Matsumoto Castle had been called Fukashi Castle in the older days. It was said that the castle was built by the Ogasaswaras who were the lord protector of Shinano country.
  From the last phase of Nara period to the eraly phase of Heian period, the capital of Shinano country had been transfer Ueda to Matsumoto. Thereafter it was called Shinano-fuchu , i.e. the capital of Shinano.As its nickname showed, Matsumoto has taken a role of a cultural and economic center in the country.

  For it was a strategic key-town, in the war age the Takedas who were aiming to get the hegemony captured and ruled it for some years. But after the war-lord fell down, the Ogasawaras got back it. And they reformed Fukashi Castle.
  Later the clan load was replaced by the Ishikawas who rebuilt a new castle on the site of Fukasi Castle in the architectural concept of Tower -Stairing type.

  By the way in earlier age, the village had been called Fukase, i.e. the deep water, because there was a huge lake surrounded by many swamps.
  Several branches of Sai-gawa river, Metoba-gawa, Narai-gawa, and Takase-gawa or so, met together at the center of the basin and great lot of water accumulated there.   Then government agency halls and temples were built and thus a town grew on the side of the lake-swamp since the ancient age.
  The east half of the basin was a tableland which continued from large ridges of the highland Utsukusi-ga-hara and other high mountains.
  Under the order of the new clan-load assigned by Tokugawa Shogunate government, on the swampside, they dug moats and drained water into them, heaping up mud, to make bankers on which they built the castle. Surrounded by moats, it looked like a castle floating on the lake.