Tomonoura

• Japanese: 鞆の浦 (Tomonoura)

Tomonoura is a harbor in modern-day Fukuyama City, Hiroshima prefecture, which historically was a significant Inland Sea port and castle town. It was a port of call along the Western Circuit shipping route of the kitamaebune, and a formal maritime post-station (umi no eki), regularly hosting daimyô on sankin kôtai journeys and Ryukyuan, Korean, and Dutch embassies to Edo, as well as shogunal officials and official shogunal cargo shipments.

Even since ancient times, Tomo's natural geography made it an ideal harbor for ships to wait for the right winds and tides. As early as 1607, the town is said to have been fairly densely packed, the homes "like the teeth of a comb," at a time when nearby ports such as Mitarai are said to have had no elite houses at all, developing a sizable population only in the 18th century. Korean envoys visiting Tomo ten years later (in 1617) wrote that Tomo was even greater than Shimonoseki.

Tomo castle was built in 1607 as well; it featured a three-story tower keep (tenshu), Ôtemon, and yagura. Fukushima Masanori granted the castle and an associated 8,131 koku fief to his retainer Ôzaki Genba, who in turn likely had some 342 retainers under him. Though the castle's main keep was torn down in 1619 in keeping with the "one castle per domain" policy of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tomo nevertheless continued to develop as a castle town. By the end of the 17th century, it was divided into seven districts within the castle's outer moats: Hara-machi, Kaji-machi, Ishii-machi, Seki-machi, Michikoshi-machi, Nishi-machi, and Eura-machi. As in many castle-towns, these were divided into areas directly associated with the castle, samurai residential neighborhoods, and townsmen (commoner) neighborhoods. After one further castellan, Mizuno Katsutoshi, Tomo came to be overseen not by a "lord" but by a Magistrate known as the Tomo bugyô. A man named Hagino Shin'emon was the first to hold this post. From that time forward, the town began to shift once more away from being organized as a castle-town, towards a more dominant port-town character.

One of the chief famous local products (meibutsu) is a form of medicinal liquor called homeishu (保命酒). The Nakamura family, known for their homeishu, also hosted daimyô, Ryukyuan embassies, court nobles, and other elite visitors in a set of buildings which together functioned as the town's honjin; two of those buildings are today known as the Ôta family house (Ôta-ke jûtaku) and the Chôsôtei, and have been designated National Important Cultural Properties. Another establishment in the town, known as the Neko-ya, was run by goyô shônin in service to the Shimazu clan, and also regularly provided accommodations to the Shimazu and to Ryukyuan missions. Headed in each generation by Neko-ya Kiyosuke, the shop specialized in marine products.

For a brief time in the early Edo period, Tomo was also home to a designated inn maintained by the factor of the British East India Company based in Hirado. When Korean missions stopped in Tomonoura on their way to and from Edo, the Korean lead envoy typically stayed in a guest room at the Buddhist temple of Fukuzen-ji; the guest room was known as Taichôrô (対潮楼), and is said to have offered a beautiful view of the Inland Sea. Many plaques, works of calligraphy, and the like given as gifts from Korean envoys remain in the temple's collection today.

Komatsu-ji (小松寺), a Rinzai Zen temple of the Myôshin-ji branch located near the harbor is home to the grave of Shô Dôkyô Yoseyama Peechin, a musician and member of the 1790 Ryukyuan embassy, who died on the way to Edo on 10/13 in that year. A plaque was later donated to the temple in his memory, by Yoseyama's grandfather, Fukuyama ueekata Chôki. Another plaque, hanging over the main gate to the temple, features calligraphy by a man named Wu Taihe, but little else is known about this figure.

Tomonoura is also home to the shop of Uoya Manzô, where Sakamoto Ryôma engaged in negotiations surrounding the Iroha-maru Incident.

References

• Watanabe Miki. "Nihon ni okeru Ryûkyû shiseki" 日本における琉球史跡. Personal website.
• Maehira Fusaaki, "Edo nobori no tabi to bohimei" 江戸上りの旅と墓碑銘, Okinawa Bunka Kenkyû 21 (1995), 83ff.