Takatō Domain

The Takatō Domain (高遠藩, Takatō-han) was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was associated with Shinano Province in modern-day Nagano Prefecture.^[1]

In the han system, Takatō was a political and economic abstraction based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields.^[2] In other words, the domain was defined in terms of kokudaka, not land area.^[3] This was different than the feudalism of the West.

History

The center of the domain was at Takatō Castle, in what is today the city of Ina, Nagano Prefecture.

The territory was first consolidated under the name Takatō in the Sengoku Period by Takatō Yoritsugu (d. 1552). After the castle fell to Takeda Shingen in the Siege of Takatō in 1545, it was given over to one of Shingen's sons, Nishina Morinobu. Takatō then came under the control of Hoshina Masatoshi, a retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu, following the defeat and subsequent destruction of the Takeda clan following the second Siege of Takatō in 1582.

Han Establishment

The territory became an official han (feudal domain) following the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, and the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603. Hoshina Masamitsu, the grandson of Masatoshi, became the first Edo period daimyō of Takatō, and the domain was officially ranked at an income of 25,000 koku. Masamitsu raised an illegitimate son of shogun Tokugawa Hidetada as his own, under the name Hoshina Masayuki, and was rewarded with a 5,000 koku increase for his domain in 1618. Following Hidetada's death in 1632, Masayuki was made lord of Yamagata Domain in Dewa Province in 1636, with an income of 200,000 koku.

Torii Tadaharu replaced him as lord of Takatō, with an income of 32,000. The next lord, Torii Tadanori, however, died in an incident at Edo Castle in 1689, leaving the clan's succession in the hands of the shogunate. Tadanori's successor in the family, Torii Tadahide, was given a 10,000 koku holding, the Shimomura Domain in Noto Province. As a result, Takatō came briefly to be administered directly by the shogunate until 1691, when Naitō Kiyokazu left his Tondabayashi Domain in Settsu Province to become lord of Takatō. The domain began to have financial troubles beginning under the following lord, Naitō Yorinori, who made efforts at reforms and innovations to solve the problems. The Ejima-Ikushima affair occurred around the same time, resulting in a shogunal consort named Ejima, banished from Edo, being left in the custody of Takatō.

Development

The seventh Naitō lord of Takatō, Naitō Yoriyasu, oversaw numerous development projects, including a trading market, a mulberry plantation operated directly by the domain, educational institutions and land intensification projects. These changes, however, brought numerous peasant revolts, and instability to the realm.

Towards the end of the Edo period, the final lord, Naitō Yorinao, established han-supported schools and took part in the campaigns of the Chōshū Domain. During the 1868 Boshin War, however, Naitō sided with the newly founded Meiji government army against the last supporters of the shogunate.

Naitō remained governor of Takatō when the lands were formally handed over to the Emperor. In 1871, the domains were abolished, and Takatō became "Takatō Prefecture", only to be subsumed into Tsukama Prefecture and, eventually, into Nagano Prefecture, which remains today.

Notable Persons

Takatō was the birthplace of the Meiji period educator Izawa Shūji.

List of daimyo

The hereditary daimyo were head of the clan and head of the domain.

• Hoshina clan, 1590-1631 (25,000 koku)^[4]

1. Hosinga Masanao^[4]
2. Hoshina Masamitsu^[4]
3. Hoshina Masayuki^[4]

• Torii clan, 1631-1691 (30,000 koku)^[5]

1. Torii Tadanori^[5]

• Naitō clan, 1691-1871 (33,000 koku)^[6]
  1. Naitō Kiyokazu
  2. Naitō Yorinori
  3. Naitō Yoriyuki
  4. Naitō Yoritaka
  5. Naitō Nagayoshi
  6. Naitō Yorimochi
  7. Naitō Yoriyasu
  8. Naitō Yorinao

See also

• List of Han
• Abolition of the han system

References

Map of Japan, 1789 -- the Han system affected cartography