Ota Castle (Kishu)

Ōta Castle was a medieval flatland castle located in Ōta, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture. It is said to have been built by Ki no Toshitsura, the 64th Kuni no Miyatsuko of Kii, during the Entoku era (according to one theory, the Bunmei era), and afterward it functioned as the base of the local landed house, the Ōta clan (Ōta league). Ōta Sakon led the Miyagō league within the Saika league (Saikashū), and in Oda Nobunaga's attack on Saika in 1577 (Tenshō 5) he sided with Nobunaga, so the castle's holders were placed in a complex political position throughout the Sengoku period. In 1585 (Tenshō 13), Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Kishū campaign saw Negoro-ji burned down, and Ōta Castle was attacked next. Hideyoshi's forces committed a large army said to number anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000; in six days they built around the castle an embankment with a total length of about 6 kilometers and a height of 3 to 5 meters, and launched a flooding siege. Within the castle, between 3,000 and 5,000 remaining troops of the Ōta league and the Negoro league held out and resisted for about one month. In the end the castle surrendered; the castle lord Ōta Sakon and fifty-three others took their own lives in exchange for the spared lives of the castle garrison. The castle was burned when it fell and is thought to have been abandoned as a ruin thereafter. Furthermore, Toyotomi Hidenaga's construction of Wakayama Castle began at a different site (Mount Torafusu) immediately after the surrender of Ōta Castle; the Ōta Castle site was not repurposed for it.