Ten years since the Kumamoto Earthquake ~ March 2026 ~

Fifteen years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake, ten years since the Kumamoto Earthquake, and two years since the Noto Earthquake. In addition to these, the Chuetsu Earthquake and the Iburi Eastern Earthquake, which caused a power outage throughout Hokkaido, have also registered a seismic intensity of 7 in this century, meaning that Japan experiences a major earthquake approximately once every five years. The cost of disaster recovery in Japan, including wind and flood damage, is enormous, but this also makes us realize anew the importance of maintaining a healthy workforce and economic strength in order to realize a peaceful life, as are our defense capabilities and medical system.

At Kumamoto Castle, stone walls have still collapsed in many areas, and restoration work is ongoing. Although the main keep has been restored, the Uto Turret, which withstood the Satsuma Rebellion, is currently undergoing dismantling and repair, and is expected to take another six years to complete.

Even so, Kumamoto is more popular for Kato Kiyomasa than for the Hosokawa family, who ruled for most of the Edo period. Kiyomasa received the northern half of Higo Province, worth 195,000 koku, from Hideyoshi in 1588, and his son Tadahiro was dispossessed in 1632, so the Kato family ruled for only 44 years. It must have been difficult for him to take up his post after his predecessor, Sasa Narimasa, was dispossessed due to a local uprising, but Kiyomasa was a brilliant general who excelled in both military and literary arts, increasing the strength of the province by controlling the frequent floods of the Shirakawa River and spreading irrigation facilities, and building Kumamoto Castle and its surrounding town.

Kumamoto has abundant water resources, and I frequently saw signs for Kumamoto's Top 100 Famous Waters in places I visited. Thick layers of porous tuff formed along with pyroclastic flows during numerous past eruptions of Mount Aso exist, forming a large underground aquifer that extends over a wide area. The Shirakawa River originates in the Aso caldera and meanders south of Kumamoto Castle before flowing into the Ariake Sea. During the Jomon period, the plains of the city were below sea level, but the deposits carried by the flooding Shirakawa River formed a large plain.

Kiyomasa was a fervent follower of Nichiren Buddhism, and his mausoleum is located at Honmyoji Temple, which overlooks Kumamoto City. The Kumamoto domain, along with the Satsuma domain, was one of the domains that severely persecuted Buddhism, and there are many ruined temple sites. However, here, the temple and the Jōchi Mausoleum, which enshrines Kiyomasa as a deity, share the same grounds, creating a remarkable example of syncretism between Shinto and Buddhism, which made me wonder how I should pay my respects

in Buddhist or Shinto style.

Upon investigation, I learned that after the Meiji Restoration, Kiyomasa, who was revered as a "god," was moved to the Kato Shrine located within Kumamoto Castle. From the latter half of the Edo period onward, it became fashionable for each domain to build shrines to enshrine their founders or restorers, but what sets Kumamoto apart is that it's Kato Kiyomasa, not Hosokawa Yusai or Tadaoki.

Kiyomasa began construction of Kumamoto Castle after the Battle of Sekigahara. The nearby area known as Kojōbori is the site of the former Kumamoto Castle (which Kiyomasa renamed Kumamoto), a medieval castle whose remains are still visible in the moat.

The rough-hewn stone wall appears to date from the early Tensho or Keicho period and was either renovated by Sasa Narimasa or later by Kato Kiyomasa. It is currently a small park, but Kumamoto City seems to want to eventually restore it to a moat that stores water.

Kumamoto Castle is famous for its main keep and Uto turret, but what's truly astonishing is its vast size, approximately 100 hectares. While a castle's grandeur can't be judged solely by its size, its strategically rich layout, the quality and number of its turrets, the impressively steep stone walls, and the 120 wells it once had all contributed to its superior combat capabilities compared to castles of similar standing in neighboring domains. Incidentally, Kanazawa Castle had a rice yield exceeding one million koku and more than double the mobilization capacity of the Kumamoto domain, but its size was only about half that of Kumamoto Castle (although it was said that the adjacent Kenrokuen Garden could serve as a fortress in times of need).

Kiyomasa completed his castle in 1606, but he died in 1611 without seeing the Siege of Osaka. If he had lived, he would surely have gathered tens of thousands of soldiers in Kumamoto and used it as a base for Toyotomi Hideyori to rebel against Ieyasu. Kuroda and Hosokawa would not have been able to participate in the Siege of Osaka.

