Kumamoto’s Mugishima castle – reburied

     

Planning for a day trip
In March I’ll have some spare time on my hands so I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to check out some of the castles I haven’t been to in southern Kumamoto Prefecture. The candidates include Yatsushiro, Uto, Hitoyoshi & Sashiki castles. A little investigating revealed even more, (smaller and older) castles that I wouldn’t mind checking out if time allows.

While searching for information on Yatsushiro castle, I came across news of the recently (not really) rediscovered Mugishima Castle. And the most surprising thing about this castle is that the locals would’ve been quite happy to see the remnants bulldozed. But more on that later.

Mugishima Castle
The castle was built in 1588 by Konishi Yukinaga, a Christian daimyō who eventually lost this castle & his life following defeat in the Battle of Sekigahara. The Katō clan then took over and continued to use the castle until 1619 when it became damaged by a major earthquake.

Yatsushiro Castle
A law was enacted in 1615 that essentially limited each domain to just one castle. While the number of castles was greatly reduced in the years that followed, the shogunate also made numerous exceptions, Kumamoto domain being one. Special permission had been granted that allowed both Kumamoto & Mugishima castles to be retained after 1615 & permission was once again obtained for Yatsushiro Castle to be built 1619. Hosokawa Tadaoki retired to here the following year.

Mugishima Castle’s rediscovery
During the building of a road & sewer, stonework belonging to Mugishima Castle was unearthed. Naturally, all work had to stop to allow for an investigation into the old castle’s remains. Substantial stonework along with broken roof tiles & collapsed turrets walls were eventually uncovered.

The following is a time line that will illustrate the truly glacial pace at which events occurred.

  • 1950 – Decision made to build the road
  • 1960 – Construction permit obtained
  • 1965 – Parts of the castle were excavated. Declared Important Cultural Property
  • 1996 – Further excavations were carried out

The final word
A great deal of tension existed between the parties involved, local residents wanted their road (having waited for so many years) & there were those who wanted the site preserved. A compromise was reached that would see the road & sewer work continue and also the site preserved. The path of the road would continue straight over the top of the ruins & the sewer would be built 7 meters below the ruins and with that, Mugishima Castle’s moment in the sun ended.

Photo via wikipedia

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  • http://www.bradleyfarless.com/ Brad F.

    That’s not a compromise. That’s BS. They might as well have just said they didn’t care about the castle or preserving the site at all. In all that intervening time they could have excavated the castle, made detailed notes and photographs, perhaps even moved the whole dang thing, but they just twiddled their thumbs I guess.

    I’m curious as to what kind of road this was supposed to be. Was it supposed to allow access to the residences along the sides? I imagine not since the area has been closed off for so many years. Why not just build an elevated road that leaves the underside accessible so that continued research on the castle could occur? It could have even been used to increase tourism in the area.

    I like history and I like castles so this is a bit disappointing.

  • http://sixmats.blogspot.com/ sixmats

    I went to Kumamoto for the first time last fall and this doesn’t surprise me. The roads outside the city were really inconvenient. Unfortunately most people don’t really care about their own past.

  • admin

    Hi Brad, Nice to meet you & thanks for commenting.

    Well, there’s good news & bad news. Rest assured, the site was excavated, notes & photographs were taken. In addition to the numerous studies, someone took the time to contribute a fair amount to the Mugishima Castle wikipedia page (Japanese).

    And the good news continues, the site has indeed been preserved under the road. But for those of us without x-ray vision, we’ll just have to settle for whatever can be put on display at the local museum.

  • admin

    Hi sixmats,

    I hear what you’re saying. Even in Kyōto, going just a few blocks away from anything without a tour bus in front of it will reveal some seriously ugly & crowded streets.

    And there are several periods of history that Japanese people have no interest in. I hope I haven’t overstated that. To be fair, my knowledge of Australian history or historical buildings is mighty poor.

  • Toranosukev

    Interesting to learn that an exception to the one castle rule was made for Kumamoto; I wonder where else exceptions were made. I had always thought it was only Satsuma that enjoyed exceptions to that rule…