The History of Kanagawa THE HISTORY OF KANAGAWA Kanagawa Prefectural Government Copyright © 1985 by Kanagawa Prefectural Government First edition February 1985 All rights reserved by Kanagawa Prefectural Government No part of this book may be used or quoted without written permission Original Japanese edition published in 1984 Published by Kanagawa Prefectural Government Office of Administration & Coordination Community Relations Department 1 Nihon-odori, Naka-ku, Yokohama 231, Japan Tel. 045-201-1111 Designed by Nippon Design Center Translated by Simul International, Inc., Tokyo Printed in Japan by Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. Aerial view of Kanagawa Prefecture taken by the United States’ resource survey satellite Erts I in 1972. Courtesy of the Kanagawa Shimbunsha. Katsusaka-style Jomon pottery. Used as a storage jar or for boiling food. (Kanagawa Prefecture Archaeological Center) Reconstructed Yayoi-period pit dwellings. (Santonodai Archaeological Museum, Yokohama City) Group of tumuli at the Sakuradote site in Hadano City. Haniwa sculpture of a warrior (height 90 ㎝) from the Doyama tumulus in Atsugi City. (Atsugi Board of Education) Warriors from Sagami in the heat of battle. From the Gosannen kassen ekotoba. (Tokyo National Museum) Portrait of Minamoto Yoritomo. (Jingoji Temple, Kyoto) Monumental bronze sculpture of Amida Nyorai seated in meditation (The Great Buddha of Kamakura). (Kotokuin Temple, Kamakura City) Buddha Hall of Kenchoji Temple, Kamakura City. Kamakura Period image of the Buddhist deity Shokoo. (Ennoji Temple, Kamakura City) View of the castle town of Odawara on the Tokaido road,painted sometime before the Meireki era (1655-1658). (Sanboin, Daigoji Temple, Kyoto) Genre painting depicting agricultural activity throughout the four seasons,offering a glimpse of pastoral life in Sagami during the late Edo period. (Collection of Moriya Matsusaburo, Oiso Township) Scene of shrine and temple talismans falling from the sky and common people celebrating this auspicious event. (collection of Horiuchi Hisao, Fujisawa City) Bird’s-eye view of Yokohama at the time of the opening of the treaty ports. (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum) The artillery battery at Manazuru. Batteries were built at many points along the coast to defend against foreign ships. (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum) Commodore Matthew Perry coming ashore at Yokohama in 1854. The ruins of downtown Yokohama after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. (From the Daishinsai shashin gaho) A steam engine on the Yokohama Coastal Railway in the early Meiji period. (Kanagawaprefectural Museum) Kabuki actors swimming and relaxing on the beach at Oiso in the mid Meiji period. (Oiso Town Hall) Aerial view of Yokohama harbor, taken in 1983. (Courtesy of Port & Harbor Bureau, City of Yokohama) Fully automated production line at an automobile factory. (Courtesy of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.) Antipollution equipment at a steel plant. (Courtesy of Nippon Kokan) Cyclamens being cultivated in a greenhouse. Samukawa Township, 1983. (Courtesy of the Kanagawa Prefecture Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives) Unloading the catch at the fishing port of Misaki in 1984. (Courtesy of the Miura Chief Fishermen’s Association) The Wakabadai housing development, 1984. Yokohama City. (Courtesy of the Kanagawa Prefecture Public Housing Corporation) The Miho Dam in Yamakita Township,1974. Isezaki-cho in Yokohama,1985. The Porto underground shopping mall in Yokohama, 1985. Outdoor No performance. The main hall of the Kamakura Shrine serves as the backdrop for this solemn and dignified performance in 1983. (Courtesy of the Kamakura City Government) Yabusame- a mounted archery competition held at the Kamakura Hachiman Shrine in 1983. (Courtesy of the Kamakura City Government) Preface Kanagawa Prefecture is located within Japan’s premier region and is part of the nation’s Pacific Belt, said to be the most advanced industrial zone in the world. Its population exceeds 7.3 million, the third largest after Tokyo and Osaka. With many high-tech industries and research institutes based there, Kanagawa has become Japan’s industrial nerve center. The prefecture is also blessed with natural beauty and a rich historical heritage. Hakone, famous for its scenery, and historic Kamakura, an ancient capital of Japan, are among the nation’s most popular tourist spots. Hundreds of thousands of people from overseas visit Kanagawa every year via the port of Yokohama and other points of entry to Japan. Even more Kanagawa residents go overseas. Society today has become increasingly international and more reliant on world interdependence. Therefore, it is vital for us to endeavor to cross national barriers for better mutual understanding and closer communications at the public level. Even though we may live far apart and have different lifestyles and cultures, true understanding will help strengthen the ties of international friendship. Geographically and historically, Kanagawa has developed as “Japan’s gateway to the rest of the world” and serves to communicate the “heart of Japan” and the “heart of the Orient.” Against this background, I have made it a foremost prefectural policy to promote “people-to-people diplomacy,” aimed at making friends all over the world. I am working to implement this policy by encouraging and promoting exchanges not only in the economic sphere, but also in culture, sports and among individuals. Our freedom and welfare are dependent upon a world without war. Therefore, we must strive to strengthen solidarity with other peoples through broadly-based exchanges and communications to ensure peace. This book presents the history of one region of Japan. I hope it will facilitate your understanding of Kanagawa Prefecture and contribute to world amity. February 28, 1985 Kazuji Nagasu Governor Kanagawa Prefecture Contents Preface Translators’ Note Foreword THE PREHISTORIC AND ANCIENT PERIODS Ⅰ Evidence of Human Life 1 Earliest Traces of Man Twenty thousand years ago Over ten thousand years of the preceramic period The appearance of pottery and the bow and arrow The age of the pit house The development of communities 2 The Origins of the Japanese People Yayoi culture and the dissemination of iron-making and rice cultivation The growth of settled communities 3 The Formation of the Kingdoms of the “Hairy People” Communities form small states Ⅱ Sagami and Musashi and the Taika Reforms 1 “Chief of the Sword Bearers” “Chief of the sword bearers” Local administrators and private imperial estates 2 The Taika Reforms A new order begins in the eastern provinces The defeat at Hakusukinoe and the sakimori 3 Sagami and Musashi Under the Ritsuryo System The structure of the centralized government An official system of roads centered on the capital Local products of ancient Sagami The spread of culture Ⅲ The Dawn of the Middle Ages 1 A Land of Knights and Horse Thieves The revolts of the “horse borrowers” Civil war and the warriors of Sagami The revolt of Taira no Tadatsune Manorial estates and the warrior class Public domains and the warrior class The administration of Sagami and Musashi under Yoshitomo and his sons Warriors of Sagami and Musashi at war in the capital THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD Ⅰ Kamakura: Warrior Capital of Japan 1 The Birth of the Lord of Kamakura Yoritomo enters Kamakura Establishment of the Kamakura bakufu Development of the Kamakura highway system Building the city of Kamakura 2 The Flourishing of Kamakura Culture Culture imported from Kyoto Buddhist culture 3 The Waning of Sagami’s Warrior Class The samurai of Sagami: a topography The waning of Sagami’s warrior class Ⅱ An Age of Warfare 1 The Establishment of the Kamakura-fu Ashikaga Takauji plots rebellion in Kamakura Ashikaga Tadayoshi dies in Kamakura The establishment of a regional government at Kamakura The Uesugi family as shogunal deputies and the military rule of the Kanto kubo Shogun vs. Kanto kubo:confrontation of fire and water The end of Kamakura as a center of government 2 The Rise and Fall of the Odawara Hojo Family Ise Sozui and the capture of Odawara Castle The Odawara Hojo family establishes hegemony over the eastern provinces The civil administration of the Odawara Hojo family “The Register of Local Duties Levied on the Domains of the Odawara Vassals” Sagami, Kai, Echigo, Suruga-shifting alliances and enmities The end of the Odawara Hojo THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD Ⅰ Sagami and Musashi Under the Bakuhan System 1 The Opening of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo An end to the disorders of civil war Tokugawa Ieyasu’s entry into Edo Castle and the Kanagawa region Tokugawa lands and the disposition of vassal fiefs The restructuring of villages The system of roads and post stations Other roads in the Kanagawa region and checkpoints 2 Changes in Odawara Han Transfer of the daimiate The establishment of major han and the creation of minor ones The enlargement of hatamoto fiefs 3 Villagers and Townsmen Under the Bakuhan System The village as corporate entity The opening of new lands and the creation of new villages Towns, post stations, and markets The culture of villagers and townspeople Pilgrimages and popular religion 4 The Collapse of the Bakuhan System Earthquakes and other natural disasters The collapse of feudal finances THE MODERN PERIOD Ⅰ The Footsteps of Modernization 1 The Opening of the Country The thorny problem of coastal defense The signing of the Treaty of Peace and Amity between Japan and the United States at Yokohama The Kanagawa commissioner and the foreign settlement 2 The Creation of Kanagawa Prefecture The dark side of the boom in trade Samurai in Musashi and Sagami and the collapse of the shogunate Kanagawa leads the other prefectures in establishing district and local assemblies 3 The Port of Yokohama: Japan’s Window on “Civilization and Enlightenment” The growing foreign population of Yokohama “Civilization and enlightenment” come to Yokohama The foreign settlement as a source of civilization A base for Christian missionary work The fruits of “enlightenment” spread throughout the prefecture 4 The High Tide of the Popular Rights Movement The movement for a national assembly and the formation of popular rights organizations Participation in political parties Agricultural depression during the “Matsukata deflation” The tribulations of the Buso Poor People’s Party The movement by wealthy peasants for reduction of the land tax 5 Kanagawa Prefecture Under the Meiji Constitution The convening of the first Diet Splits among the popular parties in Kanagawa The Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars and the people of Kanagawa Changes in the postwar period Strikes begin at the naval arsenal Official trade associations and workers’ unions A rising tide of labor disputes 6 Yokohama’s Emergence as the King of International TradeTreaty revision and Kanagawa Prefecture The blossoming of trade-related industries The growth of international shipping lines to and from Yokohama The growth of the banking system The Shonan region revitalized 7 The People of Kanagawa After the Russo-Japanese War A wave of strikes follows the victory Planning for local improvement Ⅱ The Wave of Taisho Democracy 1 Democracy and Kanagawa Prefecture New waves break against the shore World War Ⅰ and the nouveaux riches Shipping tycoons head the list of the nouveaux riches Industries in the hinterland also prosper 2 The Creation of the Heavy Industrial Belt Factors in the emergence of the heavy industrial belt The reclamation of land from the sea Railways promote regional development Labor disputes and rice riots The first Japanese May Day The Great Earthquake strikes Kanagawa Ⅲ The Road to the Pacific War 1 Widening Aggression Against China The vortex of the Showa Panic The reorganization of the Keihin industrial belt Expansion of the revitalized labor unions and growing protest The violent elimination of democracy Japan’s reckless entry into the Pacific War THE CONTEMPORARY ERA Ⅰ The Reconstruction of Japan and Kanagawa Prefecture 1 Kanagawa Prefecture Under the Occupation The Occupation forces enter Yokohama American military bases in Kanagawa The beginning of democratization The revival of political parties and labor unions Ⅱ The Rebirth of the Phoenix: Kanagawa Recovers from the War 1 The Success of a High Growth Economy Wartime austerity and postwar poverty The revival of industrial production 2 Japan’s Rebirth as an Economic Power The outbreak of the Korean War ends the “Dodge Recession” The construction of a new industrial belt From the “Jimmu Boom” to the “Izanagi Boom” Yokohama regains its position as the king of foreign trade The miracle of Japan’s rebirth as an economic superpower Kanagawa today Postscript World Map Map of Japan Map of Kanagawa Translators’ Note A few words should be said about some of the conventions adopted in translating The History of Kanagawa. The Hepburn system of romanization is used for Japanese terms, including names of persons and places. In rendering personal names, the Japanese practice of placing the surname first has been followed. Japanese custom has also been followed in that major historical figures from the premodern era are often referred to by their given names rather than their surnames (thus Toyotomi Hideyoshi is commonly referred to as Hideyoshi), while figures from the modern era are referred to by surname (thus Ito for Ito Hirobumi). The names in parenthesis after names of historical places indicate the modern prefecture, district, city, town, or village in which the historical site is located. The various districts in the Kanagawa region have a long history, dating back to premodern times when they were districts of the two ancient provinces of Sagami and Musashi. Because of this, the names of some districts have changed over time: present-day Koza district was known in antiquity and the middle ages as Takakura; Aiko district was once known as Ayukawa; Yurugi district was once named Yoroki. In this text, regardless of historical period, the modern pronunciations of district names have been employed. In most cases, traditional Japanese weights and measures are followed by their metric equivalents the first time they appear. No attempt has been made to convert yen or historical units of currency into any modern Western currency-the changing value of money makes such an effort nearly impossible. Another problem encountered was that of the traditional Japanese calendar. Until 1872, when Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar, dates were based on a lunar calendar, and years reckoned according to era names. Thus the year 1600 in the Western calendar corresponds to the 5th of the Keicho era (Keicho 5) of the Japanese calendar. The use of era names has continued into the modern era, so that 1985 corresponds to Showa 60 in Japan. Throughout the text, years have been given first according to the Western calendar, and then usually followed by their Japanese equivalents, given in parentheses. The difficulty does not end there, however. Converting from the old lunar calendar to Western-style dates and months requires complex calculations. Rather than converting, upon occasion, when a specific premodern date has been mentioned, we have taken the liberty of treating it as if it were a date reckoned by the Western calendar-resulting in discrepancies. For example, a date such as the fifteenth day of the ninth month of Genroku 1 has been rendered as September 15, 1688, which is not strictly accurate. The kind of discrepancy which can result is indicated by the fact that when the shift from the old lunar calendar to the Gregorian calendar was carried out in 1872, the 3rd day of the 12th month in the old system became Janauary 1 in the new calendar. We hope the reader will permit us this deviation from strict accuracy in the interest of readability. In translating the names of government institutions, positions, ranks, offices, names of historical incidents, corporate names, and the like, we have tried to use standard accepted translations wherever possible. Frequently, translations of historical terms are followed by a romanization of the Japanese word in italics. Foreword Present-day Kanagawa Prefecture is bounded on the south by Sagami Bay; on the east by Tokyo Bay; separated from the metropolis of Tokyo to the north by the Tama River; and on the west is set off from Yamanashi and Shizuoka Prefectures by the Tanzawa and Hakone mountain ranges. The land area of Kanazawa Prefecture is about 2,400 square kilometers, or approximately 0.63 percent of Japan’s total area. Kanagawa Prefecture was created in 1868, the first year of the Meiji era, though it was not until 1893 that its present boundaries were established. Although it is the fifth smallest prefecture in Japan, it is the third largest in terms of population, home to 6,924,358 persons according to the 1980 census. That same year, the gross income of the citizens of Kanagawa amounted to ¥13.362 billion, placing it among the highest in the country. In 1967, on the eve of the centenary of the founding of the prefecture, a project was initiated to compile the Kanagawa kenshi (The Kanagawa Prefectural History). The project was completed in 1983, with the publication of a 36-volume work. Twenty-one volumes have been devoted to documents and other source materials, seven to a general history of the prefecture, and eight to appendices and supplementary information. The twenty-one volumes of documents constitute a comprehensive collection of historical texts and records that served as the fundamental source materials in the writing of the seven-volume general history. Together, these 28 volumes form the core of the Kanagawa kenshi. The eight volumes of supplements and appendices provide additional information on Kanagawa’s natural environment, folkways and historical figures. The full text of the Kanagawa kenshi runs to some 37,000 pages, and the seven-volume general history alone is about 7,000 pages in length. These seven volumes provide a remarkably detailed account of the history of the prefecture, but reading such a lengthy work is not an easy task. The present text is an outline history of Kanagawa Prefecture, intended to make the contents of the seven-volume general history more accessible to the general reader, giving an overview of activities of the people living in the Kanagawa region from ancient times to the present. The compilation of a historical work of the proportions of the Kanagawa kenshi was made possible by the enthusiasm of the prefectural government for the project, the unstinting efforts of the editorial staff, and support and encouragement from people throughout the prefecture. The resulting 36-volume history was written through the cooperation of not only the many individuals on the editorial staff but also a number of other scholars and specialists who were kind enough to devote their time to the project. The present text, The History of Kanagawa Prefecture, is an English translation of Kanagawa-ken no rekishi, a digest of the seven-volume general history, written by Takeuchi Rizo with the cooperation of Okubo Toshikane, Ando Yoshio, and Kodama Kota, former editorin-chief of the Kanagawa kenshi. THE PREHISTORIC AND ANCIENT PERIODS Ⅰ. Evidence of Human Life 1. Earliest Traces of Man Twenty thousand years ago The history of human life on the Japanese archipelago can be traced back tens of thousands of years. At present, the earliest traces of man are thought to be the stone implements discovered in the layer of soil known as the Tachikawa loam bed, which is estimated to have formed ten to thirty thousand years ago. The Tachikawa loam bed was the last of the layers-referred to collectively as the Kanto loam deposits-to be formed when ash, spewed out by the activity of volcanoes such as Mt. Fuji and Mt. Hakone in the southern Kanto region and Mt. Shirane and Mt. Asama in the northern Kanto, was carried by prevailing westerly winds and deposited sometime after the middle of the Pleistocene epoch, some four to five hundred thousand years ago. Evidence of human life found in this layer of soil is confirmed by the presence there of stone tools. Because it lacked pottery, this period is referred to as the preceramic period, although some, employing archaeological time divisions, refer to it as the paleolithic era. The existence of this preceramic period first became known in 1949 (Showa 24) with the discovery by Aizawa Tadahiro of the site at Iwajuku (Gumma Prefecture). A series of discoveries of preceramic period sites followed. Today more than five thousand sites are known from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south. Although these sites are spread throughout the country, there is a conspicuous regional variation in their distribution. Layers of loam deposits and stone groupings at the Teigogo site in Sagamihara City. At present approximately two hundred sites from the preceramic period have been reported in Kanagawa Prefecture. More than eighty percent of these are found in the Sagamino highlands, spanning an area which includes the cities of Sagamihara, Zama, Yamato, Ebina, Ayase and Fujisawa. Yet these sites are found, not in the center of the highlands but along the many valleys carved out by the Sakai River, which forms the eastern border of the plateau, and by the Sagami River, which flows to the west. The Sagamino highlands are one of the areas with the highest distribution of preceramic sites in all of Japan. Furthermore, sites found dotted along the basins of the rivers Meguro, Hikiji, Tade, Ayase, Mekujiri, Uba and Hato indicate that people had migrated along the course of these rivers. From this fact it is inferred that they were predominantly fishermen and greatly dependent on the rivers for their livelihood. A small number of sites has been found as well on Mt. Hakone, in the towns of Yugawara, Oiso, and Sagamiko, and in the cities of Odawara, Kamakura, Atsugi, Yokohama, and Kawasaki. Although by no means all of these were found along rivers, some even having been discovered deep in the mountains (e.g. one near the Asahi hills of Mt. Hakone), in general, sites along rivers predominate. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that people were living throughout almost all of Kanagawa Prefecture, but concentrated in the Sagamino highlands, when the Tachikawa loam bed was formed twenty to thirty thousand years ago. Nor can it be doubted that these people had already passed the stage of scraping out a livelihood with their bare hands and were using implements fashioned from stone. These included chopping tools-extremely primitive implements thought to be used to beat prey to death-as well as flake tools, blades, awls, knife-shaped implements, scrapers and scratchers, chipped from stone such as obsidian, chert, quartzite, shale, and andesite. Most of these tools were used for skinning animals or scaling fish and cutting meat. The stone awl and a stone tool known as a tongued point implement were probably used as a gaff or at other times attached to the end of a lance for spearing fish and game. Over ten thousand years of the preceramic period Not all these tools were developed at once, of course. The prePointed stone tools and knife-shaped implements from the Tsukimino site in Yamato City. (Archaeological Exhibition Hall, Meiji University) ceramic period lasted for at least ten to twenty thousand years, and advances were made in stone tools with the passage of time. These advances can be divided into roughly three stages. The first dates back thirty thousand years to a time preceding the diffusion of knifeshaped stone tools. The second stage was about twenty thousand years ago when knife-shaped tools of all kinds were extensively used. In the third and last stage, approximately thirteen thousand years ago, knife-shaped tools were eclipsed by thin stone blades known as microliths. The preceramic period sites in Kanagawa Prefecture are believed to have belonged to the second and third of these stages. During these periods the flint arrowhead had not as yet appeared, and for the most part life was sustained by killing prey with spears or lances. However, at the Teigogo and Shioda sites in Sagamihara City, the Tosenji Temple site in Kanagawa Ward, Yokohama, and elsewhere remains were found which consisted of a large number of fist-sized stones arranged in a pattern. These pebbles were taken from the neighboring river beds, and remains of this kind are called “stone groupings” (sekigun). Signs of fire on the stones and the discovery of fragments of charcoal nearby permit the assumption that people of the preceramic period knew how to use fire and prepared their food with heated stones. If, for example, one guts an animal, fills it with heated stones, and buries it in the ground for a while, the result is a relatively efficient method of roasting. It is probable that these preceramic peoples had already discovered a method of cooking which is still used in parts of the world today-roasting by wrapping fish or potatoes in leaves and burying them with roasting stones. But the use of fire led to even further advances, for it is linked to the manufacture of pottery. The appearance of pottery and the bow and arrow At the height of the ice age gripping preceramic Japan, the oceans froze and the sea level is said to have dropped by as much as one hundred forty meters. During this period a land bridge connected the Japanese archipelago to the continent of Asia, and huge animals such as the Naumann elephant and the Otsuno elk roamed through the mountains and plains, serving as game for the hunters of the preceramic period. Jomon pottery excavated at Natsushima. (Archaeological Exhibition Hall, Meiji University) View of Natsushima before land reclamation. Yokosuka City. Ⅰ. Evidence of Human Life But this ice age too came to an end; the glaciers receded, the sea level rose, and Japan, once connected to the mainland, became an archipelago. With the warming climate, the large animals that had thrived in the cold climate retreated northward, and the life of preceramic man underwent an enormous change. One indication of this was the addition of pottery and of bows and arrows to the tools at his disposal. These appeared at approximately the same time, but whether they were first produced in Japan or brought in from elsewhere is not yet clear. A clue may be the shape of the primitive pottery found in Japan: a deep bowl with a pointed base that could be stuck into the ground. Similarities have been noted between this style and pottery shapes found in Siberia. At first this pottery had impressed patterns made by rolling twisted thread over its surface, or linear-relief decorations formed by winding narrow ropes of clay around the mouth of the pot. Later, however, pottery with cord patterns (jomon) made by rolling a piece of straw-rope over the surface or embellished with complex applied designs in clay became popular. Ceramics from this period are generally referred to as Jomon pottery. The appearance of this pottery is thought to have followed the third stage of the preceramic period. In 1957 radioactive carbon datings made at the University of Michigan on oyster shells and charcoal excavated from a site at Natsushima in Yokosuka City gave dates of 9,450 (±400) years ago for the shells and 9,240 (±500) years ago for the charcoal. Since oyster shells taken from Tokyo Bay and tested at the same time gave readings of zero years, the reliability of these datings is high. The oldest known ceramic ware on earth, Jomon pottery has astonished academic circles throughout the world. Pottery found at the Daimaru site, Minami Ward, Yokohama, however, is even older than the Natsushima finds, and the oldest known in Kanagawa Prefecture. Pottery in Kanagawa dates back ten thousand years to the beginning of the Jomon period. Remains of twisted-thread-pattern pottery typical of the early Jomon period have been found on isolated islands like the shell mounds at Natsushima (Yokosuka City) and at Nojima (Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama) and the site at Sarushima, Yokosuka, but most fragments have been found on bluffs overlooking the ocean. The distinguishing feature of sites found in river basins is that they lie along the edges of bluffs projecting out into the rivers while those found in hilly regions lie along the peaks and ridges. The age of the pit house Remains of pit houses not found in the preceramic period have been discovered at sites such as Kohoku Newtown, Yokohama, and at Shimotsuruma Sengensha, Yamato City. These pit houses, which Remains of a pit house settlement. Kohoku Newtown, Midori Ward, Yokohama. were dug shallowly out of the loam bed, had holes for beams to support the roof and walls and shallow, square depressions in the center of the floor, although there are no traces of hearths inside them. Most pit houses are about five meters on a side. A site would commonly have had one to three of these houses in use at the same time-the beginnings of small-scale communities. The existence of such dwelling sites tells us that people had begun to live in fixed residences, at least for certain periods of time. The fact that kitchen middens-mounds of discarded sea shells not found in the previous period-also became widespread at this time points to the same conclusion. The site at Natsushima is known as the Natsushima Shell Mound after the thick layer of large oyster shells (magaki) of which it is composed. Sixteen varieties of snail and sixteen varieties of bivalve were found at the Hirasaka Shell Mound at Wakamatsu 2-chome, Yokosuka, including haigai (ark shells), okishijimi (deep sea corbicula), onogai (jackknife clams), asari (Japanese littlenecks), kagamigai (Phacosoma japonicum), sugai (Lunella cornata coreensis), uminina (Balillaria multiformis), tsumetagai (Neverita didyma), reishi (Thais bronni), and akanishi (Rapana venosa). Almost all these shells were unbroken and carefully piled up. With the invention of pottery, methods for boiling shellfish and extracting their contents became possible, leading to the discovery of new sources of foodstuffs. Along with the shellfish remains, bones of several species of fish and game have been discovered in these shell mounds. At the Natsushima Shell Mound, these include bones from wild boars, raccoon dogs, hares, giant flying squirrels, Japanese deer, and badgers; from birds such as pheasants, teal ducks, wild geese, and wild ducks; and from fresh- and salt-water fish such as tuna, grey mullet, black porgy, sea bass, flathead, sea eel, bonito, rock cod, stingray, red sea bream, yellowtail, mackerel, frigate mackerel, and flounder. Spears and lances were no longer sufficient to catch fast running small animals and high flying birds. The discovery of projectile weapons was indispensable to making such game into a dietary staple. A few flint and bone arrowheads have been found at Natsushima; and at the Hanamiyama site in Kawawacho (Midori Ward, Yokohama) some two hundred stone tools have been excavated, including several stone arrowheads and tongued points thought to have been used as arrowheads. Bones of dogs have been unearthed from the shell mounds at Natsushima, Hirasaka and elsewhere, and fragments from the skeletons of more than twenty dogs have been found at the Kikuna Shell Mound in Yokohama, which dates from a slightly later period. These were clearly kept for use as hunting dogs, and it has been surmised that there was one dog per household. The existence of hunting dogs as well as arrowheads in the Jomon culture suggests that bows and arrows did not originate in order for men to fight one another. The development of communities At the Nambori Shell Mound in Minami Yamadacho, Kohoku Ward, Yokohama, the remains of forty-eight pit houses have been excavated atop a flat plateau some thirty-five meters high. Because most of these houses overlap one another it is clear that all forty-eight did not exist at the same time, but from the pottery and Ourayama cave site, Miura City. other artifacts unearthed there it is assumed that what began as a settlement of a few houses later developed into a community of about ten households built and rebuilt over the original settlement. Again judging from the pottery shapes, it is surmised that this development occurred over a period of three hundred years. A noteworthy feature of the site is that at all times the center of the settlement was left as an open space where an elliptical stone dish more than fifty centimeters in length was set. It is possible that the dish was an implement used to grind nuts the occupants had gathered and the open space a common area set apart for such purposes. The excavations at Kohoku Newtown, Yokohama, have made the growth pattern of settlements much clearer. At Okuma Nakamachi, Midori Ward, for example, a total of 168 pit houses from the middle Jomon period and 140 graves including burial pits have been discovered. In addition five pit houses with streak pattern pottery from the early Jomon period and the remains of 125 hearths have been found. Of course all these houses did not exist simultaneously, but the center of the site was an open square and, as the number of houses increased, dwellings were increasingly built to face this open area. Among examples of this phenomenon are the remains of dwellings belonging to the Kasori E Ⅱ period (named for the shell mound at Kasori, Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture). At one end of a plaza fifty meters in diameter, rectangular burial pits and oval ones A group of bone implements excavated from Ourayama. approximately 10.5 meters long were grouped so as to form a rough circle. The oval shape is also found in the remains of houses whose major axis reaches as many as fifteen meters in length. Whether it served as a meeting place or a storage area or a work space is still unclear, but it was probably used along with the central open space as a place for social intercourse among the inhabitants of the community. Together with the appearance of cemeteries these areas must be seen as indicating a new stage in the development of human consciousness. The Jomon period lasted nearly ten thousand years in Kanagawa Prefecture. During that time people were as dependent as ever on a hunting and gathering economy for their livelihood, and with the discovery of pottery and the bow and arrow the range of what they could gather greatly expanded. Pottery which could be used for steaming and boiling dramatically enlarged the varieties of fish and shellfish they could consume, while the domestication of the dog, the discovery of the bow and arrow and the development of fishing-from bone fishhooks to ocean-fishing by dugout canoes with weighted fishnets-made it possible to add fast-moving small animals and even birds to their diet. Being completely dependent, however, on hunting and gathering what nature provided, a decrease in game due to over-hunting, food shortages from the failure of fruits, nuts, and seeds to ripen because of cold weather, and other natural calamities meant that early man had to experience malnutrition many times during his life. 2. The Origins of the Japanese People Yayoi culture and the dissemination of iron-making and rice cultivation More than three hundred Jomon period shell mounds are known in Kanagawa Prefecture, but there are only ten sites from the end of the period. This decline is remarkable even when compared to other areas of the Kanto region. The cause is thought to be the renewed volcanic activity of Mt. Fuji from the late Jomon period onward. Large quantities of volcanic ash fell over the area, greatly affecting plant and animal life, with serious consequences for the survival of the Jomon peoples in Kanagawa who were dependent on them for their food. The Jomon peoples in Kanagawa Prefecture did not die out, however, and as volcanic activity abated others probably moved into the area from neighboring regions. The renewal of population coincided with the revitalization of human culture by the introduction of rice and iron to the Japanese archipelago and by the development of the type of ceramics known as Yayoi pottery, named after the Yayoi site in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, where they were first discovered. Developed in about the third century B.C., Yayoi pottery would continue to be used until the third or fourth century A.D. Although the Yayoi period was much shorter than the Jomon, Yayoi culture was to have an enormous effect on the peoples living in the Japanese archipelago. It marks the starting point in the development of the Japanese people of today. Jomon pottery, which epitomizes Jomon culture as a whole, reached its peak of ornamentation with Kamegaoka ware, named after the distinctive pottery found at Kamegaoka in Aomori Prefecture. In contrast, Yayoi pottery has almost no ornamentation. It is characterized by extreme simplicity and is clearly the product of a different culture. This culture had its origins in western Japan and spread eastward. In Kanagawa Prefecture, Suijinbira-type pottery, belonging to the early phases of Yayoi ware in eastern Japan, has been unearthed from sites at Kirigaoka (Midori Ward, Yokohama), Nakano Osawa (Tsukui Township) and elsewhere. Subsequently Yayoi pottery, the oldest in the southern Kanto, was excavated at the site of a flagged-floor (shiki-ishi) dwelling from the late Jomon period in Mikage, Tsukui Township. Similar discoveries have been made in excavations at Sekimoto Deguchi (Minami Ashigara City), Doyama (Yamakita Township), Endohara (Hiratsuka City), Domyo (Hadano City) and in the vicinity of Kanazawa Hakkei Station, Yokohama. These scattered sites are an indication that use of this pottery eventually spread throughout the entire prefecture. It is noteworthy that at this stage Yayoi pottery co-existed with late Jomon pottery, which suggests that the Jomon peoples of the prefecture had accepted Yayoi culture and entered a new era. The growth of settled communities Soon agriculture began and with it Jomon culture came to an end. At the same time, the number of fixed residential communities increased, and their scale enlarged dramatically. Well known as sites of these large-scale settlements are Yatsu (Odawara City), Motta (Zushi City), Akasaka (Miura City), and Santonodai (Isogo Ward) and Otsuka (Kohoku Ward), both in Yokohama. At Santonodai remains of more than two hundred houses have been unearthed. Other smaller communities have been found at over one hundred sites. The majority of these communities were engaged in farming (especially wet rice agriculture) and located in plateaus with alluvial soil. A typical example of such a site is the one at Otsuka, Yokohama. This site contains the remains of a settlement in a state of preservation rarely found in Japan. Located on a flat bluff about fifty meters above sea level overlooking the Hayabuchi River, a tributary of the Tsurumi River, it was what is known as a kango (loop-moat) settlement with a moat dug around a group of pit houses. Inside the conReconstructed dwellings at the Santonodai site in Yokohama City. (Santonodai Archaeological Museum) fines of the moat were the remains of ninety-seven dwellings, ninety of which all date from the same period, but communities of twentyfive to thirty houses had been built and rebuilt there several times. Each house had a small gutter along the wall known as a wall drain, and regularly laid out in the floor are holes for four pillars, remains of a hearth, and holes to support the ladder used to go in and out of the house. The circumference of the pit was enclosed by an embankment made from the dirt scooped out in making the house, which served to protect the pit from the influx of surface water. The distance from the bottom of the floor to the top of the embankment was more than a meter, necessitating the use of ladders to exit and enter. The loop moat around the entire settlement was an average of five meters wide and two meters deep, and the earth dug up while making the moat was piled along its inner edge, perhaps to protect the settlement against enemies from without. The use of stone arrows and stone awls in order to kill not only birds and animals but other human beings had probably already begun in the previous era, but in the Yayoi period, with the fixed settlements required by an agricultural economy, loop moats such as these reveal that the struggles over cultivated lands and harvest stores increased in intensity. The site at Saikachido, located about eighty meters away from the Otsuka site, contains the remains of twenty-five square-ditched graves which are thought to have belonged to the Otsuka settlement. These graves were constructed by lining up four ditches in a square, piling the dirt from the ditches inside the square and making an earthen grave in the center where the deceased was to be buried. These square-ditched graves are widely seen throughout Japan from Kyushu to the Tohoku region, but the oldest have been found in the Kinai (Osaka-Kyoto-Nara-Hyogo) region. This burial practice was yet another aspect of Yayoi culture transmitted from western Japan. Iron-making was also introduced in the Yayoi period. Stone tools continued to be essential, but with the introduction of iron the Japanese people bade farewell to the Stone Age. The discovery of iron axes at several sites, including the Akasaka site and the Amazaki cave (both in Miura City), and at the Shinmeiue site (Takatsu Ward, Kawasaki), shows that the Yayoi peoples in what is now Kanagawa Prefecture conformed to this pattern. 3. The Formation of the Kingdoms of the “Hairy People” Communities form small states A Chinese history written around the first century B.C. which describes the state of affairs on the Japanese archipelago reports that the land of Wa (i.e. Japan) occupies mountainous islands and that it is divided into more than one hundred kingdoms. Although it is not at all certain how far this description holds true for conditions in the eastern part of the country, it does reveal that in the islands of Japan communities governed by chieftains had begun to form into small states. By about the fourth century, these small states were united by the Yamato court to form the kingdom of Yamato. This state of affairs was reported in 478 A.D. by the king of Wa (the emperor Yuryaku) to the emperor of China as follows: From time immemorial my ancestors have donned their armor and roved over hills and dales with no leisure to rest their weary bodies. They conquered the fifty-five countries of the hairy people to the east, brought the sixty-six countries of barbarian hordes to the west to submission, and crossed the sea to pacify the ninety-five countries beyond the north sea. East, west and north were directions with Yamato at the center; the ninety-five countries beyond the north sea were kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula. If these ninety-five countries are excluded that would make one hundred twenty-one kingdoms within Japan which had been subjugated by the imperial might of Yamato. Even allowing for rhetorical exaggeration this cannot be too far from the actual figure. What the ancient kingdom of Yamato called the Togoku (Eastern countries) was the area east of the modern-day prefectures of Fukui, Gifu, and Mie. Kanagawa Prefecture was included in this area. It is worth noting that in the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) the “hairy people” are referred to as emishi, which means the barbarians, or the Ainu. Today it is thought that the tall tumuli (kofun) representative of the Kofun period symbolized the spread of Yamato rule to other parts of the country. In the lands of Sagami and Musashi, the two provinces which became present-day Kanagawa Prefecture, it is believed that tomb mounds began to be built sometime after the middle of the fourth century, a bit later than those in the Kinai region. One such is the Shindo Otsukayama Tumulus in Hiratsuka City. It has not survived intact, but from its remains the mound is thought to have been keyhole-shaped, square at the front and rounded at the back (zenpo-koen-fun). Many artifacts were discovered there, among them a “god and beast” mirror with a triangular rim, cast from the same mold as one unearthed at the Tsubai Otsukayama Kofun (Kyoto). A similar mirror was also found in a tumulus at Kasehakusan, Saiwai Ward, Kawasaki City. This kofun was a huge keyhole-shaped tumulus, eighty-seven meters long. Because these triangular-rimmed god and beast mirrors are not found in China, the argument that they were cast in Japan is a convincing one. The discovery of such mirrors in the burial mounds of regional chieftains is thought to mean that the mirror had been conferred upon the “God and Beast” mirror with triangular designs around the rim. From the Otsukayama tumulus at Shindo in Hiratsuka City. (Tokyo National Museum) occupant of the tumulus by the Yamato Kingdom of western Japan as a symbol of its authority, thereby strengthening its power and prestige. The story of how the lands of the Togoku, the eastern areas of Japan, came under the control of the Yamato state has been handed down as the tale of Yamato Takeru’s eastern expedition, which makes up part of the ancient lore of Kanagawa Prefecture. Ⅱ. Sagami and Musashi and the Taika Reforms 1. “Chief of the Sword Bearers” “Chief of the sword bearers” The oldest extant written record not only for the Togoku but for Japan as a whole is a recently discovered inscription in gold inlay on an iron sword excavated at the Inariyama kofun (Saitama PrefecIron sword from the Inariyama tumulus. (Saitama Prefectural Sakitama Archives) Kwanggaet’o monument in Ji’an County, China. ture). It provides internal evidence to support the memorial of the king of Wa mentioned earlier. The inscription is written in Chinese and reads on the front: Inscribed during the seventh month of the year of Kanotoi. The ancestors of Owake-no-omi, Ohiko by name. His son Takari-no-sukune by name. His son Teikari-wake by name. His son named Takahashi-wake. His son Tasaki-wake. His son Hatehi by name. On the back it reads: His son Kasahayo by name. His son Owake-no-omi by name. For generations we (our family) have served as chief of the sword bearers, down to the time His Imperial Highness Wakatakeru has come to reside in Shiki-no-miya. I have upheld his rule and have caused to be made this tempered sword with the origins of my service inscribed upon it thus. There can be little doubt that the Wakatakeru mentioned in the inscription refers to the emperor Yuryaku (456-479), who was also known as Ohatsusewakatakeru. Kanotoi refers to the forty-eighth year in the sexagenary cycle based on Chinese zodiacal signs, a method of reckoning time in the ancient period prior to the introduction of calendrical era names. During the reign of the emperor Yuryaku the year Kanotoi corresponds to 471 AD. In this year Owake-no-omi states that he and his ancestors, beginning with Ohiko and extending down through seven generations, have been captain of the sword bearers and have continued to serve in that capacity under the present emperor. The sword bearers were the emperor’s personal bodyguard. Ohiko in the first generation is the same name as Ohiko-no-mikoto, one of the four generals who, according to the Nihon Shoki, one of the earliest Japanese chronicles, were sent to the Hokuriku district in the ninth month of the tenth year of the reign of the emperor Sujin, (said to have reigned 97-30 B.C.) who is called Hatsukunishirasusumeramikoto (“first ruler of the land”) and is thought to be the founder of the Yamato dynasty. Caution must be exercised in identifying this Ohiko with the one mentioned on the inscription, yet the fact cannot be denied that at least by the time of the emperor Yuryaku a powerful family in the eastern lands served at the head of the sword bearers and acted as personal bodyguards to the imperial household. The Inariyama Tumulus is located in northern Musashi, and it is believed that the authority of its eventual occupant extended into Kanagawa Prefecture as well. Local administrators and private imperial estates When the Yamato dynasty brought one of the outlying kingdoms under its control, it set up a local administrator (kuni no miyatsuko) there and ruled through him. In the area which now comprises Kanagawa Prefecture three local administrators were appointed for Sagamu, Shinaga and Musashi. According to the Kokuzo Hongi (Appointment List of Local Chieftains), Ototakehiko-no-mikoto, the great grandson of Isetsuhiko-no-mikoto who was the first administrator of Musashi, was appointed administrator of Sagamu in the reign of the emperor Seimu (131-190), while the local administrator appointed for Shinaga was Miyatomiwashiomi-no-mikoto, the son of Takekoro-no-mikoto, the first administrator of Ibaragi. It is worth noting that both these men were not local chieftains but appointees The mausoleum of the Emperor Yuryaku. Osaka Prefectural. from outside the immediate area. The administrative district of Sagamu is thought to have been the region upstream on the Sagami River in the area of what later became the Koza and Aiko districts. It was probably established after the destruction of the indigenous ruling clans who had resisted the invasion of the Yamato state as reflected in the legends of Yamato Takeru. The Samukawa Shrine is thought to have been dedicated to the local administrators of Sagamu. Similarly, Shinaga probably occupied the western part of Kanagawa Prefecture centering around what later became Shinaga village in the Yurugi district, and its tutelary shrine is thought to be Kawawa-jinja, which is sacred to the memory of Shinagatsuhiko-no-mikoto. The principal area under the control of the administrator of Musashi was composed of present-day Saitama Prefecture and the metropolitan Tokyo area, but further explanation is needed on this point. Because the Kokozo Hongi refers to three local administrators in Musashi, one for Chichibu and one each for two districts both read “Musashi” but written with different Chinese characters, it is commonly believed that the latter two jurisdictions overlapped. But the duplication may reflect instead a split in the clan entrusted with administering Musashi. Internal conflict within the ruling family of Musashi dates to the reign of the emperor Ankan (531-535). The local administrator of Musashi, Kasahara-no-atai Omi, and a kinsman named Oki fought for the post of administrator for many years. Oki had not sworn allegiance to the great king (the Yamato emperor) and secretly plotted to kill Omi with the aid of Kamikenu-no-kimi Okuma. Learning of the plot, Omi fled Musashi and came to the capital, where he revealed the state of affairs to the emperor. The emperor appointed Omi local administrator and had Oki put to death. The fragmented districts were thereby united and in gratitude Omi set aside four private estates (miyake) at Yokonu, Tachibana, Tahi and Kurasu and offered them to the emperor. (Miyake was the name for private estates under the direct control of the imperial household.) The commonly accepted locations of these four miyake are as follows. The Yokonu estate was in the vicinity of Yoshimi Township and Higashi Matsuyama City (Saitama Prefecture) and the Tachibana estate was located in Kanagawa Prefecture in the area of Sumiyoshi (Nakahara Ward, Kawasaki) and Hiyoshi (Kohoku Ward, Yokohama). Tahi is a corruption of Tama and refers to the Tama district (Tokyo), while Kurasu is a corruption of Kuraki and was located in the vicinity of the Kanazawa, Isogo, and Konan wards of Yokohama. These four private estates which Omi gave to the emperor are thought to have been the former territory of his enemy Oki, which probably comprised the highlands stretching to the south and west in the land of Musashi. From that time on the part of Musashi which is now in Kanagawa Prefecture was under the direct control of the imperial house. At first private imperial estates were managed by the local administrator who had presented them to the emperor, worked by resident cultivators called tabe, but eventually overseers (tatsukasa) were appointed by the imperial household, a move which considerably strengthened the nature of imperial authority there. There were, however, far fewer private imperial estates in eastern Japan than in western Japan. Instead there was an overwhelming preponderance in the eastern provinces of be, groupings of private subjects of the imperial household based on their hereditary occupational functions, e.g. the minashirobe, the mikoshirobe, the kisaibe and the mibube. The mibube were particularly powerful in the Sagami area and their leader, known as Mibu-no-atai, later became the local administrator and district officer in the region. 2. The Taika Reforms A new order begins in the eastern provinces Because control by the imperial household had permeated more deeply in the eastern provinces than in others it was only natural that the political reorganization known as the Taika Reforms, which established a centralized imperial government, was first put into effect there. The formal starting point of the Taika Reforms was the proclamation of the reform edict in the first month of 646 (Taika 2) at the Naniwa Nagara Palace (Osaka), but operations had already commenced in the eighth month of the previous year when eight local governors (kokushi) were appointed and dispatched to the eastern provinces. Their most important duties were to compile household registers of the population under the direct control of the imperial household and of those ruled by local administrators and leaders of the be or hereditary service groups; to survey the arable land; and to collect all swords, bows and other weapons in the provinces and store them in newly-constructed arsenals. There are conflicting theories about precisely which of the eastern provinces these eight local governors had been appointed to rule and how far their authority extended, but there is no doubt that Sagami and Musashi were included among them. Surely the fact that so many private subjects of the imperial household (members of the service groups called be) were established in the eastern provinces had considerable bearing on the decision to send the governors there. The first month of the following year, 646, saw the publication of the reform edict proclaiming to the whole country the government’s intention to carry out the Taika Reforms. The edict consisted of four articles. Article One abolished private lands and subjects belonging to the emperor, local administrators, hereditary services groups and others. Article Two established a new system of local government which divided the whole country for administrative purposes into provinces (kuni), districts (gun), and hamlets (ri). Article Three instituted the registration of households, and put into effect state allotment of land and standardized land taxes. Article Four levied a tax on local products (cho) and a similar tax in lieu of labor (yo). The edict rescinded various powers of government previously exercised by local administrators and forged a system of centralized state control through court officials appointed by the emperor to manage the provinces and districts. The new order was brought to completion in 701 (Taiho 1) with the compilation of laws known as the Taiho Code (ritsuryo). The provincial boundaries of Sagami and Musashi which formed the basis for present-day Kanagawa Prefecture were established not long after the Taika Reforms and continued to remain as they were until changes were made in the early modern period by creating a new district, the Tsukui district, and by incorporating the Katsushika district of neighboring Shimosa province. Even after the promulgation of the Taiho Code provinces and districts were often created or abolished. It was not until 823 (Konin 14) in the early Heian period (794-1185) that the number of provinces throughout the country was fixed at ninetyeight. The realignment of territory in accordance with the new system meant that the part of Kanagawa Prefecture which once comprised the province of Musashi was subdivided into three districts, Tsuzuki, Kuraki and Tachibana, the last two of which had formerly been private imperial estates (miyake) donated by the local administrator. The province of Sagami was divided into eight districts: Ashigarakami, Yurugi, Ashigarashimo, Osumi, Aiko, Koza, Kamakura, and Miura. Under the rule of the Odawara Hojo in the sixteenth century, Ashigarakami and Ashigarashimo formed the western district, while Yurugi, Osumi and Aiko formed the central district. But these eight districts would be superseded by a new system of local administration instituted in 1878 (Meiji 11). In the period after the Taika Reforms, government offices for the governors and district officials (called kokuga and gunga respectively) were set up in the provinces and districts, and the seats of government were located at the provincial capitals (kokufu) or district centers (guke). The provincial capital of Musashi was within the present-day metropolis of Tokyo, but that of Sagami was moved several times. The Wamyoruijusho (Collection of Japanese Names), compiled in the tenth century, puts the capital in Osumi district, but according to a twelfth-century document it was in Yurugi district. Another theory locates it in the city of Ebina since vestiges of the Kokubunji Temple, one of which was built in every province during the Nara period, have been found there. Recently at Ayase City, a wooden placard was found, which backs up a claim that in the early Tempyo period (729-749) Ayase was the site of the capital, making it clear that the first capital of Sagami was located there. It has not been firmly established where in the Osumi district the capital mentioned in the Wamyoruijusho might have been-some say Hibita (Isehara city); others Shinomiya (Hiratsuka City); yet others Mikado (Hadano City). As for the provincial capital in the Yurugi district, the theory has been fairly firmly established that it was located at Kokufu Hongo in Oiso, that Kozu was its seaport, and that it was transferred there from the Osumi district at the end of the Heian period. In addition, the theory that there was a provincial capital in the Ashigara district near the ruins of a Buddhist temple at Nagatsuka-Chiyo, Odawara City, has recently gained credence. At any rate, nowhere else in Japan can lay claim to so many candidates for the site of the provincial capital. This is a topic of considerable importance in the history of the development of Sagami province. The defeat at Hakusukinoe and the sakimori In 663, several years after the inauguration of the Taika Reforms, an army sent by the Yamato court to the Korean Peninsula to restore the kingdom of Paekche was crushingly defeated by the allied armies of T’ang China and the kingdom of Silla. A stele found in what is now Ji’an in northeastern China was erected two years after the death of Kwanggaet’s, king of Koguryo, who reigned from 391 to 412 A.D. According to the inscription, the army of Wa (Japan) crossed the seas in the year of Shinbo (391) and invaded the kingdom of Paekche. Five years later Kwang himself invaded Paekche. In 399 the army of Wa moved against Silla; in 404 it crossed the Han River and attacked Pyongyang. Kwang repulsed the attack and inflicted a crushing defeat. There is thus no doubt that at the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth, large-scale invasions of the Korean Peninsula were being carried out by the Yamato state. The rule of the Yamato state over the peninsula, however, became increasingly difficult as it met with popular resistance resulting from a growing national awareness among the peoples of the peninsula. In 562 the area called Mimana, which had served as an outpost for the Yamato state, fell to Silla. In 660 its ally Paekche was conquered by the combined forces of Silla and the T’ang. The emperor Saimei went himself to Kyushu and from there sent a huge army for the relief of the Paekche kingdom. These reinforcements were divided into armies of the front, rear and center: the commander of the front division was Kamikenu-no-kimi Wakuko; commanders of the central division were Kose-no-kamusaki-no-omi Osa and Miwa-no-kimi Nemaro; and the commanders of the rear division were Abe-no-hikita-no-omi Hirafu and Oyake-no-omi Kamara. Altogether the army numbered twenty-seven thousand soldiers. Judging from the names of the commanders, the front division consisted of troops from the eastern provinces; the central division, those from Yamato and the provinces to its west; and the rear division seems to have been a naval force from the Hokuriku region. First the front division attacked Silla, captured two castles and then advanced on Paekche. But the army of Silla allied with the T’ang army, and in defiance of the front division’s advance made a direct attack on the royal palace of Paekche which the T’ang army had tried to besiege before Silla’s forces could reach it. Realizing the imminent danger to the palace, the central division from Yamato proceeded there directly but encountered the T’ang fleet at Hakusukinoe and was nearly annihilated in the battle. The ships of the rear division withdrew to Japan, taking with them survivors from the battle and refugees from Paekche, while the front division consisting Haniwa sculpture of a warrior from the Doyama tumulus in Atsugi City. of troops from the eastern provinces, which had arrived on the scene after the battle was over, served as a rear guard during this evacuation operation and gradually pulled back until all traces of the army of Wa had disappeared from the Korean Peninsula. The T’ang general Liu Ren-gui, who had been victorious at Hakusukinoe, immediately occupied himself with plans to overthrow Koguryo, making it necessary for Silla to check the activities of the T’ang in order to achieve its objective of unifying the peninsula. Neither Liu nor Silla had time to pursue the retreating Yamato army. Having just suffered a crushing defeat, the Yamato state had no way of knowing their enemies’ intentions, and felt it essential to make preparations to defend the country without delay. Even had it known, national defense preparations would still have been an urgent priority. The year after Hakusukinoe, beacon fires (tobuhi) and garrisons (sakimori) were posted in Tsushima, Iki, Tsukushi and other provinces in northern Kyushu. Moated fortresses (mizuki) were built in Tsukushi; and the army of the eastern provinces, which had fought the rearguard actions in the evacuation operations from the Korean Peninsula, was garrisoned there, alert for battle. This was the origin of the sakimori. They numbered three thousand soldiers, with a thousand of them replaced each year. This state of combat readiness would not be lifted until the garrisons themselves were abolished in the ninth century. The sakimori were soldiers from Sagami and Musashi as well as from the provinces of Totomi, Suruga, Izu (Shizuoka Prefecture); Kai (Yamanashi Prefecture), Awa, Kazusa, Shimosa (Chiba Prefecture); Hitachi (Ibaragi Prefecture); Shinano (Nagano Prefecture), Kozuke (Gumma Prefecture); and Shimotsuke (Tochigi Prefecture). Each provincial governor (kokushi) selected them from among his province’s troops, and then led them to Naniwa (Osaka) in Settsu province where the garrison forces were assembled. There they heard the “encouragement of the troops” delivered by a special envoy dispatched by the emperor and read only to expeditionary forces on their way to the front, and were turned over to the officer in charge of the Dazaifu. From the port at Naniwa they embarked for their garrison duties in Kyushu. Most of these sakimori were young unmarried men, who left many poems composed during their travels about the parents they had left behind. But there were married men as well. In their absence their wives wrote poems recalling their husbands as they marched over the Ashigara Pass. For the women of Sagami the pass at Ashigara (Minami Ashigara City) came to be associated with thoughts of their husbands so far away from home. 3. Sagami and Musashi under the Ritsuryo System The structure of the centralized government With the Taika Reforms the era of regionalism came to an end and a new age of centralized government began in ancient Japan. Under the new system everything was structured so that the central government would have complete control over the provinces. Farm villages in the provinces, communities which already had a history of several hundred years, were reorganized into ri (hamlets)-later to be called go (villages)-composed of fifty households each. In many cases, in order to conform with the requirement that fifty households equal one hamlet, several families were combined to make up one household. For this reason a household enrolled in the registers may not in fact have lived together as a single family. The creation of such households is thought to have been a matter of convenience for the central government in levying taxes and conscripting soldiers from farm villages. Each hamlet had its headman, a prominent resident responsible for collecting the heavy taxes imposed on the community. Next came districts (gun), which in many instances were formed from the lands governed by local administrators in the period before the Taika Reforms. These were managed by district officials (gunji) appointed by the emperor from among the local ruling families of the previous era. Like the village headman their most important function was to collect taxes. In 840 (Jowa 7) the chief district officer of the Osumi district, Mibu-no-Hironushi, paid the taxes levied on destitute farmers in his district out of his own stores of rice, and in appreciation of his services the number of households under his jurisdiction was increased by 5,350. The following year Mibu-no-Kuronari, the chief district officer of the Koza district, paid the taxes of the poor himself and relieved the starving people by distributing his own rice among them. He too was officially rewarded by an increase in the number of households in his district of 3,180. This does not mean that an additional several thousand households suddenly appeared in either of these districts-but official rewards for service under the pretext of increasing the number of households, thus honoring the district officer, suggests the intentions of the central government toward the provinces it ruled. To administer the provinces, members of the court aristocracy were appointed governors (kokushi) and were stationed in them for a four-year (occasionally, for a six-year) tour of duty. Invested with authority to act as administrator, policeman, and judge, a governor had ultimate responsibility for the conduct of the affairs of the province. The descendents of the local administrators (kuni-no-miyatsuko) who had ruled in the previous period were recognized in a ritual capacity, but they were consolidated so that each province retained only one kuni-no-miyatsuko. In Sagami province, the Nuribe family which, according to legend, had served Yamato Takeru, received the name Sagami-no-sukune and was appointed kuni-no-miyatsuko of Sagami in 768 (Jingo-Keiun 2). An official system of roads centered on the capital Before the Taika Reforms, peasants gave their produce to a local chieftain who in turn offered a portion of it as tribute to the Yamato emperor. With the Taika Reforms, however, everything became imperial property which, under the new system, was bestowed on the local chieftains by the emperor. In order to collect goods under the emperor’s control, new roads had to be constructed. Roads were necessary as well to spread the authority of the central government to the outlying provinces. At just about the time the Taiho Code was completed, the construction of seven roads originating at the capital, Nara, was also finished: these were the Tokaido, Tosando, Hokurikudo, San’indo, San’yodo, Nankaido, and Seikaido. Each road served as a direct link between the capitals of the major provinces and Nara, and subsidiary roads branched off to those capitals not on the main routes. The capital of Musashi was originally connected to the Tosando by a branch road from Kozuke province, but in 771 (Hoki 2) it was connected to the Tokaido, linking it to the capital of Sagami. From the beginning, Sagami’s capital was on the Tokaido, which crossed over the Ashigara Pass and ran through the southern Kanto region. The Tokaido passed through the districts of Kamakura and Miura, crossed the Miura Channel, reached the capital of Awa, then proceeded north through Kazusa and Shimosa and came to an end in Hitachi. The route of the old Tokaido must have reflected the political situation in the eastern provinces of ancient Japan: the power of the Kamikenu family extended as far as Musashi, and even the might of the Yamato emperor was unable to brush it aside and run the route of the highroad through the province. At intervals of approximately thirty ri (120 kilometers) along the official roads linking the provincial capitals, post stations were built. These were equipped with post horses and inns and placed at the disposal of those traveling on official missions. In Sagami such way stations were located at Sakamoto (Ashigarakami district), Obusa (Yurugi district), Minowa (Osumi district or, according to another theory, Yurugi district), Hamada (Koza district; other theories place it in the cities of Ebina or Atsugi). In that part of Musashi which now Ashigara Pass, running from Minami Ashigara City to Gotemba City. belongs to Kanagawa Prefecture, there were way stations at Tenya (perhaps near Machida City) and Kotaka (Kawasaki City). From Kotaka the road passed through the Oi post station (Tokyo) and ran as far as the capital of Shimosa (Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture). Local products of ancient Sagami According to recent calculations, during the eighth and ninth centuries, the total population living in the area that is now Kanagawa Prefecture is estimated to have been 132,440. The area under wet rice cultivation was 12,920 cho, or 12,810 hectares. By comparison, in 1965 (Showa 40) when the urbanization of the prefecture had not reached its present proportions, wet rice acreage occupied 14,251 hectares. That is, the wet rice average in the ancient period was only 0.89 percent of that in 1965. Yet there can be no doubt that during the ancient period wet rice production ranked first among the crops in this region. The cultivation of wheat and barley, which would become the products most associated with the province of Sagami in the early modern period, had been encouraged by the government since the end of the Nara period (714-794). In the farm villages, however, there was little liking for barley, and although they went to the trouble of growing the grain, farmers would feed it while still green to their horses. In the earliest extant anthology of Japanese poetry, the Manyoshu (Collection of a Myriad Leaves), one of the “Songs of Azuma” reads: Like the young colt stretching his head over the fence to eat barley, Briefly I catch sight of the one I love and feel intensely sad. It was not until the latter part of the Heian period that barley cultivation would spread among farming villages and become a staple of the Japanese diet. Special among the local products of ancient Sagami was the fruit of the tachibana, the old name for the mandarin orange. Originally it was grown in southern areas, but its history in Kanagawa is quite old, since the story of how the orange was first brought to Kanagawa is found in the tale of Tajimamori in the Nihon Shoki. Even today the southern part of old Musashi province is still thought to be the northernmost limit for the geographical distribution of citrus fruits in Japan. Mandarin oranges used to be sent as tribute to the Yamato court back in the days when Musashi and Sagami were ruled by local administrators (kuni-no-miyatsuko). The Tachibana imperial estate (miyake) in Musashi province; the name of Yamato Takeru’s consort, Oto-tachibana-hime; the place name of the Tachibana district-all these are proof of the strong impression tachibana from this region made on the Yamato court. The highlands of Musashi and Sagami and mountainous regions in the western part of the provinces were the sources as well for various medicinal herbs. These would be brought to the imperial capital and used for medicinal purposes by court officials. In Sagami as many as thirty-one different varieties of herbs were found, and twenty-eight varieties in Musashi. The murasaki plant, used as a source of purple dye, was another famous product of Sagami and Musashi. Mt. Ashigara became known for the good timber it produced. In the Manyoshu there are several poems praising ships built from this wood for their speed. According to a rather farfetched theory popular at the end of the Heian period, the name of Ashigara Pass came Turf burning at Musashino. from the fact that the keels (ashi) of ships made from the lumber there were fast (karui). Timber from Sagami province would also be used in the Tokugawa period to build residences and the castle in the city of Edo (now Tokyo). Stone was yet another of the special products of Musashi and Sagami from ancient times into the early modern period. Nebukawa stone was widely used in the construction of Edo Castle, but the use of stone from Sagami may date back as far as 713 (Wado 6) when the central government carried out an inventory of the taxable products of each province. Provinces assessed to pay their tributes with stone or ore were: Yamato and Mikawa with mica; Ise with mercury; Sagami with rock sulphur and white and yellow stone; Mino with blue stone; Shinano with rock sulphur; Kozuke with white quartz, mica and rock sulphur. But why should large heavy boulders, especially beautifully colored white, yellow and blue ones, be carried from far-off Kozuke and Sagami to the capital? In 710 (Wado 3) capital had been transferred to the Heijokyo at Nara, and the palace and the surrounding city were in the process of being built. Could the stones have been used as building materials? Whether they were or not, the inventory shows that the stones of Sagami were a noteworthy local product. Rock sulphur, sulphur extracted from cliffs, came from the mountains of Hakone in Sagami, while that of Kozuke probably came from Mt. Shirane. It was used for medicinal purposes by the imperial apothecaries. Rock sulphur continued to be mined in this way until recently when the manufacture of sulphur as a petrochemical byproduct was discovered. One of the ancient products of Sagami and Musashi which would play an important role throughout Japanese history was livestock breeding. In Sagami and Musashi horse breeding was more impor-tant than the raising of cattle. The development of pasture land there long predates the Taika Reforms. A poem about the burning of pasture lands in the highlands was sung by Yamato Takeru’s consort Oto-tachibana-hime before she threw herself into the ocean in order to calm the turbulent waters and allow her husband to complete his conquest of the east: O you, my lord, who once spoke my name, Standing among the flames of burning fire on the plains of Sagamu. The horses in the eastern provinces were known for their quality even in the pre-Taika period and were prized by the nobles of the Yamato court. There are songs in the Manyoshu about raising horses in the eastern region. One such is the song of Ujibe-no-kurome, the wife of a sakimori from the Toshima district, Musashi province, by the name of Kurahashibe-no-Aramushi: I cannot catch the roan horse let loose in the hills. Must I then make my journey through the Yokoyama mountains of Tama on foot? In this song it is possible to see the horses running free in the highlands of Sagami and Musashi and perhaps to catch a glimpse as well of the origins of the Yokoyama band, one of the seven famous warrior bands of Musashi (Musashi shichito) who were active from the end of the Heian period (794-1185) through the Nambokucho period (1336-1392). Government-run pastures were established in order to supply post horses, held in readiness for use at way stations along the official roads linking the provinces to the capital, and to provide war horses for mounted troops conscripted from each province (in Sagami these were from the Osumi and Yurugi districts). By the ninth century special government pastures known as kanboku were maintained under the jurisdiction of the Office of Military Affairs. There were fifty-one of these government pastures which provided grazing land for both cattle and horses in eighteen provinces throughout eastern and western Japan. In the eastern provinces these included pastures for oxen and horses at Takano (in Sagami), and at Hinokuma and Kansaki (both in Musashi). Today it is extremely difficult to determine where these pasture lands might have been, but the locations of some of the imperial pastures (mimaki) which were created in the tenth century to supplement the government pastures are known. Imperial pastures were only for horses, and since they were established by imperial mandate, they were also known as mandate pastures (chokushiboku). There were thirty-one of these pastures in four provinces: Kai, Musashi, Shinano, and Kozuke. None were located in Sagami but there were four in Musashi-at Ishikawa, Ogawa, Yuhi, and Tatsuno. It is generally accepted that the Ishikawa pasture was located at Ishikawa, and