Mishima is the largest city in Izu and the seat of Yabu’s castle, a place where the novel’s political maneuvering acquires a physical base. It is at once a domain capital, a storehouse for weapons and gifts, and a point of departure for armies, messengers, and travelers. As the balance of power shifts, control of Mishima becomes more than a matter of local rule: the city and its surrounding fief are folded into the preparations for war and the redistribution of authority.

Setting and Local Importance

Mishima is described as the biggest city in Izu, surrounding the province’s greatest castle. The description, voiced through Kiku’s hopes of returning to the tea house there, places the city within the ordinary life of the region as well as its hierarchy: it is where a prominent pleasure house stands, where people expect to resume familiar routines, and where the daimyo’s stronghold dominates the landscape. For Yabu, it is not a distant administrative name but his capital and the center of his authority.

That local prominence gives the city a wider political significance. Mishima lies north of Anjiro, and men, provisions, orders, and troops move between them. It also connects to the Tokaido and the mountain route through Hakoné Pass. The novel’s map of power is therefore also a map of movement: the castle secures a domain, while the roads make that domain available as a base for wider military and political action.

Castle, Weapons, and Military Preparation

Mishima’s castle becomes a concealed depot for a formidable stock of European arms. Yabu orders the armament taken ashore and moved there in secret, placing Igurashi in charge and requiring Mura to provide porters. The cargo includes five hundred muskets, twenty cannon, five thousand cannonballs, abundant ammunition, and crates of fire arrows. Its scale and quality make the castle an important military asset, not merely a lord’s residence. Concealment is essential: the weapons are to be hidden under nets or sacking during transport, and their destination is to remain secret.

The weapons also set modern firepower against a culture of warfare still shaped by the samurai code. In the novel’s historical account, guns are regarded as dishonorable and have long been treated as novelties, despite their introduction by the Portuguese and their adoption by Japanese manufacturers. Mishima’s secret arsenal thus embodies a change that Yabu and Toranaga consider useful even when it conflicts with established ideals. Its significance lies both in what the guns can do and in the secrecy required to make their use possible.

The castle is also connected to the practical work of raising and equipping troops. On a later occasion, Yabu’s ordered gifts for Kasigi Omi are brought from Mishima and held in a storehouse. The inventory includes twenty second-quality kimonos, two swords, repaired armor, two horses, and arms for one hundred samurai, with a total value of four hundred and twenty-six koku. The list also includes a rock Yabu had found in Kyushu, which Omi had proposed naming the Waiting Barbarian. This mixture of military equipment, formal rewards, and a personally remembered object reveals how the city’s stores serve both the administration of a domain and the obligations binding lord and retainer.

A Regional Base for Troops and Travel

Mishima’s importance appears in the movement of Yabu’s forces. When Yabu’s samurai assemble at Anjiro, the final companies ride in from Mishima, his capital. The gathering eventually numbers three thousand samurai and five hundred cavalry. The scale of this force makes the connection between castle and coast concrete: Mishima can send out a substantial army, and its authority reaches beyond the walls into the surrounding settlements and roads.

The city also lies behind the preparations at Anjiro when Kasigi Omi mobilizes villagers and able-bodied men for Yabu’s arrival. Omi’s work is conducted at Anjiro, but Mishima is the northern source of the arriving companies and the center from which Yabu’s authority extends. Later, when Yabu learns that the official Jozen has entered Izu, he stops all firing practice and orders the men to continue only silent training away from Anjiro. That episode shows how military activity across the domain can be adjusted to conceal its scale from an inquisitive visitor.

Mishima serves travelers as well as armies. Mariko and Blackthorne spend time at an inn south of the city during their journey toward Yedo. Their road leaves the flatlands and climbs toward Hakoné Pass, where they rest for two days. Their departure from Mishima places the city at a threshold between settled lowland travel and the mountain route. The journey is also marked by a rupture: after leaving Mishima, Father Tsukku-san catches up with them, and the fragile truce between him and Blackthorne collapses following the Rodrigues incident and an excess of brandy. Father Alvito rides ahead for Yedo, leaving the travelers’ mood altered. Mishima is thus the point from which a shared journey continues, but also the point after which tensions travel with the party.

Political Messages and the Changing Fief

Mishima remains central to events even when its characters are elsewhere. At the city, Rodrigues asks Father Alvito why he gave Blackthorne the Japanese dictionary. Alvito explains that he believes Blackthorne might yet be converted and that he had to try to save one man’s soul, despite judging Toranaga’s political position finished. Mishima is the setting for this revealing exchange about the competing purposes of religious mission and political calculation. Later, an express cipher from Alvito reports that he expects to see Toranaga in Mishima at noon. The city functions as a meeting point and a communications hub, with encrypted messages and carrier pigeons connecting it to events unfolding elsewhere.

It is also a center for military intelligence and decision. Toranaga has advance knowledge of Jikkyu’s plot and learns of Jikkyu’s death before the news is publicly discussed. When the death is raised during preparations for war, Toranaga orders four regiments in Mishima onto immediate alert and directs them to move down the Tokaido in four days. The command turns the city’s garrison into an active element of the campaign. Mishima is no longer simply holding weapons and troops in reserve: it is part of a timetable for attack.

The most decisive change comes in the reassignment of the surrounding fief. Toranaga appoints Kasigi Omi commander of the Musket Regiment, with Naga as second-in-command, and makes him head of the Kasigi family. Omi’s new border domain runs from Atami in the east to Nimazu in the west and includes Mishima; its income is thirty thousand koku a year. He is ordered to take possession of the castle at once. In the same order, Toranaga directs Omi to transfer his present fief to Blackthorne, whom he is sending to Anjiro to build a new ship. The announcement makes Mishima a measure of political transformation: authority over its castle and surrounding lands passes into a newly arranged order, while the city’s military resources are directed toward the war to come.