Lore: Hirosaka Barracks/Dōjō

[Vutall]

The barracks, located adjacent to the magistrate’s station and close to the governor’s estate, are a group of buildings officially intended to provide for the housing, feeding, and training of up to one thousand soldiers. In reality, even half that number would lead to overcrowding and strain the resources available to see to their welfare. Since Hirosaka has seen little military threat throughout its history, the barracks have been viewed by successive governors as little more than an afterthought, and certainly not a worthwhile investment of time and resources.

The fact that the barracks see little use only reinforces this complacent attitude. A small cadre of about a dozen Seppun samurai are assigned to the town, forming the core of the Hirosaka guard. In times of strife, commoners are drafted as ashigaru to fill out the guard to its full strength of about four hundred troops. However, the samurai of this cadre generally maintain their own homes in the Samurai Quarter, while the commoners, when not drafted, simply go about their regular business and live in their own homes as well. Only during the annual levy drills, conducted during the summer, do the barracks fill up with ashigaru and their samurai commanders. For about two weeks, the barracks are a bustle of activity as the town guard trains and drills. At other times, the barracks sit mostly empty.

Like the governor’s estate and the magistrate’s station, the barracks form a walled compound. Several buildings are actual barracks for housing soldiers. Others include a command post a small stable a dōjō and an adjacent, open yard for drilling and training troops; and an armory for storing weapons with an adjacent smithy and workshop for maintaining and repairing equipment. The enclosing wall is stone, but like the wall around the governor’s estate, it is actually more for security than military defense.