Tsuchiya Toranao

• Titles: Uneme no shô
• Japanese: 土屋 寅直 (Tsuchiya Toranao)

Tsuchiya Toranao was a Bakumatsu period daimyô of Tsuchiura han.

A sôshaban in 1848, he was in the 1st month of that year named apprentice Temples & Shrines Magistrate (Jisha bugyô minarai), and then promoted to full Magistrate nine months later. Two years later, in 1850, Naitô Nobuchika became Kyoto shoshidai and Toranao was appointed his replacement as Osaka jôdai. He was also at the same time appointed to help oversee preparations for an upcoming Korean embassy to Edo which, ultimately, never took place.

While serving as Osaka jôdai, he made efforts to relieve the poverty and suffering of the people of the city.

When Russian naval captain Yevfimy Vasilyevich Putyatin led a fleet to Osaka in 1854, Toranao met with the two Osaka machi bugyô and others to discuss options and possibilities, ultimately suggesting to the shogunate that Putyatin not be received at Osaka but rather that he be told to go to Shimoda.

References

• Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 1 (1937), 127, 165, 273, 275, 384, 653.