Tsuyama Castle

Overview

Tsuyama Castle (津山城, Tsuyama-jō) is a Japanese castle in the Sange neighbourhood of Tsuyama, a city in Okayama Prefecture in the San'in region of western Japan. Its construction began in 1441, the first year of the Kakitsu era, during the Muromachi period. The castle is also known as Kakuzan Castle (鶴山城, Kakuzan-jō).

Tsuyama is counted among Japan's three great hirayama castles. A hirayama (平山, "flat-mountain") castle is one built on a low hill or plateau overlooking surrounding flat land, rather than on a steep mountain peak or on the plain itself. The other two are Himeji Castle and Matsuyama Castle, both built around the same time as Tsuyama.

During the Edo period, Tsuyama Castle served as the principal residence of the daimyō (大名, feudal lords) of Tsuyama Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate. It has been protected by the central government as a National Historic Site since 1963, and it is listed among the 100 Fine Castles of Japan.

History

The castle's construction began in 1441, the opening year of the Kakitsu era, in the Muromachi period. The Muromachi period ran from 1336 to 1573, an age when the Ashikaga shoguns governed from Kyoto and warrior houses across the provinces fortified hilltops and trade routes.

Over the following centuries the site passed into the hands of the Tsuyama Domain, and in the Edo period it became the seat of the domain's daimyō under Tokugawa rule. Tsuyama Domain was the administrative unit centred on the castle town that grew up around the fortification.

What Stands There Today

The castle site is now Kakuzan Park, a public park on the hill where the castle once stood. Two of its surviving structures are the Bitchu-yagura and the Tsuyama Castle Keep Base.

A yagura (櫓) is a turret or defensive tower — a roofed, walled structure used for storage, defence and lookout, and one of the standard components of a Japanese castle compound. The Bitchu-yagura takes its name from Bitchu, the old province corresponding to western Okayama Prefecture. The keep base is the stone foundation on which the castle's main tower, the tenshu, once stood; the tower itself no longer rises from it.

The site holds National Historic Site status, granted in 1963, and appears on the list of the 100 Fine Castles of Japan.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's name is written 津山城. Its kana reading is つやまじょう, and its Hepburn romanisation is Tsuyama-jō.

Breaking the name down character by character:

• 津 — read tsu here. The character means "harbour" or "port", and by extension a landing place or crossing. It is a common element in Japanese place names.
• 山 — read yama here. It means "mountain" or "hill". This is one of the most frequent characters in Japanese place names, and it describes exactly the kind of low hill on which a hirayama castle sits.
• 城 — read jō here, from an older reading of the character. It means "castle". When it appears as the final element of a castle name, it is normally read jō, as in Tsuyama-jō.

The three characters together therefore read literally as "Tsuyama Castle": 津山 is the place name, and 城 marks the building. Note that the jō of 城 is the same element found in Himeji Castle (姫路城, Himeji-jō) and Matsuyama Castle (松山城, Matsuyama-jō), the two castles Tsuyama is grouped with.

The alternative name, Kakuzan Castle (鶴山城, Kakuzan-jō), uses 鶴 (kaku, "crane") and 山 (zan, "mountain"), a pairing that also appears in the name of the park that occupies the site today, Kakuzan Park.

Visiting and Context

Tsuyama Castle stands in Kakuzan Park in the Sange district of Tsuyama, Okayama Prefecture, at coordinates roughly 35.06° north, 134.00° east. The park preserves the castle's hilltop footprint, including the keep base and the Bitchu-yagura.

For readers of Japanese, the castle is a useful case study in how castle names are built. The pattern is a place name plus 城 read jō: 津山 plus 城 gives 津山城, Tsuyama-jō. The same pattern produces 姫路城 (Himeji-jō) and 松山城 (Matsuyama-jō), which is convenient, because those are precisely the two castles Tsuyama is traditionally ranked alongside as one of the three great hirayama castles.

The vocabulary around the site repays attention as well. 櫓 (yagura) for the surviving turret, 山 (yama) for the hill in the castle's own name, and 大名 (daimyō) for the lords of Tsuyama Domain all recur constantly in texts about Japanese castles. Tsuyama Domain itself is the political unit to look for when reading Edo-period documents that mention the castle.