Iga-Ueno Castle is one of the castles owned by the Tsu domain (Todo domain). The Tsu domain had two castles, Tsu Castle and Iga-Ueno Castle.
The Tsu Domain owned 320,000 Goku (a unit of measurement for the amount of rice, which at that time was the same as today’s money). Iga was exceptionally large, having two main provinces (Ise and Iga) under the ”律令国家 Ritsuryo system“ (律Ritsu means “what is not to be done” and 令 means “laws for conducting politics”), and thus had more than one castle. Iga also had the function of exerting military pressure on the Kamigata area (present-day Kyoto and Osaka Prefectures), and Iga-Ueno Castle served as a base for such pressure.
During the period when the Tsutsui family ruled the region before the Todo family came to the area, the castle town was built facing north. During the Tsu domain period, the castle town was built facing south. In the center of Iga-Ueno Castle, there is a Tenshudai (a symbolic structure built in a castle. A keep is a symbolic structure erected in a castle, sometimes to house ornamentation such as Shachi (killer whale). The castle’s stone walls are used to house the castle’s keep), the residence of the lord of the domain when he visited the country, and the residence of the Todo Uneme family, who served as castle chief retainer (people who took over for the lord of the castle while he was away). In the early Edo period, an attempt was made to build a castle tower on the Tenshudai, but it collapsed before it was completed, and the tower never stood during the Edo period. The current keep was built in 1935 by Katsu Kawasaki with his own money, and is officially called “Iga Bunka Sangyojo” (Iga Culture and Industry Castle).
Let’s take a look at Iga-Ueno Castle as a whole, including the castle town. There are two moats, one surrounding the castle tower and the other surrounding the residences of high-ranking samurai families. There were also plans to make a moat outside of it, but these were never realized. There were two Otemon gates (front gate), Higashi Otemon gate (east gate) and Nishi Otemon gate (west gate). On the east side of the castle, there is a temple town with large temples, probably for the castle’s defense. At first, the temple town was the eastern end of the castle town. However, from the mid-Edo period onward, the urban area expanded to the east in the form of a “Nō-nin Machi (farmer’s town)”.
