was a 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 ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

, and the 7th ''

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 ...

'' of

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of the i ...

in the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains a ...

of northern Japan, and the 23rd hereditary chieftain of the

Date clan The is a Japanese samurai kin group. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Date", ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 5 retrieved 2013-5-5. History The Date family was founded ...

Biography

Shigemura was the second son of

Date Munemura was an mid-Edo period Japanese people, Japanese samurai, and the 6th ''daimyō'' of Sendai Domain in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan, and the 22nd hereditary chieftain of the Date clan. Biography Munemura was the fourth son of Date Yoshim ...

. His infant name was Gihachirō (儀八郎), and he was renamed Date Kunimura on the death of his elder brother in 1745. At the time of his ''

genpuku is a Japanese coming-of-age ceremony which dates back to Japan's classical Nara Period (710–794 AD). /sup> This ceremony marked the transition from child to adult status and the assumption of adult responsibilities. The age of participat ...

'' ceremony in 1755, he received a ''

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

'' from ''

Shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

Tokugawa Ieshige Tokugawa Ieshige; 徳川家重 (January 28, 1712 – July 13, 1761) was the ninth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. The first son of Tokugawa Yoshimune, his mother was the daughter of Ōkubo Tadanao, known as Osuma no kata. ...

and thus became Date Shigemura. He became ''daimyō'' at the age of 15 the following year, on the death of his father. Due to his youth, the shogunate appointed his uncle, Tamura Murataka of

Ichinoseki Domain was a '' tozama'' feudal domain of Edo period Japan It was located in Mutsu Province, in northern Honshū. The domain was centered at Ichinoseki jin'ya, located in the center of what is now the city of Ichinoseki in Iwate Prefecture. Histo ...

as his guardian. He inherited a dire situation, in which the domain was suffering from a great famine, finances were in arrears, and there was bitter in-fighting between the various senior retainers. In 1760, Shigemura married his

second cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, " ...

, Toshiko, the daughter of the ''

kuge The was a Japanese aristocratic 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 century until the rise of the Kamakur ...

'', Hirohata Nakatada, and adopted daughter of the '' Kampaku'' Konoe Uchisaki. This year also marked the end of his guardianship, and he was free to start to reform the situation within the domain on his own. However, he was severely sidetracked by an issue over his

courtesy title A courtesy title is a title that does not have legal significance but rather is used through custom or courtesy, particularly, in the context of nobility, the titles used by children of members of the nobility (cf. substantive title). In some co ...

and Court rank. Nominally, Sendai Domain was considered to have the same status in the Shōgun’s court as Kagoshima Domain. In 1764,

Shimazu Shigehide Shimazu is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Esther Shimazu (born 1957), American/Hawaiian sculptor * Saeko Shimazu (born 1959), Japanese voice actress * Shimazu clan, ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han * Shimazu Hisamits ...

, ''daimyō'' of Kagoshima, received promotion to Junior Fourth Rank, Senior grade and ''Sakonoe-gon-chūjō'' (Lieutenant General of the Left Guards). Unable to abide by being surpassed by Shigehide, who was three years younger, Shigemura was forced to make a tremendous outlay in presents and bribes to shogunal officials to have his courtesy titles and position raised as well. To pay for these expenses, he demanded that his senior retainers accept cuts in their stipends, and those who protested were placed under house arrest. In 1767, he finally achieved promotion, but at the cost of 220,000 ''

ryō The was a gold currency unit in the shakkanhō system in pre- Meiji Japan. It was eventually replaced with a system based on the ''yen''. Origins The ''ryō'' was originally a unit of weight from China, the ''tael.'' It came into use in Japan ...

''. In 1768, Sendai Domain received an order from the Shogunate to mint iron coins for a seven-year period. Normally, minting was considered a very lucrative task; however, the sudden influx of vast amounts of coinage from Sendai Domain created inflation nationwide, which drove the value of the coinage down. Also, as the traditional copper coinage was considered more valuable than Sendai iron coins despite having the same face value, this caused much confusion in the market. The shogunate intervened in 1772 to cut the contract short; but then relented in 1776 to permit another two years of production, as long as the coins remained within the borders of Sendai. These antics did nothing to improve on the even worsening financial situation and political in-fighting within the domain. In 1790, Shigemura resigned in favor of his son, and died six years later at the domain's ''shimoyashiki'' in Edo.

Family

* Father:

* Mother: Osei no Kata (1719–1763) * Wife: Toshiko (1745–1808) ** 1st daughter: unnamed, died in infancy ** 3rd daughter: Manhime, married Ii Naotomi of Hikone Domain * Concubine: Osega no Kata ** 1st son: Date Sosaburo (d. 1787) * Concubine: Okoto no Kata ** 2nd daughter: Junhime, married Date Muranaga, ''daimyō'' of Uwajima Domain * Concubine: Osega no Kata ** 4th daughter: Seihime married Ikeda Harumichi, ''daimyō'' of Tottori Domain ** 5th daughter: Sachihime, married Tsuchiya Hidenao ''daimyō'' of Tsuchiura Domain ** 3rd son: Date Sensaburo, died in childhood ** 9th daughter: unnamed, died in infancy * Concubine: Ojo no Kata ** 2nd son:

Date Narimura was a mid-Edo period Japanese people, Japanese samurai, and the 8th ''daimyō'' of Sendai Domain in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan, and the 24th hereditary chieftain of the Date clan. Biography Narimura was the second son of Date Shigemura ...

, ''daimyō'' of Sendai Domain ** 6th daughter: Hohime, died in childhood * Concubine: Osode no Kata ** 7th daughter: Meguhime, died in childhood * Concubine: Odai no Kata ** 8th daughter: Kazuhime, died in childhood * Concubine: Oai no Kata ** 10th daughter: Utsuhime, married Date Murayuki of the ''hatamoto'' Tome-Date clan

In popular culture

*The 2016 Japanese

jidaigeki is a genre of film, television, video game, and theatre in Japan. Literally meaning "period dramas", they are most often set during the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—''Portrait of Hel ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

is set in Sendai Domain at the time of Date Shigemura, and refers to the issue of Shigemura's rivalry with Shimazu Shigehide over courtesy titles. Date Shigemura is played by the figure skater

Yuzuru Hanyu is a Japanese former competitive figure skater. He is a two-time Olympic champion (2014, 2018), a two-time World champion (2014, 2017), a four-time Grand Prix Final champion (2013–2016), the 2020 Four Continents champion, the 2010 World J ...

References

* Papinot, Edmond. (1948). ''Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan''. New York: Overbeck Co.

External links

Sendai Domain on "Edo 300 HTML"
(3 Nov. 2007) {{DEFAULTSORT:Date, Shigemura 1742 births 1796 deaths Tozama daimyo Date clan People of Edo-period Japan