Yanagawa Castle Ruins

Yanagawa Castle was built at the end of the Sengoku era by regional administrator Kamachi Akimori, but no historical documents that indicate the original extent of its territory remain. In 1581,the Ryuzoji Clan defeated Kamachi and took over Yanagawa Castle. Not long after this, Otomo Sorin, the lord of Bungo Province, dispatched Bekki Dosetsu and Takahashi Shoun to the Chikugo region to attack Yanagawa Castle, but they were unable to defeat the Ryuzoji Clan. The Komono Genealogy describes the original castle as being bounded by the ocean on two sides and by moats and swamps on the other two sides. 　In 1587, when Tachibana Muneshige took over the castle upon the partitioning of Kyushu by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he ordered the construction of a castle keep, turrets and a bridge. (The giboshi ornaments are now on display at Mihashira Shrine.) In 1600, after the Battle of Sekigahara, Tachibana Muneshige was stripped of his title and holdings, and Tanaka Yoshimasa took over the castle. He is believed to have undertaken a large-scale renovation of the castle and surrounding castle town. The castle was on flat ground, so Muneshige added an inner moat that encircled the Honmaru and Ninomaru Palaces and an inner bailey around the Sannomaru Palace, in addition to multiple sections of wall, moats and earthworks for defense. The five-story castle keep was built to the southwest of the Honmaru Palace. The castle was bordered by the towns of Yanagawa and Okinohata as well as the Okinohata and Shiotsuka Rivers. 　In 1620, Tachibana Muneshige returned to Yanagawa when the Tanakas were stripped of their holdings, and the castle remained in the family thereafter, but the Honmaru and Ninomaru Palaces were lost to fire in 1872. Moreover, the stone walls were dismantled and used to repair coastal embankments that had been destroyed by a typhoon. After this, the land was sold off and the moats that had surrounded the Honmaru and Ninomaru Palaces were backfilled. The site is now home to a park and Yanagawa Municipal Ryujo Junior High School. (It was designated as a historic site by the City of Yanagawa on May 1, 1978.) 　Although the keep and other structures were lost, ruins of the moats and earthworks remain, and the layout of this part of the city, which was partitioned by alleys and canals, remains the same. When you cruise the canals of Yanagawa, you are travelling along what used to be defenses for the castle.