250px, Tani Morimasa, 12th ''daimyō'' of Yamaga was a

feudal domain A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. In contrast, th ...

under 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 ...

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 ...

Japan, located in

Tanba Province was a province of Japan in the area of central Kyoto and east-central Hyōgo Prefectures. Tanba bordered on Harima, Ōmi, Settsu, Tajima. Tango, Wakasa, and Yamashiro provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . In terms of the Gokishichid ...

in what is now the west-central portion of modern-day

Kyoto Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Kyoto Prefecture has a population of 2,561,358 () and has a geographic area of . Kyoto Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the northeast, Shiga Prefecture ...

. It was centered around Yamaga ''

jin'ya A was a type of administrative headquarters in the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo period of Japanese history. ''Jin'ya'' served as the seat of the administration for a small domain, a province, or additional parcels of land. ''Jin'ya'' ho ...

'' in what is now the Hirose neighborhood of the city of

Ayabe, Kyoto is a Cities of Japan, city located in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 31,082 in 13,660 households and a population density of 90 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Ayabe is situated in th ...

History

The Tani clan was originally from

Mino Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today southern Gifu Prefecture. Mino was bordered by Ōmi to the west, Echizen and Hida to the north, Shinano to the east, and Ise, Mikawa, and Owari to the south. Its abbreviated fo ...

and were early retainers of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

. Tani Moritomo participated in all of the campaigns of

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: ...

and was rewarded with a 16,000 ''

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 ...

'' domain in Tanba Province in 1582. During 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, ...

, he served in the Western Army, and was ordered by

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 ...

to attack Tanabe Castle, whose lord,

Hosokawa Fujitaka , also known as , was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and prominent samurai lord of the Sengoku period. A former senior retainer of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the fifteenth and final Ashikaga shōgun, Fujitaka later aligned with Oda Nobunaga. As a reward fo ...

was a personal friend. Tani made a great show of attacking the castle, but famously, all of his soldiers and cannons were firing blank rounds at the castle. For this reason, he received no punishment from the victorious

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 ...

and was confirmed as ''

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 his existing holdings under the

. He went on to serve the Tokugawa at the

Siege of Osaka A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...

. The clan would continue to rule Yamaga for 13 generations until the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

. However, Tani Moritomo's son, Tani Morimasa, distributed 6000 ''koku'' of his holdings to his younger brother and two cousins, reducing the domain to the bare minimum requirement to maintain its status. Since the domain was located in a mountainous area with little land suitable for rice cultivation, the domain's finances were supported by forestry and production of ''

washi is traditional Japanese paper processed by hand using fibers from the inner bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub (''Edgeworthia chrysantha''), or the paper mulberry (''kōzo'') bush. ''Washi'' is generally tougher than ordinary ...

'' paper. During the

Bakumatsu period were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunat ...

, the domain was one of the first to support the new

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

. In 1871, with the

abolition of the han system The in the Empire of Japan and its replacement by a system of prefectures in 1871 was the culmination of the Meiji Restoration begun in 1868, the starting year of the Meiji period. Under the reform, all daimyos (, ''daimyō'', feudal lords) ...

, Yamaga briefly became "Yamaga Prefecture", which was merged with Kyoto Prefecture a few months later. The final ''daimyō'', Tani Morishige, became a viscount (''shishaku'') in the ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. It was formed by merging the feudal lords (''Daimyo, daimyō'') and court nobles (''kuge'') into one system modelled after the British peerage. Distin ...

'' peerage in 1884.

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

As with most domains in the

han system (, "domain") is a Japanese historical term for the Estate (land), estate of a daimyo in the Edo period (1603–1868) and early Meiji (era), Meiji period (1868–1912).Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Han"in ''Japan Encycloped ...

, Yamaga Domain consisted of several discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned ''

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 ...

'', based on periodic

cadastral A cadastre or cadaster ( ) is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes and bounds, metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represente ...

surveys and projected agricultural yields.Elison, George and Bardwell L. Smith (1987)
''Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century,'' p. 18
*

**44 villages in Ikaruga District

List of daimyō

References

{{Domains of Kinki Domains of Japan 1871 disestablishments in Japan States and territories disestablished in 1871 Tanba Province History of Kyoto Prefecture

History

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

List of daimyō

See also

Further reading

References