On October the 16th 2020, I visited Fukuchiyama in Japan.
A modern building of Fukuchiyama Station.
On the top of a hill, there is Fukuchiyama Castle. This was a rename in A.D. 1579 by Mitsuhide Akechi, who was going to kill Nobunaga Oda in 1582, one of the three heroes who terminated the civil war era in Japan.
The castle tower was remade in 1986, originated from the tower in Edo period.
On the top of the tower, there are “Shachihoko”, fabulous dolphinlike fish.
There are a lot of reusages of the curved stones from Buddhism on the stone walls. You can see characters of Sanskrit on some of them.
Since the tower is on the top of the hill in Fukuchiyama Basin, you can see all over the basin from there. In the front, there is Akechi Yabu, which is a bamboo thicket founded for the control of floods.
The characteristics of the stone walls in Fukuhchiyama Castle are insertions of small stones among larger ones. This was an innovation of Mitsuhide Akechi.
If you see a remade stone wall, you can easily see there is no small stone on the wall.
This is Akechi Yabu from close inspection.
Even from Akechi Yabu, you can easily notice the castle tower.
This is a former entrance of Fukuchiyama Castle. It is now an entrance of Myokakuji Temple (明覚寺).
Now we arrived at Goryojinja Shrine (御霊神社). It worships Ukanomitama, a Japanese goddess of food, and Mitsuhide Akechi himself, who was killed immediately after the assassination of Nobunaga Oda but still memorized as a talented lord for the local people.
There are wooden curves from Edo period.
There are a lot of Adachi (足立) families in Fukuchiyama. I don’t think they are anything to do with Adachi from Numame. [Modified] The Adachi family seems to originate in Adachi laid from Tokyo to Saitama as the descendants of Fusasaki Fujiwara, who was a famous aristocrat in ancient Japan. Tomoto Adachi (足立遠元) was one of the 13 heroes in foundation of Kamakura shogunate. However, they were in downfall by Shimotsuki Sodo, an incident in Kamakura period when a famous gokenin Yasumori Adachi (安達泰盛, Adachi family with different kanji characters but a kin of 足立. Morinaga Adachi (安達盛長), another of the 13 heroes, was an ancestor of him) was killed . However, a lineage of Adachi moved to Fukuchiyama and became a samurai family of this district. They became farmers after Mitsuhide Akechi had conquered Tanba including Fukuchiyama. The descendants of these farmers are Adachi in Fukuchiyama. Therefore, the original Adachi in Kanto (Tokyo and Saitama) might have moved to Kanagawa and became farmers in Numame, Isehara, Kanagawa in Kanto.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B6%B3%E7%AB%8B%E6%B0%8F
The shopping street was quite deserted, due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Adachi-Otoemon (足立音衛門) is a fashionable shop for French sweets.
