Amagasaki Castle

Amagasaki Castle
Amagasaki Castle
尼崎城
Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan
	Reconstructed tenshu (keep) of Amagasaki Castle
	Amagasaki Castle Amagasaki Castle
Coordinates	34°42′51.757″N 135°25′14.005″E / 34.71437694°N 135.42055694°E
Type	flatland-style Japanese castle)
Site information
Condition	reconstructed tenshu
Site history
Built	1617
Built by	Toda Ujikane
Demolished	1873

Amagasaki Castle (尼崎城, Amagasaki-jō) was a flatland type

Meiji period, but a portion was reconstructed in 2018.^[1]^[2]

History

In October of 1578,[3]^{: 10, 296, 342} Araki Murashige rebelled against Oda Nobunaga. In August of 1579 while surrounded by Nobunaga's military forces during the Siege of Itami (1579), Murashige fled to Amagasaki Castle.^[3]^: 325 In November 1579, after Nobunaga secured control of Itami castle, "Araki Kyūzaemon and other leading figures, leaving their wives and children behind as hostages in Itami Castle, headed for Amagasaki to remonstrate with Araki Murashige and persuade him to hand over Amagasaki and Hanakuma."^[3]^: 333 Araki Murashige refused to surrender Amagaski and Hanakuma Castles. As a result, Nobunaga ordered the execution of 670 political hostages, the majority of whom were women and children.^[3]^: 342^[4]

enclosure had a four-story tenshu with two two-story yagura turrets

, and additional three-story yagura turrets at each corner of the enclosure. This Honmaru enclosure was almost square, measuring 115 meters in both east-west and north-south directions. In 1846, the Honmaru Palace (the residence of the daimyō) burned down, but was reconstructed the following year.

Following the

Meiji restoration, all of the buildings in the castle were auctioned, and most were purchased by merchants in Osaka, dismantled and carted off. The subsequent fate of most of these structures is unknown. A portion of the daimyō residence survived in the main hall of the Shinsho-in, a Buddhist temple in Amagasaki, but was destroyed in World War II. At present, the site of the Honmaru enclosure is occupied by Amagasaki Municipal Meijo Elementary School, and most of the other enclosures and reclaimed inner and outer moats are occupied by city-related facilities and residential land. Only the northern half of the area was maintained as the Amagasaki Castle Ruins Park; however, the stone wall remnants in this park are all faux reproductions. The Amagasaki City Board of Education has conducted archaeological excavations

on the site more than 20 times, and artifacts discovered are preserved at the Amagasaki City Museum of History.