Japanese castles and their siege

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Powerful walls, graceful towers, bloody attacks and siege tricks: all this was not only in Europe. And by the beauty of the fortresses, the Japanese can give the Europeans a head start.

The era of castles

Military fortifications in Japan were built in the 1st millennium AD. e. They were wooden forts - structures made of palisades and ditches. They were easy to build and easy to burn; they were rarely besieged and usually stormed head-on. The main thing in the samurai military art remained the battlefield. Fragmentation, exacerbation of political struggle, the emergence of firearms and the improvement of technology in the 15th and 16th centuries. allowed the Japanese fortification to take a step forward - to widely use stone construction and rethink the role of fortifications.

From the 15th century. and until the 1620s. active construction of stone tower fortresses continued. During this period, various political leaders tried to unite Japan under their rule and put an end to feudal fragmentation. Of course, many feudal lords (daimyo) dreamed not to part with power, but to strengthen it.

In the wars for the political redistribution of Japan, daimyo created hundreds of castles to control the surrounding areas and take cover in case of attacks. Strong walls in combination with brave warriors made it possible to successfully resist the enemy, even many times the number of the besieged.

Daimyo. Source: youtube.com

Much of the Japanese fortresses resembled what the Europeans built (the Japanese even hired visiting engineers from Europe). In the Land of the Rising Sun, castles also had walls and loopholes, dry or water-filled ditches, strong gates and "corridors of death"; here, too, they built from stone and wood, also used the features of the landscape and prepared traps for the enemy. But even at the first glance at any Japanese fortress, one can see the national originality of this fortification.

Osaka castle. Source: ja.ukiyo-e.org

Japanese strongholds have powerful foundations (ishigaki) - inclined earthen ramparts, similar to walls, fortified with stone (usually about 7 m high, but they are also found much higher). On the ramparts there are low walls with loopholes of various shapes and corner towers (rather similar to outbuildings).

The stone "dress" of the ramparts was laid with special masonry and often with the use of giant stones (weighing tens or more than one hundred tons; they were installed by several hundred people).

Osaka Castle, photo 1865. Source: blogs.yahoo.co.jp

Another distinctive feature of the Japanese fortress is the graceful main towers (tenshu) with decorative elements of Japanese architecture. They were built by the Japanese of wood, covered with fire-resistant plaster and decorated.

Luxurious tenshu were supposed to demonstrate the power and influence of daimyo, so that they stopped looking like a purely military structure, and looked more like wealthy residences. They were used as European donjons - as an observation post and the last shelter in the event of a breakthrough by the enemy behind the walls. In addition, supplies were kept in the towers.

The Portuguese João Rodriguez, a Jesuit traveler, told about the Japanese tenshu: “Here they keep their treasures and here their wives gather during the siege. When they can no longer withstand the siege, they kill their women and children so that they do not fall into the hands of the enemy; then, after setting the tower on fire with gunpowder and other materials, so that even their bones would not survive, they rip open their bellies …”.

Osaka, 1614 Source: Pinterest

The most luxurious tower overlooks Himeji Castle. Magnificent tansa are also found in the castles of Nagoya, Kumamoto, Kochi, Matsumoto, Matsue, etc.

The main tower of Himeji. Source: hrono.info

Matsue Castle. Source: rutraveller.ru

Diagram of the Kakegave tower. Source: S. Turnbull "Japanese Castles"

Typical Japanese castle - erected on about. Kyushu in 1624 Shimabara. The castle is surrounded by a moat, the walls have huge stone foundations, above which there are light, light towers directed upward.

Shimabara. Source: vanasera.ru

Siege art

Castles have become an important factor in Japanese history. For a long time they hindered, but in the end one fortress helped to unite the country. The defense of Fushimi Castle in 1600 played an important role. 62-year-old Torii Motomada, a servant of the future shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, commanded a two thousandth garrison.

Fushimi attacked the 30-thousandth army of Ishida Mitsunari. Isis sent warriors into fierce attacks on the fortress, but its defenders bombarded the assailants with stones and bullets from arquebus. For 11 days, Fushimi staunchly defended himself and could continue the fight, if not for the merciless blackmail of the besiegers. One of the besieged betrayed his castle, as Ishida Mitsunari threatened to crucify his family, who had been captured earlier.

