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 ...

located in

Iwatsuki-ku, Saitama is one of ten wards of the city of Saitama, in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, and is located in the northeastern part of the city. , the ward had an estimated population of 112,862 and a population density of 2,300 persons per km². Its total area w ...

, in

Saitama Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 km2 (1,466 sq mi). Saitama Prefecture borders Tochigi Prefecture ...

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 ...

. 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 characteriz ...

, Tateyama Castle was home to the

Ōoka clan The were a ''samurai'' kin group which rose to prominence in the Edo period. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, the Ōoka, as hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa clan, were classified as one of the '' fudai'' ''daimyō'' clans.Appert, Georges. (1888) ...

, ''

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 n ...

'' of

Iwatsuki Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, in Musashi Province (modern-day Saitama Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Iwatsuki Castle in what is now part of Iwatsuki-ku, Saitama. History Iwatsuki was an importa ...

, however the castle dates from the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

and was inhabited by many samurai lords over its history. During the Edo period, the name of the castle was written as “岩付城”. It was also known as or . The site of the castle is a Saitama Prefectural Historic Monument.

Situation

The castle was located in the

Kantō Plain The is the largest plain in Japan, and is located in the Kantō region of central Honshū. The total area of 17,000 km2 covers more than half of the region extending over Tokyo, Saitama Prefecture, Kanagawa Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture, ...

near the northern border of former

Musashi Province was a province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo Metropolis, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called . The province encompassed Kawasaki and Yokohama. Musashi bordered on Kai, Kōzuke, Sagami, S ...

, and made use of a bend in the former location of the

Arakawa River or Ara River may refer to: * Arakawa River (Kanto), which flows from Saitama Prefecture and through Tokyo to Tokyo Bay * Arakawa River (Uetsu), which flows from Yamagata Prefecture and through Niigata Prefecture to the Sea of Japan. * Arakawa Riv ...

as part of its defenses to the north and east, and a swamp to the west and south. Large scale anti-flood construction diverted the main flow of the Arakawa River in the mid-Edo period, and the current location of the castle is some distance from the modern-day river. The main bailey, second enclosure and third enclosure were surrounded by very wide swampy moats, with the

castle town A castle town is a settlement built adjacent to or surrounding a castle. Castle towns were common in Medieval Europe. Some examples include small towns like Alnwick and Arundel, which are still dominated by their castles. In Western Europe, ...

located to the southwest.

History

The castle was built in the early Muromachi period by Narita Jikosai Tosho. For a long time it was believed the castle was built by

Ōta Dōkan , also known as Ōta Sukenaga (太田資長) or Ōta Dōkan Sukenaga, was a Japanese ''samurai'' warrior-poet, military tactician and Buddhist monk. Ōta Sukenaga took the tonsure (bald scalp) as a Buddhist priest in 1478, and he also adopted t ...

. But new source was found and it turns out that the castle was built by Narita Jikosai Tosho. In 1478 to protect the southern frontier of the

Kantō kubō (also called , , or ) was a title equivalent to ''shōgun'' assumed by Ashikaga Motouji after his nomination to ''Kantō kanrei'', or deputy shōgun for the Kamakura-fu, in 1349.Kokushi Daijiten (1983:542) Motouji transferred his original title t ...

. In any event, the Ōta clan was firmly ensconced at Iwatsuki by 1522, and changed their allegiance to the increasingly powerful Odawara Hōjō following the

Siege of Kawagoe Castle The 1545–1546 was part of a failed attempt by the Uesugi clan to regain Kawagoe Castle from the Later Hōjō clan in the Sengoku period of Japan. Uesugi Tomosada of the Ogigayatsu branch of the Uesugi clan attacking Kawagoe castle, he was jo ...

in 1546, which all but destroyed Uesugi power in the

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Slight ...

. However, when

Uesugi Kenshin , later known as was a Japanese ''daimyō''. He was born in Nagao clan, and after adoption into the Uesugi clan, ruled Echigo Province in the Sengoku period of Japan. He was one of the most powerful ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period. Known as ...

invaded the Kantō area from the north in 1560, Ōta Sukemasa switched back his allegiance to the Uesugi. However, once Kenshin withdraw his armies, the Odawara Hōjō quickly regained their lost territories. Ōta Sukemasa refused to submit, and in 1564 called upon 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-ch ...

for assistance. However, in his absence, his son Ōta Ujitsuke betrayed him and surrendered Iwatsuki Castle to the Odawara Hōjō. Following the death of Ōta Ujitsuke in 1567, the Odawara Hōjō requisitioned Iwatsuki Castle for their own use, and rebuilt the defenses extensively with a huge system of earthen walls and deep moats enclosing an area of over a square kilometer as one of the largest and most powerful strongholds in

. A brother of

Hōjō Ujinao Hōjō Ujinao (北条氏直: 1562 – December 19, 1591) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the late Sengoku period, and the final head of the Later Hōjō clan. An important figure in the history of Azuchi-Momoyama politics, he lost his entire d ...

was made castellan, followed by his brother Ujifusa in 1585. However, in 1590 during the Battle of Odawara,

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 Cour ...

dispatched an army of 20,000 men, who quickly overwhelmed the 2000 defenders of the castle. Iwatsuki then came under the control of

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 fellow ...

, who assigned the 20,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

to one of his most trusted retainers,

Kōriki Kiyonaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' during the Azuchi–Momoyama and Edo periods. A native of Mikawa Province, Kiyonaga served the Tokugawa clan during its battles, until 1600. he was one of Ieyasu's "three magistrates" (san-bugyō). Biography Born in ...

. Over the next 100 years, the domain came under the control of a large 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 admini ...

'' clans, including the Aoyama, Abe, Itakura, Toda, Matsudaira, Ogasawara and Nagai clans before coming under the rule of the

, who held the domain 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 ...

. In 1775, a great fire under the time of Ōoka Tadayoshi destroyed the castle and most of the surrounding town. The central donjon of the castle again burned down in 1865 and Ōoka Tadayuki lacked the financial capacity to rebuild it. The Ōoka clan sided with the pro-imperial forces in the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

. Following the Meiji restoration, most of the castle structures were dismantled, and through land reclamation much of the former castle area is now covered by the modern city. The remaining, mostly marshy areas are now the Iwatsuki Castle Park, which contains some remnants of the earthen works and moats, as well as two of the original gates of the castle which were preserved by private owners, and relocated to their present locations. The park is a noted venue for

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

blossoms in spring.

Literature

* * * *

References

External links

Iwatsuki Castle Jcastle Profile
{{Authority control Castles in Saitama Prefecture Abe clan Fujii-Matsudaira clan Go-Hōjō clan Itakura clan Ogasawara clan Ōta clan Uesugi clan Former castles in Japan Ruined castles in Japan