高梁市・備中松山城と山田方谷Takahashi: A Hidden Jewel in Japan's Mountains

Today I am in Takahashi, deep in the mountains of Okayama Prefecture. It is a small town in a remote mountain valley, hardly known even to the Japanese, but a place I had long wanted to visit, for two reasons. One is that a castle built on the most beautiful mountaintop in Japan still stands. The other is that a person I respect once accomplished here work that is important in Japanese history.

Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture, was once called “Bitchu Matsuyama.” At a crossroads of east, west, north and south, it is a key place where, from around the 13th century, warriors fought over supremacy. It became Okayama Prefecture in 1871, in the Meiji era, but it had been divided into regions of strong character, Mimasaka, Bitchu and Bingo, and in part Bizen, and Bitchu, long from north to south, lay in rugged mountains bordering the Seto Inland Sea and, on the Sea of Japan side, Tottori and Shimane.

Japan is said to have had 170 castles in the Edo period, but they were abandoned or burned in the wars of the turbulent final years of the shogunate and by the policies of the new Meiji government, and then burned in American air raids in the Second World War, so only 12 castles with keeps built by the Edo period survive. Most of them stand on flat ground and are easy to visit, so they are now kept up as tourist sites, but Bitchu Matsuyama Castle in Takahashi is known as the only castle in Japan whose keep still stands on a mountaintop.

Matsuyama Castle in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, a well-known tourist site, is also on a summit, but it is a new castle rebuilt in 1852 and has been developed for tourists with a ropeway. Bitchu Matsuyama Castle, by contrast, stands on steep Mount Gagyu, 480 meters high, and is not developed for tourism. It has no ropeway, and you have to climb a mountain path from the foot (you can also go by car or bus as far as the eighth station). Today I walked an hour and a half from the town at the foot to the castle.

Why is such a beautiful castle not developed for tourism? One reason is deeply tied to the situation at the end of the shogunate. When the new government of Choshu and Satsuma, which upheld rule by the emperor, took power, the domains that had sided with the old shogunate were regarded as “enemies of the court,” and the Boshin War broke out in 1868 to finish them off. The alliance of domains opposed to the new government lost, but the dynamics of those early Meiji years leave resentment even now.

The new Meiji government regarded castles as symbols of the old order and took one action after another, such as discarding castles in many places. Fortunately, Bitchu Matsuyama Castle, on a mountaintop in the hills, was left alone because tearing it down would have taken enormous effort. This was the direct reason it survives, and it has come down to today as repaired in 1683, in the Edo period. This is why it is revered by people who love exploring Japanese history. Rising at the top of a steep mountain, it is a sight so beautiful that even I, who have toured castles all over Japan, marveled.

The other reason I came to Takahashi was to research Hokoku Yamada (1805–1877), a Confucian scholar who played a great part at Bitchu Matsuyama Castle from the late Edo period into the final years of the shogunate. Born here, Hokoku left many marks, recognized as a prodigy already at four, and while studying in Kyoto and Edo he met the wise Confucian scholars of the day and made many acquaintances. His talent was recognized, and he was taken into the service of the lord of the Bitchu Matsuyama domain as a close aide.

At first he was appointed head of the domain's school and had a deep influence on young people, but the domain was then suffering extreme financial difficulty, with moneylenders in Osaka pressing without end. It carried debt equivalent to 30 billion yen in today's money, a level at which even using all the domain's income every year for repayment was nowhere near enough.

The lord therefore appointed Hokoku, who had won enormous trust among the people of the land, as chief financial officer, and, thinking highly of Hokoku, told the people himself, “Hokoku's policies are all my will,” and entrusted him with full authority to rebuild the finances. Hokoku went on to carry out many reforms, repaid the entire debt over seven years, and moreover built up savings equal to 30 billion yen. This great feat astonished the shogunate and the domains everywhere, and the Tokugawa shogunate, whose system was shaking toward the end of its rule, appointed Katsukiyo Itakura, lord of the Bitchu Matsuyama domain, to a key post in the shogunate and had him live in Edo, and Hokoku too took part in the shogunate's government as a political adviser in a time of upheaval.

Afterward too, calmly discerning an extremely difficult and turbulent age, not swayed at all by desires for money or position, he supported his lord to the end and thought of the lives of the people of Bitchu Matsuyama more than anyone. His name was known across the country, so when the Tokugawa shogunate fell and the new government was born, requests for key national posts poured in. Hokoku declined them all, returned to his hometown, and devoted his life to educating the young.

Most astonishing of all, the name of Hokoku Yamada never appears in Japanese school education. As a result, most Japanese know neither his name nor his achievements. Yet Hokoku, who earned enormous respect from the people of the land, is still revered as a representative figure of Takahashi, and walking the town you see his name in many places. On this trip I was also able to hear directly from one of Hokoku's descendants, and visiting the land that Hokoku loved and gave his life to, I was deeply moved.

In an age of global mass tourism, when everywhere is being developed, a place like Bitchu Matsuyama, which you would never visit unless you knew of it, keeps the real old, good Japan. The soba and mochi made from the blessing of the water of the Takahashi River are delicious, Hokoku's influence is still carried by the people, and it is wonderful that the local people are very kind despite living in the mountains. Such places are close to nonexistent in Japan now, and I think travelers interested in Japanese castles and history should by all means visit.