was the 9th ''

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

Hirosaki Domain file:Hirosakijo.jpg, Hirosaki Castle, the seat of the Hirosaki Domain , also known as , was a ''tozama'' Han (Japan), feudal domain of Edo period JapanRavina, Mark. (1998) ''Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan,'' p. 222 It is located in Muts ...

in northern Mutsu Province,

Honshū , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

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

Aomori Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori (city), Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is border ...

). His courtesy title, initially Dewa-no-kami, was later raised to ''Saikyo Daiyu'' and ''Jujū'', and his Court rank was Junior Fourth Rank, Lower Grade.

Biography

Tsugaru Yasuchika was the eldest son of Tsugaru Akitaka, the 5th lord of Kuroishi, a 4000-''

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 ...

'' ''

hatamoto A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the Shōgun, shogunates in History of Japan, Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred ...

'' holding created for the second son of Tsugaru Nobuhira, the 2nd ''daimyō'' of Hirosaki. Nobuhira was married to a daughter of

Ishida Mitsunari was a Japanese samurai and military commander of the late Sengoku period of Japan. He is probably best remembered as the commander of the Western army in the Battle of Sekigahara following the Azuchi–Momoyama period of the 16th century. He ...

; however, for political reasons after the establishment of 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 ...

, he found it expedient to reduce her to concubine status and to marry an adopted daughter of

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

instead. Nevertheless, the son of his first wife,

Tsugaru Nobuyoshi was the 3rd ''daimyō'' of Hirosaki Domain in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, Japan (modern-day Aomori Prefecture). His courtesy title was '' Tosa-no-kami,'' and his Court rank was Junior Fifth Rank, Lower Grade. Biography Tsugaru Nobuyoshi ...

remained his heir, which resulted in an ''

O-Ie Sōdō O-Ie Sōdō (, "house strife") were noble family disputes within the samurai and aristocratic classes of Japan, particularly during the early Edo period (17th century). The most famous is the ''Date Sōdō'', which broke out among the Date family in ...

'' by supporters of the son by his second wife, Tsugaru Nobufusa. The shogunate ruled in favour of Nobuyoshi, and the Kuroishi holding was created for Nobufusa and his descendants. When

Tsugaru Nobuakira was the 8th ''daimyō'' of Hirosaki Domain in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, Japan (modern-day Aomori Prefecture). His courtesy title was '' Tosa-no-kami'', and his Court rank was Junior Fifth Rank, Lower Grade. Biography Tsugaru Nobuyasu ...

, the 8th ''daimyō'' of Tsugaru Domain died without heir in 1791, Yasuchika was posthumously adopted into the main Tsugaru house as his successor, and the Kuroishi holding was turned over to his Yasuchika's eldest son. 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 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> ...

the same year. Yasuchika implemented many of the reforms initiated by Nobuakira to restore prosperity to the disaster-prone domain, including having many of his ''

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 ...

'' turn to part-time farming to maintain their revenues. In 1796, he established a Domain academy called the ''Keikokan''. The domain was struck by a large earthquake and

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

in 1793. In 1805, the Shogunate charged Tsugaru Domain with the responsibility of maintaining the security of a portion of

Ezo is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the people and the lands to the northeast of the Japanese island of Honshu. This included the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, which changed its name from "Ezo" to "Hokkaidō" in 1869, Nu ...

, an area considered loosely at the time to encompass present-day

Hokkaidō is the second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by railway via the Seikan Tunnel. The ...

Karafuto , was established by the Empire of Japan in 1907 to govern the southern part of Sakhalin. This territory became part of the Empire of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, when the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N was ceded by the R ...

and the southern

Kurile Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

. In return, the ''

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 the domain were increased to 70,000 ''koku''. The ''kokudaka'' of the domain was further increased to 100,000 ''koku'' in 1808, and in 1809 Kuroishi was raised to a full '' han'' status. Yasuchika also received a promotion in court rank from Junior Fifth to Junior Fourth rank. However, the increase in revenue was far less than the expense of dispatching troops and maintaining garrisons in the wide expanses of the northern islands, and increases in local taxation led to widespread peasant revolts by 1813. Yasuchika received a promotion in his courtesy title in 1820 to honorary chamberlain (''Jujū''). The promotion incensed the samurai of Tsugaru's rivals, the

Nanbu clan The was a Japanese clan, Japanese samurai clan who ruled most of northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region of Japan for over 700 years, from the Kamakura period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Nanbu claimed descent from the Seiwa Ge ...

Morioka Domain 300px, Ruins of Morioka Castle was a '' tozama'' feudal domain of Edo period Japan. It was ruled throughout its history by the Nanbu clan. It was called during the early part of its history. It was located in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū ...

, which cumulated in the Sōma Daisaku Incident of 1821, in which a Nanbu samurai attempted to assassinate Yasuchika. In 1825, Yasuchika turned rule of the domain over to his second son and went into retirement, spending his time writing

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

poetry. He died at the domain's Edo residence in 1833. His grave is at the clan temple of Shinryō-in (a subsidiary of

Kan'ei-ji (also spelled Kan'eiji or Kaneiji) is a Tendai Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Japan, founded in 1625 during the Kan'ei era by Tenkai, in an attempt to emulate the powerful religious center Enryaku-ji, in Kyoto. The main object of worship is .Nihon ...

) in Taitō-ku,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

References

* Koyasu Nobushige (1880). ''Buke kazoku meiyoden'' 武家家族名誉伝 Volume 1. Tokyo: Koyasu Nobushige. (Accessed fro
National Diet Library
July 17, 2008) * Kurotaki, Jūjirō (1984). ''Tsugaru-han no hanzai to keibatsu'' 津軽藩の犯罪と刑罰. Hirosaki: Hoppō shinsha. * Narita, Suegorō (1975). ''Tsugaru Tamenobu: shidan'' 津軽為信: 史談. Aomori: Tōō Nippōsha. * Tsugaru Tsuguakira Kō Den kankōkai (1976). ''Tsugaru Tsuguakira kō-den'' 津輕承昭公傳. Tokyo: Rekishi Toshosha * ''The content of much of this article was derived from that of the corresponding article on Japanese Wikipedia.''

External links

(February 17, 2008)

(February 17, 2008) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tsugaru, Yasuchika Tozama daimyo Tsugaru clan 1765 births 1833 deaths Hatamoto People of the Edo period

Biography

See also

References

External links