, also known as , was a Japanese

daimyo were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally ...

who was known for his influence in the politics of the early

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 ...

. He was the third son of

Tokugawa Yorifusa , also known as Mito Yorifusa, was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. Biography Known in his childhood as Tsuruchiyomaru (鶴千代丸), he was the eleventh son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun with his concubine, Ka ...

(who in turn was the eleventh son of

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

) and succeeded him, becoming the second daimyo of the

Mito Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hitachi Province in modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture.Mito Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hitachi Province in modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture.Hitachi Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture.Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa Province, S ...

as the third son of

, the first daimyo of Mito Domain. His father was the eleventh son of

, the founder and first

shogun , 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 ...

of 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 ...

. At the age of six, his elder brother Yorishige became valetudinarian, and Mitsukuni was chosen to succeed his father. At the age of nine, he underwent ''

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 ...

'' (

coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ...

ceremony). He was responsible for assembling the

Mitogaku refers to a school of Japanese historical and Shinto studies that arose in the Mito Domain (modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture). Early The school had its genesis in 1657 when Tokugawa Mitsukuni (1628–1700), second head of the Mito Domain, commissio ...

scholars to compile a huge Japanese history, ''

Dai Nihonshi The ''Dai Nihonshi'' (大日本史), literally ''History of Great Japan'', is a book on the history of Japan. It was begun in the 17th century, during the Edo period, by Tokugawa Mitsukuni, the head of the Mito branch of the Tokugawa family. Af ...

''. In it, Japan was depicted as a nation under the

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

, analogous to that in Chinese dynasties. This helped the rise of nationalism in the

late shogunate was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji government. ...

and in the

Mito Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hitachi Province in modern-day Ibaraki Prefecture.Tokugawa Iemitsu Tokugawa Iemitsu (徳川家光, August 12, 1604 – June 8, 1651) was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who a ...

. In 1661, at age 34, he became the ''

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 the Mito Domain. He anticipated the forcible division of ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' and Buddhas (''

shinbutsu bunri The Japanese term indicates the separation of Shinto from Buddhism, introduced after the Meiji Restoration which separated Shinto ''kami'' from buddhas, and also Buddhist temples from Shinto shrines, which were originally amalgamated. It is a ...

'') of 1868 ordering there the destruction of a thousand Buddhist temples and the construction of at least one shrine per village (. At age 63, he was awarded the court office of gon-

chūnagon was a counselor of the second rank in the Imperial court of Japan. The role dates from the 7th century. The role was eliminated from the Imperial hierarchy in 701, but it was re-established in 705. This advisory position remained a part of the I ...

, or provisional middle counsellor. In 1691, he retired to his villa, ''Seizan-sō''. He directed at

Zuisen-ji is a Buddhist temple of the Rinzai sect in Nikaidō's in Kamakura, Japan.Kamiya (2008:98-102) During the Muromachi period it was the family temple of the Ashikaga rulers of Kamakura (the ''Kantō kubō''): four of the five ''kubō'' are burie ...

the creation of the very first guide to

Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...

, the

Shinpen Kamakurashi The is an Edo period compendium of topographic, geographic and demographic data concerning the city of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, and its vicinities. Consisting of eight volumesTakahashi (2005:20) and commissioned in 1685 by Tokugawa Mit ...

. The book would have a profound influence on the city in the following centuries, an influence which continues to this day in names for parts of the city like

Kamakura's Seven Mouths The city of Kamakura, Kanagawa in Japan, is closed off on three sides by very steep hills and on the fourth by the sea: before the construction of several modern tunnels and roads, the so-called Seven Entrances (''Nana-guchi''), or (all artificial ...

, Kamakura's Ten Bridges, and other such popular monikers he coined. In 1657 (''

Meireki was a of the Edo period, after the '' Jōō'' era and before '' Manji'' era. This era's period spanned the years from April 1655 to July 1658. The reigning emperor was .Titsingh, Change of era * 1655 : The era name was changed to mark the ...

3'') at the

age Age or AGE may refer to: Time and its effects * Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed ** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1 * Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...

of 27, he married a daughter of the kampaku

Konoe Nobuhiro , Ōzan (応山) as a monk, was a ''kugyō'' or Japanese court noble of the Edo period (1603–1868). He was born the fourth son of Emperor Go-Yōzei. His mother was Empress Dowager Chūka, or Konoe Sakiko by birth. Nobuhiro was adopted by Konoe No ...

