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AT THE

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V

A HISTORY OF JAPAN.
 A HISTORY OF JAPAN

VOL. I.

FROM THE ORIGINS

TO THE

ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE M 1542 A.D.

BY

JAMES MURDOCH, M.A.,

(Sometime Assistant Professor of Greek in Aberdeen University)

WITH MAPS BY ISOH YAMAGATA.

Published ry the Asiatic Society of Japan.

1910

I 1

Yokohama, Shanghai. Hongkong, Singapore: Kelly & Walsh, Ltd.

Tokyo: Z. P. Maruya & Co., Ltd.
London: Kegan Paul, Trubner & Co., Ltd,
Leipzig: Otto Harrassowptz,
 Printed at
" Chronicle " Offtce,
The Japan
Kobe, Japan.
 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

Introductory Chapter 1

I.— Protohistoric Japan (Chinese and

Korean Sources) 31

II. Legendary Japan (Japanese Sources) . 53

III.— Old Yamato (400 a.d. to 550 a.d.) . . 77

IV. Old Yamato. From the introduction of

Buddhism to the Great Coup d'Etat
(550 to 645 a.d.) 105

V. The Great Reform of 645 142

VI. From Tenchi to Kwammu (662 to

782 a.d.) 181

VII.— The Emperor Kwammu (782 to 805 a.d.) 206

VIII. The Learned Emperors (806 to

850 a.d.) 226

IX. The Great House of Fujiwara . . . 235

X. The Cloistered Emperors 274

XI. The Greatness of the Taira .... 292

XII.— The Fall of the Taira (Yoshinaka

and Yoshitsune) 336

XIIL— Yoritomo and His Work 374

Mii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER rAGE

XIV.—The Kamakuka Bakufu (1200 to

1225 a.d.) '
.... 413

XV. The Kamakuka Bakufu (1225 to

1260 a.d.) 45;)

XVI. The Mongol Invasions and Their

Consequences 491

XVIL The Fall of the Kamakuka Bakufu . 533

XVIII. The Attempt to Restore the Old

Civilian Government 546

XIX.— The Great Succession Wars (1337

TO 1392) 562

XX, Ashikaga Feudalism 589

LIST OF MAPS.
PAGE
Map of Ancient Korea 33

Map Illustrating Subjugation of North Japan 269

Kyoto and Environs 328

Map Illustrating the Mongol Invasion . • . 508

Map Showing the Rivalry between South

and North Courts 564

Feudal Map of Japan (1467-87) (516

Feudal Map of Japan (16th Century) . . . 630

 HISTOKY OF JAPAN
FROM THE ORIGINS DOWN TO THE APPEARANCE
OF THE PORTUGUESE IN 1542 A.D.
> <:

INTR0J3UCT0KY CHAPTER.
npHE last half-century has witnessed three great constructive
*" efforts in the field of practical politics. Two of these
the Unification of Italy and the Reconstruction of Germany
have been accomplished among peoples constituting an in-
tegral part of the Aryan stock and of the Comity of Modern
Christendom. Hence, pregnant with momentous consequences
as they have been, and will continue to be, it is not especially
difficult for an American or an Englishman to seize their
import, —to understand the ideas in the minds Cavour and
of
Bismarck and their coadjutors, to appreciate the motives by
which they were actuated, the ideals by which they were
inspired, and the means they adopted to enable them to
inarch triumphantly forward to the realisation of their projects.
The third of the three great movements alluded to, stands
on an entirely different plane. It accomplished itself among
a non- Aryan people, a people who made its first acquaintance
with Christianity only three hundred and fifty years ago, and,
after a brief experience of the political effects of the foreign cult,
sternly proscribed it within the national bounds. To this people,
most of what is considered to be most distinctive in the common
heritage of Western Culture was utterly alien. In some cases
it was positively repellent, for the base of the social structure
in Japan was by no means identical with that of the West.
With us, thanks greatly to the Roman Law, the social unit is
the individual; in Japan from time immemorial it has been
the family. Hence for our intense individualism the islanders
of the Far East could have, and had, but little sympathy,
Their art canons were not those of peoples that drew their
2 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

inspiration from ancient Hellas; the concepts of their philo-

sophy and of ours seemed to lie in entirely different fields;
were such that the highest fetches of the
their ideas of poetry
European muse were meaningless to them, while not a few
of the leading ideas in their literature, if they did not actually
elude, at all events failed to excite, any emotion, except per-
haps sheer amazement, in the mind of the European reader.
When were even as ours, the expression of them
their thoughts
was cast an entirely different mould. Everywhere the
in
qualifying word, or phrase, or clause before what it modified,
no relative pronoun, little or no personification, and as often
as not predicates without subjects. And when it came to set-
ting forth their thoughts on paper instead of using an al-
phabet and writing from left to right, they had recourse to

logographs, eked out by a syllabary, and made the brush trace

its characters in perpendicular lines, beginning at the right-
hand top corner of the page and ending at the bottom of the
left.

The sudden, the almost meteor-like rise of an Empire with

such a strange and peculiar culture to the proud position of
by no means the least among the Great Towers of the modern
world is indeed a startling phenomenon. Startling at all
events to those who have no intimate acquaintance with the
past of the Japanese people. The present open-mouthed sur-
prise of the West at the unexpected development in the North-
East Pacific is mainly due to misconceptions of the import of
the word civilisation. Many very worthy people seem to
fancy that anything that is not strictly synonymous with
European, or so-called Christian culture, cannot be regarded
as civilisation. This arises from the circumstance that for
several centuries the European people have not been in close
contact with any great non-Aryan, non'Christian Power. But
the domains of llaroun-al-Rasehid were fully as civilised as
those of Charlemagne eleven hundred years ago, while for
generations the highly developed culture of the Mohamme-
dan Power in the Iberian Peninsula continued to present a
bright contrast to the barbarism, the coarseness, the super-
stition, and the mental stagnation of contemporary Western

Christendom. These Semitic and non-Christian Empires could

hardly be characterised as barbarian. With no more reason
could Old Japan be described as such. At the end of the six-
teenth century, under the great Taikd, Hideyoshi, it is abun-
 INTRODUCTORY. 3

dantly clear from the Letters of the Jesuits that the Island
Empire was fully abreast, if not positively in advance, of com
temporary Europe in all the essentials of cultured and civilised
life. It is true that this Japanese culture was different in
many important respects, and that the base it stood upon was
different, to that of Europe. But it was, on that account, none
the less a real culture, — as stable and as efficient. Then, be-
fore the middle of the seventeenth century, the islanders, for
what they deemed to be good and sufficient reasons, thought fit
to expel the Portuguese from their shores, and to seclude
themselves behind barriers which only a few Dutchmen were
allowed to approach; and for 21G years, — for full seven genera-
tions of mortal men, — all attempts by aliens to intrude upon
this seclusion were sternly repulsed by the national authorities.
At the date of the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1637
Central Europe was being harried and devastated and de-
peopled by the Thirty Years War— a
struggle conducted with
a ferocity and marked by horrors unparalleled in even the
fiercest of Japanese wars. This welter of murder and rapine
had still eleven years of its course to run; and then, before
Europe had scarcely time to breathe, much less to recover
herself, she had to face the disastrous series of contests pro-
voked by the ambition of Louis XIV. Later came the war of
the Austrian Succession, and then the terrible Seven Years
War, costing the lives of some 850,000 men, and still a little
later the various international armed debates involved in the
American fight for independence. Lastly there were the cata-
clysmic wars of the French Republic and of Napoleon (1792 -

1815). During all this time Japan continued to enjoy the un-
speakable blessings of profound and all but unruffled peace.
Her government was at once despotic and repressive; but it
is tolerably safe to maintain that the average individual of the
unprivileged classes, constituting at least ninety per cent, of
the population, enjoyed a greater measure of happiness than
fell to the lot of the average unit in the proletariat of Europe
down to 1789 at least.
The foregoing propositions are so obvious that the im-
patient readermay be tempted to dismiss them as so many
mere commonplaces. But it not unfrequently happens that
important truths get disregarded merely because they are
commonplaces. On the other hand, it must be frankly ad-
mitted that the preceding statement of the situation is
4 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

only 1he obverse —possibly, indeed, only the reverse —of the
coin.
During these two centuries (1637-1853) the energies of
Europe were far from being absorbed by merely militant enter-
prises. At all times there had been a frank exchange of ideas
between the philosophers and the scientific men of the various
nationalities constituting the European Comity of Culture,
and the advance in the knowledge of Nature and her great
uniformities during these two centuries had been marvellous.
Furthermore, in certain quarters of Europe, in Great Britain
especially, there had been a steady accumulation of the re-
— —
sources call it capital if you will, that made the application
of the discoveries to industrial processes not merely possible
but highly profitable. It is only necessary to refer to the
invention of the steam-engine and to the inventions that en-
abled England to prosecute her textile industries on the fac-
tory system. Before the Japanese had sundered all connection
with Catholic Europe in 1637, the greatest European novelty
with which they had become acquainted was perhaps the
telescope. In 1853, Perry was able to present them with a
miniature railway and rolling-stock and a telegraph-line;
while behind his steam frigates with their powerful arma-
ments, were dockyards, and foundries, and machine-shops and
spinning-mills innumerable, together with all the countless
appliances with which the patient workers in the physical and
chemical laboratories were enriching the material civilisation
of the Naniban (Southern Barbarian) men. And meanwhile,
during all this time, when these Southern Barbarians had
been taking thought and adding cubits to their intellectual
stature, Japan, to all seeming, had been somnolently stagnat-
ing in a circle of antiquated ideas.
To the more commonplace and vulgar-minded among the
complements of Perry's squadron, the Japanese appeared but
a barbarian people —
quaint and picturesque and exceedingly
polite barbarians perhaps, but barbarians notwithstanding.
Doubtless Perry and the finer spirits among his officersand
men did not fall into any such glaring misconception. Yet
even to those, the defects of the civilisation of Old Japan must
have been far more obvious than its qualities. For the defects
were upon the surface, —
plain and open, and apparent to the
view. The real strength of the nation lay so deep that its
existence was scarcely suspected. Then, before a small squad-
 INTRODUCTORY. .
5

ron of five unarmoured American vessels, Japan lay powerless

and helpless exactly one short half-century later the Japanese
;

navy was to win the greatest sea-fight of modern times, the —

greatest sea-fight since Trafalgar. A single one of the units,
indeed a third-class unit — of the fleet commanded by Togo in
the Battle of the Sea of Japan (1905) could have dealt very
effectually with the entire American Expedition which forced
Japan to open her doors in 1854. Forty years after Perry's
summons, these quaint and picturesque barbarians were rudely
to awaken that sleeping giant, the Chinese Empire, and to
demonstrate to a hitherto incredulous, or rather credulous,
Europe that, apart from its territorial extent, its teeming
millions, and its gross inability to read the signs of the times,
and to adapt itself to a rapidly changing environment, there
was at that time nothing gigantic about it whatsoever. Then
ten years later still these same quaint and picturesque bar-
barians were to more than hold their own on foreign soil
against one of the strongest, if not the very strongest, among
the military Powers of the world in one of the greatest wars
of modern times.
Now, a nation with no real solid, albeit unapparent, be-
cause latent, strength in 1854, could never have achieved the
brilliant and gigantic feats of 1894-5 and 1904-5. What then
were the actual assets of Japan in 1854 ?
In the first place we must set down her population of some
30,000,000 souls, —a population considerably greater than that
of either the United Kingdom or of the Great Republic at that
time, and a population considerably more homogeneous than
that of the British Isles, and very much more homogeneous than
that of the United States of North America. Then, whatever
may have been the inherent political weakness of the nation,
the social organisation was emphatically sound and stable.
Next there was a keen sense of honour and of conduct not so ;

keen indeed in certain matters on which the people of Christen-

dom lay great stress; but keener in others, and on the broad
general average, certainly as keen. Furthermore, although the
Japanese had to all seeming been somnolently stagnating in a
circle of antiquated ideas, the national intellect had been nei-
ther somnolent nor stagnant; on the contrary, it had been
vigorously active, as it has been at all times, for mental stoli-

dity is the last thing of which an intelligent Japanese could be

or can be accused. In 1551 Xavier wrote :
" These Japanese
6 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

are supremely curious, —eager to be instructed to the highest

degree. . . . Their spirit of curiosity is such that they
become importunate they ask questions and argue without
;

knowing how to make an end of it eager to have an answer, ;

and to communicate what they have learned to others. . . .

wrote to Father Rodriguez and, in his absence, to the Rector

I

of the College of Coimbra to send to the (Japanese) Univer-

sitiesnone but men tried and approved by your holy charity
(i.e. They will be much more persecuted
Ignatius Loyola).
than they believe at all hours of the day and a part of the
;

night they will be importuned by visits and questions they ;

will be summoned to the more considerable houses, and no

excuse taken for their not going there they will have no
;

t ime either to pray or for meditation, or to recollect themselves;

at the beginning especially, no time to say a daily mass ; reply-
ing to questions will occupy them so much, that they will
scarcely find time to recite the office, to eat, to sleep." Thus
Xavier, a very keen observer, represents Old Japan as being
a sort of replica of the Athens of the days of St. Paul, when
" all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their
time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new
thing."
So much as regards the alertness and receptivity of the
Japanese intellect three hundred and fifty years ago. Pro-
found perhaps it was not but then even at the best of times
;

in the West, profundity of intellect has been exceedingly rare.

Marlboroughs with their " excellent plain understanding and

sound judgement " have been by no means so very common ;

yet men more numerous than Aris-

of that type have been far
totles or Aquinases or Galileos or New tons or Darwins or r

Spencers have been. And of men of " excellent plain under-

standing and sound judgement" Japan has generally had
enough and to spare.
In addition to Xavier's, we have abundance of trustworthy
testimony regarding the qualities of the Japanese intellect
three hundred years ago. In the latter half of the sixteenth
and the early years of the seventeenth century, Japan was one
of the chief mission fields of the great Company of Jesus.
With their proverbial adroitness in adapting means to ends
and in selecting the proper agents for the immediate or ulterior
purpose in view, the Jesuits from first to last assigned none but
picked men for service in Japan. Time and again it is asserted
 INTRODUCTORY. 7

that the intelligence of the Japanese people made this precau-

tion absolutely imperative. Then the Jesuits were more than
mere missionaries ; they were not only professional teachers,
but among the finest, if not actually the very finest, school-
masters in Europe. Their educational work in Japan was on
a very extensive scale. Besides their seminaries for candidates
for the priesthood, they had thoroughly well-equipped and
efficient establishments for the instruction of high-born
Japanese youths. In these schools the curriculum was in the
main the same as in their educational institutions in Europe.
About the condition of things in these Japanese academies
the reports we have are numerous. Although they differ in
details, they are unanimous on one point. They rate the
capacities of Japanese youth much higher than those of
European pupils generally in some cases we are told that
;

Japanese students acquire a greater knowledge of Latin in

a few months than many Europeans do in as many years.
And we must remember that these reports were not concocted
for the purpose of pandering to Japanese vanity : they were
mostly meant for the eye of the General of the Company or
of his chief coadjutors in Eome alone.
A national intellect of such a calibre may reasonably be
expected to go far and to accomplish much. That is, if it be
exercised in a field where solid practical results are possible.
But just about the time that Christianity and everything
connected with it got proscribed, the Japanese began to make
acquaintance with the Philosophy of the Sung dynasty. This
philosophy, professedly an exposition of the doctrines of Con-
fucius and Mencius, but in reality a new system of ontology,
ethics, natural philosophy, and principles of government, was
elaborated in China in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the —
age of Anselm, of Roscellinus, of William of Champeau, and
of Abelard, in Europe. In fact, it might not inaptly be
termed the Scholasticism of the Far East. Only with this
difference. Whereas the main interests in Scholasticism were
logical and theological, to the comparative neglect of philo-
sophy proper, it was to philosophical problems that the great

Sung thinkers devoted most of their attention. Theology with

them was practically naught while they never had any body
;

of logical doctrines, or principles or apparatus. Yet, notwith-

standing, they could reason acutely enough. Like their con-
temporaries in the West it was not the processes by which
8 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

they reached their conclusion that bad to be found fault with;

it was the assumptions with which they started that were
unsatisfactory.
As lias just been said, it was at tbe beginning of the
seventeenth century that tbe Japanese made a
first, and some-

what body of doctrine. Fop

belated, acquaintance with this
a time it bad to contend with the pretensions of Buddhism.
whose priests tben claimed a monopoly of teaching in Japan ;

and down to about 1700 tbe exponents of the new Chinese

learning were actually compelled to receive the tonsure.
Nevertheless, the Sung philosophy made at once sure and rapid
headway, and before a century had gone it bad carried every-
thing before it, and triumphantly imposed itself upon the
culture of tbe nation. By that time almost every nook and
cranny in the system had been explored by eager disciples:
it had been discussed and expounded and commented upon in
thousands of volumes under the superincumbent weight of
which the shelves of Japanese libraries groan even unto tins
day. By tbe middle of tbe eighteenth century the commenta-
tors could find but little new to say about it. Still it lived on
as the official system, —the only system sanctioned in the Uni-
versity of Yedo and in the great provincial schools in the
various fiefs. And yet withal, tbe Japanese contrived to add
but what they bad received from China. Their atti-
little to

tude towards tbe Chinese books was closely similar to that of

the European Schoolmen towards the Bible, the Patristic
writers, and Aristotle. These latter never dreamt of ques-
tioning the dicta of Holy Writ, while they ever appeared to con-
template the universe of Nature and Man, not at first hand
with their own eyes, but in the glass of Aristotelian formula?.
Their chief works are in tbe shape of commentaries upon the
various Aristotelian treatises. Their problems and solutions
alike spring from (he master's dicta and from the need of
reconciling these with one another and with the conclusions
of Christian theology. In short they are interpreters, not
original and independent investigators. They hold fast to
the Stagirite's results, and turn their backs upon his methods,
which were so fruitful in his own hands, and are, and can be
so, wherever they are courageously and conscientiously ap-
plied. In a similar way the Japanese Kangakusha (Chinese
scholars) seldom or never travelled beyond the scope and
results of the original Chinese texts. Such being the case,
 INTRODUCTORY. \)

the sum of positive knowledge was not very appreciably added

to during the Tokugawa regime.
Yet the Sung philosophy rendered great services to Japan,
— services similar in kind, and equal in degree, perhaps, to
those which European Scholasticism rendered in its day. We
can now afford to admit that between the twelfth and the
fourteenth century there were intellectual giants in Europe.
The pity of was that they were condemned to walk in intel-
it

lectual leg-irons and to work in mental manacles, under con- —

ditions which made any substantial advance in positive, and
especially in physical, science, all but hopeless. And as it is
only advance in physical science that enables man to extend
his command over the forces of Nature, and to harness them
and subordinate them to his purposes, the progress in the
merely material aspects of civilisation was far from consider-
able. All this is true, —
trite, indeed. But it is not the whole
case. Education and mere information, or the mere impart-
ing of information, are by no means synonymous terms. If the
aim of education is to build up character and to train and
discipline the intellectual powers, and especially the reason,
the trivium and the quadrivium and the ancillary courses of
study in the great mediaeval schools cannot be sweepingly and
unreservedly condemned. No more can the Sung philosophy
in Japan, for it, equally with Scholasticism, proved an ex-
cellent apparatus for sharpening the mind and developing in-

tellectual alertness and acuteness. As soon as it began to

appear that there were truths unrecorded either in the letter
of Holy Writ or in the dicta of Aristotle, and men began to
venture to look upon Nature and her mysteries face to face,
the human emancipating itself from the trammels
intellect,
of Scholasticism, had yet to thank it for what was wholesome
in the discipline it had provided for generations. Logic and
Theology hod been the passion in the thirteenth century, and
the really practical results had then been scant; but by assi-
duous exercise in these seemingly barren fields the European
intellect had been drilled and disciplined and its powers de-
veloped; and the advantages of the discipline it had thus re-

ceived could be appreciated when it began to apply itself to

humanism, to art, to the inchoate science and the practical
discoveries of the fifteenth century, the prelude to that great
intellectual efflorescence known as the Renascence. Then
emancipated from the hide-bound authority of the theologians,
10 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

and of llie dicta —not the —

methods of Aristotle, a steadily
increasing number of the more commanding intellects in every
country in Europe found their passion in "ascertaining the
causes of things/' Among a host of minor gifts we have to
thank the seventeenth century for the Novum Organum, and
and of New-
(he discoveries of Kepler, of Galileo, of Leibnitz,
ton. The history of the eighteenth is illuminated by a long
roll of renowned mathematicians, astronomers, chemists, in-

ventors, and great engineers, while the first half of the nine
teenth saw the birth not merely of illustrious scientists, but
of many new sciences.
In the middle of this nineteenth century, in the year 1854,
Japan intellectually speaking stood, mutatis mutandis, pretty
much where Europe did in the days of William of Occam.
Chinese philosophy had done and was then doing for Japan
what Scholasticism had done for Europe four or five long
centuries before. William of Occam died in 1347, and with
him all that was vital in the lore of the Schoolmen departed.
Yet Scholasticism continued to stalk abroad as a sort of
venerable gibbering ghost until the death of Suarez in 1017.
It was Sung philosophy was be-
just about this date that the
ginning to make real substantial headway in Japan. Fuji-
wara SeigAva (1500-1610) was its Gerbert (d. 1003). For
two centuries and a half it was all-powerful in the Island
Empire; even in 1854 it was lustily, nay militantly, vigorous.
Now in this year 1009 even its wraith is chary of making its
appearance. After 1854 it soon became moribund; it made
a brief rally somewhere about 1880, and then quickly expired
and got quietly and unobtrusively and not indecently con-
signed to the tomb.
Thus
at the very date at which we had finally succeeded in
emancipating ourselves from the trammels of Scholasticism,
Japan was submitting herself as a bond captive to the allure-
ments and the not unmitigated blessings of an analogous in-
tellectual system. During her two and a half centuries of
subsequent scholastic tutelage, she was almost entirely en-
grossed in the work of sharpening her mental faculties by
their assiduous exercise on problems whose solution could
advance her merely material interests but scantily at the best.
Meanwhile Europe had been grappling with Nature and her
mysteries even as Jacob had grappled with the angel at Peniel
and had been wringing from her secret after secret pregnant
 INTRODUCTORY. 11

—
with possibilities of material social and, also, unsocial pro- —
gress. The process had been slow and the yearly advance had
occasionally been almost imperceptible. Yet when suddenly
brought face to face with the cumulative result of three cen-
turies of the Western effort to " ascertain the causes of things."
Japanese national pride and self-complacency received a very
rude shock indeed. Japan differed from less favoured outside
barbarian realms in that her origin alone was divine, and that
she alone was the country of the gods. But whatever Ama-
terasu-no-Mikoto might have effected against the great Mongol
Armada of Kublai Khan in 1.281, it would have been a very
serious task for the Sun-Goddess, reinforced by all the eight
million deities of the Pantheon, to attempt to argue with
Perry's Paixhans. So much the Shogun's Ministers, at least,
very quickly grasped. So they fell back upon their Sung
philosophy and dispatched Hayashi Daigaku-no-Kami, the
President of the University of Yedo, to make the best terms
with the intrusive barbarian chief which he could.
Meanwhile, however, this body of Sung philosophy, as an
instrument of intellectual and moral discipline, had not been
entirely without rivals in Japan. To some of the finer spirits
in the Empire the which the
illegitimate symbolic concepts on
most considerable portion of the edifice was reared appeared
to be no more than so many senseless pedantic aridities. Some
of these turned towards the idealistic intuitionalism of Wang
—
Yang-ming (1472-1528), Oyomei as the Japanese call him. Al-
though the public teaching of his doctrines was frowned upon
by the Yedo authorities, yet it was from Oyomei that some
and greatest men in Tokugawa Japan drew their
of the finest
inspiration. Then about the middle of the eighteenth century
there was a sudden revival of interest in old Japanese litera-
ture, old Japanese history, or rather in Japanese mythology
(for to the scholars of those days there was little distinction
—
between history and mythology), a diversion of interest to
the national origins in fact. As was the case with the revival
of English antiquarian studies in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, this resuscitation of pure Shinto in Japan
was destined to exercise an important and wholly unexpected
influence upon subsequent political developments. It was

then that the dogma of the divine origin, not merely of the
Imperial line, but of the entire Japanese people, and even of
the seas and soil of Japan w as if not first formulated, at all
r
7
12 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

events first militantly and uncompromisingly insisted upon.

All outside peoples were evil-hearted, unclean barbarians;
and the very presence of such in the sacred land of the gods
was contamination. Half a century after the death of the
coryphaeus of this misguided movement (Motoori, d. 1801),
such barbarians were knocking at the close-bolted doors of the
Empire, rudely insisting that they should be unbarred.
Thereupon the " patriots " raised their two-fold cry of Son-o
Jo-i,
—"Honour the Emperor; sweep away the barbarians."
It is Motoori who must be held primarily responsible for not
a few of those outrages on foreigners in Japan that were
perpetrated tw o generations after his decease. On the other
r

hand the impulse he gave to the movement for the rehabilita-

tion of the Imperial House in its prerogatives and for the re-
establishment of a strong centralised government in Japan
must plainly be imputed unto him for righteousness.
A third, albeit an insignificant, rival of the dominant
scientific philosophy of Sung was what was called Dutch
learning. Active interest in this began in the days of the
eighth Tokugaw a Shogun (Yoshimune, 1717-1745). Shortly
r

afterwards the Dutch were instructed to supply an annual

copy of the Nautical Almanac and by the end of the century
;

certain Japanese had mastered such works as Lalande's, and

Two or three decades
were calculating eclipses correctly.
lateron we can see from Siebold that in certain circles in
Japan the acquaintance with the developments of contem-
porary European science was far from contemptible, while
of the general course of events in the West the Shogun's offi-

cers continued to be kept pretty fully apprised by the Dutch.

Of Perry's projected expedition, for example, the Yedo Cabi-
net had very precise information. Forty years before, Golow-
nin, a captive in Yezo, was told by his jailors of the occupa-
tion of Moscow by the French. From the beginning of the
nineteenth century the Bakufu had official translators of
Dutch books, and in the fourth decade of that century there
were two considerable rival coteries of Dutch scholars in the
capital. These unofficial associations were not looked upon
with any favour by the Government, however. The Dutch
were kept in Deshima to play for Japan the part which
Bacon's " Merchants of Light " did for his Utopian New At-
lantis. Now, just as the Bakufu monopolised the Dutch trade,
so it was minded to have Dutch learning confined to its own
 INTRODUCTORY. 13

officials, or to those strictly under Rin its own control.

Shihei of Sendai was by no means the only scholar who met
with punishment at its hands for publishing abroad incon-
venient truths of " barbarian " provenance. Thus, such
" light ''
as these Dutch merchants purveyed was far from
proving of the general national benefit it might well have

done. The Shogunate

interests of the were bound up in the
maintenance of the status quo as far as such was possible; and,
exceedingly jealous of the great subject feudatories, it was
utterly adverse to the diffusion of new practical knowledge
in, or the introduction of pestilent inventions into, the great
outside where they might
fiefs very well presently lead to
menacing developments. Hence a partial explanation of the
rigid restrictions upon all free intercourse with the " Mer-
chants of Light " in Deshima. The Yedo bureaucrats were
anxious indeed to have the " but they were no less
light,''

solicitous about retaining full and perfect command over the

meter, so that in its distribution and diffusion there might be
the strictest economy and not the slightest risk of disastrous
explosions.
From this succinct and all too imperfect sketch of the
Japanese intellect and of the arena in which it exercised and
disciplined itself under the Tokugawa regime it may be pos
sible to gather why the subsequent seemingly marvellous
development has been possible. Yet, withal, that a nation
should in less than two generations leap from a condition of
culture analogous to that' of the fourteenth century in the
West to one fully in line with that of the Europe of the
twentieth century can hardly cease to be the subject of amaze.
A very simple analogy, however, somemay serve to throw
gleams of light upon the The average Senior
situation.
Wrangler of to-day, although of excellent mental capacity,
if placed in the seventeenth century with the immature in

tellect of a youth of twenty-one or twenty-two, would have

been signally incapable of the grand fetches of discovery
achieved by the fully matured mind of Newton. And yet
these discoveries of Newton form only a mere frac-
tion in the mathematical and physical acquirements now
needful to place a man high in his Tripos. As the ave-
rage Senior Wrangler of to-day is to Newton, so has Japan
been to Europe. All the secret lore Europe has been labo-
riously wresting from Nature for the last three centuries she

/
14 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

has brilliant lv mastered in less than fifty rears.It is a com-

monly accepted article of faith that the Japanese are incapable

of original discovery or invention. At present indications are
not wanting that this article of faith must be greatly modified,
if not actually abandoned. In Medicine, in Chemistry, in
Physics, in Seismology, in Bacteriology, Japan is beginning
to make contributions of her own to the general store of inter-
national knowledge. And surely the successful effort to make
up the intellectual leeway of three hundred years should be
admitted to be ample occupation for one or two generations of
a people whose thoughts are cast in a different mould to ours,
and whose normal mode of expression is at utter variance with
that of the foreign text-books they have perforce been con
deinned to use.
In the enumeration of the national assets of Japan in
1854, the national intellect may well seem to have been dwelt
upon at disproportionate and inordinate length. The excuse,
nay, the justification for this, is at once easy and plain. It
is simply that of all the assets of Japan, the national intellect
is by far the most considerable.
Furthermore, to the national credit must be set down a
high and a seemingly inherent capacity for organisation. In
the history of Meiji the display of this capacity has been con-
spicuous ; withoutit the brilliant military and naval suc-

cesses of 1894-5 and 1904-5 would have been impossible. In the

latter gigantic struggle, apart from the fleet, a force of G00,000
or 700,000 men was provided for easily and handled with signal
success. But then to provide for and to handle large masses
of men is a task for which not a few Japanese commanders
have proved themselves competent. About the time of the
third Crusade Yoritomo was launching an army of 284,000
nice, to deal with Fujiwara Yasuhira in the extreme north of

the main island. In 1221 the Hojo Regent concentrated 100,000

upon Kyoto to deal with the malcontents there. In the war
of Onin (1469) one of the contending chiefs began the strife
with IGOjOGO men, while his opponent had 1)0,000. In the latter
half of the sixteenth century several of the great feudatories
took the field with very considerable forces. When Otomo
of Bungo was routed by the Satsuma men at the Mimikawa
in ir>7S he was in command of 70,000 troops. The largest force
mobilised by Nobunaga amounted to about 185,000 men. On
several occasions Ilideyoshi was at the head of still larger
 INTRODUCTORY. 15

hosts. In 1592-3 there were 205,000 Japanese soldiers on

Korean soil, while it was only the dislocation of the Japanese
strategy by the exploits of the great Korean Admiral that pre-
vented the dispatch of some 100,000 more troops held in
reserve at the headqnartes of Nagoya, in Hizen. At the great
battle of Sekigahara (October 21, 1600) not more than 130,000
on both sides actually went into action; but on each side
there was a column some 40,000 strong within striking dis-
tance. Then besides these 210,000 troops there was a strong
confederate garrison in Osaka, while the war also raged in
Kyushu and in the north of the main island, the forces operat-
ing in the latter region being nearly as numerous as those that
decided the real issue on the field of Sekigahara. In the first

Osaka campaign the figures on each side were 180,000 and 90,000
respectively ; in the second (1615) the Tokugawa levies
amounted and probably more. Again, when the rebel
to 250,000
stronghold of Shimabara fell in 1638, the beleaguering force
of Kyushu troops footed up to 100,000 men. It is impossible

to verify the figures for the earliest of these campaigns about ;

the five or six later ones there can be no reasonable doubt, for
the muster rolls are easily accessible. Oyama is indeed the
firstJapanese commander who has had to handle as many
as 600,000 men in an over-sea campaign. But when Ukida
commanded a host of 205,000 combatants on Korean soil in
1592-3 we must remember that Europe had never seen more
than 60,000 men in the field together under one flag in that
century. Thus with the traditional national aptitude for war-
like enterprises and the inherent capacity for organisation
there is nothing so very surprising in Japan's rapid ascent to
the rank of a first-class military Power.
As regards her sudden rise to the proud position of Mis-
tress of theFar Eastern Seas the case is somewhat otherwise.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there were, indeed,
daring, nay great, seamen in Japan. But of anything even
remotely resembling a national navy there was nothing. Such
men-of-war as were then built in Japan and manned by
Japanese, mostly flew the Bahan flag. In plain language, they
were pirates. They harried the Chinese sea-board so badly that
the Chinese Government was ultimately constrained to order
its subjects to abandon their towns and villages on the coast

and to remove several miles inland. The depredations of these

sea-rovers extended to the Straits of Malacca, and further.
16 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

On account of their daring all access to Portuguese India was

denied to Japanese in Japanese craft. Tt was in a Japanese
piratical raid on the Chinese coast that Anjiro, the first

Japanese convert to Christianity, and Xavier's pilot in his

Japanese expedition, ended his picturesque and chequered
career. Yet the only time when there was anything like a
Japanese navy was in the days of Hideyoshi, when the squa-
drons fitted out for service in the Korean War carried some
10,000 marines. In that struggle the Japanese were hope-
lessly outclassed by the Korean sailors and their great Admiral
on the blue water. Under Iyeyasu, under the instruction of
Will Adams, mariner of Gillingham, in Kent, they got as far
as building a European-rigged vessel of 170 tons, which made
the voyage to Acapulco and back with serious losses among
the ship's company. Then the building of foreign-rigged ves-
sels, of men-of-war, and even of large junks was strictly forbid-

den just at the time that the mercantile marine was beginning
to give indications of a rapid and wonderful development.
The attempt to introduce ship carpenters and naval architects
from Batavia in Titsingh's time, some century and a third
ago, proved abortive. It was only after Perry's appearance
that the Japanese addressed themselves to the problems of
navigation, of naval architecture, and of seamanship in earnest.
And yet in May 1U05 they fought and won the great battle of
the Sea of Japan. This special development is indeed some-
thing to excite wonder and surprise.
however, that it is in her armaments
It is to be admitted,
that Japan is seen at her best. For the fabric of modern
Japan has been reared pretty much in the fashion in which the
average Japanese builds his house. After laying a fairly stable
support for the uprights and placing these in position, it is

the roof that next claims his attention. When this is made
thoroughly strong and serviceable, capable of resisting ty-
phoons and the other ravages of the sky, the builder proceeds
and it may be
to finish the rest of the structure at his leisure,
months, perhaps years, before the walls and their lining and the
general interior appurtenances receive the attention that must
be bestowed upon them before, with us, the tenant enters upon
occupation. In her army and navy Japan has provided her-
self with a national roof more than strong enough to safeguard
her against all possible external dangers. But it has been
reared somewhat at the expense of the general efficiency of the
 INTRODUCTORY. 17

national fabric which supports it, and which it exists to pro-

tect. In other words the creation of her armaments has put a
severe strain upon Japan's economic resources.
This brings us to a consideration of the most considerable
items in the debit pages of Japan's national ledger in 1854.
In the first place the land was stricken with the curse of
poverty. Old Japan was almost entirely an agricultural coun-
try. Now what this means may not be readily grasped at first.
However, the import of this seemingly colourless assertion may
become clearer when it is pointed out that chiefly on account
of the mountainous character of the surface, and partly of the
vagaries of the innumerable streams in their wide and shallow
courses, not more than one-eighth of her superficies of 112,000
square miles was available for cultivation. And these 14,000
or 15,000 square miles had to support a population of close on
30,000,000 souls; that is, nearly 2,000 to the square mile.
This population pressed at all times heavily upon the limits of
subsistence. In spite of the unbroken peace and tranquillity
the nation enjoyed for more than two centuries, the population
showed no substantial increase. Between 1721 and 1846,
during just a century and a quarter, the augmentation was no
more than 900,000 a rate of 2% per cent, per century, whereas
;

the present is one of \\^ per cent, per annum Of pastoral I

industry there was practically none, for the Japanese were not
meat-eaters or milk-drinkers. Thus, apart from the produce
of the fisheries, which gave employment to some one million
and a half of the population, the nation had to subsist on its
perishable crops. Rice alone could be stored, and even rice
could be stored for but a small number of years. As there was,
of course, no export trade, even the finest of rice harvests
added nothing to the capital of the country. At best the super-
fluity could only be employed to alleviate the miseries and the
horrors of the not infrequent years of famine. Thus any per-
manent accumulation of wealth from agriculture apart from —
sericulture, perhaps, —was impossible.
The manufactures, such as they were, were conducted on
the household system, and were insignificant. Then there were
mines. In mediaeval times from first to last the amount of gold
and silver obtained from the placers had been considerable.
But it had never been utilised for specie until Hideyoshi's days
(1585) ;and the Macaoese Portuguese succeeded in carrying
most of it away. From Iyeyasu's time the reefs in Idzu, in
18 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

Sado, in Twami, in Tnjima began to be exploited; but again

the Dutch and the Chinese prevented any great accumulation

of bullion or specie in Japan; while the value of copper car-
ried away by the Hollanders was considerable. Even so early
as 1708 Arai Hakuseki was writing: "I compute the annual
exportation of gold at about 15,000 hob arts (30s.) ; so that
in ten years this Empire is drained of 1,500,000 kobans
(£2,250,000). With the exception of medicines we can dis-
pense with everything that is brought to us from abroad.
The
stuffs and other foreign commodities arc of no real benefit to
vs. All the gold, silver, and copper extracted from the mines
during the sway of Iyeyasu and since his time are gone, and
what is still more to be regretted, for things ive could very
well do without'9 The calculation is wild but the argument ;

is perfectly sound.* The gold and silver and copper of

Japan was mainly exchanged for luxuries and trifles and
trinkets and geegaws that could stimulate native industry in
no earthly way whatsoever. If the produce of her placers and
reefs had been retained in Japan until the era of Meiji, and
then utilised to purchase spinning machinery, to start foun-
dries, to establish dockyards and to facilitate her internal com-
munications, her industrial position would have been very
different from what it is at present. If this cardinal mistake
had not been committed, the efficiency of her armaments, in
contrast to the inefficiency of her sons in the arts of peace,
would certainly have not been so conspicuous as it is.

Several important factors have to be disentangled in anv

attempt to account for the sudden expansion of English in-
dustry in the latter half of the eighteenth century.Something
more than the mere genius of inventors like Watt and Ark-
wright must be recognised as contributing to the possibility of
the revolution in industrial methods that was then effected.
There had been no lack of ability and ingenuity among the
engineers and mechanics of the seventeenth century; but at
that time there were no accumulations of wealth in England
available for the realisation of the most ingenious of their
projects and consequently their most promising enterprises
;

came to nothing. By the eighteenth century the state of things

was different; the mines of America and the East Indian trade

* See Cunningham's "Western Civilisation in its Economic As-

pect," Vol. I., p. 69 and p. 122.
 INTRODUCTORY. 19

had meanwhile furnished England with an ample store of

superfluous capital; while at the same time there was a world-
wide demand for British manufactured goods. Watt and Ark-
wright were thus in a position to seize and make the most of
opportunities such as inventors had never had before.
The bearing of this seemingly inconsequent digression
should now be readily apparent. Suddenly brought face to
face with the accumulated triumphs of two centuries of Wes-
tern scientific and inventive genius, the Japanese of the Meiji
era have had neither occasion nor time to invent. All that they
have had to do has been to learn and appropriate and to apply.
The rapidity and thoroughness with which they have mastered
the new knowledge can only excite feelings of wonder and ad-
miration. But in applying their newly acquired knowledge
they have been very seriously hampered by the national poverty.
To pass from household economy to the factory system at a
bound is only possible when there is an intervention of capital.
And in Japan there was very little accumulated capital.
Hence, although the Japanese army and navy have been or-
ganised in the most economical way, if not indeed at a mini-
mum of cost, yet the effort of providing a national roof of the
strongest has told seriously upon the economic development
of the Empire generally. And since the industrial inter-
national warfare of modern times is, if not a fiercer, at all

events a more insidiously serious thing than the red-handed

war of armaments, this causes Japanese patriots of keener
and more extended vision no small measure of disquietude.
The second great disadvantage in 1854 was the political
organisation. The mosaic patchwork of Iyeyasu, put together
as a safeguard for a succession of possible mediocrities in the
seat of that great statesman, had done rare work in its day,
and for eight generations it had given Japan almost unbroken
peace. Between 1603, when Iyeyasu was formally invested
with the Shogunate, and 1854, the internal tranquillity of the
Empire had been disturbed on two occasions only. The years
1614 and 1615 had witnessed the great Osaka struggle; that
of 1637-8 the emeute of Shimabara. During the preceding four
centuries and a half, from 1156 to 1603, Japan had enjoyed
scarcely a hundred years of domestic repose. Between 1221
and 1322, under the strong and beneficent administration of
the Hojo regents for full three generations, the Japanese had
had to abstain from slaughtering each other. Even so, in 1274,
20 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

and again in 1281, they had been called upon to repel great
Mongol invasions. And then during all the rest of these four
centuries and a half the country had been racked and harried
and devastated by internecine civil war. Thus in spite of its
tyrannical high-handedness, its jealous, narrow-minded repres-
and the pitiable ineptitudes and
sive spirit even in its best days,
Yedo Bureaucracy is not with-
inanities of its later years, the
out some claim upon the gratitude of the Japanese people and
the sympathies of the historian who essays the task of recount-
ing the story of their fortunes.
But by 1854, the Tokugawa administrative machine had out-
lived its usefulness. For decades its gear had been creaking
ominously. In a few more generations its breakdown from
sheer internal rot and decay would have been certain. And
then, just at this point, the foreigner appeared in the land.
The ablest thinkers and the truest patriots in Japan were swift
to perceive that the Yedo Bureaucracy and the Hoken Seiji
(Feudal System) were alike anachronisms; both equally im-
possible if Japan was to continue to exist as an independent
State. All honour to such men as Sakuma of Shinano and
Sakamoto of Tosa!
The outcome of all this was the overthrow of the Tokugawa
Shogunate in 1868, the abolition of Feudalism in 1871, the
rehabilitation of the Imperial line in its just prerogatives, the
establishment of a strong and strongly centralised Government,
the emergence of Japan from her seclusion of centuries, and
her meteor-like ascent to the rank of one of the great Powers
of the world, with the unique distinction of being the only non-
Christian Power in the modern comity of civilisation, the only
non-Christian Power that commands for itself the unfeigned
respect of the most advanced, and even of the most militantly
powerful, nations of Christendom.
Now, in the interpretation cf the import of this sudden
and startling development most European writers and critics
show themselves seriously at fault. Even some of the more
intelligent among them find the solution of this portentous
enigma in the very superficial and facile formula of " imita-
tion." But the Japanese still retain their own unit of social
organisation, which is not the individual as with us, but the
family. Furthermore, the resemblance of the Japanese ad-
ministrative system, both central and local, to certain Euro-
pean systems is not the result of imitation, or borrowing, or
 INTRODUCTORY. 21

adaptation. Such resemblance

merely an odd and fortuitous
is

coincidence. When the statesmen who overthrew the Toku-

gawa regime in 1868, and abolished the Feudal system in 1871,
were called upon to provide the nation with a new equipment
of administrative machinery, they did not go to Europe for
their models. They simply harked back for some eleven
or twelve centuries in their own history and resuscitated the
administrative machinery that had first been installed in Japan
by the genius of Fujiwara Kamatari and his coadjutors in
615 a.u. and more fully supplemented and organised in the
succeeding fifty or sixty years. The present Imperial Cabinet
of ten Ministers, with their departments and departmental
staff of officials, is a modified revival of the Eight Boards
adapted from China and established in the seventh century.
Again, the present system of local administration in Japan
with its Fu or Ken (Prefecture), its Gun (County), its Son
(Village or Township) may well seem to be on the model of
the French Departement, Arrondissement, and Commune. But
it is really nothing of the kind. It is also a revival of the local
administrative divisions introduced with modifications from
China into Japan some twelve and a half centuries ago.
The present administrative system is indeed of alien pro-
venance but it was neither borrowed nor adapted a generation
;

ago, nor borrowed nor adapted from Europe. It was really a

system of hoary antiquity that was revived to cope with press-
ing modern exigencies.
This single consideration alone might well serve to cast
suspicion upon the adequacy of the easy " imitation " formula
as an explanation of Japan's modern institutional and social
development. The origins of modern Japan have to be sought
for much farther afield than in the economy of the Tokugawa
feudal regime. It is true that an adequate knowledge of the
Tokugawa period is imperative if we mean to write, or to read,
the subsequent history of Meiji with real understanding. But
such knowledge is only one of a complex of factors, every one

of which has claims upon our attention. It is only when wc

have seized upon the totality of these, assigned each its rela-
tive importance, and co-ordinated and integrated them, that
the history of modern Japan ceases to be the perplexing riddle
it seemingly is. Certain Japanese publicists will have it that
the political organisation of Meiji is simply a reversion to the
original institutions of Japan. But this is not only not cor-
22 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

rect, — it is glaringly incorrect. It is, as just stated, a reversion

to the institutions of 646 and the following years. But these
institutions were more than mere innovations; they amounted
—
to nothing less than a Revolution, a Revolution as fundamen-
tal, as radical as, and no less startling than, the Revolution of

1868. That Reform of Taikwa (645), as it is called, has pro-

foundly affected the whole subsequent course of the history of
the Empire, —so much so, indeed, that without at least a work-
ing acquaintance with its causes, its leading incidents, its

more important consequences, many of which were entirely

unforeseen and unexpected by the authors of the movement,
any just appreciation of the worth of the solutions found by
the statesmen of Meiji for some of the weightiest problems
that confronted them thirty or forty years ago is virtually im-
possible. And so far is the Restoration of Meiji from being
a return to the " original " state of affairs in Japan that the
closest analogy to that " original " state of affairs is to be
found in that very Tokugawa regime which the Meiji statesmen
shattered and swept away. Only it is to be noted that the
Tokugawa system was a fully developed Feudal system, marked
by practically all the characteristic features that enter into
our definition of Feudalism, Avhile the state of society in ante-
Taikwa (645) Japan presented many analogies, not, indeed, to
the Highland clans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
but to the Celtic communities in contemporary Ireland and
North Britain when Palladius was preaching to the Scots and
Columba converting the Picts.
In presenting the story of centuries historians find
it convenient to have recourse to the expedient of
epochs or periods. Inasmuch as the successive stages
in national development shade into each other in most
of their leading features and interests almost imperceptibly,
these subjective divisions are now and then wont to prove
somewhat unsatisfactory and misleading because of their more
or less arbitrary character. In this respect the writer who
essays to recount the story of the Japanese people is perhaps
more happily circumstanced than his fellows who have to deal
with Western annals. While Japan is one of the few countries
under heaven that can make the proud boast that she has never
had to bend her neck to the insolence of a foreign invader, the
course of her development has been profoundly influenced by
contact with alien cultures on three separate occasions. The
 INTRODUCTORY. 23

first of these was in the seventh century, when admiration

and reverence for the splendours of the civilisation of the
Middle Kingdom led her statesmen to recast the national policy
in most of its details. Dread of foreign aggression and of
internal commotion constrained her to expel Spaniards and
Portuguese alike in the seventeenth century and, abandoning
her immemorial traditions of liberality and hospitality, to bolt
her doors in the face of the alien from over sea. Then after
a hermit-like seclusion and an apparent intellectual torpor of
full two hundred years, the Japanese once more found them-
selves forced to face a foreign culture seemingly the hopeless
superior of their own, with the alternative of assimilating and
utilising its most important intellectual and material products,
or of losing their existence as a nation. Which alternative was
then adopted is now plain to all ; the Japanese have not lost
their existence as a nation.
—
Thus the Japanese historian or rather the historian of
—
Japan will readily find conspicuous land-falls to aid him in
the distribution of his theme of centuries into orderly and
convenient and well-marked subjective divisions. Inasmuch,
however, as the first and second of these land-falls are separated
by a stretch of some nine or ten centuries, it will be found
advisable, nay almost imperative, to find some intermediate
halting-places between the middle of the seventh and the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century. Of such, three may be con-
veniently interposed. And then the whole course of Japanese
history will, for purposes of presentationand easy comprehen-
sion, be distributed into seven periods, each with some well-
marked distinctive peculiarities of its own.
In the first place the historian will treat of Ancient Japan,
—of Japan before the GreatReform of 645 a.d. His work on
this period can be only tentative at best, for the story can only
be reconstructed in the fashion in which the tale of contem-
porary Celtic Britain can be reconstructed. Such written
documents as deal with it were composed in the subsequent
period. Indeed, the earliest Japanese records were compiled
almost exactly at the time when the Venerable Bede was begin-
ning work on the Ecclesiastical History of our Island and
Nation. And just as, apart from the inferences that may be
gathered from archaeological remains, our most trustworthy
information about Celtic Britain is to be found in Cresar and
other foreign authors, so the historian of Ancient Japan finds
24 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

stray notices in contemporary Chinese records of inestimable

value when he essays the task of penetrating the darkness that
enshrouds the origins of the Japanese people. Inasmuch as
the art of writing seems to have been introduced into Japan
only a little before the date when Honorius withdrew the
Roman legions from Britain (410 a.d.), these Chinese notices
of Japan become almost as precious to the historian as the
leaves of the Cumaean Sibyl were to the Roman king of old.
The second period commences with that sudden and dramatic
Reform, or rather Revolution, of 645, and runs a continuous
but chequered course of some five centuries, or fifteen genera-
tions. with the organisation of a strong central go-
It begins
vernment, modelled on that of the Middle Kingdom, and, not
indeed with the introduction, but with the diffusion of that
old Chinese culture whose impress has so profoundly affected
the whole subsequent social, political, and ethical development
of Japan. The early century of this epoch witnessed the pro-
duction of the earliest historical works in Japan. The com-
pilation of such was a Government enterprise, projected and
carried out in the interests of the new centralised administra-
tion. A little later Shinto and Shinto ritual, as we now know
them, were also elaborated in the interests of the new ruling-
powers. Buddhism, introduced from Korea in 552, was like-
wise regulated and utilised as an instrument of government.
But after no great lapse of time it bade fair to display the
potentialities of an Aaron's rod. It quickly absorbed and as-
similated Shinto. It not only became the religion of the Court,
but in course of time we actually read of an Emperor of
Japan making solemn public profession of being the humble
—
servant of the three sacred things, Buddha, the Law, and
the Priests, to wit. In 900 the abdicated Sovereign received
the tonsure, and this practice soon became customary; and
a century or two later was not the titular reigning Emperor,
it

— —
but the Ho-o or cloistered Emperor who really ruled. In
709 a daring intrigue all but placed a Buddhist priest upon
the Imperial throne. But behind all this, the most striking
feature of these five centuries was the predominance of the
great Fujiwara family. The legitimate Empress of Japan
and the Regent during the minority of the Sovereign had to be
chosen from among the members of this all-powerful House.
Most of the great officers in the Central Government, and, in
the early days, nearly all the provincial governors, were Fuji-
 INTRODUCTORY. 25

waras. In fact, the period might well be labelled the Fujiwara

Age.
The land system introduced by Kamatari in 645 had some
serious defects the chief being its numerous exemptions from
;

taxation. It was this that ultimately proved fatal to the Fuji-

wara predominance. It permitted the rise of the great House
of Taira in Western and of Minamoto in Northern Japan. By
the middle of the twelfth century these two provincial families
had appropriated much of the provincial resources that ought
to have gone into the coffers of the central, or, in other words,
of the Fujiwara administration; and the Fujiwaras, deprived
of financial, and hence of military means, began to find them-
selves shorn of their power, if not of their prestige. In 1156,
when a disputed decision was decided not by Fujiwara finesse
as had been for generations, but by the rude clash of Taira
it

and Minamoto arms in the streets of Kyoto, Japan ceased to be

governed by the ink-brush, and for seven long centuries, down
to a period well within the recollection of living men, her des-
tinies were to be decided by the strong arbitrament of the
sword. When the thirty years strife between Taira and Mina-
moto reached its term in the extermination of the former, the
old centralised government, organised by Kamatari, survived
as little better than a shade. Nearly all the real power then

passed to Kamakura and to the newly arisen military class.

After a somewhat tempestuous period of thirty years, 1192-
1221, the remodelled Shogunate, ably manipulated by the
modest Hojo Kegents, gave Japan a century of profound, yet
healthy, repose. Then in 1322 began that series of internal
commotions which led to the overthrow of the Kamakura ad-
ministration and the interesting but futile attempt to revert
to that system of centralised civilian government established
by the great Kamatari in 645. Meanwhile, in the latter years
of this period there had been a great popular Buddhist revival
analogous to, and contemporary with, that effected by the
mendicant friars in Christendom.
The Ashikaga Shogunate (1338-1573) constitutes the fourth
of the seven periods into which it is purposed to distribute
the long course of Japanese history. This period is usually
regarded as the most barren and the most unprofitable in the
annals of the nation. Foreign writers are wont to dismiss it
in a few pages of abusive epithets and inflated declamation on
the wickedness and barbarity of the times. This course has
26 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the very obvious merits of economising effort on the laborious

task of original investigation and the advantages of an effec-
tual screen for ignorance. Whatever may have been the unrest
and turbulence so conspicuous in the farrago that enters into
the composition of the meagre historical epitomes of the Ashi-
kaga age, and in spite of all its barbarities and ferocities re-
curring with a frequency that becomes monotonous, this age
is by uo means unworthy of the close attention of the con-
scientious historian. It was between 1338 and 1550 that the
system of predial serfdom was finally shattered. It was then
that a great development in pictorial art was witnessed, a
development analogous to, and contemporary with, that of
Europe. It was then that the first serious attempt to develop
an over-sea commerce was made. And the period witnessed a
stillmore singular phenomenon. What part the Free Cities
and the Chartered Municipalities played in the mediaeval his-
tory of Europe and what services they rendered to the cause
of progress and civilisation every schoolboy knows, or should —
know. With one single exception, such communities have
been unknown in Japan, to her present not inconsiderable
detriment. Only in the City of Sakai do we find anything
similar to an Italian City Republic of the Middle Ages. And
it was in the latter days of the Ashikaga sway that Sakai at-

tained a greatness that enabled her citizens to challenge the

arrogant pretensions of the rude and overbearing Buhe (mili-
tary class) around her.
Furthermore, the decrepitude of the central Ashikaga ad-
ministration during half-century was not without com-
its last

pensating circumstances. The provinces were thrown on their

own resources, and in several quarters strong, stable, and com-
pact principalities were built up. Here men of real practical
ability found a rare field for the display of their talents. The
years 1533, 1536, 1542 witnessed the birth of Nobunaga, of
liideyoshi, and of Iyeyasu respectively; the great trio whose
happy co-opeiation was destined to reconsolidate the Empire
under a single rule. These great men were simply the pro-
ducts of the times. And they were by no manner of means so
unique as is generally represented. Several of the rivals they
had either to crush or to conciliate were not seriously their
inferiors in ability. Takeda of Kai was perhaps not the peer
of Hideyoshi, but he was the equal of Iyeyasu, and certainly
a better man than Nobunaga. Then the Uyesugi and Hojo
 INTRODUCTORY. 27

chiefs were the reverse of contemptible, while Mori Motonari

in Western Japan, Chosokabe in Shikoku, Otomo, Ryuzqji,
and Shimadzu in Kyushu were all great Captains and able
administrators. Under a strong central government there
would have been no opportunity for these men to prove their
sterling mettle. It was the very stress and struggle of the
later Ashikaga times that tested and tempered and schooled
the youth of such men, and furnished the early training and
discipline that lay at the base of their subsequent greatness.
But for this very stress and struggle, the annals of Japan
during the first half of the century of early foreign intercourse
would have been less remarkable for the long roll of illustrious
names that lends such an unusual and dazzling lustre to them,
and would have lacked many of their most stirring and pic-
turesque pages.
In short, no matter what may have been the anarchy and
desolation that reigned in the streets of the capital and its

environs, from the arrival of the foreigner in the land in 1542

down to the deposition of the last Ashikaga Shogun in 1573,
Japan was then pulsing with a healthy, vigorous, lusty life.
This is one consideration which makes it advisable to detach
these thirty years from the Ashikaga epoch and to combine
them with the forty odd years that preceded the Osaka wars
and the final triumph of the Tokugawas in 1616, into a single
period of 75 years. The importance of the stirring events and
momentous developments that marked this short period jus-
tifies the historian in treating it at seemingly disproportionate
and inordinate length. If any further justification for this
course be needed, it is readily forthcoming. This is almost the
only epoch in the national history where native records can be
effectually testedand checked and supplemented by trust-
worthy contemporary foreign documents. It was mainly for
this reason that when I addressed myself to the attempt to
write a History of the Japanese People a beginning was made
with this epoch.* To have to choose the best among seve-
ral not unsuitable titles for this stretch of seventy-five years
is a somewmat perplexing task. " The Re-unification of Japan,

—The Age of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu " might serve

for a label as well as anything that suggests itself.

* See " A History of Japan during the Century of Early For-

eign Intercourse," by James Murdoch, M.A., in collaboration wittt
I son Yamagata.
28 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

The sixth of the periods into which a History of Japan

might be distributed, —that of the Tokugawa regime, —offers
a marvellous contrast to those that preceded it. In those, our
ears are stunned with the clash of swords, the braying of
trumpets, the tramp of armies, and the shock of battle. From
1G1G down to 1854, apart from the Shimabara affair of 1G38,
the prosecution of some vendetta, or some agrarian distur-
bance of men with mat-flags and bamboo spears, we seek ami
sigh in vain for the alarms and excursions that might relieve
the seemingly humdrum monotony of the narrative. Indeed
the student might very well fancy the Tokugawa interdict
upon the writing of contemporary history to have been a
thoroughly needless and superfluous precaution. For ap-
parently absolutely nothing was happening. Such national
life, or national development, as there was, ran its course with

no more noise than the growth of one of those gigantic cam-

phor trees that are supposed to go back to the age of Jimmu.
And yet, withal, this Tokugawa regime is a most fascinating
study for the historian, and still more so, perhaps, for the
sociologist, for it is replete, if not with stirring incidents, at
all events with many and varied phenomena distinctively its

own and of surpassing interest to the student of institutions

and of national and social economy.
In spite of the fact that the publication, if not the com-
position of contemporary annals was strictly forbidden, and
that such records as there are were tampered with, and per-
haps deliberately falsified, the modern historian of the Toku-
gawa age finds himself with an abundance of native materials
at his command. The unfortunate thing is that there is a
great dearth of contemporary foreign documents such as there
are for the period immediately preceding. How much this is
to be regretted will become evident from a single instance.
For the two Tanumas, all-poAverful in Yedo before 1784,
Japanese writers can scarcely find language too harsh. The
younger was assassinated in that year (1784). From Titsingh,
his contemporary, it appears that it was really his progres-
sive tendencies that cost him his life, as he stood at the head
of a body of advanced liberals who were anxious that Japan
should emerge from her seclusion. Of this there is no hint in
Japanese documents. If Japan had opened her doors in 1784
instead of in 1854, the whole course of her subsequent history
would doubtless have been profoundly affected. The fact that
 INTRODUCTORY. 29

the question of re-opening the country to foreign intercourse

was well within the domain of practical politics so early as
1784 is surely worthy of notice in the briefest summary of
Tokugawa history. Yet but for the lucky accident of the pre-
sence in Japan of an intelligent and trustworthy foreign
writer with excellent means of acquiring information, we
should never have suspected the existence of any such body of
opinioQ at that date.
Yet although there must be many similar lacunae, not to
say actual mistakes, in any narrative of particular incidents,
it is possible to limn the state of Tokugawa Japan in its ethi-
cal, intellectual, institutional, social, and economic aspects
with tolerable accuracy in the broad outlines of the picture at
least. Until the arrival of the foreigner in the land in 1853,
the changes in the political and social fabric of the Empire
since the times of Iyeyasu and Iyemitsu had been neither very
important nor very striking; and of the state of the Japanese
people during the last decade of the Tokugawa Feudal Age we
have numerous accounts by intelligent European and Ameri-
can writers. Furthermore, although to the younger genera-
tion, —to men, say, under thirty years of age, —the Feudal Sys-
tem is now as much ancient history as the Wars of the Roses
are to Englishmen, we have still hundreds of thousands with
us who can recall all the pomp and arrogance of two-sworded

privilege on the one hand, and the miseries of abject subjec-

tion and oppression on the other; and by a cautious co-ordi-
nation of the respective testimonies of samurai and peasant
it is not difficult to correct the mistakes and fill up the

lacunae in the accounts of the last years of Tokugawa Feu-

dalism penned by contemporary witnesses from Occidental
lands. The passing of that Feudalism was relatively as swift
and sudden as the disappearance of the accumulated snow-
drifts of winter from a Scottish moor before the April sun;
and the History of Modern Japan, now entered upon that
astonishing career which has gained for her not merely ad-
mission into, but such a unique and distinguished position in
the Comity of Nations, begins to assume towards the record
of the Tokugawa Age a relation analogous to that of the
fecund efflorescence of the spring landscape to the seemingly
rigid and monotonous torpidity of frost-bound winter.
It is undoubtedly this comparatively short space of forty
years in the national annals that is of the greatest and most
30 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

absorbing interest to Western readers. But, as already con-

tended, it is next-door to impossible to hope to write a satis-
it without an accurate and fairly exhaustive
factory record of
account of the thirteen or fourteen centuries that preceded
it, and of which it is at bottom, in spite of all appearances to
the contrary, mainly a natural and continuous development.
It is true that during this period the Empire has been tremen-
dously influenced by the factor of foreign intercourse in many
ways, — political, social, and intellectual. But so it was in the
seventh century. And yet, then, as now, Japan remained
Japan,— a nation with a distinct and definite individuality
and idiosyncracy of its own. The aim of the present volume
is limited in scope. It deals with the story of the Japanese
people merely from the origins down to the first appearance
of the Portuguese in the realm in the year 1542.
 31

CHAPTER I.

PROTOHISTORIC JAPAN.
(CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES.)

VT7HOEVER hopes to enter upon the history of Old Japan

with profit will find it advisable to furnish himself with
some outline of the general state of affairs in the Far East
during the three or four centuries which precede and follow the
beginning of the Christian era.
—
At that time China which by the way was then only a
—
fraction of the modern Chinese Empire bore a relation to the
surrounding lands similar in most respects to that borne by
the Eoman Empire to the wilds of Germany and Britain and
the peoples of the North generally. She alone had an old and
stable civilisation, she alone had a written history, she alone
indeed was acquainted with and practised the art of writing.
Hence it is in Chinese authors and not in any native records
that we find the earliest authentic information about the
Japanese and about the inhabitants of the peninsula which is

now known as Korea.

The third, or Chow dynasty of Chinese sovereigns lasted
for almost nine centuries —from 1122 to 255 b.c. Its domi-
nions extended from the 33rd to the 38th parallel of latitude,
and from longitude 100° to 118°, —in other words it comprised
the southern portion of the Province of Chih-li, Shan-si, and
Shen-si, the northern portions of Honan and Kiang-su, and
the western half of Shantung, —a tract of some 300,000 square
miles, —approximately one-fifth of the present superficies of
what is now known as China Proper. Under the early Chow
n

monarchs a sort of feudalism had grown up. By 770 b.c. the

feudatories had got seriously out of hand, and the subsequent
five hundred years are mainly occupied with the record of

domestic disorder and internecine strife. That was the Ashi-

kaga or the Carlovingian age of China. The " Spring and
Autumn " of Confucius, which covers the two centuries and
a half between 722 and 481 b.c v gives us the record of more
than 160 principalities, each eager to devour the other, although
32 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

all equally under the nominal suzerainty of Chow. But by

that time Chow had in truth become as impotent as the Holy
Roman Empire at its feeblest. By 425 b.c. these one hundred
and sixty contestants had been reduced to seven; besides
which there was a curtailed domain of Chow, of which these
seven were now practically independent. Presently one of
the seven not only ate up all its six rivals, but even made an
end of the venerable Chow, and again re-united China under
a strong central government. The new dominant power was the
semi-barbarous Ts'in (not Tsin), which after an independent
existence in the north-west had rejoined the semi-federative
system under Chow, to make a summary end of it three or
four generations afterwards. This short-lived Ts'in Dynasty
(255-202 b.c.) is remarkable in as far as it provides a welcome
landmark for bewildered Western students of Chinese history
in the person of Chi Hwangti, who has not unreasonably been
called the Chinese Napoleon. Inasmuch as he was the contempo-
rary of one of Napoleon's chief rivals to military fame, and as
one of his undertakings —the Great Wall, which stillsurvives
as one of the wonders of the world — was begun in the very year
of Cannae (214 b.c),becomes tolerably easy for the Euro-
it

pean student to " place "

him and to bear this date in mind.
Succeeding to the throne a mere boy of 13 years in 246, he
soon asserted the force of his genius. His military achieve-
ments were the drastic settlement of accounts with the Hiung-
Nu Tartars, who had been a terror to China for centuries, the
crushing of the formidable Honan rebellion set on foot by the
feudatories who had been dispossessed when the Empire was
recentralised, and the carrying of his victorious arms and the
limits of the Empire to the Yang-tse-kiang and the Poyang and
Tungting Lakes. The thirty-six provinces into which China
was now divided nominally included the Liaotung, South
China, and the valley of the upper Yang-tse as far as navi-
gable. But nothing definite was as yet known of Canton, Foo-
chow, Yun-nan, Thibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, or
Japan. Japan indeed had been heard of by the people of the
vassal kingdom around the modern Peking a century before,
and in the course of Chi Hwang-ti's eastern tour in the direc-
tion of Shan-hai-kwan and Chefoo vague rumours of certain
islands beyond the sea had reached his ears.
However, it was not till the reign of Wuti, the sixth of
the succeeding Han Dynasty (202 b.c, to 221 a.d.) that the
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 33

Chinese acquired any trustworthy information concerning

either Korea or Japan. About 108 b.c. they overran the north
of the Korean Peninsula, and although their direct hold upon
ifc was brief, it was not only the beginning of detailed know-

ledge of that country and of Japan, but of a more or less

intermittent communication between those lands and the
Middle Kingdom. From our earliest authentic sources it
abundantly appears that the term " Korean " at this time was
meaningless, for the Peninsula was then occupied by a con-
geries of heterogeneous tribes of different stock, language,
and institutions. Most of these had undoubtedly entered the
country from the north, by land. As regards the peoples in
the extreme south-west the case may very well have been
different; presently the reasons for assigning them a southern
over-sea origin will be adverted to at some length, inasmuch
as this consideration will be found to be of consequence when
we come to deal with primaeval Japan.
As the oldest Japanese historical documents are greatly
occupied with Korean relations, the student will find it highly
advantageous to acquaint himself with the main outlines of
the political developments in the Peninsula during the first

six or seven centuries of our era.

Shortly after the withdrawal of the Chinese in the first

century b.c. three kingdoms were founded, and gradually de-

veloped into great Powers.
In the north, Koguryu was established in b.c. 37, and
lasted down to 668 a.d. This is the State which appears as
Koma in the Japanese annals. As it lay so far to the north
the relations of the islanders with it were not very intimate
until shortly before its fall, while they never had any territo-
rial foothold in it at all.

The south of the Peninsula was occupied by two consider-

able States which first became conterminous immediately to
the south of the Koguryu frontier. The earliest of these two
was Silla, which arose on the Japan Sea coast in b.c. 57 and
after absorbing its rivals ran its course until 935. It appears
in the Nihcmgi as Shiragi. It was this State that Jingo Ko£0
is alleged to have conquered in 200 a.d. The relations between
the islanders and were generally hostile.
Silla (or Shiragi)
The third kingdom, called Pakche by the Koreans and
Kudara by the Japanese, and lasting from 17 b.c to 660 a.d.,
stretched along the Yellow Sea coast from the neighbourhood

D
34 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of Seoul, the present Korean capital, to the south-western

extremity of the Peninsula. Its relations with Japan were
friendly on the whole; and it was from it that the islanders
got the first tincture of continental civilisation.
At this point a word of caution becomes necessary. It '

would be a serious mistake to regard the extent of these three

kingdoms as synonymous with the present Korea. Koguryu
stretched far to the north into Manchuria at different times,
and on the other hand there were many small independent
communities on the confines of the two southern States. A
rough modern analogy may b-> found in the position of Bel-
gium, the Netherlands, and Denmark with respect to France
and Germany. Along the southern sea-board opposite a line
drawn from Tsushima to Quelpart and for a hundred miles or
more inland was a loose confederacy of communities that
acknowledged the suzerainty neither of Pakche nor of Silla.
It was in this quarter that Japanese influence was strongest,
its centre being the Miyake of Imna or Mimana. In fact at
the dawn of history this stretch of country would appear to
have been much more Japanese and much more under the
influence of Yamato than was either the northern half of the
main island of the Japanese archipelago, or the south of
Kyushu and the adjacent islets.
Thus this section of Korea is of no small interest to the
Japanese historian. Nor is it without still higher claims
upon our attention. It was in this tract of country, together
with the southern part of that western sea-board fringe which
became the kingdom of Pakche. that the so-called Han tribes,
the Ma-han, the Chin-han, and the Pyon-han, were settled. Of
these a recent historian has remarked that in them we shall
find the solution of the most interesting and important problem
that Korea has to offer either to the historian or the ethnologist.
Mr. Hulbert then proceeds to adduce a body of cumulative
evidence going to suggest that these communities* were not of
northern but of southern origin, and that they reached Korea
not by land but from over-sea. The items he enumerates in
support of this contention do not indeed amount to proof but ;

taken together with other still stronger considerations that

might well be added to them they indicate that the line of

investigation here suggested is likely to be a profitable one,

rich perhaps in surprises.
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 35

These Han
tribes were different in almost everything from
the beyond
tribes the mountains in the other parts of the
Peninsula. Furthermore, there are good grounds for believing
that was the language of these tribes that became the basic
it

element in Korean. Now, two of these tribes at least had the

Was or Japanese for neighbours. They had frequent inter-
course with these neighbours and were a good deal influenced
by contact with them. Modern Korean, no doubt with a
vocabulary seriously affected by, if not mainly made up of,
words of non-Han provenance, is undoubtedly closely akin to
Japanese in structure, while there no lack of analogies even
is

in the The only other member of

terms of the two tongues.
this family is Luchuan, which differs from Japanese pretty
much as, say, Portuguese does from Italian, a connecting link
between Japanese and Luchuan being found in the dialect of
Satsuma.
Now all this has an important bearing upon the question
of the possibility of an answer to that sphinx-like riddle —the
origin or origins of the Japanese people. After trying some
half-dozen hypotheses by the tests of (1) power to account for
all the known facts in the case, linguistic, anthropological,
ethnological, archaeological, and legendary, — if there can be
such a thing as a " legendary " fact ;
meet new facts as
(2) to
they appear ; and (3) of applicability as an instrument of
research, it has been found that there is only one that is

even partially equal to sustaining the triple strain. The in-

habitants of the Luchus, of Satsuma, and the rest of Southern

Kyushu and the peoples of the old Hans in Korea are, or were,
of the same stock or origin, —
either Malay or Indonesian.
And just as the people of the three Hans supplied the basic
element in the Korean language, so those of Luchu and
Kyiishu have furnished that element in the tongue of modern
Japan. Furthermore they have furnished Japan with her
Imperial House and with the greater part of her aristocracy
and ruling caste. So far from southern Kyushu and Luchu
having been peopled from Korea, it is not at all either impos-
sible or even unlikely that it was Southwestern Korea that
was peopled from Luchu and Kyushu. That Southern Kyushu
and South- Western Korea should have been settled by immi-
grants from the Southern Seas need excite less surprise than
the fact that Madagascar has been mainly peopled not from
36 HTSTORY OF JAPAN.

the neighbouring continent of Africa but from a remote Malayo-

Polynesian centre.*
The hold of the Chinese upon Northern and Central Korea
lasted for no —
more than two generations from 106 to 36 b.c.
Although they appear to have had no immediate political foot-
hold in the extreme south of the Peninsula at this time, they
were able to enter into relations not only with the native rulers
in this district but even with Japanese chieftains in their
mountainous island in the midst of the ocean, and to glean
rough details about this mysterious land. Towards the end of
the later Han dynasty (25-220 a.d.) we meet with a sort of
summary of what the Chinese had then ascertained about their
island neighbours. From this it appears that some chieftain
in Southern Japan sent an envoy with tribute to the Chinese
Court, which thought fit to bestow a seal and a ribbon upon him.
Half-a-century later (107 a.d.) a certain king of Wa (i.e.

Japan) presented 160 living persons and made a request for an

interview. The next important item we meet with refers to
the latter half of the second century a.d. " During the reigns
of Hwan-ti and Ling-ti (a.d. 147-190) Wa (i.e. Japan) was in
a state of great confusion, and there was a civil war for many
years, during which time there was no Then (i.e., about
chief.
or after 190 a.d.) there arose a woman, old and unmarried, who
had devoted herself to magic arts, by which she was clever in
deluding the people. The ration agreed together to set her up
as Queen. She has 1,000 female attendants; but few people
see her face, except one man, who serves her meals and is the
medium of communication with her. She dwells in a palace
with lofty pavilions, surrounded by a stockade, and is pro-
tected by a guard of soldiers. The laws and customs are strict."
All this is substantially corroborated by certain passages in
the Wei records written some half century later.**

* The chief objection to the above hypothesis is ethnographical.

Dr. Baelz writes: " Die Liu-kiu-Leute haben nicht die Spur von malay-
ischen Typus an sich." [See Mitthc/lungen der deutschen Gesellschaft
fiir Natur und Yolkerkunde Ostasiens, 28stes Heft S.340.] Other writers
have found points of physical .resemblance to the Ainus among
them. Is it possible that at one time the Ainus extended far down
into Kyushu, that while an invading southern tribe pressed the main
body towards the north, a remnant was driven to take refuge south-
wards ? In that case the adoption of the language of the invaders by
the (hypothetical) Luchu Ainus would call for explanation.
** To the average Western reader such terms as Han and Wei records
are no doubt next doer to meaningless. To make things clear, it may
be well to say that on the fall of the Han dynasty (after a sway of
some four hundred and twenty years) in a.d, 220, China fell apart into
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 37

" They (i.e. had formerly kings, but for

the Japanese)
seventy or eighty years there was great confusion and civil war
prevailed. After a time they agreed to set up a woman named
Himeko as their sovereign. She had no husband, but her
younger brother assisted her in governing the country. After
she became Queen, few persons saw her."
That this Japanese " She " was something more substan-
tial than a mere myth may be inferred that in the Wei Chi we
meet with full details of missions sent by her to the Northern
Chinese Court at Lohyang in 238 and 243 a.d. while several
;

communications passed between her and the Chinese Prefect

of Tai-fang (not far from the modern Seoul) in Korea.
In 247 " a messenger came to the Prefect of Tai-fang from
Wa (Japan) to explain the causes of the enmity which had
always prevailed between Queen Himeko and Himekuko, King
of Konu. A letter was sent admonishing them. At this time
Queen Himeko died. A great mound was raised over her, more
than a hundred paces in diameter, and over 1,000 of her male
and female attendants followed her in death. Then a king was
raised to the throne, but the people would not obey him, and
civilwar again broke out. A girl of thirteen, a relative of
Himeko, named Iyo (or Yih-yii) was then made Queen and
order was restored." At this time another Chinese envoy ap-
peared in Japan, and was safely escorted back, a number of
slaves, pearlsand other things being then sent as presents.
Doubtless it was from such missions as the preceding that
the Chinese obtained their knowledge of Japan. It is to be
observed that the exchange of communications between the
Chinese authorities and the islanders was not confined to a

three rival States. One under Liu Pi had its capital in Sz'chuen and
embraced the upper Yang-tse valley and the south-west of the old
Empire. The second under Siun Kien with its capital at Nanking
stretched south along the sea-board from Shantung and the Yellow
River to the mountains of Fukien. The third, under Tsao Tsao, with
its capital at Lohyang, comprised the northern provinces. These States
were known as the Shuh, the Wu, and the Wei respectively; and the
period of their existence (220--265 a.d.) is one of the most stirring and
picturesque in the whole course of Chinese history. About a thousand
years afterwards Lo Kuang-Chung took their struggles as the theme
of his San Kuo Chih Yen —
undoubtedly the greatest historical romance
produced in the Far East. In Japan its effect has been perhaps even
greater than it has been in China. In course of time it became the
—
favourite reading of the Japanese Samurai, the so-called bushi, and—
auy attempt to account for the growth of what is now known as
Bushido can be attended with but partial success, unless the influence
of this novel be taken into account. In its pages the Japanese bushi
found not a few of his ideals.
38 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

central Japanese government. The country was divided into

—
more than 100 " provinces " more probably tribes or clans
and of these thirty-two provinces communicated with the Han
authorities by a postal service. This communication is said to
have begun shortly after the Chinese conquest of Northern and
Central Korea in 106 b.c. Naturally the missions must have
been under the conduct of Chinese officials or Chinese adven-
turers,who at that early date had penetrated into most of the
surrounding semi-barbaric States, and found their own per-
sonal account in opening up and promoting intercourse be-
tween the chieftains of the regions in which they had settled
and the nearest Chinese authorities, and, if possible, the Chinese
Court. was such adventurers who composed dispatches for
It
Mongols and Manchus and Huns and Koreans and Japanese
at a time when these peoples were all innocent of any acquain-
tance either with the Chinese language or the art of writing.
We have something like an analogy to all this in the famous
Japanese embassies to the Pope in 1582, and to the city of
Seville, the King of Spain, and the Pope in 1614. And just as
it is to the European missionaries who really organised and
conducted these embassies that we are indebted for what is

most valuable in the data accessible to us about the Japan of

the later sixteenth and earlier seventeenth century, so it is

these early Chinese adventurers that we have to thank for the

only authentic accounts we have of primaeval Japan.
At the time these Han and Wei records were compiled in
the third century a.d. there seem to have been two, and possibly
more, independent Japanese States in Japan, for we are ex-
pressly told that the kings of Konu, who held sway somewhere
in the neighbourhood of the present Tokyo, were of the same
race as the Japanese of Yamato but not subject to them. The
chief power, Great Wa, had its seat in Yamato, in other —
words in the district around Lake Biwa, and between Lake
Biwa and the Pacific. It evidently extended along both shores
of the Inland Sea, on to Nagato and Chikuzen, on which it

contrived to keep a very firm hand. In these quarters there

were local hereditary kings or princelets, but they all stood in
wholesome awe of the Imperial Local Commissioner who had
his seat at Ito in the latter province, and who had subordinates
stationed at various points in the interior. It is tolerably
clear that the Yamato authorities regarded this north-western
corner of Kyushu with special solicitude inasmuch as it was
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 39

their base for enterprises in Southern Korea, where their in-

fluence was much was in the centre and south
stronger than it

of Kyushu itself. At one time there had evidently been an in-

dependent community in Idzumo on the coast of the Sea of
Japan; but possibly long before this date it had been incor-
porated in the dominions of the Great Was.
From these records we furthermore gather
that the Japan-
ese had distinctions of rank, that some were vassals to others,
that taxes were collected, that there were markets in the vari-
ous provinces for the exchange of superfluous commodities,
under the supervision of the central authorities. It is some-
what surprising to find how often the assertion that all the
islanders practised tattooing is reiterated in these records.
"The men, both small and great, tattoo their faces and work
designs on their bodies." "The men all tattoo their faces and
adorn their bodies with designs. Differences of rank are in-

dicated by the position and size of the patterns/' " The women
use pink and scarlet to smear their bodies with, as rice-powder
is used in China." Japanese women have always been well
spoken of by sojourners in the land, it would seem. " The
women are faithful and not jealous," we are explicitly told by
these early Chinese travellers. We are furthermore informed
that they were more numerous than the men, and strangely
enough the very first remark made by the Japanese gentleman
whom I entrusted with the task of analysing the earliest Japan-
ese census records (about 700 a.d.) was about the astonishing
preponderance of females even in those later days! In those
early times there seems to have been no lack of occupation for
—
them " All men of high rank have four or five wives, others
two or three " " There is no theft, and litigation is infre-
!

quent." Froez was almost to repeat these words thirteen

centuries later " The wives and children of those who break
!

the laws are confiscated (one source of slaves) and for grave
crimes the offender's family is extirpated."
"
Mourning lasts for some ten days only, during which time
the members of the family weep and lament, whilst their friends
come singing, dancing and making music They practise divina-
tion by burning bones and by that means ascertain good and
bad luck, and whether or not to undertake journeys and
voyages. They appoint a man whom they style the mourning- '

keeper.' He is not allowed to comb his hair, to wash, to eat

meat, or to approach women. When they are fortunate they
40 HISTORY OP JAPAN,

make him valuable presents; but if they fall ill, or meet with
disaster, they set it down to the mourning-keeper's failure to
observe his vows and together they put him to death."
The correctness of all this is substantiated by later native
sources. In this early Japanese " medicine-man " we have no
difficulty in recognising the Imibe of the Kojiki and Nihongi
and the Shinto rituals.

One particular assertion we meet with in these records

raises the question of how the Japanese reckoned time. " The
Was are not acquainted with the New Year or the four Seasons,
but reckon the year by the spring cultivation of the fields, and
by the autumn ingathering of the crops." ..." They are
a long-lived race, and persons who have reached 100 years are
very common"
Now at the date of the compilation of the Kojiki and the
Nihongi at the beginning of the eighth century Japanese literati
were well acquainted with Chinese histories. In fact the
Nihongi bristles with passages transferred verbatim et litera-
tim from these histories, and applied to embellish the record of
mythical and legendary Japan. That the compilers of the
earliest official annals were acquainted with the above passage
is more than likely. And it is at least possible that it may
have furnished them with one of the inducements which led
them upon their early Emperors
to bestow the gift of longevity
in such lordly measure. Of the one hundred and four sovereigns
of Japan who occupied the throne between 400 a.d. and 1867
a.d. only seventeen attained the span of three score years and

ten, and of these not one lived to ninety, while no more than
four exceeded the age of eighty years. And with respect to the
earliest two of these four our chronology is doubtful. Now to
the period of 1,060 years antecedent to 400 a.d. the official an-
nalists assigned no more than sixteen rulers, the average reign
thus running to 66 years. One of these, Chuai Tenno, who died
in 200 a.d. after a short reign of eight years, Avas only 52 at that
date ; but then the Nihongi by implication asserts that he was
born 37 years after the death of his father, Prince Yamato-dake
no Mikoto. The second, third, and fourth in the line of these
legendary Emperors lived to 84, 57, and 77 respectively. But
of all the others not one fell short of a century ; the assigned
ages ranging indeed from 108 to 143, the average for the twelve
being 122 years. Thus possibly the official annalists regarded
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 41

the preceding statement in the Han records as a hint too

valuable to be neglected.
After 265 a.d. communication between China and Japan
apparently ceased ; at all events it is only early in the fifth
century that we again begin to glean information about con-
temporary Japan from the records of the Middle Kingdom.
For the intervening century and a half the sole foreign source
available for stray notices of Japan and the Japanese is the
standard histories of Ancient Korea. The most extensive is
—
the Tong-guk Tong-Kam commonly referred to as the Tong-
Kam—which was published somewhere about 1470 a.d. This
had been preceded by the Sam-guk-sa or History of the Three
Countries compiled in 1145 from the original annals and re-
cords of the kingdoms of Koguryu (37 b.c. — 668 a.d.), Pakche
(17 b.c— 660 a.d.) and Silla (57 b.c— 935 a.d.). About the
authenticity and trustworthiness of the very earliest of these
records, authorities differ; it is to a great extent a question
of the date of the introduction of the art of writing into, and
its diffusion in, the Peninsula. Mr. Courant thinks it likely
that while the northern kingdom of Koguryu from its proximity
to China may have had a tincture of Chinese letters from early
times, it was only between 347 and 375 that passing events
began to get committed to writing in Pakche, and that Silla
lagged behind Japan even, in this respect. Consequently, if

Pakche history previous to the middle

this be so the details of
of the fourth century and of that of Silla till a still later
period repose upon oral tradition " et ne m&itent qu'une demi-
creance."*

Mr. Hulbert's faith in the authenticity and credibility of early

*
Korean history is of a very robust and sturdy type. " The Chinese
written character was introduced into Korea as a permanent factor
about the time of Christ, and with it came the possibility of permanent
historical records. That such records were kept is quite apparent from
the fact that the dates of all solar eclipses have been carefully preserved
from the year 57 b.c. ... On the whole we may conclude that from
the year 57 b.c. Korean histories are fairly accurate." Preface to his —
History of Korea. Now unfortunately it is in. the annals not of
Koguryu but of Silla that these solar eclipses are recorded, Silla being —
the latest of the three peninsular kingdoms to feel the influence of
Chinese culture. Buddhism, introduced into Koguryu in 372, did not
reach Silla until the middle of the succeeding century; in fact, it was
only from 528 that it became an effective force there. With the spread
of the new religion the diffusion of Chinese culture kept pace, and so
when in 545 orders were issued for the compilation of a national his-
tory, there were several who could turn to Chinese records with profit.
The Buddhist monks had naturally introduced their religious books in
the first place; but they were not long in bringing in the Chinese
42 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

In the four centuries of our era the Silla annals make

first

mention of some thirteen or fourteen Japanese descents on the

coasts ; in the fifth century alone an almost equal (eleven)
number of hostile attempts on the part of the islanders is re-
corded. Apart from this we meet with a few other references
to intercourse with Japan. In b.c. 48 we are told the Japanese
pirates stopped their incursions into the Peninsula for the time
being. Thirty years later we meet with a Japanese high in the
service of the Silla King. In 158 a.d. we come across the
strange legend of Yung-o and Seo-o, Silla subjects who were
spirited across the sea to become sovereigns in Japan, leaving
their own native land in darkness, to the. great consternation
of the authorities. The story of how light was ultimately
restored to Silla reminds one of the Amaterasu and Susanoo
legend. About a century later we are told that the first

envoy ever received from Japan arrived in Silla (249 a.d.). A

Korean general told him that it would be well for his King
and Queen to come and be slaves in the kitchen of the King of
Silla. The envoy at once turned about and returned to Japan,

and soon a punitive expedition from the islands appeared.

The offending Korean told the King of what he had done, and
then walked straight into the Japanese camp and offered himself
as a sacrifice. The Japanese burned him alive and then with-
drew. Next year the same envoy came once more and was well
received by the Silla King. But the general's wife obtained
leave to work in the kitchen of the envoy's establishment and
contrived to poison his food, and that put an effectual stop
to the exchange of diplomatic civilities between the two coun-
tries for some considerable time. At last, in 300 a.d., another
friendly mission from Japan appeared, and a return embassy
was sent. Twelve years later (312) the Japanese asked for
a matrimonial alliance with Silla, and the daughter of a Silla
noble was sent as a consort for the Japanese sovereign. In

classics; various historical works, books on astronomy, astrology and

medicine, and some Taoist volumes.
Now, is it not more than likely that the Silla historiographers found
their data for the early eclipses in these Chinese histories and works
on astronomy ? Furthermore, Mr. Aston has collated the dates of
certain events recorded in Chinese and Korean histories of the first five
centuries of our era, and finds among the sixteen instances investigated
ten cases of agreement in date, against two disagreements, while
Korean history is silent regarding the other four. But, if the Silla
historians were drawing upon these various Chinese historical works,
introduced by the Buddhist priests, as sources, agreement in date is
just what might be expected.
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 43

344 another similar request was refused, and in the following

year the Japanese Court wrote to break off all intercourse with
Silla.
If we are to believe the Nihongi, Silla had been conquered
by Jingo. Kogo in 200 a.d., and the Kings of Pakche and Kogu-
ryu had then sent envoys to acknowledge the suzerainty of
Japan. After that all three kingdoms had meanwhile more
or less carefully complied with the obligations they had
then incurred to send tribute. Now, down to 400 a.d. no
confidence whatsoever can be reposed either in the chronology
of the Nihongi or in the individual incidents it professes to
record. Valuable institutional and social items may possibly
enough be gleaned from its pages; but when perfervid patrio-
tic enthusiasts begin to dilate upon its claims to our respect

as a history, we can do nothing but smile and pass on. The

question of the credibility of the early Silla annals may be
left to the judgement of the reader; the essential considera-
tions have been adduced already.
As regards Japanese intercourse with the kingdom of
Pakche, we find ourselves on somewhat more solid ground.
The event in this connection recorded in the Nihongi, the —
submission of the Pakche sovereign to Jingo Kogo in 200 a.d., —
isdoubtless mythical. But a few pages later on in the Nihongi
we meet with the first of a series of incidents which are seem-
ingly more or less authentic, as not a few of them can be
traced in the Korean records. But the remarkable thing is
that the compilers of the Nihongi have ante-dated them by two
cycles or 120 years. Mr. Aston had no difficulty in establish-
ing this interesting fact independently; but he had been an-
ticipated by the great Japanese scholar Motoori, who had
arrived at a similar result a century before the acute Irish
critic. This means that certain events assigned to 225, 260,
and so on, by the Nihongi really occurred in 357,
265, 272, 277,
380, 385, 392, and 397 respectively. Of these the one given
under 284 is perhaps the most important of the series. " In
284 the King of Pakche sent Atogi with tribute of two good
horses. Atogi was placed in charge of the Imperial stables.
He could read the classics well, and the Heir Apparent be-
came his pupil. The Emperor asked him whether there were
any better scholars in Pakche than himself. He said, Yes, i

one Wani,' whereupon a Japanese official was sent to bring

him." Wani arrived in the following year, and became the
44 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

instructor of the Prince in the Chinese classics. Now, for

284 we must substitute 404 a.d. The Sam guk-sa tells us
a.d.

that it was only between 346 and 375 a.d. that passing events
began to get committed to writing in Pakche, while the Tong-
Jcam is even still more explicit. " In 375 a.d. Pakche appointed
a certain Kohung as professor. It was not till now that
Pakche had any records. The country had no writing pre-
vious to this time."
Of course the bearing of all this upon the authenticity of
what passes as early Japanese history is self-apparent, not
only to such as insist that history is a science, but even to those
who merely hold that, while history in as far as it is an art
of presentation must be regarded as literature, historians must
be rigorously scientific in their methods of investigation. In
the Nihongi we read that " on the 8th day of the 8th month,
403 a.d v local recorders were appointed for the first time in
the various provinces, who noted down statements and com-
municated the writings of the four quarters." That such
officers were appointed is indeed credible enough, but that
they were appointed a year or two before the introduction of
the art of writing into Japan is not credible. What is likely

is that in the course of that or the subsequent generations

Korean scribes may have been assigned to some such duty. It
is an interesting fact that the earliest date of the accepted

Japanese chronology which is substantiated by external evi-

dence is 461 a.d.

In addition to foreign contemporary records there is still

one more " source " for Japanese history previous to 461 a.d.

But in dealing with this special source the exercise of the

greatest caution is necessary, for archaeology has been respon-
sible some strange vagaries. However, the student is
for
strongly recommended to study Mr. Gowland's monograph on
" The Dolmens of Japan and their Builders " in the Trans-

actions of the Japan Society, London, 1897-8.* The learned

author places the beginning of the dolmen age in the second
century before Christ and its close somewhere between 600
and 700 a.d. The correctness of the latter assumption is con-
firmed by contemporary records. The great statesman Kama-
tari died in 669 a.d. and was buried in a dolmen tumulus. His

* Also see Aston's note to p. 135, Vol. I., of his translation of the
Nihongi, and the references to Misasagi in the index.
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 45

son Joe was then in China studying for the Buddhist priest-
hood, and on his return he had his father's corpse removed and
buried under a miniature pagoda of stone. This marked the
decline of the old system of interment. In 695 a.d. the com-
mon people were forbidden to erect mausolea of any kind, and
seven years later this prohibition was extended to all under
the third rank.
As regards the date of the beginning of the dolmen age
there must necessarily be much uncertainty. We know from
the language of subsequent legislation that the custom of
depositing articles of the highest value in tombs was a com-
paratively late development, —about the beginning of the fifth
century a.d. In the time of Yuryaku (459-479) no expense in
the construction of sepulchres was spared; and the people,
imitating the example of the Court, expended so much of
their substance upon tombs and on valuables to be deposited
in them that they became seriously impoverished. Again, in
641, in consequence of the magnificence that attended the ob-
sequies of the Emperor Jomei, elaborate mausolea and expen-
sive funerals caused wide-spread destitution among nobles
and people alike. In the drastic decree of 646 dealing with
the subject of interments it is roundly asserted that of late the
poverty of our people is absolutely owing to the construction
of tombs.
However, when we calmly consider how rapidly any
fashionable craze or practice has been wont to spread in Japan
at all times, it is not necessary to postulate a span of centuries
for the evolution of the dolmen. At the beginning of the 17th
century what made the Japanese people feel the pinch of
poverty was not the erection of mausolea so much as castle-
biiilding. Now, what was the length of the period necessary
to cover Japan with some 200 or 300 huge fortresses, some of
which would have been capable of holding almost the whole
of the mausolea of early Japan within their enceintes ? The
earliest of these fortresses —
that of AzuChi was begun in —
—
1575 or 1576, forty years later, in 1616, the Tokugawas for-
bade the erection of any more new castles
Moreover, even before Yuryaku (459-479) we hear of fre-
quent exchanges of " tribute " between the Japanese and the
neighbouring kingdoms in Korea. These foreign articles were
most valuable, because most rare in Japan, and precisely
on account of their value they would most likely be deposited
46 HISTORY OP JAPAN,

in the tombs. Such is the case with the so-called maga-tama

or " curved jewels " so frequently found in the old sepulchral
chambers at all events, for the jade or jade-like stone of which
many of them are made is a mineral which has never yet been
met with in Japan. May not a good deal of the dolmen pottery
be also of Korean provenance ?
But perhaps the most suggestive among the archaeological
spoils of the dolmens is the abundant horse furniture and
trappings which have been recovered. Writes Mr. Gowland:
" Even in the earliest part of the period the horse was the

companion and servant of man." Now, in those Chinese Han

records we are distinctly told that at that date (about 220
a.d.) there were no oxen or horses in Japan ! Modern zoologists
seem to have arrived at conclusions consonant with this state-
ment; one modern authority will have it that the horse was
introduced into Japan in the third century a.d. The Japanese
word for horse, uma, is notoriously of Chinese and not of
native origin.
These considerations are of no very great profundity, but
they may serve to indicate that caution is necessary when we
begin to speculate about the exact date of the beginning of the
dolmen-building age in Japan.
The geographical distribution of the dolmens is exceedingly
interesting, for it gives us a clue to the chief centres of Japan-
ese power in the early centuries of our era. Yamato and the
provinces around the modern Kyoto are richest in these
remains. Then come Iwami, Idzumo, Hold, and Inaba on
the Japan Sea, with a connecting group in Tamba. West-
ward they are found in the Sanyodo, in Shikoku, and in the
east and north of Kyushu, while their eastward limit is a com-
paratively small cluster in the Province of Iwaki, a much
larger group being found at the junction of the three provinces
of Kodzuke, Shimotzuke, and Musashi. Among the dolmens
there one class deserving of especial attention, that known
is —
as " Imperial burial mounds," termed by Mr. Gowland from
their shape " double " mounds, although they never contain
more than one dolmen. These large double mounds were un-
doubtedly the tombs of men of the highest rank or of, pre-emi-
nent power. Soga's erection of such a tomb daring his life-

time by means of forced labour and State serfs was taken as

one strong indication of his intention to usurp the Imperial
throne (642 a.d.). " Nearly all the emperors whose names are
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 47

recorded in the Kojiki, and many whose names and existence

have been forgotten, were probably buried in these double
mounds. But," continues Mr. Gowland, " I have also found
these mounds of Imperial form in the important dolmen dis-
tricts of Tdzumo and Hold, Bizen, Kodzuke, and Hyuga, which
are remote from the central provinces, the seats of the recog-
nised emperors. This would seem to indicate that these re-
gions were once independent centres, or were governed by chiefs
who were regarded as equals with the central ruling family."
" Now as regards Kodzuke, the centre of the kingdom of Konu
at the head of Tokyo Bay, we know from the Han and Wei
records that this outpost of the Yamato people in Ainu-land
was independent of the Queen of Great Wa in the first half of
the third century a.d. There is a great deal in the mythical
and legendary part of the Kojiki and the Niliongi which
points to the early existence of an independent sovereign State
in Idzumo on the shore of the Sea of Japan. We hear of the
Imperial Court being established in Hyuga for seven years,
and at another time for eight years in North- Western Kyushu,
and of Hyuga princesses and Kibi (i.e. Bizen) princesses being
sent for and wedded by Yamato sovereigns.
Now, let us glance at those sections of Japan where dol-
mens are not to be found. In the north, south of a line drawn
from Kaga, perhaps from Tsuruga to Mount Tsukuba, the
Ainu power was still unbroken. In the interior of the moun-
tainous Kii peninsula there were still unsubdued autochthons.
And in the south of Kyushu there were the dreaded and un-
tamable Kumaso.
This brings us to a brief consideration of that vexed topic
the origin or origins of the Japanese people, —a subject that
has given rise to endless speculation and interminable debate.
It seems to be agreed that the earliest inhabitants of these
islands were the —
Ainu or the Yemishi, as they are called in
the oldest Japanese annals — that these entered Yezo from
Amur-land, and spread southward, gradually occupying nearly
the whole of the main island and even pushing well down into
Kyushu. The evidence adduced consists of place-names and
of the "kitchen middens" or shell mounds, with their con-
tents of bones of animals (mingled with a few of men), shells,
and stone implements, together with vessels of pottery, but no
objects of metal. Their possession of the land appears to have
48 HTSTORY OP JAPAN.

been first challenged by immigrants from Korea, who gradually

established a civilised or semi-civilised State with Idzumo for
its centre. To call these immigrants " Koreans " serves no
useful purpose, for the population of Korea was exceedingly
heterogeneous. Among peoples of various race the Peninsula
harboured numbers of Chinese adventurers or refugees escap-
ing from the horrors of dynastic cataclysms, oppressive go-
vernment or civil strife. Legend has it that a band of such
adventurers possessed themselves of a part of South-Western
Korea and established among the tribes they found there a
kingdom which lasted from 193 to 9 b.c.
Now, Dr. Baelz has pointed out that what is regarded
(mistakenly) as the type of the aristocratic Japanese coun-
tenance — flie fine long oval face with well-chiselled features,
oblique eyes with long drooping eyelids and elevated and
arched eyebrows, high and narrow forehead, rounded and
slightly aquiline nose, bud-like mouth, and pointed chin — is

really the aristocratic type among the Chinese, and that this
type is not infrequently met with in the Korean Peninsula at
the present day. Is it unreasonable to presume that these ex-
ceptionally handsome Japanese and Koreans are of Chinese an-
cestry ? Chinese writers mention a belief that the Japanese
are descended from the Chinese prince, T'ai Peh of Wu, and
that a colony from China under Sii-she settled in Japan in
219 b.c. —the age of the Chinese Napoleon. In a Japanese
'•'
Burke " or u Debrett " of the early 9th century of some
1,200 noble families nearly one-third are assigned either a
Chinese or a Korean origin. And most of those families ap-
pear to have been settled in Tdzumo originally.
Altogether it seems not unlikely that the Idzumo State was
founded, not by Akkadians, but by Chinese refugees or adven-
turers direct from China, or by the descendants of Chinese
who had —
perhaps by the combined efforts of
settled in Korea,
both at various epochs. The chief objection to this hypothesis
may be easily disposed of. That objection is linguistic. The
Chinese language is monosyllabic, while Japanese is noto-
riously polysyllabic, and besides all this the vocabulary
and the grammatical structure of the two tongues are
about as different as can well be conceived. Now how much
Latin is spoken in the British Islands ? The Roman invaders
present us with an analogy to the position and subsequent for-
tunes of these (presumably) Chinese adventurers in Idzumo,
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 49

only of course with this great difference —that while Latin and
Celtic were sister tongues there is apparently no connection be-
tween Ainu and Chinese whatever. What was to be the domi-
nant language in Britain was introduced by the Teutonic
tribes from the Continent. In course of time Latin and Celtic
got swamped —Latin entirely so. And so was it with Ainu
and Early Chinese in Japan when brought face to face with
the language of that tribe or rather those tribes from the
south that evidently played in Japan the part of the Angles,
the Saxons, and the Jutes in England. Nor is it necessary to
assume that the language of the presumed Chinese settlers in
Idzumo was Chinese. day
It is notorious that at the present
there are thousands of the grandchildren and other descen-
dants of Chinese immigrants into the Dutch East Indies and
Siam to whom Chinese is an alien and unknown tongue. The
ancestors of the Idzumo adventurers may have been settled in
South-Western Korea for several generations, and during this
time they may well have lost acquaintance with their own
original language and adopted that of the Mahan and other
tribes among which they had their settlements; this old
South-Western Korean tongue being, according to Mr. Hulbert
and others, the basic element in the modern speech of the
Peninsula.
According to Sir Ernest Satow's hypothesis, " tradition
points to a conquest of Japan from the side of Korea by a
people settling in Idzumo and speaking a language allied to
Korean. These were followed by a race of warriors coming
from the south and landing in Hyuga* — it might be Malay
or perhaps a branch of that warlike and intelligent race of
which a branch survives in New Zealand, speaking originally
a language rich in vowel terminations, who conquered the less
warlike but more civilised inhabitants they found in posses-
sion, and adopted their language with modifications peculiar
to themselves."
About the origin of these southern invaders and about the
route by which they arrived in Japan there has been great
divergence of opinion. Dr. Baelz, while admitting that they
are not of the same stock as the settlers in Idzumo, will have

* Hyugain primaeval times included osumi and Satsuma. The early

settlement of Jimmu and his ancestors was on the osumi, not the
Hyuga, side of Mount Kirishima, and it is in tbe country to the north
and west of Kagoshima Gulf and on to Cape Kasasa (or Noma) that
the incidents of the legend are localised.
50 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

it that they must have entered Japan by the same route as

the former, —that is through Korea. Of course this is not
impossible ; however, the balance of probability seems to be
in favour of Satow's hypothesis. Perhaps even Southern
Korea may have been settled from the South Seas vid Kyushu.
Of course, most of and with the limited
this is hypothetical,
data at our disposal, —notices contemporary Chinese
in early
histories, notices from subsequent Korean histories, archaeolo-
gical discoveries, ethnological and linguistic considerations,
and Japanese legend as " selected " for the Kojild and Nihongi
— it is questionable whether in this matter we can ever rise
to anything beyond a mere conflict of rival hypotheses. Here
as everywhere else it is a case of the survival of the fittest ;

and the test of fitness here, as in other hypotheses, is the

relative power of explaining all the known facts and such
new facts as may emerge, of meeting all objections, and of
serviceability as an instrument of research.
Now, keeping this all-important consideration ever in
mind, and after perusing the numerous learned, and also un-
learned, treatises on this subject, and after much pondering
on all that has been advanced, I have been forced to the
conclusion that the following hypothetical resume of results
may be found of most service to future inquirers. The
southern invaders, known at first as Kumaso and later on
as Hayato, probably arrived in Southern Kyushu long before
the establishment of the Idzumo State. Of these invaders,
evidently of sea-faring proclivities, a branch passed into South-
western Korea, which, according to Mr. Hulbert's hypothesis,
was peopled from the south and not from the north. Those
settled in Kyushu came into conflict with the Ainu, a few
of whom they may have driven to take refuge in the Luchu
Islands, while the others were exterminated or thrown back
into the main island. Meanwhile the Idzumo State got founded
by immigrants of Chinese extraction whose ancestors had set-
tled among the Korean Kumaso, had dominated them by their
superior culture, but from the paucity of their numbers had
been driven to acquire the " Korean-Kumaso ''
language. Ul-
timately a branch of the Kyushu Kumaso came into contact
with this Idzumo State, or rather with its outlying depend-
encies, and had either conquered them, or come to terms and
gradually amalgamated with this continental people, their
 CHINESE AND KOREAN SOURCES. 51

superiors in culture, but their inferiors in war and in the

prosaic work-a-day task of administration, and in real practical
ability generally.
The combination of this branch of the Kumaso and the
Idzumo men proved irresistible; they pushed their conquests
eastward along both shores of the Inland Sea, and ultimately
established a strong central State in Yamato, at the expense
of the aboriginal Ainu, who may already have found them-
selveshard pressed by the impact of the Idzumo people from
the north-west. Then gradually, partly by arms, partly by
astute diplomacy and a constant process of amalgamation,
this Yamato power at last succeeded in establishing a
suzerainty over Idzumo and so subjecting to its control the
whole of the main island west of a line drawn from Tsuruga
to Owari, and the northern sea-boards of Shikoku and Kyushu,
the rest of which meanwhile remained in possession of other
Kumaso tribeswhich continued to lead an independent but
uncultured existence of their own. In course of time a body
of the Yamato Was, now a mixed race of Kumaso and Idzumo
men, pushed on into Ainuland, and established the independent
kingdom of Konu in the Great Plain of Musashi in the basins
of the Tone and Sumida Rivers.
The Kumaso who fared forth to find their fortunes in the
Idzumo domains bore pretty much the same relation to the
Kumaso who renin ined in their enrlier southern seats in Kyu-
shu that the Franks, who established themselves in Gaul about
the time of Clovis, did to those Teutonic tribes who remained
behind in the forests of Germany and who were subjected to
the sway of their more civilised brethren by Charlemagne
some three centuries afterwards.
One interesting matter in connection with this has been
alluded to by Dr. Baelz, who points out that the members of
the Imperial House generally have the southern or Satsuma
type of features. Now, during the last millenium or more the
Emperors have taken their consorts from one great house
—
mainly, from the Fujiwara to wit. And the first ancestor
of this house is represented as descending from Heaven with
the grandchild of the Sun Goddess, when he appeared in
Osumi to take possession of Japan. A less remote ancestor
was Jimmu TenncVs staunch and trusty henchman. It is true
that after his conquest of Central Japan Jimmu is represented
as wedding a Yamato princess, and we are told that it was
52 HTSTORY OF JAPAN.

from the issue of this marriage that the successor to the

throne and the subsequent Imperial line came, Jimmu's eldest
son, born in Kyushu the offspring of a Kyushu mother, having
been set aside to his not unnatural discontent. The Yamato
marriage may have been resorted to as a political device to
forward the amalgamation of the southerners and the Idzumo
people. However, the fact remains that the dominant strain
in the Imperial House is Fujiwara, that its members have
mostly the Satsuma type of countenance and physique, and
that legend assigns the Imperial line and the Fujiwaras alike
a southern or Satsuma origin.
 53

CHAPTER II.

LEGENDARY JAPAN.
(jAPANESK SOUliCES.)

TT7E may now proceed to avail ourselves of such light as the

native Japanese mythical legendaiy narratives tlirow
upon the situation previous to 400 a.d. Such light is at best cre-
puscular. The earliest Japanese document Ave possess is the
Kojiki, or Record of Ancient Matters, which was compiled in
—
712 a.d v that is, some ten generations after the close of the
period we propose to deal with in 1his chapter. It was in the
first of these ten generations (about 404 a.d.) that the art of
writing was introduced into Japan ; and even so it seems the
keeping of records and of treasury accounts was entrusted to
and remained in the hands of a corporation of scribes of
Korean origin for two centuries. Doubtless their occupation
was mainly with ordinary work-a-day contemporary exigen-
cies. However, we know that when an Emperor or a great
—
chieftain was entombed in his last resting-place, the mauso-
leum that took months or sometimes, indeed, years to con-
struct, —it was customary for the great Ministers or the most

prominent clansman to pronounce the eulogies of the august

deceased. In these funeral orations, doubtless, abundant
stress was laid upon ancient, perhaps divine lineage, and the
merits and exploits of ancestors immediate and remote. We
hear of such eulogies being read. Likely enough, then, these
Korean scribes may have been called upon to commit them
to writing, —
perhaps even to compose them. These documents,
if kept, as they would naturally be, would be of great value

as material to future historians or annalists.

It was not till Buddhism had obtained a secure foothold
—
among the upper classes shortly before GOO a.d. and after
intercourse with China was, after an interruption of a century,
resumed —that the native Japanese began to show any great
enthusiasm for scholarly pursuits. It was only in 021 a.d.,
two centuries after the introduction of the art of writing, that
the first History of Japan was produced. Part of this work,
54 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the History of the Emperors, was lost in the Great Revolution

of 645; but one portion, the History of the Country, was
saved, and ultimately got incorporated in one or other of two
subsequent works, the Kojiki (712 a.d.) and the Nihongi
(720 a.d.).
It is to theseworks exclusively that we must go for any
information from written native sources about Ancient Japan.
It is needless to say that inasmuch as everything set forth an-
tecedent to 400 a.d. reposes on mere tradition these records
down to that date must be utilised with the greatest caution.
But there is a still more important consideration. These an-
nals do not give us the traditions of ancient Japan but merely
a selection from these traditions. Yasumaro, who edited and
committed the Kojilti to writing (and who was also joint-
author of the later Nihongi), tells us this expressly in his
preface :

" Hereupon the Heavenly Sovereign (i.e. Temniu Tenno in

681) commanded saying: 'I hear that the chronicles of the
Emperors and likewise the original works in the possession of
the various families deviate from exact truth, and are mostly
amplified by empty falsehoods. If at the present time these
imperfections be not amended, ere many years the purport of
this, the great basis of the country, the great foundation of
the monarch} 7
, So now I desire to have the
will be destroyed.
Emperors selected and recorded and the old
chronicles of the ;

words examined and ascertained, falsehoods being erased and

the truth determined, in order to transmit the (latter) to after
ages.' At that time there was a retainer whose surname was
Hiyeda and his personal name Are. He was 28 years old (in
681), and of so intelligent a disposition that he could repeat
with his mouth whatever met his eyes, and record in his heart
whatever struck his ears. Forthwith Are was commanded to
learn by heart the genealogies of the Emperors, and likewise
the words of former ages. Nevertheless, time elapsed and the
age changed, and the thing was not yet carried out. . . .

Then, on November 3rd, 7 LI, the ruling Empress Gemmyo

commanded me, Yasumaro, to select and record the old words
learnt by Hiyeda-no-Are according to the Imperial Decree, and
dutifully to lift them up to Her. In reverent obedience to the
contents of the Decree I have made a careful choice."
A reference to the Nihongi (Aston's Translation, Vol. II.,

380) shows that two of the twelve commissioners entrusted

 JAPANESE SOURCES. 55

with the task of compiling annals in 681 " took the pen in
hand themselves and made notes." So it is not necessary to
assume that Acre's memory continued for thirty years to be
the sole depository of the data that ultimately became the
Kojiki in 711. Nor does a careful examination of the lan-
guage of Yasumaro's Preface commit us to the necessity of
maintaining that he simply wrote out what fell from Are's lips.
The need of a selection and a careful choice will
become apparent when Ave consider the political objects the
Kojiki and NiJiongi were alike composed to subserve. In 647,
shortly after the great and startling coup-d'etat of 645, we
meet with the following in an Imperial Decree: " The Empire —
was entrusted (by the Sun-Goddess to her descendants, with
the words) '
My children in their capacity of Deities shall
rule it.' For this reason, this country, since Heaven and Earth
began, has been a monarchy. From the time that Our Imperial
Ancestor first ruled the land, there has been great concord in
the Empire, and there has never been any factiousness.*
" In recent times, however, the names, first of the Gods and
then of the Emperors, have in some cases been separated (from
their proper application) and converted into the Uji {i.e.,

family names) of Omi or Muraji, or they have been separated

and made the qualifications of Miyakko, etc. In consequence
of this, the minds of the people of the whole country take a
strong partisan bias, and conceiving a deep sense of the me
and thee, hold firmly each to their names. Moreover the feeble
and incompetent Omi, Muraji, Tomo no Miyakko and Kuni
no Miyakko [all kinds of local chieftains, heads of groups, —
corporations, clans, or chiefs of districts] make of such names
their family names ; and so the names of Gods and the names
of Sovereigns are applied to persons and places in an unautho-
rised manner, in accordance Avith the bent of their own feel-

ings. Now, by using the names of Gods and the names of Sove-
reigns as bribes, they draw to themselves the slaves of others,
and so bring dishonour upon unspotted names. The conse-
quence is that the minds of the people have become unsettled
and the government of the country cannot be carried on. The

* This assertion is notoriously at variance with the records, whicn

are full of accounts of factiousness, rebellions, and internal broils and

brawls and battles. The language of these decrees frequently sets forth
as fact merely what the authorities wish to be believed.
56 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

duty has therefore now devolved on us in Our Capacity as

Celestial Divinity to regulate and settle these things."
Some Japanese scholars have perhaps not ^altogether un-
reasonably complained that the purport of this is obscure.
However, an earlier passage in the Nihongi may help to eluci-
date the matter somewhat.
—
415 a.d. " The Emperor (Ingyo) made a decree, saying :

'
In the most ancient times good government consisted in the
subjects having each one his proper place, and in names being
correct. It is now four years since We entered on the auspi-
cious office. Superiors and inferiors dispute with one another
the hundred surnames are not at peace. Some by mischance
lose their proper surnames; others purposely lay claim to
high family. This is perhaps the reason why good government
is not attended to.'
" After consulting the Ministers the following edict was
then issued :
—
The Ministers, functionaries and the Miyakko
'

of the various provinces each and all describe themselves, some

as descendants of Emperors, others attributing to their race a
miraculous origin, and saying that their ancestors came down
from heaven. However, since the three Powers of Nature as-
sumed distinct forms, many tens of thousands of years have
elapsed, so that single houses have multiplied, and have
formed anew ten thousand surnames of doubtful authenticity.
Therefore let the people of the various houses and surnames
wash themselves and practise abstinence, and let them, each
one calling the Gods to witness, plunge their hands in boiling
water.' The cauldrons of the ordeal by boiling water were
therefore placed on the Evil Door of Words spur of the Ama-
' '

gashi Hill. Everybody was told to go thither, saying: 'He —

who tells the truth will be uninjured; he who is false will
assuredly suffer harm.' Hereupon every one put on straps of
tree-fibre and coming to the cauldrons, plunged their hands in
the boiling water, when thosewho were true remained natu-
rally uninjured, and all those who were false were harmed.
Therefore those who had falsified (their titles) were afraid,
and, slipping away beforehand, did not come forward. From
this time forward the houses and surnames were spontaneously
,#
ordered, and there was no longer anyone who falsified them.'

* The Kojiki deals with all this in a single sentence: "The

Heavenly Sovereign, lamenting the transgressions in the surnames and
gentile names of the people of all the surnames and names in the Em-
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 57

In Professor Chamberlain's masterly resume of the contents

of the Kojiki we meet with the following sentences " After :
—
Suizei Tenno (581-549 B.C.) occurs a blank of (according to
the accepted chronology) five hundred years, during which
absolutely nothing is related excepting dreary genealogies.
.... From this time (400 a.d.) forward the story in the
Kojiki, though not well told, gives us some very curious pic-
tures, and reads aswere trustworthy. It is tolerably full
if it

for a few reigns, after which it again dwindles into mere

genealogies, ending with the death of the Empress Suiko in
628 a.d."
Now, it may be shrewdly suspected that the chief raison
d'ttre of the Kojiki was to furnish these genealogies, for apart
from the previously cited passages from the Nihongi, we have
a good many more hints leading us to infer that this very
convenient and very potent weapon of a claim to divine descent
was being wielded by more than one of the chiefs of the great
houses contending for supremacy in old Yamato. In the fifth
and sixth centuries, the Otomo, the Mononobe, the ISoga and
others, with the Iwai in Kyushu and the Kibi in Mimana in
Korea, were all to be reckoned with by those Nakatomi, or
Fujiwara, who ultimately succeeded in breaking the power of
the rival clans, in centralising the government and in making
themselves the masters of the Empire of Japan. The coup
d'etat of 645 marked the beginning of a political and social
transformation not a whit less startling than that of 1868. A
fullaccount of that amazing Kevolution must be reserved for
a subsequent chapter; but here even, for our present purpose,
something must be known about it.

It may suffice to say that the Reformers established a

strongly centralised government on the Chinese model, the
Emperor at the head claiming absolute power; a strong and
efficient Ministry, with a well-organised Bureaucracy under
it, and local Governors in the outlying provinces making its

authority felt at the expense of that of the old semi-indepen-

pire, placed jars (for trial by) hot water at the Wondrous Cape of
Eighty Evils in Words at Amakashi, and deigned to establish the sur-
names and gentile names of eighty heads of companies." This is a not
unfair sample of the way in which the Nihongi decks out the simple
data of the Kojiki in Chinese embroidery. It must not be forgotten
for a moment that Yasumaro was at once the rtdacteur of the Kojiki
and joint-author (with Prince Toneri) of the Nihongi, published eight
years after the Kojiki.
58 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

dent territorial aristocracy. The personnel of the new ad-

ministration was to a great extent furnished by the former
magnates and in the case of those who did not come to Court
;

but staved on in their former domains there was a tendency to

recognise them as heads of districts acting under the Provin-
cial Governor. But many of the old chiefs did not welcome
the new state of things with enthusiasm, and it was desirable
to break their power and render them innocuous. The provin-
cial Governors were directed to look closely into the titles of
those who aspired to authority. " If there be any persons,"
they were instructed in 645, " who lay claim to a title but who,
not being Kuni no Miyakko, Tomo no Miyakko, or Inaki of
districts by descent, unscrupulously draw up lying memorials,
saying, '
From the time of our forefathers we have had charge
of this Miyake, or have ruled this district,' in such cases, ye,
the Governors, must not readily make application to the Court
in acquiescence in such fictions, but must ascertain parti-
cularly the true facts before making your report." Here the
question of genealogies was evidently of considerable practical
consequence.
Meanwhile, Buddhism had been adopted and regulated as
the State religion in the interests of the State; Chinese learn-
ing had also been encouraged but at the same time made sub-
servient to political ends, and although the old Shinto cult was
for the time treated with neglect by Ministers and Sovereign
alike, its potentialities as an instrument of government were
again recognised in the course of the next century, and its
rituals elaborated by the astute Fujiwaras, those past-masters
in state-craft. And
the centralised monarchy had found it
advisable to increase its stability by yet another buttress, the —
compilation of an official history.
This enterprise was taken in hand in 681 a.d v but the work
on it had been interrupted : and it was, as has been said, not
until 711 that the Kojiki appeared, to be followed (and to be
practically superseded for generations) by the Nihongi eight
or nine years later (720).
The Nihongi, although a much longer work than the one
that preceded it, is very much more occupied with the ages more

immediately antecedent to the date of its compilation than is

the Kojiki. Whereas of the 830 pages of Aston's translation

530 are devoted to the period from 400 to 697 a.d., and only
300 to mythical and legendary Japan, three-fourths of the bulk
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 59

of the Kojiki (133 sections out of 180) are occupied with the
tales of the Gods and Emperors which
of the series of long-lived
came to an end with Nintoku Tenno in 399 a.d.
Inasmuch as the authors of both works, those of the —
—
Nihongi notoriously so tend to project the ideas of their own
times or of the ages immediately antecedent to them into the
primaeval past, any attempt to reconstruct Ancient Japan from
their pages is bound to prove unsatisfactory, if not doomed to
hopeless failure. Yet perhaps with the aid of the feeble light
afforded by the other data at our disposal something may be
effected. At all events it is necessary to know, not perhaps
what was the case, but what these earliest Japanese logogra-
phers asserted to have been the case, for the selected early
traditions have had a marked effect upon national thought and
political developments at several weighty crises in the sub-
sequent history of the Empire, —notably in the fourteenth and
the nineteenth centuries.
In the Japanese mythology as officially " selected " in the

eighth century, we begin in the Plain of High Heaven, where

a succession of deities come into existence without creation
and afterwards die. In course of time five pairs (male and
female) of gods are born, the last of which, a brother and a
sisternamed Izanagi and Izanami, were ordered to descend
in order to make, consolidate and give birth to this drifting
land. The legend makes them alight somewhere in the Inland
Sea near Awaji, and they at once set to work to give birth to
the Islands of Japan (the items in the lists of the various ver-
sions differing in number and occasionally in name), and to
some thirty or forty deities. In giving birth to the last of
— —
them the Fire God Izanami loses her life and is buried on the
borders of Idzumo and Hoki. Inconsolable for his loss, Iza-
nagi, Orpheus-like, visits her in the underworld to implore her
to return to him. She would willingly do so, and bids him
wait while she consults with the deities of the place. But he,
impatient at her long tarrying, breaks off one of the end-teeth
of the comb stuck bunch of his hair, lights it and
in the left
goes in, only to find her a hideous mass of corruption, in the
midst of which sit the Eight Gods of Thunder. Angry at being
put to shame, Izanami sends the hosts of hell to pursue Iza-
nagi, who escapes with difficulty, and, blocking up the Even
Pass of Hades with a rock, stands opposite to his former
spouse on the other side of it, and exchanges a bitter leave-
60 HISTORY OF JAPAN.
taking with her. " So what was called the Even-Pass-of-Hades
is now called the Ifuya Pass in the Land of Idzumo."
From Idzumo, then, Izanagi proceeds to Hyuga to purify
himself, by bathing in a stream there. As he does so, fresh
deities are born from each article of clothing he throws down
on the river-bank, and from each part of his person. One ot
these deities is the Sun-Goddess, who was born from his left
eye, while the Moon-God sprang from his right eye, and the
last born of all, Susa-no-wo (" the Impetuous Male '), was
born from his nose. Between these three children their father
divides the inheritance of the universe, —the claims of his
other fifty odd children and those of the denizens of High
Heaven being alike unconsidered.
As Professor Chamberlain points out, there are two early
(an Idzumo and a Kyushu) cycles of Legends and a later one
(that of Yamato) and the " selectors " of the myths have
;

been at no small pains to dove-tail these into each other in a

sufficiently neat and plausible fashion. In these two incidents
above quoted —that of the Even Pass of Hades in Idzumo and
of Izanagi's purification and the birth of the Sun-Goddess and
Susa-no-wo in Hyuga —we find the earliest attempt to link
these two centres.
In the immediate sequel in the legend we may perhaps
discern a still further effort in the same direction.
The Moon-
God no more heard of; and while the Sun-Goddess ascends
is

to assume rule in the Plain of High Heaven, Susa-no-wo,

instead of taking charge of the sea, goes on crying and weeping
till his beard reaches the pit of his stomach. When remon-
strated with about all this by his father, this Impetuous Male,
oblivious of the fact that from his very first breath he had been
a motherless child, told his father that he wept because he
wished to go to his mother in Hades! Thereupon his father
expelled him with a divine expulsion, but the Impetuous Male
expressed a wish to go and take leave of his sister the Sun-
Goddess before going into exile. His arrival in the Plain of
High Heaven was not exactly welcome; the Sun-Goddess
arrayed herself in all the panoply of war when she went to
meet him. She sternly inquired into the cause of his ap-
pearance, and, doubting his assertions, she proposed to him a
test of his sincerity. They took their stand on opposite sides
of the tranquil River of Heaven, and she begged him to hand
her his mighty sabre. She broke it into three pieces and then
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 61

crunched these in her mouth and blew the fragments away.

Her breath and the fragments blown away turned into three
female deities. Then Susa-no-wo (the Impetuous Male) took
the jewels which his sister the Sun-Goddess wore,
and crunched
them in his mouth and blew them out, and they were turned
into five male deities.

The question at once arose as to which parent these three

female and these five male divinities respectively belonged ?

The Sun-Goddess claimed the males as her own, and assigned

the three females to' Susa-no-wo. Now it was the son of the
eldest of these five male divinities who descended upon Mount
Takachiho in Hyfiga to take possession of Japan, and to
establish the line of the Mikados. And the Impetuous Male
was not only the ancestor of the Idzumo monarchs, but he is
actually represented as ruling in Idzumo itself !

The partition of progeny by the Sun-Goddess did not please

the Impetuous Male, and in his resentment he committed a
series of outrages against his sister the Sun-Goddess, which
She
threatened to be fraught with disastrous consequences.
retired into a murkyand the whole Universe, which
cavern,
was then synonymous with the Plain of High Heaven and
certain portions of the islands of the Japanese archipelago,
was shrouded in night, much to the inconvenience of the
lieges — divine as well as human. By a cunning stratagem
the Goddesswas at last lured from her retreat, and Gods and
men could again go about their lawful business for a fair
moiety of their time, while " the eight hundred myriad deities
took counsel together, and imposed on His-Swift-Impetuous-
Male-Augustness a fine of a thousand tables and likewise cut
his beard, and even caused the nails of his fingers and toes
to be pulled out, aud expelled him with a divine expulsion."
Yet in spite of all this it is Susa-no-wo who is henceforth
the central figure in the mythical narrative for some consider-
able space. According to one version in the Nihongi, accom-
panied by a son he descended to the Land of Silla in Korea,
where he built a boat of clay in which he passed over to Idzumo.
There he rescues a maiden from an eight-forked dragon in one
of whose tails he finds a wonderful sword, which afterwards
becomes one of the items in the regalia of Japan. This sword
plays an important part in the myth as a link between Kyushu
and Idzumo, Various versions are given of the wa^y in which
62 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the blade was sent up to the Plain of High Heaven, some of —

them make the Impetuous Male himself deliver it up, Avhile one
in the Nihongi says it was a descendant of his in the fifth
generation who did so. At all events, when the Sun-Goddess's
grand-child was sent down to Kyushu to occupy Japan we find
the Goddess bestowing this very sword upon him as one of the
three sacred insignia.
The Idzumo legend then runs on in comparative isolation for
six generations, during which, however, relations with Yamato
begin. in descent from the Impetuous Male, is
Onamuji, sixth
ruling in Idzumo as a man of might when a great conclave of
Gods is convoked in the High Plain of Heaven to discuss the
affairs of Japan, and arrange for their settlement. Of this
episode we have several ancillary versions in the Nihongi
whose main narrative here differs in important details from
that of the Kojilri. In the Nihongi it is not the Sun-Goddess
but the Goddess's ancestor eleven generations removed who
mainly originates and directs the enterprise. This ancestor,
Takamusubi, has a daughter whom he bestows in marriage on
the Sun-Goddess's eldest son, and it is in the interests of the son
born of this union that this unusually " immortal god " bestirs
himself. (According to the Kojiki he had come into existence
and passed away some ?pons before.) In the others it is the
Sun-Goddess who is the protagonist here, and the grandson who
ultimately was sent on the mission was unborn at the date of
the great conclave held to discuss the project. A succession of
envoys are sent down to Idzumo to summon Onamuji to give up
his kingdom, but the first three messengers allow themselves to
be seduced and beguiled by the beauties of the land. A fourth
embassy is at last successful in obtaining the submission of the
monarch or deity of Idzumo, who surrenders his throne and
undertakes to serve the new dynasty if a palace or temple be
built for him and he be appropriately worshipped. One of Ona-
muji's sons proved recalcitrant, however, and fled to Suwa in
Shinano, where the temple of Take-minakata, as he was called,
is thronged with devotees even at the present time. His brother
Koto-shiro-nushi strongly urged compliance with the demands
of the Sun-Goddess's envoys, and in consequence of this he was
subsequently held in great honour at the Imperial Court, of
which he was considered one of the principal protectors. He
who advised Jingo Kdgo's famous
appears as one of the deities
Korean expedition. The Jingikwan included him among the
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 63

eight Gods specially worshipped by the Imperial House to the

neglect of many more important deities, including even his
father, Onamuji. One thing that perhaps helps to explain this
is that Koto-shiro-nushi figures in the sequel as the grandfather
of the second Emperor of Japan, for it was his daughter that
Jimmu wedded and made his Empress after the conquest of
Yamato. Koto-shiro-nushi is thus an important link, not merely
between Idzumo and Kyushu, but between Idzumo, Kyushu
and Yamato.
Onamuji's cult as the Great God of Miwa was also sub-
sequently established in Yamato. Behind the legend we have
indications that the more cultured Idzumo State continued to
be a source of apprehension to the Yamato rulers, who had no
small trouble from time to time in conciliating or crushing the
priestly dynasty on the shores of the Sea of Japan that had
ostensibly demitted its secular functions.
On receiving the abdication of the Idzumo sovereign, the
Sun-Goddess might naturally have been expected to make
Idzumo the immediate objective of her grandchild when he
fared forth on his mission. However, it is on Mount Takachiho
in the land of So Kumaso) that Ninigi no Mikoto alights
(i.e.

with his train ; and the country around the Gulf of Kagoshima
now becomes the scene of the legendary incidents.
The Heavenly Grandchild has a liaison with a native Sa-
tsnma lady, who gives birth to triplets, between the two elder
of whom there is discord when they arrive at manhood. In
his distress the younger of these fares over sea to the Hall of
the Dragon King, whose daughter he weds, and by whose help
he is enabled to overcome his elder brother when he returns
home. This elder brother, who promises that his descendants
will serve those of the victor, is called the ancestor of the
Hayato, who, as we shall see, are possibly identical with the
Kumaso. The offspring of the younger brother and the daugh-
ter of the Dragon King is a prince who, marrying his mother's

younger sister, becomes the father of the future first Emperor,

Jimmu Tenno, and his three elder brothers.
The legends thus attribute a Satsuma or Kumaso strain of
blood to the first earthly generation of the Imperial line, while
they also will have it that the Hayato are of the stock of the
elder brother of Jimmu Tennd's grandfather
It is Jimmu who brings Kyushu and Yamato into touch with
64 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

each other. Of his three brothers, one " treading on the crest
of the waves, crossed over to the Eternal Land/'* while yet
another " went into the Sea-Plain, it being his deceased mother's
land." But Jininiu and his elder brother, Itsu-se, dwelling in
the Palace of Takachiho, took counsel saying: " By dwelling in
what place shall we most quietly carry on the government of
the Empire ? It were probably best to go east." Forthwith
they left Himuka (Hyiiga or Osumi), on their progress to
Tsukushi (Chikuzen). "
Sq when they arrived at Usa in the
land of Toyo (Buzen) two of the natives, the Prince of Usa
and the Princess of Usa, built a palace raised on one foot, and
offered them a great august banquet. Removing thence, they
dwelt for one year at the Palace of Okada in Tsukushi (Chiku-
zen). Again making a progress up from that land, they dwelt
seven years at the Palace of Takeri in Aid (modern Hiroshima)
Again removing, and making a progress up from that land, they
dwelt eight years at the Palace of Takashima in Kibi (Kibi=
Bingo, Bitchu, Bizen) "
This is the KojiM account of the early Kumaso migration,
and it has been given verbatim, inasmuch as the narrative has
evidently been very considerably modified and " improved " in
what they no doubt believed to be the interests of scholarship
if not of plausibility by the compilers of the Nihongi. Accord-
ing to it, Jimmu set out with his three brothers and a great
naval force in the winter of 667 ( !), and after visiting Usa,
Chikuzen, and Aki, and making a stay of three years in Kibi,
arrived off Naniwa (or Osaka) in the spring of 663 B.C. The
Kojiki's narrative of the Conquest of Yamato is incoherent
in several respects; the Xihongi addresses itself to removing
some of the difficulties, and it does indeed get over some of
those geographical stumbling-blocks to which Motoori has
called attention.
The Nihongi compilers have found it advisable to devote
more attention to the problem of dovetail in g the Kyushu and

*See Chamberlain's note (12) on p. 87 of his Translation of the

KojiJci. If the Eternal Land be Korea, and the Sea-Plain, the Dragon
King's daughter's land, be Luchu. an etymologist might be able to
elaborate some very interesting theories. With pure unadulterated
etymology, unchecked by prosaic mundane considerations, anything
may be established. Both Maredon and Monmouth have their initial M.
But, apart frcm etymolcgy, other things tend to make the hypothesis
of a settlement of South-Western Korea from the south vid Kyushu
—
worthy of consideration. See Aston's notes on Kumaso, Kuma, and
Koma in his Translation of the Nihongi.
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 65

the Main Island legends into each other than the Kojiki has
done. In the conquest of Yamato, the Nigi-haya-hi no Mikoto
story is only referred to in the Kojiki; in the Nihongi it is

utilised to good purpose to legitimatise the rule of the Kyushu

conquerers in Central Japan.* In the Nihongi there are four
other attempts to bringKyushu and Yamato into connection,
Keiko Tenno's invasion of Kyushu and his seven years' sojourn
there (82 to 89 a.d.), of which the Kojiki says nothing; the
story of Yamato-dake's conquest of the Kumaso in the same
reign ; Chuai Ten no's struggle with the Kumaso a century
later (192--200 a.d.), and Jingo's chastisement of them just pre-
vious to her Korean expedition.
Now, in all these accounts, except that of Yamato Take, the
lues etymologica runs riot. In the Kojiki''s account of the con-
quest of Yamato, there are three or four etymologies. In that
of the Nihongi there are four times as many, while incidents are
either adduced or invented to account for popular sayings,
incantations, and practices. And in the passages dealing with
Keiko and Chiiai and Jingo in Kyushu we find place-name after
place-name accounted for by certain events and episodes in
their respective enterprises. Again, the tale of Jingo's conquest
of Yamato Korean expedition is not without echoes of
after the
Jimmu. It should be furthermore men-
events in the history of
tioned that in the Kojiki Chuai Tennd (Jingo's husband) is
introduced on the stage with his court in North-Eastern
Kyushu and not in Central Japan, where all the previous em-
perors are represented to have had theirs. The Nihongi, on the
other hand, here again supplies a link, and makes Chuai simply
come to Kyushu from Yamato on a punitive expedition. But
for this latter version of the story, we might be tempted to
fancy that we have here a hint of yet another irruption of
Kumaso or Kyushu men into Yamato. If the Nihongi gets
over the seeming geographical dislocation in the story it intro-
duces sad confusion into its own chronology at this point.
Chuai Tenno's son, Ojin Tenno, the future God of War, was
fourteenmonths in the womb of his mother, Jingo Kogo. But
as Chuai was born in 148 a.d. and his father, Yamato-dake,

died in 111 a.d., Chuai's lady mother must have been a

very remarkable woman indeed.

* See Aston's Translation of the Nihongi, vol. i., pp. 127-128.

F
66 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

As has just been said, the Yamato-dake legend is also uti-

lised to bring Yamato and Kyushu into touch. At the age of
sixteen this prince made a very summary end of his own elder
brother, who had offended their father, the Emperor, and the
latter,thinking his presence at Court somewhat dangerous,
dispatched him on a mission to Kyushu to deal with the " re-
bellious " Kumaso there. By an act of daring treachery he
succeeds in assassinating two of their prominent chiefs and
returns to Yamato in triumph, only to find that there is a
similar enterprise ready for him in another direction. He is

sent off to subdue the Yemishi or Ainu in Eastern Japan,

—
around Tokyo Bay, and, in command of a force composed
mainly of his own butler, he completes the work, " an achieve- —
ment fully equal in courage, skill, daring, patience, and roman-
tic interest to that of Napoleon," an American historian
would have us believe. The story of Yamato-dake was evi-
dently a very fine old folk-lore tale which Temmu's com-
missioners admired so Hghly that they fancied a place should
be found for it in their authentic record of " Ancient Matters."
But here again the Kojiki and the Nihongi differ in their
narratives.Both alike make the hero smite the West and the
East; but whereas the Kojiki makes him proceed to Idzumo,
—
and slay the bravo there also by a piece of trickery the —
Nihongi says nothing about that particular incident in his
career, and employs the details given in the Kojiki to embroider
an earlier Idzumo story. According to the Nihongi the 11th
legendary Emperor Sui-nin wished to see the Divine Treasures
of the Temple of Idzumo, and sent envoys to bring them to him.
The High Priest was then absent in Tsukushi (Kyushu), and
a younger brother of his complied with the Imperial order.
On his return the High Priest was exceedingly wroth, and
later on he killed his younger brother in a treacherous manner,
— in exactly the way the Kojiki makes Yamato-dake kill the
Idzumo bravo. Imperial officers were thereupon sent to kill
him and therefore " the Omi of Idzumo desisted for a while
;

from the worship of the Great God."

Standing by itself this incident may seem pointless, but
taken with certain preceding passages it acquires a good deal
It is one incident in a struggle that was going
of significance.
on between the Gods of Idzumo and those of Yamato, or —
perhaps more correctly it points to a persistent attempt on the
part of the rulers of Yamato to break the power of the priest-
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 67

rulers of Idzumo. In b.c. 93, we find the previous Emperor

Sujin worshipping the Sun-Goddess and the Great God of
Yamato together " within the Emperor's Great Hall. He
dreaded, however, the power of these Gods, and did not feel
secure in their dwelling together."So they were entrusted to
two Imperial Priestesses and enshrined in separate localities.
Thereupon a great pestilence broke out, and calamities of all
kinds followed. At last Oho-mono-nushi (i.e. Onamuji) ap-
peared to the Emperor in a dream and told him that; if a
certain mysterious son or descendant of his was appointed to
worship him, troubles would cease. Thus the Idzumo God's
worship was established in Yamato, where he was known as
the Great God of Miwa, and ultimately came to be regarded
as the Great God of Yamato. Thus the Idzumo High Priests
of the line of Onamuji found themselves confronted with a
rival line in Yamato, and in the light of the subsequent Ya-
—
mato attempts for more than one are hinted at to become —
possessed of the Divine Treasures of the Great Idzumo Tem-
ple, this incident acquires political no less lhan sacerdotal

significance.
Meanwhile the Sun-Goddess, after having been in charge
of the same priestess for eighty-seven years, was transferred to
the care of Yamato-dake's aunt, Yamato-hime no Mikoto. In
n.c. 5, the Goddess instructed the new priestess, saying " The :

province of Ise, of the divine wind, is the land whither repair

the waves from the eternal world, the successive waves. It
is a secluded and pleasant land. In this land I wish to dwell."
So a shrine was erected to her in the province of Ise. " It was
there that Ama-terasu no Ohokami first descended from
Heaven."
It may be well to take note of those elements in Ihe com-
posite cult of ancientJapan which came from the south. The
Sun-Goddess herself heads the list, and then we have the
Nakatomi priesthood, whose descendants were destined to
become all-powerful politically in the Empire under the name
of Fujiwara. Furthermore, there were the Imibe, or " ab-
stainers," who, however, ultimately receded into insignificance,
and the Sarume or female " mediums." This would appear to
have been about the sum total of the Southern invaders' con-
tribution to the religious life of the community. It is true that
Jimmu, Chuai, Jingo, Ojin, Yamato-dake, and Takeuchi no
Sukune were afterwards deified and worshipped as Gods, but
68 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

none of these are treated as deities in the older Shinto books.

But, meagre as the Kyushu element in the old religion may

appear to be, it was enough. The Southern men have at all

times been remarkable for organising and administrative

ability, and their organising and administrative faculties
enabled the Nakatomi to utilise the Idzumo cult and the
Idzumo pantheon very effectively in the service of themselves
and of Yamato.
We are not without indications that, however inferior to
the Yamato men in political and military power the Idzumo
people may have been, they were evidently possessed of a
higher culture thanthey.' One such hint is afforded by the
legend ofNomi no Sukune, who is now worshipped as the
Patron God of Wrestlers, although it was certainly not from
his wrestling that the Idznmo claims to a milder and more ad-
vanced civilisation become apparent. In b.c. 23 " the courtiers
represented to the Emperor as follows In the village of :
l

Taima there is a valiant man called Kuyehaya of Taima He

is of great bodily strength, so that he can break horns aud

straighten out hooks. He is always saying to the people :

" You may search the four quarters, but where is there one to
compare with me in strength ? O that I could meet with a
man of might, with whom to have a trial of strength, regard-
less of life or The Emperor, hearing this, proclaimed
death." '

to his Ministers, saying We hear that Kuyehaya of Taima

:
'

is the champion of the Empire. Might there be anyone to com-

pare with him ? One of the Ministers came forward and
'

said :Thy servant hears that in the Land of Idzumo there

'

is a valiant man named Nomi no Sukune. It is desirable that

thou shouldst send for him, by way of trial, and match him
with Kuyehaya.' " The Emperor did so, and " straightway
Nomi no Sukune and Kuyehaya were made to wrestle together.
The two men stood opposite to one another. Each raised his
foot and kicked at the other, when Nomi no Sukune broke with
a kick the ribs of Kuyehaya, and also kicked and broke his
loins and thus killed him. Therefore the land of Kuyehaya
was seized, and was all given to Nomi no Sukune." Nomi then
entered the Emperor's service, but it was not till more than
a score of years later on* that he rendered his great service to
the cause of humanity.

* Of course these dates are worthless, for down to the middle of the
eighth century the Nihongi's chronology is untrustworthy, its first
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 69

In b.c. 2 the Emperor's younger brother, Yamato-hiko, died

and " was buried at Tsukizaka in Musa.
Thereupon his per-
sonal attendants were assembled, and were all buried alive
upright in the precincts of the mausoleum. For several days
they died not, but wept and wailed day and night. At last
they died and rotted. Dogs and crows gathered and ate them.
The Emperor, hearing the sound of their weeping and wail-
ing, was grieved in heart, and commanded his high officers,
saying — ' It is a very painful thing to force those whom one
has loved in life to follow him in death. Though it be an
ancient custom, why follow it, if it is bad ? From this time
forward, take counsel so as to put a stop to the following of
the dead.'
Five years later this became a very pressing question when
theEmpress died (a.d. 3). " Some time before the burial, the
Emperor commanded his Ministers, saying :
— ' We have al-

ready recognised that the practice of following the dead is not

good. What should now be done in performing this burial ?

Thereupon Nomi no Sukune came forward and said — :

' It
is not good to bury liviug men upright at the tumulus of a
prince. How can such a practice be handed down to posterity ?

I beg leave to propose an expedient to your Majesty.' So he

sent messengers to summon up from the land of Idzumo a
hundred men of the clay-workers' company. He himself
directed men of the clay-workers' company to take clay and
form therewith shapes of men, and various objects,
horse,
which he presented to the Emperor, saying :
— < Henceforward
let it be a law for future ages to substitute things of clay
for living men, and to set them up at tumuli.' . . . Then
a Decree was issued saying :
— ' Henceforth these clay figures
must be up at tumuli let not men be harmed.' The Em-
set ;

peror bountifully rewarded Nomi no Sukune for this service,

and also bestowed on him a kneading-place, and appointed him
to the official charge of the clay-workers' company. His
original title was therefore changed, and he was called Hashi
no Omi. This was how it came to pass that the Hashi no
Muraji (Chief of the Clay -workers) superintends the burials
of the Emperors."
Inasmuch as we hear of this practice of " following the

dozen centuries or so of dates being " faked " in the most unblushing
manner.
70 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

dead " being in vogue in Japan as late as the middle of the

third century a.d v and inasmuch as the early chronology of the
Nihongi has been not unfairly characterised as " one of the
greatest literary frauds ever perpetrated," we may see further
reason to doubt the hoary antiquity assigned to certain of the
Japanese dolmens. Writes Mr. Gowland " An important :
—
feature of some of the ancient burial mounds and dolmens is
the terra-cotta figures which were set up on them at the funeral
ceremonies. Like many other races, the early Japanese prac-
tised that curious rite of animistic religion, the funeral
sacrifices of men, women, and horses for the services of the
dead in a future life. According to the Nihongi, the substitu-
tion of terracotta figures for living retainers was made about
the beginning of our era, but remains of these figures have been
found on mounds which are probably of an earlier date. . . .

Terracotta figures of horses were also frequently set up on

burial mounds along with the human figures."
Now, if the Chinese are correct in saying that there were no
horses in Japan until the third century a.d. indeed it is only —
after the Korean present of a stallion and a mare in 284 a.d.
(or 404 a.d. according to Mr. Aston) that we hear much about
horses in the Nihongi, —we have here another indication that
not a few of the Japanese tumuli are of a much later origin
than is commonly supposed.
At this point it may be well to advert to another circum-
stance which seems to be of some importance when we consider
the early relations of Kyushu and Idzumo men. In the seats
of the —
Kumaso that is, in Satsuma, Osumi, and Southern
Hyuga there are very few dolmens. It was in this land of So
(i.e. Kumaso) that the Heavenly Grandchild is said to have

made his appearance in Japan. It was here that he was suc-

ceeded in the exercise of his sway (of 528 years) by three
successive generations of his descendants, the last of which
fared forth to effect the conquest of Yamato. Now, since
dolmen-burial was rarely practised by the Kumaso it is not
likely that it was the Kyushu invaders that introduced the
dolmen into Yamato. It was evidently of Idzumo origin, and
the victorious southern chieftains probably adopted it after
establishing themselves in their new seats.
In both the Nihongi and the Kojiki the history of the early
Emperors is continuous with the mythology. This fact was
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 71

fully acknowledged by those leading native commentators of

the eighteenth century whose opinions are regarded as ortho-
dox by modern Shintoists. From this the conclusion is drawn
that everything in these old standard national histories must
be accepted as literal truth, the supernatural equally with the
natural. This position seems to have the merit of being logical
at least, for the tales of Jimmu, of Yamato-dake, of Jingo,
and of the rest stand or fall by the same criterion as the
legends of the Creator and the Creatress Izanagi and Izanami.
Both sets of tales are told in the same books, in the same style,

and with an almost equal amount of supernatural detail. The

so-called historical part is as devoid as the other of all con-
temporary evidence, while it is contradicted by such contem-
porary Chinese notices of Japan as we have. However, as has
been already hinted, the main purpose of the compilers of the
Kojiki and the Nihongi at this point was not so much to write
a history as to supply genealogies which were to be regarded
as official and authentic. This makes a cursory glance at
some results of their efforts necessary.
In both books the Imperial succession from Jimmu devolves
from father to son down to Seimu, the thirteenth Emperor.
However, it is neither the eldest son, nor yet the son of the
chief consort, who necessarily comes to occupy the throne on
the demise of the father. The Imperial family is usually a
small one at this time. The first six sovereigns have no more
than thirteen children between them; the seventh is credited
with eleven, his two immediate successors with five each, Sujin
with twelve, and Sui-nin with sixteen, while Seimu, the thir-

teenth, had one son if we follow the Kojiki and " no male
offspring " according to the Nihongi. In all this there is

nothing remarkable. But the twelfth sovereign, whose stature

was ten feet five inches, is assigned no fewer than eighty child-
ren, and in connection with these we seem to get a glimpse
into the political condition of primeval Japan. With the ex-
ception of the three eldest, " the other seventy and odd children
were all granted fiefs of provinces and districts, and each
proceeded to his own province. Therefore, those who at the
present time are called Wake of the various provinces are the
descendants of these separated (tvakare) Princes." Mr. Aston
remarks that this passage from the Nihongi points to some-
thing like a feudal system. But while no one has done better
72 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

service than Mr. Aston in calling attention to the numerous

instances where the Nihongi gets embellished not merely with
the diction but with the incidents of Chinese histories, he
seems here to have forgotten that Wu-wang, the founder of the
Chow dynasty, is said (1115 b.c.) to have divided his kingdom
into seventy-two feudal States, in order that he might bestow
appanages on his relations and the descendants of former
Emperors. However, it must be frankly admitted that this is
not the only passage that points to the possible prevalence of
something analogous to a feudal system in legendary Japan.
In 291 Ojin Tenno, also the father of a large family (26 sons
and daughters), is represented as dividing Kibi, which corre-
sponds to the provinces of Bizen, Bitchu, and Bingo, into
and apportioning them to as many of his children.
six fiefs
With the death of Keiko Tenno's successor, Seimu (whose
chronicle oftwo brief pages is mainly made up of impossible
Chinese speeches and decrees, albeit he reigned from 130 to
190 a.d.), occurs the first break in the transmission of the
Imperial dignity from father to son. It then passes to Seimu's
nephew— and Keiko's grandson — to
Tenno (192-200 Chuai
a.d.), another Son of Anak, who fell only the odd inches short

of his grandfather's stature of ten feet five. The genealogy

here is puzzling in sooth. Yamato-dake was the second son
of Keiko, and one of Keik5's consorts (according to the
Kojiki) was the great grand-daughter of Yamato-dake! In
other words Keiko Tenno is made to marry his own great-great-
granddaughter ! Nor is this all. As already pointed out,
Chuai Tenno was born in 148 a.d., while his father Yamato-
dake died in 111 a.d v —that is, thirty-seven years before the
birth of his son! And in addition to all this, at this point
there is Without
a great topographical breach in the legend.
a word warning the Kojiki here transfers the seat of the
of
Court from l'amato, where it had been for thirteen genera-
tions, to Kyushu. Chuai is occupied in reducing the Kumaso,
but his consort the Amazon Jingo is " divinely possessed,"
and when Prime Minister the noble Take-uchi, being in
" the

the pure Court, requested the divine orders, the Empress

charged him with this instruction and counsel There is : l

a land to the westward, and in that land is abundance of

various treasures dazzling to the eye, from gold and silver
downwards. I will now bestow this land upon thee ! " Chuai
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 73

Tenno was incredulous, called the " possessing " deities lying
deities, and was straightway stricken with death. Then the
KojiJci makes Jingo proceed to the conquest, not of Korea, but

of Shiragi or Silla, which is a very different matter. " So the

wave of the august vessel pushed up on to the land of Shiragi
(Silla), reaching to the middle of the country. Thereupon the
chieftain of the country, alarmed and trembling, petitioned
(the Empress) saying: From this time forward, obedient to
'

the Heavenly Sovereign's commands, I will feed Her august

horses, and will marshal vessels every year, nor ever let the
vessels' keels dry or their poles and oars dry, and will re-

spectfully serve Her without drawing back while Heaven and

Earth shall last.' So therefore the Land of Shiragi (Silla)
was constituted the feeder of the august horses, and the Land
of Kudara (Pakche) the crossing store. Then the Empress
stuck her august staff on the gate of the chieftain of Shiragi
(Silla), and having made the Kough Spirits of the Great
Deities of the Inlet of Sumi the guardian Deities of the land,
she laid them to rest, and crossed back."
True to its inveterate wont, the jack-daw Nihongi here
tricks itself out in its frippery of peacock's feathers purloined
from Chinese books, and devotes eight or nine pages of stilted
rhodomontade to this filibustering enterprise. It exceeds
itself by winding up thus :
—
" Hereupon the kings of the two
countries of Koryo and Pakche, hearing that Silla had ren-
dered up itsmaps and registers (!), and made submission,
secretly caused the Avarlike power (of the Empress) to be
spied out. Finding then that they could not be victorious,
they came of themselves without the camp, and bowing their
heads to the ground and sighing, said :
'
Henceforth for ever,
these lands shall be styled thy western frontier provinces, and
will not cease to offer tribute.' Accordingly interior Govern-
ments were instituted. is what is termed the three Han."
This
Now, to talk of Silla " maps and registers " at this time is
absurd. In the next place the name Koryo was not used until
about 500 a.d., —
i.e., three centuries after this date. And in
the third place the three Han were not Silla, Pakche, and
Koguryu — or Shiragi, Kudara, and Koma in Japanese. In
the earliest times there were three Han States in the south-
west of the Korean peninsula. Of these Ma-han to the west
consisted of 54 communities; Chen-han to the east included
12, and Pien-chen, to the south of the second, was composed
7.4 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of 12 more. One Ma-han communities later on formed

of these
the nucleus of the kingdom of Pakche, while others were ab-
sorbed in Kara or Kaya, which at one time formed either part
or the whole of the Japanese possessions in the south of Korea,
known in Japanese history as Mimana or Imna. In Koryo or
Koguryu, or Korea to the north of Seoul, the Japanese never
had the slightest foothold; to Silla they often made them-
selves very unpleasant and disagreeable, but they never seem
to have conquered that State, while as regards Pakche they are
frequently found co-operating with it against Silla. Their
foothold was in the district between the confines of Silla and
Pakche to the south. Here they seem to have really held a
dominant position for some centuries, and it was this district
that really constituted the three Han.*
Now is this Jingo legend to be dismissed as an incident in
a Japanese Apocrypha ? Mr. Aston identifies the alleged ex-
pedition of 200 a.d. with those events of 249 a.d. which we have
previously culled from the Korean histories. But just a little
before this the Japanese " She " of contemporary Chinese re-
cords was being " followed in death " by her thousand hapless
attendants. These records, as has been stated, will have it

that at this date there really was a great and able female
sovereign in Japan, who had for long years exercised a strong
and beneficent rule over a united and peaceful country which
her genius had extricated from a series of deadly internecine
wars which had distracted and devastated the land for no
fewer than eighty years.
During the two centuries between Jingo's conquest of Shi-
ragi and the death of Nintoku Tenno in 399, the annals reckon
no more than three sovereigns Jingo, who lived to attain her
:

hundredth year, died in 269 her son Ojin ruled till 310, and
;

after some peculiar difficulties about the succession he was

followed by his second son Nintoku, who is assigned a reign
of 87 years. This is according to the Nihongi. The Kojiki,
on the other hand, makes Ojin live to 130; and as he was born
just after his mother returned from her Korean expedition in

201, his reign would thus extend down to 331 a.d. Nintoku
is credited not with a reign of 87, but with an age of 83 years.

