Fukue Domain

Fukue Domain (福江藩, Fukue-han), also known as Gotō Domain (五島藩, Gotō-han), was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It is associated with Hizen Province in modern-day Saga Prefecture.

In the han system, Fukue was a political and economic abstraction based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields. In other words, the domain was defined in terms of kokudaka, not land area. This was different from the feudalism of the West.

History

Gotō was settled in ancient times, and was a port of call on the trade route between Japan and Tang Dynasty China in the Nara period. Noted Buddhist prelate Kukai stopped at Gotō in 806. The islands came under the control of the Gotō clan, a local warlord clan specializing in trade and piracy, during the Muromachi period. The area was the center of intense European missionary activity in the late 16th century, which converted most of the population to the Kirishitan (Christian) faith. Gotō Harumasa (1548–1612) served Toyotomi Hideyoshi and participated in the Japanese invasions of Korea. During the Battle of Sekigahara he remained neutral. In 1602, after the start of the Tokugawa bakufu he pledged loyalty to Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, and in return was confirmed in his ancestral holdings, with revenues of 15,000 koku.