Higashikubiki

Higashikubiki covers the hill country of eastern Kubiki in Echigo, including Matsudai and Matsunoyama. These valleys were connected to the military road used by Uesugi Kenshin between his base at Kasugayama and the routes into Kantō. Castles at Matsudai, Inubushi and Murono guarded important points along that corridor. Matsudai's ridge-top earthworks overlooked the Shibumi River; the local museum considers it likely that the stronghold helped secure the route between Ueda and Kasugayama during the succession struggle following Kenshin's death in 1578.

The Matsunoyama district had a different administrative history from neighbouring Uonuma during the Edo period. After the removal of Takada lord Matsudaira Mitsunaga in 1681, it became shogunal land, later administered on the shogunate's behalf by Takada domain. Its mountain communities therefore belonged to a landscape of local forts, roads and villages whose connections to wider authority changed repeatedly, rather than to one unchanging provincial lordship.