The Ote-mon gateway to the Imperial Palace East Garden
To enter the castle grounds, one crosses the moat before the Ote-mon gateway, one of three such moats about the castle. These moats varied in size but were generally 230 feet (69 meters) wide and between 4 and 10 feet (1.2 to 3 meters) deep. On entering the Ote-mon Gate, the visitor is given a small token, which must be returned when leaving the compound by any of its gates. The construction of the original Ote-mon Gate was the responsibility of Date Masumune, the daimyo of Sendai, and it was in two parts: the first or smaller gate was known as the Koraimon (Korean Gate), while the larger of the two gates lay beyond a narrow courtyard. The inner Ote-mon gate was destroyed during the air raids of spring 1945, but it was rebuilt in 1967. The Ote-mon was a masugata gateway. That is, the outer and inner gateways formed a box. If an enemy were able to storm the outer Ote-mon, he then found himself in a walled, box-like courtyard with a second, larger gate-house before him. Here he was under attack from more than one side, since slits in the gatehouse permitted the raining of arrows on the attackers. The chances of survival for attackers were slim. The roof tiles of these gates as well as other buildings often were topped with images of the mythical dolphin, intended to protect the structure against fire.
Beyond the Ote-mon were the four maru strongholds (or fortresses or keeps). At the foot of the hill beyond the Ote-mon was the Nino-maru, the Second Keep, while above it was the Hon-maru, the Central Keep. The Sanno-maru, the Third Keep, and the Kita-nomaru, the North Keep, lay below the Ninomaru. In Tokugawa days, the Kanjosho, the main office of the shogun’s officers of administration and finance, was on the right just beyond the gate; the adjacent Otemachi and Marunouchi financial district of modern Tokyo echo this relationship from the castle past. Today the Sanno-maru Shozokan, the Museum of Imperial Collections, is on the right as one proceeds from the entry gateway. This modern, climate-controlled building of two large rooms is used as an exhibition hall for some of the 6,000 treasures of the Imperial Household, which were donated by the emperor in 1989. Thus a portion of the private artistic holdings of the imperial family, which are seldom otherwise available for public viewing, may be seen in this modern hall without charge. (Open the same days and times as the Imperial Palace East Garden. Admission is free.) The National Police Agency’s Martial Arts Hall is on the left, while farther along on the right is the Ote Rest House, where beverages, maps, and souvenirs are available for sale to visitors.
The Hon-maru, the innermost sector of the castle, sat on the higher ground within the walls, and thus progress within the castle grounds calls for an uphill stroll. Walking up the slope, one arrives at the site of the Ote Gejo, the Dismount Gate, the point at which daimyo would dismount from their steeds or from their kago, those awkward “cages” in which a nobleman was carried on the shoulders of his retainers. Two walls remain, but the gate and the moat before it no longer exist. Here were two guardhouses to protect the inner castle beyond the Ote Gejo Gate. To the right is the 1863 Doshin-bansho guardhouse, while on the left is the Hyakuninbansho. The latter is the One Hundred Man Guardhouse, so named for the four platoons of one hundred men each who were drawn from the four major families or branches of the Tokugawa family to stand guard for the protection of the shogun.
To the left, a path leads to the Hon-maru (Central Keep), while to the right the path leads to the Nino-maru (Second Keep), which lies at the foot of the Hon-maru. The Ninomaru before 1868 served as the residence for the retired shogun, and its gardens were originally planned in 1630 by Kobori Enshu, the famed landscape artist of the 17th century. Today’s garden, of course, is a reconstruction, but it contains all those elements essential to a traditional Japanese garden: a pond, a waterfall, stone lanterns, and a bridge. At the far side of the garden is the early 19th-century Suwa-no-chaya tea ceremony pavilion, a structure that once stood within the Fukiage Garden of the Imperial Palace.
