Arikoyama Castle

Arikoyama Castle (有子山城, Arikoyama-jō) was a Sengoku period Japanese castle located in the Izushi neighborhood of the city of Toyooka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Its ruins, along with the ruins of nearby Konosumiyama Castle have been protected as a National Historic Site since 1934 under the designation "Yamana clan castle ruins"

Arikoyama Castle and neighboring Izushi Castle are located on 320-meter Mount Shiroyama, at the southern edge of Izushi basin, southeast of Toyooka city center. This area was the center of ancient Tajima Province, and the site is a strategic location controlling the main route to Tanba Province and Tango Province. The area came under the control of the Yamana clan, a cadet branch of the Nitta clan, in the Muromachi period. The Yamana clan had close relations with the Ashikaga shogunate and was one of four clans with hereditary rights to the position of Samurai-dokoro. The Yamana leveraged their position to eventually claim the position of shugo over 11 of the 66 provinces of Japan.

However, the Ashikaga grew fearful of the expanding power of the clan, and Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu encouraged internal conflicts within the clan and sponsored the Hosokawa clan in its position of kanrei of offset the Yamana. By the middle of the 15th century, the power the Ashikaga shogunate began to decline, and a succession dispute within the shogunate led to the Ōnin War from 1467 to 1477. Konosumiyama Castle had been constructed in the 15th century as the main base of the clan by Yamana Sozen (1404-1473), but the Ōnin War had left the clan weakened and rising local warlords such as the Akamatsu clan, Mōri clan and Amago clan had seized much of their territories, and even within their strongholds Tajima itself, the Yamana were mostly nominal overlords as local retainers gained much independence. Under these circumstances, the clan was defeated in 1576 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Yamana Suketoyo managed to escape to Sakai and was pardoned by Nobunaga in 1570, and allowed to return to his ancestral territory in Tajima. He decided not to reoccupy Konosumiyama Castle, but moved a short distance away and constructed Arikoyama Castle at a high elevation. Although he served Nobunaga loyally, in 1580 when Toyotomi Hideyoshi was fighting the Mōri clan, one of Yamana Sukekiyo's powerful retainers, the Otagaki clan, defected to the enemy.

Text adapted from “Arikoyama Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Arikoyama Castle ranks #4,335 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #217 of the 297 mapped in Japan. Founded 1574, it is older than 37% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 755 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 2,244 times in the last 60 days, more than 69% of the atlas. 3 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Himeji, 73 km away. It is one of the 71 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Kansai. See how Japan compares in the castle statistics.

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