Once the fortress of the Mōri family, Hagi-jō was built at the foot of Shizuki-yama in 1604, following the defeat of Mōri Terumoto in the Battle of Sekigahara. Unusually, given the topography, the castle was almost entirely a flatland one, though a pair of towers was built on the mountain - one halfway up and the other at its summit. The castle area remains somewhat separated from the rest of town even today, with a channel of sea water dividing it from the former samurai town in what is now Horiuchi and Jōkamachi. Despite Hagi largely leading the earliest push for the Meiji Restoration, the castle was completely dismantled in 1874, with only the stone walls and moat surviving to the modern era. Pictured at the center-left is the foundation of the former donjon.