Wakayama castle

Up until now, we've been avoiding story that needs explanations of historical circumstances. So, we prefered descriptions of buildings or areas to people's individuality or their expectations. However, if we avoid "calculations between Sengoku lords and their opinions", you can't find interesting points of the Wakayama castle. 

The main tower of the Wakayama castle

Its charm is behind the historical circumstances. To understand them, you need a little knowledge about Sengoku lords' correlations. So, please challenge to understand several Japanese history at the Sengoku era.

The Wakayama castle is, if anything, a standard castle (it located at 60 kilometers south-west of the Osaka castle). If it was not one of the three branch Tokugawa families' castle, it's difficult to distinguish it from others.

From Osaka city, you can use JR super express. From Wakayama station, the distance to the castle is around 1 kilometer. So, you may get tired a little. 


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This castle has many historical flavorings or suffered from many influential Sengoku lords' calculations. And this flavorings are the most attractive point for fans nowadays.

First flavor is from Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the ruler of Japan before Tokugawa Ieyasu (the first Shogun of the Edo shogunate). Hideyoshi commanded a famous lord who was his brother to construct this castle in 1585 for the first time. Because he thought this place was very important to protect his headquarter castle, the Osaka castle. Before the success of the sweeping operation against the Kishu area (1584), he had been annoying about opposition group's military operatons.

Second flavor is from Tokugawa Ieyasu (as we mentioned, he was the next ruler of Toyotomi Hideyoshi). After he became the ruler of Japan, the Osaka castle in which the Toyotomi family lived was destroyed by a famous war. Until his political situation got into this, the Wakayama castle was very important to surround his enemy's head quarter. However, in spite of the downfall of the Osaka castle (1615), he still respected this Wakayama castle. He ordered one of the three branch Tokugawa families to be the lord of this region (1619). And we want to emphasize that this decision was ordered after the ruin of the Toyotomi family.Was there another other purpose here?

Stone walls

Third flavor is from a post-war prossecing after the Osaka-no-jin war. Tokugawa family ordered to reconstruction of the new Osaka castle at the same place of the former Osaka castle (1620 ～ 1629). After its complishment, they used it as the strong point of this region. So, the importance of the Wakayama castle was decreased, which located a little far from the political center of Kansai area such as Osaka and Kyoto. Why they stayed in the Wakayama castle?

We want to mention again that we have talked very little about political circumstances around the year the Osaka-no-jin war (1615) happened. So, it's difficult to feel the atmosphere of the Sengoku lords who were throwned into this great change. 

Picture of Wakayama Castle

The main tower of the Wakayama castle was reconstructed of reinforced concrete, although it looks like a typical Japanese castle. It looks attractive from the outside area, because, we suppose, we look up at the top of the castle mountain. However, when we looked again at the very entrance of the main tower, we felt unsatisfactoriness with this building. We felt it had less alertness in the layout around the main tower, compared with the Himeji castle which was made by the same method, Hirayama-jiro method.

The Himeji castle's northern area is a steep cliff, so there is only a narrow flat space. On the contrary, the Wakayama castle's backside or the south side is not steep cliff, so maybe they needed further defensive area or 'Minami-no-maru' area. According to the limiting condition, this castle needed wide defensive area in its backside. As a result, this castle couldn't have enough width to make ingenious facilities such as the Himeji castle.

The Minami-no maru or the enclosure of the south side was a storage area, we suppose. However, this area was used as defensive facilities, if the battle was happened at this castle. Accordingly, the Torafusu mountain area or the center of this castle didn't have complex defensive facilities such like the Himeji castle. We felt that the layout of this castle was not so strategical but laid back.

In this Wakayama castle, the Hommaru palace was ruined during the Kisyu-Tokugawa families lived in this castle. They had made new Ninomaru palace, but it became cramped. So, they made the Nishinomaru palace and connected two palaces with a roofed passage. This scenery is quite unique.

Roofed passage

There were many examples of Japanese castles that new wider residences were made later. These residences were made in the surrounding area for the substitution of the original place. Because the original residences were made top of the castle mountain and they could not secure enough space for the luxury life of the lord's families.  

However, this idea was from little information we could gather. We cannot avoid another theory exactly that the Wakayama castle was the castle which had many strategical facilities and clever layout planning. 

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There are other examples of Japanese castles that lords' holiday houses nearby the casle. What conditions made them do so, the Wakayama castle's holiday house was located inside the castle, between the Nisinomaru compound and Torafusuyama (nearly equal to the Hommaru compound). They would be able to make their holiday house, but there is no data about it.

After that, we found information about a huge holiday house connected with the Kisyu-Tokugawa family. It's located at a scenic peninsula south-west of the castle. This holiday house was named 'Yousui-en' garden. 

According to a paper we were handed there, this holiday house had been made in 1818 (about two hundred years ago). Then, this house was made during the late Edo period. There are many wide holiday houses owned by the Daimyo who received the same amount of the harvest every year around this period. So, the Kisyu-Tokugawa family also wanted to take possession like other same scale of Daimyos.