four platoons of one hundred men each who were drawn from the four major families or branches of the Tokugawa family to stand guard for the protection of the shogun.
To the left, a path leads to the Hon-maru (Central Keep), while to the right the path leads to the Nino-maru (Second Keep), which lies at the foot of the Hon-maru. The Ninomaru before 1868 served as the residence for the retired shogun, and its gardens were originally planned in 1630 by Kobori Enshu, the famed landscape artist of the 17th century. Today’s garden, of course, is a reconstruction, but it contains all those elements essential to a traditional Japanese garden: a pond, a waterfall, stone lanterns, and a bridge. At the far side of the garden is the early 19th-century Suwa-no-chaya tea ceremony pavilion, a structure that once stood within the Fukiage Garden of the Imperial Palace.
The Nino-maru stands beneath the wall that supports the Hon-maru, a wall composed of the massive granite stones brought from the Izu Peninsula, 60 miles (96 kilometers) away, in the early 1600s. At its base is the Hakuchobori, the Moat of Swans; the original 24 swans were a gift from Germany in 1953 after the East Gardens were opened to the public. A path from the Nino-maru Garden goes back to the Moat of Swans, and to the right of the moat is the Shiomi-zaka, the Tide Viewing Slope, which leads up to the Hon-maru. The slope today offers no view of Tokyo Bay or its inlets (now filled in), for the multistory buildings of the 20th century have obscured any possible view of tidal waters. In the 1600s, however, the slope was true to its name.
The Suwa-no-chaya tea ceremony pavilion in the Nino-maru Gardens
The Fujimi Yagura (Mount Fuji Viewing Tower)
At the top of the slope once stood the Ote Naka, the Central Gate, leading into the Central Keep (Hon-maru) together with its guardhouse (o-bansho). The 1657 fire and the later 1872 fire destroyed the grandeur that once topped this hill, and the foundations of the main donjon and the Fujimi Yagura (Mt. Fuji Viewing Tower) are all that remain today. A Rest House on the left of the path at the top of the slope site offers a contrast in the photographs that are on display: one group shows the castle as it was in 1868; the other offers more recent photographs of the same sites.
The Hon-maru contained the Audience Hall, the residence, and other official buildings of the reigning shogun. At the southwest corner of the Hon-maru is the previously mentioned Fujimi Yagura, one of three such towers that still exist out of the original 21 that surmounted the castle walls. It was seriously damaged in the 1657 Long Sleeves Fire, but it was reconstructed two years later. At that time the decision was made not to rebuild the rest of the fortifications of the Honmaru, the Nino-maru, and the Sanno-maru. The nation was at peace, and such castles were neither needed nor supportable when faced with the destructive force of modern artillery. Farther along the way is the Fujimi Tamon, the Mt. Fuji Viewing Armory, one of two remaining armories out of the 28 that once existed. Behind this arsenal was a well to supply water to the shogun’s quarters. The well went down almost 100 feet (30 meters).
There were three main groups of buildings in this innermost complex of the Hon-maru site. Closest to the Fujimi Tower in an area now covered by a lawn was a group that contained the Halls for Affairs of State, the shogun’s Audience Hall, and the Ohiroma, the Hall of One Thousand Mats (referring to tatami mats). It was in this grand hall that on the first and fifteenth of each month the shogun received his feudal lords. It was here also that the Dutch from the trading station of Dejima in Nagasaki were required to make the journey every four years to do obeisance to the shogun, to bring gifts, and to demonstrate the foolish ways of the Southern Barbarians—the uncouth Europeans who were best kept at a distance. A second group of buildings contained the shogun’s private residence. A third group of structures consisted of the innermost quarters, which were adjacent to the Central Keep itself. Here were the shogun’s sequestered halls for the women of his court, perhaps some five hundred to one thousand women consisting of his wives, his concubines, the ladies in waiting, attendants, servants, and cooks.
