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 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 ...

'' of

Morioka Domain 300px, Ruins of Morioka Castle was a '' tozama'' feudal domain of Edo period Japan. It was ruled throughout its history by the Nanbu clan. It was called during the early part of its history. It was located in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, ...

in northern Japan. He was the 32nd hereditary chieftain of the

Nanbu clan The was a Japanese samurai clan who ruled most of northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region of Japan for over 700 years, from the Kamakura period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Nanbu claimed descent from the Seiwa Genji of Kai Pr ...

. 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 ...

was ''Bingo-no-kami'', (later ''Daizen-no-suke'') and his Court rank was Junior Fifth Rank, Lower Grade. Toshimoto was the 4th son of Nanbu Yukinobu, the 4th ''daimyō'' of Morioka Domain. He was initially adopted into the Sannohe branch of the Nanbu clan, but was posthumously adopted on the death of his brother Nanbu Nobuoki on 5 January 1706 to become ''daimyō'' of Morioka. He was received in formal audience by ''

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 Tsunayoshi was the fifth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan. He was the younger brother of Tokugawa Ietsuna, as well as the son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the grandson of Tokugawa Hidetada, and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu.Nussbaum, Louis-Fr ...

on 15 January. At this time the domain was suffering from severe financial difficulties due to reduced production from its copper mines and was deeply in debt, so much so that expenses for the mandatory ''

sankin-kōtai ''Sankin-kōtai'' ( ja, 参覲交代/参覲交替, now commonly written as ja, 参勤交代/参勤交替, lit=alternate attendance, label=none) was a policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during most of the Edo period of Japanese history.Jansen, M ...

'' procession could not be met. In 1723, he took the drastic and highly unpopular step of reducing the number of retainers. Before his death, he adopted the posthumous son of Nanbu Nobuoki as his heir to restore the direct line of succession, and demoted his own son to ''

hatamoto A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as ''gokenin.'' However ...

'' status. He died in 1725.

References

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

References

External links

Morioka Domain on "Edo 300 HTML"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nanbu, Toshimoto 1689 births 1725 deaths Tozama daimyo Nanbu clan People of Edo-period Japan