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

Toyohashi is a city in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 377,453 in 160,516 households and a population density of 1,400 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . By area, Toyohashi was Aichi Prefecture's second-lar ...

, southeastern Aichi Prefecture, 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 ...

, Yoshida Castle was home to the

Inaba clan The were a ''samurai'' kin group which rose to prominence in the Sengoku period and the Edo periods.Meyer, Eva-Maria"Gouverneure von Kyôto in der Edo-Zeit". Universität Tübingen (in German) Under the Tokugawa shogunate, the Inaba, as heredita ...

, ''

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

Tateyama Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Awa Province (southern modern-day Chiba Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Tateyama Castle in what is now the city of Tateyama, Chiba. History Most of the B� ...

. The castle was also known as , and later as Toyohashi Castle.

Description

Yoshida Castle is a flat-land style Japanese castle, built on the west bank of the Toyogawa (river). The main bailey was enclosed by a moat, with three three-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 ...

,'' one two-story yagura and three gates. The second and third baileys were also moated, and had smaller ''yagura'' and fortified gates. Aside from some remnants of the stonework on the moats, nothing remains of the original structures. The present “castle” is a modern reconstruction of one of the three-story ''yagura''. It houses a small museum with articles pertaining to local history.

History

A castle was built on the banks of the Toyogawa (river) in 1505 by Makino Kohaku, a retainer of

Imagawa Ujichika was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period. He was the 10th head of the Imagawa clan of Suruga Province. Ujichika was the son of Imagawa Yoshitada. He was the husband of Jukei-ni. Biography In 1476, Ujichika father, Yoshitada, invaded ...

to secure his foothold on eastern

Mikawa Province was an old province in the area that today forms the eastern half of Aichi Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Mikawa''" in . Its abbreviated form name was . Mikawa bordered on Owari, Mino, Shinano, and Tōtōmi Provinces. Mi ...

against the growing power 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 t ...

in western Mikawa Province. Due to its strategic location on a river crossing, the castle was involved in numerous battles during 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 ...

, changing hands several times, and was destroyed and rebuilt on several occasions. From 1565, the castle 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 fello ...

, who named

Sakai Tadatsugu was one of the most favored and most successful military commanders serving Tokugawa Ieyasu in the late-Sengoku period. He is regarded as one of the Four Guardians of the Tokugawa (''Tokugawa-Shitennō''). along with Honda Tadakatsu, Ii Nao ...

as castellan. Following 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 ...

ordered the

Tokugawa clan The is a Japanese dynasty that was formerly a powerful ''daimyō'' family. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa (850–880) and were a branch of the Minamoto clan (Seiwa Genji) through the Matsudaira clan. The early history of this clan r ...

to relocate to the Kantō region and assigned the castle to

Ikeda Terumasa was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. His court title was '' Musashi no Kami''. Terumasa was also known by the nickname ''saigoku no shōgun'', or, "The ''Shōgun'' of Western Japan". Terumasa fought in many of the battles of the ...

. Ikeda developed the surrounding

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 ...

and embarked on a massive and ambitious plan to rebuild Yoshida Castle. However, following the Battle of Sekigahara, he was relocated to

Himeji Castle is a hilltop Japanese castle complex situated in the city of Himeji which is located in the Hyōgo Prefecture of Japan. The castle is regarded as the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture, comprising a network o ...

. Construction of the castle was incomplete, and the central keep was never built. After 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 ...

, Yoshida Castle became the center of

Yoshida Domain was a Japanese feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Mikawa Province located in eastern Mikawa Province (modern-day eastern Aichi Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Yoshida Castle in what is now the cit ...

, a feudal domain that occupied a strategic position on the

Tōkaidō (road) The , which roughly means "eastern sea route," was the most important of the Five Routes of the Edo period in Japan, connecting Kyoto to Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Unlike the inland and less heavily travelled Nakasendō, the Tōkaidō travelled al ...

between Edo and

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most po ...

. The domain was assigned to several '' fudai

'' clans until the Matsudaira (Nagasawa-Ōkōchi) clan took possession in 1752; they remained in residence at Yoshida 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 ...

. The final ''daimyō'' of Yoshida,

Matsudaira Nobuhisa 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 t ...

, surrendered the castle without resistance to 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 ...

in 1868. The castle was turned over to the fledgling

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 ...

in 1871 but largely was destroyed in a fire in 1873. Much of the castle grounds remained in the hands of the military (as the garrison of the IJA 18th Infantry Regiment) until 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 opposing ...

. Following the end of the war, a portion of the third bailey was transformed into Toyohashi Park, and the modern Toyohashi City Hall was constructed on another portion. In 1954, the three-story was reconstructed out of reinforced concrete. An art museum and sports facilities were later erected on the site of the inner baileys. The stonework was extensively repaired in 2005. The Castle was listed as one of　the

Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles The is a list of 100 castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it ...

in 2017.

Literature

* * * * *

References

External links

Japan Castle Explorer

Yoshida Castle Jcastle Profile
{{Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles Castles in Aichi Prefecture Museums in Aichi Prefecture Toyohashi Ikeda clan Makino clan Mizuno clan Ōkōchi-Matsudaira clan Sakai clan