Qualla: Hakusan Castle https://qualla.com/hakusan-castle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:40 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/7/hakusan-castle-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Hakusan Castle https://qualla.com/hakusan-castle Hakusan Castle: Introduction https://qualla.com/hakusan-castle/ Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before the Takeda clan became synonymous with mounted warfare and dominated the province of Kai for generations, they needed a stronghold. They built it on a 573-meter mountain overlooking the confluence of the Kamanashi and Shiokawa rivers, at the northern edge of the Kofu basin, and they named it for the Shinto shrine already standing on the summit. Hakusan Castle, in what is now the city of Nirasaki in Yamanashi Prefecture, is where the Takeda story began.

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Image: Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/7/hakusan-castle-wp/xn67-hakusan-castle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Hakusan Castle: The Progenitor's Fortress https://qualla.com/hakusan-castle/ Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. Takeda Nobuyoshi built this castle. The son of Minamoto no Kiyomitsu of nearby Yato Castle, Nobuyoshi became the progenitor of the Takeda clan, one of the most powerful warrior families in Japanese feudal history. His residence lay just over a kilometer from the castle walls. The...

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Image: Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/7/hakusan-castle-wp/xn67-hakusan-castle-the-progenitors-fortress.mp3 0:06 2 full Hakusan Castle: Moats Cut Into the Mountain https://qualla.com/hakusan-castle/ Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. Hakusan Castle is a yamashiro, a mountain castle, and its builders understood how to make terrain work as a weapon. The fortification extended roughly 150 meters east to west and 180 meters north to south along a ridge running in the same direction. Vertical dry moats cut into th...

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Image: Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/7/hakusan-castle-wp/xn67-hakusan-castle-moats-cut-into-the-mountain.mp3 0:06 3 full Hakusan Castle: From Takeda to Tokugawa https://qualla.com/hakusan-castle/ Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. Little survives in the historical record about the castle's middle centuries, but what is known speaks to turbulent times. Aoki Nobutane completely rebuilt the fortress as part of Kai Province's outer defensive line. After the Takeda clan fell at the Battle of Tenmokuzan, the cas...

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Image: Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/7/hakusan-castle-wp/xn67-hakusan-castle-from-takeda-to-tokugawa.mp3 0:06 4 full Hakusan Castle: Saved From the Quarry https://qualla.com/hakusan-castle/ Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. What the centuries of warfare could not destroy, the twentieth century nearly did with dynamite and bulldozers. Plans to convert the castle site into a rock quarry surfaced in 1983, threatening to obliterate the remarkably well-preserved ruins. Local conservation groups fought th...

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]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/7/hakusan-castle-wp/xn67-hakusan-castle-saved-from-the-quarry.mp3 0:06 5 full