Hitoyoshi is a 12th-century castle, now ruins, located in Hitoyoshi,

Kumamoto Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Kumamoto Prefecture has a population of 1,748,134 () and has a geographic area of . Kumamoto Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the north, Ōita Prefecture to ...

. It is recognized as one of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

's top 100 castles.

History

There was an original castle built on the site by Sagara Nagayori, in the late 1200s. After this, the clan used the castle as their home, up until the early 1400s. Sometime before 1470, another castle was built on the location. The

Sagara clan The Sagara clan (相良氏, ''Sagara-shi'') was a Japanese samurai clan of daimyos. They were a tactical ally of the Shimazu clan. In the Edo period, they became the daimyo of the Hitoyoshi Domain and ruled until the Meiji Restoration. After t ...

pushed out to extend their power around the Kuma area, however they were defeated by the

Shimazu clan The were the ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan. The Shimazu were identified as one of the '' tozama'' or outsider ''daimyō'' familiesAppert, Georges ''et al.'' (1888). in contrast ...

at the Battle of Minamata in the year 1581. As a result, they lost much area under their control. Sagara Nagatsune carried out more extensive development of the castle in the year 1589. The Kumagawa River is used by the castle as both an outer defensive

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

, and for trade via water transport. The castle was demolished, like many castles in Japan, in the

Meiji era The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization b ...

Current site

Little of the castle remains today on site. The stone walls remain extant, with both a recently added

yagura Yagura may refer to: * Yagura castle * Yagura opening * Yagura (tombs) * Yagura (tower) is the Japanese word for "tower", "turret", "keep", or "scaffold". The word is most often seen in reference to structures in Japanese castle compounds bu ...

and gate.

Literature

References

---- * Former castles in Japan 1871 disestablishments in Japan Castles in Kumamoto Prefecture Sagara clan {{Kumamoto-geo-stub