Kurobane Domain

[1] After Tokugawa Ieyasu took control over the Kantō region in 1590, he assigned a 13,000 koku holding in northern Shimotsuke Province to Ōzeki Takamasu, the head of one of the seven leading samurai clans from the area.

His son, Ōzeki Sukemasu, fought a rear-guard action against the Uesugi clan in Aizu during the Battle of Sekigahara and was rewarded with an increase in kokudaka to 20,000 koku and was confirmed as daimyō of Kurobane.

Although their residence was styled as a jin'ya, it was built in the former central bailey of the clan’s ancestral Kurobane Castle, which was located on a 50-meter tall hill, with moats, earthen ramparts and yagura watchtowers.

In 1689, the noted haiku poet Matsuo Basho spent 14 day at Kurobane while traveling the Tohoku region and writing the Oku no Hosomichi.

The 15th daimyō, Ōzeki Masuhiro, served in a number of important posts within the Bakumatsu period Tokugawa shogunate, including Kaigun bugyō and wakadoshiyori.