Goryokaku: The Star That Lost to the Sea

A star-shaped fort lost to the sea. That is where this walk begins.

In 1864, the first year of Genji, late in the Edo period, foreign warships were pressing in on the seas around Japan. Hori Toshihiro, an official in Hakodate, thought about it. An office near the water would not stand a chance against a single shell from a ship's guns. So move the fort inland, more than three kilometers from the sea — because a cannon of that day was reckoned to reach about that far. It was designed by Takeda Ayasaburo, a scholar of Western learning. It was a star with five points, a fort that could fire back no matter which direction an attack came from.

And yet, only a few years after it was finished, this fort became the last battlefield of a war fought between Japanese. Enomoto Takeaki, president of the old shogunate army, and Hijikata Toshizo, who had come from the Shinsengumi. They shut themselves inside this star, and were beaten by a blow from the very sea the fort had been built to keep at bay.

Why did a fort three kilometers from the sea lose to the sea? The answer has been left in pieces. Some of it is at the foot of the bridge you are about to cross. Some inside the office that became the defeated side's seat of government. Some on the rear gate bridge that Hijikata is said to have set foot on first. And the last of it in the view from the tower you climb at the end. It is not given away along the way. Take the first step, and see it for yourself.