Gujo Hachiman Castle is located on 350-meter Mount Hachiman, near the confluence of the Yoshidagawa and Kodaragava rivers, and not far from the Nagaragawa River. During the Sengoku period, this area was of great strategic importance: it stood at a key crossroads of routes connecting Mino Province in the south with the Sea of Japan in the north, and Hida Province in the east with Echizen Province in the west.
It is generally believed that the first fortifications on Mount Hachiman already existed in the 15th century, when the area was controlled by the To clan. However, in the late 1550s, Endo Morikazu, the head of a cadet branch of the clan, rose in rebellion against the To. He attacked and destroyed Todonoyama Castle, which stood on the opposite bank of the river. After that, Morikazu decided to build his base on Mount Hachiman. Still, he managed to construct only the stone walls before his death interrupted his plans. The completion of the castle was left to his son, Endo Yoshitaka, and by 1559 the castle was fully finished.
It was in Gujo Hachiman Castle that Endo Morikazu’s daughter, Endo Chiyo (1557–1617), was born. Chiyo is well known for a story connected to the horse of her husband, Yamauchi Kazutoyo. When Chiyo got married, her mother gave her a sum of 10 ryo (about 1.5 million yen in modern terms), meant to be used for an “especially important occasion.” Kazutoyo served in Oda Nobunaga’s army but could not afford a good horse. Warhorses were scarce and extremely expensive. Chiyo went searching and eventually bought her husband a black horse named Kagami Kurige, spending her entire dowry in the process. The horse greatly impressed Oda Nobunaga, and Kazutoyo was promoted, which in turn improved the fortunes of the Yamauchi clan. At the foot of Mount Hachiman, there is a monument that tells this legend.
Later, Endo Yoshitaka became a vassal of Oda Nobunaga. After Nobunaga’s death in 1582, Yoshitaka joined Oda Nobutaka and fought against Toyotomi Hideyoshi. When the coalition of Shibata Katsuie and Oda Nobutaka was defeated in 1583, Yoshitaka surrendered to Hideyoshi. The castle was confiscated and given to Inaba Sadamichi. Sadamichi rebuilt and strengthened the castle, and it was under him that Gujo Hachiman gained its donjon and most of its stone walls.
After Hideyoshi’s death in 1598, the Inaba clan initially supported Ishida Mitsunari. As a result, the castle was attacked by its former owner, Endo Yoshitaka, who sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu and hoped to reclaim his stronghold. After a short siege, the castle surrendered to Endo’s forces. However, the Inaba soon swore loyalty to the Tokugawa, and with Ieyasu’s backing, they regained control of the castle.
Later, the two former enemies—the Inaba and Endo clans—fought together for the Tokugawa in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu settled their long-standing dispute by granting the Inaba clan the Usuki Domain on the island of Kyushu. Gujo Hachiman Castle once again became the seat of Endo Yoshitaka. Between 1601 and 1603, the Endo clan rebuilt the castle once more, and in that form it remained until the end of the Edo period.
Gujo Hachiman Castle is usually classified as a mountain castle (yamajiro). However, only the main bailey was located at the summit, while the other baileys were arranged at the foot of the mountain. For that reason, the castle is more accurately described as a plains-and-mountain type castle (hirayamajiro).
The Endo clan governed the castle and the Gujo Domain for five generations. But in 1693, due to an internal conflict, the Endo clan was stripped of its rights, and Endo Tsunehisa was sent to a small territory in the Kanto region. Gujo Hachiman Castle was then given to the Inoue clan. After the Inoue, starting in 1697, the castle was controlled by the Kanamori clan. In 1758, the castle passed to the Aoyama clan, which held it for seven generations, up to the end of the Edo period.
In 1870, in accordance with the policies of the new Meiji government, the castle was completely dismantled, except for certain fragments of its walls.
In 1933, the castle’s tenshu (main keep) was reconstructed in wood. It consists of four tiers and five floors. Since no reliable information about the original appearance of the castle survived, the reconstruction used drawings of Ogaki Castle (where a historic keep still existed at that time) and Hikone Castle. Today, this is considered the oldest wooden reconstruction of a castle keep in Japan.
