![]() ![]() It featured a detailed drawing of Tanaka Castle during the siege that matched up exactly with the picture that was emerging from the excavation. ![]() Many interesting finds were made, but the greatest discovery of all came in 1989 in a distant library when a researcher unearthed what turned out to be Japan's oldest surviving battle map. Prompted by the approaching fourth centenary of the battle the local council set in motion a systematic archaeological investigation of the castle site. When the castle fell it was burned to the ground, and for four centuries the epic struggle lived on only through a handful of letters, two little-known war chronicles and in the folk memories of the local people who continued to make offerings on the now anonymous hillside to comfort the tormented spirits of Tanaka's dead warriors. ![]() In 1587 the 1,000-strong garrison of tiny Tanaka Castle in Higo Province (modern Kumamoto Prefecture) on Japan's southern island of Kyushu, held out for 100 days against an army ten times their size sent by the great general Toyotomi Hideyoshi. ![]()
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