Mino-Kaneyama Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Gifu

On Mount Kojo (or Furushiro-yama, about 273 m), overlooking the left bank of the Kiso River in Kani, Mino-Kaneyama Castle was a mountain castle (yamajiro) controlling eastern Mino Province and, through its port, river traffic on the Kiso. According to an Edo-period tradition, Saitō Masayoshi, adopted son of Saitō Dōsan, founded it in 1537 under the name Ugamine (Karasumine) Castle. In 1565, Oda Nobunaga entrusted it to his retainer Mori Yoshinari, who renamed it Kaneyama; his son Mori Nagayoshi, the dreaded "Oni Musashi", enlarged it before dying at the Battle of Komaki and Nagakute in 1584. The Mori held it for about thirty-five years. Dismantled around 1600-1601 after Sekigahara, its materials are said to have been used to repair Inuyama Castle. The land, later managed as a protected forest, has changed little: Azuchi-Momoyama-period stone walls, ditches and traces of the dismantling remain legible. A National Historic Site since 2013, it offers a wide panorama over Kani and the Kiso from the main enclosure.