Natsuyama Castle
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History
Natsuyamajō was the castle of Okudaira Hisamasa, the third son of Okudaira Sadamasa. The Natsuyama-Okudaira branch clan held a sub-fief valued at 2,300 koku. Before the Okudaira took over, the Natsuyama area belonged to the Kuroya Clan. The Kuroya Clan became vassals of the Okudaira. A Kuroya woman was the nanny to the infant son of Okudaira Sadanō who was taken as a hostage by the Takeda Clan in 1570 and killed in 1573 when the Okudaira defected back to the Matsudaira Clan upon the death of Takeda Shingen. The Okudaira lost a lot of people as hostages to the Takeda because of their unenviable position on the frontline of conflicts between the Takeda and Matsudaira. In order to avoid destruction the Okudaira sided against the Matsudaira with the Takeda for a time, but eventually reverted to their old alliance with the Matsudaira. Hostages given over to the Takeda in order to ensure their loyalty, mostly women and children, where thereupon executed, usually by beheading. This common practice of Sengoku period bushi eventually informed the sankin-kōtai system of the Edo period.
Visit Notes
Natsuyamajō is a yamajiro (mountaintop castle) in Natsuyama Township, Okazaki Municipality. Ruins include kuruwa (baileys) and horikiri (trenches). It's quite the adventure just getting to the castle site. One should cross the river via a make-shift pedestrian bridge opposite Natsuyama Elementary School. There's a forested play area for the grade-schoolers. Here there is a lot of impressive ishigaki (stonewalls), but these were built for the cultivation of the hillside long after the abandonment of the hilltop fort.
Just beneath the castle ruin is a shrine. Its causeway, which goes directly up the hillside, is so steep that it could make a good climbing trench for a castle. The small shrine building is the castle bailey. It seems the fort originally consisted of two baileys, with the one where the shrine building now is being the lower of the two. Behind the shrine there is an altar made from piled slabs of rock. The earth is turned up here, and it is thought that a trench ran beneath here between the fort's two baileys. However, the appearance today is of a single space with a slope in the middle. The highlight of the castle ruins is a horikiri cut into the bedrock of the ridge at the rear of the main bailey.
The castellan probably did not live on the castle mount itself, but perhaps on the hillside, though it is not clear where this kyokan (residential area) would've been. To the north of the mountain there is a hamlet with abandoned cottages called Sonjin. If one enters the forest behind these old homesteads, one finds an impressive array of tiered ishigaki. These stone-piled retaining walls are so impressive that for a long time people were under the impression that these were castle ruins. However, they were built to terrace the mountainside for agriculture. Natsuyamajō refers to the yamajiro on the mountain above, but is it possible the castle's kyokan was here? Either way, it was nice to see all of the old ishigaki.
| Castle Profile | |
|---|---|
| English Name | Natsuyama Castle |
| Japanese Name | 夏山城 |
| Founder | Okudaira Hisamasa |
| Year Founded | Sengoku Period |
| Castle Type | Mountaintop |
| Castle Condition | Ruins only |
| Historical Period | Pre Edo Period |
| Artifacts | Horikiri |
| Features | trenches |
| Visitor Information | |
| Access | Climb from Natsuyama ES in the west |
| Visitor Information | 24/7 free; mountain |
| Time Required | 80 mins |
| Website | https://blog.goo.ne.jp/shiro-rekishimeguri/e/a5e764d22897208b41b16a618d3b051d |
| Location | Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture |
| Coordinates | 34° 56' 9.85" N, 137° 18' 54.68" E |
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| Admin | |
| Added to Jcastle | 2024 |
| Contributor | ART |
| Admin Year Visited | Viewer Contributed |
| Friends of JCastle | |
| Jōkaku Shashin Kiroku | |
| Okazaki Shiro Rekishi Meguri | |
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