The traitor managed to set fire to and destroy the tower and a section of the wall.

Defense of Fushimi. Source: S. Turnbull "Japanese Castles"

As a result, the castle was taken, although Torii Mototada continued to resist almost to the last soldier. He led counterattacks, one after another, until he had only ten men left.

Torii had one last thing to do - to die with honor by making seppuku. But the enemy rushed to him - the samurai Saiga Shigetomo, who was going to take the head of another enemy. Torii gave his name, and out of respect for Shigetomo, he stopped, allowing the commander of the Fushimi defense to complete the murderous ritual. Only then did he cut off Mototad's head.

Mitsunari took this castle, but lost 3 thousand people under it, while Tokugawa got time to gather his forces. Soon, his army defeated the weakened army of Mitsunari, and after Tokugawa became the ruler of Japan.

Tokugawa Ieyasu. Source: ru.wikipedia.org

The Fushimi Defense is an example of a very short siege. Huge armies could make vain attempts to take any fortress, and such campaigns sometimes lasted for months or even years.

Before the rapid development of stone fortification in the 16th and 17th centuries. everything was simple: the besiegers usually stormed the gates or walls directly in the forehead, trying first of all to set fire to the wooden fortifications with incendiary arrows or other combustible materials. Hiding behind wooden or bamboo shields, the warriors marched to the assault, set up ladders and tried to climb the walls.

With stone fortifications, everything became more complicated (and above all, the use of the previously main method of siege - arson). Samurai learned to go not only for honorable hand-to-hand combat, but also for inventive tricks.

The fortresses were surrounded by traps - protruding stakes dug in with sharp bamboo stalks and metal thorns (an analogue of the Russian "garlic"). Therefore, during sieges, it was necessary not only to ensure multiple numerical superiority, but also to be smart and actively use engineering.

Siege towers, digging and mining, bribery of the inhabitants of the besieged, systematic sieges in order to blockade the castle and take it by starvation, drainage and poisoning of water sources in the fortress, etc.

Without trickery, some of the locks simply could not be overcome. In 1614, 20 thousand Tokugawa warriors could not take Osaka, which was defended by a small garrison. It was necessary to conclude a peace, under which the ruler of Osaka Toyotomi Hideyori agreed to fill up the outer ditches. As soon as he did this, the enemy, of course, was at the gate again. This time, the castle was taken, and Toyotomi Hideyori and his mother committed suicide. Their family has sunk into history.

Defense of Osaka. Source: Pinterest

Kato Kiyomasa (1561 - 1611), nicknamed the "devil-commander", also took fortresses with his mind. When necessary, he could order at night to cut the stalks of rice in the fields and fill the enemy's ditch with bound sheaves - by morning his soldiers were already on the walls. In another case, he invented the "tortoise shell" - a cart covered with dried thick skins.

Samurai under the "shell" crept up to the fortress, dismantled a section of the wall and then broke into the breach.

Kato Kiemasa. Source: ru.wikipedia.org

Toyotomi Hideyoshi became famous for his brilliant ingenuity during the siege of Takamatsu castle in 1582. The commander noticed that the fortress was located in the lowlands near the Asimori River. By his order, a dam was built 4 km away, and river water was diverted to it. After that, the dam was destroyed, and Takamatsu Castle was flooded with water. The garrison was so scared that it surrendered to Hideyoshi's will.

Siege of Takamatsu. Source: sengoku.ru

Flooding of Takamatsu. Source: flashbak.com

In the 1620s. active construction of castles in Japan stopped. Feudal fragmentation and wars were over, and fortresses lost their significance. Some of the strongholds were destroyed, and the shogun forbade the establishment of new ones - so that the daimyo of the united Japan would have less desire to take up the old and destroy the political unity achieved with blood.

This prohibition was the best proof of the effectiveness of stone castles in the Japanese military art.

A significant part of Japanese castles, perceived as a symbol of outdated feudalism and the samurai era, were destroyed in the second half of the 19th century. The Second World War also brought destruction (for example, a castle in Hiroshima was destroyed by an atomic bomb, later restored). More than 50 Japanese fortresses of the Middle Ages and Modern times have survived to this day.