TOKUGAWA JAPAN The Tôkaidô Road |
Robert Oxnam :: When the daimyo commuted from their domains, they used the Tôkaidô road. This thoroughfare connected the capital of Edo, know as Tokyo today, to Kyoto in the western provinces. The Tôkaidô became the most important highway in the country under the alternate attendance system. It served to connect the country politically, economically, and socially, as the daimyo and their retainers, as well as other travelers, passed from one end to the other. H. Paul Varley :: It was by far the most heavily traveled road. All of the daimyos who went to Kyoto from the part of Japan, a very substantial part of Japan, west of Kyoto, in other words going from Kvoto to the central provinces and then to the west, all of them had to travel on the Tôkaidô. So the Tôkaidô really, really flourished and became overwhelmingly the most important highway in the country. It has been celebrated in literature, it has been the subject of artists. For example, [Utagawa] Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tôkaidô are, I think without question, the art work of Japan best known outside of Japan. If anyone has any idea of Japanese art, he's very likely to refer to Hiroshige's paintings of these stations of the Tôkaidô. Even today the Tôkaidô is a major highway. The bullet train, shinkansen, going from Tokyo to Nagoya, Kyoto, goes by the Tôkaidô. |
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