The Kuroda House was a large manor operated by Todaiji Temple from the Heian to Muromachi Periods. As battles were fought over interests in the surrounding region as cultivation progressed, the local woodcutters were changed to mountain warrior groups, and the control of Todaiji could no longer keep the growing power of the warriors at bay. (Emergence of Akuto) The Akuto (bad party) eventually became the nobles of the Iga people as local rulers, and for name purposes, the manor name was Todaiji territory, but the actuality was that it was under the control of the alliance of local nobles.

Medieval Castles
After the Nara period, there were numerous manors of Todaiji and Kofukuji temples in Iga. However, from the middle Kamakura Period and onward, the samurai society became prosperous, and with that rulers and retainers became armed, and the nobles of Iga came to control the manors. Up to the Sengoku (Warring States) Period, there was no one ruler who achieved control of the whole of Iga, and an autonomous alliance of warriors was formed. These nobles built manors to control their domains, surrounding them with mounds and digging moats. There were both cases of building on flat land, and on mountain tops and sides, living in “castle houses”, which functioned as houses on a regular basis and as fortresses in times of battle. On a large scale, “Hijiyama Castle” was a main battle site in the “Tensei Iga War”, “Momochi Tanba Castle (Momochi Fortress)”, “Chigachishi (Hattori) Castle”, "Fujibayashi Nagatonomikami Castle", and others, remain. Also, “Takeshimashi Castle” and at the site of “Sawamurashi Castle”, of the “last ninja of the Bakumatsu period”, mounds and building shapes remain.