Revolutionizing Castles: Nobunaga’s Vision in Warriors Building Castles

With Hideyoshi’s unification of the country, the Nobunaga style spread nationwide.

During the Sengoku period, the design of castles varied significantly by region. While castles with stone walls and tiled roofs were common in Nobunaga’s domain, the Kanto region saw little use of stone walls. For example, the Hojo clan’s Odawara Castle was an earthen castle, and Tokugawa Ieyasu reportedly did not possess a stone-walled castle early in his career.

“However, as Hideyoshi inherited Nobunaga’s castle style and various regional warlords became his vassals, castles equipped with stone walls and keep towers began to spread. It was Nobunaga who first constructed a proper keep, but during his time, people truly lived there.

As the Sengoku period drew to a close, it became inconvenient to reside in the keep, and people began to settle in the main palace, which was more spacious and livable. The keep also evolved into a storage space or armory, and during the Edo period, there were instances where keeps burned down due to fire, and reconstruction was deemed unnecessary. Edo Castle is a prime example of this.”

Following Hideyoshi’s era, the construction of castles across the nation underwent significant advancements.

“For instance, the development of stone walls progressed greatly. In Nobunaga’s time, there was no technology to stack stones high all at once, so they built stone walls in tiers, known as dan-zukuri. However, over time, the ability to construct tall stone walls emerged.

They shifted from the ran-zumi method, which involved stacking natural stones and filling gaps with smaller stones, to the kirikomi-tsugi method, which involved shaping stones and fitting them together without gaps. The stone walls built by Kiyomasa are particularly notable for their impressive curvature and height, as well as their beauty.”