Speaking of Fukaya ~ AUG,2024

Speaking of Fukaya, it is green onions or Shibusawa Eiichi, who is on the new 10,000 yen bill. It has already been three years since "Seiten wo Tsuke" was aired as a NHK historical drama, but the fame of the man is still immense with his inclusion on the high-value bill. Eiichi's hometown has the ominous name of Chiaraijima, but the origin is unclear. This area was a fierce battleground for both the Yamanouchi and Ogigayatsu Uesugi clans, so it is not surprising that the blood of the dead and wounded was washed away on the battlefield, but there is also a theory that it comes from an Ainu word meaning "shore," and indeed the Tone River flows nearby.

Eiichi's birthplace, known as "Naka no Ie," was extensively renovated by Shimizu Corporation over a three-year period and opened to the public two years ago. Shibusawa Eiichi's legacy is the town's biggest tourist attraction, but if you visit the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Museum, located less than one kilometer away from the house, you can get a rough idea of the man's accomplishments and personality. He was born in 1840 and was already 22 years old and married when he gave up the uprising at Takasaki Castle and devoted himself to the Sonno Joi movement and headed for Kyoto. He later served Yoshinobu as a shogunate official, followed Tokugawa Akitake on a mission to Europe, and stayed in Shizuoka with Yoshinobu after the Meiji Restoration. It is well known that after being called to the new government, he led Meiji Japan as a favorite of the political and financial worlds. I believe that he was able to make a particularly strong presence in young Meiji Japanese leaders because he had thoroughly studied the Analects and the Four Books and Five Classics in his hometown, which established his core as a person, and because he was blessed with good health and enjoyed a long life. However, when we consider the unfortunate death of Oguri Tadamasa, a fellow shogunate retainer and a promising future, we can imagine that Eiichi's origin (was born as a farmer) and the fact that he was once placed in the midst of the sonno joi movement were actually fortunate.

The birthplace of his cousin and teacher, Odaka Atsutada, is just over 1km away, and on the second floor there is a room where they secretly discussed attacking Takasaki Castle, but were persuaded to give up by Atsutada's younger brother. It is in a peaceful corner of the countryside, but the culture of the peasant class acquiring education and learning swordsmanship was a characteristic of Japanese feudal society, and I believe it is the foundation of the high level of civility that continues to this day. I hope that it will not fall any further. 

Eiichi built a brick manufacturing plant (formerly Japan Brick Manufacturing Co., Ltd.) locally, but it only just closed down in 2006. The quality of the clay used as raw material was high, and the area was chosen for its location, which allowed for shipping on the Tone River, and the bricks were widely used in famous modern Japanese buildings (Tokyo Station, the Ministry of Justice, the University of Tokyo, the Bank of Japan, Akasaka Palace, etc.) and railway overpasses. I took the time to go and see it, but unfortunately the only remaining furnace, No. 6, was under renovation, so I could only look at it from the outside. Fukaya Station is a station building made of bricks that imitates Tokyo Station, and this town was a brick supply base for Tokyo. It's not just onions.

Takimiya Shrine stands along the tracks next to the station, and the streams and ponds with the rich underground waters of the Arakawa River are beautiful. It seems that when Uesugi (Yamauchi) Fusaaki built Fukaya Castle in the 15th century, he enshrined the shrine as a demon's gate behind the castle, but the castle has been left as a park on the other side of the tracks. Fusaaki was not very good at fighting, which led to the decline of the Yamauchi clan, but the castle was an important frontline base for the Yamauchi Uesugi clan, the Kanto Kanrei, based in Kozuke (Gunma Prefecture) and Echigo (Niigata Prefecture). In the next generation, Ota Dokan, the head steward of the Ogigayatsu clan, appeared, and the struggle for supremacy between the Koga Kubo and the two Uesugi clans intensified.

In Fukaya, temples have been designated to symbolize the Seven Lucky Gods and the Seven Autumn Herbs, and you can make a tour of the Seven Temples. They are scattered throughout the city, so walking would be tiring, I took a car to get around. We visited a little too early to enjoy the Seven Autumn Herbs, but it was fun to see the flowers planted in addition to the statues of the Seven Lucky Gods, and the cemeteries seem to be well-maintained, giving a sense of the deep faith of the locals. This is especially true in the Kanto Plain, but there are also many koshinzuka and stone tablet monuments here. Most of the stone tablet monuments date from the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, and the koshinzuka from the Edo period, and you can sense the cultural level and economic power of the region that supported such a large Buddhist culture throughout the Middle Ages and early modern times.

If the modern hero of Japan is Shibusawa Eiichi, then the model of a medieval samurai is Hatakeyama Shigetada. His father, Shigeyoshi, moved from Chichibu to become a local manor official and took the name Hatakeyama, but during the Okura War he followed Minamoto no Yoshihira and killed Yoshikata. In the Tale of the Heike, Yoshihira ordered him to kill Yoshikata's two-year-old son, but he let him go, and the child fled to Kiso in the arms of Saito Sanemori, who later became the Asahi Shogun Yoshinaka.

Shigetada, a descendant of the prestigious Chichibu Heishi clan, was popular for his excellent character and bravery, and initially fought on the side of the Heishi when Yoritomo raised his army, but surrendered when Yoritomo gained power on the Boso Peninsula and entered Musashi province. Shigetada also surrendered in a noble manner, bringing with him a white flag that his ancestor, Taira Taketsuna, had received from Hachiman Taro Yoshiie over 100 years earlier. For the Hojo clan, who called themselves the Heishi clan but had a dubious family background, Hatakeyama Shigetada, the true head of the Heishi clan, was an object of jealousy, and a threat, possessing the reputation of being able to rally together Kanto samurai at any time. Six years after Yoritomo's death, the clan was destroyed by Hojo Yoshitoki, but the site of the Hatakeyama clan residence has been turned into a park, and six stupas are enshrined there.

The Hatara-gun office that I visited recently was also nice, and here you can also find the remains of the gun office warehouse (Shosoin) called Nakajuku ruins. The expansive countryside has probably not changed for over a thousand years. Thanks to this, we can enjoy ancient tombs, medieval and early modern ruins in the same space. There are also traces of the Kamakura Kaido in some parts of Kokubunji City, but here they are simply posted on the side of the rice paddies. Nitta Yoshisada also rushed to Kamakura along this road in the early 14th century.

The city's mascot is "Fukkachan," a rabbit-like deer with onion horns, but bears no resemblance to Eiichi Shibusawa or Shigetada Hatakeyama.