Nijō Palace: A Shogunal Residence and Fortified Palace in Kyoto
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Ashikaga shogunate, Oda regime
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page17 sections
History
Nijō Palace was a shogunal residence and fortified palace in Kyoto, Japan, built by the Ashikaga family during the Sengoku and Azuchi–Momoyama periods. The site held two successive palaces, first for Ashikaga Yoshiteru and later for his younger brother Ashikaga Yoshiaki. It is now identified with the Former Nijō Castle site, distinct from the Tokugawa family’s later Nijō Castle. The name Nijō Castle became established during the Edo period, while earlier names included the Samurai Residence, Samurai Castle, the Shogun’s Castle, and the Fortified Enclosure at Nijō Buei-jin.
Yoshiteru’s Residence
Ashikaga Yoshiteru, the thirteenth Ashikaga shogun, returned to Kyoto in 1558 and initially stayed at temporary residences at Shōkokuji and Myōkakuji. Construction of a new shogunal residence began on 8 July 1559 at the former Buei-jin residence of the Shiba family. The Shiba were one of the Three Kanrei families, the three leading deputy-governor houses of the Muromachi shogunate, the medieval military government ruled by the Ashikaga family. Yoshiteru moved into the new palace on 19 June 1560.
Regional lords helped finance the work. Ōtomo Yoshishige contributed 3,000 kan for the palace and 30,000 hiki for a residence intended for Yoshiteru’s mother, Keiju-in. Members of Yoshishige’s household also provided money. The palace therefore combined the functions of a political residence with the defensive needs of a shogun ruling during the Sengoku period, an era of intense warfare and political fragmentation among regional military powers.
Military pressures soon altered the site. When Rokkaku Yoshikata entered Kyoto with an army in March 1562, Yoshiteru temporarily withdrew to Iwashimizu Hachimangū. The moats were then enlarged, and stone for masonry construction reached the site in October 1564. A major expansion began that month amid tensions following the death of Miyoshi Nagayoshi. The labor required for the large moat was so substantial that planned work at the imperial palace was postponed.
The Eiroku Incident
On 19 May 1565, Miyoshi Yoshitsugu, the Miyoshi Triumvirate, and Matsunaga Hisahide entered the palace with an army of about 10,000 men. They claimed that they wished to present a legal petition and seek an intermediary, but the attack, known as the Eiroku Incident, ended with Yoshiteru’s death. The attackers set fire to the palace, burning many of its buildings. Shinnyōdō Temple was later transferred onto the former palace site.
Yoshiaki’s Rebuilt Palace
Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the fifteenth and last Ashikaga shogun, arrived in Kyoto in 1568 with military support from Oda Nobunaga, a leader who sought to unify Japan and exercised decisive power over Kyoto during Yoshiaki’s shogunate. Yoshiaki first lived at Honkokuji. After the Miyoshi Triumvirate attacked that residence in January 1569, Nobunaga concluded that Yoshiaki needed a more defensible headquarters. Shinnyōdō was given another site, and a new palace was established on the burned residence’s former location.
Nobunaga personally supervised the rebuilding as chief works commissioner and remained in Kyoto for three months. Murai Sadakatsu and Shimada Hidemitsu directed the carpentry and palace buildings. Work began with the stone walls on 2 February 1569. Warriors from the Kinai, the central region surrounding Kyoto and Osaka, and neighboring provinces took part, reportedly numbering more than 80,000.
Yoshiaki moved into the palace on 14 April 1569 and used it as his headquarters. Much of the complex was completed in about 70 days through the dismantling and transfer of buildings, gilded screens, paintings, and other furnishings from Honkokuji. Work continued afterward, supported in part by appeals for money to daimyō such as Date Terumune and Shimazu Yoshihisa. A completion celebration on 14 April 1570 featured Noh, a classical Japanese form of masked musical drama, performed by the Kanze and Konparu schools.
Conflict and Destruction
Relations between Yoshiaki and Nobunaga deteriorated in the early 1570s. Yoshiaki adopted an openly anti-Nobunaga position in February 1573, raised troops at the palace, and continued repairing its moats for a possible conflict and siege. When Nobunaga entered Kyoto on 29 March, Yoshiaki remained inside with several thousand soldiers.
In April, Nobunaga burned houses in Kamigyō and surrounded the palace, while initially refraining from a direct assault. Emperor Ōgimachi mediated a peace agreement, formally concluded on 27 April as construction and defensive work at the palace continued. The truce failed in June. On 3 July, Yoshiaki left for Makishima Castle near Uji, leaving Hino Terusuke, Takakura Nagasuke, Mitsubuchi Fujihide, and Ise Sadanari to defend the palace. They surrendered by 12 July after the Oda army encircled it.
