Hagi Castle

 

Hagi Castle was built in 1604 as the new base for the Mori Clan.

A few years earlier they had been ruling over most of the Chugoku region, but were on the losing side at the Battle of Sekigahra and so were stripped of most of their territory and confined to the western tip of Honshu.

They did not actually fight at Sekigahara, and it seems that Ieyasu betrayed them by breaking an agreement. Contrary to the prevalent notion that samurai were paragons of loyalty, betrayal was very, very common.

Removed from their main base at Hiroshima Castle, they asked to build their new base in either Hofu or Yamaguchi on the Inland Sea, but Ieyasu made them choose the remote area where Hagi now stands.

It was constructed mostly on the sandbar that connected Mount Shizuki with the delta of the Abu River.

Protected on 3 side by the sea, there were some fortifications around the base and on top of the mountain, but the main structures were built to the south.

A series of moats protected this side and the samurai residences formed the outer defences with other moats.

The main keep was 5 storeys and the base is clearly seen in these photos.

Like many of the castles built in the early Edo Period, Hagi Castle never came under any kind of attack.

Like many castles it was dismantled at the beginning of the Meiji Period.

There are a few gardens and teahouses inside the ruins,... click here to see some more photos...

While not soo much remains of Hagi Castle other than the stonework and moats, the opposite can be said for the castle town that grew up around the castle.

Because the railway ran around the town rather than through it, the old samurai and merchant quarters remain among the best-preserved castle towns in all of Japan.

The castle is now part of a UNESCO World Heritage site connected to Japan's early Industrialization.

I was in Hagi a few months ago, and even though it has a lot to see for the visitor, it was not at all busy and the polar opposite of "overtourism", due mostly, I suspect, to its remoteness and limited transportation options.

I will be posting more on Hagi, and I have already posted quite a bit.... clicking here will get you to those posts... they come up in reverse chronological order, so you will have to scroll down to find older posts....

The previous post in this series on day 29 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the mouth of the Hashimoto River, one side of the castles water frontage...

if you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the most recent posts.