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Summary
Travel is an act for human beings to visit new places and experience different cultures and histories. Through travel, people can actually feel historical events and people’s lives by visiting historical places and cultural heritage sites, and can gain a deeper understanding of history and broaden their own perspectives. In this section, we will discuss the historical background of the trip and the places visited based on Ryotaro Shiba’s “Kaido yuku” (On the Road) about this journey and history.
Kaido wo Yori Vol. 24 Omi Stroll
In the previous article, I wrote about my walk in Nara. This time, we will take a walk in Omi, the last part of our Kaido Yuku journey. Ryotaro Shiba talks about the appearance of Omi’s private houses and the spiritual soil and climate of Omi’s “Kadokoro,” and mentions that he once visited the birthplace of the writer Shigeru Tonomura in Kondo, Kanzaki-gun, and shows his interest in Omi merchants.
He then stopped by the Fuwaseki Museum in Sekigahara, before turning back to Omi and heading for the village of Neyamonogatari. At Kashiwabarajuku on the Nakasendo Road, he stopped at Kameya Sakyoya, a mogusa shop, and examined the business practices of the Omi people. Seeing Hikone Castle, we think about Ii Naokatsu and Naotaka, who built the castle, and their son, and about Kinami, a member of the Domei Shu.
The next day, at the Anegawa ancient battlefield, he contemplated the battle between Asai and Asakura and Oda and Tokugawa, and in the village of Kunitomo Kaji, he thought about the introduction of guns and their relationship with Nobunaga. Climb to the top of Azuchi Castle Ruins for a view of Lake Biwa. While taking a tour of the water moat in Konoe Hachiman City, the trip ends with a prayer for the continuation of life in Lake Biwa.
The Kaido Yuku series began with a trip to Omi as described in “Kaido Yuku: Kosai Roads, History, and the Ironman Race. While those trips mainly followed the western side of Lake Biwa, this trip is a tour of the eastern side.
Shosha have their own unique business style in the world. Chubei Itoh, the founder of Itochu Corporation, which has the smallest number of employees among the five major trading companies (Itochu, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, and Marubeni), is a native of Omi and a member of the Omi merchants, a group of merchants who have been in business since the Middle Ages.
The Omi merchants are a general term for merchants who established their main house (head office or main family) in Omi Province (present-day Shiga Prefecture) and peddled their wares to other countries, and are one of the three major merchant groups in Japan along with the Osaka merchants and Ise merchants. As the name “Omi no Senryo Tenbin” (Omi’s Thousand-Ryou Tenbin) implies, they built a fortune from a single balance stick and expanded their business to the three capitals (Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto) and other parts of the country, becoming known as “wealthy merchants.
Sanpo-yoshi” is widely known as one of the management philosophies of the Omi merchants. Sanpo-yoshi,” which means “good for the seller, good for the buyer, and good for the world,” is based on the idea that “in business, it is only natural that the seller and buyer are satisfied, and a good business can only be considered good if it contributes to society,” and is said to be rooted in the philosophy of the Omi Monks (Jodo Shinshu).
Jodo Shinshu, one of the streams of Jodo Shu as described in “Kuya, Honen, Shinran, Ippen: The Genealogy of Jodo Thought” is a religion that assumes absolute altruism, that everything is possible thanks to Amida Nyorai, and the concept of “ogoin (thanks)” is established there. Therefore, they say things like, “I was allowed to take the subway to Toranomon. Although the person did not ride the subway with the other person’s money, but with his or her own feet and money, such expressions as “I received it” are widely used.
Similar phrases are still used today as follows. The same kind of phrases are still used today: “Then I will go home,” “I will come back tomorrow,” “That is why I have taken the examination at your company. Yes, thanks to you, I am living well.
Experts say that these expressions are polite, but they are not honorific expressions that express humility toward the other party.
Matsuo Basho is often mentioned in Kaido Yuku: Akita Stroll, Matsuo Basho, Masumi Sugae, and Ningyo Dosojin, and Oi no Koubun to Kaido Yuku: Akashi-Kaikyo/Awaji Michi, among others. Some say that Matsuo Basho was from Iga, mentioned in “Kaido yuku Koga to Iga no Shigaraki no Michi“, and that the reason he drifted around the country writing haiku was because he was really a shinobi. It is also believed that Basho’s many haiku written in Omi are due to such origins. One of them is a haiku from “Sarumino” (“Sarumino”), “Gyoharu wo Omi no hito to oshikimakeru” (“Oshikimakeru” in Japanese).
In the “Kikugoro” section of the poem, the author says that if the departing spring is not spared with the people of Omi, the expansiveness of the landscape on the other side of the verse and the prodigal mood of late spring will not be expressed. This means that the spring scenery, where the lake water evaporates frequently and a spring haze forms, the fields to the east of the lake spread out far and wide with rape blossoms and other colors, and the mountains in the three directions are all shrouded in a distant haze that does not obstruct one’s view, is delicate and soft, like the human nature of Omi, where the spring spirit is so thick that it becomes a person. The scenery of spring is gentle but soft, like the human nature of Omi, where the spirit of spring has been elaborated to become human.
