. Famous Places of Edo and the Edo period .
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Sotobori 外堀 / そとぼり / 外濠 - The outer moat of Edo Castle
© More in the WIKIPEDIA !
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Sotobori street between Akasakamitsuke - Toranomon goes along Sotobori of Edo-jo Castle and trace of reservoir.
Reservoir was used as water supply in the beginning in the early modern times. A part of the Sotobori stone wall is left in front of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology yard and Toranomon Mitsui Building. Stone wall in front of Mitsui Building in particular is the only oar stand in Edo-jo Castle Sotobori. Stone wall left in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology yard was copy of Sotobori which surrounded Edo-jo Castle and the Edo Shogunate mobilized daimyos of the whole country and built in (1636) for Kanei era 13 years.
In Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, we stored stone wall based on excavation result with construction of central joint Government building Building No. 7 and established display corner where the total picture of stone wall found in in front of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology yard lounge and new Government building connecting walkway of subway Ginza Line Toranomon Station was seen.
- source : kanko-chiyoda.jp.e.ie.
. Edo Castle, Edo joo 江戸城 Edo-jo Castle .
. Famous Places of Edo and the Edo period .
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Most of the outer moats, Sotobori, were reclaimed by civil engineers of Tokyo local government after the Pacific war ended. They reclaimed the moats with debris of air raids piled up everywhere in Tokyo after the war and built highways or other facilities over them..
A part of the moat remains today between Ichigaya and Iidabashi and a road called Sotobori-dori runs along the moat with cherry trees planted along the roadside. In mid spring, you can see through the window of Chuo-sen train the cherry blossoms in full bloom and reflecting their images on the water of the moat.
- source : hix05.com/english/Street
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Tokugawa Ieyasu had learned about the importance of an outer moat during the siege of Odawara castle.
He later applied this knowledge to the fortification of his own castle and town, Edo.
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Odawara Castle (小田原城 Odawara-jō)
. . . . . During the Muromachi period, Odawara Castle had very strong defenses, as it was situated on a hill, surrounded by moats with water on the low side, and karahori 空堀 dry ditches on the hill side, with banks, walls and cliffs located all around the castle, enabling the defenders to repel attacks by the great warriors Uesugi Kenshin in 1561 and Takeda Shingen in 1569.
However, during the Battle of Odawara in 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi forced the surrender of the Late Hōjō clan through a combination of a three-month siege and bluff. After ordering most of the fortifications destroyed, he awarded the holdings of the Late Hōjō to Tokugawa Ieyasu.
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !
Walking along the Sogamae fortifications !
About 9 kilometers !
小田原城の大外郭巡り
In the direction of Edo : 江戸口見附跡
- reference andl photos : dakusai.wordpress.com -
soogamae 総構え / 総構 total structure
soogamae （そうがまえ) 惣構 、sooguruwa 総曲輪（そうぐるわ）, sooguruwa 総郭（そうぐるわ）
The most outside moat or protection around a toride 砦 fort, castle or castle town
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Edo Castle Moat Tour by Boat
When Edo Castle was built, the Tokugawa made use of the natural riverways to create part of the Outer Moat (sotobori). The Outer Moat begins around the Kiji Bridge in central Tokyo (Chiyoda-ku), follows part of the Nihonbashi River before cutting west and creating a spiral around to Iidabashi where it continues East until dumping into the Sumida RIver which finishes off the Sotobori when it flows into Tokyo Bay.
Today the Kanda River flows from the northwest of Tokyo into the outer moat around Iidbashi and then on into the Sumida River. This section of the river from Iidabashi to the Sumida River is completely man made. The course of the river was redirected to create the outer moat. The original river flowed down past the castle to a point farther downriver on the Sumida River. This river is now called the Nihonbashi River and corresponds to the beginning of the Outer Moat spiral. Today it is actually connected to the Sotobori (Kanda River) at the original area in Iidabashi. That also makes it possible to travel from the Nihonbashi River to the Kanda River into the Sumida River and back again.
Thanks to the Consortium of Rediscovery Edo-Tokyo Walk you can take a cruise in a boat around these 3 sections of the former Sotobori. Along the way you can get some great close up views of the stone walls that are difficult to see from outside as they're hidden under the Shuto Expressway. You can find many kokuin (insignias) carved into the stones that are very difficult to see from outside without binoculars. Along the way the guide will show you Edo Period ukiyo-e prints to show what the river was like and talk about the Edo Period river culture.
