was 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 ...

(now in ruins) located in the city of Toba,

Mie Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture ...

, Japan. Throughout 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 ...

, Toba Castle was the administrative center for Toba Domain, a feudal domain of

Shima Province was a province of Japan which consisted of a peninsula in the southeastern part of modern Mie Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Shima''" in . Its abbreviated name was . Shima bordered on Ise Province to the west, and on Ise B ...

under 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 ...

. Toba Castle was also known as the or the (from the fact that its seaward side was painted black, and landward side painted white). The castle site received protection as a Mie Prefectural Historic Site in 1965.

Location

Toba Castle is located on a hill on the coast of

Ise Bay is a bay located at the mouth of the Kiso Three Rivers between Mie and Aichi Prefectures in Japan. Ise Bay has an average depth of and a maximum depth of . The mouth of the bay is and is connected to the smaller Mikawa Bay by two channels: ...

, near the center of modern Toba City, with its main gate facing the ocean. The castle occupied an area roughly 400 meters by 200 meters, with stone walls in the central area and a three-story ''

tenshu is an architectural typology found in Japanese castle complexes. They are easily identifiable as the highest tower within the castle. Common translations of ''tenshu'' include keep, main keep, or ''donjon''. ''Tenshu'' are characterized as ty ...

'' built in 1633. A water moat completely separated the castle area from the mainland.

History

The castle was constructed in 1594 by Kuki Yoshitaka, who commanded a force of Japanese pirates, who dominated the Ise Bay area in 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 ...

. Kuki Yoshitaka was enlisted into the service of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese '' daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unif ...

in 1575 to assist him in crushing the ''

Ikkō-ikki were rebellious or autonomous groups of people that were formed in several regions of Japan in the 15th-16th centuries; backed up by the power of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism, they opposed the rule of governors or ''daimyō''. Mainly co ...

'' movement based at Nagashima. In return, Nobunaga allowed him to seize

, forcing out other maritime clans, such the Mukai clan, who went to

Suruga Province was an old province in the area that is today the central part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Suruga bordered on Izu, Kai, Sagami, Shinano, and Tōtōmi provinces; and was bordered by the Pacific Ocean through Suruga Bay to the south. Its abbrev ...

to support

Takeda Shingen , of Kai Province, was a pre-eminent ''daimyō'' in feudal Japan. Known as the "Tiger of Kai", he was one of the most powerful Daimyo, daimyō with exceptional military prestige in the late stage of the Sengoku period. Shingen was a warlord of ...

and later

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fel ...

. As Oda Nobunaga expanded westward, he came into conflict with the Mori clan of western Japan, and their maritime allies, the Murakami clan. The Kuki and Murakami navies fought in several engagements in

Osaka Bay Osaka Bay (大阪湾 ''Ōsaka-wan'' ) is a bay in western Japan. As an eastern part of the Seto Inland Sea, it is separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Kii Channel and from the neighbor western part of the Inland Sea by the Akashi Strait ...

, eventually emerging victorious through their use of armored ships. Following the death of Nobunaga, the Kuki gave their fealty to

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

. However, after Hideyoshi's death, Kuki Yoshitaka continued to support the Toyotomi, whereas his son, Kuki Moritaka gave his fealty to Tokugawa Ieyasu. During Ieyasu's expedition against the

Uesugi clan The is a Japanese samurai clan which was at its peak one of the most powerful during the Muromachi and Sengoku periods (14th to 17th centuries). Appert, Georges. (1888) ''Ancien Japon,'' p. 79./ref> At its height, the clan had three main branch ...

Aizu is the westernmost of the three regions of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, the other two regions being Nakadōri in the central area of the prefecture and Hamadōri in the east. As of October 1, 2010, it had a population of 291,838. The princip ...

, Kuki Yoshitaka seized the castle from his son with Toyotomi assistance. After the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara ( Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 ( Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu prefecture, Japan, at the end of ...

, he fled the castle and eventually committed ''

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese peop ...

''. The Kuki clan continued to rule Toba until 1633, but by this time the shogunate no longer required a naval force, and they were replaced by a succession of fudai daimyō. Under Naito Tadashige the grounds were expanded by adding a second and third Bailey. The castle came into the possession of the

Inagaki clan is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Inagaki Chusei (1897–1922), Japanese painter *Goro Inagaki (born 1973), Japanese singer and musician *Hiroshi Inagaki (1905–1980), Japanese filmmaker *Jitsuo Inagaki (1928–200 ...

in 1725. The Inagaki ruled the 30,000 '' koku'' Toba Domain for eight generations 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 castle suffered severe damage due to

typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

s in 1792, 1800 and 1838. The ''tenshu'' was destroyed in 1854 during one of the Ansei great earthquakes and was not rebuilt. Following the

, the remaining structures of the castle were destroyed in 1871 by orders of the new

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

. The Ni-no-maru and San-no-maru enclosures were sold to private hands in 1875, leaving only the entral Honmaru, most of which is now occupied by the modern Toba City Hall, Toba City Elementary School, Shiroyama Park, and Toba Aquarium. The castle site is a 15-minute walk from the

JR Central is the main railway company operating in the Chūbu (Nagoya) region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and in Japanese as JR Tōkai ( ja, JR東海, links=no). ''Tōkai'' is a reference to the geographical ...

Kintetsu Railway , referred to as , is a Japanese passenger railway company, managing infrastructure and operating passenger train service. Its railway system is the largest in Japan, excluding Japan Railways Group. The railway network connects Osaka, Nara, Kyo ...

Toba Station.

References

External links

Toba Castle Jcastle ProfileToba City home page
{in lang, ja Castles in Mie Prefecture Ruined castles in Japan History of Mie Prefecture Toba, Mie Shima Province

Location

History

Further reading

References

External links