The Wonder That Was (and is) Tokyo!

TOKYO – Japan has more cities with populations of 500,000 and above than any other country in the world except for the United States. This remarkable fact was (or is) a direct result of the early proliferation of shrines and temples in Japan, and the construction of a large number of castles by provincial fief lords in the 16th and 17th centuries.

From the beginning of urban life in Japan virtually every township, village and community had its Shinto shrine. Many of these shrines, such as the one at Ise, were large, elaborate complexes that attracted worshippers from afar.

Following the introduction of Buddhism into Japan in the 6th century A.D., Buddhist monks traveled to the far reaches of the islands, building temples in places that were especially scenic—from seacoasts to mountain sites. Many of these Buddhist temples were larger and more elaborate than the numerous Shinto shrines.

Throughout Japan’s early history territorial warlords and fief rulers built and maintained military forts and castle-like structures, but true castles did not appear until latter part of the 1500s, which was marked by an amazing flurry of castle-building on a scale never before seen in any country.

The larger and more famous of these shrines, temples and castles required large numbers of people to maintain them and to provide services to visitors, resulting in the formation of villages that became towns and towns that became cities.

The most extraordinary example of this village-to-city phenomenon was that of Edo (present-day Tokyo).

Edo, which is variously translated as “River Gate” or “Bay Door,” entered Japanese history in the 12th century when a regional chieftain named Shigenaga Edo built a fort in the vicinity of a village that had long existed on the edge of Hibiya Cove, where the inhabitants used hibi (hee-bee) or bamboo structures, to farm edible sea plants.

At that time, the area consisted of marshes, valleys and rivers that emptied into the bay, and was divided by five low hills that later came to be known as Shinagawa, Azabu, Kojimachi, Hongo and Ueno.

In 1457 a man named Dokan Ota, a retainer of the regional warlord, built an elaborate (for the times) castle on the site of the original Edo fort, which set on a prominence overlooking Hibiya Cove. It quickly became the most famous castle in the Kanto region at that time, only to be abandoned in 1486 when Ota’s own overlord had him assassinated.

In 1590 the soon to be great Ieyasu Tokugawa established his military headquarters on the site of the old Edo Castle. In addition to continuing his battle to become the supreme military leader in Japan, Ieyasu had a new, larger and more elaborate castle constructed on the site. He also ordered his staff to begin working on a layout for the new city he envisioned.

Successful in his battles against competing warlords in 1603, Ieyasu moved quickly to make Edo the administrative capital of Japan, with Edo Castle as the headquarters of the new Tokugawa Shogunate.
The population of Edo grew with astounding speed. Ieyasu’s huge army of warriors was quickly joined by their families, along with dozens of thousands of trades people and carpenters who set about building a city.

But the building was not helter-skelter. The master plan for the new Shogunate capital was a spiral. An area adjoining the castle on the east and northeast was reserved exclusively for the residences and retainers of provincial lords who had supported Ieyasu in his early battles.

A large swath adjoining the castle grounds on the south and southwest was reserved for fief lords who had opposed him or had become his allies only in the last major battle. The area adjoining the castle grounds on the west and north was allocated to Ieyasu’s retainers and samurai warriors. The east and southeast portions of the spiral-shaped divisions were assigned to ordinary townspeople.

Within the area designated for ordinary people there were further subdivisions, with carpenters, stonemasons, furniture makers and other specialty groups living in their own areas. Not one to scant on security, Ieyasu had pockets of his own warriors placed strategically throughout the city.

Five great roads, radiating out like spokes from the inner moat surrounding Edo Castle, were constructed to accommodate traffic within and to the city. The building of the new city required dozens of thousands of workmen to cut and deliver trees and stones to the construction sites.

Hills were leveled or dramatically reduced in size and height to provide building sites and landfill to reclaim the swamp areas. It was a glorious time to be in Edo.

Ieyasu’s grandson, Iemitsu, who became Shogun in 1623, took another extraordinary step in 1635 that was to be the centerpiece of the Shogunate and life in Japan for the next 227 years. He mandated that the country’s 250-plus fief lords would move their wives and children to Edo, and themselves spend every other year there in attendance at the Shogun’s Court.

Each lord was required to build and maintain three mansions in Edo, and to keep them fully staffed the year around. This resulted in another great influx of people into the city. It also resulted in the lords competing with each other in the size and grandeur of their mansions and landscaped gardens. The grounds and gardens of the richer lords were immense.

By 1700, Edo had a population of 1.5 million, making it by far the largest city on earth (London, the next largest city, had only 800,000 residents). And for the next 160 years Edo was surely the world’s best ordered, cleanest, most colorful, and most sophisticated city.

Modern-day Tokyo has become a huge hodgepodge of villages and towns that grew together, but it still ranks as one of the world’s greatest cities, and few, if any, can match it in the quantity and diversity of its arts, crafts, entertainment, food, and vitality.

Dozens of Tokyo’s largest districts, included Asakusa, Ginza, Harajuku, Ikebukuro, Kanda, Roppongi, Shibuya and Shinjuku, are cities within themselves, each with its own distinct character and personality.

The names of hundreds of districts and areas in the city are linked with the fief lords who built their mansions there and the variety of craftsmen and shopkeepers who flocked around them, making every neighborhood a living lesson in history.

Copyright © 2007 by Boye Lafayette De Mente
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Boye Lafayette De Mente has been involved with Japan, Korea, China and Mexico since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on these countries, including the first books ever on the Japanese way of doing business: Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business , first published in 1959, and How to Do Business in Japan, published in 1961.

To see a complete list of his titles [each one linked to Amazon.com’s buy page], go to his personal website: http://www.phoenixbookspublishers.com/.