Reading the Shinchō Kōki · 06
Why Did Nobunaga Move to Azuchi Before the Tenshu Was Built?
The first entry of Scroll Nine separates the start of work at Azuchi from the later construction of its stone walls and tenshu. Nobunaga moved there between those stages.
A fresh translation
From the middle of the first month, construction began on Mount Azuchi in Ōmi Province, and Korezumi Gorōzaemon was placed in charge.
On the twenty-third day of the second month, Nobunaga arrived at Azuchi and took up residence.
Original text
正月中旬より江州安土山御普請、惟住五郎左衛門に被仰付。
二月廿三日安土に至而、信長、被移住座。
Words and people
- Azuchi-yama (安土山), Mount Azuchi
The site in Ōmi Province where the new residence and castle complex were developed. - Fushin (普請), construction work
A broad term for organized building and earthwork. It need not refer only to a completed monumental structure. - Korezumi Gorōzaemon (惟住五郎左衛門)
The name used here for Niwa Nagahide, the retainer placed in charge of the work. - Ijuza (移住座), took up residence
The wording marks Nobunaga’s move to Azuchi. It does not say that every part of the complex was finished. - Tenshu (天主 in this edition)
The principal tower described later in the entry. It is absent from the two selected lines and enters only with the work dated to the fourth month.
Two dates divide the beginning from the move
The entry opens with a simple sequence. Construction at Mount Azuchi starts in the middle of the first month of Tenshō 4, corresponding to 1576. Korezumi Gorōzaemon is assigned responsibility. Nobunaga then arrives and takes up residence on the twenty-third day of the second month.
The interval is short. The chronicle does not calculate the number of days, and converting the lunisolar dates into a modern schedule would require additional work. Its order is nevertheless clear: assignment and initial construction come first; residence follows.
Nothing in these two lines says that the famous tower was already standing. The entry introduces that work later, under the first day of the fourth month. Reading only the phrase “took up residence” as a ceremonial move into a finished castle would collapse several stages into one.
Construction begins by naming the person in charge
The first line pairs a place with an official. Mount Azuchi is the site, and Korezumi Gorōzaemon is the man placed in charge. The chronicle does not present the complex as the product of an unnamed mass of labor or of Nobunaga acting alone.
Korezumi Gorōzaemon is Niwa Nagahide. The office name matters because it is the form used by the source at this moment. Modern readers may recognize the retainer by his more familiar personal name, but the article should not silently replace the wording that appears on the page.
Being “placed in charge” also leaves details unanswered. The two lines do not define his budget, authority over particular groups, plan of the site, or daily presence. They establish responsibility without supplying an administrative manual.
Moving in did not mean that Azuchi was complete
A modern building often suggests a clean sequence: construction, inspection, completion, occupancy. The Shinchō Kōki does not arrange Azuchi so neatly. Nobunaga takes up residence in the second month, while the larger stonework and the plan for the tenshu are introduced in the fourth.
The simplest reading is not that the chronicle contradicts itself. A usable residence or first phase could coexist with a much larger site still under construction. The source distinguishes occupation from completion by continuing to describe new work after the move.
This matters because “Azuchi Castle” can sound like a single object completed on a single day. The entry instead unfolds as a changing place. Residence, reward, housing for retainers, stone walls, craftsmen, tiles, and large stones enter one after another.
A reward follows the first phase
Immediately after the selected lines, the chronicler says that the earlier work met Nobunaga’s wishes. Korezumi Gorōzaemon received a noted tea bowl called Shūkō as a reward. The gift belongs to the narrative of approval, not to the two quoted lines themselves.
Its position helps explain the move. Nobunaga arrives, sees what has been prepared, and rewards the official responsible. The entry then turns outward to the people who will live and work around the site.
The passage does not give a monetary value for the bowl or describe the conversation at presentation. It records a named object and a judgment of satisfaction. Those details make the reward visible while leaving the procedure mostly unstated.
Retainers receive sites below the mountain
The next sentence assigns residences below the mountain to members of Nobunaga’s mounted retinue. Each is ordered to undertake construction at his own place. The move therefore concerns more than a private room for one ruler.
