A few years ago my wife and I went to Kokura for the day. It`s a big industrial city now and actually it has been since the industrial revolution back in the Meiji Period. Before that, it was a beautiful castle town right at the tip of northern Kyushu overlooking the very important Kanmon Straits.… Read More Kokura Castle, Kitakyushu, Kyushu
I live only 15 minutes by car away from Onojo. The mountain , Mt Shioji is easily seen from where I live as it dominates the eastern side of Fukuoka city. I have visited Onojo ruins twice now. The first time was an unscheduled visit for just a short time and the second time a… Read More Ono castle (Onojo) ruins, Fukuoka.
Despite Fukuoka castle being one of the all time great castles of Japan (I’m a bit biased as I live in Fukuoka) there is not a whole lot of research material in English about it. Wikipedia has quite a nice write-up, but as we don’t know who the author is, it is not usually used… Read More History of Fukuoka Castle
Kumamoto Castle is still one of the most impressive castles in Japan. It is one of the big three which also includes Osaka castle and Nagoya castle. Feudal lord Kato Kiyomasa (we will learn more about Kato later), renowned for his castle building skills in Japan and in Korea supervised the construction of both Kumamoto… Read More Kumamoto Castle, Kyushu.
I am aware of the Toyotomi campaign in Korea but I was pleasantly unaware to the extent of the construction of so many castles in the attempt to defend the Japanese held territory in Korea. Lets look a bit more at the Toyotomi Hideyoshi campaign back in the 16th Century. The seven year Imjin War… Read More Japanese Castles in Korea
