佚名 · Public domain
Azuchi-Momoyama to early Edo period · 1562–1611
Katō Kiyomasa
加藤清正 · Japan
Builder of Kumamoto Castle
One of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's 'Seven Spears of Shizugatake', with the court title Lord of Higo. Moved to Kumamoto in 1588, between 1601 and 1607 he greatly expanded Kumamoto Castle, giving it 49 turrets, 18 turret gates and 29 smaller gates.
Where the story happened
Los lugares que dejó
Historia · Kumamoto Castle
Katō Kiyomasa's fortress and Saigō Takamori's sigh
Between 1601 and 1607 Katō Kiyomasa expanded Kumamoto Castle into a huge fortress with 49 turrets. In the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, Saigō Takamori led the Satsuma army in a siege of Kumamoto Castle but failed to take it, and he is said to have lamented: 'I was not defeated by the Meiji government, but by Lord Kiyomasa.' In the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, part of the stone walls below the keep collapsed and the shachi roof tiles fell and shattered.
