Sadowara Castle

Overview

Sadowara Castle (佐土原城, Sadowara-jō) is a Japanese castle in the Sadowara neighbourhood of Miyazaki, a city on the eastern coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands. It was founded around 1400, in the Muromachi period (1336–1573), and remained in use until 1870, the third year of the Meiji era. It is also known by two other names: Tsurumatsu Castle (鶴松城, Tsurumatsu-jō) and, later, Shōkaku Castle (松鶴城, Shōkaku-jō).

The castle is counted among the Forty-Eight Castles of Ito and appears on the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles list. Its site has been a National Historic Site since 2004. The castle's coordinates place it at 32.0478330° N, 131.4238330° E, inland from the Miyazaki plain.

History

Sadowara Castle was established around 1400, in the seventh year of the Ōei era (応永, Ōei), during the Muromachi period. That era name covers the years 1394 to 1428, a stretch of the early fifteenth century when the Ashikaga shoguns in Kyoto held nominal authority while regional warlords consolidated power in the provinces. Kyushu, far from the capital, was governed largely by local families who answered to Kyoto only loosely.

During the Sengoku period — the century and a half of near-constant civil war that ran from the late fifteenth century into the early seventeenth — Sadowara Castle was the stronghold of the Itō clan. The Itō were the dominant warrior house of Hyūga Province, the region that corresponds to modern Miyazaki Prefecture. The castle's inclusion among the Forty-Eight Castles of Ito reflects how thoroughly the family's network of fortifications is associated with them.

The Itō were eventually displaced. Control of Sadowara Castle passed to the Shimazu clan, the great warrior house of Satsuma in southern Kyushu, who absorbed Hyūga into their sphere. Shimazu Toyohisa (島津豊久) held command of the castle. Toyohisa is remembered for his death at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the engagement that decided which clan would dominate Japan for the next two and a half centuries.

Under the Tokugawa settlement that followed, Sadowara Castle became the headquarters of Sadowara Domain, a feudal territory that governed portions of Hyūga Province. The domain existed from 1603 to 1871, spanning almost the entire Edo period. In 1871 the domains were abolished and replaced by prefectures, and the castle itself went out of use in 1870, just before that reform.

What Stands There Today

The castle site has been designated a National Historic Site since 2004. The designation protects the footprint of the fortifications rather than a surviving keep; like most Japanese castles, Sadowara was dismantled in the early Meiji period, when the new government abolished the feudal domains and many castle buildings were sold off or torn down.

What remains is the layout of the castle grounds: the arrangement of enclosures, earthworks and stone walls that defined the stronghold on its hill. The site sits within the modern city of Miyazaki, in the Sadowara district, and is listed on the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles, a register of notable castle sites maintained for preservation and public interest.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's name is written 佐土原城. It is read in kana as さどわらじょう, and in romaji as Sadowara-jō. The final element, 城, is the ordinary Japanese word for a castle; when it follows a place name it is usually read jō rather than shiro, the standalone reading.

Breaking the name down character by character:

• 佐 — read sa here. The character means "assist" or "help", and it appears in many Japanese place names and surnames. Its sa reading is the one used in this word.
• 土 — read do here. It means "earth" or "soil", the character used for ground, land and local terrain. In this compound it takes the voiced reading do rather than the plain to.
• 原 — read wara here. It means "plain", "field" or "wilderness" — an open, flat stretch of land. This is the same character that ends the name of the Kantō plain and appears in countless Japanese place names.
• 城 — read jō here. It means "castle". This is the character that turns a place name into the name of a fortification.

Together, 佐土原 (Sadowara) is a place name, and 城 (jō) marks it as a castle. The alternative names work the same way: 鶴松城 (Tsurumatsu-jō) uses 鶴, "crane", and 松, "pine"; 松鶴城 (Shōkaku-jō) reverses the two, giving the Sino-Japanese reading shōkaku for the same pair of characters. Cranes and pines are both traditional emblems of longevity and good fortune, and they were popular choices for castle names.

Visiting and Context

Sadowara Castle lies within Miyazaki city, in Miyazaki Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. The coordinates 32.0478330, 131.4238330 place it in the Sadowara area, north of central Miyazaki and within reach of the city's coastal plain.

For readers of Japanese, the castle's name is a compact lesson in how place names and castle names are built. The pattern is consistent across Japan: a local place name, usually two or three characters long, followed by 城 read as jō. Recognising 城 in a name immediately tells the reader that a fortification once stood there, and the characters that precede it usually describe the terrain — here, earth and open field.

The castle's long life, from roughly 1400 to 1870, spans the Muromachi, Sengoku and Edo periods, and its history touches three of the great names of Kyushu: the Itō who built it, the Shimazu who took it, and the Tokugawa order under which it became the seat of Sadowara Domain. Its designation as a National Historic Site in 2004 and its place on the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles keep the site in the public record as a surviving example of a regional stronghold rather than a famous national landmark.