Kitanosho Castle

Overview

Kitanosho Castle (北ノ庄城, Kitanoshō-jō) was a Japanese castle built on flat ground in what is now Fukui, the capital of Fukui Prefecture. Construction began in 1575, in the Tenshō era (天正, Tenshō, a Japanese era name covering 1573–1592), during the Azuchi–Momoyama period (安土桃山時代, Azuchi–Momoyama jidai, 1573–1603), the decades of unification wars that ended the long medieval age of civil conflict. It stood for only eight years. In 1583 it burned to the ground, and its lord, Shibata Katsuie, died in the same catastrophe. Because the castle's life was so short, few records of it survive, but those that do describe a keep of exceptional size: the tenshu (天守, tenshu, the main tower of a Japanese castle) is said to have risen nine stories, making it the tallest of its time.

History

Shibata Katsuie (柴田勝家) built Kitanosho Castle in 1575. Katsuie was one of the most senior generals of Oda Nobunaga, the warlord who was then forcing most of central Japan under a single authority. A castle at Kitanosho gave Katsuie a base in the north, facing the provinces along the Japan Sea coast, and it became the seat of his domain. The site was a hirashiro (平城, hirashiro, a castle built on level ground rather than on a mountain), which suited a regional capital: flat land allowed broad moats, wide streets and room for a large town around the walls.

The castle's end came quickly after Nobunaga's death in 1582. Katsuie and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, another of Nobunaga's leading generals, became rivals for control of the succession, and in 1583 their forces met at the Battle of Shizugatake. Katsuie was defeated. He withdrew to Kitanosho, and when the castle fell he killed his wife, Oichi (お市), and then took his own life by seppuku (切腹, seppuku, ritual suicide by disembowelment). The castle was destroyed by fire in the same year, 1583. Oichi is recorded as having died at Kitanosho, and she is remembered as one of the most tragic figures of the period: a daughter of the Oda house, sister of Nobunaga, and mother of three daughters who would themselves marry into the highest ranks of the new ruling order.

What Stands There Today

Almost nothing of the castle survived above ground. Archaeological excavation has uncovered a few of its stone foundations, and these are now open to the public. The remains lie within the modern city of Fukui, at the coordinates 36.0601390, 136.2196540, in Fukui Prefecture. The site is a reminder of how completely a short-lived castle can vanish: eight years of building and occupation, one fire, and then four centuries of silence until the archaeologists arrived.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's name is written 北ノ庄城. It is read in kana as きたのしょうじょう, and in romaji as Kitanoshō-jō. The final element, 城, is the ordinary Japanese word for a castle, and it appears in the name of nearly every Japanese fortress, from Himeji to Osaka.

Broken down character by character:

• 北 — read kita here. It means "north". The same character appears in 北陸 (Hokuriku), the "northern land" region along the Japan Sea where Fukui sits, and in 北海道 (Hokkaidō), the northernmost of the main islands.
• ノ — read no. This is the katakana syllable no, not a kanji. It stands in for the possessive particle の, which links two nouns, so that 北ノ庄 means roughly "the village of the north" or "northern village". Katakana is normally used for foreign words and sound effects, but older place names sometimes write the particle this way, and 北ノ庄 is a standard example. The same pattern appears in names such as 三ノ宮 (Sannomiya) in Kobe.
• 庄 — read shō here. It means "village" or "manor", specifically the estate of a rural landholding. In the medieval period a shō was an agricultural estate, often held by a temple or a noble family in the capital, so the word carries the sense of settled, productive farmland rather than a wild settlement.
• 城 — read jō here. It means "castle". When it stands alone as a common noun it is read shiro; in compound names it becomes jō, as in 大坂城 (Ōsaka-jō) or 姫路城 (Himeji-jō).

Put together, 北ノ庄城 is "the castle of Kitanoshō", the fortress named after the place where it was built. Note that the reading given for the whole name in kana, ふくいじょう, corresponds to Fukui Castle, the later name associated with the same city; the castle discussed on this page is properly きたのしょうじょう, Kitanoshō-jō.

Visiting and Context

The exposed stone foundations are the main thing to see, and they are modest: a castle that lasted eight years leaves little behind. The site sits in central Fukui, a city that grew up around the castle's position and later took a different castle, Fukui Castle, as its administrative heart. For readers of Japanese, Kitanosho is worth knowing for three reasons. It fixes the geography of the Hokuriku region in the unification wars, when Nobunaga's generals pushed north. It anchors the story of Shibata Katsuie, the loyal senior retainer who lost the struggle for the succession. And it is the place where Oichi died, a name that recurs throughout the literature and drama of the Azuchi–Momoyama period. The name itself is a small lesson in reading: a kanji for direction, a katakana particle standing in for の, a kanji for a medieval estate, and the kanji for castle.