was the 9th ''
daimyō'' of
Yonezawa Domain in
Dewa Province,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
(modern-day
Yamagata Prefecture), under the
Edo period Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. After retirement, he adopted the ''
gō'', or pen name, Yōzan (鷹山). Today, he is best remembered for his financial reforms, and he is often cited as an example of a good governor of a domain.
Biography
Harunori was the younger son of
Akizuki Tanemitsu The Japanese name Akizuki may refer to:
* Akizuki clan, a Japanese noble family
* Akizuki (surname) Akizuki (秋月) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*, Japanese noble family
*, Japanese manga artist
*, Japanese dipl ...
, ''daimyō'' of
Takanabe Domain
The was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Hyūga Province in modern-day Miyazaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu. in
Hyūga Province. His mother was a granddaughter of the fourth ''daimyō'' of
Yonezawa Domain,
Uesugi Tsunanori Uesugi (sometimes written ''Uyesugi'') is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include:
People
*Uesugi clan, a Japanese samurai clan
**Uesugi Akisada, (1454–1510), a samurai of the Uesugi clan
**Uesugi Harunori (1751–1822), a Jap ...
.His childhood names were "Matsusaburō" (松三郎) and "Naomatsu" (直松). His mother died when he was very young, and is was large raised by his grandmother, which strengthened his ties to Yonezawa. At age ten he was adopted by
Uesugi Shigesada Uesugi (sometimes written ''Uyesugi'') is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include:
People
*Uesugi clan, a Japanese samurai clan
**Uesugi Akisada, (1454–1510), a samurai of the Uesugi clan
**Uesugi Harunori (1751–1822), a Jap ...
, then ''daimyō'' of Yonezawa, who had a daughter but no male heir. After arriving in Yonezawa, from 1763 he became an ardent disciple of the Neo-Confucian scholar
Hosoi Heishu
was a Japanese teacher of Confucianism, Confucian thought during the Edo period. He belonged to the eclectic school of Confucian philosophy, and his thought can be considered as the starting point of the eclectic brand of Confucianism.
Life
Born ...
, whose teaching would strongly influence his political philosophy and governing outlook. In 1766, he underwent the
genpuku ceremony and received the ''
kanji'' of "Haru" in his name from
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 ...
Tokugawa Ieharu as a sign of special favor. In 1767, he became ''daimyō'' of Yonezawa.
The domain which he inherited had been deeply in debt for roughly a hundred years when Harunori took over; Shigesada even considered returning the domain to the
shogunate
, 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 ...
as a last resort. However, he was convinced by his father-in-law, the ''daimyō'' of
Owari Province
was a province of Japan in the area that today forms the western half of Aichi Prefecture, including the modern city of Nagoya. The province was created in 646. Owari bordered on Mikawa, Mino, and Ise Provinces. Owari and Mino provinces were ...
, to instead resign as ''daimyō''. the amount of the debt exceeded 200,000 ''
ryō'', which seemed unsurmountable given that the domain had a nominal ''
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 only 150,000 ''
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 ...
''. Furthermore, the domain had a very high proportion of retainers on its payroll compared with other domains for historic reasons, as the early rulers of Yonezawa had been reluctant to reduce the number of retainers from the time before the domain had been reduced who had served loyally from when the time the domain had exceeded 1,000,000 ''koku'' prior to the
Battle of Sekigahara
The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu prefecture, Japan, at the end of ...
. To even add further to the domain's financial woes, during the tenure of Uesugi Shigemori, the domain had been forced by the shogunate to pay for the rebuilding of the temple of
Kan'ei-ji in Edo, and had also suffered from severe flooding in 1755. Shigemori refused to cut back on his extravagances due to pride.
Harunori began by imposing stringent fiscal restraints on spending, setting an example by wearing cotton clothes instead of silk and having his meals consist of one bowl of soup and one vegetable. He reduced his living allowance from 1500
ryō per year to 209 ryō and the number of maidservants from 50 to nine. He chose to keep all their retainers but cut all salaries to one-sixth of their former level. Faced with opposition by several of his ''
karō'', he ordered their execution. As soon as these efforts started to show results, the domain was then hit with a demand from the Shogunate to rebuild the western bailey of
Edo Castle
is a flatland castle that was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan in Edo, Toshima District, Musashi Province. In modern times it is part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace in Chiyoda, Tokyo and is therefore also known as .
Tokugawa Ieyasu established the ...
. He had storages of rice built in every village in the domain, and it did not suffer much from the famine which swept Japan in the
Tenmei era (1781–1789). Harunori also set policies encouraging new industry such as weaving, pottery and papermaking and encouraged existing enterprises such as paraffin, raw silk and linen. He required every family to plant a certain number of lacquer trees to help establish that industry, and turned many of the domain's ''
samurai'' into farmers.
Education was necessary to create the brilliant men required to enrich the country, and he reopened the
han school which had closed down due to financial constraints and invited scholars from Edo to teach. He also established a medical school to teach the latest medical knowledge from Holland. Another policy change ensured adequate water from the mountains for the rice fields by enlisting retainers and samurai to dig irrigation ditches and to repair dikes. Administrative reform and personnel promotion based on merit, not class, eliminated waste and simplified public offices. As a result of these various measures, Yonezawa became fairly prosperous, and by 1823 the entire amount of the debt had been repaid. In 1830, less than a decade after Harunori's death, Yonezawa was officially declared by the shogunate to be a paragon of a well-governed domain.
He revealed his views on governance and the role of a
feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...
lord in a letter to his son
Haruhiro:
Additionally, his views on self-discipline are well known in Japanese culture:
See also
*
Uesugi clan
Notes
References
*
Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005)
''Japan encyclopedia.''Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
OCLC 58053128* Gordenker, Alice
''Japan Times.'' December 18, 2007.
*
Papinot, Edmund. (1906) ''Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du japon.'' Tokyo: Librarie Sansaish
..Click link for digitized 1906 ''Nobiliaire du japon'' (2003)*
Sansom, George Bailey. (1963)
''A History of Japan: 1615-1867.''Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. (cloth)
* Group KAZE (1988). ''Yamagata: The Other Side of the Mountain'' Yamagata, Japan: Kurosaka Printing.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uesugi, Harunori
Uesugi clan
Tozama daimyo
1751 births
1822 deaths
Deified Japanese people