Roads and Posts in Early Times.
_Communications._--From the conditions actually existing in the 8th
century after the Christian era the first compilers of Japanese history
inferred the conditions which might have existed in the 7th century
before that era. One of their inferences was that, in the early days,
communication was by water only, and that not until 549 B.C. did the
most populous region of the empire--the west coast--come into possession
of public roads. Six hundred years later, the local satraps are
represented as having received instructions to build regular highways,
and in the 3rd century the massing of troops for an over-sea expedition
invested roads with new value. Nothing is yet heard, however, about
posts. These evidences of civilization did not make their appearance
until the first great era of Japanese reform, the Taika period
(645-650), when stations were established along the principal highways,
provision was made of post-horses, and a system of bells and checks was
devised for distinguishing official carriers. In those days ordinary
travellers were required to carry passports, nor had they any share in
the benefits of the official organization, which was entirely under the
control of the minister of war. Great difficulties attended the
movements of private persons. Even the task of transmitting to the
central government provincial taxes paid in kind had to be discharged by
specially organized parties, and this journey from the north-eastern
districts to the capital generally occupied three months. At the close
of the 7th century the emperor Mommu is said to have enacted a law that
wealthy persons living near the highways must supply rice to travellers,
and in 745 an empress (Koken) directed that a stock of medical
necessaries must be kept at the postal stations. Among the benevolent
acts attributed to renowned Buddhist priests posterity specially
remembers their efforts to encourage the building of roads and bridges.
The great emperor Kwammu (782-806) was constrained to devote a space of
five years to the reorganization of the whole system of post-stations.
Owing to the anarchy which prevailed during the 10th, 11th and 12th
centuries, facilities of communication disappeared almost entirely, even
for men of rank a long journey involved danger of starvation or fatal
exposure, and the pains and perils of travel became a household word
among the people.
Yoritomo, the founder of feudalism at the close of the 12th century,
was too great a statesman to underestimate the value of roads and
posts. The highway between his stronghold, Kamakura, and the imperial
city, Kioto, began in his time to develop features which ultimately
entitled it to be called one of the finest roads in the world. But
after Yoritomo's death the land became once more an armed camp, in
which the rival barons discouraged travel beyond the limits of their
own domains. Not until the Tokugawa family obtained military control
of the whole empire (1603), and, fixing its capital at Yedo, required
the feudal chiefs to reside there every second year, did the problem
of roads and post-stations force itself once more on official
attention. Regulations were now strictly enforced, fixing the number
of horses and carriers available at each station, the loads to be
carried by them and their charges, as well as the transport services
that each feudal chief was entitled to demand and the fees he had to
pay in return. Tolerable hostelries now came into existence, but they
furnished only shelter, fuel and the coarsest kind of food. By
degrees, however, the progresses of the feudal chiefs to and from
Yedo, which at first were simple and economical, developed features of
competitive magnificence, and the importance of good roads and
suitable accommodation received increased attention. This found
expression in practice in 1663. A system more elaborate than anything
antecedent was then introduced under the name of "flying transport."
Three kinds of couriers operated. The first class were in the direct
employment of the shogunate. They carried official messages between
Yedo and Osaka--a distance of 348 miles--in four days by means of a
well organized system of relays. The second class maintained
communications between the fiefs and the Tokugawa court as well as
their own families in Yedo, for in the alternate years of a
feudatory's compulsory residence in that city his family had to live
there. The third class were maintained by a syndicate of 13 merchants
as a private enterprise for transmitting letters between the three
great cities of Kioto, Osaka and Yedo and intervening places. This
syndicate did not undertake to deliver a letter direct to an
addressee. The method pursued was to expose letters and parcels at
fixed places in the vicinity of their destination, leaving the
addressees to discover for themselves that such things had arrived.
Imperfect as this system was, it represented a great advance from the
conditions in medieval times.
The Tokaido.
The Nakasendoo.
The Oshukaido.
The nation does not seem to have appreciated the deficiencies of the
syndicate's service, supplemented as it was by a network of waterways
which greatly increased the facilities for transport. After the
cessation of civil wars under the sway of the Tokugawa, the building
and improvement of roads went on steadily. It is not too much to say,
indeed, that when Japan opened her doors to foreigners in the middle
of the 19th century, she possessed a system of roads some of which
bore striking testimony to her medieval greatness. The most remarkable
was the Tokaido (eastern-seaway), so called because it ran eastward
along the coast from Kioto. This great highway, 345 m. long, connected
Osaka and Kioto with Yedo. The date of its construction is not
recorded, but it certainly underwent signal improvement in the 12th
and 13th centuries, and during the two and a half centuries of
Tokugawa sway in Yedo. A wide, well-made and well-kept avenue, it was
lined throughout the greater part of its length by giant pine-trees,
rendering it the most picturesque highway in the world. Iyeyasu, the
founder of the Tokugawa dynasty of shoguns, directed that his body
should be interred at Nikko, a place of exceptional beauty,
consecrated eight hundred years previously. This meant an extension of
the Tokaido (under a different name) nearly a hundred miles northward,
for the magnificent shrines erected then at Nikko and the periodical
ceremonies thenceforth performed there demanded a correspondingly fine
avenue of approach. The original Tokaido was taken for model, and Yedo
and Nikko were joined by a highway flanked by rows of cryptomeria.
Second only to the Tokaido is the Nakasendo (mid-mountain road), which
also was constructed to join Kioto with Yedo, but follows an inland
course through the provinces of Yamashiro, Omi, Mino, Shinshu, Kotzuke
and Musashi. Its length is 340 m., and though not flanked by trees or
possessing so good a bed as the Tokaido, it is nevertheless a
sufficiently remarkable highway. A third road, the Oshukaido runs
northward from Yedo (now Tokyo) to Aomori on the extreme north of the
main island, a distance of 445 m., and several lesser highways give
access to other regions.
Modern Superintendence of Roads.
The question of road superintendence received early attention from the
government of the restoration. At a general assembly of local prefects
held at Tokyo in June 1875 it was decided to classify the different
roads throughout the empire, and to determine the several sources from
which the sums necessary for their maintenance and repair should be
drawn. After several days' discussion all roads were eventually ranged
under one or other of the following heads:--