Kakegawa Castle

About the Castle

Kakegawa Castle is a mountain castle built in the center of Totomi Province. It was constructed around 1493 during the Meyo era by Asahina Yasuhiro and subsequently developed by the Imagawa clan as a strategic stronghold for controlling Totomi.

In Eiroku 11 (1568), the Imagawa clan rapidly declined as Takeda Shingen launched his Western Campaign, and Totomi came under the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Following Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Siege of Odawara in Tenshō 18 (1590), Yamauchi Kazutoyo became lord of Kakegawa Castle and governed the region for 12 years.

Kazutoyo devoted himself to the development of the castle and castle town, establishing the foundational form of present-day Kakegawa Castle.

Yamauchi Kazutoyo's Vision and His Wife's Hidden Virtue

Yamauchi Kazutoyo is renowned for the "wife's hidden virtue" (naisuke no ko) anecdote. The story that his wife Chiyo secretly saved money to purchase a prize horse became synonymous with "wife's hidden virtue" throughout Japan.

Under the Toyotomi administration, he served as a prominent tozama daimyo of the Tokugawa house. His swift declaration of allegiance to the Eastern forces during the Battle of Sekigahara was highly valued. As a result, Kazutoyo was granted the entire Tosa domain (later assessed at over 202,600 koku) and transferred to Takaoka in Tosa.

After that, various fudai daimyo of the Matsudaira and Ii clans alternated in governance of Kakegawa Castle. In Enkyō 3 (1746), the Ōta clan took over the castle and continued to govern it until the Meiji period.

Architecture and Restoration

The present Kakegawa Castle tower was reconstructed in Heisei 6 (1994) as Japan's first full-scale wooden castle tower restoration. As a wooden structure faithfully reproducing construction methods of the Keichō period, it attracted widespread national attention.

The Kakegawa Castle Ninomaru Palace was an extant building reconstructed between Ansei 2 (1855) and Bunkyū 1 (1861) and is designated as an Important Cultural Property.

As one of the few surviving early modern castle palaces, the Ninomaru Palace is a precious structure that conveys the administrative functions and daily life of the samurai society of that era.

Development of the Castle Town

Kakegawa flourished as a post station on the Tōkaidō and became known as a center for production of "Enshu cotton" (Enshu momen), utilizing the region's cotton cultivation.

Furthermore, Kakegawa is nationally renowned as a celebrated production center for Japanese tea, and the culture of Kakegawa tea, exemplified by green tea, is deeply connected to the merchant culture of the castle town.

Present-day Kakegawa City, which advocates itself as a "castle town of lifelong learning," perpetuates Kazutoyo's spirit of "valuing education" into the modern era.