Seosaengpo Castle
Constructed in 1592-3 as a defensive bastion against Choseon "Righteous Armies" and attacks by Admiral Yi Sun Shin's navy, Seosaengpo Castle dominated the small harbor below and protected the main Japanese base at Busan against land attack from the northeast. The castle's elongated shape was unique amongst the castles the Japanese invaders built to protect their lines of supply and communication in Korea. Yet the basic and enduring Japanese castle design featuring heavily landscaped, multiple rings of defense overlapping and supporting one another remains visible today.
(click to view enlarged pictures)
Artist's Rendition of the Completed Castle
This artist's rendition, posted on site at Seosaengpo, gives a good overall feel for the size--and more importantly the length--of the fortress. The numbers correspond to the location from which the various pictures below were taken.
#1: Long Southwestern Wall, Lower Section
This long, relatively low wall guarded the land-side approach to the castle from the Southwest. At the time the castle was constructed, you could have expected the stonework to have been topped by a sturdy wood/plaster structure with loopholes to facilitate bow and arquebus fire by the defenders inside. The further one travels downhill from the castle's tenshu, the fewer stones in this wall remain until it disappears into the farm fields and village below.
#2 First Internal Gate Complex
As you walk up the path toward the tenshu, still invisible in the trees growing atop the hill, the castle ruins seem to pop up out of the foliage. This is the first site one now gets of the first internal gate complex, well up the side of the slope. The picture makes clear how height is used to great advantage in the structure's placement. There is, by contrast, no longer any sign of the external gates, the stones there long ago carted off as readily available building materials by local residents.
#3 First Internal Gate Complex
A closer view of the gate complex from the front.
#4 First Internal Gate Complex
The view of the gate from the rear, or inside. The gate itself would have most likely been fashioned out of wood, the entire structure allowing elevated lines of sight with which to fire on an attacking force that breached the lower defensive ring.
#5 Path Leading Up to the Second Internal Gate Complex
Note the rapid rise in elevation. Any defender at the next defensive ring could have poured fire down upon an enemy that breached the first gate. This is a common design feature of Japanese Castles which are based upon the principle of defense in depth.
#6 First View of the Tenshu
Halfway between the first and second internal gates you get your first real view of the flattened tenshu atop the hill. Again note the difference in elevation of the different defensive rings and imagine having to assault such a stronghold. This was the tactical problem facing Korean guerrilla forces, the Choseon Army, and the Ming Chinese Army as they closed in on and besieged Japan's Korean toe-hold 1593-7.
#7 View of the Harbor from the Second Defensive Ring
The built-up area below appears to lie on reclaimed land, but the sea remains visible beyond the buildings. In 1593 the water would have come closer, and Seosaengpo was designed in such a way that it's lower walls facing the ocean could offer Japanese supply vessels and warships protection against the seaborne incursions of Admiral Yi. The hill upon which the castle was built is not so terribly high, yet one can see from this view how it dominates the low-lying areas.
#8 Leading up to the Inner Defensive Ring
The further one proceeds up the hill, the more masonry is evident. The rising wall visible here lies just inside the 2nd Internal Gate and leads to the Tenshu above.
#9 Gate to the Inner Defensive Ring and Tenshu
As well, the closer one gets to the tenshu, the higher the stone walls become. You can see this internal gate complex is significantly taller than those passed on the way up the hill. As before, the walls and gate would have been topped by wooden structures to allow protected firing at attackers who made it this far. You'll also notice that the trees planted within the inner ring are all cherry trees and we arrived just in time for the blossoms to carpet the ground making it a strikingly beautiful scene.
#10 Innermost Courtyard
Taken from the yawning stone gateway and looking in, this enclosure formed the central courtyard for the castle and stairs leading up and into the tenshu were only accessible from within.
#11 Northern Exterior Walls
After climbing the steep hill from the north, these formidable walls, again topped with wood and plaster bulwarks and manned by gunners and archers, would defend against any attack directly against the high interior defensive ring.
#12 Stairs Leading to the Tenshu
These stone stairs, fortuitously highlighted by fallen cherry blossoms, lead to the stone base of the castle's wooden superstructure, the tenshu.