Fun of Good Old Japanese - 江戸・明治に学ぶ　楽しむ生き方

  “Kaidou” is translated as a highway or a walking route. There were no cars in the Edo period , and there were almost no cars in the Meiji period too, so pedestrians and horses moved on the highway mainly. “Kai” is a city or town, and “dou” is a road, so “kai-dou” means not only a highway but also towns where people touched and treated travelers from other area.  Unno post town on the kaidou, 北国街道・海野宿 Ohuchi post village, 会津西街道・大内宿 　Kaidous were constructed from the 7 th century. Kaidous were systems which supported transportation and logistics, and they were rest area for travelers. From the 17 th century, Tokugawa shogunate developed the network of the kaidous very well, so people could travel across Japan easily.   In the Japanese textbook for high school students, kaidous were explained as follows. - Tokugawa shogunate developed the kaidou system. They managed the five major kaidous directly; their starting points were Edo(Tokyo).   There...

  The daimyo was a local lord  especially in the  Edo period . They were ruled by the shogun , but they had their own territories.  The territory and government of the daimyo was called “Han” . The daimyo had an autonomy right of their territory.  There were about 300 hans in the Edo period.  The biggest daimyo, who was from Maeda clan, got a huge revenue which was 100 times as much as the smallest daimyo. The revenues of the daimyos were very different.   Most of daimyos lived in the castles in their territories.   　　　　  Hikone castle in Shiga prefecture; 彦根城  Castle tower of Hikone; 彦根城天守閣  However, the daimyo stayed in Edo (old name of Tokyo) one year, and stayed in their territory one year by turns. They did it in order to show their loyalty to the shogun (Tokugawa). It is called " Sankin-koutai 参勤交代 ". The daimyo’s wife and the eldest son lived in Edo as hostages.  Procession of the daimy...

November: Jobs during off-season for farmers  On the 4 th , a noble woman who worked for the daimyo lord of Mito passed through this area. It was noticed to the master three days before. Farmers would have been summoned and cleaned the road. They were also required to repair the bank in the village, so the master sent 5 people for 3 day-work on the 17 th .   By the way, there were a lot of internal wars in the 16 th century. At that time, it is said that lords started wars after the harvest season. They summoned farmers as foot soldiers, and fought with neighboring lords. The farm production was the most important in their society, so I can say war lords conducted various operations only in an off-season for farmers which included wars. It would not have been peaceful days for farmers. Rice fields at the harvest season in Saitama prefecture  Visitors came to their village in this season. Oshis came from Kashima and Mt.Fuji in November. Oshi was a pri...