Guides
One lord at a time — what he did, what is still standing, and where to sleep when you have seen it.
English guidebooks are organised by place, which is why the castle in front of you comes with a date and a floor plan and no idea who built it or why it is there. These are organised the other way round. Start with the person who held the ground, and the castles, graves, battlefields and castle-town inns follow from there in an order that makes sense on foot.
Each guide does the same four things: the life, in the detail that explains the landscape; the sites that survive, with how to reach them without a car; a section separating what is documented from what is merely retold, because the competing guides print the legends as fact; and an inn in the hot spring attached to the story, checked by hand against what is actually bookable in English.
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Oguri Tadamasa
小栗上野介忠順 · 1827–1868
Oguri built the shipyard that outlived the government that executed him, and is the subject of the 2027 NHK drama. A guide to the sites, and staying.
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Tokugawa Ieyasu
徳川家康 · 1543–1616
Ieyasu was shogun for two years and ruled for thirteen more after giving the title away. A guide to Sunpu and Kunozan, and staying in Atami.
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Date Masamune
伊達政宗 · 1567–1636
Date Masamune built a galleon in his own domain and sent it to the Pope. A guide to the Sendai sites, what survived the war, and staying in Akiu.
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The Mori
毛利氏
The Mori lost six provinces in 1600 and their descendants ended the Tokugawa. A guide to Hagi, the two lantern-filled grave temples, and where to stay.
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The Uesugi
上杉氏
The Uesugi lost three quarters of their income and kept their retainers anyway. A guide to Yonezawa, the twelve tombs, and staying at Onogawa.
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The Takeda
武田氏
Takeda Shingen held a province without a castle and had his death kept secret for three years. A guide to the Kai sites, and staying at Yumura.
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The Sanada
真田氏
A father and two sons split before Sekigahara so one branch would survive whoever won. A guide to Ueda and Matsushiro, and staying at Bessho.
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The Ouchi
大内氏
Two centuries before the Mori, the Ouchi made a provincial valley the richest cultural capital outside Kyoto. A guide to Yamaguchi, and Yuda.
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The Shimazu
島津氏
The Shimazu held Satsuma for seven hundred years, then helped end the shogunate. A guide to Sengan-en, the castle and the graves, and staying.
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The Chosokabe
長宗我部氏
Chosokabe Motochika took all four provinces of Shikoku and held them a year. A guide to the earthwork castle, the hill he fled to, and Kochi.
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Oda Nobunaga
織田信長 · 1534–1582
Nobunaga built the castle that changed what castles were and it burned within days of him. A guide to Azuchi and Gifu, what is shut, and where to stay.
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Tokugawa Yoshinobu
徳川慶喜 · 1837–1913
The last shogun held the office ten months and lived forty-five years after it ended. A guide to Nijo Castle, his Shizuoka decades, and Atami.
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The Boshin War
戊辰戦争 · 1868–1869
The war that ended the shogunate finished in a star fort in Hokkaido. A guide to the Aizu sites, what is reconstruction and what is not, and where to stay.
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Katsu Kaishu
勝海舟 · 1823–1899
Katsu surrendered Edo without a fight, then raised a monument to the man sent to take it. A guide to the two places in Tokyo that are really his.
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Saigo Takamori
西郷隆盛 · 1828–1877
Saigo helped build the Meiji government and died fighting it. A guide to Shiroyama, the cave, the Nanshu graves, and where to stay in Kagoshima.
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Sakamoto Ryoma
坂本龍馬 · 1836–1867
Ryoma left his domain illegally, put Satsuma and Choshu in one room, and was dead at thirty-one. A guide to the Kochi sites, and where to stay.
