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Backstreets
of Gifu in 2005 still yield the echoes of samurai
footsteps under Oda Nobunaga's banner a long way back..... |
....as
is in the mountainside temples,
where time has frozen in 1570's.
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The
beautiful Nagara river seen from Oda Nobunaga's castle of Gifu,
Japan, today. Oda's and Toyotomi's times in Japanese history,
known as the 'Azuchi-Momoyama' period and the Golden Age of the
national phases, evolved around this militarily-strategic lake.
It is from Gifu that Oda extensified his campaign around Japan,
and his best achievements were celebrated within this castle.
It was Oda Nobunaga who gave the name 'Gifu' to this entire
area; he liked the name taken from the hometown of the
Chinese Chou dynasty. Sadly Oda himself never got a dynasty of
his own. His successors were his best General (Toyotomi)
and then his ally (Tokugawa). The former
lord of Oda's Gifu was the Saito clan
of Mino. Saito Dosan, the patriarch of this powerful clan, was
Oda's father in-law.
Click
here for story and pictures of Oda Nobunaga, his wife, father
in-law, etc. |
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Lake
Biwa today doesn't look much different from the way it
used to when Oda Nobunaga's warships sailed through the water. |
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But
today only fishermen dot the landscape. No more clatter of armor
as Toyotomi Hideyoshi went to and from Azuchi and Nagahama. |
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In
the temple of Eihoji, there is a tree (see picture) that has been
believed to be over 500, even 600, years old -- it was already
there when Oda Nobunaga was moving to the castle. It's a great
historical coincidence that my childhood hero Oda
Nobunaga got his best days in the same town that gave birth
to the most gorgeous man in Japan, Ito Hideaki,
five centuries later. |
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Oda's
castle in Gifu today is a super-crowded tourist
destination -- most of whom never even know anything about Oda
or why they are hurried to get there in the first place by the
travel agencies. |
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The
Gifu castle's pagoda is visible among the summer
bushes on top of the hill (though the Japanese call it 'mountain').
Gifu matters so much in Oda Nobunaga's history, because the battle
to gain this territory was an absolute gambling -- if he lost
the war, the entire clan of Oda would have evaporated from subsequent
history. And 10,000 men would have perished for nothing around
the cliffs like this one. |
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Oda
Nobunaga's hills of Gifu might have been sorta
empty. |
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Where
a warlord dwelt, trade thrived; today's Gifu
has ceased to be a manifestation of such a maxim, but Oda's reign
was once a prosperous period in Japanese history, enhanced by
Toyotomi after his death. Despite the lavish military spending,
the people still lived better than they used to. That's the upside
of centralized governance. |
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Beautifully
adorned with the best view of historically significant mountains
of Nangu, Kurihara and Bodai, Gifu is prone
to one of the two major disasters that single out Japan as the
favorite victim: earthquakes. Fire is as menacing as in every
other Japanese city. |
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Gifu
downtown today. Having had Oda Nobunaga around, Gifu keeps its
place on the red carpet of Japanese history.
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