Tokugawa Ienari

In this Japanese name, the family name is Tokugawa.
Tokugawa Ienari
11th Edo Shogun
In office
1787–1837
Preceded by Tokugawa Ieharu
Succeeded by Tokugawa Ieyoshi
Personal details
Born (1773-11-18)November 18, 1773
Died March 22, 1841(1841-03-22) (aged 67)

Tokugawa Ienari; 徳川 家斉 (November 18, 1773 March 22, 1841) was the eleventh and longest-serving shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan who held office from 1787 to 1837.[1] He was a great-grandson of the eighth shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune through his son Munetada (1721–1764), head of the Hitotsubashi branch of the family, and his grandson Harusada (1751–1827).

Family life

First wife

In 1778, the four-year-old Hitotsubashi Toyochiyo, a minor figure in the Tokugawa clan hierarchy, was betrothed to Shimazu no Shige-hime[2] or Tadako-hime, the four-year-old daughter of Shimazu Shigehide, the tozama daimyo of Satsuma Domain on the island of Kyūshū. The significance of this alliance was dramatically enhanced when, in 1781, the young Toyochiyo was adopted by the childless shogun, Tokugawa Ieharu. This meant that when Toyochiyo became Shogun Ienari in 1786, Shigehide was set to become the father-in-law of the shogun.[3] The marriage was completed in 1789, after which Tadako became formally known as Midaidokoro Sadako, or "first wife" Sadako. Protocol required that she be adopted into a court family, and the Konoe family agreed to take her in but this was a mere formality.[4]

Other relationships

Ienari was known as a degenerate who kept a harem of 900 women and fathered over 75 children (in the Nemuri Kyoshirō film series starring Ichikawa Raizō VIII, many of these adult offspring, both male and female, are the villains of the stories).

Many of Ienari's myriad children were adopted into various daimyo houses throughout Japan, and some played important roles in the history of the Bakumatsu and Boshin War. Some of the more famous among them included: Hachisuka Narihiro (Tokushima Domain), Matsudaira Naritami (Tsuyama Domain), Tokugawa Narikatsu (first to the Shimizu-Tokugawa, then to the Wakayama Domain), Matsudaira Narisawa (Fukui Domain), and others.

Events of Ienari's bakufu

His time in office was marked by an era of pleasure, excess, and corruption, which ended in the disastrous Tenpō Famine of 1832-1837, in which thousands are known to have perished.

Eras of Ienari's bakufu

The years in which Ienari was shogun are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengō.[8]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Hall, John Whitney et al. (1991). Early Modern Japan, p. 21.
  2. Screech, Timon. (2006). Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822, p. 234 n12.
  3. Screech, p. 11.
  4. Screech, p. 221 n35.
  5. Screech, pp. 152–154, 249–250
  6. 1 2 3 Screech, p.154.
  7. Screech, p. 155.
  8. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Annales des empereurs du japon, p. 420.

References

External links

Military offices
Preceded by
Tokugawa Ieharu
Edo Shogun:
Tokugawa Ienari

1786–1837
Succeeded by
Tokugawa Ieyoshi
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