When did castles lose their Tenshus?

     

A Tenshu: that of Kumamoto’s

What’s the deal with all these concrete, museum-like castles? There are 100′s of castles around Japan, so how is it only 12 have managed to retain their wooden, central towers from the Edo period? What happened to them? Did they all go up in flames in World War II?

What do you think were the circumstances that these towers met their end? A castle siege? WWII bombing? Someone was smoking in bed but they nodded off before extinguishing the cigarette only to wake up coughing in a flame-filled room? Each of these causes seem reasonable. Well, except the one that stands out as being completely ludicrous – As if a castle would get bombed, humph.

These questions had been going around in my head for some time. I had a fair idea what happened to many of them from the information I’d picked up here-and-there, but thought it may benefit others than myself to boil it down to some straight-forward graphs and tables.

May I direct your attention to the following infographic?

  • Horizontally, we have the years from 1580 to 1950.
  • Vertically, we have the number of Tenshus toppled in that decade.
  • The three boxes show a year & an event impacting upon Japanese castles.
  • Just remember, each bar represents a decade.

An explanation

A lot of things happened to a lot of castles over the centuries. Just keep in mind that the above graph is only concerned with the main towers. Oh, almost forgot. The sample size is 93!

  • 1615 – The Tokugawa Shogunate enacted a law dramatically limiting the number of castles in each province. (There were actually many exceptions.) Only three of the seven Tenshus downed that decade was due to this law.
  • 1868 – With the collapse of the Shogunate & the feudal system, the following years saw the vast majority of Japan’s castles decommissioned. Many castles would, in fact be re-purposed and used by imperial forces.
  • 1945 – Many castles were damaged by WWII bombing. This fact is quite easy to wrap your head around. Surprisingly, only seven (albeit, rather high-profiled) main towers were burnt to the ground.

The numbers crunched

The 93 charted events above are broken down into their cause in the table below. Any surprises?

The full data

You got it. The whole shebang.

In conclusion

So, there you have it folks, the hows & whens of the disappeared Tenshu. Has that answered any questions, or has it simply brought about new questions in their place? I’d like to think it has done both. Either way, I’d love to read your thoughts/questions below.

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  • Toranosukev

    I don’t suppose this was inspired by a dumb comment I made on the S-A forums a while back, having totally forgotten about the Meiji demolishings?

    In any case, I am surprised to see equal numbers of castles being destroyed in decades before and after the implementation of the one castle per domain rule. I guess the earlier ones can be chalked up to Sengoku fighting? Maybe? Or to being destroyed or moved in the course of the establishment of domains, as one of the three unifiers seized the territory? What is going on in the 1660s that it saw more tenshu destruction than the 1640s, 50s, or 70s?

  • Toranosukev

    I don’t suppose this was inspired by a dumb comment I made on the S-A forums a while back, having totally forgotten about the Meiji demolishings?

    In any case, I am surprised to see equal numbers of castles being destroyed in decades before and after the implementation of the one castle per domain rule. I guess the earlier ones can be chalked up to Sengoku fighting? Maybe? Or to being destroyed or moved in the course of the establishment of domains, as one of the three unifiers seized the territory? What is going on in the 1660s that it saw more tenshu destruction than the 1640s, 50s, or 70s?

  • Anonymous

    @Toranosuke , I should have included this in the first place.

