Japanese castles - they look so fragile - were they used in the same way as castles in the west??

Question

Hi,

I'm going to Japan on holiday soon... going to visit some of the historic sites like Himeji and Matsumoto Castle.

Looking at photo's and descriptions of the castles - they look so ornate and beautiful. A lot of them seem to be made of wood. They look so fragile compared to castles in europe or the middle east, like Harlech in Wales or Krak des Cevaliers in Syria.

Were they used in the same way as castles in the west - as engines of war and power, that could withstand siege and battles? Or were they used more as ornamental palaces for aristocratic families?

Wiki pages for Himeji and Matsumoto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsumoto_Castle

On first site they'd look pretty easy to take with fire - am i missing something - have they got hidden strengths?

cheers,

Al

Answer 1

Almost none of the castles that exist in Japan today are the same as when they were built - many were destroyed by American bombing raids during the Second World War, others have been deliberately flattened to make way for roads and domestic buildings and others have either eroded over time or have been destroyed in earthquakes. In almost all cases the outer rings of defences are gone, leaving only the inner core of buildings.

Most of today's castles (shiro or -jo in Japanese) are modern reconstructions in concrete, with many of the original superstructures missing - these were of timber coated in fire-proof plaster. Walls and towers were constructed in this way, with tiled roofs which would also resist fire. The lower, stone-built walls were designed with a distinctive double slope - shallow at the bottom for strength, then steep above to prevent scaling.

See Osprey's excellent book on Japanese Castles in their Fortress series (isbn 1 84176 429 9) to get an idea of how impressive and formidable the castles originally were. Imagine trying to attack such a structure with its protected approaches, many rings of moats, walls and towers, blind alleys, and courtyards which served to trap an enemy within a killing zone.

Remember also that any potential attacker would be other contemporary Japanese, who mostly lacked siege artillery. The castle therefore only had to withstand fairly mediocre siege techniques or storming parties.

I forgot to say - avoid wikipedia like the plague!

Answer 2

Japan is built on a plate boundary. That's where massive sheets of rock underground join up. This means firstly that Japan is very mountainous and secondly that most of what they build gets totalled by earthquakes.

...If everything you built kept falling over, you'd start to build things that had a bit of give in them. That's why you get those buildings with loads of layers that look like <=<=<= (look from the side). They're built loosely around poles so that they can shake about when an earthquake comes without falling over.

Any questions about why things in Japan are strange can be answered in one of two ways:

1.  All the earthquakes.

2. ...I don't know.