View source for Four new castles around Sasayama Hyogo

{{news
|NewsTitle=Four new castles around Sasayama in Hyogo Pref.
|NewsDate=2025-05-24
|NewsBody=Continuing from my previous Kyoto update, this set features four castles from Hyōgo Prefecture. It’s a modest update, but these sites are closely tied to the same historical thread — Akechi Mitsuhide’s Tanba Campaigns — and could easily have been grouped with the Kyoto set.

My castle visits tend to fall into two categories: either the ruins themselves have caught my attention, or I’m following a historical narrative. This journey was very much the latter. Having already covered many sites on the Kyoto side of the Tanba region, I crossed into Hyōgo to complete the picture. The fall of Yakami Castle and the execution of Hatano Hideharu marked the final phase of Mitsuhide’s effort to bring Tanba under Nobunaga’s control.

# [[Okudani Castle]] was the Hatano's first castle when settling in Sasayama. It later became a satellite fortification of [[Yakami Castle]]
# [[Yakami Castle]] was the massive stronghold of Hatano Hideharu, who surrendered to Mitsuhide in 1579 after a prolonged siege.
# [[Hannyaji Castle]] served as a forward staging ground for Mitsuhide.
# [[Kinzan Castle]] was strategically placed to cut off communication and reinforcements between [[Yakami Castle]] (Hatano) and [[Kuroi Castle]] (Akai Naomasa) — effectively isolating both strongholds for the final campaigns.


'''Functional Update''' 

I’m now adding my GPS tracks using Yamap, a Japanese hiking platform in the Visitor Information section of some castle profiles. These additions will only include my own content and will only be added appear when I think they’ll be useful to others, but not when the trail was terribly inefficient or, when I got embarrassingly lost. For well-documented castles like Himeji, or very small sites, a GPS track won’t add much, so I’ll skip them. Along the same lines, I'll link my YouTube videos here too.

I began mapping castle visits back in 2009, starting with Takiyama Castle. Since then, I’ve recorded GPS tracks for all but two trips (due to device issues) to help geo-tag my photos. These were previously hosted on my old site, but Google’s shift to paid services made that unsustainable. Yamap now offers similar tools — like elevation profiles — and with GPS and smartphones now standard, I hope these tracks are helpful to other castle explorers. I will retroactively upload some of the more interesting or useful tracks when I have time or interest.

Finally, I’ll be taking a short break for work travel. The next updates — focused on Shiga Prefecture — will resume in late June or July.
|CastlesReferenced=[[Okudani Castle||Yakami Castle||Hannyaji Castle||Kinzan Castle]]
}}