the Tatsuno pasture at Hongo (both in Midori Ward, Yokohama); the Ogawa pasture was at Ogawa (Akikawa City, Tokyo); and the Yuhi pasture was at Hachioji City. All four pastures were in the Tama highlands, and two of them lay within the borders of Kanagawa Prefecture. Every year on September 10, the directors (bokugen) of imperial mandate pastures would proceed to the grazing lands, brand the horses, and draw up a report. They would then select horses over four years old to be trained, and in August of the following year they would lead them up to Osaka-no-Seki in Omi, where they would be met by “horse-receiving officials” (komamukae) from the imperial court. When the party entered the capital, the emperor would proceed to the Hall for State Ceremonies (Shishin-den) to inspect the horses offered him as tribute and bestow some of them as gifts on various retainers. This ceremoney was known as komahiki (leading the horses), and during the Heian period it was an annual event at court displaying the prestige of the emperor. After the revolt of Taira no Tadatsune at the end of the eleventh century, however, this ceremony was discontinued. Subsequently it was observed as a private act of tribute to the emperor by the governor of Sagami. The disappearance of the public rite did not mean that the horse pastures of Sagami suffered a decline, but only that the management of the government pastures and the imperial mandate pastures passed from public to private control. Even though the demand for post horses along the official roads and for war horses for the army declined with the waning of imperial power in the provinces, demand for horses and cattle from the central government and the population at large actually increased. To meet this need, powerful noblemen added pasture lands to the landed estates (shoen) they possessed. Sagami and Musashi, which had produced good horses from remote antiquity, had a tradition of excellence in their breeding, raising, and training. It was upon this tradition that the warrior class of the middle ages would be built. The spread of culture As the codified ordinances of the ritsuryo system spread throughout the country from the west, the culture of western Japan spread with it. There were three routes of diffusion-Buddhism, immigrants from the mainland (kikajin), and cultured officials appointed by the central government to each province. The influence of Buddhism was first felt in Sagami province when temples such as Horyuji and Daianji, built near the capital in the Asuka period (552-646), and Todaiji in the Nara period established landholdings there. Also, the various Buddhist rites performed in provincial capitals throughout the country from the days of the emperor Temmu (673-686) must have been performed at the capital of Sagami as well. These Buddhist rituals in the provincial capital grew to such an extent that eventually in 741 (Tempyo 13) a provincial temple (kokubunji) and nunnery (kokubuniji) were ordered ordered built in each province. It is generally believed that the site of the kokubunji and kokubuniji for the province of Sagami was the Kokubunji Temple in Ebina City. Remains of the golden hall, the lecture hall, the east-west corridor, the pagoda, the priests’ quarters, the middle gate, and roofed mud walls have all been restored. The temple compound was no less than four cho (about 4 hectares) in area, and the pagoda is thought to have been a huge building nearly fifty meters high. The site of the Kokubunji Temple of Musashi province in Kokubunji City, Tokyo, has yielded an enormous number of tile fragments inscribed with district names such as Tsuzuki, Tachibana, and Kuraki; names of villages such as Oi, Takada, and Morooka; and even names of heads of households. From this it can be inferred how the temple served to unify the districts, villages, and heads of households in Musashi. Not one inscribed tile fragment, however, has been found at the site of Sagami’s Kokubunji. Could the reason for this be that, in the case of Sagami, the Kokubunji was converted into the family temple of the Mibu-no-atai, the powerful leaders of the Mibu clan in the Osumi and Koza districts? Be that as it may, the Kokubunji played the role here, as elsewhere, as the cultural center of the province. The famous monk Roben (689-773), the first abbot of Todaiji, and Gishin (781-833),the first abbot of the Enryakuji Temple of the Tendai sect, were both from Sagami province, and there are a surprisingly large number of Heian period Buddhist images in the area. These facts are evidence of the breadth of the diffusion of Buddhist culture into this region. Traces of the second route of cultural diffusion-immigrants from the mainland-can be seen concentrated in the vicinity of Komayama, Oiso Township. According to the Shoku Nihongi (Continuation of the Chronicles of Japan), an official history compiled in the late Heian period, 1,799 Koreans, originally from the kingdom of Koguryo but who had been living in the seven provinces of Suruga, Kai, Sagami, Kazusa, Shimosa, Hitachi, and Shimotsuke were transferred to Musashi in 716 (Reiki 2), establishing the Koma district. It is uncertain when the Koreans living in Sagami first entered this province, but they probably landed in the vicinity of Oiso Township and Hiratsuka City. They established a temple called Koraiji on Komayama, and their customs and conventions survived in the festivals of the old provincial capital. In the Kamakura period (1185-Komayama in Oiso Town. 1333) Koraiji was one of the fifteen temples in Sagami province that were ordered to pray for the safe delivery in childbirth of Minamoto no Yoritomo’s wife, Hojo Masako. The third route of cultural diffusion was through the officials of the central government who were posted to each province. Because the eastern provinces served as a military supply base for administering the lands of the aboriginal peoples known as the Ezo, most of the governors (kokushi) appointed by the central government were military men. The Manyoshu poet Otomo no Yakamochi was appointed governor of Sagami in 774 (Hoki 5). When he was a deputy minister of the Military Affairs Office, he had inspected the sakimori from the eastern provinces at Naniwazu (Osaka) and had recorded their now highly treasured poems. There are many poems known as Azuma uta (“Songs of the East”) in the Manyoshu, which might have been collected while he was stationed as governor of Portrait of Ariwara no Narihira. (From Kokubungaku Meika Shozoshu) Sagami. Although he left no poetry of his own composition during his time in Sagami, it is clear that he was the cultural patron of the ancient eastern provinces. The songs by the sakimori which Yakamochi collected were few in number, but they manage to convey to us even today the developed sense for poetry which existed among the simple farming peoples of Sagami. By the middle of the Heian period, when the lands of the Ezo had finally been pacified, many of the governors appointed were men of literary attainment. One such man was Ariwara no Narihira, who is said to be the author of the Ise Monogatari (Tales of Ise). He was famous as a lyric poet, but in 878 (Gangyo2), when he was appointed governor of Sagami, he was Commander of the Right of the Imperial Guards; he too must have been a military officer. His son Shigeharu, who accompanied him to Sagami, wrote poems at Obusa and Minowa, post stations on the way there. Several of the stories in the Ise Monogatari, it is thought, may reflect Narihira’s activities while holding office in Sagami. Another famous work in the history of Japanese literature is the Sarashina Nikki (Sarashina Diary), written late in life by the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue and containing remembrances of her travels through the Tama highlands and across the Ashigara Pass when, as a girl of thirteen, she returned to the capital with her father upon the expiration of his tour of duty as governor of Shimosa. Less well known is a somewhat later work by Oto no Jijyu, a daughter of Minamoto no Yorimitsu, who had already reached maturity as a poet when she accompanied her husband, Oe no Kinsuke, on his appointment as governor of Sagami and spent his four years of duty there living in the capital of the province. She took the pen name Sagami, and poems composed while in Sagami make up a large portion of her anthology, which she named the Sagamishu (Sagami Collection). Of particular importance was the book of one hundred short poems (tanka) which she wrote on sacred paper for an offering and buried beneath the Hakone Gongen Shrine while on a visit to Mt. Hakone at New Year of her third year in Sagami. Later, one of the monks at Hakone sent her one hundred poems in reply. At the end of the Heian period the practice of composing one hundred poems in a single sitting was popular in Kyoto and appears to have begun to establish itself in Sagami as well. But the following year her husband’s tour of duty came to an end and Oto no Jijyu had to return with him to the capital, so these first efforts to transplant the practice to Sagami came to naught. As this example clearly shows, the culture carried by officials from the capital occasionally encountered difficulties taking root in local soil. Ⅲ. The Dawn of the Middle Ages 1. A Land of Knights and Horse Thieves The revolts of the “horse borrowers” In 899 (Shotai 2) the governor of Kozuke province asked the central government to counter the depradations of a group of bandits in the eastern provinces who were rising up in revolt against the authorities. According to the governor, the origins of the bandits could be traced back to gangs of horse drovers. Certain men from the Bando (the area east of Ashigara Pass) had made their fortunes transporting baggage and freight on pack horses, but they procured these animals by stealing them from farmers. To cover their tracks, they Pack horses. (From the Ishiyamadera engi) would steal horses from along the Tosando road for use along the Tokaido road and vice versa. Nor would they stop at killing a peasant in order to steal even one of his horses. Eventually these drovers joined together to form bands of brigands. When Kozuke and its neighboring provinces cooperated to track down and dispose of them, they would disband and slip away over the Usui and Ashigara passes. Sentries (teira) posted at the foot of the Usui Pass (Gumma Prefecture) to examine everyone passing through were transferred to Sagami province. But the measures taken by one small province in the hinterlands were inadequate to deal with the problem, so the governor implored the central government to set up barriers at the Usui and Ashigara passes and allow travelers to pass through only after their transit papers had been checked. A new band of marauders had appeared on the scene to the discomfiture of the farmers of the eastern provinces. Since pack horses were for hire, they were later called bashaku-“borrowed horses” or “hired horses.” The drovers used the horses so harshly that bashaku came, in the late Heian period, to mean the husband a beautiful woman would choose to satisfy her passion for fine food and drink, treating him like a beast of burden. Because pack horses had to carry heavy loads on their backs, the stronger the animal the better-speed was unimportant. For this reason the “horse borrowers” set their sights on farmers’ plough horses. The barriers at Usui and Ashigara, which were later to assume strategic military importance, thus had their origins as countermeasures against these horse thieves. Several years later the province of Sagami could report that the barriers had been effective, but in the process the checking of transit papers had to be greatly intensified. Civil war and the warriors of Musashi and Sagami In 939 (Tengyo 2) the revolt of Taira no Masakado broke out in the northern Kanto. This was not only the first civil war to shake the ancient state, but the first uprising to assert the independence of the peoples of eastern Japan who had until then been at the mercy of the authorities in the west. Taira no Masakado himself was a fifth-generation descendant of the emperor Kammu. The family had been in the eastern provinces three generations, since his grandfather Takamochi, who had received the family name Taira, had been appointed Kazusa-no-suke (vice-governor of Kazusa) and had settled there. The children of Takamochi opened up farm lands in Kazusa, Shimosa, Hitachi and elsewhere and became landlords of large estates. Their descendants became what is known as the eight Taira families of the Kanto. Masakado developed the territory centered around Sashima in the northern part of Shimosa province. After the death of his father Yoshimochi, he started a dispute with the other members of the family over the disposition of the estate, which developed into an armed conflict. But eventually Masakado emerged victorious. Taking advantage of his success, he moved on to quarrel with those outside the clan as well. The turning point finally came when he attacked the capital of Hitachi, then occupied the capitals of ShimoMonument to Taira no Masakado. tsuke and Kozuke, driving out the governors appointed by the emperor. Finally he declared himself the new emperor at the capital of Kozuke, made plans to build a capital city in his Sashima district stronghold, and appointed his own governors and a number of officials for the province of Izu and the eight provinces east of the Ashigara Pass. He appointed his younger brother Masafumi governor of Sagami. The capital of Sagami at this time was in the Osumi district, and Masakado made a tour of inspection there as well. News of Masakado’s revolt stunned the nobles of the Kyoto court, but on February 14, 940, one year after he had founded his empire, Masakado was defeated by the combined forces of his kinsman Taira no Sadamori and the strongman of Shimotsuke, Fujiwara no Hidesato, and died in battle. To suppress the revolt the government in Kyoto had dispatched Fujiwara no Tadafumi, who held the title of Sei-i tai shogun (“barbarian-quelling general”). But the battle was over before he arrived. The peoples of the eastern province had suppressed the insurrection by themselves. At about the same time the revolt of Fujiwara no Sumitomo occurred in western Japan; it was mainly fought at sea, while the battles of Masakado’s revolt were fought on horseback. The horses of the east had been hardened in the past by the struggles against the Ezo; they were the products of a long tradition of horse breeding. With this revolt the eastern provinces took their first step towards independence from western domination. After Masakado’s defeat and death the conquering armies entered the region and carried out a purge of his remaining troops. Masakado’s older brother, Masatoshi, and Fujiwara no Harumochi, whom Masakado had appointed vice-governor of Hitachi, were both put to death in Sagami province. The revolt of Taira no Tadatsune In 1028, nearly ninety years after the death of Masakado and one year after the death of Fujiwara no Michinaga, the greatest of the Fujiwara regents who were then at the height of their domination over the imperial court in Kyoto, the revolt of Taira no Tadatsune broke out in the Boso Peninsula (Chiba Prefecture). Police and judicial commissioners Taira no Naokata and Nakahara no Narimichi were dispatched by the imperial court to bring the area under control, but three years passed without their being able to do so. The devastation to the area was said to exceed that which occurred during Masakado’s revolt. Finally the imperial court transferred the command to Minamoto no Yorinobu. Thereupon Tadatsune offered no further resistance and surrendered himself at Yorinobu’s headquarters bringing his revolt to a speedy conclusion. Although Taira no Naokata had failed suppress this rebellion, he had built a fortress in Kamakura while residing in the eastern provinces and left descendants there. They would eventually form the Hojo clan, who in the next century would help to establish the Kamakura shogunate. Impressed by the military prowess of Yorinobu’s son Yoriyoshi, he welcomed him into the family as a sonin-law and handed over his Kamakura fortress to him. Three sons were born of the union between Yoriyoshi and Naokata’s daughter: The Later Three Years’ War. (From Go sannen gassen ekotoba, Tokyo National Museum) Hachiman Taro Yoshiie, Yoshitsuna, and Yoshimitsu. With them the age of the Minamoto clan was to dawn. Yoriyoshi had first accompanied his father to the east at the time of Tadatsune’s rebellion. When he returned there in 1037 (Choryaku 1) as governor of Sagami, it is said, the entire populace pledged their allegiance to him, tax resisters paid up like obedient servants, and most of the men in the lands east of Osaka (in Omi, now Shiga Prefecture, the westernmost border of the eastern provinces) who could shoot an arrow or ride a horse became Yoriyoshi’s personal retainers. When the Earlier Nine Years’ War (Zen Kunen no Eki) broke out in Mutsu (Aomori Prefecture) in 1501, Yoriyoshi, who had become governor there, assembled an army from the soldiers of the province and his vassal warriors from the eastern provinces, who fought together throughout the war. For twelve years hard-fought battles were waged repeatedly, but the solidarity of the leaders of the revolt, the powerful Abe clan, was unwavering. In November of 1056 (Tengi 4) Yoriyoshi suffered a great defeat at the battle of Kiumi (Fujisawa Town, Higashi Iwai district, Iwate Prefecture), and for a time he was presumed dead. At this juncture Saeki no Tsunenori, who had himself narrowly escaped being surrounded by the enemy, returned to the fray declaring, “For thirty years I have followed my general and I intend to accompany and serve him even in the underworld.” Saeki’s men responded, “If our lord intends to die for the general it will not do for us to survive without him.” They followed their master, fought bravely with him, and died in battle. Saeki no Tsunenori is said to be the ancestor of the Hatano family, who later became powerful vassals of the shogun in the Hatano area of Sagami. As this story indicates, by the eleventh century strong feudal relationships had already begun to develop. Other followers of Yoriyoshi who fought valiantly in the same battle were Fujiwara no Kagemichi and his son Kagesue, who are thought to be the ancestors of the Kamakura band of Sagami province. Warriors from Sagami again formed the core of the army led by Yoriyoshi’s son Yoshiie when, some twenty years after the Earlier Nine Years’ War, the Later Three Years’ War (Go Sannen no Eki) broke out. Yoshiie had intervened in an internal dispute within the Kiyowara family, who had come to the aid of Yoriyoshi in the bitter fighting of the earlier war and had become rulers of Oshu after leading him to victory. Famous among the Sagami warriors of the Later Three Years’ War was Kamakura Gongoro Kagemasa. He was sixteen when he became a warrior; yet, when shot in the right eye by an enemy arrow which pierced through to the nape of his neck, he did not waver but shot and killed his opponent with an arrow and then returned to camp where he collapsed. The renowned warrior Miura Tametsugu approached Kagemasa, stepped on his face with his leather-soled boots and tried to pull the arrow out. Thereupon Kagemasa suddenly tried to stab at Tametsugu from below and kill him. To the astonished Tametsugu he said, “To be shot with an arrow and die in battle is a desirable end for a warrior, but it is unforgivable for anyone to put his foot on my head while I am still alive. You are my enemy.” The samurai spirit is said to be a combination of fierceness and a sense of honor. Its origins can be seen in the warriors of Sagami. Not without cause, Kagemasa was later deified at the Goryo Shrine in the city of Kamakura. With warriors such as these serving under him, it is no wonder that the nobles of Kyoto called Yoshiie “the premier warrior in all the realm.” Manorial estates and the warrior class The hero of the Later Three Years’ War, Kamakura Gongoro Kagemasa, assembled a band of vagabonds at the beginning of the twelfth century to develop the highland area near what is now Oba, Fujisawa City. With the permission of the provincial governor he donated this land to the Great Shrine of Ise as a mikuriya. Mikuriya were large estates which provided foodstuffs such as vegetables, fish and shellfish as an annual tribute to be offered to the emperor, the gods of the imperial household, and various shrines. The followers of Yoriyoshi and Yoshiie, or at any rate their descendants in the Kamakura period, were all developers or proprietors of lands from which they took their surnames. The Oba mikuriya had formerly been land in the village of Oba which belonged to the province, but by the time Kagemasa donated it to the shrine’s control the area consisted of twelve villages. By 1144 (Tenyo 1) the area extended approximately nine kilometers to the east and west and about seven kilometers north to south, having as its borders the Matano River, which separated it from the manorial estate at Tamanawa on the east; the sea to the south; Ichinomiya, the village belonging to the Samukawa Shrine in the west; and Omakizaki in the north. It was in 1144 that retainers of Minamoto no Yoshitomo, using the fortress at Kamakura as their stronghold, claimed that Kugenuma village in the Oba mikuriya estate was part of the Kamakura district, invaded it with the aid of provincial authorities and tried to make the estate provincial property. Provincial representatives were then urging the province’s interests against the villages of Tonobara and Kagawa (Chigasaki City) in the western portion of the mikuriya as well. When, near the close of the Heian period, the domination of the Fujiwara Regents had ended, it was replaced by the so-called cloistered government (insei) of ex-emperors who still in fact continued to rule. Under the auspices of these cloistered governments a movement to return land to provincial control was carried on. The disputes over the Oba estate probably were a part of this general trend. But the movement against the Oba estate, even when backed by the military might of the Minamoto clan, ultimately ended in failure. So great was the might of the Ise Shrine that it could oppose even the warrior class. The Oba mikuriya was located in the south, but the Inage estate was established in the north of the province. This manorial estate (shoen), comprising the area spanning Takatsu and Nakahara Wards in Kawasaki City, was developed by Inage Saburo Shigenari, who was the proprietor of Ozawa village, the area now occupied by Hosoyama, Kanahodo and Suge in the northern part of Tama Ward, Kawasaki City. Inage Shigenari was also a powerful Kamakura warrior. It is uncertain when he developed the area, but it is thought to have been later than the Oba mikuriya. The area was divided into the original Inage estate and the new estate. The original estate included the villages of Inage, Odanaka, and Ida. Since these names do not appear in the tenth-century Collection of Japanese Names (Wamyoruijusho), they were probably villages which were created at the time the area was developed, as many villages were in the medieval period. Lands under rice cultivation comprised 263 cho (261 hectares), uncultivated lands 262 cho (260 hectares), for a total of more than five hundred cho. An additional fifty-five cho (54 hectares) of recently opened land was also recorded and the annual tribute per cho was two rolls of silk eighty feet long. Payment in silk cloth was specified since the estate was in an area where mulberry was grown, silkworms raised, and silk produced. Although originally the land along the Tama River had been an area that produced bleached linen, an annual tribute in silk probably means that they were forced to make silk instead. Proprietorship of this estate eventually passed to the Kujo family. The enormous Kasuya estate in the western part of the prefecture encompassed Kamikasuya, Shimokasuya, Takamori, Koinaba (all in Isehara City) and Konabeshima (in Hiratsuka City). In 1154 (Kyuju 1) it became a manorial estate (shoen) and in 1159 (Heiji 1) it came under the control of Anrakujuin, a cloister founded by the ex-emperor Toba within the Toba Imperial Villa. The Kamakura warriors of the Kasuya clan, judging from their name, were probably involved in the development of this estate. According to their genealogy the clan was descended from Fujiwara no Motokata, but it seems highly probable that their ancestor was in fact Saeki no Motokata, a follower of Yoriyoshi during the Later Three Years’ War, who probably served as a provincial officer during the Heian period. In addition, many other manorial estates (shoen) had been established within the prefecture by the end of the Heian period, and each became the domicile of origin for the warriors who would take their family names from them. These samurai, it may be supposed, were the developers or proprietors of these estates. The following are estates within the province of Sagami itself: the Oi estate in the Ashigarakami district (now Oimachi, Odawara City; property of Enshoji Temple, Kyoto; samurai developer unknown), the Odomo estate (Higashi and Nishi Odomo, Odawara City; property of the Hachimangu Shrine, Kamakura; samurai developer, the Odomo family), the Narita estate (Narita, Odawara City; property of the Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Yorinaga, after the revolt of the Hogen era, property of the cloistered emperor Goshirakawa, who donated it to the Shin Hiei Shrine, Kyoto. In the middle of the Kamakura period control was transferred to the empress Daiguin Saionji Kitsuko, wife of the emperor Gosaga, and to the daughter of the emperor Kameyama, Shokeimonin Yoshiko); the Soga estate (Minami Ashigara City; samurai developer, the Soga family); Hayakawa estate (Odawara City; property of Nagaie, son of Fujiwara no Michinaga; but virtual control was in the hands of Oe no Kinsuke; samurai developer, the Doi family); the Nakamura estate (Nakai Township; samurai developer, the Nakamura family); the Kawawa estate (Ninomiya Township; property of the daughter of the emperor Toba, Hachijojoin Shoshi); the Hatano estate (Hadano City; property of the imperial household, later of the Konoe family; samurai developer, the Hatano family); the Sakitori and Shinomiya estates (Hiratsuka City; property of the imperial household); the Toyoda estate (Hiratsuka City; samurai developer, the Toyoda family); the Aiko estate (Atsugi City; property of Kumano Temple; samurai developer, the Aiko family); the Mori estate (Atsugi City; samurai developer, the Mori family); the Shibuya estate (Ayase and Fujisawa cities; samurai developer, the Shibuya family); the Yoshida estate (Yokohama; samurai developer the Shibuya family); the Yamanouchi estate (Kamakura; samurai developer, the Yamanouchi Sudo family); the Miura estate (Yokosuka City; samurai developer, the Miura family); the Misaki estate (Miura City; property of the daughter of the emperor Sanjo, Reizeiin, later of the Konoe family); the Mutsuura estate (Yokohama; samurai developer, the Kanazawa family); the Kase estate (property of the daughter of the emperor Goshirakawa, Senyomonin Mieko); the Kawasaki estate (Kawasaki City; samurai developer, the Kawasaki family); the Tachibana mikuriya estate (Kawasaki City; property of the Ise Grand Shrine); the Hangaya mikuriya estate (Yokohama; property of the Inner Shrine at Ise; samurai developer, the Hangaya family); the Oyamada estate (Machida City; samurai developer, the Oyamada family). These are the main shoen established in Kanagawa Prefecture by the end of the Heian period and the names of the samurai families who took their surnames from them. Public domains and the warrior class Until recently it was commonly believed that when the manorial estates (shoen) developed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the system of government-owned lands collapsed, and the public domains (koryo) managed by the provincial governors disappeared without a trace. Certainly in some provinces the governors themselves openly acknowledged such a state of affairs. But recent scholarship has pointed out that, in fact, just the opposite occurred. The theory has even been advanced that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the formation of a political and economic system of public domains which paralleled that of the manorial estates and that both forms of land tenure should be given equal importance. The need for further research into the public domains of the middle ages from this perspective has come to be recognized. Unfortunately there are few documents from which these public domains can be clearly identified as such; public domains were not called shoen but given such names as go, ho, mura, myo, and yama. To complicate the matter, in the middle ages these names were widely used in reference to places within a shoen. For this reason a great deal of uncertainty accompanies any attempt to try to distinguish between the systems of public domains and manorial estates. Mindful of these difficulties and proceeding with great caution, Ishi Susumu has determined from a study of prefectural historical documents that by the end of the fourteenth century there were as many as 120 public domains in the region around Kanagawa Prefecture. The basic unit for an overwhelmingly large number of the public Looking toward the old Miura estate from the ruins of Kinugasa Castle. Miura City. domains was the village (go). However, the names of only seven of these villages in Sagami and only three in Musashi correspond to those listed in the tenth century “Collection of Japanese Names” (Wamyoruijusho), which records as villages communities of fifty households. Instead, in a large majority of instances the names of villages in the public domains tend to correspond to village names from the early modern period, and four place names have been handed down from then to the present day. This means that compared to the villages established under the old ritsuryo system, those in the public domains of the middle ages were smaller in scope and laid the basis for communities which would continue through the early modern period into modern times. A number of villages were also created within the manorial estates of the middle ages. They had exactly the same characteristics as their counterparts within the public domains, a fact which suggests the homogenizing process that these two systems of land tenure had undergone. In the villages of the public domains a village chieftain (goshi) was installed to supervise the area and collect taxes. Since they were officials with direct links to the provincial government, second only in importance to the district chiefs (gunshi), powerful local residents were appointed to the post. The names of some of these chieftains have survived in historial documents: the Kondota family of Furusho village, Aiko district (near Iiyama, Atsugi City); the Odomo family, who had hereditary rights to the office in Odomo village, Ashigarashimo district (Higashi and Nishi Odomo, Odawara City); Ebina Toshikage of Ebina village, Koza district. At the beginning of the Kamakura period some samurai families are thought to have held the office in their respective localities: the Matsuda branch of the Hatano family who controlled Matsuda village (Matsuda Township); the Kawamura family of Kawamura village, Yamakita Township; and the Toi family, who held power in both Yugawara Township and Toi village, Manazuru Township. This pattern suggests that influential samurai land developers had established themselves even within the public domains. Belonging to this group of samurai developers were the Odomo, Matsuda, Kawamura, Toi, Okazaki, Furusho, Iida, Nagao, Ashina, Wada, Tairako, Onda and Ichigao families. The administration of Sagami and Musashi under Yoshitomo and his sons One such public domain was the area which included the villages of Yui, Kobayashi, Okura and Fukazawa in the Kamakura district, an area which now comprises the greater part of the city of Kamakura. This area was the base of operations for Minamoto no Yoshitomo, who had taken up residence in the fortress there when, with the backing of court officials, he attempted to abolish the Oba mikuriya estate. Yoshitomo had his eldest son Yoshihira by a daughter of one of these court officials, Miura-no-suke Yoshiakira, and a second son, Tomonaga, by the sister of Hatano Yoshimichi, the proprietor of the Hatano estate. Tomonaga’s residence was located in Matsuda village within the Hatano family’s territory. Something of its size can be deduced from the fact that frontage of the samurai barracks and headquarters (samurai-dokoro) was twenty-five ken (45.5 meters), far larger than the structure built when another of Yoshitomo’s sons, Yoritomo, set up his shogunate in Kamakura, with a frontage of only eighteen ken (27.3 meters). From this it is possible to surmise the troop strength of the Hatano family and the size of the contingent of Yoshitomo’s forces which had been integrated into the Hatano family’s troops. The army of Miura-no-suke Yoshiakira was even larger. In time Yoshitomo returned to Kyoto, and on the retirement of his father Tameyoshi, succeeded him as head of the Minamoto clan. After Yoshitomo left Kamakura, his eldest son Yoshihira inherited the administration of Musashi and Sagami. He was a violent man who while very young had been nicknamed “Kamakura no AkuGenta,” “the bad boy of Kamakura.” At the tender age of fifteen he made a sudden leap into prominence as a warrior when he attacked and killed his uncle Tatewaki Senjo Yoshikata at the Okura mansion in Musashi (Saitama Prefecture). At one stroke he had eliminated Yoshikata, who from his stronghold in Tako district, Kozuke province, had formed an alliance with the powerful warrior of Musashi, Chichibu Shigetaka, and had set his sights on the lands in Sagami and Musashi that formed Yoshitomo’s power base. Yoshikata’s posthumous child Yoshinaka took refuge in the Kiso valley of Shinano, one day to confront Minamoto no Yoritomo. Warriors of Sagami and Musashi at war in the capital In 1156 (Hogen 1) the Hogen Insurrection broke out in Kyoto, when the power struggle between Emperor Goshirakawa and his chief minister Fujiwara no Tadamichi on the one hand and exEmperor Sotoku and the Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Yorinaga on the other developed into armed conflict. Both the emperor Goshirakawa’s party and the party of Sotoku called on the support of warriors from the Minamoto (Genji) and Taira (Heike) clans in the conflict. Yoshitomo led a large band of warriors from the eastern provinces in support of Emperor Goshirakawa. The warriors from Sagami who joined Yoshitomo’s contingent included Oba Heita Kageyoshi and Oba Saburo Kagechika; Yamanouchi Gyobu-no-jo Toshimichi and his son Takiguchi Toshitsuna, Ebina Genpachi Toshisada, Hatano Kojiro Yoshimichi and, from the three districts of Musashi within the present prefectural borders, the name of the Morooka family can be added to the list. Yoshitomo’s other followers in that attack included, from Musashi, the Toshima, Chujo, Narita, Hazuta, Kawachi, Beppu, Nara, Tamanoi, Tanji, Saito, Hanzawa, Kodama, Chichibu, Aihara, Inomata, Kaneko, Kakuno, Tebaka, Murayamato Kaneko, Yamaguchi, Hirayama, and Kawagoe families. Although the Oba family of Musashi had fought against Yoshitomo in the Oba mikuriya estate affair, the fact that their name is included here bespeaks the success of Yoshitomo and Yoshihira’s efforts after the defeat of Yoshikata to reconstruct their warrior band in Musashi and Sagami. In contrast, the followers of Yoshitomo’s father Tameyoshi, who took the opposing side in the conflict and who had failed in his attempt to organize a band of warriors in the eastern provinces under Yoshikata, were mainly made up of his sons living in Kyoto: Yorikata, Yorinaka, and Tamemune, whose mother was a concubine of Minamoto no Motozane; Tamenari, whose mother was the daughter of the guardian of the Kamo Shrine, Narimune; Chinzei Hachiro Tametomo, whose mother was a courtesan at Eguchi (Higashi-Yodogawa Ward, Osaka). Tameyoshi’s own mother was concubine of Fujiwara no Aritsuna, undersecretary for the empress. Thus, his ties with the eastern provinces were slight. Yoshitomo made a great contribution to the victory in the Hogen Insurrection, but in spite of his service his pleas that Tameyoshi’s life be spared went unheeded. He was compelled to put to death his father and a number of his brothers who had surrendered to him, and to make matters worse, his rewards were far less than those bestowed on the family of Taira no Kiyomori, who had also sided with Emperor Goshirakawa. Nursing these grievances Yoshitomo joined forces with Fujiwara no Nobuyori and fought against Kiyomori in the Heiji Insurrection (1159), but was overwhelmingly defeated. Warriors from Sagami and Musashi fought with Yoshitomo in this revolt as well. Conspicuous among them were Yamanouchi Toshitsuna, who died in the attack at Rokujo-Kawara in Kyoto, and his father Toshimichi, who died fighting in the rear guard of Yoshitomo’s retreating army. After both the Hogen and Heiji rebellions the victorious parties were merciless in tracking down the defeated. The entire family of Minamoto no Tameyoshi was wiped out for their part in the Hogen Insurrection, and after the Heiji Insurrection all of Yoshitomo’s family, including little children, were beheaded. The only children to escape were Minamoto no Yoritomo at the request of Ike no Sculpture portrait of Miura Yoshiakira. (Manshoji Temple, Yokosuka City) Zenni, Taira no Tadamori’s widow, and Yoshitsune and his two brothers, whose lives were spared in return for their mother Tokiwagozen becoming Kiyomori’s mistress. Yoritomo was exiled to Izu into the custody of the trusted Heike retainer Yamaki Kanetaka. Yoshitsune hid in a mountain temple and became a monk. If the Taira clan was merciless in its pursuit of the main branch of the Minamoto family, they were magnanimous to the warrior bands of the eastern provinces which had massed together under Minamoto leadership. At home these men were heads of landed estates or of villages, or held public office. As members of a defeated army they were not allowed to bear arms, but they did not lose their previous occupations. Furthermore, since the feudal system was still imperfectly developed, the relation between warriors and their overlord was not as absolute as it would become in the middle ages. Of the several hundred warriors in the eastern provinces, only a handful died for their Minamoto masters. The majority deserted the battlefield as the shadows of defeat grew darker and returned to their lands or remained in Kyoto to serve as bodyguards at the imperial palace, under the protection of the Taira family, who commanded the guard. The Taira made concerted efforts to reorganize the former army of the Minamoto under their own control. For example, Oba Kagechika, who had fought valiantly for the Minamoto in both the Hogen and Heiji revolts, was made commander of the Taira troops, and members of the family of Yamanouchi Sudo, who had died for Yoshitomo during the Heiji Insurrection, and of the Hatano family, who had built the enormous residence for Yoshitomo’s son Tomonaga, were enlisted under the Taira banner. A survey of Taira retainers taken at the height of the clan’s fortunes lists fifty-nine warrior families from Ise, followed by forty-six from Musashi and thirtyeight from Sagami. These included: Matano Kagehisa (Matano village in the Oba mikuriya estate), Nagao Tamekage (Nagao village, Kamakura district), Kajiwara Iekage (Kajiwara village, Kamakura district), Yagishita Masatsune (Yagishita village, Ashigarashimo district), Kagawa Goro (Kagawa, Koza district), Shibuya Shigekuni (Shibuya estate), Kokubu Taro (Kokubunji estate), Homma Goro (Homma, Aiko district), Soga Sukenobu (Soga estate), Kasuya Morihisa (Kasuya estate), Kawamura Yoshihide (Kawamura village), Iida Goro (Iida, Koza district), Mori Kageyuki (Mori estate), Tsuchiya Yoshikiyo (Tsuchiya estate), Doi Sanehira (Doi village), Miura Yoshizumi (Miura district). They came from both manorial estates and public domains alike and the majority of them would follow Oba Kagechika, the general of the collected forces of the Taira, and make life difficult for Minamoto no Yoritomo as he commenced raising an army of his own. THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD Ⅰ. Kamakura: Warrior Capital of Japan 1. The Birth of the Lord of Kamakura Yoritomo enters Kamakura Twenty years passed after the Heiji Insurrection. Minamoto Yoritomo, who was fifteen when he was exiled to Hirugakojima on the Izu Peninsula (Shizuoka Prefecture), was now thirty-five years old and in the prime of life. In 1180 (Jisho 4), he received an edict issued by Prince Mochihito (second son of the emperor Goshirakawa) at the advice of Minamoto Yorimasa in Kyoto, commanding him to raise an army and overthrow the Taira family. After receiving this edict, on the night of August 17, 1180, Yoritomo rose in revolt. He was joined by Hojo Tokimasa, a local government official in Izu and the father of his wife Masako, and by warriors from Izu and western Sagami with whom he had previously established contact. They made a surprise attack on the deputy-governor of Izu, Yamaki Kanetaka, killing him and seizing control of the provincial capital. Then, displaying at the head of his army Prince Mochihito’s edict entrusting him with authority over the eastern provinces, Yoritomo advanced toward the Kanto region. But at Ishibashiyama, in the southern part of what is now Odawara City, he was met by more than three thousand mounted warriors led by Oba Kagechika and soundly defeated. Finally, with the help of Toi Sanehira, Yoritomo escaped by sea at Manazuru, fleeing to the province of Awa at the tip of the Boso Peninsula. In Awa, Yoritomo joined forces with the Miura family, who had responded to Yoritomo’s call for their support from their stronghold in the Miura Peninsula, but had arrived too late to join him in battle, and had been driven into Awa by the forces of the Hatakeyama clan. Regrouping his forces, Yoritomo accepted the submission of Kazusa-no-suke Hirotsune, the vice-governor of Kazusa, and Chiba Tsunetane of Shimosa, and entered Musashi. In that province he formed a huge army, incorporating into the troops under his control the powerful warrior bands of the Hatakeyama, Edo, and Kawagoe families. He then entered Sagami, where on the advice of Tsunetane he established his headquarters at Kamakura, his ancestral stronghold. Yoritomo entered Kamakura on October 7, 1180 Jisho 4). Shortly thereafter he transferred the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine near Yuigahama, at which his ancestor Yoriyoshi had worshipped, to Tsurugaoka in Kamakura. He designated Okura, just east of the shrine, as the site for his own residence and put Oba Kageyoshi in Site of the Battle of Ishibashiyama. Odawara City. charge of its construction. This was the beginning of Kamakura as the warrior capital of Japan. Later that month, Yoritomo took to the field at Kashima in the province of Suruga (Shizuoka Prefecture), engaging the Taira army which had advanced from Kyoto. The confrontation of the two armies in the Battle of Fujigawa led to a rout of the Taira forces. Yoritomo was prepared to give chase but stopped on the advice of Chiba Tsunetane and Miura Yoshizumi. On October 25, he entered Matsuda Castle in Sagami, then reversed course and went in pursuit of Satake Hideyoshi of Hitachi, put Hagino Toshishige to death, and returned to Kamakura on November 17. That very day, he appointed Wada Yoshimori administrator of the samurai-dokoro (the board of retainers), and on December 12 he moved into his newly completed residence at Okura. The vassals in immediate attendance on him, 311 men under Wada Yoshimori, took up residence in their respective lodgings in Kamakura. Kamakura thus established itself as the capital city of the military class. Where previously no one but fishermen and peasants had lived, samurai houses lined the streets. The Taira family still held the reins of power in Kyoto at this time. In November 1183 (Juei 2), however, they were attacked there by Yoritomo’s cousin Kiso Yoshinaka, who had risen in revolt in the Hokurikudo (the seven provinces along the northern part of the Japan Sea coast), and forced to flee eastward by sea. With control of the country divided among the Taira, Yoshinaka, and Yoritomo, Kamakura became the capital of the eastern provinces, including Ise, and the province of Sagami leapt onto the center stage of Japanese history. Yoritomo himself did not leave Kamakura, but sent his half-brothers Yoshitsune and Noriyori to Kyoto at the head of the army of the eastern provinces. In 1184 (Genryaku 1) they defeated Kiso Yoshinaka, and in March 1185 (Bunji 1) they destroyed the entire Taira clan in a land and sea battle at Dannoura in Nagato province (Yamaguchi Prefecture). With the defeat of the Oshu Fujiwara family in 1189 (Bunji 5), Yoritomo unified the country under his control. These victories were entirely due to the efforts of warriors from the Kanto region centered on Sagami and Musashi. During this period Yoritomo received the title “Lord of Kamakura,” and even when the imperial court in Kyoto changed the era name to Yowa in 1181, Yoritomo retained the old era name of Jisho. These were two clear signs of the independent government which he had established. Establishment of the Kamakura bakufu The first things that Yoritomo did after he shifted his base from Awa to Kamakura were (1) to create the samurai-dokoro to oversee military affairs and to consolidate his control over the warriors under him, (2) to appoint Wada Yoshimori to preside over this institution in the office of betto, and (3) to employ courtiers from Kyoto who had remained in touch with him even during his exile as secretaries in charge of government affairs, thus completing the arrangements for his administrative system. With men of exceptional literary ability like Miyoshi Yasunobu, a nephew of his wet nurse; Nakahara Chikayoshi, who had previously been in charge of his education and was a friend of long standing; and Chikayoshi’s brother, Oe Hiromoto, acting as liaisons with the imperial court, Yoritomo made great headway in establishing his rule over the eastern provinces. In 1184 (Genryaku 1) he created the kumonjo (public documents office) and the monchujo (board of inquiry) modeled on similar institutions in the imperial court, and put Oe Hiromoto and Miyoshi Yasunobu in charge of each of them respectively. In 1185 (Bunji 1), after Yoritomo was promoted to the second court rank, junior grade, the public documents office was absorbed into the mandokoro, as his new and expanded administrative institution was called. In 1192 (Kenkyu 3) Yoritomo was appointed supreme commander of the Japanese army (Seii-tai-shogun), and the shogunate at Kamakura became the de jure as well as de facto capital of his warrior government. In December 1185 (Bunji 1), in order to defeat Yoshitsune, who, estranged from his brother, had plotted to raise an army of his own, Yoritomo had forced the imperial court to issue edicts authorizing the pursuit and execution of Yoshitsune as well as the division of the provinces of Japan among Hojo Tokimasa and other major Minamoto vassals. These edicts also permitted the levying of a commissariat tax of five sho (one sho=1.8 liter) of rice per tan (993 square meters) on all estates, both public and private. An imperial edict was also promulgated appointing Yoritomo chief military commissioner (soshugo) and chief lord of all the manors of Japan, and making important members of his retinue military governors (shugo) and land stewards (jito) in the various provinces. This put Yoritomo in charge of all the land stewards in the country and placed in his hands the powers of maintaining law and order. Nor did his power stop there, for the imperial edict also put the Lord of Kamakura in charge of public lands and placed under him all officials responsible for these lands, all minor officials on public and private estates, and all local military commanders. Through these measures Yoritomo’s retainers were appointed as land stewards (jito) in the territories formerly controlled by the Taira clan and by Yoshitsune. This series of imperial edicts and decrees amounted to official recognition of the military regime Portrait of Minamoto Yoritomo. (Jingoji Temple. Kyoto) created by Yoritomo. The military governors (shugo) and land stewards (jito) appointed were warriors from Sagami, Musashi, Izu, Kozuke, Shimotsuke, Kazusa and Shimosa who had fought in the front lines for Yoritomo since he had first raised his army. Thus they held dominion not only over the lands from which they had taken their surnames but over the lands in which they served as shugo and jito as well. Such appointments became the mechanism by which the warriors of Sagami and Musashi spread throughout the country during the middle ages, while Kamakura, where the shogun who ruled over all these warriors lived, became a political center rivaling the imperial capital of Kyoto. Development of the Kamakura highway system When Kamakura became the capital of the shogunate, travel between Kamakura and Kyoto on both public and private business rapidly increased. The Tokaido road had previously connected Kyoto with the capital of Sagami (which at the time was located in present-day Oiso), then passed inland until it reached the capital of Shimosa (Ichikawa City). Now the old pre-Taika route which crossed the Uraga Channel and cut vertically through the Miura Peninsula was reactivated. The post stations built under the old ritsuryo system were reorganized, and a number of inns were established along the route between Kyoto and Kamakura. In 1252 (Kencho 5), when Prince Munetaka proceeded to Kamakura to assume the office of shogun, he listed thirty inns between Kyoto and Kamakura in his travel diary. There are, however, certain discrepancies between this list and accounts given by other travelers on this route from about the same period, the Kaidoki for example, a travel diary written by Minamoto Mitsuyuki in 1223 (Joo 2), the Tokan Kiko written by Minamoto Chikayuki in 1242 (Ninji 3), and the Izayoi Nikki of 1277 (Kenji 3), a diary kept by the waka poetess Abutsu Ni. Abutsu died in Kamakura after journeying there to make a personal appeal to the shogunate for adjudication of a dispute over the property of the Reizei family, the foremost family of poets of the day. In order to accommodate these conflicting accounts, it must be assumed that there were two routes, one through the Ashigara Pass, the other through the Hakone mountains. The former was basically an extension of the Tokaido built during the Heian period, and proceeded from Takenoshita in Shizuoka Prefecture through the Ashigara Pass, entering Kamakura by way of post stations at Sekishita (Sakashita) and Sakawagawa. The latter crossed the Hakone mountains from the Mishima post station in Shizuoka Prefecture, passed through Yumoto, and entered Kamakura via post stations at Kawawa, Aizawa and other points. While Minamoto Yoritomo was raising his army in Izu he was particularly devoted to three shrines, the Izu Mishima Shrine, the Hakone Shrine and the Izu Gongen Shrine. He made pilgrimages to these shrines at the beginning of every year. When such pilgrimages became customary, the route over the pass at Hakone gradually increased in importance, and by the Muromachi period (1334-1573) the Ashigara route had declined and the Hakone route was used instead. The Hakone route led through Ashikawa, Yumoto, Odawara, Kawawa, Gunsui, Shiomi, Hiratsuka, and Futokorojima to The Izusan Shrine. Atami City. Kamakura. This route became the main artery along which pulsed the course of Japanese history. Along it traveled emissaries of the Kamakura shogunate; along it men of letters, scholars, and performers from Kyoto summoned by the shogun made the journey to Kamakura and back; at other times retainers came from the western provinces to serve as guards in the city, or warriors from the eastern provinces traveled along it to Kyoto in order to serve there as military governors (shugo) and bodyguards to the imperial court; and parties to lawsuits traveled along it to Kamakura to appeal to the shogunal courts to settle their disputes-embracing different objectives and different hopes they all traveled up and down this road. During the middle ages, the Tokaido functioned as the main artery of political and cultural life. Other important arteries feeding into the Tokaido were the highways known as the Kamakura okan. (In the Edo period these would be called the Kamakura kaido.) These highways were built between Kamakura and each of the eastern provinces in order to facilitate the mobilization of the government’s vassals whose domains were concentrated in those areas. Three roads-the Upper Road, the Central Road, and the Lower Road-formed the core of the system. The Upper Road ran north from Kamakura through central Musashi, then on through Kozuke and Shimotsuke toward Shinano. The Central Road left Kamakura and headed in a northerly direction midway between the Upper Road and the shores of Tokyo Bay, on its way to Utsunomiya and Mutsu. The Lower Road proceeded north along Tokyo Bay, then branched off along the coast towards Kazusa and Shimosa, while another branch went off in the direction of Hitachi. In addition to these three roads, there was the Mutsuura road which started from Kisarazu in Kazusa, crossed Tokyo Bay by ferry, came ashore at Mutsuura in Musashi, passed through Kanazawa, and entered Kamakura. There was also a road from the province of Kai to Kamakura over the Misaka and Kagosaka passes. These roads and others enabled retainers to hasten to Kamakura ready to fight at a moment’s notice when an emergency occurred there. They also provided escape routes by which to flee the city when a samurai sensed his life to be in danger. Furthermore, they served as the roads for the Kanto army when it marched out in strength at the time of Yoritomo’s conquest of Oshu in 1189 and again during the imperial court’s abortive attempt to overthrow the shogunate in 1221, the so-called Jokyu Disturbance. Building the city of Kamakura Other highways also converged on Kamakura. There were in all seven approaches (nanakuchi) to the city from these highways, at Gokurakuji, Daibutsu, Kewaizaka, Kobukurozaka, Mutsuura, Nagoezaka, and Kotsubo. No documentary evidence survives to tell us exactly when these seven approaches were opened, but each of them served as the starting point for one of the Kamakura highways. The Gokurakuji and Kewaizaka approaches led out to the Tokaido road; the Kobukurozaka to the Lower Road; the Mutsuura to the Mutsuura highway; the Nagoezaka and the Kotsubo approaches opened on to the road to Awa through the Miura Peninsula and Kewaizaka, one of the seen approaches to the medieval city of Kamakura. across the Uraga Channel. Since all of these cut through (kiridosu) the hills that ringed the city, they were also called kiridoshi. When on the advice of the Chiba family and others Yoritomo established his residence in his newly built quarters at Kamakura, 311 of his retainers took up residence there as well. Their residences, however, were not laid out with some grand scheme of city planning in mind. At the time, Kamakura was a military stronghold, and it would not be until the rule of the Hojo regents following Yoritomo’s death in 1199 that shogunal officials became aware of the need for the architectural planning of this new center of Japanese government. Yoritomo did, however, indicate the general shape he wished the city to take. A warrior punctilious in his devotion to the Shinto gods and the Buddhas, Yoritomo moved the Hachiman Shrine from Yuigahama to Tsurugaoka near his Okura residence as soon as he established himself there. He widened the approach in front of the shrine all the way to Yuigahama and built a raised ceremonial highway paved with kazura stone leading up to it, modeled on Suzaku Avenue which led to the imperial palace in Kyoto. Construction in the city began with the Shochojuin Temple built in 1185 (Bunji 1), and the Yofukuji Temple built in 1189 (Bunji 5). Buddhist services were frequently held there for Yoritomo and his wife. Construction of the roads leading to these temples was allotted as a punishment to warriors who had been negligent in their duties. Consequently, the roads were not completed until the Hojo regency. With the passage of time, as more emphasis was placed on the administrative element of the bakufu government and as more residences for samurai were built there, artisans and merchants flocked to the city to supply their needs. Goods were unloaded at Yuigahama, and the harbor bustled with activity. The Kaidoki, a travel diary written in 1223 (Joo 2), two years after the Jokyu Disturbance, took note of the activity at Yuigahama: “Looking around, I can see several hundred ships at their moorings just like along the shores of Otsu, and over there are the eaves of a countless number of houses, no different from the the view from the bridges over the Oyodo.” (Oyodo refers to the harbor at the mouth of the Yodo River in Yamashiro while Otsu was in Omi, and both served as ports for Kyoto.) In these words is an appreciation of the fact that Kamakura, with the bustle and stir of activity at Yuigahama, was a capital city that rivaled the imperial capital of Kyoto. On August 14, 1263 (Kocho 3), dozens of ships in Yuigahama were destroyed in a violent storm, and sixty-one ships bound for Kamakura with tribute from Kyushu were lost at sea off Izu during a storm two weeks later. In order to avoid just such disasters from wind and wave, the artificial island of Wakaejima was constructed in 1232 (Joei 1) from subscriptions collected by the priest Oamidabutsu. In July 1215 (Kempo 3) the shogunal government made Yuki Munemitsu city magistrate and prescribed the number of merchants allowed to do business in Kamakura. This is a clear indication that urbanization had already advanced to the point that it had become necessary to regulate the number of merchants in the city. Construction of main thoroughfares such as the Komachi-oji, Kotsubo-oji, Yoko-oji, Ima-oji, Higashi-oji and Nishi-oji also proceeded apace. In Wakaejima, Kamakura City. 1240 (Ninji 1) magistrates charged with maintaining the peace were appointed to investigate and prosecute thieves, tramps, molesters of women, and other ruffians and to regulate street vendors and entertainers, outdoor sumo bouts, and pushy salesmen. The administrative divisions over which these magistrates had jurisdiction were patterned after similar divisions in Kyoto. Also patterned after Kyoto and instituted at the same time was the establishment of kagariya, a kind of night-time police force: watch fires were lit at strategic places places throughout Kamakura, and the local residents took turns standing guard. Such measures tell us of the increase in urban crime. At just about this time, after much drinking and revelry at an eatery off Wakamiya-oji near Gebabashi, a quarrel broke out between warriors of the Miura and Koyama clans, which threatened to become an affair of serious consequences until order was finally restored by the direct intervention of the Hojo regent Yasutoki. In 1252 (Kencho 4) the bakufu government, in an ordinance issued for Kamakura and all the provinces, prohibited the sale and production of sake and had the sake jugs in Kamakura counted, the total coming to 37,284 in all. The magistrates of the peace permitted one jug per household, destroying the remainder, and decreed that the one remaining jug was to be used for anything but sake. Such legislation gives some idea of how overrun with drunkards the city of Kamakura had become. It was also the duty of these magistrates to evict vagabonds loitering in the city. These eviction campaigns had to be frequently repeated, an indication of yet another side of Kamakura’s urbanization process. In December 1251 (Kencho 3), the area in which merchants could do business-until that time unrestricted-was prescribed by law and limited to Omachi, Komachi, Komemachi, Kamegayatsu-no-tsuji, Wakae, and the top of Kewaizaka. Issued at the same time were ordinances aimed at the prevention of congestion and littering in these areas, which forbade the tethering of cows on side streets and urged that the streets be kept clean. In 1265 (Bunei 2) Iyomachi, Musashiojishita, and Sujikaebashi replaced Kamegayatsu-no-tsuji, Kewaizaka, and Wakae as tradesmen’s areas, and high-pressure salesmen, street vendors, and door-to-door selling outside the prescribed areas were forbidden. In July 1253 (Kencho 5) official prices were set on five items which had become particularly expensive: charcoal, firewood, miscanthus, hay and rice bran. These five items were essential staples for the samurai-cooking and heating fuel and fodder for his horses. 2. The Flourishing of Kamakura Culture Culture imported from Kyoto In the process of setting up the shogunal government, Minamoto Yoritomo summoned Oe Hiromoto, Miyoshi Yasunobu and others from Kyoto to establish the public documents office (kumonjo) and the administrative board (mandokoro) which were to serve as the central institutions of the shogunate, and placed these men in charge of administrative affairs. In other words, much of the pattern of Yoritomo’s military government drew on Kyoto for its inspiration. With his retainers he frequently held gatherings at which music was performed and poetry composed-proof that even his retainers were proficient in music and dance. Probably their knowledge of these arts was not acquired in their native eastern provinces, but learned in Kyoto while they were serving as guards at the imperial court during the Taira regime. In 1191 (Kenkyu 2) Yoritomo invited a number of Kyoto musicians including O no Yoshikata and O no Yoshitoki to Kamakura to impart their skills. So great was his enthusiasm that after they had returned to Kyoto he sent Oe Hisaie and twelve others to Kyoto to study under Yoshikata. Yoritomo’s successor, the second shogun Yoriie, was so fond of kemari (a form of football played by the aristocracy in Kyoto) that he was criticized for neglecting government affairs and eventually placed under house arrest in Izu because of it. The third shogun Sanetomo also enjoyed the sport and had books on kemari sent to him from Kyoto. Sanetomo was also a devotee of waka poetry and received lessons in poetic composition from the best-known court poet of the day, Fujiwara Teika of Kyoto. Sanetomo left many outstanding poems which have come down to us in the anthology called the Kinkai wakashu. Furthermore, he selected performing artists and established a center of learning where waka poetry and the history and traditions of China were recited. Eighteen warriors, including his uncle Hojo Tokifusa and the future regent Hojo Yasutoki, were among the artists selected. Kujo Yoritsune, who had been summoned from Kyoto in 1219 to serve as the fourth shogun after the Minamoto house died out with Sanetomo, chose as his attendants in the lesser board of retainers (kozamurai-dokoro) individuals skilled in calligraphy, archery and horsemanship, kemari, instrumental music and singing. Several poems composed by the Hojo regents and viceregents who came after Hojo Yasutoki were selected for inclusion in the imperial waka anthologies. This too is evidence of the influence of Kyoto culture on Kamakura. Yoritomo’s faith in the Shinto gods and the Buddhas was very strong. But he was interested as well in the practice of astrology and the Chinese cosmological principles of Yin and Yang. As a result, many practitioners of Chinese cosmology took up residence in Kamakura. Culture imported from Kyoto was also represented by the Kanazawa Library, established by Kanazawa Sanetoki, a member of a Minamoto Sanetomo’s burial mound, Hadano City. branch family of the Hojo clan, and by the flowering of scholarship which this library supported. The library was founded in 1275 (Kenji 1) on Kanazawa family land (now Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama), and for three generations Sanetoki, his son Akitoki, and his grandson Sadaaki took instruction in the Confucian classics of from the Kiyohara family of Kyoto, received copies of Japanese literary classics from the imperial court, and stored them all in the Kanazawa Library. This collection of Chinese and Japanese classic texts contains works on two hundred fifty different subjects, from politics and law to agriculture, military strategy and literature. Clearly, the Kanazawa family attempted to transfer the learning of Kyoto to Kamakura in a wide variety of fields. Buddhist culture The culture of Kamakura is referred to as the culture of the warrior class, but it was also a religious culture, centered on the Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. During Yoritomo’s lifetime, three Ippen Shonin attempting to enter Kamakura. (From Ippen Shonin eden, in the collection of the Kankikoji Temple) great temples, among them the Shochojuin, were built, and the construction of temples was continued by the shoguns and Hojo regents who succeeded him. Zen Buddhism, which had recently been introduced from China, was practiced in Kamakura from the early years of the shogunate: Eisai, the founder of the Rinzai sect of Zen, was warmly received there in 1199 to dedicate the Jufukuji Temple, which had been built earlier by Yoritomo. Enni, another monk of the Rinzai sect and the founder of Tofukuji Temple in Kyoto, made the journey to Kamakura several times, and even Dogen, the founder of the Soto sect, came and preached there. The Hojo regents and the warriors under them welcomed these visiting Zen masters, and in time steps were taken to build a Zen temple and invite Zen priests directly from China to serve in it. The fifth regent Hojo Tokiyori invited the Chinese Zen master Rankei Doryu to Kamakura in 1249 and built the Kenchoji Temple. His son, the eighth regent Hojo Tokimune, invited Mugaku Sogen from Song China and founded the Engakuji Temple in 1282. Gottan Funei, who was the second abbot of Kenchoji Temple, and Daikyu Shonen, who served successively at Kenchoji, Jufukuji and Engakuji temples, were but two of the many Zen priests who came to Kamakura at the invitation of the Hojo regents. Many novices gathered at the temples of these important Zen masters. Engakuji Temple, for example, had a regular complement of one hundred monks, one hundred aides known as anja, and fifty others to do odd jobs; the religious community at Kenchoji Temple has been estimated to number two thousand people. The life of these monks, of course, followed the observances of the Zen sect, not the monastic rule of the older Tendai and Shingon sects. Utensils for daily life in the new Zen style were required in large quantities. Implements of this kind, in the Song Chinese style, were brought by ship to Yuigahama and Wakaejima, and a Zen-based culture began to evolve. Among Zen’s contribution to the arts were, in the area of painting and sculpture, the realistic portraits (chinzo) of Zen masters which were traditionally given to their disciples; the development of a distinct literary aestheticism, despite, or perhaps because of, the belief that enlightenment cannot be attained through the study of texts; and the Chinese style (karayo) of architecture. In contrast to the somewhat exotic flavor of Zen, new sects developed within Japan from the older forms of Buddhism, and soon made their way to the eastern provinces. One manifestation of this were the itinerant religious men called nembutsu priests for the mantra they chanted in prayer. In 1200 (Shoji 2) the black robes worn by nembutsu priests were prohibited and all such robes burned. Disliking these black robes, the second shogun Yoriie had nembutsu priests arrested and forbade the chanting of the nembutsu mantra: namu amida butsu, “I take my refuge in the Buddha Amida.”This happened seven years before the chanting of the nembutsu was banned in Kyoto and the founder of the Jodo (Pure Land) sect, Honen, and his followers were exiled or beheaded. In spite of this, not all traces of Honen’s followers had been obliterated among the warriors of the Portrait sculpture of the Zen priest Mugaku Sogen. (Engakuji Temple, Kamakura) eastern provinces. Dohen of Ishikawa (Ishikawa, Fujisawa City), who had studied under Honen, returned from exile and continued to adhere to his teachings. Another believer in the efficacy of the nembutsu mantra was Mori Saia, a member of the shogunal High Court who shared the fate of the Miura family when it was destroyed by the Hojo regency in the Hoji Conflict of 1247. In 1227 (Antei 1) Saia had given shelter at the Kofukuji Temple in Iiyama within his Atsugi domain to Ryukan, Honen’s foremost disciple, who had been exiled to Mutsu during one of the many proscriptions of the nembutsu and was passing through Sagami on his way there. Saia was with him when he died. Ryukan’s disciple Chikyo was responsible for propagating the Pure Land sect throughout the eastern provinces. In 1280 Ippen, founder of the Ji sect of Pure Land Buddhism, attempted to enter Kamakura at Kofukurozaka on his return from a pilgrimage to the grave of his grandfather Kono Michinobu in Oshu. He was denied entry to the city by Hojo Tokimune, but at nearby Katase he conducted several days of odori-nembutsu services, which involved ecstatic dancing while chanting the nembutsu mantra, before leaving for western Japan. In 1302 (Kengen 1) a disciple of Ippen named Shinkyo founded Muryokoji Temple at Taima (Sagamihara City) in Sagami, then handed over the position of “Wayfaring Saint,” as the abbot there was called, to a disciple named Chitoku and went into retirement in a hermitage. Even after his retreat, however, Shinkyo continued to play an active role in disseminating his faith, founding close to one hundred seminaries in the Kanto region and winning converts among members of the Hojo family and other prominent figures in the shogunal government. So successful was he that when asked by the nobles of Kyoto to come there he replied, “I am so busy with these rough warriors of the Kanto that they allow me no leisure to do so.” Shinkyo’s successor Chitoku was in turn succeeded by Donkai, the younger brother of the land steward (jito) of the Matano estate (which encompassed both Fujisawa City and Totsuka Ward, Yokohama). In 1325 (Shochu 2), after Chitoku’s death, Donkai passed on the abbacy to a disciple called Ankoku who lived at the Shibo post station in Musashi (Nishi Ward, Yokohama), and founded the Shojokoji Temple in Fujisawa, which became the temple to which the “Wayfaring Saints” after Donkai retired. Because it was near Kamakura, warriors would gather here for nembutsu services, and at the time of the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate in 1333, both the attacking Nitta forces and the Hojo defenders went to battle chanting the nembutsu. It was reported that all the priests of the seminary there walked out to the shore near Kamakura where the battle raged and exhorted the wounded to chant the nembutsu so that they might achieve rebirth in paradise. The faith in the power of the nembutsu of all who witnessed this grew even deeper. One opponent to the popularity of the nembutsu was the priest Nichiren, who in 1253 (Kencho 5) was driven out of Kiyosumidera Temple in Awa for preaching against the Jodo sects and the practice of the nembutsu. He came to Kamakura, took up residence in a hermitage at Matsubagayatsu in Nagoe and began preaching in Myoan Yosai (Jufukuji Temple, Kamakura) the streets. In 1260 (Buno 1) he wrote the Rissho ankokuron (On the Establishment of Righteousness for the Security of the Realm) and presented it to the regent Tokimune, but to no avail. Instead, his hermitage was attacked that year by followers of the nembutsu faith, and Nichiren, who barely escaped with his life, took refuge with Toki Jonin, a warrior from Shimosa who had earlier become one of his followers. The next year he returned to Kamakura and during his subsequent stay he violently attacked not only Jodo but the Zen, Shingon, and Ritsu sects as well. Since all these sects included members of the Hojo regency and officials of the Kamakura bakufu among their adherents, in 1271 Nichiren was arrested, subjected to an inquisition into his religious beliefs at Tatsunokuchi (Fujisawa City), and only miraculously escaped execution. He was exiled to Rankei Doryu (Kenchoji Temple. Kamakura) Sado, but in 1274 (Bunei 11) he was pardoned, and returned to Kamakura where he expounded his beliefs to the Hojo regents’ powerful house steward, Taira Yoritsuna, but failed to convert him. Finally, on May 12, 1274, he left Kamakura once more and withdrew to the Minobu mountains in the province of Kai, the domain of his followers, the Nambu family. From his retreat in Kai, Nichren continued to propagate his beliefs through his writings, and after nine years had succeeded in spreading his creed to the provinces of Shimosa, Musashi, Suruga, Sado and to Kamakura itself. However, he was increasingly plagued by illness, and in 1282 (Bunei 5), on the advice of his followers, he set out for a hot springs in Hitachi belonging to the Nambu family to take the waters, but died in the middle of his journey at the residence of Ikegami Munenaka in the village of Senzoku in Musashi province (Ota Ward, Tokyo). Today the Ikegami Hommonji Temple is located on the site. Thus, with the exception of Shinran, the founders of the new Buddhist sects during the Kamakura period and their disciples all traveled in Kanagawa Prefecture with the city of Kamakura as their destination. Nevertheless, the shogunate had religious services for the safety of the shogun and the state conducted by the older established sects of Tendai and Shingon. In particular, priests from the Sammon and Jimon (Enjoji Temple) branches of the Tendai sect were invited to Kamakura and appointed to serve as abbot (guso) and attendant priests (betto) at the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine. At the Shomyoji, the Kanazawa family’s temple, a visit by Eison of the Saidaiji Temple in Nara provided the opportunity for initiating intensive study of the precepts of the Saidaiji school of the Ritsu sect under the patronage of the Kanazawa family. A vast collection of Buddhist writings, the results of these theological studies by Shinkai, Kenna, Tan’ei, and others, has been preserved as a part of the Kanazawa Library. Eizon’s disciple Ninsho also greatly enhanced the prestige of the Ritsu sect while at Gokurakuji Temple. Cherishing the memory of Shotoku Taishi, the early seventh century statesman and patron of Buddhist institutions, Ninsho founded a number of hospitals in the area which are said to have treated some 46,800 people. He also established the first hospital for horses in Japan at Sakanoshita, extending his compassion even to animals. Even the normally acerbic Nichiren acknowledged his work, saying: “From the lord of the realm to the lowliest of the masses, all revere Ryokan Shonin (Ninsho) as a living Buddha.” Kakuenji Temple, built by the ninth regent Hojo Sadatoki, and Shojokongoji Temple at Iiyama, though home to a number of different sects and teachings, both became centers for the revival of the Ritsu sect, yet another proof that Kamakura was not dominated solely by the Zen sects and their adherents. 