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

Takasaki is a city located in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 372,369 in 167,345 households, and a population density of 810 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Takasaki is famous as the hometown of th ...

, southern

Gunma Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,362 km2 (2,456 sq mi). Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fukushima ...

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 ...

, Tatebayashi Castle was home to a 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 ...

, ''

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

Takasaki Domain 270px, Surviving yagura of Takasaki Castle, headquarters of Takasaki 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 Takasaki Cas ...

, but the castle was ruled by a large number of different clans over its history. The castle was also known as .

History

During 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. ...

, the area around Takasaki was controlled by the

Wada clan Wada or WADA may refer to: People * Wada (Japanese surname), a list of people of Japanese ancestry * Inuwa Wada (1917-2015), Nigerian politician * Mian Wada (died 1085), Islamic scholar born in what is now Pakistan * Tawar Umbi Wada (1957–2010), ...

, and Wada Yoshinobu built a fortified manor on the banks of the Karasu River. 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 ...

, the Wada came under the service of the

Uesugi clan The is a Japanese samurai clan which was at its peak one of the most powerful during the Muromachi and Sengoku periods (14th to 17th centuries). Appert, Georges. (1888) ''Ancien Japon,'' p. 79./ref> At its height, the clan had three main branch ...

, who held the post of '' Kantō kanrei''; however in 1561, Wada Narishige, incensed over the appointment of

Uesugi Kenshin , later known as was a Japanese ''daimyō''. He was born in Nagao clan, and after adoption into the Uesugi clan, ruled Echigo Province in the Sengoku period of Japan. He was one of the most powerful ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period. Known as ...

to the post, defected to the

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 ...

. His son, Wada Nobunari, in turn came into the service of the Odawara Hōjō clan. During the Battle of Odawara in 1590,

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 ...

dispatched an army led by

Uesugi Kagekatsu was a Japanese samurai ''daimyō'' during the Sengoku and Edo periods. He was the adopted son of Uesugi Kenshin and Uesugi Kagetora’s brother in law. Early life and rise Kagekatsu was the son of Nagao Masakage, the head of the Ueda Nagao c ...

and

Maeda Toshiie was one of the leading generals of Oda Nobunaga following the Sengoku period of the 16th century extending to the Azuchi–Momoyama period. His preferred weapon was a yari and he was known as "Yari no Mataza" (槍の又左), Matazaemon (又左 ...

and destroyed Wada Castle. After

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 ...

took control over the

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 ...

in 1590, he assigned

Ii Naomasa was a general under the Sengoku period ''daimyō'', and later ''shōgun'', Tokugawa Ieyasu.Four Generals to nearby

Minowa Castle was a "hirayama"-style ( castle located in the Misato neighborhood of the city of Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. The ruins have been protected by the central government as a National Historic Site since 1987. Background Minowa Castle is l ...

. However, in 1597, Ieyasu ordered Ii Naomasa to construct a new on the site of the ruins of Wada Castle, as the location controlled a strategic junction connecting the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan. There were 6 ...

with the

Mikuni Kaidō was an ancient highway in Japan that stretched from Takasaki-juku (present day Gunma Prefecture) on the Nakasendō to Teradomari-juku (present day Niigata Prefecture) on the Hokurikudō. History The Mikuni Pass separated the Kantō region from Ech ...

highways. Ii Naomasu relocated to the site in 1598, renaming it Takasaki, and bringing with him the population of Minowa to form the nucleus of a new

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, ...

. Following the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu prefecture, Japan, at the end of ...

in 1600, the

Ii clan is a Japanese clan which originates in Tōtōmi Province. It was a retainer clan of the Imagawa family, and then switched sides to the Matsudaira clan of Mikawa Province at the reign of Ii Naotora. A famed 16th-century clan member, Ii Naomasa, ...

was relocated to

Omi Province is a hereditary noble title (''kabane'') of ancient Japan. It was given to the descendants of the Imperial Family before Emperor Kōgen. Along with ''Muraji'', ''Omi'' was reserved for the head of the most powerful clans during the Kofun perio ...

, and Takasaki Castle passed to a succession of

fudai daimyō was a class of ''daimyō'' (大名) in the Tokugawa Shogunate (徳川幕府) of Japan who were hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa before the Battle of Sekigahara. ''Fudai daimyō'' and their descendants filled the ranks of the Tokugawa admini ...

clans, notably the

Sakai is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It has been one of the largest and most important seaports of Japan since the medieval era. Sakai is known for its keyhole-shaped burial mounds, or kofun, which date from the fifth century and incl ...

, Andō and several branches of the

. The Ōkōchi Matsudaira took up residence in 1695, and except for a brief hiatus from 1710-1717, remained in control of the castle until the end of the

. In 1619, Andō Shigenobu began an ambitious reconstruction project, which lasted for 77 years over the following three generations, which included a 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 ...

in the center and two-story ''

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 ...

'' at each of the cardinal directions. Shōgun

Tokugawa Iemitsu Tokugawa Iemitsu (徳川家光, August 12, 1604 – June 8, 1651) was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who a ...

exiled his younger brother

Tokugawa Tadanaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. The son of the second ''shōgun'' Tokugawa Hidetada, his elder brother was the third ''shōgun'' Tokugawa Iemitsu. Life Often called ''Suruga Dainagon'' (the major counsellor of Suruga), ...

to Takasaki Castle in 1633, and ordered him to commit ''

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

'' here in December of the same year. In 1873, 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 ...

, most of the castle structures were destroyed or sold off, and the moats filled in. Prior the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, most of the former castle grounds were occupied by the Takasaki-based

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

’s 15th Infantry Regiment. The Takasaki city hall and city library are located on what was once part of the castle grounds. Of the surviving structures, one of the castle’s ''yagura'' was in private hands until 1974, when it was purchased by Takasaki city and relocated to one of the ''yagura'' foundation bases in the Third Bailey. One of the surviving gates from the castle was under the same private ownership, and was likewise purchased and relocated back to the castle grounds in 1980. The ''shōin'' where Tokugawa Tadanaga committed suicide is now located on the grounds of a nearby Buddhist temple, Chōshō-ji, where it serves as the priest’s residence.

Literature

* * * * *

External links

-Takasaki-Castle Jcastle Profile
{{Commons category Castles in Gunma Prefecture Takasaki, Gunma