Tsugaru Nobuaki

Tsugaru Nobuaki (津軽 信著, April 16, 1719 – March 10, 1746) was the 6th daimyō of Hirosaki Domain in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, Japan (modern-day Aomori Prefecture). His courtesy title was Dewa-no-kami.

Biography

Tsugaru Nobuaki was born as the eldest son of Tsugaru Nobuoki, the eldest son and heir of Tsugaru Nobuhisa, 5th daimyō of Hirosaki Domain. His father died in 1730, and when Nobuhisa retired in 1731, he appointed his grandson Nobuaki as his successor. Nobuaki was still in his minority, so all power remained in the hands of Nobuhisa.

During his reign, Tsugaru domain was plagued with one natural disaster after another, with flooding followed by drought, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions (by Mount Iwaki and other volcanoes in Hokkaidō), inclement weather, and repeated crop failures, which led to widespread famine and disease. The Tokugawa shogunate itself was in financial crisis, resulting in the implementation of the Kyōhō Reforms by Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune, and not in a position to extend aid. Nobuaki continuing developing new paddy fields and irrigation works, and encouraged research of rangaku to help resolve the domain’s problems and ever-increasing debt. However, almost as a final straw, the castle town of Hirosaki burned down in a great fire on May 11, 1746 and Nobuaki died two weeks later of sickness, at age 26.

The retired daimyō, Nobuhisa, and continued to exert influence behind-the-scenes from the clan's residence in Edo, and when Nobuaki died in 1744, Nobuhisa arranged to have Nabuaki's selder son, Nobuyasu (age 6), appointed daimyō. Nobuhisa acted as regent until his death on March 10, 1746.

Nobuaki's grave is at the temple of Juyo-in in Taitō-ku, Tokyo as well as the Tsugaru clan temple of Chōshō-ji in Hirosaki.

See also

• Tsugaru clan

References

• (Japanese) "Hirosaki-jō" (17 Feb. 2008)
• (Japanese) "Tsugaru-han" on Edo 300 HTML (17 Feb. 2008)
• The content of much of this article was derived from that of the corresponding article on Japanese Wikipedia.