Tadahiro, the son who was dispossessed of his domain, was placed under the care of Sakai Tadakatsu, the lord of the Shonai domain, and lived in Maruoka with his mother and about 20 other people, receiving a one-generation stipend of 10,000 koku. Last year, I had the opportunity to visit temples in Takayama associated with Mitsuhiro, the eldest son who was placed under the care of the Kanamori family, and the site of the Maruoka residence in Sakata, so seeing the pine tree that was transported from Sakata planted within Kumamoto Castle was a deeply moving experience for me.

The value of the impregnable fortress built by Kiyomasa was put to the test 270 years later during the Satsuma Rebellion. Saigo Takamori surrounded the castle with 13,000 soldiers against 5,000 soldiers of the Kumamoto garrison, launching a fierce attack for 50 days, but was unable to break through.

I went to Taharazaka. The northern part of Kumamoto Prefecture is mountainous, and supply routes to Kumamoto Castle are limited, but this was the only route with enough road width to transport artillery and ammunition from the Kokura Garrison. It was the site of the fiercest fighting in the Satsuma Rebellion, and the largest number of artillery shells were used.

With the Meiji Restoration, policies such as the abolition of stipends and the ban on swords were implemented, resulting in the loss of privileges for the samurai class and frequent samurai rebellions in various places. The year before the Satsuma Rebellion, the Shinpuren Rebellion occurred in Kumamoto, and there are monuments related to it and the site where the ringleader, Otaguro Tomoo, committed suicide within the castle grounds. However, the rebellion only involved about 200 people, and was mainly composed of fairly radical Sonno Joi (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) factions. Sakurayama Shrine enshrines the martyrs who lost their lives before and after the Meiji Restoration, as well as in this incident.

During the Satsuma Rebellion, Saigo Takamori led a force of 30,000 soldiers. Approximately half of these were Satsuma soldiers, meaning that half of the Satsuma samurai participated. The Satsuma domain originally had many samurai who were half-farmers and half-samurai, and including their families, samurai accounted for 20% of the population, a ratio double that of the Kumamoto domain. It was a horrific civil war in which only one-third survived, but one can only conclude that Saigo Takamori and the Satsuma samurai sacrificed themselves to show the Japanese people that the necessary reform of the class system was essential for Japan to transform into a modern nation.

Kumamoto shares several similarities with my hometown, Kanazawa. Both were castle towns of powerful tozama domains, and in the Meiji era, they flourished as academic and military centers with the establishment of old-style high schools and divisional headquarters. Furthermore, during the late Edo period, Kumamoto was distinct from the powerful domains, with conservatives holding sway over its administration, and therefore did not play a significant role in the Meiji Restoration. The only difference is the presence or absence of Yokoi Shōnan. He was a philosopher who influenced everyone who shaped the Meiji Restoration, but he was not welcomed in his own domain, Kumamoto. Matsudaira Shungaku, the lord of the Fukui domain, invited him to serve as a political advisor with great respect, and after the Restoration, he was summoned by the Meiji government as a participant, but he was assassinated in Kyoto by fanatical Sonno Joi (Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians) factions (1869).

The site of the private school "Shijiken" built by Shonan now features a memorial hall and a reconstructed building. Although it's now part of a residential area, it's a must-see for anyone interested in the politics of the late Edo period. Among the people who frequented the school was Sakamoto Ryoma, and it seems that the phrase "cleansing Japan" from his Eight-Point Program was one of Shonan's favorite sayings.

Fukui and Kumamoto became sister cities in 1994, and this year marks their 32nd anniversary.

In medieval times, northern Higo Province was divided between the Kikuchi clan, descendants of Fujiwara no Takaie, a hero of the Toi invasion, and the Aso clan, chief priests of Aso Shrine. However, neither could unify the region, and it was eventually conquered by the Otomo clan of Bungo, the Ryuzoji clan of Hizen, and the Shimazu clan, leading up to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Kyushu campaign. Perhaps due to the intense anti-Buddhist movement and the Satsuma Rebellion, it is difficult to find traces of the medieval period. In northern Kumamoto City, there is the ruins of Endaiji Temple, where the temple buildings that remained until the Meiji Restoration still stand. It was founded in the early Kamakura period by Otomo Yoshinao, a retainer who was assigned to Bungo, and was restored in the first half of the 16th century by Otomo Yoshikane (father of Sorin).

