270px, Plan of Komoro Castle. The red square = Remains of Tenshukaku 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 the city of Komoro, central

Nagano Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...

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 ...

, Komoro Castle was home to a junior branch of the

Makino clan The are a ''daimyō'' branch of the ''samurai'' Minamoto clan in Edo period Japan.Alpert, Georges. (1888) ''Ancien Japon,'' p. 70./ref> In the Edo period, the Makino were identified as one of the '' fudai'' or insider ''daimyō'' clans which we ...

, ''

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

Komoro Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Shinano Province, Honshū. The domain was centered at Komoro Castle, located in what is now part of the city of Komoro in Nagano Prefecture.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 ...

, the area which later became the city of Komoro was under the control of a local warlord, Oi Mitsutada, who built a fortification at the site of Komoro Castle. After the area came under the control of

Takeda Shingen , of Kai Province, was a pre-eminent ''daimyō'' in feudal Japan. Known as the "Tiger of Kai", he was one of the most powerful daimyō with exceptional military prestige in the late stage of the Sengoku period. Shingen was a warlord of great ...

by 1554, the fortification was completely reconstructed into a castle under the direction of Shingen's master strategist Yamamoto Kansuke. Following the destruction of the Takeda clan by

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 ...

in 1582, the castle was given to

Takigawa Kazumasu , also known as Sakonshōgen (左近将監), was a samurai retainer and military commander of Oda Nobunaga, and later Toyotomi Hideyoshi, during Japan's Sengoku period. His biological son, Toshimasu, was adopted by Toshihisa and later Kazumasu ...

, one of Nobunaga's generals. After Nobunaga was assassinated in the

Honnō-ji incident The was an attempt to assassinate Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga at the Honnō-ji temple in Kyoto on 21 June 1582, resulting in the suicide by '' seppuku'' of both Nobunaga and his son Oda Nobutada. The unprotected Nobunaga was ambushed by his ...

, it came briefly under the control of the

Later Hōjō clan The was one of the most powerful samurai families in Japan in the Sengoku period and held domains primarily in the Kantō region. Their last name was simply Hōjō (北条) but in order to differentiate between the earlier Hōjō clan with the ...

Odawara is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 188,482 and a population density of 1,700 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Odawara lies in the Ashigara Plains, in the far western por ...

. After 1590, following the Battle of Odawara, Komoro 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 it to his general Sengoku Hidehisa as daimyō of

Komoro Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Shinano Province, Honshū. The domain was centered at Komoro Castle, located in what is now part of the city of Komoro in Nagano Prefecture.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 ...

'' holding later confirmed 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 ...

. He reinforced the walls and reorganized the structure around a central bailey surrounded by a north and south bailey. He was followed by his son, Sengoku Tadamasa. Tadamasa improved the castle, and the three-story Tenshukaku's foundation dates from this time. thumbnail, 250px, The foundation of the ''tench'' (Tenshukaku) The domain was transferred to the Hisamatsu branch of the

Matsudaira clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that descended from the Minamoto clan. It originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture). During the Sengoku period, the chieftain of the main line of th ...

from 1624–1648. In 1626, the donjon was struck by lightning and burned down. It was never rebuilt. The domain and castle subsequently passed through a number of clans: the Aoyama from 1648-1662, the Sakai from 1662-1679, the Nishio from 1679–1682 and the Ishikawa clanfrom 1682–1702. In 1702, a junior branch of the Makino clan was awarded Komoro, and remained in control until the end of the

. The castle was damaged from flooding in 1742 ( ja). 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 ...

, Komoro Castle was abandoned, and in 1871 with the

abolition of the han system The in the Empire of Japan and its replacement by a system of prefectures in 1871 was the culmination of the Meiji Restoration begun in 1868, the starting year of the Meiji period. Under the reform, all daimyos (, ''daimyō'', feudal lords) ...

, most of its remaining structures were demolished or donated to nearby Buddhist temples and a merchant house.

Kaikoen

Currently, the castle's ruins are open to the public as Kaikoen (懐古園) which means the nostalgic park, along with two surviving gates, the Ōtemon (The fourth gate) and San-no-mon (The third gate), both of which have been declared Important Cultural Properties. The Ōtemon is one of the original structures from the early Edo period, and the San-no-mon was rebuilt in 1765 after the 1742 flood. In addition, two other gates survive at Buddhist temples within Komoro city and a portion of the central palace structure is in private hands in the city of Tōmi. Kaikoen is also famous for beautiful

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

and autumn leaves. The

Shinano Railway Line The is a 65.1 km railway line operated by the third-sector railway operating company Shinano Railway in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. It connects Karuizawa Station in Karuizawa with Shinonoi Station in Nagano. Overview Before October 19 ...

cuts through the grounds of the castle, isolating the Ōtemon from the other remaining structures. Also located within the former castle grounds is an amusement park, a zoo which opened in 1926, and a museum dedicated to

Shimazaki Tōson Shimazaki (written: , or ) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Aki Shimazaki Aki Shimazaki (born 1966 in Gifu, Gifu, Gifu, Japan) is a Canadian novelist and Translation, translator. She moved to Canada in 1981, livin ...

.Hometown Homepage - Komoro Places to Visit
Komoro Castle was listed as one of the 100 Fine Castles of Japan by the Japan Castle Foundation in 2006.

Literature

* *Takada, Tōru: Komoro-jo in: Miura, Masayuki (eds): ''Shiro to jin'ya. Tokoku-hen''. Gakken, 2006. , S. 100th *Nishigaya, Yasuhiro (eds): ''Komoro-jo. In: Nihon Meijo Zukan'', Rikogaku-sha, 1993. . * * * *

Notes

External links

Komoro Castle Jcastle Profile
{{Authority control Castles in Nagano Prefecture 100 Fine Castles of Japan Important Cultural Properties of Japan