* See Parker's Race Struggles in Korea, Transactions of the Asiatic

Society of Japan, vol. XVIII.; pt. ii., pp. 206-213, and Hulbert's History
of Korea, vol. I., pp. 28-33.
 JAPANESE SOURCES. 75

If the chronology of these sovereigns in these ages presents

problems, that of their Prime Minister treats us to impossibili-
ties. Born on the same day as the Emperor Seimu in 92 a.d.,
Takeuchi no Sukune was the friend and companion of that
prince, who appointed him Chief Minister on succeeding to the
throne in 130 a.d. The exact year of his death is not given ;

but in 362 a.d. we find theEmperor Nintoku consulting him

and addressing him as
" Thou beyond all others
A man distant of age
Thou beyond all others
A man long in the land."

At that date he was 270 years of age, if the chronology be —

trustworthy.* During these three reigns the Nihongi has a
good many notices of events in connection with Japanese and
Korean intercourse. It is here that Mr. Aston has had no
difficulty in showing that the Nihongi has antedated most of

them by 120 years. In other words, the Nihongi writers have

here interpolated two cycles of 60 years each. Some Japanese
authorities will have it that between Jimmu (660 b.c.) and
Nintoku (399 a.d.) as many as ten of these cycles of 60 years
have thus been interposed, but their arguments in support of
the contention are not wholly convincing.
may well be asked why it was that the Nihongi authors
It
fixedupon 660 b.c. as the exact date when Jimmu established
the Empire of Japan. The most plausible account seems to be
this : —
It was not till 554 a.d. that the Japanese made an
acquaintance with the Chinese system of chronology, when a
man learned in the calendar was sent from Pakche
in Korea by request, and it was only in 602, when chrono-
logical and astronomical works and a movable disc for
calculating calendars were brought to Japan, that a really
earnest study of the science of Chinese chronology seems to
have been begun. was in 675 that the first astronomical
It
observatory was erected, and it was in 690 that the first official
calendar was promulgated. This latter date was eight years
subsequent to the establishment of Temmu's Historical Com-
mission and thirty years before the appearance of the Nihongi.
Now, Chinese chronology had the famous system of cycles,

* See Aston's note to his Nihongi, vol. * « uu. 294-5.

76 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

sixty years forming a smaller cycle, and twenty-one such

cycles, or 1,260 years, a larger one. The fifty -eighth year of
the smaller cycle was supposed by the Chinese to be the year
in which some revolution was liable to take place. It is sug-
gested that the writers of the Nihongi, seeing that 600 a.d.
was the first year of revolution before the adoption of the
calendar in 602, counted backward for the space of a large
cycle, thus reaching 660 b.c, and made that the first year of
the Japanese Empire. They then fell under the necessity of
distributing the somewhat scanty data at their disposal over
a very long range of time, and, when it came to assigning
events not merely their year, but their month, and their day of
the month, the difficulties of producing a chronologically
consistent narrative proved Motoori and Mr.
insuperable.
Aston and others have pointed out the most striking of the
vagaries into which they were thus betrayed. But no list of
such vagaries is complete, for the earlier (so-called) historical
portion of the Nihongi bristles with them.
 77

CHAPTER III.

OLD YAMATO.
(400 A.D. TO 550 A.D.)

TTTITH the beginning of the fifth century a.d. the student of

* " ' Japanese history ceases to be bewildered by the mirage
of centenarian reigns, albeit still condemned to grope his way
onward among the quicksands of uncertain and fluctuating
legend. From this point the chronology of the 'Nihongi ceases
to be the pretentious and audacious mockery of sober reason
and common-sense which it has been since it introduced Jimmu
upon the scene some eleven centuries before. To say that it
now becomes trustworthy is quite another matter, however.
All that can be admitted is that it is no longer wildly reckless
that its inherent inconsistencies are less gross, open, and
palpable. But still they continue to stand in the record; all
the more dangerous perhaps because they are not so glaringly
conspicuous.
Temmu Tenno's commissioners for " selecting " materials
for a National History were evidently prudent men, well-ad-
vised of the advisability of making figures at least approxi-
mately plausible as they drew nearer to the age when certain
things were getting to be set down in black on white. Indeed,
if it were not for the existence of contemporary Korean records,

and of antecedent, contemporary, and even subsequent Chinese

histories, the guileless reader might very readily accept the
last five-eighths of the Nihongi as thoroughly authentic. But
when, for instance, we find the learned commissioners purloin-
ing the death-bed harangue of the Chinese Emperor Kaotsu,
who died in and putting it, with very few and slight
60J/. a.d v
variations, into the mouth of the Japanese Emperor Yuryaku,
who died (according to them) in Jfl9, we may be excused if,
having our doubts excited about the good faith and accuracy
of the commissioners even in this later portion of their work,
we refuse to take any of their assertions on mere trust. When
in b.c. 88 a Japanese Emperor is made to say that " the distant
savages, however, do not receive our calendar because they are
78 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

yet unaccustomed to the civilising influences of our rule," the

thing is comparatively harmless, knowing that this is a
for,

Chinese way of speaking, that the Japanese knew nothing of

the Chinese calendar till 554 a.d v and that the first official
Japanese calendar was issued only in 690, we are easily enabled
to dismiss the harangue as a mere " fake," to use a somewhat
vulgar, but thoroughly appropriate term. But such a " fake "
as that of Yuryaku's death-bed address is another thing. It
is vastly more dangerous to the interests of veracity. The
commissioners can have found absolutely nothing in their own
national archives to serve as a basis for these " dying words."
It is needless to observe that such purple patches in the
Nihongi are something entirely different from the speeches that
add vivacity and dramatic effect to the narrative set forth in
Thucydides' immortal pages. These speeches, albeit never
spoken, were at least the composition of one of the greatest
minds in Greece; of a great Greek writer and thinker penning
a keenly critical record of contemporary Hellas. Thoroughly
acquainted with all phases of the political thought and pas-
sions of his own time as Thucydides was, and, except perhaps
in the sole case of Cleon, coldly impartial, his speeches are a
fair and lucid exposition of what was really in the minds of
the various factions and their leaders. The ideas they express
are neither anachronistic nor alien. On the other hand, down
to the beginning of the seventh century, the hold of Chinese
ideas upon the Japanese was slight. It was only towards the
middle of that century that such ideas began to carry all before
them. In the course of a generation or two they were trium-
phantly dominant. Now it was by the men of the second
generation after the Great Reform of 645 that the Nihongi was
compiled. These men were dazzled by the splendours of Chi-
nese civilisation by the magnificence of the Chinese Court, by
;

the highly elaborated political and ethical systems of the

Middle Kingdom, and by what they considered the polished
elegance of Chinese literature. The effect of this situation was
disastrous to the interests of sober veracity when Temmu's
"
commissioners addressed themselves to the task of " selecting
the old records and compiling a History of Japan from the
origins down to their own times. In the first place, the trans-
formation since 645 had been so rapid and so complete that the
new generation had as much difficulty in conceiving the state

of things prevalent antecedent to that date as the young men

 OLD YAMATO. 79

of Meiji have in realising the conditions under which their

Tokugawa grandfathers lived. In the next place they seem to
have been somewhat ashamed of the rude and primitive sim-
plicity of their ancestors. In the third place their History was
an official History in the interests of the new order of things.
And it was to rank not merely as a record, but as literature.
This meant that it was to be based on Chinese models. If the
commissioners had rested content with taking their literary
models from China and their facts from Japan, there would
not be any very great reason for modern students to complain.
But they boldly pilfered stilted passages from standard Chi-
nese Histories and put them into the mouths of their simple
and unsophisticated ancestors, thus reminding us of Shak-
speare's Hector quoting Aristotle at the siege of Troy. Down
to about 600 a.d. the languageand ideas of the speeches and
decrees in the Nihongi are at tmce alien and anachronistic.
When not transferred body-bulk from the page of some Chinese
author they are composed of a cento of turgid high-sounding
Chinese sentences and phrases. And worse than this is the
fact that the Nihongi historiographers purloin not a few of the
incidents with which they embellish their pages from Chinese
books. There is reason to believe that the Kojiki is not altoge-
ther free from all taint of this particular form of literary dis-
honesty.
However, with all its manifold shortcomings the Nihongi
must continue to be our mainstay in any attempt to reconstruct
ante-Taikwa (645) Japan. The Kojiki professedly brings the
record down to 628, but from 488 onwards it is occupied with
nothing but those genealogies so dreary to us, but so service-
able in the interests of the newly constituted aristocracy of
office. Even from the death of Nintoku (399) its details be-
come fragmentary and meagre. They are mainly valuable in
serving to excite our suspicions about the correctness of some
very plausible statements in the very much fuller and very
circumstantial accounts in the Nihongi. Yet another source
for a portion of the period is again supplied by contemporary
Chinese notices of Japan. These extend from about 400 to
502 a.d., and, after another silence of a century, from about
600 onwards.
It has been pointed out that while the accuracy of the
Chinese chronology at this time has never been disputed, it is

possible that errors may have crept in in the case of notices

80 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

relating to a distant and little-known county. " On the other

hand, it should be remembered that the matters noticed are
chiefly embassies, of which an official record would naturally
be kept. Internal evidence in favour of the accuracy of the
Chinese account is not altogether wanting. In a memorial
presented to one of the Wei Emperors by King Wu (Emperor of
Japan), in 478, he styled himself Supreme Director of Military
Matters in the Seven Countries of Wa, Pakche, Silla, Mimana,
Kara, Chinhan, and Bohan, General-in-Chief for the Pacifica-
tion of the East, and King of Wa, in which titles he was con-
firmed by China. His four predecessors had requested Imperial
sanction for somewhat similar titles. The truth of this state-
ment is attested by the fact already noticed that Japan during
the fifth century exercised a powerful influence in the Korean
peninsula, and it derives further confirmation from the use
of the word Mimana, which, as far as we know, was an ex-
clusively Japanese name for one of the minor Korean king-
doms."
we have seemingly
Here, then, in these brief Chinese notices
fairly firm ground to stand upon, chronologically speaking.
These references may not be enough to enable us to reconcile
some of the divergent and discrepant details of the Nihongi
and the Kojiki, but they at least impel us to look into the
chronology and the accounts of the Japanese historiographers
more searchingly than we might otherwise have done.
Now, even so late as 531 the Nihongi chronology continues
to present inherent inconsistencies. In that year the Emperor
Keitai dies at the age of 82. On the very day of his death he
nominates his eldest son his successor. Yet the Nihongi makes
534 the first year of Ankan Tenno (Keitai's successor). On
the other hand the Kojiki makes him die the father of a family
of nineteen children at the early age of 43. Both cannot be
right, and both are possibly wrong. The point is, that inas-
much as Japanese chronology even as late as 530 is not accu-
rate, it is probable that it is still more untrustworthy for the
preceding century. During this century Chinese chronology,
on the other hand, is fortified with very strong credentials.
Now, for this century we arrive at the following list of Japan-
ese monarchs from Chinese sources :

From about 400 to after 425 Tsan (1)

From after 425 to before 443 ... . Chen (2)
From before 443 to before 462. .. . Tsi (3)
 OLD YAMATO. 81

From before 462 to before 478 Hing (4)

From before 478 to after 502 Wu (5)

Of this quintette of rulers the first three were brothers, the

fourth and fifth were also brothers, elder and younger sons of
the third.
Next let us go through the drudgery of examining the sub-
joined genealogical table of the earliest of the non-legendary
sovereigns of Japan. (The last long-lived monarch, Nintoku,
who reigned from 312-399 a.d v is counted the sixteenth Em-
peror of Yamato.)
(16)
Nintoku (312-399)

(18) Okusaka
Hansho (406-411)
(17) (19)
Richu (400-405) Ingyo (412-453)

Ichinohe Oshiiwa

(20) (21)
Anko (454-456) Yuryaku (457-479)

(22)
(24) (23) Seinei (480-484)
Ninken (488-498) Kenzo (485-487)

25)
Buretsu (499-506)

Here we have not five, but nine sovereigns. As in the Chinese

records, we here find that the first three of these were bro-
thers, and the next two were also brothers, both being sons of
the third. To the last four there is nothing corresponding in the
Chinese contemporary record, where during the period occupied
by their reigns in the Nihongi we find King Wu exercising
sway in Japan. King Wu, the younger of the last two brothers
on the list, is evidently Yuryaku Tenno, whom the Kojiki
makes a mere youth at the time of his brother's assassination,
and to whom it assigns an age of 124 years at his death. This
is of course entirely against probability, but on the other hand

it may lead us to doubt whether he died so early as 479, as

the Nihongi asserts he did. Then Buretsu (or Muretsu) Tenno,
who is represented as reigning from 499 to 506, was, according
to the accepted chronology, no more than eighteen years old
G
82 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

at the time of his death. There is reason to believe that

Yuryaku and Buret.su were one and the same individual. As
regards the three intervening sovereigns it may be suspected
thai they are either figments created out of certain characters
and incidents in old Chinese history, or that they were aspi-
rants to the throne who had been powerful enough to displace
Yuryaku (or Buretsu) for a time. What lends a certain mea-
sure of plausibility, if not of probability, to this latter hypo-
thesis is the fact that from the very beginning of semi-authen-
tic history we find the succession to the throne of Yamato a
matter of fierce and deadly contention. The elder brother of
Nintoku, the last legendary Emperor, is represented as perish-
ing in an abortive attempt to possess himself of the Empire.
Then the life of Nintokns eldest son and successor, Riclm,
was attempted by the second of Nintoku's five sons, Prince
Nakatsu, who proved a dangerous competitor.*
Richu's own two sons and his daughter Ihitoyo were passed
over when his brother Hansho (another Son of Anak, standing
9 ft. 2% in.) became Emperor. On the death of the latter, his
"brother (and Richu's brother) was made Emperor to the ex-
clusion of Hansho's son and Richu's children alike. On this

occasion the succession question was plainly decided by the

Ministers, by whom are meant the heads of certain of the
great clans, who are presently to become so prominent in the
T
annals of l amato. The history of this Emperor (Ingyo) is
given at considerable length and with considerable detail by
the Nihongi, —only it is to be noted that for eighteen years of
his reign, from 435 to 453, there is a complete lacuna. And as
regards the chronology of the incident assigned to 434-5 the
'Nihongi flagrantly contradicts itself. This incident of 434-5 is

interesting for several The Emperor's eldest son,

reasons.
Prince Karu, had been designated by him as his successor.
But it was discovered that he had had a liaison with his own
full-blood sister, the Princess Karu. Marriages between half-
brothers and half-sisters on the father's side continued to be
common down to 645 a.d., and even later, while the nuptials of
uncles and nieces were not unusual even so late as the Toku-

* He was stabbed to death by a Hayato in his own service, who had

been seduced by specious allurements of preferment, only to find " the

word of promise kept t,o his ear and broken to his hope." For long
we have not heard of either Kumaso or Hayato. Now the Hayato
again emerge, but the Kumaso have vanished from the record for ever.
 OLD YAMATO. ~ 83

gawa age- But this liaison between brother and sister of full
blood seems to have revolted the moral sense of the time. Here
let us look at the language of the two old records. The Kojiki
says: "After the decease of the Heavenly Sovereign (Ingyd)
it was settled that Prince Kara of Ki-nashi should rule the
Sun's succession. But in the interval before his accession he
debauched his younger sister, the Great Lady of Kara. . . .

Therefore all the officials and likewise all the people of the
Empire turned against the heir apparent, Kara, and towards
the august child Anaho ... so Prince Kara was banished
to the hot waters of Iyo (in Shikoku) .... So being banished
to restrain her love the Princess Kara went after him. . . .

Having thus sung they (the Prince and Princess Kara) killed
themselves." According to the Niliovgi, " the Emperor Ingyo
died in the 42nd year of his reign (453). At this time, the heir
apparent was guilty of a barbarous outrage in debauching a
woman. The nation censured him, and the Ministers would
not follow him, but all without exception gave their allegiance
to the Imperial Prince An alio. [This means that they set aside
the nomination of his successor by the late Emperor, and de-
cided the succession question themselves.] Hereupon the heir
apparent wished to attack the Imperial Prince Anaho, and
to that end secretly got ready an army. The Imperial Prince
Anaho also raised a force, and prepared to give battle." As
the result of all this " the heir-apparent died by his own hand
in the house of Ohomahe no Sukune."
Now at this time is plainly between the 1st and the 10th
month of 453. But three or four pages before we have a full
and circumstantial account of the liaison under the years 434
and 435! And similar instances of playing fast and loose with
the realities of things, while keeping up the semblance of a
pedantic accuracy in the matter of months and days, are not
rare in the Nihongi in this, and even in the following century.
This Prince Anaho succeeded to the throne, and, appearing
as Hing in the contemporary Chinese records, is known in
Japanese history as Anko Tenno (454-456). Owing to the cove-
tousness of an intriguing Minister who wished to appropriate
a certain jewel headdress, he was led to assassinate his grand-
uncle Okusaka, the son of Nintoku Tenno. He thereupon made
Okusaka's wife his concubine; and a year afterwards he was
assassinated by Okusaka's son, a child of seven years!
" Then," says the Kojiki, " Prince Oho-hatsuse (i.e. Yuryaku
84 TTTSTORY OP JAPAN.

Tenno), who at that time (456) was a lad, was forthwith

grieved and furious on hearing of this ovont and went forth
to his elder brother King Knro-hiko and said
They have :
— '

slain the Heavenly Sovereign. What shall be done?' But

Knro-hiko was not startled, and was of unconcerned heart.
Thereupon Prince Oho-hatsnse (Yuryaku) reviled his elder
brother, saying For one thing it being the Heavenly Sove-
:
'

reign, for another thing it being thy brother, how is thy heart
without concern ? What! not startled, but unconcerned on
hearing that they have slain thy elder brother! and forthwith
'

he clutched him by the collar, dragged him

drew his out,
sword, and slew him. Again, going to his elder brother King
Shiro-hiko, he told him the circumstances as before. The un-
eoncernedness was like King Kuro-hiko's. So Oho-hatsuse
(Yuryaku) forthwith clutched him by him
the collar, pulled
along, and dug a pit on reaching Woharida, and buried him
as he stood, so that by the time he had been buried up to the
loins, both his eyes burst out and he died."

The Nihongi recounts all this somewhat differently and in

a way much less favourable to the credit of the very masterful
and mettlesome Yuryaku. It will be noted that he was the
youngest of five brothers, that the eldest had perished in a
contest for the succession, that the second had been assassi-
nated, and that the surviving two having been thus summarily
disposed of, YTiryaku naturally became sovereign. However,
even so his was not assured, if we are to follow the
title

Nihongi. "Yuryaku resented the Emperor Anaho's having

formerly wished to transfer the kingdom to the Imperial
Prince Tchinohe no Ohiha, and to commit the succession de-
finitively to his charge." This Prince Tchinohe was the son of
the seventeenth Emperor ("Richu Tenno,) and consequently
the uncle of both Anaho and Yuryaku. The latter now in-
veigled him to a solitary hunting-trip, and in the course of it
shot him down, and, says the Kojiki, forthwith moreover cut
his body (to pieces), put (them) into a horse's manger and
buried them level with the earth.* There was still one son
of Kichu Tenno surviving, and his turn came presently.
Yuryaku so far is more of a Kichard III. than of a Nero.
Put the reign thus begun in blood continued to be a record of

* This form of burial was a great indignity to a Prince, who should

have had a magnificent mausoleum.
 OLD YAMATO. 85

ferocities. A Pakche lady had been sent over as an Imperial

concubine, but she had an intrigue with one of the courtiers.
Yuryaku was greatly enraged, and had the four limbs of the
"

woman stretched on a tree. The tree was placed over a cup-

board, which was set on fire and she was burned to death." It
is not strange to learn that Pakche refused to supply Yurvaku

with any more Imperial concubines after that. In 469 we

read that " the carpenter Mane of the Wina Be planed timber
with an axe, using a stone as a ruler.* All day long he planed,
and never spoiled the edge by mistake. The Emperor visited
the place, and, wondering, asked of him, saying: 'Dost thou
never make a mistake and strike the stone ? Mane answered
'

and said : I never make a mistake

'
Then the Emperor called
!
'

together the Uneme (Court ladies) and made them strip off
their clothing and wrestle in open view with only their waist-
cloths on. Hereupon Mane ceased for a while, and looked up
at them, and then went on with his planing. But unawares he
made a slip of the hand and spoilt the edge of his tool. The
Emperor accordingly rebuked him, saying Where does this
:
'

fellow come from, that without respect to Us, he gives such

heedless answers with un chastened heart ? So he handed '

him over to the Mononobe to be executed on the Moor." A

little before this, a noble on duty in the Palace was ill-advised

enough to speak of his wife to his comrades in the strain of

King Candaules. His words reached the Emperor's ears, and
Tasa, the noble in question, was promptly dispatched to fight
in Korea, even as Uriah was sent to Kabbah and Otho to Spain,
while Yurvaku appropriated his spouse. Withal, however,
Yuryaku was not so much sensual as ferocious. People were
punished for the most trivial offences, and the Emperor now
and then summarily cut down offenders with his own hand.
Says the Nihongi: " The Emperor, taking his heart for guide,
wrongfully slew many men. The Empire censured him, and
called him the greatly wicked Emperor.'
'
The only persons
who loved him were Awo Musa no Saguri of the Scribes' Com-
pany and Hakatoko, employer of the people of Hinokuma."
However, even from the Nihongi's own account, it is clear
that Yuryaku was neither an entire stranger to pity, nor al-
together devoid of generous impulses, and his Imperial Ma-
jesty certainly had a sense of humour. Possibly the Mane

* The plane was apparently still unknown.

86 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

incident was merely a rather indecent practical joke, for the

order for the carpenter's execution was countermanded and
he survived to celebrate the episode in verse.
Now, let us cast a glance at what we may well suspect to
be not so much Yuryaku's double, as a continuation of Yu-
ryaku himself. Muretsu or Buretsu, son of Yiiryaku's cousin
Ninken, according to the accepted chronology, dies at the age
of eighteen in 50G after a reign of eight years. Thus when he
succeeded in 499 he must have been a child of ten. Yet the
Nihongi begins its account of him thus When
:
" he grew to
manhood he was fond of criminal law, and was well versed
in the statutes. He would remain in court till the sun went
down, so that hidden wrong was surely penetrated. In decid-
ing cases he attained to the facts. But he worked much evil

and accomplished no good thing. He never omitted to witness

punishments of all kinds, and the people of the
in person cruel
whole land were all in terror of him."
With respect to this, it is perhaps superfluous to remark
that Buretsu never attained to manhood, that the Japanese
had no courts of law at this time, and that' to speak of statutes
here is absurd. What is more to the point is to draw atten-
from " When " down to " facts " has been
tion to the fact that
purloined verbatim from the history of that Chinese Emperor,
Ming-ti, who introduced Buddhism into China in the time of
Nero (65 a.d.).
Some of the earliest subsequent notices are these :
—" 500
a.d v 9th month. The — Emperor
(aetat 11) ripped up the belly
of a pregnant woman and inspected the pregnant womb. 501,
—
10th month. He plucked out men's nails and made them dig
—
yams. 503, 6th month. The Emperor made men lie down
on their faces in .the sluice of a dam and caused them to be
washed away; with a three-bladed lance he stabbed them.
—
In this he took delight. 505, 2nd month. He made men climb
up trees and then shot them down with a bow, upon which he
laughed."
The atrocities of the* next year, 506, constrain the Western
modern translator to take refuge in Latin. " And these things
he took a pleasure in. At this time he dug a pond and made a
park which he filled with birds and beasts. He was fond of
hunting,* and of racing dogs and trying horses. He went out

* Yuryaku is represented as a veritable Nimrod, it may be remarked.

 OLD YAMATO. 87

and in at all times, taking no care to avoid storms and tor-

rents of rain. Being warmly clad himself, he forgot that the

people were starving from cold; eating dainty food, he forgot
that the Empire was famishing. He gave great encouragement
to dwarfs and performers, making them execute riotous music.
He prepared strange diversions, and gave licence to lewd
voices. Night and day he constantly indulged in wine in the
company of the women of the Palace. His cushions were of
brocade, and many of his garments were of damask and fine
white silk."

At this point it may be well to advert to a matter which a

careful collation of the Nihongi with the Kojiki discloses. In
the Age Gods the Nihongi deals with fewer incidents
of the
than the Kojiki. But on the other hand it frequently gives
us " other versions " of the same incident sometimes as many —
as six, seven, or eight. At the beginning of the so-called histo-
rical portion of the Nihongi this practice does not indeed cease
altogether, but it becomes much less common. Instead of
giving " other versions " of the same incident, it now begins
to convert these different versions into distinct and different
incidents and to assign them widely separated positions in
the record. Its compilers seem to have been forced to this by
the exigencies of filling up the gaps in that spurious chronology
they had adopted, which, as has been said, has not unfairly
been branded as " one of the greatest literary frauds ever per-
petrated." And they go still farther. They separate the
various details of one episode, construct two separate incidents
out of these, and assign these also to widely separated positions
in the record. And in addition to all this they boldly pilfer
incidents from Chinese histories, and record them as events in
the history of Japan.
The bearing of this consideration upon the case immediately
before us is obvious. The incidents of Muretsu's reign recall
certain of those of Yuryaku's, — both sovereigns have certain
points of character in common. And in the Nihongi record of
both we have passages audaciously pilfered from Chinese
histories. —
Nor is this all, the incidents not only of Yuryaku's
and Muretsu's reigns, but those of the intervening Emperors,
ftinken and Kenzo, are reminiscent of incidents in Chinese
legendary history (2100 b.c.) and of the equally legendary
Chinese Emperors Ki-eh, Chau-sin, and Tan-ki. From the hints
we get from contemporary Chinese and Korean annals we
88 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

should judge that this Yuryaku or Buretsu or King Wu was

really a strong and masterful, and ferocious
albeit fierce
ruler,
who has been as unfairly dealt with by legend and the Nihongi
writers as Macbeth has been by Wyntoun, Hector Boece,
Holinshed, and Shakespeare.*
Now, as regards the three intervening sovereigns between
Yuryaku and Muretsu, the Kojiki assigns a single son to the
former, who became the Emperor Seinei. " This Heavenly

Sovereign had no Empress and likewise no august children.

So after the Heavenly Sovereign's decease there was no King
to rule the Empire. Therefore on inquiry being made (for a
King) who should rule the Sun's succession the Princess Ihi-
toyo (was found to be) residing in Kadzuraki." On the other
hand the Nihongi says Yuryaku had three sons, and makes
the two younger ones perish in a civil war that preceded
Seinei's succession. On Seinei's death the Empire was ad-
ministered by the Princess Ihi-toyo for about ten months,
although she is not reckoned among the sovereigns of Japan.
When this Princess Ihi-toyo- s brother Ichinohe was assassinated
by Yuryaku in 457 his two children fled to Harima, where
they hid their persons and worked as grooms and cowherds
for a rich land-owner there. Just at this juncture they were
discovered by a Government official on circuit, who sent a
courier off with the intelligence. " Thereupon their aunt,
Queen Ihi-toyo, delighted to hear (the news), made them come
up to the palace.'' After " yielding the Empire " to each other
—
for some months a contest in fraternal affection reminiscent
of the episode of Nintoku Tenno and his younger brother 170
—
years before, the younger brother at last consents to ascend
the throne. When he dies childless in 488 he is succeeded by
the elder, who reigns ten years, and dies in 498, leaving five
daughters and two sons, the elder of whom becomes Muretsu,
that precocious monster of depravity.
Now, in certain early lists of sovereigns compiled after the
date of the Nihongi, Yiiryaku's son Seinei does not appear.
He is dropped entirely. Then the whole history of this time
smacks of old Chinese history. What is possible is that one
of the numerous revolts against Yuryaku which we hear of in
the Nihongi had been temporarily successful, and that Yuryaku
had in turn succeeded in crushing his opponents in his own

* See Hume Brown's History of Scotland, vol. L, p. 55.

 OLD YAMATO. 89

forcible way. At all events, on the death of Muretsu, Yu-

ryaku's " double," we find the line of Nintoku Tenn5 extinct*
Thus the succession question was a perplexing one for the
Ministers who now had to deal with it. The accounts we
have of what followed are perhaps significant of " King
Wu's " masterful ways, for the possible claimants to the throne
appear to have felt that the mere fact of being of
Imperial stock made them marked men, and so had gone into
hiding in remote country districts. " The Oho-muraji, Ohotomo
no Kanamura, counselled, saying At this moment there is
:
'

no successor to the throne. Where shall the Empire bestow its

allegiance ? From ancient times even until now this has been
a cause of disaster. Now there is in Taniba Prince Yamato-
hiko, a descendant of the Emperor Chuai (192-200 a.d.) in

the fifth generation. Let us make the experiment of preparing

an armed force to surround his carriage as a guard, and send-
ing to meet him, establish him as our sovereign.' The Oho-omi
and Oho-muraji all agreed and sent to meet him in the manner
proposed. Upon this, Prince Yaniato-hiko, viewing from a
distance the troops which were sent to meet him, was alarmed
and changed countenance. Accordingly he took refuge in a
mountain-valley, and no one could learn whither he had
gone."
The Ministers then bethought them of Prince Wohodo,
fifth in descent from the fifteenth legendary Emperor Ojin,
who was then living in obscurity at Mikuni in Echizen. " Omi
and Muraji were sent with emblems of rank and provided
with a palanquin of State to fetch him. The troops to form
his guard arrived suddenly in awe-inspiring array, clearing the
way before him. Upon this, the Prince Wohodo remained
calm and self-possessed, seated on a chair, with his retainers
in order by him, just as if he already occupied the Imperial

* Another inconsistency between the Kojiki and Nihongi here may

be noted. When Heir Prince before 4SS, Ninken Tenno, according to
the Kojiki, had a contest with a certain grandee for the possession of
the person of a certain fair daughter of Yamato. The duel, which ended
in the death of the grandee, was conducted partly in verse. The
Xihonpi makes Puretsu the hero here. Inasmuch as Puretsu (or
Muretsu) ceased to be the Heir Prince at ten years of age, it argues
an unwonted precocity to find a child like h'm contending with a
bearded man for the love of a mature woman, and not cnly that but
pctually capping his rival's verses with rare skill. It is true that the
Xihongi says he died at fifty-seven. Put, the accepted chronology assigns
him no more than eighteen years. Py the " accepted chronology " is
meant that cf " The Digest of the Imperial Pedigree " issued by the
Japanese Government in 1877.
90 HISTORY OF JAPAN.
throne. The envoys, therefore, "bearing the emblems of rank,
with respect and reverence bowed their hearts and committed
to him the Imperial authority, asking permission to devote to
him their loyal service. In the Emperor's mind, however,
doubts still remained, and for a good while he did not consent.
Just then he chanced to learn that Arako Kawachi no Muma-
kahi no Obito had sent a messenger secretly to inform him
minutely of the real intentions of the Ministers in sending to

escort him. After a delay of two days and three nights, he at

length set out. Then he exclaimed, admiringly :
— ' Well done,
Mumakahi no Obito! Had it not been for the information
given by thy messenger, I ran a great risk of being made a
"
laughing-stock to the Empire !
'

At this point it may be well to examine how the succession

question, which was here plainly decided by the Ministers, was
dealt with on future occasions. Henceforth it never proved
such a perplexing problem as it did at this juncture when the
line ofNintoku Tenno had become extinct. The new Emperor
(507-531) had nineteen children, and three of these came to
occupy the throne in succession. The family of the third of
these, Kimmei Tenno (540-571), was still larger, and of his
twenty -five children four became sovereigns of Japan. The
genealogical table for this period stands thus :

(26)

i 1 1

(27) (28) (29)

Ankan Senkwa Kimmei
_
(534-5)
__ (536-40)
___ (540-571)

(30) (31) (32) Suiko

Bidatsu Yomei Sujun Empress
(572-586) (587-588) (588-593) (593-628)

Shotoku Taishi
Ankan (27) was nominated as his successor by Keitai Tenno
on the day of his death in 531. The strange thing is that
Ankan's reign does not begin until 534. On his death in 535
without children, " the Ministers in a body delivered up the
sword and mirror to Ankan's next (full) brother, "and made
him assume the Imperial dignity" (Senkwa, 536-540). Of
the next Emperor, Kimmei (540-571), we are merely told that
he was the Emperor Keitai's (507-531) rightful heir. Kimmei
in his lifetime designated his second son Bidatsu (572-586)
 OLD YAMATO. 91

as his successor. This Emperor Bidatsu had seventeen child-

ren, but none of these came to the throne. Bidatsu was the
son of a daughter ofSenkwa Tenno (536-539), and he was
married to his own who afterwards came to rule in
half-sister,

her own right as the Empress Suiko (593-628). Now, this lady
was one of the thirteen children the Emperor Kimmei had by
the daughter of his Prime Minister, Soga no Iname. By ano-
ther Soga lady, variously given as the aunt or half-sister of
Suiko's mother, he had five more, one of whom plays a some-
what prominent part in the history of the time as the Prince
Anahobe. This Prince's sister, the Princess Anahobe, became
the chief consort of Bidatsu's half-brother and successor, the
Emperor Yomei (587-588), who was the full-brother of
Bidatsu's Empress, later known as the Empress Suiko. On
Yomei's death, Sfijun (588-593) succeeded, and he was a full
brother of Yomei Ten no's Empress, and thus a scion of the
House of Soga. However, on becoming Emperor he did not
take a Soga lady as consort, but went to the great rival house
of Ohotomo for one. It may not have been this step which
cost him his life, but the fact remains that he was presently
assassinated by an emissary of the Prime Minister, Soga no
Mumako. Thereupon Bidatsu's Empress, whose mother was a
Soga, was established as Empress in her own right, while the
Prince Shotoku was nominated Heir Prince. A look into his
genealogical tree will serve to show that he had more Soga blood
in his veins than anything else. In truth it was the Sogas who
now ruled Yamato, for behind the sovereign and all the Im-
perial Princes and Princesses of Soga extraction stood the great
Soga clan, or rather clans, with their all-powerful chieftains.
Although only with the appointment of Soga Iname
it is

Oho-omi or Great Minister in 536 that the Soga

to the office of
family comes into prominence, it was yet at once of hoary anti-
quity and Imperial descent, tracing its lineage back to the
eighth legendary Emperor, Kogen Tenno (214-157 B.C.). A
grandson of that sovereign was that Japanese Methusaleh,
Takeuchi no Sukune, who served five successive sovereigns as
Prime Minister and died in the reign of Nintoku, after 362 a.d.,
aged at least 270 years. From him were descended several of
the great clans of Yamato, the Kose, the Heguri, the Ki, and,
— —
greatest of all, the Soga. The real founder of the greatness
of the family was that Iname Avho began the stubborn fight to
establish Buddhism in Japan. After a thirty-four years'
92 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

tenure of office he died in 570, and on the accession of Bidatsu

Tenno in 572, Iname's son, Mumako, succeeded to liis father's
post, and held it for more than half-a-century, down to 626.
What Iname had vainly striven for Mumako accomplished. At
the time of his death there were forty-six Buddhist temples,
with 81G priests and 569 nuns in Yamato, while on the occasion
of his illness in 614, a thousand persons,men and women, had
" entered religion " for his sake. was this Mumako who was
It

the Great King-Maker in old Yamato. His son Eniishi (626-

645) and his grandson Iruka were perhaps even more powerful
in their time, but theirs was the pride that goes before a fall.
It was against them that the Great Revolution of 645 was
primarily directed. The coup d'etat began with the assassina-
tion of Iruka at a solemn court function : then followed the
execution of his father, and the power of the seemingly omni-
potent Soga was broken for ever. And with the fall of the
Soga, the knell of old Y^amato was rung, and what may now
be called " Old Japan " was born. The real primeval Yamato
institutions were now swept away, the administration and
nearly everything else got Sinicised, and two generations later
we have to deal with Sinicised official (so-called) historians
struggling not altogether ineffectually to execute their man-
date to impress their contemporaries and succeeding ages with
the belief that the political theories of 720 a.d. had been those of
the Land of the Gods from the beginning of (un)-recorded time!
This has a not unimportant bearing upon very recent
Japanese history. While foreign writers are mistaken in
asserting that the Meiji statesmen went to France or to any
other country in Europe for their administrative models,
Japanese publicists are equally at fault when they assure us
that the Reform of Meiji was merely a reversion to the original
state of things prevalent in these islands. Hirata, the great
Shintoist of the last century, approximates more closely to the
truthwhen he maintains that the Tokugawa regime was in a
measure a replica of the organisation that prevailed in old
Yamato previous to the Revolution of Taikwa (645 a.d.).
What the men of Meiji did really in a measure revert towas
the Sinicised Japan of 645and the subsequent century or two.
But the political theories that then prevailed had very little
thatwas autochthonous in them. In short, it is not too much
were in many respects at diametrical
to say that these theories
variance with the old Y^amato ideas. The authors of the
 OLD YAMATO. 93

Nihongi strive might and main to make out that such theories
had really been consonant with primeval practice. But they
only succeed in stultifying themselves to anyone who cares to
devote time and pains to collating their divergent statements,
and to an investigation of their real " sources." For instance,
in 534, an Emperor makes his Minister use the following words
to a subject who had given offence Of the entire surface of
:
'"

the soil there is no part which is not an Imperial grant in

fee; under the wide Heaven there is no place which is not Im-
perial territory. The previous Emperors therefore established
an illustrious designation and handed down a vast fame in ;

magnanimity they were a match for Heaven and Earth in glory ;

they resembled the Sun and Moon. They rode afar and dispensed
their mollifying influence to a distance
in breadth it extended ;

beyond the bounds of the capital and cast a bright reflection

throughout the boundaries of the land, pervading everywhere
without a limit. Above they were the crown of the nine
heavens ; they passed abroad through all the eight points of
the compass ; they declared their efficiency by the framing of
ceremonial observances ; they instituted music, thereby mani-
festing order. The resulting happiness was truly complete ;

theirs was gladness which tallied with that of past years."

Now, all this is not only make-believe, but it is absurd
make-believe. The rude and unlettered district chief to whom
this language is addressed could no more have understood it
than he could contemporary Byzantine Greek, while the
Minister himself could not possibly have used it. Forty years
later (572) we find Emperor, Prime Minister, and the official
clerks all equally unable to read a dispatch (in Chinese) from
the King of Koguryu in Northern Korea. As the above speech
is not only Chinese, but real Chinaman's Chinese, the absurdity
of the thing should be evident. In truth, with the exception
of the first sentence, the whole passage is stolen from the
records of the Liang Dynasty (502-554), with which the Japan-
ese did not make acquaintance until after their resumption of
intercourse with China shortly before the close of the sixth
century. Such a theory of eminent domain was indeed put
forward by implication in Shotoku Taishi's famous Laws of
004,* but it was only after 645 a.d. that it actually became an
article in the constitutional doctrine of Japan.
* See Dr. Fiorenz's instructive note on p. 13 of his translation o£
the Nihongi (592-69),
94 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Yet what prevailed in ante-Taikwa Japan can hardly be

described as a feudal system. The nearest analogy to the
organisation of old Japan is to he found in the west of con-
—
temporary Europe, among the Celtic tribes or clans of Gaul,
of Wales, and of Ireland.* The term " clan " is generally
applied to the fiefs of the Tokugawa regime. But these fiefs
—
were not clans, they were as much fiefs as those of our feudal
—
system were, characterised by tenure of land by military
service, sub-infeudation, and an element of contract, while
there was no doctrine of a descent of the community from a
common ancestor. In dealing with ancient Japan, on the other
hand, the term " clan " isby no means inappropriate. The
chief clan was the —
Imperial one the descendants of the
Heavenly Grandchild. Its head had full and direct power
over all its members, but as regards the members of the other
clans, he could exercise authority over them through their
respective heads only. Possessed of broader acres and with a
greater number of immediate personal dependents than his
fellow-chieftains, the Great Yamato Chief was probably gra-
dually elevated from the position of a mere primus inter pares
by the exercise of three prerogatives. As the ancestral gods of
his house developed into the gods of the nation at large his
functions as High Priest of a clan widened into those of the
High Priest of the whole people, and this presently enabled
him to call upon the heads of the houses for contributions to
defray the expenses of the due maintenance of the national
cult. Next towards foreign Powers (by which the Korean
States are chiefly meant) he became the representative of
Yamato, charged with the power of declaring war and making
peace and of speaking in its name with authority generally.
It lay with him to receive embassies from and to dispatch

envoys to the over-sea Courts. Hence his right to call upon

the clans for military contingents in cases of complications.
In the third place he became the judge in cases of disputed
successions to the headships of TJji (clans), and in the fifth
century we find him creating, dissolving, and degrading TJji in

the clear light of history. In the sixth century we see the

Emperors vigorously engaged in extending their power; and

* The Japanese student of the earliest annals of his own country

will find a perusal of the first chapter of Vinogradov's Growth of the
Manor, and Bloch's volume on Les Origines, La Gauje Indcpendante et
la Gaule Romaine very instructive,
 OLD YAMATO. 95

their chief method of doing so is by bringing more land under

direct Imperial possession and, control. Many instances in
the Nihongi go to support Dr. Florenz in his contention that
the heads of clans had something more than a mere superiority
over their lands ; that in fact they were the absolute owners
of them. Numerous incidents of real practical life seem
effectually to negative the assumption that the doctrine,
" Under the wide Heavens there is no place that is not Imperial
territory/' then had currency in Yamato. On the other hand,
we have two emphatic declarations about the non-alienability
of certain estates which belonged to the Emperor ex officio.
The true statement of the case seems to be something like
this : —
In pre-Taikwa Japan the ownership of the soil of the
whole Empire was vested in the sovereign neither practically
nor theoretically. On the other hand, the sovereign was one
of the greatest, if not by far the greatest, landholder in
Japan, and furthermore he was usually actively engaged in an
endeavour to extend his real powers by adding to his acres.
Now, a succession and able sovereigns of the
of strong
calibre of the first three Norman kings, of Henry II. and of
Edward I. in England, of James I. and of James II. in Scot-
land, of Philip IV. and of Louis XI. in France, might very well
have succeeded in crushing all the great houses of Yamato by
this very simple means. But, chiefly on account of the system
of virtualpolygamy that then prevailed in Japan, the titular
sovereigns tended to become little more than pawns in the

great contest for power then raging between several great

(nominally) subject houses.
At the beginning we meet with mention
of the fifth century
of the Ministers, — of the Great Omi and the Great Muraji,
and from Yuryaku (457-479) onwards we hear of the appoint-
ment of a Great Omi and of Great Muraji (sometimes one,
sometimes two) at the beginning of each succeeding reign. Mr.
Aston ventures the supposition that the Great Omi was the
and the Great Muraji the chief military official.
chief civil,
Nothing in the records seems to negative Dr. Florenz's hypo-
thesis —or rather categorical assertion —that the Great Omi
was the chief of the Omi, and that the Omi were nobles who
were of Imperial descent —
who, in other words, could trace
their lineage from the Heavenly Grandchild, and consequently
from the Sun-goddess. At one time we find a Heguri, at ano-
ther a Tsubura, and finally, the Soga acting as Great Omi, All
96 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

these families were of remote Imperial descent. The Muraji

were all noble houses, but they were not of Imperial stock.
They fell two categories, those descended from Heavenly
into
Deities, —
by which is meant those who traced their lineage
back to the companions of the Heavenly Grandchild who
alighted with him on the Teak of Takachiho in the Land of So
—
(Kumaso), and the progeny of Earthly Deities, that is, of
the gods and chieftains whom Jimmn found domiciled in

Yamato at the time of his conquest of it. In other words, the

Muraji w« nobles partly of Kyushu and partly of* Idzumo
re

extraction. To the former belonged the great houses of Naka-

tomi (later the Fujiwara) and Ohotomo, to the latter those of
Miwa and Mononobe. The Kyushu Muraji were generally re-
presented by the Great Muraji Ohotomo, the Idzumo by the
Great Muraji Mononobe. Both of these great clans paid spe-
cial attention to military matters, and so far Mr. Aston's asser-
tion is perfectly correct.
Omi and Muraji alike were generally supposed to appear at
times, if not to live permanently, in the capital —which at this
time, by the way, changed at least once, and sometimes of tener,
in every reign. Here, however, they did not take instructions
directly from the sovereign, —his communications to them were
conveyed through the medium of the Great Omi or the Great
Muraji. A Great Omi, like Soga, thus occupied a rather pecu-
liar position, for he exercised a sort of control over the general
body of the Omi, and at the same time he was the Soga, inas-
much as he was at the head not only of his own clan proper,
but of the chiefs of the numerous cadet Omi houses into which,
in course of time, it had ramified. The heads of these cadet
houses were absolute masters of their own lands, and exercised
absolute and untrammelled authority over their own tribes-
men, clients, and slaves. With these the Great Omi could not
interfere directly; but he could call upon the chiefs of the
cadet houses to join, for example, in the work of erecting a
mausoleum for his own father, the former Great Omi and head
of the Soga clan in the widest sense of the term, for the Soga —
in short. Although generally resident in the capital, these
Omi and Muraji were great landholders with vast estates in
the country; several of them with many estates, as widely
separated as were those of the barons of our first Norman king.
Onlv it is to be noted that on these estates it was not so
 OT/D YAM A TO. 97

much the feudal as the old Celtic tribal tie that was the bond
of connection between lord or chief and dependent.
However, the estates of the Emperor, of the Omi, and of the
Muraji formed only a portion, albeit perhaps the major portion,
of the total superficies of what then constituted the so-called
Empire of Yamato. A very considerable part of the soil was
occupied by the Kunimiyakko, or Kuni Miyatsuko, or Kuni-
tsuko, for all three terms are various forms of the same word,
which Professor Chamberlain translates as " Country-Ruler."
Of these, shortly before the Great Revolution of 645 there were
about 140, great and small; for Country Ruler (Kunitsuko)
was used in two senses. In the first place it was a generic
—
term for local independent magnates Kimi, Wake, Kunitsuko,
Agata, Tnaki —of various origins and of widely dissimilar re-

sources, and secondly it was sometimes specifically employed

to denote the more limited cases among those that ac-
tually ruled a " country " in contradistinction to a mere
district or perhaps a few villages. Six children of the
Emperor Ojin are said to have been provided with as many
appanages in Kibi (Bizen, Bitchu, and Bingo),* and the sons of
other sovereigns who did not come to the throne were usually
provided with estates in various parts of the country. In con-
nection with the accession of Keitai (507) we meet with two
such instances. For the first five or six generations these were
known as Kimi or Wake; after that they usually became
merged in the general body of Kuni no Miyakko or Kunitsuko.
These Kuni no Miyakko, Country Rulers, were no mere
Governors removable at the Imperial pleasure, or holding office
for a term of years. They were real chieftains, heads of clans,
who owned the soil on which they were settled. We have in-
stances (under Yuryaku) of some small clans being extirpated,
and probably in such cases their lands may very well have been
seized by the Emperor. But in other instances where the chief-
tain was punished with death we know the lands were not con-
fiscated and in several places in the Nihongi we meet with
;

mention of chiefs (Kunitsuko) purging themselves of offences

against the sovereign by surrendering portions of their domains
to him. As has been already remarked, the sovereign also acted
as judge in cases of disputed succession to the headships of
clans, and then it seems to have been customary for the suc-

* See Aston's Nihongi, vol. H., p. 162.

98 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

cessful aspirant to surrender some of his estates with the serfs

upon them to the sovereign as a sort of thank-otfering. These
were two of the throe chief means of extending the Imperial
territories.
A third was by the establishment of Be or Tomo. About
this peculiar institution of ancient Japan, which was only abo-
lished in 646, there is a great deal of obscurity. The words
have sometimes been translated " clan " or " guild." But the
members of the Be or Tomo were connected by no tie of blood-
relationship, while the son of the member of a mediaeval guild
was not in all cases compelled to enter the guild. The nearest
Western analogy to these is also, strangely enough, to be found
in contemporary Europe, in the hereditary guilds of the later
Roman Empire. Some Japanese Be of the fifth century
of the
were almost the exact counterpart of the Navicularii, the
Pistores, the Suarii, the Peeuarii with whom the legislation of
the Roman Emperors was so much concerned at that time.*

* " An army
of public servants incorporated in hereditary guilds
were charged with the duty of bringing up supplies, and preparing
them for consumption. One of the hardest tasks of the Go-
. . .

vernment was to prevent the members of these guilds from deserting

or evading their hereditary obligations. It is well known that the
tendency of the later Empire was to stereotype society, by compelling
men to follow the occupation of their fathers, and preventing a free
circulation among different callings and grades in life. The man who
brought the grain of Africa to the public stores at Ostia, the baker
who made it into loaves for distribution, the butchers who brought
pigs from Samnium, Lucania, or Bruttium, the purveyors of wine and
oil, the men who fed the furnaces of the public baths, were bound to
their callings from one generation to another. It was the principle of
rural serfdom applied to social functions. Every avenue of escape was
closed. A
man was bound to his calling, not only by his father's but
by his mother's condition. If the daughter of one of the baker caste
married a man not belonging to it, her husband was bound to her
father's calling. Not even a dispensation obtained by some means from
the Imperial chancery, not even the power of the Church, could avail
to break the chain of servitude. The corporati, it is true, had certain
privileges, exemptions, and allowances, and the heads of some of the
guilds might be raised to the rank of Count.' But their propertv, like
'

their pprsons. was at the mercv of the State." Dell, Roman Society
in the Last Century of the Western Empire, pp. 232-3.
"Et comme il fallait que ces cadres demeurassent remplis, le
ne^ociant, Partisan fut rive de pere en fils a son metier et a, son
college, comme le colon a, la terre, comme le soldat a 1'armee. comme
le curiale a la curie.. Les corporations etaient soumises a nn regime
. .

plus ou moins tyrannioue sm'vant on'^lles avaient avec l'Etat des

rapports plus ou moins etroits. Les plus d^rement traitees etavent celles
oni comprenaipnt les ouvriers travaillant dans les manufactures im-
ne>ia>s, dans les fabriques de monnaies, d'armes. d'etoffes precieuses,
d^ns Ips mines. Horames libres ou esclaves, tons, ouel one fut lenr
e^at civil, etaient marquees an fer roue'e, de manure a ne pouvoir
s'gehapper. lis ne jouissaient d'ailleurs d'auenne autonom^e. et d6pen-
daient entidrement des prgposSs nomm€s par l'Empereur. Les corpora-
 OLD YAMATO. 99

These Be or Tomo, or groups or corporations, were very

numerous. The Nihongi constantly speaks of the 180 Be, but
this is not to be taken literally; for one hundred and eighty
was an ancient Japanese expression for " all," when the
totality included a great many individuals whom it might have
been tedious or impossible to enumerate. They seem to have
existed for many purposes, to have been instituted on various
pretexts and to have differed very widely in their memberships.
We have details about the formation of the Fleshers' Be under
Yfiryaku (458), which appears to have been originally com-
posed of serfs presented by the Empress Dowager, the Omi,
Muraji, Kuni no Miyakko, and the Tomo (or Be) no Miyakko.
This special Be was doubtless meant to provide for the neces-
Court exclusively, and was strictly local. A good
sities of the

many, perhaps most. Be stood on a somewhat similar footing.

But there were others that were not merely local, but extended
over the greater part of the Empire. For instance, in 480, the
Emperor Seinei sent officers to establish three sets of Be in
every province in order that the memory of his three childless
consorts should be kept alive for ever. These were called the
Be of Palace Attendants, of Palace Stewards, and of Palace
Archers respectively, but they were really agricultural com-
munities of serfs working estates the revenue of which was
nominally to go to the maintenance of certain court func-
tionariesand body-guards- Other agricultural corporations
were established for purposes similar to that of our mediaeval
manors assigned as pin-money to queens and noble dames.
'
'

On such occasions the Provincial magnates were expected to

be complaisant enough to make over the necessary rice-fields or
other lands and to donate the serfs needed for working them.
It is not difficult to understand that a strong sovereign might
have found this a very efficient device for extending the Im-
perial domains. Again, in Richu's time (404 a.d.), we find the
head of the Carters' Be proceeding from Yamato to Kyushu
and holding a review of all the Carters' Be in that island.
Two great corporations were those of the Seamen and the
Mountain Wardens. On several occasions we meet with these

tions qui par quelque cote concouraient a la subsistance publique, celles

qui produisaient les denrees alimentaire s et celles qui les faisaient
circuler, elaient aussi surveillees de pres et devaient une notable partie
de leur travail a 1'Etat. — M. Bloch in Lavisse's Histoire de France,
Tome I., p, 435,
100 ITTSTORY OF JAPAN.

Be mobilised as formidable military forces; and that the latter

corporation held lands of its own we know from an incident
which occurred after the death of Ojin and before the accession
of Nintoku. The heads of these corporations, although here-
ditary, were originally appointed by the Emperor. In 400 a.d.
Richu deposes Adzumi Muraji from the headship of the Sea-
men's Be in Awaji; however, a new head is not appointed, but
the Be is broken up and the seamen made agricultural serfs on
the Imperial estates in Yamato. In 485 Wodate, the official
who had discovered the future Emperors Ninken and Kenzo
serving as farm hands in Harima, on being asked to name his
own reward, requested to be made chief of the Mountain-
Warden Be. Thereupon the Emperor gave him the title of
Yamahe no Muraji the Omi of Kibi was associated with him,
;

and the Yamamori Be (Mountain Warden's Be) were made

their serfs. Here the new head of the corporation is ennobled-
— i.e. becomes Muraji, it will be remarked —while the other
head, the Omi of Kibi, a descendant of the Emperor Ojin, is
r
also, of course, a noble. Over the Mountain-W ardens these
heads exercised the power of life and death, —
it was only after

the Reform of 645 that the corporati were allowed to appeal

from their chiefs to the (newly-established) Central Govern-
ment.* It will thus be seen that the chiefs of the Greater Cor-
porations were very important men from the .number of their
dependants ; and it is not so very strange to find the Rulers of
Corporations (Tomo no Miyakho) ranking with the Country
Rulers (Kuni no Miyakho). These Rulers of Corporations
sometimes held large estates in various parts of the country ex
officio, and in addition to this they were sometimes heads of
clans, with their own tribesmen, really or theoretically con-
nected with them by the blood-tie, at their beck and call. The
Rulers of Corporations were neither serfs nor plebeians; at the
lowest they were gentlemen ranking with the Country Rulers.
On the other hand several of them were ennobled, bearing the
titles of Omi and Muraji, while, as has just been said, others
of them were at the same time not only heads of corporations
dans as well. Many Japanese scholars
of serfs but chieftains of
maintain that it was only the sovereign who could create a

* These Yamamori perhaps had functions analogous to the dendro-

phorcs of the later Roman Empire, while the Amabe or Seamen's Cor-
poration corresponds to the Navicularii, See Lavijsse's Histoire de
France, Tome L, p. 432,
 OLD YAMATO. 101

Be. This contention at first sight seems to be invalidated by

the fact that we magnates compounding for their
find offending
delinquency by making over certain Be to the Emperor. But
bearing the origin of Yuryaku's Fleskers' Be in mind we can
readily understand that what the offenders surrendered was
merely land and people which the sovereign thereupon con-
stituted a Be. The superintendents of the Imperial Agricul-
tural Be in the outlying provinces appear in some cases to have
developed into autonomous Country Rulers, or Group Rulers,
if we are to believe the assertions of the legislators of 645 -G.

Even in the ninth and tenth centuries it sometimes took

seven or eight weeks for a Governor to get from Tosa to Kyoto
and twice or three times as long from Kyoto to the present
Tokyo. The mere difficulties of communication must have made
it no light task for even a strong central government to make

its power felt in the more distant provinces. As a matter of

fact the central government previous to G45 was exceedingly
feeble, —
even in Yamato and the surrounding districts it was
far from being omnipotent. Accordingly its representatives,—
the superintendents of the Imperial estates and of Imperial
—
corporations in the remoter portions of the Empire could
safely conduct themselves very much as the heirs of Charle-
magne's local officers did under the laxly exercised authority
of his degenerate successors- Thus the attempts to extend the
Imperial domain in the outlying sections of the Empire, which
might very well have proved effectual under a succession of
able sovereigns, merely ended in a mushroom-like growth of
new Country " or Group " Rulers, the more astute of whom
" k
'

were about 045 fortifying the autonomous position to which

they either had attained, or were aspiring to, by recourse to
forged and fictitious genealogies.
From all this the discerning reader will readily infer that
in old Yamato there were really two partially antagonistic,
partially complementary and interwoven social organisations
in the field, —
the clan system and the group or corporation
system, to wit. In several instances chiefs of clans were also
heads of corporations. But in most cases the heads of corpora-
tions stood opposed as a sort of rival aristocracy, or rather
gentry, to the clan-chieftains.
One very peculiar and important, nay perhaps prepon-
derant, factor in the corporation system was the immigrant
and foreign element. From the very beginning of semi-authen-
102 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

tic history we meet with numerous and unmistakeable indica-

tions of a steady and considerable influx of immigrants from the
peninsular States which are now collectively known as Korea.
The index to Mr. Aston's Nihongi is seriously defective, yet in
it as it stands we meet with no fewer than twenty references

to " Immigration into Japan '*

before 045 a.d. Miniana, Silla,
Pakche, Kogurvu and China all alike contributed to the stream.
In 289 (really 120 years later) we hear of Achi no Omi and
his son bringing with them to Japan a company of their people
of seventeen districts, and elsewhere we run across notices of
whole villages crossing the sea from the peninsula. In addition
to that there were numerous Chinese refugees. Under 540 we
read that " the men of T'sin, and of Han, etc., the emigrants
from the various frontier nations were assembled together,
settled in the provinces and districts, and enrolled in the re-
gisters of population. The men of T'sin numbered in all 7,053
houses." Here a word of caution becomes necessary. A
modern Japanese house is on the average composed of about
five units. For fiscal purposes in 747 the normal Japanese
house was supposed to consist of twelve individuals. And this
seems to have been seriously under the truth. In 700 in a
district in Mino one house had 94 inmates, another more than
50, several over 30, while the general average was 18. Thus
seven thousand houses in ancient Japan would represent a
very much greater fraction of the total population than it

would nowadays. The T'sin people, then, in all probability

numbered something like 120,000, or 130,000. And besides
them there were " the men of Han (also Chinese or Koreans of
Chinese extraction ultimately) and the men of the frontier
States." All told, this alien population must have been a very
numerous one. In a peerage of the early eighth century some
381 out of 1,177 nobles are assigned either a Korean or a
(
'hinese origin. It is not probable that the Chinese and Korean
leaven was as strong among the Japanese plebs as it was among
the patricians; yet it seems somewhat beside the mark to as-
sert, as is sometimes done, that these immigrants constituted
" but a drop in the ocean " in the composition of the people of

Japan.
These immigrants would naturally attach themselves to the
Great Imperial Clan and shelter themselves under its pat-
ronage and protection. The aristocrats among the new-comers
were evidently treated as aristocrats from the very first.
 OLD YAMATO. 103

Doubtless a portion of the followings of these consisted of

mere unskilled agricultural or common labourers, and these
being neither necessary nor indispensable in Japan would sink
into the general mass of serfs. But besides these there were
bodies of skilled artificers and workmen plying handicrafts
with which the Japanese were unacquainted. Their labour
made this class of immigrant important their presence in the
;

land was felt to be necessary. Hence they had no difficulty in

establishing themselves in a position of respect and considera-
kk
tion. They were in fact the aristocrats of labour " and their ;

Be or corporations stood on a higher plane than the native

Tomo. Among them, for example, were constituted at first
two, and ultimately three, perhaps more, corporations of
scribes, whose business it was to write and read dispatches for
the sovereign, to manage his treasure-houses and keep his
accounts, as well as those of the numerous Imperial granaries
scattered over the Empire, and to record events. This of
course was a position of great influence, and it is not strange
to find several of these men treated as nobles.
It seems that these foreigners were mostly concentrated
into two great settlements. The men of Han, known as the
Eastern Aya, occupied a district in Yamato. In 472 their chief
was made head of the whole community of Be among them.
" The Emperor (Yuryaku) established their Tomo no Miyakko,
granting him the title of Atahe."
The T'sin people, known as the Western Aya, had been es-
tablished in Kawachi. These are more commonly met wish
under the name of Hada, a group of noble families, by the way,
that claimed to be descended from Chi Hwangti, the Napoleon
of China. Of these, :
—
" The Hada house
under 471, we read
was dispersed. The Omi and Muraji each enforced their ser-
vices at pleasure, and would not allow the Hada no Miyakko
to control them. Consequently, Sake, Hada no Miyakko, made
a great grievance of this, and took office with the Emperor.
The Emperor (Yuryaku) loved and favoured him, and com-
manded that the Hada house should be assembled and given
to Lord Sake of Hada. So this Lord, attended by excellent Be
workmen of 180 kinds, presented as industrial taxes fine silks
which were piled up so as to fill the Court. Therefore he was
—
granted a title viz., Udzu Masa."
It can readily be conceived that this foreign element, by
attaching itself to the immediate fortunes of the Great Iin-
104 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

perial Clan, became a strong support for the sovereign, and

added vastly to his power. Indications are not lacking that
it was the constant and consistent support of these alien com-

munities that chiefly enabled Yuryaku to deal with opponents

in the drastic fashion he did. Yuryaku was devoting much at-
tention to the development of sericulture in Japan;and as the
Hada people were experts in this, the Hada house was soon
afterwards again dispersed in numerous settlements through-
out the Empire as teachers and instructors. It was this house
which under the name of T'sin we find to have numbered 7,053
families in the year 540. The men of Han, or the Yamato Aya,
on the other hand, continued as a united community in their
original settlement down to 645. On many occasions we find
the Atahe, or head of these Y^amato Aya, playing a very promi-
nent role in political developments, and in 645 we find him
and his people forming the last defence of the Soga, in the
supreme crisis of their fortunes.
 105

CHAPTER IV.

OLD YAMATO.
FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM TO THE GREAT
COUP D'ETAT (550 TO 645 A.D.)

rN the previous chapter we have confined our attention to

-"~ Yamato. However, it
the strictly domestic concerns of
must be borne clearly in mind that during all these ages there
was also an over-sea Japan; and that Yamato, if she did not
have extensive possessions, had, at all events, a firm foothold
and vital interests in the peninsula beyond the Straits of
Tsushima. The importance of all this will be clear when it
is pointed out that it was the protection of these foreign

interests of hers that occasioned that intimate intercourse

with the kingdom of Pakche which brought Yamato to a know-
ledge and appreciation of the higher culture of continental
Asia, and especially of China. An examination of the rela-
tions then subsisting between Pakche and Japan will disclose
the interesting fact that " the gift of the image of Shaka
Butsu in gold and copper, several flags and umbrellas, and a
number of volumes of Sutras,' which is regarded as the intro-
7

duction of Buddhism into Japan (552 a.d.), was merely one

of a series of presents with which the Pakche King was
eagerly endeavouring to conciliate the good-will of the Japan-
ese Court, in order to enlist its aid in the desperate contest
then being waged by Pakche against Ko-gur-yu and Silla.
It has been stated that Korea was then divided into three
considerable States. In the north was Ko-gur-yu. fierce, war-
like, and aggressive. In truth it was a first class military
Power, for on several occasions in its history it was able to
bid successful defiance to the whole embattled might of the
Chinese empire. The strip along the coast of the Sea of Japan
to the south of Ko-gur-yu was occupied by the kingdom of
Silla, not by any means a great military Power, although yet
fairly strong. On the other hand, the Silla statesmen were
adepts in diplomacy, for Pakche often found that Silla intrigue
was more to be dreaded than Ko-gur-yu ferocity. This kiny;-
106 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

dom of Pakche, extending south from Ko-gur-yu along the

shores of the Yellow Sea to the south-west of the peninsula,
often found itself in a difficult position. At most times it
was on bad terms with Si 11a, for both were trying to extend
their influence into the buffer States that lay between their re-
spectiye eastern and western boundaries to the south, and on
the other it was frequently menaced by those hard
hand
fighters, the men of Ko-gur-yu, to the north. As Pakche felt
that it could not stand alone, and as China, of which in com-
mon with its two rivals and neighbours it professed itself to
be a vassal State (from 417 a.d.), was far away, it spared no
effort to make a friend of Yamato.
However, as already pointed out, these three kingdoms of
Ko-gur-yu, Silla, and Pakche did not occupy the whole of the
peninsula. Driven in between the southern portions of Pakche
and Silla like a blunt wedge, were the territories of the king-
dom of Ka-rak with its dependencies the five fiefs of Kaya.
Says Mr. Hulbert :
— " Ka-rak extended eastward as far as
Wang-san River, Yang-
six miles to the west of the present
san; Ka-ya San, the present Ko-
to the north-east as far as
ryung; to the south and south-west as far as the coast, and
on the west to Chi-ri San. From this we see that it was little
inferior to Silla in size." Korean historians have not found
very much to say about Ka-rak —
" The kingdom of Ka-rak
:

had existed side by side with Silla on terms of mutual friend-

ship for 482 years, but in 527 her King, Kim Ku-hyung, gave
up his sovereign power and merged his kingdom into that of
Silla. He was, however, retained at the head of the Ka-rak
State under appointment by the King of Silla. It does not
appear from the scanty records that this was other than a
peaceful change. Ka-rak had long seen the growing power of
Silla and doubtless recognised that more was to be gained by
becoming part of that kingdom than by standing aloof and
running the chance of becoming disputed territory between
the rival powers of the peninsula."
When it is borne in mind that
was exactly among the it

Ka-rak and Kaya States that Yamato had its firm foothold
and its sphere of influence, the dulness of the preceding quota-
tions may probably be quickened into something with a spark
of life. Moreover, in the light of these quotations, certain
things given under 527 a.d. in the Japanese annals become
pregnant with significance, for the modern historian can then
 OLD YAMATO. 107

easily understand what a formidable thing the Silla diplomacy

of those days was, not only to Pakehe, but to Yamato.
Somewhere near the confines of this Ka-rak State was
situated the Miyake of Mimana or Imna.* From the accounts
of its overthrow by Silla in 5G2, becomes apparent that it
it

is more or less to be identified with some or all of those Kaya

fiefs that at one time at least were dependencies of the king-

dom of Ka-rak. From time to time we meet with mention of a

Japanese garrison here; at other times we hear of a Resident-
General, and we have frequently notices of Japanese " Gover-
nors " in the smaller outlying districts. By these governors
are probably meant either semi-independent Japanese chiefs,
or Japanese residing at the courts of the petty local princelets
as advisers. In a good many instances we can see that the
Japanese in Mimana were mainly fighting for their own in-
dividual hands. Intermarriage with the native aristocracy
was frequent, and the issue of such unions, of uncertain
nationality, and well acquainted with the languages of both
parents, too often endeavoured to play the part Alcibiades
played between Tissaphernes and the Athenian aristocrats
in 411 b.c. Occasionally these men occupied high office in the
service of the Korean States. Silla and Pakehe were usually
on bad terms, while Ka-rak was not altogether without its

differences with Silla; and when it suited their own purposes

these half-Japanese politicians and adventurers would not
hesitate to embroil all three States, and then if need be appeal
to Yamato for assistance. A really strong Yamato ruler, like
King Wu (the Emperor Yuryaku), was too formidable to be
trifled with, perhaps; but on Wu's death, some time after 502,
the game of intrigue at once recommenced. With the confused
data at our disposal it seems hopeless to attempt to unravel
the complications that then ensued; however it is tolerably
plain that they were serious. We here find a Japanese
governor acting in his own interests by procuring for Pakehe
I he cession of extensive tracts within the Yamato sphere of
influence. This would seem to have caused a formidable re-

* At one time in ancient Japan mita signified land reserved for the
use of the Government, i.e. of the Emperor, or his officers; tabe were
the coloni that worked these lands; while miyake were the granaries
in which the produce of the mita was stored. Miyake thus came to
signify " Government house." In course of time we hear of private
miyake. These were often very small. In 646 the Reform Prince
surrendered 181 miyake and 524 men of the tribe, who worked them.
108 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

bellion, unci the insurgents proved strong enough to repulse

a considerable Yamato naval force dispatched to restore order.
This was in 516; and then eleven years later the Japanese
statesmen found to their cost how much Silla diplomacy was
to be dreaded. It was in this year, 527, that the King of Ka-
rak incorporated his kingdom with his eastern neighbour, who
had very astutely profited by the general discontent excited
by the cession of territory and ports to Pakche by Japan.
Yamato now braced itself for a great effort, and G0,000 ( ?)
men were mustered for an attack on Silla. Says the Nihongi:
— " Afumi no Kena no Omi, in command of an army of GO, 000

men, was about to proceed to Mimana, in order to re-establish

and unite to Mimana South Kara and Tok-sa-than, which had
been conquered by Silla, when Iwai, Tsukushi
(i.e. Chikuzen)

no Miyakko, secretly plotted rebellion so that there was a

delay of several years. Fearing that the matter would be hard
to accomplish, he was constantly watching for a favourable
opportunity. Silla, knowing this, secretly practised bribery
with Iwai, and encouraged him to oppose the passage of
Kena no Omi's army. Hereupon Iwai occupied the two pro-
vinces of Hi and Toyo [i.e. Hizen, Higo, Buzen, and Bungo),
and would not allow the taxes to be paid [that is, he seized
the Imperial granaries with the estates attached to them in
these provinces]. Abroad he intercepted the route by sea,
and from Ko-gur-yu, Pakche,
led astray the yearly tribute ships
Silla, and Mimana, while at home he blocked the way for
Kena no Omi's army, which was being sent to Mimana."
To quell this insurrection took about a year and a half.
Here we have what appears very much like a determined
attempt to establish an independent State, if not a rival
dynasty, in Kyushu. That Iwai had been aping royalty we
know from archaeological sources. In Yamato, burial in a
dolmen covered with a double mound was a form of sepulture
reserved for the Imperial family. Now, in his own lifetime
Iwai had constructed one of these double-mounded tombs as
a mausoleum for himself. This Iwai was not the only
Kyushu chieftain who had questionable dealings with the
peninsular States. In the strange story of Ilia, "Country
"
Ruler of a district in Hizen or Higo, and at the same time a
high official in Pakche employ (Nihongi 583 a.d.), we meet
with incidents that lead us to suspect that Kyushu magnates
had more intimate connections with the over-sea Courts than
 OLD YAMATO. 109

fhev had with that of Yamato. For one thing, both Silla and
Pakche were nearer and more easily accessible than was Cen-
tralJapan. The position of several of these Kyfishfi heads of
clans was not unlike that of those Norman barons in our
own history who had their fiefs and followed their fortunes
" in Scotland and in England both."
This Kyushu revolt of 527 ought to have taught the Im-
perial councillors that it would be impossible to prosecute
over-sea enterprises effectually with the Japanese clan system
continually threatening the existence of the central authority.
The lesson indeed seems to have been taken to heart, for in the
next two reigns we hear little of Korea, and a great deal about
efforts to extend the Imperial domain at home. Ankan Tenno
(534-53G) added considerably to his possessions by allowing
chieftains between Tokyo Bay and the Pacific to compound for
offences; by deciding a case of disputed succession in Ko-
dzuke, by extorting presents of riceland in Yamato, and by
the institution of various new Be in all the provinces. Besides
all this, we hear of the establishment of as many as 26
miyake (granaries), no fewer than ten of which were in
Kyushu, and seven in districts through which the communica-
tions between Kyushu and the capital ran. Then in the
following reign (Serkwa, 53G-539) we meet with the follow-
ing: —
"Let there he built a Government house at Nanotsu no
Kuchi (in Chikuzen). The miyake of the three provinces of
Tsukushi, Hi and Toyo {i.e. all Kyushu then under Yamato
supremacy) are dispersed and remote: transport is therefore
impeded by distance. Let the various miyake therefore be
charged each severally to transfer, and to erect one jointly at
Nanotsu no Kuchi."
The very apparent fact seems to have been grasped that
unless the Imperial authority was strengthened and extended,
and Kyushu thoroughly secured above all things, it was hope-
less for Yamato to attempt to deal with the Korean situation.

After Iwai had been crushed in 528 or 529, Kena no Omi had
been sent with a small force to Mimana as Resident-General.
But his tenure of office had been a glaring failure, and he had
to be recalled in disgrace within a year (530). Now, at last,
a fresh start While one son of Ohotomo, the Mili-
was made.
tary Minister, stayed in Chikuzen to keep order in Kyushu,
and to make preparations for war in Korea, another went to
Mimana and " restored peace there " while " he also lent aid
110 HTSTORY OP JAPAN.

to Pakche." However, Yaraato's worst enemiesin Korea were

the Japanese domiciled there. The Pakche King (Myung-nong,

524-555) could read the signs of the time readily enough. His
fierce northern neighbour Ko-gur-yu was a standing menace to

Pakche, while Silla, rapidly increasing in power, was almost

as much to be dreaded. It was Pakche's policy to get the
Ka-rak territories detached from Silla, and either re-estab-
lished as an independent State, or partitioned between herself
and the Japanese who still maintained control over the Ka-ya
cantons. This is what is really meant by the phrase " the
Re-establishment of Miinana " (or Imna) of which we hear
so much in the Nihongi. That is, between 527 and 562, for in
that year- Silla seized the last of the Japanese possessions in
the peninsula, and after that the same phrase (the Re-estab-
lishment of Imna) comes to have an essentially different purport
Now, we see Pakche effectually thwarted by Silla
after 540,
diplomacy. King Myung-nong of Pakche had got promises of
Yamato support; a strong Japanese force was to be sent to
co-operate with him. But meanwhile Silla had successfully
bribed the Imna agents and the local Japanese authorities,
and Ki no Omi and Kawachi no Atahe, with the all-powerful
half-breeds Yanasa and Mato, were, while ostensibly acting as
Yamato officers, not much more than Sillan tools. It was to
little purpose that the poor Pakche King, in mortal dread of

Ko-gur-yu, Silla, and these treacherous Japanese agents and

half-breeds, sent mission after mission to Yamato to press the
dispatch of an expeditionary force. Each mission was for-
tified with the argument of valuable presents, and Myung-

nong, finding the first of these ineffective, was driven to rack

his royal brains and to ransack his kingdom for novelties that
might prove acceptable. And it was this sad strait to which
the Pakche monarch was put that actually led to the introduc-
tion of Buddhism into Japan! For, as already remarked,
that present of " an image of Shaka Butsu in gold and copper,
several flags and umbrellas, and a number of volumes of Sutras
in 552," was only one in a long series of gifts with which
Myung-nong was strenuously endeavouring to cajole the
Yamato Court into dispatching troops to fight for him. And
Buddhism, as much as Christianity, is a gospel, if not of peace,
at all events of brotherly love! However, as it is given to but
few of the sinful sons of men to appreciate Comedy on the
grand scale, we refrain from dilating on this incident,
 OLD YAMATO. Ill

'
As a compensation, we crave the indulgence of the reader
for the reproduction of the following passages from the
Nihongi, 554 a.d. —" Pakche sent A, B, C, D, etc., to communi-
They said
cate with E, F, G, etc., etc. Our previous envoys : '

stated that Uchi no Omi and his colleagues would come in the
first month of this year. But although they said so, it is still
doubtful whether you are coming or not. Moreover, what of
the number of the troops ? We pray that you will inform us
of their number, so that we may prepare cantonments in ad-
vance/
" In a separate communication they said :
i
We have just
heard that thou, by command of the August Emperor, hast
arrived in Tsukushi in charge of the troops bestowed on us by
him. Nothing could compare with our joy when we heard this.
The campaign of this year is a much more dangerous one than
the last; and we beg that the force granted to us may not be
allowed to be later than the first month.'
Hereupon Uchi no Omi answered in accordance with the
"
commands of the Emperor (Kimmei) Accordingly there is :
— *

being sent an auxiliary force to the number 1,000 men, 100

horses, and 40 ships.*
" Second month. —
Pakche sent A, B, etc., to ask for auxi-
liaries. They took the opportunity of offering Makko in ex-
change for the hostage the Nasol Won (both sons of a former
king), whose turn it had previously been; and Wang Yang-
Iv\vi, a man learned in the five (Chinese) classics, in exchange
for the Ko-tok, Ma Tyongan, and the Buddhist priest Tam-hye,
and eight others in exchange for To-sim and six others.
" Separately, in obedience to the Imperial commands, they
brought the Si-tok, Wang To-nyang, a man learned in divina-
tion, the Ko-tok, Wang Po-son, a man learned in the calendar,
a physician, two herbalists, and four musicians, all which per-
sons were exchanged according to request.
" Fifth month, 3rd day. — Uchi no Omi proceeded to Pakche
in command of a naval force."
The drift of the foregoing should be tolerably apparent.
Then, as now, the Japanese were before all things first-class
fighting men, and it was his real regard for their powers in
the field of battle that led the Pakche sovereign to study the
tastes and consult the whim of the Y^amato Court. And so it

came to pass that Japan actually got her first Buddhist Sutras
112 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

and her first calendars in exchange for the services of a naval

force!
When Pakche at last succeeded in getting Yamato auxi-
liaries, it was not a moment too soon. That very year (554)
the storm broke; and both Silla and Ko-gur-yu hurled their
forces against the stout lit He kingdom. Before the year was
out King Myung-nong had been taken and killed by the Silla
men, who in their turn were very roughly handled by the
Yamato contingent. When hostilities ceased temporarily in

the following year, 555, Sillawas able to form a new province

out of her Pakche spoils. The next seven years were filled with
diplomatic intrigues, and then under 562 we at last read:
" Silla destroyed the miyaJce of Imna." And with the fall of

this Japanese Calais in the peninsula, the islanders lost all

prospects of continental expansion. Several attempts were
indeed made to recover Mimana, but they came to nothing.
That of the same year (562) ended in foul disaster. In 583
an outbreak of pestilence in Japan made a projected expedi-
tion impossible. In 6';0 there reems to have been a Mimana
revolt against and 10,000 Japanese were sent to co-
Silla,

operate with the insurgents. Here again Silla diplomacy

proved as effective as of old; the Yamato leaders were pre-
sumably bought off, and when they withdrew the rebels' cause
was hopeless. The final Japanese attempt of 622 would appear
to have been frustrated in a somewhat similar fashion.
Meanwhile, in old Yamato there had been strange and
startling developments. That very harmless-looking Pakche
present of 552 — " an image of Shaka Butsu in gold and copper,
several and umbrellas, and a number of volumes of
flags
Sutras," — verysoon threatened to assume the form of a verit-
able Pandora's box. Before a year was out it had caused seri-
ous dissensions in the Imperial councils. The Pakche King's
memorial accompanying the present was as follows: " This —
doctrine is among all doctrines the most excellent. But it is
hard to explain and hard to comprehend. Even the Duke of
Chow and Confucius had not attained to a knowledge of it.
This doctrine can create religious merit and retribution with-
out measure and without bounds, and so lead on to a full ap-
preciation of the highest wisdom. Imagine a man in posses-
sion of treasures to his heart's content, so that he might
satisfy all his wishes in proportion as he used them. Thus it
is with the treasure of this wonderful doctrine, Every prayer
 OLD YAMATO. 113

is fulfilled and naught is wanting. Moreover from distant

India it has extended hither to the three Han,* where there
are none who do not receive it with reverence, as it is preached
to them."
" This day," continues the Nihongi, " the Emperor, having
heard to the end, leaped for joy, and gave command to the
envoys saying Never from former days until now have we
:
'

had the opportunity of listening to so wonderful a doctrine.

We are, however, unable to decide of ourselves.' Accordingly
he inquired of his Ministers one after another, saying :
'
The
countenance of this Buddha which has been presented by the
Western frontier State is of a severe dignity such as we have
never at all seen before. Ought
worshipped or not ?
it to be '

Soga no Oho-omi addressed the Emperor, saying: All the '

Western frontier lands without exception do it worship. Shall

Akitsu-Yamato alone refuse to do so ? Mononobe no Oho- '

Muraji and Nakatomi no Mum ji addressed the Emperor jointly,

saying: Those who have ruled the Empire in this our State
i

have always madeit their care to worship in Spring, Summer,

Autumn, and Winter the 180 Gods of Heaven and Earth, and
the Gods of the Land and If just at this time we
of Grain.
were to worship in their stead foreign deities it may be feared
that we should incur the wrath of our National Gods.'
" The Emperor said Let it be given to Soga no Iname,
:
'

who has shown his willingness to take it, and as an experi-

ment, make him worship it.'
"Soga knelt down and received it with joy. He enthroned
it in where he diligently carried out the
his house at Oharida,
rites of retirement from the world, and on that score purified
his house at Muku-hara and made it a Temple. After this a
pestilence was rife in the Land, from which the people died
prematurely. As time went on it became worse and worse,
and there was no remedy. Mononobe no Muraji and Nakatomi
no Muraji addressed the Emperor jointly, saying: It was '

because thy servants' advice on a former day was not approved

that the people are dying thus of disease. If thou dost now
retrace thy steps before matters have gone too far, joy will
surely be the result ! It will be well promptly to fling it away,
and diligently to seek happiness in the future.'

* It was introduced into Ko-gur-yu in 372 a.d., into Pakcbe in 384,

by the sovereigns of these countries, and at once became the Court
religion. It reached Silla somewhere between 417 and 458, but it did
not become the official cult there until much later.

I
114 ITTRTORY OF JAPAN.

"The Emperor said: 'Let it be done as yon advise.' Ac-

cordingly officials took the image of Buddha and abandoned
it to the current of the They also set fire to
Canal of Naniha.
the Temple, and burnt it so that nothing was left. Hereupon
there being in the heavens neither clouds nor wind a sudden
conflagration consumed the Great Hall (of the Palace.)"
Soga Iname appears to have acquiesced in all this quietly
enough. Though he continued to direct the most important
affairs of the Empire down to the date of his death in 570, we
find him giving no further offence to the National Deities.
Nay, indeed, in 555, we actually meet with him remonstrating
with a Pakche Prince, then in Japan, about the worship of the
Shinto God, Onamuji, having been abandoned in Pakche. " But
if," he wound up, " you now repent your former errors, if you

build a shrine to the God and perforin sacrifice in honour of

his divine spirit, your country will prosper. Thou must not
forget this."*
In 577, the King of Pakche sent back with a Japanese mis*
sion to his court " a number of volumes of religious books, with
an ascetic, a meditative monk, a nun, a reciter of mantras
(magic spells), and a temple architect, six persons in all."

The gift does not appear to have been very highly appreciated;
at all events in 584 Soga no Mumako (son of Soga Iname), on
sending Shiba Tatto and two other emissaries " in all direc-

tions to search out persons who practised Buddhism," " only

found in the province of Harima a man named Hye-phyon of
Ko-gur-yu, who from a Buddhist priest had become a layman
again." "So the Oho-omi (Soga Mumako) made him teacher,
and caused him to receive Shima, the daughter of Shiba Tatto,
into religion. She took the name of the Nun Zen-shin (twelve
years of age). Moreover he received into religion two pupils
of the Nun
Zen-shin. Soga, still in accordance with the
. . .

Law Buddha, reverenced the three nuns, and gave them to

of
Hida no Atahe and Tatto, with orders to provide them with
food and clothing. He erected a Buddhist Temple on the east
of his dwelling, in which he enshrined the stone image of
Miroku. He insisted on the three nuns holding a general meet-
ing to partake of maigre fare. At this time Tatto found a
Buddhist relic in the food of abstinence, and presented it to
Soga no Mumako. Soga, by way of experiment took the relic, ,

* It is here that we meet the first use of the word Shinto in Japanese
literature.
 OLD YAMATO. 115

and placing it on the middle of a block of iron, beat it with

an iron sledge-hammer, which he flourished aloft. The block
and the sledge-hammer were shattered to atoms, but the relic
could not be crushed. Then the relic was cast into water,
when it floated on the water or sank as one desired. In con-
sequence of this Soga no Mumako, Hida no Atahe, and Shiba
Tatto held faith in Buddhism and practised it unremittingly.
Soga built another Buddhist Temple at his house in Ishikawa.
From this arose the beginning of Buddhism."
In the spring of the following year (585), Soga "took ill.

Having made inquiry of a diviner (i.e. a native or Shinto

augur), the diviner answered: '
It is a curse sent by the will
of Buddha worshipped (Soga no Iname, a.d.
in thy father's
570) time.' Soga accordingly sent a young man of his family
to report to theEmperor (Bidatsu, 572--58G) the nature of the
divination. The Emperor gave orders saying In accordance :
'

with the words of the diviner, let thy father's Gods be wor-
shipped.' Soga, in obedience to the Emperor's commands,
worshipped the stone image (of Miroku, the Buddhist Mes-
siah), and prayed that his life might be prolonged. At this
time there was a pestilence rife in the land, and many of the
people died." A week later, " Mononobe no Ohomuraji and
Nakatomi no Daibu (Minister) addressed the Emperor, saying
'
Why hast thou not consented to follow thy servants' counsel ?

Is not the prevalence of pestilence from the reign of the late

Emperor thy father doicn to thine, so that the nation is
in danger of extinction,owing absolutely to the establishment
of the Buddhist religion by Soga ? The Emperor gave com-
'

mand, saying Manifestly so

:
t
let Buddhism be discon-
;

tinued.'
"

A month after this we find Mononobe going " to the Tem-

ple, and sitting on a chair, cutting down the pagoda, which he
then set fire to and burnt. He likewise burnt the image of
Buddha, and the temple of Buddha. Having done so he took
the remains of the image of Buddha which were left from the
burning and flung them into the Naniha Canal. On this day
there was wind and rain without any clouds, and Mononobe
had on his rain-coat. He upbraided Soga and those who
followed him in the exercise of religion and made them feel
shame and contrition of heart. Moreover, he sent two emis-
saries to summon Zen-shin and the other Nuns provided for
by Soga. So Soga did not dare to disobey the command, but
116 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

with grief and lamentation called forth the Nuns and delivered
Hiem to the messengers. The officials accordingly took away
from the Nuns their garments, imprisoned them and flogged
them at the road-station of the market of Tsubaki." Presently,
"again the Land was tilled with those who were attacked
with sores and died thereof. The persons thus afflicted with
sores said: Our bodies are as if they were burnt, as if they
'

were beaten, as if they were broken,' and so lamenting they

died. Old and young said privately to one another: Is this '

a punishment for the burning of the image of Buddha ? " '

A little later Soga " addressed the Emperor, saying Thy :

t

servant's disease has not yet been healed ; nor is it possible for
succour to be afforded me unless by the power of the three
precious things {i.e. Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood)/
Hereupon the Emperor commanded Soga saying Thou mayst:
'

practise the Buddhist religion alone, but discontinue it so far

as others are concerned.' So the three Nuns were given back
to Soga, who received them with rejoicing, lamenting their un-
exampled misfortunes and bowing down his head in their
honour. He built them a Temple anew, into which he wel-
comed them, and provided them with sustenance. ,,
The following extract, dated two months later, may not
seem to have much to do with the nascent fortunes
at first blush
of Buddhism in Japan. But a very little reflection will serve
to dispel that erroneous impression :

"
The Emperor's (Bidatsu's) disease having become more and
more inveterate, he died in the Great Hall. At this time a palace
of temporary interment was erected at Hirose. Soga delivered
a funeral oration with his sword girded on. Mononobe burst
out laughing and said : He is like a sparrow pierced by a
'

hunting-shaft.' Next Mononobe, with trembling hands and

legs, delivered his funeral oration. Soga laughed and said :

'
He ought to have bells hung upon him.' From this small
beginning the two Ministers conceived a hatred of each other."
The two chief opponents of the new religion were Nakatomi
and Mononobe. The former was a Muraji, or noble of non-
Imperial descent. He traced his lineage back to a henchman
of Jimmu's who had followed him from Kyushu, even as the
first ancestor of the Nakatomi clan, Ama no Koyane, had ac-

companied the Heavenly-Grandchild when he descended on

Mount Takachilto in the Land of So. The Nakatomi chiefs
had from time immemorial been charged with the superinten-
 OLD YAMATO. 117

dence of certain matters connected with the native cult. If

that cult were to be dethroned by an alien religion, the Na^
katoiui would infallibly lose in prestige, in importance, and in
influence.
The Mononobe had strong reasons for acting in union with
the Nakatomi at this conjuncture. Their head was also a
Muraji. His first ancestor was that Idzunio chieftain, Nigi-
haya-hi, who is represented as tendering a dutiful submission
to Jimmu. These Mononobe constituted one of the two great
military clans of Yamato; and at this time it would appear
that the rival military clan of Ohotomo had sunk into com-
parative insignificance. The Mononobe were also concerned
with religious matters, being especially devoted to the cult
of the Idzumo God, Onamuji and charged with the care of the
divine treasures of the Temple of Iso-no-kami in Yamato. A
new State religion could not fail to touch them very nearly in
this respect also. And they seem to have been still further
embittered by what they doubtless regarded as an insidious
attempt on the part of the Soga to rob them of an immemorial
prerogative. From the earliest times we find them, in conjunc-
tion with the Ohotomo, furnishing the guardsmen for the Im-
perial Palace. Now this function had lately been, at least
partially, assigned to Hayato, —
that is, to warriors brought
from Satsuma and Osumi, the ancient seats of the Kumaso.
These latter make their first appearance in connection with
the fierce succession quarrels that ensued on the death of the
Emperor Bidatsu in 585 or 586. It will be remembered that
Bidatsu was one of the Emperor Kimmei's (540-571) three sons
by his chief consort. Two of Kimmei's other consorts were
sisters of Soga no Muniako, and one of these presented him
with thirteen and the other Avith five children. Bidatsu's
chief consort, who was the mother of eight of his own seven-
teen sons and daughters, was one of the senior Soga lady's
family of thirteen, and consequently Bidatsu's own half-sister
and Soga no Muniako's niece. On the death of Bidatsu a deter-
mined attempt to seize the person of his chief consort was
made by Prince Anahobe, a half-brother of Bidatsu, and also
of his chief consort, for Anahobe was a son of Kimmei by the
junior Lady Soga. This attempt was frustrated by the Hayato
under the command of a certain Sakae, Miwa no Kimi, a
Emperor Bidatsu. Thereupon
favourite officer of the dead
Anahobe made common cause with Mononobe, and the latter
118 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

sent an armed force to make away with the obnoxious official.

Soga no Mumako bestirred himself in Sakae's behalf —only

to find that he was too late, however. On hearing of the death
of Sakae, Soga "broke into bitter lamentations, saying:
i
Civil disorder in the empire is not far off.' Mononobe, hear-
ing this, answered and said :
' Thy position is that of a small
"
Minister; thou dost not know.'
Meanwhile, on the death of Bidatsu, all his own children
and his elder brothers had been passed over, and the eldest
of the senior Lady Soga's thirteen children had as-

cended the throne (Yomei, 586-587). This sovereign,

we are told, believed in the Law of Buddha and
reverenced the way of the Gods. In 587, after performing
the Shinto ceremony of tasting the new rice on the riverbank
of I ware " he took ill, and returned to the palace. All the
Ministers were in attendance. The Emperor addressed them,
saying: 'It is Our desire to give Our adherence to the three
precious things {i.e. Buddha, the Law, and the Priests). Do
ye Our Ministers advise upon this.' All the Ministers entered
the Court and consulted together., Mononobe no Moriya and
Nakatomi no Katsumi opposed the Imperial proposal and ad-
vised, saying Why should we reverence strange deities, and
:
'

turn our backs upon the gods of our country ? Of course we

know naught of any such thing.' Soga no Mumako said Let :
'

us render assistance in compliance with the Imperial com-

mand. Who " Then at
shall offer advice to the contrary ? '

this point Prince Anahobe, that stormy petrel, always keenly

alive to his own interests, introduced a Buddhist priest into the
palace. " Mononobe no Moriya glared at them in great

wrath." WT
hen told that all the Ministers were plotting
against him and intended to waylay him, he made a hurried
exit and retired numerous country-houses, where
to one of his
he assembled a strong force.Meanwhile " Nakatomi no Katsu-
mi assembled troops at his house and went with them to the
assistance of Mononobe. At length he prepared figures of the
Heir-Apparent and the Imperial Prince Takeda (sons of Bidatsu
Tenno, 572-580) and loathed them (i.e. practised witchcraft
upon them). But presently finding that success was impos-
sible he repaired to the palace of the Heir-Apparent at Mimata.
Here one of the attendants, Ichii by name, watched till Naka-
tomi no Katsumi was withdrawing from the presence of the
Heir-Apparent, and drawing his sword slew him." In the
 OLD YAMATO. 119

meantime Soga had also put himself under the protection of

an armed force of Ohotomo men, " which did not leave him
by night or by day."
" The Emperor's sores became worse and worse, and when

the end was approaching the son of Shiba Tatto came forward
and addressed him saving: Thy servant, on behalf of the
'

Emperor, will renounce the world and exercise religion.

Moreover, he will make an image of Buddha sixteen feet high,
and a temple The Emperor was deeply moved."
!
'

On the death ofYomei Tenno (587) there was yet another

fierce succession dispute. The Heir-Apparent, Prince Takeda,
and the restless Prince Anahobe were equally set aside, and a
son of Kimmei by the junior Lady Soga became Emperor of
Yam a to (Sujun Tenno, 588-592). Mononobe did not rest quiet
at this unexpected development, and made a strong effort to
establish Prince Anahobe on the throne. As the result of
three abortive ententes Anahobe lost his life, and Soga no
Mumako determined to have a final settlement of accounts
with his colleague in the Ministry (Mononobe) who had in-
flicted so many humiliations upon him. The forces of five
Imperial Princes and ten great clan chieftains were mobilised
and launched against the great surviving foe of Buddhism,
Mononobe, who, " in personal command of the young men of
his family and a slave-army, built a rice-fort and gave battle "
in Kawachi. " Mononobe climbed up into the fork of an elm

at Kisuri, from which he shot down arrows like rain. His

troops were full of might. The army of the Imperial Princes
and the troops of the Ministers were timid and afraid and fell
back three times. At this time the Imperial Prince Mumayado,
his hair being tied up on his temples, followed in the rear of
the army. He pondered in his own mind, saying to himself:
*
Are we not going to be beaten ? Without prayer we cannot
succeed.' So he cut down a nuride tree and swiftly fashioned
images of the four Heavenly Kings. Placing them on his top-
knot he uttered a vow: '
If we are now made .to gain the vic-
tory over the enemy, I promise faithfully to honour the four
Heavenly Kings, guardians of the world, by erecting to them a
temple with a pagoda.' Soga also uttered a vow Oh, all ye :
i

Heavenly Kings, and great Spirit King, aid and protect us,
and make us to gain the advantage. If this prayer is granted,
I will erect a pagoda in honour of the Heavenly Kings, and the
great Spirit King, and will propagate everywhere the three
120 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

precious things.' When

they had made this vow, they urged
arms sternly forward to the attack. Now
their troops of all
there was a man named Ichii (the assassin of Nakatomi no
Katsumi), who shot down Mononobe from his branch and
killed him. Mononobe's troops accordingly gave way
suddenly. Joining their forces they every one put on
black clothes,* and going hunting on the plain of Magari in
Hirose, so dispersed. In this war some of the children and
relatives of Mononobe made their escape, and concealing them-
selves on the plain of Ashihara changed their personal names
and altered their titles (i.e. their surnames), while others fled
away nobody knew where. The people of that time said of
them to one another: The wife of Soga is the younger sister
'

of Mononobe, and Soga, injudiciously acting on his wife's ad-

vice, slew Mononobe.' "
When the civil troubles had been quieted, a temple of the
Four Heavenly Kings was built in the province of Settsu.f
Half of Mononobe's slaves, together with his house, were con-
stituted the slaves and farm-house of the Great Temple, and
10,000 shiro of rice-land were given to Ichii (who had assas-
sinated Nakatomi no Katsumi, and killed Mononobe in battle).
Moreover Soga, in fulfilment of his vow, erected the Temple of
Hokoji (near Nara).
From the very first Buddhism had been
the fortunes of
bound up with those and as the Soga
of the house of Soga;
chieftain now bade fair to become all-powerful, the new re-
ligion obtained a firm foothold and began to make rapid pro-
gress at the Court and among certain sections of the Yamato
aristocracy. In 594 we are told that " at this time all the
Omi and Muraji vied with one another in erecting Buddhist
shrines for the benefit of their lords and parents. These were
called temples." Not only priests, but temple architects and
artists and artificers of various kinds had been brought from
Korea; and the simple Japanese, if unimpressed by the spiri-

tual and moral aspects of the new cult, could not fail to have
their interest excited by art and the new arts and crafts the
demands of its ritual were introducing into the Empire.
Soga's persecuted nuns had been sent to PakcHe for instruc-

Black was then the colour of underlings' clothes.

*

t This was the TennSji, near Osaka, destroyed in the great war of
1614, to the huge exultation of the Christian missionaries, then with
Hideyori's forces.
 OLD YAMATO. 121

tion in discipline; and after a short sojourn there they re-

turned to Japan, to be joined by a daughter of the Ohotomo
Chief and his two Korean wives. It would seem from this and
various other indications that the heads of the former great
military clan of Ohotomo had virtually become clients of the
Soga. At all events, from this time onwards, we no longer find
an Ohotomo acting as an Oho-nmraji henceforth down to 645,
;

indeed, there is only an Oho-omi, and that always a Soga. Soga

influence was especially strong among the Aya of Yamato,
people of Korean or Chinese descent and many of these became
;

rcligieux. However, the new religion was mainly under foreign

direction. " In 595 a priest of Ko-gur-yu, named Hye-cha, emi-
grated to Japan, and was taken as teacher by the Prince Im-
perial (Mumayado). In the same year a Pakche priest, named
Hye-chhong, arrived. These two priests preached the Buddhist
religion widely, and were together the mainstay of the Three
Precious Things."
The Three Precious Things, whose interests were so zealously
promoted by Soga no Mumako, do not appear to have done very
much for Soga's morals, however. In 592 " a wild boar was
presented to the Emperor (Sujun). Pointing to it, he said:
'
When shall those to whom Ave have an aversion be cut off as
this wild boar's throat has been cut ? ' An abundance of wea-
pons was provided beyond what was customary. Soga, having
been told of the pronouncement of the Emperor, and alarmed
at this detestation of himself, called his people together and
conspired with them to assassinate the Emperor." A little

later, " he lied to the Ministers, saying :

'
To-day I present

the taxes of the Eastern Provinces/ and sent Koma, Chief

of the Yamato Aya, who killed the Emperor."
Many Imperial Princes had lost their lives in the fierce
succession quarrels that had raged from time to time in old
Yamato, and yet more were destined to perish as the victims
of their ambition in the course of the next few generations.
But this was only the second occasion on which a reigning
Emperor of Japan had been assassinated by a subject.
The immediate effect of the outrage, however, was not to
shake but to consolidate Soga's power. For centuries, with
the exception of Princess Ihitoyo's brief rule in 484, there had
been no Empress ruling over Japan in her own right. At
lb? present time there were perhaps a score of Imperial
Princes, all more or less eligible for the Imperial dignity. Yet
122 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

this king-maker, Soga, passed them all over, and raised his own
niece, Bidatsu TenmVs Empress, to the throne. Suiko Tenno,
as she is called in history, was now thirty-nine years of age,
and the mother of seven children. Yet with the nomination of
Prince Mumayado as Heir-Apparent, a few months after
Suiko's accession, their subsequent claims to the throne were
set aside.*
This Prince Mumayado, better known as Shotoku Taishi
(5 72-021), we have met with playing a prominent part when
a youth of fifteen in that battle of Shigisen (587) which ended
in the death of the Mononobe chieftain and the annihilation
of his clan. it was Mumayado's fervent zeal on be-
Possibly
half of Buddhism that first recommended him to the favour-
able consideration of the great kingmaker. At all events, now
at the age of twenty-one, we find him nominally, at least,
" with general control of the Government, and entrusted with
all That this Constantine
the details of the administration."
of Japanese Buddhism, as he is usually christened by Euro-
pean scholars, was a man of undoubted ability, if not of com-
manding intellect, can scarcely be questioned. He certainly
was, what Constantine was not, not merely one of the greatest,
but the very greatest scholar of his time, —not merely an adept
in Buddhistic lore, but highly proficient in the classics and
philosophy (ethical and political) of the Middle Kingdom.
And in him we distinctly recognise the possessor of a highly
developed rational moral sense, —a thing which, pace that
great man Motoori, was by no means common in the Japan of
those days. Whether because of all this, or in spite of all this,
the fact remains that Khotokivs administration was a highly
popular one, as we can infer from not one but from many stray
indications. At his death in 621, " all the Princes and Omi,
as well as the people of the Empire — the old, as if they had
lost a dear child, had no taste for salt and vinegar (i.e. well
flavoured food) in their mouths the young, as if they had lost
;

a beloved parent, filled the ways with the sound of their

lamenting. The farmer ceased from his plough, and the pound-
ing woman laid down her pestle. They all said The sun and : '

* true that the Kojiki and the Nihongi differ in their genealo-
It is
gies here. The former says Suiko had eight children, but it names
only seven, —
all sons. The Nihongi mentions two sons and five
daughters, one of whom was married to Prince Mumayado, the Heir
Apparent.
 OLD YAMATO. 123

moon have lost their brightness; heaven and earth have

crumbled to ruin; henceforth, in whom shall we put our
trust? " —
Obituary eulogies especially those of emperors
'

and kings and Imperial princes and of other great personages

with whose descendants it is profitable to curry favour by the
and fulsome adulation are always to be
exercise of a cheap —
looked upon somewhat askance by the honest historian, who
does not choose to forget that even Alexander the son of
Jupiter Amnion had perforce to return to the dust of which he
was made. Accordingly this very fine obituary notice of his
Imperial Highness Shotoku Taishi, Eegent of Japan under
the Empress Suiko, was at first greeted with the cynical smile
that courtly panegyrics are wont to provoke. But in course of
time, a somewhat careful consideration of the incidents of
Prince Mumayado's life, and of the social, political, in-
tellectual, and moral circumstances of the Japan of his day,
brought more than a suspicion that this special obituary
notice of Shotoku Taishi was not the mere dithyrambic of con-
ventionality such notices usually are; that, on the contrary,
it may very well have been the sincere and heartfelt expression
of regret for a loss that almost amounted to a national
calamity.
With perhaps ninety-nine per cent, of Shotoku Taishi's
fellow-converts to the new religion Buddhism was simply an-
other device for adding to, or ensuring, their material pro-
sperity. It is true that we find him as a stripling of fifteen
attempting to bribe the Four Deva Kings at the critical point
in the great battle of Shigi-sen, an action that the Buddha
himself would infallibly have condemned. But as he grew to
manhood his Buddhism with him really became a religion of
the rational conscience, while what was best and highest in
Chinese ethics also appealed to his sympathies very strongly.
His so-called " Laws " —
sadly misnamed a Constitution by
—
some modern Japanese historians may very well strike us as
being nothing but a jumble of old and out-worn moral plati-
tudes, —
short homilies on prosy copy-book texts. But those
'; hints to officers in the execution of their duties/' — for that
is what the famous seventeen articles of 604, amount to,
just
must have come home to his subordinates with all the force of
novelty and originality. It was an attempt to rule by moral
suasion, —
by an appeal to the strength and charm of what has
been called sweet reasonableness. And to such an appeal no
124 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

people lend more willing and attentive ears than the Japanese;
with the most turbulent among them even, it has time and
again proved irresistible. Only, the slightest suspicion of lack
of sincerity, of good faith, of absolute disinterestedness on the
part of the preacher is sure to prove fatal. Prince Mumayado
early succeeded in winning the full and complete confidence of
his fellow-countrymen, and he retained it unimpaired till the
end. Even Soga no Muniako, that pietistic ruffian of a mur-
derer and a liar, had to acknowledge the moral and intellectual

ascendancy of the young Regent, in whom no doubt he expected

to find a mere docile and pliable tool. During the whole of
the Prince's administration (593-621) Soga continued to be
the Oho-omi, the sole Great Minister; and on the occasion of
the reception of Embassies and of other Court functions we
meet with him playing the role of the Great Man. But withal,
during all these eight and twenty years he appears to have been
kept out of all mischief very effectually. Doubtless the Prince
induced him to expend his energies on a study of the sutras
and the classics. At all events Soga in his later days developed
scholarly proclivities. "This year" (020), we read, "the
Prince Imperial, in connection with Soga, drew up a history
of the Emperors, a history of the country, and the original re-

cord of the Omi, the Muraji, the Tonio no Miyakko, the Kuni
no Miyakko, the 180 Be, and the free subjects."
The Prince evidently made an endeavour to strengthen the
Imperial power at the expense of the clan chieftains and heads
of groups. Article XII. of his " Laws " runs as follows :
— " Let
not the provincial authorities, or the Kuni no Miyakko, levy
exactions on the people. In a country there are not two lords
the people have not two masters. The sovereign is the master
of the people of the whole country. The officials to whom he
gives charge are all his vassals. How can they, as well as the
Government, presume to levy taxes on the people ? " Why
Soga did not get restive at this importation of Chinese political
theory into Yamato can perhaps be explained. The Empress
was a Soga, and the interests of the great Soga house were
getting more and more intertwined with those of the Imperial
family, and so the extension of the authority of the Crown did
not necessarily involve any diminution of Soga influence. The
Prince may have used this or similar arguments, or he may
not. At all events Soga remained quiet during the life of the
Regent. However, two years after the death of the latter, we
 OLD YAMATO. 125

find Soga endeavouring to possess himself of an Imperial estate

that could be held by none but the actual occupant of the
throne; and twenty years still later this Soga's son and grand-
son flouted Article XTI. of the so-called Constitution in most
glaring and audacious fashion.
That Soga and the Prince, while both working for the spread
ofEuddhism in the land, had very different ideas about what
was really important and vital in that cult is perfectly plain.
The former did not trouble himself over-much about the
quality of the converts; and hypocrites and profligates early
made their appearance in the monasteries. In 023, two years
after the Prince's death, a Buddhist priest smote his paternal
grand-father with an axe. This incident gave rise to a general
investigation of affairs among the religieu.r, and a fair number
of wicked priests and nuns were detected. A Sogo and a Sodzu
were appointed for the superintendence of ecclesiastics, a
Korean being assigned to the former, and a Japanese to the
latter office, while a Japanese noble was made Hoto, or Chief
of the Department of the Buddhist religion. Furthermore,
" There was an inspection of the temples, and of the priests
and nuns, and an accurate record made of the circumstances
of the building of the temples, and also of the circumstances
under which the priests and nuns embraced religion, with the
year, month, and day of their taking orders. There were at
this time 46 temples, 816 priests, and 569 nuns, —
in all 1,385
persons." Of these no fewer than a thousand had entered re-
ligion on the occasion of Soga's illness in 614 !

Some of theyoung ladies who had professedly abandoned

the frivolities and vanities of the world were occasionally
found to have failed to emancipate themselves entirely from
the frailties of the flesh and mundane passions of the vulgar
sort. In 628, for example, a certain young nobleman, a nephew

of Sago Yemishi, fleeing for his life, " concealed himself in the
tiled house of a nunnery. Here he had intrigues with one or
two of the nuns. Now, one of the nuns was jealous and in-
formed on him," and as a final result, the young man "com-
mitted suicide on the mountain (to which he had escaped) by
stabbing himself in the throat."
The death of Shotoku Taishi was really a most serious loss
to Japan, for he was doing rare service in moralising a people
that stood sadly in need of being moralised. It is all to no
purpose that Motoori paints old Yaniato as a sort of sinless
126 TTTSTORY OP JAPAN.

garden of Eden. " In ancient times," says lie, " although there
was no prosy system of doctrine in Japan, there were no
popular disturbances, and the Empire was peacefully ruled."
That very Kojiki and those very ancient writings " on which
ki

he relies as his authorities for his doctrines emphatically con-

demn this assertion as an audacious and unblushing falsehood.
" The country was spontaneously well governed, in accordance
with the 'way- established by the gods." Yuryaku Tenno
dealt with his brothers and the Imperial Princes in the most
approved Turkish fashion, while Buretsu's government can
scarcely be characterised as a good one by the most servile of
courtly historians, nor do incidents like the assassination of
the Emperor Sujun by Soga's emissary, to say noth-
ing of the numerous internecine succession disputes,
say much for the morality of old Japan. " It is be-
cause the Japanese were truly moral in their practice that
they required no theory of morals. In 502, in connection with
the Imna campaign of that year, the Nihongi tells us bluntly
that " at this time between father and child, husband and
wife, therewas no mutual commiseration," and the cowardly
and disgusting episode it then goes on to recount is strong
evidence in support of its allegation. Again, in 646, the new
Reformed Government found itself called upon to deal vigo-
rously with certain public abuses. Not a few of these sprang
from superstitions not remotely connected with the Way of the
Gods. " There have been cases of men employed on forced
labour in border lands who, when the work was over and they
were returning to their village, have fallen suddenly ill and
lain down to die by the roadside. Upon this the (inmates of
the) houses by the roadside say :
'
Why should people be
allowed to die on the road ? ' And they have accordingly de-
tained the companions of the deceased and compelled them to
do purgation. For this reason it often happens that even if an
elder brother lies down and dies on the road, his younger
brother will refuse to take up his brother (for burial).
" Again, there are cases of peasants being drowned in a
river. The bystanders say, '
Why should we be made to have
anything to do with the drowned men They accordingly de- ? '

tain the drowned men's companions and compel them to do

purgation. For this reason it often happens that even when
an elder brother is drowned in a river his younger brother
will not render assistance.
 OLD YAMATO. 127

" Again, there are eases of people who, when employed on

forced labour, cook their rice by the roadside. Upon this the
(inmates of the) houses by the roadside say: 'Why should
people cook rice at their own pleasure on our road ? ' and
have compelled them to do purgation.
" Again, there are cases
when people have applied to others
for the loan of pots in which to boil their rice, and the pots
have knocked against something and have been upset. Upon
this the owner of the pots compels purgation to be made.
"All such practices arc habitual among the unenlightened
vulgar. Let them now be discontinued without exception and
not permitted again."
Now, inasmuch as " the unenlightened vulgar " constituted
at least 95 per cent, of the three million or three million and
a half subjects ruled by his Imperial Majesty, Kdtoku Tennd,
these represensible and inhumane, if not actually inhuman,
practices must have prevailed very extensively. " Purgation "
may need some explanation. The idea was that those who were
compelled to do purgation had been defiled, and that contact
with them was contaminating to the lieges. Hence a ceremony
or ritual had to be performed to cleanse them, and this involved
expenses. Accordingly putting to purgation was merely an
extortionate device. " Shinto," we have been told, " provides no
moral code, and relies solely on the promptings of conscience
for ethical guidance. If man derives the first principles of his
duties from intuition a schedule of rules and regulations for
the direction of everyday conduct becomes not only superfluous
but illogical." In G4G, the ethical guidance supplied to the
unenlightened vulgar by the promptings of conscience, judged
by its practical results, argued little for the pretensions of the
Apostles of the Way of the Gods. Again, we are assured that
'•Shinto is essentially a religion of gratitude and love." But
listen to Motoori, its eighteenth-century Mahomet :
— " When-
ever anything goes wrong
world it is to be attributed to
in the
the action of the evil gods, whose power is so great that the
Sun-goddess and the Creator-God are sometimes unable to
restrain them much less are human beings able to resist their
:

influence. The prosperity of the wicked and the misfortunes

of the good, which seem opposed to ordinary justice, are their
doing. . The people prayed to the good gods in order
. .

to obtain blessings, and performed rites in honour of the bad

gods in order to avert their displeasure. If they committed
128 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

crimes, or defiled themselves, they employed the usual methods

of purification taught them by their own hearts. As there are
bad as well as good gods, it is necessary to propitiate them
with offerings of agreeable food, playing the harp, blowing the
flute, singing and dancing, and whatever else is likely to put

them in a good humour." The gratitude to the good gods is

evidently of the kind which has been defined as a very lively
sense of favours to come; while the naivete with which the
necessity of what is virtually demon or devil worship is justified

suggests that there may be a soupgon of truth in the primus in

orbe Dcos fecit timor account of the origin of religion, after
all.

In view of the prevalence of the inhuman practices de-

nounced by the legislators of 646, we begin to understand how
a whole page of the Nihongi is devoted to the account of an
act of Good Samaritanship on the part of Shotoku Taishi in
613.* The episode ought to have proved a most invaluable
object lesson in the circumstances of the time. And then what
of old Yamato when smitten with famine and pestilence, as
she was from time to time? In 624, the year after the death
of Shotoku Taishi, "there was a great famine in the Empire.
The old ate the roots of herbs, and died by the road-side. In-
fants at the breast died with their mothers. Thieves and robbers
sprang up numbers and could not be put down." In
in great *

567 there " were floods in the districts and provinces with
famine. In some cases men cite each other" The extracts
cited in connection with the introduction of Buddhism serve
to indicate that Japan was then almost in equally evil case
with the civilised parts of contemporary Europe, when at one
time five and at another ten thousand persons were dying each
day at Constantinople, when many of the cities of the East
were left vacant, and when in several districts of Italy the
harvest and the vintage rotted on the ground. It will be re-
membered tint at this time pestilence continued either to
stalk abroad or to lurk in the Eastern Empire for 52 years,
from 542 to 594. Our first notice of pestilence in Japan is
in 552, and we hear of it again in 585 and 586. It would be
interesting to discover whether the pest in Japan proceeded
from the same centre of infection as that which devastated the
Byzantine Empire about the same date.

* See Aston's Nihongi, vol. ii., pp. 144-145.

 OLD YAMATO. 129

During the twenty-eight years' administration of Shotoku

Taishi (50.3-621) Japan enjoyed the unwonted blessings of
good government. Shortly after the death of the Regent, old
Soga Mumako began to show signs of renewed turbulence, but
he was fortunately removed by death in 626 before he could
do much mischief. His power and his office of Great Minister
(Oho-omi) thereupon passed to his son Soga Yemishi. On the
death of the Empress Suiko, in 628, this Soga also aspired to
the role of king-maker,
—
" he wished to decide the matter of
the succession on his sole authority." The Empress on her
deathbed had spoken to two of the Imperial Princes, —one a
grandson of Bidatsu Tenno and the other a son of Shotoku
Taishi, —
about the succession in a perplexingly ambiguous
manner. The good understanding between old Soga Mumako
and Shotoku Taishi did not continue to exist between their
respective sons and successors, and Soga exerted himself
actively to set Yamashiro no Oye (Shotoku's son) aside. This
led to acute dissensions among the eight Ministers who then
appear as acting under the Great Minister, and between Soga
and the chief of a cadet house of the great Soga clan. The re-
sult was that the latter was " executed," otherwise murdered,
and that Bidatsu's grandson was made Emperor (Jomei,
629-641). On his death in 641, the Heir Apparent, then six-
teen years of age, was summarily set aside, and a great grand-
daughter of Bidatsu Tenno raised to the throne as Empress.
(Kogyoku Tenno, 642-645). Of course this was the work of
Soga, or rather of the Sogas, for at this date yet another Soga
chieftain comes prominently on the scene. " Yemishi, Soga
no Omi, was made Great Minister as before. His son, Iruka,
took into his own hands the reins of government, and his power
was greater than his father's. Therefore thieves and robbers
were in dread of him, and things dropped on the highway were
not picked up." Before this year of 642 was out, Soga had
given pretty clear indications that he aspired to something
even higher than the position of the most powerful, if not the
first, subject in the realm of Yamato.
" Yemishi Soga-no-Oho-omi erected his own ancestral
temple and performed an eight-row dance. Moreover, he levied
all Be and
the people of the land as well as the serfs of the 180
constructed two tombs in preparation for his death. One was
called the Great Misasagi and was intended as the tomb of the
Great Minister; one was called the Small Misasagi and was

J
130 TTTSTORY OF JAPAN.

meant for the tomb of his son, Trnka. It was his desire that

after his death other people might not be troubled. Moreover

lie assembled all the serfs of the Princess, the daughter of

Shdtoku Tnislii, and made them do forced labour in the pre-

cincts of the tombs. Hereupon the Princess was wroth and
said Soga wantonly usurps the government of the land and
:
'

does many outrageous things. In Heaven there are not two

suns; in a State there cannot be two sovereigns. Why should
he, at his own pleasure, employ in forced labour all the people
of the fief ? '
From this time her hate began to gather, and
she at length fared in the common downfall (of the family of
Shotoku Taishi)."
The ancestral temple and the eight-row dance amounted to
an assumption of Imperial rank, while we have already seen a
rebellious subject when aping royalty erecting a double-
mounded mausoleum for himself (Iwai in Kyushu, 527). The
wish " not to have other people put to trouble after his death "

was merely an excuse — Soga was putting many people to

trouble during his lifetime. Shotoku's daughter here falls
back upon the Chinese political doctrine set forth in Article
XII. of her father's so-called Constitution, over which the
Soga were now riding rough-shod.
In the following year u Soga Yemishi, on his own private
authority, bestowed a purple cap on his son Iruka, thus ad-
vancing him to the rank of Great Minister, while Iruka's
younger brother Mononobe was at the same time promoted by
him to the same dignity." This was a clear usurpation of an
Imperial prerogative.
Shotoku's son, Yamashiro no Oye, whose claims to the
succession had been set aside in 629 was now in the prime of
life, with sons who showed signs of real ability. This family
was the chief obstacle to the Soga ambition. Ostensibly acting
in the interests of theSoga Imperial Prince, Furubito no Oye,
but really in his own, Soga Iruka now sent emissaries to
arrest, —
in plain language to murder, —
Yamashiro no Oye. The
latter proved himself to be a true son of Shotoku Taisha's.
In G29 his claims weie supported by a numerous body of ad-
herents, who would have gladly fought to the death to make
them good. Now, when urged to gather forces in the eastern
provinces, he made answer " If we did as thou sayest, we
:

should certainly succeed. In my heart, however, I desire for

ten years not to impose a burden on the people. For the sake
 OLD YAMATO. 131

of one person only, why should I distress the ten thousand

subjects ? Moreover I do not wish it to be said by after
generations that for my sake anyone has mourned the loss of
a father or mother. Is it only when one has conquered in
battle that he is to be called a hero f Is he not also a hero
who has made firm his country at the expense of his own life ?"
After various attempts at escape he returned to the temple
of Ikaruga, where he was immediately surrounded by Soga
Iruka's bloodhounds. To their officers he sent the message
" If I had raised an army, and attacked Iruka, I should cer-
tainly have conquered. But for the sake of one person T was
unwilling to destroy the people. Therefore I deliver myself up
to Truka.". . . . "Finally he and the younger members of his
family, with his consorts, strangled themselves at the same
time and died together ". . . .Soga Yemishi, hearing that Prince
Yamashiro no Oye and all his people had been destroyed by
Iruka, chid him angrily, saying: — ' Ah ! Iruka! Thou art
foolish exceedingly, and dost arbitrarily practise outrage. Is
"
not thine own life precarious ? '

Ominous words, indeed; and much truer than the speaker

of them could believe. For at this time, the Grand Conspirator
who was soon to lay the whole Soga edifice of grandeur in
ruins had thought out his problems, and was on the outlook
for suitable confederates.
Meanwhile the Soga seemed marching steadily onward
to be
to the destined goal, —
the throne of Yamato. In the summer
of 044 " the witches and wizards of the whole country, break-
ing off leafy branches and hanging them with tree fibre,
watched the time when the Great Minister was crossing a
bridge and vied with one another in addressing to him subtle
interpretations of divine words. They were in great numbers,
so that they could not be distinctly heard. Old people said
that this was a sign of changes."
In the winter of the same year, " Iruka built two houses on
the Amagasaki Hill. The Grand Minister's house was called
the Palace-Gate; Iruka's house was styled the Valley -Palace-
Gate. Their sons and daughters were styled Princes and Prin-
cesses. Outside the houses palisades were constructed, and
an armoury was erected by the gate. At each gate was set a
tank for water, and several tens of wooden hooks (to pull down
intervening buildings) as a provision in case of fire. Stoat
132 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

fell ok s were constantly employed to guard the houses with

arms in their hands."
The Grand Minister (Soga Yemishi) built a house on the
"

east side of Mount Unebi, and dug a moat so as to make of it

a castle. He erected an armoury, and provided a store of
arrows. In his goings-out and comings-in he was always sur-
rounded by an attendant company of fifty soldiers. These
sturdy fellows were called the Eastern Company (probably
Ainus). The people of the various noble houses came to his
gate and waited upon him. He called himself their father
and them his boys. The Aya no Atahe (Chief of the Korean
and Chinese settlers in Japan) attended wholly upon the two
houses."
In their attempt to establish a new dynasty in Yamato
for in plain language that is what the father and son were
endeavouring to do —the Sogas were exerting themselves to
conciliate the semi-foreign interests in the Empire. They had
the Chinese and Korean immigrants at their beck and call and;

Soga the elder had been very gracious to those Ainu or Yemishi
whose name he bore. It must not be forgotten that these
Yemishi then and for long afterwards disputed with the Ku-
maso or Hayato of Satsuma the claim to be the Pathans and
Afridis of Japan, —the fiercest if not the finest fighting men in
the archipelago. The Yamato sovereigns seem to have been
ready to utilise their services whenever they could be enlisted.
In 479, on the death of Yiipyaku Tenno, we hear of the revolt
of abody of 500 Yemishi (Ainu) in the modern province of
Suwo, on their way for service in Korea. They held their
ground well, and made good their retreat into the province of
Tamba, where, however, they were annihilated. Eighty years
before this the Yemishi had inflicted a crushing defeat upon
the l'amato troops in the peninsula between Tokyo Bay and
the Pacific. In 540 we have a notice of the Yemishi and of
the Hayato (i.e. the Kumaso) bringing their people with them
and coming to Court and rendering allegiance. Then in 581
we are told of the haughty way in which Bidatsu Tenno ad-
dressed the repentant Ayakasu, Chief of the Yemishi on the
frontier, who had shown hostility there. What may have done
much to aid Soga to form the conclusion that Yemishi support
was not to be despised was the incident of 637, when the
Japanese commander who was sent to smite the Yemishi of
 OLD YAMATO. 133

the East was utterly defeated by the Ainu and cooped up in

a fortress by them, and whose poltroonery was only re-
deemed by the heroism of his wife*. At all events, when the
chiefs of several thousand Echigo Ainu, who had submitted
in 642, came to Court we are told that " Soga no Oho-omi enter-
tained the Yemishi in his house, and personally made kind
inquiries after their welfare." Possibly it was then that he
contrived to hire his Ainu body-guard.
Although cowed into cringing and servile subservience the
people of the noble houses avIio fawned upon the Soga must have
felt that in them they had to deal with two of those " bad

gods " that had to be propitiated of necessity, and the love

they bore them must have been the love of the devotee trying
to cajole his devils or demons with forced exhibitions of
simulated joy. The older Soga was somewhat cautious, and
could unbend and be complaisant and condescending enough
upon occasion. But the younger man was clearly of a mind
to carry things with a high hand —
indeed with the mailed fist
and the nobles felt that it w as with this swaggerer they would
r

have to deal exclusively when the father was no more. Even

among the heads of certain of the cadet houses of the great
Soga clan he was far from popular, and by certain of the Im-
perial Princes and Court nobles, Avho could keep their own
counsel, he was hated with a bitter hatred. It was rapidly
coining to be a question of who would " bell the cat."

It will beremembered that the great opponents of Soga

Inanie's unsuccessful and Soga Mumako's successful attempt
to establish Buddhism in Japan had been the heads
of the Nakatomi and of the Mononobe clans. The
latter perished, and the Mononobe house was crushed
in the decisive battle of Shigi-Sen (587), while the
Nakatomi chieftain lost his life in the course of the troubles
which immediately preceded that decisive contest. The here-
ditary chiefs of the Nakatomi house, as has been said, were
also the hereditary heads of the native Shinto cult; but with
the sovereign a devout Buddhist, and the most influential nobles
adherents of the new religion, the office of head of Shintoisin
had lost all its prestige, and its duties had practically fallen
into abeyance. In, or before 644 Nakatomi no Kamatari was,
or had been, pressed to accept the post hereditary in his

* Aston's Nihongi, vol. ii., p. 168.

134 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

family, " but he declined the appointment several times, and

would not take it up. On the plea of ill-health he went away
and lived at Mishima."
This Kamatari was still a young man, 25 according to —
one account, 31 according to another. Inferior to Shotoku
Taishi in moral elevation and disinterestedness he was fully
his equal, if not his superior, in sheer force of intellect. At
all events his was perhaps the finest and the ablest brain in the
Yamato of his day.
When pieced together the disconnected paragraphs in which
the story of his successful plot and the great coup d'etat is

told in the Nihongi really form a fine piece of thrilling

narrative.
"At this time Prince Karu (afterwards Kotoku Tenno)
had an ailment of the leg which prevented him from coming
to Court. Now Kamatari had before this a friendship for the
Prince, and therefore went to his palace to spend the night
in attendance on him. The Prince, hnowing well that Kamatari
w as a man of exalted sentiments, and of a bearing which made
r

rudeness to him impossible, sent his favourite consort, a lady

of the Abe House, to sweep out a separate room and to spread
him a new sleeping-mat. There was nothing which was not
provided for him, and the respect shown him was extraordinary.
Kamatari was very sensible (of all this) and addressed the
chamberlain saying :
'
I have been treated with a special kind-
ness which exceeds all that I expected. Who would not make
him Ruler over the Empire ?
The chamberlain accordingly
'

reported to the Prince what he had said, and the Prince was
greatly pleased. Kamatari was a man of an upright and local
character, and of a reforming disposition. He was indignant
with the younger Soga for breaking down the order of Prince
and Vassal, of Senior and Junior, and cherishing veiled designs
upon the State. One after another he associated with the
Princes of the Imperial line, trying them in order to discover
a wise ruler who might establish a great reputation. He had
accordingly fixed his mind upon Naka no Oye, but for want
of intimate relations with him he had been so far unable to
unfold liis inner sentiments. Happening to be one of a foot-
bull party in which Xaka no Oye played, he observed the
Prince's leathern shoe fall off with the ball. Placing it on the
palm of his hand, he knelt before the Prince, and humbly
oll'ered it to him. Naka no Ove in his turn knelt down and
 OLD YAMATO. 135

respectfully received it. From this time the}' became mutual

friends, and told each other all There was
their thoughts.
no longer any concealment between them. They feared, how-
ever, that jealous suspicions might be caused by their frequent
meetings, and they both took in their hands yellow rolls (i.e.
Chinese books), and studied personally the doctrines of Chow
and Confucius with the learned teacher of Minabuchi. Thus,
they at length, while on their way there and back, walking
shoulder to shoulder, secretly prepared their plans. On all

points they were agreed.

" Kamatari counselled Naka no Oye, saying :
*
For him
who cherishes great projects, nothing is so essential as support.
I pray thee, therefore, take to thee the eldest daughter of
Soga no Kurayamada, and make her thy consort. AVhen a
friendly marriage relationship has been established, we can
then unfold our desire to associate him with us in our plans.
There is no shorter way to success than this.' Now, when
Naka no Oye heard this, he was much pleased and acted in ac-
cordance with his advice in every particular. Kamatari ac-
cordingly went himself, and as go-between conducted the
marriage negotiations to a successful issue. On the night,
however, fixed for the wedding, the eldest daughter was stolen
away by a relation. In consequence of this her father was
grieved and alarmed. He
looked up, and he looked down, and
he knew not what His younger daughter, wondering at
to do.
his grief and alarm, went up to him and inquired of him,
saying Why art thou sorrowful and in fear ? Her father
:
'
'

told her the cause. The younger daughter said I beseech :

*

thee do not grieve, but offer me. It is still not too late.' Her
father was greatly rejoiced and at length offered this daughter.
She served the Prince with sincerity of heart and without any
shyness whatever.
"Kamatari commended Komaro and Amida to the
Prince, saying," etc., etc.

Some months after this the Empress held a Court in the

Great Hall of Audience. Among others in attendance was
Prince Furubito no Oye, in whose interests the younger Soga
had annihilated the family of Shotoku Taishi. This Prince
Furubito, a son of Jomei Tenno and a Soga consort, was a
cousin of Soga Yemishi, it should be remarked.
" Kamatari, knowing that Soga Iruka was of a very sus-

picious nature and wore a sword day and night, showed the
13 G HISTORY OP JAPAN.

performers an expedient to make him lay it aside. Soga Iruka

laughed, and having ungirded his sword, entered, and took
his place in attendance by the throne. Kurayamada (the
Soga conspirator, and Prince Naka no Oye's father-in-law)
advanced and read aloud the memorials of the three King-
doms of Korea. Hereupon Prince Naka no Oye ordered the
Guards of the Gates to fasten all the twelve gates at the same
time, and to allow nobody to pass. Then he called together
the Guards of the Gates to one place and offered them rewards.
Prince Naka no Oye then took in his own hands a long spear
and hid it at one side of the hall. Kamatari and his people,
armed with bows and arrows, lent their aid. A man was sent
to give two swords in a case to Komaro and Amida, with
the message. k
Up Up make haste to slay him
! ! Komaro !
'

and the other tried to send down their rice with water, but
were so frightened that they brought it up again. Kamatari
chid and encouraged them. Kurayamada feared lest the read-
ing of the memorials should come to an end before Komaro and
his companion arrived. His body was moist with streaming
sweat, his voice trembled, and his hands shook. Soga Iruka
wondered at this, and inquired of him, saying: Why dost '

thou tremble?' Kurayamada answered and said: It is '

being near the Empress that makes me afraid, so that uncon-

sciously the perspiration pours from me. Prince Naka no Oye,
seeing that Komaro and his companion, intimidated by Soga
Iruka's prestige, were trying to shirk and did not come for-
ward, cried out *
Ya and forthwith coming out with
!
'

Komaro and his companion, fell upon Iruka without

warning, and with a sword cut open his head and
shoulder. Iruka started up in alarm, when Komaro
with a turn of his hand nourished his sword and
wounded him on the leg. Iruka rolled over to where the Em-
press sat and bowing his head to the ground said She who :
t

occupies the hereditary Dignity is the Child of Heaven. I,

Her Servant, am conscious of no crime, and I beseech Her

to make an examination into this.' The Empress was greatly
shocked, and addressed Prince Naka no Oye saying: <I know
not what has been done. What is the meaning of this ? The '

Prince prostrated himself on the ground, and made representa-

tion to her Majesty, saying: 'Soga Iruka wished to destroy
the Celestial House utterly, and to subvert the Solar Celestial
descendants/ The Empress at once got up, and went into the
 OLD YAMATO. 137

interior of the palace. Koniaro and Amida then slew Soga

Iruka. On this day rain fell, and puddle-water overflowed the
Court. They covered Iruka's body with mats and screens.
When Prince Furubito no Oye saw this he ran into his private
palace, and said to his people: The Koreans have slain Soga
'

Iruka. My heart Then he went into his sleeping-

is sore.'

chamber, shut the door, and would not come out.

" Prince Naka no Oye presently entered the Temple of

Hokoji, which he fortified and prepared to defend*. The Im-

perial Princes, Ministers, Daibu, Omi, Muraji, Tomo no Mi-
yakko, and Kuni no Miyakko one and all followed him. Men
were sent to deliver the body of Iruka to his father, Soga
Yemishi. Hereupon the Aya no Atahe (i.e. chiefs of the
Chinese and Korean immigrants) assembled all their clan.
Clad in armour, and with weapons in their hands, they came
to the assistance of the Great Minister (Soga Yemishi) and
formed an army. Prince Naka no Oye sent Kose no Tokudai
no Omi to explain to the rebel band that ever since the creation
of Heaven and Earth there were lords and vassals, and to make
himself acquainted with the cause of this uprising. Hereupon
Kunioshi, Takamuku no Omi, addressed the Aya no Atahe,
saying: 'We are bound to receive (capital) punishment on
account of Soga Iruka. Moreover it is not doubtful that to-day
or to-morrow swift execution awaits the Great Minister. This
being so, for whom should we fight to no purpose, rendering
ourselves all liable to be put to death? ' W hen
T
he had finished
speaking, he ungirded his sword, flung away
and went his bow,
away, deserting the cause. The rebel troops, moreover, follow-
ing his example, dispersed and ran away."
On the following day, " Soga Yemishi and his people, when
about to be executed, burnt the " History of the Emperors,"
the " History of the Country," and the objects of value. The
Chief of the Shipping Office (an erstwhile Soga protege)
straightway hastened to seize the burning " History of the
Country," and delivered it to Prince Naka no Oye (afterwards
the Emperor Tenchi). On this day permission was given for

* Here we meet with one of those little ironies of life not infre-
quent in Japanese history. This temple (near Nara, but now no
longer in existence) had been built in fulfilment of the vow of Soga
Mumako at the battle of Shigi-Sen (587), when he annihilated his
opponents, the Mononobe. Now, less than sixty years afterwards, it
serves as a stronghold for the assassins of his grand-son and the
executioners of his son !
138 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the interment of the bodies of Soga Yemishi and Soga Iruka in

tombs. Lament for them was also allowed."
Desperate diseases call for desperate remedies, and seventh
century Japanese patriots and Imperialists may very well have
fancied that they had abundant justification for making a
summary end of the Soga domination by any means, no matter
how questionable. But the fact remains that the recital of
the vile and dirty work of this coup d'etat leaves a very nasty
taste in the mouth. For Kamaro and Amida, cowards no less
than assassins, there can be nothing but contempt and detesta-
tion, while Kose Tokudai no Omi was perhaps even worse than
they. He had been Soga Iruka's willing hangman in the ex-
tirpation of the noble Yamashiro no Oye and his family; and
now, like the despicable cur he was, he is found turning upon
his master and snapping at the hand that had fed him and upon
which he had cringingly fawned. Kunioshi stands in a some-
what different category in 643 he had excused himself when
;

called upon by Soga Iruka and Prince Furubito to do their

filthy work.*
It is to be observed that the death of the two all-

powerful Sogas in 645 did not carry with it the consequances

that attended the fall of the Mononobe about 60 years before.
In and after the battle of Shigi-Sen (587) the Mononobe house
was virtually extirpated. On the other hand the Soga con-
tinued to be the most influential clan in the land for at least a
full generation after the events of 645. Soga Kurayainada,
Prince Naka no Oye's father-in-law, was at once advanced to
the position of Great Minister in the reformed administration
and when he fell a victim to the intrigues of a younger half-
brother of his own in 649, and had to strangle himself, the
prestige of the great house of which he had been the head for
fiveyears was but little impaired.
During the night following the execution of the elder Soga
and his adherents, and the conflagration of the great house on
the hill, the conspirators must have been very busy. At all
events, on the following day we meet with the first instance of

* In old Yaniato, assassins were wont to take few personal risks,

and commonly tried to disarm their intended victim. See Kojiki,
sec. LXXXI; Nihongi. Aston's Translation, vol. I., p. 162, vol. ii.,
p. 308. The Tokugawa and Meiji assassins, on the other hand, have
—
nearly always been prepared to give life for life in the accomplish-
ment of their purpose their own personal safety has mostly been the
last thing thought of by them.
 OLD YAMATO. 139

the abdication of a sovereign in the annals of Japan. The

Empress sent for her son, Prince Naka no Oye, and signified
her intention of transferring the Imperial dignity to him. Act-
ing on the advice of the shrewd Kamatari, Prince Naka re-

commended mother to make her younger brother, Prince

his
Kara, then about fifty jears of age, her successor. This Prince
Kara in turn advocated the claims of the Soga Prince, Furu-
bito no Oye, in whose interests Soga Iruka had been professedly
acting. Prince Furubito knew better than to accept, however.
He ungirt his sword, and flung it on the ground, and ordering
all his household to do likewise, he went off to the temple of

Hokoji; and there, between the Hall of Buddha and the

pagoda, he shaved off his beard and hair, and put on the kcsa.
However, it was pretty well appreciated that he had retired
merely to mark the course of events from a safe and convenient
retreat. Three months later he was at the head of a strong
party of malcontents, — Sogas and Yamato no Ayas; and —
early in 046 he was slain by the emissaries of Prince Naka no
Oye, together with his children, while his consorts had to
strangle themselves perforce.
The new sovereign, known as Kotoku Tenno (645-654), who
" honoured the religion of Buddha and despised the Way of
the Gods," was a simple-minded, kindly-hearted, easy-going old
man, —a and pliant instrument in the hands of the
docile
vigorous Naka no Oye, now nominated Heir Apparent. For
form's sake, two Great Ministers were appointed, Abe and —
Soga Kurayamada, both fathers-in-law of the Emperor, and
the latter father-in-law of Naka no Oye as well. But the real
power lay not with them. " A great brocade cap of honour was
given to Kamatari, and he was made Naijin (not Naidaijin, be
it remarked), with an increased feudal revenue of a large num-

ber of houses, etc., etc. Trusting to his power as ruling Mini-

ster, he took place over the various functionaries. In respect,
advancements and dismissals, taking measures or
therefore, to
abandoning them, everything was done in accordance with his
counsel, " etc., etc. And yet for the next nine years Kaniatari's
name does not make a single appearance in the annals of Japan
(until 654 when we are curtly informed that " he was granted
) ,

a purple cap, and his fief increased by a number of houses."

Under Tenchi Tenno (661-671), his old fellow-conspirator
Naka no Oye, his name appears once or twice, but it is only on
the occasion of his death in 669 that he is mentioned with
140 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

emphasis. " The Emperor sent his younger brother, the Prince
Imperial, to the house of Naidaijin Fujiwara to confer on him
the cap of the 'Great Woven and the rank of Oho-omi
Stuff,'

(Great Minister). He also granted him a surname, and made

him the house of Fujiwara. From this time forward he was
generally known as Fujiwara no Daijin."
And we hear not merely of the greatest man of his
this is all
time, but of one of the greatest men that Japan has ever pro-
duced Kamatari,
! the founder of the Fujiwara family, was the
first and perhaps the most illustrious of those Kuromaku who

have been the real rulers of the Japanese Empire from time to
time. Maku signifies a curtain, and Kuro means black; and
the man behind the " Black Curtain " on the Japanese stage is
known to Europeans as the " stage-prompter." Only it is to
be remarked that the Kuromaku of Japanese politics has not
unfrequently been very much more than a mere prompter.
Kamatari, for example, was responsible for most of the text
and for the mise
of the play, for the distribution of the parts,
en scene.
To the general public of the time it was Prince Naka no
Oye who appeared as the protagonist among the Reformers.
On the morning after the execution of Soga Yeimishi we have
found him declining to ascend the throne vacated by his mother.
Possibly his youth may have been one consideration which
moved him to this act of self-abnegation, for according to one
account he was no more than eighteen at the time. Although
only Heir Apparent, and acting in everything through his
uncle, the Emperor, he evidently wielded well-nigh absolute
authority. In C53 a little episode serves to cast a flood of light
upon the real situation " This year the Heir Apparent peti-
:

tioned the Emperor, saying I wish the Imperial residence

: '

were removed to the Yamato The Emperor refused

capital.'
to grant his request. Upon this the Heir Apparent took with
him the Empress Dowager, the Empress, and the younger Im-
perial Princes, and went to live in the temporary palace of
Asuka, in Yamato. At this time the Ministers and Daibu with
the various functionaries all followed and changed their resi-
dence. The Emperor resented this and wished to cast away
the national dignity." He had a palace built at Yamazaki and
little ode of remonstrance to his Empress.
sent a pitiful
On Emperor's death in the following year (654) the
this
Heir Apparent again refused to ascend the throne, and rein-
 OLD YAMATO. 141

stalled his mother, the abdicated Empress Kogyoku, there

(Empress Saimei, 654-661). In 658, Prince Arima, son of
Kotoku Tenno, made an abortive attempt to possess himself of
the Imperial dignity, and as usual in such cases, was " exe-
cuted." Then in 661, when the Empress Saimei died, we meet
with a puzzling state of things. For seven years there ap-
pears to have been an interregnum. At all events it was only
in 668 that Prince Naka no Oye at last ascended the throne
(Tenchi Tenno, 668-671), which he occupied for only three
years. He and the great Kuromalcu Kamatari were thus re-
moved by death within two years of each other. Their work
was not complete; it had to be supplemented and amended in
various respects during the next half -century or so. But the
foundations had been solidly laid, and all that was of cardinal
importance in the new State-structure had been erected. The
following chapter will be devoted to a consideration of what
the Reformers attempted.
 142

CHAPTER V.

THE GREAT REFORM OF 645.

FT has already been remarked that the intercourse between

-**
the Yamato rulers and the Chinese Court, which had been
resumed about 400 a.i>., again came to a cessation with the
year 502. During all this time and for the next eighty years
the Middle Kingdom was a distressful and a distracted country.
" Numerous States sprang up into existence, some founded by

the Heung-nu and others by the Seen-pe tribe, a Tungusic clan

inhabiting a territory to the north of China, and who after-
wards established the Leaou dynasty in China. The hand of
every man was against his neighbour. Nothing was lasting,
and in 419 the Eastern Tsin dynasty, which had dragged on a
chequered existence for nearly a century, came to an end,
and with it disappeared for close on two hundred years all

semblance of united authority. The country became divided

into two North and the South. In the North four
parts, the
families reigned successively, two of which were of Seen-pe
origin viss., the Wei and the How Chow; the other two, the

Pih Tse and the How Leang, being Chinese. In the South
five different houses supplied rulers, who were all of Chinese
descent. This period of disorder was only brought to a close
by the establishment of the Sui dynasty in 590."
During this sixth century the three kingdoms of Korea were
engaged in their triangular duel, and two of them at least were
eager to obtain Chinese support. Ko-gur-yu kept sending
embassies to one or other of the Northern Chinese Courts,
while Pakche was just as assiduous in her endeavours to gain
the goodwill of one or other of the rivals of the house courted
by Ko-gur-yu. Now, both Ko-gur-yu and Pakche, the latter
especially, had a salutary respect for Japan, as indeed Silla
had also.* In the sixth century the goodwill of Yamato was
of the most vital consequence to Pakche in her struggle with

* An impartial Chinese author of 600 a.d. tells us that Silla and

Pakche both consider Wa (i.e. Japan) a great country with many
precious things, and look up to it accordingly. Embassies are con-
stantly passing from one to the other.
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 148

her two more powerful peninsular rivals, and she left no stone
unturned in her. effort to conciliate it. Statues of Buddha and
sutras were far from being her only presents to Japan. Year
in, year out, Pakche appears to have kept a distinguished
savant as professor of Chinese philosophy and Chinese litera-

ture at the and we frequently hear of one

Yamato capital,
learned doctor being exchanged for another. In 602 an im-
portant event in Japan's intercourse with the continent took
place. " A Pakche priest named Kwal-leuk arrived, and pre-

sented, by way of tribute, books of Calendar-making, of As-

tronomy, and of Geography and Geomancy, and also books of
the art of invisibility and of magic. At this time three or four
pupils were selected, and made to study under Kwal-leuk. One
studied the art of calendar-making, another studied astronomy
and the art of invisibility. Yet another studied magic. They
all studied so far as to perfect themselves in these arts." As
adumbrating the state in 002 a.d. of the most advanced culture
in what has been destined to become the England of the Far

East, this notice is of some slight consequence. However, in

602, and for many long years afterwards, Great Britain was
a good deal more backward, it must be admitted.

This event took place under the enlightened administration

of Shotoku Taishi. Just as the Japanese of the later Toku-
gawa age were swift to perceive that the Dutch Merchants of
Light in Deshima were purveyors of the discoveries of Britons,
Americans, Frenchmen, and Germans, Shotoku Taishi promptly
discerned that the Pakche savants were merely transmitters
of the culture of the Middle Kingdom. Accordingly he resolved
to repair to the fountain-head and five years later the famous
;

mission of 607 was dispatched to the Court of Loh-yang, where

the warlike debauchee Yang-ti (605-617), the third monarch
of the Sui dynasty, held state. The Chinese account of
this mission, and Motoori's comments upon the Chinese
account, are equally amusing. When Yang-ti " ordered

his officers to inquire into the Japanese customs, the envoy

said : The Wa Prince considers Heaven his elder and the
'

Sun younger brother. At dawn he goes out to hear mat-

his
ters of government sitting in state cross-legged. On the Sun
appearing he ceases the conduct of business, and leaves it to
me his younger brother.' Yang-ti said This is most out- :
'

rageous talk/ and admonitions were at once given for it to be

144 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

altered." The Japanese envoy, Imoko, Mono no Omi, was not

a very brilliant diplomatist. The Pakche men searched him,
and relievedhim of his dispatches on his way home through
their conn try, and he was going to be banished for this miscar-
riage when "the Empress Sniko made an order, saying: Al- — '

though he is guilty of losing the letter, We cannot easily punish

him, for in that case the guest of the Great Country would
hear of it, and this is undesirable.' So he was pardoned and
left unpunished," — to save face !