The group then headed for Sekigahara, passing Chokyu-ji Temple (home of bedtime stories) and Taga Shrine on the border of Gifu Prefecture (Mino Province, as described in “Kaido yuku: Nobori-Sansu Ki“) and Shiga Prefecture (Omi Province). Sekigahara is the site of Fuwa-no-seki, one of the three ancient Yamato Era seals, as described in, “The Northern Highway, Its Side Routes, and the Mysteries of Ancient Japan” and the site of the Battle of Sekigahara, where Ieyasu Tokugawa took over the country.
He then stopped at a moxa shop, Kameya Sakyo-ya, in Kashiwabara-juku, Nakasendo, and examined the business practices of the Omi people. Moxa is made by extracting the cotton wool from the underside of a mugwort leaf by repeating the process of cutting and drying the mugwort, grinding it with a mortar, and removing the leaves and stems.
Only 1/200 of dried mugwort can be obtained, and the essential oil component contained in mugwort makes it a good fire starter, less hot and long-lasting, and used for moxibustion.
Physiologically, moxibustion (kyu, yaito) is thought to cure diseases by changing the physiological state of the body through the application of warmth and heat stimulation to specific areas called acupuncture points. Acupuncture, which uses the same acupuncture points, has been used for acute painful lesions, while moxibustion is the treatment of choice for chronic diseases. In the past, moxa was twisted and placed directly on the skin, but nowadays, various types of moxa products (such as “Sen-nen Kyu” and Pole Moxa) are being used more and more.
Kameya Sakyo-ya is a moxa store established in 1661 (early Edo period), and is also the store depicted by Utagawa Hiroshige in his print painting “Kiso Kai Kaido Rokyokuji no Nai Kashiwabara. In the painting, a Fukusuke doll (far right) is depicted wearing a kamishimo costume, holding a fan in his hand, with a big head and large earlobes, looking over travelers on the road, and is said to be the birthplace of the Fukusuke doll store.
Today, the old shopfronts still remain.
In “On the Road,” we learn that Shichibei Matsuura of Kameya Sakyo-ya, who was doing business in Edo, went to Yoshiwara when he had accumulated profits, fried geisha, bought a married woman, spent all his money, became a reputable brothel owner, and when it was time to leave, he called many geisha and asked them to sing “Kameya Sakyo no Kirimogusa at the foot of Mount Ibuki in Kashiwara, Eshu,” when they went to a banquet. This simple commercial song led to a significant increase in sales.
After that, we will see Hikone Castle, which was built by the Ii family, the feudal lords famous for a major incident at the end of the Edo period, the Sakuradamon-oue Incident (when Ii Naosuke, the reformist Grand Elder at the time, was attacked and killed by the Mito and Satsuma clansmen as he was leaving Sakuradamon after finishing his duty at the Edo Castle).
The Ii family is said to have excelled in valor since the time of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and their armor was also dyed vermilion, hence the name “red devil”.
As with Yukimura Sanada’s akazonaie (red armor) as described in “Koya-san Michi (Yukimura Sanada and Kukai)“, it seems that strong warlords of the time favored the color red to stand out.
The next day, at the Anegawa ancient battlefield, I contemplate the battle between Asai/Asakura and Oda/Tokugawa, and in the village of Kunitomo Kaji, I think about the introduction of guns and their relationship with Nobunaga.” As described in “On the Road to Tanegashima, Yakushima, and the Amami Islands” guns were introduced to Japan from Tanegashima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, and were given to Shimazu, who in turn gave them to the shogun in Kyoto. Ryotaro Shiba describes a dramatic episode of transmission and imitation: it took about a year for a gun to arrive at the village of Kunitomo in Kyogoku’s territory, and six months to determine its mechanism and complete its replication.
Furthermore, Chinese and Nanban guns were made of cast iron, which was excellent for mass production but had a risk of cracking, while Japanese guns were made of wrought iron, which was made by pasting several thin steel plates on top of each other and burning or hammering them. As a result, the barrel was strong and could be shot stably over and over again. In addition, the invention of a screw called a tailstop was apparently one of the breakthroughs, since screws did not exist in Japan at that time and their mechanisms were not well understood.
We then climbed to the summit of Azuchi Castle Ruins for a view of Lake Biwa. Azuchi Castle was built by Oda Nobunaga and burned down upon his death. It had a large castle tower, six stories above ground and one below, and the height of the main tower was about 32 meters. It is estimated to have been a gorgeous castle with an original design that had never been seen in castles before.
This castle is said to have been built not only because it was the first castle with a castle tower structure in Japan, but also because it was the culmination of the best of Japanese technology and art of the time.
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