Yamaji Akitsune (山路彰常)
Akitsune YAMAJI (date of birth unknown - September 24, 1881) was an astronomer in the late Edo period. He was the last Tenmonkata (officer in charge of astronomy) of the Edo bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun). He was a legitimate son of Yukitaka YAMAJI. He was commonly known as Kinnojo.
In 1834, he became an apprentice of Tenmonkata and joined a calendar amendment project for the Tenpo reki (Tenpo calendar) coordinated by his father and Kagesuke SHIBUKAWA, after which he also compiled the almanac of "Shinpo Rekisho" as Rekisho (expository books about the calendar). Resulting from this achievement, an exceptional Tenmonkata nomination for the two generations, the Yamaji father and son, occured in 1846. Also, in 1838, he had a meeting with the curator of Dutch trading house, Johannes Erdewin Niemann in Sanpu (obligation to lord to live in Edo), together with Kagesuke SHIBUKAWA, and reported the veracity of the Morrison Incident to Tadakuni MIZUNO, who was in the post of roju (member of the Shogun's council of elders) in the Edo bakufu. He served as a Bansho-wage Goyo (Government Office for Translation of Barbarian Books) from 1856 until Bansho Shirabesho was separated from Tenmonkata. After that, he was involved in translation work.
On behalf of his father, he led a research project on the telegraph instruments which Matthew (Calbraith) PERRY had given to the Edo bakufu and also led a project to compile a nautical almanac which he and his father were ordered to complete; further in 1860, he compiled "Bankoku Zenzu" (map of the world) together with Shuzo SHIBATA. After his father's death in 1861, he inherited the family estate, and continued the work until the abolition of Tenmonkata while the amount of his activity kept decreasing with the decline of the status of Tenmonkata.
His legitimate son, Akiyoshi (Ichiro) YAMAJI, who was an apprentice of Tenmonkata, joined Shogitai (an elite corps of the Shogunate) at the Boshin War and went missing in action (he was later captured in the Hakodate War). After the abolition of Tenmonkata, in Spring 1869, with his legitimate grandchild Yakichi YAMAJI (oldest son of Akiyoshi), he moved to Shizuoka City with no salary; soon after that (no later than 1872), he handed over the family estate to Yakichi and lived there in retirement. In 1872, Akitsune heard that Akiyoshi had been taken into custody at the Tsuyama Domain because of his participation in the Boshin War. Akitsune managed to obtain remission for Akiyoshi to take him back from Tsuyama.
Aizan (Yakichi) YAMAJI wrote the following story in his commentaries entitled "Meikatsumika": when Akitsune tried to convince Aizan in his childhood (in Shizuoka) that he should learn "the way of merchant" from that time on, Aizan spoke out proudly as a son of samurai family that he would rather kill himself than become a humble merchant. Aizan, who later achieved great success as a journalist and historian, realized that what his grandfather had said was due to his anxiety for his grandson and agonized over his own attitude, so he displayed portraits of three generations, Yoshitsugu, Yukitaka and Akitsune YAMAJI, and admonished younger people that they should see their acheivement as a model to be followed.