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 centrally administered Edo Five Routes, five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected the ''de facto'' ...

highway connecting

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

during the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. 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 P ...

Saitama Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (January 1, 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 Square kilometre, km2 ( ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

History

The original Kōnosu-shuku was located in what is now the city of Kitamoto; however, when the system of

post stations Graham Media Group (formerly Post-Newsweek Stations) is the television broadcasting subsidiary of Graham Holdings Company. It is now headquartered in Detroit, co-locating with its local NBC affiliate WDIV-TV, after spending 10 years in Chicago. ...

on the Nakasendō was formalized by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

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 and 7.2 kilometers from the following Okegawa-juku. Due to the distance between Kōnosu-shuku and Kumagai-shuku, an ''

ai no shuku 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 was too far or when there were difficult passes ...

'',

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 Japan is an island country in ...

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 is a Cities of Japan, city located in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 90,456 in 41,124 households and a population density of 1400 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Higashimatsuyama ...

), Nin (present-day

Gyōda is a Cities of Japan, 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 locate ...

), 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 image:Ohara-juku01s3200.jpg, The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') during the later part of the Edo period. Evolution of ''Honjin ...

'', one ''waki-honjin,'' one ''tonya'' and 58 ''

hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at ''shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes and the subroutes. In addition to a place to rest, ''hatago'' also offered meals and other foods to the travelers. ...

''. 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 ...

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

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 is an active stratovolcano located on the Japanese island of Honshu, with a summit elevation of . It is the highest mountain in Japan, the second-highest volcano on any Asian island (after Mount Kerinci on the Indonesian island of Sumatra), a ...

in the background. In the foreground is a "

komusō The ("priest of nothingness" or "monk of emptiness") were wandering non-monastic lay Buddhists from the warrior-class (samurai and rōnin) who were noted for wearing straw basket hats and playing the shakuhachi bamboo flute, nowadays called ' ...

mendicant A mendicant (from , "begging") is one who practices mendicancy, relying chiefly or exclusively on alms to survive. In principle, Mendicant orders, mendicant religious orders own little property, either individually or collectively, and in many i ...

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 Khmer word ''khsier'' around the 16th century, while it ...

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

Mount Haruna is a dormant stratovolcano in Gunma Prefecture, in the Kantō region of 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 contai ...

and

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

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō : Okegawa-shuku - Kōnosu-shuku – (

) - Kumagai-shuku

References

External links

Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido serieson Kiso Kaido Road
{{DEFAULTSORT:Konosu-Shuku Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō in Saitama Prefecture Musashi Province