- Bizen Province
Bizen (備前国 "-no kuni") was a province of
Japan on the Inland Sea side ofHonshū , in what is today the southeastern part ofOkayama Prefecture . Bizen borders Mimasaka, Harima, and Bitchuprovince s.Bizen's original center was in the modern city of Okayama. From an early time Bizen was one of Japan's main centers for sword smithing.
Historical record
In the 3rd month of the 6th year of the "Wadō" era (
713 ), the land of Bizen"-no kuni" was administratively separated fromMimasaka province (美作国). In that same year,Empress Gemmei 's "Daijō-kan " continued to organize othercadastral changes in the provincial map of theNara period .In "Wadō" 6,
Tamba province (丹波国) was sundered fromTango province (丹後国); andHyūga province (日向国) was divided fromOsumi province (大隈国). [Titsingh, p. 64.] In "Wadō" 5 (712 ),Mutsu province (陸奥国) had been severed fromDewa province (出羽国). [Titsingh, p. 64.]In the
Muromachi period , Bizen was ruled by theAkamatsu clan from Mimasaka, but by theSengoku period theUrakami clan had become dominant and settled in Okayama city. They were later supplanted by the Ukita clan, andUkita Hideie was one of the regentsToyotomi Hideyoshi appointed for his son. AfterKobayakawa Hideaki helpedTokugawa Ieyasu to win theBattle of Sekigahara over Ukita and others, he was granted Ukita's domains in Bizen and Mimasaka.Bizen passed through a variety of hands during the
Edo period before being incorporated into the modern prefecture system.References
Notes
Further reading
* Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo, 1652] , "
Nipon o daï itsi ran ; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon, tr. par M. Isaac Titsingh avec l'aide de plusieurs interprètes attachés au comptoir hollandais de Nangasaki; ouvrage re., complété et cor. sur l'original japonais-chinois, accompagné de notes et précédé d'un Aperçu d'histoire mythologique du Japon, par M. J. Klaproth." Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. [http://books.google.com/books?id=18oNAAAAIAAJ&dq=nipon+o+dai+itsi+ran --"Two copies of this rare book have now been made available online: (1) from the library of the University of Michigan, digitized January 30, 2007; and (2) from the library of Stanford University, digitized June 23, 2006." Click here to read the original text in French.]
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