Jōdōji Temple was a temple protected by Kikuchi Mochitomo, who was active in the first half of the 15th century. After the Kikuchi clan was destroyed during the Sengoku period, it maintained its influence in the Edo period as the family temple of the Sawamura family, chief retainers of the Hosokawa family. The Sawamura family, although vassals, were a powerful family with a stipend of 11,000 koku, and after the Meiji Restoration they became a baronial family and should have maintained a considerable economic power. However, judging from the considerably dilapidated state of the temple, it can be inferred that the descendants of the family probably gave up on maintaining the temple at some point after the war. This is also a place with 100 famous springs and there seems to have been a beautiful garden, which is now half-collapsed, but the Sawamura family's gravestones can be seen on the slope in the distance, and the grass has been cut to some extent, suggesting that people do visit the site. Kikuchi Mochitomo, mentioned above, served the Ashikaga shogunate and was the governor of Higo Province during the height of the Kikuchi clan's power.

Miyamoto Musashi came to Higo in 1640, eight years after Kato Tadahiro's downfall and the Hosokawa family, the lords of the Kokura domain, entered Kumamoto Castle. He was invited by Lord Hosokawa Tadatoshi to serve as a military advisor and spent his later years there, compiling "The Book of Five Rings" in a cave at Reigan Zen Temple.

The Hosokawa family's ancestral temple (Taisho-ji) was abolished after the Meiji Restoration, and their graves remain within Tatsuta Nature Park. Tadatoshi was the third son of Tadaoki and Gracia, and he seized the position of lord of the domain while his older brothers, Tadataka and Okiaki, who were supposed to be the heirs, fell out of favor (see our articles "The third son succeeded the eldest" and "He did not separate from his wife"). After the death of his grandfather Tadaoki, Tadatoshi's eldest son, Mitsunao, prepared the mausoleums of four people: Hosokawa Fujitaka (Yusai), who founded the Higo Hosokawa family, and his wife (Kojuin), and Hosokawa Tadaoki and his wife (Shurin-in, Gracia). Tadaoki lived a long life and died at the age of 83, and was buried next to Gracia, who lost her life in the midst of the Battle of Sekigahara, 46 years later.

Kengun Shrine is said to be the oldest shrine in Kumamoto City and a sub-shrine of Aso Shrine. The rows of stone lanterns lining both sides of the public road, which appears to be the approach to the shrine, are truly impressive. They stretch for over a kilometer. The main deity enshrined here is Takeiwatatsu-no-Mikoto, the son of Kanyaimimi-no-Mikoto, a son of Emperor Jimmu, and therefore Emperor Jimmu's grandson.

According to the "Aso County History," a local legend, the Aso caldera was once a lake filled with water, but Takeiwatatsu-no-Mikoto kicked off a part of the outer rim, causing the water to drain and allowing rice cultivation to begin. Geologically, this is true, as the caldera lake drained 73,000 years ago, making Takeiwatatsu-no-Mikoto and Kato Kiyomasa heroes who created the fertile granary region of Kumamoto.

At a udon shop in Musashizuka Park, I had a hard time deciding between Musashi Udon with mochi (rice cake) and Kojiro Udon with a long burdock tempura, but I ultimately chose the latter. The burdock is named after the long sword that Kojiro favored, which apparently had a blade length of 90 cm. The noodles were similar to Nagoya's kishimen (flat udon noodles) and were delicious.

While driving around, I occasionally come across unexpected sights. Ryu Chishu, who played the monk of Taishakuten Temple in my favorite movies "Tora-san" series, has the same real name and was born in this Jodo Shinshu temple. He often appeared in Yasujiro Ozu's films, and his performance in "Tokyo Story" with Setsuko Hara was particularly good.

NHK's morning drama "Bakebake" is currently set around the time when Lafcadio Hearn was a teacher at the Fifth Higher School in Kumamoto. It's now a part of the entertainment district, but when Hearn was assigned there in 1891 (Meiji 24), it seems the castle town was still in the process of being rebuilt after being reduced to rubble in the Satsuma Rebellion. I toured mainly around Kumamoto city this time, but two days was nowhere near enough time to see everything. I'll come back to see the Uto Tower when it's restored.