250px, Tani Morimasa, 12th ''daimyō'' of Yamaga was a

feudal domain A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. The concept or ...

under 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 ...

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 ...

Japan, located in Tanba Province in what is now the west-central portion of modern-day Kyoto Prefecture. It was centered around Yamaga '' jin'ya'' in what is now the Hirose neighborhood of the city of Ayabe, Kyoto.

History

The Tani clan was originally from Mino Province and were early retainers of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...

. Tani Moritomo participated in all of the campaigns of

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

and was rewarded with a 16,000 ''

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 ...

'' domain in Tanba Province in 1582. During 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 ...

, he served in the Western Army, and was ordered by

Ishida Mitsunari Ishida Mitsunari (, 1559 – November 6, 1600) was a Japanese samurai and military commander of the late Sengoku period of Japan. He is probably best remembered as the commander of the Western army in the Battle of Sekigahara following the A ...

to attack

Tanabe Castle Tanabe may refer to: People *Chikara Tanabe, Japanese Olympic wrestler *Chie Tanabe, Japanese stuntwoman * Daichi Tanabe, Japanese footballer *David Tanabe (born 1980), American professional ice hockey player * Harumichi Tanabe, bureaucrat and cab ...

, whose lord,

Hosokawa Fujitaka , also known as , was a Japanese samurai ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period. Fujitaka was a prominent retainer of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the last Ashikaga shōgun. When he joined the Oda, Oda Nobunaga rewarded him with the fief of Tango and went on ...

was a personal friend. Tani made a great show of attacking the castle, but famously, all of his soldiers and cannons were firing blank rounds at the castle. For this reason, he received no punishment from the victorious

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 was confirmed as ''

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 his existing holdings under the

. He went on to serve the Tokugawa at the

Siege of Osaka The was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages (winter campaign and summer campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege ...

. The clan would continue to rule Yamaga for 13 generations until the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

. However, Tani Moritomo's son, Tani Morimasa, distributed 6000 ''koku'' of his holdings to his younger brother and two cousins, reducing the domain to the bare minimum requirement to maintain its status. Since the domain was located in a mountainous area with little land suitable for rice cultivation, the domain's finances were supported by forestry and production of '' washi'' paper. During the

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 ...

, the domain was one of the first to support 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 ...

. In 1871, 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) ...

, Yamaga briefly became "Yamaga Prefecture", which was merged with Kyoto Prefecture a few months later. The final ''daimyō'', Tani Morishige, became a viscount (''shishaku'') 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 in 1884.

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

As with most domains in the

han system ( ja, 藩, "domain") is a Japanese historical term for the estate of a daimyo in the Edo period (1603–1868) and early Meiji period (1868–1912). Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Han"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 283. or (daimyo domain) s ...

, Yamaga Domain consisted of several discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned ''

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 ...

'', based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields.Elison, George and Bardwell L. Smith (1987)
''Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century,'' p. 18
* Tanba Province **44 villages in Ikaruga District

List of daimyō

References

{{Domains of Kinki Domains of Japan 1871 disestablishments in Japan States and territories disestablished in 1871 Tanba Province History of Kyoto Prefecture

History

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

List of daimyō

See also

Further reading

References