court in Kyoto, the city of Edo eventually became the cultural and economic center of all Japan. The skills of feudal workers and craftsmen, brought in to build the castle and town for the new government and its administrators, grew continuously more sophisticated under the pressures of stiff competition. Under the rule of the Tokugawa sh
gunate2 (military government), Edo prospered as merchants traded in rice, oil, salt, lumber, and fertilizer to meet the demands of the burgeoning population. With that growing population, an increased demand for entertainment and leisure activities produced new and exciting art forms for enjoyment by both aristocrats and commoners alike.
The area was first fortified in 1457 when Ota Dokan, a H
j
family retainer, built a small castle on a hilltop in the midst of a strategically located and swampy area where the Sumida River empties into Edo Bay. Toyotomi Hideyoshi3 ultimately defeated H
j
Ujimasa in the siege of Odawara during the summer of 1590. He then seized all the H
j
family property, including the small castle and the Kanto, a broad and fertile plain surrounding it. This small castle town located in what is known as the Kanto region would eventually become the metropolis of Edo.
As a reward for his help in defeating the H
j
clan, Hideyoshi offered the newly confiscated property in the Kanto region to Ieyasu in exchange for his current land holdings. More than a simple prize for his support in the campaign against the H
j
, though, this grant was also a strategic decision. In what was doomed to become a spectacular foreign policy failure, Hideyoshi had already launched his first invasion of Korea with hopes of eventually conquering China. To personally supervise his generals, Hideyoshi built another castle and was for the time being residing in Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan. Although closer to Hideyoshi’s invading troops and the fighting, Kyushu was still far from his own home castle in Osaka.
Rewarding Ieyasu, already a powerful daimy (landowner) in his own right, with control of the confiscated Kanto region provided a prospective rival with a larger empire overall and potentially more influence and power. Yet it also successfully put Ieyasu far away in the east, busy with a new domain. Preoccupied with supervising the invading troops from his temporary base in Kyushu, Hideyoshi hoped to maintain control of the government reins by keeping Ieyasu isolated and far removed from his own castle in Osaka and the court in Kyoto. With Ieyasu busy fortifying his new castle and organizing the new eastern domain, it would be difficult for him to mount an effective challenge to Hideyoshi’s rule.
Ieyasu had previously visited the small castle built by Ota Dokan and knew it had marshes on three sides and a deep moat dug on the fourth side. With the castle thus completely surrounded by water, he recognized the potential for building it into an impregnable fortress. So in 1590 Ieyasu, along with his entire family and all of his retainers, moved into the dilapidated castle surrounded by a small town consisting of two rows of tiny houses along the shore of Edo Bay.
The country was still embroiled in the final years of civil strife and warfare of the Sengoku jidai4 (warring states period), so the new tenants immediately began erecting walls of stone and widening the moats to reinforce the existing defenses. They leveled the surrounding hills and filled in the shallow mudflats along the bay shore, creating dry land east of the castle where Ieyasu’s retainers and troops built their own residences. They constructed a broad, imposing stone wall around the city’s exterior and extending all the way to the bay. Where the T
kaid
, a highway between Osaka and Edo, entered the city from the south, they built a massive wooden gate called the Takanawa okido (great wooden gate). Along with another similar gate at Yotsuya, the stone walls and okido (gates) formed the first line of defense to protect their new domain from external aggressors.
After years of nearly constant civil war, Tokugawa Ieyasu was eventually successful in defeating his enemies and establishing himself as the sh
gun5 (Japan’s military government leader). Bolstered by the brilliant military campaigns led by the preceding sh
gun, Oda Nobunaga,6 and later by Hideyoshi, Ieyasu managed to unify the country under one central authority. The remaining few rival warlords were either eliminated or forced to submit to his authority after his decisive victory in the battle at Sekigahara in 1600. Tokugawa Ieyasu was named sh
gun in 1603. Although Japan’s emperor and his court remained in seclusion at the imperial capital in Kyoto under the theoretical protection of the new military leader, the regime Ieyasu commanded was actually the real power behind the throne.
The sh
gunate was responsible for administration of most aspects of feudal society during the next two hundred sixty-five years of relative peace.7 The areas outside of the Kanto were either han, independent geopolitical regions ruled by the feudal lords known as daimy
, or tenry, territories managed by governors appointed by the sh
gunate. Although the sh
gunate closely monitored the military activities of each han, the daimy
were granted independence in their other domestic and economic policies. Each daimy
was given complete power and authority to administer all criminal justice operations within his own han. This right often extended to jurisdiction over the samurai of the han even when serving outside their respective territories.
By deciding to keep the government center in Edo and far removed from the political intrigues surrounding the imperial court in Kyoto, Ieyasu was shifting the center of administrative power. Almost immediately, Ieyasu allocated specific construction improvements on his castle and the surrounding city to all the remaining daimy
. Each daimy
was hard-pressed to show his loyalty and impress the new sh
gun with completion of his assigned tasks rather than to risk Ieyasu’s displeasure.
To transport the huge stones and other materials necessary for improving Edo castle, a very large canal called the Dosan-bori was dug from the shore of Edo Bay to the front of the sh
gun’s new residence. This waterway continued to be used to carry provisions
court in Kyoto, the city of Edo eventually became the cultural and economic center of all Japan. The skills of feudal workers and craftsmen, brought in to build the castle and town for the new government and its administrators, grew continuously more sophisticated under the pressures of stiff competition. Under the rule of the Tokugawa sh
