Kozukue Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Kanagawa

Kozukue Castle occupies a wooded hill in Kōhoku Ward, Yokohama, above the valley of the Tsurumi River. Probably founded around 1438-1439 by the Yamanouchi branch of the Uesugi at the time of the Eikyō War, it controlled the routes between the Musashi plain and the coast. In 1478, its defenders having joined the revolt of Nagao Kageharu, Ōta Dōkan besieged it from the neighbouring hill and only took it after about two months of fighting. Restored in the 16th century by Hōjō Ujitsuna, the castle became one of the strongholds of the Hōjō in the Sengoku period, entrusted to Kasahara Nobutame and the local force known as the Kozukue-shū. It surrendered without a fight during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Odawara campaign in 1590 and was abandoned after Tokugawa Ieyasu settled in the Kantō. No buildings remain, but its two large enclosures, deep dry moats and earthen ramparts can now be explored in a municipal forest park, despite the cuts made by the Daisan-Keihin road and the JR Yokohama Line.