was a Japanese 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...

 of the Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

  He was an official in 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...

 and he was a favorite of the fifth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi

was the fifth shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan. He was the younger brother of Tokugawa Ietsuna, thus making him the son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the grandson of Tokugawa Hidetada, and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu....

.

He served Tsunayoshi from an early age, becoming his wakashu and eventually rising to the position of soba yōnin. He was the daimyo

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 the Kawagoe

Kawagoe, Saitama

is a city located in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, and is about a 30-minute train ride from Ikebukuro in Tokyo.As of July 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 343,926...

 han

Han (Japan)

The or domain was the name of the estate belonging to a warrior in Japan after the 17th century. The fiefs of the daimyos of the samurai class of Japan during the Edo period were called han.-Edo period:...

, and later of the Kofu

Kofu, Yamanashi

is the capital city of Yamanashi Prefecture in Japan.As of May 1, 2011, the city had a estimate population of 197,540, with 85,794 households. The total area is 212.41 km².-History:Kōfu's name means "capital of Kai Province"...

 han; he retired in 1709. Having previously been named Yasuakira, he received a kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 from the name of the shogun, and came to call himself Yoshiyasu. He built Rikugien Garden

Rikugien Garden

is a Tokyo metropolitan park in Bunkyō-ku. The name Rikugi comes from the idea of the six elements in waka poetry . The park consists of a small pond, trees, and a hill...

, traditional Japanese garden in 1695.

Yanagisawa played a pivotal role in the matter of the 47 Ronin.

Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu in popular culture

Yanagisawa appears as a character in most of the novels by American mystery writer Laura Joh Rowland

Laura Joh Rowland

Laura Joh Rowland is a detective/mystery author best known for her series of mystery novels set in the late days of feudal Japan, mostly in Edo during the late 17th century...

 set in Genroku

Genroku

was a after Jōkyō and before Hōei. This period spanned the years from September 1688 through March 1704. The reigning emperor was .The years of Genroku are generally considered to be the Golden Age of the Edo Period. The previous hundred years of peace and seclusion in Japan had created relative...

-era Japan as the antagonist to the books' main character Sano Ichiro. Rowland's chronology differs from history by having Yanagisawa exiled in disgrace in 1694 and being replaced by Sano as Tsunayoshi's chief advisor, only to return from exile later in the series. Other details of Yanagisawa's life, however, are portrayed fairly accurately, including his relationship to the shogun.