Tsugaru Nobuyuki

Tsugaru Nobuyuki (津軽 信順, April 18, 1800 – December 5, 1862) was the 10th daimyō of Hirosaki Domain in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, Japan (modern-day Aomori Prefecture). His courtesy title was Dewa-no-kami.

Biography

Tsugaru Nobuyuki was the younger son of Tsugaru Yasuchika, the 9th daimyō of Hirosaki Domain. His elder brother inherited Kuroishi Domain, which was elevated from a 4000 koku hatamoto holding into a full han during the administration of his father Yasuchika.

Yasuchika initially attempted to continue implementation many of the reforms initiated by Tsugaru Nobuakira to restore prosperity to the disaster-prone domain, but faced stubborn opposition due top vested interests and extensive corruption issues with his retainers. However, Yasuchika enjoyed good relations with the Tokugawa shogunate and was successful in arranging an extremely favorable marriage for Nobuyuki to a daughter from the Konoe clan, of the Kyoto court nobility. He also arranged two daughters of Tokugawa Narimasa, head of the Tayasu-branch of the Tokugawa clan as his son’s concubines. These marital arrangements resulted in his promotion to the courtesy title of chamberlain. However, the financial outlay to the Court and to the Shogunate in exchange for these marriages was tremendous, and the domain’s finances were again plunged into bankruptcy. Increasing taxation and peasant uprisings cumulated in an attempted assassination in 1821 by retainers of the Tsugaru clan's arch-rivals, the Nambu clan of Morioka Domain, and in 1825 Yasuchika retired, nominally turned the reign over to Nobuyuki.

However, with his father Yasuchika continuing to rule behind-the-scenes from the clan's Edo residence, and lacking a personal power base or the respect of his senior retainers, Nobuyuki was reduced to an ineffectual figurehead, and was derided as the ”Idiot Lord” (馬鹿殿様, Baka-tonosama) of Tsugaru. Rumors were spread of his lack of mental acuity, drunkenness, inappropriate behavior and lasciviousness during sankin kotai journeys to Edo, and he was forced into retirement in 1839.

The domain was turned over to an outsider, the 7th son of Matsudaira Nobuakira, lord of Yoshida Domain in Mikawa Province and a Rōjū, who was adopted into the Tsugaru clan as Tsugaru Yukitsugu.

See also

• Tsugaru clan

References

• (Japanese) "Hirosaki-jō" (17 Feb. 2008)
• (Japanese) "Tsugaru-han" on Edo 300 HTML (17 Feb. 2008)
• Koyasu Nobushige (1880). Buke kazoku meiyoden 武家家族名誉伝 Volume 1. Tokyo: Koyasu Nobushige. (Accessed from National Diet Library, 17 July 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.