250px, Tenshu 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, suc ...

Ōgaki Ōgaki Castle is a city located in Gifu, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 161,539, and a population density of 782 persons per km2 in 65,931 households. The total area of the city was . Ōgaki was the final destination for the ...

Gifu Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,991,390 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture ...

at the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river ( main stem); ...

of the Sai and Nagara rivers. It is also called the , due to the legend that it was built in one night. The castle was constructed by

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 C ...

, at the time a minor retainer of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese '' daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unif ...

, while they were pressing the

Siege of Inabayama Castle The of 1567 was the final battle in Oda Nobunaga's campaign to defeat the Saitō clan in their mountaintop castle and conquer Mino Province, Japan. It was a short two-week siege, fought between 13 and 27 September 1567, or in the Japanese ...

in the mid-16th century. "The work of building at Sunomata was done by a band of adventurers under the direction of a local robber baron named Hachisuka Koroku."Sunomata Ichiya Castle
Ōgaki City. Accessed November 8, 2010. Hideyoshi used pre-constructed sections to put up the fortress and it was finished so quickly that it gave the impression that it was done overnight, although the work took several days to complete. Hideyoshi's success with the construction of this castle greatly raised his prestige and standing with Nobunaga, and marked the start of his rise to fame. The "castle" was more of a wooden walled fortress, with simple watchtowers, wooden palisades, and dry moats. In reality, it was more of a border fort than a full sized castle, and was intended to intimidate, surprise and demoralize the enemy. A faux

castle tower A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with curtain walls. Castle towers can have a variety of different shapes and ful ...

was reconstructed in 1991 to serve as a local history museum. The reconstruction is not historically accurate, as it was modeled after the nearby Ōgaki Castle, although it contains a model of what the castle actually looked like in the museum, along with samurai armor and weapons of that time. The castle is also noted as a site to view cherry blossoms during spring.

References

External links

Photos with detailed descriptions
Castles in Gifu Prefecture Museums in Gifu Prefecture History museums in Japan Ōgaki {{Japan-struct-stub

See also

Further reading

References

External links