was the 8th ''

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

Shibata Domain was a '' tozama'' feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Echigo Province, Honshū. The domain was centered at Shibata Castle, located in what is now the city of Shibata in Niigata Prefecture. It was r ...

Echigo Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It bordered on Uzen Province, Uzen, Iwashiro Province, Iwashiro, Kōzuke Province, Kōzuke, Shinano Province, Shinano, and Etchū Province, ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

(modern-day

Niigata Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture in the Chūbu region of Honshu of Japan. Niigata Prefecture has a population of 2,131,009 (1 July 2023) and is the List of Japanese prefectures by area, fifth-largest prefecture of Japan by geographic area ...

). 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 ...

was '' Shūzen-no-kami,'' and his Court rank was Junior Fifth Rank, Lower Grade.

Biography

Mizoguchi Naoyasu was the illegitimate son of Mizoguchi Naoatsu and was thus initially excluded from the succession. However, after his elder brother fell ill, he was legitimized and made heir in 1760. The same year he was received in formal audience by

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 Ieharu Tokugawa Ieharu 徳川家治 (20 June 1737 – 17 September 1786) was the tenth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, who held office from 1760 to 1786. His childhood name was Takechiyo (竹千代). Ieharu died in 1786 and given the ...

, and became ''daimyō'' in 1761 on the retirement of his father. As a youth, he was raised in comparative freedom and devoted much of his time to scholarship, especially under the

Neo-Confucianism Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, which originated with Han Yu (768–824) and Li Ao (772–841) i ...

scholars Inaba Usai and

Yamazaki Ansai was a Japanese philosopher and scholar. He began his career as a Buddhist monk, but eventually came to follow the teachings of Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi. He combined Neo-Confucian ideas with Shinto to create Suika Shinto. Life Early years/Buddhi ...

. As ''daimyō'' he attempted to put these theories into practice, imposing a strict fiscal reform over all opposition, cutting back severely on expenses and managed to repay a portion of the domain's huge outstanding debt. On the other hand, the relieve growing unrest over high taxation, he also conducted land surveys, established warehouses for rural famine relief and continued flood control projects. He also established a

han school The ''han'' school was a type of educational institution in the Edo period of Japan. They taught samurai etiquette, the classical Confucian books, calligraphy, rhetoric, fighting with swords and other weapons; some also added subjects such as m ...

in 1772, but ordered that traveling lecture tours be made to various towns and villages to encourage education of the common people. He established a medical school in the domain and a free clinic for poor people. On the other hand, Naoyasu had an affair with a

Nihonbashi is a business district of Chūō, Tokyo, Japan, which sprung up around the bridge of the same name that has linked two sides of the Nihonbashi River at this site since the 17th century. The first wooden bridge was completed in 1603. The curre ...

geisha {{Culture of Japan, Traditions, Geisha {{nihongo, Geisha{{efn, {{IPAc-en, lang, ˈ, ɡ, eɪ, ., ʃ, ə, {{IPA, ja, ɡei.ɕa, ɡeː-, lang{{cite book, script-title=ja:NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典, publisher=NHK Publishing, editor= ...

and even commission the noted '' bijinga'' ''

Ukiyoe is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; tra ...

'' artist Kitao Shigemasa to make a painting of her, since his position would not allow him to visit her very often. The policy of exchanging territories with the Shogunate, as was conducted by his father, was continued. In 1764, the domain exchanged 34 villages with a ''

kokudaka refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of ''koku'' of rice. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Koku"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 5 ...

'' of 19,700 ''

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 ...

'' for 43 other villages from the '' tenryo'' territories. Another exchange of 39 villages of 11,500 ''koku'' for 33 other villages followed the next year. In 1764, the domain was ordered to assist the Korean embassy to Japan during its stay ate

Kanagawa-juku was the third of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It was located in Kanagawa-ku in the present-day city of Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It was close to Kanagawa Port. Many of its historical artifacts were destroyed by the G ...

on the Tōkaidō and in 1777 was ordered to assist the shogunate in flood control projects in Kai Province. Naoyasu retired in 1786, citing ill health, but continued to control the domain behind-the-scenes to his death in Edo in 1797. His grave is at the temple of

Kisshō-ji Kisshō-ji, also Kichijō-ji (吉祥寺) is a Buddhist Temple located in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in 1458, during the Muromachi period. In 1592, the "Sendan-Rin" School for Buddhist monks was founded in the precincts of the templ ...

in Tokyo. Naoyasu had no official wife, but through a number of concubines and through adoption had 4 sons and 9 daughters.

References

"Shibata-han" on ''Edo 300 HTML''
) * ''The content of much of this article was derived from that of the corresponding article on Japanese Wikipedia.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Mizoguchi, Naoyasu Tozama daimyo 1736 births 1797 deaths Mizoguchi clan People of the Edo period

Biography

See also

References