was a Japanese

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 ...

warrior and ''

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 the late

Sengoku The was the period in Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as the period's start ...

and early

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 ...

s. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)
"Akizuki" at ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 2
retrieved 2013-5-28. He was the son of

Akizuki Tanezane was a samurai warrior and daimyo in 16th century Japan. He was a member of the Akizuki clan from Chikuzen Province, son of Akizuki Fumitane; his father was defeated by the Ōtomo clan. in 1564. Biography Following his father death by Otom ...

. In 1586, Tanenaga joined with his father to fight against

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

forces during the

Kyūshū campaign The Kyūshū campaign of 1586–1587 was part of the campaigns of Toyotomi Hideyoshi who sought to dominate Japan at the end of the Sengoku period. Having subjugated much of Honshū and Shikoku, Hideyoshi turned his attention to the south ...

In 1598, Tanenaga made contributions at the

Siege of Ulsan The siege of Ulsan () was an unsuccessful Ming-Joseon attempt to capture Ulsan from the Japanese. The siege lasted from 26 January to 19 February 1598. Background Yang Hao, Ma Gui, and Gwon Yul met up at Gyeongju on the 26 January 1598 and ...

castle against the allied Chinese and Korean armies. During the

Korean campaign The Imjin War () was a series of two Japanese invasions of Korea: an initial invasion in 1592 also individually called the "Imjin War", a brief truce in 1596, and a second invasion in 1597 called the Chŏngyu War (). The conflict ended in 159 ...

, Tanenaga served under

Kuroda Nagamasa was a ''daimyō'' during the late Azuchi–Momoyama and early Edo periods. He was the son of Kuroda Kanbei, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's chief strategist and adviser. Biography Nagamasa's childhood name was Shojumaru (松寿丸). In 1577 his fathe ...

. In 1600, in the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, ...

, Tanenaga defended

Ōgaki Castle 270px, Ōgaki Castle in 1933 270px, Edo period layout map of Ōgaki Castle is a flatlands-style Japanese castle located in the city of Ōgaki, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. During the Sengoku period, Ōgaki Castle was home to several of Toyotomi Hide ...

on behalf of the "Western Army". However, soon after the Western Army suffered defeat, Mizuno Katsunari convinced Tanenaga to switch allegiance to the Eastern Army. Tokugawa Ieyasu rewarded Tanenaga by recognizing his territory and enabling him to become the first head of

Takanabe Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, in what is now central Miyazaki Prefecture. It was centered around Takanabe Castle and was ruled by the ''tozama daimyō'' Akizuki clan for all of its history. In its ear ...

Hyūga Province was a province of Japan in the area of southeastern Kyūshū, corresponding to modern Miyazaki Prefecture Hyūga bordered on Ōsumi to the south, Higo to the west, and Bungo to the north. Its abbreviated form name was , although it was als ...

on the island of

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

. Tanenaga did not have a son so he adopted,

Akizuki Taneharu The Japanese name Akizuki may refer to: * Akizuki clan, a Japanese noble family * Akizuki (surname) * Akizuki rebellion, in 1876 * , several classes of Japanese warships * , several Japanese ships {{disambiguation ...

, the son of Tanesada (his son in law also his first cousin who supposedly succeeded him but disinherited due to poor health) and Ochō (his daughter), was appointed as Tanenaga’s successor. Tanenaga died in 1614 and Taneharu inherited the clan.

References

External links

Genealogy of the Akizuki of Takanabe
(in Japanese) 1567 births 1614 deaths Daimyo Samurai {{samurai-stub