Great Tenmei famine

[5][4] Starting in the 1770s, there was a sharp decline in crop yield in Tōhoku, the north-eastern region of Honshū, due to poor and cold weather, so food stocks in rural areas were exhausted.

The massive Icelandic Laki eruption of 1783 disrupted weather patterns all over the Northern Hemisphere and may have worsened matters as well.

The policy caused economic difficulties for many hans and led to excessive investment in rice production (which was vulnerable to cold weather) in order to pay the higher taxes.

[2] According to Nochi-mi-gusa, written by Genpaku Sugita, approximately 20,000 people starved to death, mainly in rural areas of the Tōhoku region.

However, many local authorities, afraid of being accused of economic mismanagement, did not report the full extent of the damage, so the actual death toll may have been far higher, perhaps even ten times Sugita's estimate.