Layout
Long before the first stone was laid, the daimyo and his advisors carefully planned the
layout of their castle. Many daimyo belived that the fate of their castle hinged on this
initial planning. Needless to say, tremendous care was taken to devise a layout that would
foil any and all attackers. This meant that the castle would need to be designed to fully
take advantage of the landscape surrounding it.
The actual laying out of the castle was done at the location where the castle was to
be built. Here, the designers laid out ropes to mark where the
walls, moats,
gates and buildings would later be built. This planning
process was called the nawabari (the Japanese word for "territory"), which translates
in English to "stretched rope".
Baileys
Every castle was designed with the safety of the tenshu
in mind. To protect it, the tenshu is surrounded by three concentric baileys, also called
maru. The innermost bailey is called the honmaru (main bailey), with the
second and third being called the ninomaru (second bailey) and sannomaru
(third bailey), respectively. Each bailey is encircled by a wall, and is usually built at
a higher elevation than the next bailey out. Of course, the bailey structure is unique for
each castle; one or more baileys may share a side, and there may be extra baileys in
addition to the main bailey structure.
It is also interesting to note that castle walls were
used differently in Japan than in other parts of the world. In the castles of Europe and
other parts of Asia, walls almost always enclosed the surrounding castle towns. In contrast,
most Japanese castle towns are not heavily defended. With Japan being so isolated from the
outside world, there was little risk of being invaded by foreign invaders. As for conflicts
between daimyo, battles were mostly fought out in the countryside with the castle being a
last place of retreat. Also, with most of the battles being fought over the land itself, an
invading lord would not be interested in attacking the civilians who would be needed to farm
that land in the event that he succeeded. As with most rules, there are some exceptions to
this pattern: Ogura and Odawara castles, for
example, have walls around their towns.
The following pages go into more detail about defensive structures found in the design of
every castle:
