Tsugaru Yukitsugu

Tsugaru Yukitsugu (津軽 順承, February 6, 1800 – March 2, 1865) was the 2nd daimyō of Kuroishi Domain, and later the 11th daimyō of Hirosaki Domain in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, Japan (modern-day Aomori Prefecture). His courtesy title was Ōsumi-no-kami.

Biography

Tsugaru Yukitsugu was born as Matsudaira Yukinori, the 5th son of Matsudaira Nobuakira, the 3rd daimyō of Yoshida Domain in Mikawa Province. He was adopted on June 5, 1821 as the heir to Tsugaru Chikatari, the 8th Lord Kuroishi, and 1st daimyō of Kuroishi Domain. On his adoptive father’s retirement, as Tsugaru Yukinori, he became the 2nd daimyō of Kuroishi Domain from 1825 to 1839. He was known as an intelligent ruler, and worked for the restoration of the domain's finances during the political and agricultural crisis of the Tenpo era. After the Tokugawa bakufu forced Tsugaru Nobuyuki, the 10th lord of Hirosaki Domain into retirement over allegations of gross misrule, Yukinori was ordered to change his name to Tsugaru Yukisugu and to take his place as the 11th daimyō of Hirosaki. He turned the rule of Kuroishi Domain over to his brother, Tsugaru Tsuguyasu.

Tsuguyasu brought in the noted Confucian scholar Sato Issai as his advisor, and attempted to continue implementation many of the reforms initiated by Tsugaru Nobuakira to restore prosperity to the disaster-prone domain, expanding on Nobuakira’s code of ethics from five articles to thirty in an attempt to rein in his unruly retainers. In addition to expanding the domain’s agricultural land through opening of new paddy fields, Tsuguyasu established a foundry for the casting of cannons, and attempted to modernize the domain’s military and medical level through the introduction of rangaku studies.

In 1859 Tsuguyasu turned the reign over to his son, Tsugaru Tsuguakira, and retired to pursue studies in literature and waka poetry. He died at the clan’s Edo residence in 1865. His grave is at the clan temple of Jūyō-in in Taitō-ku, Tokyo

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.