was the 10th ''daimyō'' of
Toyama Domain
was a Han (Japan), feudal domain in Edo period Japan, located in Etchū Province (modern-day Toyama Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Toyama Castle in what is now the city of Toyama, Toyama, Toyama. Throughout its history, it was ruled by a ...
in the
Hokuriku region
The is located in the northwestern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It lies along the Sea of Japan and is part of the larger Chūbu region. It is almost equivalent to the former Koshi Province (Japan), Koshi Province and Hokurikudō are ...
of Japan, and a noted Japanese
naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
and
entomologist
Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...
.
Toshiyasu was born in Edo as Keitaro (啓太郎), the second son of
Maeda Toshinori, but was still underage on his father's death, so the domain was assigned to
Maeda Toshitsuyo instead. In 1811, he was adopted by Toshitsuyo to restore the line of succession and became ''daimyō'' in 1835 when Toshitsuyo retired due to illness. On taking office, the domain was hit hard by a crop failure, which continued through 1838 as part of the
Tenpō famine. The domain defaulted on all its debts, and was forced to take a 30,000 ''
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 ...
'' loan from the shogunate in 1838, followed by an additional 25,000 ''ryō'' the following year. In 1841, the domain reported that it did not have the funds to make its required ''
sankin kōtai'' to Edo. In 1846, citing ill heath, Toshiyasu went into retirement in favor of his sixth son, Maeda Toshitomo. His wife was a daughter of
Asano Narikata of
Hiroshima Domain
The was a large domain that owned all of Aki Province and half of Bingo Province. It occupies most of current Hiroshima Prefecture. The domain office was located at Hiroshima Castle in Sato District, Aki Province (renamed Numata District in 1 ...
.
Along with
Kuroda Narikiyo of
Fukuoka Domain, he was also a noted scientist, and organised a society of naturalists which met each month. An account was written of the subject discussed, for instance, in September 1840 they discussed the beetle family
Scarabaeidae
The family Scarabaeidae, as currently defined, consists of over 35,000 species of beetles worldwide; they are often called scarabs or scarab beetles. The classification of this family has undergone significant change. Several groups formerly tre ...
and wrote ''Kyōro-shakō-zusetsu'' in which twenty chafer species are scientifically drawn and described. As these studies were refined each member of the group became a specialist. Maede learned the
Dutch language
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the List of languages by total number of speak ...
(the Japanese naturalists followed
Philipp Franz von Siebold
Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveller. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora (plants), flora and fauna (animals), fauna and the introduction of ...
and also learned the
French language
French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...
Siebold's choice for
Fauna Japonica and
Flora Japonica) and translated the Dutch language
Systema Naturae
' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...
into
Japanese. He is also noted for authoring the ''Honzō Tsūkan'', an encyclopaedia of Chinese medicinal herbs, which remained uncompleted in 94 volumes at the time of his death.
References
*
Japanese entomologists
1800 births
1859 deaths
Tozama daimyo
Maeda clan
People of the Edo period
{{entomologist-stub