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

Nasukarasuyama Ryumon Falls is a city located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 25,783 in 10,509 households, and a population density of 150 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Nasukarasuyama is l ...

, northern

Tochigi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Tochigi Prefecture has a population of 1,943,886 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,408 Square kilometre, km2 (2,474 Square mile, sq mi). Tochigi ...

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 ...

, Karasuyama Castle was home to a branch of the

Ōkubo 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 Ōkubo, as heredita ...

, ''

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

Karasuyama Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in the Nasu region of northern Shimotsuke Province (modern-day Tochigi Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Karasuyama Castle in what is now part of the city of Kara ...

. It was also called the

History

Karasuyama Castle was originally built by Nasu Sukeshige in 1418 and was the primary residence of the Nasu clan from 1514 to the end of the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, 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 Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

. The castle resisted repeated attacks by the

Satake clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that claimed descent from the Minamoto clan. Its first power base was in Hitachi Province. The clan was subdued by Minamoto no Yoritomo in the late 12th century, but later entered Yoritomo's service as vassals ...

and other enemies of the Nasu, but was never taken in battle. However, in 1590, partly for failing to participate in the 1590 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 ...

divided the Nasu holdings, and awarding their ancestral castle temporarily to

Oda Nobukatsu was a Japanese samurai of the Azuchi–Momoyama period. He was the second son of Oda Nobunaga. He survived the decline of the Oda clan from political prominence, becoming a ''daimyō'' in the early Edo period. Though often described as an inco ...

, one of the surviving sons 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 unify ...

. With the establishment of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

, Karasuyama Castle became the center of the 20,000 ''koku'' Karasuyama Domain, ruled by a succession of daimyo clans (Narita, Matsushita, Hori, and Itakura) before it was awarded in 1725 to a junior branch of the Ōkubo clan. Most of the castle buildings were reconstructed in 1659 by Hori Chikayoshi, including the primary daimyo residence the San-no-Maru Goten, and most of the castle gates. 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 ...

, bypassed Karasuyama, which sided with the Imperial cause. The castle was abandoned in 1869, and in 1872 the San-no-maru palace collapsed due to weight of heavy snow. In 1873, a fire swept through the remaining structures. The site is now a park, with some remaining stone walls and earthen ramparts. Following the establishment of the

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 o ...

, the remaining castle structures were destroyed in 1871. At present, the site of the castle is a public park.

Literature

* * * *{{cite book , title=Japanese Castles 1540-1640 , last=Turnbull, first=Stephen, year=2003, publisher=Osprey Publishing, isbn=1-84176-429-9 , page= 64 pages

External links

Japan Castle ExplorerJCastle Cguide to Japanese Castles
Castles in Tochigi Prefecture