In 2020–2023, the castle underwent renovation, which included structural reinforcement work designed to improve earthquake resistance. A historical museum is located inside the keep, and the tower’s observation deck offers an excellent view of the town. In addition, two corner turrets (sumiyagura), sections of earthen-and-plaster walls (dobei), and one gate were reconstructed. On Mount Hachiman, beyond the stone walls, visitors can also find traces of earthen defensive works—remains of embankments and moats.
In 2017, the Japan Castle Society included Gujo Hachiman Castle in its list of the “Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles” (the so-called “Top 200”). Since 1955, the castle complex has held the status of a “prefectural historic site.” The castle was also known by the name Shikisui.
In the castle town, some samurai residences and merchant houses from the Edo and Meiji periods have been preserved. The district where these buildings stand is designated as a “Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings.”
See also
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Amagasaki Castle
The founding year of Amagasaki Castle is traditionally considered to be 1617, when Toda Ujikané built his castle here, making it the administrative center of the Amagasaki Domain. However, as early as the Sengoku period, a fortress built by the Hosokawa clan already stood on this site. After the fall of Itami Castle in 1579, Araki Murashige—formerly a vassal of Oda Nobunaga who had rebelled against him—fled to this earlier castle.
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Hiroshima Castle
Mōri Terumoto (1553–1625) was the grandson and rightful heir of the renowned Mōri Motonari. When Terumoto became the head of the Mōri clan in 1571, he inherited vast territories covering a large part of the San’in and San’yō regions in western Honshū. In addition, the Mōri clan possessed the largest and most technologically advanced naval fleet of its time.
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Fukuyama Castle
After the defeat of Toyotomi Hideyori’s supporters in the Osaka Campaigns of 1614–1615, many clans in Japan still remained not fully loyal to the Tokugawa shogunate, especially in the western Chūgoku region. Mizuno Katsunari (1564–1651), a cousin of Tokugawa Ieyasu, became the first of the Tokugawa house’s close retainers, the so-called fudai daimyō, to be relocated to this strategically important area.
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Tiba Castle
The founder of the Chiba clan is considered to be Chiba Tsunesige (1083–1180), who in 1126 moved his residence to the Inohana area and built a strongly fortified stronghold there. Although Tsunesige himself came from the Taira clan, the Chiba clan later supported Minamoto no Yoritomo, the future founder of the first shogunate.
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Sunomata Castle
Oda Nobunaga, as part of his “final solution” to the conflict with the Saitō clan, conceived the construction of a fort in the Sunomata area, which was intended to serve as a forward base for an attack on Inabayama Castle (later renamed Gifu). Sunomata was a swampy area located between Ogaki Castle, a stronghold of the Oda clan, and Inabayama, the main fortress of the Saitō clan. Earlier attempts to build fortifications in this area, carried out by Oda generals Sakuma Nobumori and Shibata Katsuie, had all ended in failure. After that, the task was entrusted to the young vassal Kinoshita Tokichirō, who later became known as Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
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Shibata Castle
The exact time when structures first appeared on the site of the present-day castle is unknown; however, it is generally believed that the first fortified buildings were constructed here during the Muromachi period, when these lands were controlled by the Shibata clan.
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Okayama Castle
According to a number of accounts, the earliest fortifications on the site of present-day Okayama Castle appeared as early as the 14th century and were built by the Nawa clan. The Asahigawa River was used as a natural defensive barrier, protecting one side of the fortifications.
In the early 16th century, the Kanamitsu clan constructed a new castle here, which at the time was known as Ishiyama. In 1573, it came under the control of the Ukita clan, after which Ukita Naoie (1529–1582) launched large-scale reconstruction efforts. He did not live to see the work completed, and construction was continued by his son Hideie. -
Nagahama Castle
Hashiba, later known as Toyotomi Hideyoshi, received Odani Castle and the surrounding lands from Oda Nobunaga after the defeat of the Azai clan. However, Odani Castle was located high in the mountains, which made it poorly suited for the effective administration of the territory. For this reason, in 1575 Hideyoshi began constructing a new castle in the village of Imahama on the shore of Lake Biwa. Taking the character naga from Nobunaga’s name, he renamed both the village and the new castle Nagahama.
