Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House): A Ghost Stories Classic By James S. de Benneville! AAA+++

Excerpt:

Great statesman and warrior that he was, the Taiko[u] Hidéyoshi must have realised the difficulties confronting his House. The formidable power he had created in the North was no small part of them. On several occasions he sought a quarrel with Iyeyasu; sought to humiliate him in small ways, to lower his prestige and provoke an outbreak. Such was the trifling incident of the lavish donation required of Iyeyasu to the Hachiman shrine at Kamakura. But Hidéyoshi, as with Elizabeth of England, looked rather to the balance of cost against result, always with possibility of failure in view. When he died in 1598, and left Tokugawa Iyeyasu practically regent of the land, his expectation can be judged to be, either that the loyal members of the council of regency would at least balance the Tokugawa power for their own sakes, or that the majority of his son Hidéyori, then a mere infant, would witness no question of supremacy. In the one event the glory and prestige of his House would stand. In the second case the safety of his posterity would be assured. With his experience, and belief in the over-riding power of Nobunaga and himself, the first was as likely to happen as the second; and the influence of the Toyotomi House was the means necessary to insure to Iyeyasu the position already secured, against the jealousy of the other lords. Time showed that he granted a perspicuity and energy to the members of his council which Iyeyasu alone possessed.

With Sekigahara (1600) the situation was definitely changed. In 1603 Iyeyasu was made Sho[u]gun, and the first steps were to organize the Eastern capital at Edo on an Imperial scale. The modest proportions of the Chiyoda castle of Ho[u]jo[u] times--the present inner keep--had already grown to the outer moat. Around these precincts were thrown the vassals of the Sho[u]gun. The distribution at first was without much method, beyond the establishment of greater lords in close proximity to the person of the Sho[u]gun. This feature was accentuated in the time of the third Sho[u]gun Iyemitsu. Immediately allied Houses and vassals occupied the castle ward between the inner and outer moats, from the Hitotsubashi gate on the North, sweeping East and South to the Hanzo[u] gate on the West. The Nishimaru, or western inclosure of the castle, faced this Hanzo[u] Gomon. From this gate to a line drawn diagonally north eastward from the Kanda-bashi Gomon to the Sujikae Gomon, the section of the circle was devoted to the yashiki (mansions) of the hatamoto or minor lords in immediate vassalage of the Sho[u]gun's service. Kanda, Bancho[u], Ko[u]jimachi (within the outer moat), the larger parts of Asakusa, Shitaya, Hongo[u], Koishikawa, Ushigomé (Ichigaya), Yotsuya, Akasaka, Azabu, and Shiba, were occupied by yashiki of hatamoto and daimyo[u]--with an ample proportion of temple land. It would seem that there was little left for commercial Edo.