Fushimi Castle

Listen first. On this hill south of central Kyoto, the loudest sound is often the wind in the trees. Gravel shifts under your shoes. Crows call from the high branches. Then the keep comes into view through the leaves: white walls, dark tiled roofs stacked in layers, and gables that curve upward at the corners. It looks like a scene from a samurai film. But the castle in front of you is not quite what it seems. That gap between the image and the history is the real story of this hill.

Start with the man who first built a castle here. Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose from humble origins to become the most powerful figure in late sixteenth century Japan. He unified a country that had been torn apart by more than a century of civil war. In the 1590s he chose Fushimi for a grand residence. The site was close to Kyoto, but it also sat near rivers that carried boats and goods toward Osaka. It was a practical choice as well as a show of power.

Nature interrupted the plan. In 1596 a powerful earthquake struck the region and badly damaged Hideyoshi's first castle. He did not give up. He ordered a new castle built nearby, on higher ground on this range of hills. The new castle was large, richly decorated, and meant to impress. This was the age of gold leaf on folding screens, bold painted pine trees, and lavish tea gatherings. Fushimi became one of the great showcases of that taste.

Here is the first surprise. Hideyoshi died at Fushimi Castle in 1598. He was the most powerful man in Japan, and he left only a young son as his heir. The lords who had served him began to compete for control almost at once. Within two years the country was at war again. This hill stood right in the path of that conflict.

In 1600 the castle was held for Tokugawa Ieyasu, the lord who would soon rule all of Japan. His commander here was Torii Mototada, a long-time and loyal retainer. A large army loyal to Ieyasu's rivals surrounded the castle. Mototada's garrison was badly outnumbered. Most accounts agree that he knew he could not win. His task was to hold out for as long as possible and to delay the enemy. That delay helped Ieyasu prepare for the decisive Battle of Sekigahara later the same year.

The defenders held for days before the castle fell. Mototada and his men died in the final fighting. Their stand became a classic Japanese story of loyalty. Now comes the second surprise, and it is an eerie one. According to temple tradition, the floorboards stained with the defenders' blood were later removed from the castle. Several temples in Kyoto installed them as ceilings, so that visitors look up rather than walk on them. Locals call these chi-tenjō, which means blood ceilings. Some say you can still make out the shapes of hands and feet in the dark marks on the wood.

After his victory, Ieyasu rebuilt the castle on this hill. Fushimi had a brief second life as a centre of the new Tokugawa government. It is generally recorded that Ieyasu received the title of shogun here in 1603. The shogun was the military ruler of Japan, and his family would govern the country for more than 250 years. So this quiet hill sits at the very start of that long era.

The second castle did not last either. In the 1620s the Tokugawa government decided that Fushimi was no longer needed, and the castle was taken apart. In Japan, timber buildings could be dismantled and rebuilt somewhere else, and that is what happened here. Gates, towers, and painted rooms were moved to temples and castles in other places. Today many buildings across western Japan carry a local tradition that they came from Fushimi. Some of these claims are well supported, and others are harder to prove. Either way, pieces of this castle are spread across the country.

With the buildings gone, people planted peach trees on the empty hill. The area became known as Momoyama, which means peach mountain. That name later gave its name to a whole period of Japanese art and history. Historians speak of the Azuchi-Momoyama period, the late sixteenth century age of Hideyoshi and his rivals. Those bold golden screens and grand castle interiors are often called Momoyama style. So a whole era of Japanese art is named for the orchard that grew where this castle once stood.

The hill has one more layer. In the early twentieth century, the Emperor Meiji was buried on the site of the old castle. He led Japan through its rapid modernisation in the late nineteenth century. His imperial tomb stands nearby, among tall trees, reached by a long and broad flight of stone steps. The ground where Hideyoshi's main buildings stood is now part of the imperial tomb area. That means the true heart of the old castle is not where this keep stands.

So what are you looking at? The keep before you is a modern reconstruction. It was built in the 1960s from concrete, as the centrepiece of an amusement park on the hill. The park closed in the early 2000s, but the keep was kept. It recreates the look of a castle from this era. It is not a copy of a building that we can document in detail. Think of it as a tribute rather than a relic.

That does not make it worthless. Look at the shape of the roofs, with their triangular gables and their curved, wave-like gables. Notice how the main tower connects to a smaller tower beside it. Look at the white plaster walls and the narrow windows set into them. These are real features of Japanese castle design, and the reconstruction shows them clearly. In spring and autumn, the trees around the keep change colour. On a quiet weekday, you may have this hill almost to yourself.

When you walk back down, the sounds of Fushimi will slowly return. The town below grew rich from rivers and boats, and later from sake. The local groundwater has long been prized by brewers, and old brewery buildings still stand in the lower town. In a way, the castle never fully left. Its timbers sit in distant temples. Its name lives on in a period of art. Its battle lives on in a ceiling in Kyoto.

Before you go, take one more look at the keep against the sky. It is not original, and it does not pretend very hard to be. But it marks a hill where a ruler died, where a garrison chose to stand and fall, and where a new age of government began. Listen to the wind in the trees once more. Then walk on, carrying a little of this hill with you.