Born into the Tayasu house, a grandson of the eighth shogun Yoshimune, and brilliant at learning from childhood.
He was adopted by Matsudaira Sadakuni, lord of Shirakawa in Mutsu, closing his path to the shogunate—a move in which Tanuma Okitsugu reportedly had a hand.
He became lord of Shirakawa. In the Tenmei famine he bought rice from other regions and is said to have prevented any deaths from starvation in his domain.
After Tanuma Okitsugu's fall he became chief senior councillor and launched the Kansei Reforms.
He issued an order cancelling debts of shogunate retainers and required daimyō to store rice against famine.
He banned teaching anything but Neo-Confucianism at the shogunate academy, and set up a workhouse on Ishikawajima in Edo to give the jobless skills.
He had Edo's wards cut costs and set aside 70 percent of the savings in a fund to relieve the poor in times of famine.
The Russian envoy Laxman came to Nemuro seeking trade and was told to go to Nagasaki. Sadanobu also suppressed Hayashi Shihei's book urging coastal defence as misleading the public.
Discontent with his austere reforms grew, and amid a dispute with the court he resigned. A satirical verse spread: the fish cannot live in Shirakawa's clear water and long for Tanuma's muddy pond.
Back in Shirakawa he devoted himself to the domain and created Nanko, a garden open to everyone regardless of rank.
He retired as Rakuō and wrote works such as the essays Kagetsu Sōshi and the autobiography Uge no Hitokoto.
He died in Edo.
Tanuma OkitsuguHayashi ShiheiTsutaya JūzaburōRai San'yō
Kitagawa UtamaroMogami TokunaiŌtsuki GentakuRyōkanKatsushika HokusaiHanaoka SeishūSantō KyōdenKobayashi Issa
People of the Edo period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.