was a feudal domain 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

Kōzuke Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today Gunma Prefecture. Kōzuke bordered Echigo Province, Echigo, Shinano Province, Shinano, Musashi Province, Musashi and Shimotsuke Province, Shimotsuke Provinces. Its abb ...

(modern-day

Gunma Prefecture is a landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of . Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fuk ...

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 ...

. It was centered on Yoshii ''

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 part of the city of

Takasaki, Gunma is a city located in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 372,369 in 167,345 households, and a population density of 810 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Takasaki is famous as the hometown of the ...

. Yoshii was ruled through much of its history by a branch of the Takatsukasa clan, which had adopted the patronym of

Matsudaira The was a Japanese samurai clan that descended from the Minamoto clan. It originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture). During the Sengoku period, the chieftain of the main line of the ...

History

After

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 ...

took control over the

Kantō region The is a geography, geographical region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures of Japan, prefectures: Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Gunma Prefe ...

in 1590, he assigned one of his generals, Sugawara Sadatoshi, the 20,000 ''koku'' holding of Yoshii. Sadatoshi laid out the foundations of a town and market, and was succeeded by his adopted son,

Okudaira Tadamasa was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. He was the son of Tokugawa Ieyasu's daughter Kamehime with her husband, Okudaira Nobumasa. Due to this family connection, he was allowed to use the Matsudaira surname. He was briefly adopted by ...

in 1602. Tadamasa’s mother was the eldest daughter of Tokugawa Ieyasu; he was transferred to

Kanō Domain file:加納城石垣.JPG, 270px, Remnants of the walls of Kanō Castle was a ''fudai daimyō, fudai'' Han (Japan), feudal domain of Edo period Japan. The domain was centered at Kanō Castle, located in what is now part of the city of Gifu, Gifu, ...

in 1610. The domain then became vacant and was ruled as a ''

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 until 1682. In 1682, Hotta Masayasu, a hatamoto bureaucrat in the Tokugawa shogunate, passed the 10,000 ''koku'' mark and was raised in status to daimyō. Yoshii Domain was revived to be his seat, but he was transferred to Omi-Miyagawa domain, where his descendants resided to the Meiji restoration, and Yoshii again reverted to ''

tenryō 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 war ...

'' status. Likewise, in 1709, the ''hatamoto'' Matsudaira Nobukiyo attained the 10,000 ''koku'' mark, and Yoshii Domain was revived as his seat. Nobukiyo was the grandson of the ''

kuge The was a Japanese Aristocracy (class), aristocratic Social class, class that dominated the Japanese Imperial Court in Kyoto. The ''kuge'' were important from the establishment of Kyoto as the capital during the Heian period in the late 8th ce ...

'' Takatsukasa Nobuhira, whose sister married Shōgun

Tokugawa Iemitsu was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who acted as his political adviser and was at the ...

. He traveled to Edo with only one retainer, but was awarded estates and servants and eventually married a daughter of

Tokugawa Yorinobu was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. Born under the name Nagatomimaru (長福丸), he was the 10th son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, by his concubine Kageyama-dono. On December 8, 1603, Yorinobu received the fief of Mito, then rated at 2 ...

and adopted the Matsudaira name. The descendants of Matsudaira Nobukiyo continued to rule Yoshii until the end of the Edo period. 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 final daimyō, Matsudaira Nobunori, changed his name to Yoshii Nobunori, and joined the new Meiji government in February 1868. 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) ...

in July 1871, Yoshii Domain became part of “Iwahana Prefecture”, which later became part of Gunma Prefecture.

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 ...

, Yoshii 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
*

**1 village in Kanra District **6 villages in Tago District **10 villages in Midono District **1 village in Nawa District **7 villages in Gunma District **1 village in Seta District *

Kazusa Province was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture. The province was located in the middle of the Bōsō Peninsula, whose name takes its first ''kanji'' from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa province ...

**3 villages in Isumi District **3 villages in Nagara District

List of daimyō

References

External links

Yoshii on "Edo 300 HTML"

Notes

{{Authority control Domains of Japan 1590 establishments in Japan States and territories established in 1590 1871 disestablishments in Japan States and territories disestablished in 1871 Kōzuke Province History of Gunma Prefecture Hotta clan Kishūrenshi-Matsudaira clan Takatsukasa family