Azuchi Castle

The first thing you notice is the stone underfoot. The steps are wide, uneven, and worn smooth in places, and they climb straight up the hillside ahead of you. Cedar and bamboo close in on either side. On a quiet morning you can hear birds, the wind moving through leaves, and your own breathing as the slope begins to work on your legs. This is Azuchi Castle, or what remains of it, on a low mountain on the eastern side of Lake Biwa.

There is no castle building here today. What you will find is a mountain shaped by people: terraces, stone walls, steps, and foundation stones. In the late sixteenth century this hill held one of the most ambitious buildings in Japanese history. It stood for only a few years. Then it burned, and it was never rebuilt. So this visit asks a little imagination of you. The stones are real, and they tell you a great deal.

The man behind the castle was Oda Nobunaga, a warlord who spent his life trying to bring a divided Japan under one authority. In the middle of the 1570s, he chose this hill as his new base. The location was deliberate. It sat close to the lake, close to the old roads between the eastern provinces and Kyoto, and within reach of the capital. From here, Nobunaga could watch traffic, move armies, and show his power to anyone passing by.

Now look closely at the steps beneath you on this main approach. Most Japanese castle paths twist and turn to slow down attackers. This one runs broad and straight for a long distance. Historians often read this as a statement. Azuchi was built to impress visitors as much as to stop enemies. And here is a detail many people walk past. Some of the stones in these steps are carved Buddhist figures, small stone images reused as building material. Look for faint shapes of faces and robes in the surface.

Why would carved Buddhist stones end up under people's feet? Nobody can say with full certainty. Builders of this era often gathered stone from wherever they could find it, including old graves and temple grounds. Some people connect the practice to Nobunaga's harsh relationship with powerful Buddhist institutions, which he fought violently. Others see it simply as a practical shortage of stone. Either way, these figures now sit inside the path, and they are marked so that visitors can notice them and step carefully.

As you climb, you pass flat terraces on either side of the path. Tradition holds that the residences of Nobunaga's leading generals stood here. One terrace is linked to Hashiba Hideyoshi, the man later known as Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who completed the unification of Japan after Nobunaga's death. Another is linked to Maeda Toshiie, who later became a great regional lord. These names are traditional attributions. The terraces themselves are real, and excavations here have uncovered the foundations of large buildings.

At the top of the mountain stood the main keep, known in Japanese as the tenshu. At Azuchi, the word was written with characters that can be read as "heavenly master", and some historians link this choice to Nobunaga's view of himself. Written accounts from the time describe a tall tower of many floors. From the outside it showed five roof levels, and inside there were more floors than that. Some floors were reportedly octagonal, and parts of the exterior were lacquered and gilded.

The interior was just as remarkable. Accounts describe rooms painted with Chinese sages, Buddhist scenes, birds, flowers, and landscapes on gold backgrounds. The paintings are attributed to Kanō Eitoku, the leading painter of his generation, and his workshop. European Jesuit missionaries who visited Azuchi also wrote about the castle, and their letters praised its size and decoration. For a few years, this hill was a meeting point of Japanese art, military power, and early contact with Europe.

Here is a second surprise. Nobunaga ordered a pair of folding screens that showed Azuchi Castle and its town. These screens were later carried to Europe by a group of young Japanese envoys and presented to the Pope in Rome. After that, the trail goes cold. The screens have never been found. Researchers in Japan and Italy have searched archives for them for many years. Somewhere, perhaps, the only painted portrait of this castle still waits to be discovered.

The end came quickly. In 1582, Nobunaga was attacked in Kyoto by one of his own generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, and he died at the temple called Honnō-ji. Soon afterwards, the keep at Azuchi burned. The cause is still debated, and different accounts point to different people. Within a few years the site was abandoned. Yet its influence lived on. The period of Japanese history that followed is called Azuchi-Momoyama, partly after this very hill.

When you reach the summit, you stand on the stone base of the keep. Large foundation stones are still set in a regular grid in the ground. They show where the wooden pillars once stood. Pause here and picture a gilded tower rising above your head. Look down at the surrounding plain. In Nobunaga's time, the waters of the lake came right up to the foot of this mountain. Much of that water was drained and turned into farmland in the twentieth century.

On the way down, take the other path through the grounds of Sōken-ji, a temple connected with Nobunaga. Its main buildings were lost in a fire in the nineteenth century. However, a wooden three-storey pagoda and an old gate still stand. Both are older than the castle and were moved here from elsewhere in the region. Elsewhere on the hill, you will find a memorial site for Nobunaga. Many visitors stop there quietly, sometimes with a small offering.

If you want to see what the keep may have looked like, visit the museums at the foot of the mountain. One holds a full-scale reconstruction of the top floors of the tenshu, with gold walls and painted rooms based on historical research. Another museum explains the excavations and the life of the castle town. In that town, Nobunaga encouraged open markets, free from the old trade guilds, so that merchants would come and settle here.

Before you leave, stop for a moment on the steps and listen. You will hear the wind in the cedars, maybe a crow, maybe the voices of other walkers below you. The castle lasted only a few years, but the stones have stayed here for more than four centuries. As you walk back down, watch the edges of each step. Somewhere near your feet, a small carved figure is still looking up at the sky.