Masashige, given to the nation by the wealthy Sumitomo family of Osaka, was cast by Takamura Koun and placed within the Outer Garden. The creation of this statue by order of the Meiji government was part of its attempt to establish new heroes whose actions in the past showed devotion to the Imperial House and to the emperor. Such public images were meant to enhance the government’s new creed of loyalty to the emperor and the need to be ready to sacrifice oneself for emperor and nation. These two virtues were evident in Kusunoki’s life, first when he had defended Emperor Go-Daigo and his imperial prerogatives in the 1300s and then when he committed seppuku, or ceremonial suicide, after his defense of the emperor against Ashikaga Takauji’s usurpation of power failed in 1336. Reverence to the god-emperor reached such ideological heights in the late 19th and early 20h centuries that at one time passengers in the trams that went by the palace were expected to rise from their seats and bow to the palace and the emperor within its walls. The fact that the Meiji defenders of imperial rule were themselves governing in the name of a powerless emperor, whose image they were using, was completely overlooked.
Kusunoki Masashige, samurai from the 14th century
A much lighter element was added to the northeast portion of the Outer Gardens in the 1960s, when a large fountain within a pool (Wadakura Fountain) was created to celebrate the wedding of the then crown prince (now Emperor Heisei). At the far end of the Outer Garden from Hibiya-dori, another moat separates the palace walls from the public park; these various moats encircle the 250 acres (100 hectares) of the palace grounds. The Imperial Palace today is located in the Nishi-no-maru, the Western Fortified Area, which was one portion of the shoguns’ castle confines. The raised ground of the palace is faced with walls of huge stones brought by boat in the early 1600s from the Izu Peninsula some 60 miles (96 kilometers) to the southwest of Tokyo. These massive stones were dragged by teams of laborers supplied by the daimyo along paths covered with seaweed to ease the movement of the heavily loaded sledges from the bay to the castle grounds. Such fortified walls, before the development of modern gunpowder and explosives, could be breached only by treachery from within, by natural forces such as earthquakes, or through a siege that might starve a defending force into surrendering. In the more than 260 years of the enforced Tokugawa peace that followed 1603, these walls were neither breached nor attacked.
Most of the shogun’s buildings in the Tokugawa castle were destroyed by fire in the years prior to the arrival of the Emperor Meiji to his new capital. His sojourn in the castle grounds was briefer than anticipated, since in 1873 the last of the Tokugawa buildings were destroyed by fire, and the emperor and empress were forced to move to the Akasaka Palace grounds, where they lived in a former mansion of a branch of the Tokugawa family until 1889, when a new palace was completed. This 1889 palace was destroyed in the air raids of early 1945.
When facing the palace grounds from the Outer Garden, to the right is the Fujimi Yagura (Mt. Fuji Viewing Tower) while to the left stands the Fushimi Yagura; these comprise two of the three remaining fortified towers of the Tokugawa castle. Toward the south end of the Outer Garden (to the left) the Nijubashi (Double Bridge) of 1888 comes into view along with the Fushimi Yagura, both of them rising out of the imperial moat. In the militaristic era of the 1930s and 1940s, the bridge, the Fushimi Tower, and the walls of the palace grounds became a symbol of mystical patriotism for the Japanese. So mystical or mythical became the palace site where the god-emperor resided that when Emperor Hirohito at the end of World War II announced the capitulation of Japan, the more fanatical of imperial army officers performed the previously mentioned ceremonial suicide before the palace enclave as atonement for the loss of Japanese military honor.
