The “Great Return” refers to the “Great Return from Mino,” when Hashiba Hideyoshi raced 52 kilometers from Ogaki Castle in five hours in 1583 (Tensho 11). This rapid march was one of the key factors that dramatically shifted the course of the Battle of Shizugatake. An exhibition that organizes every phase of the battle by fort is located on the second-floor free passage of JR Kinomoto Station. Because the ticket gates are on the second floor, you can step off the train and head straight into the concourse. As soon as you enter, the large faces of warlords greet you.

Exhibition Highlights: The Diorama and Fort-by-Fort Panels

As you enter the second-floor concourse, the first thing that catches your eye is a large wall panel. It shows four warlords—Shibata Katsuie, Sakuma Morimasa, Hashiba Hideyoshi, and Hashiba Hidenaga—facing one another, with the phrase “Aiming for the unification of the realm!” displayed above them. In a single image, it conveys that the Battle of Shizugatake was the battle in which the brothers Hideyoshi and Hidenaga opened the path toward national unification.

The heart of the exhibition is a set of wall panels explaining individual forts and phases of the battle, along with a three-dimensional terrain diorama made from acrylic. The diorama recreates the mountain ridges around Shizugatake in impressive detail, making the relationship between each fort—from Higashinoyama Fort to Tagamiyama—clear at a glance. When seen in three dimensions, the geographical inevitability of why this place became a battlefield makes sense in a way that is difficult to grasp from a flat map alone.

Each exhibition panel stands on its own, explaining the role of a specific fort, such as Higashinoyama Fort, defended by Hori Hidemasa, and Genbao Castle, Shibata’s headquarters. The text is fairly detailed, so rather than trying to read everything on-site, it is best to photograph the panels that interest you and read them again later.
There are eight panels in total.
1. Higashinoyama Fort, 2. Nakanogo, 3. Genbao Castle, 4. Gyoichiyama Fort and Besshoyama Fort, 5. Tenjinyama, Shinmeiyama, and Dokiyama Forts, 6. Lake Yogo, 7. Iwasakiyama Fort, 8. Oiwayama Fort

Shizugatake Beyond the Windows: An Exhibition Unique to This Location

The second-floor concourse also includes display panels that make use of the station windows. Through the glass you can see the actual direction of Shizugatake, while explanatory labels marking the positions of the forts are overlaid on the windowpanes. Reading a battle map while looking through the glass at the real mountain ridges beyond it—this panel has a slightly different charm from the others.

Shizugatake, Where Hidenaga Waited: A Scene to Watch for in the Taiga Drama

Estimated time required: about 15 minutes

Visitor Information: Toyotomi Great Return Station

It takes less than five minutes to walk here from the station. Before you, a white-walled building with rows of semicircular arched windows appears. This is Kohoku Library—a private library founded in 1906 (Meiji 39), with its roots in the Sugino Bunko collection established in 1902 (Meiji 35). As the oldest existing library in Shiga Prefecture, it continues to operate in Kinomoto today. The current two-story wooden building was completed in 1937 (Showa 12). To coincide with this year’s taiga drama, the library is hosting a special exhibition that interprets “The Battle of Shizugatake” through local materials from its collection.

The Building Itself Is an Exhibit: A Historic Wooden Library Rooted in Sugino Bunko

Once inside, the atmosphere of the building itself is the first thing that overwhelms you. This wooden structure was completed in 1937 (Showa 12), and the floorboards creak beneath your feet as you walk down the wooden corridors. Sunlight pours in through large semicircular arched windows, and old bookshelves line the rooms. The wooden ceiling, fading walls, and brown floors create a space that feels like a scene from an old film. You may have come for the exhibition, but you will likely find yourself pausing to take in the building itself.

Old Battlefield Maps and the Mystery of the Seven Spears: What Only a Library Can Reveal

The special exhibition focuses mainly on local materials preserved in the former Ika District, now part of Nagahama City. Its presentation is distinctive: rather than simply retelling the battle, it traces how the Battle of Shizugatake has been narrated across different eras. Edo-period battlefield maps, war tales, district records, Meiji-era textbooks—the same battle appears in different forms depending on the period, revealing the changing ways it has been remembered.

The exhibit that drew my eye most was the “Map of the Formations at the Shizugatake Battlefield in Ika District, Goshu,” created in 1813 and displayed in a large format on an easel. The positions of the Hashiba and Shibata forces are color-coded, and the lettering for the Shibata side is written larger than that of the Hashiba side. Because the map was produced on the Echizen side, it preserves the perspective of “the defeated side.” Reading that explanation reminded me that documents always change depending on who created them.

The copy of Shibata Taijiki displayed in the exhibition case is also not to be missed. The reason I stopped in front of this case was the title of the explanatory panel beside it: “Were there nine Seven Spears?” The Seven Spears of Shizugatake are well known as seven warriors, including Kato Kiyomasa and Fukushima Masanori. Yet some war tales record nine men as having received rewards. Here, through the library’s materials, you can follow the process by which the story was later remembered as “seven.” Behind the changing number lies a tug-of-war between record and narrative.

Estimated time required: about 15 to 20 minutes (30 minutes or more if you read carefully)

Visitor Information: Kohoku Library