is a

Japanese castle are fortresses constructed primarily of wood and stone. They evolved from the wooden stockades of earlier centuries and came into their best-known form in the 16th century. Castles in Japan were built to guard important or strategic sites, such a ...

located in Karatsu,

Saga Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. Saga Prefecture has a population of roughly 780,000 and has a geographic area of . Saga Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the northeast and Nagasaki Prefect ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is a ''hirayamajiro'', a castle built on a plain rather than a hill or mountain. At the end of the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, Karatsu castle was home to the Ogasawara clan, ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of Karatsu Domain. It was also known as .

Location

Karatsu Castle, which stands beside Karatsu Bay, is unusual in that the stonework rises directly out of the water, using the ocean as a natural

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

. It is a medium-size castle with the ''Honmaru'' (inner bailey) located on top of Mount Manto, the ''Ni-no-maru'' (2nd bailey) and the San-no-maru (3rd bailey) in the west, and the outer structures to the south. The ''Ni-no-maru'' secondary bailey contained the palace of the ''daimyō'' of Karatsu and the domain’s administrative offices. The innermost bailey would normally contain a donjon; however there is considerable dispute as to whether or not it actually ever did. Records indicate that a stone foundation base existed from at least 1627, but the Tokugawa government never authorized the construction of a donjon tower. The present donjon is a modern reconstruction based on artists assumptions on what a Keichō period (1596–1615) donjon should look like.

History

Terasawa Hirotaka, a retainer of

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

, became lord of Karatsu in 1595. In the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, ...

in 1600, he joined the forces of

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

and attacked Gifu Castle. He was rewarded with greater lands around Karatsu, forming a dominion of 123,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

''. In 1598, he abandoned his original castle of

Nagoya Castle is a Japanese castle located in Nagoya, Japan. Nagoya Castle was constructed by the Owari Domain in 1612 during the Edo period on the site of an earlier castle of the Oda clan in the Sengoku period. Nagoya Castle was the heart of one of the ...

, and started work on a new castle at Karatsu, using many materials from the old one, from 1602 1608. The

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

ordered neighboring '' tozama'' domains to contribute to its construction, and they did so primarily by excavating its network of moats. In 1637, in part due to his failure to suppress the

Shimabara rebellion The , also known as the or , was an rebellion, uprising that occurred in the Shimabara Domain of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan from 17 December 1637 to 15 April 1638. Matsukura Katsuie, the ''daimyō'' of the Shimabara Domain, enforced unpo ...

, his lands were confiscated by the Shogunate. Karatsu Domain was given over to the control of the Ōkubo clan (1649–1678), Matsudaira (Ogyū) clan (1678–1691), the Doi clan (1691–1762), Mizuno clan (1762–1817), until finally coming into the possession of the Ogasawara clan in 1762. In June 1869, the title of daimyo was abolished, and in 1871, Karatsu Domain itself was abolished with the

abolition of the han system The in the Empire of Japan and its replacement by a system of prefectures in 1871 was the culmination of the Meiji Restoration begun in 1868, the starting year of the Meiji period. Under the reform, all daimyos (, ''daimyō'', feudal lords) ...

, and became part of the new

. Karatsu Castle was pulled down shortly afterwards, and in its place Maizuru Park was established in 1877. The current donjon and some other structures of the castle were reconstructed in 1966 to boost local tourism and to function as a local museum. The current donjon features five tiers and five stories, with a lower ground floor; it also houses an exhibition area.Karatsu Castle
Japan National Tourist Association Many of the ''yagura'' date from the same time, although the Tatsumi Yagura was added in 1990.

Literature

* * * * *

Notes

External links

*
Jcastle Profile

{{Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles Castles in Saga Prefecture Museums in Saga Prefecture History museums in Japan Mizuno clan Ogasawara clan Ogyū-Matsudaira clan Ōkubo clan