3. The Waning of Sagami’s Warrior Class The samurai of Sagami: a topography At the end of the Heian period, a number of feudal houses appeared in the provinces of Sagami and Musashi, developing their own domainal holdings and participating in the founding of Yoritomo’s shogunal government at Kamakura. From their genealogies these families can be divided into three main lines of descent. The first is the Miura family. Based on the Miura Peninsula but extending their sway west into central Sagami and eastward across the Uraga Channel into the province of Awa, they were pre-eminent among the samurai bands of Sagami. The Miura family traced its ancestry back to the Takamochi branch of the Kammu Heishi, the Taira house which claimed descent from the emperor Kammu. However, it is thought that they were originally an old and powerful local family, with roots in the Miura Peninsula dating back to ancient times, which had established a relationship with the Kanto branch of the Taira family sometime in the eleventh or twelfth century and changed their name accordingly. The first historical personage who can authoritatively be claimed as an ancestor of the clan is Taira Tametsugu, who was a follower of Minamoto Yoshiie during the Later Three Years’ War. Tametsugu’s sons, Yoshitsugu and Yoshiakira, took the title of Miura shoji, and as local officials responsible for public lands, both were involved in Yoshitomo’s abortive attempt to abolish the Oba public estate (mikuriya). Yoshiakira later became assistant governor of Sagami, and thereafter his descendants were known as Miura-no-suke. Yoshiakira’s younger brother, Yoshizane, established his headquarters at Okazaki in the Osumi district (Hiratsuka City), assuming the name Okazaki Shiro, and married a daughter of Nakamura Munehira of the Nakamura estate. This union was the beginning of two branch houses of the Miura family, who later adopted the surnames Tsuchiya and Sanada, both of which remain as place names in present-day Hiratsuka city. Yoshizane’s nephew, Tametsuna, took the place name of Ashina in the Miura Peninsula as his surname. The Ishida family of Ishida in Aiko district (Isehara City) was a further branching off from Tametsuna’s line. When Yoritomo attempted to raise his first army in 1180, Yoshiakira responded without a moment’s delay, and set out to join him from the Miura Peninsula, but he was prevented by a storm from arriving in time to fight at Ishibashiyama. As he was pulling back his troops, he was surrounded by the Hatakeyama family and killed in battle; but his son Yoshizumi and others escaped to Awa, where they Site of the Nakamura family mansion. Odawara City. joined up with Yoritomo. Henceforth, as retainers who had rendered distinguished service to Yoritomo from the earliest days of his campaigns, the Miura family carried considerable weight in the councils of the shogunal government. The first administrator of the board of retainers (samurai-dokoro), Wada Yoshimori, was a grandson of Yoshiakira, who had taken his surname from his home village of Wada in the Miura Peninsula. Counterbalancing the Miura family in the east was the Nakamura family, the overseers of the Nakamura estate (the area now comprising Nakai Township and the eastern part of Odawara City) which flourished in the western part of the Kanagawa region. The Nakamura family also claimed descent from the Kammu Heishi, but the first identifiable personage in their family tree was the overseer of the Nakamura estate, Taira Munehira, who acted in concert with Miura Yoshiakira in the Oba public estate affair. Munehira’s eldest son, Shigehira, succeeded him as overseer, and his second son, Sanehira, took the name Toi and headed a branch of the family in Toi hamlet (now Yugawaramachi). His third son, Muneto, formed the Tsuchiya branch of the family in Tsuchiya (Tsuchiya, Hiratsuka City); the fourth son, Tomohira, was given the Kawawa estate in Ninomiya (Ninomiya Township) and formed the Ninomiya family; and the fifth son, Yorihira, formed the Sakai family on the northern boundary of the Nakamura estate. The services of Toi Sanehira were particularly noteworthy, for it was he who helped Yoritomo to escape to Awa after his defeat at Ishibashiyama; and Yoritomo was to rely greatly on him. Extending their sway over the area between those occupied by the Miura and Nakamura families were the members of the Kamakura band. They too traced ancestry back to the Kammu Heishi. But the fact that they are referred to as a “band” indicates that originally they were a grouping of several different families. One of these families bore the surname Fujiwara and was descended from Fujiwara Kagetsuna, a follower of Yoriyoshi in the Earlier Nine Years’ War, who was also known as Kamakura Gondayu. Another family was descended from the developer-proprietor of the Oba estate, Taira Kagemasa, better known as Kamakura Gongoro Kagemasa, who showed much valor as a retainer of Yoshiie during the Later Three Years’ War. Kagemasa’s descendents include Oba Kageyoshi and his brother, Kagechika; the former led the Taira army to victory over Yoritomo in the battle of Ishibashiyama; the latter was a follower of Yoritomo who served as the official in charge of the construction of Yoritomo’s residence in Kamakura. A younger brother, Kagehisa, took his surname from a place called Matano in the Koza district, and the surname adopted by their uncle Kagehiro, Nagao, also came from a place in Koza district. Later, this Nagao family became the household stewards of the Uesugi family, the shogunal deputies for the Kanto region during the Muromachi period (1338-1573). Kajiwara Kagetoki, a close confidant of Yoritomo whose surname was taken from Kajiwara in Kamakura, was also a member of this family. In the Hadano Basin stretching from the central to the northwestern part of Kanagawa Prefecture, the Hatano family held sway. This family claimed descent from the Fujiwara regents, but originally they belonged to the Saeki family, descendants of Saeki Tsunenori, who served Minamoto Yoriyoshi for more than thirty years and died for him during the Earlier Nine Years’ War. This family developed the Hatano estate owned by the Fujiwara regents in the Hadano Basin, and from there they expanded into the Kawawa River valley, spreading their control into the surrounding hamlets of Kawamura, Matsuda, and Odomo, and setting up branch families in Matsuda, Otsuki (Yurugi district), Kawamura, Odomo, and Numata (Minami Ashigara City). One theory claims that the Yamanouchi Shudo family who held dominion over the Hayakawa estate (Odawara City) were the descendants of Kimikiyo, the elder brother of Tsunenori, the ancestor of the Hatano family. The Kasuya family, the overseers of the Kasuya estate which once occupied the entire area of present-day Isehara City, also called themselves Fujiwara, but they were in fact descendants of Saeki Motokata, one of the picked troops from the Bando region serving Yoriyoshi during the Earlier Nine Years’ War. The family formed several branches including the Kasuya, Shinomiya and Kidokoro (both of Hiratsuka City). The Yokoyama band occupied the Tama highlands in the northern part of Kanagawa Prefecture. This band, which took its name from a place called Yokoyama (Hachioji City, Tokyo), was originally known as the Ono family, and its members were officials in charge of public lands in Musashi. The founder of the band, Yokoyama Nodayu Tsunekane, served Yoriyoshi in the Earlier Nine Years’ War. In 1113 (Eikyu 1) an order to hunt down and destroy more than twenty members of the Yokoyama band for the murder of Naiki Taro was issued in the five provinces of Sagami, Kozuke, Shimotsuke, Kazusa, and Musashi, an indication of how powerful the Yokoyama band was. Branch families of the band include the Ebina, Aiko, Hagino, Homma (Atsugi City), Tairako and Ishikawa (both of Yokohama), Ogura, Sugao and Ida (all of Kawasaki City). In the three districts of Musashi in the northern part of Kanagawa Prefecture, there were several families which had branched off from the Chichibu clan, based in what is now the Chichibu district of Saitama Prefecture. The Chichibu family claimed descent from the Kammu Heishi, but most likely they were originally descended from the local governors of Chichibu province in the pre-Taika reform period. The family had several illustrious warrior branches including the Hatakeyama, Kawagoe, Kassai, Toshima and Edo families; and it also extended into what is now Kanagawa Prefecture. Some of its branch families there include the Kawasaki (Kawasaki City), the Oyamada (Oyamada estate which spanned both Machida and Kawasaki cities), the Inage (Kawasaki City), and Harigaya (Yokohama). The Shibuya family (Yamato City), the so-called warlords of Sagami province, were also members of this family. As we can see, almost all the warriors active in the earliest stages of the Kamakura shogunate were members of a local elite with a long history in the area and a relationship to the Minamoto family that dated back to the time of Minamoto Yoriyoshi. The only warrior house which came to the area from Kyoto was the Mori family, proprietors of the Mori estate (Atsugi City), which had been given to Oe Hiromoto by Yoritomo. The waning of Sagami’s warrior class The warriors of Sagami who were the prime movers in establishing the political dominance of the eastern provinces were soon to disappear from the lands of Sagami and Musashi. Many were wiped out by the Hojo family, once a minor power in Izu province who made use of their son- and brother-in-law Yoritomo to further their own ends, while many others relocated themselves permanently on lands they held elsewhere in the country, rather than risk remaining in their original homelands. Of the former group, the first Hojo victim was Kajiwara Kagetoki. Once known as Yoritomo’s most trusted retainer, he was ousted from office and driven from Kamakura after Yoritomo’s death by sixty-six leading shogunal vassals including Miura Yoshimura, Wada Yoshimori, and Koyama Tomomitsu, at the instigation of Awa-no-tsubone, the wet nurse of Yoritomo’s son Hachiman (later known as Sanetomo) and the sister of Yoritomo’s widow, Hojo Masako. Kagetoki took refuge at his Sagami estate at Ichinomiya and appealed to Kyoto to grant him asylum there. In 1200 (Shoji 2) he left Sagami, but was attacked by local warriors in the vicinity of Kiyomigaseki in Suruga (Shizuoka Prefecture) and was killed with his entire family. The next victims were the Wada family. In 1213 (Kempo 1) the second Hojo regent Yoshitoki spread the rumor that a plot had been uncovered supporting the claims of the heir of the second shogun, Yoriie, who had been assassinated in 1204 while under house arrest in Izu. Yoshitoki arrested the sons of Wada Yoshimori as members of the conspiracy. This goaded Yoshimori into action. He issued an urgent appeal to his own and related clans and attacked Yoshitoki. For a time he was successful, but was defeated when Miura Yoshimura switched sides. The entire Wada clan was killed in battle as were members of the following families: the Yokoyama of the Yokoyama band; the Awaiihara, Furugori, Yanai, Tsuchiya; the Yamanouchi of the Yamanouchi band; the Okazaki, Yui, Takai, Otawa, Okata, Nariyama, Takayanagi, Toi, Shibuya, Mori, and Kajiwara of the Kamakura band; and the Usami, Aiko, Kaneko, Hemmi, Ebina, Ogino, Mutsuura, Matsuda, Aida, Hatano, Shionoya, Shirane, Sanada, and Tsukui. Their domains were confiscated and given to the victorious followers of Hojo Yoshitoki. Both attacked and attackers were Sagami warriors, and many families died out during these struggles. Yoshitoki took charge of the board of retainers (samuraidokoro) in place of Wada Yoshimori, and together with his duties as head of the administrative board (mandokoro) which he had previously held, he occupied the two highest posts in the political apparatus of the Kamakura bakufu. These two positions would thereafter become hereditary through the eldest Hojo son, thus setting on a firm footing, for generations to come, the political ascendancy of the main branch of the Hojo family. Next came the Hoji Conflict. The Miura family, which had switched allegiance to the Hojo family during the Wada affair, were related to them by marriage and wielded considerable influence. But in 1247 (Hoji 1) they were defeated in a power struggle with the fifth Hojo regent Tokiyori and his maternal grandfather Adachi Kagemori, who had consolidated his influence through his relationship with the Hojo family. The head of the Miura clan, Yasumura, and more than five hundred of his followers committed suicide at the Hokkedo monastery, which Yoritomo had founded. Among the dead were all of Yasumura’s family and members of the following clans: the Takai, Sahara, Nagae, Shimosa, Sanuki, Inage, Usui, Hatano, Utsunomiya, Kasukabe, Seki, Tatara, Ishida, Ito, Hiratsuka (Doyo), Sano, Tokutomi, Hangaya, Nagao, Akiba, Okamoto, and Monument to the Wada family. Kamakura City. Tachibana. Those captured alive included members of the Kanamochi, Nagao, Toyoda, Mori and Osuga families. The warriors from Sagami who had survived the Wada affair had been dealt a second devastating blow. Moreover, this time the circle of destruction had even reached into Shimosa province. The final blow for the vassal warriors of Sagami and Musashi fell in 1285 (Koan 8) with the so-called Shimotsuki Incident, in which Taira Yoritsuna, the Hojo family’s house steward, falsely accused and thereby brought about the destruction of Adachi Yasumori, who is thought to have been a descendant of a family of district administrators in the Adachi district of Musashi under the old ritsuryo system. Those who committed suicide with Yasumori included all of the Adachi clan, and members of the Osone, Banno, Ogasawara, Ueda, Kobayakawa, Mishina, Ashina, Adachi, Futokorojima, Tsunashima, Ikegami, Namekata, Nikaido and other families. The affair reached into Shinano, Musashi and Kazusa, and even involved the Muto family of far-off Chikuzen (Fukuoka Prefecture). In all, nearly five hundred people are reported to have committed suicide. Worth noting here is how few of these were from Sagami warrior families compared with the earlier incidents. Since the time of the second regent Hojo Yoshitoki, the Kamakura shogunate had in fact been taken over by the Hojo regency and had grown increasingly despotic. At the root of the Hojo family’s success lay the destruction of the other vassal houses in Sagami and Musashi. However, the Hojo family in turn would soon disappear without a trace from Sagami, destroyed by warriors from the Kanto on orders from the emperor Go-Daigo in 1333 (Genko 3). In contrast to the warrior houses destroyed by the Hojo were the warriors of Sagami and Musashi who had sided with the shogunate during the period from the end of the Taira-Minomoto wars in the 1180s to the Jokyu Disturbance of 1219. These families were rewarded for their valor with territories confiscated from the government’s enemies. The territorial possessions of these retainers from Sagami and Musashi extended throughout the country, and family branches were established in these far-flung domains, so that even though the main branch of a family may have died out in Sagami, many warriors of the clan still flourished in outlying areas. The Miura-Wada clan of Echigo (Niigata Prefecture), the Mori family of Aki (Hiroshima Prefecture), the Kobayakawa family, the Otomo family of Bungo (Oita Prefecture), the Irikiin family (also called the Shibuya family) of Satsuma (Kagoshima Prefecture), and the Nagao family (also called the Uesugi family) of Echigo are only some of the more noteworthy regional branches of Sagami’s warrior clans. Ⅱ. An Age of Warfare 1. The Establishment of the Kamakura-fu Ashikaga Takauji plots rebellion in Kamakura On May 22, 1333 (Genko 3), the Kamakura bakufu, which had lasted one hundred thirty years, came to an end with the destruction of the Hojo family by Nitta Yoshisada, who marched south against Kamakura from the Nitta estate in Kozuke province. At this time Otawa Yoshikatsu, a member of a branch of the Miura family and leading forces composed of members of the Matsuda, Kawamura, Toi, Homma, and Shibuya clans, joined forces with Nitta Yoshisada to strike down the Hojo. Despite the Hojo family’s attempts to exterminate them, the warriors of Sagami had tenaciously managed to survive. In contrast, the Hojo family, with the exception of Hojo Tokiyuki, who escaped and took refuge with the Suwa family of Shinano (Nagano Prefecture), was completely wiped out. Nitta Yoshisada, the man responsible for their destruction, left for Kyoto to take part in the formation of a new government restoring direct imperial rule by the emperor Go-Daigo. The government, which would be known as the Kemmu Restoration, appointed Ashikaga Tadayoshi governor of Sagami at the request of his brother, Ashikaga Takauji. Tadayoshi was sent to Kamakura in the service of Prince Narinaga, the emperor’s son. As regent for the prince, Tadayoshi had jurisdiction over the ten provinces of the Kanto region, and Kamakura was designated as the local capital from which the region was to be administered. However, in July 1335 (Kammu 2), Hojo Tokiyuki raised an army in Shinano, invaded Musashi, and at Idenosawa (Machida City) defeated Tadayoshi, who had engaged him in battle there. Tadayoshi did not return to Kamakura but fled west along the Tokaido road. Prince Narinaga and Ashikaga Takauji’s eldest son, Yoshiakira, who had first come to Kamakura as a hostage of the Hojo family, both headed for Kyoto after Tadayoshi. At about this time, another of Go-Daigo’s sons, Prince Morinaga, who was being held under house arrest at the Nikaido in Kamakura for his involvement in a plot to replace Tadayoshi, was put to death by one of Tadayoshi’s men. Hojo Tokiyuki entered Kamakura on July 25, 1335. But Ashikaga Takauji came to the aid of Tadayoshi and Yoshiakira, joining forces with them at the Yahagi post station in Mikawa (Aichi Prefecture). From there they returned to Kamakura, drove Tokiyuki out on August 19 and recaptured the city. Tokiyuki’s dream of restoring the Kamakura shogunate had ended in little more than twenty days. After Takauji entered Kamakura, he lived in a new residence which he had built on the site of the old shogunal palace on Wakamiya Avenue. Ignoring the emperor’s orders recalling him to Kyoto, Grave of Prince Morinaga. Kamakura Shrine, Kamakura City. he petitioned to be allowed to hunt down and destroy Nitta Yoshisada. The emperor refused this request and, instead, ordered Yoshisada to eliminate Takauji. At the head of a large army, Yoshisada marched down the Tokaido road, defeating the Ashikaga forces along the way, but Yoshisada’s army was routed in turn in a battle at Takenoshita (Koyama Township, Shizuoka Prefecture) on December 12. Three days later, Takauji decided to march westward. Leaving Yoshiakira in charge at Kamakura, he and Tadayoshi pursued Yoshisada’s army and advanced on Kyoto. The Ashikaga brothers were now in open revolt against the Kemmu Restoration government they had helped to establish two years earlier. Only about a fortnight after Takauji left Kamakura, the Oshu army of Kitabatake Akiie entered the city with imperial orders to crush Takauji. They remained there only a few days before heading west toward Kyoto in pursuit. Takauji had marched into Kyoto but soon fled to Kyushu, eluding Kitabatake’s troops. In Kyushu he defeated the forces of the Kikuchi clan which had taken to the field to meet him and, after regrouping his army, he proceeded east along the Inland Sea to defeat the loyalist forces of Nitta Yoshisada and Kusunoki Masashige at Minatogawa in Settsu (Osaka). On June 14, 1336 (Engen 1), he once again entered Kyoto, where he forced the emperor Go-Daigo to abdicate and replaced him with the emperor Komyo. On December 21 Go-Daigo fled south to Yoshino and set up a rival court there. The war-torn Northern and Southern Courts Period (1336-1392) had begun. Kitabatake Akiie, who had returned to Oshu after chasing Takauji out of Kyoto, once again headed westward in August 1337 at the head of an army more than ten thousand strong. Ashikaga Yoshiakira, who was in Kamakura at the time, met them at the Tone River with eighty thousand warriors from Musashi and Sagami, including Uesugi Noriaki, Hosokawa Kazuji, and Minamoto Shigemochi. He was defeated and Akiie’s army stormed into Kamakura. There were skirmishes at Iijima and Sugimoto, but once again the results were unfavorable to the Ashikaga side. With the aid of Miura Takatsugu, Yoshiakira went into hiding in the Miura Peninsula, and it was not until a half-year later when Akiie, who had been occupying Kamakura, left for Kyoto that Yoshiakira was able to return to the city. Miura Takatsugu’s grandfather Moritoki had allied himself with the Hojo family during the Hoji Conflict which had destroyed the main branch of the Miura family in 1247. He thus became head of the Miura clan. Takatsugu’s father, Tokitsugu, had been put to death for siding with Hojo Tokiyuki when the latter had tried to reestablish the Kamakura shogunate. But Takatsugu himself had fought valiantly on the Ashikaga side and was awarded several fiefs, chief among them the one at Misaki in the Miura Peninsula. His son, Takamichi, became the military governor (shigo) of Sagami and the head of the premier warrior family in the province. Ashikaga Tadayoshi dies in Kamakura Ashikaga Takauji himself had originally supported the Hojo family against the emperor Go-Daigo. When he left the eastern provinces in 1333 to subdue the imperial army on their orders, he left his eldest son Yoshiakira behind in Kamakura as a hostage. Yoshiakira skillfully managed to escape with his life on two occasions-when his father shifted his allegiance to the emperor’s side and when the Hojo family was exterminated in Kamakura. His popularity among the warriors of the eastern provinces exceeded even that of Nitta Yoshisada. After the collapse of the Kemmu Restoration, he was stationed in Kamakura and became the leader of the Ashikaga forces in the Kanto region. But in 1349 (Jowa 5) Takauji summoned his son to Kyoto and sent Yoshiakira’s younger brother Motouji, assisted by Uesugi Noriaki and Ko no Morofuyu, to Kamakura in his stead. Earlier, in 1338 (Ryakuo 1=Engen 3, by the reckoning of the Southern Court), Takauji had been appointed shogun by the Northern Court, and founded the Muromachi shogunate in Kyoto. With his brother Tadayoshi, he had taken charge of the government. But, in time dissension arose between the two, and the Ashikaga forces split into the Takauji faction and the Tadayoshi faction. Their quarrels reached open warfare when Tadayoshi switched his allegiance to the Southern Court in 1350 and fought with it against Takauji. This incident is known as the Kanno Disturbance after the era name given that year by the Northern Court. In Kamakura, Ko no Morofuyu of the Takauji faction supported Motouji and attacked Uesugi Noriaki who sided with the Tadayoshi faction. Morofuyu succeeded in driving Noriaki out of Kamakura. However, since Motouji himself had originally belonged to the Tadayoshi faction, he attacked Morofuyu, who died in the battle of Suzawa Castle in Kai (Yamanashi Prefecture). The death of Morofuyu had immediate repercussions in the capital. Takauji and Tadayoshi came to a reconciliation, and the powerful retainer who had manipulated Takauji, Ko no Moronao, was killed by Uesugi Yoshinori. The brothers were soon at odds again, however, and Tadayoshi fled north and finally came to Kamakura. Takauji quickly made peace with the Southern Court and headed off to subdue Tadayoshi. He defeated his brother’s army at Hayakawajiri in Sagami (Odawara City), entered Kamakura, forced Tadayoshi to come to terms and later had him poisoned. Ashikaga Takauji (From Zusetsu Nihon no rekishi, published by Shueisha) In this manner, the Kanno Disturbance was brought to an end in 1352. Takauji remained in Kamakura, but as soon as the Kanno Disturbance was over, the conflict between the Northern and Southern Courts flared up once again. The sons of Nitta Yoshisada, Yoshioki and Yoshimune, marched toward Kamakura from the Nitta estate. Joining them in the attack were Sagami warriors who had sided with the Tadayoshi faction, including the Sakawa, Matsuda, Kawamura, Koiso, Oiso, Sakama, Yamashita, Kamakura, Tamanawa, Kajiwara, Shinomiya, Sannomiya, Takada, and Nakamura families. Fighting against them in Takauji’s army, which sallied forth from Kamakura under generals Hatakeyama, Niki, and Imagawa, were members of the Tsuchiya, Toi, Ninomiya, Shibuya, Ebina, Kobayakawa, Toyoda, and Homma families. The armies met at Kumegawa in Musashi (Higashi Murayama City) and at Kotesashihara (Tokorozawa City). Takauji withdrew to Ishihama (Taito Ward, Tokyo), and the Nitta army approaching from Sekido and Kanagawa forced its way into Kamakura at Yukinoshita. Motouji and others with the caretaker force guarding the city managed to escape and joined up with Takauji’s army at Ishihama. They defeated the Nitta army at the Usui Pass and recovered Kamakura. Nitta Yoshioki withdrew to Echigo, and for the time being the land of Sagami was at peace. To assist Motouji, Takauji appointed Hatakeyama Kunikiyo to the office of shogunal deputy for the Kanto region, replacing Uesugi Noriaki of the Tadayoshi faction. Furthermore, in preparation for another attack by the Nitta army, he stationed Motouji at Irimagawa in Musashi. Motouji would be encamped there for several years and became known as the Lord of Irimagawa. In 1353 (Bunna 5=Shohei 8), having placed his sons and retainers in strategic positions, Takauji returned to Kyoto. The establishment of a regional government at Kamakura Takauji died in 1358 (Enbun 3=Shohei 13), and Motouji’s elder brother, Yoshiakira, became shogun. The brothers divided the country between them; one ruling in the west and the other in the east. The eastern division became known as the Kamakura-fu, the Kamakura regional government. The head of this government, called the kubo, had the same powers as the shogun in Kyoto, the capital of the western region. The shogunal deputy (kanrei) appointed to assist him had the same rank as official of that title in the Muromachi shogunate in Kyoto and performed the same duties visa-vis the Kanto kubo. The descendants of Motouji had hereditary rights to the office of Kanto kubo, however, while the Muromachi shogun in Kyoto had the right to appoint the shogunal deputy for the Kanto region. Hatakeyama Kunikiyo, who replaced Uesugi Noriaki in the office of shogunal deputy, was related to Motouji by marriage (his sister was Motouji’s wife), but eventually his treatment of the Kanto warriors became so high-handed that he received a signed pledge from more than one thousand of them vowing to have him expelled from office. According to the Taiheiki (Chronicle of the Great Peace) Motouji was forced to admit: “If I ignore their demands, the eastern provinces will never have a day of peace,” and banished his brother in law Kunikiyo. Kunikiyo left Kamakura accompanied by his brothers and his retainers and built a castle at Shuzenji in Izu (Shizuoka Prefecture), but fled from there when it was attacked by Motouji. Ko no Moroari, the nephew of Ko no Morofuyu who had previously held the office, succeeded Kunikiyo as shogunal deputy, but Motouji wanted to reinstate Kunikiyo’s predecessor, Uesugi Noriaki, who had left to become military governor of Echigo, and eventually did so. Motouji died in Kamakura in 1367 (Joji 6=Shohei 22), and his nine-year-old son Kaneomaru (Ujimitsu) became the master of Kamakura. In the same year, the second shogun Yoshiakira died in Kyoto, and his ten-year-old son Yoshimitsu became shogun with Hosokawa Yoriyuki as his shogunal deputy. The following year, the Taira Revolt occurred in Musashi. Uesugi Noriaki put down the revolt on behalf of his young lord, and Kaneomaru then attacked Utsunomiya Ujitsuna of Shimosa, who had been in sympathy with the rebels, forcing him to surrender. The next year, Noriaki died at age sixty-three, and his son Yoshinori and his nephew Tomofusa, known as “the two Uesugis,” were appointed to succeed him. After their deaths, Yoshinori’s younger brother Noriharu became shogunal deputy, but in 1379 he committed suicide in protest against Ujimitsu’s attempt to take advantage of the conflict between Hosokawa Yoriyuki and Shiba Yoshimasa over the office of shogunal deputy in Kyoto and mount a revolt against the Muromachi shogunate. Noriharu’s brother Norikata would replace him as deputy in Kamakura. The Uesugi family as shogunal deputies and the military rule of the Kanto kubo Ujimitsu gave up his anti-shogunal activities after Noriharu’s suicide in protest against them. But in 1380 (Koryaku 2=Tenju 6), he went to war against Oyama Yoshimasa, who had refused to abide by the terms of a court ruling Ujimitsu had made. The resistance of the Oyama family continued until 1397 (Oei 4) when Oyama Wakainumaru committed suicide at Aizu in Oshu. Meanwhile, Ujimitsu advanced his forces as far as Shirakawa in Oshu. While Ujimitsu was pursuing the Oyama family, shogun Yoshimitsu added Oshu (the provinces of Mutsu and Dewa) to the provinces controlled by the Kanto kubo. When Ujimitsu died at Kamakura in 1398 (Oei 5), he was succeeded by Mitsukane, who sent his two younger brothers to Oshu to govern these two newly appropriated provinces. They established their residences (gosho) at Inamura and Sasagawa. Mitsukane himself set out from Kamakura to make a tour of the Oshu provinces and make his influence felt there. But this act only succeeded in antagonizing the local aristocracy and led to the rebellion of the Date family, which was suppressed only with great difficulty. The youthful Mitsukane, aided by his shogunal deputies Uesugi Tomomune and Uesugi Norisada, frequently set out for battle from the Eastern Palace at Jomyoji Temple in Kamakura, which had served as the palace for the Kanto kubo since the time of Yoshiakira. For the next eleven years until his death in 1409 (Oei 16), he administered the provinces under his control through military force. From the time of Uesugi Noriaki, the Uesugi family monopolized the office of shogunal deputy of the Kanto region. Originally descended from the aristocratic Kanjuji family of Kyoto, they took the name Uesugi from the estate they controlled in Tamba province (Kyoto). The family first came to Kamakura at the time of Uesugi Shigefusa, who was in the retinue of Prince Munetaka when he arrived there in 1252 to become the sixth Kamakura shogun. Shigefusa’s grand-daughter Kiyoshi became the wife of Ashikaga Sadauji and bore him two sons, Takauji and Tadayoshi. Because of this relationship, the entire family were ardent supporters of the Ashikaga. The descendants of Uesugi Shigefusa in the Kanto flourished and eventually divided into four branches: the Yamanouchi, Ogigayatsu, Inukake and Takuma, each taking its name from the section in Kamakura where it had built its residence. Yet, if the Uesugi family monopolized the office of Kanto shogunal deputy, all too often they were called upon to act as mediators between successive shoguns and those Kanto kubo who tried to resist the Muromachi shogunate. Shogun vs. Kanto kubo: confrontation of fire and water After the death of the Kanto kubo Mitsukane in 1409, his eldest son Koomaru, then aged thirteen, succeeded him, taking the name Mochiuji, part of which he borrowed from the name of the current shogun Yoshimochi. The hereditary positions of shogun and Kanto kubo which had their origins with the two Ashikaga brothers, YoshiPortrait of Ashikaga Yoshinori. (Myokoji Temple, Kyoto) akira and Motouji, had reached the fourth generation. Though the blood relationship had weakened over the years, the consciousness that they were both of Ashikaga descent remained strong. The activities of the Kanto kubo which were prompted by this consciousness often served as an irritant to the shogun and increased the tensions between the two. The second kubo Ujimitsu nursed ambitions to replace Yoshimitsu as shogun; and the third kubo Mitsukane showed similar tendencies when he responded to the call of Ouchi Yoshihiro, who had raised an army against the shogunate at Izumi Sakai (Osaka). But military operations by both kubo came to nothing, remaining within the confines of Sagami province and never crossing over the Ashigara Pass. This was entirely due to the efforts of the shogunal deputies of the Uesugi family who interceded between the kubo and the shogun. But by the time of Mochiuji in the fourth generation, even the mediating efforts of the Uesugi family had reached their limits, and the Kanto region became a battleground. This state of affairs had its beginnings in 1416 (Oei 23) with the rebellion of Zenshu. Zenshu was the Buddhist name for the shogunal deputy Inukake Ujinori. Provoked by his political rival Yamanouchi Norimoto and by Mochiuji, he had been forced to resign this office. He then responded to an invitation to join forces with Ashikaga Yoshitsugu, who had designs on the Muromachi shogunate. He convinced Mochiuji’s uncles Ashikaga Mitsutaka and Ashikaga Mitsusada, who governed the two provinces of Mutsu and Dewa, to join them and also won over the Chiba family of Shimosa, the Iwamatsu (Nitta) family of Kozuke, the Nasu of Shimotsuke, and the Takeda of Kai. On October 2, 1416, Zenshu, who had been confined to his residence at Kamakura, joined forces with Mitsutaka, and made a surprise attack on the kubo. But Mochiuji was able to escape to the residence of Yamanouchi Norimoto. In June, the warriors of the Kanto massed at Kamakura, and in the ensuing battle the forces of Mochiuji were defeated. He fled to Odawara by way of Katase and Koshigoe and hid in the Hakone mountains, while Yamanouchi Norimoto fled to Echigo. Zenshu and Mitsutaka now held Kamakura in their grasp and sent troops into Sagami and Musashi to search for and destroy the remaining partisans of Mochiuji. When the Muromachi bakufu realized that the rival claimant to the shogunate, Yoshitsugu, was involved in the uprising, it ordered Uesugi Fusakata, the military governor of Echigo, and Imagawa Norimasa, the military governor of Suruga, to destroy Zenshu. Early in 1417 the two men approached Kamakura from the north and the west, and began the attack. Zenshu sallied forth to meet them and won the encounter at Setagaya (Tokyo), but harried by the Imagawa forces, who had crossed the Ashigara Pass, he was forced to go on the defensive. When many of his allies went over to the enemy, Zenshu committed suicide with his entire family at a monastery at Yukinoshita in Kamakura on December 10. Zenshu’s control over Kamakura had come to an end after only three months. Once again master of Kamakura, Mochiuji dealt harshly with those warriors who had sided with Zenshu. One after another, he carried out punitive expeditions against the Chiba of Shimosa, the Takeda of Kai, the Iwamatsu of Kozuke, the Oyama of Hitachi, and Hon of Kazusa. However, most of these warriors were vassals of the Muromachi shogunate which had for some time supported them from Kyoto with special stipends to act as a check on Mochiuji, and his actions against them appeared to be a direct challenge to the shogun. Thus the shogun, Yoshimochi, decided to dispatch an army to subjugate the Kanto kubo. Learning of this, Mochiuji sent a written pledge twice reaffirming his fealty to the shogun and thereby saved himself from destruction. When Yoshimochi died in 1428 (Shocho 1), his brother Gien, the head of the Tendai sect, returned to secular life to become shogun, taking the name Ashikaga Yoshinori. Mochiuji was incensed and immediately made plans to raise an army and march on Kyoto. But he was dissuaded from doing so by his shogunal deputy Uesugi Norizane. He did, nevertheless, refuse to use the new era name of Eikyo, which had just been adopted in Kyoto with the accession of the new shogun, thereby showing his desire for independence from the western capital. For his part, Yoshinori used the pretext of an excursion to Mount Fuji to make a show of force, bringing his retinue as far as Suruga province. Mochiuji ignored this and offered a prayer written in blood at the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, beseeching the gods for victory over his sworn enemy, the shogun Yoshinori. In 1435 (Eikyo 7), Mochiuji refused to listen to Norizane’s attempts to dissuade him and advanced his troops against the province of Shinano, which was at the time a shogunal domain. Realizing all was lost, Norizane left Kamakura and took refuge in Kozuke province, but Mochiuji pursued Norizane and advanced his troops as far as Fuchu in Musashi (Fuchu City, Tokyo). Norizane appealed to the Muromachi shogunate for help, and on orders from the emperor, Yoshinori sent off an expeditionary army. While this army was moving eastward along the Hakone and Ashigara roads, Norizane left Kozuke and headed south to Bunbaigawara (Tokyo). Even the military governor of Sagami, Miura Tokitaka, abandoned Mochiuji and went over to Norizane’s side. He attacked Kamakura, set fire to the city, and burned Mochiuji’s palace to the ground. Mochiuji’s proposals for a truce went unheeded, and he was confined under house arrest at Yoanji Temple in Kamakura. Norizane appealed to Yoshinori to spare Mochiuji’s life, but this request too went unheeded, and in 1439 Mochiuji committed suicide with his uncle Mitsutada and thirty or so others. The following year, Yuki Ujitomo of Shimosa raised an army in the names of Mochiuji’s young sons, Yasuomaru and Haruomaru. The war stretched into the next year, but then Ujitomo died in battle, and the two children were taken prisoner and subsequently murdered while being sent under armed guard to Kyoto. These two events are known as the Eikyo Uprising and the Yuki Conflict. The end of Kamakura as a center of government Mochiuji’s suicide in 1439 created a vacuum in the hereditary succession of the Kanto kubo, and Kamakura came under the control of the Yamanouchi Uesugi family. Uesugi Norizane became a monk to atone for his part in the Eikyo Uprising and the death of his lord Mochiuji. For the next ten years, Kamakura lacked a kubo and peace prevailed in Sagami. But in 1449 (Hotoku 1) Mochiuji’s son Shigeuji was welcomed as the new Kanto kubo and became master of the Kamakura regional government; Norizane’s heir Noritada became his shogunal deputy. The Kamakura regional government was now revived, but the Muromachi shogunate increased its own authority over the eastern provinces and markedly circumscribed the jurisdiction of the kubo. Shigeuji banded together his father’s old retainers with the intention of restoring the kubo’s authority. He then lured Noritada, a strong supporter of shogunal interests, to his residence in the Western Palace in Kamakura and had him killed there. Noritada’s steward Nagao Kagenaka and others supported Noritada’s brother Fusaaki and allied themselves with Mochitomo of the Ogigayatsu Uesugi against Shigeuji. They fought the army which Shigeuji had dispatched against them at Shimagawara in Sagami (Hiratsuka City), then fortified themselves in Oguri Castle in Hitachi. Shigeuji took the field against them himself and showed his superiority in an assault on the castle and in other encounters. Meanwhile, the military governor of Suruga, Imagawa Noritada, stormed Kamakura on orders from the shogunate and burned down Shigeuji’s palace and the rest of the city as well. Shigeuji fled to Koga in Shimosa never to return to Kamakura. This event marked the beginning of the Koga kubo and heralded the passing of Kamakura as a center of government. The year was 1455 (Kosho 1); four generations and nearly one hundred years had elapsed since the reign of the first Kanto kubo Ashikaga Motouji, and 275 years since Minamoto Yoritomo entered Kamakura in 1180 (Jisho 4). In order to supply a successor to Shigeuji, the Muromachi bakufu sent the eighth shogun Yoshimasa’s younger brother Masatomo to the Kanto. But the atmosphere in Kamakura must have been extremely hostile towards him, for Masatomo could not cross the Hakone mountains and remained at Horikoshi in Izu. He was henceforth known as the Horikoshi kubo. Kamakura had been under the control of the Uesugi family, but after Shigeuji left for Koga, they too left Kamakura: the Yamanouchi Uesugi moved to Shirai Castle in Kozuke province, which their family governed, while the Ogigayatsu Uesugi based themselves at Kawagoe Castle in Musashi and continued to oppose Shigeuji from there. The real wielders of power were the Uesugi stewards (the leaders of the house vassals), the Nagao family for the Yamanouchi Uesugi and the Ota family for the Ogigayatsu Uesugi. The Ogigayatsu governed Sagami and Musashi, and their steward Ota Dokan excelled at literature as well as being renowned as an outstanding steward and military strategist. At Edo Castle, which he had built in 1457 to hold Shigeuji in check, Dokan entertained the literati from Kyoto, and it was through his efforts that the Ogigayatsu Uesugi were able to eclipse the Yamanouchi Uesugi. Both branches of the family frequently joined forces to fight against Shigeuji, but the Yamanouchi Uesugi were envious of the fame of the Ogigayatsu house. Because of false charges they made against him, Dokan was murdered at the residence of his master Uesugi Sadamasa on the Kasuya estate (Isehara City). Dokan’s son Sukeyasu and many of the local warriors who had joined Dokan on his military expeditions immediately left Sadamasa’s service and sided with the Yamanouchi Uesugi, and the Ogigayatsu house declined in influence. 2. The Rise and Fall of the Odawara Hojo Family Ise Sozui and the capture of Odawara Castle In 1482 (Bummei 14) peace was made between the Koga kubo Shigeuji and the Muromachi shogunate, by the terms of which the shogun agreed to recognize Shigeuji’s authority over the nine provinces of the Kanto region. This was tantamount to a restoration of the office of Kanto kubo. As Horikoshi kubo, Masatomo’s control over the single province of Izu was acknowledged. But while he still retained the title of kubo, he was in fact merely the lord of a single small fief. He never left Izu and was to die there of illness eight years later. Masatomo’s son Chachamaru succeeded him, but his position was made precarious by internal dissension. In 1491 Ise Sozui, a dependent of the Imagawa family, the military governors of Suruga, made a surprise attack on Horikoshi and killed Chachamaru. Sozui then built a castle at Nirayama and made himself master of Izu (Shizuoka Prefecture). Meanwhile, warfare continued in the provinces of Sagami and Musashi between Ogigayatsu Sadamasa and the allied armies of the Koga kubo Shigeuji and Yamanouchi Akisada. A series of battles were waged at Sanemakihara (Isehara City), Nanasawa (Atsugi City), Sugaya (Saitama Prefecture), and Hara (Arashiyama Township, Saitama Prefecture). In 1494 (Meio 3) Omori Ujiyori, the lord of Odawara Castle and a powerful general for the Ogigayatsu Uesugi family, died. That same year, another of their generals, Miura Tokitaka, the lord of Arai Castle in the Miura district, committed suicide while under attack by his adopted son, Yoshiatsu. Yoshiatsu had been born into the Uesugi clan, and his mother was an Omori, but he became a Miura when he was adopted by Tokitaka. When a natural son was born to Tokitaka, however, the two became estranged. Yoshiatsu fled Miura, became a monk in Odawara and called himself Dosun. Then, with the aid of his maternal relatives, he captured Arai Castle. Yoshiatsu established his own residence at a castle in Okazaki and left his son Yoshioki in charge of Arai Castle. The land of Sagami had now entered the Age of Warring States (Sengoku jidai, 1482-1558). Taking advantage of the situation there, Ise Sozui made a surprise attack on Odawara Castle and captured it in 1495 (Meio 4). Omori Fujiyori, the lord of the castle, and his clan moved to occupy the castles at Okazaki and Sanada. Sozui had taken the first step in his advance into the Kanto, an advance which signaled a new era for the Hojo Soun (Ise Sozui) (Sounji Temple, Hakone Township) region. However, Sozui handed over Odawara Castle to his brother Yajiro and returned to Nirayama Castle in Izu, where he devoted himself to governing his province-wide domain. The following year, Yamanouchi Akisada invaded western Sagami in order to put down the group that had seized control there-led by his rebellious retainer, Nagao Kageharu. Ise Sozui joined Omori Fujiyori and members of the Miura, Ota and Ueda clans in resisting Akisada, but suffered a crushing defeat in which he lost many of his retainers. Their valor served, however, to make Sozui better known among the warriors of Sagami. Over the next few years, he extended his influence there, and in 1504 (Eisho 1) Sozui sent his troops to the aid of Ogigayatsu Tomoyoshi on the plains of Tachikawa in Musashi (Tachikawa City, Tokyo). Gradually, Sozui’s military operations spread into eastern Sagami, and in 1512 (Eisho 9) he decided to move against the Miura clan. With his son Ujitsuna, he attacked Miura Yoshiatsu at his residence, Okazaki Castle, and pursued him when Yoshiatsu fled to Kotsubo (Zushi City). For the first time, Sozui entered Kamakura. While there, he stationed detachments at the Taima post station (Sagamihara City), a stategic point on the road system linking the three provinces of Sagami, Musashi, and Kai. To cut off the Ota family of Edo from coming to the aid of the Miura clan, he built Tamanawa Castle (Kamakura City) at a point commanding the approaches to the Miura Peninsula. He also granted tax exemptions to Kenchoji, Engakuji and Tokeiji temples, a sign that he was now the master of Kamakura. Furthermore, he was responsible for the death in battle of Ota Dokan’s son, Ota Sukeyasu of Edo Castle, who had rushed to the support of the Miura family. Then in July 1516 (Eisho 13) Sozui attacked Miura Yoshiatsu’s main stronghold at Arai Castle and forced him and his son to commit suicide. With their deaths one of the leading families of Sagami since th,e heyday of the Kamakura bakufu died out. Sozui had succeeded in subjugating the entire province of Sagami. He handed over headship the family to his son Ujitsuna and retired to Izu, where he died of illness in 1519 (Eisho 16). His posthumous Buddhist name, by which he is better known, was Soun. The Odawara Hojo family establishes hegemony over the eastern provinces There is no firm evidence that Ise Sozui ever called himself a Hojo. The Hojo surname was adopted during his son Ujitsuna’s ascendancy sometime around 1523/24 (Taiei 3 or 4). This was unquestionably a source of embarrassment to the Hojo family of Kamakura, and Sozui’s descendants are usually referred to as the Go-Hojo, or Later Hojo. The family, however, never called itself the Go-Hojo. Ujitsuna devoted himself to the civil government of Sagami and Izu and carried out a cadastral survey of the villages in the environs of Odawara and Kamakura, the first ever made by a daimyo of the Sengoku (Warring States) period. The Tiger Seal which he used on official documents, depicting a tiger reclining on the motto, “HappiThe Tiger Seal of the Hojo house. The characters on it read “Happiness, longevity, obedience, tranquillity.” ness, longevity, obedience, tranquillity,” is famous in the history of seals in Japan. In 1524 (Taiei 4) Ujitsuna waged war against Ogigayatsu Tomooki and took Edo by force. He placed his retainer Toyama Tadakage in charge of the castle there, repaired Kozuke Castle (Kohoku Ward, Yokohama), set up his own castellan in it, and added southern Musashi to his domain. On seeing this, the Moro and Okamoto families, both Uesugi retainers, concluded a secret pact with Ujitsuna. On the basis of this,Ujitsuna marched his advance guard into central Musashi. The Ogigayatsu Uesugi family, based at Kawagoe Castle, struck repeatedly at Ujitsuna’s forces, and the Satomi family of Awa invaded Kamakura by sea. In the ensuing battle, the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine caught fire and burned to the ground. Ujitsuna later devoted himself to rebuilding the shrine, and the government in Kyoto probably took the opportunity afforded by his soliciting contributions for this purpose to recognize him and confer upon him the title of Sakyodayu and the fifth court rank, junior grade. At any rate, in 1533 (Tembun 2) an imperial messenger visited Ujitsuna to demand payment of the annual tribute from his Izu domain. Thus the imperial court also came to recognize the Hojo family’s hegemony over Sagami and Izu. These were the circumstances under which the Ogigayatsu Uesugi family of Kawagoe Castle plotted to regain control of their possessions. In 1533 (Tembun 2) they invaded and set fire to Hiratsuka and Oiso. Two years later, taking advantage of the absence of Ujitsuna, who had gone to the relief of Imagawa Ujiteru of Suruga, the Uesugi army once again invaded Oiso, Hiratsuka, Ichinomiya, Kowada (Chigasaki City), and Kugenuma, setting them ablaze and wreaking havoc on the inhabitants. Joined by warriors from Musashi, Awa, Kazusa and elsewhere who had previously been uncommitted to him, Ujitsuna led his army in pursuit of the Uesugi army and defeated it at the Iruma River in Musashi. He was able to mobilize warriors from outside his territory-and within that of his enemies-because they had been alienated by the high-handed measures adopted by the feudal lords of both branches of the Uesugi family to press them into their service, and for that reason they were inclined to be sympathetic to Ujitsuna. In April 1537 (Tembun 6), upon hearing that the head of the Ogigayatsu Uesugi family, Tomooki, had died, Kaigen Sozu, a priest of the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, wrote that the peasants of Sagami “rejoiced in the belief that now the land would be at peace.” But Tomooki’s successor, Tomosada, also set himself in opposition to Ujitsuna, and the latter stormed and occupied Kawagoe Castle. Tomosada fled to Matsuyama Castle (Higashi Matsuyama City, Saitama Prefecture). Kawagoe Castle, which had been the stronghold of the Ogigayatsu family as shogunal deputies for the region ever since the Kanto kubo had withdrawn to Koga, was now in the hands of Ujitsuna and the sphere of the Hojo family’s influence now included the greater part of the province of Musashi. In October 1538 (Tembun 7) Ujitsuna fought Ashikaga Yoshiaki of Shimosa and Satomi Takaaki of Awa at Konodai in Shimosa (Ichikawa City) and was responsible for Yoshiaki’s death in battle. The next year, he turned about to attack the Imagawa family of Suruga and added the lands east of the Fuji River to his domain. As a result of these campaigns, Ujitsuna expanded his territory to both the east and the west, and the field of battle became further and further removed from the province of Sagami. The civil administration of the Odawara Hojo family After Ujitsuna had gained ascendancy over Sagami, he made great efforts to rebuild its shrines in order to restore a sense of stability to the local inhabitants. He took particular pains in rebuilding the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, which had been burned down by the Satomi family in 1526. He also worked to restore the Samukawa Shrine, Hakone Gongen, the Rokusho Myojin at Kozu, and the Izu Mishima Shrine. Moreover, he granted exemptions from taxes and corvee labor to the estates belonging to temples such as the Honkakuji, Meigetsuin, Tokeiji, and Kakuonji in Kamakura, and the Oi Shrine in Ashigarakami district; and he increased their protection by passing ordinances conserving bamboo trees within shrine and temple precincts and forbidding the intervention of local land stewards and others in their affairs. To take charge of these matters, he made a leading retainer of his from the Daidoji family the chief magistrate of Kamakura. Ujiyasu, the third-generation head of the Hojo family, succeeded his father after Ujitsuna had repulsed the Uesugi family’s efforts to retake Kawagoe Castle, and proceeded with the cadastral surveys begun by his grandfather Sozui. These were surveys of all lands in the region-whether they were under the direct jurisdiction of the Hojo family or their vassals or belonged to shrines and temples. In 1542 (Tembun 11) Ujiyasu conducted surveys of southeastern Musashi and of central Sagami (Tsukui district, and the cities of Hiratsuka, Atsugi, Chigasaki, and Fujisawa). The following year, further surveys were carried out in central Sagami (Oiso Township, Hiratsuka City, Atsugi City, Isehara City, Ebina City and Kiyokawa village) and in southern Musashi (Tama Ward, Kawasaki City; Machida City, Tokyo; Minami Ward, Yokohama). With these cadastral surveys, the vassals, shrines and temples, and peasants recorded in the land registers were brought under the firm control of the Hojo family, who in return guaranteed various rights to these groups. Hojo Ujitsuna (Sounji Temple, Hakone Township) What might well be called a warlord’s account books for the management of his domains, these cadastral surveys have been praised as a precursor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s national system of land registration, the Taiko kenchi. In 1550 (Tembun 19), because the province was impoverished as a result of his family’s frequent military expeditions, Ujiyasu put an end to several tax levies and changed the system to one in which payment of a tax known as yakusen was made at a rate of six kammon for every one hundred kammon’s worth of land. (The kammon was a unit of copper currency.) In addition, he established a new tax unit called a kakesen equal to four percent on the valuation in terms of kan of all tilled fields and rice paddies. This system of valuing and taxing land in terms of coinage rather than rice yield (kokudaka) was called the kandaka system. Payment of the annual tribute from the manorial estates in coinage rather than in kind had begun in the middle of the Kamakura period and had come into increasing use. Moreover, a tax called tansen, which collected a set sum of money per tan of land (1 tan=0.25 acre) according to a province-wide average, had been repeatedly levied in the fourteenth century. The new kandaka system, however, expressed in terms of coinage what the old annual tribute system of the manorial estates had expressed in terms of rice. The tax rate under the kandaka system of the Odawara Hojo family was based on five hundred mon per one tan for rice paddies and one hundred sixty-five mon for dry fields. A third tax, the munebechisen (house tax), declined from fifty mon to thirty-five mon. The kandaka system had the advantage of quantifying military levies for the daimyo, guaranteeing a standardized rate of annual tribute for the daimyo and fiefholders, and fixing the amount of that tribute for the farmer. It also allowed the daimyo to make a thorough requisition of all house taxes, land taxes and military levies due him from his land stewards (i.e. the warriors who held fiefs). Other daimyo of the Sengoku period such as the Mori family in the western provinces and the Date family in the northeast also adopted the kandaka system, but it is the Odawara Hojo family that is famous for pioneering its use. Furthermore, the system of roads which earlier had been centered on Kamakura was rerouted with Odawara at the hub; a system of chits issued by the Hojo family enabling their holders to use post horses (temma) was put into effect, and post stations and market places were established at strategic locations along the main thoroughfares. For the most part, markets were held six times a month and hence were called rokusai-ichi. Odawara had replaced Kamakura as the center of the Kanto region, and in its heyday even ships from abroad arrived there. In 1504 (Eisho 1) Uiro Sadaharu, the originator of the famous pills known as tochinko, or more popularly uiro, settled at Odawara at the invitation of Sozui. In 1551 (Tembun 20) Ujiyasu attacked Yamanouchi Norimasa at Hirai Castle in Kozuke, driving him out to Mayabashi Castle. From there he fled to his family’s domain in Echigo (Niigata Prefecture) to take refuge with the deputy governor there, Nagao Kagetora (who would later take the name Uesugi Masatora and is best known as Uesugi Kenshin). Thus, Ujiyasu added Kozuke to the lands Hojo Ujiyasu (Sounji Temple, Hakone Township) under his control. Three years later in 1554, the Koga kubo Haruuji rejected Yoshiuji, his son by Ujitsuna’s daughter, and plotted with Fujiuji, his son by the daughter of a retainer, to rebel against Ujiyasu. Ujiyasu attacked Koga Castle, drove out Haruuji and Fujiuji, and instated his nephew Yoshiuji as Koga kubo; but the latter died without issue in 1583 (Tensho 11). His death marked the end of the office of the Koga kubo, which had been held for five generations by Shigeuji, Masauji, Takamoto, Haruuji, and Yoshiuji successively, and had lasted for nearly one hundred thirty years. “The Register of Local Duties Levied on the Domains of the Odawara Vassals” In 1559 (Eiroku 2) Ujitsuna had a document called “The Register of Local Duties Levied on the Domains of the Odawara Vassals” drawn up by his retainers. This register recorded the estate taxes for the Hojo family’s vassals and others due under the kandaka system, but did not include military levies. It is assumed that their military obligations were recorded in a separate register which is no longer extant. Ujitsuna set estate taxes (chigyodaka or kandaka) for each of his vassals based on the land which had been surveyed up to 1559, and apportioned the taxes among the main castle at Odawara and the subsidiary castles within his domain. Retainers were organized into units called shu according to the castle to which they were attached: those belonging to the main castle were called the Odawara-shu; those at the subsidiary castles were called the Izu-shu at Nirayama Castle, while the Tamanawa-shu, the Tsukui-shu, the Kozuke-shu, the Edo-shu and the Matsuyama-shu served respectively at the castles of those names. As keepers of each castle, he placed members of the Hojo family or retainers born in Sagami or Izu who had served loyally under them since the days of Sozui. The current head of the Hojo family presided over the Odawara Council (hyojo) which deliberated on matters concerning provincial administration. And at all times he carried with him the Tiger Seal. Documents stamped with this seal carried the highest authority of the Hojo family. Guarding the head of the Hojo clan were the Oumamawari-shu, literally “those who go about on horseback.” The lord of Tamanawa Castle, in addition to commanding the Tamanawa-shu, was in charge of craftsmen such as carpenters, blacksmiths and stonecutters as well as entertainers who traveled within the domain. Sudo Sozaemon of Odawara Castle gathered under his aegis craftsmen such as makers of paper sliding doors, blacksmiths, carpenters, lumbermen, tanners, paper hangers, makers of mother-of-pearl inlays, silversmiths, weavers, papermakers, makers of sword hilts, and others, and organized them into a guild known as the shokunin-shu. The lord of Hadano Castle was put in charge of the footsoldiery (ashigara-shu) and the takoku-shu, a group of local warriors organized to serve as retainers. The Hojo family itself was referred to as the ichimon-shu. The warriors who belonged to each of the these shu were assigned estate taxes and military levies based on their kandaka. “The Register of Local Duties Levied on the Domains of the Odawara Vassals” Hojo Ujimasa (Sounji Temple, Hakone Township) was drawn up as a ledger of the former duties. There, under almost every shu, is a separate listing with the name of a retainer, the names of the hamlets and villages within his fief, and their kandaka, for a total of 560 proprietors, 82,5 villages and a total kandaka of 72,000 kammon. This register does not cover the whole of the Hojo family’s domain, omitting, for example, sections on the castles at Hachioji, Hachigata and Iwatsuki, but it is a precious historical record of the villages and hamlets under the control of the Odawara Hojo family and of the warriors and commoners who lived in them. In particular, the section on the organization of the shokunin-shu is noteworthy for the attention it paid to both the patronage given to artisans and to the efforts to ensure that taxes were duly collected from them. In the register, the Hojo domain is divided into an eastern section consisting of the two districts of Koza and Kamakura and all the lands east of the Sagami River with the exception of the Miura district; a central section consisting of the two districts of Osumi and Aiko west of the Sagami River; and a western section made up of the three districts of Yurugi, Ashigarakami and Ashigarashimo. The northwestern part of Aiko district was split off to form the Tsukui district. Of these the central and western sections were administered directly by the Hojo family. Sagami, Kai, Echigo, Suruga-shifting alliances and enmities Shortly after the register was completed, Ujitsuna retired and Ujiyasu became lord of Odawara Castle. Yamanouchi Norimasa, the shogunal deputy who had fled to Echigo, expected deputy governor Nagao Kagetora to dispatch an army to the Kanto region against the Hojo. Satake Yoshiaki of Hitachi and Satomi Yoshitaka of Awa also demanded that Kagetora send troops. In 1560 (Eiroku 3) Kagetora marched into Kozuke on Norimasa’s behalf and captured Numata Castle (Numata City, Gumma Prefecture) which was defended by one of the Hojo family’s generals. He then attacked Ujiyasu at Matsuyama Castle (Matsuyama City, Gumma Prefecture). Threading his way through an opening left by the besieged Hojo army, Kagetora stormed into Odawara in March 1561, and put the town to the torch. But the Hojo army remained in the castle waiting until the enemy had used up its supplies, and finally the Echigo forces withdrew. During the siege, Nagao Kagetora went to Kamakura to conduct a ceremony before the gods of the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine celebrating his accession as Kanto shogunal deputy (kanrei), a post which Uesugi Norimasa had handed over to him. He took the Uesugi surname, made Ashikaga Fujiuji, who had earlier been driven out of Koga, the Koga kubo, and then returned to Echigo. About this time, the eastern provinces were visited by severe famine, and the combination of natural disaster and an invading army drove some farmers to sell themselves into bondage. Ujiyasu issued a moratorium on taxes and undertook other relief measures. Uesugi Kagetora (who repeatedly changed his name, also calling himself Masatora and Terutora) invaded the province of Kozuke as many as fourteen times. But when fighting broke out between the Hojo and their former ally, the Takeda family of Kai, in a dispute centering on the Imagawa clan of Suruga, Ujiyasu made peace with Uesugi. Two months after peace was made in September 1569, Takeda Terunobu crossed the Usui Pass and invaded Sagami, making a fierce attack on Odawara Castle the following month. The Hojo family once again prepared for a siege, and several days later, the Takeda army was forced to withdraw. Hojo Ujiteru, the lord of Takiyama Castle, pursued the invaders and fought them at Mimase Pass in Tsukui District (Aikawa Township), but he was defeated when the Takeda forces encamped above the pass and made a counterattack. Even after Ujiyasu fell ill and died, and Ujimasa became head of the Hojo clan, the provinces of Kai and Sagami were alternately allies and enemies. Moreover, the Uesugi family continued to make repeated invasions of Kozuke. Then, in 1580 (Tensho 8) Ujimasa abdicated in favor of his son Ujinao, who became lord of Odawara Castle. The end of the Odawara Hojo By this time, Oda Nobunaga had defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto of Suruga in the west. In 15,82 (Tensho 10) he destroyed the Takeda family of Kai and was rapidly intensifying the pressure on eastern Japan. As a reward for service in the attack on the Takeda, Nobunaga awarded the province of Kozuke to his vassal Takigawa Kazumasu, who took control of Umaya Castle. For the Odawara Hojo family, who claimed Kozuke as part of their territory, this was a state of affairs that could not be ignored. When Nobunaga was murdered at Honnoji Temple in June 1582, Ujinao attacked Kazumasu at Umaya Castle and drove him to Nagashima in the Takigawa domain at Ise. Ujinao planned to march against Kai and Suruga, which would, in turn, have led to a confrontation with Tokugawa Ieyasu, to whom Nobunaga had awarded the latter province, but peace was concluded between the two, and for the moment war was avoided. After Nobunaga’s death, the task of unifying the country fell to his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In 1587 (Tensho 15) Hideyoshi subdued the Shimazu family of Kyushu. Then, in December he issued the Sobuji (Universal Peace) edict aimed at the warlords of the Kanto and Oshu regions and ordered Tokugawa Ieyasu to enforce it. The Sobuji edict stated that national unity must take precedence over all else, and that plans must be made to achieve peace and cease resorting to force of arms. To counter this edict, the Hojo family issued one of its own, mobilizing all its subjects in the villages of Sagami, southern Musashi and Izu. Divided under four headings, it read as follows: 1. In this time of emergency, each village shall select all those capable of service to the realm, samurai or commoners notwithstanding, and their names will be duly recorded. 2. They shall arm themselves with bows, spears or muskets, or any combination of the above. However, spears less than twelve feet long, whether with bamboo or wooden shafts, shall not be used. Moreover, the names of all persons claiming exemption from military service, the personal retainers of prominent families, as well as the names of all merchants and artisans between the ages of 15 and 70, must be recorded. 3. Should any good candidate be passed over on the grounds that he is needed for local labor the authority of the said village shall be beheaded as soon as this fact is discovered. 4. All who obey this directive and acquit themselves well, both samurai and commoner alike, shall be gratefully rewarded. A proclamation of similar content was also sent out by Ujimasa, who had previously retired as head of the clan. In addition, subsidiary castles were repaired, new weapons made, provisions for the troops stockpiled, and a massive reinforcement of troop strength carried out. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had allied himself to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, urged Ujimasa and his son to go to Kyoto for an audience with Hideyoshi. He threatened the pair by demanding the return of Ieyasu’s daughter Tokuhime, who was Ujinao’s wife, if they refused to listen to his advice. Instead, Ujinao sent his uncle Ujinori of Nirayama Castle to Kyoto and, at the same time, requested a resolution to the dispute over Numata Castle. As one of the conditions of the peace concluded earlier with Ieyasu, this castle was to be handed over to the Hojo family, but this had not in fact come about because of objections raised by the Sanada family. Hideyoshi agreed to the Hojo request for resolution of the matter, and determined that the thirty thousand koku (1 koku=4.9 bushels) in revenue from the fief centered on Numata Castle be divided into thirds: two-thirds to be given to the Hojo family, while the one-third from the subsidiary castle at Nakurumi, which contained the Sanada family graves, would for that reason be given to the Sanada family. This portion of the fief was on the other side of the Tone River opposite Numata Castle. As a result of this settlement, Numata Castle was entrusted to Hojo Ujikuni, the lord of Hachigata Castle, and a company of his men was garrisoned there. In October 1589 (Tensho 17) the troop garrisoning Numata Castle crossed the Tone River and attacked Nakurumi Castle. Taking this as a violation of the arbitration agreement, Hideyoshi rejected Ujinao’s attempts to justify the action, and had Tokugawa Ieyasu announce his intention to destroy the Hojo family. At Odawara Castle Ujimasa and Ujinao assembled their advisers, and after repeated discussions they finally decided to concentrate their forces in the castle and wait for Hideyoshi’s army. But this time, they placed too much confidence in their earlier successes with this strategy against both the Uesugi and the Takeda. On March 1, 1590, at the head of an army 32,000 strong, Hideyoshi set out from Kyoto, joined forces with an advance guard of 140,000 led by Tokugawa Ieyasu, and arrived at Odawara on April 3. Here he built a castle at Ishigakiyama overlooking Odawara Castle and prepared himself for a protracted siege. On the Hojo side, the family’s subsidiary castles which were spread throughout the entire domain surrendered one after another without a fight. Surrounded by an army of several hundred thousand men prepared for an extended siege, the Hojo family was placed in a hopeless position. On July 5 Ujinao emerged from Odawara Castle and surrendered, handing it over to the besiegers the following day. Hideyoshi ordered the four main advocates of the war-Hojo Ujimasa and his brother Ujiteru; the chief magistrate of Kamakura, Daidoji Masashige; and Matsuda Norihide, the lord of Matsuda Castle-to commit suicide. He exiled Ujinao, his uncle Ujinori, and more than three hundred others to Mount Koya in the province of Kii. Most of the Hojo retainers who survived went back to farming in the villages where they lived. The Odawara Hojo family, who since the days of Soun had held sway over the Kanto region from Odawara Castle for five generations-one hundred years-had come to an end. Never again would the province of Sagami be the center of power in the eastern provinces. THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD Ⅰ. Sagami and Musashi Under the Bakuhan System 1. The Opening of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo An end to the disorders of civil war The fall of Odawara Castle was, at the same time, an end to the more than one hundred years of civil warfare known as the Sengoku Period. In fact, since the Sengoku Period in Sagami and Musashi Tokugawa Ieyasu and sixteen of his generals. (Odawara Castle Collection) began with the struggle between the Koga kubo and the Uesugi house, the disturbances of war in these regions lasted for almost two hundred years. One of the legacies of these long years of conflict was the devastation of the countryside Even before the fall of Odawara Castle, its besieger, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had issued a three-article decree to nearly one hundred villages, temples and shrines throughout the three provinces of Sagami, Musashi and Izu, intended to restore stability to the peasant population. Its first article ordered peasants who had abandoned their homes and land in order to escape the dangers of war to return to their villages. The second article prohibited arson and indiscriminate violence on the part of soldiers. The third article forbade criminal behavior toward the peasantry, shrines and temples, and residents of the towns which had sprung up around these religious sites (monzen-byakusho). It also outlawed private imposts on fishing vessels, promoted fishing, and ordered fishermen to pay a tax on their produce. A cadastral survey carried out by Okubo Tadachika, daimyo of Odawara Castle, in 1591 (Tensho 19), indicated the impact of the long years of civil warfare upon the rural villages. Sixty-six percent of all farmland in Kaneko village (in the vicinity of what is now the town of Oi in Ashigarakami district), and forty-eight percent of all farmland in Shinokubo village had been devastated. In addition, seven residences out of fifteen in Shinokubo stood empty, as did eighteen residences out of forty-six in the village of Kanade (in Oi). In the village of Odomo (Odawara City), 207 of a total of 352 units of farmland lay abandoned or unarable. The situation was similar in other parts of Sagami, and it was urgent for the rural villages to recover and stability to be restored. Several days after the fall of Odawara Castle, Hideyoshi stopped at Kamakura on his way to the Tohoku region on an expedition intended to demonstrate his authority to the daimyo of the region. While in Kamakura, he ordered Katagiri Katsumoto to undertake repair work on the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. He also issued vermilion-sealed documents confirming land ownership by Tsurugaoka Hachimangu and the three temples of Kenchoji, Enkakuji, and Tokeiji. Tokugawa Ieyasu’s entry into Edo Castle and the Kanagawa region On Hideyoshi’s orders, Tokugawa Ieyasu left his old domain in the Tokai region and moved eastward. On the first day of August in 1590 (Tensho 18), he entered Edo Castle and established it as his headquarters and residence. This was the beginning of the three hundred years of the Edo period. The first things he set about doing were improving the streets of the city of Edo, repairing and enlarging Edo Castle, and deploying his bands of retainers within the territory he controlled. All these had important effects on the region that is now Kanagawa Prefecture, which provided the stone for rebuilding the castle and the wood for new construction in the city of Edo. In addition, the land itself was divided into areas given in fief to Tokugawa vassals and areas under the direct control of the Tokugawa house. The province of Sagami was especially important in providing stone for the new construction at Edo Castle. Ishiya Zenzaemon, a stonemason in Iwamura in the Ashigarashimo district of Sagami (now the town of Manazuru) was employed by the shogunate, called The keep of Odawara Castle, Odawara City. to Edo, and given a mansion in the Nihombashi district. Odawaracho in the Tsukiji district of Tokyo’s present-day Chuo Ward derives its name from Zenzaemon’s move to the city of Edo. Sagami had been famous for the quality of its stone since the Nara period. The area from which it was quarried centered on the village of Nebukawa (Odawara City) and extended along the western shores of Sagami Bay. Quarries in Sanda han of the Kuki family in Settsu and Yanagawa han of the Tachibana family in Chikugo as well as those in the domains of the three collateral houses of the Tokugawa were assigned to the task of the great reconstruction of Edo Castle during the Kan’ei period (1624-1644). The Hiroi, a family of former retainers of the old Hojo clan of Odawara, who had settled in Nebukawa village after the fall of Odawara Castle, undertook the quarrying for this major project, and artisans from Odawara, who had enjoyed the protection and patronage of the Hojo, were brought to Edo to carry out the work. Tokugawa lands and the disposition of vassal fiefs For Tokugawa Ieyasu, establishing his headquarters at Edo meant leaving his old domain in the Tokai region and taking possession of the Kanto which until that time had been enemy territory. Assigning new fiefs to the retainers who had left the security of familiar ground to follow him into the Kanto was an important and pressing task. Edo Castle became the heart of the new domain, and the lands immediately surrounding Edo came under the direct control of the Tokugawa house. Ieyasu’s most trusted and important vassals were positioned in fiefs on the fringes of the domain. The lands in between were given over in fief to minor vassals of the Tokugawa who would later be called hatamoto. This policy of land disposition was also adopted in the province of Sagami, which at the time of Ieyasu’s entry into the Kanto included about 554 villages. A single village was frequently given to more than one feudal overlord, a pattern of divided jurisdiction known as aikyu. Two hundred seventy-five villages, or about half the total number in the province, came under the direct control of the Tokugawa house. An additional 73 were given in fief to hatamoto retainers, and 42 fell under the joint jurisdiction of the Tokugawa and various hatamoto. The Tokugawa house also shared jurisdiction over 12 more villages with shrines and temples in the region that had been confirmed in their original land holdings at Ieyasu’s orders. The most important of these religious institutions were the five major temples of Kamakura (Kamakura gozan) and the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. Five villages were regarded as Tokugawa land but placed under the administration of a different feudal overlord (such land was called azukarichi). The remaining 147 villages in Sagami went to the domain of Odawara, positioned to protect the western flank of the Tokugawa territories. There were 223 villages in the three districts of Musashi province that would later be incorporated into Kanagawa Prefecture. Of these, 188 became Tokugawa lands, 20 went to hatamoto fiefs, six came under the shared jurisdiction of hatamoto and the Tokugawa house, and one village became part of a daimyo domain. A comprehensive look at the figures given above shows that of the 778 villages in the Kanagawa region, 463 were directly controlled by the Tokugawa, 148 went to the domain of Odawara or other han, 93 become hatamoto fiefs, and the rest fell under other forms of land ownership. Overall, a policy of “divide and rule” was implemented. As of 1594 (Bunroku 3),it is estimated that the kokudaka for the province of Sagami was something more than 194,000 koku. The figures are somewhat speculative, but it is estimated that of this total, Tokugawa land amounted to more than 110,900 koku; the Odawara domain, 40,000 koku; hatamoto fiefs, 40,000 koku; and shrine and temple lands, 1,300 koku. Both in terms of the number of villages, and in terms of its kokudaka, land directly controlled by the Tokugawa house comprised more than half of all land in the province. The restructuring of villages As Toyotomi Hideyoshi proceeded with his unification of the country, cadastral surveys were conducted on a uniform basis in each newly subjugated region, and the villages reorganized to form the foundation of a new social and political order. This process is referred to as the Taiko kenchi (the Taiko cadastral surveys) or the Tensho kokunaoshi (the Tensho land reassessment). The reassessment of the old Odawara Hojo domain was conducted by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Ieyasu began the survey a month after his entry into Edo, and within the year work also began in the provinces of Musashi, Shimosa, and Izu. The following year surveying was extended throughout the Kanto region, including Sagami, Kazusa, Kozuke, and Shimotsuke. However, it was not until the Bunroku and Keicho periods (1592-1614) that survey teams reached nearly all the villages of these provinces. In provinces such as Higo and Etchu, rebellions by powerful local families (kokujin) broke out in opposition to such land reassessments, which led to the transfer of certain daimyo, but there was no such resistance in the Kanto region. It was probably fortunate for the Tokugawa that most of the members of this local leadership stratum in the Kanto region were former retainers of the conquered Odawara Hojo family, but the fact that order was maintained in the region was due in large part to the realistic, flexible policies of Ieyasu. The land reassessments under Hideyoshi changed the largest unit of land area, the tan, which had been in use since the ritsuryo system was established, from 360 bu to 300 bu, and set 30 bu as equaling one se. The length of the rod used in measuring fields was established as one ken, which was equivalent to six shaku five sun A square ken Official surveying the rice yield. (From Rono yawa, Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo) comprised one bu. One tan became 60 bu smaller under the new system than it had been under the ritsuryo system. Using these units of measure, all paddies, dry fields, and buildings were measured, and their location, size, level of productivity, and the names of the persons working the land were recorded. Productivity of land was calculated in terms of the amount of rice it could produce (kokudaka), and classified into three grades. First, villages as a whole were classified as high, medium, or low in terms of productivity, and then within each village, each individual field was classified in the same fashion. Therefore, according to the grade into which each village was classified, the kokudaka of each graded field within a specific village differed. Since a cadastral register (kenchicho) recording this information was compiled for each village this process was also called muragiri (village demarcation). The cadastral survey conducted by the Odawara Hojo registered land according to the feudal lord or retainer who controlled it, following the precedent of the land registers (nayosecho) compiled under the shoen system, but in Hideyoshi’s cadastral surveys, the names of the feudal overlords did not appear. Instead, those of the peasants (honbyakusho) working each parcel of land and responsible for the taxes on it were clearly recorded, and the complex hierarchy of feudal relations and claims on the land which had been characteristic of the shoen system was eliminated at one stroke. The village took on its true character as a village and became the basic unit of administration and control. In this way, the village emerged into its characteristic early modern form. The system of roads and post stations After his great victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in September 1600 (Keicho 5), Tokugawa Ieyasu was elevated to the office of shogun in February 1603 (Keicho 8), and founded the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo. The center of national rule once again returned to eastern Japan, and traffic between Edo and Kyoto-Osaka took on increasing importance. Previously, eastward travel on the Tokaido (the main east-west thoroughfare) had rarely gone farther than Kamakura, but now a branch of the highroad bending north from Fujisawa along the coast toward Edo became the major artery. An older network of roads centering on Odawara was replaced by a system of highways with Edo as their hub. The most important of these were called the Gokaido (Five Highways). Of these, the Tokaido was the most important, but another major thoroughfare, the Koshukaido, ran across the northern part of Kanagawa Prefecture. On all of the five major highways, post stations (shukueki) were established. In 1601 (Keicho 6), posts were constructed at one ri intervals (about every four kilometers) along the Tokaido and the Tozando, marking the distances from Nihombashi in Edo as an aid to travelers. The same year, post stations were established at Kanagawa, Hodogaya, and Fujisawa in what is now Kanagawa Prefecture, supplementing those which already existed at Hiratsuka, Oiso, and Odawara. Stations were established at Totsuka in 1604 (Keicho 9), at Hakone in 1618 (Genna 4), and at Kawasaki in 1623 (Genna 9). Thus, of the famous 53 stations of the Tokaido, nine were located in what is now Kanagawa Prefecture. On the Koshu-kaido, which cuts through the northern part of the prefecture, stations were established at Obara, Yose (both now part of the town of Sagamiko), and at Yoshino and Sekino (both part of the town of Fujino). The shogunate A honjin. (From Edo shomin eten) assigned officials called dochu bugyo to administer the five major highways and ensure their smooth functioning. The principal functions of the post stations were to provide lodging for travelers and transport to carry their luggage from one station to the next. Lodging facilities at the post stations were divided into two main classes: accommodations called honjin and wakihonjin for daimyo and others of high rank; and lodgings called hatagoya for ordinary travelers. The social status of a daimyo and his large retinue meant that the honjin which accommodated them had to be suitable in character and size. The families managing the honjin often had been former retainers of Sengoku-period daimyo, and the position was usually hereditary. Once the sankin kotai system was established (requiring a daimyo to travel from his domain every other year to spend a year in attendance at the shogunal court in Edo), most daimyo would lodge at specific honjin on their journeys to and from Edo. At the Odawara station, the Kubota family served as honjin for the Mori house and the Shimizu family served the house of Hosokawa. At Hakone, the Ishiuchi family served as designated honjin for forty-one families of the imperial court nobility and fifty-three feudal houses. The waki-honjin served as reserve accommodations when the honjin was fully occupied, and was thus the second most prestigious family in the post station. The waki-honjin, however, was also allowed to serve as a hatagoya catering to ordinary travelers. In principle, each post station was to have only one honjin and one waki-honjin. In contrast, the number of hatagoya was not regulated, and their number depended primarily on the prosperity of a particular post station. In a survey conducted in 1843 (Tempo 14), Odawara boasted 95 of these inns, Totsuka 75, Kawasaki 72, and Hakone 36. Meals at the inns were provided in two different ways: at some inns, travelers brought their own food and purchased cooking fuel from the inn; other inns provided complete meals for their clientele. From about the middle of the Edo period, the latter system became popular. At certain inns, serving girls waited upon and entertained the guests; these inns were called meshiuri hatagoya. Providing porters and horses to serve official travelers from the shogunate and imperial court was the responsibility of each post station, but as the volume of travel increased, the stations alone could not meet the demand, and a system of sukego was created to assist the stations in this duty. Sukego were villages located close to the post stations, and ordered to provide supplementary men and horses when the occasion demanded. This system placed new and unwanted burdens on these villages, frequently leading to friction between them and the post station officials. In 1728 (Kyoho 13), such friction led to a major disturbance at the Odawara post station, involving as many as 95 villages in the area. In addition to the Five Highways, a network of local roads, called waki-okan, was constructed in many areas. Such roads were especially numerous in the Kanagawa region, since it was close to Edo. Some of the most important of these roads, and their routes, are as follows: The Nakahara-okan: Toranomon in Edo-Maruko crossing on the Tama River-Kosugi (Nakahara Ward, Kawasaki City)-Saedo (Midori Ward, Yokohama City)-Seya (Seya Ward, Yokohama City)-Yoda (northern part of Fujisawa City)-Ichinomiya (Samukawa Township)-Tamura crossing (Hiratsuka City) on the Sagami River-Nakahara (Hiratsuka City)-Oiso post station. Maids at an inn struggling to detain reluctant customers. From Hiroshige’s “Fifty-three Stations on the Tokaido.” (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum) The Yagurasawa-okan (also called the Oyama-kaido, the Aoyamakaido, and the Soshu-kaido): Akasakamon in Edo-Sangenjaya (Setagaya Ward, Tokyo)-Tama River-Futago-Mizonokuchi (Takatsu Ward, Kawasaki City)-Nagatsuda (Midori Ward, Yokohama City)-Tsuruma (Yamato City)-Atsugi-Isehara-Soya (Hadano City)-Matsudasoryo (Matsuda Township)-Sekimoto (Minami-Ashigara City)-Yagurasawa Checkpoint (Minami-Ashigara City)-Ashigara Pass-Suruga. This route was one of the main waki-okan in the prefecture. The Tsukui-okan: Sangenjaya (where it branched off from the Yagurasawa-okan)-Noborito-Ikuta-Takaishi-Kakio (all in Tama Ward, Kawasaki City)-Tsurukawa (Machida City)-Fuchinobe-Hashimoto (both in Sagamihara City)-the Tsukui area. The Hachioji-okan: This road, which connected the post station of Hachioji on the Koshu-kaido with what is now the southern coastal region of Kanagawa Prefecture, took two different routes. 