was a Japanese ''

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

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 ...

, who ruled the Koga Domain. He served as a ''

rōjū The , usually translated as ''Elder (administrative title), Elder'', was one of the highest-ranking government posts under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. The term refers either to individual Elders, or to the Council of Elders as a wh ...

'' for

Tokugawa Ienari Tokugawa Ienari (, 18 November 1773 – 22 March 1841) was the eleventh and longest-serving ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan who held office from 1787 to 1837.Hall, John Whitney ''et al.'' (1991) ''Early Modern Japan'', p. 21./ref> ...

during the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

Biography

Toshitsura was born in 1789. He was known to have a scholarly inclination and surrounded himself with individuals who were scholars, artists, and calligraphers. One of Toshitsura greater cultural legacies are the diagrams he made of 86 types of

snowflakes A snowflake is a single ice crystal that is large enough to fall through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.Knight, C.; Knight, N. (1973). Snow crystals. Scientific American, vol. 228, no. 1, pp. 100–107.Hobbs, P.V. 1974. Ice Physics. Oxford: C ...

that he catalogued in a book he titled the ''Sekka zusetsu'', published in 1832. He made his drawings by observing snowflakes with a Dutch

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory equipment, laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic ...

, and his drawings became popular among the artists of the time, who petitioned to see his work. He would later expand his categories to 97 in 1840. Toshitsura decision to bring his vassal Takami Senseki, a prominent retainer of the Koga Domain, to Nagaskiin 1836 resulted in the reproduction of a 'world map' which modern scholars have celebrated for relating trade routes and art of the time. Sekka zusetsu

In 1837 Toshitsura stopped a revolt led by Oshio Heihachirō, defending the castle of Osaka from Oshio's rebellion. Among the officials of the Bakufu, Toshitsura was one of the ''

'' who were affected by the October 7, 1843 tempō reforms. Toshitsura, who was then a ''

'' and held fiefs in Shimosa and Settsu, was in a position to have 13,000

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

of his Settsu holdings to be confiscated by the Bakufu. Despite his previous support for Tadakuni's reforms, this threatened to render him financially

insolvent In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company ( debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet in ...

due to debts owed to his peasants. When he failed to negotiate a settlement with his peasants he instead attempted to oppose the Shogun's requests, a decision that rivals tried to pressure him with. Toshitsura would succeed though in getting the Shogun to halt his fief reformation plans. Toshitsura was succeeded by

Abe Masahiro was the chief senior councilor ('' rōjū'') in the Tokugawa shogunate of the Bakumatsu period at the time of the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry on his mission to open Japan to the outside world. Abe was instrumental in the eventual signi ...

in his capacity as rōjū in 1845. He died in 1848.

Portrayal in Media

* Toshitsura character instigated the assassination against Matsudaira Naritsugu in the 1963 film 13 Assassins, where he was played by Tetsurō Tamba. * In the 2010 remake of the 1963 film, Toshitsura was played by Mikijirō Hira.

References

1789 births 1848 deaths Daimyo Rōjū Kyoto Shoshidai Glaciologists {{daimyo-stub