- Type
- Ruin
- Origins
- 1508 · 16th century per Wikidata: founding, first mention or construction
- Location
- Aichi Prefecture, Japan
- Coordinates
- 34.9228°, 137.5599°
History
Suganuma Motonari built the castle in 1508 on a high bluff where two mountain rivers meet to form the Toyokawa. Lying on the border between the lands of the Tokugawa and Takeda clans, it changed hands several times until in 1573 Tokugawa Ieyasu took it and entrusted it to Okudaira Sadamasa, who had come over to his side. In 1575 Takeda Katsuyori laid siege to the castle with an army of some fifteen thousand, while only a few hundred men held it. Oda Nobunaga and Ieyasu came to the rescue, and their arquebusiers, sheltering behind palisades, shattered the Takeda cavalry on the nearby Shitarabara plain. As early as 1576 Okudaira moved to a new castle at Shinshiro, and Nagashino was abandoned.
What to see
What survives are earthen ramparts, dry moats and the outlines of baileys on the edge of the cliffs above the rivers, which show best what a strong defensive position the site offered. Beside the ruins is a museum of the siege with weapons, armour and period documents, and a railway line with Nagashino-jō station runs right through the castle grounds. A few kilometres to the west lies the Shitarabara battlefield, with a reconstructed stretch of palisade and its own museum.
Wikipedia article Official website Wikidata Q961882
Popularity: articles about this site in 11 Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia language editions and others).