1) Fujisawapoststation-Kameino-Chogo (all in Fujisawa City)-The checkpoint at Hakone. Hakone Township. Shimotsuruma (Yamato City)-Haramachicho-Fuchinobe-Hashimoto-Hachioji. 2) Oiso post station-Nakahara-Tamura-Atsugi-Zama (Zama City)-Taima (Sagamihara City)-Hashimoto-Hachioji. The Oyama Roads: There was a famous pilgrimage site at Oyama in what is now the Naka district of Kanagawa Prefecture. The number of roads passing through the prefecture which served as pilgrimage routes to Oyama testify to the strength of the pilgrims’ faith. Of these, the Yagurasawa-okan was the most important route, but there were many others. The Ropponmatsu-Oyama Road ran from Tako (Odawara City), crossing Ropponmatsu Pass to reach Oyama. The Tamura-Oyama Road started at Tsujido in Fujisawa City, ran through Ichinomiya, crossed the Sagami River at the Tamura crossing, and ended in Oyama. The Kashiodori-Oyama Road began in Shimokashio, Kamakura District (Totsuka Ward, Yokohama) and ran from Kami-Iida (Totsuka Ward) through Yoda and Kadosawabashi (Ebina City) to Toda (Atsugi City) and Kamikasuya (Isehara City), where it joined the Tamura-Oyama Road. Two other roads were also known as pilgrimage routes to Oyama: the Haneodori-Oyama Road and the Hadano Road. Other roads in the Kanagawa region and checkpoints The Kamakura/Miura-okan, which ran in the direction of Kamakura and the Miura Peninsula, began at the Hodogaya post station of the Tokaido, passing through Machiya in Kanazawa (Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama) to reach Yukinoshita (in Kamakura). Two other roads joined it at Yukinoshita: one from the post station at Totsuka, the other from the station at Fujisawa. There were two routes to reach Misaki at the tip of the Miura Peninsula. The first ran south along the shores of Sagami Bay, following the route Yukinoshita-Kotsubo (Zushi City)-Akiya (Yokosuka City)-Wada (Miura City)-Misaki. The second ran along the shores of Tokyo Bay, following the route Yokosuka-Otsu (Yokosuka City)-Kamimiyata (Miura City)-Misaki. The Oyama roads mentioned above did not merely serve as pilgrimage routes; they also served as thoroughfares for tourists and pleasure-seekers going to the seaside at Enoshima. The Kamakura/Miura-okan was also frequently traveled by writers, poets, and painters visiting the plum forest at Sugita (Isogo Ward, Yokohama), Kanazawa Hakkei (Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama), and the shrines and temples in Kamakura. These artists have left us many travel diaries and collections of paintings depicting their journeys. In the 19th century, when foreign ships began to appear in Japanese waters, the Miura Peninsula became a front-line military strongpoint and a supply base for the maritime defense of Edo, and the Kamakura/Miura-okan became crowded with official traffic. Akiya, for instance, which had previously been nothing more than a transfer point for baggage and goods on the highway, took on the liveliness and bustle of a small city. As we have seen, the network of roads established in the province of Sagami centered on Edo. In order to guard against a potential military threat from the west, the shogunate established a number of checkpoints (sekisho) in various strategic places in Sagami, the westernmost province of the Kanto region. The checkpoint at Hakone is especially famous, for it lay across the main approach to Travellers crossing a river. (From Edo shomin eten) Edo and was considered the most important in the realm. It was guarded by a contingent of some twenty sentries and guards (banshi and jobannin), with an arsenal of five bows, ten muskets, fifteen spears, and ten quarterstaves. Five more checkpoints were established on branch routes off the Tokaido at Yagurasawa, Kawamura, Yaga, Sengokubara, and Nebukawa. All these were located in mountainous areas near the western edges of the Kanto region. Along the Koshu-kaido, checkpoints were set up at Nenzaka, a strategic point between the Hachioji station and the Uenohara station, and at Aonohara, also a strategic point between the Hachioji station and the Tsuru district of Kai. Not all the checkpoints were created at the same time, but their purpose was the same. At first their function was military, but as time went by their role became that of maintaining order and internal security: a watchword at the checkpoints was “iri deppo ni de onna,” that is, to be on the lookout for guns entering the region, and women of daimyo houses leaving it. Villages in the vicinity of the checkpoint were required to offer services not demanded of other villages, such as the cleaning and maintenance of the checkpoints, providing hunters and laborers when necessary, as well as providing wood and bamboo. Villagers were also subject to certain restrictions regarding passage of checkpoints. 2. Changes in Odawara Han Transfer of the daimiate The man installed as the first daimyo of Odawara han was Okubo Tadayo, a renowned warrior and retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu since his early days in Mikawa. Upon assuming the daimiate Tadayo set about restoring order to the castle town of Odawara and to the villages of his domain, which had been thrown into confusion by Hideyoshi’s seige of Odawara Castle. Aided by new bands of retainers as well as vassals who had followed him from Mikawa, Tadayo began the process of setting up a domainal government. However, he died in 1594 (Bunroku 3) and was succeeded by his son Tadachika, who already possessed a 20,000-koku domain at Hanyu in Musashi province (now part of Saitama Prefecture). The Hanyu fief was absorbed into Odawara han, making Tadachika master of a newly enlarged 65,000-koku domain. Tadachika ruled Odawara for the next twenty years, instituting a number of policies intended to bring security and order to the people of the domain. He dealt generously with the former Hojo retainers who remained in Odawara, encouraged the opening of new land to cultivation in the Ashigara Plain, ordered flood control and irrigation projects on the Sakawa River, conducted cadastral surveys, and offered protection and patronage to local shrines and temples. Despite these efforts, however, Tadachika lost out in a power struggle with Ieyasu’s influential adviser Honda Masanobu, and in January 1614 (Keicho 19), while on a mission to suppress Christianity in the region surrounding Kyoto and Osaka, he was ordered to give up the Odawara domain and exiled to Sawayama han in the province of Omi (Shiga Prefecture). Odawara Castle was left unoccupied, and Ieyasu ordered the greater part of Portrait of Okubo Tadayo. (Odawara Castle Collection) it destroyed. This famous castle, the pride of the Hojo house when it had ruled the region, preserved little of its former glory. In November of the same year, the shogun Hidetada set out from Edo to take part in the siege of Osaka Castle, stopping at the post stations of Kanagawa, Fujisawa, and Odawara on his way west. The following summer (1615), the Toyotomi house was eradicated in the battle for Osaka Castle, and its lands parceled out among the victors. There were changes in the disposition of fiefs in the Kanagawa region as well. The Odawara domain, which had been under a caretaker government since Okubo Tadachika was dismissed as daimyo, was given in 1619 (Genna 5) to Abe Masatsugu, who had previously been daimyo of Otaki han in the province of Kazusa (Chiba Prefecture). However, four years later in 1623 (Genna 9), Abe Masatsugu was shifted once again to Iwatsugi han in Musashi, and Odawara was again placed under a caretaker administration. During this period there were four state visits from Edo to Kyoto by the shogun and his entourage, and the various daimyo whose domains lay along the Tokaido were ordered to maintain and improve the highway to accommodate these journeys. The Kanagawa region was one among many affected by this new road work and the improvements it brought to the transportation network. The domain of Odawara and its castle, which occupied such a strategic point on this important highway, could not be left for long in the hands of a caretaker administration. In 1632 (Kan’ei 9), Inaba Masakatsu, daimyo of Mooka han in the province of Shimotsuke (Tochigi Prefecture) and son of the shogun Iemitsu’s wet nurse Kasuga no Tsubone, was installed as the daimyo of Odawara han, with a domain assessed at 85,000 koku. Masakatsu’s appointment as daimyo began three generations and 57 years of Inaba rule over the domain of Odawara; he was succeeded by Masanori, who was in turn succeeded by Masamichi. The size of the Odawara domain changed under Inaba rule. Of the 150 villages the domain had controlled under the Okubo house, the domain lost one in the Ashigarashimo district, but as it was given an additional ten villages in the Ashigarakami district, the portion of the domainal holdings centered on the castle at Odawara was comprised of 159 villages. Moreover, the Inaba house retained its 20,000- koku domain in Mooka, and during Masanori’s tenure as daimyo, the Inaba were given a supplementary fief of 25,000 koku in Mikuriya in the province of Suruga (Shizuoka Prefecture). Their holdings thus came to a total of 110,000 koku. For administrative purposes, their domain in Sagami was divided into three districts. Ashigarakami and Ashigarashimo districts were divided into three smaller districts, called Higashi-suji, Naka-suji, and Nishi-suji. Enforcement of the ban on Christianity (shumon aratame) and assignment of the land tax were conducted on the basis of these administrative divisions. Higashi-suji was located on the eastern side of the Sakawa River, stretching from Matsuda in the north to the banks of the Nakatsu River, a tributary of the Sakawa; Naka-suji comprised the plain on the west bank of the Sakawa River as far as Yamakita; and Nishisuji included Minami-Ashigara City, Hakone and Yugawara. These came to be the basic units of Lord Inaba’s domainal administration. In 1633 (Kan’ei 10), the year after Inaba Masakatsu took control of the domain, the three provinces of Sagami, Izu and Suruga were hit by a powerful earthquake. The Odawara post station was completely destroyed; not a single house was left standing. Muddy water gushed from the earth, and many travelers were killed in avalanches of stone tumbling down from Mt. Hakone. Damage to Odawara Castle was also severe, toppling its keep, and the shogunate itself allocated funds for its repair, at the same time ordering Masakatsu to attend to road repair and reconstruction as quickly as possible. Masakatsu, however, would not remain daimyo of Odawara for much longer. He died two years after the earthquake at the domain’s official residence in Edo, and was succeeded by Masanori, then only twelve years old. Masanori ruled Odawara for the next fifty years and served for 23 years in the office of roju, one of the Senior Councillors to the shogun. He worked to perfect the administration of his domain with such measures as the comprehensive cadastral survey of the Manji era (1658-1661) and the village censuses (mura sashidashi) of the Kambun era (1661-1673). His accomplishments as daimyo of Odawara are recorded in a fifty-volume chronicle entitled Eitai nikki. In l683 (Tenna 3), he retired from the daimiate, passing on the office to Masamichi. Four years later, in 1686 (Jokyo 3), Masamichi was transferred to the domain of Takada in Echigo (now Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture), thus bringing to an end the rule of the Inaba family over Odawara. The year after the transfer of the Inaba house to Takada, Okubo Tadatomo, daimyo of Sakura han in Shimosa and grandson of Okubo Tadachika, was transferred to Odawara. Thus the Okubo house once again became daimyo of Odawara, 70 years after Tadachika had been forced to give up the domain. From this time on, ten generations of the Okubo family would rule Odawara: Tadamasu (assumed the daimiate in 1698 (Genroku 11)), Tadamasa (1713 (Shotoku 3)), Tadaoki (1732 (Kyoho 17)), Tadayoshi (1763 (Horeki 13)), Tadaaki (1769 (Meiwa 6)), Tadazane (1796 (Kansei 8)), Tadanao (1837 (Tempo 8)), Tadanori (1859 (Ansei 6)), and Tadayoshi (Meiji period). The establishment of major han and the creation of minor ones After Ieyasu’s entry into the Kanto region, the area that would later become Kanagawa Prefecture was divided up between the domain of Odawara, areas under direct shogunal control, and land given in fief to hatamoto. However, with the transfer of daimyo and additions to hatamoto fiefs, changes took place in the distribution of land within the region. Since the daimyo of Odawara han also occupied important posts within the shogunal bureaucracy, the domain itself was enlarged as a reward for services. The Inaba house, for instance, had rights over 10 villages in Izu, 76 villages in Suruga, 21 in Shimotsuke, 7 in Hitachi, and 4 in Musashi as of 1663 (Kambun 3). When the Okubo house was restored as daimyo of Odawara, they too held jurisdiction over 70 villages in Suruga, 17 in Izu, 22 in Shimotsuke, and 49 in Harima, and in 1694 (Genroku 7) they were awarded an additional 26 villages in Kawachi. If the lords of Odawara also held land in other regions, by the same token, those of other domains were given lands in the Kanagawa region as rewards for service to the shogunate. In the early Edo period, as many as 33 han held land in this region. In the Kyoho era (1716-1736) this number was reduced to 11, including the Matsudaira of Oshi han in Fuchu (in what is now Saitama Prefecture); the Sakai of Maebashi han (Gumma Prefecture); the Itakura of Nakajima han in Mikawa (Aichi Prefecture); the Makino of Sekiyado han (Chiba Prefecture); the Yanagisawa of Kawagoe han (Saitama Prefecture), the Okubo of Karasuyama han (Tochigi Prefecture); the Ooka of Nishiohira han in Mikawa (Aichi Prefecture); and the Hotta of Sakura han (Chiba Prefecture). Immediately after the Meiji Restoration, when the main Tokugawa house was moved to the Sunpu domain in what is now Shizuoka Prefecture, they too retained holdings in the Kanagawa area. These han all had their castles and the bulk of their holdings in other regions, but there were newly created han with jinya (headquarters or administrative seats) in the Kanagawa region as well as han which were formed by adding onto the existing hatamoto fiefs and elevating their possessors to the rank of daimyo. Ogino-Yamanaka han was an example of the former type, Mutsuura han an example of the latter. Honda Masanobu, who was given 10,000 koku at Amanawa in the Kamakura district in the course of the Tensho era (1573-1592) fief allotments (Tensho chigyo waritsuke), is sometimes cited as an example of a hatamoto elevated to the status of daimyo, but some scholars question the validity of this characterization. A clearer example is that of Okochi Masatsuna, who began with a hatamoto fief of 380 koku at Manda village in the Yurugi district of Sagami (now part of Hiratsuka City) awarded him in 1596 (Keicho 1). In 1609 (Keicho 14) he was promoted to the post of Commissioner of Finance (kanjo bugyo) for the shogunate, and in 1625 (Kan’ei 2),he was given an additional 16,120 koku of land and founded Amanawa han. However, in 1703 (Genroku 16), Okochi Masahisa, then daimyo of Amanawa han, was transferred to the domain of Otaki in Kazusa, and Amanawa han was dissolved. One newly created minor domain in the Kanagawa region which endured until the end of the Tokugawa period was Mutsuura han. This domain had its beginnings in 1722 (Kyoho 7), when the daimyo of Minagawa han in Shimotsuke (now Gumma Prefecture), Yonekura Tadasuke, was given permission by the shogunate to move his jinya to the village of Mutsuura Shakebun in the Kuraki district (now Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama). The Yonekura family were former retainers of the Sengoku daimyo Takeda of Kai. After the fall of the Takeda house, the Yonekura became retainers of Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1590 (Tensho 18), Yonekura Nagatoki was given a fief of 200 koku in the village of Horiyamashita in the Osumi district (now part of Hadano City). His descendant Masatada, who became the founder of Mutsuura han, served the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, in several important positions in the shogunal bureaucracy, including the posts of Chamberlain (sobayonin) and Junior Councilor (wakadoshiyori). As a part of Tsunayoshi’s policy of creating new vassal daimyo (fudai daimyo), Masatada was awarded a series of increases in the extent of his land holdings, and he eventually achieved the status of daimyo. Masatada’s holdings totaled 15,000 koku, including 9 villages in Shimotsuke, 4 in Kozuke, 2 in the Saitama and 9 in the Kuraki district of Musashi, and 14 in the Osumi district of Sagami. At first, the jinya of the domain was located in the village of Minagawa in Shimotsuke, and thus the domain was called Minagawa han. The jinya was later moved to Mutsuura, and since Mutsuura was located in Kanazawa (now a ward in the city of Yokohama), the domain came to be known as Kanazawa han. However, after the Meiji Restoration, as the new government struggled to rationalize the complex pattern of domainal holdings, the name was changed to Mutsuura han in order to avoid confusion with the much larger domain of Kanazawa in Kaga province. Masaaki, who succeeded Masatada as daimyo, allotted a small Ogino-Yamanaka han monument. Atsugi City. portion of the domain to his younger brother Masanaka as a subfief, thereby reducing the main domainal holdings to 12,000 koku. Masanaka’s share was 3,000 koku, comprising four villages in Kozuke; the villages of Higashitawara, Nishitawara, and Horinumashiro in the district of Osumi in Sagami (now part of Hadano City); the villages of Kamikasuya, Kasakubo, and Godo (now Isehara City); and the villages of Konabeshima and Uchimagi (now Hiratsuka City). Ogino-Yamanaka han began as a hatamoto fief belonging to a branch family of the Okubo house of Odawara. Okubo Norihiro, second son of the daimyo of Odawara, Okubo Tadatomo, split off from the main house to found his own when his elder brother Tadamasu succeeded to the daimiate. The domain of Ogino-Yamanaka had its start when Norihiro was given holdings totaling 31 villages and 6,000 koku upon his establishment of the branch family. These holdings comprised 14 villages in the Ashigarakami district, 4 in Ashigarashimo, and 13 in the Sunto district of Suruga province. In 1706 (Hoei 3) Norihiro became a Junior Councilor (wakadoshiyori) and attained daimyo status when he was awarded an additional 5,000 koku of land in Suruga. In 1718 (Kyoho 3), he was again assigned an additional 5,000 koku of land in the districts of Koza, Aiko, and Osumi, and established a jinya at the village of Matsunaga in Suruga. His domain was known as Matsunaga han. Since his holdings in Sagami were separate, and distant from his headquarters in Matsunaga, a second jinya was established at the hamlet of Yamanaka in Nakaogino village in the Aiko district (now Atsugi City) to administer them. In 1783 (Temmei 3), the fifth daimyo of the domain, Norinobu, shifted his jinya from Matsunaga to Ogino-Yamanaka, and the domain, assessed at 12,000 koku, was renamed Ogino-Yamanaka han. At this time, the status of the daimyo changed as well. Originally the daimyo was required to reside permanently in Edo; now he was permitted alternate attendance at the shogunal court, with six months in Edo and six in his domain. The Ogino-Yamanaka domain was perpetually plagued by financial difficulties. No attempt was made to reform the situation other than preaching frugality to the samurai and commoners of the domain, and the domainal law codes were filled with empty moralizing. On December 15, 1867 (Keio 3), the jinya at Ogino-Yamanaka was attacked by a contingent of samurai from Satsuma han and burned to the ground in a single night. One of the leaders of the Satsuma unit, Yuki Shiro, is regarded as a precursor of the Popular Rights Movement of the Meiji period. Karasuyama han in Shimotsuke, like Yamanaka han, was established by a branch family of the Okubo house of Odawara, but its history was different. The second-generation head of the Karasuyama Okubo house, Tadataka, was awarded a domain of 10,000 koku in the province of Omi and attained the status of daimyo. In 1725 (Kyoho 10), his successor, Okubo Tsuneharu, was ordered to move from Omi to become the daimyo of Karasuyama, a domain valued at 20,000 koku. In 1728 (Kyoho 13) he became a Senior Councilor (roju) in the shogunate, and his holdings were increased by 10,000 koku distributed among 41 villages in the four Sagami districts of Aiko, Koza, Kamakura, and Osumi. The domain’s castle was located at Karasuyama in Shimotsuke, but a jinya was established at the village of Atsugi (now Atsugi City) and an intendant (daikan) assigned to reside there permanently and administer the domainal holdings in Sagami. The head of a prominent local family was promoted to samurai rank and appointed to this post. The intendant administered the region with an iron hand. For example, in 1746 (Enkyo 3) the land tax for one of the villages in the domain holdings, the village of Tana, was assessed at 94 percent of the yield. The wealthy merchants of the domain were also coerced into making repeated “forced loans” (goyokin) of a thousand ryo and more to the domainal government. After a visit to the region, the painter and scholar Watanabe Kazan wrote in his Yuso nikki (Diary of a Journey to Sagami): “The government here is harsh. The people’s hearts are filled with resentment.” The daimyo of Karasuyama han, which endured until the Meiji Restoration, were Okubo Tsuneharu (the founder of the domain), and his descendants Tadatane, Tadaaki, Tadayoshi, Tadashige, Tadayoshi, and Tadayori. The enlargement of hatamoto fiefs Direct retainers of the Tokugawa shoguns who had fiefs or stipends of less than 10,000 koku were divided into two main classes: those who had the right of personal audience with the shogun, called hatamoto; and those who did not, called gokenin. (However, both groups were sometimes referred to collectively as gokenin). In the Gokenin bungen cho (Roster of Gokenin Ranks) of 1705 (Hoei 2), a total of 22,544 retainers are listed, a figure which includes both retainers who had the right to shogunal audience and those who did not. The “80,000 knights” (hatamoto hachi-man ki) popularly believed to have been the shogunate’s military strength did indeed have these retainers as their core, but a number as high as 80,000 would have to include the total force which could be mustered when, according to shogunal regulations, these retainers brought their own vassals and followers into the field. Among those retainers with the right of shogunal audience (hatamoto), 44 percent, or 2,335 individuals, possessed fiefs of their own. The land held by these hatamoto totaled more than 2,724,914 koku, an amount two and a half times as large as the holdings of the largest domain in the Tokugawa period, Kaga han. The “80,000 knights” at the command of the Tokugawa house were never actually mobilized, but they were acknowledged as the foundation of the shogunate’s military supremacy. In the parceling out of feudal lands which took place immediately after Ieyasu assumed control of the Kanto region, the amount of land in Sagami and Musashi given over to hatamoto fiefs was second only to the land which fell under direct shogunal control. Morever, various redistributions of land took place after 1592 (Bunroku 1), and the number of hatamoto fiefs in the Kanagawa region grew remarkably, especially with the new lands allotted to retainers for meritorious service in the battles of Sekigahara and Osaka Castle. These newly allocated hatamoto lands, along with the lands which made up the newly created han discussed above, were provided from areas which had previously been under direct shogunal control-such shogunal lands occupied more than half the total area of the provinces of Sagami and Musashi. The following chart of the disposition of land in the village of Okami, Osumi district (now part of Hiratsuka City), which was assessed at about 1,314 koku, serves as an example of the way in which shogunal land was gradually given over in fief to retainers. This conversion of shogunal lands into hatamoto fiefs probably represents rewards for service in the battles of Sekigahara and Osaka Castle, but even after peace was restored to the realm, new fiefs were given periodically to hatamoto who had previously only drawn stipends (a process called jikata naoshi), and the amount of land given in fief to hatamoto retainers continued to increase. The first such redistribution of land took place in 1633 (Kan’ei 10), when 200 koku was given to each hatamoto whose fief or stipend was under 1,000 koku. In Sagami this led to the creation of 72 new hatamoto fiefs, and 39 new fiefs in two of the three districts of Musashi which would later become a part of Kanagawa Prefecture (the district of Kuraki was not included in these figures). Allocation of hatamoto fiefs in this fashion led to a decrease in the amount of land directly controlled by the shogunate, but the shogunate continued the practice in order to ensure the economic security of its direct vassals and to firmly establish the military system which had these retainers as its foundation. A second major redistribution of land to direct shogunal retainers took place in 1697 (Genroku 10), when lands in the eight Kanto provinces and the provinces of Izu, Totomi, Mikawa, Omi, and Tamba were given in fief to 542 hatamoto who drew stipends of 500 hyo or more. Lands scattered throughout the Kanagawa region, except in the Ashikarakami and Ashikarashimo districts (which were part of the Odawara domain) and the district of Tsukui, were given in fief to a total of 71 retainers. In the district of Osumi, of a total of 115 villages, the number remaining under direct shogunal control fell to 25, including the post station at Hiratsuka and the villages of Suka and Banyu (all now part of Hiratsuka City), while an additional 17 villages came under the joint jurisdiction (aikyu) of the shogunate and various hatamoto retainers. Of a total of 300 feudal holdings in the district, 250 belonged to hatamoto, 42 to the shogunate, and 8 to Odawara han. In the three districts of Musashi that were later incorporated in Kanagawa Prefecture, the greatest change in the pattern of land distribution came in the district of Kuraki. At the end of the 16th century, the main portion of land was under the direct control of the Tokugawa house, but the Genroku land redistribution awarded 32 different parcels of land to 14 hatamoto retainers. Added to earlier Jokenji Temple, site of Ooka Tadasuke’s grave.(Chigasaki City) hatamoto fiefs in the area, the total after the redistribution was 37 holdings distributed among 20 hatamoto, amounting to more than half the district. Land redistributions on a smaller scale continued to be conducted in later years, and even in the district of Tsukui, which had been left untouched by earlier jikata naoshi, new hatamoto fiefs were created. An especially large number of these smaller redistributions took place in the Hoei era (1704-1710), during which 44 hatamoto were awarded new fiefs in the Kanagawa region, comprising 110 different holdings in 92 villages throughout the area. The situation in the village of Hayashi in the district of Aiko (now part of Atsugi City) is a good example of the effects of these continuing land redistributions. Originally the village contained more than 690 koku of shogunal land, but in 1706 (Hoei 3), 189 koku were given in fief to Yanagisawa Nobutada, 54 koku to Kuru Masakiyo, and 149 koku to Hisamatsu Sadamochi, leaving only 197 koku of shogunal land in the village. Another example is Kurihara village in the Koza district (now part of Zama City), assessed at 580 koku, all of which originally belonged to the shogunate. However, in 1707 (Hoei 4), 118 koku were given in fief to Ota Sukemasa, in 1710 (Hoei 7) 118 koku were given to Masuda Yoshitomi, and in 1711 (Shotoku 1), 290 koku were awarded to Yamada Yoshimoto. At the end of this process, there was no shogunal land remaining in the village. The hatamoto who were the masters of these fiefs were called jito. They conducted their own cadastral surveys (jito kenchi) and promulgated their own legal codes within their fiefs (jito ho). Though it is not clear that all hatamoto fief holders carried out such administrative measures, cadastral surveys were certainly conducted by those with fiefs of a thousand koku or more, and even hatamoto with small fiefs of only one or two hundred koku are known to have carried out surveys as well. For instance, the Ooka house (the family of the famous Ooka Tadasuke, Lord of Echizen), which possessed a 2,700-koku fief divided among the two villages of Takada in the Koza district (now Chigasaki City) and Tebiro in the Kamakura district (now Kamakura City) ordered their retainer Yoshikawa Buhei to conduct a cadastral survey of their holdings in 1678 (Empo 6). The results of the survey showed that in Takada, the actual productivity of the village was over 255 koku, though it had been assessed at only 160 koku when it had been given to the Ooka family in fief. In other words, the Ooka holdings in Takada proved to consist of land 63 percent more productive than the amount at which the fief was officially assessed. An example of a fief law code (jito ho) is one which was promulgated in 1670 (Kambun 10) by hatamoto Tsuchiya Yukinao for a 1,000-koku fief created in 1632 (Kan’ei 9), and consisting of the following holdings: 150 koku in Nurumizu village, Aiko district (now Atsugi City); 200 koku in Numame village, Osumi district (Isehara City); 200 koku in Hirasawa village, Osumi district (Hadano City); and 450 koku in the province of Kazusa. This law code contained twenty-two separate articles. The first article ordered strict observance of the shogunate’s laws. However, one of the articles permitted the buying and selling of land-activity that was forbidden under shogunal law. Here we can see an example of the degree of autonomy possessed by the hatamoto, though it must be remembered that what autonomy they did enjoy existed only within the larger framework of the bakuhan system. In the Kanagawa region, it was common for a single village to be split up between two or three different hatamoto fiefs, and cases in which one village was divided into four or even five fiefs were not unusual. Though this trend became less pronounced in later years, a complicated pattern of divided holdings was characteristic of the region which would later become Kanagawa Prefecture. 3. Villagers and Townsmen Under the Bakuhan System The village as corporate entity Under the bakuhan system, villages were established as clearly defined units on the basis of the cadastral surveys (the process called muragiri), and each village was assigned responsibility for its share of the land tax and other duties and services owed to its feudal overlord. The part of these burdens to be borne by each individual peasant was decided within the village, with the village officials playing a central role in the process. This pattern of collective responsibility by the village as a whole vis-a-vis the overlord, and a division of individual responsibility within the village was known as the murauke system. In its dealings with the outside world, the village operated as a unit, whether it be in demanding a decrease in the land tax in years with poor harvests or in disputes with other villages over boundaries, water rights, or rights to commons or fishing grounds. The early modern village was, in fact, a kind of corporate entity. The corporate body of the village was divided into yet smaller units for the purpose of tax payment. In the Kanagawa region, these subdivisions took three different forms. The first of these can be seen in the village of Sawai in the Tsukui district: it was divided into two parts (bun), Genzaemon-bun and Rokurobei-bun. Official tax requests were sent to each of the two bun; in other words, each of these subdivisions was treated as a village. Therefore, there were quite a number of cases in which bun eventually split off from their original villages and were elevated to the status of villages in their own right. The second form of subdivision was called a kumi, which was a smaller unit within either a village or a bun. In a document entitled Shinpen Sagami fudoki ko (The New Sagami Gazetteer), these units were also called kona. For example, the village of Shinomiya (Hiratsuka City) was divided into the seven kona of Toricho, Teranodaimachi, Minamicho, Nakaniwacho, Nishicho, Kaminogo, and Shimonogo. Although the suffix machi or cho usually denotes an urban area, these were not small towns, but merely sections of the village. In the village of Shimojima (Hiratsuka City), there were three kona named Kaminoniwa, Shimononiwa, and Yotsuya. The village of Horisaito (Hadano City) was divided into six parts called niwa: Morido, Kuroki, Daido, Kakehata, Hadagawa, and Numashiro. The word niwa was yet another term for kona, and the words yatsu, kaito, kubo, and even mura (a word which usually means village) were also used to denote these subdivisions of a village. In any case, all of these terms referred not to some natural geographical unit, but to the smallest and most basic unit of village social cohesion. For the villagers’ daily life, they were the most important unit, serving as the basis for a wide range of cooperative activities-planting and harvesting, road repairs, maintenance of irrigation works, and marriages, funerals, and festivals. The kumi or kona were also utilized administratively as a unit for tax collection, and organized at an even lower level into groups of five households (goningumi). These five household groups not only bore collective responsibility for the payment of taxes and the maintenance of public order; they also served to maintain the cohesiveness of kinship groups within the village (variously called jirui, jiwake, jiwakare, ichimaki, itto, ichimyo, and hitomake). The third major form of organization below the village level was the ko. There were many different varieties of ko. A good number of them were organizations whose principal function was religious: Koshin-ko, Jishin-ko, Yama-no-kami-ko, and Nembutsu-ko whose members were mostly elderly people; Tenjin-ko comprised mostly of children; and Ise-ko and Oyama-ko, whose purpose was to give support to their members for religions pilgrimages. Other ko functioned primarily as economic cooperatives, such as Mujin-ko and Tanomoshi-ko. Still others were organizations based on age and sex, such as wakamono-gumi (young men’s groups) and musume-gumi (young women’s groups). Ko were also formed for cooperative labor on projects such as planting, road and bridge maintenance, the rethatching of roofs, and the like, as well as to organize the sharing of resources such as commons land in the forests and hills and water for irrigation. In sum, the organizations called ko helped to meet both the spiritual and physical needs of the people, and operating as they did within the framework of the village as a whole, they served to increase the villagers’ consciousness of themselves as members of the village community. The opening of new lands and the creation of new villages During the Edo period, new lands were opened to cultivation on a nationwide basis under the direction of the shogunate. At the beginning of the Edo period, the area of land under cultivation in Japan was approximately 2 million cho (1 cho=9,917 square meters); by 1873 (Meiji 6), this figure had jumped to nearly 4 million cho. The Kanagawa region was no exception to this nationwide trend. The opening of new lands did not simply mean the creation of new paddies and dry fields; of equal importance was the clearing of space for housing and the construction of new agricultural villages. Early in the Edo period, the shogunate’s chief intendant (daikangashira) for eastern Japan, Ina Tadatsugu and his son Tadaharu actively promoted a policy of giving incentives and support to cultivators of new land, offering complete exemption from the land tax for a set number of years for newly opened lands, and loaning seeds and food to last until the land started producing crops to peasants who would undertake its cultivation. Full-scale land development programs really got under way during the tenure of the eighth shogun, Yoshimune, as a part of the reforms of the Kyoho era. In 1722 (Kyoho 7), the start of these development programs was signaled by an official notice board posted at Edo’s Nihombashi bridge, calling on the townspeople of Edo to work to open new land to cultivation. In the Kanagawa region, the opening of new lands began in the early modern period. In 1606 (Keicho 6), Koizumi Yoshitsugu, who had been appointed intendant (daikan) for the shogunal lands at Inage and Kawasaki and who also served the shogunate as a commissioner of irrigation (yosui bugyo), began work on an extensive irrigation project to bring water from the Tama River across considerable distances into the plains below. Even the women of the Yoshida-shinden before land reclamation. (From Yokohama Yoshida-shinden zue) region were mobilized to work on the project, and in 1616 (Keicho 16), the irrigation network, reaching both of the territories under Koizumi’s administration, was completed. Thirty-seven villages in the Inage domain and 23 in the Kawasaki domain, totaling 2,000 cho of land, reaped the benefits of this project. At about the same time, a number of new lands were created in the Sakawa River basin in the domain of Odawara: Kawaharashinden, Sohi, two places named Shinya, Kamomiya-shinden, Edago in Kamomiya village, Iiizumi-shinden, Yanagi-shinden, Shimizushinden, and Anabe-shinden (the suffix shinden means “new field”). All of these new lands were opened by cultivators from neighboring villages. Yoshida-shinden in the district of Tsuzuki in Musashi province (now Isezakicho, Naka Ward, Yokohama) was created as a cooperative venture by Yoshida Kambei, a lumber and stone merchant, and a number of his associates. Opening of the land began in 1656 (Meireki 2) and was completed in 1667 (Kambun 7). Preparing the land for cultivation entailed controlling the course of the Ooka River, building breakwaters on the area facing the bay, and constructing irrigation canals. The end result was farmland and a village assessed at 1,038 koku, quite large for a village built on newly reclaimed land. Land development projects were also carried out in the Sagami Plateau. Being tableland, the new lands created here were not paddies but dry fields. In 1675 (Empo 3), an Edo merchant said to have originally come from the province of Kai (Yamanashi Prefecture) named Sagamiya Sukeuemon developed a set of new fields called the Kamiyabe-shinden in the Koza district. Sukeuemon had intended to sell the land in plots at one ryo per, cho, but the project angered the residents of the nearby village of Kamiyabe, who had used the land to provide fodder for their animals before it had been developed. As a form of opposition to Sukeuemon’s project, the villagers undertook their own land reclamation project. The end result was that by the time of the cadastral survey conducted in 1684 (Jokyo 1), both projects had produced new fields totaling 193 cho in area. However, about 90 percent of the new land remained unplanted grassland-which strongly suggests that the villagers of Kamiyabe continued to have a secure supply of animal fodder. Those who did attempt to cultivate the land had major problems getting enough water for the crops. When the land was first opened, they had to go as far as the Sakai River, two kilometers away, to fetch water. The route they used is still called the Mizukumi-kaido, or “Water-Fetching Road.” The Onuma-shinden (Sagamihara City), also located on the Sagami Plateau, was opened in 1699 (Genroku 12) by the villages of Fuchinobe in the Koza district (Sagamihara City) and Kiso in the Tama district (Machida City), after they received shogunal permission for its development. The cadastral survey of 1707 (Hoei 4) shows that the land belonging to both villages in the newly developed area amounted to over 173 cho of dry fields divided into 1,275 separate parcels, with a productivity of more than 375 koku. The new fields in this area were blessed by adequate rainfall, so problems with water for cultivation were comparatively minor, but it was not until 1734 (Kyoho 19), thirty years after the cadastral survey, that people began residing there on a permanent basis. By 1738 (Gembun 3), there were 34 households living in the Onuma-shinden. People harvesting rice. (From Rono yawa) (Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo) These new residents came from the three districts of Koza, Tama, and Tsukui, but not a single one of them came from nearby Fuchinobe village, which had developed the area. Two other shinden that were created about this time were Amaderahara-shinden in the Aiko district (Atsugi City), which is recorded in a cadastral survey of 1732 (Kyoho 17), and Seyano-shinden in the Kamakura district, which was surveyed in 1734 (Kyoho 19). Of the new lands developed after the Kyoho era (1716-1736),the Ikegami-shinden in the Tachibana district of Musashi is especially noteworthy. It was created by Ikegami Tarozaemon Yukitoyo, the headman of the village of Daishigawara in the Tachibana district. The village fronted on Edo Bay, and Yukitoyo drained tidal lands along the shore to produce 15 cho of reclaimed land by 1759 (Horeki 9). The shogunate had looked askance at the project, and gave permission for it only grudgingly, but Yukitoyo reduced the scale of his original plans, persevered through a number of setbacks, and after spending six years and 800 ryo, succeeded in embodying his skill and his dreams in the new fields of Ikegami-shinden. Ambitious land development projects of this sort began to taper off after the Horeki era (1751-1763). In later years, small-scale projects that would not draw too much time and labor from existing fields as well as reclamation of previously abandoned plots became the norm, because overenthusiatic work on opening new fields had often led to the neglect of the participants’ main holdings and because disputes had frequently arisen between existing villages and newly created ones over such issues as water rights, pastureland, transport, and the like. Shogunal promotion of the opening of new lands proceeded by trial and error, as the bakufu tried to determine whether to give precedence to development projects undertaken collectively by whole villages or to projects carried out by individual developers. In the Kanagawa region, one large-scale land development project was undertaken late in the Edo period in the area of Musashino. It consisted of two new shinden projects: the Fuchinobe-shinden, amounting to some 73 cho and completed in 1833 (Tempo 4); and the Seibei-shinden, totaling 142 cho and completed in 1856 (Ansei 3). Of course, small-scale projects and the redevelopment of abandoned lands also continued to be conducted in a number of areas. As a result of land development, the number of villages in the Kanagawa region increased from 823 in the Shoho era (1644-1647) to 931 in the Genroku era (1688-1703). After development tapered off, there was little change, and as of the Tempo era (1830-1843), there were 929 villages in the region. The productivity of the land in terms of koku also increased,, from 300,000 koku in the Shoho era to 350,000 in the Genroku era and 385,000 in Tempo. By the first year of the Meiji era (1868), the Kanagawa region comprised 22 towns and 921 villages, with a productivity of more than 400,000 koku. Towns, post stations, and markets Local self-sufficiency was a basic economic principle of the early modern era, but even from the beginning of the Tokugawa period complete self-sufficiency was impossible. Feudal overlords took the tax rice that was the real heart of the economy and sold it in order to obtain currency. The sites for this exchange were the three great cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo. Peasants were also required to meet a portion of their taxes in cash. They sold their labor or what little agricultural surplus they produced in order to obtain the money to make their tax payments and to provide themselves with commodities they could not produce themselves. For example, in 1672 (Kambun 12), the villagers of Kayanuma in the Ashigarakami district (now the town of Matsuda) began cutting firewood and selling it in Odawara, Oiso, and Suka (Hiratsuka City), and the villagers of Sengokubara in the Ashigarashimo district (Hakone Township) began making wooden clogs for sale. Peasants sold their goods at local market centers, at the post stations, and in the small towns of the region. All these places bustled with activity, and were different from the surrounding countryside, for they were more populous and their functions were non-agricultural, marking their residents off from the farming population. Their treatment by the feudal overlords differed from that of rural areas as well. The towns, post stations, and markets of early modern Japan had their origins in the castle towns established by the daimyo of the Sengoku period, the transportation system they built up, and the trade and artisanal manufacture they patronized and protected within their domains. As noted above, the Hojo family of Odawara stood out among the Sengoku daimyo for their innovative policies in these areas. With the fall of Odawara Castle, the castle town of Odawara itself lost its status as the heart of the Kanto region, and for a time fell into decline. However, after the Okubo family took control of Odawara han, the town returned to its former prosperity. In 1686 (Jokyo 3), it was divided for administrative purposes into a number of wards-Yamakaku, Sujikaibashi, Daikan, Shinjuku, etc.-which served as residential areas for as many as thirty-two varieties of tradesmen and merchants, including 249 artisans and 64 carpenters. We have already discussed the post stations at length, but many of them also functioned as towns and markets. For example, by the Tempo era (1830-1843), as many as 106 houses and places of business lined both sides of the Yagurasawa-okan at Isehara, and periodic markets were held there every month on days ending in 3 (the 3rd, 13th, 23rd) and 8 (the 8th, 18th, 28th). Special markets were also held during the twelfth month (shiwasu) of the old calendar, and there was a bustle of activity as temporary market stalls were set up along the highway, vending a variety of gifts and goods for the New Year’s holidays. The Nihombashi fish market. (From Edomeisho zue, National Archives) At Atsugi, also located on the Yagurasawa-okan, a number of important roads converged, including those running to Hachioji, the province of Kai, Tanzawa, Hiratsuka, and Fujisawa. The post station at Atsugi also fronted the banks of the Sagami River. By the Tempo era, Atsugi consisted of about 330 residences and shops, with a population about equally divided between farmers and merchants. Periodic markets took place every month on days ending in 2 and 7. The Kanagawa region also contained a number of busy harbor towns such as Suka, Misaki, and Uraga. Uraga was the busiest of all, for in 1720 (Kyoho 5) an inspection station for coastal shipping was established there, and cargo boats from all over Japan had to stop at Uraga before entering Edo. By the Tempo era, there were as many as 450 merchants’ establishments in the town of Uraga, including 30 wholesalers of dried sardines. Periodic markets convening six times each month (rokusai ichi) were also held in farming villages away from the towns; these markets dealt in daily necessities and agricultural produce. Markets of A teahouse in the village of Namamugi. (From Edo meisho zue, National Archives) this kind were held in many places, including Soya and Horisaito (Hadano City), Shimosoya (Isehara City), Shimoogino in the Aiko district (Atsugi City), Tsukui Kenjo, Kubosawa and Harajuku in Shimokawajiri (Shiroyama Township), Zama in the Koza district (Zama City), and Kawawa in the Tsuzuki district (Midori Ward, Yokohama). The market at Taima village in the Koza district had prospered under the Hojo of Odawara during the Sengoku period, but failed after the Edo period began. In 1700 (Genroku 13), the villagers petitioned for a revival of the market. They gained support from 17 other villages in the area, and a written petition was presented to the authorities. From this we can see how essential the markets were to the life of rural villages. The culture of villagers and townspeople The distinction between villagers (murakata) and townspeople (machikata) was basically one of economic function. In terms of their class and social status, both groups were commoners (shomin), and the culture of the villages and towns was a popular culture. The culture of the Kamakura period flourished in the medieval political center at Kamakura, and at its heart were the shrines and temples of that city. This aristocratic culture remained remote from that of the common people of the period. With the beginning of the Edo period, many of the shrines and temples in Kamakura were confirmed in vermilion-seal documents (shuinjo) issued by the shogun as minor feudal landholders, which served to maintain their separation from the common people. However, these religious institutions were heirs of a venerable cultural tradition going back to the days of Minamoto Yoritomo, and as the standard of living of the commoners improved during the course of the Edo period, the shrines and temples came to be sites for pilgrimages and pleasure tours by the common people of Edo Japan. In the early modern period, the province of Sagami contained as many as 1,950 Buddhist temples, representing a number of different Buddhist sects-the Soto, Rinzai, and Obaku schools of Zen; the Jodo, Jodo Shin, and Ji Pure Land sects; the Nichiren sect; the Kogi and Shingi sects of Shingon; and the Honzan and Tozan branches of Shugendo. In the province of Sagami, the five major sects were the Soto school of Zen, which occupied twenty percent of the temples in the province, and the Kogi Shingon, Rinzai, Jodo, and Nichiren sects, each with over ten percent of the temples in Sagami. Temples were not evenly distributed throughout the region; some villages had as many as five or more, others none. But on the average, a village would usually contain three temples; there was commonly one temple for each area comprising thirty households and land with a productivity of about 150 koku. The temples, supported by the danka system established by the shogunate (in which every household was required to be registered as parishioners of a particular temple), carried out the religious policies of the shogunate in the towns and villages, but their principal function was the performance of funerals. It was characteristic of the temples of the Edo period that they served as the place of burial for the commoner population. Buddhist priests and monks played a major role in the education of the common people. Most commoners were educated at schools called terakoya, which were often affiliated with temples. In the Kanagawa region, the earliest terakoya was founded in 1679 (Empo 7) in the village of Akuwa in the Kamakura district (Seya Ward, Yokohama), and managed by Kobayashi Seibei, whose family had served for generations in the office of village headman. Terakoya began to be established in increasing numbers from the Bunka and Bunsei eras (1804-1829) onward, with a dramatic leap in the Ansei and Keio periods (1854-1867) after the opening of the port of Yokohama to foreign trade in 1858. This trend of establishing new schools reached its peak after the beginning of the Meiji era in 1868. At that time, the number of schools which left some trace in the records reached a total of 514. The fundamental curriculum offered by the terakoya was reading and writing, and 94 percent of them began and ended with this type of primary education. One of the most commonly used textbooks in the terakoya was a volume entitled Rokuyu engi taii. It was derived from a work by the K’ang-hsi emperor of the Ch’ing dynasty, the title of which, in Japanese, was Rokuyu engi. The eighth Tokugawa shogun, Yoshimune, impressed by the proliferation of terakoya, ordered the Confucian scholar Muro Kyuso to produce a simplified version of this text in one of the Japanese phonetic syllabaries, and the result was the Rokuyu engi taii. This text encouraged its readers to follow the six virtues of honoring and obeying their fathers and mothers, respecting the elderly, maintaining peace and harmony in their villages, setting an example for their children and grandchildren, being content with their station in life and avoiding delinquent behavior. In the Kanagawa region, in 1840 (Tempo 11), the magistrate Seki Yasuemon ordered the headmen of ten villages in the shogunal domain of Kozukue (Midori Ward, Yokohama) to use a text called the Koko wasan as a writing primer in the schools. This was an even more simplified version of the Rokuyu engi taii. From these examples we can see that terakoya education was effective enough that the authorities did what they could to employ it to support feudal society and its values. Other texts used in the terakoya included practical lessons for the conduct of daily life and affairs, called orai mono for the catechistic style in which they were written; texts concerned with instilling Terakoya (From Zusetsu Nihon no rekishi, published by Shueisha) proper behavior in children, such as the Jitsugo kyo, the Doji kyo, and the Onnaimagawa monogatari; and volumes intended to teach children their responsibilities as members of the village or town community, such as the Goningumi-cho maegaki and the Mura gijo. All these texts were written in such a way that while children were learning to read and write they were also being instilled with the social and familial virtues proper to a feudal society. Several terakoya textbooks were produced in the province of Sagami. The Mura nazuke oboe of 1859(Ansei 6), written by Kanda Katsujiro, was a gazetteer of the names of the villages of the Miura Peninsula, while Komuro Manjiro’s Sagami no kuni hachigun muramura oboe of 1867 (Keio 3) was intended to teach the geography of Sagami province to children as they were learning to write. As time passed, some of the terakoya began to add more advanced subjects such as medicine, painting, and history to their curriculum, but as a rule, the order of subjects studied in terakoya began with learning the 48 characters of the hiragana syllabary, then proceeded to arithmetic, vocabulary and composition. The success of terakoya education provided the foundation for the local schools (gogakko) established at the end of the Edo period and in the early Meiji period. The gogakko were commonly established in one of two ways: either as an independent, cooperative project involving a group of several villages; or, after the beginning of the Meiji period, at the instigation of the prefectural government, with village leagues called yoseba kumiai (which had originally been created by shogunal order late in the Edo period for the purpose of maintaining public order) playing a major role. These schools grew into a modern system of public education, with the students divided into different classes and given a systematic program of instruction. The first gogakko established in the Kanagawa region was the Seishikan in the village of Kurihara in the Koza district, which was founded in 1862 (Bunkyu 2). A wealthy peasant named Oya Yaichi played a central part in its creation. In 1871 (Meiji 4), the government of Kanagawa Prefecture laid plans for the establishment of 27 gogakko. Among them were the Seishikan (Atsugi City), the Seibikan (Fujisawa City), the Nisshinkan (Odawara City), the Ono Gogakko (Machida City) and the Horiuchi Gogakko (Yokosuka City). With the promulgation of the new educational system by the central government in 1872 (Meiji 5), many of the gogakko were absorbed into the primary education system as elementary schools (shogakko). According to the Kanagawa-ken kyoiku shi (The History of Education in Kanagawa Prefecture), there were 195 terakoya teachers in the Kanagawa region, of whom 158 were Buddhist priests or monks. The second largest number, twelve, came from the samurai class, and ten were doctors. Buddhist clergy played a central part in terakoya education, and in both name and fact, the terakoya were truly “temple schools.” Pilgrimages and popular religion Pilgrimages to shrines and temples had been a part of Japanese religious life from ancient times, but it was in the early modern period that this practice came to be part of popular culture. The pilgrimage to the great shrine at Ise (called Ise mode) is perhaps the best known; it drew worshippers from all over the country. In 1662 (Kambun 2), it was reported to the authorities of Odawara han that in the period from March first to the sixteenth, 1,690 people had passed through the checkpoint at Hakone on their way west to the Ise Shrine. In 1707 (Hoei 4), the headman and neighborhood leaders (kumigashira) of the village of Naruta in the district of Ashigarashimo reported that eleven people had left the village on an unauthorized pilgrimage (nuke-mairi) to Ise, despite being instructed not to go because they had not yet rendered up their portion of the land tax. Even feudal authority was unable to deter people from leaving on pilgrimage. The participants in this clandestine pilgrimage were a group of poor farmers and their children and younger relatives, as well as some servants and landless peasants who were not even recorded in the village register (called cho-hazure). It had become customary for inns along the pilgrimage routes to offer free lodging and food to pilgrims too poor to afford them, while at the same time, in many villages organizations called Ise-ko were established to raise funds to enable their members to go on pilgrimage. One such organization, with as many as 144 members, was founded in the village of Hatori in the Koza district (Fujisawa City) is 1838 (Tempo 9). After saving up funds for six years, a group of about one hundred people left the village on January 16 in 1843 (Tempo 14) for the pilgrimage to Ise. After reaching Ise on February 4 and worshipping at the Inner Shrine, the group continued on to visit Nara, Yoshino, Mount Koya, Negoro, Miidera Temple and Wakayama in the province of Kii, Konpira on the island of Shikoku, Zentsuji Temple, Osaka, Mount Hiei, and Miidera Temple in Kyoto before arriving back in Hatori around the 16th of March. The trip seems to have been a mammoth tourist excursion in the guise of a pilgrimage to Ise, and in fact, pilgrimages in early modern Japan were often pleasure trips with a religious core. In the Kanagawa region, Oyama, Enoshima, and Kawasaki Daishi were centers for pilgrimages by the common people. The origins of Oyama as a religious site go back into antiquity. The shrine at the peak of the mountain, Afurijinja, was listed as an officially recognized shrine (shikinaisha) in the Engi shiki, a document dating from the early 10th century, and the deity worshipped there, Mikumari-no-kami, regarded as a protector of agriculture. At the beginning of the early modern period, Oyama was famous as a place to go to pray for rain. The villagers of Futtsu in the province of Oyama Temple, Isehara City. Kazusa (Chiba Prefecture) used to sail across Edo Bay every year, land at Nojima village in the Kuraki district (Yokohama City), and make their way from there to Oyama on pilgrimage. The belief in the efficacy of Oyama extended to areas outside the provinces of Sagami and Musashi as well, and a number of different pilgrimage routes to Oyama (Oyama-kaido) grew up within Sagami province. The growth of religious faith centering on Oyama did not escape the notice of the shogunate, and in 1605 (Keicho 10), Tokugawa Ieyasu had the mountain cleared of a number of pseudo-clerics with no inclination for studying the Buddhist scriptures or observing their precepts, and assigned the scholar-monk Jitsuyu, trained at Mt. Koya, to undertake the reorganization of Oyama Temple as its abbot and head priest. In addition to the monks resident at the monastery, separate living quarters were established in the village of Sakamoto (Isehara City), in order to bring the clergy into closer contact with the people. The clerics sent out among the populace in this way were called oshi, and they appealed to the popular sensibility by offering prayers for practical matters such as good harvests; protection from disease, injury, and natural disasters; the Mass pilgrimage to Enoshima. (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum) safety and welfare of households; harmony between husbands and wives; and prosperity in business. They also performed the semimagical incantations and spells that were part of the rituals of the Shugendo sect. These religious activities appealed strongly to the common people, and the cult centering on Oyama achieved even greater popularity. Every year at the end of June, the pilgrimage routes to Oyama were crowded with the faithful, led by oshi and dressed in white cotton ritual clothing, with bells dangling from their waists and wide bamboo hats on their heads. In winter, the oshi, armed with a list of their parishioners, would make the rounds of their houses to distribute protective amulets and collect donations. In return for the offerings given to them by the parishioners, the oshi would also leave small gifts such as sansho (a mountain plant used in cooking and perfumes), chopsticks (called rikyubashi), tea, tea roasters, fans, cake dishes, tea tables, ladles, rulers, medicines, bobbins, and the like in order to help cement cordial relations with the believers. Records dating from 1860 (Man’ei 1) show that the oshi distributed amulets throughout the provinces of Musashi, Shimosa, Hitachi, Kazusa, Awa, Kozuke, Shimotsuke, Mutsu, Kai, Suruga, Izu, and Totomi. The records for the province of Sagami have been lost, but the distribution of amulets (fuda-kubari) certainly took place there as well, and later documents add Echigo and Shinano to the list of provinces visited by the oshi for this purpose. In other words, the oshi not only covered the whole Kanto region in their travels, but a number of the surrounding provinces as well. The Benzaiten Shrine at Enoshima was established by Saikaku Shonin at the behest of Minamoto Yoritomo in order to pray for the defeat of Fujiwara Hidehira, who ruled over the Oshu region. A cave on the far side of the island, cut into the rock by the erosion of the waves, was believed to be the lair of the dragon-deity Ryujin. Since this deity was thought to summon rain, the Kamakura shogunate ordered the Enoshima Myojin Shrine to conduct ritual prayers for rain. Benzaiten was a patron deity of music and the arts, and the shrine numbered many artists and entertainers among its worshippers. At the same time, the common people worshipped Benzaiten as a deity of good fortune and wealth, offering protection from natural disasters and illness. Worshippers from Edo, both samurai and commoners alike, made the pilgrimage to Enoshima in great numbers. The stone lanterns donated to Enoshima by timber and firewood wholesalers in Edo and the great bronze gate donated by the owners of establishments in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter testify to the social strata from which many of the believers came-the affluent strata of the merchant class. A large number of guidebooks to Enoshima were created with such pilgrims in mind, and gift shops lined the streets of Fujisawa, the gateway to Enoshima, and the island itself, doing a flourishing business. 