The pride of the castle was its five-story, 170-foot (51-meter) Donjon (Tenshukaku) or tower, which, given its location on the hill, soared 250 feet (75 meters) over Edo. It surveyed not only the bay but the five great highways that converged on Edo from throughout Japan. It had been erected under Tokugawa Hidetada, the second shogun, in 1607 and then rebuilt in 1640. All the buildings of the castle were white, save the Donjon, which was a stark black. Its lead roof tiles were covered with gold leaf, and golden dolphins surmounted the roof as protection against fires. Despite the protection these dolphins offered, the horrendous Long Sleeves Fire of 1657 destroyed this magnificent tower. The fire started with the burning of an accursed kimono in an exorcism ceremony at a Buddhist temple in the Low City. It then spread in the teeth of a gale and turned the city into a roaring inferno. Today nothing but the base of the Donjon remains, along with the tradition that all of the shogun’s gold in the vaults beneath the tower melted. The whereabouts of this horde is still a puzzle and a challenge for those who imagine that it remains within the Hon-maru grounds. The base to the tower can be mounted by means of a slope for a view of the Hon-maru area.
A small granary building, the Kokumotsugura, is adjacent to the Donjon base, and this ceremonial structure was re-erected in the 1990s for a portion of the services concerned with the enthronement of Emperor Heisei. Other modern buildings are now located down a slope from the Hon-maru. These include the octagonal Imperial Toka Music Hall, created in 1966 for the then empress’s sixtieth birthday. It is in the shape of an Imperial chrysanthemum petal, and the building by Kenji Imai shows the influence of Antonio Gaudi in its octagonal roof, which is shaped in the form of a peach flower. As a result, the hall has been nicknamed the Peach Auditorium. Imai used traditional Japanese motifs in the mosaic decorations of the external walls of the structure, a somewhat garish-looking building. Adjacent is the Imperial Music Academy and the unattractive, fireproof Imperial Archives and Mausolea Department Building.
One can leave the castle grounds at this point, if one so desires, through the Hirakawamon Gate, on the only wooden bridge over the moat, by taking the path from the Donjon base that runs behind the Archives and Mausolea Building and ultimately to Takebashi Station on the Tozai subway line. Alternatively, as this tour does, one can continue on through the Kita Hanebashi-mon Gate into the Kita-no-maru Park. The Hirakawa-mon was the main gate to the Sanno-maru (Third Keep), which disappeared at the time of the 1657 fire. This wooden gate was a masugata box gate, similar to the Otemon, where this tour began. It was the gate used by the women of the shogun’s residence on the few occasions when they left the castle grounds. Adjacent to it is the smaller Fujomon, the Unclean Gate, through which those convicted of crimes within the castle or the bodies of the deceased were removed.
4 KITA-NO-MARU PARK
Continuing from the Hon-maru area, the Kita Hanebashi-mon (North Drawbridge Gate), leads into the Kita-no-maru, the North Keep, along the Bairin-zaka (Plum Tree Slope), a slope that, it is said, was planted with plum trees back in 1478 by Ota Dokan when he planned the fortress on this eminence. Ota Dokan used this area for the training of his troops, and later under the Tokugawa shoguns it became a walled area for the residences of collateral families of the shogun and for some of his highest officials. After the Long Sleeves Fire of 1657 the area was kept cleared as a fire break in front of the castle buildings. After the demise of the rule by the shoguns in 1868, the area was taken over by the military for barracks for the soldiers of the Imperial Guard who were charged with protecting the Imperial Palace. Kita-no-maru Park became a public park in 1969 in celebration of the birthday of the Showa emperor, Hirohito.
Down the Kinokuni-zaka slope, the National Archives and the National Museum of Modern Art (Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan) by architect Yoshiro Taniguchi are on the right. (The museum is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; it is closed on Mondays, the New Year period of December 28 through January 1, and for up to a week when the exhibitions are being changed. Entry is normally 420 but is free the first Sunday
