Gifu Castle

Timeline

1. 1201

   Foundation

   Nikaido Yukimasa, a senior official of the new Kamakura shogunate, builds a fortress on Inoguchi hill (Mount Kinka) to control the route to Kyoto.

2. 1539

   Saito Dosan's Reconstruction

   Saito Dosan, the deputy military governor of Mino, begins the first true fortification of the summit and makes Inabayama Castle his seat — the rise of the 'Viper of Mino'.

3. 1564

   Takenaka Hanbei's Coup

   Saito retainer Takenaka Hanbei reportedly seizes Inabayama Castle with only 13 retainers and holds it briefly — a humiliation for Saito Tatsuoki.

4. 1567

   Nobunaga Enters Gifu

   Aided by the defection of the Western Mino Triumvirate, Oda Nobunaga captures Inabayama from Saito Tatsuoki, renames the town 'Gifu' and moves his headquarters here.

5. 1567

   Tenka Fubu Begins

   Nobunaga starts using the seal 'Tenka Fubu' (rule the realm by force) at roughly the same moment as the renaming, formally declaring his unification campaign.

6. 1582

   Aftermath of Honno-ji

   After Nobunaga and his heir Nobutada are killed at the Honno-ji Incident, the Kiyosu Conference grants Gifu Castle to Nobunaga's third son Oda Nobutaka.

7. 1600

   Battle of Gifu Castle

   In the prelude to Sekigahara, Oda Hidenobu, siding with the western army, falls to a one-day siege by Fukushima Masanori and Ikeda Terumasa — the symbolic end of the Sengoku era.

8. 1601

   Abolition and Kano Castle

   Tokugawa Ieyasu orders Gifu Castle dismantled and grants 100,000 koku to Okudaira Nobumasa to build the new flatland Kano Castle in its place.

9. 1910

   First Replica Keep

   A wooden three-story replica keep is rebuilt by Gifu citizens using salvaged timbers from the first Nagara Bridge, in a voluntary labor campaign.

10. 1943

    Replica Keep Destroyed

    On the early morning of February 17 the first replica keep burns in an accidental fire, taking with it relics including a lock of Nobunaga's hair.

11. 1956

    Current Keep Rebuilt

    The present steel-reinforced concrete keep, three stories and four floors, is completed on July 25, funded by an 18-million-yen public subscription.

12. 2006

    Top 100 Castles Selection

    On April 6, Gifu Castle is selected as number 39 of the Top 100 Castles of Japan by the Japan Castle Foundation.

13. 2011

    National Historic Site

    On February 7, roughly 209 hectares of Mount Kinka are designated a National Historic Site as 'the Gifu Castle Ruins'.

14. 2015

    Japan Heritage Designation

    Gifu Castle is incorporated into the Japan Heritage 'Sengoku castle town of Gifu where Nobunaga's hospitality lives on'.