Another Chinese history, in its account of this mission,

gives a letter from the Empress Sniko in which is the famous
sentence: " The Ten-shi (Son of Heaven) of the place where
the Sun rises sends a letter to the Ten-shi of the place where the
Sun sets." " Tf the Empress Suiko," says Motoori, " really
sent such a letter, she treated the Chinese sovereign with far
too much civility, and if she had addressed him with some such
language as, '
The Heavenly Emperor notifies the King of Go
(Wu),' he ought to have been filled with gratitude, instead of
which he is represented by the Chinese historiographer as
having been offended at being treated as an equal. But the
truth is that Sniko Tenno wanted to get something from him
and therefore condescended to flatter his vanity." The Japan-
ese envoy was accompanied on his return by a Chinese em-
bassy and the Empress Suiko showered civilities upon its
members, but Motoori does not care to dwell on that.* Shortly
after the re-opening of Japan to intercourse with the outside
world about half-a-century ago, batch after batch of young
Japanese were sent to study in foreign lands, and the stream
of such students still continues to flow on. Not a few of
these men have subsequently writ their names large in the
annals of Meiji, and some of them have affected the destinies of

* About the subsequent intercourse with China, which lasted with-

out a break for two centuries, Motcori's remarks should not be over-
looked. " It was unworthy of Japan co enter into relations with a
base barbarian State, whatever might be the benefits which she ex-
pected to obtain. It resulted in too many cases in the shipwreck of the
vessels and the profitless deaths of the envoys by drowning. Had the
Chinese ruler paid due reverence to the Mikado as a being infinitely
superior to himself, the objection would have been less." After the
close of the tenth century the Mikado ceased sending envoys to China
for some time, and Motoori observes that " so long as Japan wanted
anything from China, she overlooked the insolent pretensions of the
Chirese sovereigns, but be^ng now no longer in a position to gain by
the interchange of courtesies, she rejected all further overtures of
friendship."
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 145

the Empire profoundly. Tt may well be doubted, however, whe-

ther any of these have had as large a share in re-shaping the

national polity as some of that first band of four lay and four
China
priestly students dispatched to prosecute their studies in
in 608. Most, if them were either Chinese or Korean
not all, of
immigrants or the descendants of such, settled in Yamato and
Kawachi. Some of these came back in 632, while two of
them stayed on at the Chinese Court until 640; that is, for
more than thirty years. Two of these, Bin, the priest, and —
Kuromaro Takamuku, —were made " national doctors " on the
second day after the roup d'etat of 645, this being the first

appointment made by the Reformed, or rather the Reforming

Government. The Reform consisted mainly in Sinieis-

ing old Yamato and its institutions ; and it was these

men who sat in the chancellery, drafted the decrees,
organised the bureaucracy, and prompted the great Kurornaku,
Kamatari, and the seemingly all-powerful Heir Apparent alike.

By themselves they had to discharge the functions of the

legion of foreign employes on whom the statesmen of the early
years of Meiji relied for advice, if not for inspiration.
The quarter or third of a century during which these men
sojourned in China was an all-important time in the history
of the Middle Kingdom. When they arrived there in 608, the
Sui dynasty, which had just again reunified China after cen-
turies of anarchy, appeared to have consolidated its position
and to be reasonably certain of a long lease of life. The foun-
der of the house, Yang Keen, had ruled with vigour, and some
of his work has been permanent and endures even to this day.
Among other things he made a survey —a sort of Domesday
Book —of his and portioned China out into inter-
empire,
dependent provinces, prefectures, and districts, with corres-
ponding officers, an arrangement that has ever since existed.
His attempt to introduce the caste system of India, however,
was not very successful. His son Yang-ti (605-617), who began
by making his elder brother, the rightful heir to the throne,
strangle himself, and who has been called a Chinese
Caligula, was an able man, in spite of all his aber-
rations and debaucheries. He extended the frontiers of
his empire through the Tarim valley, and down to
Ihe Southern Ocean, and although his first attempt on Ko-gur-yu
at the head of 300,000 men was a failure, he was on the point
146 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of success in a second venture when he was recalled by intel-

ligence of the domestic insurrection which cost him his life

and his throne (G17 a.d.).

In the following year (618) Li Yuen, Prince of T'ang, esta-

blished the illustrious dynasty of that name, which continued
to sway the fortunes of China for nearly three centuries (618-
908). After a brilliant reign of ten years he handed over the
Imperial dignity to his son, Tai-tsung (627-650), perhaps the
greatest monarch the Middle Kingdom has ever seen. At this
time China undoubtedly stood in the very forefront of civilisa-

tion. She was then the most powerful, the most enlightened,
the most progressive, and the best governed empire, not only
in Asia, but on the face of the globe. Tai-tsung's frontiers
reached from the confines of Persia, the Caspian Sea, and the
Altai of the Kirghis steppe, along these mountains to the north
side of the Gobi desert eastward to the Inner Hing-an, while
Sogdiana, Khorassan, and the regions around the Hindu Kush
also acknowledged his suzerainty. The sovereigns of Nepal
and Magadha in India sent envoys; and in 643 envoys ap-
peared from the Byzantine Empire and the Court of Persia.
The Chinese Caligula of the Sui dynasty (605-617) had had
decided literary tastes and he had done something to remodel
the Chinese system of examinations; indeed it was by him
that the second or Master's Degree is said to have been in-
stituted. On the other hand, he kept the University and the
great provincial schools closed during the last ten years of his
reign (600-616). The second T'ang sovereign, however, not
only remodelled the University and the provincial academies,
but he organised that famous system of examinations which
has ever since his days been such a prominent feature in the
socialand political economy of China. The Middle Kingdom
had had for ages what Japan had never had, codes of law; —
and Tai-tsung undertook a task not entirely dissimilar to that
essayed by Justinian a century before. He did not live to see
the result of his labours, for the new Code of the Empire was
not completed until two or three years after his death in 650.
Tai-tsung was unquestionably one of those rare monarchs
who not only reign but rule. He was the master, and not
the tool, of his officers; but, subject to him and to the law they
administered, these officers were supreme in their allotted
spheres. Their authority could be questioned by no local
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 147

chieftain or feudal potentate. Tai-tsung was not merely the

head of the most powerful clan in the land —a sort of primus
inter paresamong a number of chiefs of rival houses, — he
was undoubtedly Emperor before whom every one of his
50,000,000 subjects had to bend. It has been well said that he
and China exercised a humanising effect on all the surrounding
countries, and led their inhabitants to see the benefits and
understand the administration of a government where the
laws were above the officers.

Now, what must have been the effect of all this on the
minds of the two or three able, astute, and alert Japanese then
at the Chinese Court, with the express official mandate to
prosecute their studies there at the expense of the ruler of
Yamato? In the summer of 1863 a band of four Choslm
youths were smuggled on board a British steamer by the aid
of kind Scottish friends who sympathised with their endeavour
to proceed to Europe for purposes of study. These friends
possibly did not know that some of the four
had been protagonists in the burning down of the British
Legation on Gotenyama a few months before, and they cer-
tainly could never have suspected that the real mission of the
four youths was to master the secrets of Western civilisation
with the sole view of driving the Western barbarians from
the sacred soil of Japan. Prince Ito and Marquis Inouye
for they were two of this venturesome quartette have often —
told of their rapid disillusionment when they reached London,
and saw these despised Western barbarians at home. On their
return to Japan they at once became the apostles of a new doc-
trine, and their effective preaching has had much to do with
the pride of place Dai Nippon now holds among the Great
Powers of the world. The priest Bin whoever he may be,—
whether Shoan of Minabuchi or somebody else and Kuro- —
maro Takamuku no Ayabito, who proceeded to China in 608
as the earliest Kwampisei [literally, official-expense students]
in Japanese history, rendered even more illustrious service to

their country perhaps than Ito and Inouye have done. For at
Hie Revolution of 1868, the leaders of the movement harked
back to the 645-650 a.d. period for a good deal of their inspira-
tion, real men of political knowledge
and the at that time were
not so much Prince Naka no Oye and the great Kuromalm
Kamatari, as the two National Doctors of 645, Bin (or Min),
148 HTSTORY OF JAPAN.

1lio Buddhist priest, and 1ho layman Kuromaro Takamuku no

Ayabito.*
To pu1 ourselves in the places of these old men, and to
realise their feelings on again setting foot on the beloved soil

of old Yainato after an exile of more than thirty years, is a

task involving no small effort of the constructive imagination.
Yet the endeavour must he attempted by any one who wishes
to understand this most critical and all-important period in the
history of the Japanese Empire.
—
Then and now, 008 and f>40 In the former year, when
!

the famous eight set their faces Chinaward with all the high
hopes and buoyancy of youth, Yamato, under the benevolent yet
strong administration of Shotoku Taishi, seemed to be march-
ing steadily forward and upward on the path of progress. The
worst abuses of the clan system were being grappled with, the
Central Government was beginning to assert its powers at the
expense of the chieftains and heads of groups, to extend an
effective control over the national resources, and to unify and
consolidate the Empire as it had to be unified and consolidated
before Japan could hope to deal satisfactorily with her over-
sea problems in the peninsula. Furthermore, an earnest at-
tempt was being made to assimilate that higher continental
culture which was so essential for the regeneration of Yamato.
Now, in 640, the evils of the clan system were more rampant
than ever. Not only was the sovereign destitute of the re-

sources necessary to make his authority felt, but the occupant

of the throne had become a mere tool of the Soga, who seemed
to be upon the point of attempting to establish a dynasty of
their own. And under such a dynasty Yamato would not likely
be any better off. The case of the Sogas was merely an un-
usually glaring instance of the evils naturally inherent in the
old social and political system. So long as every magnate con-
tinued to do just what was right in his own eyes, the nation
must remain impotent for any collective effort and enterprise.
More than the Soga must be made away with; the clan and
group system must likewise go; and the Empire be funda-
mentally reformed socially and politically.

* Thereis seme obscurity about the priest Bin or Min. Mr. Aston
identifies him with Shoan, Minabuchi no Ayabito, one of the eight
students dispatched to China in 608, and who returned with Takamuku
in 640. Bin is not mentioned pmong the famous eight of 608, and the
Nihongi makes him return with a fellow-student in 632. Between 632
and 640 the Nihongi has several notices of him.
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 149

The necessity and more was doubtless strongly

of all this
represented to Kaniatari and Prince Naka no Ore what time
" they both took in their hands yellow rolls and studied per-

sonally the doctrines of Chow and Confucius with the learned

teacher of Minabuehi." At all events, as has been just said,
one of the earliest, indeed the very earliest, appointment made
by the new Emperor Kotoku was that of the priest Bin and
Takamuku to the post of " National Doctors."

If the chieftains and heads of groups had had any inkling

of the fact that the assassination of Soga Iruka was merely the
first step in a series of measures levelled at their own prepon-
derance in the State, it is not likely that they would have
lent such ready support to the two great conspirators when
they fortified themselves in the temple of Hokoji. However,
the future Reformers kept their own counsel well and proceeded
cautiously enough at first.

Their first step, the nomination of three Ministers, —those

of the Left, Right, —
and Interior, did not excite any misgivings,
for although the names were Chinese, the offices seemed to be
those of the Oho-omi and Oho-muraji of former reigns. The
introduction of the reckoning of time by year-periods, as in
China, could give no offence, and a sort of oath of allegiance
couched in Chinese phraseology may very well have struck the
nobles as a meaningless and harmless innovation. The next
steps must have done something to make them restless; and
this perhaps gave the Soga Prince, Furubito no Oye, his oppor-
tunity to assert his pretensions to the throne. On tne 5th day
of the 8th month, 615, " Governors of the Eastern Provinces
were appointed. Then the Governors were addressed as follows
'
In accordance with the charge entrusted to Us by the Gods
of Heaven, we propose to regulate the myriad provinces.' "
These governors were to prepare registers of all the free sub-
jects of the State, and of the people under the control of
others, whether great or small. They were to look closely into
the titles of the magnates claiming lands or jurisdiction within
their districts. They were to build armouries, and to collect all
the weapons in the possession of individuals and store them
there.

This step was tentative only ; no more than eight governors,

— all for service in the East, —were appointed at this time.
The next measure was more plainly levelled at the heads of
150 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

groups. Hitherto they had exercised absolute jurisdiction over

their subjects. Now the latter were allowed an appeal to the
Central Government and the Emperor. In the next month,
when the weapons had been stored in the armouries and pos-
sible malcontents thus disarmed, a decree was issued strictly
forbidding powerful men to engross land and extend their hold-
ings at the expense of the peasants, their less powerful neigh-
bours, or the State. Then, in the first month of 646, the Re-
formers ventured upon a series of drastic measures which must
have carried consternation into many a great house in Yamato.
" As soon as the ceremonies of the New Year's congratulations
were over the Emperor promulgated an Edict of Reforms (in
four articles) I. : —
Let the people established by the former
Emperors, etc., as representatives of children be abolished;
miyake of various places and the people owned as serfs
also the
by the Wake, the Omi, the Tomo no Miyakko, the Kuni no
Miyakko, and the chief men of villages. Let the manors of serfs
in various places be abolished."
It has been mentioned that one way of extending the Im-
perial domain had been to institute Be or groups to comme-
morate the names of childless sovereigns, Imperial consorts, or
other members of the Imperial Household, and on various other
pretexts. In course of time the hereditary heads or managers
of these groups had established a virtual independence and
had appropriated the lands and serfs as their own. In other
cases these estates had been seized by neighbouring magnates.
Now, with a single stroke of the inkbrush the Crown recovered
all these manors and a very great deal more besides, for the

whole system oi Be or Tomo was now swept out of existence.

The Central Government was careful, however, not to leave the
more influential heads of groups unprovided for. They were
now as far as possible employed as functionaries, and assigned
" fiefs for their support." This term calls for special remark,
for a " sustenance-fief " "
was a very different thing to a " fief
as we usually understand the term. It means the taxes of a
certain district, or of a certain number of families assigned as a
salary for the support of a functionary, or Court favourite, who
otherwise had no interest in or jurisdiction over the district or
its inhabitants.
What always militated against the enduring possibility of
a strong Central Government in Japan was not so much dis-

tance as difficulty of communication, for the country is a re-

 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 151

plica of ancient Hellas on an extended scale. In 646 the Em-

pire of Yamato, with a population of 3,000,000 or 3,500,000,
covered no more than 65,000 or 70,000 square miles, since at
that date the southern half of Kyushu, and some 35,000 or
40,000 square miles in the north of the main island, remained
unsubdued. At that time the Middle Kingdom was at least
twenty times as extensive as Yamato, with at least fifteen
times the population of Japan. But thanks to the great rivers,
the magnificent canal system, the public roads connecting the
capital with a network of great walled towns situated mostly
in wide and level plains and therefore easily accessible, Tai-
tsung's authority could readily make itself respected in every
nook of his broad domains, for against any recalcitrant pro-
vince he could readily throw the resources and the
forces of its obedient neighbours. In Japan there were no
great rivers, no great canal system, no magnificent public roads.
Between Lake Biwa and the Southern Sea there was one con-
siderable plain; but even in Yoshino in Yamato, and in the
Kishu peninsula, there were mountains that afforded a ready
asylum for refugees from the real or fancied oppression of the
sovereign. Then from the site of modern Osaka on to the
Straits of Shimonoseki, the Inland Sea afforded an easy and
what should have been a safe avenue of communication. Safe,
however, it was only on the exceptional occasions when the
Central Government was something better than a hollow sham.
As a rule it was what Cilicia and the southern seaboard of Asia
Minor were before Pompey took them in hand in 67 B.C., —
pirates' lair. In spite of that, however, the Central Govern-
ment generally contrived to keep the way open between the capi-
tal and the vice-royalty in Chikuzen, so important as a base for
communication with the Korean States and the Middle King-
dom, while Anato or Nagato and Kibi appear to have generally
been well maintained under central control. Beyond Lake
Biwa towards the Sea of Japan, the province of Koshi was
slowly extending its frontiers at the expense of the Yemishi or
Ainu; but time and again we meet with notices of events there
which make it tolerably plain that the local magnates were
wont to act very much as if there had been no such person as
the Emperor of Japan. Among the mountains of Hida, and
the mountains and table-lands of Shinano, the Imperial writs,
if they ever by any means penetrated so far, were simply so

much waste paper. On the Pacific seaboard from the Owari

152 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Gulf westward it was somewhat different. Mino, Owari, Su-

ruga all bent to Yamato rule in varying degrees at various
times, while on both sides of Tokyo Bay and in the spacious
and fertile plain at the head of that inlet the Japanese had
ousted the Ainu and established themselves pretty securely.
But to bring these outlying provinces into due subordination
to the central authority was no easy matter. From Tokyo to
Kyoto is now a matter of a dozen hours or so; in the seventh
and eighth centuries an ordinary journey between the Kwanto
and Nara, or the constantly shifting Japanese capital before
the Nara epoch, not unfrequently occupied as many weeks.
Nor was an ordinary journey always possible. The effects of
freshets and inundations had as often as not to be allowed
for, and impracticable fords, broken bridges, and impassable

tracks not infrequently delayed communications for the best

—
part of six months. One thing was plain, the conveyance of
heavy taxes in kind from these quarters to the central store-
houses was next door to an impossibility. And this was only
one of an intricate complex of difficulties that had to be
effectively grappled with before the magnates of the Kwanto
could be stripped of that virtual autonomy which they enjoyed
as the result of their geographical situation.
After the nomination of governors to these impracticable
districts the Reformers concentrated their attention upon
quarters more amenable to their immediate control. The se-
cond article in the Reform Edict stated that the capital is for
kk

the first time to be regulated, and governors appointed for the

Jlome Provinces and districts. Let barriers, outposts, guards,
and post-horses, both special and ordinary, be provided, bell
tokens made, and mountain (passes) and river (ferries) re-
gulated. " The capital was to be divided into wards, each with
an alderman for the superintendence of the population and
the investigation of criminal matters, with a sort of mayor
over the four wards. But these were only regulations for the
city that was to be. In Japan at this time there was not one
single town in the Chinese sense of the word. On the death
of a sovereign —
and often on other occasions the "palace*' —
was abandoned and the Imperial residence transferred to some
other of the Imperial manors in what were to be known
as- the Home Provinces from G4G onward. On one occasion, at
least, we find it at Otsu on Lake Biwa, in Omi, first outside
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 153

the boundary of the Go-Kinai. Even now the palace was

roofed with thatch or shingles, and of such frail materials that
not so much repairs as rebuilding continued to be necessary
at very short intervals. Furthermore there was the idea that
death deliled the dwelling where it occurred. So long as the
sovereign was merely a patriarchal chief, subsisting on the
produce of his own estates, inhabiting the most unpretentious
of domiciles, and living in a very simple style, there was no
great inconvenience in thus frequently " shifting the capital."
But after the Reform, the new magnificence of the Court, the
elaborately organised central administration with its numerous
functionaries, its huge granaries and store-houses for the re-
ception of taxes in kind, and the other extensive buildings
made necessary by the new conditions, caused these removals
to be looked upon with dread by the taxpaying and working
part of the population. On several occasions they gave rise
to great popular discontent, and this was one of the considera-
tions which led to the erection of a real permanent capital at
Nara in 710. Then, and not till then, was there any pressing
need for " a regulation of the capital."
The " Home Provinces " was a reproduction of a prominent
feature in the administration of the Middle Kingdom. Only,
in Japan the inhabitants of the Home Provinces were not at
first marked out for the privileges and the special treatment
accorded the favoured population in the environs of the
Chinese capital. The reason of this is not far to seek. The
Reformers felt they needed the strong support of material re-
sources. To obtain these resources from the outlying provinces
was easy in China; but if not impossible, at all events ex-
ceedingly difficult in Japan, that land of the mountain and the
flood. Besides, it was in the Home Provinces that the most
dangerous possible rivals and opponents of the new Govern-
ment were to be found. Accordingly it was only statesman-
like that the Chinese system should here be not so much

adopted as adapted to meet the exigencies of the actual situa-

tion. And so it came to pass that it was among the peasantry

of the Home Provinces that the saying " Better be a thief than
a tax-collector " originated. The " barriers " were also bor-
rowed from China, and although at first they may have seemed
an unnecessary institution in Japan, they Avere not long in
proving their utility. In the succession war of 671-672 they
154 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

were found to be of considerable strategic importance, while

they soon after that were of great service in dealing with run-
away peasants taking refuge in flight from the exactions of the
tax-gatherer. The establishment of the post-system, soon de-
stined to become notorious for its abuses, was really a vital
necessity, if the new central administration was seriously
minded to be a permanent reality.
" (In the Home Provinces) districts of 40 townships are
constituted Greater Districts, of from 30 to 4 townships are
constituted Middle Districts, and of three or fewer townships
are constituted Lesser Districts. For the district authorities
of whatever class let there be taken Kuni no Miyakko of un-
blemished character, such as may fitly sustain the duties of the
time. . . . Let men of solid capacity and intelligence who
are skilled in writing and arithmetic be appointed assistants
and clerks."
In the tract of country henceforward to be known as the
Home Provinces, a little later on, we find as many as 53 dis-

tricts, or Gun The administrative posts in these

or Kori.
would thus provide for a considerable number of the territorial
nobility and gentry, who otherwise might have felt inclined
to make themselves unpleasant to the reforming Government.
It was the policy of the latter to leave the chieftains in the
possession of their former titles, for at all times the average
Japanese has been extremely fond not merely of honour, but
of honours. As the provincial governors were at first strictly

prohibited from exercising judicial functions, and were se-

verely reprimanded, if not subjected to more serious punish-

ments, when they presumed to take cognisance of suits, the
heads of kori found ample scope for making themselves
still

both feared and respected by the people of their districts. The

only innovation in connection with their judicial position was
that an appeal from their decisions to the Central Government
was now possible. They could no longer levy taxes; that was
one of the chief functions of the provincial governor and his
staff. But, on the other hand, the district governors were
encouraged to report any malfeasances or any malpractices
on the part of the provincial governor to the central autho-
rities. One outcome of this peculiar situation was that pro-
vincial governors were, in spite of themselves, constrained to
conciliate the goodwill of their subordinates, the district go-
vernors. In 646, the earliest district governors were indeed
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 155

nominated by the provincial governors. But the provincial

governors held their positions for a limited number of years
only —sometimes four, and sometimes six, —while the district
governor held his office for life, and, as often as not, he trans-
mitted his post to his son or heir. In theory the district
governor was responsible to the provincial governor ; as a sober
matter of fact he was, if an able man, but slightly under
central control. The position of the provincial governor no
doubt appeared magnificent; but in the narrower confines of
his district, the virtually hereditary district governor was a
very much more powerful man than was the provincial go-
vernor, who nominally swayed it over half-a-score or a dozen
of district governors for a briefterm of six years at the out-
side. And long before these six years were out a combination
of his subject district governors might very readily relegate
him to obscurity and the meagre fare of the ex-official. The
pivot on which the success of the Sinicised administration
turned was the provincial governor; and the course of events
was soon destined to show that from the conditions and limita-
tions imposed upon that functionary, it was only an angel from
Heaven, or a man gifted with the preternatural astuteness of
Machiavelli's Prince, that could be expected to cope success-
fully with the exigencies of the office.
Let us now proceed to a consideration of the remaining
two Articles of the Reform Edict: —"III. Let there now be
provided for the first time registers of population, books of
account, and a system of the receipt and re-granting of distribu-
tion-land.
" Let every fifty houses be reckoned a township, and in
every township let there be one alderman who shall be charged
with the superintendence (of the registers) of the population,
the direction of the sowing of crops and the cultivation of
mulberry trees, the prevention and examination of offences,
and the enforcement of the payment of taxes and of forced
labour.
" For rice-land, thirty paces (5 feet) in length by twelve
paces in breadth shall be reckoned a tan.* Ten tan make one

* The tan would thus be 9,000 feet, or 1,000 square yards. Five
tan would thus he equal to a little more than an acre (4,840 square
yards). Just before Hideyoshi's time (1582-1598) the tan was equal
to 1,440 square yards. He reduced it to its present extent of 1,200
square yards, approximately a quarter of an acre.
156 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

oho. For each tan the lax is two sheaves and two bundles
(such as can be grasped in the hand) of rice; for each cho (2
acres) the tax is 22 sheaves of rice. On mountains or in
valleys where the land is precipitous, or in remote places where
the population is scanty, such arrangements are to be made
as may be convenient.
" IV. The old taxes and forced labour are abolished, and
a system of commuted taxes instituted. These shall consist
of fine silks, coarse silks, and floss silk, all in accordance with
what is produced in the locality. For each cho (2 acres) of
rice-land the rate is ten feet of fine silk, for four cho (8
acres) one piece forty feet in length by two and a half feet in

width. For coarse silk the rate is twenty feet per cho. For
cloth the rate is forty feet of thesame dimensions as the silk
for each cho. Let there be levied separately a commuted
house-tax. All houses shall pay each twelve feet of cloth. The
extra articles of this tax, as well as salt and offerings, will
depend on what is produced in the locality. For horses for
public service, let every hundred houses contribute one horse
of medium quality. Or if the horse is of superior quality, let
one be contributed by every two hundred houses. If the horses
have to be purchased the price shall be made up by a payment
of twelve feet of cloth from each house. As to weapons, each
person shall contribute a sword, armour, bow and arrows,
a flag and a drum. For coolies, the old system, by which one
coolie was provided by every thirty houses, is altered, and
one coolie is to be furnished from every fifty houses for allot-
ment to the various functionaries. Fifty houses shall be
allotted to provide rations for one coolie, and one house shall
contribute 22 feet of cloth and 5 sho (545 cubic inches, or
about V± of a bushel) of rice in lieu of service."

Later on in the same year, an instruction was issued

ordaining that in granting rice-lands the peasants' houses
should adjoin the land, and that the commuted taxes should be
collected from males only. As these latter taxes were paid
in products of female labour, this latter provision implied that
the heads, or at least the male members, of families were to be
held responsible for the liabilities of their female relatives
or dependents.
Land tenure and taxation are no doubt very dry and pro-
saic topics. But in any real history of Japan they are subjects
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 157

that may In fact it is perhaps not too much

not be shirked.
to say that whoever has mastered them and their bearings
upon the social and political development of the country, holds
in his hands one of the chief keys to the history of the Empire,
for the polity of Japan down to a very recent period has been
based upon agriculture almost exclusively. In subsequent
chapters much must be said about these subjects of land tenure
and of taxation from time to time. Here, after a few very
simple but perhaps necessary remarks, we must proceed to
deal with the other salient innovations of the Reforming
Government.
This new system of land-holding and taxation was simply
that of contemporary China transferred to Yamato. The land-
tax proper was not a heavy one. A tan of average rice-land
was supposed to yield 50 sheaves, and a cho 500 sheaves
(equal to 5 koku, or about 25 bushels). In the home
provinces, which were subsequently exempted from forced
labour and the tax in lieu of forced labour (yd), the land-tax
proper was carefully collected. But in the further distant
provinces, where difficulties of communication made the trans-
port of their produce to the capital almost impossible, the
other taxes were regarded as of greater consequence by the
central authorities. In certain districts, at least, we find that
1he land-tax proper, the tax on textiles and similar products,
and the forced labour tax stood to each other in the ratio of
3 : 4 : 2. In other words, the land-tax represented no more than
a third part of the farmer's chief liabilities to the Government.
Of the remaining OG.G per cent., 44.4 per cent, were cho, or
taxes payable in textiles, and the rest was either corvee work
or contributions in lieu of it. Theoretically at least this system
of taxation did not appear to be an oppressive one. Practically,
however, on account of the abuses that crept into it, it ul-

timately brought the Empire into anarchy, the Emperor to

indigence, and the Imperial power and the central authority
to hopeless impotence.
The Reformers next directed their attention to the organisa-
tion of a central administration. Forty years before, Sho-
toku Taishi had made a premature effort to introduce the Court
institutions of the Sui dynasty into Japan. For dignitaries
and below the third rank a system of 12 grades with
officials

distinctive caps had been introduced in 004; and an attempt

had then been made to define more rigorously that Court etj-
158 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

quelle which a French historian has characterised as " le culte

de la religion nionarchique." Bui it had had little or no effect
upon the clan system. In 047 this system of rank was amended,
and in 049 it was still further modified,* when nineteen cap-
grades were instituted. " In the same month an order was
given to the National Doctor, Takamuku no Kuromaro, and
the Buddhist priest Bin to establish eight departments of State
and one hundred bureaux."
There is good reason to believe, however, that Bin (who
passed away in 653) and Takamuku (who died at the head of
an embassy in China in 056) did not live to complete this un-
dertaking. At all events, it is in the Code of Taiho (702) that
we meet with the first full account of an organised central ad-
ministration. Probably, however, the system was completed
some time between 602 and 071. We are told that it was then
that the Great Council of State (Dajd-Kwan) was established.
It was composed of the Dajo-daijin, or Chancellor of the Em-
pire, of the Minister of the Left (Sa-daijin) and of the Minister
of the Right (U-daijin) ; while the First Adviser of State (Dai-
nagon) was to participate in deliberations, and the Minister
of the Nakatsukasa-Sho was to inspect and affix his seal to
Imperial Rescripts. Under this Council of State were placed
eight Boards, —
(1) The Nakatsukasa-Sho (Ministry of the Im-
perial Household) (2) The Shikibu-Sho (Ministry of Court
;

Ceremonies and of Civil Office) (3) The Jibu-Sho; (4) The

;

Mimbu-Sho (Home Department) (5) The Hyobu-Sho (Minis-

;

try of War); (0) The Gyobu-Sho (Ministry of Justice);

(7) The Okura-Sho (National Treasury) and (8) The Kunai-
;

Sho (Treasury of Imperial Household). Although this subject

is well-nigh as tedious and tiresome as that of land-tenure and

taxation, or man millinery, it will be well to reproduce the full

Boards as they are given
details of the functions of these eight
in the Code of 702.
I. —
The Nakatsukasa-Sho had to deal with the following
matters: (1) Attendance upon the p]mperor, tendering Him
counsel about His personal affairs; assisting Him in the main-
tenance of a proper dignity, and in the observance of proper
forms of etiquette. (2) The inspection and countersigning of
drafts of Imperial Rescripts, and the forms to be observed in

* During Takamuku's absence en a diplomatic mission to Silla

in 646-7 there was a pause in the work of reform.
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 159

making representations Emperor. (3) The issuing of

to the
Imperial orders in time of war. (4) The reception of ad-
dresses to the Emperor. (5) The compilation of the National
History. (6) The gazetteer and the personal status of the
;

Imperial Princesses, and maids of honour and Court

of the
ladies. (7) The submission to the Emperor's inspection of the
census returns, the taxes to be levied, and the lists of priests
and nuns in the Empire. (8) The Grand-Empress Dowager,
the Empress Dowager, and the Empress. (9) The Imperial ar-
chives. (10) The annual expenditure of the Court. (11) The
Calendar. (12) Painting. (13) The Physicians in waiting.

(14) The maintenance of order in the palace.

It is not difficult to understand how an able man at the
head of this Ministry might contrive to make himself a verit-
ablepower in the land. Even in certain quarters in Europe
Ceremony has been a much more potent thing than Religion,
while even now a breach of etiquette sometimes entails graver
social penaltiesupon the offender than flagrant outrages on
what is most do in the highly moral and
vital in morality
comparatively democratic British Empire under the sway of
King Edward VII. Now, in Far Eastern lands a dozen cen-
turies or so ago, and, indeed, even at the present day, ceremo-
nial is of infinitely greater consequence than it is, or ever has
been, in the West, —except perhaps in the Byzantine Empire,
at the Court of Spain, or at Versailles in the time of Louis
XIV. Whoever fails to grasp the import of this very simple
proposition must abandon all hope of understanding much that
is of essential importance in the history of China, Japan, and

Korea. By far the most important of the Five Chinese Clas-

sics* in its effects upon society has been the Li or Book of
Rites. We have seen the " yellow rolls " of this book in the

* The Five Chinese Classics, properly so called, are (1) The Yih-
king, or Book of Changes (by Wan Wang, 1150 b.c.) (2) The Shi-
;

king, or Book of Odes, containing Ballads of various dates from 1800

to 500 b.c; (3) The Shaking, or Book of History (from Chaos till
721 b.c) ; (4) The Chun-Tsu, or Spring and Autumn Annals, written
by Confucius, and giving what purported to be the History of the
Empire from 721 to 479 b.c; and (5) The Li, or Book of Rites. Besides
these, the " Four Books " go to make up the full complement of the
—
Nine Classics. Three of these four the Great Learning, the Doctrine
of the Mean, and the Confucian Analects, were compiled by pupils or
followers of Confucius, while the fourth, the Works of Mencius, is by
a subsequent disciple of that philosopher. Inasmuch as these works
continued to be the oracles of Japanese savants for ages, European
students of Japanese history will do well to bear this prosaic scrap of
Chinese literary history in mind,
TOO HISTORY OF JAPAN.

hands of the great reformers, Kamatari and Naka-no-Oye, when

they were sedulously weaving the web of their conspiracy
before 645. Said to have been compiled by a Duke of Chow
in the 12th century B.C., it lias since then served Chinamen as
the guide and rule for the regulations of all the actions and

relations of their lives. " Tn ceremonial is summed up the

whole soul of the Chinese," says Callery, " and to my mind the
Book of Rites is the most exact and complete monograph that
this nation can give of itself to the rest of the world. Its affec-
tions, if it has any, are satisfied by ceremonial; its duties are
fulfilled by means of ceremonial; its virtues and vices are re-
cognised by ceremonial ; the natural relations of created beings
are essentially connected with ceremonial, — in a word, for it

ceremonial is man, the man moral, the man politic, the man
religious in their numberless relations with the family, society,
the State, morality and religion."
To apply this language in all its sweeping compass to Japan
would be highly unjust; for among the Japanese people the
natural affections not only exist, but are exceedingly strong.
But, on the other hand, it must be frankly conceded that
Chinese ceremonial has done much to regulate and modify the
expression of the natural feelings among the Japanese. To-
wards the end of the sixteenth century we find Valegnani writ-
ing to Acquaviva, the Jesuit General in Rome, to the effect that
"the most austere Order in the Church has no novitiate so
severe as is the apprenticeship to good-breeding that is necessary
in Japan." The severity of this apprenticeship iu forms and
ceremonies was no doubt salutary in many respects; but
withal the training had the defects of its qualities in abundant
measure. It is easy to perceive that the functionaries charged
with the office of " advising the Emperor on His personal
matters, and of assisting Him in the maintenance of a proper
dignity and in the observance of proper forms of etiquette,"
could do much to curb all free action and initiative on the
part of a sovereign not possessed of an exceptional share of
force of character. Presently we shall find that the throne of
Japan was occupied by an oppressive tyrant. But the tyrant
was not the Emperor. It was Chinese ceremonial. Strong
Emjerors were now and then wont to abdicate, if not for the
express purpose, at all events for the real purpose of freeing
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 161

themselves from the despotism of this ceremonial, and of. not

reigning, but really ruling the Empire.
Two of the remaining seven Ministries were also very much
occupied with the details of ceremonial. These were:
II. — The Shikibu-Sho, charged with (1) Keeping the lists

of civil officials; (2) Appointments and rank, and the

to office
rewarding of meritorious services; (3) The maintenance of
schools, and examinations; (4) The appointment of stewards
in the houses of Imperial Princes, and in those of officials above
ihe 4th rank; (5) Pensions and donations; and (6) Official
precedence at Court functions.
This Shikibu-Sho was complemented by
III.— The Jibu-Sho, which dealt with (1) The names of
officials and the marriage and succession of officials above the

6th rank; (2) Omens; (3) Deaths, funerals, the granting of

posthumous rank, or donations of money to the family of the
deceased; (4) Anniversaries of the demise of the former Em-
peror, and the record of the names of all former Emperors, so
that none of those names shall be used by any succeeding Em-
peror or any subject (tabu) ; (5) Rendering of homage by
foreign countries; (6) Adjudication of disputes about prece-
dence among various families; (7) Music; (8) Registration of
Buddhist temples and reMgicuoc; (9) Court reception of
foreigners; (10) Imperial tombs, and their attendants.
One more Ministry was occupied with Court Affairs. This
was
—
VIII. The Kunai-Sho, superintending (1) The rice-lands
for the supply of the Imperial family; (2) Harvesting on the
Imperial domains; (3) The presentation of rare delicacies by
subjects;(4) The Imperial kitchen, palace repairs, breweries,
Court ladies, Court servants, Court smiths, the Imperial ward-
robe and the like; and (5) The lists of Imperial Princes or
Princesses from the second to the fourth generation inclusive.
It will be observed that none of these four Ministries
brought either the sovereign or the officials into contact with
the people at large. A full half of the elaborate machinery of
the Government was thus almost exclusively occupied with the
affairs of a select aristocracy of perhaps less than 10,000 indivi-
duals all told in a population of some four millions. To attend
to the interests of the nation at large was the work of the four
remaining departments. These were
L
1G2 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

IV.—The Mimbu-Sho, dealing with (1) The census; (2)

Forced labour; (3) Exemption from forced labour, and re-

warding the meritorious poor, or relieving the distressed; (4)

Bridges, roads, harbours, lakes, farms, mountains, rivers, etc.;
(5) Estimation and collection of taxes in products and textiles,

to the disbursing of the national funds, and estimates of

national expenditure; and (6) Granaries, and land-tax in
grain.

V. —The Hyobu-Sho, in charge of (1) the rosters of military

officers, their examinations, their rank and their commissions;
(2) The dispatch of troops; (3) Weapons, guards, fortifica-

tions, and beacon fires; (4) Pastures, studs, and cattle; (5)
Postal stations; (6) Arsenals, and mechanics employed in
them; (7) Military music and private means of water trans-
portation ; and (8) The training of hawks and dogs.
VI. —The Gyobu-Sho conducted criminal trials, and took
cognisance of suits for debt.
VII. —The Okura-Sho had charge of (1) The public accounts;
(2) Textile taxes and offerings to the Emperor; (3) Weights
and measures; (4) The prices of commodities; (5) The mint;
(6) Lacquer-ware manufacture, weaving, and other industries.
One unfortunate thing in connection with these Ministries
was that although theoretically equal in rank, all the prestige
of office went to the functionaries employed in those of them
which had no connection with the real national interests in
the broader sense of the term. The chief function of the
Mimbu-Sho (Home Office) and of the Okura-Sho (National
Treasury) was to see to it that means should be provided for
the adequate support of the Court and the courtiers, who filled
the posts in the favoured departments, I., II., III., and VII.,
reserved for the jeunesse dorce of Sinicised Japan. The ad-
ministration of justice, which tends more and more to become
the most important function of the modern State, was never
of any great consequence Old Japan, where every one ap-
in
preciated the wisdom of agreeing with his adversary quickly
lest worse betide. As for the War Department (Hyobu-Sho),
in 702 a.d. it was the very reverse of what it, together with
the Ministry of Marine, is in Japan in 1909. At present, the
War and the Admiralty are, of all Ministries, by far the
Office
strongest in the Empire. When a party government does by
any strange hap make its appearance on the political stage,
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 163

the Ministers of War and of Marine can afford to regard its

advent with the utmost insouciance. For the most extreme

of party politicians readily and unhesitatingly admit that the
affairs of the Army and the Navy do not fall within the
sphere of party politics, but are the exclusive concern of the
Commander-in-Chief, his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of
Japan. On none in the public service of Japan are titles of
nobility, high rank, and still more substantial emoluments
showered with more liberal hand than upon the great captains
and the great sailors of the Empire. In China, on the other
hand, the military man is, if not a pariah, at all events an
exceptional barbarian, whom policy makes it advisable to treat
with a certain amount of gracious, albeit semi-contemptuous,
condescension. In Old Japan it was this Chinese view of the

case that prevailed for centuries after theReform of 645. To

guileless Europeans who have heard so much of the Samurai
—
and of Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, this statement —
may very well come as something of a shock. But it is simple,
sober, literal truth. It was the institutions of the T'ang Dy-

nasty that the Japanese statesmen were then endeavouring

to introduce and establish in the Empire in spite of the fact
that the historical development of the country had been vastly
different to that of the Middle Kingdom, and that the natural
features of Japan, her social economy, and the racial peculia-
rities of her population made the adoption of these institutions
exceedingly hazardous unless they were adopted with modifica-
tions considerable enough to convert their adoption into an
adaptation. In the long course of centuries the force of cir-

cumstances and the appearance of a few men of genius strong

enough to shake themselves free from the trammels of a mecha-
nical conventionality and to place their trust in the first

principles of common sense and mother wit have served to

rescue Japan from the abyss to which the Reform of 645 once
bade fair to consign her. But for that she might very well now
be a variant of the Empire of Korea.
"The people in the Empire (of China)," says the IAu
B'u, " were divided into their classes, each of which was bound
to keep to its own who studied letters and
vocation; those
arms were Gentlemen (Shi) those who devoted themselves to
;

agriculture were Farmers (No) those who designed and made

;

utensils were Artisans (Ko) and those who purchased and

;
164 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

sold goods were Merchants (Slid). The Artisans and Mer-

chants should not attend to the work of the Gentlemen; the
salaried men shall not seek the profit of the inferior people."

Down to a time well within the memory of the living we find

this Chinese organisation of society in Japan, into which it

was originally introduced shortly after the Great Reform of

045, only with a difference. The gentleman in China was be-
fore all things a scholar, for the soldier and his calling have
ever been held in comparatively slight esteem by the peace-
loving gentry of the Middle Kingdom. In feudal Japan, on
the other hand, it was the samurai who were the gentlemen.
In other words, the gentleman in this Empire was, before all
things, a soldier. ITe might indeed by some lucky chance be
a man of wide scholarship, but, as often as not, hewas as
guiltless of learning as the father of Gawain Douglas, the
Bishop of Dunkeld, was. In any case it was in the sword and
not in the pen that he placed his trust. The samurai, who
came to constitute at least a full ninety-five per cent, of the
gentlemen of Japan, were, in short, a highly privileged military
caste. But the creation of a privileged military class was one
of the very last things that the Reformers aimed' at. In the
great succession war of 672 we Owari troops acting
find 20,000
under the orders of the provincial governor; and provincial
governors occupied no very high status in the official hierarchy
of the Court. In the reign of the Empress Jito (686-697) the
national army was a strictly conscript one, one-fourth of the

able-bodied freemen being selected for a service of three years,

and a few years later this proportion was increased to one-
third. A privileged military class loas an outcome of feu-
dalism; and the appearance of feudalism in Japan was con-
temporary with its appearance in Europe and proceeded from
similar causes. In the West the local military chiefs found
their opportunity in the dissolution of Charlemagne's Empire
under his incapable successors in Japan it was the breakdown
;

of the Reform machinery that made the pen of no effect, and

the sword all-powerful.
What the Reformers were really endeavouring to do was to
introduce the Chinese social and administrative system into
Japan. Nou\ the Chinese law had for its very object the sup-
pression of feudalism and the prevention of its reappearance.
The problem of the Japanese statesman was to abolish the clan
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 165

system, and to make the social unit not the tribe or sept, but
the family. So much they accomplished; but into the national
house thus emptied, swept, and garnished entered the evil spirit,

with his attendant devils, of feudalism, and the last state of

the Empire became worse than the first.
In China, the subjects of the Emperor were divided into two
layers. The great bulk of the population consisted of peasants
whose sole business was to keep the peace and to till the fields.
Their only concern with governmental matters was to pay
their taxes. Above them were the officers, for whose support
they were to work, and who, on their part, were to guide and
protect the moiling black-haired millions. However, these offi-

cers constitutedno aristocracy of birth. Every Chinese school-

boy had, and has, on his lips the old query which answers itself
in the negative, " How can kings, princes, generals, and coun-
cillors have their breed be limited to certain families) "
(i.e. ?

There was no post, however high in the service of the Emperor,

which the son of the humblest peasant in the land might not
aspire to fill, provided he could give satisfactory proof of capa-
city in the examination
halls. It was, and is, a case of la
carriere ouvcrte aux talcns; the talents being almost exclu-
sively literary, however. Whatever may be the faults of this
Chinese examination system, it has perhaps contributed more
than any other single factor to the stability of the Middle King-
dom. Among other results it induce! the people to cover the
Empire with a network of schools and colleges at their own
expense.
The Japanese statesmen made a cardinal mistake in omit-
ting to reproduce this institution in its entirety in their
country. They did, indeed, go some little way in an endeavour
to copy it. A university had been established by the Emperor
Tenchi (Prince Naka no Oye) in 668, and it was re-organised in
702. But it provided for no more than 400 students, against
the 8,000 in the capital of T'ang. As the curriculum extended
over nine years, and failures in the examinations were frequent,
it is questionable whether as many as a score of graduates re-
ceived official appointments in any one year. And then the
students were generally chosen from among the children of
families not below the fifth rank, although bright boys from
families of sixth, seventh, and eighth ranks might be admitted.
At last, in 821, only families of the three highest ranks could
166 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

furnish candidates for admission to the Literary Department.

Even the Provincial Schools, with their 50, 40, or 20 students,
were strictly aristocratic, the pupils being taken from the
families of the provincial officials or the district governors. All
these institutions were official there was not the slightest en-
;

couragement for the establishment of schools by the people on

their own initiative. In Japan it was emphatically held that

" kings, princes, generals, and councillors " could, and did,
" have their breed."

In short, even after the Reform, the constitution of Japanese

society continued to be not a whit less aristocratic than be-
fore. We are told that a new nobility of rank and office was
created, and so much is indeed true. But the new nobility was
merely the old one arrayed in new caps of nineteen different
colours. The text of the piece was largely modified, if not
entirely rewritten, the cast was considerably changed, but the
company continued to be of the same actors. In this
composed
vital respect 645 is vastly different from 1868, when the officials
of the Bakufu were relegated to obscurity, and an entirely fresh
set of men took charge of the fortunes of the State.
In old Yamato the nobles were variously known as Omi>
Muraji, Kuni no Miyakko, Tomo no Miyakko, and Inaki.
When stripped of their powers and resources qua Omi, Muraji,
Kuni no Miyakko, Tomo no Miyakko, and Inaki, they were not
deprived of these titles; and for a full generation these de-
signations continued in current use. At last, in 684, the
Emperor, Temmu, proceeded to deal with them. He re-ar-

ranged the old clan and group titles into the eight classes of

Mabito, Asomi, Sukune, Imiki, Michi no Shi, Omi, Muraji, and

two highest of the old titles to a very
Inaki, thus degrading the
low position. Mabito was reserved for Imperial Princes;
former Omi were mostly promoted to Asomi, and former Mu-
raji to Sukune, while not individuals but whole households
were gratified Avitk the lower ranks, —batches of thirty, or
forty, or fifty households at the same time. The net effect of
this was to vulgarise the old titles; and it very soon became
apparent that they were impotent to survive the rude process
of wholesale cheapening to which they had been subjected.
What must have greatly contributed to their outward eutha-
nasia was the fact that the possessors of the old territorial
and group-head titular distinctions were at the same time
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 167

the holders of either rank or office, or of both, in the new order

of things. The old titular designations were nothing more than
empty names of honours the higher grades of official rank, and
;

official employment, carried with them substantial emoluments,

and it is only the most stupidly belated of conservatives that

persistently keep on clutching at the shadows of forms from
which all material reality has departed for ever and for aye.
The nobles now preferred to be addressed by the name of the
office they happened to occupy, or by the degree of rank which

they happened to hold.

If we interpret honours —not honour, —as Falstaff did in
the currency of seventh-century Japan, we shall find that they
were somewhat substantial. At that date this Empire had but
little metallic currency of its own, —
that was to come with the
—
year 708, everything of any consequence was estimated in
cho and tan, which we will translate into acres and fractions
thereof. Certain individuals of the blood imperial received
from 160 acres to half that amount.
estates varying in extent
The number of these was and their position, of course,
limited,
exceptional. After this, in the Land Provisions of the Code
of Taiho came the assignments of land made to holders of the
higher ranks. At the Reform, nineteen grades of rank had
been established. Under the Emperor Temmu the number of
these grades had been increased to as many as forty-eight. By
the time of the compilation of the Taiho Code (702) they had
been reduced to thirty, distributed into ten classes, the first

three and the last two of which comprised two grades each, the
intervening five classes being distributed into four grades
apiece, —although about this distribution there seems to be a
certain amount of uncertainty. Now the relative importance
of these grades may be inferred from an inspection of the
revenue assigned for the support of their holders. Holders
of a
Senior First Class received 160 acres.
Junior „ „ „ 148 „
Senior Second Class received 120 „
Junior „ „ „ 108 „
Senior Third Class received 80 ,,

Junior „ „ „ 68 „
Senior Fourth Class received 48 „

Junior „ „ ,, 40
168 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Senior Fifth Class received 24 acres.

Junior „ „ „ 16 „

A female of corresponding rank received two-thirds of a

male's share.
The first five of the ten classes, whose children, it will be

remembered, could claim admittance to the University, thus

formed a sort of superior aristocracy. For the support of such
as held ranks of the last five classes no land was specifically

assigned; they received their emoluments from the public trea-

sury in silk or textiles or in similar products of taxation. All
ten classes alike were immune from the attentions of the col-
lectors of revenue. In other words, they formed a highly
privileged class or caste, into which it was next-door to impos-
sible for a man of the people to force his way. In this respect
at least Japan, much to her ultimate disadvantage, did not
copy China.
Thus the income an aristocrat depended mainly upon the
of
grade of rank he held and this perhaps partly accounts for the
;

intensity of the struggle and the eagerness of the scramble for

these grades among the courtiers. In addition to these rank-
incomes, there were others, however. Ex officio, and indepen-
dent of the particular grade he held, the Chancellor of the
Empire received 80 acres; the two Great Ministers (Left and
Right) 60 acres each; and the Dainagon 40 acres.
A highly responsible position was that of the Viceroy of
Dazaifu, who had charge of the nine provinces of Kyushu, to-
gether with the islands of Iki and Tsushima. In many re-

spects he was autocratic. In the British Empire a Viceroy of

India receives more than twice asmuch as, and a Governor of
Bombay Madras considerably more than, a British Prime
or
Minister gets as a salary. But in old Japan, the Viceroy of
Dazaifu, being remote from the sacrosanct precincts of the
Court, was regarded as a very inferior dignitary. Ex officio he
had to be satisfied with an estate of 20 acres, —one-fourth of
that of the Chancellor. Of course, he would naturally hold a
very high grade of rank, and the emoluments of this would
constitute his main source of income. The case of a provincial
governor was a replica of that of the Viceroy of Kyushu
on a reduced scale. He was usually a holder of a higher
fifth-class rank, and as such would hold 24 acres. But
ex officio his emoluments were no more than 5.2 acres in a
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 169

first-class post, while iu a fourth-class province they were only

3.2 acres.
Now, inasmuch as the GO odd provincial governors were the
most important functionaries in the Empire, if the Reformed
Government was really to be a success, the cheese-paring treat-
ment meted out to them was exceedingly short-sighted policy.
Every official was desirous of being in the capital if possible;
after the foundation of Kyoto at least it came to be a
good deal more than what Versailles was in the time of Louis
XIV. Service in any provincial post, and especially in a re-
mote provincial post, ultimately came to be regarded as a
sort of exile. To readers acquainted with the old Spanish sys-
tem of colonial administration (from 1520 to 1820 a.d v and
even later in the case of Cuba and the Philippines) the situa-
tion can be made tolerably clear in a very few words. Those
who sought appointments in the Spanish colonies were mostly
courtiers of broken fortunes. It was not the wont of a hidalgo
of the sangre axul to betake himself to Mexico, Lima, Santa Fe
de Bogota, Buenos Ayres, or, still later, to Manila or Havana,
either for the sake of his health or for pleasure. Neither was
it for the mere trivial consideration of a paltry salary that a
grandee entitled to bask in the sunshine of the Royal presence
submitted to the eclipse of a temporary exile. The main in-

ducement was opportunities. Perquisites, whether semi-legal

or utterly illegal, were not perhaps so numerous, and were cer-
tainly much less magnificent, in the provinces of old Japan
than they were in the Castilian vice-royalties beyond the At-
lantic. But, notwithstanding, there iverc perquisites, — suffi-

ciently considerable in the eyes of impecunious blue-blooded

courtiers bent on a speedy return to the capital furnished with
substantial arguments in favour of their own advancement
there.

Besides Rank-land (I-den) and Office-land (Shoku-oun-den)

an astute official often contrived to add to his resources by
obtaining a Ko-dcn —
that is, an estate granted for public merit.
Of these estates there were four categories. For the very
highest public merit, a man received lands to be held by him
and his heirs for ever, free of all taxes. Another description of
— —
Ko-dcn for high public merit was transmissible to the third
generation, another descended only to the second generation,
while the lowest of all descended only to a son or a daughter.
170 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

In addition to all this, a courtier might be gratified with a

Shi-den, or an estate created by the special fiat of the sovereign.
In these tax-free estates, which continued to be added to and
expanded at the expense of neighbouring occupiers, the aristo-
crats fortunate enough to own them had the material bases
necessary for the foundation of great families and powerful
houses. Pliny assures us that it was the latifundia which
ruined Italy. These tax-free estates did not perhaps ruin
Japan, but they contributed more than any other one single
factor to the decayand downfall of the Imperial authority and
of the central government in Sinicised Japan. The categories
of exemption above given were the most prominent among the
original ones. But they were not the only ones, for in course
of time we find a landholder could legally set the tax-collector
at defiance on any one of eight and twenty different kinds of
title-deeds. From the later Valois Kings and Henry IV. down
to 1789 there was a constant endeavour to escape the incidence
of the tattle in France on many pretexts and by an infinity
of devices, with the ultimate result that nearly the whole bur-
den of taxation had to be borne by the indigent, poverty-
stricken, toiling poor. The economic history of France from
1560 to 1789 and the economic history of Japan from 650 to
1150 a.d. have a strong generic likeness, with striking specific
differences, while the remedies for the malady in the two poli-
ties were so different as to be antithetic. In France the cure
for the disease was the abolition of feudalism; it was in the
twelfth century that the feudal system became the only pos-
sible system in Japan.
The succeeding chapters will be largely occupied with a
consideration of the causes that led to the necessary rise of
this feudal system at the expense of the central government,
and in the course of this discussion there will be ample oppor-
tunity for dealing incidentally with the minuter details of the
system introduced by the Reformers of 645 and developed by
their successors. Here, to obviate the danger of not being able
to see the wood on account of the trees, we shall content our-
selves with recapitulating the main features of the new polity
in its broadest outlines.

The Yamato sovereign was no longer to be merely the head

of the chief clan in Japan, with a feeble control over the other
great clan chieftains, and with no direct control over the
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 171

dependents of these. Henceforth he was really to be the

Emperor of Japan. Every rood of the soil was theoretically
supposed to have been surrendered to him, that is to say, the—
theory of eminent domain was now effectually established. The
land thus surrendered was then distributed to the subjects
of the Emperor in approximately equal portions. The holders
of these portions were subject to the national burden of taxa-
tion (of which there were three main categories). Taxes could
be levied by none but the duly constituted Imperial authorities.
The members of the old landed tribal aristocracy and the
aristocracy of Group or Corporation Heads, while allowed to
retain their titles of honour as such, were deprived of all
emoluments. But they were formed into a new aristocracy of
Court rank, in virtue of which they received tax-free estates or
house fiefs, while the personnel of the Central Government and
of the Viceregal and Provincial Governments came mainly from
their ranks. Others of them found employment as district
governors or district officials, such offices ultimately becoming
hereditary and all of. them carrying with them modest emolu-
ments in the shape of land. For a man of the people to force
his way into this privileged caste was exceedingly difficult, if
not absolutely impossible. Temmu Tenno issued the
In 682
following edict :
" Let the lineage and character of all
candidates for office be always inquired into before a selection
is made. None whose lineage is insufficient are eligible for
appointments, even although their character, conduct, and
capacity may be unexceptionable.''*
Thus, a practically hereditary governing caste was con-
stituted, was denied to all except the
to which admission
descendants of the old clan chieftains and of the former Group
Heads, together with those of the " new men " who had been
fortunate enough to distinguish themselves on the winning side
in the great succession war of G71-2. It is questionable whether

This would appear to abrogate a previous decree of 676:

* "Let
all persons from the outer provinces who wish to enter our service be
permitted to do so, whether they be sons of Omi, Muraji, Tomo no
Miyakko, or even the sons of Kuni no Miyakko. Further, let men of
distinguished ability be allowed to do so, even though they are of the
common people, of lower rank than the above." Incidentally it here
becomes apparent that a (titular) Country Ruler (Kuni no Miyakko)
was cf much less social consequence than a (titular) Group Head
(Tcmo no Miyakko) at this time, even although the Groups or Cor-
porations had been abolished thirty years before.
172 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the caste as thus defined embraced as much as a half per cent,

of the total population of the Empire.
The great bulk of the non-privileged classes of the nation
consisted of free peasants, occupying approximately equal little

holdings, for which they had to pay taxes in cereals, in silk,

and in textile products, while they were subject to the burden
of forced labour when not drawn in the conscription. In the
latter case, they escaped all corvee work. But during their
three years of service, with the exception of the small number
drafted to the capital for service in the Imperial Guard there,
the men did not entirely abandon their original occupations.
They formed, not so much a standing army as a national
militia, receiving a training which was perfunctory at best, as
militia training is wont They certainly constituted no
to be.
privileged military class ; seem
in fact the only privilege they
to have enjoyed was their exemption from the corvee during
the limited time they were amenable to service (three years).
Below the free plebeians stood the slaves. So far as can
be made out from an inspection of the very defective census
and taxation records of the years following 700 a.d., the servile
population was not at all a considerable one. It amounted,
so far as we can judge, to something between 150,000 and
200,000,— about five per cent, of the 3,000,000 or 3,500,000
subjects of the Emperor. The slaves fell into the two categories
of private and public. Apart from such as were relatives of
the family of the owner, the former could be bought and sold
like so many oxen or horses. On their account the head of
the household owning them received an allowance of land
(one-third of that allotted to a free-born subject), for the taxes
on which he was held responsible. The public slaves were in
a much more favoured position. They received as much land
as a freeman, although they could not "deal with it so freely as
Ihe latter, and they were exempt from all forced labour apart
from their specific tasks. Possibly this arose from the fact
that nearly all the public slaves Avere to be found in the home
provinces, where ultimately no forced labour was exacted.
It now only remains to consider the attitude of the new
Government towards the various cults then competing for
official recognition. Down to the end of the sixth century the
4
Way of the Gods " had been one of the chief concerns, if not
'

the chief concern, of the head of the State. The introduction

of Buddhism and of the ethical systems of China had greatly
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 173

impaired its prestige. How things stood in 642, three years

before the great coup d'etat, becomes tolerably plain from the
following quaint passages in the Nihongi :

" 5th month, 25th day. —The Ministers conversed with one
another, saying: '
In accordance with the teachings of the
village hafuri (Shinto priests), there have been in some places
horses and cattle killed as a sacrifice to the Gods of the various
(Shinto) shrines, in others frequent changes of the market-
places, or prayers to the Kiver-Gods. None of these practices
have had hitherto any good result.' Then Soga no Ohomi
answered and said :
i
The Mahayana Sutra ought to be read
by way of extract in the temples, our sins repented of, as
Buddha teaches, and thus with humility should rain be prayed
for.'
"*
" 27th day.— In the South Court of the Great Temple, the
images of Buddha and of the Bosatsu, and the images of the
Four Heavenly Kings were magnificently adorned. A multi-
tude of priests, by humble request, read the Mahayana Sutra.' '

On this occasion Soga no Oho-omi held a censer in his hands,

and having burnt incense in it, put up a prayer.
" 28th day.— A slight rain fell.
" 29th day. —
The prayers for rain being unsuccessful, the
reading of the Sutra was discontinued.
" 8th month, 1st day. —
The Empress made a progress to
the river-source of Minabuchi. Here She knelt down and
prayed, worshipping towards the four quarters, and looking up
to Heaven {i.e., in the Chinese fashion). Straightway there
was thunder, and a great rain, which eventually fell for five
days and plentifully bedewed the Empire.
" Hereupon the peasantry throughout the Empire cried with
one voice Banzai,' and said,
'
A sovereign of exceeding
'

virtue!'"
At this time the fortunes of Shinto had fallen upon evil
days. It will be remembered that Kamatari, the Nakatomi
chieftain, whose hereditary position entitled him to the head-
ship of the old national cult, positively and persistently refused

* See Aston's notes to Vol. II., pp. 174-175. of his Translation of the
Nihongi. What popular Shint5 as expounded by its village priests
in the old time was we simply do not know. Our carefully selected
and edited official edition of Shinto is certainly not true aboriginal
Shinto as practised in Yamato before the introduction of Buddhism and
Chinese culture, and many plausible arguments which disregard that
indubitable fact lose much of their weight,
174 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

to assume the office. The Emperor Kotoku (645-654), virtually

the nominee of Kamatari, " despised the Way of the Gods."
In 661 we hear of the graves round a Shinto shrine being
summarily cut down to make room for a new palace. Under
Tenchi Tenno, Shinto recovered somewhat; and in Temmu
Tenno's time (672-686) it was again held in a fair measure of
official consideration. It is then that we meet with the first
really historical notice of the Great (National) Purification
(Oho-harahc) —one of the most important and most solemn
ceremonies of the old cult,* while we hear of the celebration
of many Shinto functions and festivals in the course of the
fourteen years of this reign. But Shinto suffered shrewdly
from a lack of substantial endowments; and so was never in
a position to make itself either much feared, or to become at
all formidable to the ruling authorities. Furthermore it had
no code of morality; and it said little or nothing about a
future life. A half-yearly Great General Purification served
to settle matters effectually for the nation at large for the
space of six months and individuals could easily arrange their
;

own private scores with the Gods on very easy terms. It was
just the spiritual counterpart of the general half-yearly house-
cleaning in certain provincial municipalities on which the
swordgirt police of the present day insist, and which they
superintend with all the dignified severity of demeanour such
a very grave and serious function demands.
Buddhism stood on a very different footing. Sufficient has
already been said to indicate that the edition of Buddhism
which came to Japan and obtained the devoted, if not the
very devout, support of the Soga would have infallibly been
repudiated by the founder of the religion, for Buddha no less
than Jesus of Nazareth has had only too abundant reasons to
pray to be saved from many of his professed disciples. As has
been said, to Shotoku Taishi Buddhism was evidently a religion
of the rational moral sense, —a religion not only of obligation
or of fear, but of gratitude for the receipt of blessings, if not
unsought for, at all events undeserved. But to most of his
contemporaries Buddhism was simply a splendidly easy device
for obtaining temporal and perhaps everlasting prosperity, for
dodging the Devil or Devils, and escaping the pains and

* See Dr. Florenz's learned essay in Transactions of the Asiatic

Society of Japan, vol. xxvii., part I.
 THE GREAT REFORM OP 645. 175

penalties of the various Hells. " Do right for the sake of

doing right ; don't do right for the expectation of a reward,"
this was no accepted maxim of conduct among the generality
of the professed Buddhists of old Japan, any more than it is
among the generality of professing modern Christians. The
continental religion at first, at least, was valuable not for
supplying a rule or rules of conduct, so much as a new devil-
dodging device, and a means of securing material prosperity
or evading disaster both in this life and in that which is to
come. Buddhism made its appeal to the ignorant vulgar by
its magicians and exorcists, by its living saints in the flesh
who were supposed to possess strong Court interest with the
dignitaries of the ghostly world, by the gorgeousness of its
temples and the solemn pomp of its ritual observances. Yet
in spite of all this it held within its embrace higher and loftier

elements that could do, and did do, much for the culture and
civilisation of Japan. But certain of the keener intellects in
the official world judged not unreasonably or unrightly that
they had good reasons for looking upon its progress with
distrust and uneasiness. For one thing it had what Shinto
never had, —
a strong and evergrowing organised priesthood
and a body of rcligieux who stood apart and separate from the
bulk of the population, and whose interests were those of a
special caste, likely to clash with those of the rulers and the
people at large upon occasion. If virtue could look for such
munificent rewards both in this and the future life, and if
virtue was more and more to come to be identified with the
tendering of a due reverence to the Three Precious Things,
—
Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood, the officials may well
have felt that the advent of an Impcrhim in Imperio was
something more than a mere possibility. Accordingly the more
far-sighted among the legislators were quickly at work enacting
what corresponded to our Statutes of Mortmain. For example,
it is plainly laid down in the Code of 702 that no gifts or

sales of land should be made to temples, while individual priests

or nuns were prohibited from holding real estate. But both
provisions were more honoured in the breach than in the
observance, for in old Japan, as elsewhere, the enacting and
the enforcing of a statute were occasionally vastly different
things. Before this, Temmu Tenno (072-686) had taken means
to curtail the holdings of the temples; yet when he fell ill

and felt his end to be approaching we find him making extensive

176 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

donations not only in personalty but in real property To the

Church. Tn ante-Reform Japan a tremendous amount of the
national resources was consumed in the erection of mausolea,
and on funerals generally. In 646 this abuse was grappled
with pretty effectually, and in less than a quarter of a century
afterwards mausolea ceased to be constructed, while a funeral
no longer involved the surviving relatives in financial ruin.
But the expenditure on the occasion of a death was now to a
great extent deflected into another channel. It came to be the
Buddhist religieuco that profited mostly at such times. Instead
of being squandered upon tombs, it was upon the erection of
gorgeous fanes and the casting of gigantic idols that the
wealth of the empire was presently lavished.* For this
the nation got a certain, if not indeed an adequate, return.
Apart from its ethical and spiritual influence upon the people,
Buddhism did much to stimulate the artistic instincts of the
Japanese. From the mausolea the nation had got no return
whatsoever.
It was not until Tokugawa times that the Buddhist canon
was translated into Japanese. Hence a knowledge of Chinese
was indispensable to the priests, and so the leaders in the old
Japanese Church were generally well acquainted with the
classical books of the Middle Kingdom. There does not seem
to have been any hostility between them and the laymen who
made a specialty of the study of Chinese literature, such as
prevailed during the Tokugawa age. Bin was by no means
the only ecclesiastic whose services were enlisted by the
authorities in consequence of his intimate acquaintance with
Chinese institutions. This would naturally tend to make the
superior priesthood respected by statesmen who continued to
draw from the ethical and political philosophy
their inspiration
of the Chinese Empire. This formed the chief subject of the
curriculum in the University, into which institution, however.
Buddhism found no admittance. What perhaps contributed
in no small measure to prevent any clash between Buddhist

* Under Jito Ten no (686-697) the 46 temples of 622 a.d. had in-
creased to 545. Although it was a far cry from this number to the
11,037 fanes cf the year of the Mongol invasion (1281), yet it serves
to show that the advance of Buddhism had not been inconsiderable dur-
ing the two generations subsequent to the death of its great patron,
Soga no Mumako. In 690 we hear of a "retreat" participated in
by 3,363 priests cf the seven metropolitan (Nara) temples. Each had
thus the population of a considerable village.
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 177

priests and lay literati was that the latter never secured the
kaaterial resources necessary for the maintenance of a caste.
Fashionable as was the study of Chinese letters at Court and
in aristocratic circles, proficiency in these letters
brought but
littleadvantage to the scholar, either of plebeian or of com-
paratively humble birth. It is questionable whether the total
combined endowments of the University and of all the other
educational institutions in old Japan were equal to those of
an average second-class Buddhist fane. These endowments,
too, meagre as they were, were frequently woefully mismanaged.

In addition to these, we hear of occasional grants being made

to meritorious savants, but these were generally so scanty as
to be little better than doles. Only on three occasions in the
course of centuries do we find men outside the favoured ring
of courtiers raising themselves to the highest Ministerial office
mainly by their scholarship.* Thus what was the almost
general rule in Chinawas the glaring exception in Japan. In
the former country there was a strong and sometimes an all-
powerful body of literati, with special vested interests of
their own, whom was extremely perilous to slight or to
it

offend. In Japan there was no such body. A reputation for

scholarship did indeed greatly enhance the prestige of a
Japanese statesman ; office rested not upon
but his claim to
his learning, but upon and his family connections.
his descent
Small wonder, then, that the Fnjiwara house could count so
many " men of distinction," for the Fnjiwara very carefully
saw to it that outsiders of any real ability should never be in
a position to compete with them, or to contest their claims
to " distinction."
In fine, was what mainly occupied
then, Chinese literature
the attention of aristocratic circles; and to these circles, and
to the abler Buddhist priests, its study was confined for
generations. The upper classes tended more and more to
regulate their lives and their conduct by Chinese ideas. It
was only gradually that these filtered down to the people below.
Buddhism was also mainly a cult of the upper classes, although
great pains were taken to diffuse it among the people at large.
It was even used as a weapon propaganda among
of political
the wild and warlike Havato of Southern Kyushu, and the

* Kibi no Mabi (692-775); Sugawara no Michizane (847-903)

Fujiwara no Arihira (891-970).

M
178 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

equally fierce and intractable Emishi of the North. To the

former Buddhist missionaries were sent from Dazaifu in G92,
while we meet with several notices of Emishi, turned
Buddhist priests, being rewarded for meritorious work among
their turbulent and savage fellow-countrymen. But withal,
down to about 800 a.d. the common people appear to have
remained wedded to the old aboriginal cult of Shinto. At
Court and in official and aristocratic circles it was still

recognised, if not very zealously or substantially encouraged.

But inasmuch as it had no special priestly caste, no moral code,
nothing to say about a future life, no Heaven, and, perhaps
still more important, no Hell,* and no substantial endow-
ments, it was, in the nature of things, bound to go down before
the lately introduced continental cult. However, the Japanese
have been at all times prone to " take their good thing wherever
they find and the lurking suspicion that there might be
it " ;

some be procured from the practice of the old

benefits to
national cult after all, restrained even the most devout of
Buddhists from making war upon it. In comparatively modern
times it has proved itself to be possessed of great potentialities
as an instrument of government; and the more astute states-

men of a Sinicised Japan may very well have perceived that

it could, on occasion, be utilised to serve their ends to very
good purpose.
One item, but this an all-important one, remains to be
considered in this chapter. How far was the position of the
sovereign affected by the new doctrines imported from China?
The Emperor in China was the Viceregent of Heaven, and held
his throne by his Virtue or Virtues. When he failed in Virtue,
there was a pretext for any subject, powerful enough to do so,
to depose him and to assume his place the usurper or the new ;

sovereign likewise basing his title on his Virtue. There was

no doctrine of right to the throne by hereditary divine descent,
such as there is even now, and was then, in Japan. At all
times it has been the wont of Chinese sovereigns to attribute
national disasters and mishaps to their own lack of Virtue,
and on the other hand the statesmen and warriors of Meiji
are constantly found asserting that their efforts have been
crowned bv success merelv on account of the Virtue of the

* Or Hells, with which pc pular Buddhism came to be richly

furnished.
 THE GREAT REFORM OF 645. 179

Emperor But there is no reason to believe that

of Japan.
language of this nature was in use in Japan, either by ruler
or subject, before 600 a.d. The earliest authentic instance of
the enunciation of this Virtue theory is to be found in the
so-called " Laws " of Shotoku Taishi, issued in 604. After the
Reform of 645, language which implies a partial adoption of
it at least is of comparatively frequent occurrence. But, at
the same time, the native theory of hereditary descent from
divine ancestors is not abandoned; indeed, we now and then

find the two vastly different theories implied in the wording

of one and the same decree. The truth would seem to be that
the Japanese statesmen occasionally made the sovereign talk
in the conventional language of the Chinese Court, a circum-
stance that is not at all strange when we remember that in
most things Japan was then sitting as a humble disciple at
the feet of China. But the " Virtue theory," which had served
to justify so many revolutions and dynastic changes in the
Middle Kingdom, was never pushed to its logical consequences
in the Island Empire. Here, although its adoption may have
been implied by the use of certain phrases and formulae, it
was never taken as anything more serious than ornamental
trappings which might enhance the dignity of the ruler. It
has never been used to justify the subversion of a dynasty, for
from the beginnings of history until now there has been no
more than one dynasty in Japan. On this circumstance the
Japanese reflect with pride; and it seems to have excited the
envy of certain Chinese Emperors. In 984, the monk Fujiwara
Ohonen was very graciously received at the Court of the first
Sung monarch. " His Majesty, understanding that the Kings
of Japan had borne but one family name for generation after
generation, and that all the Ministers' offices were hereditary
in certain families, said to the Prime Minister: 'These are

island barbarians, and yet their dynasty goes back to remote

antiquity, whilst their Ministers also inherit office in an un-
broken succession. This is simply the ancient way of doing.
The T ang Dynasty's Empire was dismembered, and the Five
k

Dynasties of Liang, Chow, etc., enjoyed even a more limited

dominion. It is sad to think how few of our official families
can boast of a long hereditary line.' "
Article II. of the Japanese Constitution of 1889 lays it

down that ik
the Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by
180 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Imperial male descendants, according to the provisions of the

Imperial House Law." Article II. of this House Law asserts that
" the Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by the Imperial
eldest son," and Article III. that " when there is no Imperial
eldest son, the Imperial eldest grandson shall succeed, and that
when there is neither Imperial eldest son nor any male descen-
dant of his, the Imperial son next in age, and so on in every
successive case, shall succeed."In connection with this an
authoritative commentary on the Constitution informs us that
" as to the succession to the Throne there have been plain
instructions since the time of the first Imperial Ancestor. In
obedience to these instructions the Throne has been transmitted
to the sons and grandsons of the Emperors. . . ." As we have
taken some slight pains to deal with the exact circumstances
of each individual succession to the Throne as set forth in
the records, we leave it to the intelligence of the reader to
decide how far this contention of the able and learned com-
mentator is in accordance with facts.
Thanks to the provisions of the new Imperial House Law
the succession question will henceforth decide itself automa-
tically. In former times it certainly did not do so. In the
following chapter the circumstances in connection with the
accession of each new sovereign will incidentally be considered
somewhat minutely.
 181

CHAPTER VI.

FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU.

(662 TO 782 A.D.)

rpHE Reformers of 645 may well have cherished the hope

would enable Japan
that a strong centralised government
to resume the prosecution of her enterprises in the Korean
peninsula and to carry them to a successful completion. At
the very time of the great Japanese coup d'etat, another
Chinese attack on Koguryu was being foiled by the stubborn-
ness of the warriors of Northern Korea. Shortly after the
accession of the T'ang dynasty in 618 all three peninsular
States had professed themselves to be the vassals of the Middle
Kingdom, which continued for some time to extend its favours,
or its indifference, to all three in tolerably equal measure.
However, as usual, Silla diplomacy proved too astute for her
rivals; and from about 640 Silla influence was in the ascendant
at the Court of Hsian. Pakche and Koguryu now began to
and the Chinese expedition
co-operate in their attacks on Silla ;

of 644-5 was dispatched partly to relieve Silla, and partly to

effect the conquest and the annexation of Koguryu to China.
On this occasion the Chinamen received another severe lesson;
and although they were minded to make an end of Koguryu,
they became very cautious in their dealings with her. During
the next few years China kept pressing on the north-western
frontier of her daring little neighbour, but with little tangible
results beyond making a diversion in favour of Silla, at war
with both Pakche and Koguryu. So at last in 659 the T'ang
Court adopted the counsel of Silla, and in conjunction with
the latter resolved to make an end of Pakche, as a preliminary
to attacking Koguryu from the south as well as from the north
simultaneously.
A Chinese force of 130,000 men was transported to the
Pakche coast in 659, and co-operation with the Silla
this, in
"troops, effected the ruin of Pakche in the following year, 660.
The King and four of his sons were captured and sent to China,
while the country was divided into five prefectures, controlled
182 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

by governors selected from among the conquered people, with a

Chinese Viceroy to superintend them. However, a son of the
King had been living as a sort of hostage in Japan for a good
many and when the Pakche patriot Poksin organised
years;
a revolt to some good purpose, envoys were dispatched
to the Japanese Court to ask that this Prince should
be sent over as King and at the same time to im-
plore Japanese aid. The appeal was by no means fruitless;
an expedition was equipped, and Saimei, the Empress, then
65 years of age, proceeded to Kyushu to superintend its

dispatch. However, her death at this juncture (661) delayed

matters somewhat; but two months later the Korean Prince
was dispatched with 5,000 Japanese auxiliaries to support his
cause, while liberal supplies of provisionsand munition of
war were forwarded to the insurgents. As both China and
Silla were now fully occupied with their joint attack upon
Koguryu, the prospects of the Pakche patriots ought to have
been more than fair. But just at this point an intrigue
proved fatal to Poksin, who was ignominiously executed; and
the death of Poksin rang the knell of the patriot cause. A
Japanese expeditionary force of 27,000 men crossed the sea;
but it met with premature disaster. A Chinese fleet of 170
sail encountered it at the mouth of the Pekehon river, and

practically annihilated
it. And this put an end to all official

Japanese attempts upon Korea for 930 years.

A few years later (668) Koguryu fell before the combined
Chinese and Silla attack; and the latter State now found
itself undisputed mistress of the greater part of the peninsula.
A united Korea becomes so strong that from time to time we
find her regarded as such a menace by Japan, that the national
gods are invoked whenever a Sillan invasion threatens.
One result of the fall of Pakche in 660, and of Koguryu
eight years later on, was the influx of considerable bodies of
Korean immigrants into Japan. In 665 as many as 400 Pakche
plebeians were assigned land and houses in the district of
Kanzaki in Omi, while in the following year a still more con-
siderable colony of them, 2,000 strong, was settled in " the
East country. Without distinction of priests or laymen they
were all maintained at Government expense for three years."
Three years later still, 700 more were established in Omi.
And these are only a few of the notices of immigrants we
meet with at this time. From a decree of 681 it appears that
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 183

these new subjects were exempted from all taxation for a

space of ten years ; in 681 they were freed from the obligation
of rendering forced labour for ten years more. As for the
Korean nobles, they were put on the same footing as the Japan-
ese aristocrats in 671 we hear of official rank being conferred
;

on as many as 70 of them at once. In short, the treatment

meted out to the refugees was something more than merely
hospitable; was exceedingly generous.
it

In the feudal ages and down to the Meiji era we meet with
frequent mention of the Eta, who formed a very considerable
fraction of the pariah class in Japan. The origin of these
people is mysterious and has been the subject not only of much
curiosity, but of a good deal of lively debate. Some will have
it that they were of Korean extraction. In the old records we
have met with nothing that lends any support to this supposi-
tion. Koreans of gentle birth were invariably treated as
gentlefolk in Japan while their plebeian countrymen, so far
;

from being discriminated against, were accorded immunities

and privileges which must have made their condition a subject
of envy to the native tillers of the soil and the native craftsman
and trader. Their position in the country of their adoption
—
was emphatically an honourable one, honourable not only to
themselves, but to Japan and the Japanese.
Tenchi Tenno, under whom this great influx of refugees
took place, was perhaps the ablest man, and was certainly one
of the most enlightened sovereigns that ever sat upon the
throne of Japan. It was only, then, to be expected that his wel-
come Koreans should have been as warm as
to these intelligent
that extended by the Great Elector of Brandenburg to the
Huguenots in 1685. Tenchi Tenno, as the Prince Naka no Oye,
had begun his public career with the assassination of Soga no
Iruka (645). Subsequent events, however, bore eloquent testi-
mony in support of the plea that the motive that prompted
his crime was neither a personal nor an interested one. The
Prince really aimed at nothing but the promotion of the public
good, and the creation of a strong and just central power that
could make itself feared and respected, and perhaps ultimately
regarded with sincere affection by a unified and united people.
He might very well have assumed the Imperial dignity in 645;
but he refused to do so. In 654 it was his undoubted right to
do so ; but he once more stood aside, and reinstated his mother
184 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

on the throne, allowing her to enjoy all the glory and all the
splendour of the position, while he contented himself with all
the hard and thankless work. After her death in 661, he went
on quietly as Prince Imperial for several years, and it was
only in (MS that he consented to assume the style of an Emperor
of Japan. And even then he continued to live in a house built
of trees with the bark on. His premature death in 671, seem-
ingly hastened by the fatigues of unremitting toil, was empha-
tically an irreparable national loss.

On this occasion there was yet another of those dire and

deadly succession disputes. In addition to his Empress, Ten-
chi had had four consorts, by whom he had eight children, and
besides these he had had six others by four of the palace
women. Prince Ohotomo, the son of one of these women,
seems to have been the ablest of the family, for shortly before
his father's death he was appointed Chancellor of the Empire,
although then only twenty-two or twenty-three years of age.
Butit was Tenchi's younger brother, afterwards Temmu Tenno,

who had been nominated Prince Imperial. The latter, forty-

five years old at the death of Tenchi in 671, had been careful to
strengthen his position by marriage. Of his nine wives, four
were daughters of Tenchi, and hence also nieces of his own,
two were daughters of Kamatari, and yet another a Soga lady.
Still, in spite of all this, his position was by no means a sure

one; and when summoned to Tenchi's deathbed, he refused to

accept the throne, and begged for permission to renounce the
world and practise religion. Meanwhile the Ministers of the
Right and of the Left and three other great nobles confederated
with Prince Ohotomo to support his cause, no matter what
might betide; and it was perhaps a knowledge of this that
induced the messenger sent to summon Temmu to his brother's
sick-bed to counsel him to " think before he spoke." Be that
as it might, the future Temmu Tenno deemed it expedient to
renounce the succession and the world, —for the time being at
all events.On that same day he " collected his private
weapons
and deposited them every one in the Department" and "put
on the priestly garb." Two days later he set out from the
Shiga capital for Yoshino, escorted by the Great Ministers.
When they bade him good-bye at Uji some one said :
" Give a

tiger wings and let him go."

A month later Tenchi Tenno died, and his son, Prince Oho-
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 185

tomo, became Emperor of Japan (Kobun Tenno) at the capital

of Otsu in Omi. The " winged tiger/' his uncle, however, was
merely biding his time ; and was evidently in active communi-
cation with his partisans in all parts of the Empire. Six
months on the plea that the Omi Court had designs upon
later,

his life, he left Yoshino for Owari and raised the standard of
revolt.Then followed the most desperate and extensive civil
war that Japan had yet seen. For some time it raged with
varied but on the whole equal fortunes; but at last the rebel
cause proved triumphant and Kobun Tenno lost his life, while

some of his surviving supporters were executed and the others

banished. If Prince Ito's theory is correct, Prince
Ohotomo, the son of Tenchi Tenno, had a much better title to
the throne than Temmu, who was merely a younger brother of
Tenchi's. It must not be overlooked that it was this Temmu
who organised the historical commission of 681, and that it
was under a daughter of his that the Nihongi was completed
in 720. Hence the Nihongi's account of the events of this time
must be regarded with a certain amount of suspicion.
" Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason ?

For if it prospers, none dare call it treason."

The Nihongi, compiled as it was by Temmu's orders, and

completed under what was virtually a Temmu dynasty, natu-
rally enough endeavours to exalt Temmu and
the merits of
his administration. Yet a careful perusal of the annals of
Temmu and a comparison of them with those of his elder bro-
ther only serve to intensify our conviction of the extreme
seriousness of the loss sustained by the nation in the death of
Tenchi Tenno. P>et\veen G72 and 686 the Imperial mind was
evidently much occupied with the grave question of millinery;
even the dress of coninioners, the method in which ladies
should wear their hair, and their seat on horseback became
subjects of legislation. In 681 a sumptuary law was promul-
gated, which ran to no fewer than 92 articles, and this was
only one of many such edicts issued during the reign. Seve-
ral times the Ministers were summoned to Court and " made
to gamble"; and on another occasion they were called upon
to solve conundrums! In more important matters there was
a great deal of what the Japanese call Chorei Bo-kai (revising
in the evening the edict issued in the morning) legislation.
For instance, in 683 tk
the Emperor made a decree, saying:
186 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

'
Henceforth copper coins must be used and not silver coins.'

On the very following day was decreed that the use of the
it

silver coins should not be discontinued !* Temnm's inconsistent

attitude towards the endowments of Buddhist temples has

already been referred to.

On the death of this Emperor in 080 there was yet another

succession difficulty. He had made six of his sons by different
mothers vow eternal concord. But the succession went to none
and a month after Temnm's death one of them, Prince
of these,
Ohotsu, was " executed " because he aspired to the vacant
throne. This was presently occupied by one of Temnm's
widows, who is known in history as the Empress Jito. On
Prince Ito's theory she had no right to the position what-
soever. She abdicated in 097, —the second authentic instance
of the abdication of a Japanese sovereign, —and was succeeded
by Moinniu Tenno (697-707), her grandson, a boy of fourteen,
—the earliest case of a minor on the throne. On his demise in
707, his mother, a sister of Jito Tenno, and at the same time
her daughter-in-law, reigned for eight years (Genimyo 708-715),
and then abdicated in favour of her daughter (Gensho Tenno,
715-723), who in her turn surrendered the throne to her
nephew, Shomu Tenno. The latter, after a reign of 24 years,
resigned the Imperial dignity to his unmarried daughter, who,
like Tenchi Tenno's mother, occupied the throne on two occa-
sions. From
the year 749 to 758 she appears as the Empress
Koken'; from 705 to her death in 709 she is known as the
Empress Shotoku. The interval between 758 and 705 was oc-
cupied by the reign of the Emperor Junnin, a grandson of
Temmu, and a son of Prince Toneri. At present, thanks to the
Imperial House Law, the succession question decides itself
automatically, as has been said. Twelve centuries ago this was
by no means the case. In 75G the ex-Einperor Shonm had died,
leaving instructions that Michi-no-Oho, a grandson of Temmu
Tenno, should be made Prince Imperial. His injunctions were
indeed carried out; but in less than a year afterwards, the
reigning Empress Koken stripped him of the title; and when
it was urged that the degraded Prince was her father's nominee

she merely replied that she was dissatisfied with him and

* These coins were probably Chinese. Silver had been discovered

in Tsushima in 674; but there is no authentic mention of a Japanese
mint before 708.
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 187

wished to have nothing more to do with him. The Prince now

known as the Emperor Jnnnin was thereupon installed as Heir
to the Throne; but when the Empress abdicated in his favour
in 758, she kept control of all the most important affairs of
State, including the right of punishing culprits and of accord-
ing amnesty. And after a reign of six years Junnin gave such
offence to the ex-Empress that she summarily deposed him,
exiled him to the island of Awaji, where he was strangled, and
reascended the throne herself as the Empress Shotoku (765-
769). Her death in 769 brought what may be called the Temniu
dynasty to a close. In the course of it there had been eight
sovereigns, four of whom had been females, four abdications,
one re-ascension of the throne, and one minor sovereign. To
elucidate matters more minutely we venture to trespass upon
the patience of the reader by the insertion of yet another very
dry genealogical chart.

(34) Jomei (629-641)

I

(38) (4( ))
Tenchi Tern mu
(662-671) (672- 586)

1 1 1

(41) (43) (39) Shi ki

Jito Gemmyo Kobun
(686-697) (708-715] (671-2)

(49)
Konin Kusa ^abe Ton eri
(770-781)
1
r
(4 n
(50) Jun nin
Kwammu (758- 765)
(782-805)
1

12) 14)
Moramu Gen sho
(697 707) (715 -723)

(45) Shomu (724-74S)

(46) Koken (748-756)

(48) Shotoku (765-769)

On Empress Shotoku (769) " the Minister of

the death of the
the Left,Fujiwara no Nagate, and the Minister of the Right,
Kibi-no-Mabi, deliberated as to which of the Princes of the
Blood should succeed her but they found none of them capable
;

of the position. Thereupon Fujiwara no Momoka and Fuji-

188 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

wara no Yoshitsugu proposed Prince Shirakabe, and he was

proclaimed Emperor at the age of 02." He was the son of
Prince Shiki, and the grandson of Tenchi Tenno. " In the
troubles of 072 Prince Ohotomo (Kobun Tenno) having been
slain, and Temmu having been proclaimed Emperor, the re-

latives of Tenchi Tenno had been held in small esteem; with

the elevation of Konin to the throne they regained their former
5
splendour.'
It was at this period in her history that Japan had her
first great city and her first permanent In 710 Nara*
capital.
was laid out as a replica of the Chinese capital of Hsian, and
with its seven great Buddhist fanes, its Shinto shrines, its palace
and other public buildings, soon assumed an appearance of
magnificence and splendour. With an interval of two years
under Shomu Tenno it continued to be the seat of the Court
lor three-quarters of a century, —
from 710 to 784; and thus
in the history of Japan, and especially in the history of
Japanese literature, the eighth century is spoken of as the
Nara epoch. It was at the beginning of this epoch that the
Kojihi was committed to writing (712), and that the Nihongl
was compiled and published (720), while this century has also
given us the oldest Japanese anthology, t It has also given i;s
some of our most valuable material for the history of old Japan
in the Code of Taiho, which, however, having being issued in

702, ante-dates the Nara period by eight years. It was the

work of a Fuji wara statesman who was the grandfather of
the young sovereign (Moninm) he professedly served.
This Code of Taiho was, however, not the earliest body of
Japanese law, for we are told that that great worker Tenchi
Tenno had compiled a code of law in twenty-two books, which
was revised and issued to all the provincial governors in the
time of the Empress Jito (08(5-097) . But the Code of Taiho
is the earliest body of Japanese law that has come down
to us, although unfortunately it has not come down to us
either in a complete or in its strictly original form. How far
it incorporated Tenchrs code we are not in a position to say;
but what can be asserted with some confidence is that it was

* The
old capital lay mainly to the west of the present town of
Nara; the great temples retain their original sites.
f See Aston 's Japanese Literature ; and Dr. Florenz's Geschichte
der japanischen Litteratur.
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 189

largely based upon the famous Chinese Code of the Yung-Hwui

period (650-5). The old Japanese Penal Code of 702 has been
lost, and exists to-day only in scattered quotations in other old

documents. The Civil Code has come down to us almost in its

entirety, but not in the original edition of 702. What we
possess is the edition of 833, which contains the text of 702
interwoven with the official commentaries compiled in 718 and

in 833. To disentangle the text from the commentary is now

and then a somewhat difficult task, but not an insuperably
hopeless one. The Code, even as we possess it, covering as it
does almost every branch of public and private law, from the
organisation of the central and local government down to such
matters as the regulation of markets and funerals and the
practice of medicine, is an invaluable treasure to any pains-
taking historian endowed with a modicum of common-sense,
and so, ever mindful of the fact that there is often a wide
gap between the enactment and the enforcement of laws.*

* A word about the primary authorities for the history of the

period subsequent to 697 a.d. may not be out of place. To begin with
we have five official histories:
(1) The Shokunihongi (Continuation of the Nihongi), in 40 volumes
— the first 20 being by Sugano no Mamichi, and the others by Fuji
wara no Tsugunawa. It begins with 700 a.d. and brings the record
down to 791. It was completed in 797.
(2) Nihon-Koki (Later Annals of Japan), a'so the work of a
Fujiwara (841). As we have it, it is incomplete. It gives the history
from 792 to 833.
(3) Shoku-Nihon-Koki (Continuation of the Later Annals of Japan).
In 20 volumes, giving the annals from 833 to 850. Published in 859.
(4) Montoku Jitsuroku (850-858). Issued in 10 volumes in. 878 by
Fujiwara no Mototsune, Urabe no Yoshika, and the famous Sugawara
no Michizane.
(5) Sandai-Jitsuroko (858-887). By Fujiwara no Tokihira and
others. In 50 volumes, completed in 901.
In the year-period of Engi (9*01-922) the Emperor Daigo ordered
Fujiwara no Tokihira to draw up another Code. Tokihira died in
909, but his work was continued by his younger brother Tadahira, and
published in 927 under the title of the Engi Shiki. Owing to tne cen-
tralised form of the government, this Code touches a good many phases
of the life of the nation. From it we obtain among other things a fair
notion of the extent to which the system of taxation had developed at
the date of its compilation. It —
is, moreover, largely retrospective,
compilation of existing laws, and so is more valuable for the eighth
century than for the actual practice of its own time. Both it and the
Code of Taiho (702) set forth many provisions that seem to have been
more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
In addition to all this we have in the Riuju-Sandai-Kyaku the frag-
ments of a classified compilation of Imperial Edicts (six incomplete
books out of an original thirty-two), dealing with the periods 810 823,
859-876, and 901-922, a very important repertory of documents. These
edicts were originally addressed to the local authorities, with a view
to facilitating the operation of the Code, and of correcting official and
popular abuses, and being mainly the outcome of petitions or sugges-
190 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Two years before Nara was laid out as a replica of the

Chinese capital of Hsian, the Japanese authorities reproduced
another important adjunct of Chinese civilisation. In 708
the discovery of copper in the Chichibu range in Musashi made
it possible for them mint and to strike coins of
to establish a
their own. This mint, which was in the province of Omi, began
by striking both silver and copper pieces; but although there
was another issue of silver coins as well as a first issue of
gold ones in 760, copper became the current coinage of the
realm almost exclusively. At first the ratio between silver and
copper was one to four; later on, it was fixed at one to
twenty-five, and finally at one to ten. In 712 an edict fixed
the price of rice at six sho for one cash or mon. As a koku
of rice,which now costs about 15 yen or 30s., contains 100 sho
it could then have been purchased for 16 or 17 of the earliest

copper coins, which must thus have had a purchasing value

of about one thousand times what they would have at the
present day. In this same year, 712, official salaries were
partly fixed in terms of the new money ; a holder of the eighth
rank was to receive one hiki of cloth and 20 mon per annum.
At the same time various grades of official rank were offered
to such as had amassed amounts of cash from 5,000 mon up-
wards, while in the following year it was enacted that no

official could hope to rise beyond the grade of rank he then

held unless he was the possessor of 6,000 mon. In contradis-

tinction to this legislation we find the Emperor Kwammu
enacting severe penalties against hoarders of the coin of the
realm (798) Between 760 and 958 eleven new coinages were
!

issued by the mints of Omi, Harima, Nagato, and Dazaifu.

With the exception of that of 765, each new issue was valued
at one to ten of the previous denominations, so that the Go-
vernment, or those interested in the matter, must have made

tions which they incorporate in the text, they throw much .light upon
the actual conditions of things in the Empire.
Lately we have the Dai Nihon Kobunsho (Ancient Documents of
Japan), at present being issued by the Imperial Historical Commission.
They give much information about the working of the land-allotment
and taxation laws; they indicate how the family was constituted and
why it was so constituted, how the burden of taxation was adjusted,
how the dead-rice loans, the destitute, and the outlaws increased on the
one hand, and the untaxable population on the other: and they have
much to say about the growing demands of the Central Government on
the local authorities, and about the portentous growth of that devour-
ing parasite, the Buddhist Church.
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 191

a huge profit out of the transaction, apart from the fact that
the coins of the last eight issues were only about half the size
of those of the earlier ones.
The establishment of a mint served to add not inconsider-
ably to the penal legislation of Japan. Within a year of its
erection counterfeiters were busily at work. In 709 those who
counterfeited silver coin were to be enslaved; and two years
later all counterfeiters were to be beheaded, and those acces-
sory to the crime made Government slaves. In the general
amnesties of 784, 804, 827, 853, and 8G4 forgers were specially
excepted.
With the year 958 the operations of the Government mint
ceased for more than six centuries, no coins being struck by
or for the Kyoto authorities until Hideyoshi's time in 1587.
The fact seems to have been that by the middle of the tenth
century the native supplies of the red metal had become ex-
hausted. This may well sound strange when we are told that
it was only on very rare occasions that the needs of the mint

absorbed as much as 20 tons of copper per annum, and that

for considerable periods it stood totally inactive. It was the
Buddhist Church that made it impossible for Japan to main-
tain her metallic currency. Temple furnishings and utensils,
bells, and idols came to absorb more and more of the necessary

material for it. The great bell of the To-dai-ji at Nara, cast
in 732, weighs 49 tons; and although this still continues to be

the monster bell of Japan, and one of the monster bells of the
world,* it was only the chief of many similar contemporary
efforts. Altogether it is probable that in old Japan very much
more copper was consumed in the casting of bells than in the
minting of coin. And it must be remembered that bells were
much less voracious than idols. The To-dai-ji bell of 49 tons
contained less than one-eleventh the amount of copper that
went to the fashioning of the To-dai-ji Daibutsu, which weighed
something between 550 and 560 tons. Daibutsu and bell to-
gether might thus very well have sufficed to have kept the mint
going for a full half-century more; and Daibutsu and bell
together, although dwarfing all individual rivals by the mas-

*The Tsar Kolokol of Moscow, cast in 1733, weighs about 440,000

lbs.,but it is cracked and has never been actually hung or rung. A
second Moscow bell weighs 128 tons: the great bell of Peking, cast in
1406, 53 tons. After these domes the To-dai-ji bell, cast hundreds of
years before any of them.
102 HISTORY OB" JAPAN.

siveness of their proportions, represented but a mere fraction

of Hi;' metallic wealth of the Buddhisi Church.
.lusi ;is the Vatican Laoeoon group provided Lessiag with
;i starting point for one of the most suggestive and luminous
:

criticisms of the principles and limitations of the various fine

arts over writ ten, it has often struck us that an ingenious

writer might well contrive to mass a fairly complete account
of eighth century Japan around the story of this Nara Dai-
butsu. For in one way or another it appears to come into
contact with almost every phase of the contemporary national
activity.
It will be remembered that the nascent fortunes of Bud-
dhism in Japan depended in no small measure upon the efficacy

or non-efficacy of the continental cult as a prophylactic against

pestilence. Now, five generations afterwards, the first great
epidemic of smallpox in Japan afforded it another rare oppor-
tunity to add to its prestige, its power, the revenues of its
priesthood, and the consideration in which its religieux were
held. This dire scourge had been introduced into Kyushu by
a fisherman who had returned from the Korean kingdom of
Silla. Thence it gradually spread eastwards, and in 735 it

began to devastate the aristocratic circles in the capital of

Nara. Among the illustrious victims it claimed were the four
Pujiwara brothers, all sons of Fujiwara no Fubito (the com-
Code of Taihd, and the grandfather and father-in-
piler of the
law of the reigning Emperor) , from whom the various houses
of Fujiwara stock descend. Every effort was made to check
the ravages of the epidemic, and among other devices the pro-
pitiation of the gods was not neglected. Offerings were made
at most of the temples by the Emperor, and the Buddhist High-
priest was called upon to offer prayers in behalf of the sove-
reign and his people. It was at this conjuncture that Shomu
Tennd bethought himself of constructing a colossal Buddha.
However, the native gods had to be reckoned with, and so the
famous Gyogi Bosatsu was sent to the Sun-goddess in Ise to
present her with a shari (sarira), or relic of Buddha, and to
ascertain how she would regard the Imperial project. After
Gyogi had passed a week at the foot of a tree close to her gate,
her chapel doors flew open, and a loud voice pronounced an
oracular sentence which was interpreted in a favourable sense.
On the night after Gyogi's return the Emperor dreamt that
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 193

the Sun-goddess appeared to him in her own form, and said,

" The Sun is Biroshana (Vairokana)," and at the same time
announced her approval of his plan of erecting a Buddhist
temple.
This Gyogi, it may be remarked, spent the best part of a
long life of 80 years (G70--749) in promoting new industrial
enterprises in Japan. He is generally credited, although quite
erroneously, with the introduction of the potter's wheel into
the country. What is tolerably certain is that he followed
the tradition of Dosho sect of Bud-
(the founder of the Hosso
dhists, of which he was the second patriarch) in building
bridges, in scaling mountains, and in opening up the hither-
to untrodden wilds of Japan to settlement and civilisation.
His also was the idea of reconciling Buddhism and the abori-
ginal Shinto cult, and of making them lie down together like
the lion and the lamb. The operation was to be performed
with the strictest regard to the economy of space; and as a
matter of fact that Shinto lamb pretty soon found ample ac-
commodation in the interior of the Buddhist lion, for Gyogi
taught that the aboriginal divinities were merely so many
Avatars or temporary manifestations of Buddha; and, as the
result of this, numerous Shinto shrines presently assumed the
appearance of Buddhist fanes, served by a staff of shaven-
pated yellow-robed ecclesiastics, who got fat upon their re-
venues. This was the beginning of that Ryobu Shinto or Shin-
Butsu-Konko, which continued to flourish down to the year of
grace 1868.
But to return to the Nara Daibutsu. The Emperor's pro-
ject was interrupted by a serious revolt in Kyushu in 740;
but, in 743, he issued an edict ordering the people to contribute
funds for the undertaking. Gyogi on his part scoured the
greater part of the Empire collecting contributions. In 744
the Emperor in person directed the construction of the model
but this image, begun at Shigaraki in Omi, was never com-
pleted. In 747, after the Emperor had gone back to Nara, he
began the casting of another image, when he carried earth
with his own Imperial hands to help to form the platform.
Seven unsuccessful attempts to cast the image were made;
and then the services of Kimi-maro, the grandson of a Korean
immigrant, as superintendent, were enlisted, and the huge
idol was at last successfully cast (749). The image, which
N
194 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

represents Lochana Buddha in a sitting posture, is fifty-three

feet in height; and we are informed that the metals used in
its construction were 500 Japanese pounds of gold, 1(>,827

pounds pounds of mercury, and 980,180 pounds

of tin, 1,954
of copper, in addition to lead. It is safe to assume that with
1he possible exception of the Byzantine Empire, no country
in contemporary Europe could have been capable of such a

gigantic effort. The question naturally arises, " How was it

"
done ?

Ordinary-sized images were cast in a single shell. But the

Daibutsu was not fashioned in this manner. The artists cast

it in a number of segments, —plates ten inches by twelve, and

of a thickness of six inches. They built up the walls of the

mould as the lower part of the casting cooled at the rate of a

foot at a time, there having thus been forty-one independent
layers, for the head and the neck, some twelve feet in height,
were cast in a single shell. It is not surprising, then, to learn

that it was only at the eighth attempt that a full measure of

success was achieved.
The 500 Japanese pounds of gold, as well as the mercury,
were used for gilding purposes solely. The Emperor was
greatly concerned as to how this amount of the precious metal
could be procured, when a fortunate discovery set his mind at
ease. At the beginning of 749 gold was sent to the capital by
the Governor of Mutsu, in whose jurisdiction a mine had been
found, and by the third month, as much as 900 ounces had
been employed in gilding the great idol. Messengers were sent
to all the temples to inform the gods of the lucky find, and
the Minister of the Left, Tachibana no Moroye, went in person,
and taking his stand before the Buddha specially communi-
cated to him the good news.
In the following month Nara witnessed a strange and
startling sight. Attended by the Empress, by his only
daughter, and by all the grandees of his Court, Shomu Tenno
proceeded to the To-dai-ji, —and there before the Great Bud-
dha, and facing him from the south, —that in the position
is,

of a subject at an Imperial audience, — the Emperor professed

himself to be the humble servant of the Three Precious Things,
—Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood ! After such an object-
lesson as this, it is but small wonder that Shomu's subjects
should come to consider a breach of the Statute of Mortmain
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 195

to be, not a crime, but a highly meritorious and exceedingly

pious and profitable act. We have inventories of the belong-
ings of two and it-
of the chief metropolitan temples in 747;
appears that besides immense treasures of various kinds, one
of them held no fewer than 4G manors and 5,000 acres of the
most fertile land in the Empire, while the other's landed pos-
sessions were almost equally extensive. Inasmuch as the mo-
nasteries and all their belongings were exempt from the at-
tentions of the revenue officers, and from all national or local
burdens, their domains, if only moderately well managed,
must have brought them an immense annual return. Further-
more these estates were rapidly expanding. Peasant cultiva-
tors overborne with taxation were always eager to hand over
their plots to a temple, and to hold them as its tenants. They
paid a rent, it is true but they no longer paid taxes, and the
;

rent was to the taxes as the little finger to the thigh-bone.

The small-pox epidemic of 735-737 had been a rare godsend
for the priests. In the latter year, in consequence of this visi-

tation, the Emperor decreed that each of the provinces should

erect a large monastery to be called Kokubunji, while shortly
afterwards he ordered the construction of a seven-storied
pagoda by each local government. Apart from the lucky
chance of the outbreak of an epidemic, the ascendency of the
Buddhist priesthood was greatly favoured by the crude state
of contemporary medical knowledge, —
or, to put it more ac-

curately perhaps, by the dense ignorance of the time. In the

eighth century disease was attributed to two great causes,
namely, to evil spirits and to food and drink. Smallpox and
intermittent fever and all nervous diseases were the work of
the evil spirits of the dead or of demons and in the treatment
;

of these and of similar maladies exorcism was the supreme

remedy. Hence the priest-doctor had abundant scope for the
—
exercise of his craft in the two-fold sense of the word. Under
the Empress Koken, the daughter and successor of that very
pietistic Emperor Shomu, there were no fewer than one hund-
red and sixteen of these clerical medicos attached to the
Court, and every one of them with plenty to do in the matter
of evicting devils and unclean spirits, and of propitiating
avenging ghosts unmannerly enough to trouble the repose of
the blue-blooded aristocracy of Yamato. To the reader of
the twentieth century all this may savour of comedy; but in
19G HISTORY OF JAPAN.

old Japan it was really a very serious matter indeed, and the
would-be historian who fails to appreciate this phase of the
intellectual life of the time will assuredly misinterpret many
of the most significant entries in the old chronicles of Japan.
It is amusing to find the very highest ecclesiastics now and
then figuring as the impotent victims of those evil spirits and
avenging manes over which they claimed to exercise such a
plenary power. What is to be made of the following notice,
for example ?
" In 746 the priest Gembo died in Kyushu. He had for-

merly been in China, whence he brought to Japan more than

5,000 Buddhist books and many holy images. The Emperor
had granted him a purple kesa, and had bestowed on him
many tokens of respect. Gembo treated everybody with dis-
dain he had forbidden the laity to imitate the manners and
;

the usages of the monks. He was hated by everybody; and

it is said that the spirit of Hirotsugu had killed him as an act
of revenge/'
This Gembo was the Northern Patriarch of the Hosso sect.*
After a sojourn of nineteen years in China he returned in 736,
and soon contrived to make himself a power in the Imperial
Court. As it was improper for the sovereign and his consorts
to repair to temples frequented by the people, a chapel (Nai-
dojo) was erected within the precincts of the Palace, and
priests were summoned to perform their rites there. Gembo
was frequently employed in this office, and took scandalous
advantage of his position to debauch the ladies of the Court.
Overtures were made by him to the beautiful wife of the young
and accomplished Fujiwara Hirotsugu, then acting as Viceroy
of Dazaifu. Hirotsugu had petitioned for Gembo's removal
before this; and on being informed by his wife of what had
happened he mobilised the forces of the Viceroyalty to lend
weight to his reiterated demands. An army
some 21,000 of
men was dispatched to deal with Hirotsugu, and he fell in
making head against it. His spirit proved to be a very rough
one indeed, working all sorts of mischief; and so a temple
was erected to him in Hizen, and due provision made for ap-
peasing his vindictive ghost, f which, as may be inferred from

* Cyogi was the Southern one.

f The temples to Suguwara Michizane (d. 903) and to the rebel
Taira Masakado in the Kwanto (940) were erected for analogous rea-
sons.
 PROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 197

the above citation, was popularly believed to have very effec-

tually rid the lieges of Gembo and his sacerdotal arrogance.
Gembo, however, was by no means the most formidable
priestly rival that crossed the path of the Fujiwara, at this
time laboriously and strenuously engaged, not so much in
consolidating as in laying a basis for their power. At this
date the great clan, although indeed powerful, had by no
means reached that position of omnipotence with which it is

erroneously credited in the eighth century, and to which it

actually attained in the middle of the ninth. The great Ka-

matari's son, Fnjiwara Fubito (659-720), had been the father-
in-law of one sovereign and the grandfather and father-in-law
of yet another, and had certainly been influential in the coun-
cils of the Empire. But it was not till 708 that he became
Minister of the Left, and his elevation to the position of
Dajodaijin or Chancellor was a posthumous one. This great
office since its creation in 671 had always been occupied by

Frinces of the Blood; since Jito's time (686-697) down to

745 by the sons and a grandson of the Emperor Temmu. The
death of Fubito's four sons Muchimaro, Fusasaki, Umakai,
and Maro, all then occupying high office, in 737 proved a seri-

ous check to the fortunes of the family.* Friuce Suzuka, a

* The following table maybe found convenient for reference: —

Southern House
Muchimaro
(680-737)
I

1 1

Toyonari Nakamaro 2 others

(704-765) (Oshikatsu)
(710-765)
Shikike
Umakai
(694-737)
1

1 1

Hirotsugu Yoshitsugu Momokawa

(715-741) (716-777) (722-779)
Northern House
Fusasaki
(682-737)
1

>
I I

Nagate Kiyokawa Matate Uona (Ancestor of

/-791 7 8<M the Fuji wara
(714-771) (716-767) U^l-'ooj fMutsu)
Eastern House
Maro (695-737)

Hamanari
(716-782)
It was with Matate's great grandson Yoshifusa (804-872) that the
unquestioned domination of the Fujiwaras began.
IDS HISTORY OF JA£>AN.

grandson of Temmu
Tenno, then became Chancellor and held
the office for eight years. In 738 the famous Tachibana no
Morove was appointed Minister of the Right, and after being
promoted Minister of the Left in 743 he wielded all but
supreme power down to 750, the year before his death. He
was no deadly rival of the Fujiwara, however; in fact, it was
to a very intimate and very peculiar blood and marriage
relationship with the great rising house that he owed the
opportunity for advancement which his sterling capacity as
a statesman and administrator enabled him to turn to such
good account. Yet w ithal he owes his niche in the Japanese
T

temple of fame more to his literary than to his political abi-

lities, for it is as the compiler of the oldest anthology, the
Manyoshu —that his name is still a familiar household word
in the Empire. Moroye's son was a man of promising parts,
but his implication in one of those wearisome and ever-recur-
ring succession plots occasioned his ruin in the very year of
the death of his father, an event which removed a serious
rival from the stage where several of the sons of the four
Fujiwara who had died in 737 were now aspiring to the role
of protagonist.
However, powerful as the Fujiwara were now becoming,
they proved no match for an astute and aspiring Buddhist
priest during the next decade. When Shomu Tenno's strong-
minded daughter professedly abdicated in 758, her successor
the Emperor Junnin lavished favours upon Fujiwara Oshi-
katsu, to whom he mainly owed his position. But the real
power in the land was not the young Emperor, but the ex-
Empress Koken, and Koken's spiritual adviser and right-hand
man was the handsome monk Dokyo, whom certain English
writers have somewhat amusingly dubbed the " Wolsey of
Japan " In 702 Fujiwara Oshikatsu had been promoted to
!

ihe first grade of the first class of rank. When it is remem-

bered that his was one of the only three instances in the
whole course of Japanese history of a subject attaining this
supremely exalted position in his lifetime, the importance of
this very bald entry in the annals will perhaps be recognised.*

* The other two instances also belong to the eighth century. They
were Tachibana no Moroye, 749; and Fujiwara no Nagate, 770. Oshi-
katsu's father, Muchimaro, one of the four Fujiwara who succumbed
to the smallpox in 737, had also been raised to the first grade of the
first class; but it was only when in articulo mortis.
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 199

This very unusual promotion gave great umbrage to Oshi-

katsu's brother and cousins and other relatives then all

eagerly engaged in the scramble for power and place, and

what was even more serious, it excited the bitter jealousy of
the good-looking, albeit shaven-pated, favourite of the ex-
Empress, who presently showed that he was even more adroit
at political intrigue than his predecessor, Gembo, had been.
Oshikatsu, learning of Dokyo's manoeuvres, secretly possessed
himself of the Imperial seal, and issued a commission to
raise troops with a view of making a summary end of the
meddlesome monk. This step at once roused the ex-Empress
to vigorous action; and officers, among them several Fujiwara,
were charged with the punishment of Oshikatsu. In the
civil war that followed there was a good deal of fierce fighting

round the south-east corner of Lake Biwa before the Fuji-

wara chief was overpowered and executed with thirty or
forty of his chief supporters. On the plea that the Em-
peror (Junnin)had entered into designs with Oshikatsu
against her life, the ex-Empress now deposed the sovereign
(7G5) and exiled him to Awaji (where he was shortly after-
wards strangled), and emerging from her retirement ascended
the throne for a second time (Shotoku, 7G5-7G9).
Dokyo was now the most powerful subject in the Empire,
head of the Church, spiritual director and chief physician to
the Empress, with a controlling voice in the decision of all
high questions of State, and feared and courted by every official

minded to make his way in the world. The relations between

the monk and the sovereign were perhaps even more equivocal
than those which subsisted between Mazarin and Anne of
Austria; in fact gossip did not refrain from asserting that
Shotoku Tenno was Dokyo's Imperial mistress in more senses
of the term than one. At last in 769 he was taken into the
Palace and magnificently lodged there, made Chancellor of
the Empire with the style of Dajo-daijin Zenji, and the title
of Ho-o, reserved for Emperors. Incredible as it may sound,
the monk was aiming at nothing less than supplanting the
line of the Sun-Goddess on the Imperial throne of Japan. It
was a century when much could be effected by an adroit use
of dreams and omens and portents, —
an age when the very
air men breathed was heavy with an enervating superstition
in which the brood of the brazen-fronted charlatan found the
200 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

rarest and Dokyo began by prompting

richest of opportunities.
an obsequious hanger-on of his own to assure him that Hachi-
man, the God of Usa ifi Buzen, had appeared to him in a
dream, and announced to him that the land would enjoy ever-
lasting repose if Dokyo became Emperor. Twenty years be-
fore this, in 749, the Empress had also had a nocturnal visit
from Hachiman Daijin, who instructed her to erect a temple
to him in the district of Hirakori in Yamato. This fact no
doubt bulked largely among the considerations leading Dokyo
to select the oracle of Hachiman as his instrument. The monk
at once repeated the story of his confederate, or rather tool,
to the Empress, who, however, proved less complaisant than
he had expected. She told him that although she held him
in the highest estimation, shehad no power to make him Em-
peror, but that she would consult the god, and act according
to his decision. She thereupon summoned Wake no Kiyomaro,
and after telling him that Hachiman had appeared to her in
a dream and ordered her to send him to Usa to consult the
divinity about the choice of an Emperor, dispatched him on
the mission. Before he set out, Dokyo saw him privately, told
him the Empress was deliberating about his (Dokyo's) eleva-
tion to the throne, and that he (Kiyomaro) should be careful
in his report. If Dokyo became Emperor, Kiyomaro should

be entrusted with the administration of the Empire; if he

—
did not bring a proper report, here there was an aposiopesis,
and the monk glared fiercely and laid his hand on his sword-
hilt. Kiyomaro saw through the intrigue, and like the fear-
less and daring man he was, he brought back the response:
" In our Empire, since the reign of the celestial spirits, and

under their descendants, no one not of their stock has ever

been honoured with the Imperial dignity. Thus it was use-
less for you to come here. Retrace your steps; you have
nothing to fear from Dokyo." Thus baulked in his overween-
ing projects the priest was furious. He had Kiyomaro muti-
lated and condemned to exile in the remote and inhospitable
province of Osumi, meaning to have him killed on the way
to his place of banishment, as was not unusual at the time.
However, Dokyo's kind intentions proved abortive, and Kiyo-
maro found a strong friend in Fujiwara Momokawa, " on
whom the country of Higo depended." In the following year
the Empress died; and Dokyo's fall was then assured. At
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 201

first he took up his abode beside the Empress's tomb; but at

the beginning of the new regime he was banished to Shimo-
tsuke, where he became the priest of " the god who presides

over remedies" (Abbot of Yakushiji).

This startling episode served to impress the statesmen of
Japan with a due sense of the advisability of circumscribing
the power and pretensions of the ecclesiastics. All the mem-
bers of the Temmu dynasty had been far too much under the
influence of their ghostly advisers. On the death of the Em-
press Shotoku in 770 without children, there were several
male descendants of Temmu with good claims to the throne;
but they were all set aside, and a grandson of the great Tenchi
was investecf with the Imperial dignity. This Prince, known
as Konin Tenno (770-782) was a mild and easy-going old
gentleman of the age of sixty-two. He mainly owed his eleva-
tion to that Fujiwara Momokawa who had done honour to
himself by espousing the cause of the disgraced patriot, Wake
no Kiyomaro. Momokawa's rank was a comparatively humble
one; but his probity and his force of character made him a
man that had to be seriously reckoned with. In short, every-
thing we know about him tends to strengthen the conviction
that he was one of the most worthy descendants of the illus-

trious Kamatari. It is tolerably plain that it was not in the

person of the good-natured old man he had contrived to raise
io the throne that he expected to find the saviour of the Em-
pire. It was Konin's successor that he had his eyes fixed upon.
As Konin was old, it was all-important that the succession
question should be promptly settled. The Empress at once
began to plot in favour of her own son; and when the Em-
peror did not listen to her pleadings she tried to get him
poisoned. As a result, mother and son were sent into banish-
ment. Konin thereupon expressed the intention of transmit-
ting the throne to his daughter. But Japan had had more
than enough to do with female rulers. During the preceding
seventy years or so, she had had four of them; and under
every one of them there had been a great advance in the autho-
rity wielded by the priests. What was wanted upon the
—
throne at this juncture was a man, and not only a man, but
a strong man. Konin then expressed the wish to make his
second son, Hiyeda, Prince Imperial; and most of the Minis-
ters were inclined to agree with the choice. But Momokawa
202 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

objected strongly. When it was urged that the eldest son,

Prince Yamabe, was disqualified by reason of the low extrac-
tion of his mother, Momokawa hotly contended that the rank

of the mother did not enter into the question at all; and so
vigorously did he press the cause of the elder Prince, that
Yamabe was designated as Konin's successor.
This Prince Yamabe, then thirty-four years of age, had for
long been earning his own living by honest and honourable
work. He held a very low rank, —no more than the junior
grade of the But as Rector of the University (in
fifth class.

which institution, as has been said, Buddhism found no foot-

ing), he had showed fine ability as an administrator; and
even at this date he had the reputation of a Ninirod, for Ya-
mabe set small store by a certain one of the Buddhist com-
mandments when he found himself in a game preserve. As
things turned out, Momokawa died at the early age of 48,
three years before his nominee came to the throne, for Konin
Tenno lived longer than was expected. By no one was Momo-
kawa's memory more fondly cherished than by the school-
master he had virtually raised to the Imperial dignity. And
the schoolmaster Emperor, Kwammu, exerted himself to some
purpose to vindicate Momokawa as a man of judgement and
a reader of character. Kwammu must be counted among the
very few Emperors of Japan who have proved themselves to
be statesmen, and men possessed of a degree of native or ac-

quired ability sufficient to enable an obscure man to raise him-

a position of fame and influence. Of the one hundred
self to
and twenty-three sovereigns of Japan Tenchi Tenno and the
Emperor Mutsuhito alone have shown themselves possessed
of an equal or superior measure of capacity as rulers.
Before taking leave of the subject of the Sinicisation of
Japan, it may be well to advert to a few items of interest for
which no place could be conveniently found in the preceding
narrative.
And first as regards the names Nippon, Dai Nippon, and
Japan. In the Kojiki not one of these names appears. In
the Nihongi, " Nippon " does appears on several occasions be-

fore the seventh century a.d., but the use of the term is ana-
chronistic. " Dai Nippon " first occurs in the Nihongi under

the year 0G3 in a speech put into the mouth of the King of
Pakche. In G71 the word " Il-biin " (Japan) makes its first
 PROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 203

appearance in Korean annals, while at the same date the

Chinese bestowed the name of Jeupenn (hence " Zipangu " and
" Japan '') or Source of the Sun upon the Archipelago in the
Eastern Ocean. For the way in which this " Jeupenn " be-
came Nippon " on Japanese lips, see Professor Chamberlain's
"

Moji no Shirube, p. 375. Thus the wholesale Sinicisation of

old Yamato extended even to the very name of the country.
One thing which greatly exercised the official mind in this
age was the correct pronunciation of Chinese. The earlier
teachers of the classics had been Korean monks, who had
adopted the Go-on, or pronunciation of Wu, an old kingdom
in the east and south-east of China. But intercourse with the
T'ang Court at Hsian (now Se-gan Fu in Shensi) had led the
Japanese to believe that the Kan-on, or Northern pronuncia-
tion, should be adopted. So in 735 they brought over a Nor-
thern scholar, and the students in the University were or-
dered to place themselves under his instruction. He presently
naturalised, took the Japanese name of Kiyomura, and rose
to be President of the University, Head of the Gemba Bureau,
and Governor of the province of Awa. This naturalised China-
man probably owed his official advancement to the influence
of his friend Kibi no Mabi, who after a sojourn of nineteen
years at the Court of Hsian had returned to Japan in 735,
bringing with him the game of go (Japanese checkers), the
knowledge of the art of embroidery, and the biwa or four-
stringed lute. To him also is sometimes ascribed the inven-
tion of the Kata-kana or Japanese syllabary. In 701 the fete
in honour of Confucius had been celebrated for the
first time, and it had been celebrated in the Univer-
sity yearly at the equinoxes since that date, but it

was not till the had been settled by Kibi

ceremonies
no Mabi's dictation that " the
forms and etiquette came
to be performed with propriety." His appointment as tutor
to the strong-minded lady who afterwards figures as the Em-
press Koken and the Empress Shotoku established his fortunes
on a sure foundation. In 752 he again proceeded to Hsian
as second Ambassador, and on his return he was appointed
Viceroy of Kyushu, where he worked hard to promote the pros-
perity of the provinces committed to his trust. Among his
other services to Kyushu was his organisation of the great
school of Dazaifu, in which he did not consider it inconsistent
204 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

with his dignity to deliver lectures to appreciative classes of

students. In 766 he rose to be Minister of the Left; and so
became the first of the trio of outsiders who attained to Minis
terial rank in old Japan by sheer native ability. In every
respect he was a greater man than Sugawara no Michizane.
And is now a god, with scores if not hundreds
yet the latter
of shrines on whose altars young Japan burns incense to him,
while to young Japan the memory of Kibi no Mabi is of much
less consequence than a kibidango*
In the Middle Kingdom it has been the immemorial wont
to reward meritorious services to the State by the grant of
posthumous honours, or posthumous promotion in rank. This
practice was introduced into Japan in 673, on the occasion of
the death of a certain Sakamoto Takara no Omi, who was
then advanced a step in consideration of his achievements in
the great civil war of the preceding year.
In Marco Polo we meet with frequent mention of the burn-
ing of the dead in China, but such a custom is no longer prac-
tised there except in the case of priests. In Japan cremation
is still practised, although inhumation much more common.
is

In this country cremation was unknown until 700, when the

monk Dosho left orders for his corpse to be committed to the
flames. Two years later the body of the ex-Empress Jito was
cremated, and by the beginning of the ninth century the burn-
ing of the dead was a general practice throughout the Empire.
Still one point, but a very important point, remains to be
noted. In the Tokugawa age, among the Samurai or two-
sworded class the most important of all the virtues was
loyalty; hearty, unquestioned, whole-souled devotion to one's
feudal superior. But among the commoners who constituted
nineteen-twentieths of the population of the Empire the
virtue of loyalty was overshadowed by the claims of filial
piety. And that, antecedent to the rise of that military class
which had been one of the aims of the Reformers of 645 to
it

prevent, had been the virtue on which most stress had been
laid by all classes. In ante-Eeform Japan it had not evidently
been of such transcendent consequence; at all events, under
the year 562 the Nihongi tells us that "at this time between
father and child, husband and wife, was no mutual
there
commiseration." Now, between 749 and 758, the Empress

* KiJ)iclango,—Si dumpling of millet dough.

 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 205

Koken ordered each household to provide itself with a copy

of the Kokyo, or Classic of Filial Piety, while every student
in the Provincial Schools and the University was bound to
master it. Of Kokyo (Chinese Hsiao Ching) which is
this ,

assigned partly to Confucius and partly to Tseng Ts'an, al-

though it probably belongs to a much later date, Professor
Giles remarks: — "Considering that filial piety is admittedly
the keystone of Chinese civilisation, it is disappointing to find
nothing more on the subject than a poor pamphlet of common-
place and ill-strung sentences, which gives the impression of
having been written to fill a void." However, it ought not to
be forgotten that what is the commonplace and the platitude
of to-day may very well have appealed to the imagination and
the moral sense of the age in which it was originally pro-
pounded with all the staggering force of a brilliant discovery
or a divine revelation. " The Master said, There are three '

thousand offences against which the five punishments are

directed, and there is not one of them greater than being un-
''
til ial.' Din this into the ears of a child, day by day, from
the time it begins to lisp, and think of the result! And forty
successive generations of Japanese have been gathered to their
fathers since Kibi no Mabi's pupil made the Kokyo an indis-
pensable item in the limited amount of furnishings possessed
by every Japanese household.
 206

CHAPTER VII.

THE EMPEROR KWAMMU.

(782 TO 8% A.D.)

A T the date of his accession in 782 Kwammu Tennd had a son

** (the future Emperor Heijo, 800 -800) six years of age. If
succession questions had been then ruled by provisions analo-
gous to those of the present Imperial House Law, that young
prince would at once have been recognised as Prince Imperial.
But it was not his son, but his own younger brother that the
Emperor designated as his successor; and it was only on the
death of the latter in 785 that the son's rights were acknow-
ledged. The Emperor's younger brother, enraged at having a
cherished project thwarted by one of Kwammu's favourites,
instigated the murder of the obstructive courtier, and for
this crime his two tools were beheaded, while he himself was
condemned to exile in Awaji. As a matter of fact he " died "
soon after; and it is an indication of the deep hold superstition
then had upon even the most powerful intellects of the time
to find how hard put to it Emperor was to
the strong-minded
appease the wrath of his brother's offended and vindictive
spirit. In 805, when seized with the illness that carried him
off in the following year, the records tell us that Kwammu, not
finding any benefit in the use of various remedies, caused sac-
rifices to be made, and prayers for his recovery offered up in
all the temples. He also ordered the erection of a temple in
Awaji to the manes of his younger brother, and the construc-
tion of granaries of plenty in all the provinces. At the same
time he directed that the annual revenues should be charged
with a contribution of fabrics and of provisions as an offering
to the soul of his younger brother, which " had done the Em-
peror great scathe."
However, although in some respects unable to emancipate
himself from the thraldom of the superstition of the age, Kwam-
mu was far from being at the beck and call of the Buddhist
priests, as his predecessors of the Temmu dynasty had been.
 FROM TENCHI TO KWAMMU. 207

Much more attention was now paid to the old divinities of the
land, while as might have been expected from an Emperor who
had honourably distinguished himself as a highly efficient
Principal of the University, the study of the secular learning
of China was greatly encouraged. Nara, the first permanent
capital of the Empire, was now threatening to become a sort of
Mount Athos. The influence of its seven great monasteries, to
say nothing of its convents, had become too strong for the best
interests of the Empire; and Kwammu seems to have been
determined from the first to remove the administration and its
personnel from the dangerous proximity of the ghostly coun
sellors who tended more and more to become the real rulers

of the Empire. The Emperor must have known that an open

and declared breach with Buddhism would have been highly
injudicious, if not utterly fatal to his rule, inasmuch as the
foreign cult was now the professed religion of almost the
whole governing class. All that he evidently aimed at was
the lessening of the influence of the old Buddhist hierarchy,
as it was then constituted. The priests could only remove
their magnificent buildings with the greatest difficulties; the
Emperor could remove the capital with comparative ease. In
course of time monasteries would doubtless spring up in a new
seat of government but by astute management they, especially
;

if reared by entirely new sects, could be utilised as a counter-

poise to the proud and wealthy ecclesiastics of Nara.
Accordingly, in 784, Kwammu removed the Court to Naga-
oka, a spot at the base of the mountains halfway between
—
Yamasaki and Arashiyama, a good thirty miles from what
had been the capital of the Empire for the preceding three-
quarters of a century. Nagaoka lay in Yamashiro, and so a
solemn mission had been sent to apprise Kamo-myojin, the
tutelar Shinto deity of the province, of the Emperor's intention
to settle in his domain and to invoke his beneficent protection.
A few years later the young priest Saicho began to level
the summit of Hiyeizan, as the emplacement for a new fane.
To the south-west of this height lay a spacious and well-watered
plain, some eight or ten miles from Nagaoka, and thither in
793 Kwammu determined to transport the seat of his Court.
Everything was done in strict accordance with the require-
ments of the science of geomancy the new Temple of Enryaku-ji
;

on Mount Hiyeisan, on the north-east, the quarter whence ill

203 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

hick and evil influences came, was to serve as the indispensable

outpost to deal with malignant demons. The site was found
to be under the protecting influence of the four genii who
preside over the cardinal points, —
the Azure Dragon on the
East, the White Tiger on the West, the Red Bird on the South,
and the Dark Warrior on the North. A clay statue eight feet
high, with casque and cuirass of iron, and bow and arrows in
hand, was erected on a hillock to the east of the city (Sho-
gun-dzuka) to serve as a special tutelary deity —a Japanese
It was
version in clay of the Pallas Athene on the Acropolis.
believed that when changes Empire were impending this
in the
image gave timely warning by bursting into song and moving
of itself.
The Imperial Citadel, measuring 1,280 yards from north
to south and 1,553 from east to west, and pierced by three
gateways on each of its four faces, lay in the northern quarter
of the nascent city. In the centre of this inner enclosure stood
the palace, with the various administrative departments around
it, and the assembly and audience halls in front. On the south
the enceinte of the Citadel was approached by a spacious avenue
280 feet in width which ran right down the centre of the outer
town to the moat and palisade that marked off the urban dis-
trict from the open country beyond. On the north and south
this rudimentary attempt at fortification extended for 5,027
yards on the east and west sides it was some 800 yards longer.
;

The city within these limits, which was laid out on a plan analo-
gous to that of the modern Philadelphia, was thus more than
four times as extensive as the Quaker City was before 1854.
The great avenue leading up from the south to the main palace
entrance divided the metropolis into two great sections, an —
East and a West. Parallel with this ran three wide streets on
each side, while the whole breadth of the city was traversed by
nine avenues, varying in width from 80 to 170 feet, and inter-
secting the north and south streets at right angles. In addition
to all this there were numerous lanes. In laying out the town,
the house unit adopted covered 100 feet by 50. Eight of these
units made a row, four rows a block, four blocks a division,
and four divisions a district, of which there were nine. Alto-
gether there were 1,216 blocks and 38,912 houses. What the
population actually was it is difficult to say, for the Japanese
household was then much larger than it is to-day, when it con-
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 209

sists of about five individuals on the average. However, there

is reason to believe that in the ninth and tenth centuries Con-
stantinople and Cordova were the only two European cities
that exceeded the Japanese capital in the matter of population.
In magnificence, however, Kyoto could not aspire to vie with
these, for the general aspect it presented must have been sombre
in the extreme. The Ioav one-storied flimsy houses, mostly
roofed with shingles, opened upon inner courts of miniature
gardens which indeed were pleasing to the eye; but the front
effect was about as picturesque as that of a prison or a barrack
wall. Some of the buildings did indeed boast roofs of slate-
coloured tiles, while the glint of the green-glazed tiles of the
palace imported from China must have imparted an element of
cheerfulness into the prospect when the sun shone. In its ar-
chitecture even the palace was more remarkable for its chaste
simplicity than for its splendour. Such was the city founded
—
by Kwammu in 794, a city destined to be capital of Japan for
the long term of 875 years.
Kwammu, like Tenchi, was, as has been said, a sovereign
who not only reigned, but also ruled. He did indeed have his
Ministers of the Left and of the Right, —Fujiwaras among them,
but he was not slow to remove them when they gave cause for
dissatisfaction ; and on several occasions one or other of these
posts remained without occupants for considerable periods of
time, the work of administration being then conducted by sub-
ordinate officers under the Emperor's personal supervision.
The patriot Wake no Kiyomaro, for example, rendered valuable
services as the Head of the Home Department, perhaps
the most important, and certainly the hardest worked, of all
the Eight Boards at that exceptional time.
It was the Mimbusho (Home Department) that was respon-
and everything connected
sible for the collection of the revenue,

with this. Now income

for long the sources of the national
had been drying up. This had been regarded as a serious matter
in the time of the Nara administration but it was under ;

Kwammu that circumstances made it imperative that the ac-

tual facts of the situation should be frankly recognised, and
that drastic remedies should be found for the long-standing
and ever-growing agrarian abuses which menaced the Imperial
authority with atrophy and disaster. The removal of the capi-
tal, first to Nagaoka and then to Kyoto, involving as it did

o
210 HTSTORY OP JAPAN.

extensive building operations, especially in the latter place,

proved a severe strain on Kwammu's financial resources; and
when the Ainu revolt developed into a great war of several cam-
paigns, demanding the mobilisation and maintenance of large
masses of men in an inhospitable region where there was no

hope of making the war support itself, the inconveniences of a

depleted treasury into which taxation no longer flowed, but
only trickled intermittently, made themselves felt so keenly
that the Emperor and his able Home Minister were stirred to
vigorous action. To meet the ready excuse of the provincial
authorities that difficulties of communication made it impos-
sible for them to forward the taxes to the capital, new routes

were opened, old roads repaired, bridges built, and ferry-services

improved, while the endless and ever-increasing abuses of the
horse-post system received at least a temporary check. Strict
regulations dealing with the office of provincial governor were
enforced. This was nothing very new, for many such regula-
tions, — all to become a dead-letter, —had previously been pro-
mulgated from time to time. What was decidedly novel was
the attempt to abolish the hereditary tenure of office enjoyed by
the district chiefs, or governors. Many of these had succeeded
in founding houses that constituted a sort of local aristocracy,
which really gave the law to the lieges in the districts where
their estates were situated. In virtue of their office these petty
magnates held grants of land; in virtue of their office and of
their official rank they were exempt from taxation. Under the
provincial governor, they had to act as tax-collectors for their
districts; and furthermore they had what the provincial go-
vernor could not legally exercise, —at first at least, —the cog-
nisance of suits. Thus it was the easiest thing in the world for
them upon the non-privileged
to bring judicious pressure to bear
classes under their jurisdiction. They often did what we have
seen the tax-free Buddhist monasteries doing. They induced
peasants to surrender their holdings to them. These holdings
then became exempt from taxation ; but the peasant-cultivator
paid a small rent in lieu of his previous Government dues, which
with the rapidly decreasing number of taxable polls tended to
become more and more onerous. Hence, of course, all the
greater eagerness on the part of the tax-paying remnant of the
population to place themselves under the sheltering wing of
some one or other of the eight-and-twenty privileged " personali-
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 21

ties" exempted from all national fiscal burdens, — Buddhist

monastery; Nara or Kyoto courtier; Imperial favourite en-
riched with a special land grant from the sovereign; or, what
was a not uncommon haven of refuge, some local magnate exer-
cising the functions of a district governor. A certain district
in Bitchil in GOO had had as many as 20,000 adult males liable
to conscription and hence to taxation ; in 767 the tax-payers

in itnumbered less than 2,000, and yet the population had not
diminished. Supposing the rate of taxation to have remained
constant, this would seem to mean either one of two things.
Either the national revenues from this district had meanwhile
sunk to ten per cent, of what they had originally been, or the
2,000 tax-payers of 707 were contributing as much to the ex-
chequer as the 20,000 of 060 had done. As a matter of fact, it
was a compromise between the alternatives; while there had
been a woeful shrinkage in the national receipts from this dis-
trict, the burdens of those who had had to remain steadfast to

their obligations as dutiful subjects had vastly increased. Ah

nno disce omnes has at all times been a sophistical injunction
and to suppose that this Bitchu district was a fair illustrative
instance of the state of affairs then prevalent in the 550 or 560
similar districts of old Japan would doubtless be a mistake.
But even if we grant that this was an extreme case, it is never-
theless highly instructive, for the fiscal malpractices and mal-
administration here so luridly disclosed did undoubtedly, al-
though in a minor degree, extend to every one of the sixty-five
or sixty-six provinces of the time.
To deal exhaustively with all the various devices adopted to
evade the incidence of taxation would require a monograph to
itself. But to ensure the possibility of attaining a clear general
idea of the situation, the leading features of the case may be
briefly recapitulated.

In 645-6 the whole soil of the Empire was supposed to be

surrendered to the central government, and by 650 most of
this was, theoretically at least, distributed among peasants in

approximately equal holdings of a few acres for each household.

For this land the peasants paid, not rent, but national and local
taxes. Their holdings consisted of land of various denomina-
tions, the bulk of it being supposed to be inalienable. But the
house-lot as well as various other kinds of land
were alienable,
and thus there was an opening to change the denomination of
212 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the inalienable portion for Such as wished to dispose of their

rice-lands to purchasers. Furthermore there was a rule pro-
viding for a six-yearly redistribution of the lands of such as
had died, or disappeared. But this was enforced, if enforced at
all, only at very rare intervals, and only in certain limited por-
tions of the Empire. The peasants were organised in groups of
five households; and the group was held collectively responsible

for the default of any of its members. In spite of partial or

even total remission of taxes in times of famine or great dis-
tress, the farmers very soon began to fall into economic difficul-

ties and were compelled to have recourse to loans. Rice ad-

vanced by the authorities in spring was to be collected in
autumn with 50 per cent, added. But as a matter of fact the
debtors frequently got hopelessly in arrear. In connection with
these Government loans, too, a gigantic system of fraud grew
up; and the administration was time and again outrageously
swindled by its own agents, who at the same time contrived to
get the cultivators into their own personal power, financially
speaking. Private lenders were also ready to make an exorbi-
tant profit out of the peasant's dire necessity. Usury laws were
of little avail; they were systematically evaded. By as early
a date as 685, Temmu Tenno was constrained to make a clean
sweep of all plebeian indebtedness. Although this is the earliest
recorfed precedent for what became not altogether uncommon
under the Ashikaga rulers seven or eight centuries afterwards,
the remedy was altogether too desperate a one to be frequently
resorted to. Such relief as the measure afforded was merely
temrorary. Many of the over-burdened cultivators absconded,
and became outlaws. We hear of these for the first time in
070, and again in 677 and 670; and in 731 an edict speaks of
bands of vagrants, in some cases several thousands strong,
roaming about the country and oppressing the lieges. Some of
these bodies made their way to the remote confines of the
Empire and founded peaceful industrious communities of their
own. One such band, a thousand strong, settled in Osumi in
755 in 759 another twice as numerous established itself on the
;

northern frontier, while in 753, 761, 762, and 769 similar migra-
tions to that quarter are recorded. But the favourite haven
of refuge for the outlawed landless man was the household of
some grandee, to which he attached himself either as a servant
in the capital, or as a retainer or tenant on a tax-free manor
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 213

in the country. In this way the untaxed dependents of the

privileged great houses increased in numbers apace. This state

of things must not be mistaken for feudalism, however, for the

possession of weapons by private individuals had been strictly
forbidden in 701; and in 757, when some of the grandees had
ventured to defy the law and to arm their people, a fresh pro-
hibitory edict was issued. In 784 Kwammu dealt still more
drastically with a recrudescence of this abuse, in the course of
bis vigorous campaign against all forms of vagabondage and
turbulence.
The reclamation of waste land and the extension of cultiva-
tion, so far from augmenting the receipts of the treasury, did
much to impoverish it. This may very well seem a hard saying
but it is a perfectly accurate assertion. In 723 it was enacted
that those who made new irrigation ditches and dams, and .

opened land to cultivation, should enjoy the use of the latter for
three generations, while new lands cultivated near old ditches
and dams should be held for life. Twenty years later, new
lands of all kinds were declared to be the permanent and irre-
vocable possession of the first cultivator and his descendants.
Those opened by the provincial governor were alone to revert
to theGovernment at the end of his tenure of office. Every case
of reclamation had to be sanctioned by the local authorities;
and if the grant was left unfilled for three years another per-
son might apply for it. Poor peasants would often fail to
comply with the conditions, and then neighbouring tax-free
proprietors or their agents would claim the right of entering
on the partially opened land, and the local officers usually
gave way to them. With capital and abundant labour it was
easy for the monasteries and grandees and their agents to
open up great stretches of country. And these new estates
the Shoden, or Shoyen —the manors so famous in mediaeval
Japanese history, came to be all exempt from taxation. These
estates in their turn constituted so many bases for encroach-
ment upon the petty holdings of the impoverished and over-
burdened peasantry in the neighbourhood. In many districts
whole villages were absorbed into these ever-growing manors.
Thus the number of taxable polls rapidly diminished; while
the burdens of those that still clung, or were forced to cling,
to their holdings increased enormously. And withal there was
a most serious shrinkage in the Government revenue.
214 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

However, the stream of provincial wealth, although thus

diverted from the Treasury,was not entirely deflected from
the capital. Many of the manors and the tax-free estates in
the country belonged to the grandees and officers of the Court,
and life in the country at this time possessed no charms for
the courtier,who when banished by any chance from the luxury
and refinement of Nara or Kyoto was wont to present a spec-
tacle no more dignified or edifying than that of Cicero at Thes-
salonica, or Ovid at Tomi. So long as this state of things
and this frame of mind prevailed there was no great reason
to dread the rise of a feudal system. Kwaimnu evidently per-
ceived that the great revenues of his courtiers would prove of
material service when it came new
city worthy of
to rearing a
being the capital of a great empire. At the same time he began
to look narrowly into the agrarian question, and made an en-
deavour to check the ever-increasing la tif undid. Outlaws who
had attached themselves to great men were re-subjected to the
burdens of the personal tax and of forced labour, and runaways
were compelled to return to their holdings. Land without
labour to work it was, of course, valueless.
Provincial governors, appointed for a short term of years,
and removable at pleasure, were not in themselves dangerous.
All that was necessary was to bring them more strictly under
control, and to ensure a higher standard of faithfulness and
efficiency in the discharge of their duties. The Buddhist priests
were a menace indeed; so the law of mortmain was revived,
and it was enacted that no new temples should be erected
without the sanction of the Government. The chief source of
danger was the district governor. These officials, of com-
paratively humble rank, had amassed great properties, and
were continually adding acre to acre. Holding office from
father to son as they did, they threatened to found families
powerful enough to be able to disregard the mandates of the
central authorities with impunity. From their wealth neither
the treasury nor the capital -derived any advantage whatsoever.
As has been said, Kwanimu tried to break their power by
abolishing their hereditary claim to office; but the attempted
reform proved abortive, and the old order of affairs was reverted
to under Kwammu's son, Saga Tenno (810-823).
It is not till the reign of Kwanimu that we meet with the
beginning of a distinct military caste and of that respect for
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 215

arms which are generally supposed to have

the profession of
been immemorial characteristics of Japanese civilisation. As

a matter of fact, for the first five generations after the Re-
form of 645 the had been what he is now in China,
civil official

— almost everything. During that period there had been one

great civil war, one considerable rebellion, and several lesser
internal disturbances. But all these contests had been fought
out by civilians armed for the occasion, and they had all with-
out exception been of very brief duration. Such over-sea ex-
peditions as there had been (in Tenchi's time) had ended in
failure. In Junnin's time (759-764) a Korean expedition of
550 ships, 17,000 sailors, and 40,000 troops was in the course of
equipment when that sovereign was deposed; but it came to
nothing. In Gensho's reign (715-723) Tanegashima had been
conquered and annexed, and the Hayato of Satsuma and Osumi
had been at least nominally subdued; although as a matter of
fact they had to be very tenderly dealt with and humoured
and favoured in many ways before they became dutiful sub-
jects.

