was the fifty-third of the was the fifty-eighth of the sixty-nine stations of the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan. There were 6 ...

connecting

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

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 is located in former

Mino Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today southern Gifu Prefecture. Mino was bordered by Ōmi to the west, Echizen and Hida to the north, and Shinano to the east, and Ise, Mikawa, and Owari to the south. Its abbreviat ...

in what is now part of the city of

Gifu is a city located in the south-central portion of Gifu Prefecture, Japan, and serves as the prefectural capital. The city has played an important role in Japan's history because of its location in the middle of the country. During the Sengoku ...

Gifu Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,991,390 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture to the northwest, F ...

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 ...

.Nakasendo to Shukuba-machi
. Gifu City Hall. Accessed September 9, 2007.
/ref>

History

Kanō-juku is located just south of JR Gifu Station in

, and was a

castle town A castle town is a settlement built adjacent to or surrounding a castle. Castle towns were common in Medieval Europe. Some examples include small towns like Alnwick and Arundel, which are still dominated by their castles. In Western Europe, ...

for

Kanō Castle Kanō Tenman-gū was a ''hirajirō''-style Japanese castle located in the city of Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. It was one of the few castles built after the Battle of Sekigahara and establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate and was used as an adm ...

. The first construction of Kanō Castle began in 1445 by

Saitō Toshinaga was a ''daimyō'' during Japan's Muromachi period. He was the son of Saitō Sōen (斎藤宗円), ''shugo'' of Mino Province, and the older brother of Saitō Myōchin, making him the uncle of the warlord Saitō Dōsan. By his first wife, he was t ...

, who was a vassal of the

Toki clan The is a Japanese kin group. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Toki," ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 61 retrieved 2013-5-9. History The Toki claim descent from Minamot ...

; however, this castle was abandoned by 1538. Following the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu prefecture, Japan, at the end of ...

, the victorious

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

awarded

Gifu Castle is a Japanese castle located in the city of Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Along with Mount Kinka and the Nagara River, it is one of the main symbols of the city. The castle is also known as . It was designated a National Historic Site in 2011 ...

to his son-in-law,

Okudaira Nobumasa called Okudaira Sadamasa (奥平貞昌), was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku and early Edo periods. Nobumasa's family considered their origins to have been associated with Mikawa Province. The clan was descended through the Akamatsu f ...

. However, due to its poor state of repair, Nobumasa decided to abolish Gifu Castle and to relocate to a new castle built on the site of the old Kanō Castle. This new structure was completed in 1603 in record time, as Ieyasu had ordered various ''

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 contribute materials, labor and money for its construction, and the largest three-story ''yagura'' was transferred from Gifu Castle to be its ''

tenshu is an architectural typology found in Japanese castle complexes. They are easily identifiable as the highest tower within the castle. Common translations of ''tenshu'' include keep, main keep, or ''donjon''. ''Tenshu'' are characterized as ty ...

''.''Gifu City Walking Map''. Gifu Lively City Public Corporation, 2007. The design of the castle was also kept simple, with a minimal number of towers, as the castle was being constructed as a center of local administration in peacetime. Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 2728 people in 805 houses, including one ''

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 ...

'', one ''waki-honjin,'' and 35 ''

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 ...

''. It extended for approximately along the highway, ''Gifu City Walking Map''. Gifu Lively City Public Corporation, 2007. making it the largest post town in

. The town was noted for its production of ''

washi is traditional Japanese paper. The term is used to describe paper that uses local fiber, processed by hand and made in the traditional manner. ''Washi'' is made using fibers from the inner bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub (''Ed ...

'' (Japanese paper). It is located 412.8 kilometers from Edo. During the

Bakumatsu period was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji govern ...

, Princess Kazu-no-miya stayed at the ''honjin'' in Kanō-juku in 1861 en route to marry

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. ...

in Edo. The

1891 Mino–Owari earthquake The struck the Japanese provinces of Mino and Owari (present-day Gifu Prefecture) in the Nōbi Plain in the early morning of October 28 with a surface wave magnitude of 8.0 and moment magnitude of 7.5. The event, also referred to as the , the ...

and the 1945

Bombing of Gifu in World War II The on July 9, 1945 was part of the strategic bombing campaign waged by the United States of America against military and civilian targets and population centers during the Japan home islands campaign in the closing stages of World War II. Backgr ...

destroyed all of the old buildings at Kanō-juku, with the exception of some structures of the

Kanō Tenman-gū is a Shinto shrine located in the city of Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. It was built as the shrine to protect Izumii Castle (predecessor to Kanō Castle). As a Tenman-gū, it is dedicated to Tenjin, the deified form of Sugawara no Michizane. Add ...

, which had originally been built to serve as a place of worship for the castle's residents .

Kanō-juku in ''The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō''

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 ...

'' print of Kanō-juku dates from 1835 -1838. The print depicts a ''

'' procession on '' sankin kōtai'' departing Kanō Castle at dawn. The ''

'' of Kanō Castle had burned down in 1728 and was never rebuilt, and Hiroshige depicts the castle accurately with low stone walls and a corner ''yagura'' watchtower. The road is lined with pine trees, and the ''

kago A is a type of litter used as a means of human transportation by the non-samurai class in feudal Japan and into the Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was ...

'' containing the ''daimyō'' himself can just be seen at the far right side of the composition.

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

Unuma-juku was the fifty-second of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It is located in former Mino Province in what is now part of the city of Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture, Japan.Gōdo-juku was the fifty-fourth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It is located in former Mino Province in what is now part of the city of Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. ''Gifu City Walking Map''. Gi ...

Shinkanō-juku was a mid-station along the Nakasendō in Edo period Japan. It was in between the post stations of Unuma-juku and Kanō-juku. It is located in the present-day town of Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Neighboring post towns ;Nakasendō :Unum ...

was an ''

ai no shuku {{nihongo, Ai no Shuku, 間の宿, mid-station were unofficial post stations along historical routes in Japan. These post stations formed organically along routes (such as the Tōkaidō and the Nakasendō) when the distance between two places w ...

'' located between Unuma-juku and Kanō-juku.)

References

* * * *

External links

Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido seriesKano-juku on Kiso Kaido RoadGifu Nakasendo Guide

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kano-Juku Gifu Stations of the Nakasendō Post stations in Gifu Prefecture Mino Province