Site of Katsumoto Castle

Katsumoto Castle on Iki Island was built in just four months in 1591 as a staging base for Toyotomi Hideyoshi's planned invasion of Korea, intended to give him a personal command post 80 meters above the harbor where the expeditionary fleet would anchor. Hideyoshi's illness prevented him from ever using it, and the invasion failed. The Tokugawa shogunate later had the castle decommissioned as part of diplomatic reconciliation with Korea. Today the site is a park above the village of Katsumoto, with the entrance gate and most of the surrounding ramparts intact. The corner stones were removed, a standard method at the time for disabling a fortification without full demolition.