The construction of the original Ote-mon gate was the responsibility of Date Masamune, the daimyo of Sendai, and it was in two parts: the first or smaller gate was known as Koraimon, the Korean Gate, while the larger of the two gates lay beyond a narrow courtyard. The inner Ote-mon gate was destroyed during the air raids of the spring of 1945, but it was rebuilt in 1967. Otemon was a masugata gateway. That is, the outer and inner gateways formed a "box." If an enemy was able to storm the outer Ote-mon, he then found himself in a walled, box-like courtyard with a second larger gatehouse before him. Here he was under attack from more than one side since slits in the gatehouse permitted the raining of arrows on the attackers. The chances of survival for attackers were slim. The roof tiles of these gates as well as other buildings often were topped with images of the mythical dolphin which would protect the structure against fire.
Beyond Ote-mon were four maru, keeps or fortresses. At the foot of the hill beyond Ote-mon was Ni-no-maru, the Second Fortress or Keep, while above it was Hon-maru, the Central Keep. San-no-maru, the Third Keep, and the Kita-no-maru, the North Keep, lay below Ni-no-maru. In Tokugawa days, Kanjosho, the main office of shogunal officers of administration and finance were on the right just beyond the gate, a tie with the past which the adjacent Otemachi and Marunouchi financial districts of modern Tokyo still maintain. Today the San-no-maru Shozokan (Museum of Imperial Collections) is on the right as one walks from the entry gateway. This modern, climate-controlled building of two large rooms is used as an exhibition hall for some of the 6,000 treasures of the Imperial Household which were donated in 1989 by the Emperor. Thus a portion of the private artistic holdings of the Imperial family, which are seldom otherwise available for public viewing, may be seen in this modern hall without charge. The National Police Agency's Martial Arts Hall is on the left while further along the Ote (Rest House) on the right has beverages, maps, and souvenirs on sale.
Hon-maru, the innermost sector of the castle, sat on the higher ground within the walls, and thus the progress within the castle grounds calls for an uphill stroll. Walking up the slope, one arrives at the site of Ote Gejo (Dismount Gate), at the point at which daimyo would dismount from their steeds or from their kago, those awkward "cages" in which a nobleman was carried on the shoulders of his retainers. Two walls remain, but the gate and the moat before it no longer exist. Here were two guardhouses to protect the inner castle beyond the Ote Gejo gate. To the right is the 1863 Doshin-bansho guardhouse while on the left is the Hyakunin-bansho. The latter is the "One-Hundred Man Guardhouse," so named from the four platoons of one hundred men each who were drawn from the four major families or branches of the Tokugawa family to stand guard for the protection of the shogun.
To the left, a path leads to Hon-maru, while to the right the path leads to Ni-no-maru, which lies at the foot of Hon-maru. Nino-maru before 1868 was the residence of the retired shogun, and its gardens were originally planned in 1630 by Kobori Enshu, the famed landscape architect of the seventeenth century. Today's garden, of course, is a reconstruction, but it contains all those elements essential to a traditional Japanese garden: a pond, a waterfall, stone lanterns, and a bridge. At the far side of the garden is the early nineteenth century Suwa-no-chaya tea ceremony pavilion, a unit which once stood within the Fukiage Garden of the Imperial Palace.
Ni-no-maru stands beneath the wall that supports Hon-maru, a wall composed of the massive granite stones brought from the Izu Peninsula, sixty miles away, in the early 1600s. At its base is Hakucho-bori, the Moat of Swans, twenty-four swans being a 1953 gift from Germany after the East Imperial Gardens were opened to the public. A path from the Ni-no-maru garden goes back to the Moat of Swans, and to the right of the moat is the Shiomizaka (Tide Viewing Slope), which leads up to Hon-maru. The Slope today offers no view of Tokyo Bay or its inlets (now filled in), for the rise of multistory buildings in the twentieth century have obscured any possible view of tidal waters. In the 1600s, however, the slope was true to its name.