4. The Collapse of the Bakuhan System Earthquakes and other natural disasters In 1630 (Kan’ei 10), a year after Inaba Masakatsu assumed control of the Odawara domain, the provinces of Sagami and Musashi were struck by a major earthquake, followed by another in 1697 (Genroku 10),and yet a third in 1703 (Genroku 16).The quake of 1703, which occurred sometime between one and three in the morning on the 22nd day of January, was especially severe, with an estimated magnitude of 8.2. It caused extensive damage throughout the southern Kanto, especially in the province of Sagami, where more than 6,300 houses and buildings were destroyed. In the castle town of Odawara, the residences of the samurai were completely demolished, as were the houses and shops in the commoner sections, which were either toppled by the quake or burned in the fire which followed. It is said that 777 people lost their lives in the disaster. In the following year, and again in the year after, the Sakawa River, whose dikes had been destroyed in the earthquake, overflowed its banks and ruined a good portion of the paddies and dry fields of the Ashigara Plain. In 1706 (Hoei 3), the southern Kanto area was struck yet again by a major earthquake, and tidal waves in Edo Bay caused great damage. This was followed in October 1707 by an even more massive quake, which affected the entire Pacific coast of Japan from the Kanto region to the island of Shikoku and toppled the stone walls of Odawara Castle. As if this was not already enough, the following month Mt. Fuji erupted, spewing cinders and volcanic ash over the entire Kanto region. At the base of the mountain the ash lay more than four meters deep. Between 60 ㎝ and 1.3 m of ash was recorded in the district of Ashigarakami, about 50㎝ at Hadano, and even as far away as Yokohama, between 21 and 24㎝ of ash lay on the ground. The agricultural land of the Kanagawa region was buried in ash, as if the entire area had been turned into a massive sandbox. All crops were destroyed, including the barley which served as the peasants’ primary food, and fodder for their animals. The eruption gave birth to a new mountain peak, Hoeizan, but the process of recovery for the ravaged farming villages of the region was far from easy. Part of the Odawara domain was so devastated by the eruption that the shogunate assumed control over it, giving Odawara han new lands in exchange. However, huge amounts of volcanic ash had turned into muck and silt which clogged the rivers and streams, and even the power and resources of the shogunate were not successful in controlling the course of the Sakawa River, which flooded time and time again. The domain of Odawara never really recovered from the The Temmei Famine. (From Kyoko Zuroku, National Archives) blow struck by this disaster until the Meiji period. Moreover, both the shogunate and the Odawara domain had already entered a period of financial difficulty, and were loath to allocate funds to the villages for disaster relief, demanding instead that recovery come through self-help efforts on the part of the villages. In 1782 (Temmei 2), eight years after the great Genroku earthquake, another massive quake occurred, with a magnitude of 7.3 and its epicenter in the western part of Sagami Bay. A thousand samurai residences in the castle town of Odawara were destroyed, and the commoner sections of town were similarly devastated. At about the same time, crop failures due to unseasonable weather, which had struck first in the Tohoku region, also spread to the southern Kanto, the beginning of a number of successive years of bad harvests. To add to the problem, Edo was plagued by a series of major fires. Starving people and beggars filled the towns and villages. This was the great Temmei Famine, one of the worst in the history of Japan. Rice prices skyrocketed, and in the Sagami region, the 100 mon which would have previously bought over a sho of rice (close to two liters) would now only buy 6.5 go (somewhat over a liter). Certain urban merchants and wealthy peasants attempted to profit from this inflation in prices by buying up and hoarding rice. The peasantry protested by smashing up their stores and homes, a form of direct action called uchikowashi. Uchikowashi raids began with attacks on Odawara merchants in June 1787 (Temmei 7), and then spread even to remote mountain villages. In the villages of the districts of Tsukui and Aiko the leader of the raids was supposed to have been a man named Doheiji, and stories of the “Doheiji Riots” have been passed from generation to generation. About fifty years after the Temmei era, in 1833 (Tempo 4),crop failures due to unusual weather began in the Tohoku, and once again spread to southern Kanto. The price of rice climbed sharply, and a typhoon and torrential rain which struck on August 1st compounded the dilemma by damaging what crops there were in the Kanagawa region. Uchikowashi raids against rice merchants and wealthy peasants, as well as impromptu assemblages of poor peasants which threatened to turn into raiding parties, occurred throughout the region, beginning with a property smashing riot at the Oiso post station in 1836 (Tempo 7). The famous rebellion in Osaka, led by a samurai in the city magistrate’s office named Oshio Heihachiro, also occurred at this time, and rumors spread in its wake that Oshio had also been seen stalking the foothills of Mt. Fuji. The collapse of feudal finances The financial system which supported feudal authority was founded upon rice. However, during the course of the early modern period, a money economy grew which eventually came to dominate the economy based on rice. Though natural disasters could produce sudden, temporary upsurges in the price of rice, the trend in normal times was for the price to decline, even as the prices of other commodities continued to rise. Moreover, after the Enkyo era (1744-1748), revenue from the land tax began to fall off, and in the province of Sagami, population also showed a downward trend. From the Meiwa period (1764-1771) onward, in villages such as Ozenji in Tsuzuki district (Aso Ward, Kawasaki City) and Oi in Tsukui district (Tsukui Township) the middle stratum of the peasant population began to break up, with its members either falling into the ranks of the poorer peasantry, or, less frequently, rising to join the elite of wealthy peasants. This trend eventually spread to most of the villages in Sagami province. In part, this was a result of economic development policies instituted by the shogunate, which had led to the growth of handicraft industries, such as the production of silk thread and rapeseed oil, in the rural villages. With opportunities for a cash income now close to home, many peasants left the land to become wage laborers, or became tenant farmers. Small businesses aimed at this clientele sprang up one after another, and the former self-sufficiency of the rural village began to erode. Eventually, various merchant enterprises grew up within the village itself, leading to the creation of a class of rural merchants whose commercial activities took on increasing economic importance. Villagers began to leave their villages in search of employment elsewhere, while at the same time an increasing number of people came into the village from outside, with a variety of commodities for sale. As this process continued, vagrants and other dubious characters began to flow into villages, opening gambling dens and engaging in other forms of anti-social activity. Disputes also began to take place between the new class of rural merchants and the established merchant houses in towns such as Odawara. In response to these developments in the countryside, in 1805 (Bunka 2) the shogunate created a new office for the maintenance of public order under the direct control of the Commissioners of Finance (kanjo bugyo). This office was called the Kanto torishimari deyaku (Inspectorate for the Administration of the Kanto Region), with powers transcending all administrative divisions in the region, allowing the officers to operate on shogunate lands, hatamoto fiefs, daimyo domains, and shrine and temple holdings. The shogunate found this system to be very successful, and in 1816 (Bunka 13), the organization was expanded. In 1827 (Bunsei 10), a system of “reform village leagues” (kaikaku kumiai mura) was established. Under this system, about twenty villages were organized into a league with one centrally located village designated as the meeting place (yoseba- mura) for the league and the headquarters of its chief. In the province of Sagami, 13 yosebamura were established, and six in the three districts of Musashi which would later become part of Kana- gawa Prefecture. Since these village leagues fell under the jurisdic- Portrait of Ninomiya Sontoku. (Sontoku Memorial Archives) tion of the Kanto Inspectorate, this meant that the responsibilities of that office were considerably enlarged. Among them were quelling uprisings and riots, preventing the hoarding of rice, enforcing bans on singing and dancing called kabu and teodori, spreading the moral teachings of a religion called Shingaku, encouraging simplicity and frugality, and attempting to put an end to wage labor in agricultural off-seasons. The shogunate used the system as a means to control every aspect of village life. The finances of Odawara han, based as they were on the rice collected in payment of the land tax, could not escape from conditions which drove them into a state of crisis. In the fifty years between 1747 (Enkyo 4) and 1796 (Kansei 8), falling rice prices and rising prices for other commodities became the usual state of affairs in Odawara han, while the natural disasters which repeatedly occurred during this period dealt an additional blow, leading to a decline in the amount of tax rice collected as well as forcing unanticipated expenditures for disaster relief. This drove domainal finances to the brink of bankruptcy, and in the countryside, more and more villages became virtual ghost towns. According to the Shuno heikin cho (Table of Average Revenues), a document compiled by Ninomiya Sontoku in the course of his efforts to restore the domain to financial health at A model of the Shuseikan. (Honcho Elementary school, Odawara City) the request of the daimyo of Odawara han, the highest volume of tax revenue brought in by the domain in the 82 years between 1755 (Horeki 5) and 1836 (Tempo 7) was 118,410 hyo (bales of rice) and 3,942 ryo of gold in 1818 (Bunsei 1). The lowest revenues were the 66,304 hyo of rice and 2,800 ryo of gold collected in 1783 (Temmei 3), a figure which clearly represents the effect of the Temmei Famine. A look at the Odawara han’s balance of payments in 1845 (Koka 2) shows a revenue income of 74,867 hyo of rice and 15,197 ryo of gold, while expenditures stood at 67,252 hyo and 31,174 ryo respectively. In other words, although there was a surplus of a little over 7,000 hyo of rice, there was a deficit of about 16,000 ryo of gold. The domain’s finances were deeply in the red. The deficits were filled in by borrowing from the shogunate and from other sources. For instance, in 1858 (Ansei 4), the domain borrowed 153,899 ryo, more than 51,129 ryo of which went to the servicing of interest on old debts. The perilous state of the domain’s finances naturally affected the stipends of its retainers. The amount of rice paid out as stipends was slashed by fifty percent in 1712 (Shotoku 2),and in the years that followed, further cuts were made, so that by 1839 (Tempo 10), stipends had been reduced to less than a third of the original amount. Okubo Tadazane took office as daimyo of Odawara han in 1796 (Kansei 8) in the midst of these crisis conditions, and for the 42 years he ruled Odawara, Tadazane labored to reform the domainal administration. Among his programs were the creation of an office called the Kokusan-kata for the promotion of economic production within the domain; the founding of a domainal academy, the Shuseikan, to raise the educational level of his retainers; and the awarding of honors to citizens of the domain who had distinguished themselves by good works and outstanding examples of filial piety. However, in 1791 (Kansei 3) and 1802 (Kyowa 2), the Sakawa River broke its dikes and flooded several times, and in the early 1830s the suffering caused by the great famine of the Tempo era was felt in Odawara as well. Hoping to restore the domain’s endangered finances, Tadazane employed the services of Ninomiya Sontoku. Sontoku was a peasant, but he had been remarkably successful at reforming the administration of the Sakuramachi-Okubo, an Okubo branch house of hatamoto status, and was rich in experience in such matters. Sontoku’s approach to the problem was to thoroughly research the history of the domain’s finances and construct a rational budget for the ruling house and the domain on this basis. Savings gained from this rationalization of the domainal finances were to be used for the welfare of the people. However, before Ninomiya could implement his proposals, Tadazane died, and pressure from Sontoku’s opponents in the domain led to the official abandonment of his policies in 1846 (Koka 3). Yet Sontoku’s methods proved successful in a number of hatamoto fiefs and minor domains, and his followers spread his techniques throughout the country. In Odawara, about the only action taken to improve the domainal finances was the sale to wealthy commoners of the right to wear samurai dress, carry swords and use a surname (all normally forbidden to the common people). The domain moved toward the Meiji Restoration with no significant reforms or improvement in its government and administration. THE MODERN PERIOD I. The Footsteps of Modernization 1. The Opening of the Country The thorny problem of coastal defense The pressure on Japan from the Western nations which had begun with Russia’s southward expansion reached a new pitch with the Russian envoy Adam Kirilovich Laksman’s request to enter Edo Bay, and coastal defense became an issue of pressing concern. There had long been an awareness that the waters of Edo Bay connected Japan to the wider world and the capitals of the West, and the senior councilor to the shogunate, Matsudaira Sadanobu, conducted an inspection tour of the Boso Peninsula with a view to preparing defenses for the bay. Before his plans could be implemented, however, Russian ships raided Etorofu (Iturup) and Sakhalin in 1808 (Bunka 3), and the fear of an armed clash grew stronger. In 1812 (Bunka 7), the shogunate ordered Aizu han to undertake the defense of the coastline of the Miura Peninsula, and Shirakawa han to see to the defense of the Boso Peninsula. At the same time, artillery batteries were constructed at strategic points along the approaches to Edo Bay. The Aizu domain, responsible for the Miura Peninsula, established a headquarters at Kannonzaki (Yokosuka City), and dispatched a large number of its retainers to guard the coastline. In order to provide the resources needed for this special duty, the shogunate took over a portion of Aizu’s domainal holdings in the provinces of Mutsu and Echigo, giving the domain in return 30,000 koku of land in the Miura and Kamakura districts. Aizu han was quite severe in its collection of the land tax from these new holdings, and whereas for decades only a single person had been sentenced to death in that region, in the ten years that Aizu controlled it, more than twenty people were executed. Many others had their noses cut off, or were sent into exile. Since the extent of one’s punishment could often be determined by the size of the bribe one was able to pay, the peasants of the area were truly made to suffer. In 1820 (Bunsei 3), Aizu’s responsibility for coastal defense in the area was terminated, and the task was given to the Uraga commissioner (bugyo), with troops to be sent from the Kawagoe and Odawara domains in time of emergency. This meant that the Miura defenses had now been reduced from emergency to alert status. However, as the years went by, foreign ships continued to appear in Japanese waters, and in 1842 (Tempo 13) the defense system was changed once again, with Oshi han in the province of Musashi charged with guarding the Boso Peninsula approaches to Edo Bay, and Kawagoe han assigned to guard the Sagami side. Kawagoe han set up its headquarters at the village of Otsu (Yokosuka City), assigned 145 of its samurai to the defenses there, and manned the batteries at Sarujima off the coast at Kugemura (Yokosuka City), at Kannonzaki, and at Hatayama. For additional forces in time of emergency, Kawagoe han permitted the village officials of its new holdings in the Miura Peninsula, given to it to support its defense duties, to wear swords and use surnames. Through them, the han created a system by which the peasants and fishermen of the area could be fully mobilized should the need arise. When Commodore James Biddle of the United States East India Squadron anchored off the village of Nohi (Yokosuka City) in 1846 (Koka 3), Kawagoe was able to mobilize a force from the villages in its Sagami holdings which consisted of 3,657 boats, 37,635 boatmen, and 145 horses at its Kamoi headquarters, and an additional 1,111 boats, 14,035 men, and 41 horses at its Misaki headquarters. Biddle’s squadron lay at anchor off the coast for about ten days, during which time the shore bustled day and night with defense preparations, exhausting and distressing the peasants and fisherfolk of the region. The following year the shogunate reassigned defense responsibilities, charging Hikone han with the Sagami side of the bay and Aizu han with the Boso side. Hikone was given authority over four of the villages which had constituted Kawagoe’s holdings in Sagami, and took over the coastal defenses of the area stretching from the villages of Nohi and Nagasawa in the Miura district to Koshigoe (Kamakura City) and Katase in the Kamakura district. Hikone han established its main headquarters at the village of Kamimiyata in the Miura district, manning it with 304 samurai, and stationed another 114 at the Misaki headquarters it had taken over from Kawagoe han. The village officials of the area were ordered to set up a system capable of mobilizing 2,723 men. When Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in 1853 (Kan’ei 6) with the United States East India Squadron, the shogunate ordered its hatamoto retainers to prepare for battle. Normally short of both arms and soldiers, the hatamoto impressed the peasants of their fiefs into military service, taking on the abler ones as retainers, and commandeered foodstuffs and money for military use. The result of all this was that the heavy burden of coastal defense now fell on the hatamoto fiefs in the Kanagawa region as well. Later, responsibility for the coastal defense of the area passed to Kumamoto han and Hagi han, but boats and boatmen were provided, as before, from the villages in the province of Sagami given over in fief to the domains assigned to coastal defense. Samurai rule was harsh, and the suffering of the peasants and fishermen only grew. Only Hagi han put any effort into the civil administration of its Sagami holdings, and was exceptional in that the villages under its control later requested that its rule over the region be continued. The signing of the Treaty of Peace and Amity between Japan and the United States at Yokohama In 1854 (Ansei 1), the squadron led by Commodore Perry returned to Japan, as he had promised the year before, arriving at the mouth of Edo Bay on January 14. Because of gale-force winds the squadron did not enter the port of Uraga, and continued on deeper into the bay, dropping anchor off the village of Koshiba (Kanazawa Ward, Yokohama). The shogunate rushed to extend its line of defenses as far as Shinagawa (now part of Tokyo), at the same time demanding that Perry moor at Uraga and conduct his negotiations from there. Perry refused, however, and partly as a threat moved even deeper into the bay to Namamugi (Tsurumi Ward, Yokohama) and the waters off Daishigawara (Kawasaki City). The shogunate finally acceded to Perry’s will and designated the village of Yokohama as the site for negotiations, moving the reception facilities that it had just built at Uraga to a site near that occupied today by the offices of the Kanagawa prefectural government. On March 3, the Treaty of Peace and Amity was concluded. It consisted of twelve articles, which pledged friendship between Japan and the United States; opened the ports of Shimoda (Shizuoka Prefecture) and Hakodate (Hokkaido); promised that shipwreck victims from each of the countries would be well treated and repatriated by the other; agreed to provide American ships stopping in Japan with water, firewood, and foodstuffs; agreed to the residence of an American diplomatic officer at Shimoda; and offered mostfavored-nation status to the United States. This treaty, commonly known as the Treaty of Kanagawa, was the first to break Japan’s long years of self-enforced isolation from the outside world. Having accomplished his mission, Perry set sail for home on the first of June. Perry’s flagship, the Powhatan. Following on the heels of the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and Holland also concluded treaties of amity with Japan. These treaties were not signed at Yokohama, but the fact that Yokohama was the site of the first treaty concluded between Japan and the Western powers has assured its place in modern history. Yokohama’s historical importance was made even more decisive by the signing of the first commercial treaty between Japan and the United States in 1858 (Ansei 5). Despite rapidly growing antiforeign sentiment expressed at the time by the phrase “expel the barbarians,” the shogunate, under heavy pressure from the Western powers and especially the United States, decided that it was no longer feasible to continue the closed country policy that had been maintained for three hundred years. On July 29, 1858, the American consul Townsend Harris and the Japanese plenipotentiary Inoue Kiyonao signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce on board the American warship Powhatan, which rode at anchor in the waters off Kanagawa. The treaty was made up of fourteen articles. Its most important points were provisions for opening the ports of Kanagawa, Nagasaki, Niigata, and Hyogo in addition to the already opened ports of Shimoda and Hakodate; a provision allowing the establishment of a foreign settlement at each of these ports; and a provision promising free trade without the presence of Japanese officials. The treaty was an unequal treaty, for it gave extraterritorial rights to American citizens living in Japan, and Japan also lost its tariff autonomy. Even so, it was Japan’s first step in the direction of modern international relations. Holland, Russia, Great Britain, and France all signed treaties of amity and commerce containing almost identical provisions. As the curtain began to rise on Japan’s modernization, with Kanagawa destined to play an important role in the process, natural disasters continued to strike the region. A cholera epidemic added immensely to the anxieties of the peasants and fishermen of the region, who were already suffering under the burden of the corvee labor they had been assigned as a part of the coastal defense preparations. On October 2, 1855 (Ansei 2), an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 struck Edo and the surrounding area. The Great Ansei Earthquake, as this disaster is known, also caused terrible damage in Kanagawa. In addition, the many hatamoto retainers with fiefs in the area had to busy themselves with the reconstruction of their destroyed Edo residences. The next year, in August, Kanagawa was hit by raging winds and rain, which, along with high waves, caused considerable damage along the shores of Sagami and Edo bays. For example, in the village of Ichiba (now Tsurumi Ward, Yokohama), of a total of 129 houses in the village, 30 were completely destroyed, another 16 were partially destroyed, and 55 huts and sheds were flattened. As if this were not enough, in July 1858 (Ansei 5),cholera spread from western Japan, crossed the pass at Hakone, entered Odawara, and soon spread throughout the entire Kanto region. It was believed at the time that the disease had been brought by Western ships. People frantically went to visit shrines and temples, and put their faith in protective prayers, incantations, and red paper talismans. Luckily, with the coming of cold weather, the cholera epidemic subsided. Bird’s-eye view of Yokohama. (Kurofunekan, Niigata Prefecture) The Kanagawa commissioner and the foreign settlement With the signing of the commercial treaties, the shogunate created an office called the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs (gaikoku bugyo) to handle all official business with foreign countries. Sakai Tadayuki and four other men were assigned to this office, and with the opening of the port of Yokohama, the office also served as commissioner of Kanagawa. Two of the five commissioners were assigned on six-month rotation to Yokohama. In 1864 (Genji 1), the office of the Kanagawa commissioner was made a permanent, fulltime position for the first time, and Matsudaira Yasunao and Tsuzuki Mineteru were assigned to the post. The commissioner’s office was given jurisdiction over 207 towns and villages in Kanagawa, an area assessed at over 10,320 koku, including the towns of Yokohama, Tobe, Ota, Yoshida, Kanagawa, and Hodogaya, and the villages of Kitakata, Negishi, Honmoku Hongo, and Namamugi. Under the commissioner, two offices were established, one in Tobe and the other in Yokohama. The Tobe office handled the general administrative affairs for the area under the jurisdiction of the commissioner, including the collection of land tax; the maintenance of public morals in the area, which included the area in which foreigners were permitted freedom of movement (defined in the treaty as the area within a 10 ri radius of the port); road maintenance and repair; serving as inspector, prosecutor, and judge; and dealing with petitions from peasants and townspeople. The Yokohama office primarily handled customs-related duties, such as the procedures for the entry and exit of foreign ships from port, trade and currency exchange, and reception and supervision of the foreign nationals in port. The shogunate spent 96,000 r yo in the construction of these two offices and a breakwater for the port. The commercial treaties had specified Kanagawa as the port to be opened to trade in this area, but Kanagawa was a populous post station, and fearing possible conflict between Japanese and foreign nationals, the shogunate chose the former fishing village of Yokohama instead, and set about turning it into a new, planned city. A checkpoint was erected at the entrance to the treaty port of Yokohama, which came to be popularly known as kannai, or “within the gate.” The first firm to build offices in the Kannai was the British trading house, Jardine Matheson. Within three or four years, the number of foreign merchant establishments in the settlement had reached 110. In addition, the magistrate for foreign affairs, Mizuno Tadanori, encouraged Japanese merchants to open stores in the area, allowing, for example, Mitsui Hachirozaemon to open a clothing and moneychanging establishment in the second block of Honcho in Yokohama. As a result, 34 merchants from Edo, 12 from Kanagawa, and 6 from Hodogaya opened stores, the Kanagawa commissioner built 20 offices in the area, and the city of Yokohama gradually began to take shape. At the same time, there was an extraordinary growth in trade. In the first six months after the opening of the port, exports amounted to only 400,000 Western silver dollars, and imports only $ 100,000. The next year, 1860 (Man’en 1), however, exports rose to $3,950,000 and imports to $940,000; in 1861 (Bunkyu 1) exports increased to $2,680,000 and imports to $1,490,000; in 1862, exports stood at $6,300,000 and imports at $3,070,000; and by 1865 (Keio 1), both exports and imports had passed the ten-million-dollar mark, with exports at $ 17,460,000 and imports at $ 13,150,000. At the center of this leap in trade were silk, silkworm eggs, and tea. The highways linking Yokohama with the silk-producing regions of Koshu (Yamanashi Prefecture) and Joshu (Gumma Prefecture) bustled with traders in silk, presenting a spectacle that must have been reminiscent of the ancient silk road to China. Tea was second only to silk as an export item, and both the residents of the tea-producing regions and urban merchants would buy up the crop for direct shipment to Yokohama. The tea merchants of Ise (Mie Prefecture) and Suruga (Shizuoka Prefecture) were particularly active in this trade. 2. The Creation of Kanagawa Prefecture The dark side of the boom in trade The sudden and dramatic increase in foreign trade drew commodities of every description to concentrate in Yokohama, causing shortages in goods which had until then supplied the needs of the home market and causing prices to skyrocket. The inflation in rice prices which had begun as a result of a series of terrible storms following in the wake of the Great Ansei Earthquake was given further impetus by this trade-based inflation. In 1860 (Man’en 1), the price of rice at Fujisawa post station had doubled, with one ryo of money buying only 4.4 to of rice (1 to=18 liters), and many people were on the verge of starvation. Village officials and some of the wealthier members of the community made donations of grain and money to the needy, but even this was not enough to solve the problem. In 1865 (Keio 1), one ryo would buy only 2.6 to, and the following year, only 1.8. Rioting soon broke out all over the Kanagawa region. The Bushu uprising, which began in the village of Naguri in the Chichibu district of Musashi (now Saitama Prefecture), involved as many as three thousand people and rampaged through an area ranging from Kozuke (Gumma Prefecture) in the north to Ome, Fussa and Tanashi in the Tama district to the south (all now part of the Tokyo metropolitan area). But the shogunate mobilized peasant troops and at last managed to restore order. At the same time, the development of the foreign settlement at Yokohama served as a stimulus to antiforeign activists, who coupled xenophobia with a determination to overthrow the shogunate and launched into an increasingly violent movement, murdering a number of foreigners in the Yokohama and Hyogo areas. On January 25, 1860 (Man’en 1), two Dutchmen, Wessel DeVos and Nanning Dekker, were murdered in Yokohama, and on March 3 the senior shogunal councilor Ii Naosuke was assassinated in Edo. Similar incidents followed one after another: the American interpreter Henry Heusken was assassinated on December 25 in the Mita district of Edo, and on January 15, 1862 (Bunkyu 2), the senior councilor Ando Nobumasa was attacked and wounded. Then, on August 21, an Englishman was killed and two others wounded by samurai from Satsuma han in an incident which occurred at the village of Namamugi (now Tsurumi Ward, Yokohama). In the midst of these unsettled times, talismans from the shrine at Ise and other shrines and temples began suddenly and mysteriously falling-it was said-from the sky. This touched off an outburst of mass hysteria, and people began dancing crazily in the streets chanting “eejanaika” (“Isn’t it wonderful!”). This phenomenon spread east and west along the Tokaido highway, reaching the Kanagawa region as well. It started in Odawara at the beginning of November 1867 (Keio 3), reaching Fujisawa on November 6, the village of Yamanishi (Ninomiya Township) on the 8th, and Yokohama on the 15th. In Yokohama, when the sacred talismans began to fall, there were many people who decorated the front of their stores with them, threw rice cakes to passersby in the street, hung out banners and flags, and hired laborers and coolies to protect their establishments from harm. The disturbance provoked the authorities to issue a ban, but it only said that while distributing charity was anyone’s prerogative, putting up decorations in the street and throwing presents to passers-by would have to cease after three days since it interfered with traffic. In one household in the village of Yanagishima in Koza district (Chigasaki City), the grandson brought home a talisman (ofuda) from the Suitengu Shrine which he had found floating in the sea on Eejanaika revelers throwing stones at foreigners. (Horiuchi Hisao Collection) November 3. Then, on the 11th, he was given a talisman from the Todaiji Hachimangu Shrine at Nara by a traveler passing through the Fujisawa post station, and on the evening of the 14th, a talisman of the Kaiun Daikokuten Shrine at Nikko fell from the sky to lodge in the branches of the cypress tree in the garden. On the 15th, the family prayed before the three talismans at their household shrine, set out bales of rice and casks of sake, encouraging everyone in the village, young and old alike, to help themselves, and served a festival dish of rice with red beans to the children. A monk came to chant sutras, and the entire household was overjoyed. On the 17th, a group of villagers, including the grandson, set off on a pilgrimage to the Ise Shrine, their number soon swelling to more than sixty people. On the 28th they prayed at the Inner and Outer shrines at Ise, and returned to their village on December 9. There is still really no adequate explanation for the eejanaika craze. Because some of the talismans which served to trigger the phenomenon contained the message “Exterminate the foreigners,” one theory holds that antiforeign imperial loyalists deliberately started it. However, while it is beyond doubt that the falling talismans were the result of human and not divine activity, it is also clear that no single group of people could have been responsible. Households upon which the talismans had fallen prepared altars to house them, invited their neighbors in to feast, and distributed charity to the poor. Among the masses receiving such charity during the eejanaika craze, rumors circulated that rice and gold would be distributed to save the poor in their distress, that the establishments of grain merchants who had been hoarding rice had been burned, and that bales of hoarded rice had turned to dust and disappeared in a single night. It might be said that the eejanaika phenomenon was touched off for the purpose of bringing relief to the masses of people suffering from the terrible inflation in rice prices. Moreover, since the eejanaika craze often ended with a pilgrimage to the Ise Shrine, as in the case of the household in Yanagishima, despite the fact that the fallen talismans were from a number of different shrines and temples, the phenomenon can also be seen as a variant form of the okagemairi pilgrimages to Ise that became popular among the masses in the late Edo period. Samurai in Musashi and Sagami and the collapse of the shogunate In October 1867, as the eejanaika craze spread far and wide along the Tokaido, the Sanyodo (in the Chugoku region), and the Nankaido (in Shikoku), the fifteenth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, officially returned the reins of government to the imperial court, thus bringing to an end seven hundred years of rule by a succession of military houses. After this, and the battle of Toba-Fushimi in which pro-Tokugawa forces suffered a defeat, Yoshinobu returned to Edo, where he gave his hatamoto retainers the freedom to choose whether or not to remain in the service of the Tokugawa house, and allowed them to take their families with them to reside on the lands they had been given in fief. For its part, the imperial court was willing to accept as imperial retainers those hatamoto who were prepared to shift allegiance from the Tokugawa to the imperial house, and set up a system to determine their stipends and receive them into imperial service. Many of the hatamoto who held fiefs in the Kanagawa region chose to follow this course and became imperial retainers. Among them were the Ota family, with a 3,000-koku fief in the villages of Tashiro in Aiko district (Aikawa Township) and Kurihara in Koza district (Zama City); the Sano family, with 3,500 koku in the villages of Kamimizo (Sagamihara City) and Kurami (Samukawa Township) in Koza district; and the Mabe family with 1,500 koku in the villages of Kamikasuya (Isehara City) and Tamura (Hiratsuka City) in Osumi district. However, when Tokugawa Ieyasu took over as head of the Tokugawa house and was transferred to a domain centered on Sunpu in what is now Shizuoka Prefecture, many former hatamoto chose to follow him, remaining on as retainers of the Tokugawa family. The imperial court confiscated the fiefs of those hatamoto who did not become imperial retainers. Of course, there were also hatamoto who took Yoshinobu’s advice and returned to the land they had held in fief. The samurai class, which had long ruled Japan, did not disappear at one stroke when the Tokugawa house returned authority to the imperial court. The change was simply a political one, in that all orders concerning the governing of the nation would now issue from the imperial court. Many daimyo expressed their allegiance to this new order. Odawara han, however, while pledging allegiance to the imperial government as the imperial armies made their way west toward Edo, was rocked by internal divisions of opinion. At one point, it welcomed a unit of troops which was acting in concert with the Shogitai, an army of Tokugawa loyalists based in Edo, and as a result, the Odawara domain was held responsible by the imperial government for a battle at Hakone. As punishment, the daimyo of Odawara, Okubo Tadaaya, was ordered into permanent retirement, his senior councilors dismissed, and the territories of the domain Woodblock print of the Battle of Hakone, May 1868. (Kasuga Toshio Collection) reduced from 113,000 to 75,000 koku. In March 1869 (Meiji 2), when all the daimyo in Japan were ordered to return their lands to the imperial house, the daimyo of Odawara, Tadayoshi (Tadaaya’s adopted son), was appointed governor of Odawara, and continued to administer the domain with the assistance of his former retainers. Ogino-Yamanaka han, since it pledged allegiance to the imperial forces, escaped having its territories reduced, but in September 1868 (Meiji 1), it was ordered to return 9,890 koku of its holdings in Suruga and Izu, which represented the majority of the domainal territory, to the imperial government, and was given land in the Aiko district of Sagami in return. These new holdings consisted of the village of Tomuro and 23 other villages in the Aiko district, which, added to Nakaogino and the other five villages already possessed by the domain, gave Ogino-Yamanaka han territories totaling 13,684 koku. With the return of feudal lands to the imperial throne, the daimyo Okubo Noriyoshi was named governor of the domain, and the domainal headquarters at Yamanaka was renamed the Yamanaka Office of Civil Administration. The offices of the Kanagawa commissioner at Tobe and Yokohama, which had jurisdiction over Yokohama and the surrounding area, were renamed “courts” (saibansho) and continued their administrative functions, then were merged into a single Kanagawa Court. On June 17, 1868, Kanagawa was designated as an administrative district called a fu, and the superintendent of the Kanagawa Court, Higashikuze Michitomi, was appointed as its governor. The area of his administration was designated as the territory lying between the Rokugo River to the east and the Sakawa River to the west, its north-south dimension being set at 10 ri (about 40 kilometers). This area comprised most of the southern and eastern parts of the old province of Sagami. On September 21, 1868 (Meiji 1), the imperial government ordered Kanagawa fu to change its name to Kanagawa ken, the term now used for prefecture, and thus Kanagawa Prefecture came into being. Terajima Munenori was appointed to replace Higashikuze as governor of the prefecture. Among the newly created prefectures was Nirayama Prefecture, which had its administrative seat at Nirayama in the Izu peninsula (now Shizuoka Prefecture), and was governed by the Egawa family, who had served for generations as shogunal intendants (daikan) in the area. The territories administered by the Egawa family as of 1792 (Kansei 4) amounted to some 54,571 koku of land in the Naga district and two other districts of Izu, and the Ashigarakami, Ashigarashimo, Osumi, and Yurugi districts of Sagami. The family also held fiefs elsewhere in Izu and the province of Kai, making it one of the most prominent and powerful of the shogunal intendants of the Edo period. One member of the family, Egawa Hidetatsu, is especially famous for having constructed a blast furnace at Nirayama when the issue of coastal defense reached its peak at the end of the Edo period. On June 29, 1868, the lands administered by the Egawa family became Nirayama Prefecture, and the portions that lay within the old provinces of Sagami and Musashi were placed under the jurisdiction of the newly constructed government mint (shinzeniza) in the Shiba district of Tokyo. The original offices of the Kanagawa prefectural government. In 1869 (Meiji 2), with the return of feudal lands to the imperial government, the names and organization of official posts at both the central and local level were changed, and a system involving three types of regional government bodies-fu, han, and ken-was instituted. However, in the han, the former daimyo were usually appointed as governor, and the result was little more than an extension of the previous feudal administration. Moreover, most of the han continued to be plagued by the financial difficulties that had beset them in the Edo period, a problem which became so acute that one han after another found itself unable to continue the duties of government and volunteered to give up the management of its territories to the imperial government. Taking advantage of this trend, the new government, backed by the military might of the domains of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen, ordered the dissolution of all the han and their conversion into prefectures on July 14, 1871 (Meiji 4). This was the first decisive step toward a fully centralized national government. The former han were renamed as prefectures, members of the new central government bureaucracy were appointed as their governors, and the former daimyo of the domains were ordered to take up residence in Tokyo. At first, the former han were turned directly into prefectures with the same territories and names, so the Kanagawa region was divided into the four prefectures of Kanagawa, Odawara, Ogino-Yamanaka, and Mutsuura. But later,in November 1871; a merging of prefectures took place on a nationwide basis, and the number of prefectures in the Kanagawa region was reduced to two. Mutsuura Prefecture was absorbed into Kanagawa Prefecture, and Odawara and Ogino-Yamanaka were merged with the portion of Izu which had been under the jurisdiction of Nirayama Prefecture to form Ashigara Prefecture. Kanagawa Prefecture was now comprised of eight districts: the Miura and Kamakura districts of Sagami, and the Tachibana, Kuraki, Tsuzuki and three Tama districts (Minami-Tama, Kita-Tama, and Nishi-Tama) of Musashi. Ashigara Prefecture was made up of the seven Sagami districts of Ashigarakami, Ashigarashimo, Koza, Osumi, Aiko, Yurugi, and Tsukui, and the four districts in Izu. The government offices of the two new prefectures were set up in Yokohama and Odawara respectively (with a branch office of Ashigara Prefecture located at Nirayama). With the dissolution of the han and the establishment of the prefectures, lands in the area which had previously been under the jurisdiction of other han or prefectures-such as Shinagawa, Karasuyama, Oimi, Nishi-Ohira, and Sakura-were not absorbed into the two new prefectures. At the time of their creation, Kanagawa Prefecture had a population of more than 100,600 and territory amounting to about 330,000 koku, while Ashigara Prefecture had a population of some 68,000 people and territory of approximately 260,000 koku. With the dissolution of the han and formation of the prefectures in 1871 (Meiji 4), regional administration in Japan was divided among three fu (Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto) and 72 prefectures, but in 1876 (Meiji 9), a second great merger of prefectures took place, reducing the number to three fu and 35 prefectures. At this time, Ashigara Prefecture was dissolved, with its seven Sagami districts being absorbed into Kanagawa Prefecture and its four Izu districts becoming a part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Finally, in 1893 (Meiji 26), the three Tama districts (the Santama region) were separated from Kanagawa Prefecture and absorbed into Tokyo fu, and Kanagawa Prefecture attained the boundaries that it has today. The reasons for the splitting off of the three Tama districts included the need to secure the upper reaches of the Tama River to provide water for the rapidly growing population of Tokyo, as well as other reasons related to transportation and geography. However, the Santama region had been one of the most powerful bases of the popular rights movement, and the Kanagawa prefectural assembly had been one of the focal points of the movement. It appears, therefore, that the splitting off of these three districts from the prefecture probably had its political motivations as well. As far as Kanagawa Prefecture was concerned, giving up the Santama region meant losing the commercial and industrial belt that had developed around Hachioji as well as losing one of the strongholds of the popular rights movement, so the economic and social cost of this action was great. Since Kanagawa was regarded as a prefecture second in importance only to the three urban prefectures (fu) of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, in the early days after its creation some very able statesmen were appointed to serve as its governor. The first governor appointed after the dissolution of the han was Mutsu Munemitsu (governor from November 1871 to June 1872), who was succeeded by Oe Taku (July 1872 to January 1874), and Nakajima Nobuyuki (January 1874 to March 1876). These three governors, all enlightened administrators, left impressive records during their terms of office. Mutsu is known as the author of a document entitled “A Memorial Concerning the Reform of the Land Tax,” which later came to be the basis for the government’s nationwide land tax reform (chiso kaisei), while Oe achieved fame for his judiciousness in the handling of the incident involving the vessel Maria Luz, and Nakajima is remembered as a progressive who led the nation in introducing a system of local popular assemblies. Oe and Nakajima’s accomplishments in particular would be inherited by the popular rights movement of the Meiji 10s (1877-1887). Kanagawa leads the other prefectures in establishing district and local assemblies In 1827 (Bunsei 10), village leagues (kumiai mura) were set up to. help maintain public order as part of shogunal efforts to strengthen the security system in the Kanto region. A small number of villages in a particular area, whether they were on shogunal land under the authority of an intendant or part of hatamoto, han, or shrine and temple holdings, were organized into leagues, and these leagues were in turn organized into larger federations. The leagues were headed by a representative (sho-sodai) elected from among the headmen of the villages involved, while the federations were managed by a general representative (dai-sodai) elected from among the representatives of the leagues. The village in which the office of the larger federation was located was called a yoseba mura (assembly village) and the other villages of the leagues and federations yoseba kumiai mura (assembly league villages). The leagues and federations were set up to cooperate with the shogunal officials in charge of security for the Kanto region, and were particularly effective in transmitting shogunal directives to the villages of the region. By the time the new Meiji government was established, the leagues and federations had taken on some of the functions of administrative districts. With the collapse of the shogunate, the shogunal officers for the security of the Kanto region were dismissed, but the leagues were left intact, and in the villages that comprised them, the village assembly (mura yoriai) and the three principal village offices of headmen (nanushi), group leaders (kumigashira), and peasants’ representatives (hyakushodai) remained unchanged. In April 1871 (Meiji 4), the government promulgated the Family Register Law (koseki ho), established registration districts, and provided for the appointment of a registrar (kocho) and vice-registrar in each district. The registration districts were based upon the existing village leagues, and inherited their functions, transmitting government directives to the residents of the area and performing other general administrative tasks in addition to their duty of maintaining the population registers. Within Kanagawa Prefecture, 60 registration districts were set up in the four Musashi districts, and 24 in the three districts of Sagami. In April 1872 (Meiji 5),the government terminated the old system of village headman and elders, ordering that in each village a mayor and vice-mayor be appointed. However, since the mayors and vicemayors were given the titles kocho and fuku-kocho, which were already being used for the registrars and vice-registrars of the districts, administrative confusion ensued. Responding to this situation, in November 1872 the governor of Kanagawa Prefecture, Oe Taku, ordered the discontinuation of the old system of village leagues and appointed district heads (kocho) and assistant district heads (fuku-kocho) to oversee the registration of districts, taking over the duties of the former registrars and viceregistrars and all other administrative duties related to the land and people of their districts. Then, in May 1873 (Meiji 6), Governor Oe undertook the redrawing of district boundaries in order to rationalize the system, dividing the prefecture into 20 districts, and organizing within each district village leagues called bangumi among groups of villages whose combined productivity was assessed at 2,000 koku. Under this new system, Kanagawa Prefecture was reorganized into 20 districts, comprising 108 bangumi organized from among 904 villages. District heads and assistant district heads were placed in charge of the districts, registrars (kocho) and vice-registrars (fukukocho) in charge of the bangumi, and administrative duties in the villages were the responsibility of village clerks (mura-yogakari). The office of village clerk was an appointive position, but the registrars and assistant registrars were elected by five representatives from each unit of one hundred households, while the district head and his assistant were elected in turn by the registrars and vice-registrars, all elections requiring the approval of the prefectural governor. This administrative system, which was unique to Kanagawa, lasted about a year, but in June 1874 the central government instituted a large district/small district system nationwide, and the pattern of local government within Kanagawa Prefecture changed for the third time. Under this new system, the existing districts became large districts (daiku), and the bangumi were renamed small districts (shoku). When this reorganization was carried out, the prefecture would be divided into 20 large districts and 82 small districts. One notable aspect of this large district/small district system was that district assemblies were established for each large district, with representatives sent to it from each small district by popular vote. In addition, the village clerks, which had previously been appointed by the heads of the bangumi, were now elected by the representatives to the district assembly. At this time, the three great reforms undertaken by the Meiji government-of the educational system, military conscription, and the land tax-had just begun, and in Kanagawa, as in other parts of the country, there was both antipathy to conscription and popular movements against the reform of the land tax. It was a period in which fears of growing alienation and friction between the government and the people were at their highest. Given this situation, both the central government and local officials, in order to assure the smooth implementation of the three great reforms, had no choice but to place heavy emphasis on “harmony between high and low” (joge kyowa) and “public opinion and debate” (kogi yoron). This was also the period in which Nakajima Nobuyuki, who at the First Conference of Local Officials in 1875 (Meiji 8) argued forcefully for the establishment of popularly elected assemblies, occupied the highest post in Kanagawa Prefecture, and as governor began to implement the progressive policies he advocated. However, the new system of popular assemblies was greatly altered by the issuing in October 1876 of Dajokan Directive No. 130 (the Dajokan was the highest executive organ of the early Meiji government, corresponding in function to the cabinet system introduced later), and by the administration of prefectural governor Nomura Yasushi, who succeeded Nakajima. Nomura ordered the abandonment of the system of village representatives (daiginin), peasants’ ombudsmen (komae sodai), and five-man groups (goningumi), replacing them with a system of town and village representatives who would double as representatives to the district assemblies, and called for new elections. However, where before there had been no financial restrictions on eligibility for the post of representatives, now the office was limited to landholders paying national and prefectural taxes, and the number of representatives was sharply reduced. This constituted a noticeable retreat from the principle of representative government. However, some lost ground was regained in the reform of February 1878, which reorganized the already existing assembly of district heads into an assembly which would be comprised of two elected representatives from each large district. In 1878 (Meiji 11), what were called the “Three New Laws Concerning Local Government” (chiho sanshin po) were promulgated: the “Regulations for Prefectural Assemblies,” the “Regulations for Local Taxation,” and the “Law for the Organization of Districts, Wards, Towns, and Villages.” These laws abolished the large district/small district system, restoring the towns and villages to the position they had historically occupied as the basic units of administration. Areas with a high concentration of population were designated wards (ku) and established as independent administrative units, while the remaining towns and villages were placed under the jurisdiction of districts (gun), and a prefectural assembly was established for each prefecture. In essence, this was an extension of the Kanagawa local popular assemblies on a nationwide basis. However, the financial restrictions on eligibility to hold office as a representative were quite strict. To run for election, one had to be a male over the age of twenty-five, registered within the prefecture and a resident of it for a minimum of three years, paying a land tax of ten yen or more. To be eligible to vote, one had to be a male over the age of twenty, registered in the prefecture, and paying five yen or more in land tax. According to the prefectural statistics for 1884 (Meiji 17), somewhat over 31,000 people met the requirements for voter eligibility, while a little over 16,000 were eligible to run for office as representatives. The former represented only 3.8 percent of the total population of the prefecture, the latter only 2.0 percent. Elections were held in February 1879 (Meiji 12), and the present prefectural assembly had its origins in the session which opened in March of the same year, with 47 representatives. 3. The Port of Yokohama: Japan’s Window on “Civilization and Enlightenment” The growing foreign population of Yokohama After the opening of the ports, the number of foreigners resident in Yokohama grew by the year, swelling with particular rapidity after the Meiji Restoration. In the Meiji 10s (1877-1886) the number of foreign residents in Yokohama rose to over 3,000, and in the Meiji 20s (1887-1896) it rose from 4,000 to close to 5,000 people. As this figure was more than half the total number of foreigners resident in all the other treaty ports combined, one can see the extent to which foreigners living in Japan tended to be concentrated in Yokohama. Over half these resident foreigners were Chinese, followed in strength of numbers by the British, Americans, Germans, and French. For example, in 1885 (Meiji 18), of 3,800 foreigners residing in Yokohama, about 2,500 were Chinese, 600 British, 230 American, 160 German, 110 French, and 30 Swiss. In the statistics for 1893 (Meiji 26), of a total of about 5,000 resident foreigners, 3,300 were Chinese, 800 British, 250 American, 105 German, and 130 French. The residences of these several thousand foreigners were concentrated in the eastern half of the Kannai settlement and in the hills overlooking Yokohama, while the western half of the settlement was occupied by Japanese houses and shops. The urban plan of the Kannai did not take final shape all at once, however. At first, the port authority, the consular offices of the various foreign countries, and the section of town called Miyozaki-cho were located along the shore, and behind them was a marsh which had to be drained and filled. In 1864 (Genji 1), two agreements entitled “A Memorandum Concerning the Yokohama Settlement” and “An Agreement Concerning the Reconstruction of the Yokohama Settlement, the Racetrack, and the Cemetery” stipulated that the marsh at the southern end of the Ooka River (Yoshida Shinden) was to be reclaimed, creating land for use as a parade ground and racetrack for the foreign community; that lands along the northern reaches of the Ooka River were to be filled in to provide room for new construction in the foreign settlement; that the foreigners’ smallpox sanatorium was to be expanded and the foreign cemetery enlarged; and that land be made available for the construction of a clubhouse and a five-mile long bridal path to Negishi Village. These agreements were revised in 1866 (Keio 2),and became the prototype for the layout of presentday Yokohama. Because of the foreign settlement, a way of life quite different from that of the Japanese began to unfold in Yokohama, and provided the basic material for a new genre of woodlock prints-called Yokohama nishikie-which depicted the habits and customs of the foreign community. “Civilization and enlightenment” come to Yokohama In 1854 (Ansei 1), Commodore Perry, who now had reasonable expectations that a treaty of amity and commerce would be signed, unloaded at Yokohama a number of official gifts from the government of the United States to the shogun of Japan. These consisted of fifty or so items representative of Western civilization: telegraph machines, a model steam railway engine, clocks, telescopes, rifles, and the like. In the courtyard of the reception house, a railway track was laid, and around it the model steam engine pulled a string of passenger cars. This was on the 13th of February. The next day, a telegraph line was strung between the reception house and the Shukan Benten Shrine about 982 meters away, and the telegraph equipment was demonstrated. Seeing these devices in operation, the Japanese were amazed, and the shogunate realized the necessity of importing such goods from the West. However, the presents were stored away, and before they could be put to practical use, the shogunate itself collapsed. The first seeds of modern civilization had arrived at Yokohama, but had fallen short of being put to good use. From the beginning, the Meiji government set itself to the task of putting the instruments of modern civilization to practical use. In 1869 (Meiji 2), an Englishman named Gilbert, the first of many foreign advisors to be employed by the new government, strung a 760-meter telegraph line from a government office at Yokohama Benten Tomyodai to the Yokohama Court (later the prefectural government offices) on Honcho Avenue, and it began to carry official telegraphs. On September 19, a telegraph office was established inside the Yokohama Courthouse, and a line was run nearly 32 kilometers to Tsukiji, Tokyo, with service inaugurated in December. On November 10, 1869, the government decided to begin the construction of railways, and hired a number of British engineers, headed by Edmund Morel, to supervise the process. Construction began in March 1870 (Meiji 3) to link Shiodome in Tokyo with the Nogeura reclaimed lands (now Sakuragi-cho) in Yokohama. The first part of the line to be completed was the 23.8-kilometer section linking Yokohama and Shinagawa, which was finished on May 7, A steam engine at the time when railway service was first opened. 1872 (Meiji 5), and began temporary service. By August, the rest of the line as far as Shimbashi (Shiodome) was completed and opened for service, and on September 12, inaugural ceremonies were performed at Yokohama station in the morning and Shimbashi station in the afternoon. The fact that the ceremonies took place at Yokohama first probably indicates that it was seen as the starting point of the new railway. Freight handling facilities were constructed at the three stations of Yokohama, Shinagawa, and Shimbashi. This was the origin of today’s railway freight system, and the first link in the network of rail lines that would serve as the main artery for Japan’s emergence as a modern nation. The telegraph and the railway, the arteries of the modern nation, both had their origins in the Yokohama foreign settlement. The way of life and the facilities built by the numerous foreign residents served as a wellspring of “civilization and enlightenment.” In Yokohama kidan (Strange Tales from Yokohama), published in 1863 (Bunkyu 3), things and customs introduced as curiosities to the Japanese reader included stone buildings, glass windows, carpets, the eating of bread, beef, and pork, and the practice of going for daily strolls. Almost immediately, these spread among the Japanese populace, and became part of the Japanese way of life as well. Carriages were used for transportation in the Kannai, and in 1867 (Keio 3) a horsedrawn trolley line linking the consular offices in Yokohama with the embassies in Edo was completed, followed by horsedrawn omnibuses under foreign management running between Building No. 37 in the foreign settlement and the city of Edo (renamed Tokyo in 1868). In 1869 (Meiji 2) eight residents of Yokohama petitioned to be allowed to open an omnibus service under Japanese management, and it was soon in operation between Yoshidabashi, Tobe, Hiranuma, Kanagawadai, and Nihombashi in Tokyo. Although these services gradually disappeared with the opening of railways, in 1874 (Meiji 7) postal stagecoaches began running between Kanagawa and Odawara, and along with railroads, a system of carriage routes expanded throughout the country. The foreign settlement as a source of civilization The daily newspaper, now an indispensable part of everyday life in Japan, also had its beginnings with the foreign newspapers published in the Yokohama settlement. The first full-fledged newspaper directed at a Japanese readership was the Kaigai Shimbun (Overseas News) which Joseph Hiko began publishing from his house at No. 141 in the American section of the settlement in May 1865 (Keio 1). It had a print run of 100 copies, and as its name would suggest, it was a publication aimed at delivering international news to Japanese readers. This paper had only a brief existence, ceasing publication in 1866 (Keio 2) after its twenty-sixth issue. The first Japaneselanguage daily newspaper was the Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun (Yokohama Daily News), which began publication with an issue dated December 8, 1870 (Meiji 3). The newspaper was published by the Yokohama Printing Company, which opened in the English and French Language School in the area then called Benten-cho, and the editor was Koyasu Takashi. Eventually, with the support of wealthy merchants in Yokohama, the Yokohama Printing Company expanded its operations and Shimada Saburo became the paper’s editor. By November 1879 (Meiji 12), the paper had published 2,690 issues, but that year the main office was moved to Tokyo, the Honcho office was renamed the Yokohama Branch Office, and the name of the paper itself was changed to the TokyoYokohama Mainichi. In 1886 (Meiji 19), the name was changed again to the Mainichi Shimbun with head offices located in Owari-cho in Tokyo. After the paper moved to Tokyo, Yokohama was left without a Japanese daily until the Yokohama Boeki Shimbun (Yokohama Trade News) began publication on February 1, 1890 (Meiji 23). A base for Christian missionary work In the foreign settlement at Yokohama, which enjoyed extraterritoriality and was thus not subject to Japanese law, churches serving the resident foreign population were established very early on, and as a result of proselytizing by foreign missionaries, a number of Japanese became converts. In February 1872 (Meiji 5), when the ban on Christianity that had been in force since the early Edo period was still in effect, the first Japanese Protestant church was founded, which was called the Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai (Japanese Christian Church) and located within the foreign settlement in Yokohama. After 1873 (Meiji 6), when the ban on Christianity was lifted, this church became an important center for Japanese missionary work. By the end of the year the ban was lifted, the church had gained as many as 75 members, and the following year a branch was set up in Tokyo. In 1875 the Hirosaki Church in Aomori Prefecture, and in 1876 the Ueda Christian Church were also established as daughter churches of the Yokohama Church. In 1883 (Meiji 16), the Yokohama Missionary Society was created, conducting missionary activities in Yokosuka, Akuwa (now Seya Ward, Yokohama), Hodogaya, and other places in Kanagawa Prefecture. Churches were soon established in Yokosuka and Akuwa, and missionary activity spread to the Santama region as well. Soon a number of different Christian denominations began missionary activity, using the Yokohama settlement as their headA bas-relief on the site of the First Sacred Heart Church. (Naka Ward, Yokohama) quarters-the Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists all opened missions. The Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches also began proselytizing. Catholic missionary work extended into the Santama region, and a number of people in Hachioji who suffered social discrimination were converted. In addition to the missionaries dispatched by their churches and denominations to spread the faith in Japan, a number of foreigners resident in the Yokohama settlement opened private schools to teach English to Japanese students, and these schools as well served as a vehicle for the spread of Christianity. The private schools set up by foreigners in the settlement were one of the unique features of Yokohama. The Presbyterian James C. Hepburn and his wife set up an English language school in their residence at No. 39 in the settlement, which grew in ten years into an academy with about forty students, teaching geography, history, and mathematics in addition to English. When the American Presbyterian missionary Henry Loomis conducted the ceremony of first baptism at the Hepburn residence in 1874 (Meiji 7), eight of the ten people baptized were students at Hepburn’s academy. James Hamilton Ballagh of the Reformed Church also had as many as fifty private students. S. R. Brown was an instructor at the English language school established by the shogunate as well as its successor, the Shubunkan, and opened a private academy in his home where he taught English, history and theology to about 20 students, a number of them former samurai from Kuwana han. The American Reformed Church missionary M. E. Kidder, who had served as an instructor in Hepburn’s academy, opened the Ferris School for Women in 1875 (Meiji 8), building new classrooms and a dormitory in the Yamate section of the foreign settlement in Yokohama. In 1881 (Meiji 14), E. S. Booth, the second headmaster, had the school buildings enlarged and introduced a comprehensive curriculum divided into a preparatory course of two years, a main course of four years, and a two-year advanced course. The name of the school was changed from the Ferris English-Japanese Women’s School to the Ferris Japanese-English Women’s School, and has to this very day played a pioneering role in Japanese women’s education. Julia Neilson Crosby and two other women missionaries dispatched by the American United Board of World Missions founded the Japanese Women’s English School in the Yamate foreign settlement, which in 1875 (Meiji 8) changed its name to the Kyoritsu Women’s School and continued its activities. The missionary Harriet G. Brittan of the Methodist Church opened the Brittan School for Women in 1880 (Meiji 13), which included kindergarten and elementary level courses as well as courses in English and both Western- and Japanese-style sewing. It was later renamed the Yokohama English-Japanese Women’s School. The Catholic Order of St.Maur founded a women’s school called the Koran Jogakko in 1900 (Meiji 33). Various churches also established schools for men, but in contrast to the women’s schools, many of which are still in operation today, all of the men’s schools in Yokohama closed down after only a brief period of activity. In October 1871, Tsuda Umeko and four others departed from Japanese translation of The Gospel According to St. John, published in Yokohama in 1882. Yokohama as the first students sent by the new government to study abroad in America. During the same period, a number of women’s schools were being founded by resident foreigners, bringing the fresh breeze of “civilization and enlightenment” to Yokohama. Moreover, the first Japanese-language Bible was published at Yokohama and used in missionary work throughout Japan. The fruits of “enlightenment” spread throughout the prefecture Due to the heavy volume of traffic which followed the development of the Port of Yokohama, the Yoshida Bridge linking the Kannai with the rest of the city suffered a great deal of strain and damage, and the Meiji government decided to have it rebuilt. Design of the new bridge was assigned to a foreign engineer named Branton who was employed by the government as a technical adviser; steel was imported from Great Britain; and in 1869 (Meiji 2), the first steel bridge built in Japan was completed. The imposing appearance of the bridge, which measured twenty-four meters in length and five meters in width, awed and impressed the Japanese. Popularly known as Kane-no-hashi (“the metal bridge”), its fame soon spread throughout the country. Several years after the opening of the port, Western-style buildings began to appear in the streets of Yokohama. They were built by Japanese carpenters at the request of foreign residents and under their instruction. To the Japanese eye they seemed quite Western in style, but in reality they were wooden structures built using traditional Japanese techniques of carpentry. Japanese carpenters spread this unique westernized style of architecture throughout the prefecture and country, and it became one of the characteristic architectural styles of the Meiji period. However, a fire of unprecedented proportions ravaged Yokohama on October 20, 1866 (Keio 2), and the impressive buildings of the foreign settlement were reduced to ashes. As a result of this experience, fire prevention regulations were established which required buildings in the foreign settlement and the adjacent Japanese quarters to be roofed with tile and built of brick or limestone. Stone and brick buildings soon began to appear one after the other. The year after the fire, a two-story stone building housing the Yokohama Port The Yokohama Gas Works in 1878. (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum) Authority was completed in Honcho 1-chome (now the seat of the prefectural government), the first Western-style stone building to be built in Japan. In 1870 (Meiji 3), the Yokohama Exchange Company (Yokohama Kawase Kaisha-later the Second National Bank) and the Yokohama Trading Company (Yokohama Shosha) were built in Honcho 3-chome, and in 1872, the two-story stuccoed Yokohama Telegraph Office was constructed. The same year, Yokohama’s largest Western-style building, Yokohama Station, a two-story stone structure with a four-story clocktower set into the middle of its magnificent stone facade, was completed in Honcho 1-chome. In 1873 (Meiji 6), the Grand Hotel was newly constructed at No. 20 on the shorefront and opened for business. It was a spacious, Western-style building, as befitted its name. Its advertisements announced that it followed the European example in every detail, with extraordinarily beautiful furniture and appointments, immaculately clean accommodations, and a bill of fare which included both normal and special courses, the special course able to quickly accommodate any order by parties of anywhere from four to one hundred diners. Western-style inns were also built in the hot-springs resorts around Hakone, which was frequently visited by foreign travelers. Fukuzumi Masae of the village of Yumoto took a master carpenter of his aquaintance on a tour of the Western-style buildings in Yokohama and Tokyo, and upon his return had him build the Fukuzumi Inn, which incorporated Western elements in its construction. The Fujiya Hotel at Miyanoshita, which opened the following year, become quite popular among Western travelers since it offered not only a Western-style building, but Western-style accommodations as well, with bread and meat delivered from Yokohama. 4. The High Tide of the Popular Rights Movement The movement for a national assembly and the formation of popular rights organizations During Governor Nakajima’s term of office, Kanagawa Prefecture moved more quickly than other prefectures to convene local popular assemblies (minkai) and institute a progressive administration based on “public opinion and debate” (kogi yoron), but it was slower to join in the movement for a popularly elected national assembly which signaled the beginning of the Popular Rights Movement. The movement in Kanagawa had its precursors in public speech meetings held by the Omeisha, mainly in Hachioji; in the debates in the town council of Misaki in the Miura district over a bill calling for the convening of a national assembly; and in the speaking tours conducted by members of the Aikokusha (Society of Patriots) in Odawara. However, these were little more than isolated developments, and full-scale participation in the movement on the part of Kanagawa Prefecture would have to wait until the Third Convention of Local Officials, held in Tokyo in February 1880 (Meiji 13). Prefectural assemblymen from all over Japan attended the convention as observers, and it served as an opportunity to establish links between the prefectural assemblies on a nationwide basis. The assemblymen in attendance agreed to cooperate with one another in pushing ahead with the movement for a popularly elected national assembly. Six assemblymen from Kanagawa Prefecture attended, and full-scale participation in the movement began with their return to the prefecture from the convention. Fourteen activists, most of them prefectural assemblymen, (see list), became the prefectural Representatives of the Movement for a National Assembly in Sagami Puppet dressed in a costume emblazoned with the characters for jiyu-“liberty.” (Senuma Tokio Collection) representatives of the movement, and set about the task of building up an organization. Representatives were appointed for every district and village in the prefecture, and a manifesto calling for the convening of a national assembly, as well as a pledge signed by all the representatives, were circulated. This marked the beginning of a petition movement which rapidly spread throughout the prefecture. Within only three months, 23,555 signatures had been collected from 555 towns and villages in the nine districts which had made up the former province of Sagami. A political movement on such an impressive scale had never before occurred in the region. On June 5, 1880, the prefectural representatives of the movement went to Tokyo and presented to the Genro’in a list of the petition’s signatories, compiled on a district-to-district basis. Governor Nomura, who was aware of what was taking place, dispatched men to try to prevent the petition from being presented, but the prefectural representatives sternly refused to be deterred from their mission, and succeeded in delivering their petition. The text of the petition had been drafted by Fukuzawa Yukichi at the request of one of the representatives, Matsumoto Fukumasa, who was a former samurai from the domain of Odawara and one of Fukuzawa’s students. The success of this petition movement for the convening of a national assembly encouraged the formation of popular rights organizations. In Kanagawa Prefecture alone it is said that over a hundred such organizations were formed in the years from 1880 to 1884. As might be expected, these organizations drew their main source of strength from wealthy farmers and merchants whose political activity had begun with the movement for the convening of a national assembly. It is possible to classify these organizations into political associations, study groups, and commercial associations, depending on the purpose for which they were originally founded, but almost all of them combined the functions of a political association with those of a study group. A list of the major organizations of this kind in Kanagawa Prefecture is found on pages 206 and 207. As seen in this list, the larger organizations might have as many as two or three hundred regular members, and the smaller ones perhaps forty or fifty. However, some of them were capable of musterPrincipal Popular Rights Organizations in Kanagawa Prefecture ing audiences of over a thousand people on such occasions as lecture meetings and social events. In addition, almost all of these associations organized study groups of one kind or another. In fact, some of them, such as the Shonansha of Osumi district and the Kogakukai (Lecture Association) of the Aiko district branch of the Jiyuto (Liberal Party), formed more or less permanent study groups and invited professional lecturers from Tokyo to come and address their meetings. Another characteristic of these popular rights organizations was the fact that they drew many of their leaders from the ranks of the local officials, such as district administrators (guncho) and their secretaries. Perhaps the most impressive result of the scholarly activities of the popular rights organizations was a document known as the “Itsukaichi Draft Constitution” produced by the Itsukaichi Gakugei Kodankai. This draft for a national constitution was originally authored by a local schoolteacher, Chiba Takusaburo, and then revised and added to in the course of study and discussion by the anonymous young men who participated in the Gakugei Kodankai. This document, which included a remarkably detailed bill of rights made up of 204 separate articles, is regarded as being equal in content and quality to the best of the private constitutional drafts produced during this period. From the time of their founding, these local popular rights organizations were given support and guidance from the intellectuals and journalists who made up the urban branch of the popular rights movement. In this regard, the Omeisha, which played an important role in the early days of the movement, is especially noteworthy. The Omeisha was a popular rights group in Tokyo led by Numa Morikazu, and is considered to have been the leading organization of its kind in eastern Japan, comparable to the Risshisha in western Japan. The Omeisha had branches throughout eastern Japan, with a total membership of a thousand people. In Kanagawa Prefecture it had branches in Yokohama and Hachioji. The Tokyo-Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun, which served as the Omeisha’s official newspaper, was well known within the prefecture and had attracted many readers since its early days as the Yokohama Mainichi. Popular rights intellectuals from associations and political parties such as the Omeisha, the Kokuyusha, the Kojunsha, the Kyozon Doshusha, the Toyo Giseikai, and later the Jiyuto (Liberal Party) and Kaishinto (Progressive Party), gave vigorous support to the activities of local popular rights organizations, speaking before lecture meetings, study groups and social events. Some of the most important of these figures were as follows: From the Omeisha: Koezuka Ryu,Aoki Tadasu,Shimada Saburo, Tsunoda Shimpei, Hatano Denzaburo, Takanashi Tetsushiro, Takeuchi Tadashi, Nomura Gennosuke, and Numa Morikazu From the Kokuyusha: Horiguchi Noboru, Suehiro Shigeyasu, Takahashi Kiichi, and Oishi Masami From the Jiyuto: Nakajima Nobuyuki Affiliation unclear: Yoshida Jiro (Note: The individuals making up this list are men who are known to have participated in three or more lecture or social events in the Kanagawa region during the period from January 1881 to June 1882.) The popular rights movement moved toward its peak in 1881. In July of that year, a storm of protest arose over the sale of government properties in Hokkaido. On October 11, the Meiji government, pushed into a tight corner with charges of official corruption and malfeasance, issued an imperial decree promising that a national assembly would be convened within ten years time. The popular rights movement had reached its high-water mark. Participation in political parties After the promulgation of the imperial decree on the convening of a national assembly, the popular rights activists from across the country who had assembled into the Kokkai kisei domei (League for the Establishment of a National Assembly) lost no time in founding the Jiyuto (Liberal Party), with Itagaki Taisuke as its president. Fifteen of the leading members of the Shonansha, Yukansha, and the Hachioji chapter of the Omeisha traveled from Kanagawa to participate in the party’s inaugural convention, and the path was paved for the formation of local party chapters. Up to this point, the contact that popular rights activists in Kanagawa had with urban activists was overwhelmingly with members of organizations like the Omeisha and Kojunsha, which would later develop into the Kaishinto (Progressive Party). However, the Jiyuto conducted aggressive organizational activities in the region, and except for those in a few urban centers like Yokohama, most of the popular rights organizations in the prefecture formed close ties with the Jiyuto. In July of 1882 twenty-two of the leading members of the major popular rights organizations within the prefecture such as the Yukansha, Soaisha, and Shonansha joined the Jiyuto, encouraging a wave of new recruits to join the party. By the latter half of 1882, there were 288 Jiyuto members in Kanagawa, placing it third in numbers of party members nationwide, following Akita Prefecture in first place and Tochigi in second. One Jiyuto organizer described the party’s strength in Kanagawa in the following words: Prospective party members have arisen and begun to organize in every corner of even the most remote mountain villages .... The membership of the local organizations in every district have become quite progressive in their politics, a trend considerably more advanced here than in other prefectures. The Santama region in particular, which claimed two-thirds of the party members in the prefecture, was called “the hope of liberty,” and ranked along with Kochi on the island of Shikoku as one of the strongholds of the Liberal Party. The local chapters of the Jiyuto eventually developed their own rules and bylaws, and organized themselves on a district basis, with names such as the Minami-Tama District Liberal Party, the KitaTama District Liberal Party, the Aiko District Liberal Party, and the Koza District Liberal Party. There were Jiyuto members in the other districts of the prefecture as well (for example, in the urban district of Yokohama there were 43 members, more than in any other district, urban or rural), but not much is known of their organizational structure. The reason the Liberal Party came to be organized on a district basis was probably due to the fact that its organizers placed great importance on ties to the existing popular rights organizations out of which most of the new party chapters grew. Because of this, in Kanagawa no party organization was created at the prefectural level, and each district branch of the party communicated directly with the party’s central headquarters. About six months after the formation of the Jiyuto, in April 1883, the Kaishinto (Progressive Party) was founded, with Okuma Shigenobu as its president. Because the party drew its base of support from urban merchants and entrepreneurs and local men of property, in Kanagawa Prefecture its strength was centered in Yokohama and Hachioji. The Kenyusha of Yokohama and similar organizations served as the initial base for the new party’s activities. Since the Kaishinto put most of its efforts into educational and propaganda activities directed at an urban audience, such as political lecture and discussion meetings, the party’s strength did not grow very rapidly. At the beginning, there were only 16 party members in the prefecture, though many of these were men well known locally for their association with the Omeisha. The Liberal and the Progressive parties soon clashed over the issue of whether or not Jiyuto president Itagaki had secretly received government funds for a trip abroad in September 1882, and fell into a vicious mud-slinging battle which unfolded in the newspapers and lecture halls. The conflict between the two parties split the movement of opposition against the government, and became one of the causes of the failure of the popular rights movement. In the following years the Jiyuto suffered under government attempts at both repression and cooptation of the party, and unable to control the radical factions within its own ranks, the Jiyuto disbanded in October 1884. The man who read the resolution disbanding the party at its final convention in Osaka was Sato Teikan, a party secretary who came from Kanagawa Prefecture. In November 1885, a year after the disbanding of the Jiyuto, an event called the Osaka Incident occurred, astonishing the Japanese public. A group of former Liberal Party members led by Oi Kentaro had laid plans to go secretly to Korea and attempt by force to reform the Korean government. The plan was discovered before it could be put into effect, and more than sixty individuals from all over Japan were implicated in the plot. More of those apprehended in connection with the incident came from Kanagawa than any other prefecture. Agricultural depression during the “Matsukata deflation” The failure of the Satsuma Rebellion (Seinan senso) in 1877 marked an end to the series of uprisings by former samurai which had followed in the wake of the Meiji Restoration, but it had aftereffects which continued to plague the new government. Of these, the most serious was the spiraling inflation which had been set off by the government’s military procurements at the time of the rebellion. A reorganization of the country’s finances was essential. Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi, who assumed office in 1881, recognized this as an imperative task, and pushed ahead with a radically deflationary fiscal policy. As a result, in the following year commodity prices began to plunge rapidly, credit tightened, and Japan was hit by a depression of a scale rarely seen in its modern history. A look at the movement of prices in Kanagawa Prefecture for the two major agricultural commodities, rice and barley, shows the following pattern: in 1880 one koku (equivalent to 180 liters) of rice cost 10.49 yen, while barley stood at 4.71 yen; but in 1884, rice had fallen to 5.40 yen per koku, and barley to 1.94 yen. Even the market for raw silk, Japan’s leading export at that time, plunged. In 1880 one yen would buy 18 momme (1 momme equals 3.75 grams) of silk, while in 1882 it would buy 34 cho and 23 momme-representing a fall in price of 60 percent. What these figures meant, in essence, was that farming families had lost about two-thirds of their income. Despite the deflation, taxes and other public duties were increased. In 1882, the government ordered major increases in the taxes on liquor, tobacco, and other goods, while the ceiling for the local tax rate was raised from one-fifth to one-third of the national land tax. Furthermore, responsibility for expenditures on public works and on the construction and maintenance of prefectural public buildings, which had formerly lain with the national treasury, was now shifted onto local government, increasing the burden on local residents. The tax reform of 1877 had fixed the land tax at 2.5 percent of the value of the land, but falling commodity prices meant a real increase in the tax burden. Before the deflation, it would have sufficed to sell 6 to of rice (1 to=about 18 liters) to meet a land tax of 5 yen; but after the fall in rice prices, 1 koku (equivalent to 180 liters) and 2 or 3 to would have to be sold to raise the same 5 yen. This was essentially the same as having a harvest which for years had been 10 koku suddenly reduced to 5, and for the farming population the deflation was said to have the same effect as a crop failure. The rural areas of Kanagawa Prefecture had, for the most part, been given over to dry-field farming since the Edo period, and in addition to the major crops of rice, barley, and other grains, the raising of silkworms was a flourishing local industry. The sericulture industry made remarkable progress as a result of the export boom in raw silk which followed the opening of Japanese ports to foreign trade, and became a major source of income for farm families. As a result, the demand for working capital on the part of silk-raising farmers was also quite vigorous. For two or three years after the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, rural villages rode the crest of an economic boom fueled by the inflation of that period. However, with the adoption in 1881 of Matsukata’s fiscal policy and the sudden shift to a deflationary economy many farmers staggered under the heavy burden of the debts they had incurred. At just about this time, with the agricultural depression as background, a number of banks and finance companies, both large and small, were founded, and began extending credit to the farming population. In Kanagawa the major institutions of this type were the Hachioji Bank, the Musashino Bank, the Asahi Bank, the Buso Bank, the Hino Bank at Hinojuku, the Tokai Savings Bank in Ome, the Koyo Bank in Hiratsuka, and the Kyoshinsha in Hadano. The extent to which these banks, which were in fact “loan-shark” institutions, took advantage of the financial plight of the farmers and ate their way into the economy of the rural villages is related in many historical documents, but here let us quote from a portion of the Kogyo iken sho (Memorandum on the Promotion of Industry), written by the prominent Meiji bureaucrat Maeda Masana, which tells of the conditions in Kanagawa during the agricultural depression of 1884: There are only a few, if any, farming families who can manage without mortgaging their land in order to meet outstanding debts. It would appear that fifty to sixty percent of the land owned by farming families has now found its way into the hands of creditors .... People who cannot afford to pay their taxes follow one upon the heels of the other in an unceasing stream, and even if they try to mortgage their land they can find no one to take their offer. The crisis here seems to be at its very worst. In the Minami-Tama district of Musashi, which was one of the strongholds of the Komminto (Poor People’s Party), 121 towns and villages out of 131 in the district were saddled with significant debts, amounting to a total of more than ¥1,584,000. This figure corresponded to about three times the total budget of Kanagawa Prefecture at the time. The tribulations of the Buso Poor People’s Party Given these conditions, and as the depression reached it gravest state in 1884, violent protests on the part of the farming population began to break out with startling frequency in almost every part of the country. Kanagawa Prefecture recorded a larger number of these disturbances than other prefectures, and a storm of farmers’ protests spread all over Kanagawa during the course of this year. They were directed against the banks and finance companies, the farmers’ principal creditors, with groups of indebted farmers collectively demanding an extension of the terms of their loans, repayment in yearly installments, and reduction of or exemption from the interest charged. The major characteristic of the farmers’ protests at the time was the fact that they specifically demanded debt deferral. The Tsuyuki Incident, which occurred on May 15, 1884, in the western part of the prefecture, involved the murder of a usurer, and marked a new peak of violence in protests by the farming population. The murdered man, Tsuyuki Usaburo, was from the village of Isshiki in Yurugi district (now Ninomiya Township). After making considerable profits on the Tokyo rice market as a young man, he began to operate as a local moneylender. At the time of his murder, he had as many as five hundred debtors spread throughout the districts of Ashigarakami, Ashigarashimo, Osumi, Yurugi, and Tsuyuki Usaburo’s house in Isshiki village. Koza, and had made the name “Sou” (Usaburo of Sagami) known throughout the region. In the district of Osumi alone he had loaned a total of ¥18,700 yen to 124 different borrowers, and the area of land mortgaged to him stood at more than 63.5 cho (a cho is equivalent to 2.45 acres). On the eve of the incident, Usaburo felt himself to be in danger, and stayed away from his own house, going into hiding at an inn in Oiso to whose owner his daughter had been married. He was found there by ten of his debtors, who attacked and killed him and several of his employees. The repercussions of the Tsuyuki Incident were soon manifested in other farmers’ protests in the area. At about this time, 300 farmers from 40 villages in the Osumi district had established a mountain stronghold at Kobozan near Hadano, and used it as a base to conduct collective bargaining with nearby creditors, demanding a thirty-year, interest-free repayment schedule. A placard was found pasted on the wall of the house of one of the creditors, the president of the Kyoshinsha in Hadano, inscribed with the following message, which plunged the entire area into a temporary state of shock and fear: If you do not listen to our demands, no matter what measures you may take in your defense, we will by all means burn your property to the ground, so be prepared for that eventuality. Yesterday the Kyoshinsha may have been safe, but tomorrow it will join Tsuyuki in his fate! At about the same time, a similar note threatening arson was tossed into the residence of the president of the Koyo Bank in Hiratsuka. However, in the case of these farmers’ protests in the western part of the prefecture, the creditors, fearing that they would meet the same end as Tsuyuki, gave in to most of the conditions of repayment demanded by the debtors, and by the end of June 1884, relative calm had returned to the area. In July, the locus of the protests shifted from the western to the eastern part of the prefecture. The first sign of this was a protest in the village of Kamitsuruma in the Koza district on July 31. Then, on August 10, thousands of farmers from the districts of Koza, Minami- Tama, and Tsuzuki assembled at Goten Pass on the border between Musashi and Sagami, threatening to attack and demolish the banks and finance companies in Hachioji. Faced with this large and angry crowd, the Hachioji constabulary spent a tense and sleepless night attempting to dissuade them from their plans, eventually succeeding in convincing most of the mob to disperse. However, more than two hundred of the more determined members of the crowd refused to respond to police persuasion, and were arrested on the spot. By this time, an alliance of Poor People’s parties (Komminto) had already begun to take shape in three districts of Musashi and Sagami. Three days after the incident at Goten Pass, the Tsukui Komminto began to take action. Three hundred farmers moved elusively across the district, advancing once again to Goten Pass, retreating, and then appearing at the district government office to lodge petitions. Then, on September 1, information reached the police that a Komminto office had been set up in the village of Kawaguchi in the Minami-Tama district at the house of the farmer leader Shiono Kuranosuke. The police conducted a raid, searching the house and arresting the party secretary. On September 5, a crowd of more than 200 farmers, with Shiono at its head, appeared outside the Hachioji police station, demanding the release of the party secretary and the return of materials confiscated in the raid. The police refused to comply with these demands, and instead arrested the entire company for refusing to comply with orders to disperse. Those arrested were from 33 different villages in the three districts of Minami-Tama, Nishi-Tama, and Kita-Tama, which indicates that by this time Komminto organization had spread throughout the Santama region. With this mass arrest of September 5, it appeared that the activities of the Poor People’s Party had been suppressed for a time. The authorities even cut back police strength in the area, which had earlier been reinforced to deal with the situation. Yet the calm was only on the surface. From this point onward, the Komminto carried on all of its activities clandestinely. While evading the watchful eyes of the authorities, the party concentrated on expanding and strengthening its organization. Then, on November 19, 1884, a secret convention of the Buso Komminto (Musashi-Sagami Poor People’s Party) was held on a moor outside the town of Sagamihara. The Komminto delegates in attendance represented farmers from some three hundred villages in the three Tama districts and the district of Tsuzuki in Musashi, and the districts of Aiko, Koza, and Kamakura in Sagami; a grand federation of the Komminto was thus established. At the convention, the party’s platform was debated, a new leadership group elected, and an appeal in the name of the convention promulgated. The new platform adopted at the convention was to cease the direct negotiations with banks and finance companies which had been conducted up to that time, and to appeal instead to the authority of the district administrators and the governor of the prefecture to resolve the situation. However, the petitions addressed to the district administrators were almost all rejected, leaving a petition to the governor of Kanagawa Prefecture as the last recourse. Early in January 1885, four representatives of the Poor People’s Party- Nakajima Kotaro, leader of the delegation, Takabayashi Takanosuke, Sato Shonosuke, and Sunaga Renzo-went to Yokohama and met with Governor Oki Morikata, appealing to him for positive action. However, without even touching on the contents of their petition the governor ordered the delegation to resign their positions as representatives of the Komminto, and to disband the party itself, threatening to turn them over to the police immediately if they did not comply with his instructions. The delegation was astonished. Now any hopes they had for the success of a petition campaign were lost. That night, at their lodgings, the delegates drafted a message to the governor which stated that they would resign as representatives of the Komminto, but that they refused to have anything at all to do with disbanding the party, as it was not within their authority to give such orders. This statement to the governor was used as an excuse for the repression of the Poor People’s Party. The next day, the delegates were questioned by the police on the grounds that “your statement contains certain threatening passages.” Meanwhile, one of the delegates who returned to the countryside ahead of the others reported the results of their meeting with Governor Oki. Upon hearing the news, an enraged crowd of three hundred farmers rallied at Sagamihara Onuma-Shinden (Sagamihara City), and started off on a protest march to the prefectural offices. This demonstration, however, was halted by police specially stationed at Seya on the Yokohama-kaido (now Seya Ward, Yokohama) and the crowd was dispersed. Afterwards, it was only a matter of time before the leaders of the Poor People’s Party were arrested, and the party itself destroyed. The movement by wealthy peasants for reduction of the land tax The depression touched off by Matsukata’s deflationary policies had a serious impact on wealthy farmers as well. Failure by their tenants to pay part or all of the rents, coupled with falling rice prices, threatened both the livelihood of the wealthy peasants and their status within the community. In the same year that the Komminto’s activity reached its peak, the wealthier strata of farmers rose up to campaign for a reduction in the land tax. Already in October of the previous year, the mayors of 81 villages in the districts of Osumi and Yurugi had presented a document entitled “An Appeal for the Extension of the Tax Payment Period” to the governor. Following this, taxpayers from 133 villages in the same two districts had sent a memorial to the Genro’in requesting a similar extension. Then, The house of Komiya Yasujiro, a wealthy farmer and popular rights activist of the early Meiji period. (Komiya Mamoru Collection) in 1884, a petition was sent to Governor Oki with the joint signatures of the mayors of two towns and 109 villages in the Koza district, requesting that the miscellaneous taxes on forest and wasteland, as well as the additional levies on paddy and dry fields, be given a five-year installment schedule from that time onward. Similar petitions were sent from a number of villages in the Minami-Tama and Nishi-Tama districts. This campaign for the extension of the tax payment period developed into a movement for the reduction of the land tax itself, which reached its largest proportions in Aiko district. The tax reduction movement in Aiko district started in September 1884, and developed into a well-organized campaign led by the Aiko District Liberal Party. In the preface to the resolution defining the goals of the movement, there was a passage reading: Commodity prices have fallen drastically, while the value of the currency has skyrocketed. Can this mean anything but that farmers are forced to pay what amounts to twice what they paid in taxes two or three years ago? We believe that the only method of relieving the present situation lies in petitioning for a decrease in taxes. In the resolution itelf there was an article which read, “Petitioning shall be conducted in as peaceful a manners as possible,” and which went on to draw a sharp line distinguishing the tax reduction movement from that of the Komminto, whose members were described as “rioters” (ranmin) and “violent people” (bomin). The tax reduction movement went through two separate phases: petitioning (seigan) in November 1884, and a memorial (kenpaku) to the Genro’in in December. The latter was signed by 587 people from one town and 27 villages, but both these efforts ended in failure. 5. Kanagawa Prefecture Under the Meiji Constitution The convening of the first Diet In June 1887 (Meiji 20), Ito Hirobumi retired to his summer house in Natsushima (Yokosuka City) and began to write his draft of the Imperial Japanese Constitution. In this sense it may be said that Kanagawa Prefecture was the starting point for the modernization of Japan. By an unusual coincidence, Natsushima is also the site at which what were believed at the time of their excavation to be the world’s oldest clay vessels were discovered. Later, Ito Hirobumi built another resort villa in Kanagawa, the Sorokaku, in the town of Oiso. The Imperial Japanese Constitution, also known as the Meiji Constitution, based on Ito’s draft, was promulgated in February 1889 (Meiji 22), and the first general elections for the House of Representatives of the Diet were held. Eligibility to vote in the election was limited to males over the age of 25 who had paid direct national property taxes in their district of residence of over 15 yen for more than a year. Eligibility to run for office was limited to males aged 30 or over who met the same tax conditions. Men who had paid equivalent income taxes for at least three years were also given the vote, but the percentage of the population of Kanagawa Prefecture eligible to vote under these conditions was a mere 0.87 percent, significantly lower than the national average of 1.24 percent, and there were places such as Yokohama’s 1st Electoral District where only 0.24 percent had the suffrage. Seven candidates were elected to the lower house from Kanagawa: Shimada Saburo, Yamada Taizo, Ishizaka Masataka, Setooka Tameichiro, Yamada Toji, Nakajima Nobuyuki, and Yamaguchi Sashichiro. On November 25, 1890 (Meiji 23), the first regular session of the Imperial Diet was convened and met for the first time on November 29. Nakajima Nobuyuki, one of the members from Kanagawa, was named first Speaker of the House of Representatives by imperial appointment. The number of members of the Lower House was set at 300, and in the first Diet their major party affiliations were as follows: 79 members belonged to the Taiseikai, nominally an independent party, but with strong ties to the government and commonly known as the party of officialdom; membership of what were known as the popular parties broke down into the Rikken Jiyuto (a revival of the old Liberal Party) with 130 members, and the Rikken Kaishinto with 40 members. The popular parties held a clear majority in the House. With their absolute majority in the Diet, the popular parties united, rallying around a program calling for reduction in government expenditures and the fostering of the prosperity of the people. They clashed fiercely with the government, whose slogan was “a rich country and a strong army.” The greater part of the ¥83,320,000 in expenditures in the government’s proposed budget were related to the army and navy. The popular parties’ response to this budget proposal was to call for a 10.6 percent cut in total government expenditures, a decrease to be effected primarily through personnel reductions in the bureaucracy and cuts in official salaries and travel expenses. Aligning themselves with this oppositional struggle on the part of the popular parties, 2,765 activists from one city and fifteen districts in Kanagawa Prefecture presented four petitions to the Diet through three of the Dietmen from Kanagawa-Ishizaka Masataka, Setooka Tameichiro, and Yamada Toji. The first petition called for freedom of political assembly and organization, and a reform of the Law Concerning Assembly and Political Associations. The second was an appeal for reduction in the land tax, requesting that the two percent cut in taxes on paddies and dry fields be extended to apply to all categories of land. The third requested that eligibility to vote in the Lower House elections be extended to individuals aged twenty or over and paying five yen in direct national taxes; and that eligibility to run for office in the Lower House be given to all males over the age of twenty-five, eliminating any restrictions based on the amount of taxes they paid. Faced with the unyielding opposition of the popular parties, the government made it clear that it would not hesitate to dissolve the Diet if necessary, while at the same time it worked behind the scenes in an attempt to split and undermine the opposition parties. As a result, there were a series of defections from the ranks of the Rikken Jiyuto, with about forty of its Diet members eventually leaving the party. With the cooperation of these defectors, the government finally got its budget through the Diet, although the original proposal was cut by ¥6,510,000 and the government also promised to undertake certain administrative reforms and readjustments. Splits among the popular parties in Kanagawa In the second session of the Imperial Diet, solidarity among the popular parties resulted in approximately a fourteen percent cut in the government’s proposed budget. The government’s efforts to coopt the opposition did not succeed, and the Diet was dissolved. In the election that followed, the popular parties won an overwhelming victory in Kanagawa despite thoroughgoing government interference in the electoral process. At about this time, however, there was a power struggle going on within the Jiyuto, with Oi Kentaro and Hoshi Toru battling each other for control of the party. The result was a split in the party, with Oi Kentaro leaving it to found the Toyo Jiyuto. The program of the Jiyuto itself was soon altered, giving full support to the government’s “rich county, strong army” policies and attempting within that basic framework to reduce government expenditure and nourish the private sector. Shimada Saburo of the Kaishinto, who had been a strong proponent of the solidarity of the opposition parties, was critical of the change in the Jiyuto’s policies, and with this the Kaishinto and Jiyuto clashed. The conflict between the two parties was irreversibly determined in the prefectural election which followed the dissolution of the Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly in 1892 (Meiji 25). In this election both the Jiyuto and Kaishinto mobilized all the support they could muster, including boys too young to vote and gamblers. The supporters of the two parties went about armed with canes, knives, swords and pistols, and dressed in white shirts and trousers, navy blue leggings and straw sandals. They wore straw hats on their heads, with the Jiyuto supporters sporting red hatbands and the Kaishinto supporters white. The struggle between the two parties was a bloody one. The stiff resistance the popular parties had put up against the intervention of officials and police in the previous Diet elections was nowhere to be seen, and the jiyuto was well on its way toward becoming little more than a representative of the special interests of the electoral districts it controlled. Eventually, it would be the working class which would inherit the stance of opposition to the authorities that the parties seemed to be relinquishing. The Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars and the people of Kanagawa The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 was initiated by a government bent on achieving a “rich country and strong army” and expansion onto the mainland of Asia. Even the popular parties, which had until this point continued to oppose increases in military spending, lay down the banner of opposition and approved the government’s massive military budget, and the entire nation went on a war footing. Kanagawa Prefecture was no exception. Activists in Yokohama were quick to organize a Hokokai (Association for Service to the Nation). The name of this organization was later changed to the Juppeikai (Association for the Support of Our Soldiers), which collected contributions of money and goods to give in support to needy families of draftees and reservists during their period of service. A women’s branch of the organization was also established in Yokohama, it too collecting contributions for the support of soldiers’ families. Youth organizations in every district in Kanagawa passed resolutions organizing squads of volunteer soldiers. In some districts, as the war dragged on and there was fear that contributions might dry up, it was suggested that the citizens plan to set up industries suited to their particular region and strive for economic selfsufficiency. Ten years after the end of the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War began. The war was the result of a collision between Japanese expansion onto the Asian mainland after the Sino-Japanese War and Russian expansion into the Far East, though it might be said that the origins of the clash went back to the Triple Intervention by Russia, France and Germany after the Sino-Japanese War. The scale of the conflict was incomparably larger than that of the SinoJapanese War. Kanagawa Prefecture sent a total of 16,613 soldiers off to battle, and 1,457 were killed in action or died of disease. Bereaved families all over the prefecture grieved over the news of relatives dead in the war, and activities to render them assistance and support were conducted on a large scale and high level of organization. At the district, city, town, and village levels more than 150 organizations with names such as Shoheigikai and Hokokukai were set up for this purpose. The prefectural government also created an organization called the Kanagawa Prefectural Association for Wartime Aid to Military Families, which was chaired by the governor and backed up the relief activities of the other organizations noted above. The association, however, was not supported by prefectural funds; instead, it operated on a membership basis, with membership limited to those contributing one yen or more each month, or ten yen or more a year. Thus, assistance to soldiers and their families was carried out in the spirit of mutual assistance by members of the private sector, and one result was an increased awareness and concern for the progress of the war on the part of the general public. The work of these organizations was effective, but the undercurrent of anti-war activity by groups such as the Yokohama Heiminsha (Society of Commoners) cannot be ignored. Since the war had drawn such attention and concern on the part of the ordinary citizen, popular dissatisfaction with the Portsmouth Treaty (the Russo-Japanese Peace Treaty) of September 5, 1905 (Meiji 38), ran high. The day the treaty was signed, rioting and arson broke out in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park and spread to other parts of the city, the most visible expression of a movement of protest against the terms of the treaty that soon spread throughout the country. On September 12, rioting broke out in Yokohama as well, with demonstrators pelting the police station in Isezaki-cho and a police box in Kotobuki-cho with rocks and setting them afire. The governor of the prefecture requested that troops be sent in to quell the disturbance and the warship Takao, which was moored in Yokohama harbor, was also requested to assist in this task. Changes in the postwar period With the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, social and economic conditions in Yokohama and the surrounding countryside began to show signs of change. Before the Sino-Japanese War the representative agricultural products of Kanagawa Prefecture were cocoons, raw silk, tobacco, rice, barley, soy beans, azuki beans, green peas, yams and potatoes. Cocoon and raw silk production was greatest in the Tsukui, Aiko, Osumi and Koza districts, while Hadano in Osumi district was famous for its tobacco. Marine products included sardines, mackerel, bonito, sweetfish and seaweed, with the shrimp of Kamakura district, the sweetfish from the Tama and Sagami rivers, and the seaweed of Tachibana district being especially well known. More finished or processed goods were represented by the Kawawa striped textiles of Tsukui district, the laquerware of Kamakura district, and the cloisonne-ware of Yokohama, while the lathe work of Hakone Yumoto, the plum and other brine pickles of Odawara, the shell handicrafts of Enoshima, and the malt syrup of Uraga were also quite well known. In addition, there was lumber from Tsukui district, charcoal from Aiko district, and sulfur and quarried stone from Ashigarashimo district. The urban centers of Kanagawa Prefecture were Yokohama, Odawara, Yokosuka and Kanagawa. Yokohama had been only a tiny fishing village, but in the thirty-odd years since 1859 (Ansei 6), it had opened to trade and diplomacy; hills had been leveled, Main street in Isezakicho, Yokohama, at the end of the Meiji period. land reclaimed from the sea, bridges built to span the rivers, and Yokohama had turned into a major metropolis almost overnight. It became a municipality in 1889 (Meiji 22), and according to a census conducted at the end of 1892 (Meiji 25), its population was over 143,000 and growing larger every year. By this period, all the households in the city had running water, and gas and electric lights illuminated the city at night. When the harbor was completed, it was certain to become a great commercial port with convenient facilities for the handling of cargo and the mooring of ships. In the southeastern part of the city there was a foreign settlement which accommodated several thousand overseas residents at any given time. Odawara, which had flourished as a castle town, was now linked by a horse-drawn railway to Kozu in the east and Yumoto in the west, and lay astride the Tokaido, Japan’s major eastwest highway. At this time its population had reached 15,000. The town of Yokosuka had been nothing more than a small fishing village, but a little over thirty years earlier a shipyard had been built there, and it had grown rapidly. Commerce and industry also flourished and the population rose to 17,000. The town of Kanagawa prospered as a distribution point for the products of the hinterland second only to Yokohama, and had a population of 13,000. The above is a portrait of Kanagawa Prefecture on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War. However, with the end of the war, the concentration of the population in cities such as Yokohama and Yokosuka continued apace and in April 1901 (Meiji 34), the town of Kanagawa was absorbed by the city of Yokohama. By the end of the Meiji period, approximately 40 percent of the population of the prefecture lived in Yokohama and its environs. The rate of population increase in Yokohama was the highest of the six major urban centers in Japan. This was not a natural increase due to the birthrate, but the result of migration into the city. Before the Sino-Japanese War, most immigrants into the city were from rural areas of the prefecture, but from 1897 (Meiji 30) onward, people from outside the prefecture came to make up 83 percent of new immigration. Yokosuka, the site of the naval arsenal, also experienced a dramatic increase in population due to migration into the city. The dramatic increase in population and influx of people into the cities gave rise to a number of urban and social problems that Kanagawa Prefecture had never before experienced. Strikes begin at the naval arsenal As the problem of coastal defense took on increasing importance, the Tokugawa shogunate, which had previously forbidden daimyo to construct large naval vessels, lifted this ban in 1853 (Kan’ei 6) and established its own shipyard in Uraga, building the 107-foot wooden sailing ship, the Ho-o-maru. However, this was the only ship built at the Uraga yards, probably because the facilities there were so primitive. In 1865 (Keio 1) a steelworks was built in Yokohama under the direction of a French engineer, and construction began on another steelworks at the harbor in Yokosuka. The new Meiji government took over both these facilities, naming the first the Yokohama Steelworks and the second the Yokosuka Shipyard, placing them under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Industry (Kobusho) and later under the Ministry of the Navy. After a rather complex history, the Yokohama Steelworks was leased to Hirano Tomisaburo, who had also been sold the Ishikawajima Shipyard in the Tsukiji section of Tokyo. Its name was changed to the Yokohama Ishikawajima Steelworks, and it became a branch factory serving the great industrial complex centered on the Ishikawajima Shipyard. The Yokosuka Shipyard, under the management of the Ministry of the Navy, built ships and a range of machinery to meet both official and private demand. In 1876 (Meiji 9), the 890-ton gunboat Kiyoteru was completed, the first step toward Japan’s emergence as a major naval power. After that, seven more warships were built at the yards by 1882 (Meiji 15), though like the Kiyoteru they were all wooden vessels. The first all-steel warship, the 1,480-ton Musashi Ⅱ, was launched in 1887 (Meiji 20). All the materials for shipbuilding at Yokosuka had to be shipped there from Tokyo, Yokohama or Uraga. The event that made Yokosuka more than merely a shipyard town and in fact would spread its name throughout the world, was the opening of the naval station there in 1884 (Meiji 17). Its origin was the Tokai Naval Station, which had been located on the site of the former German consulate in Yokohama, which was now moved to Yokosuka and renamed the Yokosuka Naval Station. In the government ordinance establishing the naval stations, their duties were defined as follows: Naval stations shall be located in military ports, shall command a battle fleet and other auxiliary vessels, shall undertake the training of sailors and shipyard workers, shall oversee the storage and distribution of weapons, ammunition, coal and other supplies, shall supervise all affairs relating to the construction and repair of vessels and, moreover, shall be responsible for the supervision and defense of the harbors in which they are located. In order for the naval stations to fulfill all these functions, a shipyard, barracks, arsenal, warehouses, hospital, military court and prison were placed under their jurisdiction. The stations were located in military ports, with all essential naval facilities. The waters around Japan were divided into five naval districts, and the Yokosuka Naval Station was given responsibility for the First Naval District, which comprised the coastline and waters from the provinces of Mutsu (Aomori Prefecture) and Rikuchu (Iwate Prefecture) to the province of Kii (Wakayama Prefecture) as well as the waters around the Ogasawara Islands. The Yokosuka Shipyard, of course, came under the authority of the Yokosuka Naval Station and in 1903 (Meiji 36) its name was changed to the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal. From this time on, a number of battleships would be constructed here which would strike fear into the heart of the world as the advance guard of Japanese imperialism. As the Yokosuka Shipyard grew into the Yokosuka Naval Station, Yokosuka itself received an influx of new population second only to Yokohama. Aside from the officers and sailors coming to man the naval station, the vast majority of this new population was comprised of poor wage-laborers. Because they were newly arrived, they were not bound by the guild-like master-journeyman relations that had existed since the Edo period, but were modern industrial workers. In July 1892 (Meiji 25), 5,150 workers in the shipyards of the Naval Arsenal went on strike, protesting the strict new working regulations that had been laid down by the new commandant of the arsenal. This was the first modern strike at the Naval Arsenal to be recorded in the Kanagawa Kenshi Nempyo (Chronological Table of the History of Kanagawa Prefecture). There had, however, been a similar incident even prior to this strike action: in 1878 (Meiji 11), before the Yokosuka Shipyard became the Naval Arsenal, over two hundred stonecutters from the Kansai region had been brought in to cut stone for use in construction of Dock No. 2 at Yokosuka under the direct supervision of the government at the quarries in the Izu peninsula. When their demands for a rise in wages had gone unheeded, however, many of them fled the worksite and returned to their homes in the Kansai. Official trade associations and workers’ unions Kanagawa’s rapid modernization led to an influx of labor from outside the prefecture, the formation of a working class, and the first stirrings of a modern working-class consciousness. The government was alert to these developments, and as early as 1884 (Meiji 17) issued “Regulations for Trade Associations” (dogyo kumiai junsoku) and had labor foremen (oyakata) establish model unions officially recognized by the governor of each prefecture. These associations were established on the basis of agreements between the foremen and the workers as to wages, working hours and the like. Among the official associations founded at this time were the Yokohama Carpenters’ and Construction Workers’ Association, the Yokohama Printers’ Association, the Yokohama Restaurant Association, the Yokohama Photographers’ Association, the Yokosuka Garment Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association, and the Ashigara Carpenters’ Association. During the Taisho period (1912-1926), construction laborers, shipbuilding metalworkers, export textile workers, wooden pattern makers, cabinetmakers, electricians, gardeners (all in Yokohama), blacksmiths (in eastern Yokohama), construction workers (in Hiratsuka) and construction laborers (in Kuraki) were also organized, and when the Kanagawa Association of Commerce and Industry was founded in 1928 (Showa 3), 125 of these official associations joined it. The official associations played a part in organizing workers in both traditional and modern industry, but in the late Meiji period, amid a succession of labor disputes, they fragmented into industrial associations (gyo kumiai) composed of shop foremen and masters, and trade unions (shoku kumiai) composed of regular workers and laborers. The first of these trade unions was the Steelworkers’ Union, organized among workers in what was the most advanced and modern industrial sector in Meiji Japan. In April 1897 (Meiji 30), Takano Fusataro returned from years of work and study in the United States and held a meeting in Tokyo where he appealed for the formation of labor unions in Japan. With the support of 47 associates, including Shimada Saburo, Katayama Sen and Sakuma Teiichi, the Association for the Formation of Labor Unions (Rodo kumiai kisei kai) was formed, and in December the Steelworkers’ Union was founded in the Seinen Kaikan in the Kanda district of Tokyo. Over one thousand steelworkers from the Army Artillery Arsenal, the Omiya factory of the National Railways and other factories participated in this inaugural meeting. Among them were 185 steelworkers from Yokohama who contributed nearly half the funds for setting up the union and occupied important posts within the organization. The union soon expanded to include workers in Yokosuka and Uraga, and organizations of workers from other branches of industry began to affiliate with it. For example, more than thirty members of the Yokohama Federation of Cabinetmakers were organized in the course of a movement for higher wages and later joined the Steelworkers’ Union, becoming Local 41, while at the Ishikawajima branch factory in Uraga, workers organized Local 42. By the end of 1898 (Meiji 31), the Steelworkers’ Union had 32 locals with a total of 2,712 members. The union was particularly strong in Yokohama and Yokosuka. Faced with this autonomous and independent union movement on the part of the workers, the authorities responded by issuing the Public Order and Police Law (Chian keisatsu ho) in 1900 (Meiji 33), aimed at the suppression of the movement. The act gave police officers the authority to ban or to dissolve political organizations, meetings, marches and speeches, and placed limitations on the rights to organize and to strike. The authorities were firmly and directly opposed to a labor movement led by the workers themselves. Despite this, the union movement grew stronger and continued its struggle. In July 1904 (Meiji 37), Arahata Kanson, a worker at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, together with his comrades Suzuki Hideo and Hattori Hamaji, held a meeting at the restaurant Wakayagitei in Yokohama’s Hagoromo-cho and established the Yokohama Heiminsha (Yokohama Society of Commoners). The Heiminsha sold copies of the Heimin Shimbun in front of Yokohama station; this newspaper took a strong stand against the growing fervor for a war with Russia and invited figures such as the socialist Kotoku Shusui to come and speak in Yokohama. Coming under pressure from the authorities, the Heiminsha changed its name to the Yokohama Akebonokai (Yokohama Society of the Dawn) and continued its activities. A rising tide of labor disputes Japan was victorious in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, but in both cases the victories were followed by the winds of economic recession, and labor disputes occurred with great frequency. According to Aoki Koji’s Nihon rodo undo shi nempyo (A Chronological Survey of the Japanese Labor Movement), in 1894 (Meiji 27) there were only eight labor disputes nationwide and eleven the following year, but with the end of the Sino-Japanese War, there were 108 such incidents in 1897 (Meiji 30), 79 of which culminated in strikes. In Kanagawa Prefecture, there was a strike at the Japan Silk and Cotton Spinning Company (Nihon Kenmenshi Boseki) in January 1897; a strike by subcontract workers at the Yokohama branch of the Tokyo Construction Company (Tokyo Tatemono Kaisha) in April; and the rest of the first half of the year was rounded out with a strike by the porters and grooms of the Yokohama Freight Carriage Union, plans for a strike by workers at the steel plant at the Yokohama Docks, demands for wage raises by the Yokohama Federation of Cabinetmakers and by Yokohama stonemasons, and a strike by subcontract longshoremen working for a British trading house. In the latter half of the year, there arose a series of strike actions: a strike by the Kanagawa Ship’s Carpenters’ Union; strikes at the Shipbuilding Division of the Yokosuka Shipyard, Kotobukiura Ordinance Factory and at the Yokohama Docks; a strike by construction navvies from the Yokohama Waterworks; plans for a strike by the head clerks of trading houses in Yokohama; and a strike by barge captains on the Tokyo-Yokohama run. Disputes of this sort began to taper off in the following year and by 1904 (Meiji 37) there were only twenty or thirty incidents nationwide, seven of which culminated in strikes. In 1907 (Meiji 40), after the war with Russia had ended, there was yet another outbreak of labor disputes. In the meantime, however, the Public Order and Police Law had been put into effect and this new wave of disputes was severely repressed. That same year, one of the strongest advocates of the suppression of popular movements, Yamagata Aritomo, was enjoying himself in Odawara in the villa “Kokian” given to him by zaibatsu interests, while not far away Kotoku Shusui and his associates frequented the Rinsenji Temple in Hakone, visiting its chief priest, Uchiyama Gudo. The Great Treason Incident (Taigyaku jiken) in which Kotoku and his friends were implicated and which would bring such a startling close to the final years of the Meiji period was not far in the future. Image of Amida Nyorai sculpted by Uchiyama Gudo. (Rinsenji Temple, Hakone Township) 6. Yokohama’s Emergence as the King of International Trade Treaty revision and Kanagawa Prefecture The successful revision of the unequal treaties with the Western powers in 1899 (Meiji 32) had a major impact on Kanagawa Prefecture, containing as it did the major port of Yokohama, as well as a sizeable foreign settlement. The most important result of treaty revision was the development of free trade. International trade at Yokohama had grown steadily since the beginning of the Meiji era. In 1877 (Meiji 10), exports from Yokohama stood at a value of ¥15,920,000; by 1895 (Meiji 28), they Total national trade and Yokohama’s share, 1896-1911. had risen to ¥84,790,000. Imports in 1877 amounted to ¥20,030,000; in 1895 they stood at a value of ¥56,000,000. In other words, between 1877 and 1895, exports from Yokohama had shown a more than fivefold increase, and imports had increased by nearly threefold. Though the volume of trade rose and fell during this period due to economic conditions at home and abroad, this was certainly a phenomenal rate of growth. By this time, Yokohama already occupied first place in Japan as an export port, and was second only to the port of Kobe in its role as an importer. External trade at Yokohama was largely carried out through the foreign trading houses which had established their offices in the Yokohama foreign settlement. In 1877 (Meiji 10), of the merchants handling foreign trade, 96.4 percent of the exporters were foreign nationals, as opposed to 1.5 percent of Japanese nationality; 96.2 percent of importers were foreigners, while Japanese import firms stood at a mere 1.3 percent. Even by 1896 (Meiji 29), Japanese firms handled only 25.1 percent of the export trade and 29.8 percent of all imports. Most Japanese merchants served only as suppliers of export goods (urikomisho) or buyers of imports from the foreign trading firms (hikitorisho)-for them there was little, if any, room to actively break into the direct export-import trade. As a result, highly successful Japanese merchants were something of a rarity, though Koshuya Chuemon, a wealthy farmer-merchant from Higashiaburakawa village in the Yatsushiro district of Koshu (now Yamanashi Prefecture), stands as an example of one of the more successful. Chuemon had originally attempted to open a trading office for the sale of Koshu products (Koshu Bussan Kaisho) in Yokohama as a jointly financed enterprise with a group of wealthy farmers from his region, but the scheme failed, and he was left to struggle along by himself as an independent merchant. At first he was plagued by a lack of capital-the situation was so bad that he instructed his eldest son, who had remained behind in the village, to pawn the family’s clothing in order to raise funds. However, before too long, he succeeded in canvassing for the sale of raw silk, spun cotton, and silkworm eggs, and building up adequate capital. From this he branched out into operations which included the purchase of imported dyes, and the management of inns, moneychangers, and pawnshops. Maintaining close connections with his home village, which was located in a region known for its production of raw silk, cotton, and silkworm eggs, he began buying up such regional products, acting as his own shipper, and marketing them to the foreign traders in Yokohama, realizing considerable profits in the process. With the end of the silkworm egg boom Chuemon went bankrupt, but there were a number of other Japanese merchants who also achieved success as export suppliers. The raw silk suppliers Izutsuya (Ono) Zenzaburo, Kameya (Hara) Zenzaburo, Nozawaya (Mogi) Sobei, Yoshimuraya (Yoshida) Kobei, Hashimotoya (Kogure) Yahei, and Itoya (Tanaka) Heihachi; and the tea suppliers Chaya (Nakajo) Junnosuke, Otani Kahei, and Okanoya (Okano) Rihei are some examples of the merchants active in this type of trade. From among their ranks, in later years, would develop the enormous merchant houses called the Yokohama zaibatsu. During the early Meiji period, the principal export goods were led by raw silk, tea, and silkworm eggs, followed by marine products Otani Kahei’s business establishment. (Kanagawa Prefecture Museum) such as seaweed (kombu), dried abalone, and dried cuttlefish. To these were added certain other goods such as copper, laquerware, and pottery. However, beginning in 1878 (Meiji 11), woven silks began to make significant inroads into the export market, followed by cotton textiles from 1880 (Meiji 13), and silk handkerchiefs from about 1887 (Meiji 20) onward. In contrast, silkworm eggs, which had been one of the three major export items earlier on, virtually disappeared from the export market after 1886 (Meiji 19), while copper exports grew rapidly after 1884 (Meiji 17), climbing to third place among all export goods. Raw silk and tea, however, remained as before in first and second place respectively. This was the reason that the raw silk and tea suppliers were able to amass considerable fortunes. The primary import items of the early Meiji period were led by cotton thread, followed by cotton textiles, woolens, and sugar. However, the portion of the import trade represented by heavy industrial and chemical products such as steel, machinery, pharmaceuticals, and by raw cotton grew increasingly in importance, while cotton textiles and thread declined. This was a significant change, for until 1880 (Meiji 13) the cotton thread imported at Yokohama had made up as much as 90 percent of Japan’s total imports. These changes in the structure of trade were a direct reflection, in the case of exports, of the prevailing conditions in foreign markets; and in the case of imports, of the development of domestic industry in Japan. In either case, the activity of the Japanese merchants acting as suppliers of exports (urikomisho) and distributors of imported goods (hikitorisho) was of crucial importance. The restoration to Japan of full and autonomous trading rights which came with treaty revision made it possible for Japanese trading companies to engage directly in the export-import trade, and the foreign trading houses which had established themselves in the foreign settlements gradually disappeared. In 1880 (Meiji 13), the Yokohama Specie Bank (Yokohama Shokin Ginko) was founded in order to promote the development of Japanese trade in competition with foreign banks and trading companies, and provided strong support and backing for the growth of independent Japanese trading companies. A government decree regarding the Yokohama Specie Bank went into effect as of July 7, 1887. This bank was the forerunner of today’s Bank of Tokyo (Tokyo Ginko). The blossoming of trade-related industries In 1877 (Meiji 10), per capita production of silkworm cocoons in Kanagawa Prefecture was above the national average, but raw silk production fell below it. The development of the raw silk export trade at Yokohama, however, had an enormous impact on the region, leading to a rapid increase in the volume of raw silk production. By 1887 (Meiji 20), the amount of raw silk being produced in Kanagawa had grown 7.7 times over the amount produced in 1877. In Tsukui district, production increased 36 times. The three districts of Tsukui, Aiko, and Koza accounted for 93 percent of raw silk production in the prefecture, but the wave of increased production was also beginning to reach the districts of Osumi and Ashigarakami. The majority of this raw silk was produced by small farmers as a form of by-employment in the off-seasons. Small manufacturing establishments, though still in the minority, grew up as well, hiring anywhere from several to twenty or thirty or more workers and equipped with simple machinery. Silk-reeling factories were also constructed in Naka, Koza, and Kamakura districts, and much of the Sagami-Musashi Plateau was quickly planted with mulberry (the prime food source for silkworms). When silk handkerchiefs came into demand as an export item, dyeing plants began to grow up along the Katabira and Ooka rivers on the outskirts of Yokohama, and the hemstitching of handkerchiefs came to be done both at small factories and as a sideline for housewives. Near the mouth of the Tama River, the Yokohama Sugar Company (Yokohama Seito Kaisha) established a plant for refining raw sugar imported from Taiwan and Java. Once the import of finished cotton goods began to decline in importance, there were a number of years in which raw sugar occupied first place among the items imported through Yokohama. In Kanagawa Prefecture, silk stockings were manufactured for export to Shanghai and India, and the knitting industry also developed. In the area around Tajima in Kawasaki, factories were built to produce braided jute tapes and straw plaits, thus creating goods for export. By the end of the Meiji period (1912), of 813 factories in Kanagawa Prefecture, 417 were dye works, 52 machine works, 24 chemical plants, and of the rest 288 were factories involved in some form of spinning or reeling for textile manufacture. Most of these factories were located in rural areas. In the city of Yokohama itself, a variety of industries sprang up which catered primarily to the foreign market and the resident foreign population. Laquerware, tea caddies, cloisonne ware, and fireworks were produced for export, while the daily needs of the resident foreigners were met by printers, shoemakers, and manufacturers of matches, soap, and beer, to name but a few. The manufacture of tobacco, in which the Hadano region had been an important producer since the Edo period, grew with particular rapidity, and a processing industry for the production of cut tobacco grew up on the spot. Tobacco factories were also built in Yokohama itself. Eventually, as these trade-related industries matured, they also Dock No. 3 at the Yokohama Docks. came to produce goods aimed at the domestic market. One example of this was the silk textile manufacturers in Tsukui district who organized the Northern Sagami Textile Manufacturers’ Federation, splitting off from the Hachioji Textile Manufacturers’ Federation. Using Koshu and Sagami silk as raw materials, they produced silk gauzes and cloth for floor cushions, shipping these materials to Hachioji and Uenohara. Other manufacturers of various kinds also gradually grew into producers for the domestic market. The shipbuilding industry also grew at a rapid pace in conjunction with the development of foreign trade. Shipbuilding in Kanagawa Prefecture dates back to the late Edo period, when factories were opened under the management of the Tokugawa shogunate in response to the naval defense problems of the era. After the Meiji Restoration, one of these factories, the Yokohama Steelworks, was leased to a man named Hirano Tomiji, who employed an English engineer, Archibald King, as his chief technician and set about the manufacture of ship’s engines and other machinery, as well as other items such as safes for banks. In 1884 (Meiji 17), with the permission of the Navy Ministry, this factory was merged with the Ishikawajima Shipyard in the Tsukiji section of Tokyo and relocated to that site. Most of the machine tools owned by the Yokohama Steelworks were made in Holland, the United States, Great Britain, and France, and their relocation greatly increased the productivity of the Ishikawajima Shipyard. The year after the relocation took place, the Navy Ministry placed an order with the shipyard for the construction of an 824-ton gunboat, the Chokai. At the same time, Ishikawajima was responsible for the construction of an iron bridge, the Oe Bridge, near the port of Yokohama, and another iron bridge for use by both pedestrians and vehicles, the Azuma Bridge in Tokyo. In 1875 (Meiji 8), the president of the Mitsubishi Steamship Company, Iwasaki Yataro, bought up a shipbuilding machine works then under construction on the shore road in Yokohama, named it the Mitsubishi Steelworks, and turned it into a business specializing in ship’s repairs. Since Yokohama was the port of origin for the major shipping routes, such a repair factory was sorely needed. At first it was jointly managed in cooperation with foreign entrepreneurs, but in 1879 (Meiji 12) it became independent of foreign management, and grew until it rivaled in size the Ishikawajima Steelworks of Yokohama. In 1885 (Meiji 18) the Mitsubishi Steamship Company merged with the Kyodo Transport Company to form Nippon Yusen (NYK Lines), and the Mitsubishi Steelworks was renamed the Yokohama Steelworks of the NYK Lines. In 1891 (Meiji 24), a group of Yokohama zaibatsu led by Hara Zenzaburo and Mogi Sobei, in cooperation with a Tokyo group led by Shibusawa Ei’ichi and Masuda Takashi founded the Yokohama Dock Company, and bought up the Yokohama Steelworks of the NYK Lines. The Yokohama Dock Company began actual operations in 1898 (Meiji 31). There were many difficulties to be faced in the founding of these heavy industrial concerns, since they involved enormous amounts of capital and the latest technology, but eventually Japan built a position for itself as a major maritime nation, meanwhile laying the foundations for the industrial belt which stretches today between Tokyo and Yokohama-the Keihin industrial district. The growth of international shipping lines to and from Yokohama At first, it was foreign ships that carried the dramatically increasing volume of Japanese imports and exports to and from the other countries of the world. Of particular importance was America’s Pacific Mail and Shipping Company, which had been operating a San Francisco-Shanghai route since the closing days of the Tokugawa regime, and which in 1870 (Meiji 3) had established a regular Yokohama-Kobe-Nagasaki-Shanghai service. This company had come to dominate the very busy Yokohama-Kobe freight and passenger run. In 1874 (Meiji 7), when the Meiji government undertook a military expedition against Taiwan, it tried to enlist the services of the Pacific Mail and Shipping Company to transport troops and supplies, but since the United States had proclaimed its neutrality in the affair, this proved impossible. The Meiji government rushed to find a solution to the problem, buying up 13 foreign-made vessels and then entrusting their operation to Mitsubishi. After the Taiwan expedition, the Mitsubishi Steamship Company exploited this as the basis for fierce competition with the Pacific Mail and Shipping Company, and finally succeeded in driving this American company off the Shanghai route. This route to Shanghai was Japan’s first regular overseas shipping line. With the retreat of the American shipping company from the scene, there emerged as a new challenger the P. & O. Steamship Company, one of Great Britain’s major carriers, who monopolized the transport of ever-increasing Indian cotton exports. But once again, after bitter competition, it too was forced to give up the Shanghai run in 1876 (Meiji 9). The same year, the Meiji government designated six official shipping routes. In addition to the Yokohama-Shanghai route, the following regular lines were established: Keihin-Hanshin, Yokohama-Hakodate, Yokohama-Niigata, Yokohama-Yokkaichi, Nagasaki-Pusan. Of the six official routes, five originated in Yokohama; thus Yokohama, the port for foreign trade, also became the center of domestic shipping routes. The Mitsubishi Steamship Company, which monopolized the Japanese foreign and domestic routes, unfairly jacked up freight and passenger charges, forcing its customers to pay monopoly prices. In response to this, the largest Japanese trading house, Mitsui, teamed up with Shinagawa Yajiro and others to establish the Kyodo Transport Company, and began to compete fiercely with Mitsubishi. The result was that both Yokohama harbor and the Yokohama Dock Co., Ltd., in 1909. companies suffered massive losses and it looked for a time as if both might go under. Consequently, the two firms were merged at a government order in 1885 (Meiji 18), becoming the Nippon Yusen (NYK Lines). The company concentrated its energies on domestic coastal shipping, and its foreign lines were limited to the relatively short Shanghai and Vladivostok routes, which were operated at the order of the government. This was because long-distance routes had already been rigorously mapped out and divided up among a consortium of major shippers from the advanced industrial countries of the West, and to challenge this established order was risky. This consortium of Western shippers, by agreement, charged monopoly rates for freight and passengers, causing their customers to suffer. For example, transport of the growing Indian cotton trade was monopolized by P. & O. and two other companies, and the high rates they charged were painful both to the Indians trying to export cotton and the Japanese textile manufacturers trying to import it. Finally, as a result of talks between Indian raw cotton merchants and the Japanese in 1891 (Meiji 24), the NYK Lines vessel Hiroshimamaru departed from Kobe for Bombay in 1893 (Meiji 26). This was the first step in the establishment of long-distance shipping routes by the Japanese. The government designated the Bombay route as a special shipping route, changed its port of origin from Kobe to Yokohama, and placed one vessel every month in service on the route. This was followed in 1896 (Meiji 29) by the first Japanese vessel to sail the European line, the Tosa-maru, which departed for Antwerp from the largest pier at Yokohama Harbor. At first, this route was sailed once a month, but eventually the number of departures was increased to one a week. In 1896 (Meiji 29), the first North American service, a Hong Kong-Kobe-Yokohama-Seattle route, was opened. The main purpose of opening this route was to pick up raw cotton, normally exported from San Francisco. But as its transport was controlled by two American companies, one of which was the Pacific Mail and Shipping Company, an agreement was made with an American railroad company to bring the cotton to Seattle, thus making it the final port of call on the route. The first ship to make the run was the Miikemaru, sailing out of Kobe. The same year, the Japanese government designated a Yokohama-Adelaide route to Australia as a special subsidized route, and the first ship to sail this line, the Yamashiromaru, departed from Yokohama. The transport of Japanese immigrants to Australia was the primary purpose of opening this line, but due to the “White Australia” policies of the time, it was not a success, and the ships on the route often stopped at intermediate ports such as Manila in the Philippines to take on cargo. In 1896 (Meiji 29), Asano Soichiro, along with leading Japanese financiers such as Shibusawa Ei’ichi, Hara Zenzaburo, and Okura Kihachiro, founded the Toyo Steamship Company. From the beginning, its goal was to operate on the long-distance sea lanes, and a Kobe-Yokohama-San Francisco route was instituted as its first North American line. The company had three world-class luxury passenger liners, the Ten’yo-maru, the Chiyo-maru, and the Shun’yomaru (each 13,500 tons gross), built by the Mitsubishi Shipyards, The Ten’yo-maru (From Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha 50-nen shi) and put them into service on the North American route. In 1905 (Meiji 38), its passenger service was further extended to the west coast of South America, reaching Chile via Hong Kong, Kobe, and the United States, while the Osaka Shosen Kaisha (now Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.) opened another North American route, linking Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kobe, and Yokohama with Seattle and Tacoma. All of these sea lanes either originated in Yokohama or used it as a port of call, and the port of Yokohama grew even more prosperous than before. The growth of the banking system It has been noted in an earlier chapter that institutions similar to banks were established in rural areas during the turmoil of the recession touched off by the Matsukata deflation. But these were financial institutions of a distinctly premodern, usurious nature, and soon became the target of farmers’ protests and demonstrations. In 1893 (Meiji 26), the government issued a Banking Act, the Ginko Jorei, aimed at the establishment of a modern banking system. Within this framework, and with the boom which followed the Sino-Japanese War as background, many new banks were founded. By 1901 (Meiji 34), there were 1,867 banks throughout the country. Given the growth of trade-related industries in the region, Kanagawa Prefecture was no exception to this trend. In 1893 (Meiji 26), the following banks were founded in Kanagawa: the Bank of Odawara, the Wakao Bank in Yokohama (which served as the house bank for the Wakao family, which had extensive commercial interests in the raw silk trade, silk reeling, and a range of other enterprises), and the Soyo Bank. These were followed in 1895 (Meiji 28) by the Commercial Bank of Yokohama (founded as a service bank for the Yokohama Cotton and Metal Stock Exchange, which had been established by the textile merchant Kimura Riemon, the copper and steel merchant Sato Seigoro, and their associates); the Soda Bank (the investment bank of the Soda family); the Mogi Bank (the house bank of Mogi & Company, an export supplier of raw silk); the Matsuda Bank; the Kanagawa Bank (founded by the rice, salt, and grain wholesaler Kato Hachiroemon, the rice and grain merchant Mizuhashi Tahei, the liquor dealer Ito Yoemon, and the rice, grain, and fertilizer merchant Watanabe Kihachiro); the Hiratsuka Bank (chaired by Imai Seibei, head of a branch house of the prosperous merchant establishment Inamotoya in Fujisawa); the Commercial Bank of Musashi (organized by the tea export dealer Otani Kobei and the rice wholesalers Kurobe Yohachi and Inagaki Yosaburo); the Silk Yarn Bank of Yokohama (the official bank of the Yokohama Silk Exchange); and the Trading Bank of Yokohama (founded by the raw silk export dealers Kaneko Masaichi, Hara Tomitaro and others as a finance institution catering to the raw silk trade). Most of the banks listed above were located in Yokohama, but from about 1897 (Meiji 30) onward, a large number of banks began to be founded in other parts of Kanagawa Prefecture: the Sakata Bank in Sakata village, Ashigarakami district (now Kaisei TownThe Wakao Bank. ship); the Ashigara Bank in Ashigara village (Odawara City); the Odawara Commercial Bank in Odawara Township (Odawara City); the Kaneda Industrial Bank in Kaneda village (Atsugi City); the Sakurai Cooperative Bank in Sakurai village (Odawara City); the Kozu Bank in Kozu Township (Odawara City); the Nakahara Bank in Nakahara village in Tachibana district (its chief officer was the local wool manufacturer Tomoyama Shimpei); the Takatsu Bank in the village of Takatsu, the Kawasaki Cooperative Bank, the Kawasaki Bank, and the Daishi Bank in Daishigahara village (all Kawasaki City); the Kamakura Bank in the town of Kamakura; the Totsuka Bank in the town of Totsuka; and the Uraga Bank in the town of Uraga. In short, new banks appeared one after the other on a villageto-village and town-to-town basis, most of them small institutions capitalized at thirty to fifty or sixty thousand yen. In the decade between the issuance of the Banking Act in 1893 and the year 1902, 41 of these enterprises were established. Moreover, all these banks had much more money lent out to borrowers than they had in deposits, a fact which speaks of the flourishing demand for credit and capital at that time. This, along with the fact that most of their founders were merchants and entrepreneurs in foreign trade-related businesses, was a reflection of the vigorous activity brought to all sectors of commerce and industry in Kanagawa by the foreign trade conducted at Yokohama. In 1890 (Meiji 23), the Yokohama Boeki Shimbun (The Yokohama Trade News) was launched, filling a twelve-year gap left by the Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun’s move to Tokyo. The new paper started publication on February 1, serving as the bulletin of the Yokohama Trade and Mercantile Association (Yokohama boekisho kumiai). The format of the paper was twelve pages, printed in three columns on paper measuring about 22× 15 centimeters. Since it was intended as an official report for traders, much of the space in the paper was given over to information concerning market trends in raw silk, silk textiles, tea, marine products, and the like. Traders would buy up numerous copies of the newspaper to distribute to their clients and business contacts all over Japan. The paper ceased publication for a time, but it was revived on August 15, 1894. Severing its ties with the Trade and Mercantile Association, it grew steadily under independent management as Yokohama’s only daily business newspaper, but ceased publication on February 15, 1901, when it was merged with the new and rapidly expanding Yokohama Shimpo (which had changed its name from the earlier Yokohama Maiyu Shimbun). At the time of the merger, the Yokohama Boeki Shimbun had printed as many as 4,354 issues. Ten days after the merger, the Yokohama Shimpo changed its name once again, this time to the Boeki Shimpo (Trade News), and launched itself as a general interest newspaper, six pages in length, seven columns to a page, with all Chinese characters glossed with the Japanese phonetic pronunciation for ease in reading. However, as the term Boeki (trade) would suggest, the paper put a good deal of emphasis on economic news, such as departures and arrivals of cargo ships at the port of Yokohama, trends in the raw silk market and the like, and its daily circulation rose to some 16,000 copies. In 1906 (Meiji 39), on the occasion of its 2,000th issue, the name of the paper was changed yet again, to the Yokohama Boeki Shimpo. Under this name it continued to grow throughout the Meiji and Taisho eras, reaching a peak circulation of 130,000 copies a day and becoming Japan’s most powerful regional newspaper. As a result of internal disputes within the company in 1935 (Showa 10), publication was temporarily halted a number of times, and the paper fell into a rapid decline. In 1942 (Showa 17), the government ordered the number of newspapers to be reduced to one per prefecture as a part of its policies for press control. The newspapers in Kanagawa were all merged into a single paper, the Kanagawa Shimbun, which had at its core the former Kanagawa Nichinichi Shimbun (itself in turn an outgrowth of the Yokohama Nichinichi Shimbun). The Yokohama Boeki Shimpo, which despite its decline, had managed to hold onto life until this time, disappeared as a result of this forced merger. The Shonan region revitalized The shores of Sagami Bay, known to the ancient Japanese as Koyurugi-no-hama and beloved of visitors from the capital at Kyoto, once again in modern times became a topic of conversation among the people of the capital-though this time the capital was, of course, Tokyo. One of the pioneers of modern medicine in Japan, Surgeon General Matsumoto Jun, recognized that the seashore at Oiso was an ideal bathing beach, and encouraged the owner of Miyashirokan, an inn at Oiso, to construct Western-style bathing facilities there. This was in 1885 (Meiji 18). When upon further inspection it proved that the waters off Oiso were free of bacteria, Matsumoto wrote a tract entitled An Introduction to the Techniques of Ocean Bathing, in which he gave a description of Oiso in addition to outlining the rudiments of swimming techniques. In 1887 (Meiji 20), a railroad line was run through as far as Kozu, with a station at Oiso, and it became quite convenient to get there by train from Tokyo or Yokohama. The bathing beach at Oiso grew livelier and livelier over the years. Inns were opened with brand-new facilities to accommodate those who had come to bathe and swim, and a number of important figures from the worlds of politics and finance built their private retreats in the area. This was largely because the climate at Oiso remained warm even in winter, making it an ideal winter haven. Soon after Oiso, bathing beaches were also opened at Hiratsuka, Chigasaki, Katase (in Fujisawa City), and Kamakura. Collectively, these resort areas came to be known as the Shonan. This name, given to the southern part of Sagami, is derived from Sho, one of the names for the southern portion of Hunan province in China which is famous for its scenic beauty. The German physician Erwin Balz, long a resident of Japan, praised the Miura Peninsula and the town of Manazuru as excellent areas for recuperation in winter and for sea bathing in summer. In the 20s of the Meiji era (1887-1896), Balz built a villa in Hayama, and at his encouragement, the Italian ambassador and the imperial princes Arisugawa and Kitashirakawa also built retreats in the area. The Empress Dowager and the Crown Prince (later the Taisho Emperor) both had occasion to visit at Prince Arisugawa’s villa, and this resulted in the construction of an imperial villa in the area in 1894 (Meiji 27), called the Hayama Imperial Residence. At the opposite end of the Sagami coast in Odawara, perhaps also with Balz’s seal of approval, members of the political and financial elites