was a Japanese castle located in

Koga KOGA is a Dutch bicycle manufacturer based in Heerenveen, Friesland. The company is known for its long time partnership with Japanese frame manufacturer Miyata, producing bicycles and sponsoring racing teams under the brand name Koga Miyata. As ...

Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...

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 ...

. During 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 ...

, Koga was the seat of the Kantō kubō, under the Ashikaga clan. 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 ...

, Koga Castle was the administrative center of

Koga Domain file:Koga castle kannonjikuruwa dorui.jpg, alt=, Site of Koga Castle, administrative headquarters of Koga Domain was a Han (Japan), feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Shimōsa Province, Honshū. The d ...

, which was held by a large number of '' fudai daimyō'' clans, spending the longest time under the control of the Doi clan (1633-1681, 1762–1871).

History

The fortification at Koga may date to the late

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...

or early

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

, and the '' Azuma Kagami'' refers to a fortification in Koga built by Shimokobe Yukihira before 1180, although it is not certain if it was in this location. After the Battle of Uji (1180), the head of

Minamoto Yorimasa (1106 – 20 June 1180) was a prominent Japanese poet whose works appeared in various anthologies. He served eight different emperors in his long career, holding posts such as ''hyōgo no kami'' (head of the arsenal). He was also a warrior, ...

was brought to Koga by the Shomokobe clan. A

Shinto shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, meani ...

to Minamoto Yorimasa still exists at the present Koga Castle site. In 1455, the '' Kantō kubō'' Ashikaga Shigeuji relocated his seat from

Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...

to Koga. His descendants ruled to 1583, when the castle was taken by the Later Hōjō clan, in the same year

Ashikaga Ujinohime Ashikaga Ujihime (足利氏姫, 1574 – June 6, 1620), or Ashikaga no Ujihime, Ashikaga Ujinohime was the de facto Koga kubō in Sengoku period. She was the daughter of 5th Koga kubō Ashikaga Yoshiuji and Jōkō-in (a daughter of Hōjō Uji ...

took the title Koga kubō. The area was awarded to

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 ...

after the defeat of the Hōjō at the Siege of Odawara (1590) and subsequently became the center of

under 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 ...

. During the Edo period, much of the castle remained as reconstructed by

Doi Toshikatsu was a top-ranking official in Japan's Tokugawa shogunate during its early decades, and one of the chief advisors to the second Tokugawa shōgun, Hidetada. The adopted son of Doi Toshimasa, Toshikatsu is generally believed to be the biological ...

in 1633. Following 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 ...

, the structures of the castle were dismantled in 1873. Due to changes in the flow of the Watarase River and flood control work from 1910, almost nothing remains of the castle today.

Description

270px, Plan of Koga Castle Koga Castle was a flatland-style castle built on a long, narrow peninsula in the middle of the Watarase River, with the river itself and wetlands to the east and south forming part of its natural defences. The central bailey ''Honmaru'' (本丸) had three-story

donjon A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in c ...

with a similar size and style as the donjon at

Matsue Castle is a Japanese castle located in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture. Matsue Castle was constructed from 1607 to 1611 by Horio Yoshiharu, the first ''daimyō'' of the Matsue Domain, during the early Edo period. Ownership was passed to the Izumo branch of ...

, which was officially styled as a ''

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 ...

.'' The Honmaru was protected by the ''Ni-no-Maru'' (二の丸) to the west and the ''San-no-Maru'' (三の丸) to the north. Further north were two large forecourts: the ''Marunouchi Kuruwa'' ( 丸の内曲輪 ) and ''Kannonji Kuruwa'' ( 観音寺曲輪 ) and to the east as the long and narrow ''Higashiobi Kuruwa'' ( 東帯曲輪), and in the south the ''Yorimasa Kuruwa'' ( 頼政曲輪) and the ''Tatsuzaki Kuruwa'' ( 辰崎曲輪 ). An additional forecourt, the ''Suwa Kuruwa'' (諏訪輪 ) occupied a small area on the opposite bank of the river. Remaining today are the Yorimasa Jinja shrine on the site of the ''Yorimasa Kuruwa'', and the Koga History Museum on the site of the ''Suwa Kuruwa'', which preserves a fragment of the original moat.

Literature

* * * *

External links

- Koga Castle- Castle disappeared into embankment
{{Authority control Castles in Ibaraki Prefecture Ruined castles in Japan Fujii-Matsudaira clan Honda clan Hotta clan Matsui-Matsudaira clan Ogasawara clan Ōkōchi-Matsudaira clan Okudaira clan Toda-Matsudaira clan Go-Hōjō clan