Hirosaki han

• Territory: northernmost portions of Mutsu province
• Castle: Hirosaki castle
• Lords: Tsugaru clan
• Kokudaka: 100,000 (after 1808)
• Other Names: 津軽藩 (Tsugaru han)
• Japanese: 弘前藩 (Hirosaki han)

Hirosaki han was an Edo period domain based at Hirosaki castle and ruled by the Tsugaru clan. It controlled some of the northernmost portions of Mutsu province, the domain covering roughly half of modern-day Aomori prefecture. The domain, also known as Tsugaru domain, has been characterized as possessing a relatively large samurai population compared to many other domains, and a relatively under-developed economy.

Tsugaru Tamenobu was the first Edo period lord of Hirosaki, being confirmed in his lands by Tokugawa Ieyasu after supporting the Tokugawa at the Battle of Sekigahara.

Due to the relatively large samurai population, which strained the domain's ability to support them solely with rice stipends, many lower-ranking samurai were resettled in the countryside, and became a sort of rural gentry, supporting themselves through agriculture, the overseeing of agriculture, or other commercial or semi-commercial activities. Though in most domains samurai were removed from the countryside and given residences in the castle town, this is one example of where realities differed from the generalization.

Though the Tsugaru controlled one of the largest domains in the realm, by sheer land area, and thus boasted considerable actual agricultural production (uchidaka, or gendaka), they were not of sufficient lineage to merit the esteemed kunimochi status, and were ascribed a much lower omotedaka (official kokudaka standing) than their actual production. However, the Tsugaru began to receive a number of benefits by the beginning of the 19th century equivalent to those enjoyed by kunimochi daimyô. In 1808, the domain's omotedaka or hôdaka (official kokudaka) was raised to 100,000, and the Tsugaru daimyô was from then on permitted to sit in the ôhiroma of Edo castle for shogunal audiences, alongside the kunimochi daimyô. In 1824, Tsugaru Nobuyuki, the eleventh lord of the domain, was raised in court rank to fourth-rank, equivalent to a kunimochi lord.

Bakumatsu & Meiji

As in Yonezawa han and many others, the high officials of Hirosaki's domainal government saw the Imperial loyalists as a threat to their domain. Unlike those in Yonezawa, however, the leaders of Hirosaki felt that resistance was futile, and so did not join up with the active resistance.

References

• Mark Ravina, Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan, Stanford University Press, 1999.