Itsukushima Jinja

This guide to Itsukushima Jinja in Hiroshima follows the warlord Taira no Kiyomori, made governor of the province at twenty-nine, and the copper coins that rattled in from Song China aboard every trading ship he could redirect his way. You'll hear how he built an artificial island to pull that trade through waters he controlled, and how the flood of cash quietly changed the way Japan itself did business. It traces what that fortune paid for here in 1168, when master carpenters from the capital were brought in to build in a style once reserved for noble mansions. Listen for how the shrine's setting on stilts in the tidal shallows was no accident.