The Nino-maru stands beneath the wall that supports the Hon-maru, a wall composed of the massive granite stones brought from the Izu Peninsula, 60 miles (96 kilometers) away, in the early 1600s. At its base is the Hakuchobori, the Moat of Swans; the original 24 swans were a gift from Germany in 1953 after the East Gardens were opened to the public. A path from the Nino-maru Garden goes back to the Moat of Swans, and to the right of the moat is the Shiomi-zaka, the Tide Viewing Slope, which leads up to the Hon-maru. The slope today offers no view of Tokyo Bay or its inlets (now filled in), for the multistory buildings of the 20th century have obscured any possible view of tidal waters. In the 1600s, however, the slope was true to its name.
The Suwa-no-chaya tea ceremony pavilion in the Nino-maru Gardens
The Fujimi Yagura (Mount Fuji Viewing Tower)
At the top of the slope once stood the Ote Naka, the Central Gate, leading into the Central Keep (Hon-maru) together with its guardhouse (o-bansho). The 1657 fire and the later 1872 fire destroyed the grandeur that once topped this hill, and the foundations of the main donjon and the Fujimi Yagura (Mt. Fuji Viewing Tower) are all that remain today. A Rest House on the left of the path at the top of the slope site offers a contrast in the photographs that are on display: one group shows the castle as it was in 1868; the other offers more recent photographs of the same sites.
The Hon-maru contained the Audience Hall, the residence, and other official buildings of the reigning shogun. At the southwest corner of the Hon-maru is the previously mentioned Fujimi Yagura, one of three such towers that still exist out of the original 21 that surmounted the castle walls. It was seriously damaged in the 1657 Long Sleeves Fire, but it was reconstructed two years later. At that time the decision was made not to rebuild the rest of the fortifications of the Honmaru, the Nino-maru, and the Sanno-maru. The nation was at peace, and such castles were neither needed nor supportable when faced with the destructive force of modern artillery. Farther along the way is the Fujimi Tamon, the Mt. Fuji Viewing Armory, one of two remaining armories out of the 28 that once existed. Behind this arsenal was a well to supply water to the shogun’s quarters. The well went down almost 100 feet (30 meters).
There were three main groups of buildings in this innermost complex of the Hon-maru site. Closest to the Fujimi Tower in an area now covered by a lawn was a group that contained the Halls for Affairs of State, the shogun’s Audience Hall, and the Ohiroma, the Hall of One Thousand Mats (referring to tatami mats). It was in this grand hall that on the first and fifteenth of each month the shogun received his feudal lords. It was here also that the Dutch from the trading station of Dejima in Nagasaki were required to make the journey every four years to do obeisance to the shogun, to bring gifts, and to demonstrate the foolish ways of the Southern Barbarians—the uncouth Europeans who were best kept at a distance. A second group of buildings contained the shogun’s private residence. A third group of structures consisted of the innermost quarters, which were adjacent to the Central Keep itself. Here were the shogun’s sequestered halls for the women of his court, perhaps some five hundred to one thousand women consisting of his wives, his concubines, the ladies in waiting, attendants, servants, and cooks.
The pride of the castle was its five-story, 170-foot (51-meter) Donjon (Tenshukaku) or tower, which, given its location on the hill, soared 250 feet (75 meters) over Edo. It surveyed not only the bay but the five great highways that converged on Edo from throughout Japan. It had been erected under Tokugawa Hidetada, the second shogun, in 1607 and then rebuilt in 1640. All the buildings of the castle were white, save the Donjon, which was a stark black. Its lead roof tiles were covered with gold leaf, and golden dolphins surmounted the roof as protection against fires. Despite the protection these dolphins offered, the horrendous Long Sleeves Fire of 1657 destroyed this magnificent tower. The fire started with the burning of an accursed kimono in an exorcism ceremony at a Buddhist temple in the Low City. It then spread in the teeth of a gale and turned the city into a roaring inferno. Today nothing but the base of the Donjon remains, along with the tradition that all of the shogun’s gold in the vaults beneath the tower melted. The whereabouts of this horde is still a puzzle and a challenge for those who imagine that it remains within the Hon-maru grounds. The base to the tower can be mounted by means of a slope for a view of the Hon-maru area.
A small granary building, the Kokumotsugura, is adjacent