was the 6th

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 n ...

Odawara Domain 250px, Odawara Castle, Headquarters of the Odawara Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period, located primarily in western Sagami Province (modern-day Kanagawa Prefecture). It was centered on Odawara Castle in what is now the city of Odawar ...

Sagami Province was a province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu, Musashi, and Suruga. It had access to the Paci ...

(modern-day

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...

) in mid-

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. His courtesy title was '' Kaga no Kami.''

Biography

Ōkubo Tadaaki was the eldest son of Ōkubo Tadayoshi, the 5th daimyō of Odawara Domain. During his tenure, Odawara suffered from repeated natural disasters, including the earthquakes and fires which destroyed

Odawara Castle is a landmark in the city of Odawara in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. History Odawara was a stronghold of the Doi clan during the Kamakura period, and a fortified residence built by their collateral branch, the Kobayakawa clan, stood on the ...

and much of the surrounding

Odawara-juku was the ninth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in the present-day city of Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It was the first post station in a castle town that travelers came to when they exited Edo (modern-day To ...

. Inclement weather led to crop failures, including the

Great Tenmei Famine The Great Tenmei famine (天明の大飢饉, ''Tenmei no daikikin'') was a famine which affected Japan during the Edo period. It is considered to have begun in 1782, and lasted until 1788. It was named after the Tenmei era (1781–1789), during th ...

, which severely curtailed traffic on the Tōkaidō highway connecting

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. As one of the major post stations on the Tōkaidō, this created an economic crisis for the town residents. Although Tadaaki responded with the usual restrictions on spending in an effort to economize of the domain's tax revenues, his efforts were undermined by rampant

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reductio ...

, and demands from the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

to strength coastal defenses against possible incursions of foreign vessels. He retired from public life in 1796 with these issues unresolved and died in 1803. Takaaki was married to a daughter of Nakagawa Hisasada, daimyō of

Oka Domain Oka or OKA may refer to: Cars * Oka (automobile), a small car designed by AvtoVAZ and produced by ZMA and SeAZ * OKA 4wd, a large 4-wheel-drive vehicle made in Western Australia by OKA Military * 2B1 Oka, Soviet 420 mm self-propelled morta ...

Bungo Province was a province of Japan in eastern Kyūshū in the area of Ōita Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Buzen Province. Bungo bordered Buzen, Hyūga, Higo, Chikugo, and Chikuzen Provinces. History At the end of the 7th century, Toyo ...

References

* Papinot, Edmond. (1906) ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du japon.'' Tokyo: Librarie Sansaish
..Click link for digitized 1906 ''Nobiliaire du japon'' (2003)
* ''The content of much of this article was derived from that of the corresponding article on Japanese Wikipedia.'' Fudai daimyo Tadaaki 1760 births 1803 deaths {{daimyo-stub