Emisugahana Shipyard Site

Overview

The Emisugahana Shipyard Site, located in Hagi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, is the remains of a shipyard where the Choshu Domain built Western-style sailing ships. It is a component asset of the World Heritage site, "Industrial Heritage of Meiji Japan: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding, and Coal Mining". In 1853, the successive appearances of warships from Western powers such as the United States, Great Britain, and the Russian Empire in Japanese waters posed a significant threat to the Edo Shogunate and various domains. This led the Shogunate to revoke the ban on building large ships. The Choshu Domain, which was responsible for guarding Uraga, was also requested to build large vessels. Although the Choshu Domain initially showed reluctance due to financial reasons, following proposals for warship construction by prominent figures like Katsura Kogoro, the domain lord, Mori Yoshikuni, decided to build Western-style warships in 1854. The Choshu Domain dispatched Ozaki Koemon, the master shipwright, to Todamura Village in Izu Province, where the first truly Western-style sailing ship in Japan, the Kunizawa-gata (schooner) warship, was being built. Ozaki invited shipbuilders like Takasaki Denzo, who worked on the schooner construction in Todamura, back to Choshu. In 1856, a warship manufacturing facility was established at Emisugahana in Obataura. In December of the same year, the Heichinmaru, the first Western-style warship of the Hagi Domain, was completed. In 1860, the second warship, the Koshinmaru, was built by Fujii Katsunosuke, who had learned Dutch cotter ship building techniques at the Nagasaki Naval Training School. The iron used in the construction of the Heichinmaru was produced using the traditional tatara iron-smelting method at the Oita-yama Tatara Iron Smelting Site (also a component of the Meiji Industrial Revolution Heritage). This represents a rare example of a combination of Western and traditional Japanese technologies. Later, with steamships becoming the norm, the Choshu Domain shifted to purchasing foreign steamships, resulting in the cessation of shipbuilding and the presumed closure of the shipyard. Today, the remaining stone breakwater from that era is preserved at the Emisugahana Shipyard Site. This breakwater is believed to be the "Imaura Wave-breaker" mentioned in historical documents. The Emisugahana Shipyard Site is a precious relic, a unique location where distinct Russian and Dutch shipbuilding technologies coexisted within a single shipyard, offering invaluable insights into the early days of modern technology adoption. While no buildings remain today, visitors can still imagine the scene from that time.