Tokugawa Ienari (Japanese: 徳川 家斉, November 18, 1773 – March 22, 1841) was the eleventh and longest-serving shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan who held office from 1787 to 1837.[1] He was a great-grandson of the eighth shōgun Tokugawa Yoshimune through his son Munetada (1721–1764), head of the Hitotsubashi branch of the family, and his grandson Harusada (1751–1827).
Ienari died in 1841 and was given the Buddhist name Bunkyouin and buried at Kan'ei-ji.
Events of Ienari's bakufuedit
1787 (Tenmei 7): Ienari becomes the 11th shōgun of the bakufu government.[1]
1788 (Tenmei 7): Riots in rice shops in Edo and Osaka.
March 6 – 11, 1788 (Tenmei 8, 29th day of the 1st month – 4th day of the second month): Great Fire of Kyoto. A fire in the city, which begins at 3 o'clock in the morning of March 6 burns uncontrolled until the 1st day of the second month (March 8); and embers smolder until extinguished by heavy rain on the 4th day of the second month (March 11). The emperor and his court flee the fire, and the Imperial Palace is destroyed. No other re-construction is permitted until a new palace is completed. This fire was considered a major event. The Dutch VOCOpperhoofd in Dejima noted in his official record book that "people are considering it to be a great and extraordinary heavenly portent."[2]
Ienari's 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.
Family lifeedit
First wifeedit
In 1778, the four-year-old Hitotsubashi Toyochiyo (豊千代), a minor figure in the Tokugawa clan hierarchy, was betrothed to Shimazu Shigehime[5] or Tadakohime, the four-year-old daughter of Shimazu Shigehide, the tozama daimyō 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 shōgun, Tokugawa Ieharu. This meant that when Toyochiyo became Shōgun Ienari in 1786, Shigehide was set to become the father-in-law of the shōgun.[6] 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.[7]
Other relationshipsedit
Ienari kept a harem of 900 women and fathered over 75 children.[8]
Many of Ienari's children were adopted into various daimyō 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:
Screech, Timon. (2006). Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822. London: RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0-7007-1720-X
Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Nihon Ōdai Ichiran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. OCLC 5850691.
Totman, Conrad. (1967). Politics in the Tokugawa bakufu, 1600–1843. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
External linksedit
PBS timeline of Japanese History
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tokugawa Ienari.