Hiroshima Castle

Mōri Terumoto, one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's council of Five Elders, built Hiroshima castle between 1589 and 1599.[1] It was located on the delta of the Otagawa river. There was no Hiroshima city or town at the time, and the area was called Gokamura, meaning "five villages". Beginning in 1591, Mōri Terumoto moved from Yoshida-Kōriyama Castle and governed nine provinces from this castle, including much of what is now Shimane, Yamaguchi, Tottori, Okayama and Hiroshima Prefectures.

When construction on the castle began, Gokamura was renamed Hiroshima, as a more impressive name was called for. "Hiro" was taken from Ōe no Hiromoto, an ancestor of the Mōri family, and "Shima" was taken from Fukushima Motonaga, who helped Mōri Terumoto choose the castle site. Some accounts state that the name "Hiroshima", meaning "wide island", comes from the existence of several large islands in the delta of the Otagawa, near the castle's site.

Following the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Mōri was forced out of the castle, retreating to Hagi in today's Yamaguchi Prefecture. Fukushima Masanori became the lord of Aki and Bingo Provinces (which today make up Hiroshima Prefecture) and of Hiroshima castle. However, the new Tokugawa shogunate forbade any castle construction without permission from Edo; this was part of how the shogunate kept the daimyōs from gaining power and overthrowing the shogunate. When Fukushima repaired the castle following a flood in 1619, he was dispatched to Kawanakajima in today's Nagano Prefecture. Asano Nagaakira then became lord of the castle.

From 1619 until the abolition of the feudal system during the Meiji Restoration (1869), the Asano family were lords of Aki and Bingo Provinces.

After the Meiji Restoration, the castle came to serve as a military facility, and the Imperial General Headquarters was based there during the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895. The foundations of several of the GHQ outbuildings, just a few hundred paces from the castle's main tower, remain today.

During the final months of World War II, the castle served as the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division, stationed there to deter the projected Allied invasion of the Japanese mainland. The castle was destroyed in the atomic bomb blast of August 6, 1945, and for many years, it was believed the castle structure was blown away by the explosion that destroyed Hiroshima, but newly discovered evidence suggests the explosion only destroyed the lower pillars of the castle, and the rest of it collapsed as a result.[2]

The present tower, constructed largely of concrete, was completed in 1958.

Part of the reconstructed ninomaru

Part of the reconstructed castle

Map stone memorial

The castle was originally constructed in wood, pine primarily, and had attached wings to the east and to the south. It was completed sometime between 1592 and 1599, and was designated a National Treasure in 1931. The reconstructed castle features the main tower (tenshu) only, which is made primarily of reinforced concrete. Its five floors stand 26.6 meters (87 ft) above the stone foundation, which, in turn, is 12.4 meters (41 ft) high off the ground. However, in 1994, a gate and a yagura in the ninomaru were re-constructed out of wood using the original methods.

An excellent example of a hirajiro or flatlands (plains) castle, Hiroshima castle once had three concentric moats in addition to the Otagawa river to the west (now called the Hongawa), which provided an additional natural barrier. The two outer moats were filled in during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and much of what was once within the castle grounds is now modern urban area, including homes, schools, offices and shops. A number of secondary castle buildings, towers and turrets once stood, and a Shinto shrine called Hiroshima Gokoku Jinja is located within the innermost moat, having been moved there after 1945.

Within the castle walls, three trees survived the atomic bombing: a eucalyptus and a willow at approximately 740 m from the hypocenter,[3] and a holly approximately 935 m from the hypocenter.[4] Both specimens are preserved just beyond the Honmaru. Also located inside the Honmaru is the concrete bunker from which the first radio broadcast out of Hiroshima following the atomic bombing was made.

• Japanese castle
• Hiroshima Tōshō-gū

• Hiroshima Castle tourist brochure obtained at the castle.
• James McMullen, "The Worship of Confucius in Hiroshima" Japonica Humboldtiana, vol. 16 (2013) pp. 83-107

• Benesch, Oleg. "Castles and the Militarisation of Urban Society in Imperial Japan," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 28 (Dec. 2018), pp. 107-134.
• Benesch, Oleg and Ran Zwigenberg (2019). Japan's Castles: Citadels of Modernity in War and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 374. ISBN 9781108481946.
• De Lange, William (2021). An Encyclopedia of Japanese Castles. Groningen: Toyo Press. pp. 600 pages. ISBN 978-9492722300.
• Schmorleitz, Morton S. (1974). Castles in Japan. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-8048-1102-6.

Media related to Hiroshima Castle at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website
• Junji Akechi, "New theory offered for collapse of Hiroshima Castle tower in the bombing" Chugoku Shimbun Website Archived 2018-06-12 at the Wayback Machine
• 1423635794 Hiroshima Castle on OpenStreetMap
• Virtual tour of Hiroshima Castle examining its modern history on the Japan's Modern Castles YouTube channel