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The star
Takeda Ayasaburō designed a star-shaped fort to face cannons
Goryōkaku, meaning five-point fort, was designed in 1855 by Takeda Ayasaburō, a Rangaku scholar who studied the fortified cities of Europe. Its star shape allowed more gun emplacements on its walls and fewer blind spots where cannons could not fire.
The republic
Rebels founded the Ezo Republic and made the fort its headquarters
Rebels under Enomoto Takeaki occupied the fortress on October 26, 1868. On December 25 they founded the Ezo Republic, with a government modeled on that of the United States and Enomoto as President. The Meiji government in Tokyo refused to recognise it.
French officers
French officers commanded the brigades of the Ezo Republic
The Ezo Republic troops were under hybrid Franco-Japanese leadership. Commander in chief Ōtori Keisuke was seconded by Jules Brunet, and each of the four brigades was commanded by a French officer.
After
The buildings were torn down and the moat was used to collect ice
After the war most buildings were torn down because of their link to the Tokugawa shogunate. The moat was used for collecting ice in winter, sold on Honshu as Goryōkaku Ice. The site became a park in 1914 and a Special Historical Site in 1952.
Rebuilt
The magistrate's office was partly rebuilt and finished in 2010
All but one of the historical buildings were torn down. A partial reconstruction of the main building, the magistrate's office, was finished in 2010. It holds an exhibition on the building as the Tokugawa shogunate's brief administrative center of Hokkaido.
Day 5, midday
It comes after Hakodate Morning Market. Then Former British Consulate of Hakodate.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Goryōkaku and the Wikipedia article Battle of Hakodate, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.