Matsudaira Sadanobu

• Birth: 1758
• Death: 1829
• Titles: Tairô (1787-1793/7)
• Japanese: 松平定信 (Matsudaira Sadanobu)

Matsudaira Sadanobu served as Tairô from 1787 to 1793, following the downfall of Tanuma Okitsugu, who was accused of fostering terrible political corruption. Sadanobu has been characterized as a Confucian conservative and moralist, whose administration saw a reversal of commercial and trade initiatives pioneered by his predecessor, as well as renewed enforcement of sumptuary regulations and the like.

John Whitney Hall lays the blame for Japan's economic and military weakness in the 19th century at the feet of Sadanobu, arguing that if Tanuma had not been ousted from office, and had been allowed to continue his line of economic plans, Japan might have moved even earlier, and more independently, towards industrialization.

Life and Career

Sadanobu was named Tairô, or head of the rôjû (Elders; chief shogunal advisors), in 1787, and launched the Kansei Reforms that same year.

Among the most famous or significant sets of Reforms of the Edo period, the Kansei Reforms aimed to restore a Confucian order and sense of propriety to society. Incorporating sumptuary laws alongside a number of other policies, they operated on the belief that if everyone in society performed their role correctly - if farmers acted like farmers, and merchants like merchants, and not like samurai - and refrained from extravagance, all of society would fall into place, peace and Order would reign, and prosperity would result. These policies were thus not guided by what we would today recognize as practical understandings of the laws of economics, but did manage to have some positive effect, unlike the disastrous monetary policies of some other Edo period efforts at Reforms.

As part of his Kansei Reforms, Sadanobu brought the Hayashi clan school under shogunate control, rebuilt and expanded the compound, made it a site for the training of shogunate and domain officials, and eliminated from the curriculum any elements which his Confucian sensibilities deemed incorrect or inappropriate. It was at this time that the school was officially renamed "Shôheizaka gakumonjo." The Reforms also included a severe strengthening of censorship and its enforcement, leading much intellectual production to be circulated in manuscript form, so that it would not come into the hands of the printing and publishing censors.

Sadanobu resigned as head of the rôjû in 1793/7.

See Also

• Timon Screech, The Shogun's Painted Culture: Fear and Creativity in the Japanese States, 1760-1829, Reaktion Books, 2000.