Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House), Retold from the Japanese Originals Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2

Excerpt

PREFACE

In 1590 a.d. the Hōjō were overthrown at Odawara by the Taikō Hidéyoshi, and the provinces once under their sway were intrusted to his second in command, Tokugawa Iyeyasu. This latter, on removing to the castle of Chiyoda near Edo, at first paid main attention to strengthening his position in the military sense. From his fief in Tōtōmi and Suruga he had brought with him a band of noted captains, devoted to his service through years of hardest warfare. He placed them around his castle ward, from East to South in a great sweeping arc of detached fortresses, extending from Shimōsa province to that of Sagami. Koga was the chief stronghold on the North, against what was left of the Uésugi power. The most devoted of his captains, Honda Tadakatsu, was established at Kawagoé. Odawara, under an ÅŒkubo, as always, blocked the way from the Hakoné and Ashigara passes. In the hands of Iyeyasu and his captains, the formidable garrison here established was not likely to offer opportunity of a second "Odawara conference," during which dalliance with compromise and surrender would bring sudden attack and disaster. At this period there is no sign that in his personal service Prince Iyeyasu made changes from the system common to the great military Houses of the time. The castle ward and attendance always were divided up among the immediate vassals of the lord. The basis was strictly military, not domestic. Even the beautiful kami-shimo (X), or butterfly hempen cloth garb of ceremonial attendance was an obvious reminder of the armour worn in the field.

Great statesman and warrior that he was, the Taikō Hidéyoshi must have realised the difficulties confronting his House. The formidable power he had created in the North was no small part of them. On several occasions he sought a quarrel with Iyeyasu; sought to humiliate him in small ways, to lower his prestige and provoke an outbreak. Such was the trifling incident of the lavish donation required of Iyeyasu to the Hachiman shrine at Kamakura. But Hidéyoshi, as with Elizabeth of England, looked rather to the balance of cost against result, always with possibility of failure in view. When he died in 1598, and left Tokugawa Iyeyasu practically regent of the land, his expectation can be judged to be, either that the loyal members of the council of regency would at least balance the Tokugawa power for their own sakes, or that the majority of his son Hidéyori, then a mere infant, would witness no question of supremacy. In the one event the glory and prestige of his House would stand. In the second case the safety of his posterity would be assured. With his experience, and belief in the over-riding power of Nobunaga and himself, the first was as likely to happen as the second; and the influence of the Toyotomi House was the means necessary to insure to Iyeyasu the position already secured, against the jealousy of the other lords. Time showed that he granted a perspicuity and energy to the members of his council which Iyeyasu alone possessed.

With Sekigahara (1600) the situation was definitely changed. In 1603 Iyeyasu was made Shōgun, and the first steps were to organize the Eastern capital at Edo on an Imperial scale. The modest proportions of the Chiyoda castle of Hōjō times—the present inner keep—had already grown to the outer moat. Around these precincts were thrown the vassals of the Shōgun. The distribution at first was without much method, beyond the establishment of greater lords in close proximity to the person of the Shōgun. This feature was accentuated in the time of the third Shōgun Iyemitsu. Immediately allied Houses and vassals occupied the castle ward between the inner and outer moats, from the Hitotsubashi gate on the North, sweeping East and South to the Hanzō gate on the West. The Nishimaru, or western inclosure of the castle, faced this Hanzō Gomon. From this gate to a line drawn diagonally north eastward from the Kanda-bashi Gomon to the Sujikae Gomon, the section of the circle was devoted to the yashiki (mansions) of the hatamoto or minor lords in immediate vassalage of the Shōgun's service. Kanda, Banchō, Kōjimachi (within the outer moat), the larger parts of Asakusa, Shitaya, Hongō, Koishikawa, Ushigomé (Ichigaya), Yotsuya, Akasaka, Azabu, and Shiba, were occupied by yashiki of hatamoto and daimyō—with an ample proportion of temple land. It would seem that there was little left for commercial Edo. Such was the case. The scattered towns of Kanda, Tayasu, Kōjichō, several score of villages on the city outskirts, are found in this quarter. The townsmen's houses were crowded into the made ground between the outer moat of the castle and the yashiki which lined the Sumida River between Shiba and the Edogawa. In 1624 the reclaimed ground extended almost to the present line of the river....