(September 11, 1719, in Edo,

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 ...

– August 25, 1788, in Edo) was a

chamberlain Chamberlain may refer to: Profession *Chamberlain (office), the officer in charge of managing the household of a sovereign or other noble figure People *Chamberlain (surname) **Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), German-British philosop ...

(''sobashū'') and a senior counselor (''

rōjū The , usually translated as ''Elder'', was one of the highest-ranking government posts under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. The term refers either to individual Elders, or to the Council of Elders as a whole; under the first two ''shō ...

'') to the ''

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 Ieharu Tokugawa Ieharu (徳川家治) (June 20, 1737 – September 17, 1786) was the tenth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, who held office from 1760 to 1786. His childhood name was Takechiyo (竹千代). Ieharu died in 1786 and given t ...

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 ...

, in the

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 ...

of Japan. Tanuma and his son exercised tremendous power, especially in the last 14 years of shogun Ieharu's reign.Hane, M. (2018). ''Premodern Japan: A historical survey''. Routledge. He is known for the economic reforms of the

Tenmei is a Japanese era name (年号, ''nengō'', literally "years name") for the years between the An'ei Era and before the Kansei Era, from April 1781 through January 1789. The reigning emperor was . Change of era * 1781 : The new era name of Tenm ...

era and rampant corruption. He was also a ''

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

Sagara Domain was a Japanese feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period, located in Tōtōmi Province. The domain was centered in what is now the Sagara district of Makinohara city, Shizuoka Prefecture.

. Tanuma used the title Tonomo-no-kami. Tanuma's reforms aimed to rectify the systemic problems in Japan's economy, particularly the trade imbalance between the provinces (''han'') and the shogunal areas (''tenryō'') of Japan. The previous shogun,

Tokugawa Yoshimune was the eighth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1716 until his abdication in 1745. He was the son of Tokugawa Mitsusada, the grandson of Tokugawa Yorinobu, and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lineage Yoshimu ...

, sought to rectify the shogunate's economic problems by frugality and a focus on agriculture. Instead, Tanuma debased currency, sold monopoly rights to dealers, and taxed merchant guilds. To stem unfavorable balances of trade and bullion outflow, he took steps to increase foreign exports and set export quotas for

Akita is a Japanese name and may refer to: Places * 8182 Akita, a main-belt asteroid * Akita Castle, a Nara period fortified settlement in Akita, Japan * Akita Domain, also known as Kubota Domain, feudal domain in Edo period Japan * Akita, Kumamoto ...

copper mines (copper being the primary

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

age metal during that period), despite higher domestic prices. Tanuma's administration granted monopoly patents for numerous products, including iron, brass, sulfur, ginseng and lamp oil. Large investments were made into the massive

drainage Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic conditio ...

program to increase the agricultural land. Despite Tanuma's intentions to serve the public good, he was deeply corrupt and exacerbated corruption in government. Several years of crop failures from 1783 to 1787, resulting from drought followed by floods, led to famine and frequent riots. In

4 (1784), Okitsugu's son, the ''

wakadoshiyori The ', or "Junior Elders", were high government officials in the Edo period Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867). The position was established around 1633, but appointments were irregular until 1662. The four to six ''wakadoshiyori'' we ...

'' (junior counselor) , was assassinated inside Edo Castle. Okitomo was killed in front of his father as both were returning to their ''norimono'' after a meeting of the Counselors of State had broken up. Okitomo was killed by

Sano Masakoto , nicknamed was a Japanese samurai, a hatamoto guard of Edo Castle, who gained his fame by killing the unpopular ''wakadoshiyori'' in March 1784 in the castle. History On March 24th, 1784, in Edo castle, Sano shouted three times "remember", ...

, a ''

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 ...

''. The involvement of senior figures in the ''

bakufu , 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 ...

'' was suspected, but only the assassin himself was punished. The famine led to a spike in a number of protests and peasant rebellions, culminating in the Edo riots of 1787. Traditionalist opponents of the reform interpreted it as the "voice of Heaven" being followed by the "voice of the people". With the assassination of his son and the death of his patron

, Tanuma fell from power. The result was that the reforms and the relaxation of the strictures of ''

sakoku was the Isolationism, isolationist Foreign policy of Japan, foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, for a period of 265 years during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countri ...

'' were blocked.Screech, pp. 148–151, 163–170, 248.

Notes

References

* Hall, John Whitney. (1955). ''Tanuma Okitsugu, 1719–1788: Forerunner of Modern Japan''. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...

OCLC 445621
* Screech, Timon. (2006)
''Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822''.
London:

RoutledgeCurzon Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...

.
OCLC 65177072
* Titsingh, Isaac. (1820)
''Mémoires et anecdotes sur la dynastie régnante des djogouns, souverains du Japon''
Paris: Nepveu. .

Notes

References

See also