260px, Uno house museum in Moriyama-juku was the sixty-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 6 ...

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 Moriyama,

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

Moriyama-juku was one of the original staging points on the ancient

Tōsandō is a Japanese geographical term. It means both an ancient division of the country and the main road running through it. It is part of the ''Gokishichidō'' system. It was situated along the central mountains of northern Honshu, specifically th ...

highway connecting the capital of

Heian-kyō Heian-kyō was one of several former names for the city now known as Kyoto. It was the official capital of Japan for over one thousand years, from 794 to 1868 with an interruption in 1180. Emperor Kanmu established it as the capital in 794, mov ...

with the provinces of eastern Japan from the end of the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the cap ...

onwards. Its name means "protecting mountain", and refers to

Mount Hiei is a mountain to the northeast of Kyoto, lying on the border between the Kyoto and Shiga Prefectures, Japan. The temple of Enryaku-ji, the first outpost of the Japanese Tendai (Chin. Tiantai) sect of Buddhism, was founded atop Mount Hiei by S ...

which contains the temple of

Enryaku-ji is a Tendai monastery located on Mount Hiei in Ōtsu, overlooking Kyoto. It was first founded in 788 during the early Heian period (794–1185) by Saichō was a Japanese Buddhist monk credited with founding the Tendai school of Buddhism bas ...

, the head temple of the

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...

sect.Moriyama-juku
. Edo Rekishi Kairou Suishinkyou Gikai. Accessed July 20, 2007. At its height, Enryaku-ji was a huge complex with over 3,000 temples and a strong army of warrior-monks. Its head abbot was usually an Imperial prince, and the temple was a powerful political force, often intervening in the politics of the court. The temple was largely destroyed by

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 ...

in 1580, but was gradually rebuilt under

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 ...

and 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 the early

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

in 1602. Moriyama-juku was a popular stopping point for pilgrims on their way to the temple from the east. It was also 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 the Kishū Tokugawa clan and other 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. Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 1700 in 415 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 ...

'', one ''waki-honjin,'' and 30 ''

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 ...

''. Moriyama-juku is 502 kilometers from Edo and was often the first stop on the route for travelers departing Kyoto. Many travelers preferred Moriyama-juku over

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 ...

, which tended to be much more crowded as it was on a juncture of the Nakasendō with the Tōkaidō. Between Moriyama-juku and neighboring

Musa-juku A marker giving the distance to Musa-juku was the sixty-sixth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Ōmihachiman, Shiga Prefecture, Japan ...

was the starting point for a branch route which ran close to the shore of Lake Biwa, bypassing the next three stations of the Nakasendō to rejoin the main route at

Toriimoto-juku 280px, Arikawa Akadama Jinkyokan in Toriimoto-juku (ICP) was the sixty-third of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in the present-day city of Hikone, Shiga Prefecture ...

. It was so-named because it was the designated route for use by Korean envoys during the

Joseon missions to Japan Joseon missions to Japan represent a crucial aspect of the international relations of mutual Joseon-Japanese contacts and communication. In sum, these serial diplomatic ventures illustrate the persistence of Joseon's '' kyorin'' (neighborly rela ...

. 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 Moriyama-juku on her way 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.

Modern Moriyama-juku

Moriyama-juku forms the "old town" of modern Moriyama city, and still retains several old buildings; however the ''honjin'' was demolished in 2004. One of the surviving buildings is the Uno house, formerly a ''

sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...

'' brewery operating from the end of the Edo period to the beginning of the Meiji era. It is also the house where former

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Sosuke Uno was born and raised.

Moriyama-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 Moriyama-juku dates from 1835 -1838. The print depicts a placid scene in the post station with several open-fronted buildings facing the Yasugawa River. Mount Mikami is shown in the background, as the setting in spring, with many

sakura A cherry blossom, also known as Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of many trees of Prunus, genus ''Prunus'' or Prunus subg. Cerasus, ''Prunus'' subg. ''Cerasus''. They are common species in East Asia, including China, Korea and especia ...

trees in full bloom. Each building has a different style of roof. On the right, a waitress tries to entice travelers into a tea house, but a peddler, man on a packhorse, and porters with a

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 ...

(palanquin) pass by. The middle tea house appears marginally more successful, as one person is seated on the verandah.

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

- Moriyama-juku -

References

* * * *

External links

Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido seriesMoriyama on Kiso Kaido RoadShiga-Biwako Visitors Guide

Notes

{{Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō in Shiga Prefecture Ōmi Province Moriyama, Shiga