to this, which allowed the Shogun to give a temporary allowance to a person whose rate of income did not in fact qualify him for a certain position, but whose ability fitted him for it.
The sort of residence that a samurai occupied depended upon his status as measured by his income. The Shogun had his castle in Edo (where the Emperor now resides), and most daimyō also had a castle (I), round which grew a town. Castles came into being in Japan much as they did in Europe, as strongholds for barons fearing attack from their neighbors. The majority still in existence in Japan date from the sixteenth century, for there was little building under the Tokuga was except in Edo, since fortification was strictly controlled, the Shogun being anxious above all that no lord should become strong enough to challenge his power. Until the sixteenth century warriors had tended to live on their farms, and only go to the castle when summoned, but when the warrior and farmer classes were separated, the former went to live in the towns that had begun to form round the castles to accommodate the people concerned with its supply of goods and services. When the samurai moved in, the jōkamachi, “under-castle towns” increased in size and importance, becoming the most usual form of urban development in Japan. All activities in such towns were directed towards the castle and were controlled by it, and the atmosphere in it was quite different from that in Kyoto, where the Imperial court was dominant, and even more so from that of Osaka, a fundamentally mercantile town, in which, it is true, Hideyoshi had built a castle, later the headquarters of the Shogun’s Deputy, but which nevertheless managed to retain considerable independence.
The castle usually included the town in its outer defenses of ditches. In Edo, for example, existing water-courses were adapted to form a series of more or less rectangular shapes, the innermost containing the castle, the intermediate ones having officials’ residences, and the outermost stretching down to the Bay and having merchants and craftsmen living within them. The purpose of the outer ditches was not much more than to slow down an attacker by making him use existing bridges and thus hamper his freedom of movement.
(11) Moat of Osaka Castle. This view clearly shows the profile of the outer wall. The Castle was built by Hideyoshi.
The castle itself was normally raised on a mound, artificial or otherwise, which was revetted with stonework, the individual pieces being often of very large size and set deep into the soil. These revetments have a characteristic curved contour, a combination of slope at the bottom to maintain stability and near-verticality at the top to deter attackers from climbing up (11). Many castles took advantage of natural features to acquire elevation, and an extreme case of this is Gifu, which occupies a steep hill some hundreds of feet above its town, the only access in the past being a steep road up the precipitous face.
The revetments were topped by walls of plastered timberwork, with tiled roofs. Access through gateways was always arranged to have attackers under fire as they approached. There was a keep, with several floors, once again of timber construction with thick plaster-filling and heavily barred windows (12). There were slits and embrasures for arrow and musket-fire, and often downward facing slits under windows through which missiles could be dropped on attackers. The keep was crowned with graceful tiled roofs, often with gilded ornaments. The living quarters were not in the keep, but in separate dwellings within the castle complex.
When the castles were built, they were expected to have to withstand swords and spears, arrows and battering rams and the use of fire, but certainly no heavy artillery. The firearms brought in by the Portuguese and others were limited to muskets, pistols, and some small cannon. A certain amount of iron reinforcement to gates, and rounded embrasures for muskets (as distinct from the slits required by archers), were all the modifications that were needed. The Shogun naturally did his best to ensure that no advanced weapons got into the hands of his potential foes. Moreover, from being a stronghold against neighboring lords, these castles became rather a defense against possible attack by rebellious townsmen or revolting peasants, who were not likely to be well disciplined or to be equipped with other than simple weapons. Thus not much more was required than stout gates and steep approaches.
(12) Himeji Castle, known as the “White Heron,” is a great complex of walls and buildings, and illustrates the defensive features mentioned in the text.
One of the most magnificent of these castles is that built by Ieyasu at Kyoto in the first decade of the seventeenth century. More of a palace than a castle, it was used as the Shogun’s lodging when he came to Kyoto; it was in a grandiose style, partly to rival the Emperor’s palace, and partly to compete with the glories of Hideyoshi’s castle (which Ieyasu later had destroyed) outside Kyoto. Nijō Castle is still surrounded by a wall and moat, and the mound on which the keep was built remains, although the keep itself is gone. The palace is basically a series of rooms, the floors covered by tatami—thick straw mats finished with woven grass, the standard flooring in houses of the well to do. The rooms are divided from the corridors which run outside them by sliding screens, while the corridors are separated from the outside world by screens of wooden lattice covered with paper to let in light, with further heavy wooden screens, like shutters, that would be moved over at night and in bad weather. The rooms nearest the entrance were for visiting lords, and the more worthy of trust a person was, the nearer he could approach the audience chamber (13) and the private apartments. Near the Shogun’s position in the audience chamber were some compartments which concealed soldiers posted there ready to dash out in an emergency, while the silent approach of a would-be assassin could be detected because of the special construction of the plank floor of the “nightingale” corridor which makes it “sing” as one walks along it.
(13) Audience chamber in Nijo Castle, with wax figures of the Shogun and his lords, in court dress. To the Shogun’s left is his sword-bearer, behind whom is the room in which lurked the bodyguard.
The koku-rating of samurai was used in all sorts of circumstances. Below daimyō with their minimum of 10,000 koku, it determined the area of the plot on which a samurai was allowed to build. For example, 8,000 koku entitled him to about two acres, 2,000 koku to about one acre, while the lowest income of five bales of rice gave the right to about 280 square yards. In fact, the lowest grades lived more or less communally, in “long houses,” divided into apartments with some degree of shared accommodation. A typical arrangement was to have a gateway with a row of rooms as its upper story. Lastly, there were some samurai who had no official income at all and no right to a residence; these were the masterless men, the rōnin, who had either abandoned their allegiance or whose master had been deprived of his post. The rōnin were some of the freest inhabitants of traditional Japan, since they maintained their samurai status without the burden of its duties, but forgoing its assured sustenance. They earned a living as best they could: some became writers, Confucian scholars, or schoolteachers; some, instructors in swordsmanship or other military arts; others traded on their ability with their weapons and hired themselves out as bodyguards and trouble-shooters for rich merchants. While they were earning, they could afford comfortable accommodation; when things went less well, they had to live at best in temples, at worst in what rough shelter they could find.
14 (a). Samurai in naga-bakama.
