Nagano, Day One: Matsumoto Castle

On December 26th, in a flurry of snow, we boarded a train for Nagano Prefecture.  What can we say?  We were hit by longing for mountains - real mountains - and couldn't resist.  On a whim, we found lodging in Nagano City for a few nights, bought waterproof boots, and embarked on the nori-hodai trip.

It was actually much snowier in Gifu and Nagoya than it was in the mountains of Nagano prefecture.  This was welcome news, because if it had been very snowy we might have had to cancel our trip.  The lightly frosted mountains were lovely, rising into clouds of fog that obscured their true heights.

One of my students, upon finding out I love visiting the castles, told me that I absolutely had to visit Matsumoto Castle.  The city of Matsumoto is on the way to Nagano city, so we made visiting it our first day's itinerary.  The city itself is clean, bright, and prosperous, with many interesting museums we intend to visit in the near future.  It appears to be dedicated to the arts, with a huge performance center and yearly festivals.  

And then there's the castle.

Impressive, isn't it?  It's an original, like Hikone and Inuyama.  There's something about this one, though, that  surpasses all the others.  Maybe it's the fact that it's the only black castle in Japan.  Maybe it's the sprawling nature of the rooms.  Maybe it's because this castle has entire hidden floors, disguising its true expanse and military strength to the outside viewer.  

As a military stronghold, it is impressive.  Both the main keep (the main body of the castle) and the minor keep (hidden from view here) are built to hide one floor.  For example, if you count the stories of the castle, you will come up with 5, when there are actually 6.  The third floor is completely hidden and has 2 sets of stairs leading to the next floor.  On the minor keep, there appear to be 3 but in actuality there are 4.  They did this by eliminating windows on the hidden floors and by varying the ceiling heights of each story.  The hidden floors were used to store weapons, gunpowder, and warriors when necessary.  It's an amazing architectural feat, given that the castle is thought to have been built around 1593. The castle also has, on the first floor, openings in the underside of the wall (ishiotoshi) where warriors dropped rocks on enemies trying to climb the walls out of the moat.

To the left is a picture of rectangular yazama, a place to shoot arrows at attackers.  There were also teppozama, square holes for guns.  It is notable that this castle has places for guns to be fired from, as most do not.  Guns were introduced by Europe and mostly banned in Japan for a long time, yet this castle has a history with guns.  To the right is one side of musha-bashiri, or "warrior-running passage," that circles the first floor of the main keep.  It is 50cm lower than the main floor, and 1.4m lower than the minor keep that is attached by a watari-yagura or roofed passage.  Below is a picture of the main floor.     

To the left is the first of the two sets of stairs leading to/through the hidden third floor.  The stairs in the castle are incredibly steep, rising at 55 or 61 degrees (depending on the staircase).  Often the distance between each step is large, on the order of 40cm.  This makes them difficult and frightening to climb, but exciting.  On the right is a picture of the minor keep as seen from some fourth floor windows of the main keep.  The fourth floor has less pillars and a higher ceiling than the other floors, and is thought to be where the Lord of the castle lived.  There is space for at least three rooms and a surrounding corridor.

The fifth floor is also impressive.  It was designed as a conference room where battle leaders could meet and survey the situation to decide a proper plan of counter-attack.  There are windows on all sides of the castle, so that you can see in all directions.  There are 30 pillars, all originals.

Matt and I climbed in a small alcove on the fifth floor and this ghostly portrait came out.  It's a beautiful triangle-shaped lookout space that now seems incredibly romantic but was likely very deadly for outsiders.  It probably allowed hiding warriors to view ongoing battles and plan strategy.

Perhaps my favorite space in the castle is the one pictured to the right.  From the outside it is marked by a vermilion-painted banister and a plethora of mairado, or sliding doors.  It is the tsukimi-yagura, or "moon-viewing room."  Three sides of the room can be opened to view the moon.  Inside, the vaulted ceiling adds to the atmosphere.  I just wanted to set a dance here, to be honest.  

This wing was built later than the rest of the castle, under the direction of Naomasa Matsudaira, a grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu.  The architecture reflects the time of relative peace in which it was constructed, as well as the desire to reaffirm traditional Japanese culture.  During this era Japan was completely closed to the rest of the world excepting a few Dutch traders in Nagasaki.  Ieyasu also restricted gun manufacture and outlawed all weapons use.  A moon-viewing room makes sense in this era, because the danger of being shot through one of the large openings was practically zero.

I'll leave you with my favorite shot of the castle.  It is an ambling, impressive fortress.  We're both happy we made time to see it.