Naegi Domain (苗木藩 Naegi-han) was a feudal domain of Edo period Japan It was located in Mino Province, in central Honshū. The domain was centered at Naegi Castle, located in what is now the city of Nakatsugawa in Gifu Prefecture. It is the smallest domain within the Tokugawa shogunate which was styled as a “castle holding domain”.
The Tōyama clan were rulers of this portion of southeast Mino Province (a portion of the districts of Kamo and Ena) since the Kamakura period. Toyama Tomotada and his son Toyama Tomomasa pledged fealty to Oda Nobunaga. However, after Nobunaga’s death, their territory was overrun by the Mōri clan, and was given to Kawajiri Hidenaga. The Toyama fled to Hamamatsu, where they sought protection from Tokugawa Ieyasu. During the Battle of Sekigahara, Kawajiri Hidenaga sided with the pro-Toyotomi Western Army under Ishida Mitsunari, and was killed in battle. Ieyasu sent Toyama Tomomasa to retake his clan’s ancestral domains. With the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, he was confirmed as daimyo of the 10,500 koku Naegi Domain. Tomomasa went on to participate in the Siege of Osaka, and died in Naegi in 1619.
The domain remained in the hands of the Tōyama clan throughout its existence. However, as a small domain with heavy expenditures, it soon fell into severe debt, which continued to mount from generation to generation, despite efforts to open new rice lands, impose fiscal frugality, and the issuance of paper currency on several occasions. .