Yonago Castle: A Hilltop and Maritime Castle in Japan
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Tokugawa, Toyotomi regime
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page10 sections
History
Yonago Castle is a Japanese hilltop and maritime castle in Yonago, Japan, whose history began with a fortification established around 1470 and continued through the early-modern period. The complex developed around Mount Minatoyama, while an earlier stronghold on Mount Iinoyama became part of its outer defenses. Positioned near a good harbor and the boundary between Hoki and Izumo, the castle served both territorial defense and control of land and maritime commerce.
The Sengoku-period fort on Iinoyama
The earliest fortification stood on Mount Iinoyama during the Sengoku period, an era of prolonged warfare among regional lords in Japan. Around 1470, the Yamana of Hoki entered the castle after being defeated in a conflict with Amago Kiyosada. The fort lay near the tense frontier between Yamana-controlled Hoki and Kyogoku-controlled Izumo during the Onin War, a conflict that intensified political and military instability among competing lords.
The Amago captured Iinoyama in 1524 during the Great Taiei Upheaval, a collapse of Yamana authority and a major expansion of Amago power. Yamana control returned around 1562, during the Mori campaign against the Amago. In 1569, Yamanaka Yukimori and other supporters of an Amago restoration joined the castle lord Yamana Yukiharu. Kikkawa Motoharu attacked and seized the fort, after which Yamana Yukiharu committed suicide. Motoharu then placed retainers in charge, probably including Fukuyori Motohide and, from 1577, Kobiki Yoshitane.
The Kikkawa and Nakamura castle
Kikkawa Hiroie became lord of the surrounding area in 1591 after receiving eastern Izumo, the Oki Islands, and western Hoki. He ordered Kobiki Yoshitane to begin a new castle on Mount Minatoyama. The location stood near a useful harbor and near the center of Hiroie’s territories, making it suitable for defending the domain and supervising movement by land and water. In the medieval period, Iinoyama and Minatoyama may have been alternative names for one mountain rather than separate peaks, although later interpretation treated them as distinct mountains.
Kobiki Yoshitane was killed during the Japanese invasions of Korea, and Kikkawa Hiroie was transferred to Iwakuni after the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. The unfinished castle was assigned to Nakamura Kazutada, who received all Hoki with an assessed income of 175,000 koku, a historical measure of agricultural production used to express a domain’s income. As the first lord of the Yonago Domain, Nakamura worked with his chief administrator, Yokota Muraaki, to complete the castle and establish a new castle town that helped form the basis of modern Yonago.
In 1603, Yokota Muraaki was assassinated inside the buildings of the Ni-no-maru after becoming involved in a conspiracy with the retainers Yasui Seiichiro and Amano Sōha. The Tokugawa shogunate, the centralized military government of the Edo period, ordered both conspirators to commit seppuku. Records placed Muraaki’s family in the Iinoyama fort, although Iinoyama is regarded as the more likely location of the assassination.
The castle under the Kato and Ikeda administrations
Nakamura Kazutada died suddenly in 1609 without an heir, and the Nakamura domain was confiscated. In 1610, Kato Sadayasu became lord of part of Hoki with an income of 60,000 koku; the rest of the former Nakamura territory was divided among Yabase, Kurosaka, and shogunal domains. Kato Sadayasu was transferred to the Ozu Domain in 1617, and the Yonago Domain was abolished.
Yonago Castle then became an important subsidiary castle of the Tottori Domain, with Ikeda Yoshinari serving as castellan. The Ikeda administration considered Yonago as a possible site for a new provincial capital because Tottori Castle was thought too small for the domain, but it ultimately enlarged Tottori Castle instead. After Ikeda Mitsumasa was transferred to Okayama in 1632, Ikeda Mitsunaka became lord. Until the Meiji Restoration, the hereditary Arao family served as the Ikeda family’s castle administrators.
Abandonment and preservation
The castle was abandoned as a castle in the early Meiji period, with formal abandonment dated to 1871. In the early 1870s, the castle hill was transferred without charge to samurai associated with the local military unit. They unsuccessfully sought to sell the land and buildings to Yonago Town in 1875. The buildings were then sold to the antique dealer Yamamoto Shinsuke for 30 yen and dismantled, generally dated to 1879, although 1876 and 1880 are also given. The Meiji government had ordered the destruction of the remaining castle structures in 1874. The stone walls survived, and the grounds later passed to the Sakaguchi family.
In 1902, the keep site was cleared of weeds and named Korakuen, with a rest area and a weather-warning marker. Sakaguchi Seitaro donated the grounds to Yonago in 1933, when they became Minatoyama Park. The park was reorganized under the City Planning Act in 1951. Repairs to the stone walls took place from 1982 to 1984, followed by archaeological investigations in 1988 to 1989 and 1991 to 1992. The castle ruins became a National Historic Site in 2006 and were selected in 2017 as site 169 in the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles. In 2020, the national Cultural Affairs Council recommended adding about 23,993 square meters at the former Minatoyama Stadium site in the San-no-maru to the protected area.
