Hotta Masanobu

Hotta Masanobu ( Japanese 堀 田 正 信 ; * 1632 ; † 1680/5/12 in Tokushima ) was the Lord of Sakura - han in Japan from 1651 to 1660 . After criticizing Bakufu's policies , he was banished.

Life

Hotta Masanobu was the son of Hotta Masamori . He held the court rank of Kōzuke no Suke , the lieutenant governor of Kōzuke. After his father's suicide, he became head of the family in 1651.

In 1660 he wrote a letter accusing shogunal mismanagement and asked permission to divide his fiefdom, Sakura ( 佐 倉 藩 , Shimousa province , 110,000 koku ) among his vassals ( hatamoto ) in order to alleviate their misery. This request was considered offensive by Bakufu and he was initially sentenced to death. At the intervention of Matsudaira Nobutsuna and Hoshina Masayuki , Masanobu was only expropriated and exiled to Iida ( Shinano Province ). In 1672, under house arrest, he was allowed to relocate to Wakasa . In 1675 he secretly went to the capital Kyoto, but was soon discovered and now exiled to Awaji Island , two years later to Tokushima. He committed suicide there, probably when he learned of the death of the shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna .

His tragic story is heroized in Sōgorō , he himself is the "ghost of Sakura".

His great-grandson, who lived 1709–53, bears the same name, but is written with different Kanji .

Literature and Sources

• Hotta Masahige (* 1915): Hotta-ke sandaiki . Shinchōsha, Tokyo 1985, ISBN 4103583010 ; (gives the biographies of Masatoshi, Masanaka and Masanobu)
• Berend Wispelwey (Ed.): Japanese Biographical Archive . KG Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-598-34014-1 , Fiche 84

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Japanese calendar
2. ↑ engl. Full text: For his people, being the true story of Sogoro's sacrifice entitled in the original Japanese version the Cherry blossoms of a spring morn (1903)

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Hotta is the family name, Masanobu the first name.