Kisokaidô: Shiojiri - Station 30

In the early days of the Kisokaido road, the road was going directly from Shimosuwa to Niekawa (station #33), but this was soon modified to include three additional stations at Shiojiri, Seba and Motoyama. The viewpoint looks southwards from the Shiojiri pass to the Suwa Lake, Takashima castle (1), Mt.Fuji (2) and on the left, the Yatsugatake mountain range (3). The road towards the South-East is the Koshukaido, going towards Edo. It is shorter, through Kofu, but very hilly and difficult. During winter time, a shortcut was possible over the frozen surface of the lake. The lake froze every night and was slowly melting during the day. As indicated by Eisen, this caused a crackle on the surface every morning, which would make a thunderous roar known as “passage of the gods”. The crossing was considered safe only after this phenomenon had occurred. In the right foreground is the descent from the 1,050m/3,000ft pass towards the station. A traveler (4) riding his horse is going towards the station (5), the roofs of which are visible in the lower left. The horse’s girth is decorated with the “Take” (竹) symbol of the publisher Hoeido in the first printings or the symbol “Kin” (林) for the publisher Kinjudo in later impressions (See here on the right for an early printing or above for a later impression). The publisher’s seal in the margin and Eisen’s signature were removed in the second edition and the red squared publisher seals (6) changed from "Take-Hoeido" (竹-保永堂) to "Hoeido (保永堂).

(Source: The 69 stations of the Kisokaido, Sebastian Izzard, Brazillier 2008)

And now ?

Shiojiri is located in a rare mountain plateau, flat enough to allow for cultivation. Around 1880, most of the available space was devoted to cultures and very few buildings were built. What a change with the current situation!.

The three stations of Shiojiri, Seba and Matsumoto were part of the Matsumoto fief and generated a steady income. Shiojiri was also the end station for the “Shio-no-michi”, (塩の道) salt road (the first character for Shiojiri is “salt” 塩) where the salt from the sea was brought into the mountains. The road originated at Okazaki on the Pacific coast, between Edo and Osaka (Okazaki is also a station on the Tokaido road.). In 1843, the station Shiojiri shuku had 794 inhabitants in 166 households, one honjin, one waki-honjin and 75 inns. In 1880, a fire destroyed most of the station and very few old buildings remain.

The Takashima castle was originally the seat of the Suwa clan and was taken over by Takeda Shingen in 1542. A second castle was built in 1598 on a peninsula next to the lake shore, earning then its nickname of “floating castle”. The Suwa clan got his fief and the castle back in 1601 after the battle of Sekigahara. In 1873, after the Meiji restauration, a law was enacted to end feudality and destroy the castles as symbols of the old order. In 1876, 2/3 of the 170 Japanese castles had been dismantled, including the Takashima castle, which was rebuilt in concrete in 1970.

Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950), an artist in Shin-hanga style and avid mountaineer made many prints depicting the Japanese Alps, for example Mt.Eboshidate located just behind Shiojiri. Sugiyama Osamu (born in 1946), also an artist and mountaineer makes prints of the local mountains, such as this one depicting Azumino located just north of Shiojiri.