旧徳川道
塚本永堯
神戸を十年、十五年、あるいは二十年にわたって知っている人々には、わずか四十五年前、徳川幕府が町の背後の高い山々を通る道を造ったことは、なかなか実感できないだろう。その目的は、山陽方面から江戸へ向かう大名行列と、外国貿易を始める活動の場として兵庫の東の砂地を選んだ外国人とが衝突する可能性を避けることにあった。
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攘夷派は活動を続けるだけでなく、幕府の力が衰えるにつれて勢力を増していた。そのため幕府は、外国人居留地の縁を通りそうな統制のとれない大名の一行から危険が生じるのを防ぐべく、急いで山道を建設した。明石を起点とするその道は、摩耶山の北で約千五百フィートの高さまで徐々に登り、その後、外国人がCascade Valleyと呼ぶ谷を急に下って、ついには住吉付近で本道に合流した。この山道は約二十マイルに及び、神戸という危険な場所を避けられたとはいえ、海沿いの道よりずっと長く、急で歩くのも骨が折れた。一般に使われるようになったかどうかは疑わしい。着工は一八六七年十月、完成は開港から数日後の一八六八年一月中旬だった。『The Japan Chronicle』一九一三年二月六日付からの抜粋。
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『CHRONICLE』編集長宛
編集長殿。先ごろ鍋蓋山へ「化石探し」に出かけた私たちの山行について、一月二十一日付の貴紙の編集欄の注記の一つですでに言及されたように、私たちは摩耶山の裏手にある桜谷という古道を整備しました。この道は灌木や茨、竹や葦が繁茂したため、山田の村人が「天上寺」へ毎月参詣する道としては長らく使われなくなっていました。山の表側からこの道へ入るには、本堂の裏手にある「奥の院道」の右側を取り、杉林の中を北へ進んで首のない地蔵のところまで行きます。そこから六甲へ通じる「アゴニー坂」へ東に曲がらず、その石像から北へ下ると谷道に出ます。この道は千六百六十ヤード、ほぼ一マイル続き、若草山の南側の山並みの麓にある「ヌクト」という渡渉地点まで下ります。この渡渉地点から西へ登り、再度-谷上道の「馬の背」にある「柿の木塚」の下の県庁の標柱まで、旧徳川道の一部を私たちはさらに二千六百五十八ヤード、約一マイル半にわたり修復しました。
先週の土曜日、筆者は奥平野に長く住むK. 森本氏をわざわざ訪ね、この由緒ある古道と一八六八年の三宮事件について、氏の記憶をより詳しく聞きました。備前藩の武士の行列が明石からの新しい山道を通っていれば、この事件は起きなかったはずです。実際には、この不幸な出来事が、ちょうど四十五年前の今月に始まる兵庫開港の歴史の最初の一ページを汚すことになりました。この興味深い史実については、別の機会に貴紙の貴重な紙面の一角をお借りできればと思います。旧徳川道は、最後の徳川将軍の命令によって造られました。表向きの目的は、大名たちが都の江戸との往復の際に、神戸の外国人居留地を避けられるようにすることでした。当時森本氏は道路工事の監督官として、大阪から開港準備の諸工事を監督する特命を受けて来た代官、斎藤六蔵を補佐していました。森本氏によれば、この新道は慶応三年（一八六七年）十月、明石と石屋川の両側から同時に着工しました。 開港は同年十二月七日、すなわち一八六八年一月一日でした。その日、篠原村にいた森本氏は、港に停泊中の外国軍艦が突然放った祝砲に驚いたそうです。氏が監督した工区は石屋川の岸から、山田村の東小部村まででした。現在のトゥエンティクロスの上流で人夫たちが忙しく働く一方、ヌクトの谷沿いの木々を猿の群れが登っていた光景を、氏は今も鮮明に覚えています。