Ueda Castle

Overview

Ueda Castle (上田城, Ueda-jō) is a castle in Ueda, a city in northern Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Construction began in 1583, in the eleventh year of the Tenshō era, placing it in the Azuchi–Momoyama period — the decades of unification wars that ran from 1573 to 1603. Its coordinates are 36.4041° N, 138.2440° E.

The castle is counted among the 100 Fine Castles of Japan, a list maintained for the appreciation and preservation of the country's surviving and reconstructed castle sites. It is also known by two older names, Amagafuji-jō and Matsuo-jō. The site today is preserved as Ruins of Ueda Castle Park.

Ueda Castle is most closely associated with the Sanada clan, a warrior family whose fortunes rose and fell with the great campaigns of the late sixteenth century. The castle's reputation rests less on its walls than on two famous defences against overwhelming odds, known collectively as the Siege of Ueda.

History

The castle was built from 1583 by Sanada Masayuki, head of the Sanada clan and a daimyō of the Sengoku period — the "Warring States" era of near-constant military conflict. Ueda sits in a basin ringed by mountains, controlling routes north toward the Sea of Japan and west toward the Kansai heartland, which made the position strategically valuable.

In 1585, the castle withstood an attack by Tokugawa Ieyasu's forces. This was the first Siege of Ueda. A second attack followed in 1600, on the eve of the Battle of Sekigahara, when Tokugawa Hidetada marched a large army along the Nakasendō road and was delayed at Ueda by Sanada Masayuki and his son Sanada Yukimura. The delay kept Hidetada's troops from reaching Sekigahara in time for the main battle.

After the Tokugawa consolidated power, the castle was dismantled in 1622. It was later rebuilt, and in the Edo period it became the seat of Ueda Domain. At the end of the Edo period, the castle was home to a cadet branch of the Matsudaira clan, the daimyō family of Ueda Domain. Ueda Domain is also recorded as a headquarters location connected with the Siege of Ueda.

The castle was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1934. The Siege of Ueda is the military event most often referenced in connection with the site, and the castle is also recorded as the place of birth of Iijima Hōsaku.

What Stands There Today

Ueda Castle survives as a ruin rather than a complete keep-and-wall complex. The grounds are laid out as Ruins of Ueda Castle Park, a public park on the castle site in central Ueda. Earthworks, moats and stonework remain as the visible traces of the original fortifications, and the park is planted with cherry trees that draw visitors in spring.

The site's inclusion in the 100 Fine Castles of Japan reflects its standing among Japanese castle ruins. Its identity in the present is bound up with the Sanada name: the castle is a focal point for popular interest in Sanada Masayuki and Sanada Yukimura, and the park functions as the historical anchor for the city of Ueda.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's name in Japanese is 上田城. Its reading in kana is うえだじょう, and in romaji it is Ueda-jō.

Broken down character by character:

• 上 — read here as うえ (ue). The character means "above," "up," or "upper." It is one of the most common kanji in Japanese and appears in words such as 上手 (jōzu, "skilful") and 上着 (uwagi, "outer garment").
• 田 — read here as だ (da). The character means "rice field" or "paddy." It is one of the oldest recorded Japanese characters and appears in countless place names, reflecting the centrality of rice cultivation to settled life in Japan.
• 城 — read here as じょう (jō). The character means "castle" or "fortress." It is the standard element in Japanese castle names, and it also appears in the word 城下町 (jōkamachi), the "castle town" that grew up around a daimyō's stronghold.

Together, 上田 is a place name — the city of Ueda — and 城 marks it as a castle. So 上田城 means, plainly, "the castle of Ueda." The reading jō rather than shiro is the standard on-reading used when 城 follows a place name; the native Japanese reading shiro is used when the word stands alone.

The two alternative names, Amagafuji-jō and Matsuo-jō, are older designations for the same site. They are not translations of 上田城 but separate names by which the castle was historically known.

Visiting and Context

Ueda is reached from Tokyo by rail on the Hokuriku Shinkansen, and the castle park lies within walking distance of Ueda Station. The park is open to the public and is a well-known cherry-blossom viewing spot in spring.

For readers studying Japanese, Ueda Castle offers a compact lesson in how Japanese place names work. The pattern is simple and repeated across the country: a place name, here 上田, followed by 城 read as jō. Learn the three characters 上, 田 and 城, and a great many Japanese castle names and place names become readable at a glance. The castle's association with the Sanada clan also makes it a frequent setting in historical drama and fiction, so the name 上田城 turns up often in modern Japanese writing about the Sengoku period.