Little is known of . It is mostly connected to its nearby castle,
Karasawa Castle
was a Japanese castle originally built in the Heian period and used through the end of the Sengoku period. It was located in what is now part of the city of Sano, Tochigi Prefecture, in the northern Kantō region of Japan. The site has been prot ...
, both of which were next to
Sano, the corresponding castle town
for the two castles during 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 ...
.
The Sano Clan had previously built Karasawayama Castle, which had been established since the 1400s. In 1602, there was a great fire in
Edo
Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo.
Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...
castle, which could be seen
from Karasawayama Castle. The sent their condolences to the Emperor.
Some historians say that when the Emperor realised that Karasawayama Castle looked down on Edo, he told the Sano clan that there was a law against this.
In the same year of the fire, 1602, the Sano clan, rebuilt another new castle at a lower point on the hill - this castle was named Sano Castle.
Sano Castle itself only existed for a short period of time, and was a less substantial castle than its predecessor. It was built in 1602. However, after the clan moved there from their old castle, the clan became involved in the political conflict of the
Shogunate
, officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...
and were expelled, like many other non hereditary lords in
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 ...
(e.g. the
Satomi clan and
Minagawa clans). As a result of this, their lands were seized and they were forced to abandon it in 1614.
It was unoccupied after that, and fell into ruin.
Present site
There is little on the present site except for three baileys, indicating the footprint of the castle.
["Sano Castle" Castle Japan http://castle.jpn.org/en/shimotsuke/sano/1.html]
References
Castles in Tochigi Prefecture
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