Count was a

Bakumatsu period 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 govern ...

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 15th and final ''

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 41st 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 ...

. Nanbu Yoshiyuki was the eldest son of

Nanbu Toshihisa was a Bakumatsu period Japanese samurai, and the 14th ''daimyō'' of Morioka Domain in northern Japan. He was the 40th hereditary chieftain of the Nanbu clan. Biography Nanbu Toshihisa was the 3rd son of Nanbu Toshitada, the 12th ''daimyō'' o ...

, the 14th ''daimyō'' of Morioka Domain. Yoshiyuki, together with Nanbu Nobutami, the ''daimyō'' of

Shichinohe Domain was a '' tozama'' feudal domain of Edo period Japan, located in Mutsu Province, Honshū. It was centered at Shichinohe Castle in what is now the modern town of Shichinohe, Aomori in the Kamikita District of Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku ...

, he surrendered his forces to the new

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 ...

on 9 October 1868 during 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 ...

. On 2 December, he travelled to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

with his father, and was re-confirmed as ''daimyō'' of Morioka Domain by the new government ten days later. However, as Yoshiyasu had actually participated in combat against the Meiji government against the forces of

Akita Domain was a feudal domain in Edo period Japan, located in Dewa Province (modern-day Akita Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Kubota Castle in what is now the city of Akita and was thus also known as the . It was governed for the whole of its hi ...

in the war, the appointment was withdrawn only five days later, and on 24 December, his position was abolished and his territories were seized. The Nanbu clan was ordered to transfer to Shiraishi Domain (130,000 ''

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 ...

'') in southern

Mutsu Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori Prefectures and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture. Mutsu Province is also known as or . The term is often used to refer to the comb ...

instead. On 18 June 1869, 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) ...

, he became domain governor of Shiraishi, and on 28 June he received the

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 ...

of ''Kai-no-kami'' and Court rank Junior 5th Court Rank, lower grade. On 22 July, Yoshiyuki applied to be returned to Morioka as domain governor, and the government agreed in exchange for a donation of 700,000 gold ''

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 ...

.'' Although he proved unable to raise the funds, he was transferred to Morioka in July 1870. His stay in Morioka was short, as with the

in 1871, he was ordered to live in

, where he founded the Kyōkan Gijuku, a school of western learning, whose students included the noted writer

Natsume Sōseki , born , was a Japanese novelist. He is best known around the world for his novels ''Kokoro'', '' Botchan'', ''I Am a Cat'', '' Kusamakura'' and his unfinished work '' Light and Darkness''. He was also a scholar of British literature and writer ...

. Yoshiyuki was elevated to the title of Count (''hakushaku'') 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 system on 7 July 1884. On 20 June 1902, shortly before his death, he was awarded Senior Third Rank. His grave is at the temple of

Gokoku-ji is a Shingon Buddhist temple in Tokyo's Bunkyō. History This Buddhist temple was established by the fifth shōgun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, who dedicated it to his mother. It is notable for surviving the American air raids during World War II, w ...

in Tokyo. His eldest son and heir, Nanbu Toshinaga, was an officer in the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

, and was killed in combat during the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

while serving with the

Guards Regiment Guards units (russian: Гвардия, translit=Gvardiya) were elite units and formations in the Soviet Armed Forces that continue to exist in the Russian Armed Forces and other post-Soviet states. These units were awarded Guards status after ...

. The title of Count and position of 43rd chieftain of the Nanbu clan went to his second son, Nanbu Toshiatsu.

References

* Papinot, Edmond. (1948). ''Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan''. New York: Overbeck Co. *Onodera, Eikō (2005). ''Boshin nanboku sensō to Tōhoku seiken'' Sendai: Kita no mori.

External links

List of Meiji-era Japanese nobility
(accessed 15 August 2008)

(accessed 15 August 2008).

(accessed 15 August 2008).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nanbu, Toshiyuki 1855 births 1903 deaths Tozama daimyo Nanbu clan People of Edo-period Japan People of the Boshin War Kazoku