was a mid-

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

, and the seventh ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of ...

in the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, , or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains ...

of northern Japan, and the 23rd hereditary chieftain of the

Date clan The is a Japanese samurai kin group.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Date", ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 5 retrieved 2013-5-5. History The Date fam ...

Biography

Shigemura was the second son of Date Munemura. His infant name was Gihachirō (儀八郎), and he was renamed Date Kunimura on the death of his elder brother in 1745. At the time of his ''

genpuku is a public holiday in Japan held annually on the second Monday of January under the Happy Monday System. It is held in order to congratulate and encourage all those who have already reached the age of maturity between April 2 of the previou ...

'' ceremony in 1755, he received a ''

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

'' from ''

Shōgun , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

Tokugawa Ieshige Tokugawa Ieshige; 徳川家重 (28 January 1712 – 13 July 1761) was the ninth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. The first son of Tokugawa Yoshimune, his mother was the daughter of Ōkubo Tadanao, known as Osuma no kata. His moth ...

and thus became Date Shigemura. He became ''daimyō'' at the age of 15 the following year, on the death of his father. Due to his youth, the shogunate appointed his uncle, Tamura Murataka of Ichinoseki Domain as his guardian. He inherited a dire situation, in which the domain was suffering from a great famine, finances were in arrears, and there was bitter in-fighting between the various senior retainers. In 1760, Shigemura married his

second cousin A cousin is a relative who is the child of a parent's sibling; this is more specifically referred to as a first cousin. A parent of a first cousin is an aunt or uncle. More generally, in the kinship system used in the English-speaking world, ...

, Toshiko, the daughter of the ''

kuge The was a Japanese Aristocracy (class), aristocratic Social class, class that dominated the Japanese Imperial Court in Kyoto. The ''kuge'' were important from the establishment of Kyoto as the capital during the Heian period in the late 8th ce ...

'', Hirohata Nakatada, and adopted daughter of the '' Kampaku''

Konoe Uchisaki , son of regent Iehisa, was a ''kugyō'' or Japanese court noble of the Edo period (1603–1868). He held regent positions kampaku from 1757 to 1762 and from 1772 to 1778 and sesshō from 1762 to 1772. He married a daughter of Tokugawa Munehar ...

. This year also marked the end of his guardianship, and he was free to start to reform the situation within the domain on his own. However, he was severely sidetracked by an issue over his

courtesy title A courtesy title is a title that does not have legal significance but is rather used by custom or courtesy, particularly, in the context of nobility, the titles used by children of members of the nobility (cf. substantive title). In some context ...

and Court rank. Nominally, Sendai Domain was considered to have the same status in the Shōgun’s court as

Kagoshima Domain The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...

. In 1764,

Shimazu Shigehide Shimazu is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Esther Shimazu (born 1957), American/Hawaiian sculptor * Saeko Shimazu (born 1959), Japanese voice actress * Shimazu clan, ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han * Shimazu Hisamitsu ...

, ''daimyō'' of Kagoshima, received promotion to Junior Fourth Rank, Senior grade and ''Sakonoe-gon-chūjō'' (Lieutenant General of the Left Guards). Unable to abide by being surpassed by Shigehide, who was three years younger, Shigemura was forced to make a tremendous outlay in presents and bribes to shogunal officials to have his courtesy titles and position raised as well. To pay for these expenses, he demanded that his senior retainers accept cuts in their stipends, and those who protested were placed under house arrest. In 1767, he finally achieved promotion, but at the cost of 220,000 ''

ryō The was a gold currency unit in the shakkanhō system in pre- Meiji Japan. It was eventually replaced with a system based on the '' yen''. Origins The ''ryō'' was originally a unit of weight from China, the ''tael.'' It came into use in Ja ...

''. In 1768, Sendai Domain received an order from the Shogunate to mint iron coins for a seven-year period. Normally, minting was considered a very lucrative task; however, the sudden influx of vast amounts of coinage from Sendai Domain created inflation nationwide, which drove the value of the coinage down. Also, as the traditional copper coinage was considered more valuable than Sendai iron coins despite having the same face value, this caused much confusion in the market. The shogunate intervened in 1772 to cut the contract short; but then relented in 1776 to permit another two years of production, as long as the coins remained within the borders of Sendai. These antics did nothing to improve on the even worsening financial situation and political in-fighting within the domain. In 1790, Shigemura resigned in favor of his son, and died six years later at the domain's ''shimoyashiki'' in Edo.

Family

* Father: Date Munemura * Mother: Osei no Kata (1719–1763) * Wife: Toshiko (1745–1808) ** 1st daughter: unnamed, died in infancy ** 3rd daughter: Manhime, married Ii Naotomi of Hikone Domain * Concubine: Osega no Kata ** 1st son: Date Sosaburo (d. 1787) * Concubine: Okoto no Kata ** 2nd daughter: Junhime, married Date Muranaga, ''daimyō'' of Uwajima Domain * Concubine: Osega no Kata ** 4th daughter: Seihime married Ikeda Harumichi, ''daimyō'' of Tottori Domain ** 5th daughter: Sachihime, married Tsuchiya Hidenao ''daimyō'' of Tsuchiura Domain ** 3rd son: Date Sensaburo, died in childhood ** 9th daughter: unnamed, died in infancy * Concubine: Ojo no Kata ** 2nd son: Date Narimura, ''daimyō'' of Sendai Domain ** 6th daughter: Hohime, died in childhood * Concubine: Osode no Kata ** 7th daughter: Meguhime, died in childhood * Concubine: Odai no Kata ** 8th daughter: Kazuhime, died in childhood * Concubine: Oai no Kata ** 10th daughter: Utsuhime, married Date Murayuki of the ''hatamoto'' Tome-Date clan

In popular culture

*The 2016 Japanese

jidaigeki is a genre of film, television, and theatre in Japan. Literally meaning "historical drama, period dramas", it refers to stories that take place before the Meiji Restoration of 1868. ''Jidaigeki'' show the lives of the samurai, farmers, crafts ...

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

is set in Sendai Domain at the time of Date Shigemura, and refers to the issue of Shigemura's rivalry with Shimazu Shigehide over courtesy titles. Date Shigemura is played by the figure skater

Yuzuru Hanyu is a Japanese figure skater and ice show producer. Universally regarded as one of the greatest figure skaters in history for his well-rounded skills, achievements, innovations, longevity, popularity, and impact on the sport, he started skat ...

References

* Papinot, Edmond. (1948). ''Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan''. New York: Overbeck Co.

External links

Sendai Domain on "Edo 300 HTML"
(3 Nov. 2007) {{DEFAULTSORT:Date, Shigemura 1742 births 1796 deaths Tozama daimyo Shigemura People of the Edo period