Hiroshima Castle

Hiroshima Castle (広島城 Hiroshima-jō), sometimes called Carp Castle (鯉城 Rijō) was the home of the daimyō (feudal lord) of the Hiroshima han (fief). The castle was constructed in the 1590s, but was destroyed by the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945. It

History: Mōri Terumoto, one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's council of Five Elders, built Hiroshima castle between 1589 and 1599. It was located on the delta of the Otagawa river. There was no Hiroshima city or town at the time, and the area was called Gokamura, meaning "five villages". Beginning in 1591, Mōri governed nine provinces from this castle, including much of what is now Shimane, Yamaguchi, Tottori, Okayama and Hiroshima Prefectures.

When construction on the castle began, Gokamura was renamed Hiroshima, as a more impressive name was called for. "Hiro" was taken from Ōe no Hiromoto, an ancestor of the Mōri family, and "Shima" was taken from Fukushima Motonaga, who helped Mōri Terumoto choose the castle site. Some accounts state that the name "Hiroshima", meaning "wide island", comes from the existence of several large islands in the delta of the Otagawa, near the castle's site.

Following the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Mōri was forced out of the castle, retreating to Hagi in today's Yamaguchi Prefecture. Fukushima Masanori became the lord of Aki and Bingo Provinces (which today make up Hiroshima Prefecture) and of Hiroshima castle. However, the new Tokugawa shogunate forbade any castle construction without permission from Edo; this was part of how the shogunate kept the daimyōs from gaining power and overthrowing the shogunate. When Fukushima repaired the castle following a flood in 1619, he was dispatched to Kawanakajima in today's Nagano Prefecture. Asano Nagaakira then became lord of the castle.

After the Meiji Restoration, the castle came to serve as a military facility, and the Imperial General Headquarters was based there during the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895. The foundations of several of the GHQ outbuildings, just a few hundred paces from the castle's main tower, remain today.

During the final months of World War II, the castle served as the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division, stationed there to deter the projected Allied invasion of the Japanese mainland. The castle was destroyed in the atomic bomb blast of August 6, 1945, and for many years, it was believed the castle structure was blown away by the explosion that destroyed Hiroshima, but newly discovered evidence suggests the explosion only destroyed the lower pillars of the castle, and the rest of it collapsed as a result.