The Imperial Palace (Kokyo) grounds are generally not open to the public except on two occasions: on the emperor’s birthday on December 23 (from 9:30 a.m. to 11:20 a.m.) and at the start of the New Year on January 2nd (from 9:00 a.m. to 2:10 p.m.). On December 23 the emperor greets the public from the balcony of the Kyuden (Hall of State), while at the New Year holiday the imperial family receives the public from the same balcony. The Hall of State is a 1968 ferrocon-crete, earthquake-proof and fireproof structure that serves as a reception and banqueting hall for official imperial events. The Kyuden consists of three buildings: the Seiden, where, in the Pine Tree Hall (Matsuno-ma), the Imperial family receives greetings from the prime minister and his cabinet in the annual New Year reception; the Homeiden, where formal dinners are held for foreign dignitaries; and the Chowaden, which has the balcony for imperial public greetings. The imperial private residence is in the Fukiage Palace in the western portion of the grounds, a structure that was constructed (1991–1993) to replace the unit built after World War II. (In Tokugawa times this 28-acre [11.2-hectare] sector provided land for the mansions of the three main branches of the Tokugawa family.) The private residence area has a gateway to the city through the Hanzomon Gate on the western side of the palace grounds. It is possible through advanced planning to have a tour of the palace grounds. This necessitates either telephoning the Imperial Household Agency (Kunaicho) at 03-3213-1111 (open 8:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday) or applying online (via http://sankan.kunaicho.go.jp/english). Applications need to be made more than a day ahead of the proposed visit. Then a trip to the Kunaicho, at least a day before the visit, through the Sakashitamon entry, with one’s passport, enables one to obtain the permit for the tour. Tours start at the Kikyo-mon gateway at 10:00 a.m. and at 1:30 p.m., again with one’s passport handy, and last one hour and fifteen minutes. The tours, of course, are given in Japanese.
One of Tokyo’s most photographed scenes: a glimpse of Fushimi Yagura tower behind Nijubashi Bridge
The entry through which the public may go into the palace grounds on the two occasions when they may visit these private areas is by the 1888 Nijubashi Bridge. Although it is usually called the Double Bridge, the name originally referred to a Double Layer Bridge, a wooden bridge and then later a steel bridge with an upper and a lower level. A modern, single-layer steel bridge replaced the double bridge in 1964. Today, two bridges, one behind the other, give the Double Bridge a new meaning. In the foreground is a stone bridge of two arches, the Shakkyo-bashi, which is also called the Megane-bashi, since its two arches when reflected in the water form a whole circle and resemble a pair of spectacles (megane). During the public visitation to the palace, one moves through the massive gateway with its guard stations to the palace grounds, over the Nijubashi Bridge, through the Sei-mon (Main Gate), and into the Kyuden’s East Garden in five or so minutes to the Hall of State, from whose balcony the imperial greetings are given.
Two other gates at the north end of the Outer Garden lead into the palace grounds: the Sakashita-mon (Gate at the Bottom of the Slope) provides an entrance to the brick structure that constitutes the Imperial Household Agency offices, the very conservative bureaucracy that safeguards and controls the heritage and activities of the imperial family. The buildings of the Household Agency stand before the Momiji-yama, the hill named for its maple (momiji) trees, an area more poetically known as the Hill of Autumn Leaves because of the lovely color of the trees’ foliage at the end of the summer season. On this hill stood the Toshogu Shrine to the spirit of Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the many shrines raised to his spirit throughout Japan that culminated in the highly ornate shrine in his honor at Nikko. The other gate, the Kikyo-mon (Bellflower Gate), is the entry for visitors and officials to the palace and for the delivery of supplies by tradesmen. Its name is said to derive from the family crest of Ota Dokan, which contained a bellflower.
Leaving the Outer Garden grounds from the southwestern corner, one exits through the Sakurada-mon Gate of the palace. It was one of the masugata gates that are described in the next tour, which is concerned with the original castle and its present site. Here on March 24, 1860, occurred an event that was to weaken the Tokugawa shogunate’s rule and help to lead to its ultimate demise eight years later. At the Sakurada-mon (Gate of the Field of Cherry Trees) on a snowy morning, Ii Naosuke, lord of Hikone, and his guards with their swords sheathed against
