Komatsu Castle Ruins
After visiting Maruoka Castle, I got back on the train and went to Komatsu Station to visit Komatsu Castle Ruins. The train station is about a 30 minute walk from the castle ruin site.
The site of Komatsujō was first fortified by the Ikkō-Ikki in 1576. It was conquered by Oda Nobunaga's general Shibata Katsuie in his campaign against them and in the Edo Period became part of Kaga Domain. In 1615 the One Castle Per Domain Edict led to the fort being abandoned. However, in 1639 Maeda Toshitsune began work on rebuilding the castle, creating wide moats surrounding a series of large islands. The castle ballooned in proportions and became twice as large in surface area as Kanazawajō. It was built with a three-tier tenshu and was thought to have been an impregnable fortress, due principally to its many moats and baileys. Komatsujō owes its existence to the power dynamic between Kaga Domain, which was one of the largest and most powerful polities in the land at that time, and the Edo Bakufu. Maeda Toshitsune, in order to allay the Shogunate's fears, retired as ruler of Kaga and built Komatsujō as a place for his retirement, splitting the domain between himself and his heirs. However, Toshitsune remained de facto in charge and for a brief time Komatsujō and not Kanazawajō was the political center of Kaga. Daishōji-jin'ya and Toyamajō were also built as a result of this compromise. After the death of Toshitsune in 1658 Komatsujō reverted to a branch castle of Kanazawajō. Komatsujō was abandoned in 1872 with the abolition of the Han System.
The only remnants of this once sprawling castle are the main keep foundation and a portion of the stone wall of a moat nearby. A small yakuimon from the original castle now stands on the grounds of a nearby elementary school and a yaguramon was also repurposed to use as the gate for the Raishoji Temple. The castle's honmaru is now a park, the ninomaru (second bailey) is now a high school, and the sannomaru (third bailey) is now the Rojo Park. Other baileys which existed are now built over with residential sprawl.
View from the top.
Not a lot left, but just enough to imagine what used to be.
If you are interested in Japanese Castles, you can find links to other castle visits I've made on my Japanese Castle page.
4 comments:
The view to the snow-covered mountains is lovely.
I wonder how those walls were pieced? It is like meticulous crazy patchwork.
Hello Pamela: Nice post of the grounds and the wall, it is sad when buildings are gone from history.
Beautiful view of the mountain Mt. Fiji?
Catherine
I am continually surprised at the number of castles you have discovered, and probably just a drop in the bucket!
The history of these castles is fascinating! Another one off your list.
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