Chosenjin kaido

• Other Names: 浜街道 (Hama kaidou)
• Japanese: 朝鮮人街道 (Chousenjin kaidou)

The Chôsenjin kaidô, or "Koreans' Highway," was the route taken by Korean embassies to Edo from Ôtsu to Narumi. Not a set single highway, like the Tôkaidô, it was a route which made use of various roads, bypassing the Tôkaidô and passing through or past a number of towns not along the Tôkaidô, including Hikone, Ôgaki, and Nagoya. Though an informal name, the term Chôsenjin kaidô began to appear on official shogunate-sponsored maps in the early 19th century.

Much of the envoys' journey from Korea to Osaka and Kyoto was by boat; after entering Kyoto on land, the envoys' traveled the Chôsenjin kaidô from Ôtsu to Narumi, and then from Atsuta to Edo traveled the Tôkaidô. A portion of this "by-passing" route, from Moriyama-juku to Toriimoto-juku, was also known as the Hamakaidô, and had a special association with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Its use was restricted to shogunal use, and to the Korean missions, and was forbidden to other travelers, even to daimyô on their sankin kôtai journeys. This was the route Tokugawa Ieyasu used when returning to the Kantô after the battle of Sekigahara, bypassing the Nakasendô; it was also used by Tokugawa Iemitsu on his journey to and from Kyoto in 1634.

References

• Nam-Lin Hur, "A Korean Envoy Encounters Tokugawa Japan: Shin Yuhan and the Korean Embassy of 1719," Bunmei 21 no. 4 (Aichi University, 2000), 71-72n3.
• Toby, Ronald. “Carnival of the Aliens: Korean Embassies in Edo-Period Art and Popular Culture.” Monumenta Nipponica 41:4 (Winter 1986). pp 420-421n.