At the top of the slope once stood Ote Naka, the Central Gate leading into Hon-maru together with its guardhouse (O-bansho). The 1657 fire and the later 1872 fire destroyed the grandeur which once topped this hill, and the foundations of the main donjon and the Mount Fuji Viewing Tower are all that remain today. A "Rest House" on the left of the path at the top of the slope site offers a contrast in photographs which are on display: one group shows the castle as it was in 1868; the other offers more recent photographs of the same sites.
Hon-maru contained the residence and other official buildings of the reigning shogun. At the southwest corner of Honmaru is the previously mentioned Fujimi Yagura, one of three such towers which still exist out of the original twenty-one which surmounted the castle walls. It was seriously damaged in the 1657 Long Sleeves Fire, but it was reconstructed two years later. At that time the decision was made not to rebuild the rest of the fortifications of Hon-maru, Ni-no-maru, and San-no-maru. The nation was at peace, and such castles were neither needed nor supportable when faced with the destructive force of modern artillery. Further along the way is Fujimi Tamon (The Mount Fuji Viewing Armory), one of two remaining armories out of the twenty-eight which once existed. Behind this arsenal was a well to supply water to shogunate quarters. The well was almost one hundred feet deep.
There were three main groups of buildings in this innermost complex. Closest to Fujimi Tower in an area now covered by a lawn was a group which contained the Halls for Affairs of State, the shogun's Authence Hall, and Ohiroma (Hall of One Thousand Tatami Mats). It was in this grand hall that on the first and fifteenth of each month the shogun received his feudal lords. It was here also that the Dutch from the trading station of Dejima in Nagasaki were required to make the journey every four years to do obeisance to the shogun, this being largely a political event that required them to bring gifts, and to demonstrate the foolish ways of the Southern Barbarians—the Europeans who were best kept at a distance.
A second group of buildings contained the shogun's private residence. A third group of structures consisted of the innermost quarters which were adjacent to the Central Keep itself. Here were the shogun's sequestered halls for the 500 to 1,000 women of his court, consisting of his wives, his concubines, the lathes-in-waiting, attendants, servants, and cooks.
The pride of the castle was its 5-story, 170-foot donjon that, given its location on the hill, soared 250 feet over Edo. It surveyed not only the bay but the five great highways which converged on Edo from throughout Japan. It had been erected under Tokugawa Hidetada, the second shogun, in 1607 and rebuilt in 1640. All the buildings of the castle were white, save the donjon which was a stark black. Its lead tiles were covered with gold leaf, and golden dolphins surmounted the roof as protection against fires. Despite the protection these dolphins offered, the horrendous Long Sleeves Fire of 1657 destroyed this magnificent tower. The fire started with the burning in an exorcism ceremony of an accursed kimono at a Buddhist temple in shitamachi, a fire which then spread in the teeth of a gale and which turned the city into a roaring inferno. Today nothing but the base of the donjon remains, along with the story that all of the shogun's gold in the vaults beneath the tower melted, a hoard whose whereabouts is still a puzzle and a challenge for those who imagine that it remains within the Hon-maru grounds. The base to the tower can be mounted by means of a slope for a view of the Hon-maru grounds.
A small granary building, Kokumotsugura, is adjacent to the donjon base, and this ceremonial structure was re-erected in the 1990s for a portion of the services concerned with the enthronement of the Emperor Heisei. Other modern buildings are now located down a slope from Hon-maru, and these include the octagonal Toka Music Hall created in 1966 for the then empress' sixtieth birthday. It is in the shape of an imperial chrysanthemum petal, and the building by Kenji Imai shows the influence of Antonio Gaudi in its octagonal roof shaped in the form of a peach flower. As a result, the hall has been nicknamed the Peach Auditorium. Imai used traditional Japanese motifs in the mosaic decorations of the external walls of the structure, a somewhat garish-looking building. Adjacent is the Imperial Music Academy and the unattractive, fireproof Imperial Archives and Mausolea Department Building.
One can leave the castle grounds at this point through the Hirakawa-mon gate by taking the path from