In 720 the Ainu had made it necessary to call out the militia
of nine provinces before Fujihara no Umakai, the civilian com-
mander sent against them, could retrieve the situation. He
succeeded in making many prisoners of war, who were dis-
tributed in small settlements over the Empire; and he built
the fortress of Taga, some 50 miles north of Sendai, and gar-
risoned it with a force of farmer-soldiers as the extreme
outpost of the Empire.* was nominally the capital of the
It
province of Mutsu, an immense tract of unsubdued and un-
civilised country, which could then only by a great stretch of
courtesy be characterised as a sphere of influence. Between
this and the Sea of Japan lay the so-called province of Dewa,
constituted in 712; but over it the Nara authorities exercised
no more effective restraint than the State of Virginia did over
the Indians on the left bank of the Mississippi in the year 1776.
In the Nara times, the whole of the 110,000 odd square miles of
the superficies of the Empire was portioned out into some 65
and of that the two so-called provinces of
or 66 provinces,
Mutsu and Dewa covered almost a fourth part! And these

* It ought to be stated that the Japanese learned the rudiments of

the science of fortification from Korean refugees in the reign of Tenchi.
See Aston's Nihongi for various references to this. The earliest Japan-
ese forts were in Chikuzen, Yamato, Shikoku, and Tsushima.
216 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

great provinces were held, and stubbornly and tenaciously held,

by an aboriginal race that obstinately refused to submit itself

and its fortunes to the civilising influences of the Sinicised Ya-

niato Empire. For centuries these aborigines had maintained
a most determined contest against the Southern invader. On
the whole they had been losers; but they had generally been
able to follow up their worst defeats by desperate and for-
midable rallies. It was not a case of white man with firearms
against Indian with tomahawk and bow and arrows. The wea-
pons of the combatants were practically the same; while as a
lighting-man the Ainu hunter was perhaps on the whole su-
perior to the Japanese agriculturist, who constituted the bulk
of the national Yamato levies down to Kwammu's times.
Where the Ainu fell short was in the material resources neces-
sary for the maintenance of a series of campaigns and in
organisation.
In 77G some of the Ainu chieftains on the frontier re-

opened the strife; and although the Japanese commander sent

word Nara that he had reduced them to obedience, Taga and
to
all its munitions of war and supplies were in their hands by

780. They massacred the Japanese commandant and most of

the garrison, and spread terror through the whole of the
Kwanto. In 781, 100,000 koku of rice were sent as supplies to
the levies operating against them, which seem to have obtained
some advantages campaign of that year.
in the course of the
Eight years later, in 789, Ainu beat the Japanese both on
the
land and sea. In a great engagement they lost only 89 men
and killed as many as 3,000 of the Imperial troops. In the
following year 400,000 koku of rice were forwarded for the
use of the army in Ainu-land. A series of campaigns followed
in the course of which Saka-no-Uye Tamura Maro rose to fame.
This Tamura Maro
is one of the most picturesque figures in

old Japanese story. Descended from that Achiki who had

brought the Chinese books and the stallion and the mare from
Pakche in 404, and who had then settled in Japan as Master
of the Imperial Stables, he, in common with an elder brother of
his, They
worthily maintained the traditions of his ancestors.
were both famous for their accomplished horsemanship, and
the elder brother held command of the Imperial Guard at the
time of his death in 78G. Tamura Maro, we are further told,
" was a man of a very fine figure. He stood five foot five,

i
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 217

and measured fourteen inches across the chest. He had eyes

like a falcon's and a beard of the colour of gold. When he
blazed forth in wrath he terrified birds and animals with his
look; but when he jested children and women joined in his
laughter." In a sense the originator of what was subsequently
to develop into that renowned samurai class, he provided in
his own person a worthy model for the professional warrior
on which to fashion himself and his character. In battle a
veritable war-god; in peace the gentlest of manly gentlemen,
and the simplest and most unassuming of men.
The Kwanto, that is the eight provinces around and between
the head of Tokyo Bay and the Chichibu and Nikko mountains*
had been from the earliest times a great problem to the Ya-
mato authorities. This expanse of 12,000 square miles of ex-
ceedingly fertile territory was nominally an integral part of the
Empire. But, on account of the difficulties of communication,
it really bore pretty much the relation to the Japanese capital
that New England, Virginia, and the Carolinas bore to Eng-
land about the middle of the eighteenth century. Like the
American plantations, the Kwanto had problems and interests
of its own. Its distance from the capital, its freer and rougher
and more vigorous conditions of life, fostered a spirit of in-
dependence and self-reliance among its inhabitants that was
unknown in the home provinces. It was the Kwanto that had
to bear the brunt of the great Ainu raids, and the solitary set-
tler had here often to trust to his own good right hand for

protection. Any attempt to enforce the law forbidding the

possession of arms by private persons would have been at once
injudicious and futile. Hence a military spirit, in the very
nature of things, had developed itself. The hereditary district
chiefs were the natural leaders of the people; and the district
chief, as a rule, was a patriarch with a very numerous house-
hold of sturdy sons and grandsons and relatives and dependents.
Here was the very finest fighting material in the Empire; and
Kwammu had the sagacity to turn it to the national advantage.
From each of the eight provinces he raised a battalion of these
local gentiw, for permanent service against the Ainu. These
battalions varied in strength from 500 to 1,000 men each; the
whole probably mustered some G,000 strong. However, this
select legion embodied in 782 formed only a fraction of the
forces that had to be mobilised before the Ainu were reduced
218 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

^ta even temporary subjection. In 789 a force of 52,800 men

consuming 2,000 Icoku of rice per diem found itself effectually

blocked at Koromogawa, and utterly unable to advance. As a

matter of fact it was not till 802 that Saka-no-Uye no Tainura
Maro could report that the war was over and ask to be relieved
of his command. One thing that hampered the Japanese com-
manders seriously was the trade that went on between Japanese
subjects and the Ainu. For skins and horses, of which they
possessed plenty, the latter found it easy to procure weapons
quite as good as those in the hands of the Imperial troops.
Where the Ainu excelled was in long-range fighting; when it
came to close quarters the Japanese claimed that the advantage
lay with them. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the
hairy aborigines were able to maintain the contest for twenty
years, in the course of which they scored more than one con-
siderable victory.
It had already become apparent that the military, or rather
militia, system of old Japan stood in need of reform. The
men called up for service in the provincial garrisons were sup-
posed to receive a training without entirely ceasing work as
farmers and craftsmen. As a matter of fact the only training
they often received was in cutting firewood, running errands,
and doing odd jobs for the provincial and district officers. In
702 Kwammu made a clean sweep of the whole system. His
father, Konin Tenno, had made a tentative effort in the same
direction, and had ordered that the so-called garrison troops
should be greatly reduced in number, and that during their
period of service the men should devote all their time to mili-

tary duties. But now the personnel of the permanent local

forces, still further reduced, was to be henceforth re-

cruited from among the able-bodied soiis or relatives of the

district chiefs. Outside of Mutsu and Dewa, where an army of
more than 50,000 men was operating, and of Kyushu, where a
special system was to be inaugurated a score of years after-
wards, there were about 500 districts. But in some districts
there were extra-chiefs, and as the result of KAvammu's legisla-
tion a good many ex-chiefs, and the sons of these were all
equally eligible for enrolment in the new model. All told the
number of men now enlisted for provincial service was 3,020,
of whom 030 were assigned for duty in the eight provinces of
the Kwanto. Kaga was not to become a province until 820;
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 219

and no mention of Hi da or Shima is made in connection with

this reorganisation of the military system. The Imperial
Guards were not interfered with in Kwamniu's time in 807 ;

and again in 811 they were nominally reorganised, but their

ranks continued to be filled from the households of the district
chiefs. In Kyushu, under Saga Ten no (810 824), the Dazaifu
command was fixed at 17,000; but it was shortly afterwards
reduced to 9,000 men, none of whom, by the way, appear to have
been levied from Satsuma, Osumi, or Hyiiga, the country of the
ancient Kumaso, whose unruly descendants it was still the
best of policy to treat with the greatest circumspection. In
803 the Nagato garrison was raised from 50 to 500 men in

consideration of the important strategic position of that pro-

vince.
This very limited peace establishment was in a measure to
serve the purposes of a police. Fires in the provincial grana-
ries where the produce of the taxes was stored had become ex
ceedingly frequent, and it had become the custom to attribute
their outbreak to the anger of the native deities whose cult had
been neglected. One strange result of the various edicts for-
bidding the taking of life, —such as that of 719, —had been to
excite a great aversion to inflicting the extreme penalty of the
law. Thus conscious of immunity from the most serious con
sequences of grave crimes, malefactors were increasing in

numbers and audacity apace. Kwanimu was minded to re-

medy this condition of affairs. He gave orders for the construe
tion of an earth-house " (that is, what is now known as a
kfc

%i
godown " in the
Far East) in each province for the reception
of the taxes; and when the governors were found to be slow
in erecting these, he abolished the provincial store-houses, and

established a granary in each district in which its revenues

were to be stored. Henceforth, too, the death penalty was to
be inflicted when incurred; and, in the case of arson, imine
diately, and on the spot, without waiting for the regular pro-
cess of law. Furthermore, in case of fires in public buildings,
all the officials of the district where it occurred and also the
provincial officers were to be henceforth held jointly respon-
sible. The chief of the 3,020 men of the " New Model "
duty
was to guard these district depots. In this " New Model " and
Kwanto battalions levied for permanent service in
in the eight

Ainu-land we have the germ of the two-sworded privileged class

220 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of feudal Japan. All these men, be it observed, were drawn

from the households of the hereditary district chiefs, and these
chiefs in their turn were generally the descendants of the
country gentry of the pre-Taikwa Yamato.
It is in this reign that we first meet with mention of what
was tobecome Japan for centuries.
the title of the real rulers of
In the twenty years' war with the Ainu the earlier commanders
who had been tried had all been found unequal to the task
allotted them. Saka-no-Uye no Tamura Maro (758-811) alone
had given incontestable evidence of the possession of undoubted
military ability, but down to 796 he had always had to serve
in a subordinate capacity. Then he was appointed " Inspec-
tor " of Dewa and Governor of Mutsu, and later Great Bar-
barian-Subduing General (
Sci-l-tai-IShogiin) . Before this there
had been hundreds of Shoguns (Generals) in Japan; and a
little before there had been an appointment of a " Great East-
Subduing General "
and a " Great Barbarian-Subduing Com-
missioner.'' These all had been commissioned for a definite,
limited, temporary purpose by receiving a sctto ("temporary"
or " occasion " sword) before their departure from the capital
to assume command of the forces with which they were en-
trusted. On returning that sctto to their sovereign their com-
mission and their absolute power over their commands came
to an end, and they were pretty much in the position of a re-

tired general officer in themodern British army or an ex-Presi-

dent of the United States. The commission extorted from his
sovereign by Tokugawa Iyeyasu and by him transmitted to a
line of fourteen successors was something vastly different from
this. It was a commission to rule the Empire and to maintain
peace within its borders, a commission whose terms empowered
the Tokugawa to make the throne of Japan a plaything and its
occupants hapless and helpless puppets. However, it is the
rule that men reap as they or their ancestors have sown
(Jigo jitokn) ; with a sucession of sovereigns of the calibre of
Tenchi Tenno and the EmperorKwammu, a Yoritomo, a Hojo,
an Ashikaga, a Tokugawa domination would alike have been
—
unnecessary and impossible.
During the century and a half that followed the Reform
of Taikwa (045) no soldier had found it possible to achieve for
himself a leading position at Court and in the councils of the
Empire by military merit pure and simple. The few coinnian-
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 221

ders who had attained high rank and

office had done so not in

consequence of any brilliant exploits in war, but in virtue of

their birth and family connections. Saka-no-Uye no Tamura
Maro, the descendant of the Korean Achi no Omi, was not only
the first to bear the title of Sei-i-tai-Shogun, but he was also the
first of the warrior statesmen of Japan. After his victorious
return in 802 he was raised to the junior grade of the third
rank, was made Minister of Justice, then Sangi, and shortly
after Chunagon. When civil war threatened in 810 he was en-
trusted with the supreme military command and advanced to
the office of Dainagon. As at that date (and for a good many
years before) there was no Chancellor of the Empire, and no
Minister of the Left, the Dainagon was the second subject in
the Empire.
Before passing on from the reign of Kwammu it may be
well to advert briefly to the most serious administrative pro-
blems he had to grapple with. In 797 a decree was issued stat-
ing that taxes were collected in order to assist the people in
times of drought or famine or such calamities. " Cash or cloth
cannot be used as food. It is understood that at the present
time the officials are receiving cash in payment of taxes, but
they should bear in mind the reason for taxation and receive
cash no longer." In the following year (708) another decree
appeared asserting that the use of coin was to give general
convenience to all alike, but that the officials and farmers in
the five provinces around Kyoto were hoarding too much money
while there was not sufficient in the city. " This is contrary

to our intention to confer equal benefit on all, and it is strictly

forbidden. All possessed of means must contribute money, and
these taxes must be paid in cash. Those guilty of secreting
money will receive the punishment of law breakers."
At first blush these edicts may well strike one as being glar-
ingly inconsistent with each other. But they are really noth-
ing of the kind. Kyoto was the one great entrep6t of the Em-
pire, drawing annual supplies of one sort or another from

every one of the sixty -five provinces of Japan. Not only were
the Government storehouses well furnished with rice and the
produce of other taxes, but the nobles and officials who owned
large estates in the countrv ^ere also receiving constant sup-
plies from the provinces. In Kyoto there was likely to be little
or no question of dearth. There it was not so much a matter
222 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of the necessaries as of the comforts, and even the luxuries of

life. The long list of shops for the sale of some eighty different
articles in the two sections of the city is a most valuable
document for the economic history of contemporary Japan. In
a community which had attained to such a degree of wealth
and culture, a mere natural economy was no longer possible,
and hence a deficiency of metallic money as a circulating
medium was a serious matter indeed.
But outside the capital and the home provinces the case
was vastly different. In the provinces, each district, nay, —
each village and not infrequently each household, was depen- —
dent on its own resources alone. There was but little com-
merce; and such trade as there was could be conducted by
means of barter without serious inconvenience. What here
excited the apprehension of the authorities was something of
vastly graver import than a deficiency of the circulating me-
dium, —even in the capital. Droughts, floods, typhoons, locusts,
volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tidal waves, — all meaning the
failure or destruction of crops —and then famine, when the
mortality was tremendous, and cases of cannibalism were not
unknown. And not infrequently famine was accompanied or
followed by devastating plagues and pestilences. The Six
National Histories are greatly occupied with the record of
such calamities when they condescend to notice anything so
very common as the common people who constituted more than
ninety-nine per cent, of the population of Japan.
To provide satisfactory solutions for all the varied pro-
blems growing out of this condition of affairs proved a harder
task than the curbing of the undue influence of the Buddhist
priesthood and the subjection of Ainu-land. Hence Kwammu's
strenuous road-making and bridge-building, his abolition of
the barriers, and his untiring efforts to facilitate inter-com-
munication throughout the Empire. Hence his dams and re
servoirs and water-courses and irrigation projects. Hence his
solicitude about the safety of the Government storehouses in
the provinces, and, later, in the districts. And hence his eager-
ness to find honest and efficient men to serve as provincial and
district officers, and his persistent endeavour to hold them to
the faithful and intelligent discharge of their duties.
It was in Kwammu's reign that the due apportionment of
the proceeds of the provincial land-tax or rice-tax was finally
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 223

settled. The generic name for this tax was Sozei or Kwanto;
and it was distributed under the three heads of Seizei (princi-
pal tax), Kuge (Government Office), and Zatto (Miscellaneous
Rice). The Seizei or principal tax was in its turn distributed
into three portions. One of these had to be sent to the capital,
another had to be stored permanently in the provincial (or
district) granary, while the third could be advanced to needy
farmers as a loan.
The third main division of the generic tax, the Zatto or
" Miscellaneous Rice," was devoted to such purposes as the
repair of the Government buildings and post-stations, of em-
bankments, ponds, and ditches, the support of shrines and tem-
ples and the provincial school, official pastures, emergency
fund, and the support of communities of Ainu prisoners of
war (in some provinces). The Zatto or " Miscellaneous Rice"
portion of the Land-tax was also available for loans to needy
farmers.
It was the Kuge (Government Office) portion of the tax
that proved, if not most important, at all events most trouble-
some to the secretariat of the Central Government in Kyoto.
As a matter of fact its amount sometimes exceeded any one of
the other two classes of the Sozei, which as a rule were gene-
rally equal to each other in value. But sometimes it fell much
short of any of the other two divisions. Its purpose was to
supply deficiencies, if any, in the other two classes; whatever
surplus remained was divided among the Provincial Governor
and his staff. It was, in fact, a kind of salary payable accord-
ing to results. Dr. Asakawa has set forth the situation very
lucidly indeed.* "
The object of setting this class apart by
itself was evidently to guard against negligence and corruption,

and to encourage the honesty and industry of the local officers

in matters of taxation, for the amount of their private incomes

directly depended on their successful collection and honest use

of the So (Land-tax). The edicts addressed to them con-
tinually referred to the Kuge, and appealed to their intimate
interest in it. Granting the ingenuity of this arrangement, one
will not fail to note what a strong incentive to abuses it was
liable to prove. So long as the personal share of the officers
in the revenue of this class (the Kuge) was elastic, so long as
they at the same time had charge of all the three classes, and,

* Early Institutional Life of Japan, p. 305,

224 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

what is more, so long as they wore authorised to loan the rice

of this class, as well as nearly all of the other classes, it would
have been nntrne to their human nature not to attempt to ap-
propriate the whole revenue of the Kuge, no matter whether
there was a deficit or not, by manipulating the accounts of
other items, and then to loan it to the people, and collect it
and its interest before any other loan." Kwammu Tenno was
fully alive to these very natural considerations, and appointed
trustworthy officers to visit all the provinces and submit the
Governors 1o a very strict audit of the Kuge. But unfortu-
nately for the best interests of the Empire, Kwammu, the
ci-devant schoolmaster, was one of the very few workaday
sovereigns of Japan.
However, even by the time of Kwammu the Land-tax was
far from furnishing the whole, or even the major portion, of
the national revenue. Here we find another strange analogy
between post-Taikwa and post-Tokugawa Japan. During the
eleven and a half years between January 1868 and June 1870
the total revenue of the Empire amounted to 535,127,463 yen,
and of this no less a sum than 405,402,922 yen was the product
of the Land-tax. In 1905, the gross national annual revenue
was returned at 280,000,000 yen, and of this amount less than
61,000,000 yen was credited to the impot fonder I In other
w ords, previous
r
to 1879 the Land-tax had furnished 75 per cent,
of the gross national income; in 1905 it contributed a little

over 20 per cent, of the ordinary receipts of the Treasury. In

645 the Cho and Yo {Corvee) had not been very irksome. By
the tenth century they had become the financial mainstay of
the administration. Before Kwammu's time we hear of as
many as 20,000, 30,000, and even 60,000 men being employed on
corvee work in connection with embankments and irrigation
works in various provinces. In removing the capital from Nara
to Nagaoka no fewer than 314,000 men were held to forced
labour for the space of seven months, all of whom had to be
maintained by a commuted labour-tax levied on the villages and
districts from wiiich they had been drawn. The conveyance of
the provincial taxes to the capital was a charge upon the tax-
payers, and a very onerous charge it was.
However in course of time it was the Cho, or tax in textiles,
in tools, in metals, in coin, or in any of the various special
staples of the provinces that furnished the major portion as —
 THE EMPEROR KWAMMU. 225

much as four-ninths —of the revenue paid into the Government

warehouses in Kyoto. In connection with this tax a constant
and unremitting warfare against short weight, scant measure,
and shoddy quality had to be maintained.
 226

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LEARNED EMPERORS.

(806 TO 850 A.D.)

OINCE 645 one Emperor of Japan had been deposed and

died in exile, while there had been six cases of abdication.
In five of these the sovereign had been a female, and two of
these ex-Empresses had reassumed the cares of State and had
died in possession of the throne. So far, the only Emperor who
had seen fit to retire to the ease of private life had been the
nltra-devout and priest-ridden Shomu, the professed servant of
the " Three Sacred Things." Konin Tenno had not abdicated
in spite of his three-score years and twelve, while Kwammu
proved himself to be truly of the breed of those great workers
whose fondest aspiration it is to meet their fate in harness at
the post of duty. His three sons and successors on the throne
were of much less vigorous fibre. All abdicated in turn Heijo —
at 35, Saga at 37, and Junna at 47; and in 824 there were two
ex-Emperors with their respective Courts. Among the several
causes which led not merely to the decline, but to the utter
wreck and ruin of the Imperial power and prestige, this ten-
dency to shirk the onerous duties of the throne was surely not
one of theleast. It was well calculated to provide ambitious
and unscrupulous subjects with the best of opportunities for
self-aggrandisement. In the first half of the ninth century the
evil effects of the practice were perhaps not so very conspicu-
ously apparent. But within a hundred and fifty years there-
after it was impossible for even the dullest capacity to mis-
interpret the results. In 987, when the sixty-sixth sovereign,
Ichijo, was placed on the throne at the age of seven, there were
no fewer than three ex-Emperors. Of these Keizei had ab-
dicated at 19, En-yu at 24, and Kwazan at 18. On the very
face of it, it at once becomes evident that the sovereign is being
used as a puppet; and that the king-maker is at work on a
scale and with a dexterity that make the Soga of old Yamato
appear in the light of crude and small-souled bunglers,
 THE LEARNED EMPERORS. 227

During the first year or so of the reign of Heijo Tenno

(806-809) the nation had some reason to believe that the new
sovereign was no unworthy son of his illustrious sire. Doubt-
less in accordance with the dying instructions of Kwammu, the
work of retrenchment and reform was vigorously prosecuted,
the two favoured and pampered departments of the Nakatsu-
kasa-Sko and the Kunai-Sho coming in for a large measure of
unappreciated attention. But Heijo soon fell under the spell
of female society,and abdicated after a short reign of three
years. This step was far from pleasing to his Fujiwara fa-
vourite, the Lady Kusuri, however; and together with her
younger brother, Nakanari, she formed an intrigue to restore
the capital to Nara, and Heijo to the throne. The ex-Emperor
started for the Eastern country to raise troops, and a civil war
seemed imminent. It was on this occasion that Saka-no-Uye
no Tamura Maro and his lieutenant Fumiya no Watamaro
proved themselves arbiters of the Imperial fortunes. They
seized all the strategic positions, and effectually stamped out
the incipient revolt. Heijo had to return to Nara and shave
his head, Nakanari was put to death, while the Lady Kusuri
poisoned herself.
Saga Tenno (810- -823), Heijo's uterine brother and
Kwammu's favourite son, was undoubtedly a highly accom-
plished man of brilliant parts. One of the finest scholars of
the age, he was counted as one of the famous Sampitsu (Three
Pens), the others being his relative by marriage Tachibana
Hnyanari, known at the Chinese Court as the "talented Ta-
chibana/' and the monk Kukai, or Kobo Daishi. All Kwam-
mu's sons were deeply versed in Chinese literature, did every-
thing to encourage its study, and exerted themselves to com-
plete the Sinicisation of Japan. Unfortunately it was as much
the luxury and the magnificence as the culture of the Chinese
Court that appealed to them. Chinese dress and etiquette
were now introduced into the palace of Kyoto, and the expenses
of high life in the Japanese capital increased enormously.
Princes and courtiers soon found the strain upon their ordi-
nary and official incomes becoming excessive, and had perforce
to cast about for some other means of procuring the additional
revenue necessary for keeping afloat in the devouring whirlpool
of Court and fashionable society. Most commonly relief was
found in obtaining a special grant of tax-free land from the
228 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

sovereign. Tn Saga Tenno's time, thousands of acres of the

best land in the home provinces had been alienated and with-
drawn from obligation to the national fisc in this way. Under
his brother and successor, Junna (824-833), vast areas in
Musashi, Shimotsuke, Shimosa, Bizen, and Nagato had been
granted away in a similar fashion, while under Saga's son,
Nimmyo Tenno (834-850), the abuse became still more noto-
rious. These luxury-loving sovereigns were indeed sowing the
wind, and their ill : starred descendants and successors were
destined to reap something worse than the whirlwind in con-
sequence. These estates were the notorious Sho-en, or non-
taxpaying manors. In the Nara age it was mainly the manors

of the Buddhist temples that had been so extensive as to afford

any grave cause for apprehension. Kwammu Tenno had taken
due steps to render this special national menace innocuous,
while he had also taken care to prevent the assignment of such
estates to princes, or courtiers, or nobles. Before fifty years
had passed since his ashes became cold, his excellent work in
this respect had been virtually undone. Junna Tenno (824-833)
still further depleted the national treasury by alienating the
revenues of three of the most opulent provinces. Princes of
the Blood were nominated Governors (Taishu) of Kodzuke,
Hitachi, and Kazusa, and the taxes of the finest half of the
Kwanto were thenceforward supposed to be deposited in spe-
cial warehouses in Kyoto, to enable a trio of the numerous
Imperial rela lives to maintain the dignity of their position in
the capital.
Allthese Emperors, —
Saga, Junna, and Nimmy5, were —
men more than average mental capacity none of them were
of ;

vicious, and all were workers. Yet it is they who must in no

small measure be held responsible for the subsequent decline
of the Imperial authority. It would be unjust to hold their
Ministers to account for this, since there is nothing to indicate
that during this half-century the sovereign was under the
ascendency of any servant. Nay, we find Ministers, Fujiwaras
among them, pointing out the need of retrenchment and a
stricter handling of the national resources.
The simple fact is that the energies of these three rulers
were sadly misdirected. Their unbalanced craze for Chinese
fashions, for Chinese manners, and above all for Chinese litera-

ture proved utterly detrimental to the best interests of the

 THE LEARNED EMPERORS. 229

throne of Japan. At the Court Hsian learning was patro-

of
nised and encouraged as it has rarely been at any Court. There
the rewards of the exercise of supreme literary ability were
truly munificent. For more than one aspiring plebeian it had
opened the path to the highest office in the Empire. In Japan
this never had been the case, for except in the case of the priest-

hood learning and office alike had been strictly confined to a

numerically insignificant ring of courtiers and aristocrats. At
this time theJapanese sovereigns were paying Hsian the sin-
cerest kind of flattery, and hence the attention devoted to
learning in Kyoto presently came to be all-engrossing. All
claims to consideration and social distinction were based
mainly on the courtier's ability to read Chinese fluently, to
write Chinese characters artistically, to turn Chinese stanzas
neatly, and to produce what passed for elegant Chinese prose
composition in the latitude of Kyoto. Matter, real thought, was
of the slightest consequence; what was all-important was what
was regarded as refinement, polish, distinction of style. All
this in truth was at best but a sterile culture. But for admis-
sion to office and advancement in the world it was now an ab-
solutely necessary equipment.
In 757 the University —apart from the departments of
music, astrology, and medicine, which each then received 25
acres —was endowed with 75 acres of rice-land. In Kwammu's
time (794), yet another 250 acres in Echizen were added;
and subsequently still further private and official endowments
were contributed. Now in Junna's time (824-833), extra es-

tates, 250 acres in extent, were granted to it.

But the University was soon destined to be eclipsed by cer-

tain of the private schoolswhich were established about this
time. The Bunsho-in, founded by Sugawara in 823, and placed
under the superintendence of Oye no Otohito and Sugawara no
Kiyo-gimi, soon became filled to overflowing. In 825, Fujiwara
no Fuyutsugu erected a special school, as well as a charity-
hospital for the benefit of his poorer clansmen. A few years
later it received an Imperial endowment ; and i:
a ceremony
was
of annually presenting its graduates for the public service
also introduced." Then there were the Sogaku-in, founded in
831 by Arihara no Yukihira, a grandson of Heijo Tenno, and
the Junna-in, the Palace of the Emperor Junna converted into
a school, in 841. Both these institutions were for the educa-
2.30 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

lion of the sons of the less important Imperial relatives.

Lastly, in S50, the consort of Saga Tenno erected the Gakkwan-
in, " in which young persons of her family —
that of Tachibana
— might be educated in the Chinese classics and histories." All
these institutions, be it observed, were for the official and
aristocratic classes exclusively. At this time there was only
one single school in the whole of the Empire open to vulgar
—
plebeians the So-gei-shu-chi-in, organised by Kobo Daishi in
connection with the Toji monastery to the south of the capital.
What was especially needed at this time was a strong and
efficient central administration with thoroughly capable and

trustworthy agents in the various provincial posts. But during

t hese three reigns there was no Chancellor of the Empire down ;

to 833, only a single one of the Two Great Ministers of the

Left and the Right, while at one time all three great offices had
been vacant for two years. For the sovereign to act as his
own Prime Minister would have perhaps been highly beneficial
if he had been a Kwammu and had construed the duties of

his Imperial office as Kwammu had done. But Saga, Junna,

and Nimmyo found it more congenial to act as the arbiters of
taste and fashion in clothes and exotic belles-lettres than to
spend laborious days holding provincial and district officers
to a strict discharge of their onerous responsibilities. Instead
of forming a school of administrators with a stern sense of
public duty and a creed of honest work, they reared an ever-
pullulating brood of greedy, needy, frivolous dilettanti, —as
often as not foully licentious, utterly effeminate, incapable of
any worthy achievement, but withal the polished exponents of
high breeding and correct " form." Now and then a better
man did occasionally emerge but one just man is impotent to
;

avert the doom of an intellectual Sodom. And the one just

man not infrequently appeared in the shape of a portentously
learned but hopelessly arid and frigid pedant. And itwas
from those formed in the great aristocratic schools of Kyoto
that the public service was to be recruited. A pretty show-
ing, indeed, thesepampered minions and bepowdered poetas-
tersmight be expected to make as administrators in the wilds
of Echigo or the Kwanto! Even if honestly inclined, which —
in the majority of cases he was not, —such an official found
himself unfitted by his training to grapple with the stern
realities of the situation. One result was that great stretches
 THE LEARNED EMPERORS. 231

of the Empire were soon seething with disorder that occa-

sionally threatened to assume the dimensions of anarchy. As
early as 862, the Inland Sea pirates had had the audacity to
pillage the Bizen tax-rice on its way to the capital, after kill-
ing the officer in charge. In 866, Settsu, Idzumi, Harima,
Bizen, Bingo, Aki, Suwo, Nagato, and all the provinces of the
Nankaido were infested by swarms of freebooters, whose out-
rages were ceaseless. A little later on, and the state of affairs
had become as bad in many other sections of the country. Just
as the contemporary descents of the Vikings contributed to the
growth of the feudal system in France, so this unbridled lawless-
ness greatly favoured the spread of those manors (Sho-yen)
which ultimately rung the knell of the Imperial power and the
old civilian government of Kyoto. The rampant disorder sup-
plied an additional motive for, and intensified the natural ten-
dency to, commendation. The peaceable cultivator, despairing
of adequate protection from the responsible authorities, was
only too eager to find a refuge as a thrall on one of those great
tax-free estates where the strong man in possession, or his
agent, was more or less capable of repelling force by force.
In Prince Ito's Commentaries on the Constitution we
read: " In the reign of the Emperor Tenchi (662-671 a.d.), the

Council of State (Dajo-kwan) was first established, and after

that, the control over affairs of State was confided to the
Chancellor of the Empire (l)ajo-daijin), to the Minister of the
Left (Sa-daijin) and to the Minister of the Right (U-daijin) :

while the First Adviser of State (Dai-nagon) took part in

advising, and the Minister of the Nakatsukasa-Sho inspected
and Under the Council
affixed his seal to Imperial Rescripts.
of State were placed the eight departments. Thus the organi-
sation of the Government was nearly complete. In later times,
Court favourites took sole charge of the affairs of State, and
even such petty officials as Kurando gradually came to assume
the issuing of Imperial Orders; and important measures of
State were also executed on the authority of an ex-Emperor,
or the private wishes of the Empress, or of written notes of
ladies of the Court. The result was a complete slackening of
the reins of power."
It was at Kurando were instituted; but
this time that the
they could not justly be characterised as " petty officials " at
that date, nor indeed for several generations. In 810, after
232 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Heijo's attempt to re-possess himself of the throne, Saga Tenno,

finding that he could not rely upon the fidelity of many of
the superior officials, entrusted the two Commandants of the
—
Imperial Guards, Fujiwara Fuyutsugu and Kose Notari,
with the duty of drawing up and seeing to the due promulga
lion of Imperial decrees and of taking cognisance of all suits.
In 897, Fujiwara Tokihira was made Betto of the Kurando-
dolcoro, an appointment which added greatly to the prestige of
the Board. At first all the members were nobles of high rank
but later on three members of the fifth rank and four of the
^ixth rank were added to it; while a staff of sixty or seventy
subordinates came to be employed.
The Kurando was not the most important administrative
innovation of this half-century, however. The hopeless in-
efficiency of the police and the criminal courts made some
serious attempt at reform imperative, and in 839 a special
— —
Board, the Kebiishi-cho, was instituted to meet the urgent
needs of the situation. It had full power to arrest, to try, and
to punish; and its officials (1 Betto, 4 Suke, and 4 Tai-i) were
provided with the means of making themselves respected by
evil-doers. At first, its operations were confined to the capi-
tal; presently disturbances in the Kwanto led to the installa-
tion of some of its officials there, and in 857 a Kebiishi-cho was
assigned to every province. Presently it was enacted that the
ordinances of the Kebiishi should be of equal validity with
those issuing from the Imperial Chancery. As the Kebiishi
was —what the provincial governorship —
was not a military
office empowered and in a position to supplement the argu
meats of moral suasion when they proved insufficient with
something more convincing, became a position worth striving
it

for. Contests for the post of Kebiishi-Betto were frequent,

and gave rise to more than one civil commotion. The institu-
tion of this office gave clear indication that it was coming to
be recognised that Japan, and especially provincial Japan,
could no longer be ruled by the ink-brush alone. As has often
been insisted upon, one of the main objects of the Reformers
of G45 had been to prevent the rise of a military class. For
two hundred years their efforts had been crowned with
success. Now, perforce towards the close of the ninth cen-
tury, a large measure of authority has to be entrusted to

the warrior in mail ; and the ultimate rise, if not the

 THE LEARNED EMPERORS. 233

ascendency, of a military class becomes merely a question

of time.
It was in this century that the age-long contest with the
aborigines was brought to a close. In 812, ten years after
Saka-no-Uye no Tamura Maro's triumphant return to the capi-
tal, the Ainu had once more risen and resumed their devastating
forays. Fumiya no Watamaro was dispatched against them
in the capacity of Sei-i-tai Shogun, and succeeded in stamping
out the revolt in a single vigorous campaign. About 855 a civil
war broke out among the aborigines; and this so weakened
them that when they again rose, in 878, they were compara-
tively easily dealt with. They then succeeded in burning the
Castle of Akita, and in inflicting two subsequent defeats upon
the Japanese commander, in one of which he lost 500 men. But
when that excellent officer Fujiwara Yasunori was dispatched
to deal with them, tranquillity was soon restored. By a rare
display of firmness, tact, and magnanimity, Yasunori brought
them to reason and subjection without the loss of a single
Japanese soldier. And this was the end of the Ainu question
although Ainuland in possession of its new masters continued
to be fruitful in vexed problems of its own, the solution of
which exercised an important reflex effect upon the fortunes
of the Empire at large.
At the conclusion of the campaign of 812, the northern
aborigines were for the first time definitely placed upon the
same footing as ordinary Japanese subjects. They were as-
signed Kobunden (Mouth-share land) in their native seats, and
organised in mura, or parishes, each with a headman, while
over all these was a general officer (a Japanese) of tolerably
high official rank. Previous to 812 the Ainu prisoners of war
had invariably been distributed in communities among the
several provinces of the Empire. In the eighth century we
meet with instances of such settlements being established in
the far-distant Shikoku and Kyushu; and we have already seen
that the provincial budgets now and then bore an appropria-
tion for the support of the " barbarian prisoners of war."
It is with considerable diffidence that I venture to advance
the hypothesis that it is in these transplanted and isolated
communities of Ainu that we must seek for one, if not the
who formed a large part of the pariah
main, source of the Eta,
class of feudal Japan. These " barbarian prisoners of war "
234 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

had all been hunters and flesh-eaters; their chief articles of

barter with Japanese traders had been, we know, hides and
skins and the trophies of the chase. They had none of the
Yamato superstitious squeamishness about contact, either vica-
rious or direct, with the dead; while being almost entirely un-
influenced by Buddhistic ideas, they were equally ready to kill
a mad dog or to decapitate a criminal.As has been already
remarked, serious crime was then increasing apace in Japan
on account of the reluctance to take life and of the difficulty
of filling the position of public executioner. The captive Ainu
would here be available to render highly necessary, but not
very highly esteemed, services. In removing and disposing of
the carcases of oxen and horses and other animals that had
died a natural death — (as they were usually allowed to do) —
these strong-stomached savages would also find occupation
their chief or their only reward, perhaps, being the skin of
the dead animal. At all events, dealing with skins or leather
until after it was tanned was unclean in feudal Japan, and
tanning was a monopoly of the Eta. So also was all the work
in connection with the common execution-grounds.
What seems a fatal objection to this hypothesis admits
of a very easy and a very ready answer. It is urged that there
was little or nothing of the Ainu physiognomy to be seen in
the Eta communities of I898. How far that is really true I
cannot pretend to say. But after 812, no more communities
of Ainu prisoners of war were settled anywhere outside of the
two provinces of Mutsu and Dewa. And Japanese outcasts
and famine-stricken peasants now and then driven to canni-
balism would be glad to pocket their pride of race, and with
their female dependents take refuge in the Ainu communities
(which as a rule appear to have been tolerably well off), and
intermarry there. If this went on for centuries, it is easy to
understand how the physiognomy of the Eta, although ori-
ginally pure Ainu, would gradually approximate to that of the
general population around them.
 235

CHAPTER IX.

THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJIWARA.

rpiHE rise of the Fujiwara to supreme power in Japan was
-*- very much slower than it is usually represented to be by
foreign writers. It was only in the sixth generation from
Kamatari (died GG9) that the fortunes of the great clan were
placed on a sure and unshakable foundation.
The work of Fubito, Kamatari's heir, had been undone by
the death of his four sons in one single year (737). In the
next generation there had been no lack of aspiring, ambitious
Fujiwaras; but they had to deal with formidable rivals. What
proved most fatal to them, however, was internal dissension
and mutual jealousy Oshikatsu at the plenitude of his power,
;

in 764, owed his overthrow as much to the hostility of his bro-

ther and his cousins as to the state-craft of the monk Dokyo.
In the course of the next half -century certain members of the
clan did indeed attain high and responsible office; but these
were more remarkable for honest untiring work and ungrudg-
ing devotion to the best interests of the sovereign and the
State than for aspiring personal or family ambition.
Two of Kwammu Tenno's consorts had been Fujiwara
ladies; one of these was the mother of the Emperors Ileijo
and Saga, and the other of Junna Tenno. But Kwammu was
not the man to be unduly dominated by any one, whether con-
sort or Minister. His eldest son and successor Heijo, on the
contrary, was entirely under the influence of the Lady Fuji-
wara Kusuri, who prompted him to make his abortive effort
to regain the throne in 810. This proved to be a very un-
fortunate affair for the Fujiwara clan, since its chiefs again
found themselves ranged in opposing camps. Nakanari sup-
ported his sister; Uchimaro held fast by the new Emperor,
Saga. The death of Nakanari was a serious blow to the pro-
spects of the house. Then, Saga's Empress was not a Fuji-
—
wara, but a Tachibana, a lady of strong will and fine intellect.
During the reign of her son Nimmyo (833-850) her brother, ,

Ujigimi, was a power in the land.

236 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Meanwhile the Northern branch of the Fujiwaras had been

slowly consolidating their position. Uchimaro had been Minis-
ter of the Right from 806 till his death in 812 ; and, after much
laborious and meritorious work in subordinate but very respon-
sible positions, his son Fuyutsugu attained the same high
office in 821. He died in 826, leaving several sons, of whom
the eldest, Yoshifusa, was then 22 years of age. It was with
this Yoshifusa that the real power and splendour of the great
house of Fujiwara began.
Yoshifusa married a daughter of the Emperor Saga, and
he was careful to keep on very intimate and friendly terms
with her younger brothers. These four youths occupied a
somewhat peculiar position. The support of the innumerable
Imperial princes had become a serious strain upon the treasury,
and it had long been felt that some device must be adopted to
ease it. Saga Tenno accordingly bestowed a family name upon
his seventh and subsequent sons, reduced them to the status
of subjects, and thus left them free to make their own way
in the official world. The name given them was Minamoto;
and this was the origin of the clan that was destined to play
such an all-important part in the future history of Japan.*
Three of these earliest Minamoto attained Ministerial rank
and and were at one time or another the colleagues or
office,

subordinates of Fujiwara Yoshifusa in the Great Council of

State. And very pleasant and accommodating and complai-
sant colleagues they proved to be in sooth Without their con-
!

nivance, if not their overt support, in his devious intrigues of

the harem, Yoshifusa could never have soared to supreme power
on unruffled wing so smoothly and so easily as he did. Of late
had been regulated in a very pecu-
the succession to the throne
liar Saga Tenno, instead of nominating his own son as
way.
Prince Imperial, had abdicated and made way for his half-

* However, it was only one branch of it, and that by no means

the most famous one, that was founded by Saga. It was to the Seiwr.-
Genji that Yoritomo, the Ashikaga, and the Tokugawa Shoguns be-
longed. Besides these two branches the Uda-Genji and the Murakami-
Genji were of consequence. Of these four great lines, the Sagc-Genji
were civilians; the Seiwa, soldiers; the Uda and the Murakami
partly civilians and partly soldiers. Besides these there were many
other Minamoto families. The name was bestowed upon five sons of
the Emperor Nimmyo (834-850), eight of Montoku (851-858), three of
Yozei (877-884), fourteen of Koko (885-887), four of Daigo (898-930),
four grandsons of Sanjo (1012-1016), and upon a great number of
princesses; but most of these lines became extinct in the course of a
few generations.
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJIWARA. 237

brother, the Emperor Junna. This sovereign surrendered the

throne, not to his own son, but to the son whom Saga had
passed over in his (Junna's) favour. Now this son (Nimmyo"
Tenno) adhered to the same course and designated the Prince
Tsunesada, Junna's son, as his own successor. Nimmyo, how-
ever, had an unusually large family of his own, and, unfor-
tunately for Prince Tsunesada, some of his sons were the pro-
geny of his two Fujiwara consorts, one of whom was Yoshi-
The main and deliberate purpose of the Fujiwara
fusa's sister.
had now become to secure the ascendency of their house. If
the Prince Imperial, Tsunesada, became Emperor their rising
fortunes seemed likely to meet with a set-back. However, dur-
ing the first half of Nimmyo's reign two ex- of sixteen years
Emperors had and Yoshifusa, still in
to be reckoned with;
a very subordinate position, was not prepared to risk any trial
of strength with them. But when Junna died in 840, and
Saga in 842, he began to intrigue. Certain of the Prince
Imperial's too devoted adherents, on discovering this, —among
them the " talented Tachibana " Hayanari —conceived the
project of putting their master on the throne by force, —plainly
without his cognisance, much less, with his authority. The plot
was communicated to the Tachibana ex-Empress, who at once
sent for Yoshifusa (then a Chunagon) and requested him to
take proper measures to suppress it. He succeeded in making
it appear that the Prince Imperial was implicated in it; the
result being that Tsunesada was ousted from the Eastern
Palace (the official residence of the Heir-Prince) and Prince
Michiyasu, Yoshifusa's nephew, then a lad of fifteen, installed
in his stead. This episode served to lift Yoshifusa from Chu-
nagon to Dainagon and on the death of Tachibana Ujigimi in
;

848 he found himself Minister of the Right at the age of 45,

his colleague being his very accomplished but somewhat weak
minded bosom friend Minamoto Tsune, eight years his junior.
Two years later (850) the Emperor Nimmyo died, and Yo-
shifusa's nephew, Prince Michiyasu, ascended the throne as
Montoku Tenno (851-858). To still further strengthen his
position Yoshifusa married his own daughter Akiko to the
young sovereign, who by the way already had a consort and
three children. Early in 850 Akiko gave birth to a child in
the Fujiwara mansion ; and nine months afterwards the baby,
known as Prince Korebito, was nominated Prince Imperial,
238 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Subsequently the Emperor wished to revoke this arrangement

in favour of his eldest son Prince Koretaka; but the sove-
reign found himself helpless in the hands of Yoshifusa and of
his subservient henchman, Minamoto Nobu. In 857 Yoshifusa
was raised to the Chancellorship of the Empire (Dajo-daijin),
a position that had not been filled since the fall of Dokyo

in 769. But Yoshifusa was still only on the way to the

pinnacle of power and grandeur he was to attain.
When Montoku died, in 858, Seiwa Tenno (Prince Kore-
bito) was only nine years of age, and a long minority afforded
his grandfather the best of opportunities to consolidate his
power. He at once assumed the Regency, and when the sove-
reign attained his majority in 866, Yoshifusa was by Imperial
decree invested with continued authority and the formal title
of Regent (Sessho). In 871 his revenues were supplemented
by the grant of a house-fief of 3,000 families ; he was put on a
footing of equality with the " Three Palaces " as regards pre
cedence; his office was declared to be for life, and he was
assigned a body-guard of between forty and fifty men.
Here we are face to face with a whole complex of innova-
tions. Regents there had indeed been appointed before, but
they had always been of the Imperial stock. Shotoku Taishi
had been responsible for the administration of the Empire
under the nominal rule of his aunt the Empress Suiko, as
Prince Naka-no-Oye (Tenchi Tenno) had been under his mother
Saimei. But Seitva was the first male sovereign to reign under
any such tutelage. Furthermore he was the first child Em-
peror of Japan. And it was now for the first time that the
great office of Regent was filled not by an august descendant
of the Sun-Goddess but ~by a mere subject. Furthermore, the
precedence assigned to this subject, as well as the term of office
and the body-guard, was something of grave constitutional im-
port.
Thus was the basis of Fujiwara greatness and grandeur
firmly laid at last.Thus the great clan came virtually to hold
the throne of Japan in fee, and to occupy that position of
supreme authority for which the Soga had erstwhile plotted
and struggled and murdered in vain. Whatever may have been
the vices or enormities of Yoshifusa and the long line of de-
scendants that succeeded him in place and power, bloodthirsti-
ness or bloodguiltiness cannot justly be reckoned among them,
 THE GREAT HOUSE OP FUJIWARA. 239

The Fujiwaras rarely if ever sought the annihilation of op-

ponents; they usually rested content with their removal.
Banishment to some remote quarter of the Empire or immure-
ment behind the gates of some convenient monastery was about
the severest penalty they exacted from the very few daring
spirits who showed any tendency to cross their path, or to
thwart their purposes.
The Fujiwara power was maintained from generation to
generation mainly by the unceasing exercise of the
device which Yoshifusa had employed so adroitly and so
effectively in laying a sure and stable foundation for the for-
tunes of his house. Fujiwara ladies were imposed as consorts
upon successive Emperors or prospective heirs to the Crown;
and it was only the progeny of these consorts that could hope
to be placed on the throne. And the tenure of the Imperial
dignity was precarious at the best, for any sovereign who
showed an inclination to rule as well as to reign generally
found himself constrained to retire to a monastery and accept
the tonsure. The Fujiwara domination remained virtually
unquestioned for 209 years —until Go-Sanjo Tenno asserted
himself and the rights of the Imperial dignity, in 1069. Be-
tween Montoku and Go-Ranjo there were fifteen Emperors, and
of these no fewer than seven were minors. And of these fifteen
sovereigns as many as eight either abdicated or were compelled
to abdicate. During these two centuries the Fujiwara ascen-
dency was exposed to only one danger, —occasional rivalry be-

tween the various branches of the clan as to which should

furnish, not so much the Empress or the future Empress, as
the mother of the future Emperor. The details of these domes-
tic bickerings are often sordid and mean and they
; are as often
as not insufferably tiresome. Brief incidental reference to a
few of those that led to more or less serious developments is

all that can reasonably be attempted here.

Yoshifusa, as has been said, was Seiwa Tenno's grandfather.
Shortly after attaining his majority the young sovereign
wedded his own aunt, Yoshifusa's younger daughter, and thus
became his mother's brother-in-law and his grandfather's son-
in-law. As Yoshifusa had no son, he had recourse to adoption,
and installed his nephew Mototsune (836-891) as his successor
in the chieftainship of the clan. Mototsune was Minister of
the Right at the death of his uncle and adoptive father in 872,
240 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

For the next four years Seiwa Tenno paid a good deal of atten-
lion to the work of administration, and Mototsnne's position
was not specially pre-eminent. But when Seiwa abdicated and
took the tonsure in 876, and his son, then a child of nine, suc-
ceeded as Ydzei Tenno (877-884), the new Fujiwara chieftain
became the real head of the State. He was at once appointed
Regent; and this office as well as that of the Minister of the
—
Right he held for the next three years down to 880. Then he
was advanced to the Chancellorship, and either at the same
time or eight years later he was made Kwarnpaku* This ap-
pointment made him the Mayor of the Palace and the real ruler
of Japan. After 941, whenever there was a minority, the Fuji-
wara chieftain was made Regent, and when the sovereign at-

tained his majority he invariably found it to be necessary 1o

appoint the Regent Kwarnpaku if he wished to prolong his own
tenure of the seat of the august descendants of the Sun-Goddess
It is really somewhat difficult for a non-Japanese writer to
arrive at any just or definite estimate of Mototsune. That he
was a man of commanding force of character cannot be doubted
for a moment. It is true that the historian of Mototsune's ad-
ministration can scarcely be regarded as absolutely impartial,
for that historian was Mototsnne's own son, Tokihira. On the
other hand, we must remember that this Tokihira is one of the
most maligned and most unfairly dealt with of the many great
men of Japan who have reaped nothing but ingratitude and
insult from the small-minded pedants who have presumed to
pose as historians. And all because Tokihira felt himself im-
periously called upon to lay an ungloved hand upon an arch-
pedant who was utterly incompetent to read the signs of the
times, and who yet aspired to the administration of the Empire.
The young Emperor Yozei soon became a very serious and
a very troublesome problem. As a child his conduct had given

* Most foreign writers give 882 as the year in which the first
Kwarnpaku, or Azukari-Mosu was appointed. The authority for 880
is the Kugyo-Bunin, pp. 142-3; for 887-8 see Ogino's Nihon Tsushi,
op. 575-82. " It was through the Kwarnpaku that all the proceedings
in the affairs of the State were brought to the knowledge of the
Emperor. This office was usually combined in the person of either
the Chancellor of the Empire, the Minister of the Left, the Minister of
the Right, or the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. The Kwarnpaku was
the highest of the official positions; and consequently, when the Mini-
ster of the Left or the Minister of the Right or the Lord Keeper of
the Privy Seal was appointed to this post, he took precedence over
—
even the Chancellor of the Empire." Prince Ito's Commentaries on
the Constitution, p. 88.
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJIWARA- 241

signs of a cruel and depraved nature, and as he grew to man-

hood he began to emulate those wanton and disgusting outrages
that have made the name of Buretsu infamous —making people
climb trees and then bringing them down with his bow as if
they were so many sparrows, and punishing onlookers who did
not see fit to laugh at the sport ; seizing girls in the street, tying
Ihem up with and casting them into ponds; run-
lute strings
ning amok on horseback through the capital and lashing all and
—
sundry with his riding-whip, such were perhaps the most
flagrant of his lunatic enormities, but they by no means ex-
hausted the catalogue of his Imperial Majesty's peculiar amuse-
ments. In the circumstances Mototsune might very well be
excused for coming to the conclusion that the only possible re-

deeming feature such .a reign could present was that of a dry

—
and prosy sermon, brevity. Accordingly he took the momen-
tous step of dethroning this budding Japanese Nero. This was
the first instance of a practice that later became not uncommon
under the Hojo, —the deposition of the sovereign by a subject.
the new sovereign, a son of the Em-
Koko Tenno (885-887),
peror Nimmyo and an aunt of Mototsune, was then fifty-four
years of age. He had many children, but none of these were by
Fnjiwara mothers. On his death -bed in 887, he left the selec-
tion of the Crown Prince and his successor on the throne to
Mototsune, who forthwith advocated the claims of Koko's
seventh son, then a young man of twenty-one. This prince had
already received a surname and descended to the position of a
subject, — a fact that was held to debar the bearer of the name
from all claims to the Imperial succession. This constitutional
point was disregarded by Mototsune on this occasion, although
he had used it as an effectual argument against the pretensions
of one of the Minamoto two years before.
For the first three or four years of his reign, Uda Tenno, as
the new sovereign was called, remained under the tutelage of the
astute and all-powerful Kwampdku. On the death of Moto-
tsune in 891 the sovereign's natural advisers would have been
the Ministers of the Left and of the Right. But the greatest
offices of State were then occupied by two decrepit dotards of

seventy years of age, neither of whom had been remarkable for

ability or force of character at any time. Between these and
the youthful sovereign there was not much sympathy, and so
the Emperor went elsewhere for advice. In 893, when a Prince

Q
242 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

Imperial was selected and proclaimed, the only one who had
been consulted about this very important matter had been Suga-
wara Michizane, then a Sangi or Junior Councillor of State.
This brings us to one of the most singular episodes in the his-

tory of Japan.
The Sugawara family professed to be of old Izumo origin,

deducing its pedigree from Nomi no Sukune, that doughty

exponent of savatc, who is credited with beneficial reforms in
the matter of the evil burial customs of the mythical age. The
firstSugawara, who received that name in Konin's time, had
been tutor or lecturer at the Courts of Konin and Kwammu,
and that post was transmitted to his son and grandson. This
last, Sugawara Koreyoshi, was also head of the Bunsho-in
founded by his father in 823, as well as Rector of the Univer-
sity. His third son, Michizane, is represented as having been
a Shindo, — —
a god-child, in plain language, an infant prodigy;
and at an early age he had acquired the reputation of being
one of the first, if not the very first, scholar in the Empire.
The circumstances of the time were exceptionally favourable
for the prospects of the young and brilliant Michizane, for at
no time in the history of Japan was scholarship held in such
esteem as it was in the ninth century. Thanks to the tradition
established by the learned Emperors, aud Saga, Junna,
Nimmyo, an ability to read Chinese books and to compose in
Chinese had become indispensable for any one who aspired to
employment and preferment in the public service. Hence the
University and the great private schools became thronged with
the sons of the privileged and official classes. Candidates for
officewere many, and positions were comparatively few in
number. Hence the annual examination in the Shiki-
Bu-Sho* came to be an event of grave importance. We
hear of the great Mototsune, in the plenitude of his

power, taking a straw mat into the courtyard of his man-

sion, going down upon it on his knees, and there praying to
the gods for the success of the alumni of the Kwangaku-in, the
college of the Fujiwara clan. This Shiki-Bu-Sho examination
was not unlike certain University examinations of the eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth centuries in one respect: in it the
composition (Chinese) paper was by far the most important.
Now the speciality of the Sugawara and the Oye

* Ministry of Court Rites and Civil Office,

 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJIWARA. 243

families was Kam~bun, Chinese literature, —and especially

Chinese composition. Thus we can very readily under-
stand that Michizane's reputation as a Stiindo, and as
the finest scholar in Kyoto, must have stood him in the
very best of stead. From an early date his lecture-hall was
crowded to overflowing, and being in a position to select his

own material, and to make an early end of dullards and

blockheads, he proved to be a highly successful " coach.'' He
doubtless knew his books thoroughly and he was reputed to be
a great stylist in Chinese. But he had never been in China;
and it is not unlikely that if he had been suddenly transferred
to Hsian to pursue his avocation there he would have had an
uphill battle to fight for some considerable time at least. How-
ever, as none of his rivals had been trained abroad, Kyoto
was then in a fashion that " country of the blind, where the
one-eyed man is King," and Michizane was fully able to hold
his own among the competing doctors. Japanese schools and
colleges are wont to develop a peculiar kind of politics of their
own and
; and their follow-
at this time, the various professors
ings kept assailing each other in speech and writing with a
virulence and an acrimony that amounted to a scandal. One
or two of the more modest among them, however, held scorn-
fully aloof from all criticism of their fellows, and pursued a
course of their own with unruffled serenity. But Michizane
was not one of these.
About the age of forty he was made Governor of Sanuki,
and on returning to the capital he speedily acquired the confi-
dence of the new Emperor, Uda. In 891, the year of Moto-
tsune's death, he was made Chief of the Kttrando Bureau, a
position of great consequence, inasmuch as it gave him ready
access to the Imperial presence. Two years later he was
Sangi, Vice-Minister of the Shiki-Bu-Sho, and Tutor to the
Prince Imperial, while other minor posts of considerable im-
portance were at the same time entrusted to him. In this
year, also, his daughterbecame one of the Imperial consorts.
it was arranged that another
In 894, after a lapse of 55 years,
embassy should be dispatched to the Chinese Court, and Michi-
zane was appointed head of the mission. But no embassy was
ever sent either at that time, or indeed subsequently. Michi-
zane presented a memorial urging the abandonment of official

intercourse with the Middle Kingdom. At that time China,

 244 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

ho represented, was in disorder,* and travelling there was

unsafe. Such benefits as might accrue from that or future
embassies were slight when weighed in the balance against the
attendant disadvantages. One possible motive actuating
Michizane on this occasion was a reluctance to withdraw him-
self from the Court where his fortunes now seemed to be so
promising. In 897 he became Gon-Dainagon (Acting First
Councillor of State) ; and as both the Ministers of the Left
and of the Right had died of sheer senility just before,
Michizane found himself really, though not in name, one of
the first two Ministers of the Empire. His colleague was the
young Fujiwara chief, Tokihira, then twenty-seven years of
age, who had just been gazetted Dainagon. At the same time,
Michizane was also Mimbukyo (Home Minister) and General —
of the Right !
—
certainly a peculiar appointment. At the same
time he was made Chief of the Sugawara clan (Uji no Kami).
This signified more than may appear at first. At this date
only three clans had Uji no Kami, or official chiefs, those of —
Fujiwara, Minamoto, and Tachibana, that of Tachibana finally
passing by marriage into the house of Fujiwara. The com-
paratively obscure clan of Sugawara was thus to be put on a
footing of equality with the three most illustrious houses of
Japan. Small wonder, then, that the high-born Fujiwaras and
Minamotos should be becoming restive !

In the following year, the Emperor Uda abdicated and

took the tonsure. The devout Shomu Tenno had done likewise
a hundred and fifty years before, and Seiwa had done so in 876.
Both these sovereigns had then ceased to interest themselves
in the national administration. But Uda Tenno's course was
different. The first of those Ho-o or Cloistered ex-Emperors,
who now and then came to be the real power behind the throne,
he at first showed a strong inclination to interfere in the
direction of affairs. In 899 Michizane had become Minister of
the Right and Fujiwara Tokihira Minister of the Left. In the
following year we find the young sovereign, Daigo Tenno, then
fifteen years old, and educated or being educated by Michizane,
consulting with his father about combining the two Ministries
/and putting the whole administration of the Empire into the
hands of Michizane. When the subject was broached to

* As a matter of fact the T'ang Dynasty fell thirteen years after-

wards, in 907.
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF PUJIWARA. 245

Michizane, we are told he firmly declined to listen to the

proposition. We also hear of him twice or thrice refusing to
accept the various offices by the exercise of which he had risen
to his commanding but highly perilous position. But such
modesty was merely part of the game; it was in accordance
with what the etiquette of the time and of the situation de-
manded from such as aspired to have their names transmitted
to posterity as paragons of propriety. Reference has already
been made to thesupreme importance of the Li Ki or " Book
of Rites " in Chinese culture. Nothing was of greater conse-
quence than " good form " ; and " good form " demanded the
exhibition of a coy modesty in connection with the acceptance
of even the most eagerly coveted office. If Michizane had really
been serious in his refusals and resignations of offices, there
is no reason why he should have been less successful in having

them accepted than his contemporary Fujiwara Yasunori, the

pacificator of Ainuland, was, whose sole reward remained the
consciousness of having done good work in his day and genera-
tion.

The extraordinary rise of the ci-devant professor and suc-

cessful " coach " occasioned jealous resentment in at least two
different quarters. Michizane had been very ready to promote
his former pupils and his own adherents, and this gave serious
umbrage to the other civil service " coaches " and the candi-
dates who did not come from the Bunsho-in. Against these
envious and disappointed grumblers Michizane could doubtless
very easily have held his ground, if he had had to face but these
alone. But they were by far the less formidable section of
his foes.
At the death of Mototsune in 891, the eldest of his three
sons, Tokihira, was a stripling of twenty. One of two great
Ministries was indeed occupied by a relative of his, but, as hns
been said more than once, this Fujiwara Yoshiyo was then
little better than a dotard, utterly incapable of doing anything
serious, either good or ill. The whole burden of maintaining
the power and prestige of the great house must needs fall upon
the youthful shoulders of Tokihira. From an early date he
gave evidence that he had a fine capacity for hard work. At
twenty-two he was a Chunagon or Second Councillor, and
Head of the very responsible Kebiishi office; and five years
later, in 897, he was Michizane's colleague as Dainagon, then
24<) HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the highest office in the Stale, for in that year there was neither
Chancellor nor Great Minister. At this time the relations
between Michizane and Tokihira appear to have been perfectly
harmonious, and after both of them were invested with the
Great Ministries in 899 we meet with nothing to indicate that
there was any friction between them. Michizane had seen fit
to snub Fujiwara Sugane, a relative of Tokihira's fifteen years
older than he; while Minamoto Hikaru, a son of the Emperor
Nimmyo, born in the same year as Michizane, had become very
discontented at finding himself compelled to yield precedence
to the parvenu professor. These two elder men had of late
been eagerly endeavouring to catch Michizane tripping; and
on learning of the discussion between the Emperor and his
father about the Ministers they felt that their opportunity had
come. They at once represented to Tokihira that he must take
vigorous action if he set any store upon the maintenance of his

position in the administration.

Just at this moment, Michizane was advanced to
the junior division of the second grade of rank.
Eighteen days after he found his mansion beset by guards,
and an Imperial edict was tendered him ordering him
to repair to Dazaifu at once, as Acting Viceroy of Kyushu;
while at the same time twenty-seven members of his family or
personal adherents were banished to various provinces.*
The ex-Emperor, hearing of this startling turn of affairs, im-
mediately repaired to the Palace, but was refused admission
by the Imperial Guards. After loitering in the neighbourhood
over night his ex-Imperial Majesty had to retire without ac-
complishing anything; and this development put an effectual
end to the endeavours of the first cloistered Emperor to direct

* The documents with this episode were burned by

in connection
the Emperor in 923;
and so it is hard to arrive at the facts of the
case. Accounts which became current later on represent Tokihira as
having first vainly endeavoured to get rid of his rival by magic arts,
and then having recourse to slander, " his sister's position as Empress
giving him great facilities for pouring unnoticed into the Mikado's ear
his malicious calumnies." An eclipse of the sun which took place on
New Year's day in 901 afforded him a decisive opportunity. Persuad-
ing the Mikado that this phenomenon in which the female principle
(the moon) obscured the male was the fore-runner of an attempt on
Michizane's part to depose him and to place another Prince, his
(Michizane's) own son-in-law, on the throne, he procured Michizane's
degradation. Both Michizane and Tokihira were advanced in rank on
the 7th of the first month; it was not till the 25th that Michizane was
banished. It thus took Tokihira nearly a month to utilise his " de-
cisive opportunity."
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF PUJIWARA. 247

the policy of the State. Henceforth he retired deeper and deeper

into solitude, faithfully practising the Law of Buddha, and
died thirty years afterwards at the age of sixty-five.
At Dazaifu Michizane could have found a fine field for the

exercise of his abilities.The fortunes of nine great provinces

and two considerable islands were still committed to his
charge. Kibi no Mabi had done real sterling service here four
generations before him, and only a few years before Fujiwara
Yasunori, the pacificator of Ainuland, had earned the heartfelt
gratitude of the people by his wise and beneficent rule. Even
if Michizane felt disinclined to devote attention to the com-
monplace details of taxation and local government, the re-
organisation of the great school of Dazaifu, in which Kibi no
Mabi had not scorned to teach while acting as Viceroy, might
well have furnished him with a congenial occupation. But the
interests of the University of Dazaifu appealed to him no more
than did those of the people of Kyushu. He shut himself up
in the Government House, and spent most of his time in vain
repining and the composition of piteouslittle poems which he

forwarded to Kyoto in the expectation that they would effect

his recall to the splendour and magnificence of the capital.
In this he showed no foolishness, but rather a great deal of
astuteness, for in those times a graceful poem was the most
potent of arguments.* However, the device in this case proved
ineffectual, and Michizane was left to die in what an American
historian somewhat humorously calls " the horrors of poverty
and exile" (903).
Now follows the strangest part of the story. In 908 Fuji-
wara Sugane died at the age of fifty-two, in 909 Tokihira died
ai thirty-eight, while in 913 Minamoto Hikaru was gathered to
his fathers at the not unripe age of sixty-eight. Michizane had
died at fifty-eight yet in what was called the premature death
;

of his foes the superstition of the time saw the intervention

of a retributive and avenging Providence! Then during the
next twenty years there were several terrible droughts varied
by devastating Hoods, while there were fires in the capital and
other minor calamities. In 923 the young Prince Imperial
died; and his premature death was ascribed to the curse of
Michizane's angry ghost. The Emperor repented bitterly of
his conduct in sanctioning the decree of banishment in 901,

* See Brinkley's Japan, vol. I., p. 188-9.

248 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

burnt all the documents in connection with the case, —to the
great inconvenience of subsequent historians, —and restored
Michizane (posthumously) to his former position." But
(his was not enough; in the popular imagination the outraged
spirit still continued to scourge the Court and the nation.
Subsequently (047) the temple of Kitano was reared in his
honour and added to the official list of the twenty-two great
shrines of the Empire, and Michizane was presently promoted
to the highest grade of rank and to the Chancellorship, f
Much of the sympathy lavished on Michizane by foreign
writers is excited by the tradition that he was a reformer who
Avas bent on breaking the power of the Fujiwaras in the best
interests of the sovereign and of the State. But he was in no
sense a reformer; if the Fujiwaras had then gone to the wall
the only administrative change that would have taken place
would have been in the personnel of the executive. There is
nothing to indicate that Michizane had any real grip upon the
essentials of the great problem of the time, the economic and —
local administrative evils that were rapidly sapping the founda-
tions of the Imperial power, eating into the vitals of the State,
and reducing it to anarchy from which it could only be rescued
by the rise of the feudal system and that privileged military
class it had been one of the main objects of the Reformers of
G45 to prevent. Here Michizane appears to sad disadvantage

* " In the 5th month <of 863 sacrifices were offered in the palace to
the angry spirits of Sora-no-taishi (Kwammu's brother), who died in
785, of Prince Iyo, who died in 807, of the Lady Fujiwara, who died in
807, of Tachibana Hayanari, who died m
843, and of Fumuya no
Miyata-maro, who died in 843. This solemn fete was called Goryoye.
For several years the country had been scourged by a contagious dis-
ease, which carried off many people in spring. These disasters were
attributed to the influence of these angry spirits; so sacrifices were
offered to appease them."
This extract furnishes further evidence of the deep hold the
" offended ghost " superstition had upon the mind of the time. An
adroit use of this in connection, with the natural calamities and other
portents of Daigo's reign would readily enable Michizane's friends
and pupils to rehabilitate the memory of the fallen statesman. One
incident they turned to specially good account. " On the 26th of the
8th month of 930, a black cloud coming from the direction of Mount
Atago advanced, accompanied by terrible peals of thunder. thunder- A
bolt fell on the palace, and killed the Dainagon Fujiwara no Kiyo-
tsura, and many junior officers. The Emperor took refuge in the
Shuhosha. The disaster was attributed to the wrath of Michizane's
spirit."
The prevalence of this superstition may partly serve to account
for the extreme reluctance of the Fujiwara statesmen to proceed to
the last extremity against the rivals who presumed to cross their path.
t See Aston's Shinto, The Way of the Gods, pp. 179-183, 369.
4
THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJIWARA. 249

alongside of Miyoshi Kiyotsura, while his record as head of a

provincial executive is when compared with that
a barren one
of his elder contemporary Fujiwara Yasunori, who preceded
him in the Governorship of Sanuki and the Vic( royalty of j

Kyushu.
" Apres eela (the banishment of Michizane) Tokihira
gouverna seul k sa fantaisie," writes a distinguished French
author. means that Tokihira abused his power and
If this
position it is Minamoto Hikaru, who suc-
certainly unjust.
ceeded Michizane as Minister of the Right, was influential
down to his death in 913, and the Emperor himself was far
from being the mere cypher in the administration of the State
that the sovereign presently became. It is not difficult to
account for the evil odour into which Tokihira fell with certain
of his contemporaries. He was a reformer; and not merely a
reformer, but a vigorous one who did not hesitate to grapple
with abuses merely because they were profitable to those high
in place and power. Before the removal of Michizane we find
Tokihira dealing very drastically with corrupt practices among
the officials and checking the arrogance and curbing the pre-
tensions of the Imperial Guards, especially of the time-expired
men who had returned to their native places and were there
carrying things with a high hand. By this time it had become
common for rich farmers in the country to bribe the officers to
enrolthem for nominal service in the Guards as ; soldiers they
were exempt from the corvee. In Harima in 900, more than
half of the peasants had adopted this course; while similar
complaints came in from Tamba and several other provinces.
Later on, Tokihira made a sweeping attack upon the manor
system, sparing neither princes nor Ministers nor courtiers nor
monasteries nor shrines who were infringing the law. Peasants
convicted of selling or conveying their lands to the owners of
manors were and the lands confiscated, while the
to be flogged
erection of new manors was strictly forbidden. It is easy to
understand that such a measure must have occasioned grievous
discontent among the needy, greedy crowd of courtiers eagerly
vieing with each other as to who should make the greatest
display in the profusion of the luxury-ridden capital. Then
under Tokihira seemed as though sumptuary laws,
it also
hitherto more honoured in the breach than in the observance,
were to be rigidly enforced. After arranging the matter with
250 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the Emperor privately beforehand, Tokihira appeared in full

Court costume that set the regulations at defiance; and
in a
iij full Court he received a stinging Imperial rebuke and was

orde.red ito retire at once, and thenceforth to set a better

example. Tokihira shut himself up in his mansion for about
a month; and the example he thus made of himself produced
a very excellent effect —for a time.
He was the editor of the Sanded Jitsuroku, the last and the
longest of the Six National Histories; and it was he who began
the compilation of the Engi-Shiki, that storehouse of docu-
ments so invaluable for the history of mediaeval Japan. Toki-
hira died at the age of thirty-eight, having achieved no small
amount of strenuous work in the comparatively short span of
his life. Five years after, in 914, his younger brother Tadahira
became Minister of the Right, and it is from Tadahira that the
long line of Fujiwara Regents descends. Under his chieftain-
ship the Fujiwara clan attained to a seemingly still greater
measure of power than it had wielded in the days of Yoshifusa
and Mototsune. In the year of his death (949), Tadahira was
himself Kwampaku and Chancellor, his eldest son, Saneyori,
Minister of the Left, and his second son, Morosuke, Minister
of the Right, all the great offices of the State being thus for
the first time monopolised by a single family. And yet, withal,

Tadahira was neither a statesman nor a man

any very great
of
ability; in every way he was vastly inferior to his much-
maligned elder brother, Tokihira. The first sixteen years of
his Ministry fellunder Daigo Tenno, who during his unusually
long reign of two and thirty years (898-930) kept a tolerably
upon the administration. On his death, his eleventh
firm grip
son, a eight, and Tadahira's nephew, ascended the throne
boy of
(Shujaku Tenno, 931-946), and then the Fujiwara chieftain
had full scope to display the depth of his incompetency.
Brigandage and piracy had been drastically dealt with in

Tokihira's time, and allowance being made for the disturbing

effects of a succession of droughts, famines, inundations, and
similar natural calamities, order had been fairly well main-
tained under Daigo (898-930). Now, under the boy sovereign
and the Kwampaku, robbery and outrage once more became
rife. Tadahira paid but little attention to this; what excited
his apprehensions was a series of absurd palace omens and
portents, on which the diviners placed eaually absurd inter-
 THE GREAT HOUSE OP PUJIWARA. 251

pretations. According to them there was to be armed rebellion

in the South-West, —a truly Delphic response inasmuch as the
pirates had already made the Inland Sea impassable. Orders
were at once dispatched to the Sanyodo, to Shikoku, and to
Kyushu to levy troops, while offerings were sent to all the
shrines in these quarters and prayers prompt
offered up for the
suppression of the disturbers of the public peace. But for
these precious palace portents and omens Tadahira would have
as surely left the South-West alone to settle things in its own
way as he presently allowed the Kwanto to take care of itself
when it was ablaze with palpable, open, grossly defiant
rebellion.
The pirates of 934 were speedily brought to reason ; but
that was only the beginning of a farce that soon bade fair to
assume the complexion of a national disaster. Fujiwara
Sumitomo had been sent down from Kyoto to assist the
Governor of Iyo to deal with the sea-rovers. This Sumitomo,
instead of returning to the capital on the expiry of his com-
mission, settled in the island of Hiburi in the Bungo Channel,
and there established himself as a pirate chief (936) By the !

year 938, when Tadahira was treating the young sovereign to

a great exhibition of cock-fighting, Sumitomo had as many as
1,500 craft under his flag, and had practically made himself
master of the Inland Sea, from the Straits of Shimonoseki
on to the Island of Awaji. Down to 939, all the punish-
ment that had been inflicted by the Court (by which,
of course, Tadahira is meant) on Sumitomo had been to

send him a warning and to raise him one

letter of
grade in official rank Thus encouraged by thfi great
!

Kwampaku, Sumitomo next year burnt the mint in the pro-

vince of Suwo, the Government House in Tosa, and drove the
Governor of Sanuki to take refuge in Awaji, while the Sanyodo
provinces were almost entirely at his mercy. At last, in 940,
the Kyoto authorities appointed Ono Yoshifuru as Tsuibushi
(Arresting-officer) to deal with the situation. The defection
of one of his lieutenants who betrayed the secrets of the
bandittiand the weak spots in their defences led to the fall of
Sumitomo. Driven from the Inland Sea he established himself
in Hakata, and with plenty of support from Kyushu made a

determined stand there. It was only after a most desperate

engagement that his fleet was either burned, or captured, or
252 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

and Hakata taken by the Imperial troops. Sumitomo

dispersed,
escaped Iyo, but was there killed by the commandant
to
Tachibana Toyasu (041), who at once sent his head to be
exposed on the pillory in the capital.
That the Kyoto authorities should have lost all command
over the Inland Sea for a space of five years was a pretty sure
indication that the machinery of the centralised monarchy
established by the Reformers of 645 was beginning to break
down. And this episode was far from being the most serious
or the most significant sign of the times. " In Heaven there are
not two suns ; in a State there cannot be two sovereigns." This
Chinese maxim propounded by Shotoku Taishi in 604 was now
after the lapse of three centuries boldly, openly, and categori-
cally challenged.
It was from the Kwanto that the challenge came. As al-

ready pointed out, the conditions here were vastly different

from what they were in the rest of the Empire. On account of
its proximity to Ainuland and its exposure to Ainu forays, it

was at once unreasonable and impossible to enforce the law

against the possession of arms by private individuals in this
wild country. Kwammu's famous Bando Brigade had been
dissolved; but its tradition remained. Land was at once
plentiful and fertile; it was not necessary to sacrifice the
whole of one's leisure in order to solve the problem of sub-
sistence. Many of the richer farmers could handle a sword
as easily as they could a mattock, and differences were now
and then wont to be settled by a more primitive method than
an appeal to the wisdom of the official representatives of law
and order.
In 820, as already stated, the revenues of three provinces
in this region, —those of Hitachi, Kodzuke, and Kazusa, —were
assigned for the support of as many Princes of the Blood who,
while bearing the name of Taishu of one or other of them,
remained in Kyoto, the actual work of administration being
entrusted to a Deputy or Vice-Governor (Suke). The earliest
Taishu of Hitachi was Prince Katsurabara (776-853), a youn-
ger son of the Emperor Kwammu. Of Katsurabara's two sons,
the elder had received the
surname of Taira and been reduced
to the rank of a subject in 824.
The issue of this first Taira
did not become specially famous; it was from his nephew
Takamochi, who assumed the surname in 889, that the main
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJIWARA. 253

branch of the great warlike clan descended. At an early period

Takamochi's five sons settled in the Eight Eastern Provinces,

where some of them rose to the chief posts in the local ad-
ministration, while all of them set vigorously to work to erect
manors, amass landed property, and attract adherents. At
Court their official rank was low; but their blue blood gave
them vast prestige among the Eastern Boors, as the Kwanto"
—
people were called by the courtiers of Kyoto a prestige which
was not a little enhanced by their proficiency in those manly
sports and military exercises in which the local gentry
delighted.
The Taira were far from sundering all connection with the
capital, however.Their sons were regularly sent up to Court
to serve as officers in the Guards, or in the households of the
Fujiwara chiefs. Of the twelve grandsons Takamochi there
of
were several in the capital about the year 930. One of these,
Masakado, had attached himself to the Regent Tadahira, in
the expectation that by this means he could raise himself to
the much-coveted post of Kebiishi. Tadahira did not encourage
him in this ambition, however; and so with a cherished grudge
Masakado retired to the Kwanto. There he presently became
involved in matrimonial and succession disputes with one of
his uncles and other relatives, the result being that in 935 he
mustered a band of adherents, attacked and killed his uncle
Kunika, then Vice-Governor of Hitachi, and slaughtered
several scions of the family that afterwards became the Seiwa-
Genji. This brought Kunika's son, Sadamori, from Kyoto to
avenge his father's death; but Masakado proved more than a
match for the forces of Sadamori and his uncle Yoshikane,
Governor of Shimosa. Formal complaint was now made to
the central authorities. They indeed summoned Masa-
kado to appear and answer to the charges; but he
was adjudged to have done nothing wrong. Now, this was a
very serious matter indeed, for here the Kyoto Government by
implication sanctioned the right of private war, and in so
doing showed itself prepared to abdicate one of its chief
functions, —that of administering justice and maintaining
public order.
On returning to the Kwanto in 937, Masakado promptly
re-opened hostilities with his uncle and his cousin. Both
parties officially appealed to the Governors of the neighbouring
254 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

provinces for aid to crush the " rebels "; but the latter did not
see fit to take any part in the quarrel. Presently, however,
others got implicated in this family feud. The A^ice-Governor
of Musashi (who later on, in 901, became the first of the Seiwa-
Genji) was at variance with his official superior, Prince Okiyo;
and in this Masakado saw He entered Musa-
his opportunity.

shi at the head of his troops, formed a junction with Okiyo,

and made Minamoto Tsunemoto take to flight. The latter
hurried up to the capital, then in a great ferment on account
of the omens and portents which were exercising the wits of
the diviners, and reported that the East was in rebellion. A
high-born courtier was at once dispatched to investigate
matters on the spot; but he also came to the conclusion that
there was nothing blameworthy in Masakado's conduct.
Just at this time Yoshikane, who had been previously
hunted from Shimosa, died (930) ; and Masakado, now virtually
master of that province, found adventurers flocking from all

sides to take service under him. Meantime, in the neighbour-

ing province of Hitachi, a local official, Fujiwara Gemmyo by

name, on being called to account by the Governor for long-

continued malversation, appropriated the taxes of two districts
and over the border line into Shimosa.
fled The Governor
called upon Masakado to arrest him; but instead of so doing
Masakado took him under his protection and at the head of
a thousand troops advanced into Hitachi to restore him to his
position. The Governor was defeated and taken prisoner; the
public offices were burned, and the official seals carried off.
This outrage was so flagrant that it was recognised that even
the Kyoto authorities could be hoodwinked no longer; and
Okiyo pointed out to Masakado that the punishment for
seizing the whole of the Kwanto would be no greater than
that for seizing a single one of its eight provinces. The argu-
ment went home, and Masakado promptly made himself master
of Shimotsuke and Kodzuke. Then, just at that moment, an
unknown man appeared from whence no one knew and went
about shouting, "I am the messenger of Hachiman Bosatsu,
who bestows the Imperial dignity upon his descendant, Taira
Masakado." Masakado, to the great joy of his following, at
once assumed the style of the New Sovereign and sent off a
dispatch to the Regent Tadahira informing him of the fact,
and commanding him to bow to the inevitable,
 THE GREAT HOUSE OP FUJIWARA. 255

Tadahira, who had painted a cuckoo on his fan, and imitated

the cry of the bird whenever he opened it, no doubt fanned
himself languorously as he perused the missive. Then, we are
told, he broke out into a soft w ell-bred laugh of derision at the
r

ridiculous absurdity of the whole affair. It sometimes took

a newly-appointed Kwanto Governor, travelling post-haste, a
matter of sixty days to arrive in his jurisdiction; and with
communications in that state what could this lunatic Masa-
kado hope to achieve against the sacrosanct capital or the
home provinces And ! to Tadahira's limited intelligence that
was the only part of the Empire that
was of any material
consequence. So at first the New Emperor Masakado was
allowed to organise his Court and his administration without
any interference from Kyoto. As a matter of fact he very
quickly overran the Eight Provinces, reduced them to subjec-
tion, and placed kinsmen or adherents of his own as governors

over them. Furthermore he established a capital of his own,

a Court of his own, and a central administration of his own,
with its Ministers of the Left and of the Right, and its Heads
of Bureaux, the only important official lacking being a Court
Astronomer to compile the almanac and regulate the calendar.
This all now looks like so much opera louffe ; for Masakado
was Japanese moss-trooper who had all un-
really a sort of
thinkingly blundered into open rebellion and a mushroom
sovereignty of his own. There is a good deal of truth in
Cromwell's sayirg that he goes furthest who does not know
where he is going.
Meanwhile Fnjiwara Sumitomo,* the Pirate Chief, on
hearing of events in the Kwanto, had grown still bolder, and
had dispatched secret emissaries to fire the capital, and night
after night the Kyoto sky was red with the glare of burning
houses. Disorder in the provinces was of no great consequence
to Tadahira, but this touched him borne and priests, and ;

temples and shrines, Buddhist deities and Shinto gods once

more profited richly. At last the Regent appointed a General-
issimo for the suppression of the Eastern revolt in the person

* There is no satisfactory evidence to support the story that Masa-

kado while in Kyoto had one day gone up to the top of Hi-ei-zan in
company with Sumitomo, and looking down upon the splendours of
the capital had then arranged with his companion to revolt later on.
The tale goes on to say that it was then agreed that Masakado should
become Emperor and Sumitomo Kwampaku,
25G HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of Fujiwara Tadabumi, an old man of sixty-seven with no

military experience.
Luckily, perhaps, for the aged Generalissimo there was no
necessity for him to assume command, for on his way to the
East he was met with the intelligence that Masakado
had been killed and the rebellion crushed. This had
been the work of one of ihe great national heroes, Fujiwara
Hidesato, also known in history as Tawara Toda. De-
scended from Uona, the son of Fusasaki, he had been
banished to the Kwanto some ten years before, and had later
on found official employment there. Upon Masakado's setting
up as sovereign Hidesato had proceeded to his camp and asked
for an interview. Masakado was then having his hair dressed,
but he was so overjoyed at hearing of Hidesato's arrival that
he at once jumped up and sallied out to receive him just as
he was. This did not make a favourable impression upon
Hidesato, who reasoned that a man so regardless of the pro-
prieties would not be likely to accomplish great things. Ac-
cordingly, instead of casting in his lot with the New Sovereign,
he returned and determined to make head against him.
Hidesato's reputation quickly attracted a considerable force
to his standard, and in conjunction with Taira Sadamori, who
had meanwhile been biding his time, he broke Masakado's
forces in two successive encounters, and following hard on
the fugitive's traces shot him down and cut off his head, which
was presently sent up to the capital. Like Fujiwara Fuyu-
tsugu's and Michizane's, Masakado's ghost was a very rough
and unruly spirit; so a shrine was promptly erected, where
he was worshipped as a god.
Episodes such as these might very well have been expected
to herald the speedy downfall of the civilian government of
Kyoto. But the strange fact is that its existence was not
seriously threatened for two centuries, and that it was not
till the lapse of two hundred and fifty years that Japan was

reorganised on the basis of a feudal polity. Indeed it was

between 995 and 1069 that the house of Fujiwara attained to
the full splendour of its power and magnificence. The ex-
planation is at least partly to be found in the dissension and
mutual jealousy of the rising military families, and in the
adroit statecraft of the Fujiwara Kegents, who made a point
of conciliating the most powerful warrior-chiefs of the lime
and of enlisting their services in their own support,
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJIWARA. 257

This, however, among other things led to a thorough

change in the old system of provincial administration. As
has been repeatedly stated, the Provincial Governor and his
staff were civil officers, and were forbidden to carry weapons.
In consequence of the outrages of the bandits towards the
middle of the ninth century, when several Governors were
murdered by them, this prohibition was withdrawn but again ;

towards the end of the same century, in Sugawara Michizane's

time, it was enacted that no civil officer should carry any
weapon more formidable than a five-inch dirk. Now, after
Masakado's revolt (940), the provincial officers were again
X>ermitted to wear swords. This did not indeed convert the
provincial offices into military ones; but it became more and
more common to appoint members of the rising military
families to these posts. If appointed to office in provinces
where their own manors lay, these quasi-military Governors
had at least the nucleus of an armed force in their own
retainers. In the tenth century individual fiefs were still

comparatively small; a chief who could call out 300 men was
exceptional, while 600 is the largest number we find owing
service to one lord. Such were the Daimyo (Great Names) of
the time; a Shomyo's following would be counted by units, or
at most by tens. Naturally enough there was a tendency for
the larger estates to expand at the expense of their smaller
neighbours, the owners of which often found it advisable to
" commend " themselves in times of stress. But withal the day
of great military fiefs was not yet come.
In some of the provinces, then, there might be a score or
so of these petty local magnates
all keenly striving for power

and pre-eminence; and where forces were very nicely

in cases
balanced, a commission to act as Governor would prove of no
small consequence. In the first place it carried with it the
fifth grade of Court rank; and Court rank has always been
eagerly coveted by the average Japanese. Then there were
emoluments; and although with the rapid rise of the
official

manors and other tax-free estates these had become woefully

scanty, a local potentate with 200 or 300 horse-bowmen at his
back would not unlikely prove a much more successful tax-
collector than a helpless civilian from Kyoto. But above all
the commission would serve to invest high-handed proceedings
with a show of legality, and so make the adding of acre to acre
25S HISTORY OP JAPAN.

and the increase of the retainers of the house and the peasants
on the manor comparatively safe and easy.
It so happened that by this time it had become almost im-
possible for the central authorities to find competent civilians
willing to undertake the duties of provincial administration.
The fine gentlemen of the capital looked upon these appoint-
ments with contempt if they deigned to accept them, they re-
;

mained in Kyoto and had the real work done, or more likely
scamped, by deputy, they themselves resting content with a
percentage of the sadly minished and minishing official emolu-
ments and perquisites. Thus luckily there was no real clash of
interests between Kyoto and those military chiefs in the pro-
vinces who aspired to the glories of local administrative autho-
rity.

It is questionable whether the dull brain of the Kwampaku

Tadahira ever grasped this consideration. But there can be no
possible question that his great-grandson Michinaga greatly
owed his commanding position to his early recognition of the
change in the constitution of provincial society.
At this point it may be found advantageous to dispose
of the history of the Fujiwara Regents as briefly as possible.
The following incomplete genealogical tree may help to
elucidate this dry subject.
Mototsune
(836-891)

Tokihira Tadahira
(871-909) (880-949)

Saneyori Morosuke
(900-970) (908-960)

Kanemichi Kaneie
(925-977) (928-999)

Akimitsu

Michitaka Michikane Michinaga

(953-995) (955-995) (966-1027)

On the abdication of Shujaku Tenno in 947, his uterine bro-

ther, the 17th son of Daigo Tenno, ascended the throne as the
Emperor Murakami (947-967). After the death of Tadahira
in 949, there was no Sessho or Kwampaku, or Chancellor, for
eighteen years. Then, with the accession of Reizei Tenno
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF PUJIWARA. 250

Fujiwara began. It was nearly

968-9) the real autocracy of the
wrecked at the outset by a squalid quarrel between the two
brothers Kanemichi and Kaneie, and again in 995 by another
of those family squabbles which were ultimately destined to
prove fatal to it (1155). But in that year of 995 Michinaga,
the fifth son of Kaneie, thrust aside the real head of the clan,
his nephew Korechika, and carried the autocracy of the Fuji-
waras to its apogee. For more than thirty years (995-1027)
his word was law, if not in Japan, at least in the capital.
In 999 Michinaga's eldest daughter was married to the Em-
peror lehijo; and on the death of that sovereign in 1011, the
Regent raised his cousin to the throne as Sanjo Tenno, and
made him take his second daughter as consort. Sanjo became
blind and abdicated in 1016, and then Go-Ichijo, the Regent's
grandson (1017-1036) had to marry his own aunt, the third of
Michinaga's five daughters. The fourth sister was married to
Go-Ichijo's brother Go-Shujaku Tenno (1037-1045) ; while
to make assurance more than doubly was
sure, the fifth
bestowed on Ko-Ichijo, a son of Sanjo who at one time was
heir presumptive to the throne. This Prince had already been
married to a Fujiwara lady, a daughter of Michinaga's cousin,
Akimitsu. In wrath she at once returned to her father, whose
hair turned grey at the shock, and who promptly went to work
to make an end of Michinaga by magic. Michinaga intimidated
all his possible rivals so thoroughly that none of them ventured
to offer their daughters as possible Empresses or " National
Mothers." He thus became the father-in-law of four Emperors
and the grandfather of as many. Yet in 1069 the succession
slipped from Fujiwara clutches for a season.
would have been impossible for Michinaga to exercise
It
the traditional Fujiwara device so effectually if he had not
been able to read the signs of the times and to enlist the
devoted support of the most powerful captains of the rising
military families. It was upon the Minamoto of the Seiwa
branch that he placed his reliance. This house was then of
comparatively recent origin. From before the middle of the
ninth century the Fujiwaras had acted harmoniously with
certain Minamoto satellites with whom they occasionally shared
the great offices of State. But these had been of Saga-Genji
and Nimmyo-Genji stock, — scholars, courtiers, and peace-loving
civilians like the Fujiwara chieftains themselves, From the
2G0 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

very first, the traditions of the Seiwa-Genji were vastly dif-

ferent. The first descendant of Seiwa to bear the name of
Minamoto was that Prince we found acting as Vice-Governor
of Musashi at the time of Masakado's revolt. It was not till
twenty years later (961), in the very year of his death, that
the surname of Minamoto was bestowed upon him. Before
this hehad served as Commandant in Mutsu and Dewa, and had
held other military posts.It was his son Mitsunaka (912-997)

who had the Higcldri and the Hisamaru blades, the famous
heirlooms of the family, forged, and it was Mitsunaka's two
sons Yorimitsu and Yorinobu, mighty men of valour in their
day, who became the " Nails and Teeth " of the Kwampaku
Michinaga.
By this date the central authority had ceased to have any
trustworthy military force of its own. There were indeed the
six companies of the Imperial Guards
still in Kyoto but the ;

Guards had degenerated into a disorderly rabble of

so-called
armed loafers. They were now mostly recruited from rich
farmers, or the sons of rich farmers, who obtained admission
to the ranks by the exercise of unblushing bribery, —their main
object being to put themselves into a position to escape taxation
nnd forced labour and to ruffle it among their neighbours on
their return to their native villages after a brief term of
nominal service. We have seen Sugawara Michizane acting as
Commandant of the Guards, and the practice of giving com-
missions to such civilians, destitute of the least tincture of
military knowledge or experience, tended to become more
and more common. With the ranks filled with such materials,
and with such officers to command, it is small wonder that all
discipline presently disappeared. The men would roam about
the streets and through the suburbs of the capital, forcing
their way into private houses and there eating and drinking
their brow -beating and outraging the lieges in the street,
fill;

extorting gifts of money or clothes or anything that took their

fancy from those that were not strong enough to resist. Some-
times they were assigned the duty of patrolling the city and
arresting thieves. The usual result was that the Kebiishi had
to be called out to arrest the thief-catchers. But at this
time the Head of the Kebiishi Bureau was a minor, a youthful
Fujiwara minion with no earthly qualifications for the onerous
post; and the Kebiishi was quickly becoming one more of
 THE GREAT HOUSE OP FUJIWARA. 261

those administrative institutions that had broken down so

hopelessly and helplessly.

What the state of discipline was among the Guards may be

inferred from the fact that they had actually blockaded the
Palace gates more than once, allowing no one to pass out or in,
because their pay was in arrear. Sometimes it was the Chan-
cery, or one of the Eight Boards, that they beleaguered in this
fashion. Once, in 986, however, the usual proceeding was at-

tended by consequences that can only be described as disastrous.

Their rice-rations were a charge upon Echizen and a few of
the neighbouring provinces to the north of the capital ; and
about that time all these provinces had been famine-stricken,
and so no rice could be sent. The Governor of Echizen, a
Fujiwara, who was doing his work by deputy, was promptly
besieged in his Kyoto mansion by the hungry guardsmen, who
placed their camp-stools in the courtyard all round the porch,
and vowed they would allow no one to enter or leave the house
till they had got their dues. The Governor presently appeared
with a huge tub of sake borne before him- This was ladled
out and handed round, and the besiegers quaffed their bumpers
and smacked their lips. Then the Governor began to address
—
them in a long apologetic speech, giving them the soft answer
that turneth away wrath. Before he had spoken long an expres-
— —
sion of pain and wonder marked the features of more than
one of his audience. This quickly became general and intense
and then one man arose, and leaving his camp-stool behind him
made for the gate like Lot fleeing from the doomed city of
Sodom. He was speedily followed by another, and another, and
yet another, and presently the Governor's courtyard was a soli-
tude, tenanted by nothing but lofty camp-stools. However, if we
are to believe the realistic and Rabelaisian original account, the
gallant warriors left more than their camp-stools behind them
in their precipitate retreat, for that hospitable tub of sake had
been well mixed with an exceedingly strong and quick-working
purgative. Nothing in Japan kills so quickly and easily as
ridicule ;and as next morning the gallant guardsmen were
met with a universal roar of mocking laughter wherever they
showed themselves, they were ruefully constrained to admit
that they had met more than their match in his very soft-spoken
Excellency, the Governor of Echizen.
It was onlv nine vears after this incident that Michinaga
262 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

had nephew Korechika for the chieftain-

to contend with his
ship of the clan,and the chief post in the administration of the
Empire. Michinaga had very quickly perceived that to trust to
the Imperial Guards was to place his reliance upon a broken
"
reed so he carefully provided himself with " Nails and Teeth
;

of his own, and it was to these " Nails and Teeth

that he owed his success in the very few open contests in which
he had perforce to engage. These open contests came very early
in his career; the knowledge that Michinaga's "Nails and
Teeth" were very strong, very trustworthy, and always promptly
available restrained more than one of his own kinsmen
from entering the lists to oppose him. " A house divided
against itself cannot stand." Nowhere has the truth of this
hoary maxim been more exemplified than in the history of
Japan, which almost from first to last has been the history of
great houses.
Minamoto Yorimitsu (944-1021), who had already acted as
Governor in some half-dozen provinces, was appointed to the
command of the Cavalry of the Guards, and with the aid of
his trusty henchmen, the " Four Heavenly Kings," Watanabe,
Sakata, Usui, and Urabe, he soon made it a highly efficient force.
It has been already remarked that one of the causes that made
the feudal system not only possible but necessary was the
mistaken mildness of the Penal Code, or rather of its administra-
tion. There was the greatest reluctance to inflict the death
penalty, and some excuse for commutation of sentence was
almost invariably found. General amnesties, often for the
most trivial reasons, were frequently proclaimed. The natural
result was that the contemporary annals are full of tales of
robbery, arson, and murder, for the bandits on their part
had often very little compunction about taking life. The capi-
tal was perhaps as bad in this respect as any part of the
Empire not only private houses, but even the Government
;

store-houses had been plundered, the Palace itself broken into,

and officials slaughtered. Yorimitsu and his brother dealt with
this state of affairs very drastically, for these warlike Minamoto
had even less compunction about taking life than the bandits
themselves. Towards the end of his life Yorimitsu's father,
Mitsunaka, had " entered religion " and received the command-
ments of Buddha. When it came to the injunction against
taking life, the old warrior pretended not to hear, afterwards
 THE GREAT HOUSE OP FUJIWARA. 263

explaining to the Chief Priest that his acceptance of that

special command would be prejudicial to the martial spirit it

was the prime object of his house to foster among its members
and adherents. The new military families established rules
and regulations of their own for the guidance of their vassals,
and when there was any clash between these rules and the law
of the land or the precepts of the Church, was the house-
it

hold regulations that were obeyed. The nation was thus drift-
ing into a state of society analogous to that which prevailed
before theKeform of 645, when the sovereign could address his
mandates to his subjects only through the head of the Uji, or
clan to which they belonged.
There was a strong tendency for the military men of the
time to group themselves under the standard of some one
of the many branches The latest of these,
of three great houses.
the Minamoto, had their manors in Settsu,* Yamato, and
Mino, and in other provinces around the capital. At this date
they were not strong in the Eastern Country, which later on
was to become the chief seat of their power. At this time the
Kwanto was largely held by the Taira with their eight great
septs or sub-clans. However, they were not without very for-
midable rivals there, for there were Fujiwara there of a breed
very different from that settled in the luxurious capital. The
four great generals of the time were Minamoto Yorinobu,
Taira Korehira, Taira Muneyori, and Fujiwara Yasumasa.
This Yasumasa was one of the numerous descendants of
the great Hidesato, from whom some half-score of powerful
Daimyo families subsequently traced their origin. At this
date Hidesato's grandchildren were exceedingly influential in
the Kwanto and still more so in Mutsu, where they ultimately

established a power that could afford to offer defiance to the

great Yoritomo at the head of more than 200,000 men. The
name of Fujiwara is generally identified with self-indulgent
effeminacy. However, we are apt to forget that the clan was
by far the greatest in Japan and that the ramifications of its
various component houses were exceedingly numerous. The
Fujiwara of the capital were indeed effeminate; but not a
whit more so than their satellites the civilian Minamoto, with

* The famed Hirano Mineral Water is bottled on what was the

manor of that Minamoto Mitsunaka who had compunctions about
accepting what is our Sixth Commandment.
2G4 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

whom they shared the spoils and honours of high office and
pre-eminent rank. On the oilier hand the Seiwa-Genji produced
no more able and brilliant captains than the military chiefs
that came of the stock ofFujiwara Ilidesato. Only it was the
policy of the Kyoto Fujiwara to rely upon the good offices of
the Minamoto rather than on the services of their distant kins-
men, whom they were careful to keep at a respectful distance
from the capital, where their presence might very well become
highly inconvenient. A Minamoto could have no pretensions
to the headship of the Fujiwara clan; but a Fujiwara captain
with a thousand Samurai of his own behind him might prove
a serious menace to the grandeur of a Michinaga or a Yorimichi.
Two points should here furthermore be noted. In the first

place, although there was a growing tendency for the Buke to

group themselves around the Minamoto, the Taira, and the mili-
tary Fujiwara, these three families at this time held only a com-
paratively small portion of the soil of the Empire. In 1050 the
largest single fief Empire belonged to none of these
in the
families, and there were many manors in various parts of the
Empire with broader acres than those owned by the warrior-
chiefs of Imperial or Fujiwara descent. And secondly neither
the Minamoto nor the military Fujiwara nor the Taira as yet
acted as a single clan, presenting a united front against a com-
mon foe. On the contrary/ quarrels between the heads of the
septs or sub-clans were frequent. This was especially the case
among the Taira.
In 999 the Tairas, Korehira and Muneyori, two of the four
great captains of their time, convulsed the Kwanto with their
family feud. In 1028, at the other end of the Empire, the
province of Higo was the scene of devasting frays and forays,
in which Tairas and Fujiwaras were involved in inextricable
confusion. At the same date Taira Tadatsune began that series
of aggressions on his relatives that in three years' time reduced
the Kwanto to a tangled wilderness. There in the province of
Shimosa in 1027 there had been as much as 58,000 acres under
cultivation; in 1031 this had shrunk to 45 acres; and it was
only in the course of several years that as much as 5,000 acres
had been got under crop again. It was this episode that en-
abled the Minamoto to obtain their footing in the Kwanto, de-
stined to become five generations later on the seat of their
power.
 THE GREAT HOUSE OP FUJIWARA. 265

Taira Tadatsune, whose manors were in Kadzusa, bad acted

as Vice-Governor of that province, and also as Constable of
Musashi. While in office he had conceived a not unreasonable
contempt for the weakness and inefficiency of the central autho-
rities, and had come to the conclusion that it would not be a

very difficult task to carve out a pretty extensive domain for

himself in the peninsula between the Gulf of Tokyo and the
Pacific.So he set upon and killed the Governor of Awa, seized
both Kadzusa and Shimosa, and prepared to extend his " con-
quests " still was a relative of his, Taira Naokata,
further. It
the KeMishi, that the Government sent to reduce him to sub-
jection but Tadatsune made very short work of his kinsman
:

and his Tokaido and Tosando levies. After a long delay the
central authorities commissioned the Governor of Kai, Mina-
moto Yorinobu, to bring Tadatsune to order, and Yorinobu
gained a great reputation among the warriors of the Kwanto in
consequence of the brilliant manner in which he executed the
difficult Astounded at the skill and daring
task assigned him.
with which operations against him were now conducted, Tada-
tsune recognised that he had at last met with more than his
match, and so he shaved his head and surrendered. Yorinobu
started to conduct his prisoner to Kyoto ; but on the way Tada-
tsune ill in Mino and died there.
fell His head was then
struck and sent to the capital, where it was pilloried on the
off

gate of the common jail. Exposing the heads of flagrant wrong-

doers was a comparatively new feature in Japanese criminal
practice. We hear of both Taira Masakado and Fujiwara Sumi-
tomo being subjected to this indignity. But the practice did not
become common till 986, when Fujiwara Nariakira was
punished in this way for lopping off a few of Oye Masahira's
fingers in a brawl within the precincts of the Court. The tradi-
tional mildness of the mediaeval administration was now giving
place to a stern rigour that was soon to degenerate into fero-
city, a remarkable index of the change that was coming over

the ethos of the nation.

To the six old Buddhist sects with their seats in the ancient
capital of Nara two newer ones had meanwhile been added. In
810 the famous Kukai, afterwards known (since 921) as Kobo
Daishi, had been appointed Abbot of the To-ji in Kyoto, and six
years later on he had founded the great monastery of Koyasan
in the wild but Dicturesaue mountain-tract between Kishu. and
266 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Yamato. From these centres the Shingon doctrine was pro-

pagated. In the reign of Kwammu, the monk Saicho (Dengyo-

daishi, from 866) had founded the Enryakuji, on the steep hill
of Hi-ei-zan to the north-east of Kyoto, and had there become
the head of the Tendai sect. This great Monastery on Hi-ei-zan
was to bear pretty much the same relation to most of the later
sects established in Japan that the Church of Rome bears to the
various forms of Protestantism. It was to be at once the com-
mon mother and the enemy of them all. Its earliest offshoot
was the temple of Onjoji, more generally known as Miidera,
picturesquely situated at the base of the hills on Biwa strand,
beside the city of Otsu. Founded in 858 by Enchin, it was not
long before it found itself at deadly strife with the parent fane.
High positions in the official hierarchy, the Abbacy of later

established foundations in Kyoto and elsewhere, precedence and

the right of officiating at certain Court functions, and oc-
casionally such fleshly considerations as manors and other pos-

sessions, were the usual grounds of quarrel. If action be the

commentary upon the sin-

criterion of belief, all this is a fine
cerity of the tonsured exponents of the religion whose central
idea is the impermanency of all things and the vanity of human
wishes. ] j \_
In 961 Ryogen (afterwards Jie Daishi), the Abbot of Hi-ei-
zan, had a dispute with the head of the Gion Temple in Kyoto,
and settled it by sending troops to drive out his opponent. His
Eminence then proclaimed that it had become apparent that in
that degenerate age the Law of Buddha had fallen into such
contempt that it was hopeless to think of defending its interests
by ghostly arms alone. Accordingly he mustered a number of
stout fellows, had them thoroughly instructed in the handling
of such carnal weapons as swords, bows, and spears, and es-
tablished them as a permanent force in the service of the monas-
tery. The example was speedily followed by the other great
ecclesiastical foundations; and thus another cardinal source
of unrest was added to the perplexities of the Central Govern-
ment and the distractions of the already disordered country.
In 968, two of the great Nara monasteries, the Todaiji and the
Kofukuji, had a disagreement about some rice-fields, and fought
the matter out with sword and bow. In 989, the Government
sent a messenger with a rescript appointing a certain priest to
the Abbacy of Hi-ei-zan. The priests seized the document, tore
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJI WAR A. 267

it to pieces, and drove the messenger off with contumely. The

Government did absolutely nothing and the priests triumphed.
As time went on, the priests waxed still more and more tur-
bulent and audacious, and it was felt that something really
must be done to check the evil. In 1039, some 3,000 Hi-ei-zan
monks, dissatisfied with the Regent's distribution of ecclesias
tical perferment, came down and besieged Fujiwara Yorimi-
chi's mansion. The latter then appealed to Taira Naokata, and
Naokata promptly raised the siege, killed a good many of the
priests, seized the ring-leader and lodged him in prison. This
was the beginning of the feud between the priests and the mili-
—
tary men, and especially with the house of Taira. With the
ministers of religion thus recklessly appealing to the argument
of the mailed fist on the slightest provocation, it is but small
wonder that the long-engrained horror of taking life —to a very
great extent the result of Buddhist teaching — should quickly
disappear.
At no time Reform of Taikwa had disorder and out-
since the
rage been so no time had the popular misery at large
rife, at
been so great as under Michinaga and his son Yorimichi, who
was Kwampaku from 1018 io 1069. And yet at no time had the
Fujiwaras held more sumptuous and ostentatious state; at no
time had their chieftains made themselves more remarkable
for luxury, profusion, and prodigality. Their mansions, which
they were continually erecting or reconstructing, vied with the
Palace in the splendour of their architecture and the magni-
ficence of their appurtenances; their banquets and feasts and
fetes were conceived on a scale that dwarfed the most gorgeous
functions of former times into meanness and shabbiness. The
very prosaic question naturally arises as to how all the lavish
expenditure thus involved could be met at a time when the
sources of the national income had become exhausted even to
the point of absolutely drying-up.
Some light upon this puzzling matter may be obtained by
taking due account of a few incidents recorded by the gossip-
mongers of the time. It was Minamoto Yorimitsu, one of the
captains who figured as Michinaga's " Nails and Teeth," who
provided all the magnificent inner furnishings of his patron's
palatial mansion of Kyogoku. At, or about, the same time,
on the occasion of a great banquet, this same Minamoto pre-
sented Michinaga with 30 fine horses for distribution among the
268 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

guests. Michinaga's son, Yorimichi, would appear to have de-

pended fully as much upon the Tairas as the Minamotos. About
1030, a Taira Viceroy of Kyushu, and his brother, a Kebiishi
officer, caused a huge tract of land in southern HyfLga to be
reclaimed, — of course by forced labour, —and this they pre-

sented to the Kwampaku. He converted that into a manor

his Shimadzu Shoen, —and sent officers of his household to take
charge of it. A little later these Taira brothers extended its
boundaries into the adjoining provinces of Satsuma and Osumi.
The alliance between the Fujiwara statesmen and the Taira and
Minamoto captains was thus highly profitable for all parties to
the pact. It brought the warriors military office in the capital
and Court rank, and added very greatly to their prestige
this
in the various circuits of the Empire when they proceeded
thither to occupy provincial posts. Moreover the connection
with the Fujiwara covered a multitude of administrative sins;
complaints and impeachments fell upon deaf ears, provided the

interests of the Fujiwara patrons were duly promoted by their

proteges. They, in their turn, were careful to see to it that
whatever might be the case with the national taxes, there should
be no falling-off in the Fujiwara tribute.
That great house now had its manors in almost every quar-
ter of Japan. In the great mansion in the capital, a Bureau
was established for the management of these. At its head was
the House Betto, who was invariably the most experienced and
wily lawyer that could be found in Kyoto, and under him were
stewards and other officers. By this Bureau, laws, regulations,
ordinances, and what not were drawn up, jointly signed by the
Betto and a steward, and transmitted for enforcement on the
various manors. Here again was another imperium in imperio,
all the more dangerous that it commanded abundant resources,

and that the increase of these resources meant a corresponding

shrinkage in the revenue of the crown. A century later many
of these manors were destined to repeat the history of the old
pre-Reformation Imperial miyake. Then the Fujiwara were no
longer served but dominated by their quondam military allies,
the Taira and the Minamoto; and availing themselves of the
changed circumstances of the time, not a few of the Jito, or
bailiffs of these Sho-en, disowned all connection with their
Fujiwara masters and established themselves as Shomyo or
Daimyo, as the case misht be.
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJilWARA. 269

Towards the close of Yorimichfs long administration of

fifty years (1018-1069) there was yet another commotion in
that great storm-centre, the North-East of the main island.
The various accounts of it are at once confused and confusing
but they are of interest as they furnish certain details which
serve to throw a valuable light upon the progress of the trans-
formation the social and political fabric of the State was slowly
but surely undergoing.
Tn the ninth century, when the Ainu submitted to be or-

ganised in settled communities, the head of the Abe" family,

which traced its descent from the eighth mythical Emperor
and had long been domiciled in the far North, was appointed
to the newly created office of General Superintendent of the
Aborigines. In 1050 the position was occupied by Abe Yoritoki,
who by this time had built up for himself the largest single
holding in the Empire. What had formed the nucleus of the
immense Abe" estates we are not informed; probably it had
been Shinden, newly reclaimed land, which was tax-free in
Mutsu and Dewa. However that may be, we are met by the
startling fact that in 1050 Abe Yoritoki was absolute master
of six great districts practically identical with what is now the
most extensive of the forty odd prefectures of modern Japan.
From his central stronghold, not far from the present Morioka,
Yoritoki dominated nearly the whole of the 5,400 square miles
now administered by the Governor of Iwate Ken. This formed
only a fraction of the superficies under the nominal jurisdic-
tion of theGovernor of Mutsu, but it was by far the richest
and most densely settled section of the vast territory he was
supposed to administer. And within this special district Ex-
cellency after Excellency had found that his writ was only so
much waste paper, good for a paper handkerchief at the best.
In this year of 1050 his Excellency, —a Fujiwara by the way,
—made an unusually heroic effort to collect some taxes from
the Ab6 domain; and advanced into it in command of several
thousand armed men. came by as the
All that his Excellency
result of his unwonted zeal and enterprise was an abundance
of hard knocks, ignominious defeat, and inglorious disaster.
Complaint after complaint had been forwarded to Kyoto, but
it was not till 1050 that that thunderbolt of war Minamoto
Yoriyoshi was sent down as Governor of Mutsu and Ghinjufu
Shogun to put things into proper order in Northern Japan in
270 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

general, and in what is now Iwate Ken in particular. Yori-

yoshi, then a grizzled veteran of 61, had won his spurs under
his father Yorinobu, in the campaign against Taira Tadatsune
a score of years before ; and he now brought with him his own
and second sons, Yoshiie and Yoshitsuna, the elder of
first

whom was then fifteen years of age. However, just at the time
Yoriyoshi reached Mutsu, one of the frequent general amnes-
ties had been proclaimedand Abe Yoritoki, taking advantage
;

of this, easilymade his peace with the new Governor, to whom

and his officers he made many valuable presents.
Next year, just as Yoriyoshi was on the point of returning
to Kyoto, the camp of one of his lieutenants a Fujiwara —
was assailed by some horse-thieves, and the latter officer,
wrongly as it turned out, suspected Abe Yoritoki's son, Sadato,
of the outrage, and induced Minamoto Yoriyoshi to dispatch a
force to arrest and punish him. It was this ill-advised step

that really occasioned the outbreak of the Nine Years' War.

Ab£ Yoritoki was killed by a stray arrow in 1057 but his son ;

Sadato continued the defence of the Ab6 domains. At the

beginning of the strife, old Ab6, despairing of ultimate success
against the renowned Minamoto captain, had determined to find
some over-sea settlement where the family could find refuge,
and had dispatched one of his sons on a voyage of exploration.
After drifting on the open sea the exploring party at last
sailed up a huge river for thirty days. From the details given
this was probably the Amur. But there was no pressing need
for the clan to emigrate, for in the early years of the war
Sadato plainly had the best of it. With 4,000 followers he had
entrenched himself at Kawasaki and here, in December 1057,
;

he was attacked by Yoriyoshi at the head of a numerically

inferior force of 1,800 men. The assault failed and just when ;

the beaten troops had retired to look to their wounds and

recover from their fatigue, a terrific blizzard set in. Under
cover of the driving snow Sadato promptly swept out and prac-
tically annihilated Yoriyoshi's command; only the two Mina-
motos, father and son, three Fujiwaras, and two other officers
being able to make good their retreat. It was on this occasion
that the youthful Yoshiiye's derring-do earned for him his
sobriquet of Hachiman Taro (the War-God's Eldest-born).
Yoriyoshi's second term of command expired with the
Abes as defiant as ever, A blue-blooded Kyoto Fujiwara was
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJI WAR A. 271

then nominated to succeed Yoriyoshi; but the new comman-

der, very wisely perhaps, declined the appointment, and found
employment in the Ministry of War in the capital. Yoriyoshi
then received a fresh commission ; but at the end of that Sadato
was still more than holding his own. A Tachibana was then
sent down to supersede Yoriyoshi ; but the troops insisted that
they wanted no change of commander, and Tachibana had to
return. Then Yoriyoshi, girding up his loins for a decisive
effort, invoked the assistance of Kiyowara Takenori from the

neighbouring province of Dewa. He came with 10,000 fresh

troops; and Sadato then found himself seriously out-num-
bered. In 1062, after being broken in two successive engage-
ments, he was killed in the defence of his stockade at Kuriya-
gawa. This was a most desperate affair, mere children of
thirteen or fourteen fighting like grizzled veterans, and even
the women participating in the deadly fray, which raged for
two successive days and nights without intermission. Accord-
ing to all the accounts Sadato must have been no ordinary
handful ; over six feet in height, he was seven feet four round
the chest, and it took six strong men to lift his corpse. He ap-
pears to have been a sort of rum-puncheon on legs. His head,
and those of two of his brothers and Fujiwara Tsunekiyo, his
ally, were sent to the capital, where everybody crowded to see

them. His second brother, Muneto, was accorded quarter;

after being taken to the capital he was banished to Kyushu,
where he became a priest. This did not prevent him from pro-
pagating his kind, however for it was from him, according to
;

the best authorities, that those Matsuuras of Hirado, so pro-

minent in the story of early European intercourse with Japan,
were descended.
Careful attention to the details furnished by the records
of this struggle discloses the fact that at this date there were
at least four great families in Mutsu and Dewa, —that is in

Northern Japan. These were branches of the Taira, of the

Fujiwara descended from Hidesato, the Abe, and the Kiyo-
wara. It also appears that all these were intermarrying with
each other, and that an ultimate fusion of the four stocks under
a single head was not animpossibility. About the origin of
the Taira, the Fujiwara, and the Abe enough has been said
already. The Kiyowara were descended from the seventh son
of Temmu Tenno,— that Prince Toned who presided over the
272 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

compilation of the Nihongi. At this time, the Kiyowara chief,

Takenori, did a very dastardly thing. Ab6 Sadato's eldest son,
Chiyo Doji, a mere child of thirteen, had fought like a demon
incarnate even after his rum-puncheon sire had been smitten
stark and stiff. Minamoto Yoriyoshi, proud of his own Hachi-
man Taro, had nothing but admiration for the young hero and
was minded to spare him. But Kiyowara, related by affinity
to the Abes, and with the immensely
possibility of profiting
at the expense of the ruined family, insisted that Chiyo Doji
in spite of his thirteen years would be the author of untold
evils if spared; and so. the gallant child was ruthlessly done
to death. The result was that a score of years later Yoriyoshi's
Hachiman Taro had to enter upon another three years' strug-
gle to reduce, not the Abes, but the Kiyowaras to subjection
During the three centuries subsequent to the Reform of
645, the Japanese could not justly be described as a warlike
people. In the new polity adapted from China, it was the
civil officer that held the pride of place. If his pretensions
were contested, they were contested by the priesthood, and not
by any military class; indeed the soldier counted for almost
nothing. Time and again ordinances were issued proscribing
the possession of arms by private persons. As it has more
than once been already remarked, this fact, taken in conjunc-
tion with the strange reluctance to inflict the death penally on
capital offenders, goes a certain way towards explaining the pre
valence of burglary, highway robbery, brigandage, and piracy.
Now from this date the cult of Hachiman, the War-god, gets
firmly established in the land.
The original seat of the worship of Hachiman was Usa in
Buzen. According to a very late legend, towards the end of
the sixth century, a god had there appeared to a child, announc-
ing himself as " Hiro-hata Ya-yahata Maro, the 16th of the
Human and in consequence of this the reigning
Rulers,''
sovereign, Kimmei, founded a shrine at Usa in his ancestor's
honour (570). There is no mention of any such incident either
in the Kojiki or the Nihongi, however. This shrine comes into
prominence in the eighth century, when its oracle played an
important part in the politics and political intrigues of the
time. It is in 801 that we first find Hachiman, which name
is the Chinese reading of the Japanese Ya-hata, " Eight Ban-
ners," venerated as a war-god. In that year after his vie-
 THE GREAT HOUSE OF FUJUWARA. 273

torious campaign against the Ainu, Saka-no-uye no Tamura-

maro founded a shrine in the district of Izawa in Mutsu de-
dicated to Hachiman in which he hung up his bow and arrows.
As has been said, this Tamuramaro was one of the very few
soldiers whom military exploits had sufficed to raise to power
and place in the councils of the State, and it was he that
furnished the model on which successive generations of aspir-
ing warriors endeavoured to form themselves. Before starting
on their expeditions, later Shdguns (Generals) invariably
went to worship at his tomb and invoke the aid of his spirit
and of his special tutelary deities, Tamon Ten and Hachiman.
In 860 the shrine of Iwashimidzu was erected to Hachiman
in the environs of the capital, and it was in it that Minamoto
Yoshiiye underwent the ceremony of Oembuku at the age of
seven in 1048. In the last desperate encounter in front of
Abe Sadato's stockade of Kuriyagawa, Minamoto Yoriyoshi
had, in his direst need, invoked the name of Hachiman Dai-
Bosatsu, and vowed the erection of a shrine to him if he
deigned to listen to the prayer. Accordingly in 10G3, before
repairing to the capital with his trophies, Yoriyoshi proceeded
secretly to Tsurugaoka, and there founded that shrine of
Hachiman which the great Yoritomo was to convert into one
of the chief glories of his new feudal capital of Kamakura five
generations later on.
 274

CHAPTER X.

THE CLOISTERED EMPERORS.

TTT1TH the accession of San jo II. in 1009, the Fujiwara
"* autocracy received its first serious check. The Kwam-
paku, Yorimichi, had duly married his daughters to the Em-
perors Shujaku II. (1037-1045) and Reizei II. (1045-1068);
and yet he lived to see a non-Fuji warn Prince upon the throne.
To elucidate this matter, as well as other important events in
the history of the subsequent century, the following chart will
be found of service
Shujaku II.
(1037-1045)

I
I

70 71
Reizei II. Sanjo II.

(1045-1068) (1068-1072)
I

72
Shirakawa
(1072-1086)
I

73
Horikawa
(1086-1107)
i

74
Toba
(1107-1123)

i
1

75 77 76
Sutoku Shirakawa I Konoe
(1123-1141) (1155-1158) (1141-1155)

In 1045, the Kwampaku, Yorimichi, had been hastily sum-

moned by the dying Emperor Shujaku II., and informed by
the sovereign that while his immediate successor was to be
his eldest son, it was his wish that his second son, then a boy
of twelve, should ultimately succeed his elder half-brother.
Yorimichi's half-brother, the Dainagon Fujiwara Yoshinobu,
hearing of this, insisted that a second Crown Prince should
immediately be proclaimed, but Yorimichi argued that there
was no pressing need for doing so. Yoshinobu carried his
 THE CLOISTERED EMPERORS. 275

point, however; and on the death of their father, one of the

sons became the Emperor Reizei II., while the other was in-
stalled in the Eastern Palace as Heir to the Crown. During
the odd twenty years of the reign of Reizei II., his younger
half-brother lived in constant dread of being deprived of
the succession; but as the Emperor's Fujiwara consort proved
childless, the young Prince at last came by his own and as-
cended the throne as Go-Sanjo (Sanjo II.) in 10G8. He had
meanwhile married the adopted daughter of Fujiwara Yoshi-
nobu, to whom he really owed his position, and who had been
appointed his major-domo while Crown-Prince; and this lady
became the mother of the next Emperor, Shirakawa. Yoshi-
nobu's devotion to the Crown Prince may have been not alto-
gether disinterested ;
yet the fact remains that it was really he
who broke the power of the great house of Fujiwara to which
he himself belonged, and once more placed a sovereign on the
throne who aspired to rule the Empire.
The aged Kwampaku, who had misgoverned the State for
half-a-eentury, now found it advisable to transfer his office

to his younger brother, Norimichi, then seventy-five years of

age,* and retire to his palace at Uji. But even there he was
subjected to worries and mortifications. His brother Norimichi
very soon made the discovery that the great office he held
was nothing better than a dignified sinecure, for all the real
work of directing the administration was undertaken
by the new sovereign in person. Sanjo II., who had
studied hard under Oye Tadafusa and other distin-
guished and able teachers, had acquired a statesmanlike
grasp upon the pressing problems of the age; and when he
ascended the throne at thirty-five he was ready with very
drastic solutions of his own for some of them at least. He
promptly established a new Council of his own the Kiro- —
kusho, or Record —in
which he presided personally,
Office
toiling from morning to night in the endeavour to restore

* In a somewhat flamboyant chapter on the Heian Epoch, Capt.

—
Brinkley writes: " Sensual excesses, which were then without limit,
supplemented this ever-present dread of the spirits of the dead and
of evil, so that the span of life in the upper classes was shortened to
thirty or forty years." In 1074, Fujiwara Yorimichi died at the age
of 83, his sister, the consort of Ichijo, at 87, and his brother Nori-
michi at 80. Then take the Minamoto: Mitsunaka died at 85 in 997;
Yorimitsu at 77 in 1021 Yorinobu at 80 in 1048
; Yoriyoshi at 87 in
;

1082; while in the following century Minamoto Yoshifusa died, at the

age of 96 in 1131 !
276 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

efficiency to the administrativeand judicial machinery. One

of the earliest enactments of this new board was a decree
for the confiscation of all manors erected since 1045; a little
later it issued orders that the title-deeds of the Sho-en created
before that date were to be produced; if there were no title-

deeds, or if those produced were not in order, the estate was

to be forfeited by the holder- A special messenger with a
copy of this enactment was sent to the ex-Kwampaku, Yori-
michi, at Uji; but although Yorimichi said he had no docu-
ments to show, it was found impossible to deal with his vast
domains. One of the chief evils lying at the root of the
Sho-en menace was the extension of the Provincial Governors'
tenure of office to a second, or even to a third or fourth term.
In some cases governorships had become life-offices; in one or
two instances they threatened to become hereditary. This was
the reward for looking after the interests of the Kyoto Fuji-
wara in the provinces. it was now enacted that
Accordingly
no Governor should hold more than a single term.
office for
It so happened that just at this time the great Nara fane

of Kofukuji had been building the Nan-en-do, and the Governor

of Yamato had been superintending the work. The Kofukuji,
it will be remembered, was the ancestral temple of the Fuji-

wara; and the Kwampaku, Norimichi, now petitioned that the

Governor of l'amato should be exempted from the scope of
the new decree. The Emperor at first sharply refused; but as
the Fujiwara nobles went so far as to threaten to withdraw
from the Court in a body the sovereign had finally to yield.
Yet although thwarted by the Fujiwara on these two specific
occasions, Sanjo II.'s administration of four years (1068-1072)
inflicted a blow on the prestige of the great clan from which
it never recovered. Fujiwara Sessho and Kwampaku were
frequently, indeed almost regularly, appointed; but during
the following century these great offices were little more than
honorary distinctions. Yet, after Sanjo II., the real power
was not with the sovereign actually on the throne; it was the
Ho-o, the Priest, or ex-Emperor who really directed affairs.
From a Sovereign who began his reign with a display of
statesmanship, ability, and firmness of purpose the like of which
had not been seen in Japan since the days of Kwammu, much
indeed, everything —was to be expected. If Sanjo II. had con-
tinued to sway the fortunes of the Empire for thirty or forty,
 THE CLOISTERED EMPERORS. 277

instead of for three or four years, it is possible to conceive

that Japan would never have been ruled by Shoguns. But the
accumulated evils of generations had become too deeply seated
to be eradicated in such a brief reign as his proved to be.
Unfortunately for the best interests of his subjects, Sanjo II.

died at the early age of thirty-nine, in 1073. In the previous

year, he had abdicated and placed his eldest son, a youth of
nineteen, on the throne as Shirakawa Tenno, his intention
being to govern through him. Shirakawa was titular Sovereign
for no more than fourteen years (1072-1086) but he was the ;

real ruler of the Empire down to his death forty-three years

later on, in 1129. He was first Cloistered Emperor;
not the
but he was the first Emperor who continued to direct
Cloistered
ihe administration after receiving the tonsure. During the
twenty years' reign of Shirakawa's son Horikawa (1087-1107),
the sixteen years of his grandson Toba (1107-1123), and the
first six years of his great-grandson, Sutoku (1124-1141), the
titular Emperor wielded no authority. Then, on Shirakawa's
death, his grandson, Toba Tenno, who had abdicated and become
a Cloistered Emperor six years before, stepped into his position
and really governed down to his decease in 1156, his two sons
who meanwhile occupied the throne in succession being no
more than figure-heads. Shirakawa II., another son of Toba's,
succeeded to the throne in the year of his father's death (his
elder brother, the ex-Emperor Sutoku, being still alive) and ;

after a few months on the throne he also became a Cloistered

Emperor who aspired to rule the State. But the day of Clois-
tered Emperors was past. Although Shirakawa II. continued
to be a very prominent figure in Japanese history down to his
decease in 1192, he was at no time the real ruler of the coun-
try, for from 1156 onwards Japan was governed not by the

sceptre, but by the sword. In that year the great military

family of the Taira became all-powerful; the years between
1181 and 1185 saw its overthrow and the swift rise of the rival
house of Minamoto to supremacy. When a Japanese speaks
of the rule of the CloisteredEmperors (Insci), he refers to
Shirakawa I. and his grandson Toba. These really governed
—
Japan from 1073 to 1156 a period of 83 years, during the
first fourteen of which Shirakawa I. was not cloistered, but

titular Sovereign.
One of the purposes supposed to be served by this new form
278 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of administration was the curbing of the power of the Fuji-

wara Regents and Kwampaku and in this special direction
;

the device was eminently successful. Regents and Kwampaku

and occasionally Chancellors were appointed; but they were
attached to the Court of the titular Sovereigns. But Shira-
kawa I., the Cloistered Emperor, maintained a Court of his
own, with officials and guards and all the state that surrounded
the actual occupant of the throne. Moreover, — and this was
the most important point of all, — he established his retreat
in
an administrative and judicial council of his own, at the head
of which stood a Betto; and it was by this machinery, and not
by the old Council of State with its subordinate eight boards,
that the Empire was now actually controlled. The Pajokwan
(Council of State) still issued its decrees. Where they did not
clash with those emanating from the Chancery of the ex-Em-
peror they were valid; but in case of any conflict it was the
ordinances sealed by the In Betto that carried supreme au-
thority. Shirakawa thus contrived to seize and to retain the
power that had been wielded by the Fujiwara for generations;
and so far succeeded in correcting one very grave abuse of long-
standing. But the special remedy he provided for this evil
gave rise to others infinitely worse. In a variety of insidious
ways, the central stream of authority had been, and was being,
deflected into numerous minor side channels. What remained
of the main current was now further parted in twain. With
conflicting decrees and ordinances emanating from two rival
chanceries, public respect for the throne and its laws could
not but be seriously impaired. The rise of two new parties,
an Emperor's and an ex-Emperor's faction, could only be a —
question of time.
Had Shirakawa been a statesman of the calibre of his
father, Sanjd II., the results of the Insci system might have
very well proved much less disastrous than they ultimately
did. But whatever he may have been, a statesman Shirakawa
was emphatically not. Sanjo II., while grappling vigorously
with the evils of the manor system, and providing for a suffi-

cient national revenue,had insisted upon the strictest economy

in the management of the finances, and curtailed all the luxu-

rious extravagance of his Court and the capital. His son,

Shirakawa, imitated him only in the simplicity of his diet.
But unfortunately this was not from economic or political
considerations; it was an outcome of superstition. The Bud-
 The cloistered emperors. 2?9

dhist injunction against the taking of life was to be strictly

enforced, and infractions of it rigorously punished. Eight
thousand fishing nets were seized and burned no gifts of fish ;

were to be offered to the Court; hunting and hawking were

rigidly proscribed, and the hawks set at liberty. San jo II.

used to dine on a herring sprinkled with a little pepper, while

his clothes had been of the simplest. Shirakawa would have
nothing to do with herrings, or indeed with fish or flesh of
any kind; but his extravagance and profuseness in other
directions knew no bounds. There was indeed a certain
amount of restrictive sumptuary legislation under his rule,

but the edicts were rarely if ever enforced.

But it was not on the maintenance of a splendid Court that
the rapidly minishing national revenue was most squandered
and frittered away. Like his younger contemporary, David I.
of Scotland—
Wlho " illumynd in his dayis
His landys with kyrkys and with abbayis "

— Shirakawa Tenno was " a sore saint to the crown." Immense

sums were expended on temple-building, progresses to sacred
places, masses and other religious ceremonies, while the har-
vest reaped by Buddhist artists and artificers at the expense
of the nation must have been an exceedingly rich one. Besides
5,470 scrolls or hanging-pictures painted and presented to
various fanes, Shirakawa was responsible for the erection of
one huge idol 32 feet in height, of 127 half that size, of 3,150
and of 2,030 three-feet images. Then of seven-storied
life-size,

pagodas the tale was twenty-one, and of miniature pagodas as

many as 44,630. To meet the costs of all this the revenue
trickling into the national treasury was, of course, utterly in-
adequate.
offices had been not unknown;
Before this time the sale of
had occasionally assumed the proportions of a public
in fact it
scandal. But what had hitherto been an occasional practice
now developed into a regular system. First, —for a material
consideration, of course, —the Provincial Governors' term of
office was prolonged from four to six years; next these posts
could be purchased for life, and, finally, as many as thirty of
them were allowed to become hereditary. Then the manor
evil, which Sanjo II. had striven so hard to check, now became

more pronounced than ever. In order to obtain ready money,

or its equivalent, great stretches of valuable national estate
280 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

were once more wantonly alienated. On Shirakawa's death in

1129, as has been said, his grandson, the ex-Emperor Toba, step-
ped into his position, and Toba made it virtually impossible
for any successor of his to create new Sho-en; for, before his
demise, of the soil of theEmpire not more than one per cent,
remained under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Governors!
Sovereign, ex-sovereigns, Empress, Imperial consorts, Crown
Trince, Fujiwara and other courtiers alike drew the bulk, in-
deed, almost the whole of their revenues, from their manors.
The theory of eminent domain, while still doubtless maintained
as a theory by Court lawyers, had, as regards practice, been
whistled down the wind. And there it was virtually to remain
till the Revolution, or Restoration, of 1868. It was mainly the
rise and spread of the manorial system that brought about the
fall of the centralised government established by the Refor-
mers of 045. It is to this that the decay and long eclipse of the
august line of the Sun-Goddess, so much deplored by Japanese
historians, is to be chiefly attributed.Such being the case, it
is neither the Pujiwaras, nor the Tairas, nor the Minamotos,

nor the Hojos, nor the Ashikaga, nor the Tokugawas that must
be saddled with the wite. The Sho-en system began to be a
danger under the three learned Emperors, Saga, Junna, and
Nimmyo (811-850) it effectually and finally paralysed the
;

old centralised administration under Shirakawa I. and Toba I.

None of these five sovereigns were fools not one of them was
;

a weakling, for without exception they all had wills of their

own, and when determined to have their own way, they almost
invariably succeeded in making opponents bend to their pur-
poses. But when a Japanese sovereign aspires to rule as well
as to reign, it is well for him to be equipped with all the
wisdom and attributes of a statesman. Of the one hundred
and seven scions of the Sun-Goddess who have occupied the
throne of Japan since the days of Nintoku Tenno, four, and
four only, have shown themselves to have been so provided.
These are Tenchi, Kwammu, and Mutsuhito, who
Sanjo II.,

Daigo II. (Go-Daigo) is

is probably the greatest of the four.

usually spoken of as one of the " three great Emperors of

Japan." As will be attempted to be shown later on, Daigo II.
was a comparatively second-rate man; very much inferior to
Daigo L, who longo intervallo comes after the four sovereigns
just mentioned.
 THE CLOISTERED EMPERORS. 281

The strange feature in the case is that Japan became co-

vered with this network of manors in the teeth of constantly
renewed prohibitory edicts. Under the two Cloistered Em-
perors there was almost as much of this farcical legislation as
before. For instance, in 1091, the farmers throughout
the Empire were forbidden to " commend " themselves to
Minamoto Yoshiiye. Again, for instance, in 1127 new
Sho-en were prohibited. In the decree of that year
we are told that " the Shoji (officers put in charge of Sho-en
by the owners) are earnestly inviting holders of public land to
become tenants of the Sho-en " and that " those who have
;

become tenants on the Sho-en never return to their former

status and the Sho-en are all filled with farmers, while the
:

public land in the districts (Gun) and villages (Go) is left

wild and uncultivated." These are fair specimens of the
many anti-Sho-en decrees emanating from the Imperial chan-
celleries of the time. But the fact is that a gross mass of
contemporary legislation was little better than dead-letter.
The case of a certain Naito, a retainer of Taira Tadamori, is
instructive. Summoned before the Kebiishi board for an
infringement of the anti-life-taking law, he at once pleaded
guilty of the offence, saying he would cheerfully submit to the
penalty. What that exactly was he did not know at the
;

worst would be no more than banishment or imprisonment.

it

It was his duty to supply his master's table with fish and
game; if he failed to do so the punishment would be death, for
a violation of certain of the House laws of the Minamotos and
the Tairas was attended with consequences much graver than
any infringement of the Imperial ordinances was. When re-
ported to the ex-Emperor Shirakawa, the incident was passed
over with a laugh, no penalty being inflicted. In these House
laws of the Tairas and Minamotos we have a glaring case of
an imperium in imperio. A century later, we shall find the
great bulk of the Samurai class openly and avowedly exempted
from the operation of the common law, and subjected to
—
the provisions of a special code of their own, the famous Joei
Shikimoku of the Hojos (1232). The nucleus of this may not
have been the Minamoto and Taira House Statutes but it is;

legitimate to surmise that these House laws furnished the

Kamakura feudal legislators with valuable hints.
Although the great military families were now rapidly
282 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

rising in power and influence, we have many indications that

their manors were as yet much less extensive than those of
the Fnjiwaras and other Kyoto courtiers* Minamoto Yoshi-
mitsn had a dispute with a Fnjiwara noble about a Sho-en in
Mutsu. The case was submitted to Shirakawa, who after a
long delay told Fnjiwara that his claims were indisputable.
However, to incur the enmity of Yoshimitsu would be a very
serious thing. Fnjiwara had many manors, and the loss of
one would be of little consequence to him, whereas to Yoshi-
mitsu, irho had scarcely enough, to support his family and fol-
lowers, even a single manor was an important consideration.
Therefore it would be advisable for Fujiwara to yield. Now,
T
this Yoshimitsu was the brother of the great Y oshiiye, the
Uji no Choja or head of 1he clan and all its branches the
;

brother of the Minamoto, in short.

Where the military men often found their opportunity was
when a dispute about their possessions arose between two un-
warlike courtiers. In 1091, a Fnjiwara and a Kiyowara could
not agree about some estates in Kawachi ; one appealed to
Minamoto Yoshiiye, the other to his brother Yoshimitsu, and
a small civil war seemed imminent. The Court then had to in-
terfere, and forbid Yoshiiye's troops to enter the capital, and

the farmers throughout the Empire to " commend " themselves

to that captain. In Toba's time a number of decrees were
issued warning military men against becoming vassals
of the Minamoto or Taira chieftains. But withal, during
the Inset period (1086-1156), the power and possessions of
these two great houses increased enormously.
At the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh
century we have seen the Fujiwara Regents using the Mina-
motos, whom they called their " nails and teeth," as a buttress
for their power. The influence of their Fujiwara patrons was
now at an end but the Minamotos were far from finding
;

their occupation in the capital gone. The Cloistered Emperor

established a guard corps of his own ;and in this the Mina-
motos at first found plenty of employment. At the same time
they and the Tairas now discharged the duties of the old
Imperial Guards, among whom, as we have seen, all discipline
had so hopelessly broken down. However, as time went on,
it was upon the Tairas that Shirakawa and Toba came more

especially to place their trust.

 the cloistered emperors. 283

The early seat of the Taira power had been the country
around and behind Tokyo Bay; and at this date the Heishi
stock, when united (as it very was all-
often was not),
powerful in the K wan to, and very powerful in Mutsu. How-
ever, it was neither from the Kwanto nor from Mutsu that the
greatest of the Tairas came. Taira Korechika, one of the four
great generals of the early eleventh century, had been punished
for carrying on a civil Avar against his brother, the Gov-
ernor of Shimotsuke, by banishment to Awaji. On his release
he settled in Ise, and there founded a branch house of the
Taira known was with Taira Masamori's
as the Ise Heishi. It
reduction of the revolt of Minamoto Yoshichika in Idzumo
that the rise of the Ise Taira began. This Yoshichika was
the second son of the famous IToshiiye, Hachiman Taro.
Yoshichika had been appointed Governor of Tsushima, but he
found the limits of the island too narrow for his ambition.
80 passing over to Hizen, he intermarried with the great
house of Takagi there, and proceeded to carve out a domain
for himself, the title-deeds being his own good sword. Al-
ready jealous of Y'oshiiye and of the warlike Minamotos, Shira-
kawa jumped at the opportunity Yr oshichika afforded, and
sent Taira troops to crush him. His father vainly
implored Yoshichika to submit; instead of doing so he
killed the Imperial messenger sent to summon him to
Kyoto. However, he soon had to yield. Sentenced to banish-
ment to the island of Old, he gave his guards the slip in
Idzumo, killed the acting Governor there, seized the Govern-
ment store-houses, and practically raised the standard of re-
bellion. In 1107, Taira Masamori with his retainers was com-
missioned to put down the revolt, and he did so effectually.
His eldest son, Tadamori, then a boy of eleven, turned out
to be a sort of Japanese Diomede, and raised the lower stories
of the huge fabric of Ise Heishi greatness on the foundations
thus laid by Masamori. He governed Harima, Ise, and Bizen
in succession and in the capital he became Kebiishi and the
;

fidus Achates of Shirakawa, keeping by his side night and day.

In 1129 he gained much reputation by the prompt check he
gave to piracy in the Inland Sea. On his return to Kyoto,
he became henchman to the ex-Emperor Toba. His success
naturally excited the jealousy of his rivals, but all their ef-

forts to shake his position proved abortive. On his death in

1153, his son Kiyomori, who had served as Governor of Aki
284 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

seven years before, became head of the House ; and under him
the Taira clan became virtually supreme in Japan, and go-
verned the Empire according to its fantasy for fully a score
of years.
Down to 1150, however, Taira prestige was more than
equalled by that of the Minamoto. In connection with the
two great military houses one peculiar fact must
rise of these
be noted. As has been asserted, the Taira were most nume-
rous in the Kwanto, where, as well as in Mutsu, the various
septs of the clan held a great, if not the greater, part of the
soil. Yet it was by service in Western Japan and in the capital
that successive Taira chieftains made the fortunes of the family.
On the other hand, while the manors of the Minamotos mainly
lay within a radius of sixty miles from Kyoto, it was in the
extreme north of Japan, where they had little or no territorial
foothold at all, that they mainly acquired their fame, and
found their most devoted followers.
It will be remembered that for his services in the reduction
of Abe Sadato (1062), Kiyowara Takenori had been appointed
Chinjufu Shogun, and invested with the administration of the
six districts in Mutsu composing the huge territorial
domains of the Abe family. Takenori was succeeded by
his son Takesada, and he in turn by his son Sanehira.
Meanwhile administrative duties had become confused with
proprietary rights, and Sanehira had developed into a semi-
independent feudal potentate. His brother Iyehira and his
uncle Takehira chafed at the vassalage he had imposed upon
them in common with all the other landed proprietors in the
six districts,and were on the outlook for an opportunity to
assert themselves. About the year 1084, seemingly, this came.
A relative of Sanehira's wife, a certain Kiniiono Hidetake,
came from Dewa to call on Sanehira, bringing valuable pre-
sents with him. At the moment of Hidetake's arrival, Sane-
hira was engaged in a game of checkers with a friend, and
paid no attention whatsoever to the newly-arrived guest. In
high dudgeon Hidetake threw away the presents and hurried
home to Dewa. Sanehira, on learning this, became highly in-

censed, mustered men and advanced into Dewa to punish

Hidetake. The latter sent messengers to Takehira and Iyehira
exhorting them to rise in Sanehira's rear on their own behalf.
Iyehira indeed needed but little prompting to do so ; and on
 THE CLOISTERED EMPERORS. 285

a sudden the greater part of Mutsu was furiously ablaze with

the flames of civil war.
Either in 108G or a little before, Minamoto Yoshiiye (Hachi-
man Taro), had come down as Governor of Mutsu; and to him
Sanehira promptly appealed for aid, which was at once render-
ed. But when Sanehira and the Governor of Mutsu were
engaged in operations against Hidetake, Takehira rose in
their rear and joined forces with Iyehira. At this point the
original authorities become exceedingly obscure and confus-
ing in the details they furnish. Sanehira disappears from the
scene and we hear no more of him. Iyehira and Takehira
ultimately entrenched themselves in the strong stockade of
Kanazawa in Mutsu, and here they were assailed by Minamoto
Yoshiiye, his brother Yoshimitsu —who in defiance of orders
had thrown up Kyoto and hastened to Yoshiiye's
his office in
—
assistance by Hidetake, and by Fujiwara Kiyohira.* In the
advance upon the stockade Yoshiive observed a flock of wild
geese rising in disordered flight from a forest in the distance,
and at once concluded that an ambush was being laid there.
It was as he supposed, and his keen observation saved his

force from what might have proved a serious disaster. Once

in the capital he had called on a Fujiwara statesman and had
given him an account of one of his previous campaigns. The
great scholar Oye Tadafusa happened to overhear the con-
versation, and remarked that it was sad to think that a
man so ignorant of the art of war as Yoshiiye showed himself
to be should be entrusted with high military command. Y'oshi-
iye's retainers informed their master of this remark, and asked

his permission to kill the impudent critic. But Yoshiiye, so

far from listening to their request, asked Oye to let him become
his pupil and under him he read the seven Chinese military
;

treatises. Of these the chief is by Sonshi, who lived about 550

b.c .f and in his ninth chapter he lays it down that " the
rising of birds shows an ambush." All this is significant as
indicating the rise of a military class that was beginning to
take itself and the soldier's profession seriously. It also in-

* This Kiyohira, the sob of Fujiwara Tsunekiyo and an Abe*

mother and a descendant of the illustrious Hidesato in the seventh
generation, had been adopted by Kiyowara Takesada, the father of
Sanehira and Iyehira.
f Sonshi has been excellently translated by Captain E, F, Calthrop,
R.F.A,
286 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

dicates that certain of the savants in the capital were now

beginning to regard military treatises, and the principles of
the art of war, as not unworthy of their attention. A few
generations before such studies would have been scouted as
vulgar and trivial, and a mere waste of time and effort. It
must also be noted that it was by Oye Tadafusa, and men like

him, that the real work of administration and legislation in

the capitalwas now conducted. They kept the accounts, and
drew up all the decrees and edicts and other important Gov-
ernment documents on which the high-born Kuge Ministers
placed their seal often without so much as a single glance at
their text or purport. These men had perhaps as much in-
fluence as a British permanent Under-Secretary of State and ;

when we find them thus seriously directing their attention to

mastering the principles of the soldier's profession, hitherto
so much despised, we can form some idea of the change that
was coming over the spirit of the times.
In the long-protracted siege of Kanazawa, Yoshiiye found
the best of opportunities to imbue his troops with a sense
of discipline and with a proper respect for the most import-
ant, albeit the most primitive, of military virtues. Day after
day fierce assaults were delivered, and continued to be de-
livered, to but little purpose. Yoshiiye in his camp set apart
special seats for the brave and for the shirkers ; and after each
assault, the soldier*; were assigned their places according to
their deserts. Soon even among those who were cowards by
nature, life came to be regarded as of smaller consequence
than honour ; while the brave were stimulated to achieve
still higher feats. A youth of sixteen, a certain Kamakura
Gongoro, a Taira by birth, and the ancestor of the Nagao of
Echigo, received an arrow in the eye in the course of one of
the assaults. He merely snapped
off the shaft and then re- ;

turned his enemy's and brought down the man who had
fire,

hit him. When he took off his helmet, he tumbled to earth

with the barb still in his eye and when a friend, in extracting
;

it, put his foot on his face to give himself a purchase,

the youthful warrior swore he would have his life for subject-
ing him to such an indignity for to trample on the face of a
;

Bushi was an outrage that could be expiated only by the blood

of the offender. However, in spite of all the gallantry of his
men, Yoshiiye was forced to convert the siege into a blockade.
 THE CLOISTERED EMPERORS. 287

At last provisions in the stockade gave out, and Takehira

asked for terms. Yoshiiye would give none. A little later the
northern winter became so terrible that Yoshiiye's men beg-
ged him to withdraw. He told them to burn their shelters, and
warm themselves well that night to-morrow the
; stockade
would surely be in their hands. That very night Takehira
and Tyehira fired their huts, and made their escape. However,
(hey were overtaken, captured, and brought before Yoshiiye,
who, after bitterly upbraiding them, ordered their heads to be
struck off. Eight and forty of their following shared their
fate.

Yoshiiye had early requested the Court to forward a com-

mission to him for the reduction of the two Kiyowaras. But
the Kyoto authorities refused to do so ; and when Yoshiiye's
brother, Yoshimitsu, then in high judicial office in the capital,
asked to be allowed to carry reinforcements to the Governor of
Mutsu his request was refused-So leaving his insignia of
office in the seat of judgement, he started off for the North
on his own private responsibility. As the Central Govern-
ment persisted in its refusal to issue any commission to Mina-
moto Yoshiiye, and furthermore declined to reward him in
any way for tranquillising the province of which he was
Governor (Mutsu),, he threw the heads of the "rebels" away
on the roadside and returned to Kyoto. He took good care,
however, to reward his troops from his own private resources;
and as a consequence the Kwanto warriors declared that in
1lie case of any quarrel between the Court and the Minamotos,

they would stand by the Minamotos !

From whatever point of view it may be regarded, the ex-

Emperor Shirakawa's policy here must be unreservedly and
uncompromisingly condemned. If Yoshiiye was really sup-
pressing rebellion, he and his troops ought to have been re-
warded, in consonance with a host of precedents. If, as the
Court contended, he was engaged merely in a quarrel of his
own, then the Court by implication sanctioned the right of
private war. For no punishment was inflicted on Yoshiiye
for prosecutingwhat the Court chose to call a "private war" !
At this date such power as the Minamoto wielded in the
Kwanto and Mutsu was almost entirely the result of a moral
ascendancy. As yet they had little or no territorial foothold
in these quarters. On the conclusion of the Three Years' cam-
288 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

paign in the Far North, Yoshiiye and his brother Yoshimitsu

returned to the capital, where they continued to act as virtual
military commandants. It was the disgrace of Yoshiiye's third
son, Yoshikuni, that led to the settlement of the Minamoto
family in the Eastern provinces. In the course of his duties
as commander of the Palace Guards, Yoshikuni on horseback
met the cortege of the Minister of the Right, Fujiwara Sane-
yoshi, in a narrow thoroughfare ; and the Minister's followers
pulled him (Yoshikuni) from his horse. Thereupon Yoshi-
kuni's retainers promptly fired Saneyoshi's mansion and re-

duced it to ashes. For this outrage their master was banished

to Shimotsuke, where he settled and became the ancestor of
some half-dozen of the greatest feudal houses in Japan,
of the Ashikaga, Nitta, Tokugawa, Hosokawa, Yamana, and
Satomi. As the great clans of the Minamoto and Taira
diverged into septs, the chiefs of the various sub-clans came
to be known by the name of the village or district where
their domains lay.

The following abridged genealogical chart of the Minamoto

family indicates the origin of nearly a score of the " great
names " so prominent in the annals of the thirteenth and sub-
sequent centuries :

( Yorimitsu fNakatsuna (Tada).

Yorikuni, Yoritsuna, Nakamasa, Yorimasa
Ijjirotsuna (Ota)

f Yoshichika Tameyoshi.
{Yoshizumi (Yamana).
Yoshitoshi (Satomi).
Yoshikane (Nitta).
fl
Yoshisue (Tokugawa)
J
3 -N
{Yoshikiyo (Hosokawa).
Yoshiyasu Yoshikane (Ashikaga).
Yoshitoki (Ishikawa).
Yosbitsuna (Ishibashi).

Yoshinari
{Masayoshi —Katayoshi (Satake).
Yoshisada —Yoshitsune (Yamamoto).
{Mitsunaga (Hemi).
Nobuyoshi (Takeda).
§ yj Yoshikiyo —Kiyomitsu Nagamitsu (Ogasawara).
Yoshisada (Yasuda).
Masayoshi (Takenouchi)
Moriyoshi —Yoshinobu f

| Tomomasa (Hiraga).
 THE CLOISTERED EMPERORS. 289

Then in the Eastern provinces the Tairas were represented

by the Hojo, Soma, Miura, Kajiwara, Oba, Hatakeyama; with
Jo and Nagao in Echigo, and less influential septs in Mutsu
and Dewa.
What prevented either the Taira or the Minamoto from
making their influence fully felt was disunion and internal
dissensions. No one chief was sufficiently powerful to com-
mand the unquestioning obedience of the whole body of his
clansmen. Thus it came to pass that it was by neither of
these houses that the first great military fief was consolidated.
This was the work of the great Fujiwara of Mutsu.
We have already seen that Fujiwara Tsunekiyo was in-

volved in the ruin of Abe Sadato in 1062, and that his son,
Fujiwara Kiyohira, was adopted into the Kiyowara family
that succeeded to the Abe estates at that time. This Fujiwara
had aided the Minamotos to reduce the Kiyowara (1086-1089)
He was now made Inspector (Oryoshi) of Mutsu and Dewa,
and, later on, Chinjufu-Shogun, while he at the same time
succeeded to the lordship of what had been the domain of his
maternal grandfather, Abe" Yoritoki. Before his death, in
1126, Kiyohira had built up a semi-independent power, far
greater and far more extensive than was to be found anywhere
else in contemporary Japan. Thus it was in Ainu-land that
the feudal system made its earliest appearance on any con-
siderable scale. It will be remembered that from the ninth
century it had been the policy of the Government to settle
the Ainu in villages on the footing of ordinary Japanese
subjects; that these villages were placed under head-men;
and that a Superintendent-in-chief was appointed to exercise
general control over the affairs of these communities. It
was the holders of this office, —the Ab6s,—who laid the founda-
tions of the great fief of Mutsu. The great bulk of the re-
tainers must have been of Ainu, or mixed Japanese and Ainu
stock. At the present day, marriages between Japanese and
Ainu are generally sterile, —a thing not to be wondered at
perhaps when we think of the vast difference in physical con-
stitution occasioned by thirty or forty consecutive generations
of savage life. But with the settled Ainu of the tenth and
succeeding centuries the case might very well have been other-
wise; among them the conditions of life were not so very dis-
similar to those of their Japanese neighbours.