舞子と明石の間には「大蔵谷橋」という橋があり、将軍の道はそこから川沿いに北へ分かれて漆山へ登りました。左手に太山寺の山々を見上げながら、（当時の）白川村を通って藍那村へ進み、その先で山田の西小部、東小部へと至りました。東小部から現在の有馬道を横切り、狼谷の「馬の背」を越えて長谷池を通過し、次いで「長い谷」に沿ってヌクトへ進みました。そこから徐々に東へ登ると、杣谷の上端に達しました。その谷を南へ五毛まで下り、道は東に向きを変えて篠原、八幡、高羽の村々を通り、最後の村から石屋川の高い岸へ登りました。しばらく川を下ったのち、橋で川を渡り、将軍の山道はついに住吉へ向かう天皇の街道に合流しました。全長は約九里、二十マイルを少し超え、幅は二間、すなわち十二フィートで、大名行列が通るのに十分な幅でした。長谷池より先には、ところどころに石積みの痕跡が見られます。川沿いには苔むした石垣があり、山側には尖らせた切り石があります。ヌクトへ下る小川の小橋にさえ、花崗岩の石材が使われていました。
大勢の人夫を動員して全工事を終えるのに六十日以上かかりました。森本氏の記憶では、完成は十二月二十日、つまり兵庫開港から二週間後の一八六八年一月中旬でした。大阪城陥落の前夜――ちなみに、その陥落はちょうど四十五年前の今日のことです――、将軍と重臣たちが当時兵庫港にいた軍艦「開陽丸」へ逃れた頃、この徳川道の請負人は工事代金を受け取るため、森本氏の言う「命懸け」で大阪へ急がなければなりませんでした。徳川方の役人は慌てて支払い、受け取った請負人も、箱の中の貨幣を数えずに馬で大急ぎで持ち帰りました。後で箱の中身を調べると、「二万二千両」に当たる現金が入っていて、驚いたという話です。安政小判一両を基準に現在の通貨へ大まかに換算すれば、三十八万六千百三十八円十六銭に達します。その後、奥平野の祥福寺を本営とした長州軍の予備隊は、隣の石井村に住むこの道路請負人が不当に得た富の噂を聞き、隠し財産を家宅捜索しました。ついには三十六貫目もの重さの「汚い金」が入った四つの箱を発見したそうです。前述と同じ基準で現在の通貨に換算すると、十六万千七百四十六円十七銭の価値がありました。ともあれ、森本氏の記憶する限り、将軍が大阪から逃れた後、大名たちはこの山道を使いませんでした。「避けがたい時」が来る前に、将軍はその道のために高い金額を支払っていたにもかかわらずです。なぜなら――
「栄光の道も行き着く先は墓でしかない！」
しかし、この道を使った唯一の大名は備前侯だったと言われます。ミットフォードが伝えるところでは、その家臣たちは、三宮事件の際に「丘を越えて」「急いで逃げなければ」なりませんでした。慶応四年一月十一日（一八六八年二月四日（？））から三日間、私たちの神戸が軍事占領下に置かれた時のことです。
当時の森本氏には、四十五年後、外国人の山歩き仲間と協力する神戸徒歩會が、もともと外国人居住者を避けるために造られたこの忘れられた道に目を向けることになるとは、思いもよらなかったでしょう。会員だけでなく外国人と日本人の社会全体にもこの歴史ある道を紹介するため、会では、いつもの略図に従って、次の日曜日（二月二日）に再度からそこへ向かう第二十五回山行を計画しています。この略図は、古道の位置を示すため今回特別に印刷したもので、希望者には無料で配布します。敬具。
塚本永堯（神戸徒歩會を代表して）。
神戸、一九一三年一月三十一日。
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この手紙は一九一三年二月二日、日曜日の『The Japan Chronicle』に掲載され、その四日後には同紙にこの道に関する社説が掲載されました。
THE OLD TOKUGAWA ROAD.
By N. Tsukamoto.
