.JPG)
History
Kōjin’yamajō was a jinba (encampment) used by local Ina forces doing battle with the invading Takeda forces around 1544. The Takeda would ultimately be victorious.
Satellite fortifications included Higuchiuchi Castle (Ina) and Shinmachiharada Yakata.
Visit Notes
The site of Kōjin’yamajō is located in Kōjin’yama Park, Tatsuno Municipality, Upper Ina District. The park has many attractions including the Tatsuno Park Hotel - built Europeanesque, the Tatsuno Sea – actually a lake or reservoir, an art gallery, a bug museum, Kōjinsha (a shrine), and a Meiji period hillside kiln which is designated as cultural property. Of castle ruins, however, none remain. First I went to the shrine and was able to gain the ridge from the back of the hotel. There were a couple of flat areas but nothing I could confirm to be a bailey space – though I did find several mushrooms. I then descended from this forested mount into the well-groomed park area. From here one can appreciate ‘the Sea of Tatsuno’, a small, quaintly named lake, and views of Tatsuno Park Hotel. Yogo-sensei says that the place where the hotel is would be a large enough space for mustering many troops, but how does he know much of the mountain here wasn’t flattened by modern people when the hotel was built? Some castle bloggers also make reference to the Tatsuno Sea as being used as a water source or even a natural moat for the castle, but this body of water looked to me like a modern reservoir (I’m not a civil engineer but I should think this is clear even looking at a typographical map - anyway, I checked and it was indeed built in 1969; we poor castle explorers sometimes let our imaginations get the better of us). After checking out the old kiln, the oldest thing remaining in the park, I then went to the Tatsuno Art Gallery which is housed in a sort of neo-classical parody of Japanese architecture (a total boondoggle!), but few of the displays excited me, and the entire first floor is a dedicated to telling a story about dinosaurs, which might’ve appealed to me twenty years ago but not so much now.
| Castle Profile | |
|---|---|
| English Name | Koujin'yama Castle (Ina) |
| Japanese Name | 伊那荒神山城 |
| Alternate Names | Kōjin’yama-jinba |
| Founder | 伊那衆 |
| Year Founded | c. 1544 |
| Castle Type | Mountaintop |
| Castle Condition | Ruins only |
| Historical Period | Pre Edo Period |
| Features | |
| Visitor Information | |
| Access | Ina-Shinmachi Station on the Iida Line; 20 minute walk. |
| Visitor Information | 24/7 free; park |
| Time Required | 30 minutes |
| Location | Tatsuno, Nagano Prefecture |
| Coordinates | 35° 57' 54.61" N, 137° 59' 27.67" E |
|
|
|
| Admin | |
| Added to Jcastle | 2022 |
| Contributor | ART |
| Admin Year Visited | Viewer Contributed |
| Friends of JCastle | |
| Jōkaku Hōrōki | |
| Yogo | |
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
.JPG){kind=link}
Enable comment auto-refresher