T
290 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

Thus, at the beginning of the twelfth century, there were

The Taira and the Mina-
three great military houses in Japan.
moto were weakened by chronic internal dissension; but on
the other hand, the presence of their chieftains in the capital
or its vicinity enabled them an all-important part in
to play
the astounding political developments of the century. The
Fujiwara chief maintained strict control over his kinsmen
and vassals; but the remoteness of his situation prevented
him from exercising any great influence upon the course of
national affairs at large. In addition to these three great
clans, there was yet one more military power that had to be
very seriously reckoned with, —that of the Great Monasteries.
About 970, as has been said, his Eminence, the Abbot' of
Hi-ei-zan, or Enryaku-ji, had formed a corps of mercenaries
to protect the monastery and its possessions, and to prosecute
its quarrels with its rivals and foes. The example had been
promptly followed by several of the great religious founda-
tions, among which the Monastery of Onjoji or Miidera, at
the base of Hi-ei-zan, near Otsu, and the Kofukuji of Nara
came to be the most notorious. By the end of the eleventh
century any one of these great fanes could readily place seve-
ral thousand men in the field at very short notice. Each of
—
them had become a huge Cave of Adullam, a refuge for every
sturdy knave with a soul above earning a livelihood by the
commonplace drudgery of honest work. Each of them had in
truth assumed the aspect of a great fortress garrisoned by a
turbulent rabble of armed ruffians. And each of them had
degenerated into a hotbed of vice, where the most important
precepts of the moral code were openly and wantonly flouted.
In truth, at this date, 1100 a.d v Buddhism in Japan from a
moral point of view was in not a whit better case than was the
Church of Rome between the death of Sylvester II. (1003) and
the election of Leo IX. (1049). And yet, in spite of the foul-
ness of their lives, the prestige of the priests had never stood
higher, while the resources of the monasteries had never been
greater and year by year they were adding to their wealth.
;

The years 1081 and 1082 were convulsed with armed strife
between the Kofukuji and the monastery of Tamu-no-Mine on
the one hand, and Hi ei-zan and Miidera on the other, In the
latter contest, Miidera was burnt to the ground, and the most
valuable of its treasures carried off by the assailants. Then.
 THE CLOISTERED EMPERORS. 291

the latter year saw the beginning of a new terror. A priest

of Kumano had been killed by an Owari official. Thereupon
three hundred of the dead man's companions shouldered the
Jinyo, —the sacred sedan in which the god is carried in pro-
cession on fete days, —marched to the capital, and there cla-

morously appealed for justice, or revenge. This practice was

at once copied by the priests of Hiyoshi, Gion, and Kitano,
and a little later on (1093) by the Kofukuji. It would have
been a bold man indeed who would have dared to offer vio-
lence to the sacred car that bore the shintai or god-body, for
to do so was an outrage no less heinous than presuming to lay
sacrilegious hands upon the Ark of the Covenant. Henceforth
it became common for the priests of all these temples to enter
the capital sometimes thousands strong, and, with their sacred
cars at their head, blockade the mansions of statesmen who
had offended them, only withdrawing when their claims were
satisfied. Now and then the Emperor and the ex-Emperor
were the recipients of their attentions, and subjected to a block-
ade by these Japanese Dervishes. The nuisance presently was
felt tobe insufferable and the protection of the Taira and the
;

Minamoto was invoked. In 1095 a Minamoto killed eight of

the leaders of one of these demonstrations and wounded as
many. In 1113 Hi-ei-zan and the Kofukuji were on the point
of fighting out their quarrel in the streets of the capital. Mi-
namoto Mitsukuni was sent to hold the Hi-ei-zan troops in
check, while Minamoto Tameyoshi advanced to Uji and came
into conflict with the Kofukuji " army," some 20,000 or 30,000
strong. The result was that the priests had to throw down
the car with the Shimboku (sacred tree) in the middle of the
road and beat a precipitate retreat. These are only a few in-
stances of sacerdotal riot and disorder culled from many.
Time and again the capital was thrown into a ferment of panic
by the truculence of the monks and their armed bands. The
ex-Emperor Shirakawa once remarked that although he was
the ruler of Japan there were three things in the Empire
beyond his control, —the freaks of the River Kamo (which
often inundated and devastated the capital), the fall of the
dice, and the turbulence of the priests!
 292

CHAPTER XL

THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA.

TjlOR the maintenance of order in the capital and in the
* Empire at large, the Court had come to be entirely de-
pendent upon the strong arms and trenchant bjades of the
Minamoto and Taira warriors- In this situation lurked, not
one, but many elements of danger. Not the least of these was
the possible appearance of chieftains strong enough to weld
the various discordant septs of their houses into a single unit
promptly obedient and readily responsive to the behests of the
autocratic will of the head of the clan. It might safely be
predicted that in the event of any such contingency, civil war
would be the infallible result. It would then become a ques-
—
tion as to which chief and which house Taira or Minamoto
— was to play the part of Protagonist on the political stage;
and such a question could be settled by nothing but the sharp
arbitrament of sword- And with the Imperial power and the
civil administration fallen into such decrepitude, the result of
any such contest would be to make the victor the real master
of the Empire.
Whether the mind of Taira Kiyomori really grasped that
fact it is impossible to say. The probabilities are that it did
not, —for Kiyomori, like Nobunaga, his descendant in the
twentieth generation, was more remarkable for strength of will
than for intellectual subtlety or originality. The minds of
Kiyomori and Nobunaga on the one hand, and of Yoritomo
and of Hideyoshi on the other, were cast in vastly different
—
moulds Kiyomori and Nobunaga were Japanese of the breed
—
of Attila; Yoritomo and Hideyoshi the latter especially
have claims, both as statesmen and warriors, to be placed in
a much higher class. Both of these were richly endowed with
that constructive imagination the lack of which renders the
achievement of any great and lasting work in the domain of
statesmanship well-nigh impossible. Whatever may have been
the mental endowments of Taira Kiyomori, this supreme gift
 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 293

of the constructive imagination never became conspicuous

among them.
When Kivomori (1118-1181) succeeded his father, Tada-
mori, as Chieftain of the Ise Heishi in 1153 he was in the very

prime of a vigorous manhood. Long before this, those ele-

ments of dissension and unrest that were to precipitate the
great explosion of 1156 had been accumulating and multiply-
ing apace. There were dissensions in the Imperial family, and
there was yet another set of dissensions in the great Fujiwara
household.
In 1123, Toba Tenno had abdicated in favour of his son,
Sutoku Tenno, then an infant of five. There were thus two
ex-Emperors, —
a great-grandfather (Shirakawa) and the
father (Toba) of the titular sovereign. In 1129, the great-
grandfather died, and the father (Toba) at once stepped into
his position and assumed the supreme direction of the affairs
of the Empire. This, as has been already said, he continued
to wielddown to his death in 1156, —his most trusted hench-
men being Taira Tadamori, and after the death of the latter,
in 1153, his son, Taira Kiyomori.
About the date of the death of his grandfather, in 1129, the
ex-Emperor Toba made four or five additions to the number of
his secondary consorts. On one of these, the Lady Bifuku
Mon-in, he lavished the greater part of his affections. The first

issue he had by her were daughters; but, in 1139, she at last

presented him with a son. Six months later, this baby was
proclaimed Heir Apparent to the throne; and in 1141 the
intrigues of the ex-Emperor Toba and his consort, the Lady
Bifuku Mon-in, drove Sutoku Tenno, then 22 years of age, to
abdicate in favour of this infant, who actually reigned for
some fourteen years —down to 1155 —as Konoye Tenno. From
1141 down to 1156 there were again two ex-Emperors, —
father and a son. Between these, relations were a good deal
more than merely strained, — for Sutoku lived in constant
dread of his life on account of the machinations of the titular
sovereign's mother, the Lady Bifuku Mon-in. Thus at last
appeared what was above all to be dreaded by the Insei system.
It was not indeed an Emperor's and an ex-Emperor's party;
but it really amounted to that in substance, for the titular
sovereign, Konoye, who died at seventeen, after a nominal
reign of fourteen years, was never of the slightest consequence
294 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

—except as a convenient puppet or figure-head.

Meanwhile
the young ex-Emperor Sutoku had begat progeny of his own;
and he was not minded to have his beloved son, the Prince
Shigehito, debarred from his rightful position of sovereign of
Japan.
Here, indeed, were all the elements of yet another deadly
succession quarrel. But the situation was still further com-
plicated by discord in the house of Fujiwara, with which the
Imperial family was still very intimately connected. Al-
though, during the Insei Fujiwara Regents and
rule, the
Kwampaku and Chancellors wielded no real authority, these
positions were still eagerly coveted, for, though they were little
better than empty titles as far as the work of administration
was concerned, they yet continued to confer the highest social
prestige upon their occupants. At the accession of Toba
Tenno in 1108, Fujiwara Tadazane (1078-1102), who had been
Kwampaku since 1105, was made Regent; and when Toba
attained his majority in 1113 Tadazane was again made Kwam-
paku, while he was also invested with the Chancellorship of
the Empire. Eight years later on, he had the ill fortune to
come into collision with the old ex-Emperor Shirakawa. The
result was that he had to abandon official life and retire to his
mansion at Uji, his eldest son, Tadamichi (1097-1104), then
24 years of age, replacing him as Kwampaku. Two years later,
in 1123, on the accession of the infant sovereign Sutoku, Tada-
michi became Regent; and in 1130, he became the youthful
Emperor's father-in-law.
Meanwhile his protector, the old ex-
Emperor Shirakawa, had died in 1129; and the ex-Emperor
Toba then became the real ruler of Japan. Toba very soon
had reason to be dissatisfied with Tadamichi; and so Tadami-
chi was relieved of office, and replaced by his father, who con-
tinued to act as Kwampaku down to 1140. One consequence
of all this was that the relations between Tadazane and
his son Tadamichi became the reverse of friendly. Mean-
while, in 1120, another son had been born to Tadazane ;

and on this child, —Yorinaga, —Tadazane lavished all his affec-

tion. As he grew to manhood Yorinaga was rapidly promoted

from one. great office to another ; and, in 1150, at the age of
thirty, he became Minister of the Left.
In this year his
adopted daughter, Masu-ko, became the consort of the boy
Emperor Konoye, then eleven years of age. A little later on,
 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 295

Konoye Tenno married an adopted daughter of Yorinaga's elder

brother, Tadamichi. The brothers had been on bad terms
before ; but this struggle for ascendancy in the Imperial harem,
— or, to speak more correctly, in the Imperial nursery,
seriously embittered the quarrel. The father, Tadazane, threw
all his influence against his own first-born, and actually went
so far as to deprive him of the family heirlooms that were
always entrusted to the prospective head of the great Fujiwara
Clan.
Suddenly, in 1155, Konoye died at the age of sixteen. It
will beremembered that Konoye was the son of the ex-Emperor
Toba, by his favourite, the Lady Bifuku Mon-in. Her lady-
ship openly declared that her son, Konoye Tenno, had been
poisoned at the instigation of his half-brother, the ex-Emperor
Sutoku. During the last thirteen years, Sutoku's position had
been a very unpleasant one; he now went about in abject fear
of his life.

The Lady Bifuku Mon-in had extorted a promise from the

ex-Emperor Toba that one of their daughters should ascend
the throne on the death of their brother, Konoye Tenno; but
the record of the Empresses of the Nara period had not been
forgotten, and the national sentiment was found to be entirely
averse to any more experiments in the matter of female Sove-
reigns, reigning in their own right. The succession question
now narrowed itself down to a contest between three male
candidates; or rather to two, for the ex-Emperor Sutoku was
indifferent as to whether he or his son, the Prince Shigehito,
should occupy the Imperial seat.Baulked in his project of
making the Lady Bifuku Mon-in's daughter Empress in her
own right, the old ex-Emperor, Toba, now wished to have his
fourth son, Masahito, proclaimed Sovereign. In this aim he
was supported by the Kwampaku Tadamichi. This fact alone
sufficed to induce Tadamichi's brother, Yorinaga, and their
aged father, Tadazane, to support the rival cause with all the
influence, and all the resources, at their command. Their
efforts proved abortive, however; and Masahito duly ascended
the throne as Go-Shirakawa, — or Shirakawa II. At the same
time his son Morihito, then twelve years of age, was proclaimed
Prince Imperial.
This turn of affairs proved to be a serious blow to the pro-
spects and projects of Yorinaga. He had asked to be entrusted
296 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

with the education of the Crown Prince; but not only was
his request rejected, but he was further deprived of his post of
Nairan in the following year, 1156. In consequence of this,

he attached himself still more closely to the interests of the

ex-Emperor Sutoku, and sedulously endeavoured to fan his
ex-Majesty's discontent into a flame.
Just at this juncture, the old ex-Emperor, Toba, died (July
20, 1156) ; and when Sutoku went to attend the solemn funeral
service that same night he was met at the entrance and in-
formed that according to the dying instructions of his father,
no place could be found for him there. Mortally offended by
this deadly public insult, Sutoku hurried back to his palace,
sent for Yorinaga, and at the instigation of the latter, forth-
with determined to repossess Tiimself of the throne by the
strong hand. Urgent orders were at once transmitted to the
landed gentry in the neighbouring provinces and to the monas-
teries of Nara to move troops up to the capital with all
possible expedition.
was not long in reaching the ears of
Intelligence of this
Shirakawa and his advisers. During the last illness of
II.

Toba there had been rumours afloat to the effect that an

attempt at a coup d'etat might be expected upon his demise;
and he had taken the precaution of sending for ten of the lead-
ing captains then in the capital, and making them subscribe to
a bond pledging their loyal support to the Lady Bifuku
Mon-in. The most prominent among these captains was the
Governor of Shimotsuke, Yoshitomo, the eldest son and heir
of Tameyoshi, the actual head of the house of Minamoto.
Yoshitomo was now summoned in all haste; and he at once
placed himself and a body of 400 picked men at the disposal
of the Court. At the same time, troops under Minamoto, Taira,
and Fujiwara captains were dispatched to seize strategic posi-
tions on all the avenues of approach to the capital, and there
block the expected advance of the Nara Temple forces and the
local samurai summoned to the support of Sutoku. On July
29, Taira Kiyomori (Governor of Aki) and his followers
joined the Minamoto force under Yoshitomo.
Meanwhile two days before (July 27), Sutoku and Yori-
naga had betaken themselves to the old palace of Shirakawa
—
L, the vast enceinte of which they hastily strengthened as
best they could. It was garrisoned by no more than a few
 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 297

hundred men, — less than 150 Minamotos, and about an equal

number of Tairas, perhaps. The Tairas were under
the command of Tadamasa, the uncle of Kiyomori,
who led the Taira in the opposing camp. As for the Minamoto,
they consisted of the younger brothers of Yoshimoto and their
adherents, the whole body being under the direction of Tame-
yoshi (Yoshimoto's father), the head of the clan.
This Tameyoshi had some reason to repine about the lot
that had befallen him. Grandson Hachiman Taro, and son
of
of that stormy-petrel Yoshichika, who had perished as a rebel
in 1117, he had been constrained to take the field against his
grand-uncle Yoshitsuna at the age of thirteen (1109). His
victory in this family feud made him Chieftain of the great
Minamoto clan. In 1123 he was made KcMishi for the express
purpose of dealing drastically with the turbulent monks of
Hi-ei-zan. His reward for this was the lower division of the
fifth rank, —
a very modest recompense indeed. And this was
the end of his official career. He had aspired to the Governor-
ship of Mutsu; but this office was bestowed on that local Fuji-
wara magnate who was then 'engaged on consolidating the
greatest fief in contemporary Japan. Since then, for a whole
generation, Tameyoshi had been left in neglect by the Court;
and now, in 1156, his brilliant son and heir, Yoshitomo, had
outstripped him in the official hierarchy. Yet there is nothing
going to show that the very able, though neglected, Minamoto
chieftain and his eldest son and heir were on bad terms with
each other. Besides Yoshitomo, Tameyoshi had eight or nine
younger sons, —nearly all masterful, reckless, turbulent dare-
devils. In the year before this (1155) one of these, Yoshikata,
had been slain in battle by his nephew Y^oshikura (a son of
Yoshitomo), a boy of fifteen ! The precocity of these Minamotos
in the art of war, and in a minor degree in statecraft, is perhaps
best illustrated by the instance of Tameyoshi's eighth son,
Tametomo. While still a mere boy his immense physical
strength and his rough unruly ways made him a terror to the
household, and so his father was constrained to get rid of him,
and sent him away to Kyushu. This was in 1152, when Tame-
tomo was no more than thirteen years of age. Arrived in
Bungo he promptly set to work to attract followers, arrogated
to himself the title of 8otsuibushi or General Superintendent
of Police, and opened hostilities against some of the most pro-
298 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

minent local magnates, — the Haradas and the Kikn-

of Hizen
chis of Higo among others. His chief and supporter was
ally

Ata, the Acting-Governor of Satsuma, whose daughter he mar-

ried. Most of the former supporters of his grandfather, the
turbulent rebel Yoshichika, also rallied around him. For a
few years the greater part of the Nine Provinces was kept in
an unceasing turmoil. At last the Court interfered, and
sternly calledupon Tameyoshi to recall this enfant terrible of
his. Tametomo, however, paid no heed to his father's instruc-
tions, and as a consequence Tameyoshi was stripped of such

modest rank and office as he held. Thereupon Tametomo,

taking with him eight and twenty picked men, hurried up to
Kyoto, and arrived there just in time to be able to join his
father and his brothers in defence of the old palace of Shira-
kawa At that date he was only seventeen years of age;
I.

but even then he had attained a stature of seven feet, while his
muscular development was prodigious. It took three or four
—
ordinary men to bend the bow he used a huge weapon 8ft. 6in.
in length. His left arm was four inches longer than his right,
and this enabled him to draw a bow-string eighteen hand-
lengths (about 5ft.) and to release his bolts with terrific force.
In the council of war held on the 29th, Tametomo had ad-
vocated a night attack on the headquarters of the Emperor's
adherents. But Fujiwara Yorinaga negatived the proposal.
Meanwhile Yoshitomo and Kiyomori, on their side, had deter-
mined on a night-attack; and presently Sutoku's supporters
found themselves invested by a force of 1,700 men. Tametomo
with his eight and twenty men were holding the Western Gate,
and it was against this portal that Yoshitomo advanced. He
was warned off by Tametomo, who shot off one of the silver
studs ornamenting his helmet, the bolt burying itself in the
gate-post. Presently Taira Kiyomori launched his troops at
the position held byTametomo, with the brothers Kagetsuna
at their head. Tametomo
shot one of them through the body,
the shaft being sped with such force that it went on and
mortally wounded the other. The garrison, though outnumbered
by five or six to one, made a most obstinate and gallant
defence; and it was not until Yoshitomo succeeded in firing
the wood-work that the assailants could make any headway.
There had been no rain for some time previously and the
attack had been delivered in a terrific dust-storm raised by a
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 299

strong west wind. The buildings caught like tinder, and the
flames spread rapidly, lighting up the city for miles around
with their lurid glare, while at the same time the palace of
Sutoku, the great mansion of Yorinaga, and twelve other
houses of the conspirators were blazing furiously. Presently
the only resource left to the defenders was flight.

Yorinaga had fallen, struck by a stray arrow; but most of

the other leaders escaped and went into hiding. It was
announced that they were to be banished and then ;

many of them shaved their heads and came out and gave
themselves up. Among these was Tadamasa, Kiyomori's uncle.
The Emperor thereupon ordered Kiyomori to kill Tadamasa,
and Kiyomori made no difficulty about carrying out his instruc-
tions. Yoshitomo was at the same time commanded to kill his
father. But this lr oshitomo refused to do; and then the
Emperor threatened to entrust the commission to Taira Kiyo-
mori. Thereupon one of Yoshitomo's retainers pointed out
that it would be a great disgrace to the clan if its head
was executed by a Taira; and so at last, Yr oshitomo allowed
this retainer to carry out the Imperial commands. Altoge-
ther, about seventy of Sutoku's supporters were sent to kneel
at the blood pit. Since the revolt of Fujiwara Nakanari in
810, — —
that is for a period of 346 years the death penalty had
ceased to be inflicted on Ministers and officers of the Court.
What especially intensified the general revulsion occasioned
by these wholesale executions was the fact that they took place
during the mourning for an Emperor and an ex-Emperor, for
it was contrary to all precedent to exact the extreme penalty
of the law at such seasons. The man who was chiefly re-
shown on this occasion was Fujiwara
sponsible for the severity
Michinori, whose wife had been the Emperor's nurse, and who
now enjoyed the full confidence of the Sovereign- On the other
hand, one act of clemency has to be imputed unto him for
righteousness on this occasion.The old Fujiwara chief, Tada-
zane, was Tadamichi induced
to be rigorously dealt with, but
Michinori to intercede for him. The long-standing breach be-
tween father and son was thus healed at last and thencefor-
;

ward they lived on the most affectionate relations.

Sutoku was banished to Sanuki, where he died in 1164 at
the age of 46. His son, Prince Shigehito, was compelled to
become a priest. Yorinaga's sons and about twenty other
300 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

members of his household were banished to distant parts

of the Empire. Tametomo's bravery had excited the wonder
and admiration of the Court; so when arrested he was not
decapitated, but merely exiled to the islands of Idzu, the
sinews of his arm being cut as a precautionary measure.
It will be remarked that at this crisis each of the three
Great Houses of Fujiwara, Minamoto, and Taira alike found
itself a prey to divided counsels and split into rival
factions arrayed in opposing camps. We are sometimes
told that all the Minamoto except Yoshitomo supported
Sutoku. This is glaringly incorrect. What is true is that
Tameyoshi and all his surviving sons except Yoshitomo did
cast in their lot with the ex-Sovereign. The exception is all
important, for it was" on Yoshitomo the Minamoto clansmen
in the wider sense of the term placed all their hopes and
reliance. His following in the famous night-attack of July 29
was three or four times as numerous as that of his father;
and among his officers were many subordinate Minamoto
chieftains of high prestige and great ability. One of his lieute-
nants was the founder of the great house of Ashikaga, and an-
other was that famous scholar and soldier, Minamoto Yori-
masa, who twenty-four years later on was destined to make
the Empire ring with the gallantry of a more than septuage-
narian warrior. As regards the Taira, Tadamasa carried with
him some and most influential captains among the
of the best
lse Heishi. Thus the conflict was by no manner of means a
contest between Minamoto and Taira as such. That was to
come three years later on.
To all outward appearances, now firmly seated on the
throne, Shirakawa II. took a firm hold on the reins of
government. A determined attempt was made to revive,
or revert
to, the ordinances and machinery of Sanjo
II. But Sanjo II. and Shirakawa II. were very different men.
Shirakawa II. had indeed a strong will; but his likes and
dislikes, and the indulgence of his personal caprices, were of
far greater consequence to him than were the genuine national
interests committed to his charge. He was the most devout
of Buddhists; but the intensity of his devoutness soon proved
to be not incompatible with disordered morals and a profligate
life. He quickly wearied of the irksomeness of the Imperial
office, and in 1158 he abdicated in favour of his eldest son
 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 301

(Nijo Tenno), then sixteen years of age. Before his death,

thirty-four years later on was destined to see no
(1192), he
fewer than five sovereigns ascend the throne, two sons and —
three grandsons of his own. Some of these were nothing more
or less than puppets of his own; but it was only during
the first eight or ten years after his abdication in 1158 that
his influence in administrative affairs was preponderant. The
Insei system had indeed been of value as a makeshift ; but with
his ex-Majesty Shirakawa II. it got swept into the limbo of the
expedients which have been tried and found wanting.
During Shirakawa II.'s brief reign of two or three years
(1155-1158) the real power behind the throne was that Fuji-
—
wara Michinori (also known by his ecclesiastical name of
Skinsai, for he had taken the tonsure in 1140) whom we —
have seen urging the ruthless execution of Sutoku's partisans
even in a season of national mourning for a deceased sovereign.
Taira Kiyomori's prompt execution of his uncle Tadamasa had
recommended him to Michinori. Minamoto Yoshitomo's efforts

to evade the invidious task of butchering his own father

in cold blood had earned for him Michinori's aversion.
Hence, as it was really by Michinori's advice that reward and
punishment, promotion and degradation were meted out, Yo-
shitomo had to content himself with the modest recompense
of the command of the cavalry in the Imperial Guard, while
Taira Kiyomori was invested with the Governorship of Ha-
rima, and with the still more important office of Acting Viceroy
of Kyushu. From this moment a struggle between Taira Kiyo-
mori, then thirty -eight years of age, and Minamoto Yoshitomo,
five years his junior, began. It is only the suppliant who com-
petes; and Yoshitomo was weak enough to put himself in the
position of a suppliant. Furthermore this gallant and chival-
rous warrior —for such indeed he was —bemeaned himself so
far as to resort to the hackneyed Fujiwara device of making
merchandise of his female offspring; and sent a middleman
to offer his daughter in marriage to Michinori's son. The prof-
fered alliance was and Yoshitomo's well-earned chag-
rejected ;

rin was presently intensified by hearing of the sumptuous

banquet that was given in honour of the nuptials of a son of
Michinori with a daughter of Taira Kiyomori.
Just at this juncture Yoshitomo met his evil angel in the
person of a certain Fujiwara Nobuyori, This Nobuyori ?
a
302 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

descendant of Michitaka (who had been Regent and Kwam-

paku from 090 to 995), was then a handsome and graceful
young man of six and twenty, with qualities, showy indeed, but
entirely superficial. Thanks to the favour he had found in the
eyes of Shirakawa II., he had early been invested with impor-
tant offices both civil and military; and promotion had suc-
ceeded promotion with startling celerity. But the avidity and
ambition of this spoiled child of fortune knew no bounds; and
he was now importuning tiie ex-Emperor for the title and post
of Commander-in-Chief of the Guards. The ex-Sovereign was
inclined to gratify his favourite and was indeed on the point of
expediting the patent when Fujiwara Michinori adduced such
cogent reasons for staying his hand, that Nobuyori's hopes
were blasted at the eleventh hour. Deeply chagrined at this,
Nobuyori feigned illness, ceased appearing at Court, and de-
voted all his energies to knitting together a party strong
enough to enable him to make away with Michinori and realise
his prospects by main force. He found ready confederates among
his own fellow-clansmen, the Fujiwara; but it was the ser-
vices of the warlike Minamoto that he was most eager to enlist.
Michinori and Taira Kiyomori were now hand-in-glove ; Mina-
moto Yoshitomo had abundant reason for being dissatisfied
with both of them. Accordingly Nobuyori " used sweet words "
to Yoshitomo whenever they met; Yoshitomo was informed
that in an alliance with Nobuyori lay the road to rich manors,
high rank and office for himself and his sons, and a brilliant
match for his daughter. An understanding was speedily ar-
rived at, and the plot rapidly matured. At last all that was
wanted was a favourable opportunity for action.
This presently offered itself when, on January 14, 1160,
Taira Kiyoniori and his eldest son, Shigemori, set out for
Kumano with a few attendants. Five days later, on the night
of January 19, 1160, the confederates, with 500 men, assailed
the palace of the ex-Emperor, took possession of his person,
cut down the guards, killed many and finally
of the inmates
fired the building and burned it The ex-Em-
to the ground.
peror was taken to the Great Palace, while the Emperor Nijo
was presently interned in the Palace of Kurodo and a strict
guard set at all the exits. Next day Michinori's mansion was
burned, and his consorts and concubines and female attendants
ruthlessly massacred, As for Michinori himself, he had by a
 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 303

lucky chance got a timely hint of what was to be expected. He

at once rode off post-haste to the Emperor's Palace; sent in
a warning by one of the maids of honour, and then whipped
his horse off into the darkness of the night. He reached Nara,
and hid in a cavern there; but his lurking place was soon dis-

covered; and a day or so later his head was on the public

pillory in front of the prison in the capital.

With the Sovereign and the ex-Sovereign safely in their

poAver, the conspirators at once began to carry things with a
high hand. Nobuyori appointed himself Chancellor and Com-
mander-in-Chief; Yoshitomo was advanced in rank and made
Governor of Harima, while all the subordinate chiefs received
more or less important offices. Of course, they gave out that
they were acting in accordance with the Imperial instructions,
and it was not difficult for them to get the Sovereign to set his
seal to the documents placed before him, for his refusal to do
so would infallibly have cost him his throne. Everything
seemed to bid fair for the success of the coup d'etat, when the
prospects of the conspirators were dashed by a very dramatic
incident. They had issued a summons to all the chief officers
to assemble for discussion on the 29th, failure to attend involv-
ing the penalty of death. Fujiwara Mitsuyori, the elder bro-
ther of Korekata, one of Nobuyori's most important lieute-
nants, and before the revolt Nobuyori's superior officer in the
Guards, put on his ceremonial robes, and made his way into
the Council Chamber. " There he found Nobuyori occupying
the chief seat, and all the other officers not in their usual
places. He at once stopped and called out loudly :
(
How is it

that you are all out of your places, and that the proper order
of the Court is not observed ? ' He then passed on, and boldly
took his seat above Nobuyori, who quailed at this fine display
of moral courage. Mitsuyori, on seating himself, asked in a
loud voice what the meaning of all this was. No one ventured
to reply. Thereupon Mitsuyori threw back his dress, and
standing upright turned to his younger brother Korekata and
angrily asked him why he had joined the rebels, and assured
him that swift punishment would overtake all concerned in
the wretched business- Then with a few more blunt and bitter
words, he passed out, none daring to stay him or to raise a
hand against him/' Six days later (February 4) the great
304 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

effect of Mitsuyori's bold front on this occasion became only

too apparent.
Meanwhile, the all-important question had become what
were the Tairas doing. On their way to Kumano, Kiyomori
and his son had learned of the outbreak, and with the aid of
the Betto of Kumano they succeeded in getting about a hundred
men together. With these they were on the point of returning
to the capital, it was reported that Minamoto Yoshihira
when
was athand with 3,000 troops. This Yoshihira (another
Japanese Hercules), then 20 years of age, was Yoshitomo's
eldest son, born when his father was a youth of eighteen. At
fifteen Yoshihira had had to take the field against an uncle of
his own in Musashi and, as already stated, had defeated and
killed him. He had now hurried up from Kamakura; and at

a council of war had asked to be entrusted with troops to way-

lay and kill the two Tairas. His request had been refused by
Nobuyori; but the false rumour of his approach seriously
disconcerted Kiyomori, who then thought of retiring into the
Western Country to muster men there. But Shigemori would
have none of this; they would certainly be outlawed as rebels
if the conspirators were left to consolidate their position. So
the Tairas, with their handful of men, boldly hastened back to
the capital, and posted themselves in their Rokuhara mansion.
Here they were presently joined by the nobles and functiona-
ries in crowds, while their armed following soon assumed re-
spectable proportions. And on the night of February 4, the
Emperor, disguised as a maid of honour waiting upon the
Empress, was borne along with her into the Taira stronghold!
Fujiwara Korekata, overawed by his elder brother's reproaches
at the memorable council of January 29th, had resolved to do
something to atone for his conduct, and had succeeded in bring-
ing the Sovereign safely through the gates and guards of his
Kurodo prison. Almost at the same time the ex-Emperor
made good his escape and the conspirators' doom then became
;

almost assured.
In the Kurodo Palace the flight of the Sovereign was soon
discovered. But when it was communicated to Nobuyori, he
was drinking deeply, if not actually drunk; and so he paid
no attention to the communication. Next morning he speedily
realised the extent of the disaster; and then he entirely lost
his head, Yosbitomo kept cool, however; and ordering the
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 305

matter to be kept secret he at once threw himself into the

Great Palace to await the inevitable Taira attack there. In
two or three hours it came- A
body of 1,000 men, in two
corps, headed by Shigemori and his uncle Yorimori respec-
tively, were launched against two of the gates. Shigemori at
firsthad some success against Yoshihira but after penetrat-
;

ing some way into the enclosure he was beaten out again.
Yoshitomo was more than holding his own against Yorimori,
when a feigned flight of the Tairas drew the defenders of the
gate after them. Then all at once the Taira men turned,
rushed through or past the pursuers, poured into the Palace,
and occupied the gate. Thus dislodged from the Palace, the
Minamoto assailed the Rokuhara. But just at this moment,
Minamoto Yorimasa with his command of 300 men, hitherto
camped outside the Palace, refused to move, and on being as-
sailed by Yoshihira, passed over to the Tairas. The assault on
the Rokuhara was a disastrous and bloody failure; and the
Minamoto leaders had no course then open to them but to
evacuate the capital.
In their retreat they found the road strongly held by the
armed monks of Hi-ei-zan; and in this encounter the Mina-
moto lost heavily before they succeeded in breaking through.
On reaching Seta, Y'oshitomo ordered his men to disperse, and,
attended by his sons Yoshihira, Tomonaga, and Yoritomo, and
three or four followers, made way through the storms and
his
snowdrifts to Aohaka in Mino. Hence he dispatched his two
eldest sons to raise fresh troops in Shinano and Kai; but his
second son, Tomonaga, had been severely wounded in the
encounter with the priests, and had to return. Yoshitomo then
threatened to abandon him; but Tomonaga begged his father
to kill him rather than to let him fall into the hands of their
foes; and Yoshitomo actually complied with the request.
Tomonaga was then a mere boy of fifteen. A little later his
corpse was exhumed by Taira Munekiyo, who cut off the head,
and sent it to be pilloried in the capital, along with that of
Yoshitomo, who had meanwhile met his fate. He had got as
far as Owari, on his way to raise a force in the Kwanto, when
he was assailed and slain in his bath, by a retainer of his own
who had proffered him a treacherous hospitality. This was on
February 12, only twenty-three days after the assault on the
ex-Emperor's Palace.

u
306 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

On learning of the death of his father, Yoshihira abandoned

his mission to Shinano and returned to the capital with the
intention of assassinating the Tairas. His host betrayed him,
and 300 men were sent to effect his arrest. But he cut his way
—
through them and escaped, only to be caught two or three
days later on in Omi. On March 3, he was publicly decapi-
tated on the Rokujogawara execution ground in the capital.
Meanwhile the headsman had been very busy, for thirty or
forty of the conspirators had had to pay the extreme penalty.
Among them had been Fujiwara Nobuyori; and he, the prime
instigator of the whole disturbance, had made a pitiable ap-
I>earance indeed. In the defence of the Great Palace, he had
at once quailed at the stern clash of arms, and blenching before
the Taira onset had precipitately abandoned the position en-
trusted to him and sought safety in the rear of Yoshitomo's
command. On the retreat of the Minamotos, Nobuyori, in-
stead of accompanying them, hastened to the Ninnaji, forced
II., and with much weep-
himself into the presence of Shirakawa
ing and moaning abjectly implored the ex-Sovereign to obtain
a pardon for him. Shirakawa at once sent a note to the Em-
peror beseeching mercy for the suppliant; but no reply was
returned to it. Meanwhile Taira troops arrived, seized
Nobuyori and took him away to the Rokuhara, where Kiyo-
mori, after upbraiding him bitterly, promptly consigned him
to a richly merited doom.
This 6meute of 1160 was of even greater consequence in the
history of the Empire than the great disturbance of the sum-
mer of 1156. Itwas the events of 1160 that finally opened the
way to the establishment of a military despotism in Japan. It

will be noted that in neither of the two outbreaks had the mili-
tary class been the prime movers. The war of 1156 had been
occasioned by a disputed succession to the throne, by dissen-
sions in the Fujiwara House, and by the mortified vanity and
thwarted ambition of a Fujiwara chief. The struggle of 1160
was mainly the outcome of a quarrel between two Fujiwara
favourites. In both conflicts alike, the military men had been
merely the tools, or, at best, the auxiliaries of ambitious and
mutually jealous civilians. The contests had been by no man-
ner of means contests of the pen with the sword for the great
;

warlike clans, so far from being able to combine and present a

united front against the civilian authorities and magnates,
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 307

were hopelessly at variance. And not only were Minamoto

and Taira not in unison with each other; both clans were
dogged by that curse of internal dissension which had proved
the bane of the great house of Fujiwara, and eke of the Im-
perial line itself. In 1156 it had been a case in the Imperial
House of brother against brother, of Sovereign against Sove-
reign; among the Fujiwara of son against brother and father;
among the Tairas of uncle against nephew; and among the
Minamotos of son against brothers and father. In that dire
contest, the Tairashad been the chief gainers, for the death of
Tadamasa, Kiyomori's jealous rival, had made the latter un-
disputed head of the Ise Heishi, and removed a fruitful source
of disunion and weakness in the counsels of the clan. On the
contrary, Minamoto Yoshitomo was on the best relations with
his father and brothers who perished on that fateful occasion
and the Minamotos had lost quite as much as the Tairas had
then gained. Still the two great warlike clans remained fairly
well balanced in strength and resources; and while this was
so, any unquestioned domination of a military chief in the
councils of the Empire was a virtual impossibility.
was altered by the events of 1160. When the heads
All that
of Yoshitomo and his two eldest sons had been placed on the
public pillory, the Taira had good reason for believing that
they had nothing more to dread from Minamoto rivalry, for
with the ablest surviving adult Minamoto, the illustrious scho-
lar and soldier Yorimasa, Kiyomori was on the best of terms,
and could readily count on his loyal support. The Emperor
Nijo, while by no means a mere puppet, had to bend to the will
of his father, the ex-Emperor Shirakawa II.; and with Shira-
kawa II. Kiyomori's relations had always been satisfactory.
Hitherto, behind his ex-Majesty Shirakawa II. had stood
Fujiwara Michinori, a very able, very astute, and when —
reasons of State demanded it —a somewhat unscrupulous
statesman, ready in emergency to deal with
case of
opponents by the drastic methods of a Richelieu or an Ii
Kamon no Kami. Michinori's head had lately been inspected
on the public pillory by his chief rival in the affections and
regard of ShirakawaIT., Fujiwara Nobuyori, to wit and now, ;

in turn the skinwas gradually peeling from the grisly linea-

ments of what had once been the handsome features of that
very Nobuyori whose head had replaced the head of that rival
308 H T STORY OF JAPAN.

he had " inspected " with such well-bred and insouciant con-
tempt. Where was his ex-Majesty now to turn for counsel?
Without Michinori as Achitophel, Shirakawa II. could scarce-
ly hope to restore and maintain the system and institutions

of his great-great-grandfather, Sanjo II. As for the Fujiwaras,

they were not now especially dangerous; for their chief, the
Kwfimpaku Motosane, instead of being an old, experienced, and
ruse politician as had been the wont in the heyday of the
fortunes of the great house, was a callow youth of six-
teen summers. To this young man, who held office from 1159
to his death at twenty -four in 1166, the Tairas were careful to
show a becoming measure of deference and respect. But it
was instinctively recognised by them that it was the whims
and caprices of his ex-Majesty Shirakawa II. that had above
all to be studied and consulted, —
for the time being, at least.
About the beginning of 1161, discord broke out between the
ex-Emperor and his son, Nijo Tenno; but just when the son
was attaining to years of discretion he died in 1166, and was
succeeded by his son (Rokujo Tenno), an infant of two years!
Three years later this baby Sovereign was virtually deposed by
his grandfather (Shirakawa II.), who then placed his own
favourite son on the throne as the Emperor Takakura. The
new Sovereign was only eight years of age, and he occupied the
throne for eleven years, —
down to 1180, the year before his
death. Now, the mother of the new Sovereign was Kiyomori's
sister-in-law and the Taira chieftain presently showed that it
;

was his purpose to rise to supreme power by the exercise of

traditional Fujiwara devices, backed by the substantial sup-
port of a now practically united military class.
As a reward for his services in February 1160, Kiyomori
had been made Sangi and raised to the first grade of the third
—
rank, an exceptional measure of Court favour for a mere
military man. At the same time, some of his sons and brothers*
were invested with Provincial Governorships; an office now
of little or no consequence to mere civilians, but of great and
increasing importance to military men, whose influence de-
pended not so much on mere Court rank as on the number of
swordsmen and mounted archers they could bring into the
when occasion demanded. The chief competitors of the
field,

* He had four brothers, eleven sens, and several daughters,

 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 309

Tairas for these posts had been the Minamotos; now the Mina-
niotos had, to all appearance, been annihilated; and hence the
lse Heishi could lay a wide foundation for their power. Be-
fore the death of Kiyomori in 1181, more than thirty of these
gubernatorial positions had passed into the hands of mem-
—
bers of the clan, mostly in Central, Western, and Southern
Japan. What it is all-important to observe is that what was
to become a noted feature of feudal Japan the confusion of
administrative with proprietary rights —was now beginning
to make itself apparent, if not actually conspicuous. Hence
these thirty odd Taira Provincial Governorships were really
so many feudal principalities in the germ.
If Kiyomori had followed his natural promptings and ut-
terly exterminated the progeny of Yoshitomo in 1160 the course
of the social and political development of the Empire would
have been very different from that which the historian has
to record. But in 11G0, in the person of Yoritomo, the
fourteen-year-old third son of Yoshitomo, Kiyomori spared
not merely a deadly future rival, but what he himself was
emphatically not, —a master of statecraft of nearly, if not
entirelyand absolutely, of the very first rank.
This Yoritomo had an exceptional share of the traditional
Minamoto precocity. Just before the struggle of 11G0, he had
gone through the gembulcu ceremony, the old Japanese ana- —
logue of the assumption of the toga virilis among the Romans,
—had taken his place in the ranks, and in the defence of the
Great Palace and in the subsequent encounters had fought
like a seasoned veteran.Aohaka, Avhen Tomonaga, unable
x\t

to execute his mission to raise fresh troops

by reason of his
rankling wound, returned to be killed by his father, among
the many bitter things then said to him, perhaps the bitterest
of all was that he should profit by the example of his younger
brother Yoritomo, and try 1o play the man! Shortly after the
assassination of his father, Yoritomo fell into the hands of
that Taira, Munekiyo, who broke into Tomonaga's tomb in

order to take his head and send it to be pilloried in the capital.

Arrived in Kyoto with his captive, Munekiyo was ordered to
keep him in ward for the present ; in a short time he would be
publicly executed. Meanwhile Yoritomo's grave demeanour
had excited the compassion of his captor, who had asked him
if he would like to live. " Yes," was the reply ;
" both my
3 10 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

father and elder brothers are dead ; who but myself can pray for
their happiness in the next world ? "
Struck by this filial an-
swer, Munekiyo went to the Lady Ike no Gozen, Kiyomori's
stepmother, who had become a nun after the death of her
husband, Tadamori. She had borne one son of great promise,
called Uma, on whom she had lavished all her affection, and
whose early death had been the great affliction of her life. So.
when in the course of his story Munekiyo told her that Yori-
tomo was the very image of what Uma would then have been
had he lived, her feelings were deeply stirred, and her profoun-
dest sympathy enlisted. She at once hurried off to Kiyomori to
implore mercy for the youthful captive, lying under sentence
of death. It was only after most importunate pleading that
Kiyomori yielded, for he had counsellors about him who in-
sistently urged the utter extermination of the whole turbulent
Minamoto brood. At last, however, he reluctantly consented
to mitigate the death penalty one degree: and so Yoritomo was
banished to the wilds of the Idzu peninsula. Here he was
placed under the strict surveillance of Taira partisans, on
whose implicit fidelity Kiyomori flattered himself he could
surely rely. In little more than a score of years it was to
become abundantly manifest that the tears shed by the Lady
Ike no Gozen on this occasion were destined to prove a verit-
able fount of calamity to the house of Taira.
Just at this juncture an incident occurred clearly indicating
that the rough ferocity of Kiyomori's nature, the reputed in-
flexibility of his will, and the soundness of his judgement, were
all alike liable to be affected by the charms of female beauty,
no less than by maternal importunity. The lady Tokiwa, Yoshi-
tomo's concubine, was perhaps the loveliest woman in the capi-
tal. —
She was the mother of three boys, all young, in fact the
last of them had been born only a few months before the great
outbreak that proved so fatal to their father and their two
eldest brothers. Tokiwa had got timely warning of the defeat
and proscription of her lord and all his household; and with
her youngest babe in her bosom, another strapped to her back,
and with the eldest clasping her hand, she hurriedly passed out
through a postern into the snowy roadway under the friendly
cover of the blinding whirl of fleecy flakes. Instead of fol-

lowing her husband towards the North, she daringly set her
face to the South, passed the great Taira mansion of Rokuhara
 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 311

with its flaring lights, and made for Fushimi. After untold
hardships and a series of romantic and thrilling adventures,
she at last safely reached the village of Ryiunon in Yamato,
and went into hiding there. Kiyomori's eager search for her
was utterly in vain ; so he seized her mother, and threatened to
kill her unless Tokiwa appeared with her offspring. When
Tokiwa heard of this, there was a keen and painful conflict
between maternal instinct and the teachings of the Classic of
Filial Piety. The latter conquered, and Tokiwa presented her-
self before Kiyomori, who was so overcome with her dazzling
beauty that he at once resolved to make her his concubine. She
at first absolutely refused; but her mother, weeping floods of
tears, dwelt on the misery of disobedience and on her future
happiness; and Tokiwa at last yielded, on condition that the
lives of her childrenwere spared. Again the Taira vassals were
all for and unrelenting measures but against Tokiwa,
ruthless ;

supported by the pleadings of the Lady Ike no Gozen, they

were powerless. All three boys when grown were to be sent to
a monastery to be trained for the priesthood, such was the —
compromise arrived at. As a matter of fact, Tokiwa's relations
with Kiyomori were comparatively brief; after bearing him a
daughter, she became the spouse of a Fujiwara nobleman, the —
Minister of Finance. It was an evil day for the Taira when
the life of Tokiwa's youngest child was spared, for the brilliant
military genius of Yoshitsune contributed as much to the fall
of the Heishi as the statecraft of his elder half-brother Yoritomo
did.
But all these were things of the future never for a moment
thought of or dreamt of by Kiyomori. For long years the sole
and single Minamoto that caused him any disquietude was
that redoutable archer of seven feet stature and four men's
strength, Tametomo, who had been banished to the isles of
Idzu in 1156, after having had the sinews of his arm cut.
Nine years afterwards, in the spring of 1165 (we are informed
by the Japanese annalist), " Minamoto Tametomo set out with
some vessels for Onigashima (the Isle of Demons) and took
possession of this island." Tametomo had opened up com-
munication with Ata, his father-in-law, Acting Governor of
Satsuma, and with his help had been able to make his way
to the Luchus. Here he married the younger sister of one
of the Anzu or territorial magnates who were then becoming
312 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

too powerful to be controlled by the King of the group, and

were fighting among themselves and by this lady he became the
;

father of the founder of the new dynasty of Luchu sovereigns.*

Three or four years later he made his way back to Oshiina;
and from this base he began to harry the shores of the opposite
peninsula, and to levy blackmail upon the lieges. He was sim-
ply repeating the record of his grandfather Yoshichika and his

own early record in Kyushu, and endeavouring to carve out a

principality for himself in Eastern Japan. In 1170, the Vice-
Governor of Idzu, Kudo Shigemitsu, was commissioned by the
Court to make an end of him. " The Kwanto troops were got
under arms on the fourth month and attempted to carry his
camp by surprise; but he defended himself valiantly with his
archers. At last after most of his craft had been taken or
sunk, and almost every one of his followers killed, he dis-
embowelled himself at the age of thirty-three." This bald entry
is unusually interesting inasmuch as it is the first authentic

notice I have so far met with of that practice of hara-kiri, the

* " In the latter part of the 25th generation of the age of Tenson

(1175-1177) the King became less powerful, and the Anzu began to
contend for power, erecting strongholds for themselves. At this time
there was a haughty subject called Riyu. Being a favourite of the
King, he took charge of the administration of the country in his early
years. Meantime he usurped the throne by assassinating the King.
This caused the end of the House of Tenson.
" In 1189, King Shunten ascended the throne. He was the sen of
Minamoto Tametomo, who came to the islands to escape from some
trouble, and married a younger sister of an Anzu cf Tairi. She gave
birth to a boy called Sonton. Afterward, intending to return home,
Tametomo set sail with his family. The party encountered a tempest,
which threatened the vessel with destruction. The sailers all said to
Tametomo that Ryu j in (or Ryugu, the Par-Eastern Poseidon) had
raised this wind, because there was a female on board, and implored
him to send her ashore in order to save their lives. Tametomo was
obliged to send his wife ashore at the Harbour of Maki. She took her
infant son with, her; and going to Urazoye, spent some years there in
a humble cottage. Before the boy had attained his tenth year he had
displayed talent and unequalled strength (true Minamoto precocity).
In 1180, at the age of fourteen, he was elected Anzu oL* Urazoye. When
Riyu usurped the throne, Sonton overthrew the murderer, and, as-
cending the throne at the request of the Anzu, became King Shunten.
The King had a wen on the right side of his head, and in order to
prevent it from being seen he dressed his hair. All the natives then
followed the style set by the King, and dressed their hair in accordance
with it. This was the beg'nm'ng of the mode of wearing the hair in
vogue among the Loochooans."
See Mr. Leavenworth's interesting pamphlet on the Luehu Islands
for an abstract of the MS. History in the archives of the provincial
capital of the Luchus. In connection with the last two sentences, see
Herbert Spencer's Ceremonial Institutions Sect. 424.
,
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 313

u happy dispatch/' which was presently destined to become one

of themost distinctive institutions of the feudalism of Japan.
Meanwhile with all dread of possible Minamoto rivalry thus
thoroughly removed, Kiyomori found the ground cleared for a
contest with the civilian For some time he
Fujiwaras.
abstained from any overt acts of hostility against them his im- ;

mediate intention being to work through and by them by

means of that very device by which they had contrived to hold
the titular Sovereign in their hands for generations. The cir-
cumstances of the time were highly propitious for such an
attempt on Kiyomori's part. The Kwampaku, Motozane, the
chief of the clan, was, as has been said, a stripling of sixteen
when he was invested with this high office in 1159. He had
married a Fujiwara lady; but Kiyomori presently succeeded in
giving her a rival in the person of his own daughter. In a
short time Kiyomori's ascendency over his youthful son-in-law
was complete. Then suddenly, in 11G6, Motozane died, at the
age of twenty-four, leaving only one infant son, the offspring
not of Kiyomori's daughter, but of his Fujiwara consort. The
boy was greatly attached to Kiyomori's daughter, however. By
the right of primogeniture, so far as it was recognised, he was
the head of the clan. But then it had become the custom of
the Fujiwara house to regard that member of it who be-
came Kwampaku or Regent as its head, or Uji-Choja. But to —
invest a mere baby with the Regency of the Empire was at this
date still a moral impossibility; in fact Motozane's investiture
with that great office at sixteen had given rise to much adverse
criticism among the Court nobles, who still, to a great extent,
formulated the public opinion of the times. So, on Motozane's
death, his half-brother Motofusa, then twenty-two years of age,
was made Regent. According to use and wont he should have
become Betto of all the ancestral temples and shrines, and of
the great family college, while the treasured heirlooms of the
house and numerous manors should have been at once
all its

transferred to him. But just at this point Kiyomori, at the

instigation of a certain Fujiwara Kunitsuna, thought fit to
interfere. Motozane's five-year-old son, Motomichi, was en-
trusted to the care of Kiyomori's daughter; and both were in-
stalled in a new mansion, which was entrusted to the watch and
ward of stout and staunch Taira henchmen. The Regent, Moto-
fusa, was deprived of the protectorship of certain of the an-
314 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

cestral temples and shrines, of all the Fujiwara manors in the

west of Japan, and, — most important of all, —of the cherished
family heirlooms and records which were invariably entrusted
to the keeping of the Uji-Choja. All these were now transferred
to the infant Motomichi, who was entirely in Kiyomori's hands.
Divide et impera, —that was Kiyomori's policy towards the
Fujiwara, —
an astute policy enough, perhaps, but a policy for
which his own unaided commonplace brain was not to be held
accountable.
Meanwhile, this new arrangement had interfered with cer-
tain plans and projects of that ruse politician, the ex-Emperor
Shirakawa II. and his ex-Majesty had been injudicious
;

enough to give his tongue free rein.

A year before, the Emperor Nijo, that son vHth whom Shira-
kawa II. had been on notoriously bad terms, had died a month
or two after his abdication in favour of his baby son of two
years (Rokujo Tenno). At his obsequies there had been a colli-
sion between the monks of Hi-ei-zan and those of the Kofukuji
of Nara over the very worldly question of place and precedence
at the ceremony, with the result that they had appealed to
arms and fought it out in the streets, several subsidiary fanes
being then fired and not a little ecclesiastical blood spilt.
Even before the monks and their retainers had appeared in
mail, there had been rumours afloat to the effect that the priests
had been commissioned by the throne to chastise the insolence
of Taira Kiyomori. The net result of all this was that his ex-
Majesty Shirakawa II. had to present himself before the re-
doubtable Kiyomori in what was virtually the guise of an ab-
ject suppliant ! And Shirakawa II., in some respects, was re-
markably astute, while Kiyomori was, if we read him right,
exceedingly puzzle-headed. The stars in their (capricious)
courses were fighting valiantly for Kiyomori
One thing that induced pay such undue
his ex-Majesty to
deference to the humours of Kiyomori was that
the younger
sister of Kiyomori's wife was the mother of Shirakawa II.'s
favourite son, and that the ex-Emperor was bent on placing
that son on the throne at the earliest opportunity. In No-
vember 1166, three months after the death of the Emperor
Nijo, and four months after the accession of his infant son,
Rokujo (1166-1168), this lad, then six or seven years of age,
was proclaimed Prince Imperial. A few weeks later, Kiyomori
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 315

was named Naidaijin and then, on the 4th March, 1167, with-
;

out passing through the posts of Minister of the Right and

Minister of the Left, he rose at a single bound to the Chancel-
lorship of the Empire and the Junior Grade of the First Rank
For such extraordinary promotion there had been no more
than one single solitary .precedent among the proud civilian
Fujiwaras; and, of course, for a mere military man to obtain
such office, and such rank, was so utterly unprecedented as
to be revolutionary! The most illustrious warrior of whom
Japan could boast, Saka-no-Uye no Tamura Maro, had reaped
the richest meed ever bestowed upon a soldier and he had been
;

amply satisfied with the Third Rank and the post of Dainagon.
Naturally enough, this astounding rise of a mere military par-
venu (as they held Kiyomori to be) gave the deepest umbrage
to the Fujiwara clansmen, whose material resources he was
in a measure appropriating, and whose position he was sap-
ping by the exercise of the traditional Fujiwara device of
making profitable merchandise of the daughters of the house,
backed by the strong and unanswerable argument of the sword.
Kiyomori had many moral and intellectual weaknesses,
but what is often regarded as venial, although really deadly
unless redeemed by a wholesome sense of humour, often indeed
—
as fatal to greatness as his heel was to Achilles vanity, to wit
— was not particularly conspicuous among them. Accordingly
he made his tenure of the great office of Chancellor a brief one,
and resigned it in the course of three months. But a few weeks
afterwards he was rewarded by the baby Emperor with the
gift of immense tracts ofKoden in the provinces of Harima,
Hizen, and Higo. As has been already explained, these Koden
were tax-free rice-lands granted as a reward for distinguished
national services. Those Kiyomori now received belonged to
the first of the four classes into which Koden were divided ; in
other words, the vast and fruitful domains then bestowed on,
or extorted by, the first Military Chancellor of the Empire
were to be hereditary. Gifts of such Koden had indeed been
not infrequent; but they had been of comparatively limited
extent,and their recipients for the most part had been civilian
Fujiwara Ministers or courtiers. What was peculiar in this
grant to Kiyomori was, in the first place, the extraordinarily
spacious dimensions of the tracts then assigned him ; and,
secondly, the fact that it marked a not unimportant step in
316 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the development of Japanese feudalism. The Fujiwara manors

had and
been tilled by serfs peasants superintended and go-
verned by civilian stewards, whose chief duty it was to forward
the revenues of the estates under their charge to the capital
for the support of the civilian Fujiwara owners. These vast
estates now bestowed upon, or extorted by, Kiyomori, were to
a great extent portioned out among a fierce brood of stalwart
lighting men as the guerdon of the armed support of them-
selves and their dependents in seasons of emergency. Here we
meet with some of the most important notions of feudalism,
an element of contract, tenure of land by military service, and
sub-infeudation. Moreover, the vast extent of these fiefs in
the germ —for such indeed these estates were —and the for-
midable military power so unscrupulously wielded by their
owner or his tenants, gave a fresh impulse to that tendency to
" commendation " which it had been one of the chief concerns

of the Kyoto government to check, a generation or two before.

Just at this point, a word of caution is necessary. This was
by no means the beginning of the feudal system in Japan; it
was only a very important step in its development in the West
and South- West of the Empire. At the conclusion of the
" Three Years' War " in Northern Japan against the Kiyowara

(1089), we have seen Minamoto Yoshiiye rewarding his troops

with grants of land from his own estates, being constrained
to this unusual step by the fact that the Court, insisting that
the whole contest had been a private quarrel, had refused to
recognise the services of the victors in any way. Minamoto
Yoshiiye, however,was far from being a rich man; and such
rewards as he could bestow, when fairly partitioned among
his many deserving henchmen, must have been exceedingly
moderate. It was not the extent of the material benefits they
then received that Yoshiiye's devoted followers chiefly took
into their consideration, however. The large-souled generosity
of the act appealed so strongly to the imagination of the
military class that the tendency to "commend" themselves to
the Minamoto chieftains received a great impulse on this occa-
sion. As has been said, about this time there was only one
really great fief in Japan, — —
that of Mutsu, and it belonged
neither to the Tairas nor to the Minamotos. At the other ex-
tremity of the Empire in Kuyshu, the feudal system was also
spreading. In Chikuzen were the great houses of Harada and
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 317

Munakata; in Hizen, those of Takagi and Matsuura; in Higo,

the Kikuchi and the Aso; in Bungo, the Usuki, the Saeki, and
others; in Osumi the Kimotsuki; and in Satsuma the Ata.
In the following year, Kiyomori's position was still fur-
ther strengthened. The ex-Emperor Shirakawa II. was bent
on deposing his infant son Rokujq (5 years of age), and re-
placing him by his own favourite son, only three years older.
For was necessary; and it was
this step Kiyomori's support
readily enough promised, since the young prince's mother was
Kiyomori's sister-in-law. Accordingly, in March 1168, Rokujo
was deposed and his uncle, Takakura Tenno (1108-1180),
ascended the throne.
In the following December, Kiyomori became seriously ill,
and fancying himself to be at death's door, " he shaved his
head and entered religion." The remedy proved effectual, and
Kiyomori presently recovered. He had still thirteen years of
life before him, and during that space of time he gave abundant

indications of how very loosely his " religion " sat upon him.
" When the Devil was sick,
The Devil a monk would be ;

When the Devil was well,

The devil a monk was he " !

It very soon became plain to the intelligence of Shirakawa II.

that he had made a serious mistake in placing a relative of

Kiyomori's on the throne, for in the household of the new boy
sovereign, as in the administration at large, it was Kiyomori
who really laid down the law. Mortified and chagrined in
scores of affairs, Shirakawa II. shaved his head, and became
IIo-O, or Cloistered Emperor, in 1169, —six months after Kiyo-
mori had taken the tonsure very much as he might have taken
pills.

It was not for nothing that Kiyomori kept such a vigilant

eye upon the youthful Sovereign and his entourage. We have
already seen how very adroitly an elder daughter of Kiyomori's
was utilised to partition the prestige and vast resources of
the head of the Fujiwara house, and to put the greater part
of his manors at Kiyomori's disposal; A still loftier destiny
was in store for her younger sister, the Lady Toku. On
February 0, Takakura Tenno, then eleven years old,
1171,
was declared and ten days later the Lady Toku, four
of age;
years his senior, became his consort. Thirteen months after
this (March 1172), she was proclaimed Empress of Japan!
318 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

This was indeed a terrible blow to the Fujiwaras. With

the exception of a few of the favoured Fujiwara adherents
of the Lady Toku's elder sister, the Fujiwaras were carefully
excluded from the household of the Empress, in which nearly
all the offices were now assigned to Tairas. In 1178, the preg-
nancy of the Empress was announced, and she was then re-
moved to the mansion of her eldest brother, Taira Shigemori,
where, on December 22, she was delivered of a son. " The
Cloistered Emperor, the Kwampaku (Fujiwara Motofusa), and
all the officers of the Court proceeded to the Rokuhara to

felicitate Kiyomori upon the auspicious event." No great fetch

of the imagination is necessary in order to figure to oneself what
the intensity of the heart-burning must have been with which
they proceeded to fawn and smile upon the upstart swaggering
military parvenu, whose heavy yoke this " auspicious " event
had done much to rivet upon every one of their necks. The
whole thing was " mouth honour, breath which the poor heart
would have fain denied but dared not " ;and behind what cor-
responds to vigorous tail-wagging in the canine world when
a stronger dog or the wrath of a master with a stick has to be
appeased, were " curses not loud but deep," —very deep. A
fortnight or so later the Lady Toku's babe was formally pro-
claimed Heir Prince. Then in 1180, when the Emperor Taka-
kura abdicated in favour of the Lady Toku's child of two years
of age, Taira Kiyomori found himself in the proud and power-
ful position of grandfather of the reigning Emperor of Japan
The blue-blooded Fujiwara had, indeed, been very effectually
hoist with their own petard !

But long before this Kiyomori's conduct towards his quon-

dam patron and ally, Shirakawa II., and the Fujiwaras had
been so outrageously insolent and aggressive that it was now
generally felt the situation had become intolerable. In 1170,
Sukemori, the son of Kiyomori's eldest son, Shigemori, had gone
out hawking, and on returning had met the Sessho Motofusa
and his cortege. Since Sukemori did not dismount as etiquette
demanded, he was summarily pulled from his seat. On hearing
of the incident, Kiyomori flew into a terrible rage. " Who

dares to lay a hand upon the grandson of the man that holds
the position I now hold ?" he shouted. And straightway he
sent a body of his men to meet the Sessho, drag him from
his carriage, smash the vehicle to atoms, and to cut off the cue
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 319

of every member of his escort. In 1177, the office of General

of the Left became vacant. The post of General of the Right
was then held by Shigemori, Kiyomori's eldest son and Shige- ;

mori was at once promoted to the senior command, while

his former position was bestowed upon his younger brother,
Munemori. Meanwhile no fewer than three Fujiwaras had been
emulously striving and intriguing to obtain the appointment,
and their resentment at being passed over was profound. Es-
pecially deep was the chagrin of one of them, Narichika. This
Narichika, then a young man of twenty-two, had been one
of the ringleaders in the great plot of 1160 and it was mainly
;

owing to the fact that he was connected with Shigemori by

marriage that his life was spared on that occasion. Returning
after a brief term of exile, he quickly ingratiated himself with
Shirakawa II., by whom he was promoted from one rather im-
portant office to another, till, inwas Dainagon.
1177, he
Among the priests by whom Shirakawa was constantly
II.

surrounded, it was a certain Fujiwara Moromitsu, known as

Saiko, who was deepest in his confidence; and with this SaikS
Narichika had become very intimate. At this juncture these
two and a few others determined to attempt the overthrow of
the Tairas. The seat of their plottings was a villa in Shishiga-
dani, one of the sequestered recesses of Higashiyama. Accord-
ing to some accounts these conferences were once or twice
attended by Shirakawa II.; according to others he was on the
point of proceeding there, when he was dissuaded from going
by his counsellors. What is perfectly plain is that his ex-
Majesty knew very well what was in train in that lonely moun-
tain retreat. In an evil hour for their fortunes the plotters
invited a certain Tada Yukitsuna, a Minamoto, to join them.
Yukitsuna very soon perceived that the success of the enterprise
was hopeless, and that yet he could make exceedingly good
capital out of it for himself.
Nearly a score of years before this Kiyomori had begun to
erect his mansion of Fukuwara, where the city of Hyogo now
stands, and as he rose to greatness it began to assume the
aspect of a magnificent palace. Hither he had retired upon
laying down the Chancellorship, and here he was now living.
His visits to the capital were only occasional, but nevertheless
there was but little that went on there, or indeed throughout
the Empire at large, of which he was not speedily apprised, In
320 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the huge following he maintained were three hundred young

pages whose special duty it was to keep him duly informed of
everything they heard or saw; and hesides these he had an
elaborately organised secret service whose mysterious under-
ground ramifications were everywhere. To elude the keen scent
of Kiyomorfs invisible sleuth-hounds had come to be regarded
as next door to an impossibility. And yet, notwithstanding,
the conspirators in the lonesome villa in the secluded recesses
of Higashiyama had succeeded in doing so most effectually.
In this circumstance Minamoto Yukitsuna saw a great
opportunity for the advancement of his own interests.
Stealthily making his way to the Fukuwara, and there obtain-
ing an interview with Kiyomori, he divulged all he knew about
the Shishigadani conferences.
A day or so afterwards Kiyomori w as in his Kyoto mansion,
r

— the Rokuhara, —whence he at once dispatched his men to

bring the priest Saiko into his presence. His Reverence at first

professed entire ignorance of the Shishigadani assemblies, but

on being subjected to " forcible examination," or, in plain
language, to the torture, his fortitude gave way, and he dictated
and an accurate and exhaustive statement of all
set his seal to
—
he knew about the plot, which was, in short, everything.
Kiyomori's next step was to send courteously worded invita-
tions to Narichika and each of his fellow -conspirators to meet
T

him in the Rokuhara, as he wished to have the pleasure of

consulting them on some rather important business. Without
the least suspicion of Yukitsuna's treachery, and knowing no-
thing of Saiko's arrest, much less of his damning confession,
Narichika and most of Irs confederates hurried off to fawn upon
the insolent upstart they hated with an unspeakable loath-
ing and whose downfall they were sedulously plotting, with
studied expressions of simulated delight. As soon as they made
their appearance they weie seized and bound. Then, after an
anxious period of suspense, the dreaded Kiyomori came swag-
gering into the room, and addressed himself to Narichika " In :

11 GO you aided and abetted Fujiwara Nobuyori, and for doing

so your life was justly forfeited. Rut thanks to my son
Slrgemori's earnest entreaties your life was spared. After that
you obtained governorships and manors, and have again
become a great personage. What precisely is the grievance
that has made you plot the ruin of my house ? " Narichika
 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 321

thereupon bowed his head to the ground, and by way of

apology said :
"
Of course, I have no resentment against the
Prince (Kiyomori). This must be some secret slander of some
unknown enemy of mine." Thereupon Kiyomori produced the
priest Saiko's confession from the folds of his dress, read it
out in a loud voice, and after asking Narichika whether he
was not ashamed to be found out practising such deception,
struck him across the face with the document, and then
ordered some of the attendant Samurai to take him out and
cut off his head.
Meanwhile intelligence of what was toward had been
transmitted to Shigemori, Kiyomori's eldest son, then Great
General of the Left, — that is, under the Emperor, the Com-
mander-in-Chief in Japan. He at once hurried off to the
Rokuhara, where he arrived just in time to be able to save
Narichika's life on a second occasion. However, Shigemori's in-

tervention did rot prove of any very ultimate advantage to Nari-

chika, who, sentenced to be banished to Kojima in Bizen, was
there put out of the way by special emissaries of Kiyomori a
few months later on. Little commiseration can be extended to
him; he was vain, pretentious, ungrateful, and, like Nobuyori
(1160), at bottom that most despicable of all things in a man
Who aspires to political eminence, a thorough coward. He re-
sorted as readily to the supreme argument of the weakest sec-
tion of womankind — —as
Nobuyori did in 1160.
tears, to wit,
Besides he proved himself to be deceitful and an arrant liar.
To sympathise with the swaggering Kiyomori with his limited
outlook upon life and upon the crying needs of the time is a
difficult task; to sympathise with such adversaries of Kiyo-

mori as the poltroon Narichika is absolutely impossible.

As for his Reverence Saiko, the especial confidant of his
ex-Majesty Shirakawa II., his stature was minished by the
length of his shaven pate. His two sons shared his fate, while
all the other halitues of the Shishigadani villa found them-
selves confronted with all the sentimental horrors and real
hardships of distant exile, —a lucky turn of the wheel of for-
tune for men of the true metal such as Fujiwara Hidesato,
Minamoto Yoritomo, his uncle Tametomo, and Minamoto Yoshi-
kuni among others, but deadly fatal to such hot-house plants as
Sugawara no Michizane, and the average, commonplace, pam-
pered Court grandee,

v
322 HISTORY OF JAPAN. j

Kivomori sent an official report of the whole affair to the

Emperor; and 1hen putting on his travelling attire he started
on his return to his Fukuwara retreat. On his way, in the
most unceremonious and nonchalant fashion, he stopped
at the portals of the Cloistered Emperor's palace, and
sent in a message by the officer on duty there that what
he had just done had been done in the interests of the
State and the Sovereign primarily; his own life was a
secondary consideration. At first it had not been Kiyomori's
intention to let Shirakawa II. off so lightly as he did; in fact
he was on the point of proceeding at the head of an armed force
to seize the Cloistered Emperor when Shigemori appeared on
the scene and made him desist. Kivomori had a wholesome
dread of his eldest son, and when Shigemori was announced on
this occasion, his father hastily threw his priest's robes over
his armour to concealBut as he moved, his clothes kept
it.

opening, and so he had to explain why he was in war-harness.

He was then told if he must needs perpetrate such an outrage
as he was contemplating he had better first take Shigemori's
hea'd before attempting it. " I am an old man, and I was

doing all this to see what metal my children were made of.
If it seems to you that what I have done is bad, then take
what measures you please to put it to rights." When their
father left the room Shigemori sharply rebuked Munemori and
his other brothers for lending themselves to any such enter-
prise.

Shigemori's regard for the law of the land, for truth, justice,
and duty was as profound as was Kiyomori's contempt for all
such considerations. Over and over again the son found him-
self called upon to remonstrate with the father, and to curb the

latter's tendency to unbridled lawlessness and outrage. Of

the two, Shigemori was really in several respects the stronger
man. When Kiyomori's nerve failed him on hearing of Nobu-
yori's attempted coup d'etat in 1160, it was the youthful Shige-
mori's resolution that saved the situation for the Tairas.
Again, it was Shigemori who led the attack on the Minamotos
in the Great Palace, while his father remained safely behind
in the Eokuhara. When the Minamotos, dislodged from the
Palace, made their abortive assault on the Rokuhara, whither
the Sovereign had fled, Kivomori lost his presence of mind ut-
terly, and became so flustered that he put on his armour with
 THE GREATNESS OP THE TAIRA. 323

the back part in front. When this was pointed ont to him
he said that it was perfectly right ; as the Emperor was coming
behind he had put on his harness so as to have the front part
facing his Majesty; since it would be improper to have the
back part of the armour turned towards an Emperor ! When
Kiyomori lost his head, as he not unfrequently did, his shifts
and excuses, while not exactly Falstaffian, were certainly amus-
ing in their way. In crises of personal peril we never hear of
Shigemori quailing or losirg command over himself.
Yet withal Shigemori's character was not without a strain
of weakness, while in certain matters his words and deeds
exposed him to the reproach of narrow-mindedness. A week
or so after the punishment of the Shishigadani conspirators,
he retired from the command of the Guards, and early in 1179
he resigned the post of Naidaijin. He allowed himself to be
beset with a haunting (Tread of what his father might do next,
and of the probable consequences of the outrageous behaviour
of the terrible old man, every year getting worse and worse. In
the summer of 1179 Shigemoriwent to Kumano to supplicate
the gods for —a speedy death Such was the despairing view
!

that he took of the situation. As if in answer to his petition,

he contracted a malignant fever upon his return to the capital,
and of this he died on September 3, 1179. A famous Chinese
physician had just then arrived in Japan, and Kiyomori urged
his son to send for him. But Shigemori stubbornly re-
fused to do so, on the ground that if he were cured by a foreign
leech when Japanese doctors had failed, it would be bad for
the reputation of the Empire at large and of the Japanese
medical faculty in particular. Besides, a mere roving vagrant
foreigner should not be lightly admitted into the presence of
one who had attained the rank of Minister of State
" Shigemori was only 42, and he was greatly regretted by
the Cloistered Emperor and by everybody." Such is the entry
in the record. Yet all the poignancy of Imperial priestly regret
for the memory of Shigemori did not prevent his ex-Majesty
from very promptly confiscating all Shigemori's manors in
Echizen! Moreover, just a month before Shigemori's death,
that sister of hiswhom Kiyomori had used so adroitly to parti-
tion the power and resources of the Fujiwaras, died; and, in
collusion with the Kwampaku Motofusa, Shirakawa II. had
seized all her estates and the manors assigned to her adopted
324 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

infant son, Motomichi, in 1166. Meanwhile this Motomichi,

now 20 years of age, had been wedded to another of Kiyomori's

very serviceable daughters! Motomichi had been made Uji-

choja, or Chieftain of the Fnjiwara clan; but Moroiye, the

12-year-old son of his uncle Motofusa, was now promoted to
the office of Clmnagon, to which Motomichi vainly aspired al-
though backed by the strenuous support of Taira Kiyomori.
With so much of preliminary explanation by way of a setting
for it, the following entry in the " Annals " should have no
difficulty in speaking for itself in a sufficiently intelligible
manner. December 1179 Kiyomori came up from the
" In

Fukuwara to the capital and gave the Cloistered Emperor to

understand that he was greatly displeased with several mat-
ters. In consequence of his complaints the Kwampaku, Fuji-
wara Motofusa, was banished to Bizen, the Chancellor of the
Empire, Fujiwara Moronaga, to Owari, while the Dainagon,
Minamoto Sukekata, and 43 officers of the Emperor were
stripped of their ranks and discharged from their posts. On
the same occasion Kiyomori obtained the promotion of his
son-in-law, Fujiwara Motomichi. He then held the rank of
Lieutenant-General of the Second Class; at a bound he rose
to the great posts of Naidaijin and Kwampaku, although he
was only twenty years of age. Kiyomori caused the
. . .

Cloistered Emperor to be conducted to the Toba Detached

Palace. He confided the ward and surveillance of the capital
to his son (and heir) Munemori, and then returned to the
Fukuwara. All these evil designs of Kiyomori would have been
carried out long before, but Shigemori had constantly opposed
them. After his death, Kiyomori, seeing that nobody any
more resisted him, had respect for nothing, and acted entirely
upon his own caprice."
It only remains to supplement this account by saying that
Kiyomori did not go up from the Fukuwara to the capital
armed men; and
alone, but at the head of several thousand
that he had then made his old friend and patron, the Clois-
tered Emperor Shirakawa II., a close prisoner, severely sepa-
rated from all his usual attendants, except one single con-
and two or three menials.
cubine, a single priest,
The young Emperor Takakura took his father's unfortu-
nate position very much to heart, and by way of placating
Kiyomori's wrath he abdicated early in 1180, in favour of bis
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 325

own son and Kiyomorrs grandson (Antoku Tenno), then a

child of three. After his abdication it was customary for the
ex-Sovereign to proceed in state to some one or all of the
shrines of Iwashimidzu, Kamo, Hiyoshi, or Kumano. These
all belonged to one or other of the great monasteries of Hi-ei-
zan, Miidera, or Kofukuji, whose priests profited by the Im-
perial largesses on such occasions. Great was the indigna-
tion of the bonzes of these temples when they learned that the
new ex-Emperor had signified his intention of proceeding to

worship the gods of Itsukushima or Miyajima, the lovely island

in the Inland Sea some few miles distant from the city of
Hiroshima. This unusual step was also prompted by the wish
to conciliate Kiyomori, for the gods of Itsukushima were his
tutelary divinities. As a young man Kiyomori had acted
of 28,
as Governor of Aki, in which province Miyajima lies; and
during the third of a century that had elapsed since then
(1146), he had continued to shower favours upon the shrine
of the deities to whose gracious influence he mainly attributed
his extraordinary good fortune. His visits to the island were
frequent; to facilitate his goings and comings he had caused
much money and labour to be expended upon increasing the
conveniences of the sea route between the Fukuwara and Hiro-
shima, the excavation of the Ondo channel being an important
feature in the work. The honour of the visit of a new ab-
dicated Emperor to the abode where his tutelary deities were
enshrined, —an abode on which he had lavished so much of his
great resources, — delighted Kiyomori beyond measure. But
just then, in the midst of all the joyous bustle of preparations
for the journey, the priests of the three great monasteries, with
their mercenaries in arms, and all the usual sacerdotal para-
phernalia of a " clamorous appeal," —their divine trees, their
sacred cars, and what not, —poured into Kyoto determined to
keep the ex-Emperor in their midst. Kiyomori sent emissa-
ries to " reason with them." After much parleying he finally
did succeed in having his way; and he and his son Munemori
with a great train of armed followers escorted the young ex-
Sovereign to Miyajima and back again.
But this deviation from the traditional use and wont of
confining the solemn progress of a newly abdicated Sovereign
to shrines under the control of the three Great Monasteries of
Hi-ei-zan ; Miidera, and the Kofukuji of Nara, and the admis-
326 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

sion of the upstart interloping family gods of the Taira to a

share in the function and its substantial emoluments, had
given dire offence to what when united was one of the three
greatest military powers in Japan. At this time, of these the
Tairas seemed to be easily the greatest; but as a matter of
fact the Fujiyara of Mutsu in the extreme North could have
very well held their own against Kiyomori and all his follow-
ing in any armed strife, provided the Fujiwara of Mutsu acted
on the defensive, —or rather on the defensive-offensive. Next
in order came the Great Monasteries, —Hi-ei-zan, or the Ko-
fukuji of Nara, the strongest among them, — but Miidera near
Otsu not so very much the inferior of the two older fanes in
wealth and military prestige. The weakness of these great
priestly powers was that so far from acting in unison they
were generally deadly rivals frequently at openwar with each
other. But for once this unwonted Imperial progress had
united them by a common grievance; and all alike now
cherished a grudge against Kiyomori and the Tairas, by whom
indeed some of them had been not over-gently handled in 1177,
and on other occasions.
And just at this very time a great plot for the overthrow of
the Tairas was being woven under their very eyes, —as if in
mockery of Kiyomori's omnipresent and omniscient secret
service. We have already seen Minamoto Yorimasa acting
with Kiyomori in 1156, and deserting to the Taira side on the
field of battle in 1160. Yorimasa enjoyed a large measure of
Kiyomori's favour and confidence; in short it was to Kiyo-
mori's influence that Yorimasa owed his promotion to the
third degree of Court rank early in 1179. At that date he had
entered the priesthood. But in spite of his intimate relations
with the Tairas and the favours he had received from Kiyo-
mori, Yorimasa had for years been secretly brooding over the
fallen fortunes of the Minamotos, and had long made up his
mind to deal their hated rivals and oppressors a deadly blow
before he died. He was now 75 years of age the discontent of
;

the armed monks furnished Trim with an opportunity he had

long been eagerly looking for. However, nothing was said to
them at first; it was to Mochihito, Shirakawa II. 's fourth son
and Takakura Tennd's elder half-brother, that Yorimasa
opened his mind. Moihihito's mother was of humble birth,
and so although now thirty years of age he had never been
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 327

made a Prince of the Blood, —be was merely a Prince. Diviners,

fortune-tellers, exorcists, and all that brood were in great

credit in those days; and a certain Skonagon who enjoyed an

extraordinary reputation as a physiognomist had told Yori-
masa that Prince Mochihito had the face of one who would
surely be Emperor some day. Yorimasa now came to an under-
standing with the Prince. The former would summon all the
Minamoto to rise and exterminate the Taira, and Mochihito
would then be placed on the throne.
Early in May 1180, Yorimasa made his son Nakatsuna
draw up and send out a summons to all the Minamotos in the
Tokaido, Tosando, and Hokurikudd to rise and chastise the
Tairas. The three Great Monasteries were now appealed to, and
they all readily promised their co-operation. But within a
month Kiyomori got to know something of the plot; on his
way to the East with the summons, Minamoto lr ukiiye had
stopped at the shrines of Kumano in Kishu, where some of
the priests were in the Taira secret service. One of these spies
hurried off to the Fukuwara with the intelligence that there
was an intrigue afoot in the capital, in which Prince Mochihito
was involved. Kiyomori was promptly on the road to Kyoto
at the head of several thousand men. His first step, on
arriving there, was to convey the person of the ex-Emperor
Shirakawa II. from his Toba prison into the city, where he
was strongly guarded. Prince Mochihito was stripped of his
name and rank, made a Minamoto, and sentenced to distant
banishment. One of the officers sent to effect his arrest was
Yorimasa's son Kanetsuna; and he was careful to give the
Prince time enough to make his escape. His attendants made
a stout defence and when they were seized and " forcibly
;

examined " they disclosed absolutely nothing. Presently the

Tairas learned that the Prince had taken refuge in the
monastery of Miidera; and troops were sent to bring him into
the capital. But they were beaten off by the monks, who
stood to their arms and refused to allow the Prince to be
taken away. Kiyomori then determined to storm the temple.
How much, or rather how little, he really knew of the plot
thus far, may be judged from the fact that it was no other
then the arch-con- rator, the real ringleader in the whole
affair, his trusted Liiend and protege, Minamoto Yorimasa,
that he now appointed to the supreme command of the attack-
328 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

ing force ! Of the real true actual situation of affairs Kiyomori

had no inkling, until suddenly, on June 16, Yorimasa, his two
sons,and threw themselves into Miidera. Even
fifty retainers

then, for three or four days more, Kiyomori failed to grasp

the position. The only thing he did was to conciliate the
Hi-ei-zan monks by bribes and promises; the result being that
they detached themselves from their league with Miidera and
the Kofukuji of Nara. This step was taken just about the
time Yorimasa and his band threw themselves into Miidera;
and when Miidera presently sent up urgent messengers re-
questing immediate reinforcements from the great mountain
monastery, Yorimasa was terribly disconcerted by learning
that the request had been curtly and peremptorily denied. To
hold Miidera against the Tairas backed by Hi-ei-zan was
—
impossible, so much was plain. At the council of war held
at this point, Yorimasa advocated a sudden inrush into the
—
capital and firing it at that very time there was a strong
—
wind blowing and seizing the persons of Kiyomori, Mune-
mori, and the other Taira chiefs in the midst of the resulting
confusion. This daring counsel of the old man of 75 was
received with the silence of disapproval and it was resolved
;

to evacuate Miidera and hurry southwards to effect a junction

with the formidable forces of the Kofukuji of Nara.
So, with Prince Mochihito in their midst, a band of three
hundred Miidera mercenaries, together with Yorimasa's fifty
odd retainers, set out for Ihe South. At Uji, destined to
become the centre of the ten-growing industry of Japan, the
Uji-gawa, which connects Lake Biwa with the Inland Sea,
was spanned by a bridge which was of great strategic
importance in those and indeed in subsequent days. In Uji
also, on the southern side of the stream, —that is on the Nara,
and not on the Kyoto side, —stood the Byo-do-in, a Fujiwara
chieftain's country villa converted into a monastery in 1052.
It had passed into the hands of the Abbot of Miidera shortly
afterwards, and it was now one of the branch fanes of Miidera.

Here Prince Mochihito and his train rested on their way to

Nara. Meanwhile Kiyomori in Kyoto had mobilised some
20,000 men and issued an Imperial Decree appointing his sons
Munemori and Shigehira commanders to smite the rebels.
While Yorimasa and his small band of 350 men had been
rapidly traversing the distance between Miidera and Uji,
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 329

this force of 20,000 men had been advancing from the

capital.
As things turned out, Yorimasa had been lucky enough to
get across the Uji River before the Taira van arrived.
Arrived, not appeared, I say advisedly, for the morning was
one of impenetrable fog, where a man's body at three paces'
distance was nothing more than a mere blurred outline which
might have been mistaken for anything. Yorimasa, then 75
years of age, be it remembered, had been vigilant in seeing to

it that outpost duty for his little band of priest mercenaries

and household followers had been duly done, and so was

promptly apprised of the approach of the Taira host.. He
ordered the planking of the greater portion of the bridge to
be removed; and about 200 Taira horsemen galloped into
space and were mostly killed by the fall. Presently a youth
of sixteen, a certainAshikaga Tadatsuna, succeeded in ford-
ing or swimming the stream at the head of three hundred of
his Kumano retainers, and arrived in front of the Byo-do-in.
Here there was a terrific encounter, and while it was in
progress, the main host of the Tairas began to find its way
across. Yorimasa's chief concern soon became to get the
Prince out of danger. The latter was able to slip off unper-
ceived, Yorimasa acting as his escort. But they had not gone
far before the old warrior was struck by a stray arrow.
Dragging himself back into the Byo-do-in, he stripped off
his armour, and, seating himself upon his iron fan, he calmly
disembowelled himself, —the second authentic instance of
hara-kiri I have so far been able to find in the annals. His
two sons also perished here, while his followers fell almost to
a man. Prince Mochihito never reached Nara he was likewise ;

hit by a stray arrow and fell into the hands of his pursuers,
who at once cut off his head and sent it to Kyoto. Meanwhile
an army of 30,000 temple mercenaries had set out from Nara
to join Yorimasa; on learning of the death of the Prince they
returned.
The strange thing is that so very little was done to punish
the monasteries for their part in the rising. When the matter
was debated Supreme Council, the Fujiwara courtiers
in the
insisted that Miidera and Kofukuji should be left alone; and
all that Kiyomori could do was to suspend their Abbots,

confiscate certain of their manors, and deprive them of the

control of some of their branch temples. And this was
330 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

only a temporary triumph; in two months the clamour

over this became so loud that Kiyomori had to give
way and restore matters to their former position. It is true

that Miidera was actually sacked and burned by Kiyomori's

son Tomomori, while Tomomori's brother, Shigehira, at the
same time fired the Kofukuji and Todaiji of Nara and executed
200 of the monks there. But this did not take place until
December 1180, a full six months after the affair of Uji Bridge
and the death of Yorimasa. In the meantime, Yoritomo had
risen in the Kwanto and was making such headway there that
Minamoto partisans in other Empire were
parts of the
emboldened to appear openly in arms. In Omi, they had
attacked the Taira, and Miidera had given them support. It
was this fresh offence that brought its fate upon the great
monastery by Biwa strand.
The Tairas were not long in finding that this burning of
the great fanes had been a cardinal mistake. So keenly was
it resented by the courtiers that they refused to appear at
Court, where the most important functions and festivals were
attended by none except some Taira officials. Next year there
was a great famine, and this was followed by a terrible
pestilence, and these and other calamities were attributed to
the offended deities whose wrath should properly have fallen
upon the Tairas alone.
Kiyomori's dread of the Great Monasteries constrained him
to the bold step of shifting the capital from Kyoto to the
Fukuwara, where during the previous year or two immense
labour had been expended upon improving the anchorage.
The Emperor, his mother, the ex-Emperor Takakura, his
father, the Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa II., who, by the —
—
way, was kept a close prisoner, the whole Court, in fact, and
all its officials, except the Fujiwara Minister of the Right,

who was bitterly opposed to Kiyomori, were brought down to

what is now Kobe, and housed in the Taira villas there. Pre-
sently the recalcitrant Minister of the Right had also to join
the Court in the Fukuwara. But the whole proceeding had
occasioned great and almost universal discontent, so profound
that Kiyomori was fain to abandon the project after a six
months' trial. In December 1180, the Court returned to
Kyoto, Kiyomori meanwhile taking the misguided precaution of
burning the nests of the turbulent monks he so greatly dreaded.
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 331

The temporary removal of the Court, while entailing much

needless expense upon the courtiers, had plunged Kyoto into
economic misery. The capital in these years was a sadly
afflicted city. In 1177 a fire broke out while a typhoon was
blowing, and the Palace and one-third of the citizens' houses
went up in flame and smoke, several thousand of the popula-
tion perishing in the conflagration. Two months before the
removal of the Court in 1180 a tornado had laid low every
house, great and small, in three or four of the wards. But
worse was still in store. " In 1180-2," writes Chomei in his
Hojoki, or Records of his Hermit's Cell, " there was a very
wretched state of things caused by famine. Misfortunes
succeeded each other. Either there was drought in spring
and summer, or there were storms and flood in autumn and
winter, so that no grain came to maturity. The spring
ploughing was in vain, and the labour of planting out the rice
in summer came to naught. There was no bustle of reaping
in autumn, or of ingathering in winter. In all provinces
people left their lands and sought other parts, or, forgetting
their homes, went to live among the hills. All kinds of prayers
were begun, and even religious practices which were unusual
in ordinary times revived, but to no purpose whatever. The
capital, dependent as it is on the country for everything, could
not remain unconcerned when nothing was produced. The
inhabitants in their distress offered to sacrifice their valuables
nobody cared to look at them. Even if buyers
of all kinds, but
came forward, they made little account of gold, and much of
grain. Beggars swarmed by the roadside, and our ears were
filled with the sound of their lamentations. Amid such misery
we with difficulty reached the close of the
first year. With
the New Year, men's hopes revived. But that nothing might
be left to complete our misfortunes, a pestilence broke out and
continued without ceasing. Everybody was dying of hunger,
and as time went on, our state became as desperate as that
of the fish in the small pool of the story. At last even
respectable-looking people wearing hats, and not unshod,
might be seen begging importunately from door to door.
Sometimes while you wondered how such utterly wretched
creatures could walk at all, they fell down before your eyes.
By garden walls or on the roadsides countless persons died of
famine, and as their bodies were not removed, the air was
332 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

filled with evil odours. As the corpses changed, there were

many sights which the eye could not endure to see. It was
worse on the river banks, where there was not even room for
horses and vehicles to pass. Porters and woodcutters too
became so feeble that firewood got scarcer and scarcer, and
people who had no means pulled down their houses, and sold
the timber in the market. It was said that a load for one man
was not enough to furnish him with food for a single day. It
was strange to see among this firewood pieces adorned in
places with vermilion or silver, or gold leaf. On inquiry, it

appeared that people in their extremity went to old temples,

stole the images of Buddha, and broke up the objects used
which these were the fragments. Such mournful
in worship, of

spectacles was my lot to witness, born into a polluted and

it

wicked world. As a matter of course, parents died before

their children. Again, infants might be seen clinging to the
breast of their mother, not knoAving that she was already
dead. .The.numbers
. of those who died in central Kyoto
during the fourth and fifth months alone were 42,300. To
this must be added many who died before and after; while if
we reckon those who perished in the outlying quarters, the
number has no limit. And then the provinces!"
During the thirty-three weeks of the Great Plague of 1665
there were 68,800 deaths in the whole of London. Here in
two months we have as many as 42,300 in one section of
Kyoto! Throughout the Empire at large the mortality must
have been immense and the misery profound. And during all

this time the country was in the throes of one of the greatest
civil wars by which it The ravages of
has ever been racked.
this all-devouring j^est and the famine by which it had been
preceded and accompanied evidently go a long way to account
for the strange lull in the military operations of 1182, and of
the preceding and following months. Plague and famine
together were especially severe in the Home Provinces and the
West, the seats of the Taira power, and made the mustering and
maintenance of any overpowering force afoot almost an
impossibility. The East meanwhile appears to have escaped
comparatively unscathed, and here Yoritomo was busy
establishing his position, consolidating his power, and
organising for a supreme effort.
What it is important not to overlook is that by the priests
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 333

and the people at large it was the Tairas who were regarded
as responsible for the terrible calamities with which the centre
of the country was then being so mercilessly scourged. This
circumstance, coupled with the difficulty of reasoning with the
bellywhen empty, must have sent many recruits to the Mina-
moto standard in the Kwanto, Echigo, and elsewhere.
In the meantime the Tairas had been seriously weakened
by the loss of their masterful chieftain, the terrible old Kiyo-
mori. In March 1181 he had fallen seriously ill, and on the
20th of that month the end was seen to be at hand. All his
family and the chief retainers of the house were assembled
round the couch of the dying man, and respectfully inquired
what he would say. Sighing deeply, he replied, " He that is
born must necessarily die and not I alone. Since the period
of Heiji (1159) I have served the Imperial House. I have
ruled under Heaven (i.e. the Empire) absolutely. I have
attained the highest rank possible to a subject. I am the
grandfather of the Emperor on his mother's side- Is there
still a regret? My regret is only that I am dying, and have
not yet seen the head of Yoritomo of the Minamoto. After my
death, make no offerings to Buddha on my behalf ; do not read
the sacred books for me. Only cut off the head of Yoritomo of
the Minamoto and hang it on my tomb. Let all my sons and
grandsons, retainers and followers, each and every one follow
out my command, and on no account neglect to do so." With
such words on his lips Taira Kiyomori passed away.
" Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon 'em." Such measure of greatness
as may be conceded to Kiyomori would seem to be derived
from each of these sources in fairly even proportions. The
merit of Tadamori and his position of trusted henchman to
the two ex-Sovereigns, Shirakawa I. and Toba I., had enabled
him to lay a tolerably stable foundation for the fortunes of the
Ise Hieshi; and when he died, in 1153, Kiyomori succeeded
him as the Fidus Achates of Toba. Then came the great dis-
turbances of 1156 and 1160; and both of these, especially the
latter, turned out to be pieces of supreme good luck for Kiyo-

mori. Both took him by surprise; the second found him

utterly unprepared and in an apparently hopeless position of
disadvantage. Indeed, but for the resolution of the youthful
Shigemori, and the halting counsels of the conspirators, Kiyo-
334 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

mori would in all probability have been ruined. As it was,

the net result of the two great emeutes was the removal of
Kiyomori's powerful rival, his uncle Tadamasa, and the virtual
extirpation of the Minamotos, the only counterpoise to the
military might of the Tairas. Henceforth for a score of years
the argument of the sword was in their hands alone; and this
argument the Court and courtiers had time and again to re-
cognise as unanswerable. With this argument in reserve, Kiyo-
mori felt he could safely retort upon the haughty Fujiwaras
their own traditional device, and ultimately oust them from
the exercise of it. The marriage of two of Kiyomori's daugh-
ters to successive Fujiwara chieftains, still mere boys, and the
astute counsels of that Aehitophel, Fujiwara Kunitsuna, en-
abled Kiyomori to shackle the great civilian clan, and bend it
more or less compliantly to his purposes. Then the ex-Em-
peror Shirakawa's fondness for his son by Kiyomori's sister-
in-law, and his wish to place him on the throne, was
another rare stroke of good fortune for the Taira chief,
whose armed support for the success of this project
was absolutely indispensable. For his services on this
occasion Kiyomori had many rewards; but perhaps the
greatest of them all was the marriage of yet another of his
daughters with the boy Sovereign. When this daughter
became the mother of the Crown Prince, the fortunes of the
house of Taira seemed to be assured. Their only military
rivals had, as they believed, been virtually annihilated, and
their civilian rivals, the Fujiwaras, supplanted and reduced
to impotence.
Against all this, however, at the death of Kiyomori, in
March 1181, had to be set the following not inconsiderable
items. In the first place the bitter hatred of the Cloistered
P^mperor, Shirakawa II.; the intense detestation of the Fuji-
waras, with perhaps the exception of Kiyomori's tool and
son-in-law the Kwampaku Motomichi, then about 20 years of
age; the deadly enmity of the Buddhist sects whose great
fanes had been given to the flames ; the dislike of the citizens
of Kyoto who had suffered severely by the temporary removal
of the capital and the resentment of the superstitious among
;

all classes for inviting the wrath of the gods, and so afflicting

the Empire with miseries such as it had not known since the
introduction of Buddhism in the time of the Sogas, All these
 THE GREATNESS OF THE TAIRA. 335

elements of discontent and danger were indeed separate and

distinct, and individually were perhaps each in themselves not
so very formidable after all. But once bring them to a
common focus! Just at this time, after the eclipse of a long
night of twenty years, the sun of the Minamoto had again
risen resplendently in the East. With that for a focussing
point for all these elements of disquiet in the seats of the
Taira supremacy, Uiere was serious danger ahead indeed. At
the same time, the infant Emperor (Antoku Tenno) was a
Taira, entirely in the hands of his armed kinsmen, who held
the capital and controlled all it contained, —Cloistered
Emperor, Fujiwara courtiers, suffering and vengeful-
citizens,
hearted shaven-pated monks alike. Besides, more than thirty
provinces were governed by Taira prefects; while the private
estatesand military resources of the clan, especially in the
West and South-West, were immense. Under bold and able
leadership the situation of the Tairas might well be regarded
as the reverse of desperate, in spite of all the gathering,
massing elements of unrest and menace by which they were
now threatened. But for this bold and able leadership the
Taira were very soon destined to find that they were utterly
and sadly to seek, for Munemori, their new chief, was at once
commonplace and poltroon. And meanwhile, sedulously
gathering into his pitiless grasp of iron every item that might
be bent to the supreme purpose of crushing the overblown
power and pride of the brood who had massacred his father
and kinsmen, and of making himself the real master in Japan,
Minamoto Yoritomo was building his great city of Kamakura
and thinking out the future.
In the following chapter, we shall endeavour to trace the
course of events from a Minamoto and Eastern point of view.
 336

CHAPTER XII.

THE FALL OF THE TAIRA.

YOSHINAKA AND YOSHITSUNE.

TT will be remembered that after the great cataclysm of 1160,

-*- which proved so fatal to the Minamoto, the life of
Yoshitomo's third son was reluctantly spared by Kiyomori
and that the youth was banished to Izu.
In the valley of the Kano-gawa, some seven or eight miles
from the point where the Tokaido begins to scale the Hakone
slope from the west, lies the village of Nirayama. At that
date its site was occupied by the manor of Hiru-ka-kojima, of
which a certain Ito Sukechika was lord. Although not a
Taira, but a Fujiwara, he was an adherent in whom Kiyomori
felt he could place a full measure of reliance. So it was in
Sukechika's mansion that the young Minamoto exile was
placed. In the valley, nearer the course of the stream, lay
the estate of Hojo Tokimasa, who, of Taira descent, had taken
the name of the district he possessed as his own. This
Tokimasa, a humble distant relation of the great Ise Heishi
was entrusted with the duty of seeing to it that his
chieftain,
neighbouring " laid/' Ito Sukechika, should be strict in the
watch and ward he exercised over the boy committed to his
charge. Accordingly Yoritomo, endowed with an unusual
measure of Minamoto precocity, soon perceived that if he
were ever to retrieve the disastrously fallen fortunes of the
great and illustrious house of which he was now the head, he
must be careful in all his goings and comings, and sayings
and doings. So, as he grew to man's estate, his self-control,
his mastery over his passions, or rather of the expression of
them, his unfailing cheerfulness in all circumstances, and,
above all, and consideration
his unvaried courtesy towards,
for, all he came in contact with, won him an astonishing

popularity among the professed clients of the house which had

wrecked his own. To say that he was of dauntless courage,
that he made himself a master of all the arts and accomplish-
ments of the warrior, is unnecessary; for he was of Seiwa-
 THE FALL OP THE TAIRA. 337

Genji stock. But the untutored military ardour and gallantry

of the warlike Minamoto had time and again been the source
of their undoing; and this consideration Yoritomo took deeply
to heart. So during his long exile of twenty years, he
pondered profoundly over the lessons of the past and of recent
history; and, reading the puzzling signs of the disordered
times with astounding prescience, when the hour struck for
him to emerge on the political stage to play his part in the

national drama, he proved himself to be the possessor of, if

not the best equipped, at all events the most original mind in
the realm of constructive statesmanship that had hitherto
appeared in Japan.
A few years before his great opportunity came in 1180,
he had got into serious trouble with his warder, Ito Sukechika.
His graces of person, his manly accomplishments, his polished
and winning manners had easily enabled him to conquer the
affections of Ito's daughter. When Ito learned that he had
become the grandfather of a Minamoto, his wrath was un-
bounded, and Yoritomo had to flee for his life, and put himself
under the protection of Ho jo Tokimasa.
Here again in course of time the relations between Yori-
tomo and Tokimasa's eldest daughter, Masa, by his first wife,
became a good deal more than friendly. It is said that
Tokimasa knew nothing of this; to judge from subsequent
developments the probabilities are that he knew about it very
well. However, any marriage alliance between his house and
the head of the proscribed Minamoto clan might very well cost
him his life. Accordingly, in the course of his return from
one of his visits to Kyoto, he betrothed his daughter to the
Acting-Governor of Izu, Taira Kanetaka. On the very night
of thewedding the Lady Masa and Yoritomo figured as
protagonists in an incident such as is commemorated in the
Border ballads of " Lochinvar " and " Jock o' Hazledean."
Like " Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves," Kanetaka and his
Taira kinsmen " mounted " and " rode and ran " but in spite ;

of all their spurring the Lady Masa " wasna seen." The
Hojos, pretending to be hotly indignant, joined in the hue
and cry; and most probably carefully confined their search
to the wrong quarters. At all events, what is highly significant
is that, when Yoritomo and Tokimasa rose in 1180, their first

step was to send 80 cavaliers to kill the Acting-Governor

w
338 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Kanetaka, and to fire his house. Then, shortly after this, the
nuptials of Yoritomo and the Lady Masa were publicly cele-

brated.
In May, or June, 1180, Yoritomo- s uncle, Yukiiye, had ar-
rived in the East with Prince Mochihito's summons to the
Minamoto to rise in arms, and had handed a copy of the docu-
ment to Yoritomo. The latter's first step was to show it
secretly to his warder, Hdjd Tokimasa and the two were pre-
;

paring to move, when news came down about the affair of

the Bridge of Uji and the subsequent death of Prince Mochi-
hito. This might have served to keep them quiet; but a few
days later, a message was received from Yoritomo's confidential
agent in the capital that the Taira were about to exterminate
the Minamoto, and that Yoritomo should at once make good
his escape into Mutsu. This intelligence, backed by the robust
counsels of His Reverence Mongaku Shonin, who practically
urged that
" He
either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose It all."

decided the plotters^ and in July, Yoritomo secretly dis-

patched trusty emissaries to summon all the Minamoto clans-

men and dependants to arms.*

* This Mongaku Shonin was a typical figure of the age. Endo

Morito, as he was originally called, lost his father at an early age, and
was brought up by his uncle, Haruki Michiyoshi. Before eighteen he
had got a commission in the Guards, and at that age he became en-
amoured of his beautiful cousin, Kesa Gozen, the wife of a fellow-officer,
Minamoto Wataru. When the lady steadfastly rejected his suit, the
foiled lover threatened to kill her aged mother if she did not yield to
his wishes and consent to the death of her husband, or even if she —
informed on him. Thereupon the Lady Kesa pretended to give way,
and appointed a night when Endo might s'ay her husband. On that
night, however, she persuaded her husband to be absent; and dressing
her hair in male fashion, and .donning his dress, lay down in his
usual place. Presently the assassin stole into the chamber and
severed the head of his victim at a blow. When he held it up and in-
spected it in the semi-darkness, and realised what had actually hap-
pened, his feelings may be imagined. In horror and remorse he
rushed to a temple, confessed his crime, shaved his head, and though
it was the very depth of winter, went out and stood for twenty one
days under the icy flood of a waterfall. His penance over, he took the
name of Mongaku, and devoted himself to reconstructing the temple
on Mount Takao. While on his rounds begging for this purpose, he
had, after forcing himself into the residence of Shirakawa II.. been
disrespectful to that Sovereign; and for this offence had been exiled to
Tzu in 1179. It is said that while the ex-Emperor was strictly confined
in the Fukuwara (June to December 1180) Mongaku found his way
into his presence, and obtained a Decree from him commanding Yorl-
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 339

Meanwhile Yoritomo was deep in secret counsel with some

half score of the leading gentry of Tzuand Saga mi. A peru-
sal of the list of theirnames reveals a highly significant, if
not an astounding fact. There was only one or two Mina-
moto among them; two were of Fujiwara descent, while the
Hojos, the Miuras, the Ohibas, and the Dois were all Tairas !

And these were only a few of the Kwantd Tairas that arrayed
themselves under the white banner of the Minamotos in the
internecine strife against the red flag of their own house. On
the other hand, many of the Kwantd Minamoto were at first

distinctly hostile to Yoritomo's cause, and had to be reduced

by force of arms.
This great contest was by no manner of means the simple
struggle between Taira and Minamoto it is usually represented
to have been. The fact is that without the whole-hearted and
enthusiastic support of the most prominent of the Taira gentry
in the Kwanto, Yoritomo's cause would have been even more
hopeless than that of Yorimasa's had just proved to be. Among
their other cardinal mistakes the Ise Heishi, on acquiring w hat
r

was virtually supreme power in Kyoto, had assumed the in-

solent airs of the Fujiwaras and other Court nobles; and had
time and again treated their country cousins from the Kwanto
with the scant courtesy accorded to poor relations, whose
roughness and rusticity of manner made them " impossibili-
ties " in the fashionable aristocratic circles of the fastidious
and luxurious capital. Besides, all those plums in the pud-
ding of office —Provincial Governorships—as they were regard-
ed by the Kwanto Taira, were, together with the still richer
posts, carefully reserved by the Ise Heishi for themselves. For
years before 1180, had been the subject of discussion
all this

and the origin of bitter remarks in many a Taira household in

the Kwanto. Now, among all the favoured and pampered Ise
Heishi, who had so very cheaply risen to supremacy in Japan,
there was no one, and never had been any one, of the mental
capacity of their obscure Kwanto cousin Ho jo Tokimasa, who
had been " honoured " with the post of co-warder of Yoritomo
in 1160.

tomo to take arms to free the Emneror from the tyranny of the Tairas.
This account may not be altogether authentic; but what is certain Is
that Yoritomo repaired the temple of Takao. made MongaKu Its
superior, and always treated him with much regard,
340 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

At that date Tokimasa was a young man of twenty-two, nine

years older than his ward. Each independently had kept
watching and analysing the progressive phases of the political
situation and when nearly a score of years later on, as mature
;

men, they frankly, though secretly, opened their minds to each

other, they found that their views were identical and their
interests the reverse of antagonistic. Besides, the masculine-
minded Lady Masa was at once a model wife and a most dutiful
daughter. Hojo Tokimasa's alert intelligence must have been
able to divine the real drift of the turbid stream of tendency
long before the death of Shigemori on September 3, 1179. The
premature and unfortunate death of that honest and capable,
though not intellectually great, prospective Ise Heishi chieftain
must have served to convince him that nothing under Heaven
could now preserve Kiyomori and his heir, the commonplace
poltroon Munemori, from riding for a fall. At this time, or
even before this time, he must have come to a full understand-
ing with his " prisoner
}t
—
and son-in-law. Tokimasa had
acquired great influence among his Taira kinsmen in Sagami,
and in the provinces across the Bay, who were frequently his
guests. If we duly consider all this, it will perhaps become
not very difficult to understand how
was that so much de-
it

voted Kwanto Taira support was accorded to Minamoto Yori-

tomo, whom the astute Hojo Tokimasa had almost undoubtedly
aided and abetted in playing the role of a Japanese " Jock
o' Hazledean " —with his own strong-minded eldest daughter
as the " bride, sae comely to be seen." It is usual to impute a
large share of Yoritomo's administrative and organising suc-
cess to Oe Hiromoto, a descendant of the able and illustrious
Tadafusa. It is impossible to question the political and ad-
ministrative ability and originality of the distinguished Hiro-
moto, who attached himself to Yoritomo's fortunes in this year
of 1180. But on the other hand, in all really large questions
of policy and diplomacy it is equally impossible to deny the
supreme importance of the services of that Taira Achitophel,
Hoj5 Tokimasa, to the cause of his son-in-law Yoritomo of the
Minamoto.
At this date a certain Taira Tomochika, a relative of Kane-
taka, the Acting-Governor of Izu, was harrying the country
in pretty much the same fashion as Minamoto Tametomo had
done ten or a dozen years before. So this was made an excuse
 THE PALL OP THE TAIRA. 34 L

for arming by the conspirators, who forged an order from

Prince Mochihito to punish him. With this document tied to
his standardYoritomo crossed the Hakone pass at the head
of 300 men and advanced into Sagami on September 11,
1180. Three nights before, Hojo Tokimasa with 80 men had
burned the Acting-Governor's mansion over his head and
killed him.
Yoritomo and band posted themselves on Ishibashi-
his little
yama and here they found themselves
(Stone-Bridge-Hill) ;

confronted by a hostile force of 3,000 men under Oba Kage-

chika, a Taira, whose brother was with Yoritomo*; while
unknown to them a body of 300 under It5 Sukechika was ad-
vancing from Izu to fall upon their rear. The night of Sep-
tember 14 set in tempestuously with a rousing wind and a
pouring rain. It was in the midst of this tempest that Oba
and Ito delivered their attack. Yoritomo's men fought des-
perately and held out till daylight. But numbers told at last
and the survivors had to flee. Yoritomo escaped with the
greatest difficulty. After a romantic series of adventures, in
the course of which he was on the verge of capture by his
pursuers on more than one occasion, he at last found safety
in the wild recesses of the Hakone mountain. Hence he worked
his way towards the entrance to Yedo Bay; and joined by
the Miura and various other adherents passed over to the Awa
side. In Awa he found ready partisans in the Oyama, Shima-
kobe, and others, while the Sagami gentry kept coming over
the water to join him. In a few days he was strong enough to
begin his march up the coast and round the head of the gulf.
In Shimosa, the Chibas and others came in; and by the time
he reached the left bank of the Sumida he found himself in
command of a force of 10,000 men. From Kadzusa he had not
got the support he had expected, and he began to suspect the
good faith of the Vice-Governor, Taira Hirotsune, on whose
co-operation he had counted. However, while Yoritomo was
encamped on the Sumida, Hirotsune appeared at the head of
20,000 troops. The army now crossed the stream and advanced
into Musashi, where all the local chiefs hastened to join it.
When it presently passed into Sagami, not only the waverers,

Both these brothers, it may be remaiked, had been staunch hench-

*
men of Yoshitomo, and had fought gallantly under him in the great
Kyoto disturbances.
342 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

but such former active opponents as Hatakeyama Shigetada

rallied to the white flag. On reaching the Pacific coast again,
Yoritomo established himself at Kamakura.
Here, however, his first sojourn was a brief one. From
Awa, Hojo Tokimasa had been dispatched on a mission to Kai,
to rouse the Minamotos of that and the neighbouring pro-
vinces. The chief Minamoto family there was the Takeda;
and round the Takeda chieftains the mountain warriors
eagerly rallied. Hojo Tokimasa was on the point of sending
his force to join Yoritomo, then just crossing the Sumida, when
instructions from the latter arrived requesting the Takedas
to pour into Suruga, sweep it and par-
clear of Taira officials
tisans, and then retire to the Kise stream. Here, they were
told, an army from the Kwanto would presently be thrown for-
ward to join them. The Takedas overran Suruga easily enough.
Soon the Kamakura troops, with Yoritomo in command, de-
filed across the Ashigara Pass; and by November 9, 1180, the

combined forces, 27,000 strong, had advanced to the left bank

of the River Fuji and encamped there. On the opposite bank
the red pennon was gaily fluttering in the breeze; and under it
were 50,000 tired and weary Taira troops, who had been hur-
ried hot-foot up from Kyoto and the country beyond.
Kiyomori had been greatly pleased when Oba Kagechika's
messenger had brought him the news of Stone Bridge Hill. But
when post after post from the Kwanto kept coming in with
intelligence of nothing but defection among the most trusted,
if not trusty, Taira partisans in that quarter, he was very dis-

agreeably surprised. Then, to heap evil upon evil, came the

news that in Shinano there was a separate and independent
Minamoto revolt, and that Yoshinaka, the head of it, had not
only beaten Ogasawara, the Taira Governor of the province,
but that he had reduced Kodzuke to the south, and might soon
be expected to be raiding the Taira province of Echigo to the
north. As Kiyomori was the grandfather of the infant Em-
peror, an Imperial commission to chastise the rebels was very
readily procured for his grandson, Koremori, who, accom-
panied by Kiyomori's youngest brother, Tadanori, and other
members of the Taira family, had now, on November 9, 1180,
arrived on the right bank of the arrowy current of the Fuji.
The accounts of whit Ihen took place are obscure and con-
flicting. What seems probable is that the Takedas, on reduc-
ing Surnga to Minamoto subjection, had not fallen back to the
 THE PALL OF THE TAIRA. 343

Kise stream. At all events it is likely that a part at least of

their forces had remained Western Suruga, and that these

in

now found themselves on the left flank of the Taira army.

What is clear is that November 13, 1180, had been fixed by the

general staffs of both the armies as the day for opening an

action with the usual preliminary arrow-flight, and that this
action was never fought. On the night of the 12th-13th Nov-
ember, one of the Takedas came in on the Taira rear; and the
resulting confusion was such as ensued when Gideon and his
three hundred fell upon the hosts of Midian at the beginning
of the middle watch. Just at this moment the Taira chiefs,
who had been assembled in a council of war for hours, were
approaching a decision. They had been astounded by the vir-

tual unanimity and the enthusiastic devotion of the Eastern

gentry in support of what they affected to call the rebel
cause. For the Tairas to advance into a country where feeling
was so plainly and so bitterly against them would be highly
imprudent. Supposing they were to meet with a defeat be-
yond the Ashigara Pass, the Kwanto would simply prove a
death-trap for them. Far better to fall back upon their base
in the West, and there stand upon the defensive-offensive.
Such seems to have been the general consensus of opinion ar-
rived at the moment when the Takeda chief fell upon the rear
of the Taira camp. This proved to be the clinching argument.
When day dawned not a single red pennon was to be seen be-
side the Fuji stream.
Yoritomo was for pursuing and advancing upon Kyoto.
But, fortunately for him, he listened to the remonstrances of
his leading officers,who insisted that the better strategy was
to return and make his base perfectly secure. In Shimotsuke
—
were the Nitta, and in Hitachi the Satake, Minamoto families
both, —but both hostile to Yoritomo and his cause. Ultimately
the Nitta gave in their adhesion without any fighting. But it

was far otherwise in the case of Satake Hideyoshi, who in his

stronghold of Kanasa held out stubbornly and gallantly
against a strong investing force. At last the fortress fell
through the treachery of one of Hideyoshi's kinsmen but ;

Hideyoshi himself succeeded in making good his retreat to the

North. Soon after an arrangement was arrived at between
him and Yoritomo, who however continued to stand in such
wholesome dread of his northern neighbour that when first
344 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

summoned Court in 1183 he dared not leave Kamakura lest

to
it Before the year was out
should be attacked in his absence.
Yoritomo was in possession of Totomi, Suruga, Izu, and seven
•ofthe eight provinces of the Kwanto. The remaining one,
Kodzuke, had meanwhile been overrun by Yoritomo's cousin
and rival, the brilliant leader, Yoshinaka.
remembered that Yoshitomo's eldest son, Yoshi-
It will be
hira,had made his first campaign at the age of fifteen, when he
vanquished and killed his own uncle Yoshikata, in Musashi.
Yoshihira at that time instructed one of his retainers to kill

his uncle's two-year-old son; but the retainer, not much in

love with the commission, had the child safely smuggled out
of the province, and reported that he had been duly made
away with. Yoshinaka, as he was afterwards called, was con-
signed to the care of Nakahara Kaneto, whose estates lay in
the mountain wilds of South-Western Shinano where the Kiso
takes its rise and gathers its earliest affluents. Here Yoshi-
naka grew up to be a mighty man of war. When Prince Mochi-
hito's summons reached him he was eight and twenty years of

age, six years younger than his cousin, Yoritomo. He promptly

responded to the appeal, routed Ogasawara, the Taira Go-
vernor of the province, and then pushed on into Kodzuke and
reduced the greater part of that province. When winter put
an end to the brief campaign of 1180, the Minamoto chiefs had,
indeed, ample reason for congratulating themselves on its re-
sults.

Next year, Kiyomori died March; and about May the

in
Tairas braced themselves for a great effort, and summoned all

their clansmen to arms. As this was the year of famine and

pestilence the result was disappointing; it was with great diffi-
culty that a force of 20,000 men was set afoot. However it
proved sufficient to inflict a crushing defeat upon Yoritomo's
uncle Yuki-iye, who had meanwhile seized the province of
Owari, and to drive him back upon the Kwanto. After this
there was a long lull of some fourteen months in military opera-
tions, —
the pest was working its ravages in Kyoto and in the
Taira country.
Echigo was the seat of the powerful Jo family, of Taira
stock. Unlike the Kwanto Tairas, it had remained steadfast to
the cause of its brethren, the Ise Heishi ; and in response to an
urgent appeal from Munemori, the Jo chieftain in July 1182
 THE FALL OP THE TAIRA. 34.5

raised a great force and threw himself upon Yoshinaka. The

results were terribly disastrous to the Taira cause. Jo was ut-
terly beaten; and Yoshinaka promptly overran Echigo, and
then, wheeling round to the left, he swept Etchti, Kaga, Noto,
and Echizen clear of Tairas and Taira partisans. In a few
months he had wrested 10,000 square miles of territory from
the supporters of the red flag. As winter was then coming on,
and the snow lay many feet deep in the Hokurikudo and the
passes leading thereinto from the capital, the Tairas had to
resign themselves to the situation till the soft and balmy winds
of spring were abroad. Meanwhile they worked hard at bring-
ing up every available man from the West, where they had
succeeded in crushing all the malcontents; and late in April,
or early in May, 1183, a host of 100,000 men was poured into
Echizen to make an end of Yoshinaka.
The position of the latter at this time was indeed perilous,
for just a little before his own cousin Yoritomo had sent 10,000
men up the Usui Pass to attack him Jealousy, envy, suspicion,
!

and cold-heartedness were the great moral weaknesses of Yori-

tomo. Yoshinaka's sudden and brilliant success in Shinano
and Kodzuke, although at first relieving him from a great an-
xiety, had not been entirely pleasing to his cousin, for Yoshi-
naka had owed absolutely nothing to Yoritomo, and so had
shown no very great inclination to be subservient to him. The
Takeda chieftain had proposed a marriage alliance between a
daughter of his house and Yoshinaka's son to Yoshinaka, but
Yoshinaka had rejected the overture. This refusal gave great
offence; and the Takedas, now meeting Yoritomo day by day,
kept on slandering Yoshinaka to him. Yoshinaka was about to
marry a daughter of Taira Shigemori, and to join the Tairas in
—
crushing Yoritomo, such was a fair sample of the tales the
Takedas kept pouring into the ears of the envious, jealous, and
profoundly suspicious Lord of Kamakura. How far Hojo Toki-
masa was concerned in all this it is difficult to say. One of his
daughters had been married into the Takeda house and Toki- ;

masa's dearest and chiefest thought was to make himself the

real master in the Minamoto counsels. It was of supreme im-
portance to him that all inconvenient rivals of his son-in-law,
Yoritomo, should be removed from the scene, quietly and —
justly and decorously, if possible; but if not so possible, then
removed anyhow. Then, just at this time, Yoritomo had diffi-
culties with a certain Shida Yoshihiro ; and the latter, getting
346 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the worst of it, had fled up the Usui Pass and taken service

with Yoshinaka. And as if all this were not enough, Uncle

Yuki-iye, who had been so handsomely and summarily beaten
out of Owari by the famished Taira in the plague year, had
contrived to add his quota to the embroilment of the cousins.
After kicking his heels for months in Kamakura, he had pressed
Yoritomo to give him the Governorship or Protectorship
of a province. Yoritomo in reply told him to go and conquer
provinces for himself as he (Yoritomo) and Yoshinaka had
done. Thereupon Uncle Yuki-iye also saw fit to take an abrupt
departure up the Usui Pass. The worst feature in the proceed-
ing, perhaps, was that he had taken a thousand horse-bowmen
with him. The net outcome of all this was that a Kamakura
force was sent up into Shinano to kill Yoshinaka. At this junc-
ture Yoshinaka showed an unusual amount of good sense, —
quality in which he proved himself to be signally deficient a
year or so later on when success had turned his head. When
his retainers urged him to fight Yoritomo, he remarked to them
that internal dissensions had reduced the house of Minamoto
to impotence and made it the laughing-stock of the Empire.
Accordingly, they must all promptly retreat into Echigo, and
leave Yoritomo's men to do their will in Shinano. When Yori-
tomo heard of this, he recalled his troops. Yoshinaka was
warned about Uncle Yuki-iye's peculiarities; and in com-
pliance with his cousin's suggestion sent his son, Yoshitaka,
to Kamakura, to be betrothed to Yoritomo's daughter.
Meantime, while this comedy of family errors was being
enacted the snows were melting, and presently the head
of the Taira columns had defiled through the Omi-Echi-
zen passes. Yoshinaka dispatched two of his best officers

with very scanty forces to hold the strong strategic

position of Hi-uchi-yawa at all costs. These men did
their duty well ; but they were finally overwhelmed
by sheer weight of numbers. The loss of this fortress
was a serious blow to the fortunes of Yoshinaka; added im-
it

mensely to Taira prestige, and all the Samurai of Echizen

hastened to range themselves under the red pennon. A little

later the Southerners encountered Uncle Yuki-iye in Kaga, and

pushed him into Noto, where he was beaten at Shio-san. While
one Taira division was left to deal with him, the main body
pressed on into Etchu. Meanwhile Yoshinaka had got his
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 347

forces together. Advancing from Echigo he caught the main

Taira host in a trap at Tonami and cut it to pieces, some ac-

counts putting its losses at the almost incredible figure of

50,000. The news of this relieved the pressure on Yuki-iye in
Noto; and after Yoshinaka had again beaten the Tairas at the
Kurikara Pass, uncle and nephew joined forces. At Shinowara
the Tairas sustained another bloody defeat, and after this they
were simply hunted along the road all the way to Seta, near
the capital. From hence Yuki-iye advanced south towards
Yamato, while Yoshinaka encamped on Hi-ei-zan. Taira troops
had been dispatched from the capital to hold Seta and Uji, but
their commanders lost heart and fell back. Meanwhile Mina-
moto Yukitsuna and Ashikaga Yoshikane were threatening the
city from Kawachi and Tamba respectively.
Munemori had appealed to the monks of Hi-ei-zan for sup-
port, offering them tempting inducements; but so far from
listening favourably to him, they joined Yoshinaka. Munemori
now resolved upon flight; and in spite of the remonstrances of
his stronger minded kinsmen, the capital was evacuated by his
orders on August 14, 1183. On that day Munemori fired his
mansion; and, taking with him the boy Emperor, his eldest
brother, the Emperor's mother, and the Sacred Sword and Seal,
he set out for the West. It was his intention to make the Clois-
tered Emperor accompany him also but on the previous night
;

(August 13-14) Shirakawa II. escaped and took refuge on Hi-

ei-zan. The Kwampaku, Motomichi, also made his escape,
while the youthful Emperor's two youngest brothers were also
left behind. On September Munemori's party reached Da-
5,

zaifu in Kyushu, and there the Court was temporarily estab-

lished.
Immediately after the flight of the Tairas, the Cloistered

Emperor returned to the capital escorted by Yoshinaka at the

head of 30,000 men, and assumed the direction of affairs. One
of his first acts was to strip more than 200 Tairas of their
ranks and offices, and to declare the possessions of the clan
forfeited. Then came the question of rewards. Yoritomo
was at once summoned to Court, it being Shirakawa II. 's in-
tention to honour the cousins at the same time. But Yoritomo
could not come to Court at that time on account of his appre-
hensions of what Satake might do in his absence. However,
when it came to the publication of the rewards for meritorious
348 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

services, Yoshinaka was displeased to find himself placed

second to Yoritomo. Yet, he had been handsomely dealt
with on the whole. The fifth grade of Court rank was not
much in itself perhaps; but Yoshinaka was accorded a special
privilege of audience. At the same time he was appointed
Commander of the Left Wing of the Cavalry in the Imperial
Guard and Governor of Echigo. But what was most substan-
tial of all perhaps was the free gift to him of no fewer than

140 of the 500 forfeited Taira manors. When he expressed his

dissatisfaction with all this, he was made Governor of Iyo
instead of Echigo. Iyo was in the hands of the Tairas, and
Yoshinaka could find his profit in wresting it from them;
Echigo he had already overrun, and was so strong there that
it did not much matter to him who was the Governor.

But this was only the beginning of the troubles between

the Court and Yoshinaka. The latter had risen at the sum-
mons of Prince Mochihito. Upon the death of that Prince
(1180) his son had become a priest and retired to the Hoku-
rikudo for safety. This youth Yoshinaka had brought up with
him to the capital, and he was determined to have him placed
on the throne as a recognition of the distinguished services of
bis father. Nowthat the boy Emperor, Antoku, had deserted
the capital, was resolved that he should be replaced by a new
it

sovereign. His third and fourth brothers, five and four years
old respectively, were brought before their grandfather, the
Cloistered Emperor. The elder commenced to cry, while the
younger crawled up and began to play round the old man's
knees. His tears on this occasion cost the elder boy the throne
of Japan, and his younger brother was proclaimed Emperor
(Go-Toba or Toba II.). But Yoshinaka had insistently
pressed the claims of the Hokuriku Prince, on the grounds of
the merits of his father. The Cloistered Emperor caused it to
be explained to him that the Prince was ineligible on two
grounds: first he was the son of the son of a concubine, and
secondly he had become a priest. Yoshinaka continued to
and as it was ill
press his point in spite of all this, however;
work arguing with perhaps the ablest captain in Japan enthu-
siastically supported by 50,000 trenchant blades in Kyoto,
where there was now no military force except those wild men
from the Shinano and Echigo mountains, Shirakawa II. sug-
gested that the question of the succession should be decided by
 THE PALL OP THE TAIRA. 349

" divination." Yoshinaka at once agreed, and his protege

won! When, in spite of all this, the Hokuriku Prince was
set aside, Yoshinaka, we are told, gnashed his teeth with rage.
This was on September 8, 1183, a little more than three weeks
after the flight of the Tairas from Kyoto.
Yoshinaka's best troops were rough and rude mountaineers
from Central Japan, whose appearance and mien and manners
were far more uncouth to the citizens of the luxurious capital
than were those of the Highlanders to the English in 1745.
Yoshinaka himself was entirely country -bred he was no ;

scholar ;
"
and he cared nothing whatsoever for polite accom-
plishments." Hence he got laughed at by the well-bred,
effeminate Court grandees and fashionable dandies of Kyoto;
and he was weak enough and foolish enough to allow that to
ruffle his equanimity. Purposely, perhaps, he allowed his
troops to get seriously out of hand. In the capital they com-
mitted many outrages; and roaming about the neighbouring
country they established themselves by force in the manors
and and lived there at free quarters.
villas of the courtiers,
When Yoritomo word that he could not come up to
sent
Court, the Cloistered Emperor found it highly advisable to
conciliate Yoshinaka, who was made Governor of Shinano and
Kodzuke in addition to his other posts. Meanwhile, his ex-
Majesty sent down an order to Yoritomo to occupy all the
manors and districts in the Tokaido, Tosando, and Hoku-
rikudo which had been seized upon by the Tairas, and after
due investigation to restore them to their original owners.
Later on, when this came to the knowledge of Yoshinaka, his
jealousy of his Kamakura cousin was still further intensified.
Then, in Yoshinaka contrived to offend Uncle
October,
Yuki-iye very deeply; and Yuki-iye began to work against his
nephew in secret. With no common enemy immediately in
front of them the Minamoto chieftains had fallen victims to
—
the great curse of their house, internal dissension. Mune-
mori's precipitate evacuation of the capital on August 15th
had turned out to be no bad stroke of strategy after all It had !

afforded the Minamotos an opportunity to fall out among them-

selves, while the Tairas were gathering strength for another
great effort.
At Dazaifu, most of the local chiefs had at first rallied

to the red standard, but a few weeks afterwards a force raised

350 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

in Bungo by Emperor drove the

the orders of the Cloistered
Tairas from Dazaifu to Hakata and thence to Hakozaki, and
finally Kyushu had to be evacuated. The opposite province
of Nagato was friendly; and with the assistance of the Acting-
Governor of it, Antoku Tenno was safely escorted to Yashima,
in Sanuki, by water. Thanks mainly to the services of a
certain Taguchi, the whole island of Shikoku declared for the
Tairas, who now Yashima and built a
fortified themselves at

palace for the young Emperor there. The Sanyddo also was
favourable to their cause and by November there were strong
Taira forces afoot in that circuit.
To deal with these, Uncle Yuki-iye, who had been made
Governor of Bizen, was on the point of being dispatched from
the capital, when Yoshinaka pointed out to the Cloistered
Emperor that while Yuki iye's courage could not be ques-
tioned, he was a most unfortunate commander, continually
getting badly beaten, and that he would find the task too much
for him. Yoshinaka was then pressed to assume command in
person; and he dispatched three of his officers to deal with
the Tairas in Bizen, while he got ready for a descent on
Shikoku and for taking Yashima.
In December 1183, Yoshinaka's officers were completely
routed by the Tairas at Mizushima on the borders of Bitchu
and Bizen. At that date Yoshinaka was in Harima making
preparations to cross to Yashima; but he had to hurry on
towards Bitchu to repair the errors of his sub-commanders
there. The first body of troops he dispatched deserted and
went over to the red flag, and while he was engaged in reducing
them he was startled by the intelligence that a Kamakura
army of 30,000 men under Yoshitsune was approaching the
capital. Although instructed by the Cloistered Emperor to
remain on the spot to prosecute the campaign, Yoshinaka
abandoned his projected descent on Yashima, and hurried up
10 Kyoto to prevent the Kamakura army from entering it.
As a matter of fact, there was no Kamakura army at all
approaching at that time ; but Yoshinaka distrusted Yoritomo
profoundly and dreaded him more than he did the Taira.
He now privately consulted Uncle Yuki-iye about the ad-
visability of evacuating Kyoto, and falling back upon and
holding the provinces they had conquered, — Shinano, Kodzuke,
apd tfre Hokurikudo, Uncle Yuki-iye promptly informed the
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 351

Cloistered Emperor of this, eking out the tale by saying that

it was Yoshinaka's purpose to carry off his ex-Majesty's sacred
person with him into the snowy wilds of the central moun-
tains. When Yoshinaka found out that Uncle Yuki-iye had
not only basely betrayed his counsels, but had slandered him
grossly, Uncle Yuki-iye found it convenient to get out of
Kyoto. With own retainers he advanced into Harima to
his
meet the Tairas, by whom, as usual, he was presently beaten
disastrously. He then took refuge in Kawachi and here ;

Higuchi, one of Yoshinaka's four devoted companions, was

looking for him, when Yoshinaka's fate overtook him.
It seems tolerably clear that Uncle Yuki-iye's character
had been read correctly enough by the astute Yoritomo. In
short, Yoritomo was simply a Yuki-iye on a much grander
scale. Both were brave enough personally, neither one nor the
other was a military genius, both were intriguers, but with
this difference that while Yuki-iye's outlook was the outlook
of that vulgar thing called a politician, Yoritomo could survey
the whole general situation from the lofty and elevated point
of view of the statesman. But by nature Yoritomo was cold-
hearted, pitiless, ruthless, —as unscrupulous as Richelieu in
his dealings with opponents, when there was any question of
" reasons of State." Only too many had ultimately cause to
speak of him as the gallant and chivalrous Lannes wrote about
Napoleon during the siege of Dantzic :
—" I have always been
the victim of my attachment to him. He only loves you by
fitsand starts, that is, when he has need of you." Such also
at bottom was Uncle Yuki-iye's nature, but on a much smaller
and meaner scale. He had very speedily found out that he
had nothing to expect from Nephew Yoritomo; and he had
sense enough to grasp the fact that Yoritomo never forgave.
So when he sped up the Usui Pass with his thousand horse-
bowmen to join Nephew Yoshinaka in Shinano, he was well
aware there was henceforth but short shrift for him if he ever
found himself at the mercy of the Lord of Kamakura. By
the rough-mannered, simple-minded, straightforward, and
chivalrous Yoshinaka, in spite of the warnings from Kama-
kura, Uncle Yuki-iye had been treated with the greatest
kindness and forbearance, even when he had proved himself to
be hopelessly impossible as a commander-in-chief. When
Yoshinaka represented to the Cloistered Emperor that
352 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Yuki-iye was unequal to the task of reducing the Tairas in the

West (October or November 1183) he was strictly honest, and
was acting in the real interests of Yuki-iye as well as those of
the Minamoto and Imperial cause at large. Uncle Yuki-iye
had meanwhile, and all along, been exerting himself only too
successfully to embitter Y'oshinaka against Yr oritomo, — if the
two cousins could be brought to eat each other up, Yuki-iye
could then count on being able to play the leading role on the
political stage. Hence the poisonous and insidious counsels
poured into the ear of Nephew Yr oshinaka. And behind
Nephew Yr oritomo in Kamakura stood Yoritomo's father-in-
law, Hojo Tokimasa, infinitely subtle in his devices for ad-
vencing his own interests and those of his house.
Some of the courtiers, exasperated by the excesses of Yoshi-
naka's troops, urged the Cloistered Emperor to muster a force
to deal with them. The monasteries of Hi-ei-zan and Miidera
were asked to send men to protect the ex-Emperor's palace of
Hoshoji, whither the child Emperor Toba II. was presently
removed for safety. The command of this garrison was
entrusted to Taira Tomoyasu, the Kebiishi, one of the favou-
rites of the Cloistered Emperor, who had shortly before come

into collision with Yoshinaka and had got the worst of it.
On January 4, 1184, Yoshinaka attacked the Hoshoji,
slaughtered the garrison, fired the buildings, and carried off

the Cloistered Emperor as a virtual prisoner. His ex-Majesty,

now in mortal dread of Yoshinaka, did everything he possibly
could to placate him ; all the former lands of the Tairas were
granted him, while an Imperial decree was dispatched to Fuji-
wara Hidehira of Mutsu ordering him The
to smite Yoritomo.
latter, instead of doing so, sent a copy of the documents to

Yoritomo, who at once forwarded it to the Cloistered Emperor,

asking whether it had not been forged by Yoshinaka. Shira-
kawa II. now gave Yoshinaka a commission to punish Yori-
tomo; but he secretly sent off two of his guards to request
Yoritomo to send up troops to deal with Yoshinaka.
The latter had indeed been carrying things with a high
hand. He had married the daughter of Fujiwara Motofusa
and had thereupon made his new brother-in-law, Moroye, a
mere boy of twelve, Kwampaku and head of the clan, Moto-
michi having to make way for him in both capacities. Yoshi-
naka then caused the Naidaijin and forty-nine other officials
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 353

to be dismissed. Meanwhile Yuki-iye had been beaten at

Muroyama in Harima by the Tairas, who on their part had
been uniformly successful since they established themselves at
Yashima, and there were flying rumours that they would soon
be in the capital again. It was even asserted that Yoshinaka
had proposed to make common cause with them against Yori-
tomo, but that the overture, though favourably received by
Munemori, had been rejected by the other chiefs of the party.
Itwas at this point that the Cloistered Emperor made Yoshi-
naka Sei-i-tai-shogun (Barbarian-Subduing Great General),
while secret emissaries were on their way to Kamakura to
urge Yoritomo to come and make an end of his cousin
(February 1184) !

Meanwhile Yoritomo had been organising the administra-

tion of the provinces hehad mastered. He had dispatched the
year's taxes to the capital under the escort of his brothers
Noriyori and Yoshitsune. They had got as far as Ise when the
ex-Emperor's secret emissaries met them. Courtiers were
at once sent off hot-foot to Kamakura, while the two brothers
with their 500 men awaited instructions. Yoritomo at once
sent off a huge force, —as many as 60,000 men according to
some authorities. Its advance was so sudden and so secret
that Yoshinaka was completely taken by surprise. He hastily
sent a few hundred troops to break down the bridges at Seta
and Uji, and to obstruct the enemy there. At Seta his
foster-brother Imai Kanehira gallantly held the passage of the
river against 30,000 Easterners under Noriyori for some time;
but at Uji, Yoshitsune's cavalry swam the stream, and, break-
ing the scanty band of Northerners in front of them, came
pouring into the capital in one great continuous overwhelming
flood. Yoshinaka and his captains could only muster stray
bodies of a few hundreds here and there; but almost as soon
as formed they were shot down or ridden over in the streets.
Yoshitsune soon contrived to get the person of the Cloistered
Emperor and thus baulked Yoshinaka's project
into his hands,
of carrying him off to the North. Presently it became apparent
to Yoshinaka that the only hope left him was to make good
his flight. When, with about a dozen trusty comrades, he got
as far as Awazu, he was joined by Imai Kanehira, who had
just drawn back from Seta, where Noriyori's men were now
finding their way across the river. Imai urged his friend and

x
354 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

" Get back to

lord to gallop off as fast as his steed could go.
the Hokurikudo and Shinano, and hold that as your part of
the Empire. Let the Tairas have the West and Yoritomo the
East. I will stay the pursuit here!" Yoshinaka at once
dashed off, but his steed " laired " in a half-frozen rice-field,

and he himself was shot down. On seeing this Imai* put the
point of his sword between his teeth, fell off his horse, and
drove the blade into his brain. Yoshinaka's head was taken
and sent to be exposed on the pillory in the capital.
Such was the lamentable and deplorable end of the brilliant
Asahi Shogun Yoshinaka was the possessor of military genius
!

of a very high order in the field he was incontestably and

;

immeasurably the superior of Yoritomo, while at his best he

was perhaps nearly the equal of his cousin, Yoshitsune, by
whom he had been caught napping, and undone. But a states-
man he was emphatically not; and for Court and Court life
he showed himself absolutely unsuited, while, for him and his
sturdy mountaineers, Kyoto had proved to be a veritable
Capua.
Meanwhile the Taira cause was prospering apace. In
Kyushu, the partisans of the red flag had recovered their
ground, and Kyushu troops had hurried up to Yashima,
while the Sanindo and Sanyodo were now entirely in
Taira hands. Just about the time the Kamakura army
was hurrying up to deal with Yoshinaka a great
Taira host had established itself at the Fukuwara and
was making ready for an advance on the capital. For
seven mile,, its tents, or booths, or bivouacs stretched along
what is now the course of the Sanyo Railway, while
its east front extended as far as, and rested upon, the
Ikuta wood, through which from the hills to the sea a strong
line of fortifications had been hastily thrown up. On the west,

Imai was one of the devoted Shi-ten-no (Four Heavenly Kings)

*
by whom Yoshinaka was constantly attended. The otliers were Hi-
gucbi Kanemitsu, Tate Chikatada, and Nenoi Yukichika. Imai ana
Higuchi were brothers, sons of that Nakahara Kanemichi by whom
Ycshfnaka had been brought up. Their beautiful sister, Tomoe Gozen.
married Yoshinaka. She constantly kept by his side and commanded
a body of troops in all the battles he took part in. She was one of the
thirteen who accompanied Yoshinaka to Av azu, where she killed the
Herculean Uchida Iyeyoshi, who tried to seize her. On the death ot
Yoshinaka she retired to Tomosugi in Echigo as a nun, and passed
the rest of her days praying for the immortal welfare of Yoshinaka.
Not a few of the women of Japan, in this the truly heroic age of the
nation, were inconte&tably fine and great,
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 355

(West Suma), a huge earthwork faced with

at Icki-no-tani
stone and crowned with wooden towers ran across the low
ground down to below low-water mark. A great fleet of war-
junks and transports, anchored close inshore, kept command
of the sea. It is likely that the sea came much further up
towards the foot-hills than it does at present, and that the
hillswere loftier and steeper and more impracticable than
they are now, for the ravages of the rain-storms of more than
seven hundred 3-ears must have worked serious changes on the
contour and configuration of such loose-soiled, sandy country
as lies behind and to the west of Kobe. At all events, the
Taira leaders considered the mountain rampart behind them
sufficient defence on that side, and took no very special precau-
tions there.
A few days after the death of Yoshinaka, the Cloistered
Emperor resolved to employ the Kamakura army against the
Tairas, and commissioned its commanders, Noriyori and Yoshi-
tsune, to recover the Sacred Sword and Seal. On March 19,
1184, 76,000 Easterners started from Kyoto. As many as 56,000
of these under Noriyori took the direct Harima road; Yoshi-
tsune with the remainder (20,000) advanced into Tamba,
with the intention of fetching a compass and assailing the
Taira entrenchments from the west. In two days both Mina-
moto armies were in position for a simultaneous assault on the
Taira lines, both at Ikuta and at Suma. At the time the
attack was delivered a strong wind was blowing, sweeping the
dust of the plain before it in swirling, blinding clouds. The
Tairas fought gallantly enough. During the last few months,
they had fought several fierce and determined battles, and
had won them all; they had forgotten all about their frantic
race back from Echizen to the capital and had regained con-
fidence in themselves. So neither Noriyori at Ikuta nor Yoshi-
tsune's lieutenants at West Suma made any headway at first
the defence had all the best of it.
It was the genius of Yoshitsune that won the great battle
of Ichi-no-tani. The youngest child of Yoshitomo and of the
Lady Tokiwa, he was now between 24 and 25 years of age.
How it came to pass that his life was spared by the fell
Kiyomori in 1160 has already been told. In due course or
time his locks were shorn, and he was placed as an acolyte
In the Temple of Kurama, At eleven he had spelled out the
356 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

Chronicles of the House of Minamoto and determined to

restore its fallen fortunes. It is not at all strange, then, that

his preceptors found him a listless and unpromising pupil

when they tried to drill him in the Sutras. The Abbot found
there was only one way of keeping him out of mischief, and
this was to read Sonshi, the great Chinese military classic, and
such works to him. Then he was all attention. An iron
merchant from Mutsu often had transactions with the monas-
tery; and with him the unruly acolyte had made friends. In
1174, when he was fifteen, Yoshitsune, as he was afterwards
called, induced this mere hant to smuggle him away to Mutsu,
where he was well received by the great feudal chief Fujiwara
Hidehira. Along with him had gone the Herculean Musashi-
Bo-Benkei, a more unclerical cleric even than Friar John of
the Funnels, who one day in the pursuit of the gentle art of
cutpursing had attacked the harmless-looking young acolyte
on Gojo Bridge in Kyoto and had got a terrible drubbing for
his pains. Yoshitsune hvd been six years in Mutsu when he
heard that his half brother Yoritomo had risen against the
Taira. During these six years he had assiduously practised
and perfected himself in the military arts and in all warlike
accomplishments. Before he was twenty-one he had acquired
an extraordinary reputation for bravery and ability in Mutsu;
and so, when he was able to take
started to join Yoritomo, he
2,000 volunteers with him. The brothers, who had possibly
never seen each other before, met on the banks of the Kise-gawa
in Suruga, the day after Yoritomo had fallen back from the
Fujikawa. Early in 1184, in company with his half-brother
Noriyori, three years his senior, Yoshitsune was put in com-
mand of the thousand men Yoritomo dispatched to escort the
taxes of the Kwanto up to Kyoto. How he and Noriyori came
to find themselves at the head of a host of 76,000 men has
already been told. In attacking the Taira at Ichi-no-tani they
were acting under the instructions of the Cloistered Emperor,
not of Yoritomo, who had merely commissioned them to crush
Cousin Yoshinaka.
The valley of Ichi runs from the shore up to the foot of a
gap in the steep hills behind, called the Hiyodori Pass. At this
time the Hiyodori-goye was supposed to be impracticable for
every four-footed or two-footed thing save perhaps wild-boar
and monkeys. Yoshitsune's training in Mutsu had been stric-
 THE FALL OP THE TAIRA. 357

ter even than that of a Kwanto&i/s/t/, and he was more pro-

ficient than the best of them in mountain horsemanship.* Ac-
cordingly, learning that the Tairas had trusted to nature alone
for protection to the north, he at once grasped that there was
the key to the position; and so he resolved to attempt the
passage of the reputed impassable Hiyodori gap. With seventy
picked horse-bowmen he made his way to the head of the im-
practicable pass; and then all poured down into the head
of the Ichi gorge like an avalanche of boulders. Yoshitsune's
purpose in attempting the gap was to find a way of delivering
what Sonshi calls the " attack by fire." While most of the
band fell furiously upon the right rear of the defenders of
the earthworks, others ran about applying the torch to every-
thing that would burn. Soon that quarter of the camp was a
raging sea of devouring flames; and the sparks and blazing
debris, caught up and borne far and wide on the wings of the
gale, presently started conflagrations in the Fukuwara and
elsewhere. The uproar and confusion were terrible, and here
and there sections of the Taira host fell into panic. The assai-
lants meanwhile made a great effort, and swept over the en-
trenchments both at West Suma and Ikuta. To extricate
themselves, the Tairas here and there began to cut
each other down; and in the wild scramble for the
junks that ensued many were drowned. But for these junks,
the rout would have been a massacre. As it was, many of the
best Taira captains fell, and their heads were duly collected
and sent to the capital. Shigehira, that fifth son of Kiyomori
who had burned the Kofukuji of Nara four years before, was

* A contemporary author thus speaks of the Kwanto-bushi and

their ways: — "Their ponderous bows are san-nin-bari (a bow needing
three ordinary men to bend it) or go-nin-bari (five men's bow); their
quivers, which match these bows, hold fourteen or fifteen bundles of
arrows. They are very quick in their release, and each arrow kills or
wounds two or three foemen, the impact being powerful enough lo
pierce two or three thicknesses of armour at a time; and they never fail
to hit the mark. Every Daimyo (owner of a great estate) nas at least
twenty or thirty of such mounted archers, and even the owner of a
small barren estate has two or three. Their horses are very excellent,
for they are carefully selected, whi'e as yet in pasture, and then
trained after their own peculiar fashion. With five or ten sucn ex-
cellent mounts each, they go out hunting deer or foxes, and gallop up
and down mountains and forests. Trained in these wild methods, they
are all splendid horsemen who know how to ride but never how to
fall. It is the habit of the Kwanto-bushi that if in the field of bat^e
a father fall, the son will not retreat, or if a son be slain, the father
will not yield, but stepping over the dead, they will fight to the death."
358 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

taken prisoner. Munemori, according to his wont, had made a

speedy discretion the better part of valour; he escaped to
Yashima, where the fragments of the beaten army presently
began to re-assemble.
Disastrous as the rout of Ichi-no-tani had been, it was by
no means fatal to the Taira cause. Its chief material result

had been the loss of the five provinces of Harima, Mimasaka,

Bizen, Bitclm,and Bingo, where Yoritomo presently installed
Kajiwara Kagetoki and Doi Sanehira as Shugo, or Military
Protectors. But the Taira still held Shikoku, part of Kyushu,
and the extreme west of the Sanyodo, while their strong fleet
of war junks gave them all but complete command of the
Inland Sea. Apart from the loss of many of their best cap-
tains, and the depressing moral effect of defeat, the most un-
fortunate thing for the Tairas, in connection with Ichi-no-tani,
was that the incompetent and white-livered Munemori had
survived it, to mismanage and misdirect affairs till the end.
Had his brother Tomomori, or his gallant young cousin Nori-
tsune, been head of the clan in 1184 and 1185, the fortunes
of the Ise Heishi would doubtless have been very different.
As has been implied, their command of the sea secured the
Tairas complete immunity in Shikoku ; and on the mainland
nothing serious was attempted against them for a full six
months after Ichi-no-tani and the loss of the five Sanyodo pro-
vinces. Noriyori had gone back to Kamakura; and in October,
he arrived in Kyoto at the head of a strong Eastern army,
dispatched by Yoritomo to end matters with the Taira. On
getting his commission from the Cloistered Emperor, he left
the capital on October 8, his objective being Nagato and
Kyushu. Noriyori did not shine as a Commander-in-Chief on
this occasion. Their command of the sea enabled the Tairas
to land small bands on the left flank of the invaders to obstruct
and worry their advance; and tile greatest success Noriyori
could boast of was a small affair against one of these parties at
Kojima in Bizen. It was only on February 13th, 1185, that he
reached the Straits of Shimonoseki and when he arrived there,
;

it was only to find himself outmanoeuvred by the able Taira

Tcmomori. Tomomori's manors weie in Nagato, and the Mina-
moto invasion touched him most nearly. So, with a fleet of
war junks he suddenly came down the Inland Sea, and fortified
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 359

himself in Hikoshinia, the island at the outside (western) en-

trance to the Straits of Shiinonoseki. As the Minamotos had
no fleet they could not cross into Kyushu; and Tomomori had
been careful to have Nagato laid waste. Accordingly Noriyori
had Suwo perforce, where rations soon became
to fall back into
so scanty that the Kwanto troops began to clamour for a
speedy return to Kamakura. On March 4, 1185, Noriyori at
last was able to lead his men across the water and land in
Bungo.
Here, as shown by the extant dispatches he sent to Yori-
tomo, his position was the reverse of hopeful. The peasants
had scattered to the hills ; there were no provisions for his
troops; the whole country was in sympathy with the Taira
cause; and even the superior officers in the Kamakura army
were urging a prompt evacuation of the island and a retreat
to the Kwanto. Yoritomo, in several documents, urges Nori-
yori to hold on. But it is abundantly plain that Noriyori could
not have held on much longer ; in fact, but for most unexpected
developments, Taira Tomomori, with his command of the
sea, would have infallibly made Bungo and Kyushu a death-
trap for Noriyori and his Kwanto braves. Although an able
officer, and a fine man, true and loyal to his friends and
relations, as well as to his superiors, Noriyori had clearly
shown himself to be no Yoshinaka, that brilliant military
genius whom he had overpowered at Awazu by sheer force of
numbers a year before. But meanwhile, all unknown to him,
even a greater than Yoshinaka was hurrying to his rescue. At
no time- in the history of Japan, —not even in the great war
of 1904- -5, —has the transcendent value of supreme military
genius been so signally made manifest Under
as at this crisis.
the direction of mediocrities like Noriyori and Munemori the
war might have dragged on for years. The re-appearance of
Yoshitsune on the scene sufficed to bring it to a brilliant and
decisive conclusion in five short weeks.
After Ichi-no-tani, Yoshitsune, instead of accompanying
Noriyori and the troops back to Kamakura, had remained in
Kyoto. This, and other circumstances, made Yoritomo dis-

pleased with what he considered the self-will of his youngest

brother; and when he submitted a list of names to the Clois-
r
tered Emperor for reward and promotion, Y oshitsune's was
360 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

not among them. However, by his own exertions Yoshitsune

obtained a commission in the Guards, and the post of Kebiishi,
in which capacity he was responsible for the maintenance of
order in the capital. A little later on, he received the fifth

grade of Court rank, and a special privilege of audience. All

this made him so obnoxious to the Lord of Kamakura that
Yoshitsune got no command in the new Eastern force levied to
crush the Tairas.
When four or five months had passed without anything
being achieved, and Noriyori's starving officers were urging
the abandonment of the campaign, Yoshitsune represented to
the Cloistered Emperor that unless things were pushed more
vigorously the difficulties of reducing the Tairas would be
enormously increased. Yoshitsune thereupon received a com-
mission as Tai Shogun (Great General) ; and after much dif-

ficulty was allowed to leave Kyoto. A fleet of 420 craft had

been got together at Watanabe in Settsu, where the Military
Protector, Kajiwara Kagetoki, was directing operations; and
here Yoshitsune had just arrived, when a Court messenger ap-
peared to advise him to entrust the expedition against Yashima
to his second-in-command, Kajiwara, and to return to pro-
tect Kyoto. Kajiwara was unwilling to take orders from him;
but Yoshitsune determined to proceed notwithstanding.
On March 21, 1185 (the first anniversary of Ichi-no-tani),
there was a terrific tempest; and under cover of it, Yoshitsune
proposed to run over to Shikoku and take the Tairas by sur-
prise. But Kajiwara refused to expose the armament to what
he considered certain destruction. Yoshitsune thereupon called
for volunteersand a small band of 150 devoted followers
;

manned, and put to sea in, five of the war-junks. With

the storm howling behind them, they made an unusually speedy
passage; and all landed safely at Amako strand in Awa.
Capturing the castles here by coujjs-de-mam, they advanced
hot-footupon the Taira headquarters in Yashima. The towns
of Takamatsu and Mure were fired; and the terror-stricken
townsmen poured into Yashima with wild accounts of the great
Minamoto host that was approac hing. Munemori's consterna-
tion was overpowering; he at once issued orders for all the clan
to embark and take refuge on board the fleet. The palace and
the fortress were burned before their eyes; and Yoshitsune's
 THE FALL OP THE TAIRA. 361

men posted themselves on the beach and began to rain arrows

on them.
At this time, a trivial but picturesque incident did much
to disconcert the Tairas. On his visit to Miyajima in 1180,

the Emperor Takakura had presented the temple with thirty

fans, each with the hi-no-maru (the sun's disc) upon them.
When his son, Antoku Tenno, was taken there in the course
of his involuntary wanderings, the priest gave him one of
these fans, assuring him that the was the spirit
disc thereon
of his father, the late Emperor, which would cause
the arrows of the enemy to recoil upon them. The Tairas now
placed this fan upon the top of a pole erected in the bow of
one of their junks; and a Court lady dared the Minamoto to
shoot at it. At Yoshitsune's request, a certain Nasu no Yoichi
Munekata accepted the challenge. Hiding as far into the water
as he could, he took cool and careful aim and launched his
bolt. To the consternation of the Tairas the shaft smote
the fan on the rivet, and brought it down in fragments. Omens
and portents were of great consequence in those days; and
this incident perhaps did more to take the heart out of the
Tairas and their partisans than had the loss of their best
captains a year before at Ichi-no-tani.
Yet in the ensuing battle some of them fought gallantly
enough, —especially Taira Noritsune, a month or two younger
than Yoshitsune, who brought down some of the best men
in the little Minamoto band. However, the Tairas finally drew
off, rounded the promontory, and anchored in Shido Bay,
That night Yoshitsune was joined by Kono Michinobu, the
Minamoto partisan who had been twice hunted from Iyo by
the Taira. He brought thirty war-junks with him; and next
day (March 24), Yoshitsune embarked his men in these, and
fell upon the Taira fleet in Shido haven. According to his
usual wont, Munemori promptly took himself out of danger;
and, with Antoku Tenno and the whole Taira clan, hurried
down the Inland Sea to take refuge in Hikoshima, where Taira.
Tomomori had securely entrenched and fortified himself.
When, on March 25, Kajiwara Kagetoki arrived off Yashima
with 410 war-junks flying the white Minamoto pennant, he
was deeply mortified to learn that he must abandon all hope
of reaping any crop of laurels in Shikoku. The palace and
362 HISTORY OP JAPAN.
fortress of Yasliima were a smouldering heap of ruins; and
the Taira fleet was madly and frenziedly racing down the
reaches of the Inland Sea. Yoshitsune had most conclusively
proved that there had been even more than method in his mad-
ness when he braved the typhoon on March 21 ; in three short
days and nights he had accomplished the seemingly impos-
sible. Yoshitsune was Napoleonic in many ways, not the
least important of which was the unerring prescience with
which he gauged the mental and moral qualities and capabili-
ties or disabilities of the leaders pitted against him. Push
Munemori boldly and unexpectedly, and he would not only
infallibly " scuttle " himself, but he would take many ten
thousand times better men along with him.
A month was spent in reducing and organising Shikoku and
in re-organising and adding to the Minamoto fleet. It is to be
observed that, in a rough way, the Minamoto were to the Taira
as the Spartans were to the Athenians in the Peloponnesian
War. For generations the Tairas had been entrusted with
the task of dealing with the troublesome pirates of the Inland
Sea and
; so, many
them had become expert sailors and naval
of
tacticians. The Minamotos, called upon to reduce the North to
subjection, had always fought on land. As horsemen the
Minamoto were far superior to the Tairas; but on the blue
water, where the Minamotos were no better than so many
land-lubbers, the Taira supremacy had hitherto been unques-
tioned and unchallenged. The last week of March and the
first three weeks of April 1185 were busy weeks for Yoshitsune,

Who, originally no sailor himself, was then assiduously con-

verting Kwanto horse-bowmen into highly efficient marines.
He had early learned that Munemori had fortified the whole
northern side of the Straits of Shimonoseki. Through this
narrow sea-pass of from 700 to 1,700 yards in width, the tides
ebb and flow with mill-race speed for seven miles; and these
seven miles had been deliberately selected by the Tairas as
their base. We are told that Munemori had intended to re-
treat into Kyushu, but that Noriyori's force of 30,000 men in
Bungo had prevented him from doing so. If the Taira In-
telligence Service had been even half as efficient as the Japanese
Intelligence Service has almost unfailingly been, Taira
Tomomori, if not Taira Munemori, must have known
perfectly well that Noriyori was in no Dosition to prevent the
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 363

Tairas from going anywhere they chose to go. The purport

of the extant dispatches of Noriyori to his brother, the Lord of
Kamakura, has already been adverted to. If the Tairas had
had a leader of the calibre of Yoshitsune, the fate of Noriyori
and his famished, despondent, and disaffected host of 30,000
—
Kwanto braves would have been sealed and that very speedily
too. As things turned out, this Kyushu army proved suf-
ficient as a containing force, and held the Taira bottled up

in the Straits, while Yoshitsune made ready to deal them the

last staggering fatal blow.
That blow was delivered on the forenoon of April 25, 1185.
It would have come a day or two earlier, but for
the blinding deluge of rain that began to fall just
as Yoshitsune's fleet was getting under way on the
22nd. His conduct now was exactly the opposite of
what it had been a month before. In March the problem
which he so brilliantly and daringly solved was the same as
—
that which baffled Napoleon in 1804-5, to make a descent on
an opposite island whose coast was protected by a vastly
superior fleet. At that date Yoshitsune wished to avoid a
naval action at all costs. Now he was ready to encounter the
Tairas on their own element, for in everything, except perhaps
in seamanship, he was superior to them. Even in seamanship
the inferiority of theMinamotos was no longer specially
marked. The whole of Suwo and nearly the whole of Nagato
had gone over to them; and from these provinces, as well as
from Shikoku, they had been joined by many chiefs who brought
war-junks manned by seasoned crews along with them. What
the exact total of vessels under Yoshitsune was cannot be as-
certained; most accounts put it at about 700; the Azuma
Kagami raises the figure to 840. All agree that the Tairas had
no more than 500 at this time. And the worst of it was that
not all of these could be depended upon.
At the time they settled in Shikoku, after being hunted
from Kyushu, the Tairas had owed much to the services of a
local magnate, Taguchi Shigeyoshi by name, who was in con-
sequence entrusted by them with high command. Latterly,
however, Taguchi had become disheartened by Munemori's in-

competence and the disasters it had brought upon the Tairas.

