Saizō Ohata

Japanese: 大畑才蔵 - おおはた・さいぞう

Year of death: 1720
Year of birth: 1642
A local figure of merit in the mid-Edo period (a person well versed in agricultural policy). He was also skilled in Japanese mathematics. His real name was Katsuyoshi. He was the fifth head of the Ohata family of Gakubunji Village, Ito County, Kishu (Wakayama) Domain (Hashimoto City, Wakayama Prefecture), and served as the assistant to the headman, and then as the headman, while also serving as the water manager for the river construction works for the district. He wrote inspection reports and presented policies on 56 villages in Nyu County, Echizen, which were the territory of the domain's lord's fourth son, Tokugawa Yoshimune. He also played a major role in the domain's civil engineering works, and later, together with Izawa Tamenaga, who accompanied Yoshimune to Edo and spread the Kishu-style civil engineering methods to the Kanto region, he built the water conservancy works at Arai in Ichishi County, Ise Province, and the Fujisaki Arai and Odai Weirs in Kii. He used bamboo cylinders as spirit levels and bamboo poles, and surveyed dark nights with torches and lanterns. A distinctive feature of Saizō's construction work was that he divided the work sections into smaller sections and carried out work on each section simultaneously, thus speeding up the construction period. His writings include "Seshu Inspection Memorandum" written on the occasion of his business trip to Ise Province, and "Seshu Chiho Soryoku" which discusses agricultural policy, but his most famous work is "Chiho no Kisho" (compiled during the Genroku period). Set against the backdrop of the Koyasan foothills region, where agriculture and commodity distribution in the Kinokawa River basin were quite advanced, the book presents views on rational and quantitatively superior agricultural techniques and knowledge of advanced civil engineering techniques. <References> Ando Seiichi, "Modern Japanese Translation and Commentary of 'Chiho no Kisho'" (Complete Collection of Japanese Agricultural Books, Vol. 28), "Learning from Early Modern Agricultural Books" edited by Iinuma Jiro, "Nanki Tokugawa History" Vols. 10 and 11.

(Ando Seiichi)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：享保5(1720)
生年：寛永19(1642)
江戸中期の地方功者(農政に通じた人)。和算にも優れていた。諱は勝善。紀州(和歌山)藩伊都郡学文路村(和歌山県橋本市)大畑家第5代に当たり,大庄屋の杖突(補佐役),次いで庄屋を務めながら郡方御用河川工事の水盛御用をも兼ねる。藩主の第4子徳川吉宗の所領,越前丹生郡56カ村について実地に見聞のうえ見分書を書き,政策を述べた。藩の土木工事で果たした役割も大きく,のちに吉宗に付いて江戸に入り紀州流土木工法を関東に広めた井沢為永と共に,伊勢国一志郡新井の水利工事や紀伊の藤崎新井,小田井堰などを作っている。竹筒の水準器や竹竿を使用し,暗夜にたいまつを焚き,提灯をかかげて測量した。才蔵の工事の特色は工区を細分化し,各工区で同時に作業を実施して工期を早めたことである。著書に伊勢国へ出張した際の『勢州見分覚書』,農業政策を論じた『勢州地方存寄』などがあるが,代表作は『地方の聞書』(元禄年間成立)である。紀ノ川流域の農業も商品流通もかなり進んだ高野山麓地域を背景に,合理的で数量的なすぐれた農業技術についての見解と先進的な土木技術の知識が示されている。<参考文献>安藤精一「『地方の聞書』現代語訳・解題」(『日本農書全集』28巻),飯沼二郎編『近世農書に学ぶ』,『南紀徳川史』10,11冊

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