was the fifth of the sixty-nine stations of the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the centrally administered Edo Five Routes, five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected the ''de facto'' ...

highway connecting

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

during the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. It was located in the present-day city of Ageo,

Saitama Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (January 1, 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 Square kilometre, km2 ( ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

History

The name "Ageo" appears as the name of a locality in

Musashi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called . The province encompassed Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Kawasaki and Yokohama. ...

in late

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

documents, as a rest area was built by the

Later Hōjō clan The was one of the most powerful samurai families in Japan in the Sengoku period and held domains primarily in the Kantō region. Their last name was simply , but were called "Later Hōjō" to differentiate between the earlier Hōjō clan who h ...

when they came into control of the area. Ageo-shuku became formalized as a post station on the Nakasendō under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

in 1603. Per an 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town stretched for about 1.1 kilometers along the highway, with a population of 793 (372 men, 421 women), and boasted one ''

honjin image:Ohara-juku01s3200.jpg, The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') during the later part of the Edo period. Evolution of ''Honjin ...

'', three ''waki-honjin,'' one '' tonya'' and 41 ''

hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at ''shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes and the subroutes. In addition to a place to rest, ''hatago'' also offered meals and other foods to the travelers. ...

''. Ageo-shuku was approximately 10 ''ri'' from the starting point of the

at Nihonbashi, which was the approximate distance the average traveler could walk in one day. Ageo-shuku was also famous for its large number of '' meshimori onna'' and numerous '' chaya''. Though it was comparatively small in terms of its size as a post town on the Nakasendō, Ageo-shuku had the largest ''honjin'' after Shiojiri-shuku. The ''honjin'' and ''waki-honjin'' were centered on Hikawakuwa Shrine, which still exists. The main ''honjin'' was located in front of the shrine, with one of the secondary ones on each side. The third secondary ''honjin'' was located just south of the shrine. A Maruhiro Department Store is now located on the former site of the ''honjin''.Ageo-shuku Sanpo 1
. Hassy-Report. Accessed July 15, 2007. Most of Aheo-shuku was destroyed by a fire in 1861.

Ageo-shuku in ''The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō''

Keisai Eisen's

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

print of Ageo-shuku dates from 1835–1838. The inscription to the upper left corner mentions the Kamo Shrine, which was noted for its autumn festival. Votive banners for the shrine are depicted in the rear of the tea house, and are advertising "Takenouchi" and "Hoeidoh", the publishers of the series of prints. In front of the tea house are two men and two women in peasant's clothes, threshing grain. Two

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

travelers are on the road, and one merchant is heading in the opposite direction.

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

Ōmiya-shuku was the fourth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the Ōmiya ward and Kita ward of the present-day city of Saitama, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. History Larger than its two neighboring post towns, Urawa-shuku and A ...

- Ageo-shuku - Okegawa-shuku

References

External links

Hiroshige Kiso-Kaido serieson Kiso Kaido Road
{{coord, 35.972964, 139.589944, display=title, type:landmark_region:JP Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendō in Saitama Prefecture Musashi Province