Travel deeper into Osaka, through its human stories.

Osaka Castle

• Winners bury the loser's castle
• Castle donations build army headquarters

In this story, you’ll discover

Chapter 1

A Castle Built on Top of Another

Hideyoshi was born into a peasant family and rose through Japan's long civil wars to become the most powerful man in the country. In 1583 he began building his castle here, on a hill where a fortified Buddhist temple had stood. Within seven years, every warlord in the country answered to him. He died in 1598, fifteen years after he started the castle, and his heir was a five-year-old son. Within a few years, the strongest of the lords he left behind, Tokugawa Ieyasu, had taken power for himself. In the winter of 1614, Ieyasu laid siege to the castle, where Hideyoshi's son still lived. The two sides agreed to a truce, and as part of the deal the castle's outer moats were filled in. The next summer, in 1615, Ieyasu came back. The castle fell and burned, and Hideyoshi's son, by then a young man, died inside it with his mother. That was the end of the Toyotomi family. The Tokugawa went on to rule Japan for more than two and a half centuries. After the war, the Tokugawa rebuilt the castle. But they didn't simply reuse Hideyoshi's castle. They had the lords of western Japan bury his castle under earth, several metres deep in places, and raise a bigger one on top. According to the museum inside the keep, it was as if they wanted to wipe out the Toyotomi family's authority. The lords had to supply the labour and the stone themselves, around a million blocks of granite shipped from mountains and islands across western Japan. The walls they built are the tallest of any castle in Japan. At the Sakura Gate stands a single stone weighing more than a hundred tonnes, the largest in any Japanese castle. And many of the stones still carry the crest of the lord who sent them.

A reflection for you

The Tokugawa defeated Hideyoshi's family, then buried their castle and built a bigger one above it. Even after victory, the new castle was still being shaped by the family they wanted to erase. Have you ever tried so hard to be unlike someone that they kept deciding the shape of your life?

Osaka Castle

• Winners bury the loser's castle
• Castle donations build army headquarters

In this story, you’ll discover

Chapter 1

A Castle Built on Top of Another

Hideyoshi was born into a peasant family and rose through Japan's long civil wars to become the most powerful man in the country. In 1583 he began building his castle here, on a hill where a fortified Buddhist temple had stood. Within seven years, every warlord in the country answered to him. He died in 1598, fifteen years after he started the castle, and his heir was a five-year-old son. Within a few years, the strongest of the lords he left behind, Tokugawa Ieyasu, had taken power for himself. In the winter of 1614, Ieyasu laid siege to the castle, where Hideyoshi's son still lived. The two sides agreed to a truce, and as part of the deal the castle's outer moats were filled in. The next summer, in 1615, Ieyasu came back. The castle fell and burned, and Hideyoshi's son, by then a young man, died inside it with his mother. That was the end of the Toyotomi family. The Tokugawa went on to rule Japan for more than two and a half centuries. After the war, the Tokugawa rebuilt the castle. But they didn't simply reuse Hideyoshi's castle. They had the lords of western Japan bury his castle under earth, several metres deep in places, and raise a bigger one on top. According to the museum inside the keep, it was as if they wanted to wipe out the Toyotomi family's authority. The lords had to supply the labour and the stone themselves, around a million blocks of granite shipped from mountains and islands across western Japan. The walls they built are the tallest of any castle in Japan. At the Sakura Gate stands a single stone weighing more than a hundred tonnes, the largest in any Japanese castle. And many of the stones still carry the crest of the lord who sent them.

A reflection for you

The Tokugawa defeated Hideyoshi's family, then buried their castle and built a bigger one above it. Even after victory, the new castle was still being shaped by the family they wanted to erase. Have you ever tried so hard to be unlike someone that they kept deciding the shape of your life?

Osaka Castle

• Winners bury the loser's castle
• Castle donations build army headquarters

In this story, you’ll discover

Chapter 1

A Castle Built on Top of Another

Hideyoshi was born into a peasant family and rose through Japan's long civil wars to become the most powerful man in the country. In 1583 he began building his castle here, on a hill where a fortified Buddhist temple had stood. Within seven years, every warlord in the country answered to him. He died in 1598, fifteen years after he started the castle, and his heir was a five-year-old son. Within a few years, the strongest of the lords he left behind, Tokugawa Ieyasu, had taken power for himself. In the winter of 1614, Ieyasu laid siege to the castle, where Hideyoshi's son still lived. The two sides agreed to a truce, and as part of the deal the castle's outer moats were filled in. The next summer, in 1615, Ieyasu came back. The castle fell and burned, and Hideyoshi's son, by then a young man, died inside it with his mother. That was the end of the Toyotomi family. The Tokugawa went on to rule Japan for more than two and a half centuries. After the war, the Tokugawa rebuilt the castle. But they didn't simply reuse Hideyoshi's castle. They had the lords of western Japan bury his castle under earth, several metres deep in places, and raise a bigger one on top. According to the museum inside the keep, it was as if they wanted to wipe out the Toyotomi family's authority. The lords had to supply the labour and the stone themselves, around a million blocks of granite shipped from mountains and islands across western Japan. The walls they built are the tallest of any castle in Japan. At the Sakura Gate stands a single stone weighing more than a hundred tonnes, the largest in any Japanese castle. And many of the stones still carry the crest of the lord who sent them.

A reflection for you

The Tokugawa defeated Hideyoshi's family, then buried their castle and built a bigger one above it. Even after victory, the new castle was still being shaped by the family they wanted to erase. Have you ever tried so hard to be unlike someone that they kept deciding the shape of your life?