A beautifully preserved shrine where the spirit of Akizuki’s first daimyo is enshrined.
The shrine was built in 1859 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Kuroda Nagaoki’s death (1610-1665) by Kuroda Nagamoto (10 generations removed from Nagaoki).
Nagamoto named the shrine after Nagaoki’s Shinto name “Suiyou Daimyojin”, and enshrined him here to show his gratitude to his ancestor.
Kuroda Nagaoki was the third child of the Kuroda clan, aged just 14 he became daimyo (a ruler of a samurai family with control of large land assets) of the Akizuki domain in 1624. Despite his age he was well respected and achieved widespread fame through his military successes in the Shimabara Rebellion (1638), using Akizuki as his strategic base. Nagaoki ruled the domain until his death in 1665.
In 1947, the spirits of Japanese who fought and lost their lives in battles such as the Akizuki Rebellion, the Saga Rebellion, the Shinpuren Rebellion in Kumamoto, the Fukuoka Rebellion, the Satsuma Rebellion, the Sino-Japanese war, the Russo-Japanese War and World War Two, as well as those who had contributed financially to Akizuki, were enshrined here by successive generations of the Akizuki clan. Several memorial stones can be found around the edges of the shrine’s grounds.
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