Kusunoki Masashige: Chihaya Castle to Minatogawa

Kusunoki's early schooling took place at Kanshin-ji Temple in Kawachinagano, in what is now southern Osaka Prefecture. While studying there he made regular trips into central Kawachinagano to learn strategy from a man named Oe Tokichika. The temple was also the bodaiji, the family temple, of the Kusunoki clan. After his death at Minatogawa his head was sent back here and buried in a kubizuka, a head mound, so his story begins and ends at this temple.

Visitor guidance: The kubizuka, the head mound of Kusunoki, is in the temple grounds.

In November 1331 an army of 200,000 to 300,000 Kamakura shogunate soldiers arrived to besiege Akasaka, held by just 200 samurai. Kusunoki's best-known trick came here: attackers scaling the wall found it was a fake one, which he signalled to be collapsed under them. Cunning could not save the fort once the besiegers cut off its water supply. The ruins of Shimo-Akasaka Castle are a National Historic Site in Chihaya-Akasaka, the village linked to his birthplace, where a small monument called the Nanko Tanjochi stands.

Location precision: The sources name the Shimo-Akasaka ruins in Chihayaakasaka but give no exact spot, so this stop has no pin.

Visitor guidance: The castle ruins are a designated National Historic Site in Chihayaakasaka, Osaka Prefecture.

Chihaya Castle on Mount Kongō was Kusunoki's great stand. The only access was a climb of 500 steep, narrow stairs, and the castle had its own well and supplies carried in by yamabushi mountain monks, so it could not be starved or parched out like Akasaka. In 1333 he held it with dummy troops and surprise raids until the enemy retreated on learning that the Hojo Rokuhara troops in Kyoto had collapsed. The ruins are a National Historic Site.

Visitor guidance: The ruins are a National Historic Site on the slopes of Mount Kongō; expect a steep climb.

On 5 July 1336 Kusunoki fought his last battle near the Minato River, in present-day Kobe. Emperor Go-Daigo had rejected his proposed plan and refused to leave Kyoto, so Kusunoki went to battle, first ordering his eldest son, Masatsura, back to their domain to continue the war. By the end he was down to 73 of his original 700 horsemen, and he died on the field. Minatogawa Shrine, established in 1872 roughly on the battle site, enshrines his spirit.

Location precision: The shrine stands roughly on the site of the battle; the exact ground is not known.

Visitor guidance: Minatogawa Shrine stands roughly on the battlefield, in central Kobe.

Kusunoki is remembered as the ideal loyal samurai, and in 1880 the Meiji government posthumously awarded him Senior First Rank, the highest court rank in Japan. In Tokyo the Kokyo Gaien, the outer garden in front of the Imperial Palace, holds bronze monuments to him and to Wake no Kiyomaro. His bronze monument closes the route, far from the Osaka hills where he made his name.

Visitor guidance: In the Kokyo Gaien National Garden, next to the Imperial Palace grounds in Chiyoda, Tokyo.