Kanjō-bugyō

Kanjō-bugyō (勘定奉行) were officials of the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo period Japan. Appointments to this prominent office were usually fudai daimyō.^[1] Conventional interpretations have construed these Japanese titles as "commissioner" or "overseer" or "governor."

This bakufu title identifies an official with responsibility for finance. The office of kanjō-bugyō was created in 1787 to upgrade the status and authority of the pre-1787 finance chief (kanjō-gashira).^[2]

It was a high-ranking office, in status roughly equivalent to a gaikoku-bugyō; the status of this office ranked slightly below that of daimyo, ranking a little below the machi-bugyō. The number of kanjō bugyō varied, usually five or six in the late Tokugawa period.^[1]

The kanjō-bugyō was considered to rank approximately with the gunkan-bugyō.^[3] The kanjō-gimmiyaku were bakufu officials of lower rank who were subordinate to the kanjō-bugyō.^[1]

List of kanjō-bugyō

• Umezo Masagake^[4]
• Matsudaira Chikanao (1844–57).^[5]
• Kawaji Toshiaki (1852–58)^[6]—negotiated the Shimoda Treaty.
• Mizuno Tadanori (1855–58, 1859).^[7]
• Toki Tomoaki (1857–59).^[8]
• Nagai Naomune (1858).^[9]
• Takenuchi Tasunori (1861–64).^[10]
• Oguri Tadamasa (1863, 1864–65).^[9]
• Matsuaira Yasunao (1863–64).^[11]
• Inoue Kiyonao (1864–66).^[12]
• Kawazu Sukekuni (1867).^[6]
• Kurimoto Sebei (1867).^[5]
• Kan'o Haruhide.^[13] Simultaneously Nikkō bugyō until 1746.
• Honda Yashuhide.^[14]
• Hagiwara Shigehide.^[15]

See also

• Bugyō

Notes

1. Beasley 2001, p. 324.
2. Roberts 1998, p. 207.
3. Beasley 2001, p. 322.
4. Nussbaum & Roth 2005, "Umezo Masagake", p. 1014, p. 1014, at Google Books.
5. Beasley 2001, p. 335.
6. Beasley 2001, p. 334.
7. Beasley 2001, p. 337.
8. Beasley 2001, p. 341.
9. Beasley 2001, p. 338.
10. Beasley 2001, p. 340.
11. Beasley 2001, p. 336.
12. Beasley 2001, p. 333.
13. Screech 2006, p. 241 n 69.
14. Beasley 2001, p. 107.
15. Sansom 1963, p. 27.

References

• Beasley, William G (2001) [1955 Oxford University Press], Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, 1853–1868, London: RoutledgeCurzon, ISBN 978-0-197-13508-2.
• Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric; Roth, Käthe (2005), Japan encyclopedia, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5, OCLC 58053128; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is a pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, see Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Authority File.
• Roberts, Luke Shepherd (1998), Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in 18th Century Tosa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-89335-6.
• Sansom, George Bailey (1963), A history of Japan.
• Screech, Timon (2006), Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822, London: RoutledgeCurzon, ISBN 0-7007-1720-X.