Sumoto Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

On Mount Mikuma, overlooking Osaka Bay, Sumoto Castle came into being under the Atagi, lords of the Awaji sea, at a date that Edo-period texts place either in 1510 or in 1526. Subdued by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1581, the Atagi gave way to Sengoku Hidehisa, and then to Wakisaka Yasuharu, who arrived in 1585. During his twenty-four years in residence, he transformed the earthen fortress into a wholly stone-built complex, charged with watching the strait and the approaches to Osaka. His departure for Ōzu in 1609 marked the decline of the upper site. The Hachisuka then received Awaji in 1615 and, between 1631 and 1635, moved the seat of government back to Sumoto from Yura, where it had been until then. The summit offers a remarkable arrangement: stone enclosures stretching some 800 metres from east to west, more than ten vertical moats and two climbing walls, rare in Japan, which run down the northern slope and recall the fortresses built in Korea. The white tower visible from afar is not old at all. Built in 1928–1929 to celebrate the enthronement of Emperor Shōwa, this reinforced-concrete structure is presented by the city as the oldest pseudo-donjon of its kind in Japan, and no document proves that a donjon ever stood on its platform.