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

Kimitsu is a city located in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 83,058 in 39,138 households and a population density of 260 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Kimitsu is located in the southweste ...

, southern

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to t ...

, Japan. 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 characte ...

, Kururi Castle was home to a branch of the

Kuroda clan Kuroda (written: lit. "black ricefield") is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese painter *Akinobu Kuroda 黒田明伸, Japanese historian *Chris Kuroda, lighting designer and operator for the band Phish and Jus ...

, ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominal ...

'' of

Kururi Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Kazusa Province (modern-day central Chiba Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Kururi Castle in what is now the city of Kimitsu, Chiba. History The original Ku ...

. The castle was also known as , after a legend that it rained twenty-one times during its construction, or, on average, once every three days. It is located on a 227 meter hill.

History

The original Kururi Castle was a mountain-top fortification built 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 ...

by Takeda Nobunaga (1401–1477), and was ruled by his descendants, the Mariyatsu

Takeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan active from the late Heian period until the late 16th century. The clan was historically based in Kai Province in present-day Yamanashi Prefecture. The clan reached its greatest influence under the rule of Taked ...

, from 1540. With the expansion of 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-c ...

from Awa Province in 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 was taken over by

Satomi Yoshitaka was a Japanese samurai and head of the Satomi clan. In 1534, he killed his nephew and became a head of the Satomi clan. He fought against the Later Hōjō clan under Ashikaga Yoshiaki in the Battle of Kōnodai. However, Yoshiaki was killed du ...

, who used it as his base of operations against the Hōjō clan, based from

Odawara Castle is a landmark in the city of Odawara in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. History Odawara was a stronghold of the Doi clan during the Kamakura period, and a fortified residence built by their collateral branch, the Kobayakawa clan, stood on the ...

. The Hōjō attempted to take the castle unsuccessfully on a few occasions, and finally seized it in 1564. They lost it just three years later in 1567, when the Satomi regained control. Following 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 ...

punished the Satomi clan by depriving them of their territories in

Kazusa Province was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture. The province was located in the middle of the Bōsō Peninsula, whose name takes its first ''kanji'' from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa province ...

. With the entry 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 fello ...

into the Kantō region, he assigned the fortifications at Kururi to one of his retainers, Matsudaira (Ōsuga) Tadamasa, and appointed him as ''

'' of the 30,000 '' koku''

. Osugi Tadamasa built most of the current fortifications of Kururi Castle, and established a

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, a ...

at its base. Following the Battle of Sekigahara, the Ōsuga clan was transferred to

Yokosuka Castle is a Japanese castle located in Ōsuka in the southern part of what is now the city of Kakegawa, Shizuoka, Japan. It was built in the Sengoku period and was the capital of Yokosuka Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. In 1981 ...

in Suruga Province, and were replaced by the

Tsuchiya clan is a Japanese samurai kin group. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Yūki," ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 66 retrieved 2013-5-17. History The Tsuchiya clan descend from ...

with a reduction in revenues to 20,000 ''koku''. The domain was suppressed in 1679, and Kururi Castle was allowed to fall into ruin. In 1742, Kururi Domain was reinstated, with

Kuroda Naozumi Kuroda (written: lit. "black ricefield") is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese painter *Akinobu Kuroda 黒田明伸, Japanese historian *Chris Kuroda, lighting designer and operator for the band Phish and Jus ...

transferred from

Numata Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Kōzuke Province (modern-day Gunma Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Numata Castle in what is now the city of Numata, Gunma. History Following the Battle of ...

. He rebuilt the fortifications of the old castle, and his descendants continued to rule Kururi 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 1872, by orders 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 surviving structures of Kururi Castle were destroyed. The area, containing remnants of moats, earthen works and a well, became a park in 1955. The current ''

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 ...

'' was reconstructed in 1979 to boost local tourism. It was built adjacent to the earthen foundation of the original donjon. The Edo period donjon was a two-story, two-roofed structure; however the current structure is not historically accurate, and has three interior floors. The interior is a museum devoted primarily to local history exhibits.

Literature

* * * * *

External links

Kururi Castle - Jcastle Profile

Kururi Castle Municipal Museum site
(Japanese)

Notes

{{Commons category Castles in Chiba Prefecture Museums in Chiba Prefecture History museums in Japan Former castles in Japan Ruined castles in Japan Satomi clan