A residential and service landscape begins to form. The chronicle places the lord on or at Azuchi, then places retainers below. Building is distributed. Different households must prepare their own premises within an order coming from above.
That sentence also warns against imagining every building as the work of a single centralized crew. The entry later summons people from several provinces and craftsmen from Kyoto, Nara, and Sakai. Early housing and later monumental work belong to related but distinguishable efforts.
The fourth month enlarges the scale
On the first day of the fourth month, the entry changes scale. It mentions stone walls and the intention to build the tenshu. Warriors from multiple regions and carpenters and other craftsmen from major cities are called to Azuchi.
It also names a tile maker identified as Ikkan and says that the work was ordered in a continental style. Large stones are brought down from several mountains and raised at Azuchi by groups numbered in the thousands in the chronicler’s account.
These details occur after Nobunaga’s move. They make it impossible to treat residence as the last act of a finished project. The move is an early milestone inside a longer sequence.
Why a chronicle compresses months of work
The entry covers much ground in little space. Mid-first month, late second month, first day of the fourth month: dates structure the account. Between them, the text passes from assignment to residence and then to an expanded building campaign.
Compression creates apparent suddenness. Work begins; Nobunaga moves; a vast construction program follows. The chronicle does not pause for weather, supply schedules, measurements, accidents, or negotiations with local communities.
That silence should not be filled with invented detail. It is better to treat the dates as anchors and the unrecorded daily process as unknown. The entry gives a sequence of decisions and visible results, not a complete building diary.
What the two lines cannot establish
They cannot establish the exact condition of Nobunaga’s residence on the day he moved. The rooms, defenses, furnishings, and number of occupants are not described here.
They cannot prove that no earlier structure existed on Mount Azuchi. The phrase marks the start of the work reported in this entry, not an archaeological survey of the hill.
They cannot date completion of the tenshu. That structure has not yet appeared in the quoted lines. Nor can they support a precise percentage of construction completed by the second month.
They also cannot assign every design decision to Niwa Nagahide. He is placed in charge, but the division of design, supervision, labor, and approval requires evidence beyond these two statements.
Residence came before the monument in the narrative
The opening of Scroll Nine resists a postcard image of Azuchi as a finished tower. It begins with work and responsibility. Then Nobunaga moves. Only afterward does the entry widen into stone walls, craftsmen, tiles, and the tenshu.
The order changes how the site can be imagined. Azuchi was not merely unveiled when complete. It became a place of residence and command while construction continued around it.
Two short dates are enough to preserve that distinction. Mid-first month: work and an official. Twenty-third of the second month: arrival and residence. The famous architecture belongs to the next stage of the same entry, not to an accomplishment already contained in the move.
Sequence matters more than a finished image
The entry is especially useful because it resists the familiar temptation to begin with the completed castle. A finished building can make every earlier act look like one step in a settled design. The chronicle instead lets us meet Azuchi while assignments, movement, rewards, residential plots, stonework, and the tenshu still belong to different moments. Reading those moments separately preserves uncertainty without making the record vague. It also explains why the move of 23 February deserves attention on its own. Nobunaga accepted Azuchi as a place of residence before the later construction notices had run their course.
This distinction changes the question we ask of the source. The lines do not invite us to measure how much masonry stood on the day of the move. They allow a narrower conclusion: residence and construction overlapped. That conclusion is modest, but it is secure. It comes from the order of the dated notices, not from a reconstruction of motives. The chronicler’s compressed sequence therefore gives us a disciplined way to describe change at Azuchi while leaving architectural details to evidence that can actually support them.
Source
Shinchō Kōki (信長公記), Scroll Nine, section 1, “The Construction at Azuchi” (安土御普請之事), opening. The wording was checked against the National Diet Library image, middle volume, frame 13, from Hoki-yama Kageo’s 1881 edition. The Ikeda-family autograph Shinchō-ki, held by Okayama University Library as 貴-48, preserves Scroll Nine within its fifteen-volume witness.