Zeze Castle

Overview

Zeze Castle (膳所城, Zeze-jō) was a Japanese castle in the eastern part of Ōtsu, the capital city of Shiga Prefecture on the shore of Lake Biwa. It was a hirashiro (平城, hirajiro) — a castle built on flat ground rather than on a mountain, a style that relied on water, walls and earthworks rather than natural height for defence. Construction began in 1601, in the sixth year of the Keichō era (慶長, Keichō), and the castle stood until 1870. It gave its name to the Zeze Domain, the feudal territory administered from the castle.

History

Zeze Castle was founded in 1601, at the very end of the Azuchi–Momoyama period (1573–1603), the decades of unification warfare that preceded the Tokugawa shogunate. The site lay at a strategic point on the Tōkaidō, the great highway linking Edo with Kyoto, where the road ran along the western shore of Lake Biwa. A castle at Zeze controlled both the highway and the lake crossing at the point where travellers approached the old imperial capital.

The castle was a flatland stronghold, its defences built around water. Its position on the lake allowed it to be supplied and defended from the water as well as the land, and its outer works incorporated the shoreline itself. Zeze became the seat of the Zeze Domain, and the castle remained the administrative and military centre of that domain through the Edo period.

The castle was abandoned in 1870, early in the Meiji era, when Japan's feudal domains were being dissolved and their castles decommissioned. Like many castles across the country, its buildings were dismantled, and its materials were dispersed.

What Stands There Today

Nothing of the original castle keep or main buildings survives on the site. The castle grounds are now a public park, Zeze Castle Park (膳所城跡公園, Zeze-jō ato kōen), laid out on the flat land near the lake where the castle once stood. The park preserves the outline of the castle's footprint and its position on the water, and it is known as a place to view Lake Biwa and, in season, the blossoms of the trees planted along the shore.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's name is written 膳所城. It is read in kana as ぜぜじょう, and in romaji as Zeze-jō.

The name breaks down into two elements:

• 膳 — read ze in this word. The character means "tray" or "meal," and by extension refers to food served to a person of high rank. It is the first half of the place name Zeze.
• 所 — read ze in this word, the second half of the place name. It means "place," "spot," or "location."
• 城 — read jō in this word. It means "castle." On its own the character can also be read shiro, and it appears in the names of castles all over Japan, such as Osaka Castle (大坂城, Ōsaka-jō) and Himeji Castle (姫路城, Himeji-jō).

So the place name Zeze is written with the characters for "meal tray" and "place," while the final character, 城, simply identifies the building as a castle. The reading jō for 城 is the standard Sino-Japanese reading used when the character is compounded with a place name; the native Japanese reading shiro is used when the word stands alone.

A note on the reading of the place name: the two characters 膳所 are both read ze, giving the doubled sound Zeze. This kind of repetition is not unusual in Japanese place names, and the reading is fixed by convention rather than by the individual characters' usual pronunciations.

Visiting and Context

Zeze Castle Park sits in the eastern part of Ōtsu, close to the shore of Lake Biwa and within easy reach of central Ōtsu and Kyoto. The site is a flat, open park rather than a reconstructed castle, so visitors should expect earthworks, markers and open ground rather than a keep. Its position on the lake makes it a natural stopping point for anyone following the old Tōkaidō route or exploring the shrines and temples of Ōtsu, a city that served for centuries as a gateway to Kyoto.

For students of Japanese, Zeze is a useful name to know because it appears in the historical geography of the Tōkaidō and the Edo-period domain system. The castle's dates — begun in 1601, abandoned in 1870 — bracket almost the entire Tokugawa period, and the name Zeze Domain (膳所藩, Zeze-han) is the term most often encountered in texts about the region. The word han (藩) means "domain," the feudal territory of a daimyō (大名), a lord who governed it on behalf of the shogun.