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, 08:54, 14 May 2020
*''Other Names'': 甲州道中 ''(Kôshû dôchû)''
*''Japanese'': 甲州街道 ''(Kôshû kaidô)''
The Kôshû-kaidô or Kôshû-dôchû was a major [[Edo period]] [[highway]] which ran from [[Nihonbashi]] in [[Edo]] to [[Lake Suwa]] 諏訪湖, where it joined the [[Nakasendo|Nakasendô]], passing through [[Kai province]], which was also called Kôshû. The original route went north of Mt. Takao through the Kobotoke Pass 小仏峠, parallel to the route today of Tokyo's JR Chûô train line.
Kai province had come under [[Tokugawa Ieyasu|Tokugawa Ieyasu's]] control in [[1582]], and during the Edo period the Kôshû Highway was considered a militarily sensitive escape route. Only a few ''daimyo'' were allowed to use it; most had to take the longer route of the Nakasendô highway. While the [[Tokaido|Tôkaidô]] highway typically saw nearly 150 ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]'' entourages annually, the ''Kôshû kaidô'' was typically used by only three each year.<ref>Miyamoto Tsuneichi 宮本常一, ''Daimyô no tabi'' 大名の旅, Tokyo: Shakai shisôsha (1968), 57.</ref> The forty-five [[shukuba|post-stations]] along the highway had a total of 41 ''[[honjin]]'' and 44 ''waki-honjin'' between them.<ref>Gallery labels, Futagawa-juku honjin shiryôkan.[https://www.flickr.com/photos/toranosuke/31363644767/sizes/l/]</ref>
There was a [[sekisho|barrier checkpoint]] at or near the Kobotoke Pass, originally called the Fujimi ("Mt. Fuji-viewing") barrier. Early in the Edo period it was moved a little bit east of the pass, to a site known as Komakino 駒木野. From [[1623]] four guards were stationed there. A permit was necessary to use the road.
The 45 stations of the Kôshû-kaidô were roughly 4.2 km away from one another; in 1843, each station had an average of 11 ''hatagoya'' and 779 residents.<ref>Constantine Vaporis, "Linking the Realm: The Gokaidô Highway Network in Early Modern Japan," in Susan Alcock et al (eds.), ''Highways Byways and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World'', Wiley-Blackwell (2012), 90-105.</ref>
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==References==
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[[Category:Edo Period]]
[[Category:Geographic Locations]]