To those who have known Kobe for ten, fifteen, or twenty years it is difficult to realise that only forty-five years ago the Tokugawa Government built a road through the lofty hills at the back of the town in order to avoid any possibility of a collision between daimyo trains passing from the Sanyo districts towards Yedo and the foreigners who had selected a sand-patch east of Hyogo as the scene of their enterprise to establish foreign trade.
The barbarian-expelling faction was not only active, but it had gained in strength as the power of the Shogunate diminished. In order, therefore, to prevent any danger from the unruly daimyo contingents likely to pass along the verge of the Settlement, the Shogunate hurriedly constructed a road through the hills which, beginning at Akashi, gradually rose to some fifteen hundred feet north of Mayasan, and then made a sharp descent through what is known by foreigners as the Cascade Valley, eventually joining the main road in the neighbourhood of Sumiyoshi. This hill road was some twenty miles long, and, though it avoided the dangerous locality of Kobe, it was steep and toilsome, besides being much longer than the sea road, and it may be doubted if it would ever have come into common use. It was begun in October 1867 and finished in the middle of January 1868, a few days after the port had been opened. Extract from “The Japan Chronicle,” Feb. 6th, 1913.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “CHRONICLE.”
Sir,—As already remarked by you in one of your editorial notes on January 21st anent our last “fossil-hunting” excursion to Kettle Hill, we have improved an old back path of Mayasan known as “Sakuradani” (Cherry Dale) which, owing to the overgrowth of bushes and briers, bamboos and reeds, has long been abandoned by the villagers of Yamada in their monthly pilgrimages to the “Moon Temple.” Access to the path from the front of the mountain can be obtained by taking the right-hand side of the “Inner Shrine Paths” at the back of the “Hondo” (Main Temple) as far north as the Headless “Jizo” through the sugi forest, whence without turning eastwards to the “Agony pass” leading to Rokko, the descent northwards from the said stone idol will bring one to the valley path, which in length is 1660 yards or nearly a mile, down to the crossing called “Nukuto” at the foot of the southern range of the Green Hills. From this crossing up westwards to the Kencho post below the “Kakinoki-zuka” (Persimmon Mound) on the “Horse Back” of the Futatabi-Tanigami Path, a part of the former Tokugawa Road was also repaired by us for a distance of 2658 yards or about a mile and a half.
Last Saturday, the writer specially called on Mr. K. Morimoto, an old resident of Okuhirano, to listen more closely to his reminiscences of this old historical road as well as the Sannomiya disturbance of 1868, which would not have occurred if the procession of samurai from the Bizen clan had followed the new high road from Akashi. As it was, the unpleasant event has tarnished the first page of the history of the opening of the port of Hyogo just forty-five years ago this month. On this interesting historical event the writer may perhaps ask you for a corner of your precious space on some other occasion. The old Tokugawa Road was built by the command of the last Shogun of the Tokugawa Government for the avowed purpose of his daimyo avoiding the Foreign Settlement at Kobe in their journeys to and from Yedo, the capital. Mr. Morimoto was, at that time, in the official capacity of an inspector of road building, assisting the Daikan (by the name of Saito Rokuzo) who came from Osaka with a special mission to superintend various works for preparing the opening of the port to foreign commerce. The construction of this new road was, according to Mr. Morimoto, commenced simultaneously from Akashi and Ishiyagawa in the 10th month of the 3rd year of Keiwo (1867), prior to the opening of the port on the 7th day of the 12th month, that is, the 1st of January, 1868, on which particular day he was stationed at the village of Shinowara, to be scared by a sudden salute of guns fired by foreign warships, then in the port. The portion of the road under his supervision was from the Ishiyagawa bank up to the village of East Obu, in the village of Yamada. Still vividly he remembers a group of monkeys climbing the trees along the Nukuto valley whilst his coolies were busily engaged with their work at the upper stream of the present Twenty Crossings. Between Maiko and Akashi there is a bridge called “Okuradani Bashi,” from which the Shogun’s Road diverged northwards along the stream up towards the Urushi-yama. Looking up the hills of Daisanji on the left, the village of Shirakawa was (then) passed on the way to the Aina village, thence, to the West and East Obu of Yamada. Crossing the present Arima Road from East Obu, the Nagatani Pond was passed across the Horse Back of the Wolf Valley, and then Nukuto along the “long valley,” gradually ascending eastwards till the top of the Cascade Valley was reached. Descending the valley southwards to Gomo, the road then turned to the east for the villages of Shinowara, Yawata, and Takaha, from the last village up to the high bank of the river Ishiya. Following the river down for some distance the Shogun’s high road ultimately joined the Mikado’s highway to Sumiyoshi by crossing a bridge over the river. The total length of the road was about 9 ri or a little over 20 miles, with a width of 2 ken or 12 ft., broad enough for a procession of Daimyo to pass. Traces of stone masonry are noticeable in some places after the Nagatani Pond—moss-covered stone walls by the river-sides as well as pointed hewn rocks by the hill-side. Even granite blocks were used for the small bridge over a stream running down to Nukuto.
