How was Osaka Castle defended?

Toyotomi Hideyoshi built Osaka-jo in 1583. Hideyoshi, being the great battle expert he was, designed the most formidable castle ever built in Japan. One large moat surrounded the whole castle with only two ways across it. One of those was a small bridge that could be easily defended or even destroyed if necessary.



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Castles for Protection Against Enemies The tower served as both a lookout and a symbol of power and influence. The complex of buildings on the castle's grounds was surrounded by a broad, deep moat and set on high stone foundation, so it was nearly impossible for enemies to penetrate into it.

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Several rings of walls and moats serve as the main defense measure of castles. Osaka Castle and the former Edo Castle (now Tokyo's Imperial Palace) offer the most impressive examples.

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The weakest part of the castle's defenses was the entrance. To secure access to the castle, drawbridges, ditches and moats provided physical barriers to entry.

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Battlements. Battlements were walls on the roof of a castle. They had higher walls, called merlons, with lower gaps between, called crenels. Defenders would use crossbows to shoot arrows through the crenels,and then hide behind the higher merlons.

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The castle was originally constructed in the 1590s, but was destroyed by the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945. The castle was rebuilt in 1958, a replica of the original that now serves as a museum of Hiroshima's history before World War II. Reconstructed main keep.

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1. Murud-Janjira – Murud, Maharashtra, India. The Murud-Janjira is a massive island fortress located off the coast of India. The fort is completely surrounded by 40' high walls and 19 rounded bastions.

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The entrance to the castle was always its weakest point. Drawbridges could be pulled up, preventing access across moats. Tall gate towers meant that defenders could shoot down in safety at attacks below. The main gate or door to the castle was usually a thick, iron-studded wooden door, that was hard to break through.

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Japanese castles were much weaker, but were constructed like a maze to confuse attackers into taking alternate paths away from the nobles inside while the defenders cold continue to rain down arrows, bullets, and cut them down with samurai.

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As a result, over 3,000 castles were reduced to 170, about 95% of the Japanese castles were ruined. About 260 years later, in 1873, the Meiji government promulgated the law of demolishing the castles to proceed with the westernization in Japan.

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