Yahazu Castle Site 矢筈城跡

Official explanation

Yahazu Castle was one of the two mountain outposts established in the sixteenth century to guard the road between the Iwami Ginzan silver mine and the port of Yunotsu, the mine’s main source of supplies. Located on a high hill above the north side of the road, 480 meters above sea level, it was likely built in the late 1520s or early 1530s, when the warlord-led Ouchi family controlled the area. Yahazu was much smaller than its twin, Yataki Castle, and consisted mainly of stone walls, dry moats, and embankments constructed along the ridge of an extremely confined summit, on the south side of which a compact keep overlooked the road. The fort changed hands repeatedly throughout the 1500s, as local warlords fought over the mine during a period of constantly shifting alliances and rivalries among warrior families, but lost significance after Iwami Ginzan was taken over by the Tokugawa shogunate (central government) in the early 1600s. The long period of peace that followed gradually rendered Yahazu and other medieval forts like it obsolete. The summit it occupied has been reclaimed by nature, and only isolated sections of the fortifications remain today. A trail leads up to the castle site but can be quite difficult to traverse at times.

出典: 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース（観光庁） — www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db. この英語解説文は観光庁の地域観光資源の多言語解説整備支援事業で作成しました。
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Explanation Database. This English text was produced by the Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation project and is shown unedited. Opening hours and services may have changed since it was written.