Konomine Castle Ruins

Konomine Castle was on the summit of Mt. Konomine, overlooking Yamaguchi from a height of 338 meters. The Ouchi clan ruled Yamaguchi from the 14th to 16th centuries. Ouchi Yoshinaga, the last head of the clan, started building the castle in 1556 as a defense against the Mori clan of Hiroshima. But construction did not proceed very far. When the Mori forces attacked the following February, Yoshinaga fled and met his end at present-day Kozanji Temple in Shimonoseki. After the Ouchi clan’s downfall, it became a supporting castle of the Mori clan, but then it was demolished as part of a national “one domain, one castle” policy decreed in 1615.