Sengoku Hisatoshi
Sengoku Hisatoshi was the last Edo period daimyô of Izushi han in Tajima province.
Born in 1820, he became lord of Izushi in 1825, at the age of five. The domain's kokudaka at that time was 58,000. However, as the result of a political dispute within the Sengoku household, Izushi was stripped of nearly half its kokudaka; for the remainder of the Edo period, the domain (and the daimyô) were recognized as being only of 30,000 koku rank.
Hisatoshi remained lord of Izushi through this dispute, however, up until the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1867. Due to having become lord at such a young age, Hisatoshi eventually became the longest-serving of the lords attached to the yanagi-no-ma of Edo castle, a distinction that brought with it a certain degree of prestige and privilege. As a result of that distinction, he was the first of the yanagi-no-ma daimyô to be granted an audience on any particular occasion, and the first to be granted leave, as well as serving as the head of the group in certain ways, e.g. in terms of speaking for all the yanagi-no-ma daimyô, or passing along instructions or directions to them.
References
- Ogawa Kyôichi 小川恭一, Shogun omemie sahô 将軍お目見え作法, Tokyojin 東京人 (1995/1), 79.