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A castle gate without doors is rather unusual in Japanese castles. There is a reason why this one has no doors. Long ago and enemy attacked and chased the castle men back up into the castle. When they got through this gate they closed it as quickly as possible to keep the
enemy out. But one of the castle man was accidently left outside. He pounded on the doors but the castle men were afraid to open them. The man was killed, but the next night when the doors were closed they could hear pounding and desparate screaming 'Let me in! Oh, please let me in. They will kill me!' This went on every night until at last they removed the doors and the screaming stopped.
It is a spooky story but this is not a true story and Matsuyama Castle has never been attacked. We are not sure why there are no doors. One theory is that it was a way to trick an enemy into thinking they could get through easily. They would run through the Tonashi-mon and then be stopped at Tsutsui-mon. It does seem that there were never doors at this gate.
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