I took the bus from the Naha Bus Terminal to Katsuren Castle Ruins.
The bus stop is near the entrance to the castle grounds. There was a lot of interesting information about the castle in English. I highly recommend visiting this castle.
This is what JCastle says about the history of the Castle:
The 10th lord of the castle, Amawari Aji, is the last and most well known lord of Katsuren Castle. He is famous for fostering prosperous international trade and many shards of Chinese pottery and tiles were found on the site of Katsuren Castle. He was also a cunning and deceiving lord. It is said that he pushed the 9th lord Mochizuki Aji off the top of the walls when he tricked Mochizuki to come up there one night and thus assumed lordship of the castle. Mochizuki was considered to be a tyrant so Amawari was a savior to the people of Katsuren. As his strength grew, Lord Gosamaru was moved to Nakagusuku Castle to keep Awamari in check. Awamari deceived the king in Shuri that Gosamaru was the bigger threat and got his support to defeat Gosamaru. Later, he also planned to seize control of the whole kingdom and overtake the king at Shuri, but this time the king was warned in time and Amawari was defeated. Some stories say it was Amawari's wife (the king's daughter) found out about the plot and warned her father in time. After Amawari, no powerful lords rose from Katsuren Castle.
There are many levels of this castle area and great views.
7 comments:
Your love of Japanese castles can be seen in the thorough job you do to present them. SO many pictures, and by taking photos of the signboards your readers can enjoy a lot of armchair travelling.
Why do you think the quality of the signboards and whether they have English and other languages or not, differ so much from castle to castle? Is it up to each local tourist authority to attract visitors? If there was some standardisation, Japanese castles would be even more enjoyable to visit as you can better compare them or see where they connect.
You had beautiful weather on this day.
Another wonderful place to visit, the views from the top are amazing.
This castle is also very large.
Since you posted a lot of pictures and description, I can imagine that the Ryuku Kingdom was very prosperous with its own culture.
Thank you for sharing.
Hello Pamela: Wow this is something, it is amazing how Amawari did what he did, and being the savior for the people.
The Sacred Shrine Tunumutu has an amazing history of people still worshiping.
I am not a fan of digging up bones, I am sad when I hear this, that is just my feelings.
I like the idea of the steps getting narrower to stop the enemy, great idea.
Thank-you for sharing this amazing site with us.
Catherine
Those views are really terrific -- makes all those steps quite worthwhile!
It looks like a very interesting place to visit. The signs are quite fascinating, in that I wonder why they include the information they do. For example, telling me that young people called out "Please buy fish" to the priestesses is more puzzling than enlightening!
What an interesting place! Do you think that one day, you will have visited every castle?
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