Nanbu Nobuyuki

Nambu Nobuyuki (南部信順, March 2, 1814 – March 28, 1872) was the 9th and final daimyō of Hachinohe Domain in northern Mutsu Province, Honshū, Japan (modern-day Aomori Prefecture). Before the Meiji Restoration, his courtesy title was Tōtōmi no Kami.

Biography

Nanbu Nobuyuki was born as the 14th son of Shimazu Shigehide, daimyō of Satsuma Domain. He was adopted into the Nanbu clan in 1838, and officially became daimyō of Hachinohe Domain in 1842 when the 8th daimyō, Nanbu Nobumasa died without heir. During the Bakumatsu period, Nanbu Nobuyuki sided with the Tokugawa shogunate against the Satchō Alliance, and during the Boshin War, took his domain into the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei. However, his allegiance to the Tokugawa clan over his own relatives in Satsuma was somewhat uncertain, and he maintained a secret diplomacy with pro-imperial Kubota Domain, which enabled the domain to survive the Meiji Restoration without loss of status. He was appointed domain governor under the new Meiji government on June 22, 1868. With the abolition of the han system in 1871 he retired from public life. He died in 1872.

His son, Nanbu Sakinobu (1858–1876) relocated from Hachinohe to Tokyo, but returned to Hachinohe in 1876 due to ill health. He sold the former Hachinohe Domain’s Tokyo residence to Princess Kazunomiya Chikako for the sum of 15,000 Yen in an attempt to rectify the clan’s failing finances. His son, Nanbu Toshinari (1872–1950) received the peerage title of viscount under the kazoku peerage system in 1884.