Yoshida Castle

Yoshida Castle (吉田城, Yoshida-jō) is a Japanese castle located in Toyohashi, southeastern Aichi Prefecture, Japan. At the end of the Edo period, Yoshida Castle was home to the Inaba clan, daimyō of Tateyama Domain. The castle was also known as Imabashi Castle (今橋城, Imabashi-jō) and later as Toyohashi Castle.

Yoshida Castle is a flat-land style Japanese castle, built on the west bank of the Toyogawa (river). The main bailey was enclosed by a moat, with three three-story yagura, one two-story yagura, and three gates. The second and third baileys were also moated and had smaller yagura and fortified gates. Aside from some remnants of the stonework on the moats, nothing remains of the original structures. The present “castle” is a modern reconstruction of one of the three-story yagura. It houses a small museum with articles pertaining to local history.

A castle was built on the banks of the Toyogawa (river) in 1505 by Makino Kohaku, a retainer of Imagawa Ujichika to secure his foothold in eastern Mikawa Province against the growing power of the Matsudaira clan in western Mikawa Province. Due to its strategic location on a river crossing, the castle was involved in numerous battles during the Sengoku period, changing hands several times, and was destroyed and rebuilt on several occasions. In 1565, the castle came under the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who named Sakai Tadatsugu as castellan.

Following the Battle of Odawara in 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered the Tokugawa clan to relocate to the Kantō region and assigned the castle to Ikeda Terumasa. Ikeda developed the surrounding castle town and embarked on a massive and ambitious plan to rebuild Yoshida Castle. However, following the Battle of Sekigahara, he was relocated to Himeji Castle. Construction of the castle was incomplete, and the central keep was never built.

After the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, Yoshida Castle became the center of Yoshida Domain, a feudal domain that occupied a strategic position on the Tōkaidō (road) between Edo and Nagoya. The domain was assigned to several fudai daimyō clans until the Matsudaira (Nagasawa-Ōkōchi) clan took possession in 1752; they remained in residence at Yoshida until the Meiji Restoration. The final daimyō of Yoshida, Matsudaira Nobuhisa, surrendered the castle without resistance to the Meiji government in 1868.

Text adapted from “Yoshida Castle (Mikawa Province)” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Yoshida Castle ranks #2,176 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #133 of the 297 mapped in Japan. Founded 1505, it is older than 45% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 755 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 3,650 times in the last 60 days, more than 79% of the atlas. 5 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Okazaki, 29 km away. See how Japan compares in the castle statistics.

View on the interactive castle map →

Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