Yamanouchi family

Yamanouchi family, family of Japanese feudal lords who from 1600 to 1868 dominated the important fief of Tosa on the island of Shikoku.

The rise in the Yamanouchi family’s fortunes began with Yamanouchi Kazutoyo (1546–1605). For his successes on the battlefield in the service of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, then the most powerful general in Japan, Kazutoyo was rewarded with a small fief. After Hideyoshi’s death, Kazutoyo switched his loyalty to Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), whom he aided at the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) by benevolent neutrality. Ieyasu became the dominant power in Japan, and he rewarded Kazutoyo with the large fief of Tosa.

Throughout the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867), the Yamanouchi, unlike many of the other great lords, remained loyal to the Tokugawa. When agitation against the Tokugawa family began in the mid-19th century, the head of the Yamanouchi family, Yamanouchi Toyoshige (1827–72), tried to negotiate a favourable settlement for the Tokugawas with the dissident lords. But, when his efforts failed, he joined the rebels in overthrowing the Tokugawa rule in order to prevent warriors of rival fiefs from obtaining too much influence in the new imperial government. Under this imperial government, formed in 1868, Tosa was made into Kōchi prefecture, and Toyoshige was given the hereditary title of prince, though his feudal prerogatives were eliminated.