The Dreamlike Canal between the Sea of Japan and Lake Biwa

     The Tsuruga Port along the Sea of Japan was the nearest port to Lake Biwa, while the Shiotsu Port was at the northernmost tip of Lake Biwa and, accordingly, the nearest port to the Sea of Japan.  The Fukasaka Pass between the two ports was just at an altitude of 370 meters When Lake Biwa is 86 meters above sea level.

 

     Taira Shigemori (1137-1179) planed to construct a canal between the two ports and started to dig down through the Fukasaka Pass.  They faced a big rock, and tried to crack it, only to find stonemasons suddenly had sharp stomachaches.  Shigemori made the Fuakasaka-Jizo statue with the rock, and gave the plan up.

 

     At the end of the Warring States Period, Otani Yoshitsugu (1558-1600), the lord of Tsuruga Castle under the Toyotomi Regime, also had an idea to build a canal between the two ports.

 

     Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Kawamura Zuiken (1617-1699), a political entrepreneur businessman, had another plan to build a canal.

 

     In 1816, the Obama Domain under the Tokugawa Shogunate constructed a 2.7-meter-wide canal for 6 kilometers from Tsuruga Port to Hikita.

 

     In 1890, Kyoto Prefecture under the Meiji Restoration Government constructed a tunnel canal between Lake Biwa and Kyoto.  Then there came a railroad days, and we have never seen a canal between the Sea of Japan and Lake Biwa completed.  But the repeated ideas of digging a canal through the Fukasaka Pass suggests how profitable the transportation between the two waters.  What if the Taira Regime at the end of Ancient Japan had lasted longer to finish constructing the one?