Imprints of Authority
• 1 Castles in Kyoto at the Close of the Age of Warring States: The Urban Fortresses of the Ashikaga Shoguns Yoshiteru and Yoshiaki
• 2 Social Discrimination and Architectural Freedom in the Pleasure District of Kyoto in Early Modern Japan
• 3 Urbanisation and the Nature of the Tokugawa Hegemony
• 4 Metaphors of the Metropolis: Architectural and Artistic Representations of the Identity of Edo
• PART TWO: Memory and the Changing Passage of Space
• 5 Kyoto’s Famous Places: Collective Memory and ‘Monuments’ in the Tokugawa Period
• 6 Representing Mobility in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan
• 7 By Ferry to Factory: Crossing Tokyo’s Great River into a New World
• 8 From a Shogunal City to a Life City: Tokyo between Two Fin-de-siècles
• 9 Time Perception, or the Ineluctable Aging of Material in Architecture
• PART THREE: Place Between Future and Past
• 10 The Past in Tokyo’s Future: Kōda Rohan’s Thoughts on Urban Reform and the New Citizen in Ikkoku no shuto (One nation’s capital)
• 11 Visionary Plans and Planners: Japanese Traditions and Western Influences
• 12 Kyoto and the Preservation of Urban Landscapes
• 13 Preservation and Revitalization of machiya in Kyoto
• 14 Conclusion: Power, Memory, and Place
• Glossary
• Index