Kanayama Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Strung along the ridges of Mount Kanayama, whose highest point, the Jitsujō, reaches 239 m above the Kantō Plain, this mountain castle has changed what was thought to be known about the fortifications of eastern Japan. Excavations carried out by the city of Ōta since 1992 have uncovered so many stone walls and pavements that the idea of Kantō castles lacking true masonry in the 15th and 16th centuries has had to be reconsidered. The municipality dates the start of its history to 1469, on the orders of Iwamatsu Iezumi, of the Nitta line; a tradition traces it back to the Nitta of the late Heian period, though the city does not accept this. Water is just as surprising at this height: there is the Hinoike pond, where rites for victory and rain are thought to have been held, and the Tsukinoike, close to the main entrance. The municipal brochure counts more than ten attacks, including those of Uesugi Kenshin in 1574 and Takeda Katsuyori in 1580, none of which took the castle by storm. Power nevertheless changed hands by other means: a coup by the Yokose in 1528, then the detention at Odawara in 1584 of Yura Kunishige and Nagao Akinaga by the Hōjō. Myōin-ni, Kunishige's mother, then held the stronghold before surrendering it. Occupied by Maeda Toshiie in 1590, the castle was abandoned. The Nitta shrine now stands on the summit, the Ōte-koguchi entrance and the Hinoike have been restored, and an interpretation centre opened in 2009 presents the discoveries at the foot of the mountain.