Kokura Castle: A Historic Japanese Castle in Kitakyushu
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.2
- Popularity
- High
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Tokugawa
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page11 sections
History
Kokura Castle is a historic Japanese castle in Kitakyushu, Japan, whose substantial reconstruction began in 1602 under the daimyo Tadaoki Hosokawa and was completed around 1608 in the Kara-zukuri architectural style. The finished stronghold incorporated an entire castle town within its fortifications and was regarded at the time as the fifth-largest castle in Japan.
Origins and Hosokawa Rule
A castle first stood on the present site in 1569, when it was built by the Mōri clan, a Japanese warrior family. After Tadaoki Hosokawa took part in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the decisive conflict that enabled Tokugawa Ieyasu to establish political dominance in Japan, he directed the construction of a more substantial castle at Kokura from 1602. The work reached completion around 1608.
The Hosokawa clan later moved to Kumamoto. In 1632, the daimyo Tadazane Ogasawara took control of Kokura, beginning the rule of the Ogasawara clan of Harima, a historical province in southwestern Japan. The clan retained ownership of the castle until the 1860s.
Fire, Destruction, and Recovery
A fire destroyed Kokura Castle in 1837. Parts of the complex were rebuilt in 1839, although the keep was not included in that reconstruction.
On August 1, 1866, retreating Kokura troops deliberately burned the castle during fighting against the Chōshū clan in the Second Chōshū expedition, a Tokugawa shogunate campaign against the Chōshū domain. On September 9, Kokura troops stormed the remaining ruins and recovered documents and goods left behind during the retreat.
The castle’s symbolically important drum was seized by the Chōshū domain. It was eventually taken to Itsukushima Shrine in Shimonoseki, a major Shinto shrine on the island of Miyajima, where it remains.
Military Base and Reconstruction
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the castle served as a military base, where the physician and military officer Mori Ōgai was stationed. The keep was reconstructed in 1959, and the castle underwent a full restoration in 1990. The castle garden and the Matsumoto Seichō Memorial Museum opened in 1998. Kokura Castle was included in the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles list in 2017.
Remains
Kokura Castle survives as a castle complex centered on a five-story keep, with original stone walls and a moat forming part of its setting. The reconstructed keep is made of reinforced concrete, while the walls retain their original rough stone construction. The north side of the moat lies beside the Riverwalk shopping complex, completed in 2003.
Keep and Stone Walls
Five-Story Keep
The five-story keep was reconstructed in reinforced concrete in 1959. Its design is not an exact historical reconstruction, because the designers adopted a more visually attractive form and added gables that had not existed on the original keep. The building is identified with the Kara-zukuri style and contains a modern folkloric museum. As of 2021, its keep was the sixth-tallest among existing Japanese castles.
Original Castle Walls
The surviving castle walls were built with Nozura-zumi, a masonry method that uses naturally shaped, relatively unworked stones rather than carefully cut blocks. These walls remain in their original state and provide surviving material evidence of the castle’s earlier construction.
Grounds and Water Defences
Shirasu Lighthouse Replica
The castle grounds contain a replica of the old Japanese-style Shirasu Lighthouse. It represents a pre-Brunton lighthouse, meaning a Japanese lighthouse built before the later nineteenth-century adoption of engineering methods associated with the British engineer Richard Henry Brunton, and is based on the original lighthouse at Shirasu.
Moat and Northern Edge
The moat remains part of the castle grounds. Its north side is beside the Riverwalk shopping complex, which was completed in 2003.
