備中高松城

Bitchū-Takamatsu Castle in Okayama Prefecture is immortalized in Japanese history by the famous 'water siege' of 1582, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi (then Hashiba Hideyoshi) surrounded it with a 3 km earthen dike in just 12 days, flooding the surrounding lowlands and isolating the castle on a water island. Castle lord Shimizu Muneharu refused to surrender and, to save his garrison's lives, performed seppuku on a boat in view of the besieging army, composing a farewell poem before death. Hideyoshi received news of the Honnō-ji Incident (Nobunaga's assassination) during the siege and, concealing it from the Mōri clan, quickly concluded peace terms — then raced back to defeat Akechi Mitsuhide at the Battle of Yamazaki. Muneharu's loyal death is celebrated as a supreme expression of bushidō, and the site preserves the dike remnants and the lord's grave mound.