was a Japanese

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 ...

of 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 character ...

. He was an official in 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 ...

and a

favourite A favourite (British English) or favorite (American English) was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In post-classical and early-modern Europe, among other times and places, the term was used of individuals delegated s ...

of the fifth shōgun,

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 ...

. His second concubine was Ogimachi Machiko, a writer and scholar from the noble court who wrote

monogatari is a literary form in traditional Japanese literature – an extended prose narrative tale comparable to the epic novel. ''Monogatari'' is closely tied to aspects of the oral tradition, and almost always relates a fictional or fictionali ...

.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu''" in ; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, ''see'
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Authority File
.

Career

The Yanagisawa house traced descent to the "Kai-Genji," the branch of the

Minamoto clan was one of the surnames bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility from 1192 to 1333. The practice was most prevalent during th ...

which had been enfeoffed with the province of Kai in the eleventh century. Yoshiyasu served Tsunayoshi from an early age, becoming his ''

Wakashū is a historical Japanese term indicating an adolescent boy, used particularly during the Edo period (1603–1867). status was indicated by haircut. Appearance and ceremonies properly referred to a boy between the ages at which his head was ...

'' and eventually rose to the position of ''soba yōnin''. He was the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

'' of the Kawagoe han, and later of the

Kōfu is the capital city of Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 187,985 in 90,924 households, and a population density of 880 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Overview Toponymy Kōfu's name means " ...

han in Kai Province, a signature honour as it has been the fief held by Tsunayoshi before becoming ''shōgun'', and of Ienobu, his heir apparent, as well as having an historic familial connection; he retired in 1709. Having previously been named Yasuakira, he received a

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequ ...

from the name of the shōgun, and came to call himself Yoshiyasu. He built Rikugien Garden, a traditional Japanese garden, in 1695. He had an adopted son named Yanagisawa Yoshisato by

with Yoshiyasu's concubine, Sumeko. Yanagisawa played a pivotal role in the matter of the

forty-seven rōnin The revenge of the , also known as the or Akō vendetta, is a historical event in Japan in which a band of ''rōnin'' (lordless samurai) avenged the death of their master on 31 January 1703. The incident has since become legendary. It is on ...

Cultural references

Yanagisawa is the subject the diary memoir of his concubine Ōgimachi Machiko (正親町町子, 1675 - 1724), Matsukage no nikki ('In the Shelter of the Pine'), which gives a detailed account of Yoshiyasu's glory during the period 1685-1709 modelled on the Eiga Monogatari and in a writing style inspired by The Tale of Genji. More than 36 hand-copied manuscripts survive to the present day. An English translation appeared in 2021. Yanagisawa appears as a character in most of the novels by American mystery writer Laura Joh Rowland set in

Genroku was a after Jōkyō and before Hōei. The Genroku period spanned the years from the ninth month of 1688 to the third month of 1704. The reigning emperor was .Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). ''Annales des empereurs du japon'', p. 415. The period w ...

-era Japan as the antagonist to the books' main character Sano Ichiro. Rowland's chronology differs from history by having Yanagisawa exiled in disgrace in 1694 and being replaced by Sano as Tsunayoshi's chief advisor, only to return from exile later in the series. Other details of Yanagisawa's life, however, are portrayed fairly accurately, including his relationship to the shōgun.

Notes

References

* Bodart-Bailey, Beatrice. (1980). ''Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu: a Reappraisal''. Canberra: Australian National University
OCLC 222149819
* Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). ''Japan Encyclopedia''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
OCLC 48943301
, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Yanagisawa, Yoshiyasu 1658 births 1714 deaths Daimyo Tairō Japanese pages Military engineers 17th-century LGBT people Deified Japanese people

Career

Cultural references

See also

Notes

References