built villas one after another. Ito Hirobumi, who had composed his draft of the Imperial Japanese Constitution at his retreat in Natsushima, built a villa, which he named the Sorokaku, in Odawara the year after the promulgation of the Constitution, and drafted a portion of the new civil law there. An imperial villa was also constructed at Odawara, and the area became an elite resort to rival Hayama. Eventually, Ito Hirobumi, who had come to love the Oiso area, where he frequently stopped for the night on the way to his retreat at Odawara, built another villa in Oiso in 1896 and sold the one in Odawara, but retaining the name Sorokaku. About the time the Sorokaku was moved to Oiso, the zaibatsu families at the pinnacle of Japan’s financial elite-Mitsui, Iwasaki, Furukawa, Yasuda, Asano, Sumitomo, and others-began to build villas and retreats along the Tokaido. These villas, though they sometimes served as the eyes of the The seashore at Zushi in 1934. storms which occasionally swept through the world of Japanese politics and finance, were something quite remote from the lives of the common people. However, in later years, with faster trains on the Tokaido line, the opening of the Yokosuka line splitting off from the Tokaido line at Ofuna, the privately operated Odawara line connecting Tokyo with Odawara and Enoshima, and the Enoshima electric line running between Enoshima and Kamakura, the average person was also able to make a day trip to the seashore to bathe and swim. As a result, beaches flooded with armies of pleasure-seekers have become part of the summer landscape in the Shonan area. The villas and mansions of the politicians and financiers have now become restaurants, hotels, and retreats for company employees, retaining little of their former character. The fame of the Shonan area has been spread throughout Japan by the large number of novels which have taken it as their setting. Among them, perhaps one of the best known is Tokutomi Roka’s Hototogisu, which was serialized in the Kokumin Shimbun from November 1898 to May 1899, bringing tears to the eyes of its enormous readership, men and women alike. This novel’s climactic scene, the parting between Takeo and Namiko at the Zushi villa of a certain army general, was especially moving, and the entire country became familiar with the beach at Zushi. Tokutomi also introduced the landscape and atmosphere of Zushi and the rest of the Shonan area to the readers of the Kokumin Shimbun in a series of short essays serialized in that paper beginning in January 1898. These essays were eventually collected into a volume entitled Shizen to jinsei (Nature and Humanity), and were widely read. These essays, though not as popular as his novel, impressed the name Shonan on the minds of the nation’s intellectuals. In addition, one of the pioneers of modern Japanese literature, Kitamura Tokoku, was born in Odawara, though the bulk of his activity took place after he left it for Tokyo. However, in the 30s of the Meiji era (1897-1906), such literary figures as Murai Gensai, Saito Ryokuu, and Kosugi Tengai moved to Odawara, and often received visits from many other literati. Gensai serialized the novel Shokudoraku in the Hochi Shimbun, while Tengai ran his Mafu renpu in the Yomiuri Shimbun. During the Taisho era (1912-1926), Tanizaki Jun’ichiro and Kitahara Hakushu also came to live in Odawara. The fact that writers such as these came there to live naturally gave the Shonan area a fine reputation for arts and letters as well. 7. The People of Kanagawa After the Russo-Japanese War A wave of strikes follows the victory Despite Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War, the postwar period was soon visited by economic recession and spiraling prices, a situation similar to the period just after the Sino-Japanese War a decade earlier. There was also an outbreak of labor disputes, rising to 238 separate incidents throughout the country in 1907 (Meiji 40). Of these disputes, 150 resulted in full-scale strikes. A contemporary newspaper, Yorozu Choho, wrote in its edition of May 12: “At present in Yokohama, various kinds of strikes and walkouts have become a trend of major proportions.” On February 27, 1907, stonemasons in Yokohama went on strike, demanding a twenty-percent rise in wages, and called for support from fellow masons in other parts of the prefecture. An agreement was reached giving them a ten percent wage increase plus a lump sum settlement of 50 yen. On March 8, shipyard carpenters in Yokohama, represented by their union, approached the federation of shipbuilders with a demand for a 20 sen (1 sen=1/100 yen) increase in wages, and after a month-long struggle, succeeded in attaining their demand. The same month a thousand workers in sewing factories in Yokohama went on strike for higher wages. On April 12, a state of “unrest” was created at the Uraga dockyard by the firing of 500 workers, and both civil and military police had to be mobilized to quell the disturbance. On the 13th, more than 60 cratemakers at the Kirin Brewery in Yokohama struck for a two sen (1 sen=1/100 yen) per crate increase in wages, and after a nine-day walkout, achieved their demands. Late in April, shipyard sawyers in Yokohama walked off the job, demanding a 15 sen wage increase in a strike that would continue into late June. About the same time, printers in Yokohama also struck for higher pay. On May 10, 200 nightsoil collectors in Yokohama struck for a monthly salary of 15 yen. On the 29th, 900 customhouse porters also went on strike, demanding a fifty percent wage increase. They set up picket lines, but the pickets were arrested by the police, and three days after the strike started, they settled for a wage increase half that of their original demand. On June 1, 40 customhouse carters joined the customhouse porters in a strike, which was resolved four days later with an eight sen wage hike. On June 7, foremen of the porters and rickshaw men at Yokohama Station and other public places demanded a ten percent wage increase. On June 8, four thousand workers at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal staged a wage increase petition movement against the proposed discontinuance of overtime work, and in August they received a wage hike. On June 16, the porters and rickshaw men at Yokohama Station went on to demand a 25 percent raise, and elected fifty committeemen to represent them in negotiations. On July 29, 90 dressmakers in Yokohama (70 Chinese and 20 Japanese) began a strike protesting an extension of the working day. On August 1, they attacked the residence of their foreman, resulting in 40 arrests and the defeat of the strike. On August 8, 24 boatmen for the Yokohama Ship’s Water Supply Company struck for higher wages, but 14 of them were fired and the strike broken. In the middle of August, conductors and engineers on the Tokaido railway line began planning a strike, and on August 26 conductors and drivers of the Enoshima Electric Railway Company held a meeting to protest firings, but the meeting was broken up by the police. On September 9, 144 canning workers at the Uraga docks struck to protest the elimination of overtime and holiday work. The next day, with the police acting as intermediaries, a continuation of the overtime and holiday work system was agreed upon. On November 15, more than 800 Yokohama harbor bargemen went on strike for a thirty percent wage increase. On the 18th, 64 male workers, 46 women, and 43 children employed by the Yokohama Electric Wire Company struck for a raise in wages, the strike being resolved the next day by an accession to their demands. On December 3, one hundred laborers at Nippon Seito, a sugar manufacturer in Kawasaki, held a meeting to protest the dismissal of a number of apprentices, but the meeting was dispersed by police and an agreement was reached. On the 7th, regularly employed laborers at the same company met to protest a company proposal to adopt a subcontracting system for employing laborers, and though the meeting was broken up by the police, the dispute was resolved by the withdrawal of the proposal on the company’s part. On December 4, printers at an English-language newspaper, The Japan Herald, struck to protest non-payment of increased wages for overtime work, and the next day workers at The Japan Advertiser also went out on strike. And finally, around the middle of the month, some ten or more prostitutes at a brothel, Iroha, in Yokosuka demanded the dismissal of the women (called yarite) who supervised them. The incidents listed above represent the general trend of labor disputes in Kanagawa during 1907 (Meiji 40). The largest number of them involved military and civilian shipbuilding or dockyard and harbor work, such as the dispute at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, followed by disputes and strikes in other modern industrial enterprises. Other important aspects of these disputes were the fact that The Kirin Brewery at the turn of the century. (The First 50 Years of the Kirin Brewery) women and child laborers joined in the struggle, and that a dispute or strike involving one group of workers frequently brought other workers of the same trade out on strike as well. This indicates a growing solidarity among the trade unions, which had become increasingly organized since the period following the Sino-Japanese War. Another important point is the notable degree of police interference and repression brought to bear in these disputes. Yet the fact that workers’ demands were often met, however inadequately, is probably a sign that even the authorities had to acknowledge the wretchedness of the working conditions that prevailed at this time. These actions on the part of labor also encouraged the development of citizens’ movements among the rest of the population. On January 9, 1907, the residents of Yoshida-cho in Yokohama appealed to the prefectural government to control the noise produced by a crate-making factory in the neighborhood. At the village of Koyasu in Tachibana district (now Kanagawa Ward, Yokohama), an intense protest movement on the part of local fishermen took place on May 20 against an application by Asano Soichiro to reclaim land along the shoreline of the village and build a cement factory there. Slightly before, on May 2, some forty residents from Koyasu petitioned the prefectural government to span the tracks for a projected Yokohama railway line with an overpass, while in July, residents of Urashimacho (now in Kanagawa Ward, Yokohama) complained of the acute discomfort caused by the stench emanating from a trash incineration plant located in the neighborhood. In October, residents of Aoki-cho (Kanagawa Ward, Yokohama) protested against the noise, stench, vibration, and threat of fire caused by the nearby Iwai Oil Refinery, delivering a petition with over a hundred signatures to the prefectural government. There are many examples from earlier eras of peasant petition compaigns, but citizens’ movements of this kind, addressing problems of the urban environment, can be said to have their origins in this period. Planning for local improvement The postwar recession also struck the rural areas of the prefecture. As a result of the recession, the number of households failing to pay their taxes dramatically increased, and the indebtedness of municipal governments burgeoned as well. In response to this situation, the prefectural authorities took forcible measures against tax delinquency, including the attachment and sale of the property of farmers who fell into arrears. At the same time, they promoted a Local Improvement Movement (chiho kairyo undo), which encouraged diligence, enterprise, and self-help efforts on the part of the rural population. A Prefectural Local Improvement Association was created, with the governor as its chairman and the director of the prefectural department of internal affairs as its vice-chairman. Local branches of the association were created in each district, town, and village, drawing their membership from local government officials and employees, including schoolteachers, from the ranks of local Shinto and Buddhist clergy, and from among the wealthy and prominent members of these the communities. In short, the movement was one created from the top, with the goal of revitalizing rural areas. In concrete terms, the main objects of the Local Improvement Movement were to increase the basic financial resources available to the villages, to better their record of tax payment, to increase the number of children attending elementary schools, to implement agricultural improvements, and to reform local youth associations (seinenkai). For these purposes, in Oiso Township, a number of public service bodies were organized, such as an adults’ association founded “to work for the achievement of mutual benefit and the advancement of the community”; a youth association founded “to instill good morals and work for the public welfare”; and a taxpayers’ association committed to “expeditious payment of taxes.” The thought of Ninomiya Sontoku was taken up as the model for the spirit of the movement, and the various Hotokusha (Societies for the Return of Benevolence) which had been founded by his followers, largely in the area around Odawara, were reconstituted in a new form as a semi-official, semi-private organization called the Hotokukai, whose membership was filled with officials from the Home Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, as well as politicians, financiers, and academics. The first lecture series held under the auspices of the Hotokukai in August 1908 (Meiji 41) is said to have been attended by more than two thousand individuals from all over the country. In Kanagawa Prefecture, enthusiasm for the Local Improvement Movement was fanned by awarding public honors to towns, villages, and individual members of the Local Improvement Association who showed a superb record of performance in the movement. MinamiAshigara village in Ashigarakami district (now Minami-Ashigara City) and Kyowa village (now Yamakita Township) were both promoted as model villages for the movement, while Hayama village in Miura district, Samukawa in Koza district, and Yoshihama in Ashigarashimo district were officially honored for their meritorious service in the first prefectural local improvement projects. Ⅱ. The Waves of Taisho Democracy 1. Democracy and Kanagawa Prefecture New waves break against the shore The promulgation of the Public Order and Police Law of 1900 (Meiji 33) struck the labor movement a massive blow, and labor activists came to realize that they must develop it into a political movement by organizing a working class political party. It began to be argued that in order for legislation protecting the rights and interests of workers to be passed in the Diet, it would first be necessary to institute universal suffrage, with no limitations on eligibility to vote based on the financial criterion of the amount of taxes paid by the individual. In 1899 (Meiji 32) the League for Universal Suffrage (Futsu senkyo kisei domeikai) was founded in Tokyo, and socialists and democratic liberals throughout the country united in a mass movement to achieve this goal. In 1901 (Meiji 34) the newspaper Niroku Shimpo sponsored a mass rally called the First Fraternal Assembly of Japanese Workers, which was attended by more than 30,000 people. The principal organizers of the assembly were the executives of the League for Universal Suffrage, and the rally served as the point of departure for a popular universal suffrage movement. Nine hundred people from Yokohama, Yokosuka, Uraga, and other parts of Kanagawa Prefecture participated in the Assembly, carrying matching flags and banners and wearing similar uniforms. After this first major rally, similar meetings were held in other parts of the country, such as Hakodate, and the suffrage movement expanded and grew. On April 21, 1901, six men-Katayama Sen, Kotoku Shusui, Kinoshita Naoe, Abe Isoo, Ishikawa Kojiro, and Kawakami Kiyoshi-gathered at the headquarters of the Steelworkers’ Union in Tokyo and planned the formation of a Social Democratic Party, registering it with the government, as required by law, on May 18. This was the birth of Japan’s first socialist party, but it was immediately ordered to disband, becoming the first organization to which the Public Order and Police Law was applied. Although the party was disbanded, labor unions continued to pass resolutions calling for the institution of universal suffrage, and the League for Universal Suffrage continued to grow in strength. In July, Yokohama Local 41 of the Steelworkers’ Union joined the League, and in September, more than seventy members of the three major unions in Yokohama, the Commercial Union, the Industrial Union and the Steelworkers’ Union, convened a meeting to set up a Yokohama branch of the League. Through the good offices of Makiuchi Mototaro, president of the commercial newspaper Naigai shoji tsuho (Domestic and Foreign Commercial Bulletin), the headquarters of the Yokohama branch were set up at this newspaper company. The paper also lent its pages to publicizing the League’s activities. On September 28, a lecture meeting attended by 3,000 people was held at the Kumoi Theater in Yokohama, featuring speakers such as Katayama, Kinoshita, Kotoku, and the Seiyukai Dietman Kono Hironaka. However, the repression directed against the movement by the authorities was severe. The fact that a proposal for the Universal Suffrage Law was brought before the Lower House of the Diet for the first time in 1900 (Meiji 33) reflected the pressure brought to bear by the climate of the times. The proposal was defeated this time, but the League for Universal Suffrage revised its platform, regrouped, and prepared for further action. The Yokohama branch continued its activities more or less unaffected by developments at the center. Arahata Kanson and other members of the Yokohama Heiminsha (Society of Commoners) were at the center of the suffrage movement in Yokohama, and the authorities ordered the Heiminsha to disband. However, it soon emerged in different guise as the study group “Akebonokai” (Society of the Dawn), and continued its activities. In 1906 (Meiji 39), seizing the opportunity provided by the advent of the relatively liberal Saionji Cabinet, the Nihon Heiminto (Japan Commoners’ Party) and the Nihon Shakaito (Japan Socialist Party) were formed, both joining the League for Universal Suffrage and holding out the promise that the movement would soon make even greater strides forward. However, in 1907 (Meiji 40) the government, employing the Public Order and Police Law, banned the Japan Socialist Party and ordered the daily Heimin Shimbun to cease publication. The Akebonokai was undeterred by these events, and continued to hold weekly study meetings. It also sponsored a series of lectures and speeches at the Fukujikan in Nigiwai-cho (now Naka Ward) in Yokohama on March 3 and 17, May 3, and October 23, with attendance ranging from a few dozen to more than 200 people. The activities of the Akebonokai continued into the following year. According to an official survey, at around this time there were said to be thirty socialists in Kanagawa Prefecture, and Tanaka Sa’ichi and other members of the Akebonokai strove to maintain and expand the group. Tanaka became chairman of the Akebonokai, and maintaining close ties with comrades in Tokyo, he sponsored periodic lectures and speeches, arguing for the necessity of universal suffrage and debating the labor question. Meanwhile, in 1911 (Meiji 44) a third universal suffrage bill was introduced before the 36th Session of the Diet. It passed in the House of Representatives, but was rejected by the House of Peers and thus was not enacted into law. Moreover, the League for Universal Suffrage was ordered to register as a political society. If it did, it would become the object of police supervision, and it was clear that police authority would be used to suppress the movement. Thus, the League was forced into disbanding for a time. The labor unions, whose activities had constantly been shackled by pressure from the authorities, were in a similar plight. Particularly in the wake of the “Great Treason Incident” in which Kotoku Shusui and 23 others were sentenced to death in January 1911 (Meiji 44), the unions found their ability to act almost completely stifled. In order to break out of this stalemate, a meeting was held at a Christian church in the Mita district of Tokyo on August 1, 1912 (Taisho 1), only two days after the death of the Meiji Emperor, and the Yuaikai (Friendly Society), which served as the predecessor to the Nihon Rodo Sodomei (Japanese Federation of Labor), was founded with fifteen initial members. Those in attendance consisted of electricians, machinists, matmakers, dyers, milkmen and waterers, one police constable, and Suzuki Bunji, a lawyer. The constable had joined, not to conduct official surveillance, but as a worker. The Yuaikai, which modeled itself on the friendly societies of the early British labor movement, had as advisers Kuwata Kumazo, professor at Chuo University, lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University, and one of the founders of the Social Policy Association in Japan; and Ogawa Shigejiro, also a lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University, who held a seat in the House of Peers by virtue of the amount of national taxes he paid. The ten-member board of trustees of the organization counted among its members such figures as the Keio University professor Horie Kiichi, the pastor Uchigasaki Sakusaburo (later professor at Waseda University), and Viscount Goto Morimitsu. The names of these advisers and trustees did much to soften the pressure of the authorities on the labor movement and were quite useful in publicizing the Yuaikai and its activities. In his remarks at the inaugural meeting of the Yuaikai, Chairman Suzuki Bunji said that while the advancement of the working class and the formation of labor unions were inevitably linked, at present public understanding was meager, pressure from the authorities severe, and that it would be very difficult to organize labor unions immediately. Therefore, he urged his listeners to be satisfied for the time being with an organization that would be based on fraternity, mutual aid, and study. The Yuaikai advocated cooperation between labor and management, concluded agreements with hospitals, barbers, and drugstores to give discounts to its members, established cooperative enterprises such as a legal counseling center and a savings fund, and published an organization newspaper. Yuaikai membership soon spread among workers in the major enterprises in the Tokyo area, and within a year of its founding numbered 1,326 members. The following year its membership had rapidly grown to 3,184 and local chapters had been established in many areas. In Kanagawa Prefecture, the first local chapter to be established was the Kawasaki Chapter, founded in June 1913 (Taisho 2), the year after the Yuaikai had come into being. At the inaugural meeting of the chapter, the hall was filled with more than 110 members, 20 honored guests, and 50 or 60 spectators. The chapter’s executive committee was comprised of three members each from the Kawasaki plants of the Tokyo Electric Company (later merged into the “The Labour and Industry” a Yuaikai Journal Toshiba Corporation) and the Nippon Gramophone Company (later Nippon Columbia), and congratulatory speeches were delivered by such guests as the administrator of Tachibana district, the factory manager of the Tokyo Electric plant in Kawasaki, the head of the shipping department of the Tokyo-Yokohama Railway Company, the mayor of Kawasaki, the principal of the Kawasaki Elementary School, and the head of the general affairs department of the Nippon Gramophone Company. The Kawasaki branch of the Yuaikai held regular meetings once a month, with addresses by officials from the organization’s headquarters or by leading members of the local community and five-minute speeches or entertainment by the chapter members. However, not long after its founding, the Kawasaki Chapter found itself embroiled in a dispute with the Nippon Gramophone Company. Yuaikai Chairman Suzuki Bunji, after winning the agreement of the chief of police, entered into negotiations with the general director of the company, and succeeded in reaching an agreement favorable to the employees. However, the next year, a dispute once again broke out at the company. There had been a slump in trade, which resulted in overproduction, and the dispute centered around the amount of severance pay to be received by 37 workers dismissed from the machine division. Suzuki Bunji once again took up the task of negotiation, and the dispute was resolved. With these successes, the membership of the Yuaikai swelled, and in 1915 (Taisho 4) three new local chapters were established in Kanagawa: the Hodogaya Chapter, the Yokohama Chapter, and the Yokohama Seamen’s Chapter. That year the membership rose to 293 in the Kawasaki Chapter, 544 in the Yokohama Chapter, and 438 in the Seamen’s Chapter, figures which rapidly grew by the following September to 55 1 in Kawasaki, 843 in Yokohama, 1,493 in the Seamen’s Chapter, and 370 in the Hodogaya Chapter, with new locals set up in Uraga and Hiratsuka as well. As many as 4,000 people flocked to the lecture assembly jointly sponsored that autumn by the Yokohama Chapter and the Seamen’s Chapter. At the end of the year the Yokohama Chapter was split into the Yokohama, Zemma, Irifune, Kanagawa, and Yamate chapters, which were organized into the Yokohama Federation. Among the federation’s activities were employment counseling, speech and lecture meetings, training sessions for its executive officers, savings funds and mutual aid, legal counseling, medical discounts, personal counseling, a consumers’ union, clubs for the members, and family recreational activities. One after another, new local chapters were established at Taura, Tokiwa, Tsurumi, and Chiwaka, and the working class of Kanagawa Prefecture became one of the Yuaikai’s most powerful bases of support. This rapid expansion of the Yuaikai was made possible by the fact that in order to escape official repression on the basis of the Public Order and Police Law it billed itself as an organization whose goals were education and mutual self-help among the workers, and because its advocacy of cooperation between labor and capital was welcomed by employers and won the enthusiastic support of powerful local figures. Of course when there were labor disputes, the Yuaikai stood on the side of the workers and attempted to resolve the issues in their favor, but usually the agreements were compromises that preserved the atmosphere of harmony between labor and management. Because of this, as the consciousness of the workers became more developed, the local chapter organizations themselves began to fall into a decline. By the time of the sixth annual convention of the Yuaikai, the Irifune, Zemma, Taura, and Tokiwa chapters that had been organized by the Yokohama Federation had ceased to exist, and the only local chapters in Kanagawa to send representatives to the seventh annual convention were the Seamen’s Chapter, the Yokohama Chapter, and the Uraga Chapter. Although in the same year the Tokyo-Yokohama Glassworkers’ Union and the Shiota Chapter were organized, at the eighth annual convention, there was not a single representative from Kanagawa Prefecture to be seen in the hall. Under the heavy burden of the Public Order and Police Law, the activities of the Yuaikai, while taking the form of a workers’ self-help organization, had done much to show workers the way to unity and solidarity, and to develop their own consciousness of their rights. When the Yuaikai tried to go a step further and begin actual union organization, it found itself faced with repression on the part of the authorities and the capitalists, and also found itself unable to adapt to the new labor movement that had sprung up under the influence of the Russian revolution. As a result its chapter-based mode of organization was driven into a decline. However, with the growth in the number and scale of labor disputes which eventually took place, the Yuaikai’s organization made a comeback, and in 1919 (Taisho 8) the Dai Nippon Rodo Sodomei Yuaikai was established, changing its name in 1921 (Taisho 10) to the Nihon Rodo Sodomei, or Japanese Federation of Labor. The labor unions in Kanagawa Prefecture became one of the supporting pillars of this new organization. World War Ⅰ and the nouveaux riches In 1914 (Taisho 3), as Japan still labored under the burden of the post-Russo-Japanese War economic slump and the foreign debts incurred financing the prosecution of the war, World War Ⅰ broke out. Japan, seeking to enlarge its sphere of interest in China, declared war on Germany in August as a member of the Allied nations on the basis of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, invaded the German concession at Qingdao, and seized Germany’s scattered island possessions in the South Pacific. Japan also dispatched warships as far as the Mediterranean to convoy Allied transport ships. With the outbreak of the war, the export industries directed at the European market suffered from an increasing accumulation of dead stock and a dramatic fall in prices, while industries which depended upon the import of both raw and processed materials from Europe were hurt by shortages of imports and rising prices. This drove the economy even further into recession, and there was a run on the Kitahama Bank in Osaka and the Nagoya, Meiji, and Aichi Banks in Nagoya. The price of raw silk, the mainstay of Japanese exports, which had stood at ¥990 before the outbreak of hostilities, dropped at once to ¥210, and the Yokohama Association of Silk Traders suspended financing for the purchase of the summer and fall cocoon production. Since it had announced a reduction in operations to the silk reeling industry, both farm families raising silkworms and the silk reeling plants themselves fell into a state of near inactivity. In addition, the price of rice, which had been between ¥16 and ¥18 per koku before the war fell to ¥13 to ¥14, further fueling the agricultural recession. The Okuma Cabinet, heeding the appeals of Hara Tomitaro and other influential members of the Yokohama financial community, used ¥5,000,000 of government funds to create the Imperial Silk Company for the purposes of buying up accumulated and unsold stocks of silk. In compliance with the demands of the Imperial Agricultural Association, the government ordered rice price adjustments in January 1915 (Taisho 4), and bought up 300,000 koku of rice with ¥4,250,000 of official funds. Small industrialists were aided by special financing from the Industrial Bank of Japan and the Kangyo Bank. However, from about the middle of 19 15 (Taisho 4) the situation completely reversed itself. Beginning in the spring, military exports to Russia and Great Britain began to grow. Moreover, silk exports to the United States, which was entering a wartime economic boom, expanded dramatically, and Japanese goods began to replace the flow of European exports which had been halted by the war in the markets of China, India, Southeast Asia, and even as far as Australia and South America. In the early stages of the war, when Japanese heavy industry was still not fully established, military exports were dominated by metal ores-especially copper-for use in weapons manufacture, foodstuffs such as beans and rice, and woolens, boots, and cotton cloth for use in uniforms; but by the middle of the war, heavy industrial products such as steamships came to be added to the list. Japanese foreign trade, which had shown an import surplus since the Russo-Japanese War, suddenly shifted to an export surplus. The amount of the export surplus, which stood at 175 million yen in 1915 (Taisho 4), reached 567 million yen only two years later in 1917. In addition, non-trade receipts added to the picture, and approximately 2.7 billion yen in hard currency flowed into the country. Japan, which had until this time suffered under the heavy burden of servicing its foreign debts, suddenly emerged as a lender nation. In addition to this export boom,inflation served as another spur to the growth of domestic industry. As the war dragged on in Europe, new enterprises sprang up in every industrial sector, and with the backing of favorable government policies, achieved enormous profits. New industrial magnates, popularly referred to as narikin (nouveaux riches), appeared one after the other. The word narikin is a term derived from Japanese chess, in which it refers to a piece called ho which can only move one square straight ahead until it reaches the opponent’s home territory, at which point it becomes kin or “gold” and can move an unlimited number of spaces in any direction. Among the narikin who succeeded in their dreams of becoming overnight millionaires, there were many whose economic base was weak precisely because of their rapid success, and who were ruined by the depression which followed World War Ⅰ. Shipping tycoons head the list of the nouveaux riches Such new wealth could be found in all the fields of industry which developed so rapidly during the war, but it was the shipping entrepreneurs who rose to the top of the list. These maritime narikin fell into two major categories: shipbuilders and freight transporters. Of the former, the Uraga Dock Co., which enjoyed a sudden leap into prosperity after having for some time been unable to pay dividends to stockholders, is a good example. This turnabout was triggered by a Navy order in the latter half of the 1914 (Taisho 3) fiscal year for a 665-ton second-class destroyer. At the time, the Japanese Navy did not have any destroyers capable of maneuvering far out across the Pacific, so ten new warships were ordered to be built at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, two at the Kawasaki Shipyards, two at the Mitsubishi Shipyards in Nagasaki, one at the Osaka Steelworks (now Hitachi Shipbuilding & Engineering) and two at the Uraga Dock Co., with the stipulation that they all be completed within six months. Having successfully completed the two destroyers, the Uraga Dock Co. took on new confidence, and the following year completed work on a 2,100-ton class warship, and in addition accepted an order for five 7,000-ton class freighters of similar design. In order to meet this demand, new slips and machinery were constructed, the yards enlarged, and the branch factory at Uraga also set to the task of building ships of over 1,000 tons. Despite the expansion of the facilities, the Uraga Dock Co. was swamped with orders for new ships, and in 1917 (Taisho 6) built seven vessels, totaling 32,000 tons. All of this activity naturally led to a rapid increase in profits, as was reflected in the dividends paid on shares, which went from seven percent in the first and second half of fiscal 1915 to sixty percent in the first half of 1917, while total capital was increased from ¥800,000 to ¥5,000,000, greatly strengthening the company’s shipbuilding capacity. The Yokohama Dock Co., which had specialized in ship repair, now also built new slips and began to engage in shipbuilding as well. And yet, since other companies were quite occupied with new ship construction and did not have the time or resources for ship repair, the Yokohama Dock Co. was flooded with repair orders, which led to large profits and an increase in dividends to shareholders from nine to thirty-five percent. The fact that the company paid out such large dividends and was still able to increase its total capital from ¥3,750,000 to ¥10,000,000 during this period is an indication of the phenomenal profits it was able to achieve. Two new enterprises created in the midst of this shipbuilding boom were Asano Soichiro’s Asano Shipyards and Uchida Shinya’s Uchida Shipyards. Asano Soichiro was a native of Toyama Prefecture who came to Yokohama as a trader in bamboo and coal coke. In the course of selling coke produced as a waste product at the Yokohama Glassworks to the government-managed Fukagawa Cement factory, he won the trust and support of Shibusawa Eiichi, Drydocks at the Uchida Shipyards. and succeeded in persuading the government to divest itself of the factory and sell it to him, resulting in the creation of the Asano Cement Company in 1899 (Meiji 31). In 1915 (Taisho 4) an additional factory was set up in Kawasaki, and the company came to occupy a monopolistic position within the cement industry. Asano had long before opened a warehouse and begun to engage in shipping, and in 1896 (Meiji 29) he founded the Toyo Steamship Company, becoming its president. Routes were opened to North and South America, but both routes were eventually handed over to the Nippon Yusen Company, and Asano concentrated on tramp freight runs rather than regularly scheduled lines. Asano felt it important to combine closely his role as a shipowner with that of shipbuilder, and served as the chairman of the board of the Uraga Dock Co., while at the same time placing orders for new ships to be built there. Eventually, he decided to operate his own shipyards in the vicinity of the port of Yokohama, and in 1916 (Taisho 5) he founded the Yokohama Shipyards, siting them on 13,000 square meters of reclaimed land at Tsurumi. The following year, six shipbuilding slips were constructed, and the name of the facility changed to the Asano Shipyards. The yards began operations with the construction of four vessels in 1917 (Taisho 6). At one point the yards experienced considerable difficulties because of an American freeze on steel exports, but soon enough materials to build six, and then seven vessels were allotted, and benefiting from the high prices for ships which prevailed at the time, the yards prospered. Learning from the hard experience of his difficulties in obtaining structural steel, Asano also constructed the Asano Steelworks on a site immediately next to his shipyards. Uchida Shinya, the founder of the Uchida Shipyards, is seen as a classic example of the shipbuilding narikin. Originally from Tochigi Prefecture, he founded the Uchida Steamship Company in Kobe in 1914 (Taisho 3) and began a chartering business. With the outbreak of the war, fees for chartering vessels skyrocketed, bringing him enormous profits, and in 1918 (Taisho 7), he joined the management of the Yokohama Steelworks. This steelworks had its start as the Yokohama Engine Steelworks, founded by an Englishman in 1898 (Meiji 31), and among the 17 machine and shipbuilding factories in Yokohama, it was second in importance only to the Yokohama Dock Co. The factory was bought up by the former chief engineer at the Ishikawajima Shipyards, Shin Tsuneta, with Uchida contributing capital for the purchase and jointly participating in the management. Aiming at an expansion of the company’s enterprises, a shipyard was constructed in Chiwaka-cho in Tsurumi Ward of Yokohama. The new yards were named the Uchida Shipyards and Uchida himself took office as president. The Uchida Shipyards owned a machineworks in Yamashita-cho (Naka Ward), the yards in Chiwaka-cho, and a branch factory in Moriya-cho (Tsurumi Ward), employing over 3,000 workers. The shipbuilding capacity of the company soon surpassed that of the Yokohama Dock Co., which quickly grew into the largest shipyards in the Tokyo-Yokohama region. With additional profits from the Uchida Steamship Company, Uchida was able to pay his stockholders an unheard of dividend of sixty percent during the company’s greatest period of prosperity. The flourishing of the shipbuilding industry was supported by a demand for ships resulting from the unprecedented boom in maritime transport. Freight charges for a ton of coal on the run between Wakamatsu in Kyushu (a loading port for iron and coal) climbed from 63 sen (1 sen=1/100th of a yen) in 1914 (Taisho 3) to ¥1.50 the following year, ¥3 the year after that, and ¥10.95 in 1917 (Taisho 6), a seventeen-fold increase in the four-year period. Chartering rates also climbed dramatically, from ¥1.75 per ton for a medium-sized freighter before the war to ¥8 in 1915, ¥14 the following year, and ¥26 in 1917. The number of vessels owned by Japanese shippers grew rapidly: even excluding the three major shipping companies-Nippon Yusen, Osaka Shosen, and Toyo Steamship-by 1916 (Taisho 5) the others possessed 317 vessels totaling 830,000 tons. Japan’s merchant marine, which prior to the war had ranked as the sixth largest in the world, ranked third behind Great Britain and the United States when the war ended. The reason that Uchida Shinya, the founder of the Uchida Shipyards, came to be known as a shipping narikin was precisely because he also headed the Uchida Steamship Company and made his mark in the world of maritime transport. However, in 1921 (Taisho 10), Uchida sold his shipyards to the Osaka Steelworks (now Hitachi Shipbuilding & Engineering) and embarked on a career in politics, eventually serving as Minister of Railways in the Okada Cabinet and then as Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in the Tojo Cabinet. A figure frequently mentioned as a shipping magnate comparable to Uchida is Yamashita Kamesaburo, the founder of Yamashita Steamship Company. A native of Ehime Prefecture, Yamashita started a coal company in Yokohama in 1901 (Meiji 34), but he soon realized that freight costs made up a large part of the coal price, and that collection of freight charges was incomparably faster than receiving payment for commodities. Accordingly, he obtained financing from the Soda Bank in Yokohama and bought a number of used foreign freighters. During the Russo-Japanese War he put his vessels at the service of the government, and, with the charter fees he collected, laid the foundations for his career as a shipping entrepreneur, creating the Yamashita Steamship Company in 1911 (Meiji 44). During World War Ⅰ, he took advantage of the shipping boom, realized enormous profits, and became a shipping magnate of comparable stature to Uchida Shinya. In 1917 (Taisho 6) he took over from Shibusawa Eiichi as the largest stockholder in the Uraga Dock Co., and for five years served as its president. Afterwards, since he shifted the base of his operations to Tokyo and Kobe, he was no longer very active in the Yokohama area, but during World War Ⅱ he served as an advisor to the Tojo and Koiso cabinets, working for the strengthening of Japan’s merchant marine. The nouveaux riches of the Taisho period could be found not only in the shipping industry, but also in such venture industries as silk, steel, stocks, and foreign trade. Industries in the hinterland also prosper World War Ⅰ also brought unprecedented prosperity to silk and textile industries in the hinterland of Kanagawa Prefecture. The silk magnates joining the ranks of the nouveaux riches were born of this economic boom. The raw silk and silk textile industries in Kanagawa, stimulated by the location of the trade port of Yokohama and by Kanagawa’s proximity to the great consumption center of Tokyo, had already flourished. But the wartime boom brought a sharp increase in both domestic and foreign demand. Total raw silk production in 1914 (Taisho 3), when the war broke out, stood at 40,491 kan (1 kan=3.7 kilograms), valued at ¥1,903,192; but two years later it increased to 66,583 kan, valued at ¥4,767,264; and five years later, in 1918 (Taisho 7), it rose to 86,125 kan valued at ¥8,089,351. Silk textile production also showed a rapid increase during the same years, its value in yen climbing from ¥373,680 to ¥1,750,063, and finally to ¥4,344,198. In the hinterlands of the prefecture, such as the districts of Tsukui, Aiko, and Koza, which lay within the marketing sphere of Hachioji, the traditional mode of production based on handloom weaving as a form of agricultural by-employment still predominated, producing such silk textiles as Kai silk pongees and coarse silk cloths primarily for the domestic market. In contrast, in the coastal portions of the prefecture, such as the city of Yokohama and the districts of Tachibana, Kamakura, and Ashigarashimo, machine production predominated, making habutae and broad silk fabrics for the export market. In this way, Japan displaced France from the position it had enjoyed as the world’s greatest producer of silk textiles. 2. The Creation of the Heavy Industrial Belt Factors in the emergence of the heavy industrial belt It has already been pointed out that with the rapid expansion of trade and influx of foreign nationals which followed the opening of the port of Yokohama, various industries catering to the export trade and the resident foreign population flourished in Yokohama and environs. Given these preconditions, in the period after the Sino-Japanese War there was a noticeable trend in the area toward the mechanization of traditional industries, the penetration of largescale capital, and the diversification of the manufacturing sector. The mechanization of traditional industries has been discussed in the. previous chapter, but the penetration of large-scale capital deserves mention here. In 1903 (Meiji 36) the Fuji Gas and Textile Company, which had its head office in Tokyo, built a large factory employing two thousand workers in Hodogaya. Then, in 1906 (Meiji 39) the Dai Nippon Beer Company, which had been formed by the merger of Sapporo Beer, Nippon Beer, and Osaka Beer, also constructed a brewery in Hodogaya. The following year, the Kirin Brewery, which was originally a foreign-owned beer company, was set up in Yokohama, and the Yokohama refinery of the Takarada Petroleum Company was built in Hodogaya. Factories also began to invade the town of Kawasaki, which up until this time still contained wide expanses of open paddies and fields, beginning with a factory built by the Yokohama Sugar Company (now Meiji Sugar Manufacturing) in 1906 (Meiji 39), and followed by the Kawasaki plants of the Tokyo Electric Company (now the Toshiba Corporation) and the Nippon Gramophone Company (now the Kawasaki factory of Nippon Columbia). However, looking at the prefectural statistics for 1909 (Meiji 42), one finds that the majority of the 253 factories in Kanagawa were small enterprises employing between ten and thirty workers, primarily oriented toward the export trade which had grown up since the opening of the port of Yokohama. Most were concentrated in Yokohama and its environs, but the districts of Koza, Naka, Ashigarakami, Ashigarashimo, Aiko, and Tsukui each had more than ten factories located within their boundaries. The fact that the greatest number of factories, more than 120, were located in the Yokohama area (including the districts of Tachibana and Kamakura) was related to the convenience of having the port of Yokohama so close by, as well as to the favorable labor market created by the influx of both domestic and foreign workers into this urban center. These two factors also served to encourage the shift to rapid industrialization which took place during World War Ⅰ. The reclamation of land from the sea Today, Japan’s heavy industrial belts are almost all located on land reclaimed from the sea. This concept had its origin with Asano Soichiro. As a result of an inspection tour of Europe and the United States, Asano became acutely aware of the inadequacy of the harbor facilities in Tokyo Bay, and he devised a plan to fill in the bay, open a grand canal to connect Tokyo and Yokohama, and reclaim coastal land in the Tsurumi and Kawasaki area in order to create an industrial belt where the products of the factories could be loaded directly onto large freighters moored immediately next to the factory complexes. In 1908 (Meiji 41) he petitioned the Kanagawa prefectural government to accept a plan which called for the creation of an industrial park 4.5 kilometers long, 1.4 kilometers in width, and about 490 hectares in total area on a site located between the mouth of the Tsurumi River and the village of Tajima (Kawasaki Ward). This plan also called for the construction of moorings for ships in the 10,000-ton class and the digging of a canal to connect Tokyo and Yokohama. When the prefectural administration hesitated to authorize his plan, Asano formed the Tsurumi Land Reclamation Association with Yasuda Zenjiro of the Yasuda Bank, Shibusawa Eiichi, director of the Dai-Ichi Bank, and the Yokohama traders Abe Kobei and the Otani Kahei, and renewed his petition. The following year, his plan was authorized. The Tsurumi Land Reclamation Association reorganized itself as the Tsurumi Reclamation and Construction Company, and in 1916 (Taisho 5) it reclaimed about 33 hectares of land from the coastline at Oshima near the village of Tajima. Riding the crest of the World War Ⅰ economic boom, many large factories located themselves in this new industrial park. Nippon Kokan, a steel manufacturer originally headquartered in the Kansai region, was looking for a factory site near Yokohama, since they had found a way to import their pig iron cheaply from a plant in Bengal. The company, which had been established with Asano Soichiro’s son-in-law Shiraishi Genjiro as its president, settled on a 49-hectare site in the reclaimed land called Wakao-Shinden in the village of Tajima, and began construction on the new factory. The headquarters of the company were also moved to Wakao-Shinden from Yokohama, and by 1914 (Taisho 3) the new factory had already begun production. With the outbreak of World War Ⅰ, imports of steel materials and pipe ceased, and taking advantage of the rapid rise in the prices of the goods it produced, the new factory began paying dividends only two years after it began operations. Even before the land reclamation projects, major factories had located in the coastal areas of Kawasaki, attracted by the mayor’s strong encouragement of industrial development in the town. In 1912 (Meiji 45) the Fuji Gas and Textile Company moved all its operations from Shizuoka to Kawasaki, where it was followed by the construction of factories by the Japan Cable Company (Nippon Densen) and the Ajinomoto Company. These facilities formed the core of the emerging heavy industrial belt between Tokyo and Yokohama. The Tsurumi Reclamation and Construction Company, founded in 1914 (Taisho 3) with Asano Soichiro as its president, created landfills along the coast at Tsurumi (now Tsurumi Ward, Yokohama) which became the site for the Asano Shipyards, the Asano Cement Factory, and the Asahi Glassworks, which further contributed to the expansion of the industrial belt growing up in the Tsurumi and Kawasaki area. Site of Nippon Kokan’s Kawasaki steelworks before the land was reclaimed (1912), and an early view of the steelworks (1917). (Courtesy of Nippon Kokan) Railways promote regional development The period from late Meiji to the end of World War Ⅱ was the golden age of steam and electric railways as a mode of domestic transport. The rapid emergence of factories with the development of Japanese capitalism necessitated large-scale transport of raw materials and finished products, as well as a means for the masses of workers living in the vicinity of the newly developed industrial regions to commute to and from their jobs. New construction was undertaken on the major trunk line stretching from Aomori to Hiroshima in order to increase its capacity to handle freight and passenger traffic. The line along the waterfront from Yokohama Station (present-day Sakuragi-cho Station) to the landfill on which the Yokohama Customs House was located opened in 1910 (Meiji 43) and was the major freight line for the goods passing through the port. The line between Kanagawa and Hodogaya, which had been laid by the military at the time of the Sino-Japanese War to speed the movement of military freight, was designated as the main Tokaido Line. Further, Yokohama Station was moved from Sakuragi-cho to its present site in 1915, thus establishing the path of the Tokaido Line as it exists today. These changes constituted a series of efforts to increase the transport capacity of the Tokaido Line as one of the nation’s major trunk routes. In addition, express passenger service was begun in 1898 (Meiji 31) between Shimbashi in Tokyo and Sakuragi-cho in Yokohama, cutting the 55-minute oneway travel time required by ordinary trains to 30 minutes on the run to Yokohama and 39 minutes on the return to Tokyo, making the trip a much more convenient one for business travelers. Then, in 1914 (Taisho 3) an electric railway was opened, nearly parallel to the Tokaido Line, running direct service between Tamachi in Tokyo and Sakuragi-cho in Yokohama. A separate freight line was also opened, with special freight stations at Takashima and Yokohama, which helped deal with the rapidly expanding volume of freight traffic. One of the major reasons that Kawasaki played a leading role in the development of the Tokyo-Yokohama industrial belt was the existence of the Daishi Electric Railway, which opened in 1899 (Meiji 32). It originated as a line for pilgrims to the Kawasaki Daishi Temple, and while performing that function even today, the role this railway played in the formation of the Kawasaki coastal industrial region was immense, a role inherited later by the Tsurumi Harbor Railroad and the Coastal Electric Tramway, all private rail lines. Private railways also made their appearance on the Tokyo-Yokohama route. The Daishi Railway Company had been a success, paying an 11.2 percent dividend to stockholders, and made plans to extend its tracks on to Shinagawa and Yokohama, while at the same time forming the Keihin Electric Express Railway Company through cooperation and mergers with other electric railway promoters under the provisions of the Railway Ordinance and the Ordinance Concerning Private Railways. In 1905 (Meiji 38) full service started between Shinagawa and Yokohama. This line concentrated on passenger travel between Tokyo and Yokohama, was faster than the nationally-owned Tokaido Line which it paralleled, and ran a larger number of trains. Moreover, because this private line had laid special tracks rather than running its trams along existing roads as most electric lines had done up to that time, it was both faster and safer, and eventually came to pose a threat as a competitor to the national railways. In 1930 (Showa 5) the Shonan Electric Railway began service, with a route running from Koganecho to Uraga and from Kanagawa Hakkei to Zushi, later extended to Kurihama. This railway played an important role in the development of the parts of Kanagawa Prefecture fronting on Tokyo Bay. The nationally-operated Yokosuka Line began service to the Miura Peninsula even earlier than the Keihin Electric Railway. Since the Naval Arsenal and Naval Station were both located in Yokosuka, it was strategically very important, but at first it was linked to Yokohama and Tokyo only by ship. Responding to strong appeals by the military, a rail line branching off from the Tokaido Line at Ofuna and running to Yokosuka was completed in 1899 (Meiji 22). Stations were established on this line at Kamakura and Zushi, both near Hayama, which had already been developed into a luxury resort area, contributing to the further development of the coastal region along the shores of Sagami Bay. Many literary figures who had previously gone to Odawara via the Tokaido Line now began to live and write in Kamakura, and they formed a group which came to be popularly known as the “Kamakura literati.” Akutagawa Ryunosuke lived in Kamakura from 1916 to 1919 (Taisho 5 to Taisho 8), and Satomi Ton, Osaragi Jiro, Nagata Hideo, Hayashi Fusao, Shimagi Kensaku, Nakayama Gishu, Takami Jun, Kobayashi Hideo, Kume Masao, and Kawabata Yasunari all lived in Kamakura during the late Taisho and early Showa eras. In addition, the Enoshima Electric Railway, which was opened between Fujisawa and Katase in 1902 (Meiji 35) to accommodate the increasing number of travelers to Enoshima which had come with the opening of the Tokaido Line, was extended to Komachi in Kamakura in 1910 (Meiji 43), and played an important role as a tourist train to both Enoshima and Kamakura. From late Meiji into early Taisho, a series of railways were also established in the inland parts of Kanagawa Prefecture. In the interior of the prefecture, as along the coast, there were railways primarily serving industrial areas and those which were principally tourist lines. Of the former, which connected the interior with YokoYumoto Station in 1900. (Courtesy of the Hakone Tozan Railway Co.) hama and Kawasaki, there were the Nambu Line running between Tachikawa and Kawasaki, the Yokohama Line linking Hachioji with Yokohama, the Sagami Railway connecting Ebina with Yokohama, and the nationally-operated Sagami Line running between Chigasaki and Hashimoto (Sagamihara City). The tourist lines included Odakyu’s Odawara Line linking Shinjuku in Tokyo with Hakone Yumoto, and the Atami Railway Line running between Kozu and Atami. Arranging the new rail lines in order of their construction, the Yokohama Railway was built first, in 1908 (Meiji 41), followed by the Atami Railway in 1920 (Taisho 9), the Sagami Railway in 1921, the Toyoko Electric Railway running between Maruko Tamagawa and Kanagawa in 1926 (Showa 1), and the Nambu Line and the Odakyu Line between Shinjuku and Odawara in the following year. None of these lines was immediately opened for service along the entire length of its eventual route; instead, they grew gradually, opening new sections of the line as they went along. For instance, the Nambu Line began with service between Shinagawa and Noborito for the purpose of transporting sand and limestone for cement manufacture from the banks of the Tama River. From 1935 onward, however, with the growth of military-related industry in the region, it also became a commuter line for factory workers. In 1940 (Showa 15) it was merged with the Itsukaichi Railway, which had been operating in the Tokyo suburban area, and continued to develop as both a freight and passenger line, becoming a part of the National Railways in 1944 (Showa 19). A classic example of a rail line that developed along with the region itself was Odakyu (the Odawara Express Electric Railway), which had its origin as the Odawara Horse-Drawn Tramway. In premodern times, Mt. Hakone was known throughout the country as a strategic point on the Tokaido highway, but with the opening of railways in the modern era, it more or less dropped from the consciousness of the public, and in the song “Hakone Hachiri,” composed by Taki Rentaro in 1901 (Meiji 34), it was celebrated only for the steep and difficult mountain roads which guarded its approaches. On the other hand, the hot springs scattered around the vicinity of Hakone became well known as a recreation area and tourist attraction for foreign visitors to Japan. However, since the Tokaido railway cut north at Kozu before reaching Hakone, the resort area had to be reached by rickshaws hired at Kozu. At first even the rickshaw road did not reach all the way to the hot springs around Hakone, and the last and most mountainous leg of the journey had to be negotiated on foot or in sedan chairs. In fact, special sedan chairs were designed to carry foreign visitors. Before the opening of the Tokaido Railway line, a regular stagecoach ran between Yokohama and Odawara, but with its opening a horsedrawn tramway was constructed between Kozu and Hakone Yumoto, starting service in 1888 (Meiji 21). In 1890 (Meiji 23) Japan’s first electric train was demonstrated at the Exhibition for the Promotion of Domestic Industry held in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, and it was decided that the horse-drawn tramway should be converted into an electric rail line. The name of the company was also changed to the Odawara Electric Railway Company, Ltd. (Odakyu), which began operations in 1900 (Meiji 33). It was the second electric railway in Kanagawa Prefecture, and the fourth in Japan as a whole, which attests to the promising prospects for the development of Hakone as a recreation area and tourist site. Odakyu went on to lay plans for a rail line going up Mt. Hakone, and after many difficulties, succeeded in opening a line between Yumoto and Gora in 1919 (Taisho 8). Furthermore, in 1921 (Taisho 10) a cable car line was set up between Shimogora and Kamigora, and in 1960 (Showa 35), an aerial tramway was completed between Sounzan and Togendai (at the northern end of Lake Ashinoko), which now carries more than a million passengers a year. The prosperity of the resort area of Hakone was given an even greater boost by the opening of the Odakyu Line between Shinjuku in Tokyo and Odawara in 1929 (Showa 4). The same year, Odakyu also opened an Enoshima Line linking Sagami Ono with Katase and Enoshima, with the intention of attracting bathers going to the seashore at Katase. In order to attract passengers, Odakyu began to offer a variety of special rates almost as soon as it opened service, including round-trip coupons to Hakone, round-trip discount tickets between Shinjuku and Hakone Yumoto and Gora, tickets with attached discount coupons for use on the cable cars and buses, as well as at the inns and gift shops of the resort area, and seasonal discount rates for travelers to Enoshima, Tanzawa, Oyama, and the Tama River area. In this way, Odakyu worked to develop the areas along its routes as spots for tourism and recreation. Labor disputes and rice riots World War Ⅰ, which had brought an unprecedented economic boom to Japan, ended in 1918 (Taisho 7) with the German surrender. The other side of the economic boom was rising inflation, and from the closing days of World War Ⅰ onward, a series of labor disputes unfolded in Japan as workers demanded higher wages to offset the loss in purchasing power resulting from inflation. Already in 1916 (Taisho 5), with the war still in progress, there were 108 incidents recorded nationwide, but the number of disputes jumped the following year to 398, with 57,309 people involved, and the labor movement in Japan reached a new peak. The main force behind this upsurge of labor activism were workers in the heavy industrial sector, in such fields as shipbuilding and machine manufacture. Events in Kanagawa Prefecture reflected this national trend. In Fluctuations in rice prices in the period leading up to the Rice Riots of 1918. 1917 (Taisho 6), there was a strike by more than 700 workers at the Armstrong Company’s explosives factory in Hiratsuka, a strike by 6,000 workers at the Asano Shipyards which ended in violence, and a strike by 800 workers at the Yokohama Docks, although the total number of strikes for the year in Kanagawa was only seven. However, the following year the number of strikes in the prefecture doubled to fourteen, including a strike by 5,000 workers at the Uraga Docks and a strike by more than 700 workers at Nippon Kokan, the steel manufacturer. The aspect of the inflation that hit the workers the hardest was rising rice prices. This affected the residents of smaller cities and fishermen as well as workers in major urban centers. The rice riots of 1918, which started in a small fishing village in Toyama Prefecture, soon spread throughout the entire country. In Kanagawa Prefecture, various measures such as selling rice at a discount in cities, towns, and villages were taken to prevent the outbreak of rioting, but they proved to be inadequate. On the evening of August 16, a crowd of some five or six hundred people gathered in a park in Yokohama, developing into a riot in which stones were thrown at rice shops and police stations. The rice riots in Kanagawa were not as violent as in other parts of the country, but their influence made itself felt in the labor disputes which continued to occur. The following year, 1919 (Taisho 8), there were strikes by 3,000 workers at the Yokohama Docks and by more than 1,300 workers at the Uchida Shipyards. The total number of labor disputes for the year leapt to forty-seven, as workers outside heavy industry, in freight, transportation, and other service industries, as well as manual laborers, became involved in strikes and protests. The first Japanese May Day One of the reasons for the dramatic jump in the number of labor disputes in 1919 (Taisho 8) was the international labor agreement stipulated in the Versailles Treaty, which established the International Labor Organization (ILO). The ILO was intended as an international body dedicated to the improvement of working conditions worldwide, including limitations on the length of the working day and the elimination of child labor. It was only natural that the formation of this organization should attract the attention and interest of Japanese workers, who were forced to labor under working conditions that by international standards were quite poor indeed. However, when the first plenary session of the ILO was held in Washington in 1919, the labor delegation sent from Japan was chosen by the government in a manner which completely ignored the Japanese labor unions. The unions were opposed to the delegation and the manner in which it had been selected, and the Yuaikai and other groups held a mock-funeral demonstration in Yokohama to protest the selection. These events provided an impetus for the formation of many new labor groups and unions, which soon reached a total of more than 200 nationwide. In Kanagawa Prefecture, foreign-language printers formed the Yokohama European-Language Printers’ Union, and newspaper deliverymen organized the Yokohama News Labor Association in 1919. Four Seamen’s Associations, based largely in Yokohama, were established in 1919, and six more were created the following year. In 1920 (Taisho 9) the Yokohama Longshoremen’s League, the Yokohama Shipyard Workers’ Union, and the Tsurumi Steelworkers’ Union were founded, and in 1921 the Japan Seamen’s Union and other organizations were formed. As soon as these new unions were organized, they immediately entered into protests for higher wages and better treatment of workers, and in many cases succeeded in attaining their demands. In 1921, the Yuaikai changed its name to Sodomei (the Japanese Federation of Labor), strengthening its role as the nation’s largest labor organization. Class B longshoremen who had been excluded from the Longshoremen’s Mutual Aid Association formed the Yokohama Longshoremen’s League mentioned above, under the support and guidance of the Rikken Rodoto (Constitutional Labor Party),a nationalistic political group. The inaugural meeting of this league was held on May 1, 1920, marked by a mass march to Yokohama Park, where a labor rally was held. At the rally a declaration was issued proclaiming that the liberation of the worker would be achieved through “a movement of workers of all nations,” and resolutions were passed calling for an eight-hour working day, Sunday as an officially recognized holiday, and the elimination of Article 17 of the Public Order and Police Law. The Rikken Rodoto had been founded at the end of the previous year with Yamaguchi Masanori as its president. It is interesting that the first May Day celebration in Kanagawa Prefecture was held by a labor organization under the leadership of this political party, since its platform was quite nationalistic in tone, calling for respect for the emperor and love and defense of the nation. The following day, May 2, Tokyo’s first May Day celebration was held in Ueno Park. The fading glow of the wartime economic boom lasted until 1921 (Taisho 10), after which the economy sank suddenly into recession. Particularly hard hit were the shipping and shipbuilding industries which had enjoyed such prosperity during the boom. In 1921, shipyard workers conducted a series of strikes in an attempt to win a favorable position for themselves within the general climate of recession. A strike at the Uchida Shipyards in June was followed in September by strikes at the Yokohama Docks, the Yokohama Manufacturing Works, and the Asano Shipyards; a strike in October at the Uraga Docks; and yet another strike at the Yokohama Docks in February of the following year. Precisely because the Uchida Shipyards had grown so rapidly since its founding by the shipping tycoon Uchida Shinya, it was hit earliest by the recession and forced to close, laying off all its employees. The dispute there concerned the severance pay the workers were to receive, and as a result of negotiations conducted by Suzuki Bunji, chairman of Sodomei, the dispute was resolved when the company agreed to an increase in the amount of severance pay to be issued. Seeing the result of this dispute, workers at the Yokohama Docks formed the Yokohama Shipyard Workers’ Union, affiliated with Sodomei. When the company fired the secretary-general and other members of the new union, it went out on strike in protest at this persecution of union members. The strike reached major proportions, involving all the workers at the Yokohama Docks and some 4,650 outside supporters of the striking workers. In the end, the strikers succeeded in winning a wage increase and a doubling in severance pay from the company. The local chapters of Sodomei in Kanagawa Prefecture, which had been disappearing one after another, once again came to life. In addition to these developments in the labor movement in Kanagawa, the activities of the Zenkoku Suiheisha (National Society of Levelers-an organization dedicated to struggling for the civil rights of Japan’s outcast communities), founded in March 1922 (Taisho 11), also had an impact on the prefecture. Representatives from Kanagawa attended the inaugural meeting of the Kanto branch of the Suiheisha, which was held in the town of Ota in Gumma Prefecture in March 1923. In 1924 (Taisho 13) the Kanagawa prefectural authorities founded an organization called the Seiwakai as a conciliatory body in response to the spread of this movement. The Great Earthquake strikes Kanagawa Sixty-eight years after the Great Ansei Earthquake of 1855 (Ansei 2), the Kanto region was struck in 1923 (Taisho 12) by a massive quake registering a seismic intensity of 6 and a magnitude of 7.9. Its epicenter was located in the northwestern part of Sagami Bay, and the Odawara-Nebukawa area was hardest hit. But in Yokohama as well, an initial violent vertical shock was followed by a series of horizontal tremors occurring once every 1.5 seconds, shifting the ground itself as much as 12 centimeters from side to side, making it impossible for people even to stand. The quake struck at 11:58 in the morning, just as lunch was being prepared, and the cooking fires lit in nearly every household caused the major conflagrations which broke out in Tokyo, Yokohama, and elsewhere in the wake of the initial shock, adding immensely to the damage caused by the earthquake itself. Among the most tragic disasters caused by the quake and fires was the fate of 38,000 people who were trapped by a whirlwind of flames and burned to death in a vacant lot in Tokyo’s Ryogoku district, formerly the site of the Army Clothing Warehouse, to which they had fled in hopes of escaping the flames. In Yokohama as well, 95 percent of a total of 99,840 households were damaged, and 62 percent, or 62,608 households, were burned to the ground, a ratio higher than that suffered in Tokyo. Fires broke out in more than 300 separate locations in the wake of the violent shocks of the quake, and everywhere there were drowning victims as people flung themselves into rivers and streams in a vain effort to escape the choking black smoke and intense heat. In Yokohama, with a total population of more than 440,000 people, 92 percent suffered injury or property damage in the quake, and 5.7 percent were reported dead or missing. Eighty-three percent of the 11,800 houses were either partially or completely destroyed by the quake and an additional 4,000 destroyed by fire. Nearly the entire town of Uraga was demolished. The towns and villages of the Yokohama after the Great Earthquake of 1923 and after reconstruction. Kamakura-Koshigoe area met a similar fate. In Kamakura itself, the Kenchoji and Enkakuji temples were toppled by the shock, and along the seashore a series of tsunami reaching as high as ten meters caused great damage. Seventy percent of the towns of Kawasaki and Tsurumi (now Kawasaki City and Tsurumi Ward, Yokohama), which formed the heart of the Tokyo-Yokohama industrial belt, was destroyed, and the factories of the area, including the Fuji Gas and Textile factory, the Meiji Sugar refinery, and the Tokyo Electric plant suffered enormous damage. In the western part of the prefecture, closest to the epicenter of the quake, figures for total or partial destruction of property reached as high as 98.5 percent in Ashigarakami district, 99.2 percent in Ashigarashimo, 91.2 percent in Koza, and 87.5 in Nara district. Figures for Kanagawa Prefecture as a whole reported that 86.5 percent, or 237,338 households out of a total of 274,300 in the prefecture, suffered damage from the disaster. Of the total population of 1,378,000, there were 29,614 dead and 2,245 missing. In addition to the death and personal injury caused by the disaster, the quake touched off many landslides and rockfalls in the prefecture, damaging or destroying roads and cutting off transportation and communications, thus adding significantly to both the injury and the anxiety which people suffered. In the wake of the earthquake, anxiety was also stirred up by a number of totally groundless rumors which only added to the general confusion. On the evening of September 1, the day the earthquake occurred, rumors spread in parts of Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kawasaki of attacks and assaults by socialists, Koreans, and recently released convicts. Even government officials and the police warned communities in the area to be on their guard against violence by Koreans resident in Japan. From the 2nd to the 3rd of September, rumors of this nature spread throughout the prefecture, and vigilante groups formed and began to take action. A large number of assaults and murders of Koreans at the hands of such vigilante groups took place in Yokohama, Kawasaki, Tsurumi, Totsuka, Chigasaki, Odawara, and elsewhere in the prefecture. The central government, in an attempt to quell the social disturbance which followed the disaster, declared a state of martial law in Tokyo and five surrounding districts on September 2. Martial law was also declared in Kanagawa on September 3 and in Saitama and Chiba prefectures on September 4. Kanagawa Prefecture was divided into four disaster relief zones-the Kanagawa area, Yokosuka area, Fujisawa area, and the Odawara area-and the national government began to work in cooperation with local officials and police to restore order and aid the victims of the disaster. National efforts to recover from the earthquake and its aftereffects had begun at last. The Great Kanto Earthquake had brought damage to five other prefectures in addition to Tokyo and Kanagawa. Of a total of approximately 700,000 households in the affected areas, 175,000 were either wholly or partially destroyed; about 100,000 people were either dead or missing; and some 3,400,000 people had suffered injury or property damage. It was the worst earthquake disaster in Japanese history. Ⅲ. The Road to the Pacific War 1. Widening Aggression Against China The vortex of the Showa Panic With the industrial recovery of the warring nations, the growth economy which Japan had enjoyed during and immediately after World War Ⅰ began to grind to a halt as exports fell off drastically and even goods previously produced domestically began to be imported into the country. Before long, Japan fell back into the position of importing more goods than it exported. Furthermore, since, the Great Kanto Earthquake had struck directly at Japan’s industrial heartland, the blow to the nation’s economic and financial circles was very nearly fatal. At this time in the rural areas of Kanagawa Prefecture a dramatic series of bank mergers was being played out in response to the postwar recession. In 1923 (Taisho 12),the year of the earthquake, the Matsuda Bank of Ashigarakami district absorbed the Sakata Bank (Sakata village, Ashigarakami district) and the Sakurai Cooperative Bank (Sakurai village) in May, the Kyogo Bank (Minami-Ashigara village) in December, and the Mariko Bank (Yaga village) in the following year. However, due to unfavorable assessments of land and buildings on which it held mortgages and an inability to support a number of bad loans, the Matsuda Bank was forced, in turn, to allow itself to be absorbed by the Suruga Bank, which was eager to extend the scope of its operations in Kanagawa from its home base in neighboring Shizuoka Prefecture. In fact, the Suruga Bank’s move into Kanagawa had begun much earlier with the opening of branch offices in Atsugi and Fujisawa toward the end of the Meiji era, and its purchases of the Yoshihama Bank in 1917 (Taisho 6) and the Japan Industrial Bank in Kamakura the following year. Of course, in buying up these banks the Suruga Bank took advantage of the managerial problems they had been experiencing. The Industrial Bank of Odawara was a bank that resulted from a series of mergers undertaken for similar reasons in the period after the Great Earthquake. This bank was created through the merger of the Odawara Bank, the Commercial Bank of Odawara, the Soga Bank, and the Kozu Bank, but even after the mergers it was unable to dispose of bad assets, and had to close until its reorganization as the Meiwa Bank in 1927 (Showa 2), with assistance from the Kawasaki Bank. This crisis in banking circles was rendered even