Location: Osaka, Osaka prefecture Map
Osaka Castle (jap. 大坂城) is a five-story samurai castle in the city of
Osaka, Japan, which played a key role in Japanese history in the late
16th and early 17th centuries.
The castle was built in 1585-98 by
General Toyotomi Hideyoshi on the model of Azuchi Castle, which Oda
Nobunaga had built for himself ten years earlier. Hideyoshi tied to
Osaka the most important trade routes of Japan, divided by many years of
civil strife. During his reign, the territory adjacent to the castle
(now the city of Osaka, the second largest in Japan) became the center
of the entire economic life of the country.
The castle with an
area of one square kilometer rises on top of a stone embankment,
designed to protect against attacks by warriors of the sword. Huge
boulders are laid at its base, the largest of which reach six meters in
height and fourteen meters in width. The castle has five floors; three
more underground levels go deep into the embankment. From 20 to 30
thousand people were simultaneously employed in the construction.
In 1614, during the war between Hideyori (son of Hideyoshi) and the
powerful shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, the castle withstood the siege of
200,000 troops. Tokugawa was unable to take the fortress, but he managed
to fill in the ditches surrounding it, a key element of the Osaka
fortification system. The following year, Hideyori made an attempt to
restore the outer moat and fill it with water. Enraged, Tokugawa sent a
detachment of his warriors to Osaka, who captured the enemy castle.
Hideyori and his mother committed suicide; the place of their death is
marked with a memorial sign.
In 1620, Tokugawa ordered the
rebuilding and expansion of Osaka Castle. In 1665 lightning struck the
main tower and caused a devastating fire. In subsequent years, the
castle was restored, but burned down again in 1868, during the dramatic
events of the Meiji Restoration. The Encyclopedic Dictionary of
Brockhaus and Efron notes that by the beginning of the 20th century,
only ruins remained of the castle, and the remaining premises were
turned into barracks. The main tower (tenshukaku) rose from the ruins
and acquired its modern appearance only in 1931, when the local
authorities carried out a major reconstruction of it using reinforced
concrete.
At the end of World War II, the castle buildings were
damaged by American air raids, but were restored in 1995-97. The
facility is currently open to tourists; the interiors of the main tower
are modern. Adjacent to the castle garden is a stadium where world-class
musicians touring Japan perform.
The castle has an area of approximately one square kilometer. It is built on two raised platforms, each surrounded by a moat. The central building has five floors visible from the outside and three floors that are invisible without windows. It stands on a high stone plinth, designed to protect the base, and was constructed almost entirely of wood, as was typical of Japanese buildings in the past. During the restoration at the beginning of the 20th century, however, the destroyed castle was almost completely rebuilt from concrete, and since the renovation in 1997 it even has an elevator.
The first buildings of the castle were built on the site of the
ruined Ikkō-ikki temple Ishiyama Hongan-ji by order of Toyotomi
Hideyoshi and were completed in 1583. The castle was originally built
based on the plans of Azuchi Castle near Kyoto, but it was to be far
surpassed in strength. The castle, which was considered impregnable, was
taken and destroyed by Tokugawa Ieyasu's troops in 1615 during the
Summer War in Osaka. Rebuilding by the Tokugawas began in 1620 and
lasted 10 years. The main tower burned down completely after a lightning
strike in 1665, but the castle continued to play an important role in
the Tokugawa shoguns' control of western Japan.
Only in 1843,
almost 200 years later, was the castle partially rebuilt with donations.
But already in 1868 the castle was destroyed again during the wars of
the Meiji Restoration. The remains of the castle were converted into
barracks by the Meiji government in the years that followed. In 1928 the
main tower of the castle was rebuilt after a very successful fundraiser
by the mayor. After the main tower was severely damaged by bombing
during World War II in 1945, it took several decades until the castle
was rebuilt in 1997 after three years of construction work. In 1953, the
original castle complex was declared a Special Historic Site (tokubetsu
shiseki).
Inside the castle there is now a museum, which is
mainly dedicated to the history of the castle and the work of Toyotomi
Hideyoshi. The 8th floor houses an observation deck.
1583: Toyotomi Hideyoshi begins construction of the castle on the
ruins of the Ikkō-ikki Ishiyama Hongan-ji temple. The initial design was
modeled after Azuchi Castle, Oda Nobunaga's command center. Toyotomi
wanted to build a castle that resembled Oda's, but also surpassed it in
every respect: the design included a five-story main tower, with three
more floors underground, and gold leaf on the sides of the tower to
dazzle visitors.
1585: The inner donjon is completed. Toyotomi
continues to extend and expand the castle, making it more and more
formidable in the eyes of any attackers.
1598: Construction is
completed. Hideyoshi dies. Osaka Castle passes to his son: Toyotomi
Hideyori.
1600: Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats Hideyori's armies at the
Battle of Sekigahara, and begins running his own bakufu near Edo.
1614: Tokugawa attacks Hideyori in the winter, beginning the siege of
Osaka. Although Toyotomi's forces were roughly 2 to 1, they managed to
defeat Tokugawa's 200,000-strong army and protected the castle's outer
walls. However, Tokugawa managed to embarrass Toyotomi by filling in the
castle's outer moat, thus leaving it virtually defenseless.
1615:
During the summer, Hideyori begins digging the outer moat once again.
Tokugawa, enraged, sends his forces back to Osaka Castle and captures
the castle on June 4th. Osakajo surrendered to Tokugawa and the Toyotomi
clan was defeated.
1620: The new heir to the shogunate, Tokugawa
Hidetada, begins rebuilding and rearming Osaka Castle. He builds a new
tower of five floors outside and eight inside, and assigns the task of
building new walls to some samurai clans. The walls built in 1620 still
stand today, they are made of granite blocks that hold each other
together. Many of the stones were brought from stone quarries in the
Seto Inland Sea, and are decorated with the symbols of the various
families who carved them into the bulwarks.
1665: Lightning
incinerates the main tower.
1843: After decades of neglect, the
castle gets much needed repairs when the bakufu raises money from the
people of the region to rebuild many of the turrets.
1868: Much of
the castle is burned down during the civil strife related to the Meiji
Restoration. Under the Meiji government, Osaka Castle was converted into
a barracks organized in the Western military style that was rapidly
spreading in Japan.
1928: The main tower is rebuilt after a
successful fundraiser by the mayor of Osaka.
1945: Bombing of Osaka
damages the newly rebuilt main tower.
1995: The Osaka government
approves another renovation project, with the intent of restoring the
main tower to its Edo period splendour.
1997: The renovation is
completed. The castle is a faithful reconstruction in concrete (equipped
with lifts) of the original; however the interior is not at all
reminiscent of an ancient Japanese castle.
2019: The general
renovation is completed.