Minakuchi Castle
A One Night Stand!
When the Edo based Tokugawa shogun would visit the Emperor in Kyoto, they would be expected to travel via the 514 kilometer long Tokaido Highway, passing through all the 53 designated post towns and check points, but only stopping and staying at Odawara Castle, Sumpu Castle, Hamamatsu Castle, the Tokugawa’s ancestral home castle of Okazaki, Yoshida Castle in Toyohashi, Nagoya Castle, Kuwana and one more, before arriving in Kyoto.
For that reason, the masters of all the castles along the Tokaido, and indeed the five major highways, would not reside in their castle’s central, safest and most gorgeous Honmaru Goten palaces, but in the Ni-no-Maru, second enclosures’ palaces. The Honmaru Goten palaces of the castles along the major thoroughfares were fully maintained around the clock, but deemed solely for the use of the Shogun, should he ever suddenly arrive, having had to flee Edo following attack, fire or disaster.
One of the most difficult, and dangerous stretches for the Shogun was the long stretch between Kuwana (Mie Prefecture) and Kyoto. The distance from Suzuka Pass to the off route Hikone Castle or to Zeze Castle south of Lake Biwa was just too great for a single day’s travel.
The post town of Minakuchi-juku in Koka, Shiga Prefecture, was ideally positioned, and it featured one honjin, (inns reserved solely for the use of daimyo traveling to and from Edo on Sankin Kotai, alternative attendance duties) one waki-honjin (designated for lower ranked daimyo) and 41 hatago (inns to be used by the common folk and often samurai serving the lords’ processions to and from Edo). Minakuchi also had a single Tonyaba, rental packhorse stables and goods warehousing facility. It was once watched over by a fortress known as Minakuchi Okayama Castle, but this had been destroyed some 34 years earlier.
Minakuchi Okayama Castle was originally under the command of the warlord Natsuka Masaie, a native of Owari Province (Aichi Pref.), who served Niwa Nagahide under Oda Nobunaga, and later Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He was recognized for his strong intellect and mathematical abilities, and played a major role in organizing logistics during Hideyoshi’s Siege of Odawara against the Hojo in 1590. For this, he was rewarded with Minakuchi Castle and a 50,000 koku stipend. He was also appointed by Hideyoshi as one of his five commissioners along with Ishida Mitsunari to oversee matters in the Korean Campaign.
With the death of Hideyoshi and the onset of hostilities between those remaining loyal to the Toyotomi clan and those choosing to follow the Tokugawa, Natsuka Masaie quickly proclaimed his support of the Ishida Mitsunari led Toyotomi Loyalist forces.
Prevented from entering the fray at the Battle of Sekigahara by his group leader Kikkawa Hiroie, who had made a secret pact with the Tokugawa not to participate in hostilities, Natsuka Masaie would spend the day frustrated by the lack of action on the upper slopes of Mt. Nangu, directly east of the battlefield. Upon completion of the slaughter at Sekigahara, he fled to his fief in Minakuchi, and 17 days later, on November 8, 1600, surrounded by the troops of Ikeda Terumasa, set fire to the castle, and committed seppuku. All was destroyed and abandoned. Therefore, there was no suitable castle nor accommodation facilities for the Shogun, and from a prestige and security standpoint the Shogun certainly couldn’t be expected to stay in a honjin, an inn used by ordinary daimyo. As there weren’t any major castles suitable for the Shogun, one was specially constructed!
That’s right, Minakuchi Castle was built in 1634 especially for the Third Shogun Iemitsu’s trip to Kyoto. The castle was built based on the simple square design of Kyoto’s Nijo Castle. The central bailey was 150 meters along each side, protected by stone walls and surrounded by a water moat. Yagura watchtowers protected each corner On the eastern side a 20 meter square protrusion housed the main gate complex. The gate nearest the highway was an imposing two-story yagura-mon gatehouse type
Kobori Enshu Masakazu, son in law of the castle architectural expert Todo Takatora served as the magistrate of construction, His son designed the gardens, and the Nakai family carpenters, chief carpenters to the Tokugawa, and thousands of workers were mobilized, to build the castle and a luxurious palace also modelled after Nijo’s palace was built within the castle.
Minakuchi was never the seat of a daimyo, although Kato Akitomo was stationed there from 1682, and his descendents managed it until the Meiji Period. The Kato clan naturally never used the Honmaru Goten palace within the central bailey, as that, like all the others was solely for the use of the shogun on his visits. Instead, like the other highway castles, they managed the estate from smaller, simpler the Ni-no-Maru residence.
Nagoya Castle’s Honmaru Goten, long considered one of the greatest of palaces was only used for two years by the first lord, Tokugawa Yoshinao, until the Ni-no-Maru palace was completed, and Lord Yoshinao moved out of the gorgeous Hon-Maru, allowing it to be used for the shogunal visits. Even then it was only used sparingly. Shogun Hidetada used it twice, once going to, and once coming from Kyoto. It was extended for the third shogun, Iemitsu, who used it twice on his trips to and from Kyoto. Nagoya Castle’s Hon-Maru Goten palace was not used for the following 230 years until the 14th shogun, Iemochi, was summoned to Kyoto by the Emperor. Iemochi and his 3,000 retainer escort only stayed there once while en route to Kyoto, but not on the return as Iemochi died during the trip in Osaka Castle, and his body was shipped back to Edo.
Minakuchi Castle too was used to lodge the Shogun,… but just for one single night during Tokugawa Iemitsu’s visit to Kyoto in 1634. One night! It was never used again after that!
This Minakuchi Castle was abandoned and its structures sold off during the Meiji period, The site of the castle proper became a baseball field and parking lot for Minakuchi High School. In 1991 some walls, two gates, and a yagura were reconstructed and now houses the Minakuchi History and Folklore Museum.
Other samurai castles have been termed Ichiya-jo, said to have been built in a single night, (more on those later) but even then, these supposed One Night castles were more than just a One Night Stand!