more serious by the rediscounting of banknotes and the discounting of the commercial paper known as “earthquake bills” (shinsai tegata) in the areas affected by the Great Earthquake, primarily the Tokyo-Yokohama region, steps taken to give relief to those areas. A careless remark by Finance Minister Kataoka Naoharu during the Diet deliberations concerned with redressing the problem of the so-called “earthquake Main offices of the Soda Bank. bills” exposed the gravity of the banking crisis and touched off a nationwide run on the banks. This financial crisis is known as the Showa Panic. The Soda Bank, which was known as one of the most distinguished financial institutions in Kanagawa Prefecture, had lent out twice the amount of money it had in deposits, and finding itself unable to recover the loans, was forced to merge with the Yokohama Credit Bank. The following year, the Second National Bank (Daini Ginko), the Yokohama Trading Bank, the Totsuka Bank, and other institutions also found themselves being absorbed by the Yokohama Credit Bank. The government enacted a new Bank Law and actively promoted the reorganization and liquidation of the smaller banks. In Kanagawa, the series of mergers carried out by the Yokohama Credit Bank was followed by the merger of the Ashigara Agricultural and Commercial Bank with the Kawamura Bank, the closing of the Koshin Bank (renamed the Koeki Trading Company), the merging of the Kamakura Bank with the Sagami Industrial Bank, the dissolution of the Tamagawa Bank, and the merger of the 74th National Bank with the Savings Bank of Yokohama. Between 1927 and 1930, about ten banks in the prefecture ceased to exist. Even so, there were still as many as 21 banks left in Kanagawa, some in shaky financial condition, and the wave of mergers continued until an unwritten policy of one bank per prefecture began to look like the eventual result. The financial crisis continued apace, with smaller banks closing their doors and the more powerful institutions expanding rapidly. The medium and small businessmen who were the principal depositors and financial clients of the smaller banks were unable to avoid the predicament in which they suddenly found themselves. Large enterprises carried out a drastic reduction in their operations, and in industries such as silk, rayon, paper, cement, and coal, new cartels were formed or existing cartels strengthened, as companies desperately tried to maintain price levels through agreements to limit production. Smaller businesses were absorbed by the large enterprises, and a system of monopoly capital controlled by the large corporations began to be firmly established. In addition, in the wake of the Great Earthquake, tax revenues suddenly dropped as a result of non-payment, and local governments found themselves without operating funds. Disaster relief and recovery was conducted entirely under the direction of the central government. While this was connected to general economic recovery, this kind of total dependence on the central government opened the path toward a state-controlled economy. The Great Depression which plunged the entire world into the depths of economic distress began on October 24, 1929 (Showa 4), in New York, but this had already been anticipated in Japan by the depression touched off by the Great Kanto Earthquake and its aftermath. The reorganization of the Keihin industrial belt The Great Kanto Earthquake reduced to rubble the prosperity that had been carefully built up in Yokohama over the sixty years since the opening of the port. People who had been burned out of their homes relocated in Tsurumi, Kawasaki, Hodogaya, and other surrounding areas where the damage had been comparatively light, and the distribution of population in the Yokohama area was immediately altered. The various factories which comprised the Keihin (Tokyo-Yokohama) industrial belt suffered heavy damage in the earthquake, but those which required special sites and facilities, such as the Yokohama Dock Co., the Asano Shipyards, and the Uraga Dock Co. set about the task of reconstruction in their original location. Many other enterprises decided to relocate and rebuild on newly created sites in the Kawasaki area, changing the structure of the Keihin industrial region. In addition to enterprises such as Nippon Kokan, the Tokyo Electric Company, and Asano Cement, which rebuilt facilities they had operated in Kawasaki, there were enterprises such as the Shibaura Engineering Works (later the Toshiba Corporation) which moved both their headquarters and factories to Tsurumi. Tokyo Electric, in addition to manufacturing light bulbs, various types of lamps, and thermometers, also produced a wide range of consumer electric goods, while the Shibaura Engineering Works specialized in the manufacture of electrical equipment, heavy electrical machinery in particular. There were also new factories such as the one built in 1925 (Taisho 14) on 48,000 tsubo (one tsubo=3.3 square meters) of land in Kawasaki by Furukawa Electric. This company had watched the expansion of electric power companies during World War Ⅰ and had decided to enter the field of electric machinery and equipment, a field closely connected to the Furukawa group’s other interests in copper mining, and had founded Fuji Electric as a joint venture with the German firm Siemens. The Yokohama Electric Wire Company, another company in the Furukawa zaibatsu group, which had a factory in Hiranuma-cho (Nishi Ward) in Yokohama, linked up with the American company B.E Goodrich, changed its name to Yokohama Rubber, and began the manufacture of tires and rubber belts for machines. The factory was completely destroyed in the earthquake, however, after which the company built a new belt and hose factory and a new tire factory on reclaimed land in Tsurumi. A new industry-the automobile industry-was also born in this period. The practicality and usefulness of the automobile came to be recognized in the process of recovery from the Great Earthquake, and cars began to spread throughout the country. Taking note of this, America’s Ford Motor Company leased a warehouse belonging to the Yokohama Dock Co. in Midori-cho (Nishi Ward) in Yokohama Advertisement for Ford automobile in 1927. in 1925 (Taisho 14), and established the Ford Motor Company (Japan) Ltd., later building a new factory on the Koyasu landfill and moving its operations there. Then, in 1927 (Showa 2) General Motors built an assembly plant and began producing Chevrolets in Japan. These two companies dominated the Japanese automobile market. The government, however, in an effort to promote domestic production, encouraged the merger of several of the first domestic auto companies. In 1933 (Showa 8) the Ishikawajima Automobile Factory merged with Datto Motors to form the Automotive Industry Company, Ltd. (Jidosha Kogyo), which in turn absorbed several other smaller companies. In 1934 the company built a huge factory in Tsurumi to begin production of standard model passenger cars built according to Ministry of Commerce and Industry specifications, and the company’s original factory in Tsukishima at Tokyo was also relocated to the Tsurumi site. This firm eventually became today’s Isuzu Motors. In 1928 (Showa 3), the Japan Industrial Corporation, which had been founded with Ayukawa Yoshisuke as its president, closed an agreement for a joint venture with the Tobata Foundry Company, which had acquired the production rights for Datsun compact cars from Automotive Industry, Ltd. Production began in 1933 in Yokohama in a factory complex equipped with the latest technology and facilities which had been built on reclaimed land along the shore at Shinkoyasu in Yokohama. In addition to making parts for Ford and Chevrolet, the venture was expected to produce 5,000 Datsuns a year, and in 19 34 the name of the company was changed to Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. In 1936 (Showa 11) the Automotive Manufacturing Industries Law was promulgated with the intent of promoting domestic mass production of cars. The automotive division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works (the precursor of the Toyota Motor Corporation) and Nissan Motors became officially designated companies under the Law, laying the foundations for the Japanese automotive industry which has today challenged and won so much of the world market. In this fashion, the Keihin industrial belt, which had first grown up as a site for trade-related light industry, changed its character during the process of recovery from the devastation of the Great Kanto Earthquake. Light industry gradually disappeared in the area, and the industrial belt centered on Kawasaki and Tsurumi came to be dominated by major corporate complexes such as the Asano Shipyards and Nippon Kokan, which were already located in the area, by the various factories which moved from Tokyo and Yokohama in the wake of the earthquake, and by new industries such as the automotive industry which had recently sprung up in the area. Moreover, food processing industries such as beer breweries, flour processing plants, artificial seasoning factories, and cake and candy manufacturers began to be concentrated in the Tsurumi-Kawasaki area. The Keihin industrial belt became home for almost every variety of new industry, and thus a kind of microcosm of Japan’s modern industrial development, especially in the chemical and heavy industrial sectors. Expansion of the revitalized labor unions and growing protest As a result of the Great Kanto Earthquake, factories were deA Nissan-built bus, circa 1938. (Nissan Motor Co.) stroyed, workers laid off, the ranks of the unemployed swelled, and the labor unions temporarily suspended their activities. Eventually, however, in the year following the earthquake, Yokohama Local No. 1 of the Kanto Steelworkers’ Union, the Yokohama Outdoor Laborers’ Union, and the Youth Study Group at the Fuji Gas and Textile plant in Hodogaya joined to form the Yokohama Amalgamated Labor Union, which affiliated itself with Sodomei (the Japan Federation of Labor). At this time, Sodomei, which had developed out of the old Yuaikai, was riven internally by a clash between right and left-wing factions. The Yokohama Amalgamated Labor Union stood with the left-wing faction in Sodomei, and when the leftist unions were all expelled from the organization in 1926 (Taisho 15), the Union participated in the founding of the Nihon Rodo Kumiai Hyogikai (All-Japan Council of Labor Unions). Virtually all of the unions in Kanagawa Prefecture affiliated with Hyogikai, and the only one to remain in Sodomei was the Yokohama local of the Kanto Brewery Workers’ Union. In 1925 (Taisho 14), more than seventy workers at the Kawasaki plant of Fuji Gas and Textile organized a local chapter of the Kanto Textile Workers’ Union. The company responded to this move by firing more than ten of the local’s executive officers. The union went out on strike, presenting four demands: better treatment for female workers living in company dormitories, reinstatement of all dismissed workers, improvement of cafeteria facilities, and the freedom to join a union. The Kanto Federation of Sodomei threw its full support behind the strike, and clashed repeatedly with Hyogikai members who had also come to support the striking workers. The governor of the prefecture acted as arbitrator in the strike, and while the fired workers were not reinstated, the dispute was resolved when all the other demands of the strikers were met. The victory in the Fuji Textile strike led to a rapid revival of the Sodomei organization in the area centering on Kawasaki and Tsurumi. A Kanagawa Petroleum Workers’ Union was formed, principally among workers at Rising Sun Petroleum and Nippon Oil; a Kanagawa Steelworkers’ Union was organized, with its core of support among the workers at Nippon Kokan; and a cement workers’ union was established at Asano Cement. In March 1926 the Kanagawa Federation of Sodomei was inaugurated. Union representatives participating in the founding of the Federation numbered 52 from the Kanto Steelworkers’ Union, 23 from the Kanagawa Petroleum Workers’ Union, 16 from the Kawasaki local of the Kanto Amalgamated Labor Union, 12 from the Tokyo Steelworkers’ Union, 22 from the Cementworkers’ Union, 12 from the Tokyo Electric Employees’ Union, 6 from the Keihin local of the Kanto Brewery Workers’ Union, and 34 from the Kawasaki local of the Kanto Textile Workers’ Union. The Federation’s membership was officially announced to be 7,500 workers. At the same time, Hyogikai was also forming a series of new organizations throughout the prefecture, including a Kawasaki local of the Tokyo Amalgamated Labor Union centered at the Ajinomoto plant in Kawasaki; a Kawasaki local of the Kanto Steelworkers’ Union; a Kawasaki local of the Kanto Metalworkers’ Union, a ShoFemale workers at the Fuji Gas and Textile plant in Kawasaki. (From Fuji Gas Boseki Kawasaki Kogyo shashin cho, in the collection of the Nakahara Municipal Library, Kawasaki City) nan Amalgamated Labor Union organized among workers at the Hiratsuka factories of the Sagami Textile Mills and the Kanto Textile Mills; and an Odawara Amalgamated Labor Union centering on workers for the Odakyu Electric Railway. Moreover, since the government had designated labor organizations with a membership of over one thousand at factories with over one thousand workers as the basic units for the selection of Japanese representatives to the International Labor Organization, the Koyukai at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, the Koshinkai at the Yokohama Docks, and the Koaikai at the Uraga Docks, which had primarily operated as workers’ mutual aid organizations, now formed the Buso Labor League. They, along with such organizations as the Kyowakai, comprised of workers in the Yokohama City Railways, made clear their transformation into full-fledged labor unions, adding to their bylaws clauses concerning the maintenance and improvement of working conditions. In this fashion, in the years leading up to the early 1930s, labor unions in Kanagawa formed affiliations with larger leagues and federations such as Sodomei and Hyogikai, establishing a system which supported and strengthened labor activism. With the passage of the Universal Manhood Suffrage Act, labor also won the right to vote, forming the base of support for a number of proletarian political parties. Better organization also meant that strikes became a more powerful and effective tactic than they had been in the past. In 1929 (Showa 4) there were 576 labor disputes nationwide, a number which came close to doubling the following year to 908, among which were massive strikes that left an important mark on the history of the labor movement in Japan. In Kanagawa Prefecture, the Yokohama City Railways strike of 1929, the strikes at the Yokohama Docks and the Fuji Gas and Textile plant in Kawasaki in 1930, and the strikes in 1931 at General Motors, the Toshiba Corporation, and Nippon Kokan are particularly noteworthy. In the midst of the 1930 strike at Fuji Gas and Textile, one of the strikers climbed to the top of a forty-meter smokestack, unfurling a red flag when he reached his goal and causing quite a stir among the press and public as “The Smokestack Man.” The violent elimination of democracy Farmers were hit even harder by the depression than urban workers. The fall in agricultural prices was drastic, with conditions made even worse by bad harvests. Particularly in the farming villages of eastern Japan, many families fell into such dire straits that they resorted to the premodern practice of selling daughters into prostitution, and town and village officials had to struggle to prevent this. Certain groups of young military officers, hearing of the awful conditions in the countryside from draftees from rural areas under their command, and learning more from articles in the press, involved themselves with civilian right-wing groups and competing factions within the military establishment itself. They began to call vociferously for a “Showa Restoration” (Showa ishin) which would initiate a program of national reconstruction much as the Meiji Restoration had done several generations before. Seeing rural distress as the responsibility of the party politicians and the zaibatsu, these young men carried out a campaign of terrorist assassinations against leading political figures and industrialists. In September 1931 (Showa 6), they touched off the Manchurian Incident, aiming at complete Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and lit the fuse for Japan’s invasion of China itself. With the beginning of Japan’s invasion of mainland China, the factories of the Keihin industrial belt converted to military production, realizing enormous profits. However, this industrial boom fueled inflation, and the poverty of the rural villages, which did not derive any benefit from military spending, became more critical. As many as 89 tenant disputes occurred in Kanagawa during 1934. Terrorism on the part of young officers calling for national reconstruction reached its peak with the February 26th Incident of 1936 (Showa 10). The violence connected with the incident reached Kanagawa Prefecture as well, when a group involved in the uprising attacked the prominent statesman Makino Nobuaki at the Kofuso, an annex of the Itoya Inn in Yugawara where he was vacationing. Makino only very narrowly escaped with his life. In Tokyo, the principal scene of the terrorist uprising, Prime Minister Okada Keisuke, Home Minister Saito Minoru, Superintendant of Education Watanabe Jotaro, Grand Chamberlain Suzuki Kantaro, and Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo were all subjected to assaults, some of them dying at the hands of their assailants, while others escaped miraculously from harm’s way. Participating in the series of attacks and the uprising itself were 22 Army officers and some 1,400 non-commissioned officers and troops. They were eventually suppressed by order of the emperor; however, after this incident the military’s voice in the affairs of state became absolute. The institutions of democratic and party government which had gradually been established after enormous effort during the Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa eras were reduced to an empty shell, and the police and bureaucracy became tools of the military, flaunting their tyrannical power. The democracy of the Taisho era had become nothing more than a fleeting dream. As the labor movement grew in scope and influence toward the end of the Meiji era, the police had already begun to employ the Public Order and Police Law as their authority to interfere with popular movements. With the passage of the Universal Manhood Suffrage Act a new Peace Preservation Law was also enacted and employed to suppress leftwing movements, making the powers of the police even more absolute. In Kanagawa Prefecture, leftist political figures were branded traitors to the nation, and police bragged that “even if you kill one of those traitors the matter can be settled for 50 yen; we’ll write it off as a heart attack.” It was said at the time that the attitude of the police was the same as that of the despotic government of the Tokugawa shogunate. The reality of the situation found its purest expression in the Yokohama Incident of 1942 (Showa 17). The incident began with an article by Hosokawa Karoku, entitled “Trends in World History and Japan,” which was published in the magazine Kaizo (Reconstruction), then highly regarded as a progressive journal of opinion. Hosokawa was arrested on the grounds that his article was a piece of communist propaganda. Then, when a photograph of a party attended by members of the editorial staffs of Kaizo and Chuo Koron (The Central Review) at Hosokawa’s home village was found among the confiscated belongings of an individual arrested in connection with a separate incident, the police claimed that it was a photograph of a secret meeting convened for the purpose of reconstituting the suppressed Japanese Communist Party. As a result, seven members of the editorial staffs of the two journals were arrested, a move which was followed soon after by the arrest and imprisonment of more than thirty other employees of the Chuo Koronsha, the Kaizosha, the Nihon Hyoronsha, and Iwanami Shoten. Those arrested were indicted under the Peace Preservation Law, and both Chuo Koron and Kaizo were ordered to cease publication. Three of the people arrested died under interrogation, but World War Ⅱ was to end before any of them were brought to trial. Japan’s reckless entry into the Pacific War The Japanese military, which had begun its aggression against China at the Marco Polo Bridge on July 17, 1937 (Showa 12), soon entered into a state of total war with China. Then, in 1940, the army occupied northern French Indochina (now part of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) in the hope of cutting off aid to China from Europe and the United States. The southern part of French Indochina was occupied the following year. In order to counter Japan’s relentless advance southward, the United States embargoed the export of scrap iron to Japan, froze Japanese assets in the United States, and completely suspended all oil exports to Japan. Scrap iron was an indispensible material for the Japanese steel industry, and oil was essential for the continued operations of the Army and Navy; since Japan was dependent on the United States for both these resources, the blow was a critical one as far as Japanese military activity was concerned. Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro attempted to break the deadlock through diplomatic negotiations, but fierce opposition by the military led him to dissolve his cabinet. Now firmly in control, the military launched a suprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, commencing the Pacific War. Japan seemed to dominate the early stages of the conflict, bringing most of the eastern Pacific under its control, but it was unable to withstand the counterattack of the American forces with their vastly superior material resources. On April 18, 1942, Japan was subjected to its first air raid, carried out by carrier-launched bombers. In that raid, thirteen B-25s attacked the Tokyo-Yokohama region; one of the planes dropped incendiary bombs and strafed Yokohama, while three others attacked Kawasaki, dropping high explosives and fire bombs on the Daishi area and the industrial region along the coast, killing 34 people and wounding 90. One plane also attacked Yokosuka, dropping three bombs into the Naval Arsenal and causing some damage. Eventually the American forces seized the islands of Saipan and Tinian and built airstrips there, making possible full-scale air raids against the Japanese home islands. On November 24, 1944, a squadron of 111 B-29s bombed the Musashino factory of Nakajima Aircraft, and on February 16 and 17 of the following year several hundred carrier-launched planes bombed and strafed Yokohama and Kawasaki, terrifying the citizens of the area. However, seeing that strafing was not particularly effective against urban areas, the American air forces switched to a tactic of incendiary carpet-bombing. In the air raid of March 10, 1945, on Tokyo, some three hundred B-29s were employed, dropping 1,665 tons of incendiaries, burning out 82 percent of the populous inner city area and killing as many as 100,000 people. The Japanese air force, despite its earlier boasting, The bombed ruins of the industrial belt. Kawasaki City. (Muto Kozo Collection) was powerless to counter the American attacks. On April 4 the coastal industrial areas of Yokohama were bombed, killing 214 people and wounding another 211, and on April 15 Kawasaki and Tsurumi were incinerated by fire bombing. On May 29, 517 B-29s carried out a massive daylight incendiary raid on Yokohama, reducing most of the city to ashes. In just a little over an hour, 22,224 large incendiary bombs and 415,968 smaller fire bombs were dropped, burning 75,000 buildings, leaving 310,000 people homeless, killing 4,000, and wounding an additional 10,000. On July 16, the city of Hiratsuka was carpet-bombed by a flight of 117 B-29s; Chigasaki and Odawara were also raided; and in the latter half of the month the oil refineries of Kawasaki and Tsurumi were attacked. Every day in July and early August attacks by P-51s and carrier planes reached even the rural regions of the prefecture, and the citizens trembled in terror at the destructive force of the rockets launched by the P-5 1s. The Japanese government sued for peace on August 13, but before dawn on the 15th Odawara was subjected to a carpet-bombing. That day, the war ended. According to a survey conducted by the prefectural police after the war, in the eight months between November 24, 1944, and August 15, 1945, Kanagawa was subjected to 52 separate air raids, which killed 6,319 people, wounded 17,129, left 640,591 people homeless, totally destroyed 144,886 buildings, and partially destroyed an additional 1,890. According to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, in ten months of aerial warfare, 4,230 planes dropped a total of 22,885 tons of bombs on the Tokyo-Kawasaki-Yokohama area, 71 percent of which were incendiaries and 79 percent of which were dropped on urban areas. Tokyo, Kawasaki, and Yokohama, which had picked themselves up after the destructive blow struck by the Great Kanto Earthquake and struggled to reach a level of prosperity higher than that before the disaster, had once again been reduced to rubble. THE CONTEMPORARY ERA Ⅰ. The Reconstruction of Japan and Kanagawa Prefecture 1. Kanagawa Prefecture Under the Occupation The Occupation forces enter Yokohama Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 (Showa 20). The Japanese people were liberated from the burden of wartime life that had weighed so heavily on them, both physically and spiritually, for such a long time. The air-raid blackout was immediately lifted, and the sight of lamps once again shining in the darkness of the night gave the people of Japan a feeling of liberation and relief. On August 28, an American advance party landed at the Atsugi airfield, and on the 30th, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, arrived from Okinawa at the same airfield. Accompanied by his staff, MacArthur set out immediately for Yokohama, choosing the Hotel New Grand as his quarters. The Customs Building was selected to serve as General Headquarters (GHQ), and became the central stage for the beginning of the Occupation. American naval forces began landing at Yokosuka on August 30. The 130,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors who had been stationed in Kanagawa Prefecture at the war’s end in preparation for an American invasion had been demobilized before the Americans landed, and not a single shot was fired in resistance. On September 2, the instruments of surrender were signed aboard the battleship Missouri, at anchor off Yokohama. On September 17, the General Headquarters of the Occupation forces moved from Yokohama to the Daiichi Seimei Building in Tokyo. In the two weeks before the move took place, the basic framework for the six years and eight months of Occupation control to follow had been established-a fact that would have a decisive influence on the way Japan was governed. Kanagawa was the first prefecture to receive the Occupation forces. Even though GHQ moved to Tokyo, 8th Army Headquarters remained in Yokohama and the port served as the landing point for supplies for the Occupation forces. Thus, the influence of the Occupation on the prefectural government and the life of the citizens of Kanagawa differed from that in other prefectures in Japan. American military bases in Kanagawa The ranks of the Occupation forces swelled by the day. As they were stationed in every part of the prefecture, they requisitioned land and buildings left undamaged by the air raids, making life difficult for the citizens of Kanagawa. In Yokohama in particular, the Occupation forces not only seized what few major buildings The main gate at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka. were left standing, but also occupied parks, schools, and even playgrounds. The total area of land requisitioned by the Occupation forces in Yokohama amounted to 27 percent of the city, and the buildings they took over occupied more than 287,000 tsubo (1 tsubo=3.3 square meters). The Hotel New Grand became living quarters for generals, Yamashita Park was converted into a residential area for officers and their families, and the Kaiko Kinenkan, the Yokohama offices of Mainichi Shimbun, the Nippon Yusen Building, and the Nozawaya and Matsuya buildings were all commandeered. Matsuya became a base hospital, Nozawaya became 8th Army Headquarters, the Odeon Theater was renamed the Octagon, and the Kotobukiya building became a PX. Isezaki-cho, the heart of Yokohama’s downtown district, had become completely Americanized. The most serious blow dealt to Yokohama by the Occupation was the fact that almost all the port facilities were commandeered, as well as the Kannai area of Naka Ward, where the offices of most of the trading companies handling imports and exports through Yokohama had been concentrated. As a result, a number of important trading companies moved their head offices from Yokohama to Tokyo, seriously affecting the economy of Kanagawa Prefecture. In Yokosuka, the former Japanese Naval Station became the headquarters for the U.S. Far Eastern Fleet, and the entire military port became an American naval base. The former Takeyama Marine Barracks became Camp McGill, the Tsujido Maneuver Ground was used as a maneuver ground for American forces, and the Atsugi airfield became an American air base. Both the former Japanese Army Officers’ School at Zama and the munitions plant at Sagamihara were used by the American forces. Later, there would be protests against the conversion of these areas into American military bases. In this way, existing military installations in Kanagawa were directly taken over for American military use. In addition, the Fujiya Hotel and the Gora Hotel in Hakone, the Nagisa Hotel in Zushi, and the golf club in Sengokubara were also commandeered. The beaches at Kamakura, Hiratsuka, and Zushi were designated rest and recreation areas for Allied troops, and closed to the Japanese. Even as late as 1952, after the end of the Occupation, the amount of land designated for use by American forces under the terms of the Japan-U.S. Administrative Agreement amounted to 37,360,901 square meters, and the total area of the buildings used for the same purpose amounted to 2,134,900 square meters. The beginning of democratization The General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (known as GHQ) was the official title of the institution which oversaw the Occupation of Japan. GHQ adopted an indirect approach to governing the country, working through the Japanese government, but it issued numerous directives to ensure that the contents of the Potsdam Declaration were faithfully implemented. The Potsdam Declaration was issued on July 26, 1945, at the end of a summit conference among the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, held at Potsdam on the outskirts of Berlin, following the unconditional surrender of Germany on May 7. After they had determined the conditions for the cessation of hostilities with Japan, they were joined in issuing the declaration by the head of state of the Republic of China. The declaration called for the elimination of Japan’s militarists and those responsible for leading the country during the war; for a military occupation of Japan by the Allies; for a reduction of the sphere of Japanese sovereignty to the four home islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, Kyushu and whatever smaller islands the Allies decided upon; the punishment of war criminals; the elimination of obstacles to the democratization of the Japanese people; the exaction of war reparations; the prohibition of war-related industry; and finally, the withdrawal of the Occupation forces when these goals were accomplished. In accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, General MacArthur ordered an immediate halt to all military production simultaneous with the signing of the instruments of surrender on September 2. On September 11 he ordered the arrest of Tojo Hideki and other Class A war criminals. On October 4 he ordered the elimination of the Peace Preservation Law, the Public Order and Police Law, and other restraints on freedom of political expression, as well as the complete dissolution of the Special Higher Police (tokko keisatsu). On October 11, what came to be known as the Five Major Reform Directives were issued, calling for the emancipation of Japanese women by giving them suffrage, the formation and encouragement of labor unions, the democratization of the educational system, the elimination of the Privy Council and other institutions restricting the civil rights of the people, and the democratization of economic institutions. On November 6 the dissolution of the zaibatsu was ordered. This was followed on January 4, 1946, by an order to purge militarists and ultranationalists from all public offices. In short, GHQ acted with alacrity in implementing measures intended to eradicate militarism from Japan and democratize the country. As a result of this series of directives, the people imprisoned during the war in connection with the Yokohama Incident were freed, and the Special Higher Police officials responsible for their inhuman torture were all purged. In addition, those individuals who had led the war effort in the villages and towns of the prefecture were all driven from public life. At the Yokohama District Court a military tribunal was established to judge the cases of Class B and C war criminals, former Japanese military men charged with inhumane treatment of American prisoners of war. Sentences were handed down in 337 cases involving 982 defendants. At the same time, the Occupation land reform had a major impact on rural Kanagawa. At the end of the war, 48 percent of the prefecture’s 49,986 cho (1 cho=about 9,920 square meters) of agricultural land was cultivated by tenant farmers. In 1950, after the implementation of the reform, agricultural land had increased to 60,274 cho, only 12.9 percent of which was under tenant cultivation. These tenant farms, furthermore, were not owned by the absentee landowners or major landowners of the past, since the reforms had broken up such large holdings. As a result of the reform, 46 percent of all farming households became owner-farmers. Of these, 52 percent had been owner-farmers even before the reform, but the Occupation land reform created 42 percent of this figure, or 10,532 new owner-farmer households. Even after the reforms, however, 8,493 households, or about 32 percent of the farming families in Kanagawa, remained tenant farmers. These were farmers who had been judged incapable of establishing themselves as independent, fulltime farmers because they had worked less than two tan (1 tan=about 992 square meters) of land each. Under the provisions of the land reform they were thus declared ineligible to buy the land they tenanted from its owners. One of the unusual aspects of the land reform in Kanagawa was the relatively large percentage of such farmers, most of whom lived in or around Kanagawa’s industrial belt or had settled in the prefecture immediately after the end of the war. In any case, the Occupation land reform gave new incentives to the majority of the farming population, which led to increases in both agricultural production and the area of land under cultivation. The revival of political parties and labor unions During the war, under the slogan of national unity, the existing political parties had dissolved themselves into an organization called the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei yokusan kai), and the labor unions had been swallowed up by a single officially recognized organization called the Patriotic Industrial Association (Sangyo hokoku kai). After MacArthur issued his five major reform directives, however, the parties and unions began to revive and regroup. The old established parties adopted new names appropriate to the democratic mood of postwar Japan, and came back to life as the Japan Liberal Party (Nihon Jiyuto), Japan Progressive Party (Nihon Shimpoto), and the National Cooperative Party (Kokumin Kyodoto). The prewar proletarian parties reorganized and united as the Japan Socialist Party (Nihon Shakaito). The Japan Communist Party (Nihon Kyosanto), which had been outlawed by the authorities until the end of the war, resumed its activities. An active movement for the revival of the labor unions centered on the industrial areas of Yokohama and Kawasaki. Activists who had been associated with Sodomei (the Japan Federation of Labor) before the war-the organization which had exerted such influence on the labor movement in Kanagawa-conducted an organizing campaign throughout the prefecture. As early as the end of 1945, 53 unions with 57,496 members had been established in Kanagawa. This surpassed the prewar level of labor organization, and by March 1946, these figures swelled even further to 195 unions claiming a total of 85,294 members. In October 1945, in the midst of this surge of union activity, workers at the Tsurumi plant of Nippon Kokan (a major steel manufacturer) conducted the first postwar strike in Kanagawa. The cause of the strike was a large-scale company reorganization which resulted in the dismissal of many workers. With the support of the Tsurumi Council of Amalgamated Metal Workers, the strikers entered into collective bargaining with management and won most of their demands, including the reinstatement of dismissed workers, recognition of the union, and dismissal of company executives “with responsibility for the war effort.” Soon after this strike, a number of others broke out in the factories of Tsurumi and Kawasaki. These strikes, however, originated in workers’ demands rather than action by management. Prominent among these was the “First Toshiba Strike” of January 1946. This developed into the first postwar strike in Japan to involve united action by workers on a regional basis, and succeeded in winning the strikers a five-fold wage increase and the establishment of a consultant council to give workers a voice in the management of the company. At the same time, another labor dispute broke out at Nippon Kokan’s Tsurumi steelworks, with workers engaging in “production management” (i.e., work slowdowns) to press their demands for recognition of their union and improved working conditions. The national government declared this illegal, but between January and May 1946, work slowdowns spread among factories all over Kanagawa Prefecture. On May 1, 1946, the first May Day of the postwar period was held, with meetings and demonstrations drawing some 45,000 participants in the Kawasaki-Tsurumi area, 40,000 in Yokohama, and a total of 100,000 in Yokosuka, Totsuka, Chigasaki, Hiratsuka, Odawara, Hadano, and Atsugi. Ⅱ. The Rebirth of the Phoenix: Kanagawa Recovers from the War 1. The Success of a High Growth Economy Wartime austerity and postwar poverty In 1937 (Showa 12), all-out war with China began, and as prospects for a rapid end to the conflict faded, the Japanese military implemented a scheme for total national mobilization in order to concentrate all of Japan’s physical and human resources on the war effort. Government control of the economy extended to both money and goods, and war industries rapidly expanded due to preferential treatment in the allocation of capital and materials. Peacetime industries supplying consumer goods to the domestic market, such as the textile industry, did not fare as well. At first, textile manufacture was protected as an export industry which earned foreign currency, but with Japan’s entry into the Pacific War, shortages of labor, capital, and materials, in addition to government policies for conversion to a war footing, forced many textile manufacturers to close their businesses or shift to other areas of activity. Many smaller factories in such fields as cotton and silk reeling, woolens, weaving, dyeing, leather goods, and food processing shifted to military subcontracting, and scrapped much of the plant machinery and other fixed capital that had been used for civilian production. As a result, production of textiles and other essential goods for the civilian market steadily declined. In addition, agricultural production dropped sharply as the countryside was scoured for men to fill the ranks of the armed forces and to man the factories geared to greatly expanded military production. Rice production in Kanagawa, which in normal years stood at about 60,000 tons, fell during the war years to only about 51,000 tons. In response to this situation, the government instituted a rationing system soon after the Pacific War began. Rationing was enforced by the use of coupons, passbooks, and other forms of registration. Rice was allocated on a passbook system by which each person was supposed to receive about 200 grams a day, while clothing was purchased on a coupon system, allotting residents of urban areas 100 coupons per year, and rural residents 80. Sugar, matches, sake, bean paste, fish, and other goods were also rationed. Laborers were allowed to buy new work boots and uniforms, and babies, invalids, and expectant and nursing mothers were allowed additional rations of milk, but only with the proper documentation. Implementation of rationing began at slightly varied times in different parts of Japan. In Kanagawa Prefecture, it started with the institution of a coupon system for sugar in June 1940, which by the following April had expanded to include barley, cooking oil, Sake, and other goods. These austerity measures were forced upon the Japanese people under the slogan “We want nothing until victory is ours!” But the government, in order to ward off war-weariness among the populace, worked as hard as possible to ensure the distribution of essential commodities, and while there were occasional delays, and life under under the austerity measures became increasingly difficult, distribution was maintained and starvation avoided. Meanwhile, government expenditure, primarily military, increased yearly from the time of the Manchurian Incident in 1931 through the war with China and into the Pacific War, as did the amount of government bonds issued to support this increased expenditure. The result was steady inflation, and only through the power at its command was the government able to contain a potentially explosive situation. With the end of the war, the bills fell due. War materiel had to be paid for, and soldiers and sailors given their severance pay. There was an immediate inflationary surge, accompanied by the breakdown of the wartime rationing system. The systems for the provision and transportation of rice fell into disarray. In addition, the country had to cope with large numbers of both soldiers and civilian nationals returning from overseas. The result of all of this was that the Japanese population fell into a state bordering on starvation. In Kanagawa at the end of the war, the prefecture was only able to meet 30 percent of the figures it had projected for the allocation of rice, and was unable even to make plans for supply after June of the following year. In Kawasaki and Yokohama, people actually starved to death. Prefectural and local government officials petitioned both the central government and the Occupation forces for the release of stores of provisions, and sent representatives to the rice-producing areas of the Hokuriku and Tohoku regions of Japan to request aid. But the situation was extremely difficult to remedy. Individuals protected themselves and their families from famine as best they could, planting vegetable gardens in empty lots, converting former military facilities into cultivated fields, and trading for foodstuffs clothes and other personal possessions left from before the war. Organizations such as a consumers’ cooperative in Zushi and a steelworkers’ union in Tsurumi made use of the nearby seashore to produce salt to trade for other commodities. However, people who did not have access to such means of maintaining their livelihood joined with workers in a series of “Give Us Rice!” rallies, demanding action by the authorities. Many believed that the enormous masses of goods that had been accumulated for military use during the war were being hoarded instead of being released for civilian consumption; these rallies demanded the uncovering of such secret caches and their distribution to the public. The “Give Us Rice!” rallies were particularly frequent in Kanagawa Prefecture with its many urban industrial areas. The movement in Kanagawa began on January 6, 1946, in Kurihama with the meeting of the Yokosuka-Kurihama Citizens’ Assembly, which drew as many as a thousand people to call for the uncovering and distribution of hoarded goods. Prominent among the rallies that followed was one by the Yokosuka Citizens’ Assembly on Food Supply Policies, held at the Shioiri Elementary School in Yokosuka. One thousand people met there to demand citizens’ management of food supplies. In February, 12 different organizations held a joint meeting at the Prefectural Assembly Hall to form the Prefectual Citizens’ Conference on Overcoming the Food Problem, demanding increases in food production, improvements in distribution, and management of food supplies and rationing by citizens’ representatives. Meanwhile, in Odawara, 14 labor organizations from the Shonan region, headed by the Odawara local of the National Railways Union joined to form the United Front for People’s Management of Food and Daily Necessities. In April there were food demonstrations in Hodogaya and Futamatagawa, while in May 1,000 people met at the Zushi Elementary School in Yokohama to form the Isogo Ward Citizens’ Assembly for Overcoming the Food Crisis, and the 28 block councils of Yokohama’s Nishi Ward formed a Food Supply Council to appeal to the city government for citizens’ participation in food distribution. In Kamakura, the Assembly to Prevent Starvation called on the mayor to implement immediate distribution of undelivered food supplies, while in Kawasaki the Kawasaki Workers’ Assembly, consisting of 5,600 unionists from the area, demanded immediate distribution of delayed rice supplies, people’s management of food supplies, and exposure of hoarded caches of commodities. Five thousand people met at the Honcho Elementary School in Odawara to form the Odawara Citizens’ Assembly to Prevent Starvation, while 2,500 members of 19 different labor organizations, including workers from the Toshiba plant, met at Sojiji Temple in Kawasaki to form the Tsurumi Ward Citizens’ Assembly for Overcoming the Food Crisis. In this manner, assemblies protesting food shortages drew hundreds and even thousands of participants to meetings all over the prefecture. The peak of this movement came when the food crisis was at its very worst, and 10,000 people assembled in Yokohama’s Nogeyama Park on May 20, 1946, for a rally billed as a “Food May Day.” In fact, the rice rationing system continued even after the end of the war, but individual allotments were reduced, and often scheduled distributions were either late or did not take place at all. One judge, determined to be faithful to the letter of the law, insisted on living on only his legal rice ration, without recourse to the black market to supplement his diet, and died of malnutrition. The revival of industrial production By the end of the war, the Keihin industrial belt had suffered massive damage from the American air raids. In addition, failure to maintain and renew plant and equipment during the long war years contributed to the chaotic state of the factories in this region. Given the situation, prospects for a revival of industrial production were far from bright, but the first step was to carry out the conversion from wartime to peacetime production. General MacArthur had ordered a complete halt to military production on the day the instruments of surrender were signed. As a result of the suspension of imports, there was a critical shortage of raw materials. Industries managed to carry on severely limited operations by using the scant raw materials remaining from military stockpiles to produce simple goods for the domestic consumer such as pots, pans, washtubs, buckets, and bathtubs. But soon even these limited supplies of raw materials were exhausted, and production ground to a halt. Moreover, the Occupation forces designated certain factories and their plant and equipment to be used as part of war reparations, and carried out a forced restructuring of Japanese industry which included the dissolution of the zaibatsu and the breaking up of large corporations through legal measures intended to lead to a decentralization of Japanese economic power. As a result, the road to the reconstruction of Japanese industry looked even longer and harder than before. To remedy this situation, the government created the Economic Stabilization Board in 1946. Backed by the authority of GHQ this became the central institution for the regulation of the economy, and was given wide-ranging powers. On the one hand, it labored to bring inflation under control, while on the other, it applied the lessons learned from the wartime material mobilization planning which had begun at the end of 1937 to the task of peacetime industrial revitalization, setting up and enforcing a priority production system by which all available capital and raw materials were channeled into the two basic industrial sectors of coal and steel. Once production was reestablished in these two critical sectors, the revitalization of the rest of Japanese industry could be attempted. This priority production system began to show results around 1949 or 1950, by which time the world situation had altered. With the rise of U.S.-Soviet tension, the United States began to strongly encourage the development of Japan’s economic autonomy, and Negishi Bay after land reclamation and development. relaxed a number of the regulations and restrictions the Occupation had placed on the Japanese economy. These changes served as an important stimulus to the revitalization of industry. Already, in 1947, the government had established a Rehabilitation Bank to provide the enormous capital investment funds necessary for industrial reconstruction. This massive influx of capital into the economy also touched off a new round of inflation, but industrial production made a rapid recovery, quickly reaching, then surpassing, prewar levels. As a result of the priority production system and the changes in American policy discussed above, the factories in the Keihin industrial belt began a speedy recovery from the war. Nippon Kokan, whose plants had formed the nucleus of the industrial belt before the war, was hard hit by the air raids, and had to suspend the operation of its blast furnaces at both the Kawasaki and Tsurumi steelworks, turning for a time to hand production of washtubs and buckets. In addition, as it was affiliated with the Asano group, it was designated as a limited company by the GHQ directive for the dissolution of the zaibatsu, and lost both its president and vice-president in the Occupation purges of individuals in high positions suspected of active involvement in the Japanese war effort. A plan had also been created to break Nippon Kokan up into three separate companies corresponding to its steel manufacturing, shipbuilding, and smelting divisions. Before this was implemented, however, U.S. policy shifted in the direction of allowing the continued existence of major Japanese corporations, and Nippon Kokan narrowly escaped the intended breakup. Instead, its ¥257 million of basic capital was expanded to ¥1 billion, and Nippon Kokan was off to a fresh start. As a part of the Economic Stabilization Board’s priority production scheme, the company was given priority treatment in the allocation of coal and petroleum imports, and benefited as well from a variety of supplemental financing measures carried out by the government. As a result of the preferential treatment the company received, Nippon Kokan was able to increase its operating ratio, and by 1949 had realized sufficient profits to pay a 10 percent dividend on its stock. The other major factories of the Keihin industrial belt recovered in a similar manner. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the driving force behind the Yokohama Shipyards, was split into three separate companies as part of the Occupation policy of decentralizing Japanese economic power. But its shipbuilding division prospered from the construction of small-scale tuna and bonito fishing boats that were much in demand as a countermeasure to the food crisis. Meanwhile, its machinery divisions in Tokyo and Kawasaki poured their efforts into the production of automobiles, construction machinery, and diesel engines. The Toshiba Corporation, based in Kawasaki, cut its wartime staff of over 100,000 workers by more than half and engaged in the production of everything from heavy electrical machinery for civilian industry to light bulbs, radios, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and electric heaters ordered by the Occupation forces. Eventually, Toshiba also began to produce similar appliances for the Japanese domestic market. At the time, profits from such appliances were not large, since the goods themselves were cheap. But their manufacture laid the basis for Toshiba’s later leap into the lucrative age of home electric and electronic goods. Fuji Electric, whose main Kawasaki plant had been heavily damaged by the air raids, reduced its wartime workforce of more than 15,000 to less than half, and started over again as a producer of medium-sized electrical motors. In the process, it advanced into fields that it had not previously seen as important, such as the manufacture of multi-purpose motors, adding machines, and electric fans, as well as areas the company had never worked in before, such as the production of agricultural machinery, electric heaters, and other smaller appliances. Diesel Automotive and Nissan Heavy Industries, both of which had primarily produced trucks and other diesel-powered vehicles for military use during the war, also shifted to manufacturing for the civilian market. However, due to shortages of steel plate, tires, and other materials as well as sluggish consumer demand, the road to recovery for both companies was a difficult one. But these companies, which later changed their names to Isuzu Motors and the Nissan Motor Company, respectively, remained in business and did much to lay the foundations of today’s Japanese automotive industry. In the field of chemical manufacturing, which now occupies an important place in the Keihin industrial belt, Mitsubishi Chemical Industries got a fresh start in the postwar era by independently dividing itself into three companies: Nihon Kasei Kogyo, Asahi Glass, and Shinko Rayon (now Mitsubishi Rayon). Yokohama Rubber’s Yokohama factory had been reduced to its reinforced steel shell by the air raids, but the company used what remained of it to establish a temporary manufacturing plant and began the production of recycled rubber, machine belts, and hoses. Meanwhile, the company converted its Kanagawa factory, which had escaped the bombings, to the production of organic chemicals and vinyl chloride as well as such artificial flavorings as Dulzin and saccharin. In 1950, the company bought up the 26-hectare site of the former naval munitions depot in Hiratsuka and built a highly efficient modern factory there for the production of such consumer rubber products as auto and bicycle tires and tubes. Finally, Showa Denko took advantage of the demand for chemical fertilizers which grew out of postwar policies to increase food production, and converted from military production to the manufacture of ammonium sulfates for the civilian market, a move which led to the rapid recovery of the company. In this manner, many of the companies engaged in heavy and chemical industry in Kanagawa groped their way through the chaos of the immediate postwar period, managed the transition to production for a civilian market, and after a number of years, succeeded in restoring production to a level which surpassed that of the prewar era. 2. Japan’s Rebirth as an Economic Power The outbreak of the Korean War ends the “Dodge Recession” As noted above, the massive infusion of capital into the economy through the Rehabilitation Bank for the purpose of industrial reconstruction touched off a new surge of inflation, threatening an economic collapse. In 1948, the Occupation issued a nine-point directive on the stabilization of the Japanese economy, and early in 1949 the president of the Detroit Bank, Joseph Dodge, came to Japan to oversee the implementation of Occupation economic policy. Dodge immediately set about two tasks: directing the Japanese government to balance its budget, and instituting an exchange rate of 360 yen to the dollar to encourage the expansion of trade with Japan. The prewar exchange rate had been two to four yen per dollar. Dodge also did away with government funding for reconstruction and price-control compensation. This “Dodge Line,” as it was called, brought an immediate end to the inflation, but the recession which came in its wake was serious indeed. The reduction of commodity prices which followed was widely regarded as leading to layoffs, wage cuts, and a shifting of the burden to subcontractors on the part of the major corporations. Many smaller enterprises either temporarily ceased production or went bankrupt. There were 430,000 unemployed in Kanagawa Prefecture alone. This turn of events produced great anxiety among the Japanese population. But with the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the economic situation changed completely. Under the name of the United Nations forces, the United States sent troops in support of South Korea, and Japan became a staging area for the conflict. The United States, urgently needing supplies for its forces in Korea, bought up masses of Japanese goods through special procurement orders. This special procurement extended through many fields of both heavy and light industry, from trucks and cement to weapons and cotton cloth for uniforms. The overstocks of goods which had accumulated during the recession, amounting to ¥100 billion, disappeared at once, and an economic boom centered on metals and textiles began. Japan’s industrial production, GNP, investment in plant and equipment, and index of personal consumption all shot past prewar levels. As a result of the special procurement, the Keihin industrial belt enjoyed a seller’s market, and was suddenly able to market everything it could produce. Taking advantage of this situation, factories expanded and introduced the latest industrial technology in efforts to raise production. Ceasefire negotiations began in Korea the following July, but by that time the modernization of plant and equipment and the rationalization of the production process that had taken place had already set the stage for the next phase of Japan’s economic recovery and development. On September 8, 1951, a peace treaty between Japan and 52 members of the United Nations was signed. The same year, the Mutual Security Treaty with the United States was concluded, to go into effect on April 28 of the following year. The Occupation, which had lasted for six years since the end of the war, was finally over, and a reborn Japan was restored to independence. However, the Atsugi airfield, the Yokosuka naval station, and other American military bases, as well as port facilities in Yokohama, were retained for American use by the terms of the security treaty, becoming the targets for protest by various groups of Japanese citizens. The construction of a new industrial belt As the postwar industrial recovery continued, expansion of Kanagawa’s coastal industrial belt became a necessity. In 1957 the prefectural government began a seven-year, ¥9 billion project to reclaim 3,430,000 square meters of land along the shore at Kawasaki, to be divided up for use by 33 companies, chiefly in the petrochemical industry. In part, this was also a response to the revolutionary postwar shift from coal to petroleum as a primary energy source. Both the Nippon Petrochemical Company and Tozai Petrochemicals built petrochemical complexes on the newly reclaimed land, and in 1969, the Nippon Petrochemical Company and Mitsui Petrochemical Industries teamed up to build the Ukishima Petrochemical Complex in Kawasaki. By the following year, Japan was producing 4.5 million tons of ethylene per annum, a level surpassed only by the United States. These petrochemical complexes employ high temperatures and pressure to crack naphtha (crude gasoline) to produce ethylene. In addition, propylene, butane, butylene, and other aromatic hydrocarbons which form the raw materials for a wide range of other petrochemical compounds are derived from the gases released by the cracking of naphtha. Thus, the heart of a petrochemical complex is the naphtha-cracking facility, which is surrounded by a cluster of other plants and processing factories, drawing their raw materials by pipeline from the naptha cracker and using them to produce a wide variety of other petrochemical-based products. Among the companies which established plants within these petrochemical complexes were Showa Denko, which manufactured polyethylene, Asahi-Dow (a subsidiary of Asahi Chemicals), Nippon Shokubai Kagaku Kogyo, Furukawa Chemicals (later Nisseki Plastics), Nippon Zeon, and Asahi Glass. Products derived from petrochemicals are many and varied, and have now become a part of almost every aspect of daily life, either as consumer goods or industrial materials. Synthetic rubber, paints, detergents, artificial leather, synthetic textiles, and a variety of synthetic building materials are all made from petrochemical compounds. The city of Yokohama also undertook the development of a new industrial belt in the area from Yokohama Bay to Negishi Bay. In 1961 an 800,000-square-meter landfill was completed in the vicinity of Daikoku-cho in Tsurumi Ward, and Tokyo Electric Power, Nitto Chemical Industry, Asia Petroleum, and Taiyo Fishery built facilities there. This was followed in 1971 by the completion of a 3,640,000square-meter landfill in Negishi Bay, which was occupied by such major corporations as Nippon Petroleum Refining, Tokyo Gas, the Toshiba Corporation, and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, as well as 155 smaller firms. As shoreline capable of being reclaimed from the sea was exhausted, factories began to locate themselves in Atsugi, Yamato, Sagamihara, Hadano, Zama, Ayase, Ebina, Aikawa, and other cities and towns in the interior of the prefecture. An inland industrial belt began to take shape. Taking into consideration pollution, transportation, and other factors, anarchic and unplanned industrial expansion was not permitted, and the concept of industrial parks was employed. The old military airfield occupying 2,350,000 square meters of land outside the city of Atsugi was selected as an ideal site, and an industrial park was created there for small and medium-sized firms, primarily metal-processing and machinery companies subcontracting to the major machine factories located in the coastal industrial belt. Kanagawa’s conversion into an industrial prefecture, which had begun in the Meiji era, was now complete. In the postwar period, the central government carried out a series of programs aimed at reviving rural areas through the structural reform of agriculture. But in Kanagawa, there was a pronounced and rapid trend toward the urbanization of the countryside. Urban Planning, a report released by the prefectural government in 1970, anticipated that 36.7 percent of the total land area of the prefecture and 40.2 percent of the prefecture’s arable land would be urbanized. These figures are eight times the national average for arable land converted to urban use, which is five percent, and four times that for the Kanto region, which is ten percent. From the “Jimmu Boom” to the “Izanagi Boom” In 1956, the government’s annual Economic Survey of Japan reported that real personal income had reached the highest prewar levels in the previous year, and production indices for heavy industry had topped the 1944 wartime high. On the basis of such statistics, the survey proclaimed the end of the “postwar era,” declaring Japan’s recovery from the war complete. It added that the major task for the Japanese economy in the future would be to preserve stable growth through economic modernization. At least as far as the economy was concerned, the postwar era was indeed over. The modernization called for in the survey primarily meant capital investment in heavy industry. Under the direction of the Economic Planning Agency, also created in 1956, a number of largescale investment projects-the Second Steel Industry Rationalization Plan, the First-Phase Plan for Petrochemicals, and the Five Year Plan for Electric Power-were initiated, stimulating the heavy and chemical industries to make steady progress. Technological innovation in such central fields as steel manufacture and shipbuilding produced notable advances, and the revolutionary shift from coal to petroleum as a basic energy source gave a powerful impetus to the development of the petrochemical industry. This energy revolution was taking place all over the world, and orders for tankers to transport petroleum from the oil-producing regions of America, the Middle East, and North Africa came pouring in to Japan, triggering a shipbuilding boom. The Japanese economy as a whole surged forward. This was tagged the “Jimmu Boom,” a reference to the legendary first ruler of Japan, Emperor Jimmu, the idea being that since his time, Japan had never enjoyed such economic prosperity. The boom increased personal income overall, and farm families were already guaranteed a stable income by postwar legislation that set the price of rice at double that of the international market to ensure adequate production and supplies of food domestically. As a result, Japanese consumers now had the financial resources to buy goods they had not been able to afford earlier. Home appliances headed the list of desirable commodities. The television, washing machine, and refrigerator were advertised as the “three sacred treasures” of any household, and 1955 was dubbed “Year One of the Electrification Era.” The Jimmu Boom was followed by a recession, but in 1958 investment in plant and equipment became active once again, and personal consumption, housing starts, and exports all grew dramatically in the recovery which followed. In 1965 Japan was visited by what was called the worst recession in postwar history, but full-scale committment of U.S. ground forces to Vietnam began the same year, and both American military procurement and an expansion of general exports to the United States helped to restore vigor to the Japanese economy. The boom which followed was even more dramatic than earlier postwar economic surges, and lasted for five years without a break. Year after year economic growth topped ten percent, and this sustained period of tremendous economic expansion came to be called the “Izanagi Boom,” after the god credited by Japanese mythology with the creation of the islands of Japan. Yokohama regains its position as the king of foreign trade In 1949 the Occupation permitted, albeit conditionally, the revival of private-sector foreign trade in Japan. Initially, however, imports stood at only 21.7 percent of their prewar level, and exports at a scant 4.5 percent. Even in 1952, the year Japan regained its autonomy, imports were still at only 75 percent of the prewar level, and exports at 50 percent. Yokohama’s share of Japan’s total foreign trade dropped to eight percent immediately after the war, and it was not until the middle of the 1970s that it returned to 20 to 30 percent of the national total. This was because a large part of the port facilities had been requisitioned for use by the Occupation forces, and because the major trading companies had concentrated in Tokyo for convenience in dealing with the government’s Foreign Trade Board. At first, the most important export was raw silk, but in the United States, which was one of the principal markets for Japanese silk exports, the invention of nylon during the war had eaten considerably into the demand for silk, making exports surprisingly sluggish. It was already too late for the silk market to serve as the engine for the restoration of prosperity to the Yokohama trade. Raw silk, which had accounted for 50 percent of the exports moving through Yokohama in 1947 and 1948, dropped to 9.6 percent by 1955, and was replaced by steel as the leading export item at 12.5 percent. In this way, raw silk was replaced as the leading export item by the products of heavy industry, whose rapid growth had been spurred by the recovery and expansion of the Keihin industrial belt. By this time, many of the major factories in the area were located along the coastline, and had their own wharves, allowing them to unload imported raw materials and load export goods directly onto ships without having to pass through the port of Yokohama. The bustling port of Yokohama, around 1960. Yokohama, Kawasaki, and Yokosuka bays became the center for foreign trade in the prefecture, and by 1970 the volume of exports passing through Kanagawa had increased to ¥1,840,400 million, 12.2 times the figure for 1955, the year steel became the top export item, when exports had stood at ¥150.6 billion. Imports, in the meantime, had grown to ¥1,453 billion, seven times the 1955 figures of ¥264 billion. In this fashion, Yokohama gradually recovered its role as a major port. Around 1950, when trade was normalized, it ranked second to Kobe in both exports and imports, but afterwards it vied with Kobe for first place. By 1960 it ranked first in imports, and by 1970 had come to command first place in exports as well, restoring its position as Japan’s most important trade port. The miracle of Japan’s rebirth as an economic superpower The “Izanagi Boom” literally transformed Japan into one of the world’s economic superpowers. In 1965, Japan ranked fifth among the major capitalist countries after the United States, West Germany, Great Britain, and France in terms of GNP, but by 1968 it was second only to America. Moreover, since Japanese industry had recovered by continually introducing the latest technology, in every field its industrial plant and equipment stood at the highest international levels. As an industrial nation, its total production ranked third in the world after the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The products of heavy industry-steel, ships, automobiles, and metal goods-came to form the core of Japanese exports. During the “Izanagi Boom,” the expansion of personal income was reflected by consumer demand for what were called “the three Cs”-color televisions, air conditioners (“coolers”), and cars-all big-ticket consumer durables considerably more expensive than the “three sacred treasures” of the “Jimmu Boom” of a decade before. Japan grew to be second only to the United States in the production of automobiles, and the world leader in their export-primarily to the American and European markets. This rebirth of Japan as an economic power was seen by many in the world as nothing short of a miracle. This image of a reborn Japan was mirrored by Kanagawa Prefecture. In fact, Kanagawa’s Keihin industrial belt played a major role in the economic recovery and growth of the nation as a whole. Kanagawa developed into one of the most important industrial prefectures in Japan, and a major economic power in its own right, one of the pillars of Japan’s postwar economic miracle. Yet for Kanagawa, which from the ancient Jomon period down through medieval and modern times, had risen phoenix-like from the ashes of natural disasters, this was really not a miracle at all. Kanagawa today According to Kanagawa 80, a 1980 report on the state of the prefecture, Kanagawa ranked 43rd among all of Japan’s prefectures in total land area with 239,708 hectares, or 0.63 percent of Japan’s total land area. Of this, 40 percent is still forest land. All of Kanagawa’s 19 cities and 17 townships have been designated as urban planning areas. Their combined area-1,983 square kilometers-corresponds to 83 percent of the total land area of the Fujisawa City in 1982. prefecture. Of this, urbanized areas account for 90,788 hectares, while land under cultivation accounts for 26,632 hectares. Kanagawa’s population of 6,924,258 ranked third in the nation after Tokyo and Osaka. Population density also ranked third, with an average of 2,889 persons per square kilometer. Moreover, the urban areas of Yokohama and Kawasaki contained 55.1 percent of the prefecture’s total population. As recently as 1955, the population of the prefecture was only 2,919,497. This means that Kanagawa’s population more than doubled in 25 years. This increase was largely caused by influx of population from the Tokyo area and other prefectures, particularly in the era of high economic growth, when increased employment opportunities in Kanagawa drawing new workers into the prefecture sometimes accounted for more than 75 percent of population growth. In 1980, the number of persons employed in Kanagawa reached 2,533,000. Of these, 678,777 were employed in Kanagawa’s 23,444 factories, and the value of goods they produced amounted to some ¥16,972.3 billion. Per capita income for residents of the prefecture was ¥1,798,017, nearly three times the per capita income of a decade earlier, in 1970, when it had stood at ¥673,630. Automobile ownership has gone from 810,000 vehicles in 1970 to 1,6 10,000 in 1980, and is still rising. Revenues taken in by the prefectural government amounted to more than ¥772,693 million in 1980. All of this certainly presents the picture of Kanagawa as an economic superpower among Japan’s prefectures. However, this economic prosperity, and particularly Kanagawa’s development into an industrial prefecture, also has its serious negative aspects-largely born of ignoring the human environment and placing too much faith in the almighty power of the economy. Kanagawa faces such problems as the destruction of the environment in the process of urbanization, a decline in the quality of urban life due to overcrowding, the release of potentially life-threatening wastes and pollutant gases from the prefecture’s factories, and the destruction of both natural beauty and historical and cultural sites by the construction of new housing and highways. In addition, Kanagawa faces a unique problem because of the presence of a large number of American military bases in the prefecture and the various nuisances they cause to surrounding residents. In opposition to these negative aspects of contemporary life, a number of citizens’ movements have arisen in many parts of the prefecture, and continue their activities today. As early as 19 64, before any other prefecture, Kanagawa responded to the concerns of these citizens’ movements by establishing an Ordinance for the Prevention of Pollution. This prefectural law, the first of its kind in Japan, established standards for eight types of pollution-noise, vibration, sewage, effluents, smoke and soot, dust, gases, and noxious odors-and set up a board of review to administer and enforce them. Yokohama also launched a campaign to improve the living environment of the city, and created a pollution department within the City Board of Health. In addition, the innovative step of concluding contracts for the prevention of pollution with new factories locating in the area was adopted, giving priority to the preservation of the health of the area’s residents. In the 1970 session of the prefectural assembly, A newly landscaped factory in Kawasaki. debate centered on antipollution legislation, and the session was dubbed the “antipollution assembly.” Kanagawa’s future lies in rising phoenix-like out of these problems of contemporary life and restoring the humanity and the natural environment lost in the earlier overemphasis on economic development at the expense of such precious values. Postscript Various Japanese prefectures, cities, towns and villages are in the process of compiling detailed and voluminous histories. In 1967, the authors and the editorial staff began compiling a history of Kanagawa, a work of some 40,000 pages which took seventeen years to complete. The History of Kanagawa Prefecture is a translated summary of this work. To facilitate understanding of the prefecture, as many illustrations and photographs as space would permit have been used. The cover of this volume was designed to represent Japanese culture. The material is silk pongee, which has been widely used in Japan since ancient times and is woven by hand even today. The color selected, purple, was favored by the nobles of old, particularly for ceremonial robes. The dyestuff was obtained from the root of the gromwell (Lithospermum erythrorhizon). The plant was found in the ancient provinces of Sagami and Musashi, which comprise the present-day prefecture. It is hoped that this volume will give the reader a measure of familiarity with Japan and Kanagawa Prefecture, thereby contributing to true international understanding.