Walls

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Walls / 塀

This is a subtype of Features

Dobei are the white walls you commonly see at castles. They are the simplest and most inexpensive defenses available. Dobei originally lined the top of most moats, stone walls and encircled most of the baileys linking together gates and yagura. Many castles had at least one kilometer of walls and Edo Castle had more than 10km. Despite the fact that there were so many such walls during the Edo Period, if you added up all the extant walls today you would only find a little over a kilometer. The majority of extant walls are at Himeji Castle and the longest single extant section is the Nagabei at Kumamoto Castle. These walls evolved from simple structures of wooden planks nailed to a fence. The walls were strengthened and thickened to prevent arrows from piercing them, to prevent fire and later to prevent bullets from easily passing through.

Matsuyama22.jpg Marugame2.jpg Kanazawa122.jpg Sakasai15.jpg


Structure

Dobei walls are built by erecting pillars approximately 1.5 meters apart. In between the pillars is a lattice of bamboo or wood strips. Mud and clay were then layered over this lattice up to about 20cm thick. The clay was often mixed with some strong Japanese grass (wara) for added strength and to prevent cracks. Earlier forms of these walls were not covered in plaster which gave them a sandy yellow color. In the picture above from Sakasai Castle you can see a wall with no plaster that shows this yellow color and you can also make out some grasses embedded in the clay. Edo Period dobei were usually covered in hard white plaster which increased their strength and helped prevent weathering. Atop the wall they had tile roofs and often had loopholes for firing arrows or guns. Walls also frequently had support posts behind them to increase their strength especially for walls along the top of stone walls or other places where the foundation was not as solid. Some walls also contained strategically placed rock chutes to drop rocks on attackers. Click the pictures below to enlarge these displays of wall construction.

Utsunomiya8.jpg Utsunomiya9.jpg Odawara24.jpg Kanazawa218.jpg


Variations

There are some extant variations of these walls that can be divided into neribei and tuijibei. Neither of these have the kind of wooden pillars or interior framework of the usual walls. Neribei are constructed from dried clay bricks or old tiles that are mortared together with clay and covered with a layer of hard plaster. Neribei were employed at Himeji and Bitchu Matsuyama castles to quickly build some walls.

Tuijibei are made from pounding a mixture sand and clay in 3-5 cm layers. They are about 1 meter thick and up to 3 meters tall. They have a distinctive wooden framework on the outside and are topped with a tile roof. These are very strong walls, but their thickness makes it impossible to build in loopholes and they are very time and labor intensive to build. For these reasons they were not commonly used at castles. There is a small section by the Mizu no Ichi gate at Himeji Castle and the Ninomaru of Nijo Castle is surrounded by impressive Tsuijibei.

Himeji34.jpg Himeji7.jpg Nijo17.jpg Shiwa15.jpg


Loopholes / Sama (狭間)

Loopholes were holes built into the walls for firing arrows or guns. Loopholes designed for arrows were generally tall rectangles and those for firearms were circles, triangles, or squares. Some loopholes were hidden by a door or plug that matched the surface on the outside to prevent detection by attackers. These are called kakushizama as you see in the last two photos below.

Himeji33.jpg Himeji35.jpg Hikone98.jpg Ozu53.jpg

Castles with Walls
  1. Aizu Wakamatsu Castle
  2. Akashi Castle
  3. Akechi Osayama Castle
  4. Akita Castle
  5. Akizuki Castle
  6. Ako Castle
  7. Amagajo
  8. Amagasaki Castle
  9. Aoyagi Castle
  10. Ashinoya Jin'ya
  11. Asuke Castle
  12. Baba Yashiki
  13. Bitchu Matsuyama Castle
  14. Echizen Katsuyama Castle
  15. Edo Castle
  16. Ema Yakata
  17. Fukuchiyama Castle
  18. Fukui Castle
  19. Fukuyama Castle
  20. Funai Castle
  21. Fushimi Castle
  22. Ganjaku Castle
  23. Gujo Hachiman Castle
  24. Ha Castle
  25. Hachigata Castle
  26. Hagi Castle
  27. Hamamatsu Castle
  28. Hanamaki Castle
  29. Hikone Castle
  30. Himeji Castle
  31. Hirosaki Castle
  32. Hiroshima Castle
  33. Honshouji Castle
  34. Hotta no Saku
  35. Ichijodani Castle
  36. Ide Yakata
  37. Iga Ueno Castle
  38. Iida Castle
  39. Iijima Jin'ya
  40. Ikeda Castle
  41. Imabari Castle
  42. Iwamura Castle
  43. Iyo Matsuyama Castle
  44. Izushi Castle
  45. Kakegawa Castle
  46. Kaminoyama Castle
  47. Kamioka Castle
  48. Kanazawa Castle
  49. Kashima Castle (Hizen)
  50. Katsumoto Castle
  51. Kawahara Castle
  52. Kinowa Castle
  53. Kishiwada Castle
  54. Kiyosu Castle
  55. Kofu Castle
  56. Koiwatake Castle
  57. Kokura Castle
  58. Kumamoto Castle
  59. Marugame Castle
  60. Maruoka Castle
  61. Matsue Castle
  62. Matsumae Castle
  63. Matsumoto Castle
  64. Matsushiro Castle
  65. Miki Castle
  66. Minakuchi Castle
  67. Mito Castle
  68. Nabari Jinya
  69. Nabebuta Castle
  70. Nagata Jin'ya
  71. Nagisa Castle
  72. Nagoya Castle
  73. Nakatsu Castle
  74. Nanokaichi Jin'ya
  75. Ne Castle
  76. Nihonmatsu Castle
  77. Nijo Castle
  78. Nishio Castle
  79. Nishiohhira Jin'ya
  80. Obata Jin'ya
  81. Obi Castle
  82. Odawara Castle
  83. Ogaki Castle
  84. Oguchi Castle
  85. Ogurayama Castle
  86. Ohmine Castle
  87. Ohmori Daikansho
  88. Okayama Castle
  89. Okutono Jin'ya
  90. Osaka Castle
  91. Oshi Castle
  92. Otaki Castle
  93. Saga Castle
  94. Sakasai Castle
  95. Sannohe Castle
  96. Sasayama Castle
  97. Sekiyado Castle
  98. Sendai Castle
  99. Shibata Castle
  100. Shimabara Castle
  101. Shirakawa Castle
  102. Shiroishi Castle
  103. Shiwa Castle
  104. Sonobe Castle
  105. Suibara Daikansho
  106. Sunpu Castle
  107. Takada Castle (Niigata)
  108. Takamatsu Castle
  109. Takane Castle
  110. Takasaki Castle
  111. Takashima Castle
  112. Takayama Jin'ya
  113. Takeda Yakata (Ibaraki)
  114. Tanabe Castle
  115. Tanabe Castle (Wakayama)
  116. Tanaka Castle
  117. Tatebayashi Castle
  118. Tatsuno Castle
  119. Tatsuoka Castle
  120. Tomioka Castle
  121. Torigoe Castle
  122. Toyama Castle
  123. Tsu Castle
  124. Tsuchiura Castle
  125. Tsukikuma Castle
  126. Tsurugaoka Castle
  127. Tsutsujigasaki Palace
  128. Tsuyama Castle
  129. Ueda Castle
  130. Ueno Yashiki
  131. Usuki Castle
  132. Utsunomiya Castle
  133. Wakayama Castle
  134. Yamagata Castle
  135. Yamaguchi Yashiki
  136. Yamato Koriyama Castle
  137. Yuzuki Castle
  138. Zeze Castle
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