Tokugawa Ietsugu

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Tokugawa Ietsugu ( Japanese 徳 川 家 継 ; * August 8, 1709 in Edo-jō ; † June 19, 1716 ) was from 1713 to 1716 the 7th Shogun of the Edo period in Japan. He was four years old when he “took office” and died at the age of seven.

Life path

Tokugawa Ietsugu, portrait around 1735
Tokugawa Ieshiges grave stele in the Zōjō-ji cemetery

Tokugawa Ietsugu was born as the fourth son of Tokugawa Ienobu . He was his only surviving child after Daigoro died in 1710 at the age of two. His birth name was Nabematsu. His mother was the concubine Okiyo (1685-1752; お 喜 世 ), the Gekkō-in ( 月光 院 ). She had been in the shogunal household since 1704. After Ienobus death she had an affair with his secretary Manabe Akifusa (1667-1720). Contemporaries describe them as power-hungry and dissolute.

After the death of his father, he took office at the age of four in April 1713. The affairs of state were continued by the advisers of his predecessor, Manabe Akifusa and the Confucian Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725). In 1714 a new metal currency was introduced. The falling price of rice lowered the income of the samurai vassals who were paid in rice. In the long term, this weakened the position of the sword nobility vis-à-vis the emerging but despised merchants.

To stop the surreptitious trafficking, it was ordered in 1715 that ships arriving in Kyushu were to be burned and that their crews were to be killed.

Ietsugu died after about a month of illness. His grave is in the Zōjō-ji ( Shiba ); posthumously he was given the name Yushō-in . During an examination as part of the reburial of his bones, it was found that water penetrated his coffin and that his remains had rotted down to his hair and fingernails. However, it could still be determined that he had inherited blood group A from his mother.

The successor, Yoshimune , was chosen from the Kii line of the family.

literature

Web links

Commons : Tokugawa Ietsugu  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cecilia Seigle; Konoe Hiroko, Consort of Tokugawa Ienobu; in: Harvard Journal Asiatic Studies, Vol. 59,2, p. 507.
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Tokugawa is the family name, Ietsugu the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Tokugawa, Ietsugu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 徳 川 家 継 (Japanese); Yushō-in (posthumous)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION minor shogun (1713-1716)
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1709
PLACE OF BIRTH Edo
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 1716