2021 Volume 59 Issue 4 Pages 16-26
The third Shogun Tokugawa Iemitu dispatched the patrol inspectors all over the country. for the first time in 1633 (the 10th year of Kan’ei). This dispatch was a shared patrol that divided the country into six regions. When the inspectors of each group had competed their duties, they brought back the Kuni-ezu (provincial maps) of each province and submitted them to the shogun. At this time, there was no information about the style and content of the map, so the maps of each province were not uniform in size, drawing style, or contents. Therefore, the shogunate reduced the size of the map to a size that could easily accommodate, the style and content of the map, and created a small-reduced copy of 68 sheets of provincial maps. Incidentally, the author names this secondary manuscript of the 68 provinces’ nationwide maps as “Nippon rokuju-yoshu zu”. This collection of small maps still exists in the family library of several leading daimyo such as Akita, Okayama, and Yamaguchi. The shogunate compiled the national map of Japan (Kan’ei type A) using this small secondary manuscript. This is the first national map of Japan created by the Edo Shogunate.
The author’s research suggests that the first provincial maps of the 68 provinces collected by the patrol inspectors in 1633 were completely destroyed by the Edo Castle fire in 1639. Therefore, it is not possible to know the specific contents of the original temporary Kan’ei 10th year patrol inspector’s map. Thus far, there have been no reported examples of manuscripts or copies of the map of Kan’ei 10th year inspector’s map. However, I was able to confirm the existence of a copy of Suō-Nagato, a pair of provincial maps, which was the Hagi clan submitted to the patrol inspector in 1633.
What was particularly problematic in this study was the fact that Iwakuni Castle had been drawn on the Suō map of the Kan’ei 10th year patrol inspector’s map. Since the dispatch of the patrol inspector was eight years after the Genna “one country, one castle” decree, the illustration of Iwakuni Castle is unnatural. It is generally said that about 400 castles were quickly destroyed by Genna’s decree, However, in realty, it seems that the destruction of each owner’s castle was confusing. In the case of Iwakuni, the destruction of the castle, was not one at a time, and the method of destruction was gradual. The shogunate, which reflected on the Shimabara Rebellion that occurred in 1637, especially requested the countries of western Japan the destruction of the old castle. It was the strong request of the shogunate after the Shimabara Rebellion, that Castle of Iwakuni was destroyed in earnest.
The Iwakuni Castle depicted in the 1633 submission is very different from the one shown in the Keichō provincial map and is a rough depiction reminiscent of an emergency restoration after it was destroyed. The Iwakuni clan’s response to the Kan’ei 10th year patrol inspector was formal and ceremonial, and the full-scale destruction of the castle must be followed the strict demands of the Shogunate after the Shimabara Rebellion. Judging from such a process, the Suō-Nagato provincial map that the Hagi clan submitted to the patrol inspector in 1633 was inadequate. However, Iwakuni Caste was replaced by an old castle in the small secondary manuscript that was later remade by shogunate based on the inspector’s map in 1633 (the Kan’ei 10th year).
