Mount Ryōzen is a mountain on the border of Soma City that stands at 825 meters. During the Heian Period, the original Ryōzen Temple (or Ryōzen-ji; not to be confused with Ryōzen Shrine, which was founded in 1881) was constructed on Mount Ryōzen, where it flourished as a center of Buddhist learning in the North for hundreds of years. During the War of the Northern and Southern Courts, otherwise known as the Nanboku-cho War, then governor of the province of Mutsu, Kitabatake Akiie had Ryozen Castle constructed within the temple grounds and stayed there for a number of months between military campaigns. Having left Ryōzen to pursue Ashikaga Takauji, Akiie died in battle at the young age of twenty-one. A statue of Akiie stands at the foot of Mount Ryōzen, at one entrance to Ryōzen Shrine, where he is enshrined with his father, Kitabatake Chikafusa.