Aizuwakamatsu Castle

Listen for the gravel first. It crunches under every step as you walk toward the keep, and in winter it gives way to packed snow. Then look up. Above the white plaster walls, the roof tiles are not grey or black, as on most Japanese castles. They are a deep, earthy red, like old brick or dried persimmon. On a cold, clear morning that red stands out sharply against the sky and the mountains behind the town.

You are standing at Aizuwakamatsu Castle, which locals usually call Tsuruga-jo, or Crane Castle. Many people in Aizu simply call it the castle, as if no other one exists. For centuries this spot was the political heart of the Aizu region, a broad basin ringed by mountains in the western part of Fukushima Prefecture. The keep you see today is a reconstruction. The story of how it was lost, and why people rebuilt it, matters more than any single beam or tile.

A fortress stood here long before the white tower. In the medieval period, a local warrior family called the Ashina ruled Aizu, and their stronghold on this site was known as Kurokawa. Later, in the late sixteenth century, the great warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi reorganised the provinces of Japan. He gave Aizu to a trusted commander named Gamo Ujisato. Ujisato rebuilt the castle on a grand scale, raised a tall keep, and gave the place the crane name it still carries.

Gamo Ujisato was more than a soldier. He was also a devoted student of the tea ceremony, the quiet ritual of preparing and serving powdered green tea. That interest left a mark you can still visit. On the castle grounds stands a small thatched tea house called Rinkaku. Tradition links it to the son of Sen no Rikyu, the most famous tea master in Japanese history. After Rikyu fell from favour and died, Ujisato is said to have given shelter to his son here in Aizu.

In the seventeenth century, Aizu passed to the Matsudaira family, a branch closely related to the ruling Tokugawa shoguns. The shoguns were the military rulers of Japan for over two and a half centuries. This family connection shaped everything that came later. The lords of Aizu became known for strict loyalty to the shogun, and their samurai were trained in a demanding code of discipline. Children in the domain learned rules of conduct from a young age, and some of those rules are still quoted with pride in the town.

That loyalty carried a heavy price. In 1868, Japan split in a civil conflict known as the Boshin War. On one side stood forces fighting to restore direct rule by the emperor. On the other stood those still loyal to the old shogunate. Aizu became one of the last strongholds of the old order. Imperial armies marched into the basin, and the castle came under siege. For about a month, defenders and townspeople held out behind these walls while artillery struck the keep.

Here is a story many visitors hear first in this town. Among the defenders was a unit of teenage boys called the Byakkotai, or White Tiger Force. During the fighting, a group of them retreated to a hill called Iimoriyama, a few kilometres from here. From the hillside they saw smoke rising over the town. Believing the castle had fallen, several of the boys took their own lives. In fact, the castle was still standing. Their graves on that hill are still visited today.

Women fought in that siege too. One of the best remembered is Nakano Takeko, who led a group of women armed with naginata, the long curved polearm that samurai women traditionally trained with. She was killed in the fighting outside the castle. Inside the walls, other women nursed the wounded, cooked for the garrison, and put out fires. Eventually, with food and ammunition running low, Aizu surrendered. The defeat shaped the identity of this region for generations.

After the war, the new Meiji government ordered many castles across Japan to be torn down. They were seen as symbols of the old feudal system. In the 1870s, the keep of Tsuruga-jo was dismantled. For decades only the stone walls, the moat and the empty ground remained. Look closely at the massive stone foundations as you walk. These walls are older than the tower above them. The stones are fitted together without mortar, and many of them have carried weight here for centuries.

In 1965, the people of Aizuwakamatsu rebuilt the keep in reinforced concrete, shaped to match the old design. Then came a detail most visitors miss. Old records and images showed that the original roof used red glazed tiles. The red glaze was chosen because it holds up better against the hard frost and heavy snow of an Aizu winter. In 2011, the roof was restored with red tiles once more. Today Tsuruga-jo is the only castle keep in Japan with a red tiled roof.

Inside, the keep is a museum. The floors climb one above another, and the exhibits cover the lords of Aizu, the armour and weapons of their samurai, and the long weeks of the siege. The stairs are steep, so take your time. At the very top, an observation floor opens on all sides. From there you can see the whole basin: the rooftops of the town, the rice fields beyond, and the ring of mountains that kept Aizu apart for so long.

The grounds around the keep change with every season. In spring, hundreds of cherry trees bloom along the moat and the stone walls, and the castle becomes one of the busiest places in the region. In summer the trees close into green shade, and cicadas fill the air with their dry buzzing. Autumn turns the leaves red and gold. In winter, snow settles on the red roof, and the white walls almost disappear into the landscape.

Before you leave, step away from the keep and visit the Rinkaku tea house. Its low roof and plain wooden posts are a quiet contrast to the tall tower. The building was moved away after the war and returned to the castle grounds in the late twentieth century. Inside the tea room, the scale becomes small and human. You may be able to sit and drink a bowl of matcha, the frothy green tea, with a seasonal sweet beside it.

Now take one more look at the keep from a distance. You are looking at a building that is less than a century old, standing on walls that are many centuries older. Between the two lies the siege, the defeat, and the long years of empty ground. As you walk back over the gravel, listen to the sound of your steps. And look up once more at that red roof, which was built to survive the snow.