was the seventh 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 69 ...

highway connecting Edo with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, 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, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

during the

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 characte ...

. It was located in the present-day city of

Kōnosu is a city located in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 117,995 in 50,801 households and a population density of 1700 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Located in east-central Saitama ...

, Saitama Prefecture, Japan.

History

The original Kōnosu-shuku was located in what is now the city of Kitamoto; however, when the system of post stations on the Nakasendō 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 1602, the post station relocated to the north to its current location. The new location was approximately 18 ''ri'', 8- ''chō'' from the starting point of the

at Nihonbashi, or approximately 48 kilometers. It was 16.4 kilometers from

Kumagai-shuku was the eighth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto during the Edo period. It was located in the present-day city of Kuamagaya, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. History Kumagai-shuku began as a temple-to ...

and 7.2 kilometers from the following Okegawa-juku. Due to the distance between Kōnosu-shuku and Kumagai-shuku, an '' ai no shuku'',

Fukiage-shuku was a mid-station along the Nakasendō in Edo period Japan. It was in between the post stations of Kōnosu-juku and Kumagai-juku. It is located in the present-day town of Kōnosu, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. In addition to being a rest stop al ...

was located in-between. The reason for the move is unclear today, but in its new location the Nakasendō was not the only road running through Kōnosu-shuku. It also had roads connecting to Matsuyama (present-day Higashimatsuyama), Nin (present-day

Gyōda is a city located in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 80,236 in 40,482 households and a population density of 1200 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Gyōda is located in north-centr ...

), and Kisaichi (present-day Kisai). Most of the post station burned down in a fire in 1767, but was soon rebuilt. Monument to the location of the honjin of Kōnosu-shuku Per an 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town stretched for about 1.9 kilometers along the highway, with a population of 2274 in 556 houses, and boasted one '' honjin'', one ''waki-honjin,'' one ''tonya'' and 58 '' hatago''. At the entrance to the post station is Shōgan-ji, a large temple in the Jōdoshū sect.Kōnosu-shi Kankō Mapppu
. Kōnosu Tourist Association. Accessed August 27, 2007. T

Kōnosu-shuku in ''The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō''

Keisai Eisen Keisai Eisen (渓斎英泉, 1790–1848) was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist who specialised in ''bijin-ga'' (pictures of beautiful women). His best works, including his ''ōkubi-e'' ("large head pictures"), are considered to be masterpieces of th ...

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 of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk t ...

print of Kōnosu-shuku dates from 1835–1838. The print does now actually show the post station at all, but a landscape with a zig-zag road presumably between Kōnosu and Kumagaya, dominated by a large snow-capped Mount Fuji in the background. In the foreground is a "

komusō The (also romanized or ) were a group of Japanese mendicant monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism who flourished during the Edo period (1603–1867). were characterized by a straw basket (a sedge or reed hood known as a ) worn on the ...

" mendicant monk with a distinctive straw hat, and a porter heading in the opposite direction with a "

kiseru A is a Japanese smoking pipe, traditionally used for smoking ''kizami'', a finely shredded tobacco product resembling hair. History The word ''kiseru'' is said to have originated from the Cambodian word ''khsier'' around the 16th century, whil ...

" Japanese smoking pipe. Four other travelers are on the road, hearing in the direction of

Mount Haruna is a dormant stratovolcano in Gunma, eastern Honshū, Japan. Outline Mount Haruna started to form more than 300,000 years ago and the last known eruption was 550 AD. The volcano has a summit caldera containing the symmetrical cinder cone of ...

and

Mount Akagi is a mountain in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. The broad, low dominantly andesitic stratovolcano rises above the northern end of the Kanto Plain. It contains an elliptical, 3 x 4 km summit caldera with post-caldera lava domes arranged along ...

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

Okegawa-shuku was the sixth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto during the Edo period. It was located in the present-day city of Okegawa, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. History The name "Okegawa" appears as the name of ...

- Kōnosu-shuku – (

) -

References

External links

Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido serieson Kiso Kaido Road

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Konosu-Shuku Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō in Saitama Prefecture Musashi Province