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, suc ...

located in Tateyama, southern

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to the n ...

, Japan. At the end of the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, Tateyama Castle was home to the

Inaba clan The were a ''samurai'' kin group which rose to prominence in the Sengoku period and the Edo periods.Meyer, Eva-Maria"Gouverneure von Kyôto in der Edo-Zeit". Universität Tübingen (in German) Under the Tokugawa shogunate, the Inaba, as heredita ...

, ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

'' of

Tateyama Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Awa Province (southern modern-day Chiba Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Tateyama Castle in what is now the city of Tateyama, Chiba. History Most of the B ...

, but the castle is better known for its association with the former rulers of Awa Province, the

Satomi clan The was a Japanese samurai clan of the Sengoku period (1467–1573) and early Edo period (1603–1868). The clan ruled Awa Province as a ''Sengoku daimyō'' and was a major military power in the Kantō region during the wars of the Nanboku-c ...

. The castle was also known as .

History

Satomi Yoshiyori is a feminine Japanese given name which is also used as a surname. Possible writings Satomi can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *里美, "hometown, beauty" *怜美, "wise, beauty" *聡美, "wise, beauty" *智美, "wisd ...

, virtually independent lord of all of the

Bōsō Peninsula The is a peninsula that encompasses the entirety of Chiba Prefecture on Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It is part of the Greater Tokyo Area. It forms the eastern edge of Tokyo Bay, separating it from the Pacific Ocean. The peninsula cover ...

during the

Sengoku Period The was a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Variou ...

, erected Tateyama Castle in 1580 to guard the entry to

Edo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan, and spans the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. The Tokyo Bay region is both the most populous a ...

and the southern portions of his domains. After the Satomi clan was destroyed by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in ...

in 1614 and

suppressed, the castle was allowed to fall into ruin. In 1781, the domain was reinstated, with Inaba Masaaki as the first daimyō of Tateyama Domain under the

. He rebuilt the fortifications of the old castle, but apparently did not erect a

donjon A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in ...

, as his successor,

Inaba Masatake was daimyō of Tateyama Domain during late- Edo period Japan. Biography Inaba Masatake was the fourth son of the previous daimyō of Tateyama Domain, Inaba Masaaki. On the death of his elder brother, Inaba Masanori, in 1788, he was appointed ...

was only allowed to build a '' jinya'' fortified residence. The Inaba clan remained in residence at Tateyama until the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were r ...

. The current ''donjon'' was reconstructed in 1982 to boost local tourism and to function as an annex to the local Tateyama City Museum. As there are no surviving records indicating the appearance of the original ''donjon'', the current structure was modeled after

Inuyama Castle is a ''yamajiro''-style Japanese castle located in the city of Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The castle overlooks the Kiso River, which serves as the border between Aichi and Gifu Prefectures. The ''tenshu'' of Inuyama Castle, one of only 1 ...

. The interior is devoted primarily to exhibits pertaining to the epic novel '' Nanso Satomi Hakkenden'', by

author

Takizawa Bakin (), a.k.a. (, 4 July 1767 – 1 December 1848), was a Japanese novelist of the Edo period. Born (), he wrote under the pen name (). Later in life he took the pen name (). Modern scholarship generally refers to him as , or just as n. He is ...

. The surrounding is a popular local spot for bird-watching, and for

sakura A cherry blossom, also known as Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of many trees of genus ''Prunus'' or ''Prunus'' subg. ''Cerasus''. They are common species in East Asia, including China, Korea and especially in Japan. They generally ...

blossoms in spring.

Literature

* * * *

References

External links

Tateyama Castle Jcastle Profile
{{Authority control Castles in Chiba Prefecture Museums in Chiba Prefecture History museums in Japan Historic Sites of Japan Former castles in Japan Ruined castles in Japan Satomi clan