Where is the oldest existing castle tower in Japan? Historical critic Toshi Kohara says, “The oldest castle tower at this time is probably the Inui small castle tower of Matsumoto Castle, built by Kazumasa Ishikawa. He also had a talent for building castles.”
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※The photograph is an image
Why did Kazumasa Ishikawa run away from Ieyasu?
Tokugawa Ieyasu had been a loyal vassal of Yoshimoto Imagawa in Sunpu (Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture) since he was a boy, and was his right-hand man along with Tadatsugu Sakai. In the 33rd episode of the NHK Taiga drama “What to do with Ieyasu” (broadcast on August 27th), this military commander played by Yutaka Matsushige leaves Ieyasu (Jun Matsumoto) and becomes a subordinate of Hideyoshi Hashiba (Tsuyoshi Muro). His departure seems to have been a huge shock to viewers.
Kazumasa, who was acting as an intermediary between Hideyoshi and Hideyoshi, realized that he could no longer stand up to Hideyoshi, who had already grown stronger in power and military power, and preached to his family the need to obey Hideyoshi, and many hard-liners opposed to Hideyoshi. The entire Tokugawa family, who occupied the area, were all agitated. Apparently there was some arrangement from Hideyoshi, and on November 13, 1585, he left Ieyasu without any warning.
Afterwards, under Hideyoshi, Kazusho was first given a territory of approximately 80,000 koku in Izumi or Kawachi (both in Osaka Prefecture). After the conquest of Odawara in 1590, Ieyasu was transferred to the Kanto region, and after that, 80,000 koku or 100,000 koku was transferred to Chikuma and Azumi counties in Shinano (Nagano prefecture), which were Ieyasu’s former fiefdoms. He was given territory.
It is thought that the feudal lords confined to Ieyasu’s former territories were required to keep an eye on Ieyasu and serve as a line of defense in case of emergency, an ironic position for Kazumasa, who was once a senior vassal of Ieyasu. There is no other way than that. However, in any case, in August 1590, Kazumasa entered Matsumoto Castle (Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture) and began major renovations to the castle.
