Sukagawa Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Fukushima

On a plateau some twenty metres high overlooking the floodplain of the Shakadō River, Sukagawa Castle was for nearly two centuries the centre of Nikaidō power in Iwase District. Tradition dates its foundation to 1399, when the Ashikaga were installing their representatives in Tōhoku. The castle met its tragic hour at the end of 1589: after the death of Nikaidō Moriyoshi, his widow, an aunt of Date Masamune, ruled with the support of the regent Suda Morihide and refused to submit to her nephew. Betrayed by some of her vassals, the garrison of around six hundred men was overwhelmed; the fire at Chōrokuji temple spread to the main enclosure and the lady had to flee to the Satake. The site then passed to Ishikawa Akimitsu, and later to the administrators of Gamō Ujisato. Today the Nikaidō Shrine stands on the site of the honmaru, in the heart of the modern city.