Taguchi had taken part in the general flight from Shikoku;
but he had left his son with 3,000 men to hold his ground in
364 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Iyo. This son soon surrendered, and was so handsomely

treated by Yoshitsune that he was easily persuaded to write
to his father urging him
abandon the Taira cause as hope-
to
less and come over to the Minamotos, by whom he would be well

received. Yoshitsune was presently assured of the co-operation

of a powerful ally in the very heart of the Taira camp and
counsels.
On 22nd, the whole Minamoto fleet was at the
the
island Oshima in Suwo.
of From here Miura Yoshi-
zumi, who had been through the straits several times, and
was well acquainted with the topography, was dispatched
with a considerable squadron to make a reconnaissance in
force. He advanced and anchored about two miles from the
Taira outposts at Dan-no-ura. Intelligence of this at once
brought the Taira Admiral, Tomomori, up from Hikoshima
with every available craft; and a line of battle was formed
just beyond the spot where the straits begin to widen out into
the Inland Sea. In a stirring address to his assembled cap-
tainsTomomori gave them to understand that there must be
—
no more retreating, on this occasion it was simply " do or
die." His remarks were enthusiastically received by all, except
by one, and that one was Taguchi Shigeyoshi. The Admiral
went to Munemori and urged him to put Taguchi to death;
but, as usual, Munemori could not make up his mind; and,
the battle just then commencing, Taguchi was allowed to take
his place in the line.

As the great Minamoto fleet came up, its vessels fell into
position opposite the Tairas at a distance of about 350 yards
from them. After a long and hotly contested archery duel,
they came to closer quarters; and here the Minamotos had
by no manner of means the best of it. They sustained heavy
loss, and were driven back three or four times; for even the

most effeminate of the Tairas, now that they found them-

selves in the position of the proverbial rat assailed in his hole,
fought with the and reckless ferocity of despair. So the
fierce

day wore on, and up till a little before noon the Minamotos
continued to sustain more damage than they inflicted. Then
the tide showed a tendency to turn and just at that moment
;

Taguchi's squadron suddenly hauled down the red flag and

went over to the enemy, Taguchi himself at once proceeding
on board the Minamoto flagship!
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 365

This defection was fatal to the Tairas; in less than half-

an-hour they were overpowered. Taguchi was eager to impart
the intelligence to Yoshitsune that the boy Emperor, Antoku,
his mother and grandmother, and many Taira Court ladies
were on board one of the vessels, which he now pointed out.
Where the Emperor was, the Regalia would be sure to be;
and it was at once Yoshitsune's chief commission and great

anxiety to recover the Regalia for the Cloistered Emperor and

the Sovereign of his choice. Accordingly the main object now
became to scatter the craft that surrounded and defended
what was practically the queen-bee ship, and to capture it and
the invaluable freight it carried. Presently the Admiral,
Tomomori, went on board this Chinese-rigged vessel to make
report that the battle was lost and that if they continued to
live itwould only be as the serfs and serving-maids of the
Eastern boors. Meanwhile Munemori had fallen into the
hands of the foe; but his capture had been too late to save
the fortunes of the great house which his incompetence had
done so much to ruin. Tomomori wept tears of rage when
he learned that his elder brother had not had the courage to
prefer death to surrender; and together with his uncle Nori-
yori he threw himself overboard and perished. His mother,
the Ni-i-no-ama, Kiyomori's widow, seized the Sacred Sword
and plunged into the sea with it, while the Lady Azechi caught
up the young Emperor in her arms and followed her. The
Emperor's mother also went overboard, but both she and the
Lady Azechi were rescued with boat-hooks by the Minamotos,
who had meanwhile captured the queen-bee ship, and com-
pleted the rout of the Tairas.
Yoshitsune's dispatch on this occasion,* although not so
terse as the Spartan dispatch from Cyzicus in 410 b.c. and
the still more laconic dispatch of Byng from Cape Passaro in

1718, is still concise and pregnant enough. It runs thus:

" On the 24th of this month Nagato at Akamagaseki we
in
had 840 war-vessels afloat. The Tairas met us with about 500
craft. At noon the rebels were routed. Item. The former —
Emperor has been drowned. Drowned also: the Ni-i-no-ama
—
(Kiyomori's widow) and" here follow the names and titles
of six Taira chieftains, among them the Admiral Tomomori.

* Azurna Kagami, vol. i. pp. 144-5,

366 HISTORY OP JAPAN

" /ton. —The young Prince and Kenrei-monin (i.e. Antoku's

young brother and their mother) have been captured, and are
safe. Item. —Taken prisoners: Munemori " the
Tokitada, —
names and titles of twelve more males, four females, and four
priests.

This short campaign of five weeks, in which Yoshitsune had

so brilliantly accomplished the task of crushing the Tairas in
the West, —a task in which Yoritomo's commanders had failed
so signally, —was so sound and original in conception, and so
daringly masterful in execution, that it indisputably places
Yoshitsune in the select company of Great Commanders. At
this time, be it remembered, Yoshitsune was only a little over
twenty-four years of age, three years younger than Napoleon
and five when they opened their
years the junior of Hannibal
Italian campaigns. Whether Yoshitsune had that generally
mutually exclusive combination of gifts, the political and the
military, which was so remarkable in the personality of Napo-
leon, must be left open to doubt, for he was cut off at the age

when Napoleon's political career began. What is indisput-

ably beyond doubt is that in pure military genius Yoshitsune
was nearly if not indeed fully the equal of the great Corsican,
while in the sphere of politics, Yoshitsune's elder brother, Yori-
tomo, has abundant claims to be placed in the same class as
Napoleon Buonaparte. In Yoshitsune we see military, and in
Yoritomo, political Japan at its very best, —and at its very
best, neither military nor political Japan has any reason to
bow the head to any nation. In harmonious combination the
two brothers were, indeed, perhaps greater than a single Napo-
leon. But unfortunately, just at this juncture, the house of
Minamoto was as fatally dogged by its old curse of internal
and internecine dissension and disunion as was the house of
Atreus. Yoritomo's great consuming passion, the lust for —
power, — made it impossible for him to tolerate the existence of
any rival, or even possible rival, near his seat of authority.
And in his youngest brother, with his extraordinarily brilliant
military gifts, Yoritomo's cold and sullen jealousy, cruel as the
grave, detected a formidable future competitor to power and
fame. The Lord of Kamakura had taken seriousumbrage at
Yoshitsune's masterfulness in the Ichi-no-tani campaign, and
his subsequent independent and self-reliant conduct in the
capital, During the campaign of 1158, it would appear that
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 367

Yoritomo studiously ignored his youngest brother, and did

not send him a single communication, while scarcely a week
passed without an exchange of dispatches between Yoritomo
and Noriyori. Yoshitsune's extraordinarily brilliant success
in the meteoric Yashima and Dan-no-ura five weeks' campaign
fanned the smouldering jealousy of Yoritomo into a lurid blaze
which could be extinguished by nothing but the death, or at
least the disappearance, of Yoshitsune from public life.

The evil angel of the two brothers was Kajiwara Kagetoki.

This Kajiwara had fought against Yoritomo at Stone-Bridge
Hill in 1180; and after Yoritomo's defeat there, he had been
dispatched to search for and seize the fugitive. He came
upon Yoritomo concealed in a hollow tree; but on looking
into the retreat and seeing what it harboured he told his men
there was nothing there, and sent them off to prosecute their
search in quarters where they would be sure to find nothing.
This incident was never, to his credit, forgotten by Yoritomo.
^When Kajiwara, a few months later, ranged himself under
the white flag, he at once received the confidence of his new
chief; and this confidence he retained till the end. Kajiwara
had been attached to Noriyori in the Ichi-no-tani campaign,
and with Noriyori his relations had been harmonious. But
it was not Noriyori's and Kajiwara's host of 56,000 that had

—
reaped the laurels of Ichi-no-tani, these had fallen to the
20,000 men under Yoshitsune and Doi Sanehira, and above
all to Yoshitsune and the seventy horsemen who had come

down the Hiyodori gap into the centre of the Taira camp.
Kajiwara's chagrin over this was deep; and he was base
enough to allow it to colour all the reports of Yoshitsune and
his doings he made to the Lord of Kamakura. Then when,
a year later on, Yoshitsune, perceiving that his brother's
trusted mediocrities would never be able to crush the Tairas,
obtained a commission from the Court to undertake opera-
tions against Yashima, Kajiwara was greatly enraged to find
that he had to act as his second-in-command, and did every-
thing he could to thwart the projects of his superior officer,

His opposition to Yoshitsune's descent on Shikoku in the midst

of a terrific typhoon, and the amazing success of the Great
Captain's daring venture on that occasion, had exposed Kaji-
wara to sarcastic comment; and Yashima and Dan-no-ura
were gall and wormwood to him, On the 22nd of May 1185,
368 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

a dispatch from him arrived in Kamakura. This gave a

long account of the battle of Dan-no-ura, and wound up with
an invective against Yoshitsune, who was denounced as the
deadly, though secret, foe of Yoritomo. " Saul hath slain his
thousands, and David his ten thousands." Such, according to
Kajiwara, was the tenor of the discourse people were then
holding in the West and in the capital; and David (Yoshi-
tsune) by speech and bearing was doing his best to propagate
this view of the situation.
So when, after being feted and caressed in the capital,
Yoshitsune with his prisoners arrived at Koshigoye on the
outskirts of Kamakura on June 14th, seven weeks after the
battle of Dan-no-ura, he was there met by Hojo Tokimasa, who
informed him that he had come to take charge of Munemori
and his son, and to him (Yoshitsune) that he must not
tell

enter the city. All Yoshitsune's efforts to obtain an inter-

view with his elder brother proved utterly unavailing. To-
wards the end of his three weeks' sojourn at Koshigoye he
penned and forwarded to Yoritomo one of the most pathetic
—
documents in Japanese literature, a letter in which he mov-
ingly recounted the untoward circumstances of his infancy,
that of a child who never knew a father's love —of his harsh
upbringing of the services he had so ungrudgingly rendered
wherein he spoke

"of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach

and naught by reason

of his misery at finding all these rated at
of the venomous slander of cruel tongues, winding up by pro-
fessing his deep and loyal devotion, and conjuring Yr oritomo
by all that was most sacred to dispel the groundless sus-
picions which he so sullenly cherished. Even this most piteous
and pathetic appeal to fraternal affection was all in vain.
On July 7, 1185, after having had two interviews with
Yoritomo, Munemori and his son were handed over to Yoshi-
tsune, who thereupon sorrowfully turned his face to the west
and set out forKyoto Twelve days later, at Shinowara in
.

Omi, the Taira chief and his son were executed by the orders of
Yoshitsune, and their heads sent to be pilloried in the capital.
A day or two afterwards, that fifth son of Kiyomori, Shigehira,
who had burned the Kofukuji some five years before, was
 THE FALL OF THE TATRA. 369

surrendered to the monks of Nara, who now straightway put

him to death. This was practically the end of the house
of Kiyomori.
However, it is a great mistake to talk about the extirpation
of the Tairas, for Yoritomo ?
s most ardent supporters had been
the chief of the great Taira septs domiciled in the Kwanto.
who indeed, after his death, became all powerful in the
Kamakura administration. Moreover, even the Ise Heishi
were not completely extirpated on this occasion, for two mem-
bers of that house lived to raise the standard of revolt in Ise
and Iga when they were crushed by Hiraga Tomo-
in 1204,
masa. Furthermore, the third son of the Admiral Tomomori
who had commanded the Taira fleet at Dan-no-ura survived to
p
ound that house, of So, which ruled the island of Tsushima
from 1245 down to the Revolution of Meiji (1808), while the
great Nobunaga was descended from the second son of Taira
Shigemori, whose eldest son, Koremori, and his son Rokudai,
survived the rout of Dan-no-ura for several years. Again, the
Taira ex-Empress Kenreimon-in, who was rescued from the
waves on April Kyoto in 1213. As
24, 1185, died peacefully in
for Yorimori, that brother of Kiyomori who had interceded for
the life of the youthful Yoritomo in 1160, he was now invited
1o visit Kamakura, where he was treated with great courtesy
and distinction. This by no means exhausts the list of promi-
nent members of the Ise Heishi sept who survived the over-
throw of their house. It is true that several Tairas were exe-
cuted in 1185, and that several Taira partisans were then
banished from Kyoto to remote parts of the Empire. But to
talk of Hojo Tokimasa proceeding to Kyoto to execute the
mandate of his grandson " the Herod of Kamakura " is some-
what beside the mark. It was not so much towards the Taira
foe as towards his own Minamoto kith and kin that Yoritomo
showed himself cold-blooded, cruel, pitiless, and ruthless. In
this respect, in spite of all his greatness in the sphere of con-
structive statesmanship, the Lord of Kamakura was much
more of a Turkish Sultan than a true son of Yamato. How
far his father-in-law the preternaturally astute Hojo Tokimasa,
of the house of Taira, was responsible for this, it is difficult
to say.
For about twenty years, from 1160 to 1181, the Ise Heishi,
under the chieftainship of Taira Kiyomori, had been the domi-
370 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

nant power in the Empire. As has been alleged, Kiyomori's

sudden rise to power had, been mainly owing

in the first place,

to a lucky chapter of accidents and the nerve of his eldest son

Shigemori in the great crises of 1156 and 1160, and, in the
second place, to his turning the traditional Fujiwara tactics
against themselves, and then still further supplanting the Fuji-
waras in the exercise of their traditional tactics vis a vis de
the Imperial House. What made
this possible was the posses-
sion of broad untaxed acres and the support of thousands of
tenants holding their lands from the Tairas on a military
tenure. The manors of the Fujiwara nobles were even then
much more extensive fhan those of the Ise Heishi; but they
were managed on a different principle. What the Fujiwaras
wanted was not so much a throng of armed followers, as mone-
tary and material resources to enable them to maintain splen-
did and magnificent establishments in the capital, where they
vied with each other in the lavish and sumptuous ostentation
of their banquets and entertainments and other social func-
—
tions exceedingly effeminate and frivolous in which pre- —
eminence conferred the supreme cachet of good form and dis-
tinction. Accordingly, when, in 1156 and 1160, the question
of the supremacy in the councils of the Empire was put to the
sharp arbitrament of the sword, the Fujiwaras, standing alone,
found themselves helpless, and had perforce to appeal to Taira
or Minamoto for support. In 1160, the Minamotos and the
Fujiwara faction whose cause they had rashly espoused were
utterly crushed and the victorious Fujiwara faction presently
;

found itself hopelessly at the mercy of the rising military caste

— in the person of Taira Kiyomori —
which it had hitherto been
wont to treat as humble relatives and dependents. The net
result of all this seemed to be that the civilian Fujiwaras, who
had in reality governed Japan for nearly three hundred years,
were to be supplanted by the Ise Heishi, who were to maintain
their ascendancy by the traditional Fujiwara device of making
the daughters of their house Empresses of Japan, buttressed
by an unanswerable appeal to the strong argument of the
sword. Most unfortunately for the warlike Tairas, in the
persons of the effeminate Fujiwara courtiers,
Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit,

and in spite of all that the fearless, gallant, honest, but, at the
same time, narrow-minded Shigemori could do or say, many of
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 371

the highest in position among the Ise Heishi began to vie with
the soft-fibred Fujiwaras in all the arts of empty ostentation
and display. For the house of Kiyomori this was the begin-
ning of that descent to Avernns from which there is no return.
While those spoilt children of fortune, the Ise Heishi, were
thus carelessly, unthinkingly, and heedlessly allowing them-
selves to be sucked of all the virility of their martial marrow,
their obscure Minamoto rivals were being kindly cradled in the
rough and rude school of hardship and adversity. In the wilds
of Kiso, Yoshinaka was growing up to become the bearer of a
name to conjure with in Shinano and Central Japan; Yoshi-
tsune in Mutsu was sedulously and unweariedly schooling him-
self in that art of war
which he became such a great master
of
and such a brilliant exponent; while in Izu Yoritomo was
gradually, but steadily, winning golden opinions from his
jailers and neighbours, those mettlesome and robust Kwanto
Taira, who could ill brook the cold and haughty treatment ac-
corded them by the fashionable and pampered Ise Heishi in
the capital, always giving them to understand that the
visits of ill-bred country cousins were an intolerable
nuisance. And by the astute and precocious Yoritomo every
mistake committed by Kiyomori, his sons and kinsmen, was
carefully noted and deeply pondered over. Kiyomori's inso-
lent and overbearing attitude towards the ex-Emperor and the
great house of Fujiwara; his weakness and lack of foresight
in allowing himself to be inveigled into a competition with the
pampered and effeminate courtiers in the unmanly arts of
meaningless and wasteful display and ostentation, and, if not
encouraging, at all events failing to check, his clansmen and
followers in their eagerness to follow his most pernicious ex-
ample in this respect; the reckless fashion in which he roused
the enmity of the powerful priestly caste and shocked all the
superstitious, if not the religious, susceptibilities of the nation
at large; the arrogance with which he rode rough-shod over
every interest that was in any way opposed to his own seeming
interests —
and those of his house, all these cardinal errors of
policy, and many others besides, were carefully marked,
learned, and digested by the apparently unthinking and un-
reflective exile in Izu, whose chief occupation seemed to be
to get into amorous scrapes with the daughters of his guar-
dians and their neighbours.
372 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Where duller minds see nothing, great statesmen have al-

ways been swift to perceive that there are possible problems.
Their first care is to formulate these problems in clear and
lucid terms; this much accomplished, they have then to devise
solutions for these problems. Every mistake committed by the
not very astute Kiyomori was of the utmost service to Yori-
tomo. When he raised his standard at Stone-Bridge Hill in
the early autumn
of 1180, most of his problems had been formu-
lated; and with the aid of some of the ablest administrators
that Japan has ever produced he had found sound and brilliant
solutions for nearly all of them before his death at the age of
fifty-three in 1199. It was at the age of thirty that Napoleon
began his political career; in 1180 Yoritomo was then three
years older. The great Corsican reared the present institutions
of France on the ruins of the feudal system ; it was Yoritomo's
task to organise the polity of Japan on a feudal basis.
The next chapter will mainly be devoted to a consideration
of the methods and results of the constructive statesmanship
of Yoritomo, who in originality and in mental grasp in the
sphere of politics has a just title to be rocognised as one of
Ihe three greatest statesmen that have appeared in Japan. He
was fully the equal, if not actually the superior, of the great
Kamatari, whose work, after a long and a half of
five centuries

life, was now decently but very unobtrusively buried. During

Ihe last term of its existence, that work, it must be frankly

confessed, was moribund and outside

; of Kyoto and the Home
Provinces the authority of the august descendants of the Sun-
Goddess could make itself felt only on sufferance. Yoritomo's
originality manifested itself, among other things, in this:
While making himself the Mayor of the Palace, he studiously
kept at a distance of more than three hundred miles —
journey of four days for a swift courier from the Court and—
its and while professing to restore those old in-
frivolities,

stitutions of Japan which had hopelessly outlived their useful-

ness, he supplemented them by institutions which were so
vitally necessary to the changed and changing spirit of the
times that they insensibly supplanted them. Yoritomo's last
wish was to be regarded as a revolutionist. Above all things
he desired to be regarded as a conservative. Such, in some
respects, he undoubtedly was; but his conservatism was so
 THE FALL OF THE TAIRA. 373

largely adapted to the exigencies of the evolutionary changes

of the preceding four centuries that it at bottomwas really so
far revolutionary as ultimately to impose upon the Empire of
Japan a system of law and polity which superseded everything
that had ever issued from Nara or Kyoto.
 374

CHAPTEK X11L

YORITOMO AND HIS WORK.

TN the year 1590 —about four centuries after the date with
-*- which we are now dealing—Hideyoshi, the greatest genius
in the sphere of statesmanship and of practical action that
Japan has ever produced, was pressing the leaguer of the
doomed Hojo cooped up in their keep of Odawara. One day
the illustrious parvenu thought tit to solace himself by an
excursion to Kamakura, and to the Shrine of Hachiman at
Tsurugaoka, which, founded by Yoriyoshi in 1073 at
Yui-ga-hama, had been transported by Yoritomo to its present
site,and made the tutelary miya of his house. Stroking the
back of the image of Yoritomo enshrined there, the
monkey-faced dwarf burst out " You are my friend.
: You
took all the power under Heaven (in Japan). You and
I, only, have been able to do this; but you were of an
illustrious family, and not like me, sprung from the tillers
of the earth. My ultimate purpose is to conquer not only all
that is under Heaven (Japan), but even China. What think
you of that ? "
Here we have the most interesting and instructive of all
—
criticisms the passing of judgement by one great man on the
work of another. It is not perhaps so luminous as Napoleon's
appreciation of Turenne, when the Great Corsican, sitting
after dinner surrounded by his marshals between the first and
second battle of Dresden (1813), was drawn on by that con-
summate master of the art of war, Marmont, to speak on the
paramount importance to a soldier of the careful study of past
campaigns; but it is sufficient to indicate that the most ori-
ginal mind that has ever appeared in this Empire frankly took
Yoritomo as the only model to whom obligations were to be
acknowledged.
Hideyoshi's assertion that Yoritomo "took all the power
under Heaven " is substantially correct. Yoritomo was not,
indeed, the first Japanese subject to accomplish this feat. Cer-
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 375

tain Fujiwara chiefs, such as Miehinaga, had been all but

omnipotent in the Councils of the Empire, while Taira Kiyo-
mori's word had more than once been more potent than any
Imperial fiat. But Kiyomori had established his position by
nothing more original than the traditional Fujiwara device of
adroitly utilising his female offspring, and of appealing to the
sword and riding rough-shod over forms of legality when
all

baulked in the attainment of his purposes by peaceable means.

Yoritomo never showed any desire to become the father-in-law
or the grandfather of the titular Sovereign of Japan, while it
was ever his keenest concern to convince all men that he must
be regarded as a loyal subject of the august line of the Sun-
Goddess, and a devoted upholder of the constitutional law of
the Empire. Possibly no single man has ever done so much as
Yoritomo did, not merely to modify, but actually to revolu-
tionise the policy of the country. And yet with all his far-
reaching, but at the same time very unobtrusive adminis-
trative innovations, the Lord of Kamakura professed himself
to be a strict conservative, a Pharisee of the Pharisee in the
realm of constitutional use and wont. In the history of Eu-
rope his nearest analogue is perhaps to be found in the person
of the Emperor Augustus,* while Yoritomo's device of em-
ploying Shugo, or High Constables, in the provinces, to sup-
plement the activity of the Civilian Prefect appointed by the
Kyoto Court, anticipates the Intendants of Louis XIV. by a
stretch of four centuries and a half.t This High Constable
assigned to most of the provinces was no new office in the guise ;

of Sotsuibushi, by which name Yoritomo's appointees were

indeed at first known, it had existed for centuries. The plain
matter of fact is that the Lord of Kamakura instituted very
few new offices ; his innovations mainly consisted in utilising
the traditional institutions of the Empire for new purposes.
On the other hand, he abolished little or nothing. The Court of
Kyoto still continued to have its Kwampaku, its Chancellor of
the Empire, its Ministers of the Left and the Right, its Im-
perial Guards, with their Generals of the Left and of the Right,
its Ministers and officials of the Eight Boards, and its Pro-

* Japanese readers will find a perusal of the first forty-four pages

of Bury's Student's Roman Empire to be most instructive.
f About the Intendants there seems to be some misapprehension in
certain quarters. For exact details see Lavisse, Histoire de France,
Tome Sixieme, II., pp. 408-9. Tome Septieme, I., pp. 166-8.
'376 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

vincial Governors and other local officers. But the authority

wielded by allwas insidiously but surely transferred to
these
the occupants of the co-ordinate offices through which Yori-
tomo chose to work and in due course of time, the old central
;

administration of Kyoto found itself confronted with a eu-

thanasia from sheer atrophy and inanition.
The Kwanto and its administration, as has been repeatedly
said, always had constituted a serious problem to the Kyoto
authorities. One of the most original things that Yoritomo did
was to give this remote district a capital city of its own, a city —
which was not only the metropolis of Eastern Japan, but a
headquarters for the military caste. The supreme importance
of this step can hardly be over-estimated. For Yoritomo to
have stepped into the position formerly occupied by Taira
Kiyomori in Kyoto would have been the easiest and simplest
thing in the world; and this is doubtless what he would have
done if he had been gifted with no greater measure of political
sagacity than Kiyomori possessed. But in Kyoto, all social
prestige went to effeminate civilian courtiers; to the Fujiwaras
and others of the sangre azul} whose lives were generally one
long round of elaborately decorous dissipation, of giving and
assisting at sumptuous and luxurious functions, where childish
and frivolous diversions and pastimes were taken with a
seriousness passing belief. With such an example set by the
highest in the Empire and its Councils ever before the eyes
of the citizens, it is not difficult to infer what the general moral
and social tone of the capital must have been, without any very
deep delving into the wearisome details of the sumptuary legis-
lation of the time. Stately mansions, elaborate equipages, fine
clothes, polished manners, and proficiency in frivolous polite
accomplishments, —such were among the objects for which the
homage and admiration of the ordinary citizen of Kyoto
were reserved. The country gentleman from the provinces was
as a rule the possessor of none of these things and virtually
>

autocratic, as he was upon his own estate and among his fol-
lowers and tenants, his pride was wont to be sorely ruffled by
"the scant measure of courtesy accorded him by the shop-
keepers of the gay metropolis. Such of the buslii as were drafted
for their term of three years' Guards were
service in the
often constrained to ape the airs and graces and frivolities
of the curled darlings of the Court (who treated them at best
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 377

with a pitying and contemptuous condescension) merely in

order to secure a measure of popular consideration and respect.
As has been pointed out, Kyoto became a veritable Capua for
Kiyomori's clansmen. In the luxurious capital, with its un-
worthy and effeminate ideals, the simple and strenuous life so
necessary for the development and maintenance of the robust
military virtues was impossible.
So much Yoritomo had no difficulty in grasping. But
this was by no means the only consideration that con-
strained him to keep severely aloof from the capital. If
he established himself there in person, he would lose
much in prestige, for he would be outranked not by one, but by
many and; he would be sure to come into collision with one or
other of those factions which were continually appearing, dis-
appearing, and re-appearing among the courtiers. It had been
the traditional policy of the Fujiwara and of the Cloistered
Emperors to divide the BusM, and to play off one great mili-
tary chief against another. Should Yoritomo be constrained
to cast in his lot with one of the contending Court factions, its

rival would inevitably endeavour to find a counterpoise to him

in the person of some other military magnate. At the best, if
he established himself in Kyoto, he could hope to make himself
supreme Empire only by adopting the primitive tactics
in the
of Kiyomori, and of riding rough-shod over all legal and con-
stitutional precedents by the exercise of brute force. Now,
this was the very last thing he wished to do, —
an open and for-
cible breach with the past, and with all that had hitherto been
use and wont in the Empire, was what the Lord of Kamakura
showed himself, from first to last, most anxious to avoid. If
any one ever successfully accomplished the supposed impossible
feat of putting new wine into old bottles, it was Yoritomo of
the Minamoto who did so.
At this date, be it observed, there was really only one
great city in Japan, for the population of Nara, though not in-

considerable, was mainly ecclesiastical. What the population

of the capital amounted to it is really hard to say; but all

things considered it certainly must have exceeded 500,000; and

possibly, including its fluctuating population, at times ap-
proached double that number. Kyoto was to Japan in those
days far more than what London is to the British Islands
at present. In 1190 Kyoto did not as a matter of fact con-
378 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

tain one-sixth of the subjects of the Emperor of Japan. But

on the other hand it counted at least ten times as great a
population as its nearest rival urban community, the city of
Nara, mainly tenanted by rcllgicux. At this time, neither in
Kyoto nor Nara was the Bushi, or warrior class, of any im-
in
portance. In Kyoto the civilian was supreme; in Nara, the
priest. In Yoritomo's new city of Kamakura, it was neither the
civilian nor the priest, but the Bushi, or warrior, who bore au-
thority. No blue-blooded civilian courtier exercised the least
influence in the new metropolis of the East ; while such au-
thority as was wielded there by shaven-pated priests was moral,
or ghostly, merely. As for merchants, and traders, and huck-
sters, while welcomed and protected, they were carefully re-

gulated and supervised by officials of the military caste. In

the new city of Kamakura, the Bushi had to give the pas to
none. This nascent city of Kamakura was, with modifications,
a veritable camp of the Guardians*; only, a camp not
"Without the Walls," but actually more than 300 miles re-
moved from the seat of the interests it was supposed to pro-
tect.

Under the surveillance of its two-sworded guardians this

military camp on Sagami Bay easily became the second city in
the Empire. That it at any time actually rivalled Kyoto in
wealth, magnificence, and extent we cannot believe; while the
assertion that it at one time numbered as many as 1,000,000
inhabitants must be summarily dismissed as a mere figment of
the luxuriant imagination of writers who hold that to stop
and think is no part of their business. At the very largest
estimate, the site of Kamakura, much of which was unsuitable
for building, covered considerablyunder 5,000 acres of super-
ficies. The most densely populated County Borough in Eng-
land in 190G (West Ham), with an area of 4,083 acres, had no
more than 302,000 inhabitants. Japanese indeed do huddle toge-
ther more closely in their so-called rooms than Occidentals are
wont to do; but then, on the other hand, the Japanese huddling
is all done on the ground floor; for except in restaurants and
brothels, upstairs quarters, at this date at least, were almost
unknown in the Empire. Accordingly, all things considered,
if at the heyday of its prosperity we allow a population of
from 200,000 to 250,000 to the military camp of Kamakura—

* See Plato's Republic, Book III.

 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 379

for such in effect it really was —we are treating it with a

certain amount of liberality in the matter of figures. In the
great earthquake of 1293, as many as 23,000 of its inhabitants
are said to have perished, and this was probably about one-
tenth of the total.*
But it was neither in its extent nor its magnificence that
the profound importance and significance of Kamakura lay.

In the heyday of his power and glory Hideyoshi assiduously

laid himself out to dazzle the popular imagination by the
embellishment of the capital, the erection of magnificent
palaces and massive strongholds, the rearing of sumptuous
fanes and shrines, the giving of gorgeous pageants and elabo-
rate entertainments. he was certainly not imitat-
In all this

ing Yoritomo, who saw to it that everything in

carefully
Kamakura was ordered with the utmost simplicity, frugality,
and restraint. It is true that Yoritomo lavished much care
and attention upon the Shrine of Hachiman that he founded ;

some considerable fanes in his new city; and that he caused

numerous temples and shrines in Kyoto and Nara, and
throughout the Empire generally, to be rebuilt, or renovated.
But all this was merely the outcome partly of sincere reli-
gious conviction, partly of well-thought-out policy. At this
date the priesthood was a great power in the Empire; and
one of Kiyomori's cardinal mistakes had been the reckless
contempt with which he had treated it. From first to last
Yoritomo showed an extreme anxiety to conciliate it. The
least complaint from temples about the truculence of military
men was promptly and carefully attended to, and the delin-
quents sternly and severely punished. The time that Yoritomo
and his consort Masako devoted to religious functions is
almost incredible; possibly a full third of the records of the
age is occupied with accounts of their visits to temples, and
what not. We continually hear of such and such a fane or
shrine being made to offer up prayers for the speedy capture
of Yoshitsune, for Yoritomo's success in the field against
Fujiwara Yasuhira, to avert impending mischief from comets
and other similar portents, and so on, in monotonous and

• Even here, the very best informed European writer, whose com-
mand of Japanese is indisputable, has been led astray. After a collation
of all the contemporary records. I find that these 23,000 victims of the
Great Earthquake of 1293 perished, not in Kamakura alone, but in
—
the Kwanto at large, a vastly different proposition.
380 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

interminable succession. For his erection of huge fanes and

costly shrines Hideyoshi had no such excuse. In his day the
power of the priests had been thoroughly broken, and he had
no need to exert himself to conciliate them; while, personally,
he was a downright free-thinker, without the slightest belief
either in Hotoke or Kami, the latter of whose ranks he pro-
posed himself to enter as the New Hachiman. In many of
his gigantic undertakings the Taiko was actuated to a great
extent by a vainglorious desire to transmit his name to
posterity as that of onewhose achievements had been unique,
surpassing those of unsurpassed and unsur-
all predecessors,

passable. Yoritomo cherished no such ambition. His domi-

nant passion was the passion for power; but he had the self-
restraint to satisfy himself with the possession of the real
substance, caring but little for pomp or display of any kind.
And yet, on those very rare occasions when there was any
useful purpose to be served by a display ofpomp and magni-
ficence, theLord of Kamakura, as will appear presently, could
show himself a past-master in the organisation of those pro-
cessions and pageants and fetes in which Nobunaga, and still
more Hideyoshi, delighted.
Although virtually autocratic on their own manors, and
powerful in their own localities, the military men down to the
time of Taira Kiyomori had counted for almost absolutely
nothing in the Councils of the Empire. During the twenty
years' ascendancy of the Ise Heishi, Kiyomori's clansmen had
to a great extent accepted the ideals of their civilian rivals,
and had given mortal offence to the military caste at large
by the arrogance of their pretensions and the insolence of
their demeanour. Between the favoured Ise Heishi and the
Buke armed strife was sure to follow; and the civi-
at large,
lian courtiers would infallibly endeavour to profit by any
such occasion, and do their best to reduce the warrior to his
original position of insignificance. On the other hand, firmly
united under one great chief of their own, drilled and dis-

ciplined according to their own distinctive ethical code, held

fast to those ideals of their own which had been evolving
during successive generations, the Buke could certainly aspire
to constitute themselves into an impcrium in impcrio of their
own, and, possibly, even to give the law to the Empire at
large. But to accomplish this much, the first and indispen-
 YORITOMO AND HTS WORK. 381

sable requisitewas that there must be absolutely no factions

and no dissensions among them. So much Yoritomo had
early discerned; and hence his strenuous endeavour to pre-
vent any of his own vassals, or indeed any military man at
large, from having direct communication with the Court of
Kyoto. Hence, too, in a great measure, his intense jealousy
and hatred of Yoshitsune, who was undoubtedly in high favour
with the Cloistered Emperor Shirakawa and whose mili- II.,

tary genius, if placed at the disposal of the civilian Kyoto

authorities, who were showing themselves more and more dis-
trustful of Yoritomo, might very well bring his elder half-
brother and all his projects to premature wreck and ruin.
After his abortive visit to Kamakura, in the summer of

1185, Yoshitsune had returned to Kyoto in no very pleasant

frame of mind. Shortly afterwards Yoritomo induced the
Court to reward some of his adherents who had rendered
meritorious service; but Yoshitsune still found himself stu-
diously passed over. At last, in September, when six Mina-
moto clansmen were made Governors of as many provinces.
Yoshitsune, as one of them, was charged with the administra-
tion of Iyo. But Yoritomo promptly sent Jito, or stewards, of
his own to deal with all the numerous manors in that province,
and made other arrangements there, which reduced the power
of the new Governor to a mere nullity.

Just at this juncture, Uncle Yukiiye thought fit to reappear

on the scene. After his defeat by the Tairas, two years before,
he had gone into hiding and kept there, for he was well aware
that if he fell into the power of his nephew, the Lord of Kama-
kura, he would get but short shrift after the dire offence he
had given in that quarter. With Yoshitsune, Uncle Yukiiye
got on far better than he had done with either Yoritomo or
Yoshinaka; in fact, the two seem to have been sincerely at-
tached to each other. On hearing of their intimacy Yoritomo
was profoundly incensed; one emissary was dispatched to
seizeYukiiye and kill him, while the son of Kajiwara Kage-
toki was sent to Kyoto to commission Yoshitsune to do the
same. Yoshitsune was under medical treatment at the time,
and therefore begged to be excused from meeting his brother's
envoy; and upon the latter's return to Kamakura, his father,
the old Kajiwara, sedulously and strenuously exerted himself
382 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

to induce Yoritomo to put the very worst construction upon

the incident.
It was presently determined, in the councils of Kamakura,
that Yoshitsune must be " removed," — in plain language, assas-
sinated. But among the assembled vassals no one showed any
great eagerness to undertake the mission, for all felt that the
venture was a very desperate one. At last the ex-priest Tosa-
bo Shoshun excited the admiration of all by coming forward
and He was careful enough
offering to proceed on the mission.
to stipulate that his familymust be provided for beforehand
and Yoritomo at once bestowed two manors upon his heirs.
On November 2nd, 1185, Shoshun left Kamakura with 83 cava-
liers. They must have marched well, for it was on the evening
of November 10th that sixty of them delivered an assault upon
Yoshitsune in his Kyoto mansion. Before this, Shoshun had
had an interview with his prospective victim, who, suspecting
sinister purposes, had made his visitor swear by all that he
held most solemn that his intentions were at once pacific and
friendly. The night-attack of November 10 was an utter
failure; with but only seven attendants Yoshitsune kept the
whole troop at bay, until Uncle Yukiiye in the adjoining ward,
hearing the shouts and clamour, gallantly hastened out with
a few retainers, fell upon the rear and flanks of the assailants,
and cut most of them to pieces. A few days later Shoshun
and some of his surviving followers were captured lurking in
the suburbs of the capital, and their heads were promptly
sent to grace the public pillories.
Naturally enough, Yoshitsune felt was altogether
that this
a little too much to be borne with patience; and Uncle Yu-
kiiye, who on this occasion undoubtedly saved his youngest
nephew's life, had nothing to say against the correctness of
this view of the situation. Yoshitsune laid the facts of the
case before the Cloistered Emperor, and asked for a commis-
sion to chastise the Lord of Kamakura for the crime of
outraging the lieges by military violence. The request occa-
sioned many Cabinet councils and much discussion ; but when
Yoshitsune at last gave the civilians to understand that in
default of any such commission as he had humbly asked for,

he would simply carry off the Emperor, and the ex-Emperor

with him, into the West until he could muster forces there
to make headway with, a commission to punish yoritomo
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 383

for his misdeeds was promptly issued to Yoshitsune and Uncle

Yukiiye, of the Minamoto. Intelligence of this was conveyed
to Kamakura by relays of fleet-footed couriers with extra-
ordinary promptitude. The dispatch was handed to Yori-
tomo while he was arranging the details of the solemn de-
dicatory ceremonies of one of the principal fanes of Kamakura.
He looked over it leisurely, put it away, and went on with the
work in which he was engaged, as if the communication from
Kyoto was of no earthly importance whatsoever. And yet a
calm and sober perusal of the subsequent records conclusively
demonstrates that this dispatch was regarded by Yoritomo as
among the most weighty and fateful that he ever received.
It seems that from first to last Yoritomo feared no more

than five men; and these were that Taira Hirotsune who joined
him at the Sumida River in 1180 with 20,000 troops, and whom
he did to death shortly afterwards, Satake Hideyoshi, whom
he eventually conciliated, Fujiwara Hidehira, the Lord of the
30,000 square miles of Mutsu and Dewa, his own cousin, the
brilliant Morning-Sun Shogun, Yoshinaka from Kiso, and his
own youngest Of the real inherent
half-brother Yoshitsune.
rottenness of the Taira domination, Yoritomo seems to have
been well apprised long before he reared the flag of revolt on
Stone-Bridge Hill in 1180; and his ultimate triumph over the
effeminate and generally detested Ise Heishi he regarded as
assured from the very beginning of the struggle. Of his treat-
ment of Taira Hirotsune he professed to repent in sackcloth
and ashes; Satake Hideyoshi, by his loyal co-operation in the
great Mutsu campaign of 1189, disarmed all suspicions effec-
tually Kiso Yoshinaka had paved the way to his own undoing
;

in the autumn From 1185 to 1189, Yoritomo's great

of 1181.
objects of dread were his own half-brother Yoshitsune, and
Fujiwara Hidehira of Mutsu. And of these twain it was the
brilliant Yoshitsune, who although with scarce a score of de-
voted henchmen, and a proscribed fugitive with a great price
set upon his head, that was the chief cause of the sleepless
nights of the great Lord of Kamakura.
As a matter of fact, however, neither Yukiiye nor Yoshi-
tsune was in a position to make any head against Yoritomo.
Uncle Yukiiye was notorious as the best beaten and most con-
sistently thrashed general-officer of the time; besides a score
or so of immediate followers of his own he hacj no resources
384 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

whatever. His very name was regarded as synonymous with

ill luck; and the average samurai was unwilling to take service
under him at any price. Yoshitsune's, on the other hand,
might well have been regarded as a name to conjure with, for
victory had invariably sat perched upon his banner. But all

his triumphs had been won if not as Yoritomo's lieutenant,

at all events with Yoritomo's troops; and after Dan-
no-ura Y^oritomo had given his vassals to understand
that if they wished to enjoy his favour they must have but
few dealings with Yoshitsune. Hence at this juncture they
all held aloof. Yoshitsune could indeed trust implicitly in
his own but it was insignificant in num-
personal following;
had never possessed more than a score of not very
bers, since he

extensive manors, and of these he had been stripped by his

brother a few months before. His attempt to muster troops
in the neighbourhood of the capital proved a failure, for it
quickly leaked out that his commission to chastise Yoritomo
had been to a great extent extorted by the threat of carrying
off the Sovereign and the Cloistered Emperor to the West.

Shirakawa and the courtiers were exceedingly anxious to

II.

have no more fighting in Kyoto; and so, when Yoshitsune spoke

of retiring to the West to muster powers there, he was at
once granted the taxes of the Sanyodo and Kyushu for military
purposes, while he himself was appointed Jito of Kyushu, and
Yukiiye Jito of Shikoku, each severally armed with instructions
to summon the samurai of the?e quarters to their standard.

On November 26, Yoshitsune and Yukiiye left Kyoto at the

head of no more than 200 men. Before they reached the coast
of Settsu, where they were to take ship, they had to fight two
actions with some vassals of Yoritomo who made a strenuous
effort to bar their way and cut them off. Just as they put
to sea on November 29, they encountered the full force of a ter-
rible typhoon and their flotilla was utterly broken up and dis-
;

persed. At first it was reported, and generally believed, that

all on board of it had perished. But both Yoshitsune and
Yukiiye had escaped with their lives, although the one knew
nothing of the other's fate; and Yoshitsune, landing at Tennoji
with his spouse, Shizuka Gozen, the ever-faithful Benkei and a
few other attendants, made his way through fzumi into
Yamato and went into hiding in the wilds of Yoshino.
Meanwhile Yoritomo had mobilished his vassals in the To-
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 385

kaido, Tosando, and Hokurikudo and had launched them against

Kyoto in three great converging columns. A little later he took
the field in person and advanced as far as the Kisegawa in
Suruga, where he stopped to await developments. Kyoto, of
course, was occupied without striking a blow; and thereupon
a counter-decree was promptly issued, charging Yoritomo with
the duty of arresting and punishing Yoshitsune and Yukiiye.
It was at this point that Yoritomo got Imperial sanction
for introducing one of the most important of his great, but
unobtrusive, innovations into the administration of the Em-
pire, He was exceedingly anxious about the possibility of
Yoshitsune escaping into Kyushu, and there ultimately array-
ing the West against the East; and on returning to Kamakura
he held many consultations with his advisers as to the most
effective means It was
of providing against the contingency.
the long-headed Nakahara Hiromoto who propounded the best
solution of this problem;* and the adoption of the measure
he then proposed not only served to render Yoshitsune im-
potent, but also to rivet the shackles of the Bakufu upon the
Empire at large. Nakahara's scheme w as that Imperial sanc-
r

tion should be obtained by Yoritomo for placing a High Con-

stable (Sotsuibushi, or Shugo) in every province, while Jito
(Land Stewards) should be appointed to superintend the ad-
ministration of justice, the maintenance of order, and the col-
lection of taxes in all the manors of the Empire, irrespective of
their holders, whether military men or civilians, and of the
particular tenure by which they were held. Furthermore, on
all these manors the new Land Stewards were to levy a new
tax of 5 sho of rice per tan (roughly equal to one bushel per
acre) for purely military purposes, —to be devoted to the
support of the men drafted for service in the Imperial Guards
or levied for the suppression of disturbances.
To obviate certain serious misconceptions, a somewhat de-
tailed discussion of this dry subject may be found necessary
and beneficial. The administrative system or systems of Old
Japan are often regarded as wonderfully symmetrical and
simple. But symmetry and simplicity, on closer examination,
will be found to be equally illusory. The attempt to adapt
* In foreign histories of Japan c-e Hiromoto who is credited
it is
with this great stroke of policy. As a matter of fact Nakahara Hiro-
moto and o e Hircmoto were one and the same person. Before this
date o-e Hiromoto had been adopted into the house of Nakahara, and
it was only in 1216 that he resumed his own original family name.
386 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

a symmetrical series of governmental institutions from China

was never more than a partial success at best; and since the
eighth century the actual policy of the nation had been develop-
ing with all the irregularity of the famous British Constitu-
tion. Thus it is possible to indulge in the luxury of universal
propositions about the administrative institutions of Old Japan
and their practicalworking only at the expense of the best
interests of accuracy and veracity.
We are generally told by non-Japanese writers that Yori-
tomo on this occasion appointed and stationed a High Con-
stable in each of the six-and-sixty provinces of the Empire. But
he did nothing of the kind. He indeed did obtain the sanction
of the Court to do But he simply could not dare at this
so.

date to presume to intrude any such functionaries into the

huge provinces of Mutsu and Dewa, where the will of Fujiwara
Hidehira was virtually omnipotent. Over some provinces such
as Noto and Hyuga he contented himself with placing merely
a Jito or Land Steward. In others, notably Bungo and some
of the Kwanto provinces, he established Kuni Bugyo. In
others again, such as Yamato, there was no High Constable
at all, the Shugo established in the capital being supposed to
keep a watchful eye upon it and the other Home Provinces in
the case of any necessity to do so. In some cases, such as
that of Satsuma, the Shugo appointed did not proceed to oc-
cupy his post until years afterwards. Especially misleading is
such a statement as that at this time " Doi Sanehira received
five provinces of the Sanyodo in fief." Doi was simply made
High Constable in these provinces, —a mere administrative
functionary, with strictly limited duties, and no proprietary
rights over the soil whatsoever. A few manors in them may
have been assigned to him for the support of his position in
the discharge of his functions; but as to his receiving that
huge tract of country as a " fief " at this date, the statement is

a glaring anarchronism. That there were " fiefs " at this time is
perfectly true but in one celebrated document Yoritomo speaks
;

of 500 acres of rice-land as a very large holding for a military

man to possess. Upon the overthrow of the Tairas, the only
great feudatories in Japan, besides Yoritomo, were Fujiwara
Hidehira, Satake Hideyoshi, and certain Buddhist monasteries.
In short, to confound the position of one of Yoritomo's Shugo
with that" of one of Hideyoshi's Daimyo, four hundred years
later on, is a huge historical blunder.
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 387

Hideyoshi's Daimyo had proprietary rights, the all but un-

limited rights of administration in their fiefs, the power of
legislation for their vassals, tenants, and thralls, and also the
power of life and death over every one on their estates, and
of adjudicating either in person or by deputy all suits, criminal
and civil, within their domains. Furthermore, their position
—
was supposed to be hereditary, one transmitted from sire
to son, or from the holder to his lawful heir. It is perfectly

true that not a few of Hideyoshi's Daimyo were the direct

lineal descendants of certain of Yoritomo's High Constables,
or of the most considerable of his Jito or Land Stewards.
However, in order to convey some approximate idea of the huge
gap that has to be bridged in the evolution of a Kamakura
High Constable of Caeur-de-Lion's time into a Daimyo coeval
with the Elizabethan age in England, it may be sufficient to
cite a locus classicus from Mr. John Carey Hall's excellent
translation of the first attempt at a Feudal Code in Japan
the famous Jo-ei Shikimolcu of 1232.
"Article Of the duties devolving upon High Constables.
3.

In the time of Yoritomo it was settled that those duties should

be the calling out and dispatching the Grand Guard for service
at the capital, the suppression of conspiracies and rebellion,
and the punishment of murder and violence [which included
night attacks on houses, robbery, dacoity, and piracy].
Of late
years, however, Official Substitutes (Daiktvan) have been
taken on and distributed over the counties and townships and
these have been imposing burdens (corvee) on the villages.
Not being Governors of the Provinces (still, in theory, civilians
appointed by the Kyoto Court), they yet hinder the (agricul*
tural) work of the province; not being Land Stewards they
are yet greedy of the profits of the land. Such proceedings and
schemes are utterly unprincipled. ... In short, conformably
to the precedents of the time of Yoritomo, the High Constables
must cease altogether from giving directions in matters outside
of the hurri/ing-up of the Grand Guards and, the suppression of
plots, rebellion, murder, and violence. ... In the event of a
High Constable disobeying this article and intermeddling in
other affairs than those herein named, if a complaint is insti-
tuted against him by the (civilian) Governor of the Province
(appointed by the Emperor), or the Lord of a Manor, or if the
Land Steward (JiW) or the folk aggrieved petition for redress,
388 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

liisdownright lawlessness being thus brought to light, he shall

be divested of his office, and a person of mild character ap-
pointed in his stead. Again, as regards Delegates (Daikivan)
not more than one is to be appointed by a High Constable.
" Article 4. Of High Constables omitting to report cases
of crime (to Kamakura) and confiscating the succession to
fiefs, on account of offences. When persons are found
committing serious offences the High Constables should
make a detailed report of the case Kamakura) and
(to
follow such directions as may be given them in relation
thereto; yet some who, without ascertaining
there are
the truth or falsehood of an accusation, or investigating
whether the offence committed was serious or trifling, arbi'
trarily pronounce the escheat of the criminal's heriditaments,
and selfishly cause them to be confiscated. Such unjust judge-
ments are a nefarious artifice for the indulgence of licence.
Let a report be promptly made to us of the circumstances of
each case and our decision upon the matter be respectfully
asked for; any further persistence in transgression of this
kind will be dealt with criminally.
" In the next place, with regard to a culprit's rice-fields and
other fields, his dwelling-house, his wife and children, his
utensils and other articles of property. In serious cases, the
offenders are to be taken in charge by the Protector's office;
but it is not necessary to take in charge their farms, houses,
wives, children, and miscellaneous gear along with them.
" Furthermore, even if the criminal should in his statement
implicate others as being accomplices or accessories, such are
not to be included in the scope of the High Constable's judge-
ment, unless they are found in possession of the booty (or
."
other substantial evidence of guilt be forthcoming)
As for the Jito or Land Stewards, a good deal has already
been said in previous chapters when dealing with the impor-
tant question of manors. We have spoken of these manors as
being tax-free; but the peasants and farmers settled on them
were by no manner of means tax-free. Only their taxes were
paid not to the Imperial revenue officer but to the proprietor of
the estate. The Jito at this date was not a proprietor; in

theory he was simply an administrative officer appointed by

the proprietor to represent him, to collect the dues, and to
manage the property. But there was a strong and increasing
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 389

tendency for Jito to act as if they were proprietors. During

the supremacy of the Ise Heishi, many of the largest owners of
Sho-en had been constrained by force of circumstances to ap-
point men of Taira stock as their Jito. On the overthrow of
the Tairas not only were all their own manors confiscated;
wherever a Taira had held a Land Stewardship, this office was
also declared to be forfeit. These manors and these offices were
at first bestowed partly on Yoritomo and partly on Yoshinaka
on the death of the latter they all went to Yoritomo, who at

once filled the vacant posts with his own vassals. What was
now done in 1185, was to deprive the proprietors of Sho-en of
the right of appointing their own Land Stewards (Jito), and
to transfer that right to the Lord of Kamakura. His Jito,
after deducting their own salaries, were to hand over the pro-
duce of the taxes to the proprietors, whoever they might be;
to administer justice, and be generally responsible for the
maintenance of peace and order within the bounds of the estates
committed to their charge. Some of the Jito of Yoritomo were
responsible not for one manor, but for many as Jito, Hasebe ;

ruled the greater part of manorial Noto, Ito the whole of

manorial Hyfiga, while about one-half of manorial Hizen was
under the superintendence of the Jito of Ryuzoji.
Outside the manorial tracts lying in his province, the Pro-
vincial Governor was still supposed to be supreme. Theore-
tically this officialwas a civilian appointed by the Court of
Kyoto, to whom alone he was directly responsible. As a matter
of fact, even at this date, we meet with not a few instances of
military men appointed to this civilian post. In times of com-
motion and strife, the Provincial Governor would naturally
find himself helpless, for he had no military force at his dis-
posal. The control of that had passed into the hands of Shugo
and Jito; and these bent not to the will of Kyoto, but to the
behests of Kamakura. The Court could not interfere directly
with either High Constable or Land Steward. If complaints
about these were received, they were forwarded to Yoritomo,
who alone could decide as to their reasonableness, and who alone
could take practical action in the matter. In reality, he showed
himself wonderfully attentive to the incessant reports of mis-
conduct with which he was assailed, and very prompt to re-

dress grievances and to punish offending subordinates. In a

few months, however, he realised that he had carried his Jito
390 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

project too far; the troubles between his appointeesand the

owners were numerous and serious; and the new system was
undoubtedly most unpopular in certain quarters. Now, at this
time, what Yoritomo desired above all things was popularity.
He had caused the Kirokusho established by Sanjo II. in 1069
to be re-organised for the purpose of dealing with civil suits

between owners of Sho-en, and owners of

of Sho-en
and the Jito; but its commissioners proved to be
dilatory and timid, and its working was the reverse
of satisfactory. In a few months, he asked leave to
abolish the special military tax of four bushels of rice per acre
and soon afterwards he withdrew Land Stewards from
his
nearly all the manors, except those that had been either owned
by the Tairas, or administered by them. He could the more
readily afford to make this concession, since these Taira manors
in Western Japan were so numerous and so extensive, that his
possession of them practically ensured his supremacy there,
while at the same time his Shugo had complete control of the
military affairs of the provinces in which they lay.
Shortly after the Kamakura troops had occupied Kyoto
towards the end of 1185, Hojo Tokimasa had been sent up to
the capital to represent Yoritomo there; and it was during his
three months' stay at the seat of the Court that all thesenew
arrangements were effected. But
was only part of his
all this

commission. On three separate occasions Yoritomo had been

publicly proclaimed a rebel by the Court; and he was deter-
mined that his fortunes and fair fame should not be any longer
exposed to the caprices of the ex-Emperor and his factious ad-
visers. Certain of the functions of the Kwampaku were now
entrusted to a ~Nairan, —an officer who was really to watch the
doings of the Kyoto authorities in Yoritomo's interests, and to
keep him duly apprised of what was toward in the capital.
Furthermore, a Shugo, or High Constable, was stationed in
Kyoto, with the duty of attending to the neighbouring pro-
vinces in case of need. In many respects the functions of this
officialwere identical with those of the Kel)iishi, the High
Commissioner of Police and Criminal Law, appointed by the
Sovereign. But the Shu go was not supposed to displace the
Kchiishi. In fact, shortly afterwards we read of the Kcbiishi
putting some Bakufu men under arrest for negligence in the
discharge of their duties, and of Yoritomo punishing the latter
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 391

severely when the incident was brought to his notice. The

truth is that what with orders and decrees emanating from
so many different sources, —the Imperial Chancery, the Palace
of the Cloistered Emperor, the Kebiishi Board, —and of all

equal authority, concurrent jurisdiction had become the rule

rather than the exception in the administration of the capital
and of the Empire. Hence this invasion of the traditional
sphere of the activity of the Kebiishi by Kamakura officers did
not occasion any particular surprise or uneasiness in Kyoto at
first. As a matter of fact, the Court continued to appoint its
own Kebiishi without any reference to Kamakura, for long
years after this. But in little more than a generation after
the Bakufu established its first pied a terre in Kyoto, in 1186,
the once all powerful Kebiishi had come to be more than little

an empty titular distinction, for by that time the Hojo Re-

gents had got their hands so securely upon the throat of the
Court, by tightening their grip they could virtually
that
strangle it with all its officials at any moment. But it was no
part of the policy of Yoritomo to offend the susceptibilities of
the CloisteredEmperor in any way, when such a course could
be avoided; and he was extremely careful to see to it that his
officials in the capital should be as unobtrusive as possible in
all the steps they took for the establishment of Kamakura in-

fluence there.
During the next three years — 1186 to 1189 —the Lord of
Kamakura was mostly occupied with two problems, which
ultimately resolved themselves into one. In the summer of
1186, Uncle Yukiiye had been at
last captured in Izumi; and
his head after being exposed Kyoto Avas sent on to Kama-
in
kura for Yoritomo's inspection. But Yoshitsune still con-
tinued to be at large; and so long as his head and shoulders
remained undivorced this most brilliant of all the Great Cap-
tains of Japan Avas regarded by Yoritomo as the direst of
menaces to himself and his projects. And then, to the north
lay the vast estates and thronging vassals of Fujiwara Hide-
hira, the Lord, or rather the King, of the 30,000 square miles
ofMutsu and Dewa. Until Yoshitsune was safely and securely
under the mould, and Mutsu and Dewa reduced to subjection,
Yoritomo felt that he could not hope to sleep in peace.
The anxiety felt by the Lord of Kamakura about what his
youngest half-brother might possibly do was plainly not only
392 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

intense, but actually overmastering and overpowering. A

rich harvest to priestsand temples it proved; for, with all his
greatness, Yontomo was the abject slave of superstition, as —
much so, indeed, as was Louis XI. of France. In 1186, Yoshi-
tsune's spouse, or better perhaps, devoted female friend and
companion, Shizuka Gozen, was captured by Hojo Tokimasa's
emissaries. After being subjected to a rigorous but unsatis-
factory examination by Hojo she was sent on to Kamakura,
pregnant with child by Yoshitsune. Shizuka was the ablest
and most fashionable danseuse in Kyoto; the brilliant victor
in the great Dan-no-ura fight of 1185 had at once captivated
her heart, when, summoned
to perform in a function given in
his honour, she had met him. Henceforth her devotion
first

to him had been at once sincere and profound; henceforth she

incontestably proved herself to be
" Bold, cautious, true, and his loving comrade."

Had it not been for the loving and anxious forethought of

Shizuka, Yoshitsune must inevitably have fallen a victim to
the assault of the vile and foresworn Toshabo Shoshun, the
miserable tool of the Lord of Kamakura, who
still viler
employed his dirty services and
rewarded them liberally
in advance. In this connection, a fearless and impartial
historian has not the slightest need to stop and
pause and consider and mince his words. In spite of all his
great intellectual and administrative abilities, Yoritomo was
morally as great a criminal as were Richelieu or Colbert, when
what he, or they, were pleased to consider as " reasons of
State " were involved. On arriving at Kamakura, Shizuka
was subjected to another searching examination; but as to
the whereabouts or the probable whereabouts of the much-
dreaded Yoshitsune the inquisitors learned simply nothing.
Then nothing would serve Masako but that the famous dan-
seuse should give an exhibition of her skill before her. Shizuka
do so; but at last Yoritomo found means to
flatly refused to

induce her to comply with the mandate. Accompanied by

Hatakeyama Shigetada with the cymbals and Kudo Suketsune
with the tambourine, she danced, improvising a song of love
and regret for her proscribed lover. Masako, in this, did not
come off with any very great advantage; certain of the deft
allusions in the bold improvisation stung too keenly. Shizuka
was kept in ward till she was delivered of her child. It was
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 393

a male; and Yoritomo at once ordered one of his satellites

(Adachi Kiyotsune) to make away with it, while the mother
was set at liberty. It will be remembered that Kiso Yoshi-
naka's boyish son had been sent to Kamakura to be wedded to
Yoritomo's daughter. Shortly after the fall of Yoshinaka,
Yoritomo had this boy put to death in cold blood. It is things

of this description that excite our detestation and loathing

for certain phases of Yoritomo's character. What makes the
is that it was towards those of his own
matter infinitely worse
flesh —
and blood, towards his own kith and kin, that the —
great Lord of Kamakura was so unrelentingly pitiless a ad
cruel.
On the other hand, towards the hereditary enemies of his
house, —the Ise Heishi,—he was not particularly vindictive, if

we take into account the manifold causes for a just resentment

they had furnished. Part of Hojo Tokimasa's commission, on
going up to Kyoto, at the end of 1185, had been to search for
the remnants of the Tairas still lurking in the capital; to see
to it that most of those found should be sent into a safe exile
and that the more dangerous among them should be killed.
Yet we read of no more than two of the infant descendants of
Kiyomori being butchered on this occasion. However, there is
some reason to believe that this unwonted measure of clemency
must be attributed to nothing loftier than a grovelling super-
stition. In the autumn of 1185, Kyoto had been visited by a
series of terrible earthquakes which had done immense damage,
and the surface ground had kept on shaking and quiver-
of the
ing for weeks. To the excited popular imagination it seemed
as if the ghosts of the Taira host that had got whelmed in the
waves at Dan-no-ura, and so defrauded of last obsequies, were
now wreaking a deadly revenge, from which the sole prospect
of escape lay in appeasing the wrath of the offended disembodied
spirits. That this view of the matter was transmitted to
Kamakura by Hojo, we know from contemporary records.
Now, as has been said, Yoritomo was profoundly su-
perstitious ;and the popular desire to placate the " rough
spirits " of the drowned Heishi, no doubt, did much to stay
him from pushing matters against the scant survivors of the
erstwhile all-powerful house of Kiyomori to extremities.
Besides all this, the Ise Heishi had been so effectually and
thoroughly crushed, that long generations must pass before
394 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

they could again become formidable. They had almost en-

tirely ceased to be objects of anxiety to the Lord of Kamakura.
What occupied his thoughts night and day was what the man
—
who had done most to bring about their fall his own youngest
half-brother, Yoshitsune —
might be ultimately able to effect
against him.
Down to March or April 1187, —for fifteen months, —Yo-
shitsune succeeded in eluding the Kamakura sleuth-hounds in
the wilds of Yamato, Kishu, and Ise. During a portion of this
time he actually contrived to lurk in Kyoto, or its vicinity.

Then at last, disguised as a Yama-bushi, or strolling begging

Friar, accompanied by Renkei and others, he struck out for
the coast of the Sea of Japan, and after a series of thrilling
adventures in traversing its littoral towards the north, he at
last found himself once more safe under the protector of his
youthful days, Fujiwara Hidehira, the virtual King of Mutsu
and Dewa. At this time Hidehira was an old man of ninety-
one, and he knew that his end was at hand. One of the last
things he did was to charge his sons to stand by Yr oshitsune
on all occasions to the last, and to exert themselves to aid
him to obtain the office of Shogun. A few months after Yoshi-
tsune arrived in Mutsu, the patriarchal Hidehira was gathered
to his fathers; and his eldest son, Yasuhira, ruled in his
stead. By-and-by rumours began to reach Kamakura to the
effect that Yoshitsune was being harboured in Mutsu; and

when the truth of these rumours was presently confirmed

emissaries were dispatched requesting Yasuhira to put the
fugitive to death (April 1188). As little notice was taken
of this request, Y^oritomo began to put pressure on the Clois-
tered Emperor to send a special decree to Yr asuhira enjoining
him from Kamakura; and when, even
to carry out the order
then, the Mutsu was slow to bestir himself, the Lord
chieftain
of Kamakura began to insist upon receiving a commission to
chastise Yasuhira himself. It was with great reluctance that
such a commission was at last issued by the Court of Kyoto,
where, even then, Yoshitsune had strong and not altogether
uninfluential sympathisers, some of whom were presently ban-
ished for attempting to thwart Yoritomo's projects. On learn-
ing of all this, Y^asuhira lost heart, and resolved to endeavour
to avert the storm threatening to burst upon him by executing
the mandate from Kyoto. With overwhelming numbers he
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 395

suddenly attacked Yoshitsune's residence at Koromogawa, and

although the latter made a most gallant defence he was ul-
timately overborne. Seeing that escape was impossible, he
first killed his wife and children, and then committed hara-kiri.

Hidehira's youngest son, true to his father's dying injunc-

tions,had stood manfully by Yoshitsune to the last; and
Yasuhira did not scruple to forward the head of his own bro-
ther together with that of Yoshitsune to Kamakura, with
the view of still further placating the resentment of Yori-
tomo.
One authority alleges that " this barbarous action irritated
Yoritomo to such a degree that he assembled a great army
to punish Yasuhira for the crime, and although the Cloistered
Emperor forbade him, he refused to listen to his commands."
Seeing that the Lord of Kamakura was notoriously guilty of
similar barbarities on a much more extensive scale, it is not
likely he was at all seriously or profoundly affected by the
death of Fujiwara Tadahira at the hands of his elder brother.
The lively indignation he expressed was doubtless entirely
feigned, —simulated for " reasons of State."
What he wanted
above all was a plausible excuse for attacking Yasuhira
things
and reducing Mutsu and Dewa to subjection. The fact is
that when Yoshitsune's death was reported to the Kyoto
Court, Yoritomo's commission for operations against Yasu-
hira was cancelled. But Yoritomo's agents insisted that his
preparations for the campaign were so far advanced that
he could not afford to abandon it; and judicious pressure
in the proper quarters occasioned the prompt re-issue of the
decree for the reduction of Mutsu. Presently three huge armies
were converging upon the doomed provinces from as many
widely separated bases. While the levies of the Hokurikudo
under Hiki and Usami entered Dewa by the Japan Sea coast
route, two great columns advanced upon Mutsu from the
south. One followed the Pacific sea-board, the other directed
its course through Shimotsuke. With the latter of
these Yoritomo went in person. When the three forces
ultimately formed a junction in the centre of Mutsu,
towards the end of the campaign, they were found to amount
to the immense total of 284,000 men. At all events such is

the assertion of the Ajsuma Kagami, —which must be admitted

396 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

to be on the whole a sober, unimaginative, and well-informed

i ecord.
The strategy of the Bakufu commanders was at once simple
and sound, and the immense masses of men they had at their
disposal were handled with no mean amount of tactical ability
and skill. Before the overwhelming numerical superiority
of the invaders the men of Mutsu could do little more than
stand passively on the defensive. There was a good deal of
dour and dogged and determined fighting, but the northerners
were driven from one entrenched position to another, some
of the most considerable of their stockades being captured
with all their garrisons, and by the end of two months or so.
it had become plain to Yasuhira that all hopes of a successful

resistance were at an end. He therefore sent envoys to Yori-

tomo's headquarters to negotiate terms of surrender. But the
overture was brusquely repulsed and it then became plain that
;

Yoritomo would rest satisfied with nothing less than the death
of Yasuhira, and the complete overthrow of the great house
of Fujiwara of Mutsu. Yasuhira in despair abandoned the
contest on the mainland, and fled over the straits to
Yezo, where he was presently assassinated by one of his own
retainers, a certain Kawada, who carried his master's head to
Yoritomo. No doubt the latter was deeply gratified in the
innermost recesses of his heart by the sight of the grisly
trophy; but he rewarded Kawada 'in a very characteristic
fashion, —he at once ordered him to be put to death for trea-
chery ! Pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the Lord
of Kamakura was at all times a hazardous and unprofitable
venture.
In the immense hoard of metallic and other treasures ac-
cumulated by the Fujiwaras of Mutsu in the course of three
generations Yoritomo found a ready and easy means of recom-
pensing the services of his officers; and all proffer of reward
from the Court of Kyoto was respectfully declined. Presently,
however, Yoritomo requested to be allowed to undertake the
administration of the conquered provinces; and the petition
was granted. For the preservation of order and the decision
of suits, two officials, who soon came to exercise concurrent
jurisdiction, were established in Mutsu, while later on a Shugo
was specially assigned to Dewa. Their instructions were to
conduct affairs as they had been conducted by Hidehira, a
certain indication that the administration of that great chief
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 397

was regarded by Yoritomo as at onee highly efficient and a

model worthy of imitation. At the same time everything pos-
sible was done to conciliate the good-will of the new vassals of
the Baknfu. Temples and shrines were repaired and renovated,
their revenues confirmed and in certain cases considerably aug-
mented, while special efforts were made to relieve destitution
and distress. In a short time, after the vigorous suppression
of an abortive revolt in the following year, when an adventurer
endeavoured to personate Yoshitsune, the new provinces were
as orderly and contented as they had been under the beneficent
patriarchal rule of the illustrious Hidehira. And this was the
end of the earliest great fief in Japan, —a fief which in ter-
ritorial extent covered a full fourth of the total superficies of
the Empire.
From the autumn of 1189, the Lord of Kamakura could
afford to sleep soundly. In that year both Yoshitsune and the
Fujiwara chieftain had perished; and instead of being a deadly
menace to Yoritomo's rear whenever he contemplated opera-
tions in the West, Mutsu and Dewa would henceforth supply
him with the support of an additional 50,000 or 60,000 horse-
bowmen or footmen in case of need. Of the five men who had
at any time inspired Yforitomo, if not with mortal fear, at all

events with wholesome dread, four could henceforth work him

scaith as disembodied spirits merely; and the Lord of Kama-
kura was, above all things, exceedingly careful to stand well
with Buddhist priests and the heads of Shinto shrines. As
for the erstwhile redoubtable Satake Hideyoshi, he had brought
a strong following to join Yoritomo's flag at Utsunomiya on
September 7, 1189 and in the subsequent Mutsu campaign he
;

had done yeoman's service in the cause of the Kamakura

Bakufu.
Here it may be well once more to insist upon a point
and —
a cardinal point too —which
Western readers will infallibly
overlook, unless it be insisted upon with almost nauseous and
damnable iteration. Under the Tokngawa regime, the rights
of the Great Daimyo over their territories were twofold, —pro-
prietary as well as administrative, although, as a rule, these
two very distinct and distinctive prerogatives were wont to be
blended in blurred, if not actually inextricable confusion.
Now in Mutsu and Dewa Yforitomo's rights were not proprie-
tary; they were administrative purelv and solely, at least in
398 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

t lieir origin. But even with the clearest and cleanest of title-

deeds of the very most superfine quality of parchment, it is

but ill having to argue with an offended administrative autho-

rity, who can
an extreme pinch contrive to throw a matter
at
of some 350,000 fully armed men upon your just but defence-
less back. What the Lord of Kamakura filched, not from the
Emperor, but from an ex-Emperor of Japan, most duti-
fully and with the most elaborate show, or simulation, of con-
stitutional means and methods, was not provinces, or even
acres or roods; but simply administrative rights and preroga-
tives over perhaps some eighty per cent, of the military caste,

then rapidly increasing in influence, prestige, numbers, and

material resources. Here another word of caution is impera-
tively necessary. The military caste had no monopoly of
the use of lethal weapons of offence or defence at this time;
or indeed for a full four hundred years afterwards. The very
hucksters and pedlars, who humbly hawked their wares
about from one door to another in the great Buke capital of
Kamakura, from first to last carried a well-tempered keen-cut-
ting blade in their girdles, and the records conclusively show
that some of them at least did not carry that blade' as a mere
ornament.
Since he raised his standard on Stone-Bridge-Hill in 1180,
Yoritomo had been, not once, but several times summoned to
repair to Kyoto; but he had invariably been able to devise
some excuse for his non-appearance there. This persistent
aloofness on his part was no doubt the outcome of carefully
studied and deeply pondered policy. The unknown, and still
more, the mysterious unknown, readily passes for the magni-
ficient; and as it was and had been the wont of the polished
courtiers and of the citizens who took their tone from them
to treat military men with a tolerant condescension at the
best, the great War-Lord of Kamakura was in no haste to
expose himself to the risks of that familiarity which so easily
bred contempt. Time and again the people of Kyoto
had seen the fierce Kwanto horse-bowmen defiling
through their streets in all the stern panoply of
war in seemingly interminable troops and squadrons; and
these overwhelming displays of military power and resources
began to impress even the incurable levity of the gay metro
polis with an uncomfortable sense of awe and respect Then
 YORTTOMO AND HIS WORK. 399

followed the reflection that those huge masses of invincible

warriors constituted an engine merely; and that behind it

and far greater than was the brain who had forged it, and
it

who continued to control all its movements from the mysteri-

ous remoteness of the nascent capital of Kamakura, about
whose magnificence strange fables were rapidly getting afloat
in Kyoto. Again, latterly, the very palaces and fanes
of Kyoto had one after the other been either rebuilt or re-
novated by the resources of the Kwanto, dutifully proffered
by the great War-Lord for these beneficent objects. Then with
his Shugo in Kyoto, with the Nairan looking after his in-
terests amid the devious intrigues of the Court, it presently
began to dawn upon the consciousness of Kyoto that the arm
of thenew War-Lord was at once long and powerful. In the
Empire of Japan all this was entirely new and unprecedented.
Since Kwammu founded his new metropolis of Heianjo in
794, Kyoto had continued to be the centre of the universe.
Whoever aspired to play any considerable part in the councils
of the nation had, since that date, inevitably endeavoured to
be in, or near, the gay and frivolous capital. The highest ambi-
tion of great captains and of successful military adven-
turers had unfailingly hitherto been to participate in the
gaieties of Kyoto, whether as humble satellites of Fuji-
wara magnates like Michinnga, or as the trusted henchmen
of Cloistered Emperors. Taira Kiyomori had indeed so far
broken with immemorial tradition, in this respect, as to en-
deavour, with no mean measure of success, to dispense with
all patronage from civilians, and had boldly challenged their

lofty pretensions to the monopoly of high office and exalted

rank. Yet, like almost every great military chief before him,
Kiyomori himself, and his clansmen in still greater measure,
had succumbed to the siren-like enchantment of the magni-
ficent and luxurious city on the banks of the Kamo. And now
in these later years a War-Lord had arisen in the barbarous
wilds of the East, far greater than Kiyomori had ever been,
whose numerical following was such as was unknown in
Japan in the very hey-day of Kiyomori's power, a War-Lord
who all unseen and unknown had forged an engine which had
tumbled the huge structure of Ise Heishi grandeur and great-
ness into irrecoverable and irredeemable wreck and ruin. And
yet to this War-Lord the brilliant centre of the Japanese
400 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

universe was without interest or charm; time and again he

had turned a deaf ear to the most flattering commands or in-
vitations to honour it with the light of his countenance. All
this could scarcely fail to impress the imagination of even the
most giddy-minded among the courtiers and the citizens who
aped them and their ways. Curiosity about the mysterious
Lord of Kamakura had for long been intense; and when
it was known that he had at last fixed a date for his ap-

pearance in their midst the whole city was in a turmoil of

excitement and expectation.
In August, 1190, architects and artificers were busily at
work rearing a magnificent hostel for the reception of Yori-
tomo during his sojourn in Kyoto, on the site of Taira Kiyo-
mori's Rokuhara mansion. When news reached Kamakura
that this structure was all but completed Yoritomo set out,
on November 2, escorted by a numerous and magnificent
cavalcade. Nearly five weeks were spent on the journey, for
Yoritomo, besides looking carefully into the conduct of his ad-
ministrative agents along the route, devoted considerable time
to revisiting the scenes made memorable by the hardships he
had endured as a boy of fourteen during the disastrous flight
from Kyoto thirty years before. At last, on December 5, his
cortege arrived in the suburbs of the capital and through long ;

lines and lanes of gaping citizens it wended its way to the

Rokuhara. So overwhelming was the curiosity of the Clois-
tered Emperor that his ex-Majesty is said to have gone out
incognito to view his formidable subject and his magnificent
train, whose splendour astonished even the oldest courtiers,
accustomed as they had been to pomp and pageants from their
youth. They could scarcely believe that such wealth and such
knowledge of the art of display were to be found in the
Kwanto. During his five weeks' stay in Kyoto on this
occasion, Yoritomo rained costly gifts and presents upon the
Sovereign, the Cloistered Emperor, the courtiers, and the lead-
ing fanes and shrines of the city.
Yoritomo was already invested with very high Court rank
about two years before this date he had been advanced to the
first But hitherto he had held none
grade of the Second Class.
of the ordinary great Court offices. He was now made Gon-
Dainagon, or Acting Councillor of State, —
the Dainagon (of
whom there were several), it will be rememjbered, ranking
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 401

after the Minister of the Right or the Naidaijin, when there

was a Naidaijin. A few days later, he was gazetted Great
General of the Right, and accorded the privilege of wearing a
sword of honour when he appeared at Court. As propriety
demanded, he had at first declined both offices; but they were
pressed upon him. However, he held them for no more
than a few days, his resignation being graciously accepted
when he presented it. It is strange to read of Yoritomo being
rewarded on this occasion with a gift of 250 acres of Kdden
(Merit-Land) for his distinguished services.
This visit to the capital did not enable Yoritomo to attain
the object on which he had set his mind for long. He had for
years been desirous of obtaining an Imperial patent investing
him with the office of Sei-i-Tai Shogun (Barbarian-Subduing
Great General). But the Cloistered Emperor looked askance
at the request; and was careful not to grant it. The fact
r
is, that in spite of Y oritomo's professed dutiful submission,
his obtaining Court decrees to sanction even the least of his
projects before undertaking them, and his almost punctilious
regard for constitutional precedents, his ex-Majesty con-
tinued to regard the Lord of Kamakura with a very consider-
able measure of deep-rooted distrust. If we consider the rough
and rude fashion in which the Cloistered Emperor had been
coerced by former virtually military dictators, Kiyomori, Mu-
nemori, and Y^oshinaka, there is nothing to be surprised at in
this, perhaps. Schooled by the long series of mortifications he
had had to endure at the hands of great chieftains, during
his rule of more than thirty years, Shirakawa II. was evidently
astute enough to divine that the issuing of any such commis-
sion as the great War-Lord of the Kwanto wished to obtain
could not fail to be pregnant with disaster to the interests and
authority of the Imperial line. At all events, as long as he
continued to live, Yoritomo had to rest contented with his
office of Lord High Constable of the Empire.
But the days of Shirakawa II. were rapidly drawing to a
close^ and he passed away in the spring of 1192, at the age of

67. Thereupon, his grandson, the titular Sovereign, Toba II.,

assumed the supreme direction of affairs. But as Toba II. was
no more than thirteen years of age at this time, he was at first
almost entirely in the hands of his Ministers; and these
Ministers were all more or less under the influence of Kamakura.

AA
402 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

It is not strange, then, that Yoritomo was presently gratified

with that special Imperial patent lie had hitherto vainly en-

deavoured to obtain. In August 111)2 two commissioners were

dispatched to Kamaknra to invest him with the long-coveted
office of Sei-i-Tai Shogun. Clothed in their robes of State,
the commissioners proceeded to the shrine of Hachiman on
Tsurngaoka, where they were solemnly received by Yoritomo's
representative attended by a throng of warriors, all in full
panoply. There the new Shogun's delegate was handed the
Imperial patent, presented a hundred ryo to each of the com-
missioners, and returned to Yoritomo's palace. Yoritomo,
who during all this time had remained in the palace, came
out as far as the porch and there received the Imperial order.
Such was the simple ceremony by which Yoritomo was for-
mally confirmed in the all but supreme and absolute sway he
already wielded over the military class in the Empire.
In connection with this unpretentious, but all-important,
episode in the history of Japan, two points must be briefly
adverted to, but strongly insisted on. In the first place, the
appointment of a Sei-i-Tai Shogun was in itself no novelty,
for Shoguns there had been in scores before this date; and
even of Barbarian-Subduing Great Generals there had been
several since the days of Saka-no-ITye no Tamura-maro, who
had been the first to receive such a title. But the commission
of all previous Shoguns and Sei-i-Tai Shoguns had been for a
strictly on the accomplishment of
limited special purpose,
which the commission had to be returned to the Emperor or
his representatives. Furthermore, the authority of these
commanders had extended only to the troops under their flag
for the time being, and the district that was the seat of war
or disturbance. Now, the authority bestowed upon Yoritomo
was general, —to provide for the defence and tranquillity of
the Empire at large ; and as such a duty was permanent, there
could be no question of his having to surrender his patent
upon the accomplishment of the object for which it was issued.
Moreover, in case of need, it put the whole military class and
the whole military resources of the Empire at his disposal.
The second point to be briefly is this: As Lord
dwelt on
High Constable of the sixtysix provinces of Japan Yoritomo
had undoubtedly exercised a commanding authority over the
military class; and it might very well appear at first blush
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 403

that his new commission as Sei-i-Tai Shogun added to or re-

inforced that authority in no appreciable manner. But such
an impression is a mistaken one. The
Lord High Con-
office of

stable of the Empire, with Imperial permission to place a High

Constable in each of the provinces, had indeed enabled Yori-
tomo to extend his authority over some 80 or 90 per
cent, of the military class of Japan. But that office was
felt to be anomalous; and at best an ingenious temporary

makeshift. It might be revoked at any moment; and for al-

most every individual proceeding he had taken in the exercise
of its functions, the Lord of Kamakura had either been con-
strained, or had felt it to be expedient, to appeal to the Court

for its sanction or instructions. Down to 1192 the contem-

porary records are replete with representations by Yoritomo
to the Cloistered Emperor, and the Imperial replies to these
communications Now, one great peculiarity in a Shogun's
commission had invariably been that, from the moment he
received his official sword from the hands of the Sovereign
till the day that he returned it thereto, he was free to act on
his own initiative, to punish or reward, to slay or to save
alive within the assigned and legitimate sphere of
his operations. Naturally this was a prerogative that ap-
pealed strongly to the imagination of military men, and en-
sured their respect for the office. Now, this all-important
feature in the temporary commission of a Shogun
for a special limited purpose was of course reproduced
in Yoritomo's patent of Sei-i-Tai Shogun, appointed to pro-
vide for the permanent defence and tranquillity of the Em-
pire. To be directed by a Lord High Constable, who was
perpetually appealing to the Court for permission to do this
or that, and from whom permission was not unfrequently
withheld, was one thing, and to be absolutely at the orders
of an autocrat within his own sphere, free to act on his own
untrammelled initiative, and from whose orders and decision
there was no appeal to any higher authority, was another.
And a vastly different " another," too. It need excite no great
measure of surprise, then, to find that Samurai presently be-
gan to regard the situation from the standpoint of Oba Kage-
yoshi, who asserted that while in the army officers and soldiers
were bound to obey the orders of the Shogun, but not the
decree of the Emperor.
404 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

Such language, however, was nothing specially novel in

the Japan coeval with Richard I. of England. Tt had been

held more than a century before by the devoted followers of

Minamoto Yoriiye, when the Court had refused to reward
their captain for his suppression of the disorders in Mutsu and
Dewa. Somewhere about the same date we have found a Taira
retainer roundly giving the ex-Emperor Shirakawa I. to under-
stand that in the event of a clash between statutes of his
ex-Majesty's making and the House-Code of the Tse Heishi,
it was not the latter that was to be thrown overboard. Here
be it said, however, that Yoritomo was exceedingly careful to
check all language of this kind. His Reverence Chdgen once
addressed him as Kimi (Lord) ; and the Shogun at once for-
bade him to do so a second time, for the term Kimi should
only be applied to His Majesty, and not be loosely used. The
young Sovereign, Toba IT., although later on he showed him-
self possessed at once of ability and of a masterful temper, at
first showed a greater fondness for pleasure and dissipation
than for cares of State; and His Reverence, the turbulent and
strong-willed Abbot, Mongaku Shonin, strongly urged his
friend Yforitomo to depose him summarily, and replace him by
his brother Morisada Shinno. But, we are told, much as the
Shogun respected and benefactor, the Abbot Mon
his old ally
gaku, he recoiled with horror from his suggestion. To the
Lord of Kamakura it seemed like laying a profane hand upon
the Ark of the Covenant. But in spite of all this, just let us
throw a glance forward to what we are destined to see in
1221, —
scarcely a quarter of a century from this date, when
Yoritomo professed himself so scandalised and horrified at
the mere suggestion of his ghostly friend Mongaku Shonin.
The titular Sovereign, Chukyo Tenno, a babe of less than
three years of age, still in his swaddling-clothes, summarily
deposed after a " reign " of 70 days, one ex-Emperor ( Jun-
toku), then 24 years, summarily exiled to Sado; his elder
brother and immediate predecessor on the throne, Tsuchimi-
kado, then 26, deported to Tosa, while the father of the latter
two, Toba XL, whose shortcomings and faults Yoritomo had
endured so dutifully and meekly, was now most unceremo-
niously relegated to the lonely islands of Old, to spend the last
eighteen years of his allotted span among the fishy smells of
Amagori. Such a state of things was doubtless no outcome of
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 405

Yoritomo's own personal leaching; but on the other hand

it was the logical and practical result of his statecraft.
To carry on its work the new Bakufu needed a highly effi-
cient if not very elaborate administrative machine of its own.
As a matter of fact this had been already installed in Kama-
kura, either in, or before, the year 1184. Its chief component
parts were the three great sections of (1) the Samurai-dokoro,
(2) the Kumonjo, which title was altered to the Mandokoro
in 1191, and (3) the Monchujo.
The first of these, the Samurai-dokoro, established in 1180,
was largely of the nature of a General Staff, although its func-
tions were more extensive. In the great campaigns of 1184
and 1185, we have seen the President (Bet to) and the other
members (Shoshi) of this board detailed for service with Nori-
yori and Yoshitsune respectively, with the duty of advising
these commanders and of punishing and rewarding the officers
and men serving under them. When sitting in Kamakura it
had to deal with all questions of promotion and degradation,
and to act as a sort of moral police over the conduct of the
Samurai. Naturally enough, the President of this Board oc-
cupied a position of great authority and iuiiuence. The first
to hold this office was that Wada Yoshimori who was the first
to break through the Taira line of battle at Dan-no-ura. After
the death of Yoritomo in 1199, Wada's power became more and
more formidable, and he at last challenged the rapidly rising
Hojo ascendancy in the field of battle. He was defeated and
slain (1213) ; but at first the contest bade fair to be no un-
equal one. From that date the Hojo Shikken, or Regent, was
careful to assume and keep the Presidency of the Samurai-
dokofo in his own hands.
One thing that honourably distinguished Yoritomo's rule
from first to last was the extreme and constant anxiety

he evinced that the administration of justice should be at

once pure, prompt, and efficient. Time and again we read of
him hearing evidence and deciding suits and disputes in per-
son. In 1184 he erected the Monchujo as a Supreme Court
for the decision of all civil cases in the last resort. Its first
president was Miyoshi Yasunobu, the son of Yoritomo's old
nurse, who had acted as his secret agent in Kyoto during
his years of exile in Izu. In 1220, when 81 years of age, Yasu-
nobu transmitted his post of tihitsuji; or President of the
406 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Monchfijo, to his son Yasutoshi ; but a little later on the IIojo

Regent appropriated this post also.
The Kumonjo, established in 1184, but known from 1191
onwards as the Mandokoro, had to deal with general adminis-
trative business and measures. Its first Betto or President
was that Oe Hiromoto whom we have seen suggesting to Yori-
tomo the astute device of placing Shugo in the several pro-
vinces and Jito in the manors. Its first Vice-President
r
(Fujiwara Y ukimasa)> as also its two secretaries Fuji-
wara Toshinaga and Nakahara Mitsuie, were, like Oe Hiromoto
himself, either Kyoto lawyers or literati, or the descendants
of such. In 1225 the Mandokoro was re-organised. In or
before that year the Ho jo Shikken (Regent) assumed the
Presidency in it, and under him met 15 or 16 Hydjoshu or
Councillors. Of these a full half were literati Oes, Kiyo- —
waras, Nakaharas, Miyoshis, Nikaidos, Saitos, and so forth
whose tenure of office was not merely for life, but actually
hereditary; while the other members were selected from the
principal Daimyo according to their aptitude for the duties
of the post.
The new administration of the Bakufu was successful
and efficient from its inception, and it continued for the

best part of a century at least to be successful,

efficient, and on the whole highly beneficent to the
interests of the great bulk of the Japanese people at large.
A careful examination of the personnel that directed its chief
organs will help very much to enable us to understand why
this should have been so.
As has been already remarked, not only all the great offices
and only lucrative positions in the
of State, but even the chief
Eight Boards of the old Kyoto Government, had for genera-
tions been monopolised by fashionable blue-blooded courtiers,
principally Fujiwaras and civilian Minamotos, whose notions
of conducting administrative business were limited to affixing
their seals to documents whose contents and purport they
scarcely ever glanced at. All the real, hard, honest work
was performed by the members of certain obscure families of
savants, Oes, Miyoshis, Kiyowaras, Nakaharas, and others.
No matter what their attainments, merits, or length of service
might be, a career for these men in the capital had long been
impossible. The University, in which their ancestors had held
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 40?

important posts, had been gradually stripped of nearly all its

endowments, and existed merely in name. In their own

houses, these savants continued to give instruction in what
had been the traditional and hereditary lore of their family,
by way of eking out the scanty perquisites of routine official
work. Now, it is not too much to say that, albeit held
in such low esteem, the services of these men in the Chan-
celleries and Bureaux were, and had been for long, simply
indispensable. Some of them were skilled mathematicians,
accountants, and financiers; others were the sole depositaries
of the legal knowledge of the time most of them were experts
;

in the drafting of public documents in the proper form. Of

all these important matters the Ministers and titular heads

of Departments and Bureaux as a rule knew absolutely nothing.

Besides, not a few of these learned drudges had from time to
time developed no mean measure of political and admini- ,

strative ability now and then there were undoubtedly men of

;

real original organising power among them. In the halcyon

days of the scholar-politician, the age of Sugawara Michizane,
three centuries before, some of them might have well aspired
to the name and fame of statesmen. But the days of Michizane
and of Uda Tenno had come and gone; and for the scholar,
unless of Fujiwara or Imperial descent, there was henceforth
no open place in the Councils of the Empire, —at least in Kyoto.
At the best the highest post he could aspire to was that of
" dry-nurse " to some high-born frivolous, ignorant, spoiled
child of fortune, who might, luckily for the learned drudge
only too glad to have an opportunity of supplying his Fopship
with surreptitious store of wisdom, contract an itch for re-

nown and glory as a statesman of great and original ability.

Yoritomo showed himself very prompt to profit by this
peculiar situation. In Kamakura a large staff of men accus-
tomed to and acquainted with the routine of administration in
all its branches was urgently needed; and such men were not

to be found in the Kwanto, for the Kwanto from time imme-

morial had been a land not of scholars, but of soldiers, most
of them hopelessly illiterate. Accordingly at an early date he
exerted himself to enlist the services of some of the able but
ill-requited savants and learned experts who really carried on
the business of the old central government in Kyoto. When
the latter learned that there was actually such a thing as a
408 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

career open for them in the East, and that they could safely
count upon finding a field for the display of their abilities
there, they at once left the incompetent Court nobles to their
own unaided and flocked to the new city on Sagami
devices,
Bay, where they met with an appreciation all the more delight-
ful to them because of its novelty. In Kyoto they had been so
many mere clerical drudges; in Kamakura they filled the most
important posts in two out of the three great Boards through
which the Bakufu was destined to rule the Empire. This
exodus was a most serious blow to the Kyoto administration.
It will be remembered that the effort to revive the old Kiro-
kusho there was to a large extent a failure; and one reason for
tbis doubtless was that the high-born commissioners placed at
the head of it could no longer exploit the brains of the humble,
but indispensable, experts they had formerly treated with such
scant measure of consideration. What was Kyoto's paralysing
loss, was Kamakura's inestimable gain, for it would be hard

to overestimate the value of the services rendered by the Oes,

the Miyoshis, and their confreres to Yoritomo and the Bakufu.
In the task of organising the administrative, judicial, and
legislativemachinery of the new system which was destined
in a great measure to supplant that of the Reformers of 645,
the duties of these Kyoto savants were nearly as onerous as
those of Bin and Takamuku had been five centuries and a half
before.
In a broad survey of the general characteristic features of
the political developments of the middle of the seventh cen-
tury and those of the end of the twelfth, in the midst of
glaring antitheses, we meet with some curious analogies. In
both cases a great centralising effort had been successfully
accomplished. In both cases the effort had been accomplished
through the same agency. The Reformers had worked through
the institution of the Emperor. Yoritomo had worked through
the institution of the Throne, for during the first decade of
his power he had to deal not with an Emperor, but a Clois-
tered Emperor. On the other hand, among the prime objects
of the Reformers of 645 had been the overthrow of the Clan
and Group systems, the bringing of the throne into contact
with the whole body of its subjects through its own properly
appointed officers, and the prevention of the rise of any feudal
system or specially privileged military class. The first two
 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 409

objects were successfully attained; as regards the third the

march of time and the logic of facts had abundantly demon-
si rated the futility of the measure of precaution that had been
taken. Not only had a military class arisen which, as a rule,
refused to contribute to the fiscal burdens of the State, which
had usurped criminal and civil jurisdiction over the occupants
of its manors; but this military class had in its native seats in
the provinces virtually emancipated itself from all control by
the lawfully appointed officials and representatives of the cen-
tral administration. The only safeguard the civilian authori-
ties had against the violence of this military caste
was the dissensions and mutual jealousies of its mem-
bers; and for generation after generation, a measure of
authority had been maintained by the not very profound
device of playing one military chief off against another. In
defiance of the Reform Japan was rapidly drift-
institutions,
ing back into social conditions somewhat analogous to those
which had prevailed in the pre-Taikwa age, when the throne
could address most of its subjects only through the heads of
the clans and groups to which they respectively belonged.
Now, with the vast bulk of the Bake practically the vassals of
one single great chief of their own class, with their affairs
administered and regulated by the Samurai- dokoro and the
other two great Boards of Kamakura (acting through their
Shugo and Jito in the provinces) and expressly and emphati-
cally forbidden to hold any direct intercourse with either
the Court or the Court functionaries of Kyoto, the extent of
the breakdown of the Reform system becomes conspicuously
clear.

A distinguished authority has remarked that " if we take

a broad view of Japanese history, we shall recognise in it a
constant oscillation between two forms of government. At
one time there is a strong central authority with local
governors removable at pleasure or at short intervals. By
degrees, the latter offices become hereditary and more indepen-
dent of the throne, so that eventually a sort of feudal system
is Then the pendulum swings back again, and under
the result.
a sti org ru^er the old centralised government is restored, while
the local nobles, deprived of effective authority, retain their
titles only. .The Revolution of 1868 is a remarkable
. .

example of a rapid change from a feudal system to a strong

4 1 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

central government. The converse process is always more

^iadual."
In their broad outlines these remarks are not amiss. But
a somewhat closer inspection of the channels actually traversed
by the course of Japanese history serves to indicate that, to
be in accordance with all the requisites of a general proposi-
tion consonant with fact and truth, they must, at all events,
be amplified, if not actually modified. In the first place it

was not so much the Provincial Governors that founded feudal

families between the tenth and the twelfth centuries. Under
Shirakawa when I., was at its worst, a
the sale of offices
good many of these posts were supposed to have become here-
ditary. But even so, only a very few of these hereditary Pro-
vincial Governors transmitted their offices to descendants, and
perhaps not half -a -score of them became territorially influ-
ential. The exceptions were military men, who, as we have
seen, were occasionally invested with these civilian posts. It
was from the class of District Governors (about 600 in number)
that the great bulk of the later feudal gentry descended.
Then, again, among the Sovereigns, Kwammu and San jo II.

were almost the only " strong rulers " who took effective
means, if not to restore the " old centralised government/' at
all events to stay its decline. The " strong ruler " who first

actually succeeded in arresting the process of disintegration,

and of making it no longer possible for petty local potentates
simply to do what was right in their own eyes, was not an
Emperor; and although he effectually rescued the Empire
from impending chaos and anarchy by establishing a strong
central authority over the most turbulent class in it, it was
not exactly the old centralised government that Yoritomo
restored. That, indeed, with all its machinery was professedly
left intact. For long it had shown itself incompetent to con-
trol that military class which had arisen in spite of all the
projects of the Reformers of 645 to prevent such a contingency
and, in giving the Lord of Kamakura what was virtually a
permanent commission to control that class, it was merely
divesting itself of functions which it had become incapable
of discharging.
The collateral centralised administrationof Kamakura
continued to be wonderfully down to a few years
efficient

before its overthrow in 1333. Then there was an actual at-

 YORITOMO AND HIS WORK. 411

tempt to restore the sway of the old centralised government

of Kyoto in all its plenitude; but in less than five years this
ended in disastrous failure. One outcome of the attempt was
a new line of Shoguns, and another was a long succession
war During this time a number of great feuda-
of 56 years.
tories arose, who now, and during the next two or three
generations, succeeded in emancipating themselves from the
control of Emperor and Shogun alike; and, at the date of
the arrival of Europeans in Japan, there was practically no
such thing as a central government in the Empire. To
—
restore this was the work, not of any strong Sovereign, but
of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu Tokugawa; and the
polity of the Empire, instead of then reverting to the old cen-
tralised government of 645, became a centralised feudalism.
And one of the prime objects of the Reformers of 645 had
been to prevent the appearance of any feudal system in Japan
About the last years of Yoritomo there is not much to be
said. The chief point to note is that the Empire now en-
joyed the unwonted boon of peace within its borders for a
season. Yoritomo made another visit to Kyoto in the spring
of 1195; but during the four months he stayed there, there
were no specially startling developments.
It was met his death, at the age
early in 1199 that he
of 53. He had gone ceremony of opening a new
to attend the
bridge over the Sagami River; and on his return journey he
was thrown from his horse and sustained injuries which
soon proved to be fatal. Tradition has it that he had been
so startled by the sight of the ghosts of Yoshitsune and
Yukiiye which rose from the waters of the river that he fell
from his steed in a swoon, while the animal leaped into the
flood and perished. Although the legend is evidently based
on a Vollcsetymologie to account for the origin of the name
Ba-nyu, by which the Sagami is known, it also indicates that
in the popular judgement the death of his half-brother, Yoshi-
tsune, must have lain lieavy upon Yoritomo's soul. In 1193
his other half-brother, Noriyori, who at one time had enjoyed
so much of Yoritomo's confidence, was also made away with
for " reasons of State." Yoritomo " encouraged each of his
followers to believe himself the sole confidant of his leader's
schemes, and in this cunning manner separated their interests
and made them his own. Nearly all of those around him
412 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

who became possible rivals in power and popularity were

cruelly handled when he had exhausted the benefit of their
service." Such is one Japanese estimate of the Lord of Kama-
kura; and as regards his own relatives, at least, the indict-
ment would seem to rest on a substantial foundation. Doubt-
less it was in the prospective interests of his own children that
Yoritomo proved so unrelentingly cruel and pitiless towards
his kith and kin of Minamoto stock. And yet, withal, he did
not succeed in founding a house. What did perpetuate his
memory was the system he organised and the administrative
machine he created, —the Bakufu, to wit.
 413

CHAPTER XIV.

THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU.

(1200 TO 1225 A.D.)

TN even a cursory perusal of the history of Japan, the

J- reader must be forcibly struck by one feature which at
first blush seems very puzzling and confusing. To assert that
individuality and personal ability have counted and count for
but little in this Empire is utterly at variance with fact, for
the Japanese have been at all times notorious for their hero-
worshipping proclivities, while the national polity has from
time to time been profoundly modified by the genius of great
warriors and statesmen. But the strange thing is that the
national heroes have rarely, if ever, occupied the very highest
rank and position. The grand exception to this is that Reform
Prince Naka-no-E,who later on ascended the throne as Tenchi
Tenno; and for long years this Prince persisted in doing his
work not as Emperor, but through the institution of the
Throne, and of the two harmless figure-heads he successively
placed upon it. In China, and indeed in most European coun-
tries, it is almost certain, new Imperial or Royal dynasties
would have been established by such men as Taira Kiyomori,
Yoritomo, Ashikaga Takauji, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Toku-
gawa Iyeyasu; Hideyoshi having indeed been actually coun-
selled by the Emperor of China to depose the Dairi and to
instal himself in his seat. But not one of these great and
illustrious Japanese subjects ever thought for a moment of
usurping the throne. If constrained to do so by the exigencies
of the situation, some of them, such as Ashikaga Takauji,
would have small compunctions about replacing one titular
Sovereign by another. But the new and rival Emperor was
invariably selected from among the lineal descendants of the
Sun-Goddess. The simple fact of the matter is that the in-
stitution of the Emperor has always been a most convenient
one through which to work in Japan. If the titular occupant
of the throne proved refractory, it was, as the Fujiwaras had
414 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

conclusively shown through successive generations, the easiest

thing in the world to find some plausible excuse for either in-

ducing him to abdicate- or for actually deposing him, and re-

placing him by another of his kith and kin more amenable to

the sweet reasonableness of the suggestions proffered by his
maternal relatives.
Furthermore, the fact must not be overlooked that besides
the Empress, —sometimes indeed two Empresses at the same
time, —the Sovereign had always a liberal allowance of secon-
dary consorts, and that some one or other of these hand-
—
maidens might not unreasonably hope as in the case of the
—
mother of the great Kwammu to give birth to the future
Sovereign of Yamato. To illustrate by a concrete case: if

the Japanese Imperial succession practices had prevailed in

the England of 1685, it is highly probable that there would
never have been any Hanoverian Dynasty on the British Throne,
for the Duke of Monmouth would then have easily been re-
cognised as King. If we coolly reflect upon the infinite pre-
cautions that were taken to keep the male members of the
Imperial line well furnished with consorts of one kind or
another, we shall find no room left for wonder at that pheno-
menon of an Imperial line unbroken for ages on which
Japanese writers so often descant. Hence the Fujiwaras and
other powerful and ambitious subjects had at all times a
sufficient personnel at their disposal from which to select a
successor to replace any Sovereign who showed himself unduly
restive under the curb they placed upon him and his actions.
Moreover, the Imperial Succession Law was, in practice at
least, exceedingly loose and indefinite; and this still further
Puppet
facilitated recourse to the highly convenient device of
Emperors. Hence Japanese King-makers, whether civilian —
Fujiwara autocrats or military Mayors of the Palace, have —
never thought of dispossessing the August Line of the Sun-
Goddess of the Throne of Yamato. It has always better served
their purposes to work through that line and that institution
as their instruments.
Now, with the establishment of the new Shdgunate in 1192.
the throne had divested itself of all direct control over the
greater portion of the military class, which, now thoroughly
organised and reduced to strict discipline and control by a
master hand, had become the dominating force in the Empire.
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 415

Jn plain language, a great deal of the most essential adminis-

trative, judicial, and legislative authority had been trans-
ferred or delegated to the Shogunate. Now, in connection with
this great office, we witness jet another instance of the noto-
rious tendency of able and ambitious subordinates to effect
their purposes through institutions.The Reforming Prince,
Naka-no-E, who had died as Tenchi Tenno in 671, had been
a man of rare and super-eminent ability. But between his
death and the accession of Kwamnm in 782, the throne had
been occupied by a succession of mediocrities. And yet, during
most of these 111 years, the government of Japan had been
tolerably efficient and fairly satisfactory. Yoritomo, the
founder of the new Shogunate, was undoubtedly one of the
greatest and most illustrious statesmen that Japan has ever
produced; and through the Shogunate he established in 1192,
the Empire was, with two brief interruptions, destined to be
governed for the best part of 700 years. And yet, only one
of Yoritomo's immediate titular heirs or successors showed
the faintest spark of ability, or exercised any considerable
measure of authority. In fact, we have to pass over 140 years
before we again meet with a Shogun who was so in reality as
well as in name. Notwithstanding, during the greater portion
of these 140 years, the Shogunal administration was at once
strong, and on the whole highly beneficent. The
efficient,

secret is that it was the office of Shogun itself, and not its
titular occupant, that counted. Under the cover of the name
of the latter, the able and ambitious subordinate was doing
the work.
At his death in 1199, Yoritomo had left two legitimate sons,
- -Yoriiye, a youth of seventeen, and Sanetomo, a boy of seven.
The folloAving chart may be found serviceable :

Yoritomc-Masako

Yoriiye (1182-1204) Sanetomo (1192-1219)

Ichiman Kugyo Senju-maru

(1200 1203) (1201-1219) (1201-1214)

Under the title of So Shugo-Jito (practically Lord High

Constable), the elder of these succeeded to his father's power.
But his mother, the masterful and masculine-minded Lady
41 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Masa, was not inclined to entrust him with authority pre-

maturely; and a special council of thirteen members, selected
from the personnel of the three great permanent Boards of
Kamakura, was established for the provisional conduct of
affairs. At its head stood Masako's father, Hojo Tokimasa
and under him served the Kyoto savants Oe Hiromoto, Miyoshi
Yoshinobu, and Nakahara Chikayoshi, and eight or nine mili-
tary men, among whom were Miura Yoshizumi, Wada Yoshi-
mori, Hiki Yoshikazu, Hatsuda Tomoye, Adachi, and Kaji-
wara Kagetoki. The last-named, whose ill services towards
ihe gallant Y'oshitsune have been already dwelt upon, at
once proved a disturbing element, bringing unfounded accusa-
tions of treachery against some of his fellow vassals. The
result was that Miura, Wada, and others formed a league
against him and resolved to put him out of the way. He
escaped into Suruga to raise forces there; but next year
(1200) he was overpowered and killed, together with his son,
Kagesuye. Even with the opportune removal of Kajiwara,
however, the new Council of State was far from being a united
and a harmonious body. Its civilian members, who appear to
have kept on the best of terms with each other, and constantly
acted in concert, were time and again sorely put to it to
smooth over the mutual jealousies and to compose the acrimo
nious quarrels of their hot-tempered military colleagues. Even
when Y'oriiye's patent of investiture as Sei-i-Tai Shogun at last
Kamakura, in August
arrived in 1202, their anxieties were by
no manner of means at an end, for a few months in actual
office served conclusively to confirm the already prevalent im-
pression that the young chieftain would prove but a degenerate
successor to his illustrious father.
Yoritomo had attended with the greatest care to the
education of his eldest son, and had been delighted to witness
the zest with which the boy had devoted himself to the ac-
quisition of those martial accomplishments for which the
Minamotos had always been famous. YT oriiye had indeed given
early promise of becoming an excellent soldier. But from first
to last that is really all the good that could, or can. be said
of him. The one single other direction in which he showed
any indications of having inherited his father's extraordinary
precocity was in the evil art of seducing the wives or daughters
of his vassals, Shortly after his father's death he surrendered
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 41 7

himself into the hands of a few unworthy favourites, whom

he insisted upon shielding from the consequences of their out-
rages and crimes, in spite of all remonstrances. Latterly
he had been fascinated by the charms of hand-ball; had
brought down its great and chief exponent from the capital to
Kamakura; and had spent more than three solid months,
day after day, from morning till eve, in the court -yard.
Strange, indeed, it is that a son of Yoritomo and Masako
should have shown himself intellectually torpid and indolent;
but the fact is that Yoriiye simply could not concentrate his
attention upon anything except the pursuit of his own phy-
sical pleasure. On a certain occasion, a boundary dispute
between two landowners in Mutsu was submitted to him for
adjudication, as many such suits had been put before Yoritomo
for settlement. Both litigants were fortified with numerous
witnesses and documents ; but Yoriiye simply called for a map
of the two fiefs. Thereupon, without hearing witnesses or
examining documents, he took up an ink-brush, drew it across
the middle of the sketch, and assigned a section to each of the
parties to the suit, impatiently remarking that if litigants
were not satisfied to have their differences settled in that
manner, they simply must refrain from having disputes! One
great saving and redeeming feature had characterised Yori-
tomo's usurpation — (if such, indeed, it may be called) —from
beginning to end. From first to last that great ruler had
insisted that the administration of justice must be pure and
impartial, and that the sifting of all evidence must be thorough

and painstaking. On the seat of judgement, he had repeatedly

shown himself to be a model of all that a judge should be.
Bearing this notorious fact in mind, is it strange that the
Kyoto jurists in the Kamakura Council of State should have
found their vitals churning within them with indignant ap-
prehension at such a decision as this of the strong-thewed, in-

tellectually-torpid young profligate who had succeeded to the

all-important positions of Head of the Minamoto stock, and
Sei-i-Tai Shogun ?

To these most astute administrators and jurisconsults it

very soon became hopelessly and appallingly clear that a very
few years of this thick-headed muscular wastrel as Lord of
Kamakura would infallibly relegate them to their threadbare
hackwork as humble official scribes and givers of private
418 HTSTORY OF JAPAN.

tuition in the gay capital of Kyoto, where life would be one

continual struggle against the importunities of the pestilent
collector of over-due bills. Still greater than theirs must have

been the anxiety of the Lady Masa and her father Hojd Toki-
rnasa. But, while up to a certain point the aims of daughter
and father were identical, beyond that point they became
divergent to the extent of being irreconcilable. Undoubtedly
what Masako thought of chiefly was the interests of her
husband and of his and her own progeny; what occupied the
chief place in the mind of her father, Hojd Tokimasa, was the
conservation and 'utilisation of the institution of the new
Shogunate. More than once it has been insisted on that this
Tokimasa was one of the most astute, if not indeed the astutest
politician of his times. It is beyond question that not on one,
but on several fateful occasions, he prompted his son-in-law,
Yoritomo, with all the proverbial wisdom of an Achitophel or
a Cineas. How far Yoritomo's great and original idea of the
re-casting of the office of Shogun with a permanent commis-
sion was actually the creature of the brain of his father in-law
it is now hopeless to attempt to ascertain. But any one who
undertakes the drudgery of reading the dog-Chinese of the
Azuma Kagami, and the more worthy task of putting things
together and reading between the lines, will, I am convinced,
admit that from first to last Yoritomo's most trusted and most
potent and most unfailing knromaku was the father of his
spouse, the Lady Masa. It is tolerably safe to conclude that
the untimely and unexpected death of Yoritomo was regarded
as no matter for secret rejoicing by his father-in-law, for the
fortunes of the latter were not a whit bettered by it. True, as
President of the new Council of Kegency, he occupied a great
and a prominent position. But even in the Council of Kegency
he was far from being supreme; and his sagest counsels were
often neglected or negatived. While Yr oritomo had been alive,
they had been almost invariably adopted. Now, when the
kuromaku is compelled to appear in the open, and to assume
the direction of affairs with all its responsibilities, he is wont
to find himself and his projects opposed and hampered in
multifarious unexpected directions. Where formerly by the
simple means of dropping his words into the ears of a seem-
ingly all-powerful chief, who thought it a privilege to listen
to them, he could accomplish all that he thought highest and
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUPU. 419

best in the sphere of constructive statesmanship, he now finds

himself seriously fettered, — if not actually in the position of
a Samson shorn of his locks. Instead of having to carry con-
viction to one single master mind, ready to lend itself to be
dominated by him, he is now called upon to argue at length
with jealous rivals, to explain laboriously to mediocrities who
fancy themselves as good or even better than he, —and eke to
slow-witted, short-sighted, puzzle-headed coadjutors whose as-
sent has somehow or other to be extorted. Small wonder,
then, by 1203 Hojo Tokimasa found himself profoundly dis-
if

satisfied with his apparently magnificent position, and with

the general trend of affairs, which seemed to be placing the
institution of the new Shogunate on the very brink of the
descent to Avernus.
In the September of that year (1203), Yoriiye became so
seriously ill that the succession question became vital and all-

absorbing. was not yet three years of age;

Yoriiye's eldest son
while his own brother, Sanetomo, was scarcely eleven. Both had
their claims and supporters. It was finally resolved that there
should be a partition between them: Sanetomo to receive the
administration of the military class in the 38 provinces to the
west of the Osaka barrier (in Omi) ; while Ichiman, Yoriiye's
eldest son,was to become Lord of Kamakura with sway over
the remaining 28 provinces of the Empire. Now, Tchiman's
mother was the daughter of Hiki Yoshikazu, who had been one
of Yorimoto's ablest and most trusted Captains.* In the event

* Yoritomo had seduced Yoshikazu's sister, —

who, by the way, was a
—
professed nun at the time, and by her he became the father of a
child who was destined to found one of the very greatest feudal families
of Japan, and to transmit his blood to this very day. The strong-
minded Masako was at all times very jea'ous of any invasion of her
conjugal rights and, to save her life, the hapless nun who had been
;

favoured with Yoritomo's attentions had to flee westward and take re-
fuge in the wilds of Kyushu. Here she gave birth to a son, who was
named Tadahisa, and who on reaching manhood married the daughter
of Koremune Hidenobu, and assumed the name of his father-in-law.
In 1186 he received the manor of Shioda in Shinano, and was shortly
after appointed Shugo (High Constable) of Satsuma. Honda Sada-
chika was sent to that province as a deputy, while Tadahisa remained
behind, and served under his father in the great Mutsu campaign of
1189. It was not until 1196 that he betook himself to Satsuma. Soon
after, he reduced osumi and part of Hytiga and on the confines of
;

the latter two provinces he reared a castle for himself in the old Fuji-
wara Sho-en of Shimadzu, about the origin of which details have
already been furnished From this illegitimate son of Yoritomo's
(Koremune Tadahisa) has sprung the illustrious house of Shimadzu
of Satsuma.
420 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

saw a splendid vista opening np

of the donth of Yoriiye, Iliki
to him as the grandfather and prospective guardian of an
infant Shogun. Great, then, was his wrath and chagrin when
intelligence of this partition project reached his ears. Deter-
mined to have it frustrated at all hazards, he burst into Yori-
iye's sick-room,and vehemently urged him to make away with
Sanetomo and all his relatives and supporters. If he had
known that Masako was then behind a folding-screen, listening
to every word he said, he might have escaped his impending
doom. Shortly afterwards, he was informed that Hojo Toki-
masa wished to consult with him on certain ecclesiastical mat-
ters. On being ushered into Tokimasa's house, he was promptly

cut down by Amano Tokage and Nitta Tadatsune. On hearing

of his father's assassination, Hiki's son,Munetomo, at once
assembled and with them threw himself into
all his relatives

Ichiman's palace. Thereupon Tokimasa dispatched his son

Yoshitoki, his grandson Yasutoki, Hatakeyama, and Wada with
a strong following to make an end of the business at once.
Munetomo, seeing that resistance was hopeless, set fire to the
mansion, and together with Tchiman and most of his adherents
perished in the flames, while such of his followers as tried to
escape from the burning building were summarily put to the
sword.
Yoriiye was terribly incensed at all this; and he at
once sent for Wada Yr oshimori and Nitta Tadatsune, and
ordered them to bring him the head of Hojo Tokimasa. The
former, being on the best of terms with Tokimasa, refused to
move in the matter; the latter lost his life when he attempted
to carry out the commission. Masako thereupon counselled the
Shogun to shave his head, and retire to Shuzenji in Izu;
and Yoriiye deemed it advisable to accept his mother's advice.
With the consent of all Yoritomo's former great vassals, Sane-
tomo (eleven years of age) was then made Head of the House
of Minamoto; and before the end of the year (1203) he received

The house of Koremune, into which this son of Yoritomo's was

adopted, is interesting. In the reign of the mythical Em-
peror ojin, the Prince Koman, a descendant of the Chinese Emperor
Shiko (Chin Dynasty) is paid to have settled in Japan with a large
body of followers. His successors received the family name of Shin,
and, about 880, this was changed to Koremune. In 958 the head of
the Korenivne house wps that Finkata. Doctor of Chinese Law, who
filled the offices of KeMishi and okur?-ion-daisuke, and who drafted all
the public documents and all the laws issued about that date,
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 42 L

his patent as Sei-i-Tai Shogun. At the same time, his grand-

father, Ho jo Tokimasa, was made Shikken (Regent), or Ad-
ministrator of Affairs, till the young Shogun attained his
majority. Here we have the very modest and very un-
obtrusive origin of yet another extraneous institution that
was soon destined to bring those of the Throne and of the new
Shogunate to hopeless ineptitude and impotence. In reality,
the Shikken and his successor the Kwanrvo were the true
analogues of the Merovingian Mayors of the Palace in Japan;
for while the faineant Puppet Shoguns were the nominal
Mayors of the Palace to the legitimate Sovereign, the
Shikken, and, latterly, the Kwanrvo, were for ages the makers
and unmakers of Shoguns, and eke of Emperors.
However, the efforts of the first Shikken at Shogun-making
were completely and ingloriously abortive, while his tenure of
the newly created office was of the briefest. As has been
said, the strong-minded Lady Masa was the offspring of her
father's first spouse. Her step-mother, the Lady Maki, also
a strong-minded woman, cherished ambitions and projects of
her own. Her daughter had been wedded to Hiraga Tomomasa,
in whose veins flowed the blood of the Minamoto, and who on

more than one fateful occasion had proved himself in " close
fight a champion grim, in camps a leader sage," while at the

Council-board his words were not destitute of weight. At

this date he was titular Governor of Musashi and Shngo in
Kyoto, where he was then residing.
The Ise Heishi had not really been so bitterly hounded to
earth as is usually represented; the great Kyoto earthquake
of 1185, and the superstitious interpretation placed upon it,
had done not a little towards saving the hapless remnants of
the great house of Kiyomori from extermination. Since then,
a new generation had grown to manhood. The great Lord of
Kamakura had passed away, and bitter intestine strife had
broken out between his apparently incompetent successors, or
between their respective partisans and supporters. A bold and
determined push might very well effect a happy turn in the
wheel of fickle fortune, and restore the Ise Heishi to their own.

So reasoned the two chieftains Motomori and Moritoki; and

they resolved to attempt in Ise what Yoritomo had accomplished
in Izu a quarter of a century before. Their initial efforts
were crowned with a rapid success. When the red flag was
422 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

once more flung to the breeze, the two chiefs speedily found
themselves at the head of a much greater following than that
with which Yoritomo had vainly endeavoured to hold Stone-
Bridge Hill, in 1180. In a few days, the whole of Northern
Ise was in their hands, and the neighbouring province of Iga
reduced. The news of this wholly unexpected outbreak ex-
cited great apprehensions in Kamakura, while Kyoto was in
an uproar. There, however, theCommandant, Hiraga, proved
to be fully capable of grappling with the emergency. Rapidly
mustering what forces he could in the capital, he at once ad-
vanced upon Iga, picking up troops on the way; and, after
some very hard fighting, he was soon able to dispatch couriers
to Kamakura announcing the suppression of the revolt.
This episode did not a little to add to the growing reputa-
tion of Hiraga; and his mother-in-law, Tokimasa's second
wife, began to press her husband to make him Shogun. Possibly
as a preliminary step, Yoriiye was put out of the way. Three
months after the suppression of the Taira revolt, Tokimasa's
emissaries murdered the ex-Shogun at Slmzenji; and when his
personal attendants endeavoured to avenge him, they were cut
to pieces by Sagami troops. Some time after this, certain
probable opponents to the scheme, such as the Hatakeyamas,
were " removed " on one plea or another. Then one day, in
August 1205, Sanetomo went to Tokimasa's mansion; and the
Lady Maki urged Tokimasa to seize the opportunity to kill
him. Meanwhile, the suspicions of the ever-watchful Masako
had been excited; and she suddenly appeared and carried off
Sanetomo to the mansion of her brother, Hojo Yoshitoki,
where troops were hastily mustered. Damning evidence in
connection with the intrigue was presently laid before the
Council of Regency. The result was that Hojo Tokimasa had
to resign the post of Shikken, to shave his head, and to with-
draw to hismanors in Tzu, while Kamakura troops invested
Hiraga in his Kyoto mansion, and put him to death.
That the able Hiraga would have proved more competent
to discharge the onerous duties of the Shogunate than any of
Yoritomo's progeny can hardly admit of any question; and it
was probably this consideration that weighed most with Toki-
masa when he set the intrigue afoot. If the plot had succeeded,
the Council of Regency would have been dissolved, as a matter
of course; and Tokimasa would, doubtless, have reassumed that
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 423

role of kuromaku for which his talents so eminently fitted him.

But beyond this, it is really difficult to see what he could have

gained personally by the success of the project. With the
fashion in which things had been going at Kamakura since the
death of Yoritomo, he had abundant reasons to be dissatisfied
on public grounds; for the rank incompetence of Yoritomo's
titular successors threatened to wreck that great institution
of thenew Shogunate, which had already conferred upon the
Empire the great benefit of a decade of unwonted tranquillity,
and from which so much future good might be looked for.
If Tokimasa, then an old man had been thinking chiefly
of 67,
about the aggrandisement of his own house, it would have

naturally been the interests of his own son, Yoshitoki, which he

would have consulted before all things. Now, with an able
and vigorous Shogun in the seat of authority at Kamakura,
Yoshitoki's prospects could certainly not have been improved;
and, possibly enough, they might have suffered disastrous
eclipse. Certain non-Japanese writers appear to have done a
serious wrong to the reputation of the Lady Masa as well as
that of her father. Writes one of them :
" The parental au-

thority and influence in Japan, as in China, is often far

greater than that of any other. Not even death or the marriage
relation weakens to any great extent the hold of a father on a
child. With affection on one hand, and cunning on the other,
an unscrupulous father may do what he will. We have seen
how the Fujiwara and Taira families controlled Court, Throne,
and Emperor, by marrying their daughters to infant or boy
Mikados. We shall now find the Hojo dispensing the power at
Kamakura by means of a crafty woman willing to minister to
her father's rather than to her son's aggrandisement."
Now, one of the great surprises in store for any one who is
to devote laborious days to an examination of the records of the
age, is the very high position occupied by the women of the
military class under the Kamakura Balcufu, during the earlier
half of its administration, at least. It was certainly as high as
that of the women contemporary feudal Europe, which, it
of
must not be overlooked, had risen immensely since the eleventh
century. Not a few of the dames of the Feudal Japan of the
age of Yoritomo had a marvellous power of thinking and acting
for themselves. Some of them were sheer viragos; actually,
like Tonioe Cozen, appearing in the field in command of squad-
424 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

rons of cavalry which they handled with rare ability and dash,
or, again, like Shiro Nagamichi's aunt,* defending fortified
posts with all the fierce courage and undismayed doggedness of
a Black Agnes of Dunbar. Others of them showed possession
of administrative ability of a very high order; about 1191, we
find Yoritomo appointing the widowed mother of one of his
best captains (Oyama) to the responsible post of Jito over a
whole county in the province of Kodzuke, as " a recognition of
her great merit." Now, among the strong-minded females of
the time, the Lady Masa had always occupied a notorious place.
At no time had she been the mere plaything of her very able and
very astute father. How she began wedded life and set up
house-keeping on her own behalf has been already told it was ;

about as rank a defiance of parental authority as could possibly

be conceived. At that time, Yoritomo of the Minamoto was of
vastly more consequence to her than all the fathers in the
Empire. And her vigorous action in August 1205 conclusively
showed that she set but little account upon the Japanese equi-
valent of the Jewish Fifth Commandment when the legitimate
interests of her dead husband's legitimate offspring were vitally
at stake. Luckily for her, the interests of her very astute
younger brother, Yoshitoki, happened to jump very nicely with
those of her son, the minor Shogun, Sanetomo, on that fateful
occasion. From that date till their deaths, a score of years
later on* the accord between sister and brother was complete.
During the last ten years of his life (1205-1215) their father

was kept aloof from Kamakura, carefully attended to in more

ways than one, and restrained from all interference in the ad-
ministration of that Bakufu system he had done so much to
help to establish.
For a matter of eight years Masako, Yoshitoki, and their
councillorshad no very serious problems to face. Then, in
—
1213, the year before Magna Charta, came something in the —
* was involved in a plot against the Bakufu
In 1201, this Shiro
Shu&p in Kyoto and lost his life in consequence. He owned the
;

castle of Tori-saka-no-seki in Echigo; and this fort was now manned

by his aunt, and held against all the assaults of the levies of Echigo
and Sado for more than three months. When she yielded at last she
was conducted to Kamakura, where, " in spite of her ugliness," she
was eagerly espoused by one of the most valiant warriors of the time,
" en account of her great courage."
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 425

nature of a political cyclone. In the general massacre of

Yoriiye's personal adherents in 1204, a certain Izumi Chikahira,
who owned large estates in the province of Shinano, had es-

caped. In an age when many things were decided by the primi-

tive means of personal prowess on the battlefield, he counted
for a good deal, for Izumi was one of the odd half-dozen of con-
temporary Japanese Goliaths, who were undoubtedly regarded
with a wholesome measure of respect and awe by all who had
to deal with them. He was profoundly dissatisfied at seeing
his master's sons set aside in favour of their accomplished but
unwarlike uncle, Sanetomo; and he now deemed the time pro-
pitious for an attempt to instal Senju-Maru, Yoriiye's youngest

son, in his father's office. No great scholar himself, Izumi got

His Reverence, the priest Annen, to do what penwork was
necessary in the course of knitting his conspiracy, in which as
many as 130 military chieftains were involved. Somehow, the
lynx-eyed Bakufu councillors had their attention directed to
His Reverence Annen's activity; and he was at once arrested
and questioned. His replies being not entirely satisfactory, he
was put to the torture. Then, the ghostly flesh proving weak,
everything was divulged. Officers were sent to summon Izumi
to appear and answer for himself; but his answer was simply
to cut down the emissaries. As President of the Samurai-
dokoro Board, Wada Y'oshimori, then 66 years of age, found
himself saddled with the responsibility of dealing with the
conspirators. But, to his consternation, he soon learned that
two sons and a cousin of his own were among their number.
He at once implored mercy for his misguided sons and when ;

his petition was granted, " in consideration of the great services

he had formerly rendered/' he exerted himself so vigorously
that in a short time 98 of the 130 malcontents w ere
T
lying fast
bound in the dungeons of Kamakura. Then Wada begged for
the life of his cousin; but Sanetomo ordered Hojo Yoshitoki to
put this cousin in fetters and banish him to Oshu. This
irritated Wada exceedingly. Shortly afterwards, he asked the
Shogun to put him in possession of his cousin's mansion and
estates, — most probably, with the view of keeping them and
their revenues safe for him against his return from exile. At
first, the petition was granted; but, shortly afterward, Sane-
426 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

tomo went back upon his word, and assigned the property in
question to Hojo Yoshitoki. With Hojo Tokimasa, as has been
said, Wada had been on the best of terms but during the last
;

few years there had been friction between him and the new
jShikken, Yoshitoki, Tokimasa's second son. This episode of
1213 raised Wada's resentment against his rival to boiling-
point,and brought him to the conviction that Kamakura was
becoming too small to hold both of them. On May 24, 1213,
Wada suddenly invested the mansions of Sanetomo and Yoshi-
toki. Asahina Saburo, Wada's Herculean son, forced the gate
of Sanetomo's palace, killed such of the inmates as failed to
make good and burned
their escape, set fire to the buildings,
them to the ground. At Yoshitoki's mansion, the defence was
exceedingly vigorous and the assailants were beaten off. Next
:

morning, troops from the neighbouring districts began to pour

into Kamakura; and before night fell, Wada and his ad-
herents had been effectually disposed of, —the only member of
his family to escape death either on the field of strife, or at
the hands of the executioner, being Asahina Saburo, the hero of
so many romantic legends.
The net result of this abortive, but bloody emeute was a
great accession to the already strong and rapidly rising in-

fluence of Yoshitoki. The only really formidable rival he had

to fear was now removed with all his following and not only :

that, —
but Yoshitoki at once stepped into Wada's former posi-
tion of President of the Samurai-dokoro Board, while still con-
tinuing to hold the office of Shikken. One possible future rival
had also been removed from the path of Sanetomo, for Yoriiye's
third son, Senju-maru, was put to death on account of the use
made of his name by Tzumi in forming his conspiracy. As
regards the late Shogun's second son, Masako had placed him
in Tsurugaoka, and had induced him to abandon the world,
and become a priest; while a still younger illegitimate son of
Yoriiye'swas similarly disposed of in a Kyoto monastery. But
as the young acolyte in Tsurugaoka grew towards man's estate;
his mind began to run upon other than purely ghostly things.
Kugyo, as he was now called, kept brooding over the fact that
the great and splendid position occupied by his uncle was his
own by hereditary right; and as the months and years passed
on, his resentment at being kept out of his own became pas-
sionate and overwhelming. To form any party of his own was
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 427

impossible, for he was too closely watched. His only hope lay
in acting for himself, and removing the usurper with Tils own
hand.
At last, when he was about seventeen years of age, the
opportunity he had long been looking for presented itself.

Early in 1219,Sanetomo had been made U-Daijin, or Minister

of the Right and it was arranged that he should pay a solemn
;

nocturnal visit to the Shrine of Hachiman, to thank the tute-

lary divinity of his house for his gracious favour and protec-
tion. The night of February 12 was the date appointed for the
function. Before setting out the Shogun had been strongly
counselled by Oe Hiromoto to don armour; but Sanetomo
refused to do so, and went forth in great state. Everything
went well till he was descending the stone staircase on his
return. —
Then suddenly, some one, apparently a woman, —
darted out from behind a tree, cut down first the Shogun, and
then his nearest attendant, and vanished into the darkness with
Sanetomo's head! The astounded escort hurried back into the
shrine; but not a trace of the assassin was to be discovered.
The only clue was that he had been heard to call out " Enemy
of my father, receive your punishment " Kugyo, meanwhile,
!

had taken refuge in the Yuki mansion, the chief of which great
family he fancied to be devoted to him. Here food was set
before him and he devoured it without relaxing his hold of
;

the grisly head for a moment. The Miuras, after the Hojos,
were now the most powerful house in Kamakura and Kugyo ;

sent an urgent messenger to Yoshimura, the chief of that house,

appealing to him for support. Presently, an emissary from
Yoshimura appeared. This was Nagao Sadashige and he, in ;

accordance with his master's instructions, at once cut Kugyo

down, and carried his head to Hojo Yoshitoki.
If ever there was a blood-boltered stock, surely it was that
of the Seiwa-Genji. All its traditions were cruel and ferocious,
—sometimes pitilessly and unrelentingly so. But its cruelty
and ferocity were not unlike those of the modern Frenchman.
Towards its open and avowed enemies of other blood, it was
not incapable of a considerable measure of leniency, now and —
then, it must be frankly confessed, of real generosity, while
kindness from opponents or outsiders was seldom, if ever,
allowed to pass unrequited. It was for his own kith and kin,
for those who were bone of one bone and flesh of one flesh with
428 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

himself that the Minamoto and ferocity

Chieftain's cruelty
were usually reserved.* Of the intestine
broils and battles of
the Seiwa-Genji, before the rise of Yoritonio, enough has
already been said. How Yoritomo hounded his uncle Yukiiye,
his brothers Yoshitsune and Noriyori, his cousin Yoshinaka
and Yoskinaka's guiltless son, and Yoskitsune's new-born in-

fant to death needs no recapitulation. And now, in a score

of years from his own death, a worse than Atreidan curse,
after dogging his line only too sure-footedly, has fallen upon
the last of his seed. The only vestige of it remaining, the
bastard orphan of Yukiiye, even now immured in impotence in
a Kyoto fane, will be summarily made away Avith in a year
or two from now, for " reasons of State," —that Moloch to
whom so much that is best and most promising for the advance
of true civilisation has been, and has still to be, sacrificed. As
for Yoritomo's collateral descendants, Noriyori had left sons
behind him; but they had less than their father's limited
ability, and this proved to be their salvation. One of Yoshi-
tsune's brothers, Zen jo, was the father of a son (Tokimoto) of
some mettle, who now aspired to the position of Shogun. His
ambition cost him his life; when he began to muster forces in
Suruga to back him in his pretensions, Hoj5 Yr oshitoki promptly
overwhelmed him and his meagre following.
The fortunes of the Bakufu were now in a somewhat critical
condition. But, since the death of Yoritonio, the Shogun had
been not very much more than a figurehead; although Sane-
tomo now and then did actually contrive to assert himself, and
make his councillors bend to his will. But it was not with the
titular chief of the Kamakura Bureaucracy that the real power
lay it was the Bureaucracy itself that was all-important.
;

However, a nominal Shogun, in whose name it could professedly

act, was absolutely necessary; and the filling of this position

was now a very serious question indeed for the Lady Masa,
her brother the Shikken, and their advisers.^ At first, the
ex-Emperor, Toba II., was petitioned to allow one or other of
his two younger sons to be nominated to the office; but he

* " There is a nation to the members of which Frenchmen are more

revengeful than to Germans, more irascible than to Italians, more

unjust than to English It is to the French that Frenchmen display
animosity more savage, more incessant, and more inequitable than to
people of any other race." Bodley's France, p. 170.
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUPU. 429

refused to grant the request. Thereupon, the Bakufu authori-

ties were constrained to turn their attention to the great
house of Fujiwara. Yoritomo's elder sister had married that
Fujiwara Yoshiyasu who, during his closing years, had done
his brother-in-law such important service as a sort of Bakufu
watch-dog in Kyoto. Their daughter had wedded Saionji
Kintsune (1171-1244), who, by the way, was now on noto-
riously bad terms with the ex-Emperor Toba II., having actually
appealed to Kamakura against His ex-Majesty, two years
before. Kintsune's daughter had become the wife of Fujiwara
Michiiye now Minister of the Left, and had
(1192-1252),
borne him three sons. Kamakura now proposed that the
youngest of these should be sent down to the Kwanto to become
the Head of the House of Minamoto, and the future Shogun.
The overture was accepted; and Yoritsune, a child of two,
was consigned to the care of the Lady Masa. It was not till
1226, however, that he received his patent of investiture; and
thus, for some six or seven years the Bakufu Ship of State
continued on its course without any figurehead.
On the surface all this seems very simple
but, as a matter ;

were so many astute manoeuvres in the

of fact, these incidents
contest of wits which had been going on between Toba II. and
the Bakufu for a score of years, and which was soon to be
decided by an appeal to the sword.
In many ways, this Toba II. is one of the most interesting
Sovereigns that ever sat upon the Imperial Throne of Japan;
and, in spite of all his terrible mistakes and his ultimate failure
as a ruler, one can hardly help suspecting that he might very
well have been as great as Kwammu Tenno if he had been
chastened by Kwammu's long years of drudging for his own
livelihood before he became Emperor. The strange tale of how
Toba II. was " selected " to occupy a throne, which was not
really vacant, at the age of four has already been told at length.
As a and a youth, Toba II. was vigorous at once phy-
child
sicallyand mentally; and almost as precocious as one of the
warlike Minamotos. That he had real natural ability appears
to be beyond question. But what can be expected of a child
Sovereign surrounded by venial lick-spittle flatterers and syco-
phants of both sexes, — all emulously intriguing for their own
advancement and that of their relations ? To say nothing of
the upbringing of Tenchi or Kwammu, just think of that of
430 TTTSTORY OF JAPAN.

Udjo Tokimasa, of Masako, of Yoritomo, of Yoshitsune, of

Oe lliromoto, and the other astute Bakufu Councillors! The
marvel is, not that Toba II. made such a comparatively poor
showing when pitted against the counsels of men like Oe
lliromoto, but that he made any showing against them at all!
And jet the truth seems to be that he would infallibly have
succeeded in overthrowing the Bakufu system but for the lack
of the two qualities of self-restraint and judgement. And it
was just these two all-important qualities that his position of
child Sovereign made it impossible for him to acquire and
develop.
As has been stated, he succeeded to the throne at the age
of four, in 1184. Down to his twelfth year, his grandfather,
Shirakawa II. (d. 1192), merely used him as a tool, according
to the traditional wont of Cloistered Emperors. During the
next five or six years, he appears to have thought out matters
for himself so far as to perceive that, if he wished to be master
in his own Empire, he must promptly abdicate the throne.
Meanwhile, before he was nineteen, he had become the father
of at least three sons by different consorts. Which of these
was the heir to the throne nobody knew; so Toba II., remem-
bering, perhaps, the circumstances of his own accession, called
in expert diviners and lot-casters to decide the knotty question.
The lot repeatedly came out in favour of his first-born; al-

though it w as His Majesty's dearest wish that it was another

r

son, by a different consort, that should be the winner in this

strange Imperial lottery. However, the difficulty was solved
—
by a very astute politician, Michichika, of which more anon.
The favourite son was to be at once declared Ko-Tai-Tei; or
" Younger Brother Successor to the Throne." All this took
place, in 1198, without any consultation with the Bakufu; and
it gave Yoritomo so much concern that he caused it to " leak

out " in Kyoto that he meditated a third journey to the capital

in the following year. Meanwhile, in Kyoto things were carried
out in ostensible order and decency according to precedent;
and in the following year (1199), Yoritomo met his death by
a fall from his horse.
The next few years (1199--1202) are interesting enough to
any one who can probe below the surface. In Kyoto, an
ex-Emperor of some twenty to twenty-three years of age, whose
early training had not been so much neglected as utterly spoiled
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUPU. 431

and perverted, his immature sexual instincts and appetites

having been most disloyally abused by parasitic aristocratic
tuft-and-place-hunters, who had been only too ready at all
times to lend themselves to the most outrageous whims and
freaks of the boy Sovereign. In Kamakura, a youthful Shogun
of about the same years, whose training in all the martial
accomplishments of the age, and eke in statecraft, had been
carefully attended to; but who, in spite of all that, was
showing himself the hopeless slave of unworthy favourites,
intellectually torpid, and criminally negligent, in the discharge
of the most important duties of his high and responsible office.
At first blush, it might very well seem that there was but
little to choose between the Shogun in Kamakura and the

ex-Emperor in Kyoto. Both alike had their worthless and

vicious and expensive favourites; both alike were allowing
their sensual appetites to run unseemly riot; and, if the
Shogun Yoriiye had become so infatuated with the fascinations
of Japanese tennis that he could attend to nothing else, Toba
II. had meanwhile become one of the most expert exponents of

Japanese football that were to be found within the four seas

surrounding his Empire. But a little deeper inspection serves
to disclose the fact that the advantages, after all, were im-
mensely on the side of Kyoto. In Kamakura, a grand mass of
muscle, and an abundance of hungry appetites, and nothing
more. In Kyoto, there was all this indeed but there was very
;

much more besides, for the brain of Toba II., so far from being
torpid, was preternaturally active and alert at all times. In
some respects, he makes us think of Yuryaiui and Buretsu,
although he was guilty of but few of the atrocities attributed
to the latter. The worst that can be said of him, —
and this is
—
indeed tolerably bad, is that, like James II. of England, he
could " assist " at the examination of witnesses or prisoners
by torture unmoved. On the other hand, little emerges to
indicate that he was either faithless or a hypocrite. He has
sometimes been called the Japanese Nero; but this is a great
compliment to Nero, and a gross injustice to Toba II. All
Nero's artistic instincts and acquisitive ability he had in
much greater measure than the Sovereign who fiddled while
his was burning; but of Nero's vanity and sickly
capital
sentimentality hewas guiltless. The fact seems to be that the
youthful ex-Emperor was simply the victim of his early breed-
432 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

in*;- and his exalted position. After all said and done* after a
close consideration of the terrible and regrettable irregularities
of his private life, and of the untoward calamities in which
these ultimately involved him, it seems to be tolerably plain

that of thehundred odd Sovereigns of Japan who have occupied

the throne since Nintoku Tenno, Toba IT. is one of the very
few who could have made a great career for themselves if
compelled to compete with the ordinary lieges for a livelihood.
His great claim to fame is his eagerness to know, and his cheer-
ful willingness to undergo any toil or drudgery, no matter —
how menial or repulsive, —necessary for the attainment of ex-
cellence in any of the multifarious arts, pastimes,and occupa-
tions which successively attracted his attention and absorbed
his energies. He was at once poet, musician, sword-smith, a
great hunter, and many other things besides. A great patron
of cock-fighting, horse-racing, of the wrestling-ring, of archery
with fugitive dogs as moving targets, he was also addicted to
betting and gambling; in short, he had all the vices and not
a few of the virtues of what is known in the slang of certain
modern circles as a " good sport." In sport —or sports—as in

almost any individual thing on which he chose to concentrate

his attention for the time being, he quickly and readily achieved
master} 7
and proficiency. The shortest method of giving an
approximately correct idea of the character of this extra-
ordinary and most exceptional Emperor of Japan is by saying
that he was, on the whole, the almost complete antithesis of the
illustrious Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Of all polite accomplishments,
showy qualities, the latter was almost entirely
of all brilliant or
destitute. But reared in the hard school of adversity, where
life was one continual struggle for survival, he had mastered

the great principles of the art of war, of the art of making ends
meet, of statecraft, and of the supremely important art of
managing and using and ruling men. The extraordinary, but
long-delayed, success he finally achieved was owing to the
masterly fashion in which* he contrived to co-ordinate and
synthetise these very prosaic, work-a-day faculties. In other
words, he owed his great position mainly to his far-reaching
and sure, albeit somewhat slow-footed, judgement. There was
scarcely any art or accomplishment then known Japan that
in
Toba II. showed himself incompetent to acquire; but inasmuch
sws the synthetising judgement and self-restraint were alike
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 433

lacking, the superb natural endowments most excep-

of this
tional Japanese Sovereign proved not so much valueless and
ineffective as positively fatal and mischievous, fatal and mis —
chievous not only to himself but to the subsequent fortunes
of that Line of the Sun Goddess of which, with a happier breed-
ing, he might perhaps have been the brightest and most
illustrious ornament.
For the first three or four } ears after his abdication, Toba
7

II. was in tolerably safe and able hands. The mother of the
child Sovereign, Tsuchimikado, was an adopted daughter of
Minamoto Michichika (of Murakami Genji stock), who, al-
though only about fifty years of age, had held office during
six consecutive reigns. It is true that the posts he had filled
bad been largely subordinate ones; but his ability, and his
experience, now made him the most influential of all the
Imperial He was advanced to Ministerial
officers. rank, made
Betto of the ex-Emperor's Palace, and tulior of the infant
Prince who had been designated as successor to the child
Sovereign. Michichika's efforts were greatly directed to em-
ancipating the Court from all Kamakura influence, with a
view to the possible eventual overthrow of the Bakufu system.
Time and again, he over-reached the Shogunate and its Council-
lors; and at his death, in 1202, the influence of Kamakura in
Kyoto, at all events, did not amount to very much; and for
years afterwards the Bakufu was very chary about intermed-
dling with Court affairs. In 1210, for example, when Toba II.
virtually compelled his eldest son to abdicate in favour of
his younger brother, Juntoku (1210-1221), Kamakura was
not consulted about the matter; and it did not dare to interfere,
although Toba II. 's conduct on this occasion was, on the face
of it, most arbitrary and unwarranted. By this time, the
young Shogun, Sanetomo, had attained his majority and from ;

first to last, Sanetomo showed himself eager to court the good

graces of Toba II., and very ready to further all his projects
and humour all his whims and fancies. More than once, when
the Kamakura Councillors refused to entertain requests from
Kyoto, the Shogun himself overrode them, and directed them
to comply with the ex-Emperor's mandate. With the many-
sided, versatile Toba II., the young Shogun had at least one
bond of sympathy and community; both were extremely fond,
if not of literature, at all events of playing with ink-brush

cc
434 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

and paper; and Sanetomo was no doubt greatly flattered to

find his " i)oem " so much appreciated and praised by the
Imperial arbiter of taste and style.
It will be remembered that one cardinal point in the polity
of Yoritomo had been that none of his vassals, or of the mili-
tary class, should have any direct relations or intercourse
with the Imperial Court. Should any cases of misconduct on
the part of Shugo or Jito be reported to the Kyoto authorities,
the action of these latter was strictly limited to transmitting
a request to the Bakufu to investigate and deal with the
matter. Furthermore, no military vassal was allowed to accept
any Court office or rank, unless specifically recommended for
the same by the Lord of Kamakura. One of the chief causes of
Yoritomo's enmity with Yoshitsune had been that the latter
had presumed to solicit and obtain Court rank, office, and pre-
ferment on his own initiative. On Yoritomo's visit to Kyoto
in 1192, the ex-Emperor, in honour of his visitor, wished to

confer the usual marks of Court favour on some thirty of

the latter's officers. Yoritomo promptly declined the proffered
honours; and finally, when the offer was pressed, grudgingly
submitted a list of fourteen names only for Imperial recogni-
tion. Moreover, in the instructions he left for the guidance
of his descendantsand successors, he laid it down that the
Shogun should accept no high Court office or rank until so
advanced in years that the close of his career seemed to be in
sight.

was against these specific institutions of the Bakufu that

It

the astuteMinamoto Michichika had chiefly directed his able

and insidious attack. Complaints against Shugo and Jito
were, whenever it possibly could be done, dealt with directly,
instead of being referred to Kamakura. Nor was this all. The
ex-Emperor, Shirakawa II., had at one time formed a special
guard of his own, the " North-face Warriors " (Hokumen Bu-
shi) and Yoritomo exerted himself to get this body disbanded.
;

Now, under the name of "West-face Warriors" (Saimen

Bushi). this corps was re-organised, and soon became formid-
able. We presently read of it arresting high Bakufu officials
in the capital, of driving out objectionable Jito, and of even
threatening Shugo in the surrounding provinces. At the same
time, instances of military men receiving honours from the
Court directly, without any recommendation from Kamakura,
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 435

Income not infrequent. The truth would seem to be that during

the three years before his demise in 1202, Michichika had made
a promising beginning of the work of sapping and mining the
outworks of the Bakufu, at least. However, the mantle of the
astute Michichika fell upon the shoulders of no successor, for

the two or three Court grandees possessed of. any real ability
were on good terms with Kamakura, and not at all averse to
furthering its projects. As for the ex-Emperor himself, his
attention to affairs of State was distracted by perhaps a dozen
rival interests and pursuits, each in its turn all-engrossing
and, as a rule, more fascinating than the wearisome and weary-
ing game of politics and statecraft. Provided His ex-Majesty
was unfettered in the prosecution of his hobby for the
left

time, and provided he was supplied with the funds necessary

for the realisation of certain of his projects for some of —
—
them were indeed costly, he did not seem to trouble himself
very much about the Bakufu and its relations to the Court.
Meanwhile, the Bakufu from time to time was fully occu-
pied with the settlement of its own bloody internal dissensions
and the cautious and clear-headed councillors of Kamakura
deemed it prudent to abstain from giving any offence to
Kyoto when their own house was so liable to be divided
against itself. After the extermination of Wada and his
partisans, in 1213, the Lady Masa, Hojo Yoshitoki, and their
advisers felt they could at last afford to begin to assert them-
selves; but whenever they did venture to thwart his ex-
Majesty's will and wishes, Sanetomo, now grown to man's
estate, stepped forward and asserted his will in favour of his
Sovereign friend, fellow-bard, and most appreciative critic.

