was the 9th daimyō

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

of Hirosaki Domain

Hirosaki Domain

The ' was a Japanese domain of the Edo period, located in northern Mutsu Province . It was ruled by the Tsugaru clan...

 in northern Mutsu Province

Mutsu Province

was an old province of Japan in the area of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori prefecture and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture...

, Honshū

Honshu

is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 (modern-day Aomori Prefecture

Aomori Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku Region. The capital is the city of Aomori.- History :Until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Aomori prefecture was known as Mutsu Province....

). His courtesy title, initially Dewa-no-kami, was later raised to Saikyo Daiyu.

Biography

Tsugaru Yasuchika was the eldest son of Tsugaru Akitaka, the 5th lord of Kurosaki, a 4000 koku

Koku

The is a Japanese unit of volume, equal to ten cubic shaku. In this definition, 3.5937 koku equal one cubic metre, i.e. 1 koku is approximately 278.3 litres. The koku was originally defined as a quantity of rice, historically defined as enough rice to feed one person for one year...

hatamoto

Hatamoto

A was a samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as gokenin. However, in the Edo period, hatamoto were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa...

holding created for the second son of Tsugaru Nobuhira

Tsugaru Nobuhira

was the 2nd daimyō of Hirosaki Domain in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, Japan . His courtesy title was Etchū-no-kami.-Biography:Tsugaru Noruhira was born as the 3rd son of Tsugaru Tamenobu, head of the Tsugaru clan...

. When Tsugaru Nobuakira

Tsugaru Nobuakira

was the 8th daimyō of Hirosaki Domain in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, Japan . His courtesy title was Tosa-no-kami.-Biography:...

, the 8th daimyō of Tsugaru Domain died without heir, he was posthumously adopted to maintain the Tsugaru bloodline, turning the Kurosaki holding over to his own eldest son. Yasuchika implemented many of the reforms initiated by Nobuakira to restore prosperity to the disaster-prone domain, including having many of his samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

turn to part-time farming to maintain their revenues.

In 1805, the Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

 charged Tsugaru Domain with the responsibility of maintaining the security of Ezo

Ezo

is a Japanese name which historically referred to the lands to the north of Japan. It was used in various senses, sometimes meaning the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō, and sometimes meaning lands and waters further north in the Sea of Okhotsk, like Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands...

, an area considered loosely at the time to encompass present-day Hokkaidō

Hokkaido

, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...

, Karafuto and the southern Kurile Islands. In return, the revenues of the domain were increased from 70,000 to 100,000 koku, and Kuroishi was raised to a full han status. However, the increase in revenue was far less than the expense of dispatching troops and maintaining garrisons in the wide expanses of the northern islands, and increases in local taxation led to widespread peasant revolts by 1813. Growing dissatisfaction with his rule cumulated in the Soma Daisaku Incident of 1821, an assassination attempt. In 1825, Yasuchika turned rule of the domain over to his second son and went into retirement. He died at the domain’s Edo residence in 1833.