A woman standing under a willow tree took a photo of the national treasure, the keep of Matsumoto Castle

In the early Edo period, when the Tokugawa Shogunate had been established after the Battle of Sekigahara, but its power was not yet solid, the feudal lords in various regions built castles, partly due to rearrangement of their positions. It is called "Keicho's rush to build castles". As a result, as many as 3,000 castles were built in various parts of Japan, and hundreds of castle towers were erected. But what about them? Although they have fallen into disuse with the passage of time, few of the original castles built before the Meiji Restoration remain to this day. There are only 12 castles that still have their original castle tower. Many of the castles that had stood here and there were closed down after the Tokugawa Shogunate, after it had destroyed the Toyotomi clan and stabilized its power base, issued the "One Castle per Province Order" in the Genna period. The remaining castles were also put to an end by the "castle abandonment ordinance" issued after the Meiji Restoration.

Matsumoto Castle is one of the few castles that survived the decree to abolish castles after the Meiji Restoration and is one of the five castles whose castle tower is designated as a National Treasure. Even though it has remained majestic since its construction in the 1590s to the present day, its path has not been smooth. In 1872, the castle tower was nearly auctioned off and dismantled, only to be repurchased by a local influential figure, and in the early 1900s, the castle tower was severely tilted. Compared to cultures where buildings are made of stone, it is quite difficult to preserve old structures in Japan, where most buildings are made of wood.

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