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. The concept or ...

under 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 ...

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, located in Tanba Province in what is now the central portion of modern-day Kyoto Prefecture. It was centered around Ayabe '' jin'ya'', which were located in what is now the city of Ayabe, Kyoto.

History

Kuki Moritaka was a general and admiral in the service of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the son of Kuki Yoshitaka, one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's top generals. In the last years of the 16th century, Kuki Moritaka supported Tokugawa Ieyasu in his bid for power, while his f ...

, the son of the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

admiral, Kuki Yoshitaka had been awarded the 35,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

Toba Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period, located in Shima Province (part of modern-day Mie Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Toba Castle in what is now the city of Toba. History During the Sengoku period, most of Shima Province came under t ...

. On his death in 1632, a succession dispute arose. Yoshitaka had appointed his 5th son,

Kuki Hisataka Kuki can refer to: Locations * Kuki, Isfahan, a village in Isfahan Province, Iran * Kuki, Saitama, a city in Japan Peoples and culture * Kuki people, Kuki, or Thadou people, Thadou people, an ethnic tribe native to northeastern India (also Burma, ...

as his heir, but his third son, Kuki Takasue, argued that he had the stronger clam due to primogenitor and asked for the

for arbitration. The shogunate ruled in favor of Hisataka, but also assigned a ''

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. 54 ...

'' of 20,000 ''koku'' to Moritaka to form a new domain. This was the start of Ayabe Domain. In 1661, Takasue assigned 500 ''koku'' of this estate to his younger brother Takashige. The Kuki clan continued to rule Ayabe 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 practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

. However, during the tenure of the second ''

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 ...

'', a great flood and a storm caused 3729 deaths, and the domain's finances began to decline. Repeated floods and famines occurred, and despite attempts to reform the financial system, peasant revolts frequently occurred. A han school, the "Shintokukan", was established during the tenure of Kuki Takanao. The eighth ''daimyō'', Kuki Takahiro, brought in outside advisors (including

Satō Nobuhiro was a Japanese scientist and early advocate of Japanese Westernization. He is considered the founder of the "Greater East Asia" concept. Satō attempted to synthesize Western science (especially Astronomy) with Japanese political and philosophica ...

) to reform agricultural and military policies. A clan

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

system on cotton from 1847 helped restore the domain's finances. The final ''daimyō'', Kuki Takatomo had served Emperor Kōmei as a guard during the

Kinmon incident The , also known as the , was a rebellion against the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan that took place on August 20 unar calendar: 19th day, 7th month 1864, near the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. History Starting with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1 ...

and at the start of the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a clique seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperi ...

was one of the first supporters of the

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 o ...

. Following the Meiji restoration he was made

viscount A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status. In many countries a viscount, and its historical equivalents, was a non-hereditary, administrative or judicial ...

(''shishaku'') in the ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. They succeeded the feudal lords () and court nobles (), but were abolished with the 1947 constitution. Kazoku ( 華族) should not be confused with ' ...

'' peerage. 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) ...

, Ayabe Domain became "Ayabe Prefecture" and subsequently became part of Kyoto Prefecture. The site of the Ayabe ''jin'ya'' is now the Kyoto Prefectural Ayabe Senior High School.

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

Most domains in the

han system ( ja, 藩, "domain") is a Japanese historical term for the estate of a daimyo in the Edo period (1603–1868) and early Meiji period (1868–1912). Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Han"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 283. or (daimyo domain) s ...

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

'', based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields.Elison, George and Bardwell L. Smith (1987)
''Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century,'' p. 18
* Tanba Province **5 villages in Funai District **32 villages in Ikaruga District **25 villages in Amata District

List of daimyō

References

{{Authority control 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