II.　本丸庭園から乾小天守・渡櫓（英語）

Remarkable features

National Treasure Key Words Old & Genuine
Two kinds of part
Big towers in countryside

Twelve Castles

Although you may find many castles now in Japan, only twelve of them keep their original structures from the Edo period. Others were reconstructed in the Showa period with new materials, or even some are new castles which have never existed in the history of castles in Japan.

関連記事；文化財としての天守種類

5 castles as national treasures

　松本城（長野県）　　犬山城（岐阜県）　　彦根城（滋賀県）　　姫路城（兵庫県）　　松江城（島根県）

Two distinctive features of the castle tower

The castle has two parts. The first part consists of Tenshu or main tower, Inuikotenshu or north-west tower, and Watari-yagura or roofed passage. These towers were built by Ishikawa Kazumasa in 1593-94 when Japan was in a civil war state, so they were designed for practical war purposes, especially against gun attacks.

The second part consists of Tatsumituke-yagura or south-east tower, and Tukimiyagura or moon viewing wing. They were added by Matsudaira Naomasa, who was a cousin of “Shogun” in 1633. It was a peaceful stable period, so these wings were designed for just entertainment.

The castle is well-balanced with the two parts and looks very beautiful.

Five roofs and Six floors

Front line to watch Ieyasu

When Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified the country, he forced Tokugawa Ieyasu to move to the Kanto region and formed a encircling net against Ieyasu. He trusted Ishikawa Kazumasa as his important subordinate, so he ordered Kazumasa to construct a big castle in Matsumoto in order to show off the power of Hideyoshi as well as to watch Ieyasu.

The whole structure

3 blocks

The structure of main tower consists of 3 blocks(1-2, 3-4, 5-6 stories ). Each pillar in a block goes through two stories to make strong structure.

Reducing dead angles

Castles in Japan have a variety of ideas for reducing dead angles. Some examples are Zigzag ramparts, loopholes, stone drops, and the north-west tower (Inui-kotenshu) as explained later.

Several devises against gun attacks

Loopholes

There are lots of holes in the walls. They are the loopholes, small square holes called Teppo-zama are for shooting muskets and rectangular holes called Ya-zama are for shooting arrows.

Stone drops

Those places where the walls jutting out over the stone foundation are called ishiotoshi or " stone drops."

Defenders would drop stones through these holes to stop attackers climbing up the stone wall; they also shot guns through them.

Weather-board

As you can see, walls are coated with white plaster “shikkui” which works as good fireproofing. While white plaster is proof against fire, it is not robust against rain and has to be maintained regularly. To avoid such maintenance in the war period, the half of the walls were covered with the weather-board siding. The weather-board siding is painted with black lacquer which is sturdy against rain. Under the weather-board siding the walls are covered with mud. Mud would protect the castle from fire.

The 1st floor of the north-west tower(Inui-kotenshu)

現在は乾小天守、渡櫓は一般公開されていません。

(Inui-kotenshu is not open to public currently)

Function

The North-West Tower was built for reducing dead angles for the main tower as well as protecting the Uzume Gate. The gate was located in the west of the North-West Tower and had an important role as an emergency exit.

The 2nd floor of the North-West Tower

現在は乾小天守、渡櫓は一般公開されていません。

(Inui-kotenshu is not open to public currently)

Loopholes (Ya-zama and Teppo-zama)

As we saw from outside, these are loopholes. Square holes are for muskets, and rectangular ones are for arrows. They are wider inside and narrower outside to reduce dead angles. There are 115 loopholes in total. The walls are thick enough to stop bullets from attackers; 28 centimeters for the 1st and second floors, and 20 centimeters for the upper floors.

Samurai window

The inside part of the window could slide for closing.

This sliding window is called a ‘warrior window.’

400 years ago, it took one minute to reload an old gun. So, this sliding window was used to reload the gun.

Moats

The effective range of a musket was around 50-60 meters in those days. A musket has a power to break a board 3 centimeters thickness through from a distance of 50 meters. The inner moat has 60 meters and it would be maximum width to hit the enemy from the castle beyond the moat.

関連記事：城とは

The Castle & The castle-town

This is the layout of the castle and the castle-town in the 18th century.

These moats were constructed for defense.

There used to be the palaces for the governmental office and the private residence for a load family.

Unfortunately, the main palace burnt down in the 18th century and the second palace in the 19th century.

These are warehouses for gunpowder and rice.

These were higher-ranking warriors’ houses.

Low-ranking warriors and town people lived outside of the castle.

Three types of castles

There are three types of castles in Japan; namely a castle on a mountain, a castle on a hill, and a castle on a flat land. A castle on a flat land, like the Matsumoto castle, generally had less advantage in defense than the other types. In order to protect such a castle, moats would be created. The Matsumoto castle was surrounded by two moats in the north and three moats in the other three directions. A swampland in the north worked as a natural defense.

Castle? fortress? fort?

Castles in Japan were different from those in Europe. Nobody lived in a castle tower normally. It was a symbol to show off the power of a lord, and it was usually used as a storehouse. There was a palace close to a castle tower, where a lord lived.

You may call these buildings a castle in your guide but strictly saying, a castle in Japan didn’t mean just these buildings. It was an area surrounded by moats, stone walls in preparation for wars. So, the Matsumoto Castle was originally the whole area surrounded by the outer moat including these towers.

II. 本丸庭園から乾小天守・渡櫓（英語）