is a Japanese castle located in

Fujieda is a city located in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 145,032 in 59,480 households, and a population density of 750 persons per km². The total area of the city was . Fujieda is a member of the World Health O ...

, central

Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...

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 ...

, Tanaka Castle was home to a branch of the

Honda clan The is a Japanese family that claims descent from the medieval court noble Fujiwara no Kanemichi. The family settled in Mikawa and served the Matsudaira clan as retainers. Later, when the main Matsudaira family became the Tokugawa clan, the Hon ...

, ''

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 Tanaka Domain.

Background

Tanaka Castle is located on a hill in a marshy area in the middle of the Shida Plain, between the Seto and the Rokken rivers. Originally, the Imagawa clan used the site as a small stronghold, ordering their vassals, the Isshiki clan to construct a fortification in 1537 to protect the western approaches to Sunpu Castle. However, when

Suruga Province was an old province in the area that is today the central part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Suruga bordered on Izu, Kai, Sagami, Shinano, and Tōtōmi provinces; and was bordered by the Pacific Ocean through Suruga Bay to the south. Its abbrevia ...

came under occupation by the Takeda clan in 1570,

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 ...

had the stronghold expanded to guard the western border of Suruga against the increasing strength 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 ...

in neighboring Tōtōmi Province, and assigned his general

Yamagata Masakage also known as Obu Masakage was a Japanese samurai warrior of the Sengoku period. He is known as one of the "Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen". He was famous for his red armour and skill in battlefield, and was a personal friend of Takeda ...

as castellan. In 1572, another of Shingen's generals, Inagaki Nobuyasu, replaced Yamagata. The castle withstood an attack by Tokugawa forces in 1582, but was later surrendered after the death of Takeda Katsuyori. The current layout of Tanaka Castle dates from the period of Takeda rule. As there was no limitation due to geography, the fortifications consisted of three concentric circular moats, each with four gates equipped with a "maru umadashi" style gate, itself surrounded by crescent-moon shaped moats. The outer moat had a diameter of 300 meters.

History

The location of the castle on the Tōkaidō highway connecting

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 ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

gave it considerable strategic value. Following the establishment of 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 ...

assigned the castle to

Sakai Tadatoshi was a Japanese samurai daimyō of the Edo period. He was head of a cadet branch of the Sakai clan. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Sakai" at ''Nobiliare du Japon'' ...

, who built a small, 2-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 ...

and added a fourth moat. Subsequently, as headquarters for Tanaka Domain, it changed hands many times during the early

through a succession of '' fudai daimyō'' before coming under the control of a cadet branch of the

in 1730. Tokugawa Ieyasu and subsequent shōgun used the castle as an occasional base for

falconry Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person ...

expeditions, and it was at Tanaka Castle that Tokugawa Ieyasu is alleged to have eaten

tempura is a typical Japanese dish usually consisting of seafood, meat and vegetables that have been battered and deep fried. The dish was introduced by the Portuguese in Nagasaki through fritter-cooking techniques in the 16th century. The word ''tem ...

, just before his death. During the

Bakumatsu period was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji govern ...

, in 1868 the Honda were reassigned to the newly created

Nagao Domain was a Japanese feudal domain of the early Meiji period, located in Awa Province. It was centered at what is now the Shirahama area of the city of Minamibōsō, Chiba in Chiba Prefecture. History In 1867, during the Meiji Restoration, the final ...

in Awa Province in order to make way for an expanded Shizuoka Domain to be ruled by the ex-Shōgun

Tokugawa Yoshinobu Prince was the 15th and last ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He was part of a movement which aimed to reform the aging shogunate, but was ultimately unsuccessful. He resigned of his position as shogun in late 1867, while aiming ...

. Tanaka Castle was assigned to one of his '' hatamoto'', the

sōjutsu , meaning "art of the spear", is the Japanese martial art of fighting with a . Origins Although the spear had a profound role in early Japanese mythology, where the islands of Japan themselves were said to be created by salt water dripping fro ...

master Takahashi Deishū, but was pulled down in 1872, 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 area turned to schools, houses and rice fields. The current structures include remnants of the moats and stonework, as well as a large ''

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 ...

'', reconstructed in 1992 to serve as a local history museum.

Literature

* * * * *

External links

Tanaka Castle Jcastle ProfilePhotos of Tanaka Castle
{{Authority control Castles in Shizuoka Prefecture Ruined castles in Japan History of Shizuoka Prefecture Fujieda, Shizuoka Suruga Province Honda clan