Ogaki Castle, located in Ogaki City, Gifu Prefecture, was originally built around 1500 by Miyakawa Yasusada and named Ushiya Castle due to the Ushiya River serving as a natural moat. The castle was also known as Bi Castle and Kyoroku Castle. The Ogaki region held strategic importance as a transit point between Mino and Omi Provinces, a fact recognized by Saito Dosan, the Viper of Mino. When Oda Nobunaga captured Gifu Castle in 1567, Ogaki Castle came under Oda rule. Both Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi understood the strategic significance of the castle. In 1595, Hideyoshi ordered Ito Sukemori to expand the castle and construct the Tenshu keep.
Interestingly, Ogaki Castle featured four moats and a four-story keep, an unusual design since the number four (shi) is phonetically similar to the word for death, making it an unlucky number. To avoid the ominous connotation, the first floor was considered a base floor, and the "tower" was said to stand three stories high. Ogaki Castle was rumored to have been coated in lacquer over its whitewashed walls.
Ogaki Castle played a significant role in the Battle of Sekigahara, serving as the gathering site for Western forces under Ishida Mitsunari before being outmaneuvered by Eastern forces. Tokugawa Ieyasu had initially considered laying siege to Ogaki and even planned to flood the castle by damming the nearby Ibi and Kuise rivers. However, this approach would have been both time-consuming and costly. Instead, Ieyasu spread rumors that he would turn back through Sekigahara to capture Ishida Mitsunari's fief, Sawayama, and then attack Toyotomi Hideyori in Osaka Castle. This strategy lured Ishida Mitsunari and his forces out of Ogaki on the night of October 20, 1600. They marched 14 kilometers to Sekigahara under cover of darkness and rain, leading to the largest samurai battle in history the next morning.
Ogaki Castle was governed by three generations of the Ishikawa clan, followed by two generations of the Matsudaira (Hisamatsu) clan, two lords from the Abe clan, and then a single Matsudaira, before being handed over to the fudai daimyo Toda clan in 1635. The Toda clan controlled Ogaki for 12 generations until the Meiji Restoration. Outside the castle grounds, in front of the Tenshu, stands a statue of Toda Ujikane, the first Toda lord of Ogaki, dressed in armor and mounted on a horse.
Ogaki Castle's historical significance and survival from complete destruction during the Meiji period led to its designation as a National Treasure in 1936. However, it was destroyed by wartime aerial bombing raids nine years later. The castle was reconstructed in April 1959 using concrete and now houses a collection of items related to the castle and the Battle of Sekigahara. Parts of the outer moat are still visible, and from the air, the tree-lined canals' large square shape stands out among the urban landscape.
Interestingly, one of Ogaki Castle's gates now exists in Kakamigahara City, having been purchased and relocated when much of the castle was abandoned and demolished during the Meiji Period. Another gate was relocated to serve as the main gate for the Heirin-So Temple in Ogaki. Among Japan's castles, only four can be faithfully reconstructed, and Ogaki Castle is one of them, raising the possibility that it may someday be restored to its original wooden state.
See also
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Kaminoyama Castle
Kamino-yama Castle stood at the center of an important logistics hub, in the middle of the Yonezawa Plain, which served as the gateway to the western part of the Tohoku region. Roads connecting the Aizu, Fukushima, and Yamagata areas intersected here.
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Imabari Castle
Tōdō Takatora (1556–1630) served at different times as a vassal of several famous clans—Azai, Oda, Toyotomi, and Tokugawa. He took part in the Battle of Anegawa (1570), the Battle of Shizugatake (1583), the invasions of Kyushu and Korea, the Sekigahara campaign (1600), and the Siege of Osaka (1614–1615).
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Iwakuni Castle
Kikkawa Hiroie (1561–1625) was the grandson of the famous daimyo Mori Motonari and a vassal of the Mori clan. Under Mori Terumoto, he fought in both Korean campaigns and took part in the defense of Ulsan Castle. During the Battle of Sekigahara, Hiroie stood with his 3,000-man force on the side of the Western Coalition; however, even before the battle began, he sent Tokugawa Ieyasu a secret message stating that he did not intend to fight Tokugawa’s troops. As a result of his inaction, 15,000 soldiers under Mori Hidemoto were also unable to enter the battle, since Hiroie blocked their path.
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Gujo Hachiman Castle
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.
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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.
