is a feudal castle in Matsue

Matsue, Shimane

is the capital city of Shimane Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan.As of August, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 207,000, following its most recent merging with Higashi-Izumo...

 in Shimane prefecture

Shimane Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region on Honshū island. The capital is Matsue. It is the second least populous prefecture in Japan, after its eastern neighbor Tottori. The prefecture has an area elongated from east to west facing the Chūgoku Mountain Range on the south side and to...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Nicknamed the "black castle" or "plover

Plover

Plovers are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. There are about 40 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subfamily, Vanellinae, comprises another 20-odd species.Plovers are found throughout...

 castle", it is one of the few remaining medieval castles in Japan – at least of the few remaining in their original wooden form, and not a modern reconstruction in concrete.

The construction of Matsue Castle began in 1607 and finished in 1611, under the local lord Horio Yoshiharu

Horio Yoshiharu

Horio Yoshiharu was a daimyo in Azuchi-Momoyama period and Edo period.He was appointed to one of three chu-rō by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the first leader of the Matsue clan.He was also known as Horio Mosuke ....

. In 1638, the fief and castle passed to the Matsudaira clan, a junior branch of the ruling Tokugawa

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

 clan.

Most Japanese castles have been damaged or destroyed by war, earthquakes, or other causes. Since a large part of their construction was wooden, fire was a major hazard. Matsue castle was built after the last great war of feudal Japan, so it never saw a battle. Yet only some of the walls and the keep

Keep

A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word keep, but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the...

exist today.

History

Of the 12 castles remaining in Japan, this is the only one remaining in the Sanin region. This castle is the second largest, the third tallest (30m) and the sixth oldest amongst castles. It was built over a period of 5 years by the daimyo of the Izumo region, Yoshiharu Horio, and was completed in 1622.

After reigns of Tadaharu Horio and Tadataka Kyogoku, Naomasa Matsudaira, a grandson of Ieyasu Tokugawa, became Lord of the castle, after being transferred from Matsumoto in Shinshu province, and thus began a reign that lasted 10 generations of the Matsudaira clan over a period of 234 years.

In 1875, all of the buildings within the castle were destroyed, with the exception of the castle tower itself, which was allowed to remain due to pressure from interest groups. The castle underwent a complete reconstruction between 1950 and 1955.

The castle is a complex structure, built in a watchtower style, that appears to be five stories from the outside, but has in fact six levels inside. Most of the walls of the castle are painted black. It is a strong structure, built to withstand warfare, yet at the same time it is majestic and solemn, reminiscent of the Momoyama style.

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