Owari Domain (2/2)The Owari Tokugawa family ruled Owari throughout the Edo period.

He also did unconventional things such as recruiting a popular prostitute in Yoshiwara in Edo and opening the Edo domain mansion to many people, and it seems that he was very popular with the common people. In fact, during Muneharu's reign, no criminals were sentenced to death in Nagoya, and the economy developed.
However, the domain's finances rapidly fell into the red, and the infrastructure of the Owari domain was undergoing progress. As a result, the Owari domain was in considerable turmoil, and in 1735 it took a complete turn and issued an edict forbidding recreational wanderings. The sudden development of this policy made the shogunate increasingly wary of the Owari clan. Around the same time, tensions were rising between the Imperial Court and the Shogunate over the forced publication of Dai Nippon History.

Tokugawa Muneharu had a close relationship with the Imperial Court, and was also close to Kaneka Ichijo, the Kanpaku and Dajo Minister at the time. As a result, Tokugawa Muneharu was caught between the shogunate and the imperial court, and was even forced to retire. In 1739, Tokugawa Muneharu was forced to retire to his Kojimachi mansion in Nakayashiki, Edo, and later to his mansion in Sannomaru, Nagoya Castle.

It was said that during this period of retiring, Muneharu was not allowed to leave the mansion, and was not even allowed to visit the graves of his parents, but in reality he was able to go out often, and Muneharu enjoyed various hobbies within the mansion. It is also known that Tokugawa Yoshimune often sent letters to Tokugawa Muneharu asking, ``Are there any inconveniences?'' In 1764, Tokugawa Yoshimune died at the age of 67. He had eight children, but seven of them died in the Edo mansion while he was still alive, leaving no son to succeed him. As a result, the Owari domain once became the lord of the shogunate, and Yoshijun Matsudaira, the lord of the Mino Takasu domain, became the eighth lord of the domain, Munekatsu Tokugawa.

Encourage learning and fight natural disasters

The 8th lord, Munekatsu Tokugawa, and his son, the 9th lord, Munemitsu Tokugawa, adopted policies that were completely opposite to those of the 7th lord, Muneharu Tokugawa, to rebuild the domain's finances and encourage learning. While implementing fiscal austerity policies, Tokugawa Munekatsu appointed Fuse Kaniyosai to establish a school that became the predecessor of the domain school Meirindo. Although Tokugawa Munekatsu has the impression of having a weaker shadow compared to Muneharu, he compiled various cultural books and reorganized the criminal law. After his death in 1761, his second son, Munemitsu Tokugawa, became the 9th lord of the domain.

Munematsu Tokugawa appointed Yoshiyoshi Yamamura and Yoshifuru Higuchi and focused on new rice field development, industrial promotion policies, and flood control construction. He also inherited his father's business and founded Meirindo, a domain school, and worked to spread education in the domain.
For this reason, Munemitsu Tokugawa is hailed as the founder of the Owari domain. However, natural disasters such as the flooding of the Shonai River continued, and the Owari clan's finances rapidly deteriorated. Furthermore, Munematsu Tokugawa also reformed the military system and reorganized the defenses of the Chita Peninsula in response to the shogunate's ``Naval Defense Order.'' As a result, the domain's finances further worsened, and it was forced to borrow money from the shogunate and wealthy merchants within the domain, and issue domain notes. Prices within the domain soared, leading to economic turmoil.

Munematsu Tokugawa passed away in 1799 at the age of 67, but his eldest son and second son died young, and his two nephews, whom he adopted from the Mino Takasu domain, also survived Munematsu's life. He will die in my house. Therefore, in 1798, the Hitotsubashi Tokugawa family adopted Harukuni Hitotsubashi's eldest son, Saitomo, as his adopted heir, and after Munemitsu's death, he became the 10th lord of the domain. With this, the male line of the Owari Tokugawa family that continued from Yoshinao Tokugawa came to an end. However, since Tokugawa Naritomo was the eldest daughter of Yoshimichi Tokugawa, the fourth lord of the domain, the child of Michi no Kimi, and the great-grandson of Muneki Nijo, he was descended from the Owari Tokugawa family through female lineage.

A succession of short-lived feudal lords brings the Owari domain into crisis.

The 10th lord, Saitomo Tokugawa, the 11th lord, Saion Tokugawa, the 12th lord, Saisho Tokugawa, and the 13th lord, Yoshihiro Tokugawa, were feudal lords who were adopted from the shogun family or the Sankyo, respectively. The 11th lord, Saion Tokugawa, was in poor health and lived in an Edo mansion in the Owari domain until his death at the age of 21, and never set foot in Owari. The 12th Tokugawa Saisho indulged in entertainment without regard for the domain's finances, and the domain's finances worsened. The 13th feudal lord, Tokugawa Yoshitsune, was adopted from the Tayasu Tokugawa family, and was also the younger brother of Matsudaira Shungaku, the lord of the Fukui domain, one of the daimyo who were active at the end of the Edo period. Tokugawa Keiyo himself seems to have been an intelligent person, but he contracted smallpox in the fourth year of his reign and passed away too soon, leaving no legacy behind.

