was a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese daimyo

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

, the 9th head of the Yonezawa domain

Yonezawa Domain

Yonezawa Domain was a feudal domain of Tokugawa Japan, controlled by daimyō of the Uesugi clan. Covering the Okitama district of Dewa province, in what is today southeastern Yamagata Prefecture, the territory was ruled from Yonezawa castle in Yonezawa city...

 (today's Yonezawa

Yonezawa, Yamagata

is a city located in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan.As of 2008, the city has an estimated population of 91,704 and the population density of 167 persons per square kilometer...

 and Okitama region), and a descendant of Fujiwara no Yoshikado. Born in Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

, he was the second son of a daimyo of the Akizuki clan

Akizuki clan

The Akizuki clan is a Japanese noble family from prehistoric age. In the Sengoku period, the Akizuki clan was a king of samurai on Japanese "Akizuki-country" in the Kyūshū island. From after the Sengoku period to end of the World War II, the Akizuki family was a Japanese contemporary noble again...

, who controlled part of Hyūga Province

Hyuga Province

was an old province of Japan on the east coast of Kyūshū, corresponding to the modern Miyazaki Prefecture. It was sometimes called or . Hyūga bordered on Bungo, Higo, Ōsumi, and Satsuma Province.The ancient capital was near Saito.-Historical record:...

. His mother was a granddaughter of the fourth head of Yonezawa. His childhood names were "Matsusaburō" (松三郎) and "Naomatsu" (直松). He was adopted by Uesugi Shigesada, then daimyo of Yonezawa, and in 1767 he succeeded Shigesada. After retirement, he adopted the gō

Art-name

An art-name is a pseudonym, or penname, used by an East Asian artist, which they sometimes change. The word and the idea to use a pseudonym originated from China, then became popular in other East Asian countries ....

, or pen name, Yozan (鷹山).
Yozan was brought at age 16 to the Yonezawa area from a small fief in southern Kyshu as an adopted son of the Uesugi clan.

Today, he is best remembered for his financial reforms, and he is often cited as an example of a good governor of a domain. Yonezawa had been in debt for roughly a hundred years when Harunori took over; Shigesada even considered returning the domain to the shogun

Shogun

A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...

ate as a last resort. However, he was convinced by his father-in-law, the daimyo of Owari province

Owari Province

was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of present day Aichi Prefecture, including much of modern Nagoya. Its abbreviation is Bishū .-History:The province was created in 646....

, to instead resign as daimyo. It was under these conditions that Harunori came to be daimyo of Yonezawa. He introduced strict disciplinary measures, and ordered the execution of several karō

KARO

KARO is a radio station licensed to serve Nyssa, Oregon, USA. The station is owned by the Educational Media Foundation.It broadcasts a Contemporary Christian music format as part of the Air 1 network.-History:...

(advisors) who opposed his plans. As a result of various measures he took, Yonezawa became fairly prosperous, and did not suffer much from the famine which swept Japan in the Tenmei

Tenmei

was a Japanese era name , also known as Temmei, after An'ei and before Kansei. This period spanned the years from April 1781 through January 1789. The reigning emperor was .-Change of era:...

 era (1781-9). For instance the Uesugis chose to keep all their retainers but cut all salaries to one-sixth of their former level. Yozan also cut his own living expenses, wearing cotton clothes instead of silk and having his meals consist of one bowl of soup and one vegetable. He reduced his living allowance from 1500 ryo per year to 209 ryo and the number of maidservants from 50 to nine. He also set policies encouraging new industry such as weaving, pottery and papermaking and encouraged existing enterprises such as paraffin, raw silk and linen. Education was necessary to create the brilliant men required to enrich the country, and he reopened the clan school which had closed down due to financial constraints and invited scholars from Edo to teach. He also established a medical school to teach the latest medical knowledge from Holland. Another policy change ensured adequate water from the mountains for the rice fields by enlisting retainers and samurai to dig irrigation ditches and to repair dikes. Administrative reform and personnel promotion based on merit, not class, eliminated waste and simplified public offices. When Yozan came to power, the total debt of the fief had reached the level of 200,000 ryo; by 1823 the entire amount of the debt had been repaid. In 1830, less than a decade after Harunori's death, Yonezawa was officially declared by the shogunate to be a paragon of a well-governed domain.

He revealed his views on governance and the role of a feudal

Feudalism

Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

 lord

Lord

Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...

 in a letter to his son Haruhiro:
Additionally, his views on self-discipline are well-known in Japanese culture: