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| - , also known as Ōta Sukenaga (太田 資長) or Ōta Dōkan Sukenaga, was a Japanese samurai warrior-poet, military tactician and Buddhist monk. Ōta Sukenaga took the tonsure (bald scalp) as a Buddhist priest in 1478, and he also adopted the Buddhist name, Dōkan, by which he is known today. Dōkan is best known as the architect and builder of Edo Castle (now the Imperial Palace) in what is today modern Tokyo; and he is considered the founder of the castle town which grew up around that Ōnin era fortress.
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abstract
| - , also known as Ōta Sukenaga (太田 資長) or Ōta Dōkan Sukenaga, was a Japanese samurai warrior-poet, military tactician and Buddhist monk. Ōta Sukenaga took the tonsure (bald scalp) as a Buddhist priest in 1478, and he also adopted the Buddhist name, Dōkan, by which he is known today. Dōkan is best known as the architect and builder of Edo Castle (now the Imperial Palace) in what is today modern Tokyo; and he is considered the founder of the castle town which grew up around that Ōnin era fortress. Dōkan's 15th century poetic description of what was once just a fortified hill on the Sumida River near Edo Bay would become the basis for metropolitan Tokyo Governor Ryokichi Minobe's 1971 re-election slogan: "Give Tokyo back its blue sky!" The sky is not often blue and Mount Fuji may only be glimpsed on rare days, but the green pine trees still adjoin the continuously occupied site which Dōkan first chose. Instead of stone walls, the defense works around the 15th-century castle were only grassy embankments, and the structures inside them were not grand. The initial enclosure which served as the castle's core area, the space which would have been Dōkan's hon-maru, was modestly sized; but the moats were extensive for that time period. These moats and their locations would figure prominently in the serial phases of construction and development which followed. Dōkan is also credited with diverting the Hira River east at Kandabashi to create the Nihonbashi River. Celebrations attending the 500th Anniversary of Greater Tokyo illuminated parts of the story of Dōkan's life and achievements; and since that time, he has remained a well-known figure in modern popular culture.
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