On such occasions, —not by any means infrequent,—there was

doubtless much glooming and glowering on the wrinkled faces
of the grey-beards assembled in council in Kamakura, for men
like Oe Hiromoto and Miyoshi Yasunobu must have clearly

discerned that, unless all this complaisance was exchanged for

a strong and stern policy, the Bakufu of the last seven years
of Yoritomo had gone for ever.
At the death of Sanetomo in 1210, Oe Hiromoto was one,
and Miyoshi Yasunobu nine, years beyond that span of three-
score and ten when even patriarchs must be expected to be
gathered to their fathers. Both these great and illustrious
men had come to what was then the wilds of the Kwanto
43G HISTORY OF JAPAN.

almost forty years before; and during all these years since the
foundation of Kamakura whole heart and soul had been
their
devoted to the construction and the manipulation of that at
one time wonderfully
efficient machine, the Bakufu ad-
ministration. Both now knew that they were presently destined
to go down to the grave: and both seem to have felt that
after-ages would say that they had lived in vain, for their
best work of brain and hand now seemed to be threatened with
imminent wreck and ruin. Somewhere about 1216 or 1217,
Oe Hiromoto had been deputed by his colleagues to remonstrate
with Sanetomo about the wanton manner in which he was in-
fringing his father's instructions forbidding the acceptance of
Court rank and office; but his remonstrance had fallen upon

deaf ears. Although Sanetomo did not actually purchase his

honours by hard cash, or its bound
equivalent, he felt in duty
to testify his gratitude by something more substantial than
neatly turned eulogistic verselets. Among Toba II.'s many
crazes, his mania for building was one of the most expensive;
and some of the most costly of his architectural enterprises
were either carried through entirely or completed by means of
Bakufu contributions.
Mention has already been made of the huge proportions the
scandal of the actual sale of Court rank and offices had as-
—
sumed under certain former Sovereigns, notably under Shira-
kawa I. Under His ex-Majesty Toba II. the evil again re-
vived and became as pronounced as ever. Provided with the
necessary funds, even the most incompetent, or the most worth-
less in character, might safely aspire to official employment;

especially if they had wit enough to make their approaches

through the " proper " channels. As a matter of fact, these
" proper " channels were most highly improper; for certain

Ladies of the Court, notably the Lady Kane, amassed huge

fortunes as brokers in this shameful and demoralising traffic.
Then, if perchance a candidate found himself repelled by
the Lady Kane, or her fellow high-born dames, he might
count upon effecting something by getting one of His
ex-Majesty's favourite Shirabyoshi to speak a word for
him in proper season. These Shirabyoshi ("white measure
markers ") —
were the dancing-girls of the time, the prototypes
of the modern geisha and not a few of them in their way were
;

highly accomplished and fascinating women. At all events,

 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 437

Toba II. appears to have found certain of them abundantly

entertaining, and to have spent a good deal of his leisure in
their company.As a matter of fact, it was one of these
highly-favoured members of the Kyoto demi-monde the noto- —
—
rious Kame-giku who proved to be the spark that set alight
the great mass of political and social combustibles which had
been accumulating for years, and which blazed out in the
great commotion of 1221.
As has been alleged, Sanetomo's assassination took place
early in 1219; and before that year was out, Toba II. had abun-
dant reason for concluding that dealing with a youthful Sho-
gun who was a fellow son of the Muses was one thing; and
having to treat directly with the clear-headed, cold-blooded
sagacity of the old foxes who manipulated the Bakufu machine
was quite another and a vastly different affair. Instead of
having all his requests entertained with ready complaisance,
he now found them almost invariably repelled, the bitter
pill being usually gilded with nothing better than prosy dis-

sertations on constitutional law and One of these

practice.
nettled him greatly. He had asked the Bakufu to remove
their Jito from two extensive manors in the province of Settsu,
inasmuch as he wished to put his dancing-girl favourite, Kame-
giku (Tortoise Chrysanthemum), in possession of them; and
Kamakura had replied with a lecture on some of the principles
of feudal law. Some months before, the reply would almost
infallibly have been a neat set of verses, and the prompt
transference of the Jito to better positions. This, together
with other incidents, served to convince His ex-Majesty that,
for the time being, he must perforce abandon many of the
pursuits and interests most congenial to him, and concentrate
his attention upon the banal and repulsive game of politics
and statecraft. Down to 1219, this game had to him been
nothing more than an insignificant Nebensache; now, at the
age of forty he found himself compelled, not only to learn its
elementary rules, but to play it against some of the finest
and most mature intellects in Asia. It is true that when
things were brought to a head in the summer of 1221, the
failure of Toba II. against the Bakufu machine was at once
—
sudden, complete, and disastrous, not only to himself, but
to the fortunes of the Imperial House of Japan. But it
is equally true that the efforts of this very exceptional Ini-
438 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

perial amateur in the game of statecraft, suddenly called upon

to match himself against such life-long professional pro-
ficients as Oe Hiromoto, Miyoshi Yasunobu, Hojo Yoshitoki,

and his elder sister, the Lady Masa, Yoritomo's widow,

came within an ace of success. But while according Toba IT.'s
magnificent natural abilities a just meed of admiration,
the unprejudiced, unbiassed, cold-blooded foreign writer can-
not refrain from expressing the honest conviction that His ex-
Majesty's success in 1221 would have been utterly fatal to the
best interests of the Empire whose throne he had solemnly
abdicated three-and-twenty years before. Fifty-three years
later on, the first wave Mongol invasion was to threaten
of
the shores of Japan; seven years later came Kublai Khan's
really great effort to reduce this Empire to his yoke. As
things turned out, between 1221 and 1281, Japan was blessed
with one of the justest, the most honest, the most economical,
the strongest, and, at the same time, the least tyrannical and
repressive, administrations that have ever been known in
Asia. The lieges were during these two generations in such
peace and harmony and ordered security as had been un-
dreamt of in the Empire, for three centuries at least. Thus
when the foreign invader appeared, a great united national
effort was not merely possible, but actually easy. Had the
Bakufu gone down before Toba II. in 1221, all the probabili-
ties are that the land would have been presently re-subjected
to all the horrors and miseries of misgovernment and anarchy;
and in such a condition Japan might very well have fallen a
comparatively easy prey to the Mongols and their allies.
When, on the death of Sanetomo, Masako and Hojo Yoshi-
toki begged Toba II. to appoint one or other of his younger
sons to the vacant Shogunate, His ex-Majesty was prompt to
discern the snare, and curtly refused the request. A Prince
of the Blood as nominal head of the Bakufu machine would
enhance not only the prestige, but the power of Kamakura. A
mere youth would be nothing but a tool in the hands of the
Shikken and his coadjutors; and such a tool might very readily
be utilised for far-reaching purposes. In the event of any deadly
clash between the Courtand the Bakufu, a Skogun of Imperial
stock might even be set up as Emperor; and Toba II. was
firmly resolved to keep the making and unmaking of Em-
perors in his own hands, as long as he lived. Kamakura
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUPU. 439

then turned its attention to the great house of Fujiwara;

and the infant Yoritsune was conveyed to the Kwanto as
Shogun designate. The object was to attach a section of the
Court nobles to the interests of the Bakufu; and so to re-
store its influence in Kyoto, where its power and prestige had
latterly fallen very low indeed. Toba II. saw through the
manoeuvre readily enough and while keeping his own counsel,
;

began to prepare for the struggle he perceived to be inevitable.

A strange episode happened just a little later on. Mina-
moto Yorimochi, the grandson of Yorimasa, who had perished
at Uji Bridge in 1180, was Shugo of the Great Palace. Sud-
denly, without any warning, he found himself beset by Toba
II.'s " West-face Warriors," who had been hurriedly dispatched

to put him out of the way. He retired into a wing of the

Palace, and made a stubborn fight of it; but at last seeing
icscape impossible, he fired the building and perished in the
flames. The reason for all this remained a mystery; the most
probable conjecture is that Yorimochi knew too much of what
was really in the ex-Emperor's mind, and that it had been
discovered that his relations with Kamakura were too inti-
mate.
News of this incident seems to have given the Bakufu
great concern. A month or two later on, Yoshitoki's brother-
in-law, Iga Mitsusue, appeared in Kyoto with instructions to
keep a strict watch upon the Court and the nobles. But this
emissary appears to have been completely outwitted and hood-
winked by Toba II., who, under Iga's very eyes, succeeded in
the course of the next year or so in attaching almost every
military man in the capital to his interests by his robust
affability.During all this time there was little or no apparent
change in His ex-Majesty's way of life outwardly. The only
remarkable point, perhaps, was the extent to which his atten-
tion was occupied with ecclesiastical affairs. But even this
was nothing specially new or unwonted, for even in his very
worst seasons of orgy and excess, Toba II. had been neither
remiss in the matter of his devotions, nor unmindful of the
claims and interests of the Church.
In Japan, the opening years of the thirteenth century had
been marked by an intense religious ferment, similar to that
witnessed in contemporary Europe, where the Dominicans and
Franciscans were soon to begin preaching their great revival.
440 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Several new sects, —among them —

the Jodo and the Zen arose
in quick 'succession,and made such rapid headway that those
already in possession of the field became seriously alarmed
and exasperated for various reasons, among which the econo-
mic bulked largely. The result was a persecution (1206), to
which Toba II. lent support and countenance. But what was
known as a " persecution " in mediaeval Japan was of a com-
paratively mild nature. Into the punishment of heresy, the
rack, the stake, and the faggot never found any entrance;
banishment to some remote part of the Empire was the
severest penalty inflicted and it was inflicted, not so much
;

for preaching new and strange doctrines, as for provoking

popular tumults and breaches of the peace. It is true that
for generations the priests had been the most turbulent class
in Japan, and that, when the Great Monasteries in the Home
Provinces were not at actual warfare with each other, their
mutual relations were more satisfactory than those of
little

an armed truce. But and squabbles

to dignify their broils
with the name of religious wars would be entirely beside the
mark. Such bloodshed as there was took place, not in de-
fence of disputed points of doctrine, or of any abstract theolo-
gical propositions whatever. From first to last, in some shape
or other, it was all merely a question of loaves and fishes, for
the considerations that provoked these armed ecclesiastical
debates were generally of the earth earthy, and not infre-
quently sordidly so.

During Yoritomo's time, the priesthood throughout the

Empire, while carefully conciliated and highly honoured, had
been effectually restrained from power of doing mischief,
all

by a rare combination of judgement, and firmness. After

tact,
the death of Yoritomo, the same tradition was preserved in
the Kwanto and where the Bakufu was strong. But in the
Home Provinces, the Bakufu soon became the reverse of
strong; and the Great Monasteries again got completely out of
hand. By this date, of 1219 or 1220, they had become ex-
ceptionally turbulent. Miidera about this time once more
got sacked and burned down by Hi-ei-zan; Kofukuji had been
several times on the warpath, " Divine Tree " (Shimboku) and
all; while the clamorous and riotous monks of Hi-ei-zan hacl

forced upon Toba II. the unfortunate necessity of manhandl-

iag them vigorously in front of his palace. They had come
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 441

down, sacred cars and what not, to protest about his

showing too much favour to some of their rivals; and when
-

they refused either to listen to reason, or to withdraw until

the matter was properly looked into, the " West-face Warriors "
were unslipped from the leash. In the scuffle that ensued,
one of the bearers of a sacred car was most impiously and un-
ceremoniously cut down ; and thereupon his fellows, losing
faith in the efficacy of their Ark of the Covenant to safe-
guard their very precious skins, abruptly threw it on the
ground, and in spite of the handicap of their ecclesiastical
habiliments, conclusively evinced their possession of great
" sprinting " capacity. They, and the rest of the disorderly
monkish rabble, were incontinently on their way out of Kyoto
like so many express-couriers, and up the slopes of Hi-ei-zan

like a flock of goats. The big gates of the great mountain

monastery were at once slammed to, and all the powers of
Heaven and Hell volubly invoked to avenge the astounding
sacrilege.
The net result of the whole thing was that Toba II. made
huge capital out of the incident. The ingloriously abandoned
Ark of the Covenant was promptly returned with profound
apologies and profuse expressions of regret; and when all
these were rejected as insufficient, His ex-Majesty readily

granted all demands upon his patience and genero-

the extra
sity. Later on, he went up the Holy Mountain, spent a night
there incognito, and afterwards by various clever devices at-
tached the whole might of this great sacerdotal fortress to his
interests. United the various great Buddhist sects, with
their enormously wealthy temples and monasteries, might
very easily have made themselves supreme within the bounds
of the four seas that ring the Empire ofJapan around. In
the Nara epoch (710-784), priestly ascendancy had been ac-
tually a dire menace, not only to the Ministers of the Crown,
but to the throne itself. Kwamnm, as has been stated, grap-
pled with this pressing problem by removing the capital,
and by favouring the two new and powerful sects as a
rise of

counterpoise to the great monasteries of Nara; and the rivalry

between these had afforded another illustration of the virtue
that is inherent in the trite old political maxim of Divide et
impera. Now, for his own ulterior ends, it had become one
of the immediate objects of Toba II. to bring all the great
442 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

monasteries to an amicable understanding with each other, so

that their troops and other resources might be available for

a great combined effort against a common foe. By ceaseless

exertions and the exercise of a host of skilful devices, His
ex-Majesty actually succeeded in his purpose; and when the
brocade banner was flung to the breeze, almost every great
shrine or fane in the Home Provinces sent its contingent to
serve under it.

From February, or March, 1221, onwards Toba II. had been

engaged in an unceasing round of religious ceremonies and
observances; and in May strange rumours about the nature
of some of the petitions he had been preferring to the Gods
became current. As soon as Toba II., and his son, the Em-
peror Juntoku —
(for the latter was privy to his father's
designs) —
were aware of this, they determined to take decisive
action sooner than they had already intended. On May 16,: Jun-
toku abdicated the throne in favour of his son, Kanenari, then
scarcely three years of age. This step was taken without any
consultation with Kamakura. Then, on June 4, all the mili-
tary men Kyoto were summoned to attend a great horse-
in
archery festival Toba II. was to celebrate on that day. As
many as 1,700 knights responded to the invitation, — all that
were in Kyoto, in fact; and among them, the Shugo and all
the other Bakufu officers then in the capital. The only absentee
was Iga, Hojo's brother-in-law and confidential agent, who
had received timely warning from Saionji Kintsune of the
real import of the apparently innocent gathering. That very
day Saionji and his son were placed under arrest; and early
on the morrow, Iga was attacked in his mansion, and buried
under its blazing roof and rafters. On June 6, Hojo Yoshitoki
was stripped of his offices and declared an outlaw; and three
days later, it was proclaimed that the East was in a state of
insurrection, and all loyal subjects summoned to join in
chastising the rebels.
On the night of that same 9th of June, 1221, an express
dispatched by SaionjFs steward arrived in Kamakura with
news of events Kyoto down to the morning of the sixth.
in
Shortly afterwards, an Imperial emissary was arrested
engaged in distributing copies of the Edict declaring Yoshitoki
outlawed, while, about the same time, Miura Yoshimura called
on Yoshitoki to hand over to him a letter he had just received
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 443

from his younger brother, Miura Taneyoshi, then in Kyoto,

vehemently urging him to make an end of the rebel and traitor,
the former Shikkcn Hojo Yoshitoki! Since the extermination
of the Wada family, eight years before, the Miura house had
been the only one in the Kwanto that could be pitted against
that of Hojo in power and prestige. Luckily for Yoshitoki, at
this juncture, the Miura chietain, who had much to gain by
complying with Toba II.'s orders, —for Taneyoshi was merely
the ex-Emperor's mouthpiece —and everything to risk by sup-
porting a proscribed rebel, set the claims of an old and sincere
friendship above those of a highly profitable loyalty to the
throne. Here a tribute to both Miura brothers alike, as well
as to Toba II.'s ability in the sphere of that statecraft

which he plainly regarded as a minor accomplishment. The

younger Miura (Taneyoshi) was a brave and gallant and sim-
ple-minded soldier, whom Toba II. had easily subjugated by
his Sydney Smith-like ability of talking " runts " to such as
were interested in nothing more than " runts." Taneyoshi was
indeed an important capture, inasmuch as Toba II. counted
upon being able to win over his elder brother, the head of
the great Miura clan, through him. Had his ex-Majesty suc-
ceeded in doing so, the probabilities are that the Bakufu
would have fallen.
On learning of how matters stood, the Lady Masa at once
summoned five or six of the Kamakura leaders into her pre-
sence. Her words were brief, but stirring and to the point,
and when she wound up by telling them that if any among
them had thoughts of taking part with Kyoto, now was the
time to say so clearly, they all professed their steadfast devo-
tion with tears in their eyes. They were thereupon dismissed
to hold a council of war. In this, opinion was all but unani-
mous in favour of shutting the Ashigara and Hakone barriers,
standing on the defensive, and awaiting the course of events.
Against this Oe Hiromoto alone protested vehemently, and
later on Miyoshi Yasunobu, who was not then present, urged

a prompt and vigorous offensive; and it was the counsels of

these sturdy old patriarchs that were approved of by Masako.
In a few days, the whole of the East and North of Japan
was under arms. The main force of 50,000 was to advance
by the Central Mountain route; an army of 40,000 was to
come down through the Echizen passes from the Hokurikudo,
444 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

while 10,000 cavalry were to advance hotfoot along the To-

kaido. The campaign was short, sharp, and decisive. It was
on June 13 that Ho jo Yasutoki left Kaniakura to assume
command of the Tokaido Division; on July he was in (5

possession of the capital. The first encounter had been on

the Mino-Owari frontier, whither an Imperialist force had
been hastily thrown forward to hold the Tokaido column in
check, w hile other bodies had been dispatched to deal with
T

the Tosando and Hokurikudo armies. But Toba II.'s com-

manders were assailed so impetuously that they had been
forced to fall back and concentrate for the defence of the
capital. At the Uji stream, the Kyoto troops did make a
gallant stand, and held the position for a long summer's day
against all the assaults of the Easterners. But next morn-
ing, more Bakufu men arrived; and the Imperialists were then

outflanked and driven back upon the capital in disorder.

About the same time, Seta was captured by the main Kania-
kura force, which now came pouring on into the city. The
Northern army did not make its appearance until some days
later; before reaching the Echizen passes it had had to do
some stiff fighting, for a considerable section of the population
of the Hokurikudo had declared for the Imperialist cause.
Considering the seeming ease and astounding promptness
with which the Bakufu stamped out what its retainers w ere
r

wT
ont to speak of as the " rebellion," the reader may w ell
T
be
puzzled with the assertion that. Toba II. actually came within
an ace of success But much may be urged in
in his project.
support of such a contention. In the first place, Toba II.
was steadily gaining adherents day by day, when the leak-
ing out of his plans constrained him to take sudden and
premature action. Id the second place, he had counted upon
the support of the great Miura clan in Kaniakura itself, and
in this he was totally disappointed. But nothing of all this
need have proved essentially fatal. What really wrecked the
Imperialist cause were the counsels of Oe Hiromoto and Miyo-
shi Yasunobu. If Kaniakura had rested content with shutting
the Hakone and Ashigara and standing on the
barriers,
defensive, one infallible result would have been that in the
course of a few w eeks, Toba II. w ould have found himself with
T r

llie greater portion of the rest of the Empire at his back. A

few insignificant reverses to the Bakufu arms might even
 THE KAMAKTTRA BAKUPU. 445

have led to the appearance of an Imperialist faction within

the bounds of the Kwanto itself. And all this not for poli-
tical or sentimental reasons. Tt was in the peculiar social and
economic condition of the nation that Toba II. would have
found his great opportunity.
During the great wars of the preceding generation it had
been easily possible for strong and sturdy peasants to adopt
the profession of arms: and hence, in spite of all the blood-
shed and slaughter of that time, there had been a great ac-
cession to the numbers of the unproductive military class. In
the thirty years of comparative peace that had followed, the
ranks of this class had been still further swollen by mere
natural increase. Soon, in spite of all the economy and sim-
on by the sumptuary legislation of
plicity of living insisted
the Bakufu, the mere vulgar question of subsistence tended
to become acute. As land was almost the only source of in-
come, as properties were generally small, —Yoritomo speaks
of an estate of from 250 to 500 acres as an exceptionally ex-

tensive holding —and as children were numerous, —as many

as ten or a dozen in a family being not so very uncommon,
the question of who was to inherit the paternal home-
stead was one of supreme and vital importance. Some
attention was indeed paid to the claims of primo-
geniture; but the was generally complicated by
situation
the custom of concubinage, and occasionally by the
practice of adoption. Theoretically the decision of the
matter rested with the parents ; but as a matter
of fact, as a Japanese author writes, the head-post to the
had often been scarcely set up before his sons
father's grave
were at law about the family possessions. To relieve the
courts from the incubus of having to deal with these succes-
sion worries, the Bakufu had ordered that each family, in the
larger sense of the term, should have a General Head, with
whom the decision of such internal squabbles should rest.

But the situation was such that it could be relieved by no

legislation which did not summarily enjoin a whole army of
younger sons to exchange their swords for mattocks, and go
back to rice-growing. The simple fact of the matter was that
the loaves and fishes in most Samurai households could not
possibly be made to go round. Hence it is not difficult to
understand how the Japanese came by their proverb that
" brotherhood is the beginning of estrangement," All through
446 HiTSTORY OF JAPAN.

the Empire were landless Bakufu vassals, forbidden by the

traditions of their caste to engage in any money-earning in-
dustry, with absolutely nothing for their swords to do,
and consequently often very little for themselves to
eat. By such, any great civil commotion would in-

fallibly be welcomed as a veritable godsend; while it

lasted theywould be sure of rations anyhow; and if they

came out on the winning side there would be plenty of plums
agoing in the shape of confiscated fiefs. Then, in addition
to all this belly-pinched class of Bakufu vassals, there were
not a few malcontents who had found the Kamakura law-
courts too strict, and honest and impartial ; and still

others who had been disappointed in their aspirations to

office, as well as those, —Jito especially, —who had been strip-

ped of office either for incompetence, or venality, or other mal-

practices, for the grey -beards on the Three Great Boards of
Kamakura were terribly exacting in all their dealings with
their subordinate agents. Then, outside the Bakufu vassals,
there were military proprietors who cared just as much for
the Bakufu as they did for the Court. As a matter of fact,

not a few of these, especially in the West, while secretly send-

ing their sons to fight under the Brocade Banner, remained on
their lands at home, either maintaining a strictly non-com-
mittal attitude, or making great professions of devotion to
Kamakura. Owing to imperious circumstances, mainly the
near neighbourhood Bakufu " dogs," otherwise spies
of —
and what not, down to June 5, 1221, Toba II. had been con-
strained to confine his moling to the Home Provinces, and
Kishu at the outside. On that and the following day, when
he prematurely appeared in the open, above ground, the capi-
taland vicinity were (to change the figure) at once vigorously
and merrily ablaze in his favour. Suppose that the Ashi-
gara and Hakone barriers had been shut, and that the Bakufu
itself to the defensive, by July 6, when
had supinely confined
Hojo Yasutoki was in possession of Kyoto, every province
south of Echigo and Izu (inclusive) would have been as
furiously aflame with professedly Imperialistic fervour as the
capital itself was. So much Toba II. in all probability fore-
saw ; so much Oe Hiromoto did undoubtedly and unques-
tionably and unmistakably foresee. As a matter of fact, a
considerable portion of the population of the Hokurikudo
 THE KAMAKITRA BAKTJFTT. 447

did respond to the Imperial appeal; while one of Yoritomo's

oldest and most trusted partisans, Kono Michinobu (115G-
1223), actually hoisted the Banner of Brocade against the
Bakufu in Shikoku.
Yet another point there is that must not be overlooked.
At this time the line of Yoritomo was extinct; and there was
actually no Shogun either in Kamakura or in Japan, for the
baby Fujiwara Yoritsune had been taken to Kamakura merely
as Shogun designate; and in their innermost hearts many of

the Kwanto warriors were profoundly dissatisfied with the

fashion in which the succession to the position of the great
and illustrious Yoritomo had been ordered. In truth, in

1221 the situation of the Bakufu was almost desperate; for

besides being unpopular (mainly owing to its impartiality
and honesty) in many quarters, it was certainly at that time,
if not un-constitutional, at all events extra-constitutional.
At this supreme crisis, one of the great geniuses in its or-

ganisation four decades before now proved its saviour. To a

patriarch of seventy-three of the right sort, a few years more
or less of the crepuscular existence that preludes the inevit-
able descent into the tomb are not of any very great or con-
suming consequence. But the survival of the best results
of a laborious and beneficent exercise of his political or other
genius, while in the full flush of his chastened and mature
experience, is a vastly different and an infinitely more im-
portant matter. At this conjuncture Oe Hiromoto's head
was in all probability at stake; but that any consideration
for his own safety ever entered into his calculations, I cannot,
from what contemporary documents I have perused, believe
moment. As for Miyoshi Yasunobu, then in
for even a single
his eighty-second year, the simple reason why he did not ap-
pear at that momentous council-of-war to support Oe Hiro-
moto, is that he was then on his death-bed, for he passed
away a few weeks afterwards! What doubtlessly weighed
most with these two really grand old men was the conviction
that a hungry esurient mob of effeminate, venal, pleasure-rid-
den, utterly good-for-nothing courtiers and Court nobles were
worse than hopeless as administrators of the affairs of the
Empire and that the task of ruling Japan was work for men.
;

Not the smallest of the services rendered to their country by

Hiromoto and Yasunobu was the training of that wonderful
448 HITSTORY OF JAPAN.

mid admirable school of simple-living, hard-working, fear-

lessly just and honest officials which they left behind them, if
not to perpetuate, at all events to prolong, their own splendid
traditions of uprightness and efficiency.

Upon entering the Bakufu Oommander-in-

capital, the
Chief, Hojd Yasutoki (Yoshitoki's eldest son, then 38), was
met by an official who announced that he was the bearer of an
Insert (Rescript of an ex-Emperor). Yasutoki thereupon at
once dismounted, and listened most respectfully, while one
of his retainers read the document aloud. Its purport was to
the effect that all this commotion had been caused by intrigu-
ing, self-seeking (Imperial) counsellors; as it was entirely
against the will of his ex-Majesty (Juntoku) /that Hojo
Yoshitoki had been put to the ban, the Shikkcn was now re-
instated in all the offices he had formerly held In the hour !

of victory, Yasutoki was inclined to be merciful and through ;

his efforts some of the military men, such as Kdno Michi-

nobu, were punished with nothing worse than banishment.
But it was not with Yasutoki that the fate of the vanquished
rested. This was decided in~Kamakura; and, mainly, it
would appear, by Oe Hiromoto. A fortnight later on, a
Bakufu envoy entered Kyoto with dispatches and a paper of
secret instructions for Yasutoki. Early in the following
month Toba II. with a few attendants was relegated
to the Island of Oki ; a week later, Juntoku was
banished to Sado ; while two of his younger brothers,
who had been made priests to conciliate the good-will
of the warlike monks, were exiled to Tajima and
Bizen respectively. Toba II. 's eldest son, the ex-Emperor
Tsuchimikado, had studiously held aloof from his father's pro-
jects; theBakufu had no grounds for ill-will towards him per-
sonally. But it was felt his presence in the capital might
possibly become a disturbing influence and so he was removed, ;

first to Tosa, and later on to Awa, where a palace was

built for him, and where he was treated with far less rigour
than his father and brother. As for the infant Sovereign
Kanenari, he was removed to a mansion in the Kujo quarter,
where he died thirteen years afterwards. The Bakufu refused
to recognise him as a Sovereign in fact, it was not until
;

1870 that he received the name of Chukyo, and, as such, was

entered in the list of Emperors. The vacant throne was now
filled by the elevation of the ten-year-old son of Prince Mori-
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 449

sada (Toba II.'s elder brother,) who is known as the Emperor

Horikawa II. (1221-1232); his father, who had become a
priest in 1212, being honoured with the style of Dajo-Ho-o
and the name of Go -Takakura-in, although he had never
occupied the Imperial seat.
The treatment thus accorded the Imperial family was
harsh, indeed; butit was comparatively mild when compared

to the stern measure now meted out to the Court nobles

who had been implicated in the attempt to overthrow the
Bakufu. Yasutoki had been secretly instructed to seize them
and summarily execute them in the capital, together with
four military chiefs whose guilt had been flagrant. As re-

gards the latter, the mandate was promptly complied with

but Yasutoki dispatched the Court nobles to Kamakura under
a strong guard. At various places on the route, they were,
one after another, made away with, the last of them being
drowned in the Hayakawa in Sagami. One or two of this
doomed band escaped the extreme penalty owing to Masako's
intercession. Later on, others who had not been so openly
involved in the disturbance were banished to distant quarters
of the Empire. In all probability, Oe Hiromoto was not at
all sorry to have such an excellent opportunity of settling
accounts with what he must have considered a wasteful and
pestilent brood of arrogant, pretentious, blue-blooded incom-
petents. It is true that the execution of their leaders need
not have been any fatal blow to the Court nobles, for none
of these leaders were men of any very transcendent ability.
Yet, withal,Hiromoto contrived to hit his old Kuge foes very
shrewdly on this occasion. Even down to this time not a
few of the courtiers had been very rich; in various parts
of the Empire they still held large tracts of landed property.
Now the greater bulk of these Kuge manors got confiscated in
common with those of the military proprietors who had
espoused the Imperialist cause. Naturally this brought many
of the aristocratic families of the capital to poverty, and
sadly impaired the consideration in which they had been held.
As the result of these confiscations the Bakufu authori-
tiesfound themselves enabled to relieve the dire pressure of
economic distress among their vassals. As many as 3,000 ad-
ditional manors had come into their hands. Certain of these
were bestowed upon the fanes and shrines — Ise and Suwa
PP
450 HISTORY OP JAPAN. .

—
among the number, that had remained steadfast to the cause
of Kamakura and offered petitions on its behalf in its hour of
peril. But these estates were mostly assigned as rewards to
such as had rendered meritorious services in the recent strug-
gle. It was nominally as Jito that the grantees were placed
in these Sho-en; but this new class of Jito stood on a dif-

ferent footing from that already existing. The latter were

simply administrative officers, removable for misconduct at
any time; the new Jito were not only administrative officers,

but they also enjoyed what was virtually proprietary rights.

And what was more, their position was hereditary, capable
As
of being transmitted to daughters even in exceptional cases.
these manors lay to a great extent exactly in those quarters
of the Empire where the influence of Kamakura had hitherto
been weakest, it is easy to understand why these new Jito
were installed in their offices on such exceptionally favourable
terms. In the case of any reverse to the fortunes of the Baku-
fu these functionaries would be the first to suffer; and so, by
an adroit appeal to the all-important motive of self-interest,
the Bakufu very easily riveted its grip upon sections of the
Empire which otherwise might have given it great cause for
apprehension and anxiety.*
This highly politic step constitutes a by no means incon-
siderable factor among the many that go to explain the won-

* The following two clauses from the Hojo Code of 1232 throw a
good deal of light upon the situation: —
" 16. Of the lands which were confiscated at the time of the mili-
tary disturbance of Shokyu (1219-1221).
" In the case of some whose tenements were confiscated in conse-
quence of their having been reported to us as having taken part
against us in the battle at the capital, dt is now averred that they
were innocent of such misdoing. Where the proof in support of this
plea is full and clear, other lands will be assigned to the present
grantees of the confiscated estates, which will be restored to the
original holders. By the term present grantees is meant those of them
who have performed meritorious services.
" In the next place, amongst those who took part against us in the
battle at the capital were some who had received the bounty of the
Kwanto (i.e. had received grants of land from the Shogun). Their
guilt was specially aggravated. Accordingly they were themselves
put to death and their holdings were confiscated definitively. Of late
years, however, it has come to our knowledge that some fellows of
that class have, through force of circumstances, had the luck to escape
punishment. Seeing that the time for severity has now gone by, in
their case the utmost generosity will be exercised, and a slice only of
their estates, amounting to one-fifth, is to be confiscated. However,
as regards Sub-Controllers and village officials, unless they were vassals
of the Shogun's own house, it is to be understood that it is not now
practicable to call them to account, even if it should come to be found
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 451

Hojo administration during

derful stability of the subsequent
the ensuing century, and it had forfeited all
for years after
its claims to respect. These claims were simply that it
could do that which Kyoto had utterly and completely failed
in doing after haying the fairest of chances for long cen-
turies, viz. to manage the general affairs of the Japanese peo-
ple with strict economy, rigid honesty, and efficiency;
an
ideal which Tenchi alone had realised, which Kwammu had
done much to approach, and which with Sanjo IT., during
his all too brief reign and life, had been his dearest if un-
fulfilled aspiration. From these new Jito were descended
many of the Shomyo, or lesser feudal nobility, and eyen some
of the great houses we find prominent in the Empire at
the date of the arrival of the Portuguese, three centuries
later. In connection with the distribution of these confiscated
manors it is to be noted that the Hojo themselves did not
profit unduly. It is true that Yasutoki and his uncle, Toki-
fusa, were each awarded sixty new Sho-en in Ise ; but the

out that they were guilty of siding with the capital. The case of these
men, was discussed in the Council last year and settled in this sense;
consequently no different principle is applicable.
" Next as regards lands confiscated on the same occasion in re-
spect of which suits may he brought by persons claiming to be
owners. It was in consequence of the guilt of the then holders that
those lands were confiscated, and were definitively assigned to those
who rendered meritorious service. Although those who then held
them were unworthy holders, there are many persons we hear who
now petition that in accordance with the principle of heredity the
lands may be allowed to revert to them by grant. But all the tenures
that were confiscated at that time stand irreversibly disposed of. Is
it possible for us to put aside the present holders and "undertake to

make inquiry into claims of a past age ? Henceforth a stop must be

put to disorderly expectations.
" 17. —
As regards the guilt of those who took part in the battle
on the same occasion, a distinction is to be made between fathers
and sons.
"
As regards cases in which although the father took the side of
the capital the son nevertheless took service with the Kwanto, and
likewise those in which although the son took the side of the capital
the father took service with the Kwanto, the question of reward or
punishment has been decided already by th(© difference of treatment.
Why should one generation be confounded with the other as regards
guilt ?
" As regards cases of kind occurring amongst residents in
this
the Western provinces, ifone went to the capital, whether he were
the father or the son, then the son or the father who remained at
home in the province cannot be held blameless. Although he may
not have accompanied his guilty kinsman he was his accomplice at
heart. Nevertheless in cases where owing to their being separated
by long distances or boundaries it was impossible for them to have
had communication with one another or to be cognisant of the cir-
cumstances, they are not to be regarded as reciprocally involved in
each other's guilt."
452 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

onerous and extensive establishment they had presently to

maintain in Kyoto made it necessary for them to have a cer-

tain amount of funds at their disposal. And, as a matter of

fact, we soon hear of Tokifusa, at least, distributing his

newly acquired property among Bakufu vassals whose merits

in the contest had not been adequately rewarded. As for
the Shikken, Ho jo Yoshitoki himself, he absolutely refused to
benefit personally even to the extent of a single acre.
Hitherto Kyoto had been the weak spot in the Bakufu
system. A Hint go had been installed there with the duty of
repressing disorder in the Home Provinces; but the authority
of the Shugo had been overshadowed by that of the ex-Emperor
with his "West-face Warriors," with the Kebiishi, and other
Imperial officers. Finally, in the great crisis of 1221 the
Shugo had actually rallied to the Banner of Brocade. Plainly,
something more than a Shugo was needed in the capital. Ac-
cordingly, Y'oritomo's palace in the grounds of Taira Kiyo-
mori's old mansion of the Kokuhara was now converted into
administrative offices; and here Y^asutoki and his uncle Toki-
fusa were installed as Kyoto Tandai. Three years later the
work was found to be so onerous that it became necessary
to divide it; and a new set of offices were erected in the south
of the same grounds, and here one of the two Tandai took
up his quarters. Hence the origin of the Two Kokuhara.
The Kokuhara system was an almost complete replica of that of
Kamakura. Under the Tandai were a Council of Government,
a Headquarters Staff, and a High Court of Justice all with —
an initiative of their own, but acting under instructions from
Kamakura in gravely important matters. The Tandai were
almost invariably members of the Hojo family ;and the office
was regarded as a sort of training for the future Shikken.
Certain of the duties of the position were not very dignified,
for no honourable man can find much satisfaction to his soul
in the dirty work of espionage, and the Tandai were res-
ponsible for a strict surveillance of the Sovereign and the
Court, and all their doings.
In the light of subsequent events, it is easy to perceive
that, by postponing his great effort for a matter of five years,

Toba would almost infallibly have succeeded in overthrow-

II.
ing the Bakufu system, at least for a time. For the seven
years following the death of Sanetomo in 1210, there was no
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUPU. 453

Shogun in Kaniakura ; it was only in 122G that Fujiwara

Yoritsune, then eight rears of age, received his patent of in-

vestiture with that office. Although there had been no great

commotion among the Baktifu vassals in consequence, yet
the selection of a baby Court noble as the prospective oc-
cupant of the seat of the great Yoritomo had been nowhere
received with enthusiasm, and had given rise to many secret
murmurs. For such a mere prospective civilian figurehead,
little more than out of his swaddling-clothes, few warriors

would have cared to unsheath their blades. But as regards

the Lady Masa, Yoritoino's widow, it was a vastly different
matter. The Nun-Skogun, as she had been called since the
death of her son Sanetomo, was stern, and short, and sharp of
speech; but when she did speak, her words were the Avinged
words of the true leader of men to which the heart of every
Deloraine in the Kwanto thrilled responsively. In the Coun-
cil she at once summoned on hearing of Toba II.'s " revolt

(as her henchmen called it), her few straight-fiung words

brought tears of sympathy and devotion into the eyes of every
one of her auditors. Without their grand " Nun-Shogun "
the Kwanto Bushi in 1221 would have had no ral lying-point
whatsoever. The Lady Masa, it must be frankly confessed
by a writer who has a holy horror of petticoat ascendancy
in politics (for in the majority of cases it has been banefully
pernicious) must ever be reckoned as one of the very greatest
glories of the Japanese nation. Now, Masako's long and dis-
tinguished career of beneficent activity came to a close in the
glimmer of 1225; and for the next few months there was
neither a Nun-ShogUD," nor any kind of Shogun, in Kama-
kk

kura. If Toba II.'s blow had been reserved for such a season,
it could scarcely have failed to prove fatal to the fortunes
of the Bakufu.
Then, just about a month before the death of the Lady
Masa, Oe Hiromoto had passed away at the age of seventy-
seven. Toba II.'s early training had been in the hands of
If
Oe, and if Oe had afterwards had that opportunity for the
display of his genius which he found in Kamakura, it is
highly probable that the historian would have had to add yet
another name to the scanty list of Great Emperors. But at
an early date Oe had learned, to his grief and mortification,
that either for himself, or for men like himself, there was no
454 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

place, and never could be any place, in the Councils of

Kyoto. For an obscure man, outside the narrow ring of
favoured blue-blooded courtiers, to raise himself to a position
of commanding power and usefulness by the dint of nothing
but hard, honest, unflinching, intelligent work was then, and
had been for long, an utter impossibility. No doubt it was
an intricate complex of many circumstances that led to the
decay and ultimate ruin of the Imperial Court; but among
these the baneful importance of this latter fact should never
be overlooked.
Again, in 1224, the sudden death of the Hhikkcri, Ho jo
Yoshitoki had thrown the K wan to into great perturbation.
His second wife Avas a sister of that Iga who had been killed
in Kyoto and by her, he had a son Masamura, and a
in 1221;
daughter who had been married to the Court noble Ichijo
Saneinasa. The I gas now at once began to plot to have this
noble made Shogun, while Masamura was to become Shikken.
The situation was saved by the Lady Masa. Attended by a
single maidservant she proceeded under cover of darkness to
the mansion of the great Miura chief, who she had discovered
was implicated in the project, and with a few of those winged
words she could launch so unerringly in times of crisis, she
promptly restored his wavering loyalty. A few days later
on, the bedridden and almost blind Oe Hiromoto was con-
sulted regarding the fate of the conspirators, who were mostly
condemned to exile.
Hojo Yasutoki, who had hurried down from Kyoto on
receiving news of his father's death, had already assumed the
office of Shikkcn before the conspiracy came to a head. The
next year was free from disturbances; but Masako's death
(in 1225) had hardly been announced when the new Shikken
was called upon to deal with a whole series of plots, con-
spiracies, and actual risings in various parts of the Empire.
The last of these was crushed in 1227. The fortunate thing
for the Bakufu was that, with perhaps one exception, these
conspiracies were merely local, with no very wide ramifica-
tions, and that when risings actually took place, there was
no concerted action between the various bands of malcontents.
With a Toba II. to furnish a rallying point for all the
numerous elements of discontent and disorder the situation
would have been menacing indeed.
 455

CHAPTER XV,

THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU.

(1225-1260 A.D.)

~T\ URING the last three-quarters of the thirteenth century

**^ the Empire of Japan enjoyed the benefit of an administra-
tion more economical, more honest, and more efficient than was
known anywhere in contemporary Europe. And yet we are
assured by one distinguished authority that the period of
seventy-two years between 1214 and 1286 (under the Alexan-
ders, II. and III.) was the golden age of Scottish history;
and by another that " nowhere had better government been
seen in Europe than that which Louis IX. carried on for the
sixteen peaceful years which followed his first crusade (1254-
1270)." Surely the reflection that mediaeval Japan was able
to produce not one single ruler, but a succession of rulers,
the equals, if not the superiors, of the two great Scottish
Kings, and of St. Louis himself, in ability, personal dis-

interestedness, and moral elevation of character, might well

be expected to be something on which Japanese patriotism
would dwell with pride. But the ways of Japanese patriotism
are now and then wont to be fearfuland wonderful and past
finding out.* By it, until recent years, these great men,
among the truest patriots that have ever appeared in the
—
Empire, have been most ignominiously placed in the dock
and arraigned at the bar of history as the most flagrant and
deep-dyed criminals ever known in the political annals of
Japan. Latterly, it is true, there has been a revulsion; and
saner and juster judgements have been passed in certain
quarters.
What has brought such a load of obloquy upon the memory
of the Hojos was their treatment of the Emperors. In the first

* of the greatest travesties of history I have ever met with is

One
to be found in Dr. Murray's Story of Japan, pp. 153-157. Dr. Griffis's
account in his Mikado's Empire, pp. 146-156, is almost equally mis-
leading; but he amply redeems himself on p. 157, when he brings
his own critical faculty into play.
456 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

third of the fourteenth century, their conduct in this respect

is open to grave censure, as it was, indeed, in others besides;
but during the period we are now dealing with, it is diffiYut

to see inwhat the attitude of the Kaniakura Regents towards

the throne was at fault.
Just before the great tumult of 1221, the ex-Emperor, Toba
II., was making a plaything of the Imperial Seat. This was
no doubt in accordance with the wont of ex-Emperors; but
it was none the less highly reprehensible. When the Bakufu
was forced to deal with the situation, it was the son of Toba
II.'s elder brother that was made Sovereign. Now, by the
present Imperial Succession Law, this Prince's title was
certainly superior to that of the deposed infant, Kanenari.
Horikawa II., after a reign of ten years, abdicated in favour
of his infant son, Shijo; and died two, years later on. Neither
during the times of Horikawa II., nor those of Shijo, was
there any friction between Kaniakura and Kyoto.
With the sudden and totally unexpected death of Shijo
in February 1242 the line of Toba II.'s elder brother became
extinct; and no Crown Prince had been designated. Accord-
ing to the present Imperial House Law, the succession would
then naturally have devolved upon the second son of Toba
II.'s eldest son, Tsuchimikado, for the latter's first-born had

meanwhile entered the priesthood and so abandoned all claim

to the throne. But a strong party in Kyoto wished to pass
over this second son of Tsuchimikado's, and make the son of
Juntoku (Tsuchimikado's younger brother) Sovereign. This
latter was a grandson of Fujiwara Michiiye, the father of
the Shogun Yoritsune; and besides his grandfather, the
powerful Saionji Kintsune also supported his candidature.
Both these great nobles had hitherto been on good terms with
the Bakufu, whose support had greatly contributed to the
influence they wielded. At this juncture they did not venture
to proclaim a new Sovereign without consultation with
Kaniakura; but after sending off express couriers with news
of Shijo's death, they presently sent others urgently requesting
the Bakufu to sanction the elevation of Juntoku's son to
the throne; and went on making all due preparations for the
installation of their But Tsuchimikado's son,
candidate.
although hitherto living on straitened means in a private
situation, also had his partisans and protectors, among whom
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 457

some were connected with the Hojos by marriage; and these

also had hurried off couriers to lay the case before the
Bakufu. The result was that ten days after the death of
Shijo, during which time the throne had been vacant, Adachi
and Nikaido arrived as Bakufu commissioners in Kyoto, with
a mandate to see to it that Tsuehimikado's, and not Juntoku's,
son should be made Emperor! What undoubtedly weighed
much with Hojo Yasutoki in reaching this decision was the
fact that the accession of Tadanari, Juntoku's son, would
bring back Juntoku from Sado to the capital; and that the
real sovereign power would fall into the hands of the banished
ex-Emperor, who had a long-standing grudge against the Bakufu
to settle. Juntoku possessed a considerable degree of ability
of a certain kind; and the exercise of this might just possibly
lead up to an issue similar to that which had to be faced in
1221. It is true that Juntoku died only eight months later on,
in the same year; but in February, Yasutoki had no reason

to believe that his ex-Majesty's end was so close at hand.

Later writers have asserted that Adachi, on the point of
starting to fulfil his Kyoto mission, asked Hojo Yasutoki
what course was to be pursued in case he found that Juntoku's
son had been proclaimed Sovereign before he reached the
capital and that Yasutoki replied that, in such an eventuality,
;

the new Emperor must be deposed. But Yasutoki must have

been morally sure that neither Fujiwara Michiiye nor Saionji
Kintsune would be likely to take any irrevocable step without
his own sanction. was
It is to be observed here that this
not a contest between Sovereign and subject. The extinction
of the line of Horikawa II., the failure to provide for any
successor to the throne before the death of Shi jo, and the —
absence of any Imperial House Law automatically solving
succession questions at such a conjuncture, made it necessary
that the succession question on this occasion should be decided
by mere subjects, for Fujiwara Michiiye and Saionji Kintsune
and their partisans were as much subjects as Yasutoki was.
The very remarkable thing is, that here again once more, the
decision of the Bakufu, if tried by the provisions of the
present Imperial House Law, must be pronounced to have been
perfectly correct.
Prince Kunihito, who now ascended the throne as Saga
II. at the age of twenty-two, quickly made way for his
458 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

second son, Fukakusa II. (1246-1259),who in turn abdicated

in favour of his younger brother, Kameyama (1259-1274) ;

but it was by Saga II. was

that the real Imperial power
—
wielded down to the year of his death, which .was the same
as that of Henry III. of England (1272). This Saga II. was
a Sovereign of fair ability and of highly amiable and respect-
able qualities.* The friendship between him and his elder
brother, the priest, was close, firm and enduring. From first
to last his relations with the Bakufu, in the honesty of whose
intentions his faith was at once profound and unwavering,
were agreeable and harmonious. And yet, such is the irony
of fate, it was this large-souled, fine-minded man, —
perhaps,
from a moral point of view, the very best of all the ex-Emperors,
— that sowed the most prolific and the most baneful crop of
Dragon's teeth that was ever scattered abroad by a Sovereign
of Japan. As has been urged over and over again, the mere fact
of being the first-born son of a reigning Sovereign did not in
itself constitute any indefeasible or imprescriptible claim to
the throne on the death or abdication of the Imperial father.
Practically, since the institution of the Insei system, succession
questions had in the majority of instances been decided by the
fiat of the ex-Emperor; by the older ex-Emperor when there

were as many as two, and by the oldest when there were as

many as three. The ex-Emperor, Saga II., aspired to settle
such questions for future ages in a peculiarly unfortunate
fashion. In his will he directed that on the death or abdication
of his seventh son Kameyama, the reigning Emperor, the new
Sovereign should be of the stock of his second son, Fukakusa

* "Some account must be taken, indeed, of the Imperial Court's

signal failures to inspire respect at that epoch. The Emperor Shijo
amused himself by having the floors of the Palace salons waxed so
that the ladies of the Court might fall when tney walked on them.
—
Finally he fell himself and died of the injuries received." Captain
Brinkley's Japan, Vol. II., p. 202. I find in two contemporary autho-
rities that it was not wax but powdered soapstone (Kosseki-no-fun)
that his youthful Majesty employed to upset the balance and the
dignity of his tutors as well as of his nurses. For a grown man, such
a thing would be brutal horseplay; a lad of eleven or twelve, as
Shijo then was, should surely not be taken too seriously to task for
—
such a prank, just the sort of thing a high-spirited boy might be
expected to do when he fancied he was coming in for more than his
due share of " dry-nursing." As a matter of fact, between 1221 and
the end of the century, the Court afforded much less occasion for
scandal than it had done for long generations. One cause for this
undoubtedly was that Court and courtiers alike had a wholesome
dread of the surveillance of their conduct by what they considered
the Puritanic regime of Kamakura.
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 459

II., the previous Emperor; and on the death or abdication of

thisnew Sovereign, his successor was to be of the line of
Kameyama, and so on thereafter, it being his intention that
the two lines should henceforth alternate in the occupation of
the throne for ever.
A very moderate degree of prescience should have been
ample to discern that this agreement could not fail to be
productive of trouble and strife sooner or later. As a matter
of fact, before the century was out, Court and courtiers were
divided into two bitterly hostile camps, at such serious
variance with each other that the trenchant intervention of
the Bakufu was provoked on more than one' occasion. For
example, the 92nd Emperor, Fushimi, after a reign of ten
years, during which the real power Avas exercised by his
father, Fukakusa II., abdicated in favour of his own son
Fushimi II. This was a breach of Saga II.'s will and so ;

the head of the Kameyama line, Uda II., appealed to the

Hojo Regent (Sadatoki), and induced him to depose Fushimi
II. and replace him by Uda II.'s own son (1301). The point
to be attended to here is that what first brought the Bakufu
into conflict with one of the two Court factions was the
operation of that most unfortunate document, the will of
Saga II. and that during the eighty years following the great
;

tumult of 1221 the relations between the Sovereigns in Kyoto

and the Hojos in Kamakura had been thoroughly satisfactory,
and often exceedingly amicable.
One point is specially worthy of attention. During the
Tokugawa regime (1603-1868) the Imperial Court of Kyoto
was but meagrely and slenderly provided for by the Yedo au-
thorities, who assigned little more than some 120,000 kohu of
rice for the support of the Imperial Family and the 137 Kugc
houses. For such exalted personages this was little better
than penury; but between 1470 and 1550 the penury of the
Court and courtiers had been of a still more grinding order,
amounting as it did to a degree of absolute destitution which
the arts of the most astute contemporary Caleb Balderstones
found it hopeless to cope with. Now a comparison of the
condition of the Imperial Court during the eighty years
between 1470 and 1550 with the condition of that same Court
during the eighty years between 1221 and 1301 is most in-
structive. It must be at once perceived that the comparison
460 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

amounts not only to a contrast, but to one of the most glaring

of contrasts. For at no time for generations had the Imperial
Family been so well off financially as it was between 1221 and
1301 at least.
By 1221 the Insci system had been in operation for a century
and a half. Now, whatever merits might have to be imputed
unto it for righteousness, economy could at no time, except
for a few brief years under Sanjo II., be reckoned among them.
Hitherto the Insei system had almost invariably been waste-
fully and criminally profuse in its expenditure, and in order—
to procure the immense revenue needed for its support it
time and again had had recourse to most undignified and
most demoralising expedients, among which the open sale of
offices and Court rank had not been one of the least blame-

worthy. Before 1221, in the times of Toba II., this special

scandal had been as flagrantly pronounced as ever. After
1221 we meet with very little reference to it in contemporary
records for at least two generations. One reason is that
Kamakura exerted itself rigorously to repress, if not actually
to suppress it. Another unmistakably is that the Court was
now amply provided with means of support from legitimate
sources. In his will (1272) Saga II. was able to deal with
a vast amount of landed property, consisting of the 180
4
manors attached to the Abbey of Chokodo, and the revenues
of wide domains in Harima and Owari. All this was hence-
forth to constitute the resources of ex-Emperors; the reigning
Sovereign being supposed to be provided for by the Bakufu.
At this date certain of the great Court nobles were also
exceedingly wealthy, while not a few of them were even more
than tolerably well off. They still held extensive Sho-en,
administered by their own Jito or stewards; and into these
Bakufu officers found no entrance unless by virtue of a special
commission which was issued only in rare and extreme cases,
for instance, when it was proved that brigands and malefactors
were being harboured there. In its own domains, and over
its own vassals and officers the authority exercised by the
Bakufu was absolute and final. With such functionaries as
Shit go theCourt could not interfere directly; in this matter
the original regulations of the time of Yoritomo were now
again strictly enforced. But outside all this, for any special
or exceptional measure the Bakufu seems on the whole to
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 461

have been as careful to have its proceedings sanctioned by an

Imperial Decree as Yoritomo had been.
From 1224 or 1225 onwards, the history of the Bakufu is

largely that of the Hojo Shikken or Regents. Of these from

first to last there were nine; Yasutoki (1224-1242) being the
third of the line.Of Yasutoki's two sons, one was assassinated
at the age of sixteen, and the other died in 1230 (aged 28)
twelve years before his father. From 1242 to 1246 the Shikken
was Yasutoki's grandson Tsunetoki, and from 1246 to 1256
Tsunetoki's younger brother, Tokiyori, who really held the
reins of administration down He had
to his death in 1263.
meanwhile been nominally succeeded by his young son Toki-
mune, who on his death in 1284 transmitted his office to his
eldest son Sadatoki. In 1301 Sadatoki professedly retired;
but he it was who truly directed the policy of the Bakufu
during the nominal regency of his younger brother, Morotoki
(1301-1311), who died about a month before him.
Upon the death of Sadatoki the decline of the Bakufu in
moral no than
less material influence was portentously
in
rapid. —
But four of these Shikken, from the third to the sixth
inclusive, —
must be candidly admitted to have been great and
able rulers, worthy of all respect. Possibly no other great
family in Japan can boast of such an unbroken succession
of men of lofty character and administrative ability as the
house of Hojo displayed. And to estimate the house of
Hojo by the line of Shikken alone, would be to do it something
of an injustice. The Hojo stock was a wonderfully prolific
one Yasutoki, for example, had seven brothers, several cousins,
;

and at least a dozen nephews; and most of these, in common

with later collateral members of the family, gave abundant
evidence of the possession of high intellectual powers and
an excellent capacity for hard and conscientious work, while
their devotion to the wholesome traditions of the simple and
strenuous life seems to have been unquestioned and unques-
tionable.
In one respect the early Hojos stand in open and
glaring contrast to that blood-stained house of Minamoto
which they had first supported, and then supplanted in the
exercise of the governing authority. Down to 1272 not one
Hojo brother was done to death by another; and down to that
date there are but few instances of a Hojo meeting with
462 •
HISTORY OP JAPAN.

harsh or unjust or ungrateful treatment at the hands of a

blood relation.The first Hdjd, Tokimasa, had been compelled
to retire from public life by. his own son and daughter and
their counsellors (1205) ; but the penalty exacted from him
for his mistaken policy, if not actual misdeeds, on this occasion,
was neither unjust, nor harsh, nor excessive. In the plot
against Yasutoki in 1224, his half-brother Masamura, whose
name had been used by the conspirators, was not at all
seriously compromised.At that date Masumura was a youth
of no more than nineteen and for long years before his
;

death in 1273 he had been and continued to be one of the

main supports of Yasutoki's grandsons and great-grandson
in their exercise of the office of Shikken. The only really
serious menace to the almost invariable harmony that prevailed
among the Hojos was the episode of 1247, when the ex-Shogun
Fujiwara Yoritsune tried to induce Hojo Mitsutoki to assas-
sinate his nephew the new Sfiikken, Tokiyori, the proffered
guerdon of the crime being investiture with the intended
victim's office. Even on this occasion all that happened was
that Mitsutoki was stripped of his offices, and relegated to
the ancestral manors in Izu, there to enter upon an unin-
terrupted enjoyment of that dignified leisure which Cicero
calls the haven of repose. Under a Minamoto regime even for
an infinitely less flagrant offence, Mitsutoki's fate would have
been less lenient by a good many degrees.
Then, behind the Hojo Regents, was that most invaluable
legacy bequeathed to them and the Empire by men like Oe
Hiromoto and Miyoshi Yasunobu; the mere outcasts of caste-
ridden Kyoto, and the glories of Kamakura with its carriere
ouverte aux talents *
One thing to which Yasutoki and his counsellors devoted
assiduous and unremitting attention was the administration
of justice in the Bakufu domains. In Kamakura the first

* Possibly this has something to do with the origin of the legend

of Aoto Fujitsuna. This Aoto, a simple peasant, while one day driving
his ox through Kamakura and seeing some of the splendid new
temples then being erected there, began to assail the administration
for squandering the hard-won wealth of the people upon those lazy
drones of priests, who had already far more than their share of the
good things of life. His remarks were taken note of, and it was
proposed to punish him for insulting the authorities. But on being
brought into the presence of the Shikken, Hojo Tokiyori, the latter
was so struck with the farmer's spirit of honesty and sturdy indepen-
dence that he appointed Aoto to office. Later on, Aoto was elevated
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 463

fifteen days of every month were given up to judicature, deci-

sions being pronounced on the tenth, twentieth, and thirtieth
days, after important and difficult cases had been discussed
at the Council of Government. A bell was hung up at the
gate of the Record Office; and, when a suitor struck it, his
oetition or complaint was at once attended to. To meet the
peculiar circumstances and needs of a feudal society, the
Bakufu had gradually to build up a special jurisprudence of
its own; and after long and careful study of cases and pre-

cedents from the times of Yoritomo down to 1232, Yasutoki

and Miyoshi Yasutsura, in that year, presented the draft of
the famous Joei Shikimoku to the Council of Government
for discussion and approval.
Such a Code was indeed sorely needed. It was not because
there were no codes or bodies of law in the Empire at the
time. Truly it was quite the reverse. Since the beginning
of the eighth century, a constant stream of laws and ordinances
had been issuing, from Nara, and then from Kyoto;
first

and, for the last few preceding centuries, decrees and edicts
had been pouring, not from one, but from at least three, and
sometimes more, different sources in the latter capital. In
numerous cases the edicts issued by the Imperial Chancery,
the ex-Emperor's Chancellery, and the Kebiishi Board were
in serious conflict with each other; and this, added to the
fact that the accumulated mass of legislation of all sorts
had swelled to such proportions that scarcely any one could
be expected to master more than a fraction of it, imported
such an element of difficulty and uncertainty into Japanese
jurisprudence that the study of it had fallen into all but utter
desuetude. Besides, in Kyoto the rewards for a profound know-
ledge of law had for long been insignificant compared with
those accorded to such as could master the elementary princi-
ples of the facile art of pleasing the blue-blooded non-
entities in authority. Hence it came to pass that by 1200
a.d. there was scarcely a single jurisconsult in Kyoto. Oe

to the bench, where he distinguished himself as a model of upright-

ness and sagacity. " He was the terror of venal officials, injustice and
bribery being known to him as ifr by sorcery; while every detected
culprit was sure to be disgracefully cashiered." H'e was equally
famous for the rigid simplicity and economy he practised and en-
forced. Unfortunately, no mention of Aoto Pujitsuna is to be found
in the Azuma Kagami, nor does his name appear in any list of con-
temporary Bakufu officials.
4G4 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Hiromoto, and Miyoshi Yasunobu, and their friends had re-

moved to the Kwanto in disgust, carrying their knowledge of

the Law of the Empire with them.
But in the Kwanto
it would have been utterly impracticable

to endeavour to enforce the Law of the Empire. The basis of

that was still supposed to be the Code of Taiho. One prime

object of that Code had been to guard against the danger of
any development of a feudal system and the rise cf any
specially privileged military class. But when Oe and Miyoshi
went to Kamakura, they found that the organisation of
society there was distinctly and pronouncedly feudal, and that
it was the interests of the military class that had to be chiefly

and primarily consulted and provided for in the administration

of justice and in any legislation that they might contemplate.
As this feudal system and this privileged military class had
arisen only by the flagrant and systematic flouting of the
Land-Provisions of the Code of Taiho, and as the whole
economy Japan rested upon an agricultural basis, it must
of
have very quickly dawned upon the acute intelligence of Oe
and Miyoshi that in settling the disputes of the Bushi the
judgements they delivered must generally be in accordance
with something very different from the ordinary Imperial law.
It was what had become the traditional customs of the
district, and, perhaps, the House Laws of the Minamoto, that

they had to take primarily and chiefly into account. The

decisions rendered in accordance with these formed the basis
of what was virtually a new system of jurisprudence; and
the Code of Joei (so named from the year-period, 1232),
framed in consonance with the tenor of the recorded pre-
cedents of the previous fifty years, might be described as the
Great Customary of the Kwanto.*
It is to be carefully noted that the Bakufu more than
once emphatically declared that this " Customary " was in-
tended for its own domains and its own vassals solely; and

* The first French Customary, that of Beam, dates

from about
1088. It was and Obertus,
in 1170 that the Milanese lawyers, Girard
published their two books of the law of fiefs. In France, under Charles
VII., an ordinance was made for the formation of a general, code of
Customary law, by ascertaining for ever in a written collection those
of each district; but tlie work was not completed till the reign of
Charles IX. (156C-1574). This was what may be .called the common
law of the pays coutumiers, or northern division of France, and the
rule of all their tribunals, unless where controlled by royal edicts,
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 465

that it made it plain tohad no intention of

all that it

interfering with the internal administration of such fiefs and

such districts as did not depend upon it. This, of course,
meant the tracts still under the control of |the Civilian
Provincial Governors appointed by Kyoto, the manors of the
Great Monasteries in the Home Provinces and elsewhere,
and the estates held by the Court and the Court nobles, and
even by military men who had continued to be independent of
Kamakura. But in course of time, many of such proprietors,
finding certain of the provisions of the Kwantd Customary
highly suitable for the state of things on their estates, began
gradually to enforce them there; and in a few generations
it had supplanted the common law of the Empire over the
greater part of its extent.
A compendium of fifty-one brief articles, whose contents
may be mastered in an hour or so, can have no pretensions
to be an exhaustive exposition of law. Neither is it a
systematic one, for the various subjects are not dealt with in
any strict logical sequence, while the sections were not even
numbered, either when the Code was in force in Kamakura
times, or when in use as a school-book in the Tokugawa age.
Nevertheless, it is exceedingly interesting and instructive; all
the more when we remember that it was the wont of the
so,

Kamakura Bakufu to see to it that its laws should be really

and strictly enforced. One result of this is that the hints
the Hojo Code supplies us with about the social conditions of
the time are exceedingly valuable, because trustworthy.*
Tf one section (41) indicates that slavery was still an in-

stitution not unknown on

Bakufu domains, others furnish
the
conclusive evidence that the free farmer there was in a better
position than his descendant was under the Tokugawa regime.
The cultivator was carefully guarded against undue rigour of
process in exacting arrears of taxation from him; and on pay-
ment of his dues he was at entire liberty to remove elsewhere
if he found the conditions unfair or unfavourable to him in

the place of his abode (42). Another paragraph, while

forbidding the sale of fiefs, sanctions the sale of their holdings
by peasants in case of necessity. Under the Yedo Government,

* The whole Cede has been admirably translated and commented

on by John Carey Hall, Esq., Transactions of the Asiatic Society of

Japan, Vol. XXXIV., Part I,

m
4GG HISTORY OP JAPAN.

the right of migration and that of sale of his fields were alike
denied to the farmer. What the exact social status of a
village headman was, —whether samurai or commoner, — does
not clearly appear; but village headmen, while held to a
strict discharge of their duties, and severely punished for
various malpractices, were safeguarded against all aggression
or nndne interferes e on the part of the Jito.
The law of property was almost entirely synonymous with
that of fiefs. These, if originally conferred for public services
rendered by the grantee, could not be sold. On the death of
the holder it was not necessarily the eldest son, —even though
legitimate, —that succeeded. The only provision affecting the
father's complete liberty of bequest or gift to his widow — (or
concubine, in one article) —or children was that a thoroughly
deserving eldest son whether of wife or concubine could claim
one-fifth of the estate. Not only could women be dowered with,
or inherit fiefs, and transmit a them to their
legal title to
own children, but a childless woman was even fully empowered
to adopt an heir. Yoritomo had been the first to sanction
this broad-minded and liberal principle; and although the
language of section 18 of this Hojo Code evinces that the
Solons of Kamakura were beginning to be somewhat anxious
about the possible risks of the " monstrous regiment of
—
women " * and this within seven years of the death of the
—
great Lady Masa, the truly lion-hearted Nun-Shogun, the
full equal in courage and ability of the best man Kamakura

ever produced! Doubtless it was his appreciation of the

sterling worth of his masterful, yet dutiful, spouse that
induced Yoritomo to treat the best women of his time with
such an extraordinary amount of confidence and respect, t
As the existence of the Kamakura Bakufu depended in no
small measure upon the perpetuation and diffusion of the
Yoritomo legend, the legists of 1232, while fully aware of the
fact that neither Lady Masas nor Widow Oyamas were to
be found in every second wayside hamlet, felt that
it would be injudicious to attempt any curtailment of the

* needless to say that this phrase occurring in the title of

It is
Knox's book " The first Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous
Reeiment (i.e. rife) of Women" has been often misunderstood.
f We have seen him annointing the widow of one of his captains
— —
Oyama to the responsible office of Jito "on account of her great
merits,"
 THE KAMAKURA BAKTTFU. 467

privileges accorded to women by the Great Lord of Kamakura

in the enjoyment of which they had been tacitly confirmed by
a prescriptive term of nearly fifty years. In other respects,
too, the women of the Kamaknra Bushi class were in a more
favoured position than were those of the Tokngawa samurai.
In the Ye do period, a samurai husband wounded in his
marital honour could take the law into his own hands, and
put the offending spouse to death. In Kamakura an adulterer
was stripped of half of his fief if he held one; and if he had
nore, he was banished. For an adulteress, the punishment
wiw no severer, except that, if possessed of a fief, the whole
of it was forfeited.

A good many sections of the Code deal with legal pro-

cedure, and the conduct and duties of magistrates, — the great
objects being to make the administration of justice simple,
prompt, and pure, while repressing everything in the shape of
pettifogging or factious litigiousness. The penalties were
neither cruel nor ferocious. Death for the worst offences,
among which theft is especially mentioned, —confiscation of
fief —
and banishment, these about exhaust the list. The- only
other punishment mentioned is that of branding on the face,
inflicted on a commoner for the crime of forgery, a Bushi's
punishment, in this case, being banishment, or simply con-
fiscation of his fief, if possessed of one.
Bakufu vassals were strictly forbidden directly to solicit
the Imperial Court for rank or office; they must be provided
with a special recommendation from Kamakura. But once
invested with Court rank, they might be promoted in grade
without any further recommendation, while they were free
to accept the position of Kebiishi, an office about which
sufficient has already been said. Analogous restrictions were
placed on the Kwanto clergy, who were to be summarily
removed from their benefices if found appealing to Kyoto for
promotion, the only exception being in favour of Zenshu
priests. In their case, the erring brother guilty of such an
offence got off comparatively lightly, — " an influential mem-
ber of the same sect will be directed to administer a gentle
admonition."
The clergy within the Bakufu domains were to be kept
strictlyin hand; if they squandered the revenues of their
incumbency and neglected the fabric and the established
468 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

services therein they were to be displaced. As regards the

monasteries and priests outside the Bakufu domain, the case
was entirely different; they were virtually independent, and
Kamakura interfered there only when instructed to do so by
Imperial Decree. What the position of the Shu go and the
Jit 6 was has already been pretty fully set forth.
It is to be carefully noted that this " Code of Joei " was
only a fraction of the legislation of the Kamakura Bakufu.
In Statute-Law of Japan it occupies no
Ogino's Ancient
more than 33 pages. During the subsequent century this ru-
dimentary Kwanto Customary was amplified and modified by
numerous enactmerits (some of them it is true of but trivial
consequence) —which occupy as much as 204 pages of the work
just alluded to.
Then, in 1336, a few years after the fallKamakura,
of
the Kemmu-Shikimoku, of 17 sections, was drawn up by the
former Councillors of the Bakufu, — Shoni, Akashi, Ota, Fuse,
in collaboration with the monks Zeen, Sen-e, and others. By
1430 some 208 articles had been added to this by the
Ashikaga Shoguns or their Ministers.
But during the Kamakura Bakufu regime, it must not be
supposed that the Kyoto legislative factories had suspended
operations. During all that age they were extremely active.
The great difference between Kyoto and Kamakura was simply
this : Kamakura issued comparatively few laws, but these were
rigorously enforced in the Bakufu domains. Kyoto issued
many laws; and in most quarters they were more honoured
in the breach than in the observance.
One of the most interesting things in connection with
this Joei Shikimoku is the " Solemn Oath " appended to the
document :

"Whereas a simple individual is liable to make mistakes

through defect of judgement, even when the mind is unbiassed;
and besides that, is led, out of prejudice or partiality, whilst
intending to do right, to pronounce a wrong judgement; or
again, in cases where there is no clue, considers that proof
exists; or being cognisant of the and unwilling that
facts
another's shortcomings should be exposed refrains from pro-
nouncing a judgement one way or the other; so that intention
and fact are in disaccord and catastrophes afterwards ensue.
" Therefore in general, at meetings of Council, whenever
:
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 469

questions of right or wrong are concerned there shall be no

regard for ties of relationship, there shall be no giving-in
to likes or dislikes, but in whatever direction reason pushes
and as the inmost thought of the mind leads, without
regard for companions or fear of powerful houses, we shall
speak out. Matters of adjudication shall be clearly decided,
and whilst not conflicting with justice the sentence shall be a
statute of the whole Council in session. If a mistake is made
in the matter, it shall be the error of the whole Council
acting as one. Even when a decision given in a case is
perfectly just it shall be a constitution of the whole Council
in session. If a mistake is made and action taken without
good grounds, it shall be the error of the whole Council
acting as one. Henceforward, therefore, as towards
litigants and their supporters we shall never say, '
Although
I personally took the right view of the matter some or such a
one amongst my colleagues of the Council dissented and so
caused confusion, etc' Should utterence be given to any such
reports the solidarity of the Council would be gone, and we
should incur the derision of men in after times.
u Furthermore, again, when suitors having no colour of
right on their side fail to obtain a trial of their claim from
the Court of the Council and then make an appeal to one
of its members, if a writ of endorsement is granted by him it

is tantamount to saying that all the rest of the members are

wrong. Like as if one man shall we maintain judgement.''
This Oath, subscribed by the Shikken and twelve others of
the Council of State, indicates, among other things, the deep
sense of the importance of unanimity, of a united front, of the
individual sharing fully in the collective responsibility, that
was cherished by the Bakufu Councillors. This was indeed
one of the chief secrets of the wonderful stability and
efficiency of the machine. It is but rarely that we meet with
references to divided counsels in the history of the Kamakura
authorities; but when they did make their appearance,
the results were exceedingly serious. The instances of these
under Yoriiye and Sanetomo have been already dealt with.
In the course of the half-century following 1221, there was no
more than one great similar tragedy in 1247. —
The greatest family in Kamakura, after the Hojos, was the
Miuras, as has already been said. The Miura stock was
470 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

even more prolific than that of the Hojos, while its landed

possessions were much more extensive than those of the

Sink ken and his relatives. For long the two families had
been on the most friendly terms. Meanwhile, however, the
Adachis, of Dew a Fujiwara had been rising in
descent,
wealth and and
prestige ;an Adachi lady had become the
mother of the fourth and fifth Shikken, Tsunetoki and Toki-
yori. During the rule of Tsunetoki (1242-1246), the Adachis
had waxed exceedingly powerful in the Councils of the
Rakufu and this excited the jealousy of the great Miura
;

clan, and ultimately brought about an estrangement between

Miuras and Hojos. The elder Miura chief, a son-in-law of
Yasutoki's, finding his counsels no longer so frequently sought
for as they had been, and often rejected when tendered,
appears to have fallen into an attitude of lukewarm indif-
ference to the interests of the administration, which presently
came to be construed as intriguing and factious opposition.
The other chief, his younger brother, MitsumuTa, had for long
been a personal attendant and friend of the young Shogun,
Fujiwara Yoritsune; and when Yoritsune was induced to
resign, professedly on account of menacing portents in the
heavens, in 1244, Mitsumura had been deeply grieved and
chagrined. Now, in 1247, it was determined to remove the
ex-Shogun to Kyoto; and on his departure from Kamakura,
Mitsumura, with tears in his eyes, assured him that he
cherished the hope of yet being able to welcome him back
there some day. Yoritsune had just been implicated in the
plot to kill the new Shikken, Tokiyori, and replace him by
his uncle Mitsutoki, who had no affinity with the Adachis.
deemed to be significant,
All this, with other circumstances
combined to expose the Miuras to suspicion. Old Adachi
Kagemori, Tokiyori's maternal grandfather, who had been
living as a monk in Koyasan for nearly twenty years, suddenly
hurried up to Kamakura to have long secret conferences with
his grandson, the new Shikken^ Tokiyori. The result was
that the Miura mansion was, without any warning, invested
by a strong body of troops, and fired. The two chiefs,
Yasumura and Mitsumura, made good their escape to
the HokkedO, a huge temple in the neighbourhood; and
there, with their clansmen who rapidly rallied to their sum-
mons, stood stubbornly on the defensive for some time. When
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 471

finally overborne by numbers they committed harakiri, as did

more than 270 of their followers. Orders had meanwhile
been issued for the slaughter of the Miuras in the various
provinces; and in a few days this fine and great and powerful
clan was virtually extirpated, and its immense landed posses-
sions, amounting to many tens of thousands of acres of
cultivated soil, were confiscated, and disposed of. in various

w ays. Some of
T
its manors were bestowed on meritorious
Bakufu vassals, others were " contributed " to temples or
shrines, while yet others were utilised to augment the Civil
List of the Imperial Court.
With such drastic and heroic remedies for the malady of
intrigue and self-seeking, it is not perhaps so very surprising
that we should meet with such scant mention of divided coun-
sels in the records of Kamakura. Besides, the secrecy of cer-
tain meetings of the Council of State was much better preserved
than those of the British Cabinet. Tradition has it that when
all-important questions were to be dealt with, the Councillors
assembled in the Takibi no Ma ("Burning-fire room") in the
Shogunal palace. Here they deliberated without uttering a
word, expressing themselves merely by tracing characters on
the ashes of the fire lighted on the hearth. That Kyoto, with
its rival Courts, its rival Chancelleries, and its intriguing
functionaries, mostly all eager to trip each other up by any
means, fair or foul, should have gone down before Kamakura
with this wonderfully organised Bakufu machine, the embodi-
ment not only and power of work, but of discipline
of ability
of the finest order, was almost a matter of course. Further-
more, the Bakufu was thoroughly in touch with the times;
and Kyoto remained oblivious to the social changes that had
passed and were passing over the face of the Empire at large.
And not the least of all was, as the events of 1221 had shown,
that Kyoto was impotent if 'a conflict of opinions or of in-
terests had to be settled by the sharp and decisive arbitrament
of the sword.
Here a few words about the special machinery employed by
the Great Boards of Kamakura, and their duplicates in the
Kokuhara, to enable them to keep in close touch with the whole
wide-spreading extent of Bakufu domains. These domains,
besides embracing practically the whole of the Kwanto, were
to be found in almost every province of the Empire, from the
472 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Straits of TsurUga to the extreme south of Kyushu. In some

provinces they were less extensive than those belonging to
owners exempt from Kamakura or Rokuhara jurisdiction; in
Yamato especially, where the soil was mostly held by the
Great Monasteries of Nara, the Bakufu foothold was so slen-
der that it had no need for a Shugo there. In several other
provinces, a map of, say, 1250 a.d. would show as many en-
claves as could be found in Germany at any time. In most of
the provinces, the Bakufu had a High Constable, or Shugo;
and in those counties or districts where it had virtually supe-
rior proprietary, as well as administrative rights, a Jito, or
Land-Steward. These provincial Shugo and district Jito
(who were destined entirely to supplant the
in course of time
Provincial and District Governors of the old centralised civil
government) were the local agents through which the Bakufu
acted. Now, how were these agents held to the honest dis-
charge of their duties, and restrained from all attempts at
playing the part of local despots? In the first place, a well-
founded plaint of aggression from any non-Bakufu proprietor,
addressed to Kamakura or the Rokuhara through the Imperial
Court, would almost infallibly lead to the reprimand or re-

moval of the offending Shugo or Jito. In the original con-

temporary records, I have come across not one, but scores of
cases of this. But not only were neighbouring proprietors safe-
guarded from outrage at the hands of the local representatives
of Kamakura; its own tax-paying subjects and thralls had
their legitimate rights and interests carefully protected by the
Bakufu during the greater portion of the thirteenth century
at least. Shugo and Jito alike had their administration sub-
jected to a rigorous examination by envoys, both ordinary and
extraordinary, dispatched on appointed circuits by the Great
Central Boards. Of these envoys there were at least four
categories; the Jikkenshi (Messengers to Examine the Truth),
Special Commissioners expedited for the most serious reasons
the Kenkenshi (Examine-Look-Envoys), Commissioners to in-
vestigate special matters of less serious import ; the Junkenshi
(Go-round-Examine-Messengers), sent out annually at a fixed
date to traverse a circuit, to take note of the economic and
social condition of the people, to listen to complaints, and to
compose disputes; and lastly the Naikenshi, sent out early
every autumn to report on the actual yield of the rice harvest'
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 473

so as to enable the Central authorities to settle the amount

and incidence of taxation justly and fairly and reasonably.
In addition to these, each High Constable (Shugo) had a staff
of Kenchu-shi whose duty it was to see to it that the land-
survey in the Bakufu domains in his province was just and
fair.*
All these officials were embraced under the generic term of
the "
Kamakura-Bakufu-Oflicers." These most hard-worked
and meritorious public officials must be carefully distinguished
—
from the Kamakura Banshu, pampered minions of lower
degree mentally and morally, whose only claim to distinction
was that they had been selected to fill the dignified offices of
lacqueys and superior flunkeys to the temporary figure-head of
the Kamakura ship of State. The best known of these Ban
were perhaps the oldest of them, the Gakumonjo Ban,
organised in 1213, and the O-Ban (or Great Ban), dating from
about 1225. The first of these two had to deal with the riding-
school, archery, and the study of the old etiquette and usages
of China and Japan; the second was of the nature of a guard
for the person and palace of the titular Shogun. The Kinju-
Ban (1223) had to select and supervise the employes in the
Palace; the Koshi-han was charged with the opening and
closing of the shutters and gates at morning and evening
tide respectively, the Hisashi-Ban were guardians of the Sho-
gunal pavilions or villas outside the Palace, while the Monken-
zankctsu-Ban were, practically, Masters of Ceremony. The
most notorious, if not the most famous, of all was the
Hayaliiru-Ban, whose personnel consisted of petits maitres
proficient in polite accomplishments, —
the manufacture of
verselets, vocal and instrumental music, dancing, hand-ball,
and, above all, Japanese football, which has, or had, as much
with the rough-and-tumble of the Rugby or Association
affinity
form of the game as chalk has with cheese. |
I have asserted that mere civilian grandees never exercised

any authority in Kamakura. By this, political or administra-

* Certain Jito also had a staff of Kenchushi (Surveyors) to su-

perintend.
| " Japanese football— —
derived originally from China bore no
resemblance to the rough-and-tumble contests of the Occident. It was
simply the art of kicking a ball high and keeping it continuously off
the ground. A certain Narimkmi, whose official position corresponded
to that of a Minister of State, gained undying fame by his skill in
this amusement. After devoting a considerable part of seven thousand
474 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

live authority is meant. From first to last,— from the death of

Sanetoino, in 1211), down to the overthrow of the Hojd, in

L333, — the six civilians successively invested with the Shogu-

nate were more than puppets, as far as the real work
little

of the Bakufu was concerned.

Of these six puppet Shoguns, the first two- father and —
son, —
were Fujiwaras. About Fujiwara Yoritsune a good
deal has already been said. Taken to Kaniakura as Shogun-
designate in 1210 at the age of two, he received his patent of
investiture only in 1226. Eighteen years later on, in 1214,
when Yoritsune was in his twenty-seventh year, there was a
succession of menacing omens and portents in the heavens;
and to evade the threat of mysterious impending evil thus
conveyed, Yoritsune was induced to resign his high office in
favour of his son, Yoritsugu, then five years old. Removed to
Kyoto in 1246, Yoritsune there became implicated in an
abortive plot to overthrow the Hojos, six years later on. The
chief outcome of was that Yoritsugu, then
the intrigue
thirteen, was stripped of his position. Shortly after, it was
discovered that his grandfather, and Yoritsune's father, Fuji-
wara Michiiye, who had just died at the age of 60, had been
involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the ex-Emperor Saga
II. Saga II. owed his position to Hdjo Yr asutoki; and he had
always been, and was, on the very best terms with Kaniakura.
It now became very easy for Kaniakura to attain its long-

—
cherished project, a project in which it had been baulked by
—
Toba II. in 1219, of procuring an Imperial Prince to fill the
office of Shogun. And not only was an Imperial Prince now
obtained to fill that office; the Imperial Prince, Munetaka (son
of Saga II.) now obtained was the brother of the reigning
j

Emperor, and a year his senior! At the same time, as he was

then (1252) no more than ten years of age, even if he should
ultimately prove to be possessed of a measure of ability and
a will of his own, would be long before he would be in any
it

position to interfere with the Shikken and his projects. In

consecutive days to the practice of the art, rising even from his
sick-bed for the purpose, he attained such lightness and deftness of
foot that, while kicking the ball, he traversed the shoulders of a
row of servitors, including a tonsured priest, and the men thus
trodden on declared that they had felt nothing more than a hawk
hopping along their backs, the priest saying that for his part it had
seemed simply as though some one had put a hat on his bald pate.
This is the historical record!"— Brinkley's Japan, Vol. I., pp. 193 4.
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 475

course of time, this first Imperial Shogun, at the instigation

of His Reverence Ryoki and others, did make an effort to
shake off the Hojo tutelage upon attaining years of discretion

(1266) ; but the outcome of the effort was that he was

deposed, sent to Kyoto and confined in the Rokuhara there,
and replaced in Kamakura by his own son, Prince Koreyasu,
then little more than out of his swaddling-clothes. Koreyasu
was the Bakufu figure-head for twenty-three years (1266-
1289) ; was beginning to evince a disposition
then, just as he
to thinkand act for himself, he was suddenly relegated to
Kyoto with as little ceremony as* if he. had been a bale of
damaged goods or a " returned empty." Prince Koreyasu was •

replaced by his cousin, Prince Hisa-akira, the son of the

ex-Emperor, Fukakusa II., and the brother of the reigning

Sovereign, Fushimi. At the time of his investiture* he was

older than any of the other five civilian Fujiwaras or Imperial
Princes hitherto selected to fill the position of head of the
military class. Rut even so, Prince Hisa-akira was only in his
fifteenth year. For nearly a score of years he managed to
continue to be the nominal head of the house of Minainoto;
and then one fine morning in 1308, he was forced to make way
for his own son, Prince Morikuni. The latter lived to see the
overthrow of the Hojo Regents in 1333. He then resigned the
office of Shogun, became a monk, and died before the year was

out, at the age of thirty-two.

Such in brief was the tame and impotent record of all
these blue-blooded civilian Shoguns as statesmen and
administrators. But politics, law, and administration con-
stitute only a part of the regulativemachinery by which any
nation or society The sanctions of religion and
is governed.
the moral sentiments of the age must also always be taken into
account. And in many cases, the dictates of ceremonial and
of fashion are even more imperious and better obeyed than
either the law of the land, the thunders of the Church, or the
promptings of the conscience. Such for long ages had been
the case at the Court of Kyoto; and with the advent of the
civilianKyoto Shoguns in Kamakura, these stern and rugged
traditions of a wholesome simplicity of life, which Yoritomo
had strenuously fostered, and which the Hojos, to their eternal
honour, did so much to maintain as an ideal, presently found
themselves confronted with standards of a vastly dufferent kind.
476 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

The blue-blooded Kyoto Shoguns did not come to Kamakura

alone and unattended. Several of them had actually to be
nursed, and all of them educated, while on reaching man's
estate they had all to be kept amused, for otherwise their exile
to the wilds of the not inhospitable, but uncouth and
uncourtly, Kwanto would have been insupportable. Ac-
cordingly in the Court of every successive Shogun there was
a strong Kyoto element, selected from among the more needy
masters and exponents of the arts and accomplishments that
were held in highest esteem in the gay and effeminate capital.
Such people would not readily go down to the Kwanto for
nothing; their emoluments had to be very substantial indeed.
To these in the Shogunal Palace were added Kwanto Instruc-
tors of his Highness in Equitation, Archery, Swordsmanship,
and all the arts of the warrior. But these latter generally
found their offices little better than mere sinecures; and yet
their emoluments were such as had been seldom bestowed for
the most daring and gallant services on the battlefield. And
from 1221 onwards, for long years, those were emphatically
the " piping times of peace " and under the strong and firm
;

rule of the Hojo all opportunities for distinction on the

battlefield seemed to have vanished, if not for ever, at all

events for generations. Now the Kwanto Bushi were rapidly

increasing in numbers, and in spite of all the tracts of new
land that were being reclaimed and brought under cultivation,
the economic problem among them was becoming more and
more pressing. Hence lucrative appointments in the Shogun's
household gradually came to be eagerly coveted; and as these
appointments only went to such as had some proficiency in
the polite accomplishments so much valued in Kyoto, many of
the young warriors began to devote their best efforts to
acquiring the arts and graces of the and fashionable fine
gentleman. This led to a rage forand for
finer clothes,
elaborate banquets, while presently the samurai began to vie
with each other in the beauty and grandeur of their dwellings.
The result was that the Bushi had to borrow money; and by
the end of the century the number of mortgaged estates in the
Kwanto was enormous. Even under Yasutoki (1224-1242)
these evils had begun to make their appearance, and to cause
that sagacious ruler serious disquietude, Avhile his grandson
Tokiyori (1246-1263) tried to grapple with them in a series
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 477

of sumptuary regulations. In 1252, 1253, 1254 (and later on

in 1281 and 1330) the prices of commodities were fixed, for
extravagant and wasteful living in certain circles had driven
them up tremendously. Tn 1261, Bakufu vassals were
forbidden to build houses at a cost incompatible with their
rank and fortune. In the same year an order was issued
prohibiting persons visiting the Kwanto on official business
from dressing expensively and above their station in life. In
1256 the Bakufu retainers were severely censured for their
crying and scandalous neglect o'f the traditional military arts
of the Kwanto, and the assiduous practice of the old sports
and exercises was again made compulsory.
It is undoubted that the social influence, direct and —
—
indirect of the Shogun's Court was at no time inconsiderable,
and that it became very great in the three or four decades
preceding the overthrow of the Hojo rule. In fact, in the
complex of factors that led to the downfall of the Bakufu, the
ultimate ascendancy of Kyoto social standards in Kamakura
must probably be regarded as fhe most important.
In the previous chapters incidental references have been
made to ecclesiastical affairs when they have been entangled
with political developments. Here a few paragraphs must be
devoted to a somewhat minuter view of the contemporary
fortunes of Buddhism. At the same time, the exigencies of
space forbid anything beyond the merest outlines of the general
religious situation.
Down to nearly the end of the twelfth century, the six old
sects of Nara, the Shingon, with its headquarters on Koyasan
and in the temple of Toji to the south of Kyoto, and the
Tendai, with its great monastery of Enryakuji, on Hi-ei-zan,

and its offshoot and rival Miidera on Biwa strand below, re-
mained in possession of the field. At, or somewhat subsequent
to, that date, these eight sects had altogether some 11,000 fanes

scattered over the length and breadth of the Empire. To-day,

at the beginning of the twentieth century, the six old Nara
sects combined have no more than 66 temples, the Tendai
about 4,600, and the Shingon a little under 13,000. In other
words, the eight old sects have now 17,388 places of religious
worship, and no more than 4,700,000 adherents, —something
considerably under ten per cent, of the total population of
these islands. At the beginning of this twentieth century
478 ITTSTORY OF JAPAN.

there are about 72,000 Buddhist temples in Japan, and perhaps

29,000,000 or 30,000,000 Buddhists. Of these as many as
53,000 fanes with 21,000,000 adherents belong- to four great
new sects whose first appearance was synchronous with that
of the Dominican and Franciscan Friars in Europe. Now,
in connection witli these new sects, two points are to be

especially noted. In the first place, their founders had all

without exception been some time or other connected with the
great Tendai Monastery of En-ryakuji on Mount Hi-ei and ;

secondly it was either in the Kwanto itself, or within the

Bakufu domains, that three of these prophets, if not of a new
religion, at all eyents of a new method of securing one's bliss
in a present or future state of existence, found their earliest

adherents, and the most fruitful field of their activity.

The Tendai system was exceedingly comprehensive in its
doctrines and teachings; and this comprehensiveness, while at
first ensuring for it a speedy and wide-spreading success,

naturally made it the parent of so many schisms. " It tried

to reconcile contradictory systems, and sooner or later the

contradictories were bound to come and to sepa-
to the light
rate." The earliest of these schismatic offshoots of the Tendai
system was the Jodo (Pure Land) sect established by Genku,
now generally known as Honen Shonin. Born in Mimasaka
about 1133, he entered Hi-ei-zan at the age of fifteen in
1148. His progress in scholarship was extraordinarily rapid;
but by these times scholarship had become a very subordinate
interest among the proud, worldly-minded turbulent priests
of the great monastery. Accordingly, after four years there,
Genku withdrew to the solitude of the neighbouring valley of
Kurodani, and during his twenty-five years' stay here read
through the whole Buddhistic canon. These were stirring
and troublous time in the capital; and then, later on, came
the terrible disasters of 1182 and subsequent years. How
these affected many minds appears from Chomei's record of
the Ho-jo-ki ;
people seemed to be living in a hideous nightmare
of despair. Truly the first fifteen centuries of the splendour
of Buddhism appeared to have yielded to those prophesied five
hundred years of degradation and misery, " the Latter Days —
of the Law, when iniquity should abound and the love of
many should w ax r
cold." During this lamentable period, it

was taught, " the gate of self-exertion which stands at the end
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 479

of the Holy Path should be closed, but the gate opened by the
exertion of another should be opened wide, and men should
be saved by their faith in Amida."
The characteristics of the special doctrine now inculcated
by Genkfi have thus been summarised " It is salvation by
:

faith, but it is a faith ritualistic-ally expressed. The virtue

that saves comes not from the imitation of and conformity
to the person and character of the Saviour Amida, but from
the blind trust in his efforts and the ceaseless repetition of
pious formulae. It does not therefore necessitate any conver-
sion or change of heart. Tt is really a religion of desp>air rather
than of hope. It says to the believer: —The world is so very
evil thatyou cannot possibly reach to Buddhaship here. Your
best plan therefore is to give up all such hope, and simply set
your mind upon being born in Amida's Paradise after death
and if you once get admission into that land your ultimate
salvation is secure."*
That this gloomy creed of self-abandonment should have
won large numbers of adherents in the capital and in the Court
is not at all surprising; for the miserable social and political
conditions of the time, and an almost uninterrupted succession
of natural calamities, —earthquakes, typhoons, fires, floods,

droughts, famine, and pestilence, —had made the general out-

look upon life The new cult
there profoundly pessimistic.
simply gave articulate and emotional expression to what most
people felt and thought. The Emperors Shirakawa II. and
Takakura had both suffered much, and that these should have
been found among Genku's disciples is not strange. But Toba
II., a man of a far robuster type, also followed in their foot-
steps in this matter. However, inII. and his
1207, Toba
ghostly mentor came and Genku had
into collision, to spend
three years in exile in Sanuki. According to some accounts,
one of Toba II. 's female favourites had been induced by Genku
(o abandon the world, and his Majesty resented this deeply.

On the other hand, for long years, indeed for generations,

the Jodoshu made no headway in the Kwanto. There, first

* Rev. Lloyd, Developments of Japanese Buddhism. T.A.S.J.,

A. —
Vol. XXII. Part3. This excellent paper, and others by the same
learned writer in subsequent volumes of the TA.SJ. are worthy of
careful perusal by such as wish to become minutely conversant with
the fortunes of Buddhism in Japan. Dr. Bunvu Nanjyo's Short His-
tory of Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects will a' so be found useful,
480 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

under Yoritomo, and then under the Hojo Regents, peace and
order were maintained; there life was simple, strenuous, and
hopeful ; in fact the outlook on the world was just as optimistic
in Kamakura as it was the reverse in Kyoto. Plainly a creed
of hopeless despair had but small prospects of general ac-
ceptance in such a social and moral atmosphere. Yet what
purported to be a form of the Jodo cult, —in fact it called
itself the True Jodo, —became very popular in the Bakufu
domains before the middle of the thirteenth century.
Hino Arinori, of Fujiwara stock, had sent his son to Hi
ei-zan to be educated for the priesthood. In 1202, at the age
of twenty-nine, this priest attached himself to Genku, whose
favourite disciple he became. On Genku's death in 1212 the
subsequent policy of the sect did not commend itself to Shin-
ran's mind as a true development of his masters teachings.
Much discussion and dissension arose about this; and the Hi-
ei-zan monks profited by the disorder to get Shinran exiled
to Hitachi. Here, about 1224, he began to preach the doctrines
of the Jodo Shinshu, or " True Sect of Jodo."
The modifications introduced into or superimposed upon the
original Jodo doctrines and practices by Shinran were so
important as virtually to constitute another and a new cult.
As regarded the great question of the method of attaining
ultimate salvation, Genku had taught that if we call the
mercy of Amida to remembrance, then Amida will meet us
at the hour of death, and conduct us to Paradise. Shinran
insisted that the coming of Amida is present and immediate,
that the believer receive^, even in this life, the assurance, of his
salvation. The original Jodo did not forbid supplications to
the other Buddhas; but Shinran forbade all worship to any
but Amida. Genku's followers might offer petitions for tem-
porary blessings; Shinran insisted that prayer should only
be offered for what concerns man's ultimate salvation. The
older sects insisted upon the performance of many acts of
religionand devotion as necessary, and the Jodo had retained
this as advisable; Shinran would have none of this. faith —
in Amida, " the way of easy acts," was alone amply suf-
ficient.Shinran also prohibited all resort to spells, incanta-
tions, —
and exorcism, a step which appears to have specially
brought upon him the wrath of the monks of Hi-ei-zan, for it
struck a severe blow to what was one great and perennial
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 481

source of priestly revenue. Furthermore, to quote Mr. Lloyd,

" if faith in Amida and his vow is the sole necessary for that
present salvation which is to land the believer in Paradise
at his death, it is clear that to trouble the mind of the believer
with metaphysical subtleties and high speculations which form
so important a part in the teachings of other sects, such as,
for instance, the Tendai and Shingon, is a very needless work.
Once and the whole of the speculative and meta-
in Paradise,
physical system of the Truth will come spontaneously to the
mind without any teaching at all. The Shinshu therefore, at
any rate in its earlier and more popular presentments, divests
itself of all metaphysics. It knows nothing of a Philosophy of

Religion : faith in Amida is all in all."

Now, put all this in its proper historical setting, and the
genius of Shinran will begin to become apparent. He was
sent down to the Kwantd in 1224, three years after the great

commotion of Shokyii (1221) had made it plain to all that

it was really Kamakura and not Kyoto that gave the law

to the Empire. And among the 100,000 Bakufu vassals that

had been thrown against Kyoto in that year, it was notorious
that not five in a hundred could make anything, whether
sense or nonsense, out of Toba II. 's Decree scattered broadcast
among them. To trouble these people with wire-drawn meta-
physical subtleties would have been just as injudicious as to
commend a creed of despair and self-abandonment to a brood
of lusty, sturdy dare-devils who had the best of all reasons for
regarding the present world as very good. —for their over-
whelming success in the fortnight's war of 1221 had just
brought them manors and glory in plenty.
And meanwhile, new sect had established itself
yet another
in the Kwanto, where had actually captured the Hojo
it

Regents themselves. The Zenshu, whose chief aim was to

inspire its followers directly with the " heart mark " of Buddha
by " device and diligent practice," and not to teach its

doctrines by words or letters as did other sects, was indeed a

formidable rival in the latitude and atmosphere of Kamakura,
where contentment with the present "vile" world was general,
where trust in one's own right arm and one's own best
endeavours prevailed, where the schoolmaster had never " been
abroad " to any marked extent, where all great issues were
decided not by sentimentality but by real honest fundamental

FF
482 HTRTORY OF JAPAN.

sentiment and an appeal to rustic vet robust common-sense,

and where the cobwebs of priestly metaphysics would
have been as hateful to the male head of the household as
the real cobwebs of the spider were to his strong-minded
garment-weaving spouse and her buxom, cherry-
bevy of
cheeked, merry maid-servants. With the Zenshu already
largely in possession of the religions field among the Bakufu
vassals, the Jodo in its original form could never hope to root
itself in the soil of the Kwanto. The Zen believer had to
acknowledge — (1) that "the 'way' he had been taught was (

perfect, and there was consequently no need to prove it; (2)

that religion is liberty, and that there is therefore no hope of
forcing the reason to accept what the will refuses; and (3)
that the whole body of the law is not far removed from this
place, and that consequently Ave do not need the feet of
asceticism to help us to reach it." The believer had to prepare
for his meditation by moderate eating ami drinking, for while
satiety is an obstacle to high thinking, so is also the weakness
resulting from too rigorous a fast. He is further to expel
from his mind, as far as possible, all thoughts of a worldly
nature, so as to leave himself absolutely unfettered for the
work before him. The Zen doctors protested against the
Tendai and Jodo view that Bnddhaship can be attained to
only by the strict observance of the commandments. Here
also, to meet the Zenshu with some hopes of success, Shinran

modified the original Jodo doctrine. According to the " True

Jodo," the thankful remembrance of the mercies of Amida
summed up the law. Whoever kept that mercy ever before
him would, without fail, keep all the commandments. Shin-
ran's confining all worship to a single Buddha —
Amida was —
also a highly politic stroke, —for the ideal samurai was taught
that it was a shame for him to serve more than a single lord.

But Shinran's most daring innovation was in connection

with the discipline and organisation of the priesthood. " If
faith is the sole means of salvation it follows that there is no
need for the candidate for salvation to become a priest, leave
his home, renounce matrimony, and live by rule. The lav-
man's, and even the laywoman's, chance of salvation is quite
as good as the priest's. The object therefore for which the
priesthood exists is changed. It is no longer, as it was in
Shaka's conception, a body of men striving after perfection,
 THE KAMAKURA BAKTJPU. 483

but a body of men living to teach others,— the corporate deposi-

tory of the Faith and Worship of the Church. The Shinshu
sect therefore allows its priests to marry, to dress like laymen,
and even when necessary to eat meat. In this sect priestly
marriage is encouraged in every way; the family is considered
the best sphere in which to lead the religious family life, and
the incumbency not only of the ordinary temples, but even of
their bishoprics and primacies, is hereditary in certain
families."
Thanks to the genius of Shinran, the " True Jodo
achieved a great and rapid success in the Kwanto, where the
prospects of the original Jodo wouTcl nave been utterly hope-
less. Takata, in Shimotsuke, was the seat of the first great
Shinshii monastery, and this continued to be the headquarters
of one branch of the sect from 1226 down to 14G5, when these
were transferred to Isshinden, not far from Tsu in Ise. In
the early days. Kibe' in Omi was the chief Shinshu fane in
the neighbourhood of Kyoto. Before the end of the fifteenth
century, the Shinshu priesthood had developed into a great
feudal power, ruling the whole province of Kaga and wide
domains in many other quarters of the Empire.
The fourth, and last, of the new sects was not only founded
in the Kwanto, but founded there by a Kwanto man. Nichi-
ren, the son of a Kyoto exile, was born at Kominato in Awa

in 1222, and after passing some time in a Shingon monastery

there, was sent up to Hi-ei-zan for a fuller course of study.

Like other earnest students before him, he was profoundly
dissatisfied with the conditions prevailing, and the doctrines
taught, in the great Tendai monastery and he went back to
;

the Kwanto in indignation and disgust. "Returning to his

little temple of Kiyosumidera, before an audience of people

whom he had known from his youth, he preached the sermon

which has generally been considered as the foundation of his
sect. Commencing with the new formula, i
Namu myo ho
renge kyo ' ('Hail to the Scripture of the Lotus of Good
Law'), he preached on the shortcomings of all the existing
sects and pointed out that in the Hokke-Kyo alone was to be
found the true and highest teaching of Sakyamuni. This
sermon caused a great commotion, and Nichiren was forced
to escape for his life from his indignant auditors." In Kama-
kura he began street-preaching, —a practice hitherto virtually
484 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

unknown in Japan, — resorting to the drum and similar Salva-

tion Army devices to enable him to assemble audiences. One
great feature in Japanese Buddhism had been a spirit of
toleration for differences of opinion. Shinran had infringed
Ihis so far as to forbid worship to any one save Amida. But
Nichiren went much farther than this; he alone preached the
true doctrine; all others were false, and because false, deadly
and damnable. " He regarded the influence of Buddhism in
its relation, not only to individual adherents, but to the State
as a corporate whole : and it was this connection of his new
principles with the idea of nationality that formed one of his
most prominent characteristics." In his RissJio-an-JcoJcu Ron
he lays down the axiom that the prosperity or decline of a
State depends entirely upon the truth or perversion of its

religion; and says boldly that both the rulers and the ruled
were at that time wandering in error. He insists upon the
substitution of truth for falsehood as a sine qua non for the
peace and prosperity of the country, and launches defiance at
the authority of the Government, because of its failure to sup-

press all the " heretical " sects then in existence, the Zenshu
among them. As Hojo Tokiyori was at once a devout adherent
of the Zen and numbered some of its priests among his
sect
closest friends and confidants, it is not surprising that he
evinced but little inclination to fall in with the views of this
rabidly intolerant street-preacher. At last Nichiren was
banished to Ito in Izu as a disturber of the public peace
(1261). On his return he resumed his propaganda; and in
1272, after narrowly escaping the death penalty, he was again
banished to Sado for about two years. The rest of his life,

—eight years or so, —

was spent in comparative quiet at his,
new monastery of Minobu in Koshu. About some undoubtedly
beneficent effects of his activity something will be said in the
following chapter. " To this day, the Nichiren sect maintains
the characteristics of its founder. It is pugnacious, defiant,
proud, as he was."
However, from first to last, it was the priests of the Zen
sect who continued to command the respect and reverence of
the highest classes of society in Kamakura and the Kwanto
in the fullest measure. This statementmay at first occasion
some surprise; for the Bushi were above all things men of
action, while Zen is simply the Japanese form of the Sanskrit
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 4S5

Dhyanct, which means " Meditation/' and the three divisions

of the Zenslm— the Rinzai (1175), the Soto (1223), and the
—
Obaku (1650), are known as the " Contemplative Sects."
Now, as Mr. Lloyd points out, in these " Contemplative Sects "
there is a great deal that savours of the original teachings
of the Founder, and a very great deal that is eminently
Hindoo, for neither Japan nor China could of themselves have
produced a method so utterly unpractical as that of arriving
at the Truth by pure contemplation. But it must never for
a moment be forgotten that the peculiar genius of Japan is
analogous to that of the Normans. It originates little,

but it seizes upon the original ideas of other peoples,

or nations, or races, and not so much adopts them, as adapts
them to suit the peculiar, and not infrequently the mere
temporary, exigencies of the social and political fabric of the
Empire. Now, it was a peculiar tenet of the newly introduced,
or rather newly re-introduced Zen sect, that " Knowledge can
be transmitted from heart to heart without the intervention
of words. In its Japan by the
early form, as introduced to
Rinzai sub-sect (1175), the Zen system differed but little, if
at all, from the form of contemplation practised in India and
China. It was purely contemplative, and the teaching of the
Faith was handed down directly from heart to heart without
much need being felt for the use of religious books, or manuals
of doctrines." Noav in the Kamakura of 1203 a.d. how many
of even the upper classes could read ?
" Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line!"

Thousands of Yoritomo's most doughty vassals cherished old

Bell-the-Cat's lordly scorn and contempt for effeminate
literary accomplishments
to the full. Then just recall
the fashion which discussions on the most grave and
in
weighty matters of State policy were wont to be conducted
by the chosen and most trusted Bakufu Councillors in the
more than a pair of " fire chop-
Taki-ti-no-ma, with nothing
sticks " tracing transitory
and evanishing Chinese characters
upon the miniature Sahara of ashes in the big hibachi or
" fire-basin."

But above all things it was the robust and stern virility
of the Zen doctrines and practices that made the fortunes of
this new sect among the warriors of the Kwanto. This may
486 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

indeed seem something of a paradox to Western readers, for

the Zen was a meditative sect and the occupants of the great
;

military camp of Kamakura were supposed to be men of action

entirely. There we find great chiefs, possessed of wide
domains and with hundreds of vassals at their beck and call,
sleeping on a verandah, with their guards beside the middle
gate and their servants on the stable-floor; an arrangement
typical of preparedness for any emergency. Surely a fierce
brood of ever-ready fighters like this could have found but
few charms in contemplation. It would have been inconsis-
tent with their instincts, and subversive of their training and
discipline, to have their " native hue of resolution sicklied o'er
with the pale cast of thought." But the Zen doctrine and
practice of abstraction were supposed to render the devotee
superior to all his surroundings, and to educate a heart and
inculcate a spirit that defied fate. " The mood it produced

seemed to him an ideal temper for displays of military valour

and sublime fortitude; the austere discipline it prescribed
for developing that mood appealed to the conception of a
soldier's practice." His ultimate salvation had to be worked
out for himself by the Zen believer not by easy and vicarious
;

trust in another.* In this special respect the Zenshu stood

in direct antithesis to the "
True Jodo." Both Zenshu and True
Jodo were at one in rejecting spells, incantations, lengthy
prayers, and elaborate ritual. It was this special peculiarity
that brought upon both sects the bitter hostility of the Kyoto
monks, who were scandalised, not so much by the heresy, as
by its economic results.
The Zenshu had originally been introduced into Japan
early in the ninth century, by a Chinese priest who obtained
the patronage of the Emperor Saga, and of his Tachibana
Empress, who founded the temple of Danrinji. But at that
date it obtained no permanent foothold in the Empire. After
one visit to China and another in 1187, Eisai, origi-
in 1168,
nally a monk of Hi-ei-zan, built a Zen temple at Hakata from
whence he transferred himself to Kyoto in 1202. Three years
later the capital was devastated by a terrible typhoon; and

* To appreciate one reason at least why the Zen made such head-
way among the military class, the reader should refer to Mr. Yama-
shita's excellent paper on " The Influence of Shinto and Buddhism
in Japan" in, the Transactions of the Japan Society, Vol. IV., pi 4, pp.
264-269.
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 487

the Kyoto monks persuaded the ex-Emperor Toba II. that this
was the punishment of Heaven for tolerating the promulga-

tion of heretical doctrines. Eisai was thereupon driven from

Kyoto, and withdrew to Kamakura, where his new cult at once
met with ready acceptance, the great Hojo family, among
others, becoming zealous adherents of the Zenshu.
Japanese historians dwell on the fact that with the rise

of thenew sects there was a great revival of priestly activity

in making and repairing roads, in bridging streams, and
improving ferry services. As in Europe in the Middle
Ages, and, indeed, in certain European countries down
to the eighteenth century, all these were regarded as most
commendable works of public charity. And so they were no
doubt; but that they were entirely disinterested may well be
open to question. The priests have always had a high appre-
ciation of picturesque scenery and the beauties of nature, and
have been wont to rear their monasteries on the most pleasant
and romantic sites, often far removed from the busy haunts
of men. It was their business, of course, to attract worshippers
to their fanes, for temple finance was always a matter of
prime importance to the ecclesiastical mind. In these days
hotels were unknown in Japan; and devotees from afar were
generally lodged in the priests' quarters, or some of the out-
buildings of the monastery. Plainly in the interests of
revenue, it was sound economy to facilitate communications
between the secluded mountain fane and the centres of popula-
tion. Besides, all the expenses of driving the road and
bridging the stream need not necessarily come from the sacer-
dotal coffers; many workers would cheerfully labour without
any wage on an undertaking which, they were assured, would
benefit them not only in this life, but in that which was to
come.
Among the many material enterprises originated by the
priests in the Kwanto in this age, the great Buddhas of Kama-
kura must not be overlooked. The wooden
earlier of these, a
statue, 80 feet in height, erected in 1238, was blown down by
a typhoon, and no longer exists. But the great bronze
Buddha still sits upon his pedestal here calmly looking out
upon the centuries as they go by, and placidly watching the
successive generations of stooping-shouldered peasants being
gathered to their fathers.
488 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Tradition has it that when celebrating the dedication of

the restored temple of the Dai Butsn in Nara, Yoritomo re-
solved to have a similar image in Kamakura. Be this as it
may, it is plain from hints in the Azuma Kagami that the
collection of funds and materials for this enterprise went on
for long, voluntary contributions being supplemented by fines
for certain kinds of offences by the Bakufu law
inflicted
courts. was not until 1252 that the work of casting the
It
great image was begun by a certain Ono Gordemon.
A few words remain to be devoted to the subject of the
Hdjos' attitude towards religion. That they were sincere and
devout believers in Buddhism, and that their religion was a
religion of the rational moral conscience exercising a deep
and abiding salutary influence upon their conduct cannot
admit of any doubt. In a measure they were Reformers.
While the legitimate interests of religion and of religieux were
carefully protected and fostered in the Bakufu domains, sacer-
dotal abuses were sternly checked and repressed there. One
result of this was that earnest ecclesiastics from other sections
of the Empire showed a willing readiness to place themselves,
their services, and their advice at the disposal of the Regents.
One of Yasutoki's cherished friends was that Koben (or
Myo-e) of Takao-zan in Y^amashiro, who boldly declared that
" if Buddhism were such a religion as it is represented to be
by the present generation of monks, it would be the worst
in the world " and from Koben, who was a Zen priest, Yasu-
;

toki got many valuable hints.

One European authorities on ancient
of the very highest
Japanese history maintains that " the emotional basis of re-
ligion is gratitude, love, and hope, rather than fear. If life
is worth living —
and what sane man doubts it ? there are —
far more frequent occasions for the former than for the latter.-'
Now, this last statement is emphatically untrue of Kyoto
between, say, 1180 and 1232 a.d v if the contemporary records
are to go for anything better than the mere figments of ultra-
imaginative pessimists. Again, the same learned authority
remarks, later on, in the same work :* " The true reason for
making offerings, whether to Gods or to the dead, is to be
sought elsewhere. Men feel impelled to do something to

* Shinto (the Way of the Gods), by W. G. Aston, C.M.G., D.C.L.,

p. 210.
 THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 489

show their gratitude for the great benefits which they are
daily receiving, and to conciliate the future favours of the
powers from whom they proceed." Again, in dealing with
the ohonihe (or Great Food Offering of First-fruits), Dr.
Aston tells us it is " gratitude rather than fear which animates
the Japanese." However, on page 285 of the same excellent
work, after a capital translation of the ritual prayer in the
harvest-praying service, Dr. Aston is constrained to admit that
" this norito contains paragraphs —possibly later accretions
which have nothing to do with the harvest. In some of the
petitions the do ut ties principle is very thinly disguised."
But indeed there is often no disguise about the matter at all.

Witness the following blunt avowal in an essay by a Japanese

student of some two- or three-and-twenty years of age —a man
of a good deal more than average ability, too :

" It is impossible to demand to shiver with cold in the

midsummer day as well as in winter. It is also unreasonable
request to demand that he must not take a bit of beef in his

whole life, since he did not take even a bit when he was
suffering from disease. The danger is past and God is for-
gotten. It is quite proper to forget God when the danger is
past. One who says that he does not forget God} though the
danger is past, is a liar."
In the history of Buddhism in Japan at least it is abun-
dantly clear the gratitude which Dr. Aston would have us
believe to be one of the three emotional bases of religion has
often been of that species of the feeling which consists in a very
lively sense of favours to come. It was the great smallpox
epidemic of 735-737 that made the fortunes of the continental
religion in this Empire;
and in subsequent ages seasons of
the direst national calamity and disaster continued to be the
richest of godsends to the priests. It was mainly in such
—
seasons when people were starving, or dying in tens of
—
thousands of pestilence that the monks in the great Kyoto
and Nafa monasteries fared most sumptuously for it was in ;

times like these that believers were most lavish in their gifts
and benefactions. At such crises in the fortunes of the Empire
and of the Japanese people, the mailed men of God could
safely count upon being allowed fo carry their armed outrage
and insolence to the utmost extremes without much risk of
interference by the constituted civil powers. For example, the
490 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

years between 1226 and 1231 are filled with bewildering re-

cords of mutual temple-burning and internecine sacerdotal

strife in Yamato and the environs of Kyoto. At last, about
1230 or 1231, the civil authorities had perforce to interfere,
and in the latter year they were actually on the point of
taking strong and rigorous measures against these most un-
clerically-minded of clerics. But just at this point a series
of unfruitful years culminated in a season of famine, almost
as keen in its pinch as that of 1181-2; and this was, as was
almost always unfailingly the case, followed by a terrible death-
dealing pestilence, nearly as fatal as that of half-a-century
before. Thereupon, proceedings against the monks were
stopped ; their services as " devil-dodgers " had to be secured
at all costs.
Five years later on these turbulent Reverences did receive
a sharp and much-needed lesson for once. In 1235, the monks
of Nara got into a dispute with the priests of Iwashimidzu
about the boundaries of some of their manors; and it was
only Rokuhara troops that kept the dreaded Shimboku out of
Kyoto. Ten months later, the Nara ~bonzes, failing to get
satisfaction from the Emperor, actually began to throw up
fortifications and to prepare for open war. The Court there-
upon appealed to the Bakufu; and Hojo Yasutoki took very
prompt and drastic measures. A strong force blockaded the
monks; their manors were confiscated, and a Shugo placed
r
in Y amato. The result was that they had to beg for terms;
and thereupon their estates were restored and the Shu go
withdrawn. It was only when specially requested by the
Court to do so that the Bakufu ventured to interfere with the
Kyoto and Nara monasteries. As a matter of fact, Hi-ei-zan
was at least once burned by Miidera, and Miidera several times
burned and sacked by Hi-ei-zan in the latter half of the
thirteenth century; while scarce a decade of that half-century
passed without serious armed strife between some or other of
the great fanes and shrines in and around the capital. And
that too at a time when elsewhere throughout the Empire the
strong hand of the Kamakura regents had little difficulty in
In this thirteenth century there
preserving the public peace.
cannot be the least doubt that it was by terrorising the
nation, from the Emperor or ex-Emperor down to the
scavenger, that the Kyoto and Nara priests of the old sects
maintained their ascendancy.
 491

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MONGOL INVASIONS AND THEIR

CONSEQUENCES.
TN the first half of the ninth century we found the " three
-*- Learned Emperors " so deeply impressed with the culture
and magnificence of the Court of Hsian that they wasted no
inconsiderable portion of their resources in paying it the
sincerest form of flattery, —imitation to wit. Before that
century was out, however, the Middle Kingdom had so far
fallen from its high estate in Japanese estimation, that on the
representation of Sugawara Michizane it was determined to
send no more embassies to the Chinese capital. In thus cutting
herself off from all diplomatic relations with China, it is not
probable that Japan lost very much, for during the ensuing-
centuries the state of China was on the whole deplorable.
In 907 the great T ang dynasty fell
k
and before 960, there;

had been as many as five dynasties and no fewer than thirteen

Sovereigns in the Middle Kingdom, while not a few of the
great satrapies became virtually independent States. Under
the succeeding Sung dynasty, which ruled the whole Empire
from 960 to 1120, and on the south of the Yang-tse-kiang down
to 1280, great things were indeed done in Literature, Philo-
sophy, and Art; but even so, the unhappy country was
scarcely ever at peace. From first to last it was engaged in
a desperate struggle with three distinct hordes of northern
barbarians, —the second of which established a dynasty in
Northern China and the third of which actually overran and
held the whole of the Empire.
Two of these the third was the
hordes were Tartars;
Mongols. was the Khitans who first came
Of the Tartars, it

upon the scene. At the accession of the first Sung Sovereign*

these held Manchuria and the Liao-tung Peninsula, and for
the next half-century hostilities between them and China were
almost incessant. Shortly after the opening of the eleventh
century, the Chinese Emperor agreed to pay them an annual
tribute if they would abstain from their incursions; and this,
492 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

later on, was increased to 200,000 taels of silver and a great

quantity of silken piece goods. Even then, the unrest con-
tinued; and, at the beginning of the next century, the Emperor
invited another horde of Tartars, the Kin or Golden, to expel
the Khitans from Liao-tung. As is generally the wont in such
cases, the remedy turned out to be infinitely worse than the
disease. The invitation was promptly accepted, and the
service effectually rendered; but once possessed of the Khitan
country, the Kins insisted on holding it themselves, and China
found herself face to face with a new power, far stronger and
more restless and aggressive than the one that had originally
harassed and harried her northern marches. Tn no long space
of time the Kins overran the provinces of Chih-li, Shen-si,
Shan-si, and Honan; and by 1160 they had advanced their
frontiers to the line of the Yang-tse. In the seat of their
conquests they established a dynasty of their own, which
lasted from 1115 down to 1234, and counted as many as four-
teen Sovereigns. This " Golden " Tartar Dynasty was finally
overthrown by a horde that had originally been vassals, or
—
dependants, of its own, the Mongols.* These also established
a Chinese dynasty of their own, which in most books is given
as lasting from 1280 to 1368. But, in truth, it was of con-
siderably greater duration ; for even half-a-century before 1280
the major portion of Northern China had been in Mongol
hands, while it was in 1264 that the Mongol capital was trans-
ferred from Central Asia to Peking (Cambaluc).
The cessation of the interchange of diplomatic courtesies
between the Sovereigns of Japan and China did not mean
that the Japanese people were cut off from all culture-contact
with the continent. Those who became the great lights in the
Buddhist Church in Japan in the eighth and ninth centuries
had spent long years in study in China; and this tradition,
although sometimes interrupted, was never entirely abandoned;
and the great monasteries of China were still from time to time
frequented by Japanese monks. Again, the harbours of Japan,
and especially of Kyushu, were occasionally visited by Chinese
merchantmen, whose cargoes found eager purchasers. We
read of certain of these being conveyed to Kyoto, and of the

* Readers who have not done so are strongly advised to peruse

Gibbon's chapter on the " Mongols and the Ottoman Turks," Douglas's
article on the " Mongols " in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Yule's
Marco Polo.
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 493

competition to secure their items being so keen as to lead to

scenes of disorder somewhat akin to riot. On more than one
occasion we find the Court issuing rescripts and making re-

gulations dealing with such contingencies. Then, there are

one or two authentic notices of Chinese traders settling in
Japan as naturalised subjects. Taira Kiyomori's efforts to
improve the harbour of Hyogo were mainly in the interest of
that Chinese trade he was so eager to promote ; he even went
so far as to receive the foreign merchants as honoured guests
in his great Fukuwara mansion. It will be remembered that
Kiyomori's son, Shigemori, when stricken with mortal illness
declined to avail himself of the services of a distinguished
Chinese physician then in Japan, on sentimentally patriotic
grounds.
It was the harbours of Chikuzen that were most frequented
by Chinese vessels; for generations the Great Shrine of Muna-
kata had kept itself and its auxiliary six-and-seventy buildings
in repair with timber from the wrecks cast upon the Chikuzen
coast. The practice was to confiscate such wrecks and their
cargoes, until Hojo Yasutoki put a stop to it. Another port
much frequented by the Chinese was Bonotsu in Southern
Satsuma. When Amano Tokage was sent down by Yoritomo
as Chinzei Bugyo to Kyushu, he imposed customs duties upon
all foreign vessels; but when he endeavoured to exact them

in Bonotsu Haven, the great house of Konoye,* who held wide

manors in Satsuma and Hyuga, successfully insisted that the
Bonotsu customs were their property.
At this date, Japan lagged far behind China in shipbuilding
and maritime enterprise; but that Japanese vessels did
occasionally reach China is undoubted. The route was along
the Korean and the shores of
coast, the Gulf of Pechili. Such
as reached Eastern China seem to have been mostly derelicts, or

* The Konoye were one of the five branches into which the main
Fujiwara stock had parted about this time. The other four were the
Takatsukasa, the Ichijo, the Nij5, and the Kujo. These five families,
known as the Go-SeTcke, were supposed to have the prerogative of
supplying Empresses and Kwampaku. But this regulation, said to
have been estabMshed in Hojo Sadatoki's time, was not strictly ot-
served, for shortly after that date we find many of the Empresses
coming from the house of Saionji. This also was a Fujiwara house,
one of the nine Seikwa Kuge families whose members could aspire
to the positions of Chancellor or Minister of the Left, or Minister of
the Right, but not to those of Sessho or Kwampaku.
 HISTORY OF JAPAN.
'

494

vessels blown out of their course,* for such Japanese craft

as were built at this time were intended for inland navigation
and hugging the coast, not for standing boldly out across the
high Feas. The great " Queen Bee Ship " in the Taira fleet
at Dan-no-ura was regarded as something of a wonder; for that
vessel was Chinese rigged. Sanetomo in 1215 conceived the
project of going to China in person; and for nearly a year he
had a Chinaman at Kamakura superintending the construc-
tion of a great ship for the intended voyage. The vessel,
however, proved a failure, and was left to rot where she lay,
and the voyage was never undertaken. It was about this date
that bills of exchange began to be used in Kamakura for inter-
provincial trade; and this device, known in China for long,
was probably suggested to the Bakufu Councillors by Sane-
tomo's guest, the unsuccessful shipwright. Shortly before
this the tea-plant had been reintroduced into Japan. It had
been first brought to the country in 805 by Pengyo Daishi,
who had had tea-seed planted at Uji, although some authorities
maintain that the priest Eishu had grown the plant in the
grounds of his monastery in Omi some time before. But its
culture never became general; and by the time when Eisai
returned from China in 1191 bringing tea-seed with him, tea
had become utterly unknown in Japan. Eisai planted his
seed partly in Chikuzen, partly at Togano in the neighbour-
hood of Kyoto. At first people regarded the leaf as poison,
and would have nothing to do with it until Eisai was fortunate
enough to be called in to prescribe for the young Shogun Sane-
tomo, who had drunk loo much mice the night before. A few
cups of tea served to clear the Shogun's head; and from that
day it began to be held in the highest estimation. For more
than a century the fine leaf was so highly prized, that a tiny
jar of it used to be bestowed on warriors as a reward for
uncommon exploits; and the fortunate recipients assembled

• It may be noted that the Chinese were more considerate to

shipwrecked strangers than the Japanese were before the days of
Hoj5 Yasutoki. " In 1190 some Japanese were blown over to Taichow.
The Emperor ordered that their cargo should be looked after and
allowed to pass free; that a junk should be bought, and that all their
property should then be returned to them; and that they should be
supplied in addition with a compassionate allowance of rice at nomi-
nal rates. In 1200, some of them arrived in Cheh-Kiang, and in 1202,
at Ningpo. Imperial orders were given in both cases for them to be
supplied with money and rice and sent home with the first favourable
wind." Ma Twan-lin's Account of Japan,
 TTTE M0NC10L INVASIONS. 495

their friends and relations to partake of the precious gift.

Here, perhaps, we have the tea ceremonial in embryo.

For centuries past Japan has been famous for the produce
of her kilns, no less than for her tea. But down to 1230
Japanese pottery continued to be of the crudest and most
commonplace description. But " simultaneously with the im-
port of the (tea) leaf some of the vessels employed in infusing
it were brought to Japan, and from these it became apparent

that the Chinese potter under the Sung dynasty had com-
pletely distanced both Korea and Japan in technical processes,
while at the same time a new need was felt by the Japanese
for utensils of improved quality. Accordingly Kato Shirozae-
mon, a potter who had already acquired some reputation,
determined to make the voyage to China, and in 1223 accom-
plished his object in company with a priest, Doen. After an
absence of six years, Kato returned and settled at Seto, in the
province of Owari, where he commenced the manufacture of
a ware which to this day is regarded with the utmost esteem
by his countrymen. . The chief productions were tea-jars
. .

of various sizes and shapes, which, having been from the

very first treasured up with greatest care by their fortunate
possessors, still exist in considerable numbers, and are still

highly valued by amateurs of the Cha-no-Yu (Tea Ceremonial).

So great a reputation did this Toshiro-yaki, as it was commonly
called, enjoy, and such prestige did its appearance give to the
potters Owari, that everything which preceded it was
of
forgotten,and the name Reto-mono (i.e. ware of Seto) thence-
forth became the generic term for all keramic manufactures
in Japan, just as China in Europe."*
'
'

Ordinary men are governed as much by ceremonial and

fashion as by the precepts of religion or the decrees of the
Covernment and the laws of the land. As has been repeatedly
set forth, the claims of mere ceremonial and etiquette in Japan

have been at most times insistent, and absurdly onerous. So

much Hideyoshi, whom Froez at an early date pronounced to
be " tortuous and cunning past all measure of belief," appre-
ciated fully; and hence his unceasing efforts to raise the

* See Capt. F. Brinkley's Japan. Vol. VIII., p. 13-14. For the

" Tea Ceremonial," see same work Vol. II., p. 246-275. Vols. VIT. and
VIII. and the part of Vol. II. alluded to, show Captain Brinkley at
his very best, and his very best is truly excellent,
496 HTSTORY OP JAPAN.

"Tea Ceremonial " to the dignity of a veritable cult, as a

means of taming the ferocity and curbing the spirit of many
who were inclined to question his authority. But for the
reintroduction into Japan of the tea-plant by his Reverence
Eisai in 1191, and for Kato Shirozaemon's sojourn in China
between 1223 and 1220, Cha-no-Yu as an instrument of govern-
ment would never have been at the disposal of the preter-
naturally acute and ruse peasant-ruler, Hideyoshi.
At this date, also, Japan was largely dependent
upon China for her medium of exchange. A succinct
account of the old Japanese mint has already been
given. It had finally stopped operations in 058; and
so naturally by this time there was a sad dearth of
native coin in the Empire. And as the Hojos endeavoured
to collect as much of their taxes as they could in money, coin
became a greater necessity than it might otherwise have been.
It was with the aid of the influx of Chinese coins, mainly of
the Sung dynasty, that the Kamakura Regents were able to
carry out some of their fiscal reforms. The craze for China
and Chinese institutions had long been a thing of the past;
the Japanese Court highly resented the traditional attitude
of the Sovereigns of the Middle Kingdom towards surrounding
nations, and on more than one occasion left dispatches from
the Chinese Court unanswered, on the ground that their tone
and phraseology were unsatisfactory. But withal, as should
abundantly appear from what has just been set forth, the
obligations of Japan to China for the development of her social
culture were by no means yet at an end.
The state of things in the Korean Peninsula had meanwhile
undergone a great change. The small northern State of
Bokkai, w ith which Japan long maintained a friendly inter-
T

course, had disappeared, as that dire old foe of Japan the

Kingdom of Silla had done, in 035. Silla had been swallowed
up in the new Kingdom of Koryu, which originating in the
north in 918, soon extended its sway over the whole of the
Korean Peninsula and far over the Yalu into Manchuria. On
several occasions Koryu Sovereigns attempted to establish diplo-
matic relations with the Japanese Court but as the language ;

of their dispatches was nearly always considered to be lacking

in courtesy and respect, the overtures were almost invariably

coldly received, Still there were no actual hostilities between

 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 497

the hvo nations, although Koryu pirates occasionally harried

Tsushima, and gave trouble to the Kyushu authorities. Now,
at last, in 1227, things began to look serious. Three or four
years before this, bands of Japanese had begun to ravage the
Korean where they committed great depredations; and
coast,
in 1227, Koryu envoy, named Pak hi, appeared in Kyoto
a
with demands for redress. The Japanese Court was in great
anxiety, for a war with Koryu would be a very serious thing.
The matter was entrusted to the Bakufu for settlement; and
Hdjd Yasutoki, on investigating the circumstances, found that
Koryu had well-grounded reasons for complaint. He forth-
with gave orders for the arrest and execution of the corsairs;
and the affair was promptly settled. It is not at all unlikely
that these Japanese corsairs had been driven to sea-roving as
the result of the numerous confiscations of 1221, and that
Yasutoki was not at all sorry at finding a good excuse for
dealing drastically with former opponents who would be only
too glad to snatch at any opportunity of giving trouble to the
Bakufu.
What perhaps greatly facilitated the amicable settlement
of this difficulty was the Koryu had so
fact that at this date
much to occupy her attention elsewhere that she was really
in no condition to enter upon an armed contest with the

Island Empire. Although the Khitans had been temporarily

overthrown by the Kins, their power had been by no means
irretrievably broken; and by the opening of the thirteenth
century they had again become formidable in the Liao-tung and
Southern Manchuria. However, just about this time the
Mongols, who had generally acknowledged the supremacy of
Jenghiz Khan in 1206, appeared in the Liao-tung; and the
Khitans, finding it hopeless to withstand them, poured across

the Yalu into the Korean Peninsula, with a view of carving

out a new State there for themselves. After a series of fierce
struggles Koryu succeeded in crushing the invaders; but it
was only with Mongol help that she was able to do so. Then
quarrels broke out between her and her allies; and in 1231
and 1238 huge Mongol armies crossed the Yr alu, and in the
latter years swept the Peninsula from end to end and from sea
to sea. The Koryu Sovereign took refuge in the island of
Kang-Wha, where he had to spend the remaining twenty years
of his reign, defying all the attempts of the invaders to get

GO
498 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

him out of it, for the Mongols were no sailors and were com-
pletely helpless on the blue water. In 1259, the year of the
old Koryu King's death, Kublai Khan became Emperor; and
in 1264 established his capital at Peking. By this time Koryu
had acknowledged the Mongol suzerainty, and in 1265 the seed

was sown that led to the Mongol attacks upon Japan.

A Koryu citizen, Cho I, found his way to Peking, and there
having gained the ear of the Emperor, told him that the
Mongol power ought to secure the vassalage of Japan. Kublai
thereupon appointed two ambassadors to Japan, ordering them
to proceed by way of Koryu, and to take a Koryu envoy along
with them as well. The Koryu King named two officers to
accompany the Mongols; but on putting to sea, the mission
was driven back by a tempest, and the Koryu King thereupon
sent the two Mongols back to Peking. The simple fact of the
matter was that the Koryu Sovereign, although the reverse of
a great statesman or ruler, had enough common-sense to per-
ceive that he had absolutely nothing to gain, and probably a
great deal to lose if Kublai Khan persisted in his project of
" securing the vassalage of Japan." For ages the proud-
stomached islanders had shown themselves abnormally sensi-
tive about their national dignity, to say nothing of their
national independence ; that they would ever acknowledge the
suzerainty of the semi-barbarous Mongols without a most
resolute and determined struggle was simply incredible.
Koryu, at most times not unwilling to be regarded as a satellite
of the great and enlightened Middle Kingdom, had itself only
submitted to the Mongol domination after having been hope-
lessly beaten to her knees and subjected to a long succession
of horrors and miseries absolutely unparalleled in the history
of theunhappy Peninsula. She was now completely exhausted,
poverty-stricken and famine-smitten and whenever any faint
;

signs of a recovery manifested themselves, hopes were quickly

blasted by the rapacity of the Mongol officers and the
exactions of the Peking Court. In a Mongol assault upon
Japan, Koryu would infallibly have to bear the brunt of the
struggle. As has been said, the Mongols were no sailors; and
so Koryu would certainly be called upon to supply the naval
armament and the transports and to contribute a military con-
tingent. Koryu certainly did not desire any quarrel with Japan,
nor did Japan wish any war with Koryu at this time. It is
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 499

true that Japanese pirates kept harrying the Korean coasts;

but Koryu had the best of reasons for knowing that these
freebooters were in no way encouraged by the Japanese Go-
vernment. Some half-dozen years before, the Bakufu had
again willingly exerted itself to give Koryu the redress she
demanded for the depredations of certain Japanese subjects,
had punished the wrong-doers, and had made restitution of
their booty.
In 1268 Kublai's envoy, accompanied by a Koryu suite, at
last made good the passage of the Straits and appeared in
Dazaifu, where he handed over the original dispatch of 1266
to Shoni, the Bakufu representative there, who at once
forwarded it to Kamakura by relays of express couriers. The
Bakufu Councillors found its contents to be of such porten-
tous moment that they did not venture to deal with it on
their own initiative. It was promptly transmitted to Kyoto,
for consideration by the Imperial Court.
The tenor of this fateful missive was as follows ; —
" (We) by the Grace and decree of Heaven,
" Emperor of Great Mongolia,
" Present a letter to
" The King of Japan.
"We have pondered (over the fact) that from ancient
time even the princes of small States have striven to cultivate
friendly intercourse with those of adjoining territories.
" To how much greater an extent have Our ancestors, who
have received the Middle Empire by the inscrutable decrees
of Heaven, become known in numerous far-off foreign lands,
all of whom have reverenced their power and majesty
" When We first ascended Our throne, many innocent
people in Koryu were suffering from (the effects of) continuous
war. Thereupon we put an end to the fighting, restored their
territories, and liberated the captives both old and young.
Both the prince of Koryu and his people, feeling grateful
towards Us, have visited Our country, and while the relation
between Us and them is that of Lord and vassal, its nature is
as felicitous as that of parent and child, and of this, no doubt,
you, O King, are well aware.
" Koryu is situated on the eastern border of Our dominions,
Nihon is near to it, and ever since communication was opened
with Koryu intercourse has, from time to time, been carried
on with China also.
" Since the commencement of Our reign not a single
messenger of peace and friendship has appeared, and as We
fear that your country is not fully acquainted with these
facts, We have specially sent a messenger bearing a letter
to inform you, O King, of Our sentiments.
500 HTSTORY OF JAPAN.

" Webeg that hereafter von, O King, will establish friendly

relations with us so that the sages may make the four seas
(the World) their home.
" Is it reasonable to refuse intercourse with each other ?
It will lead to tear, and who is there who likes such a state
of things!
"Think of this, O King I

" 8th month of the 3rd year of Shigen."

When we consider the arrogant phraseology in which

Chinese dispatches were usually couched, the tone of this
special communication may at first blush appear compara-
tively mild and inoffensive. But as a matter of fact it must
have been extremely galling to Japanese national pride. In
the first place, while Kublai arrogated to himself the title of

Emperor, he addresses the Sovereign of Japan as a mere King,

thus placing him on a footing with the nominal ruler of
Koryu, who was an acknowledged Mongol vassal. Then, in the
event of a failure to respond to the overture, there was some-
thing more than a merely veiled threat of coercion. And the
Kamakura authorities at least, must have been fully alive to
the hideous travesty of history contained in the third para-
graph of the missive.
Kublai's dispatch threw the Court and the capital into the
greatest perturbation. Kyoto was then in the midst of pre-
parations for a great fete to celebrate Saga II.'s fiftieth birth-

day. The preparations were at once abandoned, and Court

and courtiers did nothing but hold councils as to how this
dire emergency was to be faced. An answer was finally
drafted, and sent on to Kamakura for transmission to the
envoy. But the Bakufu Councillors were made of sterner stuff;
and they decided not to hand the reply to the ambassador,
but to dismiss him after a five or six months' stay without so
much as an acknowledgement of the receipt of the dispatch
he had brought.
For some time previous to Japanese people had
this the
been living in a highly-wrought state of nervous tension and
excitement. From 1260 onwards there had been a rapid and
unceasing succession of comets, meteors, and other dire and
menacing portents in the heavens, all interpreted as fore-
boding impending national calamity and disaster. What
greatly intensified the apprehension and terror with which
these supposed harbingers of ruin were regarded was the fact
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 501

that the nation was then in the throes of the last and greatest
of the famous religious revivals of the thirteenth century. It
was in 1254 that Niehiren had begun to preach his new, and
what he insisted was the only true, creed and since that date
:

Kamakura and the east of Japan had been in a constant state

of ferment and turmoil. Exile, as a disturber of the public
peace, had only served to intensify the influence of this, the
first and the greatest of all Japanese street-preachers. There
cannot be the slightest doubt that both by voice and by pen
this great and remarkable man profoundly affected his con-
temporaries and the spirit of the age. Into any exhaustive
discussion of his peculiar position or of his doctrines it is

impossible to enter here. But what is especially to the point

in the present connection is this: — In the first, place he
addressed himself not merely *to the individual, but also to the
national conscience. And then in calling the people to repen 1

tance for their sins, he foretold that the wrath of Heaven

would speedily be visited upon them either in the form of the
curse of civil war, or in the shape of the scourge of foreign
invasion! In this he may merely have been drawing the bow
at a venture. But it is much more probable that his com-

manding order of intellect enabled him to read the signs of

the times aright.
As to what was happening over-sea in China and Korea, it

is perfectly plain that the Japanese were well apprised. In

these days we hear a great deal about the " Yellow Peril."
it is true, was really exposed
In the thirteenth century Europe,
to such a menace in the form of the Mongols. But so was
China, so was Korea, and so was Japan.* China and Korea

* " Before the invasion of Tchingis, China was divided into two

empires or dynasties of the North and South; and the difference of

origin and interest was smoothed by a general conformity of laws,
language, and national manners. The Northern [or Kin] empire,
which had been dismembered by Tchingis, was finally subdued seven
years after his death (a.d. 1234). The Southern [or Sung] empire
survived about forty-five years longer, and the perfect conquest was
reserved for the arms of Khubilai (a.d. 1279). The boundless ambition
of Khubilai aspired to the conquest of Japan; his fleets were twice
shipwrecked; and the lives of 100,000 Mongols and Chinese were
sacrificed in the fruitless expedition (a.d. 1274). But the circumjacent
kingdoms, Korea, Tonkin, Cochin-China, Pegu, Bengal, and Thibet,
were reduced in different degrees of tribute and obedience by the
effort or terror of his arms." Student's Gibbon, Vol. II., p. 273.
" The Tartars spread from Livonia to the Black Sea, and both
Moscow and Kiev (a.d. 1240), the modern and the ancient capitals
—
were reduced to ashes, a temporary ruin, less fatal than the deep,
502 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

had either been or were being overwhelmed; and with the

maritime resources of these two countries and the skill and
experience of their sailors at the complete disposal of the
Mongols, a much less acute and penetrating mind than that
of Nichiren might readily presage that Japan's immemorial
record of a happy immunity from serious foreign aggression
was nearing its close. Be this as it may, and whatever may
have been the exact truth of the matter, it is incontestable that
the vehement, turbulent Nichiren, —a strange compound of old
Hebrew prophet, Dominican friar,and John Knox, — rendered
his countrymen the highest and most essential of services.
What above all was necessary was an
things at this time
intense feeling of The genuine religion of
nationality.
Gautama, whose central idea was the impermanency of all
things and the vanity of human wishes, was essentially quietist

and perhaps indelible, mark which a servitude of 200 years has im-
printed on the character of the Russians. From the permanent con-
quest of the Russians they made a deadly, though transient, inroad
into the heart of Poland, and as far as the borders of Germany. The
cities of Lublin and Cracow were obliterated; they approached the
shores of the Baltic; and in the battle of Liegnitz they defeated the
dukes of Silesia, the Polish Palatines, and the great Master of the
Teutonic order, and filled nine sacks with the right 'ears of the slain
(1241). From Liegnitz, the extreme point of their western march,
they turned aside to the invasion of Hungary (see correction in foot-
note) ;the King, Bela IV., assembled the military force of his counts
and bishops; but the whole country north of the Danube was lost in
a day and depopulated in a summer; and the ruins of the cities and
churches were overspread with the bones of the natives, who expiated
the sins of their Asiatic ancestors. Of all the cities and fortresses of
Hungary, three alone survived the Tartar invasion, and the unfor-
tunate Bela hid his head among the islands of the Adriatic.
" Since the invasion of the Arabs in the eighth century Europe had
never been exposed to a similar calamity; and if the disciples of Ma-
homet would have oppressed her religions and liberty, it might be
apprehended that the shepherds of Scythia would extinguish her cities,
her arts, and all the institutions of civil society. The Emperor Fre-
deric II. called upon the Kings of France and England and the princes
of Germany to arm their vassals in the just and rational crusade. The
Tartars themselves were awed by the fame and valour of the Franks;
the town of Neustadt in Austria was bravely defended against them
by fifty knights and twenty cross-bows; and they raised the siege on
the appearance of a German army. After wasting the adjacent king-
doms of Servia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria, Batu was recalled from the
Danube to the Volga by the death of Ogotai (1241 a.d.)." lUdem, p. —
275.
The justification for the citation of these passages is that, in spite
of errors of detail necessarily occasioned by the imperfect materials
at his command, Gibbon has presented us with the best bird's-eye view
ever given of the general course of the Mongol Conquests. It is hard
to discover what single service these rapacious and aggressive bandits
rendered either to the progress of civilisation or the cause of
humanity.
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 503

and unaggressive, and was ill-fitted to foster any such feeling.

But in breaking with the traditional Buddhism of the past
at many points, and in many ways, Nichiren introduced into
religion a more robust and a most pronouncedly aggressive
spirit. He was the first great religious leader in Japan who
persecuted such as differed from him in points of doctrine
and he endeavoured make his a national cult. Nichiren's
to
preaching undoubtedly did much to stimulate the spirit of
nationality at a time when a crisis was impending which could
only be met by the Japanese people standing shoulder to
shoulder, and thinking and acting as if animated by one single
soul. That there was such a thing as a spirit of nationality,
or rather of race, in Japan before Nichiren began his crusade
is quite true. But it was derived, not from Buddhism, which
was essentially cosmopolitan, but from the traditions in the
Kojiki and the Nihongi, and from the old Shinto cult. And
for long, the fortunes of Shinto had been cast upon evil days.
Another great boon, for which Japan had to thank her
lucky stars at this time, was the work of the great Yoritomo,
and his highly capable successors, the much-abused Ho jo
Regents. Before Yoritomo's date, to the average Bushi the
immediate fortunes of his own sept or clan or feudal chief
were of vastly greater consequence than those of the nation
at large. Mongol Armada had appeared on the coasts
If the
of Kyushu when the Empire was racked
just a century earlier,
and riven by the deadly internecine strife between Taira and
Minamoto, the very existence of Japan as a nation would have
been in the direst jeopardy. Ten years later, when the Bushi
had been subjected to the autocratic control of a single master
mind, a patriotic Japanese bard might with the utmost truth
and justice have bettered the proud vaunt of the gallant
Bastard in King John:
" This Nippon never did, nor ever shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
Even when it first did help to wound itself.

Now that this Empire is at one again,

Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them naught shall make us
; rue,
If Nippon to itself do rest but true."