The tours are in Japanese only, but the cruise is enjoyable for anyone to view Tokyo from the waterways.
- reference source : jcastle.info 2013 -
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外堀の割るる音あり冬の月
sotobori no waruru oto ari fuyu no tsuki
the outer moat
makes a cracking sound -
moon in winter
Tr. Gabi Greve
cracking sounds
in the outer moat --
winter moon
Tr. Chris Drake
This hokku is from the winter of 1792. Edo castle was renovated and expanded considerably after it was chosen as the site of the shogunate in the early 17th century. It already had a complex network of inner moats running through the core areas of the castle grounds, but to ensure safety the shogunate decided to add an outer moat as well and forced daimyo domain lords around the country to contribute the money, building materials, and workers the shogunate needed to construct the outer moat, which was 15 km (9.3 miles) long. The spacious area between the inner moats around the castle proper and the outer moat was used mainly for the mansions of various daimyo lords, who were required to stay in Edo in attendance on the shogun every other year. The moat itself, like the rest of the castle, was walled with massive pieces of carefully cut granite brought from great distances. The outer moat walls were so strong that some of them remain in fairly good condition even today after surviving US air raids in WW II and postwar city planning.
In Issa's time commoners were allowed to go only as far as the outer side of the outer moat, part of which ran along the edge of a large park, so this is presumably where Issa is standing and looking at the clear, bright winter moon above. Its bright, hard light throws sharp shadows everywhere, and when the ice in the moat makes cracking sounds, moonlight, too, may synesthetically seem to be breaking up into solid pieces. In the silence the sounds of cracking ice must seem rather loud and penetrating to those near the moat. Is the moon's reflection dully visible on the ice on the moat, as if it had something to do with the cracking? Is Issa suggesting the shogunate itself, like the ice, is cracking apart (something that didn't finally happen until 1867)? There's nothing definite in the hokku to support these interpretations, but there's also nothing to rule them out.
The photo at this link shows a portion of the outer moat that still remains in Hibiya Park near downtown Tokyo. In Issa's time the water level was of course much higher.
http://www.jcastle.info/photos/view/2287
Chris Drake
外堀にりんとゐのこのかがりかな
sotobori ni rin to inoko no kagari kana
by the outer moat
bonfires strong and forceful --
night of the wild boar
Tr. Chris Drake
The hokku is from the 10th month (November) of 1815, when Issa, living in his hometown, is back in greater Edo on a three-month visit. The hokku evokes the night of the first Day of the Wild Boar in the 10th month, the month governed by the wild boar according to Sino-Japanese zodiacal calendrical thought.
On this day people of all classes eat special rice cakes believed to increase fertility and protect against disease. They also light hearths, ovens, leg and hand warmers, and other fires for winter and spring use. Edo castle uses the occasion to display of its power and magnificence by lighting large, bright bonfires in iron baskets hanging at key points in and around the castle and at the gates in the wall at the inner ends of two bridges that cross the outer moat. On a practical level, the bonfires are used to light the way for daimyo domain lords and shogunal officials who live outside the moat as they arrive at around sundown to attend an obligatory celebration in the castle on the night of the first Day of the Wild Boar.
All daimyo lords and shogunal officials, including those who live inside the outer moat, are required to attend this celebration, during which they symbolically acknowledge their subservience and pledge once more their fealty to the shogun by accepting fancy rice cakes made from newly harvested rice. The lords and officials and their men are in their most formal clothes and closely follow strict protocol as they go through the gate. Both the lords and the hanging bonfires are imposing, yet there is something utterly serious and as cold as the November night about the whole scene. Issa, who must be standing outside the outer moat, seems to realize that the bonfires are as much for spectacle and for use in identifying each attendee at this mandatory event as they are for simple illumination and that this gravitas and well-lit formal precision are a consciously used image of power itself.
Chris Drake
. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .
Boar, the Twelfth Month
Ishikawa Toyomasa 石川豊雅 (act. 1770–1790)
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. Japanese Architecture - cultural keywords used in haiku .
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