260px, Reconstructed building based on Hiroshige's print was the fifty-first of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō highway connecting Edo with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Konan,

Shiga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the nort ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

History

Ishibe-juku was originally formed in 1571, when

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...

formed the town of Ishibe (石部町 ''Ishibe-machi'') by joining the five nearby hamlets. In 1597,

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

further developed the post station to be used for the shipment of goods by travelers on their way to

Zenkō-ji is a Buddhist temple located in the city of Nagano, Japan. The temple was built in the 7th century. The modern city of Nagano began as a town built around the temple. Historically, Zenkō-ji is perhaps most famous for its involvement in the b ...

Shinano Province or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered on Echigo, Etchū, Hida, Kai, Kōzuke, Mikawa, Mino, Musashi, Suruga, and Tōtōmi Provinces. The ancient capital was located near modern-day Matsumoto, whi ...

. In the early

, the system of post stations on the Tōkaidō was formalized by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

in 1601, Ishibe-juku became an official post station. It was on the ''

sankin-kōtai ''Sankin-kōtai'' ( ja, 参覲交代/参覲交替, now commonly written as ja, 参勤交代/参勤交替, lit=alternate attendance, label=none) was a policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during most of the Edo period of Japanese history.Jansen, M ...

'' route by many western ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' to-and-from the Shogun's court in Edo. Ishibe-juku was a popular as the first night's stop for travelers en route from Kyoto to Edo. It is 457.5 kilometers from Edo and 38 kilometers from Kyoto. Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 929 in 458 houses, including two ''

honjin The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku.">Ōhara-shuku.html" ;"title="Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku">Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') dur ...

'' (the Kojima Honjin and the Sandaiji Honjin), and 32 ''

hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at '' shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes The , sometimes translated as "Five Highways", were the five centrally administered routes, or ''kaidō'', that ...

'', and extended for 1.6 kilometers along the highway. It had one ''Tonyaba'', for the stabling of packhorses and warehousing of goods, and one ''

kōsatsu The Kōsatsu (, literally "High plaque"), also called Seisatu (, literally "Controlling plaque"), was the public notice of the Han system, han-lord's or shogun's proclamations in the Japanese history. They were the local or nationwide laws written ...

'' for the display of official notifications. In 1864,

Shogun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

Tokugawa Iemochi (July 17, 1846 – August 29, 1866) was the 14th ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, who held office from 1858 to 1866. During his reign there was much internal turmoil as a result of the "re-opening" of Japan to western nations. ...

, stayed at Ishibe-juku, though his visit was preceded in 1863 by

Tokugawa Yoshinobu Prince was the 15th and last ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He was part of a movement which aimed to reform the aging shogunate, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He resigned of his position as shogun in late 1867, while aiming ...

, who later became the fifteenth and final ''shōgun'' of Japan. Both stayed at the Kojima-honjin.

Modern Ishiba-juku

Modern Ishibe-juku is poorly-preserved, as most of its buildings have been lost to modern redevelopment. The is an open-air museum with a number of preserved and reconstructed farmhouses, tea houses and shops. It is connected with the operated by Konan City. Both facilities are located a couple of kilometers from the site of the original Ishiba-juku.

Ishibe-juku in ''The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō''

Utagawa Hiroshige Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...

's ''

ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...

'' ''Hōeidō'' edition print of Ishibe-juku dates from 1833 -1834. The print does not actually show the post station at all, but instead shows a tea house called "Ise-ya", located at "Megawa no Sato", which was on the highway between

Kusatsu-juku 260px, Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō'' series">The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō">Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō'' series was the fifty-second of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō as well as the sixty-eight ...

and Ishiba-juku, but actually closer to Kusatsu-juku. This shop was famous for its ''

tokoroten is a dish in Japanese cuisine made from agarophytes. Tokoroten has been eaten by the Japanese for over a thousand years. Tokoroten is thought to have been introduced to Japan from China during the Nara period. Tokoroten was traditionally made by b ...

'', a gelatinous sweet made from

agar Agar ( or ), or agar-agar, is a jelly-like substance consisting of polysaccharides obtained from the cell walls of some species of red algae, primarily from ogonori (''Gracilaria'') and "tengusa" (''Gelidiaceae''). As found in nature, agar is ...

, and ''kuromitsu'', a black sugar syrup. A group of travelers are dancing and cavorting in front of the shop while three women with traveling hats and walking sticks look on in amusement. A couple of other travelers, heavily laden, are some distance further down the road.

Neighboring post towns

; Tōkaidō :

Minakuchi-juku 260px, Modern Minakuchi-juku 260px, Minakuchi-juku in 1923 was the fiftieth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the Minakuchi neighborhood of the present-day ...

– Ishibe-juku –

References

* * *

External links

THE WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE The Great TōkaidōShiga-Biwako Visitors Guide

Shiga Association of Museums
{{Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō in Shiga Prefecture Ōmi Province Konan, Shiga