A Foot Soldier's Son Rises: In 1772, Tanuma Okitsugu Stood at the Summit of Shogunal Government

In 1772 (Meiwa 9), at Edo Castle. Tanuma Okitsugu was appointed rōjū, the highest office of the shogunate.

He was fifty-four. It was the moment a man born the son of a single foot soldier of the Kii domain stood at the summit of shogunal government, where distinguished hereditary houses were packed close.

His elevation from soba-yōnin, an attendant at the shōgun's side, was exceptional, and gave a shock to the shogunal retainers who prized the old house rank.

Not by birth but by the shōgun's trust and his talent for practical affairs, Okitsugu had climbed this high.

Okitsugu's father, Tanuma Okiyuki, was of low birth — a foot soldier of the Kii domain discovered by Tokugawa Yoshimune and made a shogunal retainer.

He followed Yoshimune to Edo when Yoshimune became shōgun, and joined the lower ranks of the hatamoto.

Okitsugu, as his son, was by no means blessed in pedigree. But serving as a page of the ninth shōgun Ieshige, his ability and tact caught the shōgun's eye.

Thereafter, Okitsugu, with the shōgun's trust as his weapon, steadily raised his position.

In the generation of the tenth shōgun Ieharu, Okitsugu became soba-yōnin. The soba-yōnin was a key post relaying the shōgun's will to the rōjū, and closeness to the shōgun became power itself.

Backed by Ieharu's immense trust, Okitsugu strengthened his influence over shogunal government.

The hereditary daimyō looked on him coldly as an upstart, but Okitsugu overturned this with his practical ability.

On the single point of the shōgun's trust, Okitsugu built the foundation of his power.

What the Okitsugu who had become rōjū fixed his eyes on was the rebuilding of the hard-pressed shogunal finances.

The traditional finances, based on rice, had already reached their limit. Okitsugu set about reform with an idea the shogunate had not had before — taking the vitality of commerce into the finances.

It was precisely because Okitsugu had risen by ability from low status that he could put forward bold policies unbound by house rank or precedent.

The rise of a foot soldier's son was the beginning of a fresh wind blowing into shogunal government.