Remains
Yonago Castle was a hirayamajiro, or hilltop castle combining a fortified mountain with lower grounds. The early-modern complex occupied the 90-meter-high Mount Minatoyama, the ridge-connected Mount Maruyama, and Mount Iinoyama. The Honmaru, the principal bailey, stood on the summit; the Ni-no-maru, the secondary bailey, occupied the northern middle slope; and the San-no-maru, the third bailey, lay below. The earlier Iinoyama stronghold became an outer bailey, also called the East Bailey or reportedly Uneme-maru. Seawater entered the surrounding moats, and approximately 30 turrets and 20 gates protected the complex.
The summit and the keeps
The Honmaru contained the main keep, a four-story subsidiary turret, two-story turrets, covered multi-bay turrets, and the Kurogane-gomon. Ruins of a guardhouse and a lookout turret remain along the ascent to the summit. The first main tower was an independent watchtower-style structure of three stories and four floors, traditionally dated to 1596 and attributed to Kikkawa Hiroie. When Nakamura Kazutada built a larger tower, the earlier structure was retained as a four-story turret and became known as the Old Keep or Subsidiary Keep.
Nakamura’s second independent watchtower-style keep had four stories and five floors and was traditionally dated to 1609. It stood beside the earlier tower and reached approximately 21 meters in height. Its first and second levels measured 10 by 8 ken, its third measured 7 by 6 ken, and its fourth and fifth levels measured 3 by 2.5 ken. The exterior included several forms of decorative gable, while a board canopy probably covered the balustraded gallery around the highest lookout level. Neither keep survives. An exterior photograph of the five-story keep taken in 1878 remains, and detailed drawings of the four-story turret survive because its platform and the small keep were repaired near the end of the Edo period. A roof finial from the turret is preserved at the San’in History Museum, Yonago Municipal Yoka Elementary School, and a branch of the Kashima family.
From the summit, the castle commands views across the plains of western Hoki and Izumo, the Sea of Japan, Lake Nakaumi, the Shimane Peninsula, the Oki Islands, and the Chugoku Mountains. These views formed part of the physical setting of the summit defenses and the castle’s position within the surrounding territory.
The middle and lower baileys
The Ni-no-maru held the lord’s residence, kitchen, and domain offices. Its entrance was protected by a square defensive gate complex measuring 25.4 meters from east to west and 22.7 meters from north to south. The remains of the Taiko-gomon, formerly the rear gate, and the palace service well survive. The Ohara Nagayamon, a gate with an attached longhouse, was moved to the Ni-no-maru in 1953. Part of the area is now occupied by tennis courts.
The San-no-maru contained workshops, stables, supply sheds, rice storehouses, and guards’ quarters. An inner moat enclosed the bailey, while the main gate, rear gate, and Suzunomon protected its approaches. The former San-no-maru area is now occupied partly by Tottori University Hospital and the grounds of Yonago municipal Minatoyama Stadium.
Mount Maruyama and the climbing wall
The Naizen-maru lay on Mount Maruyama at an elevation of about 52 meters, on a branch ascent leading toward the Honmaru. Yokota Muraaki supervised its construction, and the enclosure contained several two-story turrets and an armory. Its name came from Muraaki’s official title. A Nobori-ishigaki, or climbing stone wall running up a slope or ridge, extended along the ridge between the Naizen-maru and the summit lookout turret.
Excavation in fiscal year 2016 confirmed that this wall stood more than 3 meters high and probably extended for more than 40 meters. On the Lake Nakaumi side, bedrock was cut into an L-shaped form to receive the masonry. An earthen rampart on the opposite eastern side formed part of the defensive line. The Naizen-maru and the Nobori-ishigaki may have formed part of a structure with an estimated total length of 230 meters. The wall may have been built by Kikkawa Hiroie, who had taken part in the Japanese invasions of Korea and may have drawn on techniques used in Japanese-built castles there.
Iinoyama and the western harbor
The former Iinoyama fort had a principal enclosure about 85 meters from north to south and 35 meters from east to west. Fieldstone walls roughly 2 meters high formed two tiers along its eastern and northern sides, and three gates served the enclosure. The enclosure was later levelled, while its southern side was reportedly one level higher and showed traces of buildings. As part of the early-modern castle, Iinoyama became an outer bailey with stone walls, square gate complexes, a dry moat, and an area where stone for masonry was quarried.
Archaeological investigations in 1991 to 1992 revealed the remains of boat-landing stone walls. Later surveys examined the Hachiman-dai and Mizute-gomon-shita enclosures in fiscal year 2015, the Nobori-ishigaki in fiscal year 2016, and the northwestern dry moat and a probable stone-quarrying area in fiscal year 2017. West of the castle beside Lake Nakaumi, Fukaura is thought to have contained a naval harbor of the Mori fleet. The surviving physical fabric now consists chiefly of stone walls, foundations, traces of gates and turrets, moat-related remains, and excavated defensive works, together with the associated Ohara Nagayamon gate.
