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Kaga Domain

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Kaga Domain

The Kaga Domain (加賀藩, Kaga han), also known as Kanazawa Domain (金沢藩, Kanazawa han), was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It is associated with the provinces of Kaga, Noto and Etchū in modern-day Ishikawa Prefecture and Toyama Prefecture on the island of Honshū.

Contents

In the han system, Kaga was a political and economic abstraction based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields. In other words, the domain was defined in terms of kokudaka, not land area. This was different from the feudalism of the West.

History

Maeda Toshiie was a distinguished military commander, a retainer of Oda Nobunaga and a close friend of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. A member of the Council of Five Elders who ruled Japan during the Sengoku period, he was granted the Kaga Domain in 1583. His eldest son, Maeda Toshinaga, supported Tokugawa Ieyasu in his rise to power and was rewarded by an increase in his lands to 1.25 million koku. Except for the Tokugawa holdings, the domain was the richest in the nation.

Toshinaga was succeeded by his brother Toshitsune, who created two cadet branches of the clan:

  • the Toyama Domain (100,000 koku), headed by descendants of Toshitsune's second son Toshitsugu (1617–1674)
  • the Daishōji Domain (100,000 koku), headed by descendants of Toshitsune's fourth son Toshiaki (1638–1692)
  • A third cadet line was founded by Toshitsune's brother Maeda Toshitaka for his services during the Siege of Osaka. This branch held the Nanokaichi Domain, rated at the minimum of 10,000 koku.

    The Maeda clan ruled Kaga until the abolition of the domains in 1871.

    List of daimyo

    The hereditary daimyōs were heads of the clan and of the domain.

    1. Toshiie
    2. Toshinaga
    3. Toshitsune
    4. Mitsutaka
    5. Tsunanori
    6. Yoshinori
    7. Munetoki
    8. Shigehiro
    9. Shigenobu
    10. Shigemichi
    11. Harunaga
    12. Narinaga
    13. Nariyasu
    14. Yoshiyasu

    Genealogy

    The clan records were preserved over the course of centuries.

    References

    Kaga Domain Wikipedia