Tokugawa Ieshige
The Hōreki Age River Improvement Incident or Nōbi Plain River Improvement Incident was a big project of Satsuma han which intended to divide the rivers into Kiso River, Nagara River and Ibi River, in Nagoya district between 1754 and 1755. These rivers were three big rivers which flowed in the Nōbi Plain with complicated geographical features and frequent floods. Tokugawa Ieshige, the 9th Edo "shōgun" ordered the river improvement construction works to be done by the Satsuma han, in order to weaken the Satsuma han. Hirata Yukie (1704–1755) a "karō" (house elder), accepted the construction works with 947 people. The works were tremendously difficult and 51 samurai died and 33 people died of disease during the construction works. Hirata Yukie committed seppuku for the great burden to the Satsuma han. Ironically, floods increased after the works and modern technology completed the works in the Meiji period under the direction of Johannis de Rijke (1842–1913) a Dutch civil engineer and advisor to Japanese government.