Oshio Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Hyōgo

Oshio Castle occupies Mount Oshio, a height of about 370 metres rising some ten kilometres north of central Himeji, above the Yumesaki valley and the old Banshū road. It was founded in 1469 by Akamatsu Masanori, who had restored the power of his clan after the troubles of the mid-15th century, and for more than a century it was the main residence of the Akamatsu governors of Harima Province. Masanori's successors faced there the rise of their Urakami vassals, then the Amago invasion at the end of the 1530s. In 1577 the last lord, Akamatsu Norifusa, submitted to Hashiba Hideyoshi, who had the fortress dismantled around 1580; part of the materials is said to have been reused at Himeji Castle. On the mountain survive more than sixty levelled terraces, whose slopes are often reinforced at their base by low stone walls, forming one of the largest medieval castle complexes in Harima.