Komaru Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Fukui

On a modest hill at the southern edge of the Fukui Plain, Komaru Castle bears witness to a brief but decisive moment in the unification of Japan. In 1575, after crushing the Ikkō-ikki leagues that held Echizen Province, Oda Nobunaga entrusted the region to three of his generals, the "Fuchū Three": Sassa Narimasa, Maeda Toshiie and Fuwa Mitsuharu. Sassa Narimasa then set about raising his own stronghold here. The work was probably never completed: in 1581 Narimasa received Etchū Province and left, abandoning the castle after barely six years. The site is best known for a discovery made in 1932: a roof-tile fragment bearing on its reverse an inscription recounting the mass execution of Ikkō-ikki followers by Maeda Toshiie, a rare first-hand testimony to the violence of that repression. Now a Fukui Prefectural Historic Site, the ruins preserve the main enclosure, earthen ramparts and traces of moats, a gate and a corner turret.