Another Bakumatsu Pilgrimage in Fushimi

Fushimi is located in the southern part of Kyoto City, and known with a famous Merchants' guardian deity, Fushimi Inari Shrine. The number of the visitors to the shrine scores the biggest in Kyoto Prefecture. Additionally, the shrine is only 5 stations north from Chushojima Station, where we got off the Keihan Line on the 4th of January, in the New Year Week. There were relatively few people in the station.
Usually, especially in spring, Chushojima Station is the nearest station to one of the biggest sacred areas for Bakumatsu freaks, Fushimi Port. The port was the biggest river harbor of Kyoto, where freight from Osaka was transshipped from bigger river ships to smaller canal boats to be carried on mainly via Takase-gawa canal into the inner city of Kyoto.
The port was such an important one in medieval days that historically significant incidents happened both at the beginning of Tokugawa Shogunate and at the end of it.
At the dawn of the shogunate, the war between Toyotomi, the West, and Tokugawa, the East, was started with Toyotomi's attack against Fushimi Castle, which was then owned by Tokugawa. Outnumbered samurais in the castle suicidally fought to encourage their main force and allies far east in Kanto. After the end of the war, the burnt-down castle was pulled down and provided some "chi-tenjo" (bloody ceilings) for temples around Kyoto. Even today, you can find some in the northern part of Kyoto, and also find some torn-down wall stones piled in Gokoh-no-miya Shrine in Fushimi.
Some 3 centuries later, at the very end of Tokugawa Shogunate itself, we had another big battle around here, Toba-Fushini Battle, between the West and the East; this time the Imperialism vs. the Shogunate. After the battle, the east forces were totally swept away from Western Japan, but battles were continued in Eastern Japan, to Kanto, to today's Tohoku, and finally to Hakodate in today's Hokkaido.
The East based in Fushimi Bugyosho (the public prosecutors and police office), which had been built by Tokugawa Ieyasu after pulling down Fushimi Castle, and which were actually working as a military post in place of Fushimi Castle. The West based themselves in Gokoh-no-miya Shrine, which was located on the higher ground.
After the Meiji Restoration, the bugyosho area came to be used as an active military base by the Imperial Army and, after the World War II, it was, this time, occupied by the US Army. Its military character came to an end with the end of the militant character of Japan. Now it has apartment houses built by Kyoto City. Although their buildings and walls have a little bit of bugyosho-like taste, they no more remind us of the bloody history of the area than the cell phone straps with historical-figure dolls you can find in souvenir shops in the area.
Toba-Fushimi Battle was the end of a series of epoch-making struggles in Kyoto. The struggles had started with Terada-ya Inn incident. Terada-ya was a port-town inn along Goh-kawa Canal in Fushimi. In the incident, moderate royalists assassinated radical royalists. History repeats itself. The less 2 sects have in common; the more fiercely they fight each other. Sakamoto Ryoma, one of the biggest historical characters at Bakumatsu, the end of Tokugawa Shogunate, narrowly escaped from the assassination.
We walked west to Fushimi Port Park, which was made reclaiming most of the port. The park has a model wharf, and a model "ju-koku bune" (a boat with a carrying capacity of 10 bales of rice). Walking north for a while, we got to the confluence of Takase-gawa Canal and Goh-kawa Canal. If you sail up the former canal, you can get to the center of Kyoto. At the end of the canal, you will even find Omi-ya, where Ryoma was finally assassinated a year and 10 months after the Terada-ya Inn incident. If you sail east along the latter, you get in front of Terada-ya. Those used to be one of his hideouts.
Terada-ya is still run as ryokan, a Japanese style hostel. Actually, my mother in-law once stayed there. When my younger daughter had heard about that, she had exclaimed, "Ii-nah!" (How fancy it is!)
Goh-kawa Canal runs east-west in front of Terada-ya. From just around the corner from the inn, a tiny street runs north-south, whose nickname is Ryoma-dori Street. Against our expectations, it was not so busy. Souvenir shops were not so dense, and sightseers were scarce.
We kept walking toward the eastern hills, one of whose tops used to have Fushimi Castle, to find the Fushimi Bugyosho site.
We walked eastward along Ohte-suji Shopping Mall, and crossed the Keihan Line by Fushimi-Momoyama Station. The mall was busy with the New Year's sale, and the station was surrounded with cram schools. The streets were jammed with cars to pick up and drop off young pupils.
Once Prime Minister Chatchai in Thailand put forward the famous slogan to "convert Indochina from the battle field to the market." Are we pioneers of the idea? Or are we just raising another type of warrior?

"Yonohito-wa ware-wo nani-tomo yuwa-ba ie.
Waga nasu koto-wa ware nomizo shiru."
(Sakamoto Ryoma)
Whatever may others say of me.
It's only I myself who knows where I go.

I wonder if we know where we are going.