Detailed History

Gifu Castle's history begins in 1201, when Nikaido Yukimasa, a senior Kamakura shogunate official, built a fortress on the Inoguchi hill (Mount Kinka, also Inabayama). After the Nikaido house collapsed, the site lay abandoned for about 153 years until Saito Toshinaga, the shugo-dai of Mino Province, repaired it in the mid-15th century. In 1525 the Saito retainers Nagai Nagahiro and Nagai Shinzaemon-no-jo revolted, taking control of the castle. In 1533 the latter's son — later Saito Dosan — inherited it. From 1539 Dosan fortified the summit in earnest; in 1541 he expelled the protector Toki Yorinori, embodying gekokujo and earning the nickname 'Viper of Mino'. He was killed by his son Saito Yoshitatsu at the Battle of the Nagara River in 1556. When Yoshitatsu died suddenly in 1561 the castle passed to the 13-year-old Saito Tatsuoki, who in 1564 lost it briefly to his retainers Takenaka Hanbei and Ando Morinari, who reportedly took Inabayama Castle with just 13 retainers. In 1567 Oda Nobunaga, aided by the defection of the Western Mino Triumvirate (Inaba Ittetsu, Ujiie Bokuzen, Ando Morinari), captured Inabayama at last; Tatsuoki fled to Ise Nagashima. Nobunaga moved his base from Komakiyama, and citing the Zhou precedent of King Wen pacifying the realm from Mount Qi, renamed castle and town 'Gifu' while adopting the seal 'Tenka Fubu' — formally launching his unification campaign. In 1576 he handed Gifu Castle and the provinces of Mino and Owari to his eldest son Oda Nobutada. After Nobutada was killed at Honno-ji in 1582, the Kiyosu Conference granted the castle to Nobunaga's third son Oda Nobutaka, who in 1583 was besieged here by his brother Nobukatsu after Shizugatake and forced to commit seppuku. Ikeda Motosuke, Ikeda Terumasa, Toyotomi Hidekatsu and Oda Hidenobu then held the castle in turn. When Hidenobu sided with the western army in 1600, Fukushima Masanori and Ikeda Terumasa took the castle in a one-day siege at the Battle of Gifu Castle — the prelude to Sekigahara. In 1601 Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered the castle abolished, granting 100,000 koku to Okudaira Nobumasa to build the new flatland Kano Castle. A wooden replica was raised in 1910 but burned in 1943; the present steel-reinforced concrete keep dates from 1956. In 2011, roughly 209 hectares of Mount Kinka were designated a National Historic Site as 'the Gifu Castle Ruins'.

Cultural Significance

Gifu Castle holds a singular place in Sengoku and early-modern Japanese history as the site where Oda Nobunaga first adopted the seal 'Tenka Fubu' and openly declared his campaign to unify the realm. The renaming of the town from Inoguchi to Gifu — drawn from the Chinese precedent of King Wen of the Zhou dynasty pacifying the realm from Mount Qi — testifies to Nobunaga's classical learning and the scope of his ambition, making the site exceptional in the documentary record of his rule. Excavations at the foot of the mountain since the 1980s have produced gold-leafed roof-tile fragments and massive worked-stone retaining walls, giving physical reality to the 'earthly paradise' that the Jesuit Luis Frois described in his 'History of Japan'. In 2011 the roughly 209-hectare Mount Kinka complex was designated a National Historic Site as 'important to understanding the formation of early modern Japanese castles'. In 2006 the castle was selected as number 39 of the Top 100 Castles of Japan, and in 2015 it was incorporated into the Japan Heritage 'Sengoku castle town of Gifu where Nobunaga's hospitality lives on'. NHK's flagship taiga dramas — Kunitori Monogatari (1973) and Kirin ga Kuru (2020) — have repeatedly used the castle as the setting for Dosan and Nobunaga, cementing its place in the popular imagination.

Architectural Details

Gifu Castle is a classic mountain castle (yamashiro) built on the 329 m summit of Mount Kinka, with the mountain itself as its primary defensive feature. The plan splits into two zones — the summit fortress (honmaru, ninomaru, sannomaru) and the lord's residence at the foot in Tsukidani valley — connected by precipitous approach trails (Nanamagari, Umanose, Hyakumagari) and reinforced by smaller forts along the slope. The current keep was rebuilt in 1956 in steel-reinforced concrete to a three-story, four-floor design by Kido Hisashi (professor emeritus at Nagoya Institute of Technology), modeled on drawings of the three-story turret at Kano Castle; Dai Nippon Doboku was the contractor. Including stonework the structure rises about 17 meters. The reconstruction was funded by a public campaign that gathered roughly 18 million yen in four months from August 1955. In 1975 the adjacent sumiyagura (now the Gifu Castle Museum) was built using Hikone Castle as a reference. The residence excavation has continued since 1984, revealing terraced gardens on both sides of the Tsukidani stream, large boulder-block stone walls, garden ponds, and buildings roofed in gold-leafed tiles. Stone came chiefly from local granite outcrops; Nobunaga-era walls are notable for boulders exceeding one meter — an early example of the Shokuho-period technique.