Note: due to a numbering error on my end, I recorded this episode as 487. It is actually 488. This has been corrected for episode posts, but I don’t have the time to go re-record the opening of each episode.
This week: how the rise of a powerful religious institution helped draw the attention of one of Japan’s greatest warlords to Osaka, and how the city emerged from the ashes of his collapse to become once again a center of commerce in Japan.
Sources
McClain, James L and Wakita Osamu. Osaka: The Merchant’s Capital of Early Modern Japan.
Tsang, Carol Richmond. War and Faith: Ikko Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan.
Images
Osaka Castle ramparts in 1865, during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate. Unfortunately, the castle as you see here was destroyed in WWII.A map of Osaka from the 1660s. The top part is east; the canal network is on the bottom of the image. Osaka castle is the circular area in the center left.Osaka Castle’s surroundings are now a beautiful park. I have been during cherry blossom season. It is worth it.An image of Osaka castle’s defenses as arranged under the Toyotomi. From the Osaka Castle Museum.A painting of the Siege of Osaka Castle in 1615, commissioned by the same Kuroda Nagamasa who spent outrageous sums of money to repair just part of the castle walls.