The reason why adopted feudal lords continued to exist under the influence of the shogunate was partly due to the financial deterioration of the Owari domain. The Owari domain's finances had fallen into trouble during the era of Tokugawa Munemitsu, the 9th lord of the domain, until the issue of domain notes, and it was no longer possible to recover without the help of the shogunate.
As a result, the vassals of the Owari domain fought between the Edo faction, which tried to rebuild its finances by following the shogunate, and the Kintetsuto party, which opposed the shogunate's intervention in the domain's affairs, and the Kintetsuto party launched a movement to support the lord of the domain. .
As a result, adoption by the three lords of the shogunate family was stopped after the 13th lord, and Yoshikatsu Tokugawa, the second son of Yoshitake Matsudaira, lord of Mino Takasu, was appointed as the 14th lord.

Ansei's Great Prison and the Owari Domain

When Tokugawa Yoshikatsu was appointed lord of the Owari domain, foreign ships were increasingly arriving in Japan. Yoshikatsu Tokugawa was inspired by Nariaki Tokugawa, Nariaki Shimazu, lord of Satsuma domain, and Muneki Date, lord of Uwajima domain, and advocated a hard line on foreign affairs against the shogunate. On the other hand, the domain implemented a frugal policy and tried to rebuild its finances.

After the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States was signed in 1858, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu made an unexpected appearance at Edo Castle along with Tokugawa Nariaki, his son Yoshiatsu, and Matsudaira Shungaku, the lord of the Fukui domain, to protest against Dairo Ii Naosuke. Yoshikatsu Tokugawa was condemned for this act and ordered to retire. This is also considered to be part of Ansei no Daigoku. In this way, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu handed over the position of lord of the domain to his younger brother Shigenori Tokugawa. After retiring, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu took up photography as a hobby and left behind nearly 1,000 photographs, some of which are used as historical materials, such as the Ninomaru Palace of Nagoya Castle, which was destroyed during the Meiji period, and the Owari clan's lower residence in Edo. There are also many valuable things.

The end of the Edo period and the Owari domain

Shigenori Tokugawa, who became the 15th lord of the domain, handed over the position of 16th lord to Tokugawa Yoshikatsu's son, Yoshinori Tokugawa, after Naosuke Ii was assassinated during the Sakuradamon Incident. It was 1864, and Tokugawa Yoshinori had just turned six years old. Therefore, the lord of the Owari domain was effectively Tokugawa Yoshikatsu again. In the same year, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu became the governor of the first Choshu conquest.
After the restoration of imperial rule in 1867, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu was appointed to the new government, and he also served as a messenger requesting the 15th Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu to resign as determined by the Kogosho Conference.

The Sabaku faction within the domain strongly opposed these feudal lords from the new government. Therefore, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu purged the Sabaku faction within the domain from January 20th to 25th, 1868 (Aomatsuba Incident). This was carried out immediately after Yoshikatsu returned to the domain with an imperial order from the new government to ``massacre adulterers'', and the punishment was harsh: 14 people, from senior vassals to ordinary retainers, were beheaded and 20 others were punished.
In addition, just before the Aomatsuba Incident, the Boshin War broke out on January 3, 1868, and the new government army defeated the combined forces of Satsuma and Choshu. During the Boshin War, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu and his younger brother Shigenori served as the vanguard of the shogunate army. However, there were many feudal lords from the shogunate in the eastern domains after Nagoya, and it is said that there was a movement within the Owari domain to support the 16th lord, Yoshinori Tokugawa, and to side with the combined forces of Satsuma and Choshu.
There is a strong theory that Tokugawa Yoshikatsu was aware of this movement and took strong measures to resolve the Aomatsuba Incident.

Later, in 1870, the Owari domain merged with the Takasu domain, which was in financial trouble, and the domain's history ended with the abolition of the domain and the establishment of prefectures on July 14, 1871. . Furthermore, Yoshinori Tokugawa, the 16th lord of the domain, passed away at the age of 18 in 1875, and his father, Yoshikatsu Tokugawa, became the 17th head of the clan and became a marquis. The Owari Tokugawa family later established Meirin Junior High School, the Tokugawa Art Museum, Hoza Bunko, and the Tokugawa Biological Research Institute, and worked hard to protect the Tokugawa family's cultural assets and develop Aichi Prefecture.