Chapter 8 Japan 329The contrasts with Kyoto were great; whereas Kyoto was laid out like a
Chinese city on a north-south axis and grid plan, Edo had a concentric circle
plan with Edo Castle high on a plateau at the center. Edo had no resident
divine monarch but was a fortress surrounded by a wall and a moat to protect
the shogun. The central plateau was carved by ravines, which left five terraces
splayed like fingers on a hand. On these terraces the three great daimyo allies of
the Tokugawa built their residences to protect the shogun, and over the next
half century all the daimyo in Japan, including Lord Asano, were required to
build mansions in Edo. They were allowed to spend alternate years in Edo; the
second year they could return to their affairs back in their domains, but they
were required to leave their wives and children in permanent residence in Edo.
By the eighteenth century, Edo was a city of a million people, half of them war-
riors (Nishiyama Matsunosuke 1997:23–40).
It was in Edo that samurai culture shifted from a martial culture to a martial
arts culture, quite a significant shift. To know the samurai at their most dra-
matic and idealized, one must back up to rougher times; say, the twelfth
through fourteenth centuries.The actor Bando Minosuke in the
role of Rikiya, by Utagawa Toyokuni
(1777–1835). Woodcut print published
between 1801 and 1810. This
Tokogawa-era woodcut illustrates
a character in the Bunraku play
Chushingura. The play is based on the
vendetta of the 47 ronin of 1702. The
names and dates in the play had to be
altered because of censorship by the
ruling Tokugawa government in the
early nineteenth century.