. He was also known as a gourmet of the

. He is claimed to be one of the first Japanese to eat

ramen is a Japanese dish, Japanese noodle dish. It consists of served in a broth; common flavors are soy sauce and miso, with typical toppings including , nori (dried seaweed), menma (bamboo shoots), and scallions. Ramen has its roots in Chinese ...

as well as routinely enjoying such exotic food as

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

and

yogurt Yogurt (; , from tr, yoğurt, also spelled yoghurt, yogourt or yoghourt) is a food produced by bacterial Fermentation (food), fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yogurt are known as ''yogurt cultures''. Fermentation of sugars in t ...

. Mitsukuni had one son, who took the Matsudaira surname. Additionally, Mitsukuni adopted the son of an elder brother; this adopted son, Tokugawa Tsunaeda, became his heir. He died at his villa Seizansō in 1701. He posthumously received the court rank of junior first rank (1869) and first rank (1900).Ponsonby-Fane, pp. 251–252. He is now considered to be a ''kami''.

Family

* Father:

* Mother: Hisa later Kyushoin (1604-1662) * Wife: Hiroko (1638-1659) daughter of

* Concubine: Tamai-Dono * Son: Matsudaira Yoritsune (1652-1704) of

Takamatsu Domain 270px, Matsudaira Yoritoshi. pre-1903 270px, Takamatsu Castle Tsukimi Yagura was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, in what is now Kagawa Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. It was centered around Takamatsu Ca ...

by Tamai

Mito Kōmon

During the latter half of the Edo period and the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, a

kōdan is a style of traditional oral Japanese storytelling. The form evolved out of lectures on historical or literary topics given to high-ranking nobles of the Heian period, changing over the centuries to be adopted by the general samurai class and e ...

(narrative tale) named "''Mito Mitsukuni Man'yūki''" fictionalized the travels of Tokugawa Mitsukuni. This tradition of dramatizing his life continued with a novel and, in 1951, the first

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

series to portray him as a wanderer, masquerading as a commoner, who castigated the evil powers in every corner of the nation. From 1969 to 2011, the TBS ran the series ''

Mito Kōmon is a Japanese ''jidaigeki'' or period drama that was on prime-time television from 1969 to 2011, making it the longest-running ''jidaigeki'' in Japanese television history. The title character is the historic Tokugawa Mitsukuni, former vice-''sh ...

'', which continues to attract audiences in reruns. Episodes were re-broadcast in the early 1990s by

WNYE-TV WNYE-TV (channel 25) is a Non-commercial educational station, non-commercial Independent station (North America), independent television station in New York City. The station is operated by NYC Media, a division of the Mayor's Office of Media and ...

(New York City) under the title ''The Elder Lord of Mito''. Each summer, the city of

Mito Mito may refer to: Places *Mito, Ibaraki, capital city of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan *Mito, Aichi, a Japanese town *Mito, Shimane, a Japanese town * Mitō, Yamaguchi, a Japanese town * Mito District, a district in the province of Concepción, Per ...

hosts the Mito Komon festival, which prominently features the Tokugawa seal, as well as actors representing Tokugawa Mitsukuni and his assistants.

Honours

Senior First Rank The court ranks of Japan, also known in Japanese as ''ikai'' (位階), are indications of an individual's court rank in Japan based on the system of the state. ''Ikai'' as a system was originally used in the Ritsuryo system, which was the politi ...

(16 November 1900; posthumous)

Notes

References

* Brownlee, John S. (1997) ''Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600–1945: The Age of the Gods and Emperor Jimmu''. Vancouver:

University of British Columbia Press The University of British Columbia Press (UBC Press) is a university press that is part of the University of British Columbia. It was established in 1971. The press is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and has editorial offices in Kelo ...

. Tokyo:

University of Tokyo Press The is a university press affiliated with the University of Tokyo in Japan. It was founded in 1951, following the post-World War II reorganization of the university. Honors * Japan Foundation: Special Prize, 1990. Location The headquarters of t ...

. *Brownlee, John S. (1991). ''Political Thought in Japanese Historical Writing: From Kojiki (712) to Tokushi Yoron (1712)''. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. * Iwao, Seiichi, Teizō Iyanaga, Susumu Ishii, Shōichirō Yoshida ''et al.'' (2002)
''Dictionnaire historique du Japon'' (Vol. I) (Vol. II).
Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose.
OCLC 51096469
* Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1962).
''Sovereign and Subject''.
Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tokugawa, Mitsukuni 1628 births 1701 deaths People of Edo-period Japan Lords of Mito Deified Japanese people