More than sixty days were spent in completing the whole work by an army of coolies, and Mr. Morimoto is under the impression that it was finished on the 20th day of the 12th month, that is, in the middle of January 1868, a fortnight after the port of Hyogo was opened. On the eve of the fall of Osaka Castle which, by the way, was just forty-five years ago to-day, when the Shogun and his Ministers had escaped to his warship “Kaiyo,” then in the harbour of Hyogo, the contractor for this Tokugawa Road had to hurry up to Osaka “at the risk of his life,” as Mr. Morimoto describes the adventurous trip, in order to collect his money. In a hurry, the Tokugawa officials paid him off, and in a flurry the payee left without counting the coins in the chests which he brought home helter-skelter on horseback. Upon examining the contents of the chests he was astonished, so runs the story, to find hard cash amounting to “niman nisen ryo,” which converted roughly to present currency would reach to ¥386,138.16, by taking 1 ryo of “Ansei Koban” as a basis! The Reserve Corps of the Choshu Army which arrived later at their headquarters at the Shofukuji Temple at Okuhirano heard of the ill-gotten wealth of this road builder in the neighbouring village of Ishii, and made a “domiciliary search” for the hidden treasure, finally discovering four chests of “filthy lucre” weighing 36 kwamme, valued at ¥161,746.17 in present currency with the same basis as mentioned above. Be that as it may, the Shogun’s high road, so far as Mr. Morimoto remembers, was never used by the daimyo after his flight from Osaka, for all the high prices he had paid therefore prior to the arrival of “the inevitable hour” ; for,—
“The paths of glory lead but to the grave!”
The only daimyo who made use of the road, however, is said to have been the Bizenko whose retainers have had to “scamper away,” as Mitford tells us, “over the hills” at the time when our Kobe was held in military occupation for three days, from the 11th day of the 1st month of the 4th year of Keiwo (Feb. 4th (?), 1868)—the disturbance at Sannomiya.
Mr. Morimoto had not the faintest idea, in those eventful days, that after the lapse of two score and five years the Kobe Walking Society, in co-operation with the foreign hill-walkers, would direct its attention to this forgotten path which was originally built to avoid the foreign settlers. In order to introduce this historic highway to its members, as well as to the foreign and Japanese communities at large, the Society intends to undertake its 25th excursion there from Futatabi next Sunday (February 2nd) as per its usual sketch map, which’ was specially printed for the occasion to show the site of the historical road, and which will be distributed gratis upon application to yours sincerely,
N. TSUKAMOTO. (For the Kobe Walking Society.)
Kobe : January 31st, 1913.
This letter appeared in “The Japan Chronicle” on Sunday, Feb. 2nd, 1913, and a leading article on this road was published in the same paper four days afterwards.
