in'you-no-kuruwa　陰陽の郭

KEY WORD :　architecture / castles

Defensive castle compounds in-no-kuruwa 陰の郭 and offensive castle compounds you-no-kuruwa 陽の郭. In Chinese, yin and yang compounds. Such in and you concepts were applied to castle design by early modern period military scholars (17c-19c). Defensive compounds are located at the rear of a castle、whereas offensive compounds are at the front、allowing castle garrisons to go on the attack easily. These principles also affected the design of installations such as bridges, and gateway barriers *umadashi 馬出. The same distinction between defensive and offensive orientation was also applied to entire castles: a castle designed to be primarily defensive was known as in-no-nawa 陰の縄 or in-no-shiro 陰の城；a castle designed to be used for attacking was called you-no-nawa 陽の縄 or you-no-shiro 陽の城.

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