Okitsugu Tanuma was an important shogunate official of the middle Edo period, he rose from the position of an ordinary samurai to that of roju, or councilor of state.
Background
Okitsugu Tanuma was born on 11 September 1719. His childhood name was Ryusuke, but he later came to be called Tonomo-no- kami Okitsugu. His father, Scnzaemon Okiyuki, was a samurai of the fief of Kii in present-day Wakayama Prefecture, but when Tokugawa Yoshimune, the lord of Kii, was summoned to Edo to become the eighth shogun, Okiyuki and Okitsugu accompanied him, Okitsugu serving as page to Yoshimune’s eldest son, Ieshige. In 1734 Okiyuki died, leaving Okitsugu as his heir.
Career
In 1745 Tokugawa Ieshigc succeeded his father to become the ninth shogun, and Okitsugu continued as before to act as his personal attendant, exercising his innate cleverness and enjoying great favor with his lord. He advanced repeatedly in station and in 1758 was presented with the fief of Sagara in the province of Totorni, thus rising to the rank of a provincial landholder.
In 1760 Ieshige died and was succeeded by his son Ieharu, the tenth Tokugawa shogun.
Okitsugu continued to enjoy favor as before; in 1767 he was appointed sobayonin, or intermediary between the shogun and the councilors of state, and in 1772 he himself became a councilor of state.