Kaneda Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

On Mount Jō, 276 metres high, at the southern tip of Asō Bay, Kaneda-jō marks the northern limit of the defensive system built by the Yamato court after the naval disaster of 663. Its mention in the Nihon Shoki under the year 667, alongside Takayasu and Yashima, makes it one of the few ancient Japanese fortresses dated by written sources. Refugees from Baekje were among the engineers of this programme of Korean-style forts. Here the work exploits the terrain: the western cliffs called for little defence, while the less steep eastern slope received stone ramparts cut by three valley gates (the first, second and third kido) and by passages designed to drain water, which kept the walls from collapsing. The researcher Kakinuma Ryōsuke, drawing on several recent studies, sees it less as a means of defending the island than as a lookout and signalling post towards Tsukushi, manned by a small garrison of sakimori, whose visible solidity may also have had a demonstrative value. The fort soon ceased to be useful. It returned to strategic use at the turn of the twentieth century, when the Imperial Army installed a battery on the summit; that military road now serves as the visitors' trail.