Tanuma Okitsugu

Born in 1719 (Kyōhō 4) in Edo. His father, Tanuma Okiyuki, was of low birth — a foot soldier of the Kii domain who became a shogunal retainer by following Tokugawa Yoshimune.

Okitsugu served the ninth shōgun Tokugawa Ieshige and the tenth shōgun Ieharu as a close attendant, achieving an exceptional rise from soba-yōnin (grand chamberlain) to rōjū (senior councillor).

Holding real power, Okitsugu turned away from the agrarianism that depended on the traditional land tax, and put forward one mercantilist policy after another that took the power of commerce into the finances.

These included the collection of levies through the official recognition of merchant guilds (kabu-nakama), the monopoly on copper and marine products and the expansion of Nagasaki trade, plans to develop Ezo, the reclamation of Lake Inba and Lake Tega, and the issue of a counting silver coin, the nanryō-nishu-gin.

These were advanced attempts aimed at rebuilding the shogunal finances. But on the charge that bribery ran rampant, the 'Tanuma era' was made a byword for corruption, and criticism piled on, compounded by the confusion of the great Tenmei famine and the eruption of Mt.

Asama. In 1784, his heir Okitomo was cut down within Edo Castle and lost his life. When shōgun Ieharu died in 1786, Okitsugu lost his backing and fell from power.

The Kansei Reforms of his successor Matsudaira Sadanobu denied all of Tanuma's policies. In 1788 (Tenmei 8), he died in despair.

He was seventy. Recent historiography re-evaluates his economic policy as ahead of its time.

“A world that relies on rice alone will one day reach a dead end. To make the power of commerce the wealth of the country — what is wrong with that?”

Tanuma Okitsugu is a man who was long disparaged throughout the Edo period as the byword for a 'bribe politician.' But historiography from the latter half of the twentieth century onward is fundamentally repainting that appraisal.

As the rice-based agrarianism reached a dead end, Okitsugu sought to take the power of commerce and the money economy into the shogunal finances.

Official recognition of merchant guilds, the monopoly system, the expansion of Nagasaki trade, the development of Ezo, the reclamation of Lake Inba, and the issue of a counting silver coin.

These were advanced policies that looked ahead to the transition from an agricultural society to a commercial one. After Okitsugu's fall, the Kansei Reforms of Matsudaira Sadanobu denied all of these and reverted to austerity and a return to agrarianism.

Some scholars argue that, had Tanuma's line continued, the modernization of Japan might have begun earlier. Having his heir Okitomo assassinated within the castle, saddled with the blame for the confusion of famine, and departing the world in despair, Okitsugu's life was also the tragedy of a reformer ahead of his time buried by the values of the old order.

The ruins of Sagara Castle in Makinohara City, Shizuoka Prefecture, convey to the present the traces of the land Okitsugu ruled as its lord.