thumbnail, 260px, aerial photograph of site of Zeze Castle thumbnail, 260px, Edo period layout of Zeze Castle , is a ''hirashiro''-style

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 eastern part of the city of

Ōtsu 270px, Ōtsu City Hall is the capital city of Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 343,991 in 153,458 households and a population density of 740 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . History Ōtsu is ...

Shiga Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,398,972 as of 1 February 2025 and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to th ...

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 ...

Overview

Zeze Castle is located on a peninsula jutting into

Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan. It is located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Lake Biwa is an ancient lake, over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13 ...

. Almost immediately after 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, ...

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 ...

order the destruction of Ōtsu Castle and the construction of a new castle at this location in order to control the Tōkaidō highway connecting

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

with

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

and the provinces of eastern Japan. This was the most important highway in

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 ...

Japan, and the location of Zeze Castle was even more strategically important as it was close to the Seta-no-Karahashi, an ancient bridge which marked the entrance to the capital. The layout of the castle was planned by Todo Takatora, who already had a reputation for castle design. The construction work was assigned to the major western ''

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 ...

'', with many materials from the demolished Ōtsu Castle used to speed construction. The ''

tenshu is an architectural typology found in Japanese castle, 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 cha ...

'', located in the western corner of the

inner bailey The inner bailey or inner ward of a castle is the strongly fortified enclosure at the heart of a medieval castle.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 22. It is protected by the outer ...

was unusual in that it had a four-story design. The ''San-no-maru'' (Third Bailey) was on the shore, with the ''Ni-no-maru'' (Second Bailey) and ''Honmaru'' (Inner Baily) separated by stone walls and moats, each forming an island. On its completion, the castle was assigned to Toda Kazuaki, who was appointed ''daimyō'' of the newly created

Zeze Domain was a '' fudai'' feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It was located in southern Ōmi Province, in the Kansai region of central Honshu. The domain was centered at Zeze Castle, located on the shore of Lake Biwa in w ...

with a ''

kokudaka refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of ''koku'' of rice. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Koku"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 5 ...

'' of 30,000 ''

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 ...

''. His son, Toda Ujizane, was reassigned to Amagasaki Domain in

Settsu Province was a province of Japan, which today comprises the southeastern part of Hyōgo Prefecture and the northern part of Osaka Prefecture. It was also referred to as or . Osaka and Osaka Castle were the main center of the province. Most of Settsu's ...

in 1617, and the castle came under the control of a number of ''

fudai daimyō was a class of ''daimyō'' (大名) in the Tokugawa Shogunate (徳川幕府) of Japan who were hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa before the Battle of Sekigahara. ''Fudai daimyō'' and their descendants filled the ranks of the Tokugawa admin ...

'' clans, most notably the

Honda clan The is a Japanese family that claims descent from the medieval court noble Fujiwara no Kanemichi. The family settled in Mikawa and served the Matsudaira clan as retainers. Later, when the main Matsudaira family became the Tokugawa clan, the H ...

, who ruled over 13 generations from 1651 to 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 Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

. The castle was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1662, and due to its lakeside location suffered from land erosion which required constant upkeep. In 1870, after the

, the structures of the castle were either destroyed or sold off. The site of the inner bailey has become the "Zeze Castle Ruins Park", with a few stone walls remaining a reconstructed gate. A number of the original castle gates have survived in various locations, including at the Zeze Shrine (Ōtemon Gate from the Honmaru), Shinozu Shrine (North Ōtemon Gate), and Muchisaki Hachiman-gu (South Ōtemon Gate). Each of these three gates has been designated as a National Important Cultural Property. Another gate, the Koraimon Gate, has been relocated to the Hosomi Memorial Foundation in Izumiōtsu, Osaka. One of the two-story corner ''yagura'' towers survives at Chausuyama Park in Ōtsu, where it has been converted into a building for use for assemblies, but it no longer retains its original form. The site of the ''Ni-no-maru'' Bailey of the castle is now a water treatment plant. The castle is a twenty-minute walk from

Zeze Station is a passenger railway station located in the city of Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, operated by the West Japan Railway Company (JR West). It is located adjacent to the privately-operated Keihan Electric Railway Keihan Zeze Station, but the two ...

on the

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, ...

Biwako Line The is the nickname used by the operator of the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) to refer to the portion of the Tōkaidō Main Line (between Maibara Station and Kyoto Station) and the Hokuriku Main Line (between Maibara Station and Nagaham ...

Literature

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References

External links

*{{Commons category-inline
Shiga-Biwako Visitors Guide
Castles in Shiga Prefecture Ruined castles in Japan History of Shiga Prefecture Buildings and structures in Ōtsu Ōmi Province 1601 establishments in Japan

Overview

See also

Literature

References

External links