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The order
Every feudal lord in western Japan was ordered to help build it
In 1601 Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, ordered all the feudal lords in western Japan to contribute to the building of Nijō Castle. It was completed in 1626 as the Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa shōguns.
The palace
The palace was built to show visitors the shogun's power
The Ninomaru Palace is built almost entirely of Hinoki cypress, with lavish gold leaf and wood carvings. Low-ranking visitors were received in the outer regions, while high-ranking visitors were shown the inner chambers.
The floors
The corridor floors chirp when walked upon
The corridors of the Ninomaru Palace have nightingale floors, called uguisubari. They are often described as an intruder alarm, but the sound is just clamps moving against nails in the wooden beams that support the floor.
The losses
Lightning burned the keep in 1750 and fire took the Inner Ward
The central keep was struck by lightning and burned to the ground in 1750. In 1788 the Inner Ward was destroyed by a citywide fire. The site stayed empty until a prince's residence was moved there from the Kyoto Imperial Palace in 1893.
1867
In 1867 authority was returned to the Imperial Court here
In 1867 the Ninomaru Palace was the stage for the declaration by Tokugawa Yoshinobu, returning authority to the Imperial Court. In 1868 the Imperial Cabinet was installed in the castle, and the Tokugawa hollyhock crest was replaced where possible.
Day 3, morning
Next is Kyoto Imperial Palace.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Nijō Castle, 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.