The is the former government office of the Shiwaku Islands in the

Seto Inland Sea The , sometimes shortened to the Inland Sea, is the body of water separating Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, three of the four main islands of Japan. It serves as a waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan. It connects to Osaka ...

under 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 ...

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 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 ...

. It is located in the city of Marugame, Kagawa on the island of Honjima, and is now a museum exhibiting the history of the Shiwaku navy. The site has been designated by the central government as a National Historic Site since 1970.

Overview

During the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

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 ...

granted red seals to 650 sailors from the Shiwaku Islands who had assisted his

invasion of Korea An invasion is a Offensive (military), military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitics, geopolitical Legal entity, entity aggressively enter territory (country subdivision), territory owned by another such entity, gen ...

. These sailors were called "ninmyo" and were given the privilege of self-government, without belonging to any ''

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 ...

''. Administration of the Shiwaku Islands was conducted by four headmen selected from the 650 red seal holders, who used their homes as government offices and took turns managing government affairs. After the establishment of the

, the islands became '' tenryō'' territory under the direct control of the shogunate, but preserved their privilege of self-government until the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

of 1868. The Shiwaku Kinbansho was constructed in 1798. The site is about 42 meters square and is surrounded by a moat and earthen walls on three sides. The south-facing ''nagaya-mon'' gate has a guard room, the main building has a ''irimoya-zukuri''-style gabled roof, the office is in the back, and a warehouse is built in the northwestern courtyard. The museum contains letters of authorization signed 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 ...

, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and

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 ...

, documents recording disputes between the islands and

Takamatsu Domain 270px, Matsudaira Yoritoshi. pre-1903 270px, Takamatsu Castle Tsukimi Yagura was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, in what is now Kagawa Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. It was centered around Takamatsu Ca ...

and artifacts brought back from the United States, as many of the sailors on the ''

Kanrin-maru ''Kanrin Maru'' was Japan's first sail and screw-driven steam corvette (the first steam-driven Japanese warship, ''Kankō Maru'', was a side-wheeler). She was ordered in 1853 from the Netherlands, the only Western country with which Japan had ...

'' were natives of the Shiwaku Islands. The site is located about ten minutes on foot from Honjima Port.

References

External links

Kagawa Tourism official site

{{in lang, ja Marugame, Kagawa Edo-period buildings and structures History of Kagawa Prefecture Sanuki Province Historic Sites of Japan Buildings and structures in Kagawa Prefecture 1798 establishments in Japan Museums in Kagawa Prefecture

Overview

See also

References

External links