    Azuchi Castle 1582 Fire
    Kanbe Castle 1595 Transferred
    Fushimi Castle 1596 Earthquake
    Hizen Nagoya Castle 1598 Torn down
    Tsu Castle 1600 Burnt – Battle
    Ōzu Castle 1600 Torn down
    Fushimi Castle 1600 Burnt – Battle
    Kanazawa Castle 1602 Lightning
    Kakegawa Castle 1604 Earthquake
    Sunpu Castle 1607 Fire
    Toyama Castle 1609 Fire
    Imabari Castle 1609 Transferred
    Kiyosu Castle 1610 Transferred
    Iga Ueno Castle 1612 Strong wind
    Ōsaka Castle 1615 Burnt – Battle
    Iwakuni Castle 1615 Torn down
    Aya Castle 1615 Torn down
    Hinokuma Castle 1616 Torn down
    Saiki Castle 1617 Lightning
    Fushimi Castle 1625 Transferred
    Komoro Castle 1626 Lightning
    Hirosaki Castle 1627 Lightning
    Kameyama Castle 1632 Torn down
    Odawara Castle 1633 Earthquake
    Sunpu Castle 1635 Fire
    Shinjō Castle 1636v Fire
    Matsuzaka Castle 1644 Strong wind
    Edo Castle 1657 Fire
    Tsu Castle 1662 Fire
    Ōsaka Castle 1665 Lightning
    Murakami Castle 1667 Lightning
    Shibata Castle 1668 Fire
    Fukui Castle 1669 Fire
    Nakamura Castle 1670 Lightning
    Yatsushiro Castle 1672 Lightning
    Numata Castle 1682 Torn down
    Tsuwano Castle 1686 Lightning
    Tottori Castle 1692 Lightning
    Kuwana Castle 1701 Fire
    Odawara Castle 1703 Earthquake
    Saga Castle 1726 Lightning
    Kanō Castle 1728 Fire
    Funai Castle 1743 Fire
    Nijō Castle 1750 Lightning
    Yodo Castle 1756 Lightning
    Mito Castle 1768 Fire
    Echizen Ōno Castle 1775 Fire
    Sakura Castle 1813 Fire
    Shiroishi Castle 1819 Fire
    Kishiwada Castle 1827 Lightning
    Kokura Castle 1837 Torched
    Ōta Castle 1842 Fire
    Wakayama Castle 1846 Lightning
    Kakegawa Castle 1854 Earthquake
    Toba Castle 1854 Earthquake
    Hamada Castle 1866 Torched
    Shirakawa Castle 1868 Burnt – Battle
    Nagaoka Castle 1868 Torn down
    Tokushima Castle 1869 Torn down
    Maebashi Castle 1871 Torn down
    Naegi Castle 1871 Torn down
    Odawara Castle 1872 Torn down
    Nishio Castle 1872 Torn down
    Fukuchiyama Castle 1872 Torn down
    Yanagawa Castle 1872 Fire
    Takasaki Castle 1873 Torn down
    Yokosuka Castle 1873 Torn down
    Okazaki Castle 1873 Torn down
    Takatori Castle 1873 Torn down
    Amagasaki Castle 1873 Torn down
    Usuki Castle 1873 Torn down
    Morioka Castle 1874 Torn down
    Obama Castle 1874 Torn down
    Tsuyama Castle 1874 Torn down
    Hagi Castle 1874 Torn down
    Shiroishi Castle 1875 Torn down
    Aizu Wakamatsu Castle 1875 Torn down
    Takashima Castle 1875 Torn down
    Shimabara Castle 1876 Torn down
    Tanba Kameyama Castle 1877 Torn down
    Kumamoto Castle 1877 Burnt – Battle
    Takatsuki Castle 1878 Torn down
    Yonago Castle 1880 Torn down
    Takamatsu Castle 1884 Torn down
    Ōzu Castle 1888 Torn down
    Mito Castle 1945 Burnt – Bombing
    Nagoya Castle 1945 Burnt – Bombing
    Ōgaki Castle 1945 Burnt – Bombing
    Wakayama Castle 1945 Burnt – Bombing
    Okayama Castle 1945 Burnt – Bombing
    Fukuyama Castle 1945 Burnt – Bombing
    Hiroshima Castle 1945 Burnt – Bombing
    Matsumae Castle 1949 Fire

  • Toranosukev

    Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing the list.

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

    I like the new font for the headers.

  • Anonymous

    lol. No, not inspired by said comment. I just wanted to share.

    As you may well know, I edit the post to include all the data. Enjoy!

  • Anonymous

    Thank you. I seem to be forever tweaking the design here & there. Still searching for that sweet-spot.

    Anyway, glad you like it.

  • http://www.poolofzen.com コールズ・真秀

    Well my friend, I’m back. Well at least I have the capability to blog, comment, and surf now! Whether I do it routinely or not… we’ll have to see about that!

    I totally dig this post. I have always been curious about this and just assumed that fire was the primary cause of destruction. You did some serious work on this post. Very cool. Who would have thought that the Japanese were behind the demolition of the castles. (But this makes sense of course.. changing of the guard and all.)

    Well I look forward to enjoying your posts and continuing my passion as a j-otaku.

    Thanks Dan!

    matt

  • Anonymous

    It’s good to see you back, you have been missed. I do hope we can catch up more regularly via the blogs or on twitter, etc…

    Glad you enjoyed the post. I enjoyed this one.

    “j-otaku”って Japan – otaku or jo(城)taku? Either way, it works!

  • http://twitter.com/Tornadoes28 Jon L

    Thank you for sharing this very interesting statistical information.

  • Anonymous

    Happy to. :) 久しぶりちょっと。

  • http://thesoulofjapan.blogspot.com McAlpine

    Thanks for making me smarter with this information.

  • ru ma

    素敵なお城の収集です。