Abstract
Military service imposed by the Tokugawa Regime on Japan's feudal domains has long been an important topic of study due to its intimate relationship to the transition of feudalism to its late premodern （Kinsei 近世） stage and the formation of the “han” 藩 feudal system. Despite such interest, the way in which domain lords （daimyo 大名） reapportioned Bakufu impositions among their own house vassals （kashin 家臣） perhaps seemed so obvious that the subject has remained unexamined. Therefore, the author of the present article takes up examples of corvee labor levied by the Bakufu （kogi fushin'yaku 公儀普請役） on Kyushu's Saga Domain during the Kan'ei era （1624―1645）─general corvee labor （fushin 普請）, specifically inter-harbor ferrying service （hayabune 早船） and cooperative work tasks （moyai 舫;催合）─focusing on not only the appropriation of domain resources by the Bakufu, but also on the specifically fiscal aspects of the daimyo-kashin reallocation process.
In Saga Domain, while hayabune-yaku transport was considered military service, there was also the issue of assuming the burden for the continuous repair of the vessels used. In response to demands by his vassals regarding this issue, Lord of Saga Nabeshima Katsushige revised the repair cost allocation procedure to equal shares borned by all vassals. Regarding moyai, which was fundamentally conceived as communal production, Katsushige reallocated the various costs incurred in the capital of Edo for Sankin Kotai processions, etc. as duties to be assumed by his vassals, then incorporated the proceeds as a Domain income source.
Saga was no different from other domains in its continuous accumulation of monetary debt to pay for kogi-yaku. While prioritizing the solvency of income sources to bear the burdens of Bakufu appropriation, Katsushige, conscious of both the Bakufu and other domains, openly regarded the performance of Bakufu corvee and the repayment of debts incurred both as monetary burdens to be allocated among himself and his vassals.
The author concludes that after calculating Bakufu mobilization and the corresponding fiscal burdens incurred all as “kogi-yaku”, the efforts of Nabeshima Katsushige to build and maintain a system in response, especially a reallocation plan mutually linking burdens and debt to each individual service, brings to light the actual procedure by which all feudal domains were forced to handle the burdens demanded of them. Furthermore, in the process it is possible to observe how domain fiscal administration was established, not only regarding the assessment of kogi-yaku on local vassals, but also kogi-yaku itself determining the way in which fiscal affairs were actually conducted.