Nobunaga occupied the abandoned palace and ordered its buildings demolished, while allowing people to plunder the site. Yoshiaki surrendered at Makishima on 18 July 1573 and was expelled from the Kinai region, effectively ending the Muromachi shogunate. The gates, stone walls, and moats initially remained, probably because Nobunaga still hoped to reconcile with Yoshiaki and bring him back.
After Yoshiaki moved to Tomo in Bingo Province under the protection of Mōri Terumoto, Nobunaga began dismantling the palace in September 1576. Gates and buildings were removed and transferred to Azuchi for use at Azuchi Castle, while the public took away the stone walls. In December, residents of Kamigyō were ordered to fill the moats. The former palace was consequently dispersed, and its site became distinct from the separately established Nijō New Palace, which was once thought to have occupied the same location.
Archaeological Identification
Excavations along Karasuma Street from 1975 to 1978, undertaken before construction of the Karasuma Subway Line, confirmed the remains of Nobunaga’s stone walls and double moats. These discoveries helped clarify the location and history of the Former Nijō Castle site by distinguishing it from Nijō New Palace. Stone Buddhist images incorporated into the palace walls were also recovered during excavation.
Remains
Nijō Palace was a flatland castle, or fortified residence, organized within moats and stone walls on a broad urban enclosure. The first palace occupied what was initially understood as a one-chō-square area, using the former Buei-jin residence as its core. The enclosure later expanded to approximately two chō square between Konoe Street on the north, Nakamikado Street on the south, Higashinotōin Street on the east, and Muromachi Street on the west. Despite its later name, it did not meet Nijō Street.
Yoshiteru’s Palace
Moats and Stone Walls
Yoshiteru’s residence joined substantial defenses to an elaborate interior. Its large moat and stone walls were built or enlarged during the early 1560s. By the attack of 1565, the stone walls and large moat had been completed, while the gates were close to completion. This defensive construction reflected the palace’s role as a shogunal residence during continuing military instability.
Interior Decoration
The residence also contained richly ornamented rooms. In January 1565, the Portuguese Jesuit missionary and writer Luís Fróis described gilded sliding screens painted with lotus flowers and birds. The account provides a contemporary glimpse of the palace’s decorated wooden interior shortly before its destruction in the Eiroku Incident.
Yoshiaki’s Fortified Complex
Expanded Enclosure
Yoshiaki’s palace extended northeastward from the earlier Yoshiteru site. It formed a fortified residential complex of approximately 400 meters square, with double moats and a three-tiered keep. A moat discovered west of Muromachi Street supports another interpretation, in which the enclosure measured about three chō from north to south and three chō from east to west rather than two by three chō.
Buildings and Garden Features
The complex was considered unusually grand despite the speed of its construction. Gold-leaf roof tiles have been excavated around the site. A stone enclosure along Muromachi Street, known as the Western Stonework, was described as more than approximately eight meters high. On 3 March 1569, Nobunaga brought the celebrated garden stone Fujitoishi from the residence of Hosokawa Fujikata. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people reportedly hauled it to the palace with flute and drum accompaniment for installation in the garden.
Transferred Interiors
Buildings from Honkokuji were dismantled and rebuilt within Yoshiaki’s palace. Richly decorated rooms, gilded screens, paintings, and other furnishings were transferred into the new complex, enabling a wooden palace to be completed rapidly. These reused elements joined the palace’s defensive walls, moats, gates, and tower with an interior shaped by the art and furnishings of an established religious residence.
Surviving Archaeological Evidence
Excavated Materials
The palace’s buildings, gates, tower, stone walls, and moats were progressively demolished, dismantled, filled, or removed between 1573 and 1576. Excavation has revealed stones from the walls that include Buddhist images. Examples are displayed at the Kyoto Museum of Culture and in Rakusai Chikurin Park in Nishikyō, preserving material evidence of the palace’s construction and later dismantling.
Reconstructed Wall Sections
Portions of the palace’s stone walls have been reconstructed at two locations. One stands on the inner side of the Sainokiguchi entrance to Kyoto Gyoen. Another remains near the Mitarai beside the west gate of the second bailey of the former Imperial Villa Nijō Castle. Together with the excavated walls and double moats, these sections convey the defensive structure of a palace whose original buildings were dismantled during the political collapse of the Ashikaga shogunate.