And since the days of Yoritomo, Nippon had in the main

remained true lO her&elf. Since 1189 there had been only one
great civil commotion in the Empire, and most fortunately
504 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

that was most speedily allayed in amanner that made for the
best interests of the nation. Had Toba II. been successful
in his struggle with Kamakura in 1221, the rule of the august
descendants of the Sun-Goddess over an independent State
might very readily have come to an end a single cycle later
on. In spite of all his great talents and natural abilities, Toba
II.was no statesman; as soon as he had found leisure and
adequate resources for indulging in his whims and hobbies,
ecclesiastical architecture, poetising, football, horse-racing,
wrestling, and, in plain and most uncourtly language, philan-
dering and wantonly dallying with shirabyoshi, the prototype
of the modern geisha, he would have consigned the dour and
hard work of governance to incompetent favourites, appoin- —
tees of Lady Kane and the other great dames who were waxing
rich by their traffic in official positions. With such soft-fibred
gentry in control of the ship of State, the condition of the
Empire would have speedily become more wretched than it had
been even in the middle of the tenth century. Dissension,
confusion, and anarchy would have been the almost infallible
results long before 1281. And with these rife in the land,
even the small Mongol expedition of 40,000 men of 1274 might
very well have succeeded in establishing a permanent footing
in Kyushu.
As it was, we find that in 1268 Kyoto was prepared to
enter into parley with Kublai Khan. If the Bakufu had gone
down before Toba II. in 1221, it is not at all improbable that
Kublai might very well have succeeded in securing at least the
nominal vassalage of Japan. But with the Bushi united, and
bending to one single strong will, the little Island Empire of
the East could well and safely afford to present as resolute a
front to the terrible and unconquerable Mongols as the fifty
knights and twenty cross-bows of Neustadt had done in
Austria seven-and-twenty years before. When the youthful
Hojo Tokinmne appealed words to the Bushi,
in thrilling
calling upon them to sink all and
petty, private differences,
to rally in defence of the national independence, he must have
been assured that his appeal would fall upon no deaf ears for
the very best of reasons. In the first place, during the Kama-
kura age there was such a thing as a national sentiment in
Japan and in the second, for long years the Kamakura
;

IJakufu had been wont to have its instructions and orders to

 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 505

the Bushi implicitly obeyed. Even that perfervid and ultra-

Imperialist historian of Japan, Kai Sanyo, is constrained to
admit that The repulse of the Mongol barbarians by Hojo
"

Tokimune, and his preserving the dominions of our Son of

Heaven were sufficient to atone for the crimes of his ancestors."
By " the crimes of his ancestors,'' Rai Sanyo evidently refers
to the action of Tokimune's grandfather, Yasutoki, and his
great-grandfather Yoshitoki in the great crisis of 1221. But
it needs no very profound exercise of intelligence to perceive

that if Hojo Yoshitoki had quietly submitted in 1221, it would

have been impossible for his descendant Tokimune, or perhaps
for anyone else, to save the national independence of Japan
sixty years later on.
It seems hopeless to recover the exact details of the next
few years. That most invaluable Bakufu Chronicle, the Azuma
Kagami, closes with the year 1266; and such contemporary
Japanese records as we possess are exceedingly imperfect and
unsatisfactory. In them we meet with no reference to certain
important incidents which are recorded in the Great Korean
History, the Tong-guk T'ong-gam, and in contemporary Chinese
records. Yet the outlines of the course of events may be
traced. Between 1268 and 1273 as many as five Chinese or
Koryu missions appeared in Japan, none of which got beyond
Dazaifu. To the second of these the Kyoto Court had drafted
a reply, but the Bakufu did not choose to forward it to the
envoys. Some authorities allege that this reply was actually
delivered to the third mission without the intervention of the
Bakufu; but this appears to be very doubtful. In 1269 two
natives of Tsushima, called Tojiro and Yajiro, were captured
by a Koryu vessel, and were sent on to Peking. Here they
were kindly treated by Kublai, who showed them all the magni-
ficence of his palace and his capital, reviewed his troops before
them, and then set them at liberty, charging them to inform
their countrymen of all they had seen, and to counsel them to
submit. A year later these men and several others accom-
panied a subsequent Mongol mission to Dazaifu back to the
Chinese capital, as Japanese envoys, but about this the con-
temporary Japanese records are silent. What is possible
is that they were dispatched by the Bakufu agent in Kyushu
(Shoni), ostensibly as envoys, but in reality as spies. The
Chinese authorities allege that in the pour-parlcrs they entered
506 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

into, they protested against the occupation of Kin chow in

Koryu by the Mongols, and that the latter replied that the
was only temporary in view of operations against
" occupation

Quelpart." On this island of Quelpart the semi-independent

kingdom of Tamna still survived; and here the remnants of
the Koryu troops that had mutinied shortly before had taken
refuge, and erected a great stronghold from which they were
harrying the neighbouring districts. A Mongol commissioner
bad in consequence been installed in the Koryu capital to deal
with the prevalent disorder; and in 1272 Quelpart was ac-
tually reduced and garrisoned by Mongol and Koryu soldiers.
Immediately upon the failure of his first mission to Japan
Kublai sent word to the Koryu monarch to begin building
1,000 vessels and collecting troops (40,000) and supplies for
an invasion of the island realm. The King made answer that
it was impossible for him to do so; but Kublai was resolute,

and dispatched a commissioner to see that his orders were

carried out, and to have the straits surveyed. Next year
Kublai had rice-fields laid out at Pong-san, to raise supplies
for the projected expedition, and instructed the Koryu King
to furnish 6,000 ploughs and oxen and seed-grain. The King
again protested his inability to do so, " but as the Emperor
insisted he sent throughout the country and by force or
persuasion obtained a fraction of the number demanded. The
Emperor aided by sending 10,000 pieces of silk. The Koryu
army had dwindled to such a point that butchers and slaves
were enrolled in the lists." What made the position of the
King exceedingly difficult was the presence of certain renegade
subjects at Kublai's Court, who did everything they could to
bring their Sovereign under the Emperor's suspicion. About
this time a horde of Japanese sea-rovers had established them-
selves on the Koryu coast, and the people, in fear of their
lives, received them hospitably and gave them whatever they
askedfor. One of these Koryu renegades informed Kublai of
thiswith embellishments of his own, and insinuated that
Koryu was making friends with Japan, with a view to an
invasion of China !

In 1273, 5,000 Mongols appeared in Koryu as the advance-

guard of the force being levied for the invasion of Japan. But
the pinch of famine was then so sharp in Koryu that Kublai
had to forward supplies from China for the support of his
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 507

troops, and had perforce to await the new rice-harvest before

sending on the main body. Meanwhile he had kept on sending
envoys to Japan; the last of whom had insisted on delivering
his dispatches to the Emperor, or Shogun, in person. How-
ever, he had been at last induced to allow a copy of these
dispatches to be transmitted to Kamakura; but he intimated
that if a prompt answer was not forthcoming his master
would at once appeal to the sword. As soon as ever the copy
of the dispatch and the accompanying verbal message were
communicated to Tokimune, he at once sent down orders to
Dazaifu for the prompt deportation of the envoy and his suite.

On learning of this, Kublai at last sent on the main body of

the expeditionary force to join the 5,000 men already at the
port of embarkation. In spite of all his missions to Japan,
Kublai must have acquired but little real knowledge of the
Island Empire and the sturdy and indomitable spirit of its

inhabitants. Man
man, the Japanese Bushi were fully
for
the equals of the very best Mongol troops in courage and
endurance. In Japan at this time there must have been, at
a very conservative estimate, at least 400,000 men who could
be counted upon to fight to the death in defence of hearth
and home and the national independence. And to reduce these
400,000 to slavery and subjection, Kublai fondly imagined that
25,000 of his Mongols would be sufficient ! It is true that these
were to be reinforced by 15,000 Koryu troops, in addition to
the 8,000 Koryu sailors who manned the 900 craft that were
to carry the fighting men over to the Japanese coast. But by
this time Koryu had been brought so low that she had been
forced to eke out her military rosters with slaves and butchers
And butchering inoffensive, unresisting kine and sheep was
one thing; and slaughtering Japanese Samurai another and a
vastly different affair!
At last, in November 1274, the first Mongol Armada
directed against Japan put to sea. Its first effort was the
reduction of the island of Tsushima. Here a grandson of the
Taira Admiral, Tomomori, who had commanded and perished
in the great sea-fight of Dan-no-ura (1185), was at the head of
affairs. In history this grandson is known as So Sukekuni,
for his father Tomomune, appointed ruler of Tsushima as a
reward for his services in restoring order there in 1245, had
assumed that family name of So which the gallantry of his
508 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

descendants in maintaining this island outpost in the sea-way

to Japan was destined to render so illustrious. With but 200
hastily mustered retainers So Sukekuni made a most gallant
and intrepid stand against the overpowering force of the
invaders; but as a mere matter of course he was overborne
and lost his life. Nine days later (November 13) the island
of Iki was attacked. Here also the Warden was of Taint
descent, and here also the little garrison sold their lives right
dearly. It goes without saying that both islands experienced
to the full the atrocious barbarities that invariably attended
a Mongol From Iki the invaders stood over to Hako-
victory.
saki Gulf, some miles behind which lay Dazaifu, the adminis-
trative capital of Kyushu. Here they arrived on November 18,
and on the following day they landed at Hakata, and seized
Imatsu, Sahara, Momomichi, Akasaka, and other places.
On the very day in which the hostile Armada entered
Hakozaki Haven, a Dazaifu courier had arrived at the Roku-
hara with intelligence of the disaster in Tsushima; and ten
days later (November 27) yet another came in, announcing
the sad fate of Iki. As soon as these dispdtches reached
Kamakura, Hojo Tokimune at once sent instructions to the
Shugo in the Sanyodo, Sanindo, and Kyushu, to get every
landholder, whether a Bakufu vassal or not, under arms.
Those who acted properly were to be rewarded; those who
failed to respond to the summons were to be put to the sword.
At the same time troops were to be hurried down from the
Kwanto. But before these orders reached Kyushu, there was
not a single living Mongol left upon the soil of Japan.
On the very day on which they landed (November 20) the
invaders were vigorously attacked by the levies of Shoni,
Otomo, Shimadzu, Kikuchi, and other Kyushu
Matsuura,
chieftains. But the Japanese soon found themselves at a
disadvantage in several respects. In the first place in tactics;
for it was not the wont of the islanders to fight as units of any
Sushi's tactical formation, but as individuals. " It was the
Sushi's habit to proclaim his names and titles in the presence
of the enemy, sometimes adding from his own record or his
father's any might tend to dispirit his foes.
details that
Then some one advancing to cross weapons with him, would
perform the same ceremony of self-introduction, and if either
found anything to upbraid in the other's antecedents or family
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 509

history, he did not fail to make loud reference to it, such a

device being counted efficacious as ameans of disturbing the
hearer's sang-froid. The duellists could reckon on finishing
their fights undisturbed, but the victor frequently had to
endure the combined assault of a number of the vanquished's
comrades or retainers. Of course a skilled swordsman did not
necessarily seek a single combat; he was ready to ride into
the thick of the foe without discrimination, and a group of
common make a united attack upon
soldiers never hesitated to
a mounted officer when they found him disengaged. But the
general feature of a battle was individual contests, and when
the fighting ceased, each Bushi proceeded to the tent of the
commander-in-chief and submitted for inspection the heads of
those he had killed."* In addition to this it must be remem-
bered that at that time no Japanese officer had ever commanded
in a general engagement, or even seen a general or any other
kind of serious action fought. On the other hand, among the
invaders, the Mongols at least had been fighting during the
greater part of their lives; and in their long contest with the
Chinese, in which there was a great deal of siege warfare, they
had been constrained to supplement their own original tactics
by the adoption of more scientific formations, and the employ-
ment of the best artillery of the time.
By " artillery " cannon are not necessarily meant; in fact
the " Fire-Pao " sometimes used by them would appear to
have been of the nature of rockets. But even the " Fire-Pao "
played a comparatively insignificant part in Mongol warfare.
It was the great slings and the great cross-bows that were
really formidable. f With these the Mongols were now well
equipped, and their discharges inflicted terrible damage upon
the Japanese long before their own missiles could be of any
service. So much can be readily understood; but what is
really surprising is to learn that even the Japanese bow was

* Capt. Brinkley's Japan, Vol. II. p. 162-3. This is excellently put;

but the subsequent pages appear to contain several serious errors of
detail.

t For what the various kinds of trebuchet could effect see Yule's
Marco Polo. Vol. II. pp. 143-150, and Oman's Art of War in the Middle
Ages, p. 543. seq. "The trebuchets generally discharged stones; but
not unfrequently they were used to throw pots or barrels of com-
bustib'e material, destined to set fire to the brattices or roofs of
towers, or to start a conflagration in the town which they were em-
ployed to bombard,"
510 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

now completely outranged by the Tartar weapon!* The latter,

we are told, sent short shafts a full 240 or 250 yards. But at
the Battle of Dan-no-ura (1185) we hear of Japanese long and
heavy bolts being sped that distance with deadly effect. It
is true that thesecame from Kwanto bows, which were the
strongest and longest and heaviest in Japan, and that now,
on the Japanese side, it was not Kwanto bows but Kyushu
bows that were in question. But indications are not lacking
that even Kwanto archery was no longer what it had been
during the great civil wars three generations before. We more
than once find Tokiyori, the fifth Hojo Regent, censuring the
Baslii for remissness in attention to military arts and espe-
cially to perfecting themselves in the use of the bow. In 1262,
when Tokimune, Tokiyori's son, was a boy of eleven, at an
exhibition of archery in Kamakura, the young Shogun
expressed a wish to see some ogasakake or shooting at a small
hat target. In Yoritomo's time this was common enough ; but
now all the Samurai were so diffident of their skill that not
a single one of them ventured to come forward. At last Toki-
yori ordered his son to try what he could do; and the first
shaft loosed by the boy got home in the centre of the mark.
Fifty years before, there would have been scores of eager
competitors.!
In all these points, fighting in well-ordered formation, the
possession of the best age, of which the
artillery of the
Japanese had absolutely and of bows (shooting
none, —
poisoned arrows according to some authorities) which out-—
ranged those of the Kyushu men, the Mongols were vastly
superior. Besides, as cavalry and mounted archers the
Mongols were simply superb; and that a certain proportion
of the invaders were not only mounted, but capitally mounted,

* "You must know that the practice of Tartars going to battle is

to take each a bow and 60 arrows. Of these 30 are light with small
sharp points, for long shots and following up an enemy, whilst the
other 30 are heavy, with large broad heads which they shoot at close
quarters, and with which they inflict great gashes on face and arms,
and cut the enemy's bowstrings and commit great havoc. This every-
one is ordered to attend to. And when they have shot away their
arrows they take to their swords and maces and lances, which also
they ply stoutly."—Marco Polo, Bk. IV. Chap. 2.
f The Shogun rewarded Tokimune richly; but on going home,
Tokiyori gravely warned the boy about the danger of accepting valu-
able presents. The strict yet kindly fashion in which the Hojos
reared their sons can never be too much commended. When this
grand tradition was departed from in the early fourteenth century,
the fall of the great house of Hojo was at once swift and disastrous.
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 511

seems very plain. In one thing, and in one thing alone, but
that the most cardinal of all things, the islanders were not
one whit inferior to the staunchest of the invaders. In sheer
courage and gallantry the best Japanese Bushi had then and
has now few equals and no superior. In spite of all their
disadvantages the Japanese here and there did manage to get
within striking reach of their foes; and although few of these
heroes survived, they worked terrible havoc in the Mongol and
Koryu ranks. Late in the afternoon the islanders drew back
behind the protection of the primitive fortifications of Mizuki,
raised for Tenchi Tenno by Korean engineers six centuries
before. Here the Kyushu men could have undoubtedly hung
on till the levies from Shikoku, and the west of the main island,
and the Kokuhara and Kamakura troops arrived, when the
Mongols in spite of all their death-dealing artillery would
have infallibly been overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.
But the Mongol stomach for fighting had already, all
unknown to the Japanese, been fed full to repletion. Before
night closed in the experienced Koryu pilots had discerned
signs of an approaching tempest and the safety of the Koryu
;

fleet was their first and most important consideration. The

Koryu contingent of 15,000 men, with mere slaves and butchers
among them, had been especially man-handled by the Japanese
that day; for the Japanese had a contempt for the Koryu
soldiery, who had over and over again been worsted by Mongols
on their own soil. Besides, it had been comparatively easy for
the Japanese levies to get into close combat with the Koryu
men; and when it had become a mere question of man to
man and sword against sword, the Koryu " butchers " had
gone down as easily as the placid-faced patient oxen had been
wont to go down before their axes in the Song-do slaughter-
yards. What the exact train of events on this most fateful
evening and night of November 19, 1274, in and on the shores
of Hakosaki Haven were can possibly never be rescued from
the obscurity of such imperfectand inadequate contemporary
records as have survived. However, after laboriously wading
through all accessible contemporary documents whether —
—
Japanese, Korean, or Chinese that seem to bear on the
matter, I have been brought (of course subject to correction)
to the following conclusions:
Although the Mongols had inflicted terrible losses on the
512 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

islanders, and had beaten them off, still there had been no
rout. The Japanese now entrenched behind the Mizuki dyke
were still vastly superior to the Mongols in numbers; and
reinforcements might reach them at any moment. They knew
the ground thoroughly, as the Mongols did not; and if the
invaders encamped on the battle-field, a night attack was a
good deal more than a mere possibility. In such a night
engagement the invaders could reap no advantage from their
artillery or the greater range of their bows; it would all be
close-quarter sword work, and even fighting in orderly tacitical
formations would be impossible. In fine, in a night engage-
ment, the primitive Japanese tactics would have been terribly
effective, for the Mongols would infallibly have had to meet

their foes at close quarters and in individual sword contests.

And what these island fanatics could accomplish with their
heav}', two-handed razor-edged blades the Mongols had just
experienced with lively disgust.In fact, although the Japanese
losshad been far greater than that of the expeditionary force,
the Mongol casualties on that day had been such as few
Mongol armies of 25,000 men had sustained in a contest of
eight hours during all the years they had fought in China.
Plainly, the risk of a night attack could not be faced with
prudence; especially so when experienced seamen declared
that there were clear indications that a tornado was brewing.
The best course was to re-embark and pass the night on board
the vessels of the fleet.

So orders for a general re-embarkation were issued; and

to cover that operation the great shrine of Hakozaki was
fired, and several of the villages fringing the strand were set

ablaze. Soon the Japanese behind the Mizuki embankment

saw the evening sky ruddy with the lurid glow of wildly
leaping and rapidly spreading flames, announcing the ruin
of the altars of their gods, and of their own hearths and homes.
However, the conflagration cannot have lasted long, for it must
have been drowned out by the terrible deluge of rain accom-
panying the tornado which presently burst with devastating
fury. All through the darkness of the night the Japanese
cowered shelterless behind the Mizuki dyke ; and when morning
at last dawned they saw the last vessels of the invaders' fleet
running out through the mouth of Hakozaki Bay. One ship
with about a hundred men on board ran aground on Shiga
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 513

spit, which forms the northern horn of the Haven; and these
unfortunates were promptly captured, carried to Mizuki, and
there put to the sword. Many of the Koryu vessels foundered
on the open sea; and when the remnants of the expedition
rendezvoused at Hap harbour, it was found that its operations,
so far, had cost it the lives of 13,200 men. Doubtless a large
proportion of these perished by shipwreck; but it is undoubted
that the Mongol casualties on Hakozaki strand had been
exceedingly heavy. The resistance the invaders there met
with had been so determined, that the leaders of the expedition
must have had their eyes fully opened to the fact that the idea
of conquering the islands of Japan with a force of but 40,000
men was ludicrously absurd.
Yet Kublai was very loath to take any such view of the
matter; for his generals, by way of explaining away their ill

success, appear to have attributed the disastrous result of the

expedition to the accident of the fury of the elements. It is

but natural that they should have made the most of their having
successfully beaten off the Japanese assault and compelled
the islanders to retire behind the Mizuki wall in the actual
fighting. At all events, the Emperor evidently believed that
the Japanese had got such a lesson that they would now be
somewhat readier to respond to his diplomatic advances than
they had hitherto shown themselves to be. Accordingly, yet
another mission was dispatched; this time actually to summon
the Sovereign of Japan to repair to Peking in order to do
obeisance, as the Koryu King had done! On this occasion the
envoys landed in Nagato, whence they were sent to Dazaifu.
Hence in June 1275 four of the mission were sent on to
Kamakura without being allowed to enter Kyoto on the way
and a little later the Bakufu ordered yet another of the
envoys to be brought up. Three or four months afterwards
these were all executed outside the city of Kamakura, and
their heads exposed on the public pillories.

Meanwhile Hojo Sanemasa, the first Kyushu Tandai, had

been sent down to Dazaifu to put the island in a thorough
state of defence; while the office of the Nagato Keigoban,
which was soon to become the Nagato Tandai, was also
organised. Kyushu and Nagato would be the likeliest imme-
diate objectives of any invading armament; but other points
were also provided for. The Mongols next time might make
HH
514 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Koryu harbour their base, and crossing the Sea

sonic eastern
of Japan might attempt to assail Kyoto from the north.
Accordingly the levies of the Hokurikudo were specially
charged with the watch and ward of Tsnrnga Haven. The
invaders might alsomake their way up the Inland Sea; and
so Harima was put under arms. Of course it was hopeless
for any Japanese naval force to try to cope with the enemy
on the high seas; but along the coasts and in inland waters,
the small Japanese war junks might very well be expected to
prove of great service. Accordingly we find a very strict
maritime conscription of capable helmsmen and able seamen
enforced at this date. At the same time everything possible
was done to lighten the fiscal burdens of the people, and to
economise the national resources.
was highly admirable. But there is
All this, of course,
another side to the shield. The notion that all Japanese are
and have been at all times superhuman ly or supernaturally
patriotic, ready to sink every idea of self-interest at the
national call, can easily be shown to be mistaken. The
Japanese are pretty much the same as the other sinful sons
of man; there have been and still are good and bad, brave
men and cowards, and true patriots among them,
self-seekers
just as there have been are among Britishers and
and
Americans and all their " even Christians." There are Bakufu
dispatches still in existence charging Otomo, Shimadzu. and
Shoni to see to it that the landed proprietors who had failed
to rise in defence of the national liberties in November 1274
should be suitably dealt with! On the other hand, we find
that not a few of those w ho Had responded to the call had
T

been actuated by the hope of glory and reward as much as

by anything else, for we find some of the most prominent
chiefs proceeding to Kamakura for the express purpose of
pressing their claims to " recompense " there. In Japan, at
all times, there have always been a few choice spirits who
have looked upon the practice and exercise of virtue as its own
sufficient and exceeding great reward. But in Dai Nippon,
as in other countries, these spirits have rarely been in a
majority ; they have merely been the " little leaven " that has
now and then succeeded in " leavening the whole lump."
The behaviour of certain of the Court nobles in these
years of great national stress was not specially praiseworthy.
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 515

Their weak and temporising attitude towards the haughty

and imperious Kublai has already been adverted to. On this
great question alone they seem to have been unanimous, for
mutual jealousy, faction, and intrigue were by no means
silenced by the impending menace of foreign invasion. To
modern Western readers one standing and chronic cause for
contention may very well appear to have been a very trivial
one. But the Kuge of the time was just as proud of his
literaryand polite accomplishments as the Bushi was of his
courage and skill in arms. Sufficient reference has already
been made to the ludicrously absurd importance assigned to
ability in turning out Japanese " poems " of thirty-one syllables

at the Nara, and more especially the Kyoto, Court. Any great
and renowned master in this craft —of course, always provided
that he belonged to the privileged blue-blooded aristocratic
ring —could set, if not the whole decalogue, at all events its

seventh commandment, at defiance with full assurance of

impunity. Before a deftly-turned Tonka, the tradition was
that female coyness, if not chastity, was bound to yield as
readily as the walls of Jericho fell flat before the blasts of the
priestly trumpets and the shouts of the Israelitish people,
while even the highest Ministers were apt to set infinitely
more store by a reputation as an arbiter of taste in the world
of belles-lettres and polite accomplishments than by renown as
a great and successful administrator of the affairs of the
nation. In the great Imperial poetical contests, which were
held periodically, as many as 1,000 or 1,500 candidates for
distinction occasionally appeared. In 951 a special " Poetry
Bureau " had been established, for the management of these
poetical tournaments; and the practice had become to deposit
the finer pieces then presented in the archives of this institu-
tion. From time to time, by Imperial command, anthologies
from these were selected and published. Subsequent to the
publication of the Manyoshu, down to 1205, eight of these
official collections had been issued. In 1223 and 1250, 1267,
and 1280, further new volumes were compiled. Now, the
question as to who was supreme distinction of
to have the
selecting and editing the pieces for the latter two, and
especially for the last of these new anthologies of Japanese
verse had been, and was, a burning one among the Court
nobles of Kyoto, It is true that when the storm of Mongol
516 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

invasion actually burst, the Kugi were fain to drop their

miserable internal squabbles for the nonce, and to devote all

their timeand energies to praying to the gods, and to religious

ceremonies and functions. But during the years while the
tempest was plainly brewing they continued culpably heedless
of everything except their own petty interests and differences*.
If certain of the Kuges were bad, the greatest and
wealthiest of the monasteries were worse. As a plain matter
of fact, it was in seasons of dire national calamity that the
priesthood had invariably found its greatest advantage; and
this supreme menace of foreign invasion was destined to be a
veritable mine of wealth and influence to it. In 1264 the
Miidera monks had burned and sacked the temples of
Hi-ei-zan; and two months later the holy rabble of Hi-ei-zan
had done as much for Miidera; while in the same year the
priests of Nara, " Divine Tree " and all, had poured into the
capital and had kept it in a state of seething disorder for
days. And all this for the most worldly and grossly material,
if not for the very slightest, of reasons. Kwanto the In the
priesthood, while greatly honoured and respected, was con-
fined to a pretty strict discharge of its own special and appro-
priate functions by the Hojos and their councillors. But even
there, of late years had been serious religious
there
disturbances. But these must be placed on an entirely different
footing from those of the armed debates of Hi-ei-zan, Miidera,
and the Nara temples. The Kwanto religious disturbances
had been the outcome of an honest difference of opinion merely;
for there is nothing to show that either Nichiren or his
Zenshu opponents were insincere in their beliefs, or were
wantonly endeavouring to derive worldly fame or to amass
filthy lucre from the propagation of their cult and creed. In
truth, the religious ferment in the Kwanto was really a great
national gain. The services rendered by Nichiren have already
been discussed. But his Zenshu adversaries, who had exercised
a great and healthy and quickening influence over the Kama-
kura Bushi for more than two generations, had an exceedingly
—
meritorious record, vastly different from that of the Kyoto
and Nara priests. All the Hojos had been, or were, devout
and fervent adherents of this robust sect; and often had some
of its abbots as their most trusted and trusty councillors.
What was perhaps especially fortunate at this time was that
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 517

some of these were Chinamen, who had a hearty dislike for the
Mongol conquerors of their native land. Doryu (1214-1278)
had been in Kamakura for the last thirty-one years of his life
and the year following Doryu's death, Sogen arrived from
Southern China (1279), and at onee received the full con-
fidence of Hojo Tokimune. Thus the young Regent was fully
informed about the course of events on the continent and
about the certainty of another Mongol attempt on Japan.
Although the five years' leaguer of Saianfu had come to an
eud in 1273, it was not
till 1279 that the complete overthrow

of the Sungs Fukhien and Kwangtung was effected. During

in
all this time vast Mongol armies were needed in Southern
China. And meanwhile Kublai continued to be seriously
threatened by the vast power of his relative Kaidu from
Turkestan. All this had a good deal to do with the postpone-
ment of a second and stronger expedition against the Island
Empire. Again, the Mongols had no fleet of their own. It is
true that on the Yellow River Kublai had as many as 15,000
craft; but they were small. "Each of these vessels, taking
one with another, will require 20 mariners, and will carry 15
horses with the men belonging to them, and their provisions,
arms, and equipments."* Plainly, such boats were unservice-
able for an over-sea expedition. As for Koryu, she was utterly
exhausted; and Kublai had to acknowledge that much when
his vassal, the Koryu King, protested in 1275 that it was
entirely impossible for him to equip another fleet. But by
1279 things in the peninsula had mended somewhat; aud in
that year the King was summoned to Peking to discuss the
project of another armament against Japan. The result was
that His Majesty returned to superintend the construction of
a new Koryu fleet of 1,000 vessels, to levy crews for them,
and also a subsidiary land force of 20,700 men, while later on
a Mongol army 50,000 strong was marched overland to the
point of embarkation.
But all this was only a part of Kublai's preparations. With
the complete overthrow of the Sungs he had become master
of the great maritime resources of Southern China. How
formidable these really were will readily appear by a reference
to Yule's Marco Polo, Bk. III., Ch. 1 : " Each of their great

* Marco Polo, Bk. II., Ch. 64.

518 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

ships requires at least 200 mariners; some of them 300." An

immense Armada of the great ships was meanwhile being
mustered in Zayton Harbour (Chinchew) in Fukhien, opposite
Formosa and on these a force given at 100,000 men embarked.
;

This fleet was to sail up the coast, and form a junction with
the Koryu armament, somewhere between Quelpart and
Kyushu.
Meanwhile, Kublai made still one more effort to attain
his end by diplomacy. In the summer of 1280 yet another
Mongol mission arrived at Hakata, where its members were
detained while their dispatches were sent on and submitted
to the Court and the Bakufu. These dispatches announced
the complete overthrow of the Sungs and summoned Japan
to enter into friendly intercourse with the Mongol (Yuen)
dynasty. All the notice that the Bakufu took of this was to
send down prompt orders to Hakata for the immediate
execution of the venturesome envoys. Nothing remained for
Kublai now but to push on his preparations for the conquest
of Japan apace.
By the spring of the following year, the Koryu fleet was
thoroughly equipped and manned; but the Zayton armament
was not yet fully ready to put to sea. However, the
Northerners did not wait for its arrival; but at once stood
over from Masampo to Tsushima. On this occasion the little
island by no means fell such an easy prey to the invader as it

had done seven years before. According to the Korean

accounts, the Mongols at first obtained a success over the
Japanese here ; but when the
were reinforced, the
latter
allies were beaten off with considerable losses. " The allied
forces then went into camp, where 3,000 Mongols died of
fever. General Hong was very anxious to retreat, but General
Kim said, '
We started out with three months' rations, and we
have as yet been out but one month. We cannot go back now.
When the 100,000 contingent arrives, we will attack the
Japanese again.'
At approach of the van of the great Southern
last the
Armada was announced, and the Koryu expedition thereupon
put to sea again, and sailed out to meet it off the island of
Iki. Iki was attacked by the Northerners on June 10; and
after reducing it, they made for various parts of the Chikuzen

coast between Munakata and Hakosaki Haven, in which they

 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 519

seized the islets of Genkai and Noko and the spit of Shiga,
on which last position the Japanese would appear to have
kept up a series of most desperate and determined assaults.
It was on June 23 that the Northerners effected their landing.

What exactly took place between that date and the great
tornado of August 14-15, fifty-two days later on, it is im-
possible to say, for contemporary accounts of the actual
military operations are meagre and confusing.
During these days the Southern Armada evidentty kept on
arriving in successive squadrons. That these various squa-
drons formed units of two great divisions appears very prob-
able. Two Admirals-in-Chief held command; according to
some accounts their dissension was a factor that greatly
contributed to the ultimate failure of the expedition; accord-
ing to others, the Admiral of the leading division became ill,
and returned, and when the Admiral of the rear division did
arrive he found matters in a precarious, if not actually des-
perate, condition. Be that as it may, Hirado was evidently
seized by one or other of the Southern squadrons; and a huge
force of Chinese troops was disembarked at various points
in Northern Hizen. The object of this is pretty plain.
Here the Japanese had raised no specially strong de-
fences; while the whole circuit of Hakozaki Haven, from
Imatsu right round the bay, had been strongly fortified by
forced labour since 1275. Behind their stone ramparts there,
the islanders hung on doggedly and tenaciously in spite of all
the fire of the trebuchets and similar artillery mounted on
the Mongol fleet. From Northern Hizen an invading force
might turn the strong Japanese works fringing Hakozaki Bay>
provided it overbore the resistance of the Japanese levies
thrown forward to bar its advance. One great difficulty here
is the total absence of dates. When these troops landed, and
how long the Kyushu men held them in check, we simply do
not know. But two points are sufficiently clear, and these
are, first, that these Southerners were effectually held in check
till the great tornado burst; and secondly that it Ayas these
Southerners who furnished by far the greater portion of the
victims who were shortly afterwards immolated to expiate
the overweening ambition of Kublai, and the patriotic resent-
ment of Japan. And these hapless Southerners were mostly
pure Chinese, who until a few years —in the case of some of
520 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

1 hem, indeed, a few months — before had been fighting the Mon-
gols to the death! Naturally, their hearts could never
have been in the (ask of this Japanese expedition at
all. It is highly probable that their enthusiasm in
the Mongol wascause no more intense than that of
the Polish regiments was for Russia in the war of 1904-5.
That they were of much less fighting value than the 46,000
or 47,000 Mongols on board the Koryu fleet in Hakozaki Haven
scarcely admits of dispute. What is at all events clear is that
down August 14 they did not succeed in turning the
to
Japanese position from Iniatsu northwards. The main
Japanese defence was undoubtedly at Hakata, and behind the
long stone wall fringing Hakozaki Haven. But it must not
be overlooked that this was only a mere section of a long
curve, extending at least from Munakata into Northern Hizen
which had not only to be held, but to be held effectually. That
the invaders actually succeeded in breaking through this long
defensive line during the fifty-two days before the great tornado
does not appear. On the other hand the Japanese losses, whe-
ther in repelling attacks or delivering assaults —more especially
on Shiga spit —were undoubtedly heavy.
Meanwhile, to the great surprise of the Mongols, the
Japanese had actually begun to assume the offensive on the
water. That they had been assiduous in equipping strong
operations on the coast and in the Inland Sea has
flotillas for

been already stated;* and this " mosquito " fleet presently began
to give a very good account of itself. Some of its units were
splendidly handled by such daring and intrepid captains as the
brothers Ogano, and the two Konos, Michiari and Michitoki.
The latter fell early in the struggle, but Kono Michiari kept on
worrying the invaders till the end. Michiari came of a race of
capable and gallant sea-captains; it was to the skill and
seamanship of his grandfather Kono Michinobu that Yoslii-

* " Pictorial scrolls painted by Tosa artists of the era show some of
these boats dashing seaward on their reckless errand, and append the
names of the soldiers seated in them, as well as the issue of each ven-
ture. In no case can more than ten fighting men be counted in one
boat." —Captain Brinkley's Japan Vol. II., p. 167. Now, anyone who
has seen samples of modern Japanese war pictures, where the imagina-
tion is allowed to run riot, will readily understand that these old
pictorial scrolls cannot be accepted as conclusive evidence either as to
the. size or the complement of the Japanese vessels. It is hard to
understand why they should have been less formidable than those
that fought at Dan-no-ura, nearly a century before.
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 521

tsune owed no small part of his success in the extraordinarily

brilliantYashima-Pan-no-ura campaign of 1185. These four
captains all distinguished themselves by their more or less
successful efforts in cutting out and firing isolated Mongol
ships; and Anally compelled sections of the invading fleet to
draw up alongside of each other, lash themselves together
with cables, and lay planks from one deck to another so as
to receive prompt reinforcements to deal with Japanese
boarding parties.
Meantime the islanders not only hung on to their entrench-
ments successfully, but actually kept on fiercely assailing the

Mongol camp on Shiga spit. At last, according to some ac-

counts, the Mongols, finding they could make no headway at
Hakozakn weighed and retired to the island of Taka in
Northern Hizen.* But this statement must be taken with
caution; it is probable that it was the Southerners who
really occupied Takashima.
The Southern Armada numbered as many
is said to have
as 3,500 vessels. Seeing that a Koryu
1,000 ships was fleet of

sufficient for the transport of 20,700 Koreans and 50,000

Mongols, a portion of whom must have been cavalry, and
that 100,000 men was the extreme strength of the Zayton
armament, and that the Zayton ships were then by far the
largest afloat anywhere, it is difficult to understand why as
many as 3,500 craft should have been necessary to bring up
the Southern Chinese. But a reference to Marco Polo, Bk.
III., Chap. 1, may help to elucidate matters somewhat.
" Every great ship has certain large barks or tenders attached
to it, carrying 50 or 60 mariners apiece. Each ship has two
or three of these barks, but one is bigger than the others.
There are also some ten small boats for the service of each
great ship. . . . And the large tenders have their boats in
like manner.'' Thus, although there may very well have been
as many as 3,500 craft employed in work on the Japanese
coast, the " great ships " of the Armada need not have num-
bered more than 300 or 400.
Whatever may have been the actual vicissitudes of the

* This Takashima (Hawk Island), to the N.E. of Hirado, is always

confused by foreign writers with Takashima (High Island) in Naga-
saki Harbour. It was while staying on Hawk Island (together with
Froez) that Fernandez compiled the first Japanese-Portuguese
Dictionary.
522 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

seven weeks' fighting before the great tornado of August

14-15, it is plain that the invaders had so far won no great
strategic advantage and made but
headway in breaking
little

down the stubborn Japanese defence. Then on August 15 all,

hopes of a successful issue to the expedition had to be aban-
doned by such of the invaders as survived the terrible cata-
strophe of that eventful day. Here, again, as regards exact
details we must be content to remain more or less hopelessly
in the dark. As regards the awful hurricane that then burst,
some accounts say it blew from the north, others from the
north-west, and yet others from the west. All agree that its
direction was inshore; and from all of them we can infer
that it was the Southerners who were the chief victims of its
fury. The Koryu contingent proper, we are told, got back with
a loss of 8,000 men (forty per cent.) and there is no special
;

reason why the Northern Mongols on the Koryu vessels should

have suffered more severely. The Korean accounts have been
thus epitomised. " A storm arose from the west, and all the
vessels made for the entrance of the harbour together. The
tide was running in very strong and the ships were carried
along irresistibly in its grip. As they converged to a focus
at the mouth of the harbour a terrible catastrophe occurred.
The vessels were jammed together in the offing, and the bodies
of men and broken timbers of the vessels Avere heaped together
in a solid mass so that a person could walk across from one
point of land to another on the mass of wreckage. The
wrecked vessels carried the 100,000 men from Kiang-nam (i.e.
South of the Yang-tse Kiang.)" The " harbour " here pro-
bably means Imari Gulf in Northern Hizen, the entrance to
which is protected by Takashima.
A number of the Chinese established themselves
certain
on this island; and here they were presently assailed by Shoni
Kagesuke, who either put them to the sword or took them
prisoners. Some accounts say that 3,000 prisoners were taken
to Hakata, and all massacred there except three who were
spared for the purpose of carrying an account of the fate of
the expedition back to China. The large force of Southerners
landed at various points in Hizen, to turn the left flank of the

Japanese at Hakozaki, presently also fell a prey to the is-

landers. According to the Chinese annals 10,000 or 12,000 of

these were made slaves.
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 523

Great and thorough as had been the failure of this second

attempt on Japan, Kublai was not at all disposed to let the
matter rest there; and he at once began to concert measures
for a third great armament. But the Mongols began to
murmur. The strength and efficiency of Mongol hosts lay
principally in their cavalry; and in these over-sea expeditions
the Mongol cavalry had been really and truly confined to the
role of " horse-marines " And the Mongol horsemen were
!

thoroughly tired of that sort of service. On the advice of a

certain Korean, Kublai then resolved to send none but Koreans
and Southern Chinese; and forwarded instructions to the
Koryu King to begin to muster men and supplies. But Koryu
was exhausted, and Kublai's Ministers protested strongly
against the project, so it had to be postponed, and when
Nay an -s great revolt occurred in 1286 Kublai 's attention was
fully engaged with affairs at home for the nonce.
The appearance of the great Armada ought not to have
taken the Japanese people by surprise, for as early as March
1280 Tokimune had issued a proclamation stating in the
clearest language that the Mongols would certainly attack the
Empire again in the May of the following year (1281). Yet,
when belated intelligence of the fall of Tsushima reached
Kyoto, the consternation of the Court and the citizens was
extreme; and the panic soon spread to the populace of the
surrounding provinces. One cause of this was a baseless
rumour that the invaders had landed in Nagato, had overborne
all resistance, and were advancing hot-foot upon the capital.

But the chief cause was sheer, crass, unreasoning superstition

scaremongers were busy seeing baneful signs and omens in the
—
heavens and elsewhere even in their rice-pots. During the
war of 1904-5, all this was impossible in Japan; mainly be-
cause the purely secular schoolmaster had been abroad in the
land for more than a generation before that great struggle.
But in 1281 such popular education as there was, was entirely
and completely in sacerdotal hands and to the more unworthy
;

members, —whether in intelligence or moral spirit, —of a spe

eial caste that has always common and corporate interests of
its own to serve, the great foe has always been not superstition,
but science and reasoned and reasonable knowledge. In short,
it was to the interests of the priests to exert themselves not to
allay, but to intensify the panic and commotion. One result
524 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

of all this was that all work and business were suspended, and
the transportation of rice and other supplies to the army in
Kyushu temporarily interrupted, while even the capital itself
began to suffer from the dearth of supplies in its two great
markets. As has been already said, the trustworthy Kwanto
records close with 1266. Such contemporary chronicles as we
have were mainly compiled in Kyoto. If these devoted a tithe
of the attention they have given to religious functions and
ceremonies and observances to the real, practical, stressful,
gallant hand-to-handwork meanwhile being transacted on the
Chikuzen and Hizen sea-board, how truly grateful we should
be! But of the heroes who were doing the real work; of the
men who were " withal keeping (the equivalent for) their
powder dry," we hear very little indeed from these most
courtly and ghostly-minded of " Dryasdusts." It is abun-
dantly plain that the whole nation, from the ex-Emperors
downwards, passed most of the time during the great crisis on
its knees before the gods imploring them for the overthrow of
the invader. " Throughout the length and breadth of the land
could be heard the tapping and roll of temple drums, the
tinkling of sacred bells, the rustle of the sleeves of vestal
dancers, and the litanies of priests; while in thousands of
temples the wood fire used in the goma rite was kept burning,
and the smoke of incense ascended perpetually."
All these ghostly services had to be paid for, of course;
and, as it at once became a generally accepted article of faith
that the great tornado had been expressly sent in gracious
answer to their orisons, the priests promptly maintained that
their merits in saving the national independence had been
even greater than those of the warriors who had fought with
merely carnal weapons. And to judge from the measure of
recompense awarded to the ecclesiastics and to the soldiers
respectively, it is tolerably clear that this claim was admitted
by Court and Bakufu alike. " The danger is past, and the
god is forgotten." But, according to the general view, the
danger was by no means past. Twenty years later, in 1300 or
1301, the appearance of a mysterious fleet of 200 sail off Koshi-
kijima in Satsuma threw the Empire into great consternation;
and the priests in many temples were then instructed to con-
duct services for the overthrow of the invader. And during
these intermediate years there had been a continued series of
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 525

alarms. During most of the time the Kyushu troops, or certain

portions of them, had been kept under arms, while early in
the last decade of the thirteenth century the excitement seems
to have been almost as great as it had been in 1274 or 1281.

The Bakufu had then ascertained that by Kublai's orders

preparations were actually being made in Korea for another
Japanese expedition. Kublai died in 1294; and his successor
Timur at once ordered these preparations to be abandoned.
He also sent priests as envoys to Japan, for when the mission
of 1284 had been massacred, the priest accompanying it had
alone been spared. One of these priests, at first confined in
prison in Izu, was ultimately naturalised as a Japanese, and
obtained very high Church preferment, first in Kamakura and
afterwards in Kyoto. It was in 1299 that this Ichi-nei arrived
in Japan; but even he could not disarm the suspicion of the
islanders for a long time. Down to the end of the first decade
of the fourteenth century at least, the Kyushu men were kept
harassed by Bakufu injunctions to keep on the alert and be
fully prepared to deal with foreign invasion.
The ablest modern Japanese historians has said not only
of
wittily, .but wisely and with perfect truth, that the " Great
Wind" of August 14-15, 1281, did a good deal more than
wreck and ruin the Mongol Armada merely. Before two
generations had passed, it had become abundantly clear that
it had really shaken the fabric of Hojo greatness very rudely

indeed. The important question of rewarding meritorious

services in repelling the invaders had to be faced; and this was
truly a difficult problem to deal with. For the last few
centuries Japanese wars had all been civil wars; and in these
the confiscated possessions of the vanquished had provided
ample recompense for the victors. But the repulse of the
Mongols had not put a single extra yard of soil at the disposal
of the Bakufu and as it had been under the strain of keeping
;

the military forces of the nation in general, and of Kyushu

in particular, on a war footing for long years, its resources
had been greatly exhausted. The claims of the religieux
whose prayers had been so efficacious, and whose orisons were
still necessary, were first dealt with, and, all things considered,

treated with great liberality. Temple domains that had been

forfeited were in many cases restored; mortgaged temple
estates were relieved from their burdens, and grants of addi-
526 HTSTORY OF JAPAN.

tional lands made. Tn not a few cases this bore hardly on

military men who had become possessed of former temple
lands sometimes fairly and justly enough, for at this time
the commissioners were very rigorous in their land-survey
and in their inspection and interpretation of title-deeds and
mortgages. When
the monasteries and shrines were finally
settled with, was found that there was little left for the
it

military men, some of whom had meanwhile been despoiled of

their holdings, or part of them, for the benefit of the Church.
A Tandai had been installed in Kyushu in 1275; and now
the administration of the great southern island was assimi-
lated to that of the Rokuhara, the three Shugo, Shoni, Otomo,
and Shimadzu, being appointed assessors. For years they had
to struggle with the reward question to very little purpose.
Presently we find Kamakura again refusing to entertain claims
or petitions or suits for recompense there, and referring them
all back to Kyushu; and finally, near the end of the century,
declaring the whole question to be closed. All this caused
profound dissatisfaction with the Bakufu in many quarters in

Kyushu; where, meanwhile, the local landowners were

harassed with the burden of keeping the coast defences in
repair, and their vassals frequently under arms at Hakata
and other points remote from their own estates. Nor was
this all. The conduct of the Hojo Tandai and his favourites
was the reverse of satisfactory in some respects, especially in
the administration of law. Besides, they began to abuse their
position in order toamass manors and other kinds of wealth.
Hojo Tokimune had died at the age of 34 in 1284; and with
his death the Bakufu entered upon its downward course.
Rome of the Hojos in Nagato, in Shikoku, in Harima, and in
Echigo presently began to give rise to complaints similar tol
those made by the Kyushu gentry, although it is fair to say
that there were still many upright and able administrators
among these. For the best part of a generation after 1281, the
nation continued to be haunted with the dread possibility of
another Mongol invasion; and the sense of the absolute need
of concord and unity
meet such a contingency probably did
to
much to constrain the military class to bear hardships and
occasional injustices with an unusual degree of patience.
The seventh Hojo Regent, Sadatoki, was a boy of fourteen
when he succeeded his father Tokimune, in 1284. The true bis-
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 527

tory of Sadatoki and his times can perhaps never be written

such contemporary records as remain are fragmentary and
silent on points of vital interest to the modern historian,
while most subsequent accounts can be shown to be so inaccu-
rate in other sections of the narrative where original autho-
rities are available for checking them that we cannot place
any great confidence in their assertions. This is all the more
1o be regretted inasmuch as the period from 1284 to 1311 is

an important one.
However, in the midst of much that is obscure, two points
are tolerably clear. In the first place the Bakufu machine
was no longer the wonderful efficient instrument of adminis-
tration it had been in the days of Oe Hiromoto and Miyoshi
Yasunobu. And in the second, the Hojos were no longer the
happy and united house they once had been. Even in 1272,
one of the Kokuhara Tandai and several of his relatives and
partisans in Kamakura had been executed for plotting against
Tokimune and the Bakufu. Now, just after the death of Toki-
mune in 1284, the Southern Rokuhara Tandai, Tokikuni, was
suddenly recalled, exiled to Hitachi, and soon after put to
death there. And before the death of Sadatoki in 1311, there
had been several fatal internecine brawls between certain of
his Hojo relations, occasioned by the competition for power
and place.
Again, among the Bakufu councillors, some of whom were
now mere nonentities, were certain who were playing for their
own hands. In 1285 the most influential men in Kamakura
were Adachi Yasumori and Taira Yoritsuna. The former was
Sadatoki's maternal grandfather; the latter was his Rhitsuji
or Naikwcmryo, which may be translated either as First
Minister or Major Domo of the Regent. The rivalry between
these two was intense. Just at this time, Adachi's son Mune-
kage adopted the family name of Minamoto instead of Fuji-
wara, which his house had hitherto borne. His grandfather
had been a relative of Yr oritomo; and Taira Yoritsuna now
insinuated that the Adachis were aiming at nothing less than
the Shogunate. The accusation was listened to; and the
result was the all but complete extirpation of the Adachi clan.
Eight years later Taira Y^oritsuna's own fate overtook him.
His own eldest son accused him of aiming at the regency;
and, together with his second son and over forty retainers,
528 HTSTORY OF JAPAN.

Yoritsuna was made away with. Three years later, there was
yet another similar tragedy in Kamakura, the victim on this
occasion being Yoshimi, a descendant of Yoritomo's brother
Noriyori. Although the direct Yoritomo had long
line of
been extinct, the name of the Minamoto septs was legion and ;

many of them were beginning to chafe at having to bend to

the will of the Hdjds, who had originally been mere Minamoto
vassals.
Down to 120.3, Sadatoki remained nnder the tutelage of his
first Minister Taira During the ensuing eight
Yoritsnna.
years (1203-1801) he seems to have taken the work of his
office seriously. It is probable that he was a man of clear

head and strong will, and that he really set great store upon
having the administration honestly and efficiently conducted.
But on the other hand details were irksome to him; to "toil
terribly " in the fashion of Yasutoki and Tokiyori was to him
merely a counsel of perfection, unless indeed in connection
with questions of cardinal importance. Accordingly a brief
eight years of the strenuous life proved more than ample for
him ; and in 1301, at the early age of one-and-thirty, he shaved
his head and "entered religion." His cousin (and later on
son-in-law) Morotoki, a young man of twenty-six, then became
nominal Bhikken, and he is usually counted as the eighth of
the Hojo Kegents (1301-1311). But as a matter of fact, Mori-
toki died a few months before Sadatoki; and during his
regency some of his relatives were from time to time associated
with him in his office, while Sadatoki continued to be con-
sulted on all important issues.
In 1303, two years after Sadatoki had become a priest, his
eldest son Takatoki was born to him by the daughter of a
younger brother of that Adachi Yasumori who had perished
in 1285. Meanwhile the confidence of Sadatoki had been won
by Nagasaki Enki, a nephew of Taira Yoritsuna; and before
his death in 1311 Sadatoki entrusted these two men with the
care of Takatoki, it being understood that the boy was to
become Shikken on reaching years of discretion. During the
next five years as many as four Hojo relatives were at one
time or another titular Kegents; but the real power was in
the hands of Takatoki's guardians, j#and more particularly in
those of Nagasaki Enki. Then when Takatoki was made Be-
gent in 1316 at the age of thirteen, this unscrupulous, avari-
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 529

cious,and utterly corrupt lay-bonze became virtually supreme

in Kamakura. By this cunning old man Takatoki's education
was not so much neglected as conducted in a manner that
could not possibly have been worse, for the prime object
plainly was not to fit, but utterly to unfit the youth for the
discharge of the onerous duties of his office and position. At
the same time there was no great need for Nagasaki to
cudgel his priestly brains to devise means for attaining his
object, for that could easily be compassed by the commonplace
and hackneyed device of ambitious Japanese underlings, who
find their own account in unduly magnifying their master. He
could most plausibly insist that the lineal Head of the great
House of Hojo that had saved the national existence of the
Empire thirty years before, and which had regulated the suc-
cession to the Imperial seat for nearty a century, should be
treated in a manner consonant with his dignity. Now, since
1219 there had been a succession of Kyoto civilian Shoguns in
Kamakura, them without exception being mere gilded
all of
figure-heads and political ineffectualities. But they had all
unknown to themselves contrived to do much to prepare the
way for the fall of the Hojos, for thanks to them and their
attendants Kyoto standards of judging things had become
dominant in the Kwanto. Sadatoki's way had been
of living
almost as magnificent as that of his nominal lord; and hence
when Nagasaki insisted that Takatoki should be reared like
a young Shogun, there were no murmurers.
The Bakufu now proceeded gaily and rapidly along that
downward course on which it had entered a generation before.
The tendency of things presently became so obvious that in
1318 we find the Emperor Hanazono passing some very caustic
remarks upon the shortcomings of the Kwanto administration
and the Court nobles openly congratulating themselves upon
the approaching end of their long eclipse by upstart military
swaggerers. The chief hope of the Court party lay in the
possibility of serious dissensions among the military men
themselves. During the last twenty or thirty years the Hojo
and their officers in Kyushu had given serious offence to non-
Bakufu vassals like the Kimotsuki of Osumi and others; and
many non-Bakufu vassals in other parts of the Empire had
had only too good cause to complain of aggression and spolia-
tion by Hojo chicanery.

ii
530 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

Rut even among the Bakufu vassals proper, there was a

rapidly gathering and spreading sense of discontent. In the
last two decades of the thirteenth century many had fallen
into such straits that they could neither pay their taxes nor
discharge their other obligations to the authorities. The gene-
ral excuse for this was that they had been hopelessly impo-
verished by the burdens of national defence. Such indeed
might have been the case in Kyushu and the West; but in the
Kwanto at least the great cause was simply the extravagance
occasioned by the "fast" and fashionable life of Kamakura.
To enable them to ruffle it there, needy Samurai mortgaged
their holdings to wealthy neighbours, toKamakura merchants
and money-lenders and even to farmers who had saved money.
As the interest ranged from sixty to ninety-six per cent., the
whole income of the estate often went to the mortgagee; and
foreclosure suits were incessant. After a great deal of patch-
work which laws were now and then revoked
legislation, in
after a few weeks' trial, the Bakufu finally had resort to the
desperate expedient of a Tokitsei in 1207. By this so-called
Act of Benevolent Government, suits for the recovery of
interest were forbidden, mortgages cancelled, and the future
sale or mortgage of Samurai holdings interdicted. There were
certain saving provisions in the enactment; but as its general
effect was to strike at the root of all credit, it soon proved
economically and socially disastrous. Tt mortally offended
the capitalists, among whom there were Samurai; and it made
the raising of money more difficult to needy borrowers. Tn
a short time the poorer Samurai were more deeply involved
in debt than ever; for extant legaldocuments conclusively
show that subterfuges for evading the law were readily de-
vised. The only hope of relief for this huge and ever-swelling
mass of Samurai penury and indebtedness lay in "being on the
victorious side in a great civil war, when there would "be con-
fiscated manors to dispose of.
In the endeavour to alleviate the economic distress of its

vassals, the Bakufu, between 1284 and 1297, had stultified

itselfby the issue of many temporising regulations, which
being often at serious conflict with each other had introduced
a fatal element of uncertainty into the exact state of the law.
A similar flaw is only too apparent in its legislation in connec-
tion with several other matters. Most Japanese historical
 THE MONGOL INVASIONS. 531

text-books allude to the great crop of law-suits that sprang up

in the years following the repulse of the Mongols. The chief
reason is not far to seek; it lay in the incompetence of the
Kamakura legislators. In the early days of the Bakufu, judge-
ments were often written on a single sheet of paper and they
rarely extended beyond a compass of five or six pages. Now
they often cover scores of sheets; and, with their auxiliary
documents and what not, occasionally assume the proportions
of respectable volumes! Presently we hear of suits having
been instituted, and petitions filed, years before they were
decided or dealt with. And even when judgement was finally
given, was sometimes found to be no real decision at all. It
it

"
was ambiguous " and left the litigants exactly where they
;

were before the suit was instituted, in every respect except

that they were both so much the poorer by the amount of the
bribes they had surreptitiously forwarded to the judge. It
was the result of one of many cases of this description that
precipitated the impending fall of the Hojo and the Kama-
kura Bakufa.
The Ando family, descended from Abe Yoritoki, was settled
at Tsugaru, and for the last hundred years an Ando had been
Yezo Kwanryo; in other words, Bakufu Lieutenant to deal
with the Ainu in what is now the Hokkaido. About 1319 or
1320 a succession dispute broke out in the Ando family; and
both parties appealed to Kamakura. There Nagasaki Taka-
suke had succeeded his father, Nagasaki Enki, in power, and
in ascendancy over his friend and playmate, Hojo Takatoki.

One great article of Takasuke's creed was to " take his good
thing wherever he found it"; and accordingly he most impar-
tially and large-heartedly accepted the kind offerings of all
parties to this Ando family succession dispute. In due course
of time, after a decent and proper volume of water had been
allowed to run under the bridges, a decision was at last
" handed down " to these rustic litigants. The respective
merits of the cases, as measured by the value of their " thank-
offerings," were so nearly equal that the only possible judge-
ment was an " ambiguous " one. Thereupon the disputants
proceeded to settle the matter by force of arms; and at last
the Bakufu had to dispatch a considerable force to restore
order in Mutsu, where Ando Goro was getting the upper
band, This chieftain thereupon summoned a large body of
532 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

Ainu auxiliaries from Yezo, and with these and his own
clansmen he effectually held the Hojo army in check. The
Bakufu tried to keep all this as quiet as possible; but the
news leaked out, and produced a profound impression, espe-
cially in Kyoto. The Court nobles were jubilant for the
;

episode served to reassure them that in their anticipation of

the speedy fall of the Bakufu the thought was something more
than the mere child of the wish. Certain of them soon began
to plot; but it was not till 1324 that the Hojos got to know
of this. In that year it was discovered one Hino brother had
actually been in Kamakura on a secret mission tampering
with the discontented element there; and that another had
been engaged in similar work in the Home Provinces and
Kyoto, where two Minamoto captains from Mino, Toki, and
Tajimi had been won over. These latter had to commit sui-
cide; and one of the Hinos was banished to Sado, the Em-
peror's intercession proving sufficient to secure the release of
the other.
The elements for an explosion which might blow the Hojos.
if not the Bakufu, to the moon, had been accumulating for
long; and it was rapidly becoming a mere question of apply-
ing the match. As it was the Emperor Daigo IT. who fired
the mine, it now becomes necessary for us to direct our atten-
tion to the antecedent course of events in Kvoto.
 533

CHAPTEE XVII.

THE FALL OF THE KAMAKURA

. BAKUFU.

FT1HE will of Saga II. provided that future Emperors were

-*" to be taken alternately from the respective lines of his
two sons, Fukakusa II. and Kameyama, while the bulk of his
landed property was to be assigned for the support of ex-Em-
perors. At the death of Saga II. in 1272 both these sons of
his were
alive. Fukakusa II., after a nominal reign of twelve
years, had abdicated at the age of sixteen, and was now
ex-Emperor, while Kameyama, then twenty-three years old,
was on the throne, and for the next two years he directed
affairs in person. He abdicated in 1274, in favour of his own
son Uda II., then a boy of eight; and during this reign of

twelve years Kameyama still continued to be the real Sove-

reign. In 1287, Uda II., in terms of his grandfather's will,
made way, not for a brother or a son of his own, but for his
cousin, Fushimi, then thirteen years of age, —an event which
threw the administration into the hands of Fushimi's father,
Fukakusa II., who had hitherto been eclipsed by his brother
Kameyama.
Subsequent developments will be best elucidated by a
genealogical chart, and a few dates and figures.

88 Go-Saga

Munetaka 89 Fukakusa II. (1247-1259) 90 Kameyama (1260-74)

(Shogun, 1252-1266)
\

I
92 Fushimi (1288-1298) Hisaakira 91 Uda II. (1275-87)
Koreyasu I (Shogun, 1289-1308)
(Shogun, 1266-1289) |~
93 Fushimi II. I

(1299-1301) 95 Hanazono Morikuni

(1309-1318) (Shogun, 1308-1333)

94 Nuo k
II. (1307-08) 96 Daigo II. (1319-38)
534 HISTORY OP JAPAN.
Birth. Accession. Abdication. Death.
Fukakusa II 1243 1247 1259 1304
Kameyama 1249 1259 1274 1305
Uda II 1267 1274 1287 1324
Fushimi 1265 1287 1298 1317
Fushimi II 1288 1298 1301 1336
Nijo II 1285 1302 1308
Hanazono 1297 1308 1318 1348
Daigo II , 1287 1319 1338

between Kame-
It will be observed that the five sovereigns
yama and Daigo were mere boys at their accession, the
II.

only exception being Nijo II., who was seventeen. As a matter

of fact not one of these was allowed to administer the Empire
while titular Sovereign, the direction of affairs being in the
hands of one or other of the ex-Emperors. Furthermore, it
will be noted that at one time, from 121)8 to 1304, there were
actually no fewer than five of these ex-Emperors alive! It was
—
between these that disputes arose, not between the Imiperors,
who were little better than pawns in the game, the nominal
occupation of the throne by the son or grandson enabling the
father or grandfather to exercise the Imperial authority. Then
there was frequent discord over the management and disposal
of the estates designated by Saga II.'s will for the support of
the ex-Emperor. Moreover, the fortunes of the Court nobles
depended greatly upon their being attached to the service of the
line in power; and so the Knge became split into two great
—
antagonistic factions and sometimes more which kept up a —
bitter warfare of intrigue against each other. How the bitter-
ness of their relations was still further intensified by literary
squabbles has already been alluded to.

If it had been the custom for the Sovereign to remain in

occupation of the throne for the term of his natural life after
his accession, occasions for disputes would have been mini-
mised. But abdication at an early age was the invariable
practice; and Saga II.'s will had said nothing as to the
length of the tenure of the Imperial dignity by future Em-
perors. Another fatal defect was that nothing about primo-
geniture was said in that most unlucky document; and hence
even in one and the same line we meet with the appearance of
rival candidates and their supporters! Two centuries before
such a state of things would infallibly have occasioned a great
succession war, and very possibly a whole series of such
contests. Even now, although these perennial disputes were
always temporarily composed without the effusion of blood, it
 THE FALL OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 535

was by the power sword that they were really settled,

of the
for in the last resort was the Bakufu that pronounced judge-
it

ment. The intervention of Kamakura was being continually

solicited by one or other of the rival lines or their partisans;
generally of course by the line that for the time being was
subsisting on the scanty fare of expectation. Of course it is

only too plain that Bakufu officials of the stamp of the Naga-
sakismust have been greatly delighted with such a situation,
and have blessed the gods for inspiring Saga II. with such
tk
a happy idea as that will " of his.

Naturally enough both lines endeavoured to profit as much

by, and suffer as little as possible from, the effect of the pro-
visions of Saga II. 's well-meant and most affectionate legacy
of mischief to his favourite sons and to the Empire at large.
Evasions, or attempts at evasion, of the purport of the " will
were only to be expected. The first occurred in 1274 when
Kameyama abdicated in favour of his own son, Uda II., instead
of that of one of his nephews, the sons of his elder brother
and predecessor, Fukakusa II. As has been said, Fukakusa's
turn came in 1287, when his own son Fushimi became
Emperor; and in 1298 he made an effort to pay off his brother
Kameyama in his own coin, by getting the Imperial succession
transferred to a grandson of his own instead of to a grandson
of Kameyama.* Against this the Kameyama, or junior line,
protested strongly, and after several appeals to Kamakura got
the Bakufu to depose Fushimi II. in 1301, and install Nijo II.,
a grandson of Kameyama's, on the throne.
Exact details of the matter are obscure and conflicting;
but it seems that it was at this time that Hojo Sadatoki de-

cided that the tenure of the throne was to extend to ten years,
unless previously determined by the death of the occupant.
Nijo II. died in 1308, and he was duly succeeded by a re-

* Kameyama, as a mere paterfamilias, must have been sadly put to

it by the problem of how to make ends meet. In 1305 " he died at the
age of fifty-seven. ...
At the age of fourteen he had already
become a father; after his abdication (1274), he had children eveiy
year, even after shaving his head (1290) " Some accounts allege that
!

he had been compelled to take the tonsure because of his complicity

in the attempt of a certain Asawara Tameyori, his son, and a few
followers to assassinate the Emperor Fushimi during the night of
April 19, 1290. Finding the Emperor had escaped, Asawara sat down
on the Imperial couch and committed hara-kiri there. There was
another attempt to assassinate an Emperor in his bed-room in 1444,
536 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

preservative of the Fukakusa II. or senior branch, in the

person of Hanazono, who abdicated at the end of the ten years
term. The new Sovereign, Daigo II., of the Kameyama, or
Junior branch, was the brother of Nijo II. ; and was the first
Emperor who had really attained to manhood before
for long
his accession. At that date, 1318, he was thirty-one years of
age. Yet, even so, he was not permitted to direct affairs in
person at first for the first four years of his reign it was his
;

father Uda II. who ruled. At this point there was another
irregularity. A Crown Prince was designated; and this
Crown Prince, who should have been taken from the Senior
line, was a son of Nijo II., and consequently a nephew of Daigo

II. This Crown Prince, Kuninage, died in 1326, and Daigo II.

wished to have him replaced by his own son, Prince Takanaga.

which would have been a still more glaring infraction of Saga
II.'s " will." Now a year or two before this the Hino plot
against the Hojos had been discovered and dealt with; and
Daigo II. had been suspected of complicity in that intrigue,
and had found it advisable to disavow all knowledge of it and
to protest his good-will towards Kamakura. But the Bakufu
remained suspicious and now in 1326 it refused to fall in with
;

Daigo II.'s views, and had Kazuhito, a son of Fushimi II.

of the Elder line, nominated Heir Prince.*
This decision of the Bakufu was strictly correct, if regard
was to be had to the terms of Saga II.'s will. But Daigo II.
knew something of the history of the Imperial line and of the
Empire over which his ancestors had not merely reigned, but
ruled till times not so very remote! Besides, one of the three
counsellors who commanded his deepest confidence was the
very first and greatest living authority on the history of Japan.

This was one of the three later " Fusa " (Nochi no Sambo),
as Yoshida Sadafusa, Madenokoji Nobufusa, and Kitabatake
Chikafusa were called. The last of these, Kitabatake, is really

one of the great characters in the history of his country, for

* When Fukakusa II. abdicated in 1259, he retired to the Ji-myo-in

Temple (or Palace) Kyoto and this became the chief residence of
in ;

those of his line, —

which is consequently known as the Jimyo-in-to.
Later on, the Daikaku-ji at Saga was occupied by Kameyama (1276),
—
and his son Uda II. (1288) and theirs the junior line appears as the
; —
Daikakuji-to in Japanese histories. For the sake of simplicity, we
shall use the terms Senior and Junior; the line of Kameyama, to
which Daigo II. and all the " Southern " Emperors belonged being
not the Senior, but the Junior one.
 THE FALL OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 537

he played a leading part in the annals of his own time, where

he was illustrious on the battle-field as well as at the council-
board ; while his writings were destined to exercise a profound
influence upon the political thought and theory of Japan at
various times* and especially in the nineteenth century. Kita-
batake had evidently not forgotten the words of Shotoku
Taishi : "In a country there are not two lords ; the people
have not two masters. The Sovereign is the master of the
people of the whole country. The officials to whom he gives
charge are all his vassals. How can they, as well as the Go-
vernment, presume to levy taxes on the people ? " The actual
conditions at that time were a negation of any such political
philosophy. No doubt many causes had been at work to bring
about the decay of the power and prestige of the Sovereign;
but one of the greatest and most immediate had been the will
of Saga II. That unfortunate and fatal document must hence-
forth be set aside at all hazards; and the succession to the
throne confined to a single To surrender it to the Senior
line.

line, as would have to be done in 1328 or 1329, would be to

surrender it to a boy, for the Prince-Imperial would be no

more than fifteen years at that time and the Insei system
would have to be reverted to again. The only thing was for
Daigo II. to endeavour to cling to power as long as life lasted,
or at all events as long as he could and meanwhile to concert
;

measures for the overthrow of the Hojos and the domination

of the military caste. The prospects of doing so seemed
neither desperate nor even remote, for meanwhile it became
plainer and plainer that the Kamakura Bakufu was engaged
in digging its own grave.
In the Kwanto things Avere indeed going from bad to worse
with startling rapidity. In 1326 Hojo Takatoki, then twenty-
three years of age, became ill and " entered religion. '* He
transferred the Regency to his own younger brother Yasuie,
and to KanazaAva Sadaaki; but they threw up their offices in

a few weeks, since they found that Nagasaki Takasuke, who

was the would consult them in nothing.
real governing power,
Thereupon Akabashi Moritoki and Hojo Koresada were made
joint Shikkm, but Nagasaki's influence continued supreme, for
his ascendancy over Takatoki was complete.

Meanwhile Takatoki's conduct was getting more and more

deptorable. Monk as he had become, he still had between
538 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

thirty and forty concubines; and what time was not devoted
to these was mainly given up to music and dancing and dog-
lights. Takatoki summoned dengalm players in crowds from
all parts of the country, placed them under the care of his

officers, and made them entertain guests with their perfor-

mances. After any brilliant performance, the spectators

headed by Takatoki himself often took off their robes and
threw them to the actors, and sometimes the hall was filled
with piles of garments. These were later redeemed by money-
presents; and huge sums were squandered in this, way. Nor
were Takatoki's kennels less expensive. He had a mania for
dog-fights; and certain regular days of the month were fixed
for these encounters. Daimyo who wished to curry favour
would send up presents of a score of the largest and fiercest
hounds they could collect. These animals were fed on fish and
birds and decked with collars of gold and silver; and when
the champion in a fight was led through the streets people
were expected to doff their head-gear and even to kneel down
in reverence ! And Takatoki's " state " withal was that of an
Emperor; and his attitude towards even great Bakufu vas-
sals was haughty as that of a Sovereign to his subjects.
Latterly he seems to have resented Nagasaki's ascendancy
over him; at the end of 1330 he commissioned one of Naga-
saki's own relatives to kill him. Nagasaki quickly got to know
of this, and Takatoki then threw all the blame upon his tool,

who was sent into exile, as were the whole of his followers.
News must have been welcome in Kyoto,
of this dissension
where the Bakufu just a few months before had seemed to
be on the point of unearthing the great Imperialistic plot. As
it was, three priests had been arrested on suspicion and con-

veyed to Kamakura; while the Hino brother released in 1325

was now taken down to the Kwanto and killed, and orders
sent to Homma, the Governor of Sado, to execute the Hino
imprisoned there. Later writers have alleged that it was the
Elder line or their partisans that set the Bakufu to work on
this occasion; but in support of this contention there is no
satisfactory contemporary evidence. That the Jimyo-in party
should be eager to have their turn, now that Daigo Il.'s term
of ten years had more than passed, was only natural; and
that Nagasaki would not be offended at being approached by
them in a suitable manner is only too plain. But that is all
 THE FALL OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 539

that can be said; and what is certain is that of the arch-

conspirators, like Kitabatake, Kamakura had no suspicion
whatsoever.
Now just at this time (1330-1) a great pestilence broke
out, and the priests Avere very busy. An Emperor who had
showed such a solicitude for his poorer subjects in the famine
of 1321 as Daigo II. had done might reasonably be expected
to pay frequent visits to the great monasteries to stimulate
the monks to exert themselves to appease the wrath of Heaven,
and obtain relief from this great national scourge. Hence his
visits to Nara and to Hi-ei-zan might have seemed to be not

so much harmless as highly praiseworthy. Now, after the

miscarriage of 1326, two of Daigo II. 's sons had been sent to
Hi-ei-san, —
and in 1329 the elder of these became Abbot of
the huge and warlike monastery. This in plain language
meant that Daigo II. had now a large if but imperfectly dis-
ciplined and not very efficient military force at his disposal
in the immediate vicinity of the capital. He had a similar
one in Nara, while he appears to have come to an under-
standing with the monks of Koya-san, which put the services
of many of their parishioners, whether clients or " protectors,"
at his service. Around and especially behind this great
Shingon mountain fane lay tracts of wild country where many
of the inhabitants had never accepted the Minamoto or Hojo
domination as anything better than an unfortunate necessity.
In Iga, Ise, and Kumano were many descendants of Kiyoniori's
clansmen now living in abject poverty, but still mindful of the
fact that theirs had once been the most powerful house in the
Empire. Then there were others whose ancestors had suffered
in the great proscriptions of 1221. And besides these there
was quite a number some of them holding
of smaller gentry,
considerable manors, who were not Bakufu vassals, and who
had no favours to expect from Kamakura. The most impor-
tant of these was Kusunoki Masashige, a descendant of Tachi-
bana Moroe and Kusunoki was quite prepared to take all the
;

risks and responsibilities of leadership in his district when

the Banner of Brocade should be unfurled.
In September 1331 it was learned that the Bakufu had
decided to effect the transfer of the throne to the Prince-
imperial, who, it will be remembered, belonged to the Senior
line. Thereupon Daigo II., taking with him the Imperial Seal,
540 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

escaped by night and took refuge in the Temple of Mount

Kasagi (on the borders of Yamato and Yamashiro), which
had been fortified and was presently garrisoned. The Bakufu
troops, fancying the Emperor was in Hi-ei-zan, attacked the
great monastery but the Prince Abbot and his brother made
;

good their escape, the latter joining his father in Mount

Kasagi, while the former proceeded to join Kusunoki, who
had meanwhile fortified himself in the almost impregnable
Castle of Akasaka in Kawachi, some twenty miles or so to the
south. This latter proved a very hard nut to crack, indeed;
for several weeks it held out most gallantly against a huge
investing force —75,000 strong, according to the Taihei-ki —
and when the Kamakura men at last did carry it by a great
they found that both Kusunoki and the Prince Abbot
elfort,

had previously succeeded in stealing through their lines.

Kasagi meanwhile had fallen some time before this, and
Daigo was now a prisoner in the Rokuhara, while all who
II.

had accompanied him were also in the hands of the Bakufu.

In April next year, 1332, the deposed Sovereign was banished
to the island of Oki, and two of his sons exiled to Tosa and
Sanuki respectively. The last of these presently eluded his
warders, and soon became a storm-centre in Shikoku, while
Daigo II. made good his escape from Oki almost exactly a
year after he had been sent there. And meanwhile during
this time many things had happened.
The Prince Abbot, who now assumed the lay-name of Mori-
naga, was wonderfully successful in his appeal to the popula-
tion behind Koya-san, and it presently needed a large Bakufu
force to disperse his following in Yoshino. Even so, he himself
remained at large; and so was still But this was
dangerous.
not the worst of it. In June 1332 Kusunoki had actually be-
come strong enough to attempt to capture Kyoto by a coup de
main. He was repulsed, indeed; but the net effect of the bold
venture was to bring new adherents to his standard, and to
embolden other secret sympathisers with the Imperialistic
cause to declare themselves openly. For example, in August
of the same year Akamatsu Enshin began the contest in his
native province of Harima. In the same month Kusunoki
established himself in the Castle of Chihaya on Mount Kongo,
while one of his lieutenants re-occupied the old positron of
Akasaka. Akasaka again fell in March 1333, but before Chi
 THE FALL OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 541

haya the huge beleaguering force met with nothing but disaster
upon disaster and Chihava remained unreduced till the end.
Its gallant and determined defence was of inestimable service
to the Imperialistic cause for many reasons. The concentra-
tion of 100,000 men, — (this is an exaggerated number no
doubt), —stripped the outlying provinces of Bakufu troops,
and so encouraged Imperialistic partisans to show their hand
there. In lyo, two chiefs had risen Kikuchi attacked the
;

Hojo Tandai in Kyushu, and although he failed and fell he

produced a great moral effect upon his more powerful neigh-
bours, who began to see what was possible. Then in far dis-
tant Mutsu, at the other end of the Empire, Yuki had risen.
But this was not all. Akamatsu had meanwhile reduced
Harima, and advanced into Settsu; and learning that most
of the Rokuhara troops were before Chihava he made a sudden
dash upon the capital. After fierce fighting he was driven out
of it, as were the monks of Hi-ei-zan a little later; but episodes
like these served to indicate that Kamakura was no longer

what it had been a century before.

Then just at this time (April or May 1333), Daigo II.
escaped from Oki in a fishing-boat and landed in Hoki; and
the whole of the west of the main island was at once ablaze.
A former Hojo partisan, Nawa Nagatoshi, received the Em-
peror in his castle of Funanoe Sen, and beat off the Sasakis
sent to reduce it and recapture the Sovereign. The Nagato
Tandai had been trying to put down the " revolt " in Iyo with ?

but scant success; and he was now recalled by intelligence of

an attack from Iwami upon his own province of Nagato.
Meanwhile nearly the whole of the rest of the San-
yodo and Sanindo declared for the Emperor; and a
strong force was soon thrown against the capital from
Tamba. But warned by Akamatsu's attempt, the Bakufu
commanders had massed large bodies of troops in Kyoto;
and the Tamba expedition met with a serious check. Thus
in the course of a few weeks there had been no
fewer than three Imperialistic assaults upon the capital, and
they had all miscarried. Yet in a few more weeks Daigo II.
was destined to be in secure possession of Kyoto; and that
too almost without striking another blow.
The two chief commanders of the Bakufu armies lately
dispatched from Kamakura to hold Kyoto, had been Nagoshi
542 HTSTORY OP JAPAN.

Takaie and Ashikaga Takauji. The former had just fallen in

battle against Akaniatsu and so Ashikaga Takauji had been
;

left in supreme and undivided command. Now Nagoshi Avas

a Ho jo, but Ashikaga was not. His family had occasionally
intermarried with the Hdjds; and his own wife was a sister
of Akabashi Moritoki, the acting Shikken. But he himself
was of pure Keiwa -Genji, or warlike Minamoto stock; although
he came of a somewhat junior branch of it. But enough has
been said to indicate that while the claims of primogeniture
were not entirely ignored in Japan, they were frequently
overridden by other considerations. The line of Yoritomo had
long been extinct; that of his father Yoshitomo only survived
in the Y'oshimi family, descendants of Noriyori, one chief >of

which had been executed in 1296. Of collateral branches of

the stock, there were Tada, Ota, Toki, Yamana Satomi, Nitta,
Hosokawa, all senior to that of the Ashikaga ; but at this
time all these were comparatively insignificant except the
Nitta. Both Nitta and Ashikaga were descended from that
son of Yoshiie's, Yoshikuni, who had been banished to Shimo-
tsuke in 1150, for the then terrible offence of being disrespect-
ful to a Fujiwara. When Yoritomo rose, in 1180, the Ashikaga
chieftain, who w asr
his own brother-in-law, joined him at once;
but the Nittas at first were hostile, and, although there was
no actual fighting, their ultimate adhesion was a sullen and
ungraceful one, for it was prompted not by affection but by

fear. Hence among the Minamoto clansmen at large who

cherished the hope of again seeing a great chieftain of their
own in lr oritomo's seat, the Ashikaga, although junior to the
Nitta, stood highest in prestige; all the more so as they held
broader acres and had for long been figures of mark in Kama-
kura society,in which the Nittas rarely mingled. At this date
(1333) Ashikaga Takauji, just become the head of the house
by the death of his father Sadauji, was twenty-eight years of
age, while his brother, Tadayoshi, was two years younger.
Both were highly accomplished in letters as well as in arms;
and both were exceedingly popular among their fellow war-
riors in the Kwant5, by whom they were generally regarded
as the most promising officers in the service of the Bakufu.
Shortly after the beginning of June 1333, Ashikaga Takauji
left the capital at the head of a strong expedition directed
against Daigo II. in Hoki, His progress was slow, and a few
 THE FALL OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 543

days later he had got no further than Shinomura, in Tamba

just a little beyond the Yamashiro border. Here suddenly,
on June 10, he changed his flag, carried all his troops over
to the Imperialist side; and then wheeled round upon Kyoto.
The Hojos in the Rokuhara fought with courage; but at last,
seeing that prospects of relief were hopeless, they stole out
of Kyoto by night, taking with them the titular sovereign
Kogon and the two ex-Emperors, meaning to make a dash for
Kamakura, At Bamba they were either intercepted or over-
taken and here the two Tandai and over 400 of their followers
;

fell, while the three Imperial personages were captured and

reconducted to Kyoto. In the successful attack on the Roku-

hara, Akamatsu Enshin's men had borne the brunt of the
struggle.

This most unexpected development was undoubtedly a

terrible blow to the fortunes of the Hojos; but it need not
have proved immediately fatal, provided the Kwanto
stood staunchly by them. But the Kwanto itself was by this
time in open and armed revolt. In the previous chapter some
allusion was made to the elements of discontent and disaffec-
tion that had been gathering there for long. And if possible
to strain the situation still further, the maintenance of the
huge forces operating against Ohihaya and elsewhere in the
Home Provinces had made increased taxation a necessity,
and the exactions of the revenue had brought the
officers

patience of their victims to an end. Furthermore a Hojo

victory in this struggle could bring no adequate rewards to
the ordinary officers and soldiers. The Imperialists, with the
exception of certain of their faction of the Court nobles, and
a few " bonnet-lairds/' were nearly all landless men of broken
fortunes, with little beyond their heads to lose. Such " re-
wards " as would be available would surely be appropriated
by the Hojos themselves, who were already the greatest land-
holders in the Empire. On the other hand, if the Hojos were
overthrown, there would be abundance of confiscated manors
to dispose of. Even before the news of Takauji's defection
arrived this reasoning seems to have been common in the
Kwanto.
Within ten days from the date of that defection the
Kwanto was in a blaze of insurrection. On or about June
20, Nitta Yoshisada raised his flag in the Imperialist cause
544 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

on his estates in Kozuke, and within a week his few hundred

followers had swelled to a great army. Kamakura at once
put every man it could under arms ; and if some accounts are
to be believed, as many as 100,000 troops were mustered.
Portions of these were thrown northward into Musashi, and
here one great action was fought on the banks of the Tama-
gawa, and many smaller engagements elsewhere. The hope-
less feature in the case was that the Kamakura men kept
deserting to the enemy in large bodies; while at the same time
the " rebel v host was being swelled by large forces (under Yuki)
from Mutsu, and by the accession of Samurai of the Boshu
peninsula as well as of Musashi and Shimosa. By July 1 the
Kamakura what is now the
hosts had been driven back behind
Tokaido railway and during the next three or four
line;

days there was the fiercest of fighting around and in Kamakura

itself. The city fell on July 4 or 5, just a fortnight after
Nitta had raised his standard. On this occasion, Takatoki and
nearly three hundred of his kinsmen and followers committed
harakiri. But Takatoki's son Tokiyuki escaped, as did several
other of the " doomed " clan while Kamakura, which had been
;

given to the flames, presently rose from its ashes to become the
capital of the Kwanto under a new system.
Meanwhile Takauji had been in communication with the
three Kyushu Hhugo, Shoni, Otomo, and Shimadzu, and they
turned against the Tandai, Hojo Hidetoki, and easily accom-
plished what Kikuchi had attempted in vain a few months
before. About the same time the Nagato Tandai begged for
his life and he is said to. have been the only Hojo among the
;

great provincial officers who was spared. The commanders of

the huge force that had been vainly investing Kusunoki in
Chihaya for months were equally unfortunate. When news
came of the fall of the Rokuhara, they abandoned the leaguer
of Chihaya and retired to Nara, where they remained not
knowing what course to take, whether to return to Kamakura
or not. If they could have trusted their men they would have
tried to recapture the capital; but all the probabilities were
that most of the force, instead of assailing Takauji, would go
over to him without so much as striking a blow. Presently it

was learned there was no longer any Kamakura to fall back

upon ; so was no wonder that the leaders surrendered them-
it

selves as prisoners of war to Takauji's emissaries when they

 THE FALL OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU. 545

appeared in their camp. Later on fifteen of the chief officers

of this Hojo army were taken to Amida-ga-mine at the dead of
night and beheaded there.
If we confine our view to the mere surface of things the
fall of the Hojos may very well strike us as having been so por-

tentously sudden as to be almost cataclysmic. In April 1332

Daigo II. was an exile in Old, while his Ministers had either
been executed or at least stripped of their positions and
estates. The Hojo had installed an Emperor of their own in
Kyoto; and according to the will of Saga II. the title of this
Sovereign* was not only perfectly legitimate but absolutely
unimpeachable. A strong faction of Court nobles supported,
and gladly took office under him. From the Straits of
Tsugaru to Satsuma, the whole Empire seemed to be lying
peacefully and resigned in the " loof " of the Hojo hand.
Fifteen months later Kamakura was little better than a mass
of smouldering ashes, the Hojo chiefs had mostly " passed
to the Yellow Streams," while such of them as had
not become disembodied spirits were sharing the lairs of the
wild beasts in the forests and mountain fastnesses.

* Kogon (1331-1333).

JJ
 546

CHAPTER XVI11.

THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE THE OLD

CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT.

TTIOIv the first three months after his escape from his island
"*- prison Daigo II. remained in Hoki, where his Court was
presently thronged by many of the section of Court nobles
attached to his cause. Early in July he left Hoki, and
passing through Mimasaka, journeyed up along the coast of
the Inland Sea by easy stages and reached Kyoto on the
20th of the month.
Kogon Tenno was not deposed; the theory was that he
had never reigned.. But he was now accorded the same treat-
ment as Toba II. 's brother, Prince Morisada, and made Da jo-
Ten no. Thus there were again three ex-Emperors, all of the —
Senior line. They retired to the Jimyo-in, Daigo II. assigning
them the Chokodo estates and the 'other property designated
for their support by the will of Saga IT., retaining however
the provincial taxes of Harima as a civil list for himself. So
far all this did not seriously depart from the spirit of the
famous will. But the nomination of one of Daigo's own sons
as Crown Prince certainly did so. Here again it is plain that
the claims of primogeniture were of comparatively little con-
sequence, for some half-dozen elder half-brothers were passed
over in favour of the Emperor's son by his favourite consort,
the Fujiwara Lady Renshi, who had accompanied him to Old,
and who had exercised a considerable influence over him for
the past fourteen years. According to the gossip of the
Taihei-ki the Empress's ascendancy over Daigo II. had by this
time become complete; it was upon her good-will or enmity
that advancement at Court and in the official world mainly
depended. Accordingly she has been held largely responsible
for the disastrous failure of the restored government to grapple
with the problems by which was presently confronted. But
it

in this connection two remarks must be made. In the first

place, the Taihei-ki is no history; it is mostly a romance.
The publication of contemporary official and other records
 THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT. 547

enables us to test certain of its most assured assertions; and

these turn out to be so glaringly false that it becomes almost
hopeless to repose any confidence in the narrative when
unsupported by other accounts or evidence. Then in the
second place, even if there had been no Empress in the case
at all, the attitude of the Court towards the great social and
political problems of the times was such that a successful
solution of them from that quarter was not to be expected.
The chief idea that now occupied the minds of the Court
nobles was delightfully simple. It was that the day of the
Buke was completely over; and that the Kuge had come by
their own again. Things were to revert to the conditions of
the year-period of Engl, — or words of the early half
in other
of the tenth century. " Engi " That was a formula
Back to !

easy to remember and to repeat; and it provided a full solu-

tion for all the problems of the day, and a complete cure for
the accumulated social and political maladies of four hundred
years. Now what the state of Japan was under the rule of
—
Fujiwara Tadahira he of the Cuckoo fan has already been —
set forth. Then Kyoto was everything the rest of the
;

Empire was of no consequence except in as far as its resources

ministered to the needs of the luxurious world of civilian rank
and fashion in the magnificent capital. In those days most
of the great mansions of the Fujiwara nobles had their
Samurai-dokorOj or " waiting-upon
place," a humble apart-
ment for the accommodation of the military men who had the
honour of protecting the house from thieves. Great captains
were often to be found occupying these apartments, and acting
as modern police constables specially hired by wealthy people
as night-watchmen. Now the upstart descendants of these
humble private police inspectors and constables owned the
greater part of the soil of the Empire, for which they paid
no taxes to Kyoto, while the civilian authorities dared
not set foot in their manors. Not only had the Buke be-
come an imperium in imperio with a great capital of
their own, with a system of jurisprudence of their own,
with a highly efficient and far-reaching system of administra-
tion of their own, but in the highest of issues they frequently
laid down the law to Kyoto. For more than a century the
proudest Kuge had been constrained to go cap in hand to
Kamakura on the most important occasions, while even in
.548 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Kyoto itself the real masters for the last century or more had
not been the Court or the courtiers, but the two military com-
mandants in the Eokuhara. Now there had been a clean
7,

sweep of Kamakura, the Rokuhara, Shdgun, Shikkcn, Bakufu,

and all! Therefore "Back to Engil" with Kyoto once more
the sole and single centre of the universe with the Kuge once
;

again the lords of the earth, and with the Buke in their proper
places of obsequious servitors and humble family watch-dogs!
Of course this delicious programme could only be carried out
by stripping the bushi of their manors, or at all events sub-
jecting them to very heavy fiscal liabilities. The revolution
was mainly the work of military men and the
just effected ;

notion that these should have drawn sword for the express
purpose of reducing themselves to a position of indigence and
dependence for the benefit of a class they heartily despised as
effeminate incompetents was too ludicrous for words.
That Daigo II. personally cherished these childish illusions
and delusions, and fancied that the hands of the clock of Time
could be thus easily and arbitrarily thrust back a matter of
four centuries of vigorous national life, does not appear.
Apart from his remark that he intended to establish a prece-
dent for future ages, —the indications are that he did not;
and that his purpose was merely to bring Buke and Kuge alike
under direct control of the Crown on a fair and equable foot-
ing. That indeed was a serious problem, requiring time and
thought for a lasting solution. Meanwhile, now that the
Bakufu had Kyoto administration was the only one
fallen, the
in existence. As Daigo II. intended to rule as well as to

reign, no Kwampaku was appointed. Neither was any Chan-

cellor of the Empire, —
but apart from this the Dajo-kwan
was re-organised on the model of the ninth century, with
Ministers of the Left and of the Right, Naidaijin, Dainagon,
Chunagon, and Sangi, while the old Eight Boards were recalled
to life and their Chiefs entrusted with onerous duties. The
Head of the revived Board of War was the Emperor's eldest
son, the former Abbot of Hi-ei-zan, now known as Prince
Morinaga, who had raised the Kii Peninsula and Yoshino
against the Hojos and whom the priests were clamouring to
have back again as their abbot. As a glance at the Kugyd
Bunin (1333) will show, the Cabinet was almost entirely com-
posed of Court nobles; the chief and almost the only excep-
 THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT. 549

tiou being Ashikaga Takauji, who held the very subordinate

office of a Sangi. That is to say, while his opinion might be
asked for, he had no actual vote or voice in the decision of
any question.
However, behind all the open and orthodox administrative
machinery, Daigo II. had an unofficial and private cabinet-
council of his own, —the three " Fusas," and one or two others.
And behind this again stood the Empress, while several of the
secondary consorts and concubines were not entirely destitute
of influence inwhat were considered small matters. Now,
although the recorded " gossip " of the time can easily be
shown to be at fault in many particulars, it seems here to
point in the right direction in one important matter at least.
Daigo II. was perhaps not as great a slave to the pleasures and
blandishments of the harem as his grandfather, Kameyama,
the founder and ancestor of the Junior line, had been; but
the plainand regrettable fact is that he spent time and effort
in the harem which a truly patriotic sovereign would have
devoted to the interests of the nation he was supposed to
govern. He trusted far too much to his favourite consort, the
Lady Renshi, whose great aim from first to last had been to
secure the Imperial succession to a son of her own, an effort
in which she was successful on two occasions. This brought
her into collision with Prince Morinaga, who had been born
eleven years before her connection with the Emperor began in
1319. Morinaga's appointment as Abbot of Hi-ei-zan seemed
to have disposed of him as a candidate for the succession;
but he had since allowed his locks to grow again, and had
re-entered active public life. This step had been taken with-
out consulting Hi-ei-zan and the monks were making great
;

trouble over The Prince had shown himself a gallant, if

it.

somewhat unfortunate soldier; and many samurai cherished

the hope of seeing him made Shogun. These samurai were
mostly non-Kamakura men. The favourite of the latter for
the office was Ashikaga Takauji. The story is that the Prince
began to plot to have Takauji put out of the way, but without
any success. It seems that the Lady Renshi and Takauji had
quickly perceived that they might prove of great mutual assis-
tance to each other, and that in many things they were now
acting in concert.
One of the first great questions to be faced by the restored
550 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

government was the settlement of the provinces. Here the

general policy was either entirely to suppress, or to curtail as
much as possible, the powers of the Shugo and to make the
Governor supreme in everything. Here be it noted once more
that the Governors had never been appointed by the Bakufu;
from first to last they had been Imperial officers; and,
furthermore, in theory they were civil, and not military, func-
tionaries. However, at this time, for many obvious reasons,
many of the military leaders prominent in the revolution were
now invested with
•
Governorships. Ashikaga Takauji was
entrusted with the administration of Musashi, Hitachi, and
Shimosa ; his brother Tadayosl'ii with that of Totomi ; Kusu-
uoki Masashige with Settsu and Rawachi, and Nawa Naga-
ioshi with two Sanindo provinces. It is to be observed that
the provinces were not given as fiefs; on the contrary the
appointment of these Governors was a negation of the feudal
system. Some three centuries later when Hideyoshi or
Iyeyasu assigned a " province " to one of their vassals it was
a vastly different matter. The grant was for no fixed term
of four years; it was often not only for life but actually
hereditary. Then the grantee had the power of legislation, of
administering justice, or imposing what taxes he pleased,
and doing with them what he pleased; he had both proprietary
and administrative rights. In fact he was absolute master
vvilhin the bounds of his domains. The chief, and sometimes
the only, obligation under which he lay was that of furnishing
a military contingent at his own cost. In those days the gift
of a province was really a substantial reward. But a mere
provincial governorship was in itself no very weighty
recompense after all. It was merely for a term of four years;
and it conferred no proprietary rights beyond the use of the
land attached to the official residence during these four years.
It was award of governorships
certainly not the matter of the
that provoked the bitter heart-burnings and quarrels that
ensued. It was the distribution of manors that proved the
burning question of the time.
At the date Hojo family with its six
of its fall, the great
or eight septs held wide private domains in almost every
quarter of Japan. These had just been all confiscated, as had
been those of most of the Kamakura samurai who had fought
on the losing side. Not a few military men had remained in
 THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT. 551

a non-committal attitude throughout the struggle, and their

laudless neighbours who had rallied to the Imperialist cause

saw their opportunity in this. Hence the comedy of wit-

nessing the prudent stay-at-homes claiming rewards for having
refused to support the Hojos, while their needy acquaintances
were clamouring for their summary expropriation. As all
these questions were to be decided in the capital, Kyoto pre-
sently began to be thronged with a rustic army of claimants
and counter-claimants.
The tribunals to deal with all this had been originally
composed of Court officials alone; and the various attempts
that had been made to re-organise the Kyoto law-courts to-
wards the end of the thirteenth century had shown that the
Court nobles were incompetent as men The
of affairs.

Taihei-ki asserts that now months

after the lapse of several
some twenty odd rewards had been determined, and some
others after having been determined and announced had been
recalled. Although authentic contemporary documents con-
clusively prove that this assertion must be added to the mass
of glaring inaccuracies in the Taihei-ki, yet it is true that
the original commission was very inefficient and dilatory. It
gave place to a new board of four sections, each dealing with
a section of the Empire and on two of these Kusunoki and
;

Na/a found seats, while the name of yet one other military
member appears. Even so, things moved too slowly; and the
number of bureau was increased to eight, each dealing with
a circuit. Now we not only meet with many military men
among the commissioners; but besides some temple-officials
we find former Bakufu councillors occupying prominent
places! This is a very significant fact, indeed; it indicates
that the hope of carrying on a successful government of purely
Kuge personnel was beginning to wane.
Long before this, however, it had become plain that in
many parts of the country the decisions of Kyoto were not to
be passively accepted. The surviving Hojos, and their vassals
just stripped of their lands, began to form into organised
bands, and the guerilla warfare they were prosecuting
threatened to develop into something more serious. It
was true the disturbances were sporadic; but it was no
less true that at one time they were serious in localities
so far apart from each other as Mutsu, the Home Provinces,
552 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

and Kyushu. Iu the last-named, where an attempt had been

made to re-establish the old Dazaifu system of three centuries
before, they were so formidable that Takanji successfully in-
sisted that it was inexpedient to abolish the office of Shugo
there; the result being that his three fast friends Shoni,
Otomo, and Shimadzu were reinstated in their functions, the
only modification being that Higo was withdrawn from
Otomo's control and its administration entrusted to Kikuchi,
who was appointed Governor, —not Shugo.
But although so far there had as yet been no great outbreak
there, it was the Kwanto that constituted the gravest problem.
Nitta had been made Shago of Kozuke ; and, as has been said,
Takauji had been appointed Governor of Musashi, Hitachi, and
Shimosa, —combining with his governorships the office of
Shugo as well, according to some accounts. But what about
Kamakura itself ? It was certainly no part of the policy of
the Court nobles to re-establish the Shogunate there; but the
very few intelligent minds among them presently began to
perceive the futility of the " Back to Engi " shibboleth, and
was such a thing as " The Spirit of the
to recognise that there
Age," and that this was a very formidable thing indeed. By
the Huge with no armed force to rely on, it could never be
openly flouted with impunity; at best it could only be mani-
pulated deftly and adroitly. The Buke
would insist on
having a Shogun as their own head; that soon became abun-
dantly plain. The only thing to be done was to make the
Shogun as weak as it was possible to do. Divide et Impera.
Accordingly the whole of Northern Japan, which had been a
Kamakura appanage since Yoritomo's time, was now divorced
from the Kwanto and put under a civilian Kyoto
Governor of its own. The new administrator of Mutsu
was a Court noble of the mature age of sixteen
years ! Yet the strange thing is that a better choice could
not have been possibly made, for this Kitabatake Akiiye
proved himself, before he fell on the battlefield four years
lateron (1337), to be one of the prodigies of Japanese history.*

* Here it ought to be said that Akiiye's father, Kitabatake Chikafusa,

had, on the death of Prince Yonaga, with whose education he had
been entrusted, taken the tonsure and retired from public life just
before the outbreak of 1331. This undoubtedly saved the great arch-
plotter from detection. During his three or four years of retirement,
he seems to have been principally occupied with the education of
 THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT. 553

Almost immediately a great migration of Kamakura bushi

into Mutsu began, where they appear to have got very liberal
inducements to settle themselves permanently. At the same
time, about the end of 1333, or the beginning of 1334, Daigo
II.'s tenth son, Prince Narinaga, then nine years of age,
was
sent down Kwanto, not as Shogun, but as Kozuke-taishu
to the
or Imperial Governor of Kozuke, while Nitta shortly after
went up to Kyoto with 7,000 men, and was thereupon, as it
would appear (for the records are conflicting), appointed
Governor of Harima, the province whose taxes had been spe-
cially appropriated for the support of the Court. A significant
fact was that Prince Narinaga was entrusted to the charge of
Takauji's brother Tadayoshi, who was now nominated Governor
of Sagami. As the Governorship of this province and of
Musashi had always been held by the Ho jo Kegents, it seemed
as if the Shogunate was about to be re-established with Ashi-
kagas as Shikken. And shortly after the young Prince was
invested with the Shogunate, and installed in Kamakura with
a brilliant Court. But there was no intention of restoring
the Bakufu system with its complete control over the military
class. That class generally was to be brought under the direct
rule of Kyoto the re-establishment of the Shogunate was only
;

in form, and was merely a makeshift to put the Kwanto in

good humour.
In the capital, the Mushadokoro had been re-established,
and Nitta appointed its chief. This was to be the real centre
of Imperial control over the bushi. But it soon became ap-
parent that the bushi were not to be controlled by any such
machinery. By 1335 Kyoto was simply swarming with crowds
of armed men, mostly brought hither by captains and land-
owners who had come up to push their claims for " rewards "
or to defend their titles, or to profit in some way or other
in the mad scramble for manors then going on. According
to the Taihei-ki, estates had been lavishly granted to worth-
less intriguers, and by the time it came to rewarding the

meritorious officers there was not in the sixty odd provinces

of Japan as much unappropriated land left as would suffice to
" stick a carpenter's awl into." Of course this is merely a

his three distinguished sons. Lucky indeed were these boys to have
such a preceptor! They were reared, not as Court nobles, but as plain
men who would have to make an honourable living by the honest dis-
charge of practical work-a-day duties.
554 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

rhetorical way of saying that the action of the commissioners

had occasioned profound general dissatisfaction. It is not
strange then to find that armed claimants began to take the
law into their own hands, as the only means of rectifying its
deficiencies and the partiality and other shortcomings of its
administrators. Kyoto presently assumed the aspect of a
captured city in the hands of a victorious enemy and instead
;

of finding that their Golden Age had returned, the Court nobles
discovered that the sword and the mailed fist had never been
so powerful in the streets of the capital as they were now. It
was even dangerous for them to venture out-of-doors; espe-
cially after nightfall. And all this, too, after they had held
Court functions in the fashion and in the robes of the Engl
period, and had legislated as to what shape of hat the military
men were to wear!
In the provinces things were almost equally ominous. The
Jito often defied the Governors would neither give up their
;

lands, nor submit to taxation, and the special impost levied

on them and proprietors generally for the construction of a
new palace could rarely be exacted. Boundary disputes were
now and then fought out with arms almost under the very
eyes of the Imperial representatives; while possession was
coming to be regarded not as nine points of the law, but the
whole corpus juris. In the general unrest aggressions upon
the country manors of the Court nobles,which would have
been promptly repressed in Bakufu times, became not infre-
quent. The Age of the Euge indeed! And then among the
Kuge themselves the old factions began to appear, and one
great noble was executed and several banished for intriguing
to restore the Elder line to the throne. Naturally enough in
this state of things the expropriated saw their opportunity, in
seizing which they could moreover count upon the support of
many of the disappointed.Only lately, Hojo revolts had had
to be put down in Nagato and Iyo; now Shinano, whither
Takatoki's son Tokiyuki had escaped, was in a ferment. This
proved to be really a very serious matter indeed, for in the
autumn Kamakura,
of 1335 the insurgents not only captured
but chased Ashikaga Tadayoshi and the young Shogun over
Hakone and along the sea-board as far as Mikawa.*
* It was at this time that Prince Morinaga was murdered. He had
been exiled to Kamakura; and Tadayoshi caused him to be killed
before evacuating the city.
 THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT. 555

During all this time Ashikaga Takauji had remained in

Kyoto. He now requested to be sent to deal with the Hojo
revolt and to recover Kamakura. The commission was given
and promptly and efficiently executed ; but Takauji, instead
of returning to Kyoto thereupon, stayed on in Kamakura, a
circumstance which excited suspicion against him and gave
his rivals at Court an opportunity they had been eagerly look-
ing for. As a matter of fact Takauji's conduct was peculiar
in several respects. He reared a mansion for himself on the
site of what had been the Shogunal Palace; he interfered in
the affairs of Hitachi and Mutsu, which were outside the scope
of his commission, and he undoubtedly bestowed manors as
rewards upon some of his officers for their services in the
campaign; a proceeding which was a contravention of the
recently established rule that henceforth all questions of re-
compense for military merit should be decided in Kyoto alone.
But the tongue of slander was also at work a former retainer ;

of Prince Morinaga's who had gone down to Kamakura as a

member of a mission sent there being pointed to as the chief
author of the false or exaggerated reports, one of which was
that Ashikaga was to place, or had placed a Shugo of his
own in Kozuke, of which Nitta was Vice-Governor, according
to some documents, Shugo according to others. Lately the
two great Minamoto chiefs had been on bad terms; and the
inevitable open breach between them was now assured. The
steps presently taken by Nitta led to Takauji's making his
brother Tadayoshi send out circular letters to the Ashikaga
supporters to assemble for the purpose of punishing Nitta.
Many of these documents, which were scattered all over the
country, even to Kyushu, still survive.
The Court, after much discussion, at last took action early
in November when
the Emperor's second son Prince
1335,
Takanaga, then 24 years of age, was appointed " Shogun to
Subdue the East." The real commander, however, was Nitta
Yoshisada. The first battle or series of battles took place in
Mikawa, where Nitta drove Ko Moroyasu, the Kamakura com-
mander, out of the province, and, following up vigorously,
broke the " rebels " in Suruga. Thereupon the Easterners
entrenched themselves on the west slopes of the Hakone moun-
tains; and when the Imperialists endeavoured to turn this
position by seizing the Ashigara Pass, they were met by a
556 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

strong force which had just arrived from Kainakura under

Takauji himself; and just about this time Otomo Sadanori,
who was serving under Nitta with a considerable Kyushu
contingent, went over to the enemy. The result was that the
Imperialists met with a bloody and disastrous repulse; and
the whole region then rose for the Ashikaga cause.
Kamakura troops were directed
Presently huge masses of
against Kyoto. Here Nitta was joined by Kusunoki and Nawa,
while the monks of Hi-ei-zan also donned their war-harness.
On February 14 the opposing forces came into touch, and for
eleven days all round the east and south of the capital the
fighting was fierce, desperate and incessant.
Meanwhile the whole of Japan was in commotion, and in
addition to strong bodies of hostile partisans afoot in every
circuit of the Empire, two great armies were hurrying up to
Kyoto to reinforce their respective parties there. Akamatsu
Enshin of Harima, who had fought so vigorously for Daigo II.
in 1333, being a priest was not eligible for a civil appointment;
and so had not been made a Provincial Governor, and had
received but a single manor as a reward. Whether he was
discontented with this is not clear; but it is clear that he
and Takauji had been on the best of terms ever since the
latter had gone over to the Imperialists. Akamatsu had now
rallied the troops of Harima and other Sanyodo districts to
the support of his friend; and pushing up rapidly seized
Yamazaki, and repeated his former exploit of penetrating into
the capital. This settled the direction of the seething, surging
eleven days' turmoil of strife; and the Imperialists had to
abandon Kyoto perforce.
Hi-ei-zan however stood fast; and Daigo II. was sheltered
there. The first attempt to carry the mountain fortress failed
and just at this time the Loyalists were strongly reinforced.
The seventeen-year-old Covcrnor of Mutsu, Kitabatake
Akiiye, had been made Chinjufu Shogun at the beginning of
the troubles; and mustering a formidable army he had ad-
vanced upon Kamakura from the north. But learning on his
march of the rout of Hakone, he left Kamakura (now in charge
of Shiba Takatsune) alone; and hurried westward towards
the capital by forced marches. His unexpected arrival there
now served to place an entirely new complexion on the situa-
tion. Thanks mainly to this new force, and to the singularly
 THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT. 557
able dispositions of Kasunoki, the Imperialists not only raised
the siege of Hi-ei-zan, but in their turn drove the Easterners
out of Kyoto, Takauji having to make his escape by the Tamba
road, from which he soon diverged and made for Hyogo. Just
as he was rallying his beaten forces there he was furiously
assailed by Kusunoki and Nitta and had to make for Tomo in
Bingo.
It was only his previous shrewdness and foresight that
enabled Takauji to extricate himself from this disaster. During
the two years he had been Kyoto he had always
influential in
exerted himself to befriend the Shugo, and to save the office
from being suppressed where possible. The three Kyushu
Shugo, Shoni, Otomo, and Shimadzu, were exceedingly grate-
ful to him for his highly successful services on their behalf;
and we have seen Otomo's son, Sadanori, carrying over his
command to the Ashikagas in the crisis of the battle of
Hakone. All three had been ready to respond to TadayoshPs
circular summons. But the Kyoto Court had managed to give
them more than enough to do at their own doors by sum-
moning all the gentry of Kyushu to rise in support of the
throne. In Chikugo the Haradas and Akidzukis, in Higo the
Kikuchis and Asos, in Hyuga the Kimotsukis and Itos re-
sponded at once, for all these and other local Daimyo were
impatient of being interfered with and domineered over by
neighbours of their own
and rank, merely because they
class
happened to hold a Shago's commission. Here it must again
be insisted upon that a Shiigo did not at this date own the
provinces " given " to him. He usually was in his own right
a land-owner; sometimes indeed by this date a very great
land-owner with manors covering some square miles of terri-
tory. But some of his neighbours often owned broader acres.
A Shugo qua Shugo was something like the contemporary
English Sheriff, or the Lord-Lieutenant of, say, 1550 a.d., —
neither of whom " owned " the country which was the sphere
of their administrative duties.
Takauji could not any longer be regarded as a mere rebel,
for he had obtained a commission from the ex-Emperor Kogen
while in occupation of the capital. From Tomo he dispatched
Shikoku and in the west of the
his officers to raise troops in
main island in virtue of this commission, while he and his
brother hurried down to Kyushu. There things were going
558 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

none too well for their cause; the Imperialists had actually
captured Dazaifu and killed Shorn, the Rhugo. The two bro-
thers soon retrieved the situation however; in a hard-fought
and desperate battle at Tatarahama near Hakata they utterly
routed the Loyalists, with the result that the waverers in the
north-west of the island and even in Higo had to rally to their
standard.
In about a month(May 1336) the brothers were again
strong enough to essay another attempt on the capital. Even
when beaten out of it their rout had been by no means so
complete as it had seemed to be. Many of their troops surren-
dered indeed; but their adhesion proved to be of merely tem-
porary advantage to the Imperialists. By the end of June.
bands of Ashikaga partisans had overrun Kawachi and Izumi.
while a strong force of them was operating not unpromisingly
inTamba. Furthermore, the redoubtable Akamatsu threw him-
self intoShirohata keep, in Harima, and Shiba Ujiyori into
Mitsuishi citadel, in Bizen, and these places of arms were
held most desperately, tenaciously and successfully. Still they
were ultimately both hard pressed; and urgent couriers that
had managed to make their way through the beleaguering lines
warned the Ashikaga brothers that they must advance
promptly to the relief. The latter meanwhile had crossed the
straits to Ohofu in Nagato, and there completed their ar-

rangements for the great effort. More than one contemporary

record supplies evidence that they studied Yoshitsune's Yashi
ma-Dan-no-ura campaign very closely; and hence, no doubt,
the great exertions they made to equip an Inland Sea fleet.
In this effort they were eminently successful; on the night
before the Hyogo (July 3-4, 1336) the
(second) battle of
whole expanse of water between Awaji Isle and the Akashi-
—
Suma strand, even on to the present Kobe seemed to be —
ablaze, for the lights and signal-fires on 5,000 craft of all
—
kinds, war-junks, transports, dispatch-boats, and what not,
went a long way towards turning night into day. Naturally
this immense naval force did much to make the Ashikaga
brothers masters of the immediate strategic and tactical situa-
tion; at all events until they advanced inland from what is
now the city of Osaka. On the same night (July 3-4), the
centre of a huge land force encamped on the ground where
l)oi Sanehira had lain before the attack on the Taira host at
 THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT. 559

Ichi-no-tani a century and a half before, while the van

stretched far on towards Hyogo. There along the Minatogawa,
and occupying Kiyomori's " island," were bivouacked some-
thing less than 20,000 Imperialists under Nitta and Kusunoki.
Nitta was there because he knew no better; Kusunoki was
there under imperative instructions from the Court and sorely
against his will, for he knew perfectly well what was bound
to happen, if they persisted in clinging to a position which
could only prove a veritable death-trap.
After the first battle of Hyogo the Imperialist commanders
had withdrawn to Kyoto to give their men a fortnight's rest

there. Of such a rest they stood badly in need, —for instance,

many of Nitta's troops who had fought at Hakone had not
been able to doff their armour on more than three occasions
in the course of as many months. Shortly afterwards Kita-
batake Akiiye was sent back to Mutsu, first to quell disorders
there and then to advance on Kamakura, and Nitta was com-
missioned to deal with the Ashikaga partisans in the West.
Nitta is blamed for dallying in Kyoto with the Koto no Naishi,*
the most beautiful woman of her time; but a simple examina-
tion of the dates suggests that this is merely another instance
of Taiheiki embroidery. At the same time Nitta failed dis-
astrously; for the truth is that he was merely a dour, deter-
mined, hard-hitting fighter, good at the head of a charge or
a forlorn hope or even perhaps in command of a division, but
incompetent to plan and direct operations on a grand scale.
A strategist hewas emphatically not. In Shikoku parties were
evenly balanced; and a small expedition would have enabled
Nitta to decide the fate of the island easily. As it was, 500
Shikoku war-junks and other craft with 5,000 samurai on
board joined the Ashikaga brothers on their way up from
Tomo. Of the importance of obtaining and holding command
of the sea-way Nitta never dreamed. He had had to fall back
from one position to another; and, as Kusunoki insisted, the
only thing that now remained to be done was to get away from
the sea, all the more so as the Ashikaga forces on Izumi on the
one hand and Tamba on the other might meanwhile close in
on the line of retreat to the capital.

* The Koto no Naishi was the superintendent of the whole female

personnel in the service of the Court,
560 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

On July 4, great masses of Ashikaga troops disembarked

where Kobe now stands; and the Imperialists were at once
effectually hemmed in. Kusunoki, covered with wounds, com-
mitted the happy dispatch, while Nitta managed to cut his
way through the enemy and escape to Nishinomiya and thence
to Kyoto. Although many of the Imperialist officers knew
that the situation was hopeless, all fought gallantly enough;
but in spite of army as an effective force was prac-
this, the
tically annihilated; and Kyoto was uncovered. All that re-
mained to defend it were the monks of Hi-ei-zan and the levies
of Nawa and the Kuge general, Eokujo Tadaaki, for, as has
been said, young Kitabatake had departed for Mutsu with
his command.

The Ashikagas were soon in the capital, whence Daigo II.

had fled to take refuge in Hi-ei-zan. The great monastery held

out stubbornly and the siege had to be converted into a blockade.
In some of the sallies and attempts to relieve it, Nawa and

Rokujo and when the Ashikagas were on the point of

fell,

completing their investing lines, Nitta, taking with him the

Crown Prince and a younger brother, made a successful dash
for Kanzaki Castle on Tsuruga Bay, while Kitabatake Chika-
fusa escaped to Ise with the former priest, Prince Munenaga.
By November Hi-ei-zan could hold out no longer on account
of famine; and Daigo II. then proposed terms of peace.
Meanwhile, two months before, Kogon Tenno's younger
brother, then fourteen years, had been set up as a rival Em-
peror, — (Komyo Tenno), —and to this new Sovereign two of
Daigo II.'s Ministers, acting on his behalf, surrendered the
Sacred Sword and Seal on November 12, 1336. But it after-
wards turned out that these were not the genuine emblems;
they were merely duplicates fabricated for the occasion.
During the next month or two Daigo II.'s partisans were
active on his behalf in Kawachi, in spite of his professed ab-
dication. But the really formidable man was the old Kita-
batake, still no more than forty-three, however, who soon made
himself master of the three provinces of Iga, Ise, and Shima,
and presently opened up secret communication with his
master. Suddenly on January 23, 1337, Daigo II., taking with
him the real sacred emblems of Imperial authority, escaped
from Kyoto, and was welcomed by Kitabatake to Yosjjino,
 THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT. 561

where a palace was constructed and a Court organised. For

the next six-and-fifty years the unhappy country was to be
racked and riven by bitter armed strife between two rivai
Sovereigns and their respective supporters.

KK
 562

CHAPTER XIX.

THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS.

(1337-1392.)

A T the date of Daigo II.'s escape to Yoshino the Empire

,a- was in a state of comparative tranquillity. Nitta Yoshi-
sada was still holding out for the deposed sovereign in the
castle ofKanzaki on Tsuruga Bay, and Kitabatake Akiiye
was making strong headway in Mutsu. Elsewhere, however,
organised resistance to the Ashikaga cause, except in the
mountainous peninsula between the head of the Inland Sea
and the Bay of Owari, had ceased to be formidable. But Daigo
II.'s flight from Kyoto changed the aspect of affairs com-

pletely. Within a hundred days of that event civil war was

raging furiously in almost every corner of the Empire.
The Southern Court lost no time in appointing its own
local officials and in dispatching emissaries commissioned to
raise troops and punish the " rebels " in every direction. As
has been said, Daigo II. had many sons, and the services of
all these were now utilised to the full. They were individually

committed to the charge of able soldiers, and sent out as

nominal commanders to Kyushu, to Shikoku, to the Hokuriku-
do, to Totomi, to Mutsu, and elsewhere, to stimulate loyal sub-
jects to rally to their father's cause. The first event of any
consequence in this fifty-six years' strife was the fall of Kan-
zaki keep in April 1338, when one of Nitta's sons and one of
the Imperial Princes committed suicide, while the other was
taken prisoner. Nitta himself contrived to make good his
escape over the mountain passes into Central Echizen, whither
he was presently followed by Shiba Takatsune, who had re-
duced Kanzaki; and for the next fifteen months the province
was the scene of various encounters between these two leaders.
The fall of Nitta in a skirmish in September 1338 practically
decided the issue in Echizen for the time being, his brother
Wakiya Yoshisuke abandoning the contest there and retiring
to the South in the following year, after some abortive opera-
tions against Takatsune.
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 563

Meanwhile the Southern Court had sustained a more

serious loss in the person of the brilliant young Kitabatake
Akiiye, the Governor of Mutsu. By the end of 1337 he had
not only beaten down all opposition in his own province, but
was in a position to undertake operations beyond its limits.

His first exploit was the capture of Kamakura (January 1338)

and the reduction some of the surrounding provinces. His
of
stay in Kamakura was of the briefest; in the following month
he was en route for Yoshino at the head of a strong army.
The prime object of the Southern Court at this time was the
capture of Kyoto, and it had endeavoured to bring up troops
from every quarter of the Empire to effect this purpose. But
everywhere the country was so evenly divided in sentiment
that the local partisans of the South found more than ample
employment in their own districts, and the Mutsu army was
the only considerable force from the provinces that appeared.
It routed the Ashikaga commanders at Awa-no-hara in Mino,
at Yawata, and at Nara, while the appearance of Kitabatake
Akiiye's younger brother Akinobu on Otoko-yama threw Kyoto
into a panic. This latter force was dislodged, however, while
the situation was relieved by the victory of that capable leader
Ko Moronao at Abeno, in Settsu, over Kitabatake Akiiye, who
fell in the action at the age of twenty-one. Two months later
(August 1338) Daigo IT. died; and under his son and suc-
cessor Murakami II., a boy of twelve, the struggle in the Home
Provinces languished for a decade or so. It was hopeless for
the Southerners to attempt to capture Kyoto unless strongly
reinforced from the outlying circuits; and until the Ashikaga
partisans in some one or other or several of these circuits were
reduced, no reinforcements could be looked for.
In these outlying circuits it is small wonder to find that
all was turmoil and confusion. Which was the legitimate
sovereign was a question on which the Court nobles themselves
were pretty evenly divided, for we find from a glance at the
Kugyo Bunin that at no time had the Senior line with its seat
in Kyoto the least difficulty in filling its ministerial and

other important posts with high-born Fujiwaras. Such being

the case among the Court nobles themselves, it is not strange
that the military men in the provinces should have been per-
plexed by the problem. As a rule they adopted that view of
the situation which was most in accordance with their own
immediate material interests.
564 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

The accompanying map, Which is such as appears in most

Japanese historical atlases, will convey a rough general idea
of the situation. Only it is to be noted that in several circuits
the situation was constantly changing; and— what is more
important still —many extensive tracts which are coloured
North or South exclusively, were by no manner of means un-
divided in their allegiance. Take the case of the three southern
provinces of Kyushu in the years following the flight to
Yoshino. In the map, Satsuma is represented as being held
by Shimadzu for the Northern Court. But in the very district
in which Shimadzu had his headquarters, Aso, the Shugo of
the Southern Court also had his Of the thirteen cantons into
!

which the province was then divided, Shimadzu's authority was

absolute and undivided in no more than one. Aso's partisans
were supreme in as many as three; while the gentry in the
remaining nine were pretty equally distributed between the
opposing camps. Shimadzu was Shugo of Osumi also ; but
the greater part of Osumi was held by Kimotsuki (the here-
ditary foe of the Shimadzu), a partisan of the Southern Court.
In Hyuga the situation was, if possible, still more complicated.
Here the Northerners had a Shugo (Hatakeyama) and the
control of two out of five districts, one of these being held by
the Ito family. But this house of Ito was divided, and one
branch of it strongly supported the Southern Court in Miya-
zaki district.South of this, Morokata district was hotly con-
tested, notby two, but by three parties, for while Kimotsuki
opposed the Shugo, a remnant of the Hojo party made head
for itself not unsuccessfully. Later on, this Hojo chieftain,
Nagoshi, espoused the Southern cause, —as did Tokiyuki, the
surviving head of the house. But many of the Hojo faction
fought for the Northerners, even against their own neigh-
bouring kith and kin.
This state of affairs was by no means confined to the south
of the Empire; it was general. What really was going on was
a whole series of private wars, —the combatants acting pro-
fessedly in the name of one or other of the rival Emperors to
legalise their aggressions upon their neighbours, and passing
from one side to the other in a fashion utterly bewildering to
the historian. In short, these six-and-forty years might not
inaptly be characterised as the Great Age of Turncoats, for
the great houses that remained constant to the fortunes
 133 l:y 135 136 137
L 138_

tfA _*JI/^ HI
MAP
mAP SHOWING RIVALRY
BETWEEN SOUTH AND NORTH COURTS

kCJI

134 138 139 1AO 1« 1*_£ 143

133 135 136 137
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 565

of the Southern Dynasty from first to last might almost be

counted upon the fingers of one hand. In this respect, the
Pittas and their related septs, the Kitabatakes and the Kiku-
chis, have an unblemished and unimpeachable record. That
of the Kusunoki's is marred by the twelve years' defection of
Masanori (1368-1381) ; although the Wada branch of the
family remained unshaken in its allegiance at that time. On
the Northern or Ashikaga side the record is not a whit more
satisfactory. Disappointed hopes in the matter of promotion
and rewards for services rendered, jealousy of fellow-comman-
ders, and numerous causes of
quarrels with fellow-officers,
a less serious and even of a trivial nature over and over again
drove Northern partisans into the Southern camp, sometimes, —
however, for a very brief space of time! There were un-
doubtedly some men who fought stoutly and disinterestedly
on behalf of what they honestly believed the legitimate cause,
on both sides; but they were certainly in a minority. Many
military septs fought merely to extend their domains; others
wished nothing better than to be left in peaceable enjoyment
of the lands they held. But in most provinces they were har-
ried by the recruiting agents and tax-collectors of both Courts,
— and passive neutrality was out of the question. Espousing
one or other side was imperative; and should this turn out
to be the losing one, it meant the confiscation of the domains
of the sept. Accordingly, to safeguard themselves against any
such contingency many families like the Itos in Hyuga, and
the Utsunomiya in Shimotsuke, arranged that different
branches of the house should declare for opposing causes and
carry on a friendly family warfare of their own. One party
would erect a fort or a stockade in a strategic position and
provision themselves to maintain it; the other would raise a
similar structure in the immediate neighbourhood. In tTie

encounters between the two garrisons sword-wounds were ex-

ceedingly rare, although there were occasional " accidents
in the exchange of arrows. The party whose provisions first

gave out would retire. Thus when the recruiting agents ap-
peared, the opposing chiefs could urge that they were too
closely pressed at home to be able to spare any men for distant
expeditions; while in the case of an ultimate decisive triumph
of either the Southern Court or the Ashikaga cause, the con-
566 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

fiscated lands of the vanquished faction of the sept would pass

not to a stranger but to friends and relatives.
its own Shugo or
In most of the provinces each Court had
Governor, or other official and the lieges were
representative,
constantly worried by antagonistic edicts from the Southern
Court and the Northern Court, and instructions from the
Shogun, the delegate of the latter. From this two natural
results followed. In the first place, respect for central autho-
ritywent on waning, and threatened to disappear, and in the
next every sept strong enough to do so endeavoured to estab-
lish an imperium in imperio on its own behalf. Great houses,
like that of Kikuchi in Higo, now began to regulate their
affairs by a machinery similar to that which the great Kuge
families had employed in their halcyon days of prosperity.
Four or five of the leading members or vassals formed a
standing council, which decided not only, all important inter-
nal questions, such as succession to the chieftainship, and the
guardianship of the chief if a minor, but the general internal
policy of the fief Most matters that would have
as a whole.
been referred to the Bakufu in Kamakura days, were now
settled at the Daimyo's own council-board. As has been
repeatedly asserted, fiefs in Yoritomo's time were generally
small in extent now they began to assume considerably wider
;

dimensions. Weaker septs in the neighbourhood, while not

abandoning their position of direct vassalage to the Shogun,
found it advantageous to " commend " themselves to their more
powerful neighbours, so far at least as to have their external
policy dictated for them by the neighbouring great Daimyo's
council-board, at which the heads of the most influential among
them now and then found a seat. This was an important step
in the development of the feudal system in Japan. Another
was the abolition of female fiefs, and the succession of women
to real estate, and a curtailment of the inheritances not so
much of younger sons as of all sons except the one selected as
lord of the clan.
In Yoritomo's time the Shugo was not a hereditary office;

in fact, the Azuma Ka garni showsthat the Shugo were then

shifted about in most cases with greater frequency than the
Provincial Governors appointed by Kyoto were. But under
the Hojo, in some cases, the office did practically become here-
ditary in some families; notably in the case of the three
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 567

Kyushu Shugo, —Otomo, Shimadzu, and Shoni. Now at this

time few if any of the former Kamakura Shugo rallied to the
Southern standard; they nearly all espoused the Ashikaga
cause, while many of the old-established non-official military
families in their jurisdiction took the Southern side, actuated
by jealousy of the Shugo as much as by any other feeling
perhaps. Thus in their own interests it became the policy of
the Ashikagas to strengthen the hands of the Shugo as much
as they could, and under them the office did become virtually
hereditary in most cases. And not only that, but a single
Shugo was occasionally entrusted with the administration not
merely of one, but of several provinces. Now it must never for
a moment be forgotten that at this time a Shugo's position was
two-fold. In the first place he was like other chiefs in his
province, a territorial magnate with broad acres and numerous
vassals of his own. This was in his own right. But in addi-
tion to that he was the Shogun's salaried officer, paid from
taxes levied in the province. Now these Shugo in their capa-
city of territorial magnates began, like their neighbours, to
organise councils for the conduct of the affairs of the family
and for the settlement of the general external policy of the
clan while, qua great Daimyo, they forced their weaker neigh-
;

bours to commend themselves to them. It is not strange

then to find that the most powerful of the Japanese " Kings V
of whom the early missionaries speak in their letters were
descendants of Ashikaga Shugo, whose double position had
given them a great advantage over their fellow land-owners
in the struggle for territorial aggrandisement and independent
authority which accompanied the total breakdown of all
central authority — —
whether Imperial or Shogunal in the Em-
pire. Some of the great feudal houses of sixteenth-century
Japan had been founded by Provincial Governors, it is true.
But such houses were few and far betAveen, Kitabatake in —
Tse and Anenokoji in Hida being the most considerable, for
by 1542 the fortunes of the erstwhile great family of Kikuchi
in Higo had Of old the Provincial Gover-
fallen on evil days.
nor had been a civil office purely and simply; but these Kita-

batakes and Kikuchis had all been among the finest and most
determined fighting men in Japan.
As indicated in the accompanying map, the Southerners
held the provinces of Idzumi, Kawachi, Yamato, Iga, Ise, and
568 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Shima, the greater portion of Kishfi to the south, and a small

portion of Omi to the north. Of course, the position of the
frontier line fluctuated considerably from time to time; but
on several occasions at various points it was within less than
twenty miles of Kyoto. Within it were the great temples of
Nara and Kdyasan, and the great Shinto sanctuary of lse.
The province of Settsu through which ran the maritime com-
munication with Kyoto was for most of the time in the hands
of the Northerners. But it was the great cock-pit of the war;
the neighbourhood of what is now the city of Osaka being the
scene of scores of bloody encounters. Settsu afforded the best
base for operating against the Southern domains; and on the
other hand the possession of it was a factor of prime importance

in the great problem of provisioning a city of many hundred

thousand inhabitants, as Kyoto then was. On many occasions
Southern successes in the open country reduced the Northern
and drove commo-
capital to a state of temporary starvation
dities up to famine prices.
Baulked in their endeavours to seize the harbours of
Settsu and hold them permanently, the Southerners estab-
lished a new naval base of their own. This was at the
picturesque haven of Shingu. on the east coast of Kishfi,
where a little village at the head of the inlet soon
assumed the aspect of a populous and bustling mart. Here
squadrons were fitted out to maintain communication with
Shikoku and to dominate the Inland Sea, and above all to
carry troops to and from Southern Kyushu, where the Sou-
therners from the first contrived to hold their own, and
presently began to wear down opposition and to carry their
victorious arms into the centre and ultimately the north of
the island. On the east they had established themselves in
Totomi, but their hold on that province was brief. In the
Kwanto, Kamakura had been promptly recovered by the Ashi-
kaga officers; and in several parts of the Eight Provinces the
Southern cause had its local supporters. To reinforce these a
strong expedition was dispatched from Shingu harbour; but
it met with premature disaster in a typhoon, and of the

leaders (old) Kitabatake Chikufusa was the only one who

succeeded in reaching Yedo Bay. Landing there, he estab-
lished himself in the keep of Oda in Hitachi, and for the next
four or five years he gave the Ashikaga officers so much to do
 THE GREAT, SUCCESSION WARS. 569

in the Kwanto, that they could spare but few troops for ser-

vice in the West. At last things turned against Kitabatake,

who was cooped up in Seki Castle. He managed to escape from
it just before its fall in 1343, and, making his way
to the Southern Court, reassumed the general direction
of affairs, continuing to hold it down to the time of
his While in the Kwanto, he had found
death in 1354.
time compose the two works which were destined to
to
make him a very considerable political force in eighteenth
and nineteenth-century Japan. The first of these works,
the Shokugensho, or " Brief Account of the Origin of
Offices," was actually used as a text-book in Japanese schoo's
until very recent times. But it is his Jintoshotoki (" History
of the True Succession of the Divine Monarchs ") that is Kita-

batake's principal work.

Inasmuch as pamphlet was evidently intended as
this
a counterblast Ashikaga Kemmu Shikimoku, it is
to the
advisable, before dealing with it, to turn our attention
to what Takauji and his party had meanwhile been
doing. Although it was not until 1338 that Ashikaga Takauji
Shogun from the Northern
received his patent of investiture as
Court, he had been virtually acting as Shogun ever since his
recapture of Kamakura in the autumn of 1335. One aim of
his was to follow the precedents of Yoritomo in all things as
far as possible; and so it was his original intention to make
Kamakura the seat of his authority. But the political situa-
tion imperiously demanded his presence in Kyoto. Accordingly
he installed his son Yoshiakira, then eight years of age (of
course, under the guardianship of a Shitsuji Minister) as
Kwanto-Kwanryo, and re-established the old Kamakura ad-
ministrative machinery with certain necessary or advisable
modifications. He himself established the Bakufu at Muro-
machi in Kyoto, which thus became the seat of the Shogunal
power, and remained so for more than two centuries. The
Muromachi Bakufu at first was an almost exact replica of
that of the thirteenth-century Kamakura. The chief difference
arose from the fact that as Takauji was Shogun not merely
in name but in reality, there was no place for a Regent; and
so instead of a Shikken and one Shitsuji, two Shitsuji (Minis-
ters) were placed at the head of affairs in Kyoto, acting of
course under Takauji's order. The first two Sliitsuji were Ko
570 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Moronao and Uyesugi Tomosada, the latter a relative of

Takauji by marriage, Tomosada's cousin, Noriaki, being about
the same time appointed Shitsuji for Kamakura. Takauji's
brother. Tadayoshi, was made Chief of the General Staff, while
several Kamakura literati, —descendants of Oe, Nakahara,
Miyoshi, and others —were brought up to fill positions on the
various Boards, the services of some of the ablest priests of the
time being also enlisted in the work of drafting laws and
regulations and in similar duties. One of their earliest tasks
had been the compilation of the Kemmu- Shikimoku (Code of
Kemmu), which was drawn up and published not long after
the battle of the Minato-gawa and while Daigo II. was invested
in Hi-ei-zan.

However, even in the very limited sense in which the Joei-

Shikimoku might be called a Code, a Code the Kemmu Shiki-
moku emphatically is not,* for in the whole of its seventeen
articles there is scarcely a single specific legal provision in
the strict sense of the term. Economy must be universally
practised; Drinking parties and wanton frolics must be sup-
pressed ; Crimes of violence and outrage must be quelled ;

The practice of entering the private dwellings of the people

and making inquisitions into their affairs must be given up,
— such are its first four injunctions, while Articles 5 and G
merely deal with the ownership of vacant plots and the re-
building of houses and fire-proof " godowns " in the devas-
tated sections of the capital. The following paragraphs pro-
vide that (7) Men of special ability for government work
should be chosen for the office of Shugo; (8) A stop must be
put to the practice of influential nobles and women of all sorts
and Buddhist ecclesiastics making their interested recommen-
dations (to the Sovereign) ; (9) Persons holding public posts
must be liable to reprimand for negligence and idleness ;

(10) Bribery must be firmly put down (11) ;

Presents
made from all quarters to those attached to the Palace whether
of the Inside or Outside services must be sent back; and (12)
Those who are to be in personal attendance on the rulers must
be selected for that duty. Ceremonial etiquette to be the
predominant principle; Men noted for probity and adherence
to high principle to be rewarded by more than ordinary dis-

* See the excellent paper on the Kemmu Shikimoku by J. C. Hall,

Esq., in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 571

tinction;The petitions and complaints of the poor and lowly

to be heard and redress granted; The petitions of Temples
and Shrines to be dealt with on their merits; Certain fixed
days to be appointed for the rendering of decisions and the
issue of government orders, —these complete the provisions of
this so-called " Feudal Code."
All this is and harmless that the idea of the
so simple
necessity of any counterblast to such a document might well
appear to be ludicrous. But the articles as a whole had a
preamble and a conclusion, and each of them was accompanied
by a brief and pithy commentary. There the tone of thought
was mainly Chinese; and the Chinese virtue theory (to which
reference has been made in an early chapter) with its logical
consequences was" by implication admitted by the writer. Now,
any admission of the logical consequences of this Chinese
virtue theory might be disastrous to the pure native Japanese
theory of the Sovereign ruling indefeasibly by virtue of
Divine descent from the Sun-Goddess.
In view of this, passages like the following in Kitabatake's
chief work become highly significant :
" Great Yamato is a
divine country. It is only our land whose foundations were
first laid by the divine ancestor. It alone has been transmit-
ted by the Sun-Goddess to a long line of her descendants.
There is nothing of this kind in foreign countries. Therefore
it is called the divine land. ... It is only our country,
which from the time when the heaven and earth were first

unfolded has preserved the succession to the throne intact in

one single family. Even when, as sometimes naturally hap-
pened, it it was held according
descended to a lateral branch,
to just principles. This shows that the oath of the gods (to
preserve the succession) is ever renewed in a way which
distinguishes Japan from all other countries. It is the . . .

duty of every man born on the Imperial soil to yield devoted

loyalty to his Sovereign, even to the sacrifice of his own life.

Let no one suppose for a moment that there is any credit due
to him for doing so. Nevertheless in order to stimulate the
zeal of those who come after, and in loving memory of the
dead, it is the business of the ruler to grant rewards in such
cases (to the children). Those who are in an inferior posi-
tion should not enter into rivalry with them. Still more
should those who have done no specially meritorious service
572 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

abstain from inordinate ambitions. ... I have already

touched on the principles of statesmanship. They are based
on justice and mercy, in the dispensing of which firm action
is requisite. Such is the clear instruction vouchsafed to us
by Tenshodaijin (the Sun Goddess)."
Of course it is true that the prime object of Kitabatake's
pamphlet was not so much to counter the doctrine of the
Kemmii-Shikimoku as to prove the legitimacy of the Southern
line whose cause he had so devotedly espoused. But the fact
remains that the influence of the Jintoshotoki upon the prac-
tical politics of the age was insignificant. Not that there was

no reading public in those times; for among the Kuge for

some generations there had been a great revival, not of
—
productive literary activity, except perhaps in Japanese
—
" poetry," but of scholarship, while the Court of the Imperial

Shoguns in Kamakura had made learning fashionable in the

Kwanto. Great military chiefs now often kept a priest at-
tached to them, not merely as ghostly counsellor, but as tutor
and instructor in the lore of China. A list of some thirty or
forty names of captains and chieftains enjoying a considerable
reputation for scholarship could easily be compiled. But
Kitabatake's arguments were not of the kind that appealed
most strongly to them; for the chief convincing argument at
this time was, —
self-interest. Otherwise how can we explain
the astounding and bewildering frequency and seeming levity
with which sides were changed by many, if not by most, during
the course of this long and dreary civil war ? It was not till
1049 that the Jintoshotoki was printed. Then indeed it began
to exercise a great and steadily growing influence upon the
political thought of the nation. The compilers of the Dai
Nihon Shi, the great standard History of Japan, were pro-
foundly affected by it, as were also Motoori and the other
leaders in the Revival of Shinto movement in the following
century. And the book w as in the hands of many of the
r

" patriots," whose watchwords were " Reverence the Emperor

Expel the Barbarians " in the troublous times following the

appearance of Perry's squadron of " Black Ships " in Yedo
Bay.
On his return to Yoshino Kitabatake set vigorously to
work to organise an efficient administration and to prepare for
a- decisive movement on Kyoto. In this he was ably seconded
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 573

by the Court noble Shijo Takasuke, who might not so very

inaptly be characterised as the Carnot of the Southern Court.
By the middle of 1347 — (plague was then raging in Kyoto, by
the way) —the Southerners were again in a position to assume
the offensive. The commander was Masatsura, son of Kusu-
noki Masashige, who had lately assumed the chieftainship of
the clan. Down to February 1348 his record was one of
unbroken triumph; he not only threatened to master the
estuary of the Yodo River, and so cut Kyoto off from all com-
munication with the sea, but from his base at To-jo he seri-

ously menaced the capital, where his emissaries or partisans

were raising great conflagrations night after night. The
unhappy city was thus at once the victim of plague, fire, and
famine. This compelled the Ashikaga to make a great effort;
nnd a force of 60,000 men was mustered, and thrown against
the Southerners in two columns.
While one marched to relieve
the situation in Settsu, the other, under Ko Moronao, ad-
vanced upon Masatsura's base at Tojo. This latter army was
far stronger than Masatsura's; and in the great battle of
Shijo-nawate in Kawachi that gallant and able young officer

met with his first disaster. It was also his last, for he fell

while leading a desperate charge. His army was completely

routed, and many of his troops surrendered to the Norther-
ners. These now pressed forward into Yamato, burning and
plundering right and left. Yoshino with its palace was cap-
tured and fired; while many of the oldest and richest fanes
in the province went up in flames. This brought the priestly
mercenaries with their Sacred Tree and other similar para-
phernalia into the field, —and the onward swoop of the victors
received a temporary check. Then just at this point Ko Moro-
nao to the surprise of all suddenly wheeled round and returned
to Kyoto (February 1348).
The Southerners very soon rallied, and bringing up fresh
levies from Kumano promptly repelled the invasion from
Settsu, and drove back the Northerners to the neighbourhood
of what is now the city of Osaka. Here the Bakufu com-
mander, Ko Moroyasu (Moronao's brother), could do little
more than cling on to the line of the Yodo. Meanwhile the
great storm which "had long been brewing in the Ashikaga
camp was on the point of bursting. As has been said, Ko
Moronao had been made Skitsnji in Kyoto, his brother Moro-
574 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

fuyu Shitsuji in Kamakura, while another brother Moroyasu

held high military command. Ko Moronao, by far the ablest
of the trio,had undoubtedly great talents both as an adminis-
trator and as a commander; and Takauji, fully appreciating
the fact, gradually came to entrust him with difficult commis-
sions outside the sphere of his proper duties. This gave offence
to many, and especially to Moronao's fellow-officer Uyesugi
Shigeyoshi, and to Ashikaga Tadayoshi. From all accounts
it appears that Moronao's demeanour was the reverse of con-

ciliatory; although he aspired to play the part of a Hojo

Shifyken, his character was in many respects the very reverse
of that of Yasutoki or Tokiyori. In his great mansion in
Kyoto he kept almost regal state; in fact his extravagance
and his haughtiness were equally marked. Time and again
several of the Daimyo had endeavoured to bring about his
fall ; but had hitherto miscarried. Just at the
all their efforts

time he suddenly wheeled round upon Kyoto in February 1348,

there was a formidable intrigue afoot against him, for in it
both Tadayoshi and Uyesugi Shigeyoshi were involved.
Takauji had left a bastard son behind him in Kamakura as a
priest; and this son now came up to Kyoto. His father re-
fused to meet him and thereupon Tadayoshi received the youth
;

in his mansion, and ultimately adopted him. Tadafuyu, as he

was henceforth called, turned out to be a singularly able man,
and the conspirators, determined to make him a counterpoise
to Moronao, obtained a commission for him as Tandai of the
West of the Main Island, which would place a vast military
force at his disposal. Meanwhile Moronao had been able to
gather all the threads of the plot into his hand; and he was
strong enough to procure the banishment of Uyesugi to Echigo,
where he was presently assassinated, and the revocation of
Tadafuyu's commission, while Tadayoshi was compelled to
shave his head and retire from public life. All this intensified
the profound dissatisfaction of the many military chiefs hos-
tile to Moronao.
Tadafuyu promptly crossed the straits into Kyushu, where
the situation was very peculiar. The Southerners had not
indeed conquered the whole of Satsuma and Osumi, but they
had so far gained the upper hand there that they could entrust
the local gentry with the task of reducing Shimadzu, and
remove their headquarters into Higo. Here the balance of
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 575

power was held by the house of Aso. It had espoused the

Southern cause from the first; but the chieftain of one of its
two branches had, as he considered, not been adequately re-
warded for the distinguished services he had rendered; and
instead of fighting he was now negotiating the best terms he
could with both parties. If action be the real criterion of
belief, this Aso had not the slightest faith in the Kitabatake's
tbeory of the duty of sacrificing life itself for the Sovereign
without hope or expectation of reward, for in his demands
he was worse than a Dugald Dalgetty, — in short he seems to
have been a veritable son of a horse-leech. However Prince
Yasunaga, the Imperial Commander-in-Chief, had been able to
satisfy him and the Southerners were pre-
for the time being;
sently able to begin operations in Chikugo. Here in the north
of the island, Isshiki, the Ashikaga Tandai had been in com-
mand for some years; and among others he had contrived to
offend the Shugo, Shoni. Now on Tadafuyu's appearance in
Kyushu, Shoni and a great mass of the local gentry attached
themselves to him. Thereupon a deadly intestine struggle
broke out in the Ashikaga camp ; and the island was presently
contested, not by two, but by three parties. Shortly afterwards
Takauji started from Kyoto to settle things in Kyushu. Then
all of a sudden Tadayoshi disappeared from the capital, and
no one knew where he had gone, till certain intelligence ar-
was at the head of a rapidly increasing force in
rived that he
Kawachi and about to march' on Kyoto. After making futile
overtures to the Southern Court Tadayoshi braced himself for
a decisive struggle with the Ko family. Desperate fighting in
and around Kyoto ensued, as the result of which the Kos had
Harima to form a junction with Takauji, who had
to retire to
thus to abandon his southern expedition. Again Tadayoshi's
party triumphed; and peace was patched up at Hyogo, it
being arranged that the Kos should resign their offices and
enter the priesthood. On their way up to the capital they were
waylaid near Nishinomiya by a squadron of, Uyesugi Aki-
yoshi's horse, sent to avenge the murder of his father, and
Moronao and Moroyasu and some half-dozen of their kinsmen
were made away with. A little later Ko Morofuyu, the Kama-
kura Shitsuji, met his doom.
Some time before starting on his southern expedition,
Takauji had brought his eldest son, Yoshiakira, up from
57G HISTORY OF JAPAN.
Kamakura to take Tadayoshi 's place in Kyoto, and had sent
his fourth son Mochiuji (ten years of age) to Kamakura
down
as Kwanto Kwanryo, with Uyesugi Noriaki and Ko Morofuyu
as his tfhitsHJi. As Uyesugi had gone over to Tadayoshi, and
Morofuyu had been killed, Takauji's position in Kamakura
was the reverse of secure.
Although Takauji and Tadayoshi had been nominally re-
conciled, their distrust of each other was so great that Tada-
yoshi presently deemed it advisable to retire from Kyoto to
Tsuruga. His military following was very strong, and his
appearance in the neighbourhood of Kyoto caused much an-
xiety in the city. In the meantime Takauji had secretly en-
tered into communication with the Southern Court, and many
of his followers were intensely chagrined to learn that he had
actually made his peace with Murakami and arranged for
II.

the abdication of the Northern Emperor, Suko. Thereupon

several of the most influential captains followed Tadayoshi in

his flight to Kamakura.

Now for the second time Takauji found himself confronted
with the task of recovering Kamakura. It proved to be easier
than he expected, for after a great battle near Okitsu, in
which, as in the battle of Hakone, the defection of the op-
posing vanguard at the beginning of the action practically
decided the day, Takauji's march was unopposed. When he
reached Kamakura he found was no more;
that his brother
the general belief of the time was that Tadayoshi had taken
poison to save himself from falling into the hands of the victor.
On
this occasion Takauji stayed two years (1352-1353) in
the Kwanto; and during this time the alarums and excur-
sions in Northern and Eastern Japan were continuous and
incessant. What the exact causes of many of them were is
a good deal more than I can say; a good deal more perhaps
than any one will ever be able to say. But in the midst of
the weltering confusion a few facts are plain. One is that
Takauji was again assailed by his old foes the Nittas, who
actually captured and held Kamakura for a brief space in 1352;
and another is that Takauji's adherence to the Southern cause
was of very brief duration, for in a few months we again find
him using the Northern calendar. In the Kwanto alone during
—
these two years more battles were fought, some of them of
considerable magnitude —than during the thirty years between
1455 and 1485 in England
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 577

Meanwhile envoys from the Southern Court had appeared

in Kyoto and received the sacred emblems (that is, the fab-
ricated set) from Suko Tenno; and later on Kusunoki Masa-
nori and Kitabatake Akiyoshi's troops occupied Kyoto "for
about two months. Takauji's son, Yoshiakira, retired into Omi,
there to await the course of events. He soon either became
dissatisfied with the situation, or his hand was forced by his
followers whose fortunes had suffered, or seemed likely to
suffer, by his father's surrender. Strong masses of Ashikaga
partisans presently assembled round the north of the capital
and the mountain slopes became ruddy with their camp fires

at night. On the plea that the terms of the convention were

being violated they at last burst upon the city, and swept
the Southerners out of it. In the meantime all the three ex-
Emperors of the Northern line had been conveyed to Kanafu,
far within the Southern lines, and the attempts made to enable
them to effect their escape miscarried. Yoshiakira was thus
reduced to the expedient of setting up an Emperor who could
neither receive the succession from a predecessor nor be in-
vested with the sacred emblems; and for these reasons Kogon
II. (1352-1371), Suko's younger brother, was in a very doubt-
ful and exceptional position. A proposal was made that his
mother should conduct the administration as ex-Empress
— —
(Kogon II. was only fifteen) but this was rejected as some-
thing unheard of. A compromise was arrived at the young ;

Soverign's mother being entrusted with the administration

of the Chokodo domains, from which the ex-Emperors still
derived their revenues.
The fighting around and to the south of Kyoto ,on this
occasion had been fierce and desperate, and in some of the ac-
tions Yamana Shugo of Hola and Inaba, had
Tokiuji, the
especially distinguished himself. The Yamanas, it should be
explained, were Minamotos, a senior branch of the same stock
as the Ashikagas. Tokiuji now claimed as a reward that his
son should be invested with some lands in Wakasa he had
been promised by Takauji. The request was refused; and
thereupon the Yamanas in high dudgeon returned to their
provinces, entered into pourparlers with the Southern Court
and raised troops for an assault upon Kyoto. About the same
time, Tadafuyu's position in Kyuslm and the West of the
Main Island had become precarious; and soon after he made
578 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

up his mind to throw in his lot with the Southerners, by

whom made SotsuibusM, or Commander-in-
he was at once
Chief. In July 1353 the capital was captured, and Yoshiakira
carried off the Emperor (Kogon II.) first to Hi-ei-zan and then
to Mino, while all the Court nobles who had assisted at
Kogon II.'s coronation or taken office under him were degraded
and otherwise punished. However the failure of the Southern
Court to provide the Yamana troops with the promised sup-
who soon withdrew to their own
plies disgusted their leaders,

country. In the meantime the Ashikagas had been mustering

men; and they presently were strong enough to re-occupy the
capital and make preparations for carrying the war into the
enemy's territory again.Then, early in 1355, the Ashikagas
were again hunted from the capital for another two months;
and then again another series of furious engagements to the
south of the city followed upon their return. And so the
weary, weary struggle went on.
Just about this time the Southern cause sustained a serious
loss in the death of Shijo Takasuke, who fell in action in 1352,
and old Kitabatake, who died in 1354. It was mainly owing
to the personal ascendancy of the latter that the Southern
Court had been kept united and free from faction. Not long
after his decease, faction did begin to make its appearance,
and the Southern Court presently ceased to be the formidable
power it had been in his days. Since the fall of Nitta Yoshi-
sada in 1338, it was really between Kitabatake Chikafusa and
Ashikaga Takauji that the struggle had lain.
Takauji himself died some four years later on, in June
1358. His memory has been blackened and blasted by ultra-

loyalist historians, and for two centuries it has been the

target of obloquy and perfervid patriotic invective. Lately in
certain quarters a reaction has set in, and he has actually been
characterised as a one of Japam's greatest and noblest men."
I greatly regret that I cannot bring myself to participate in
any such estimate of him. That he had many fine personal
qualities is indeed perfectly true ; brave in the field of battle,

patient and tenacious in the face of disaster ;

generous, liberal,
not vindictive, and highly accomplished as accomplishments
then went. "Rut all that is far from making him a great man.
Just weigh him in the same balance with Yoritomo. When Taka-
uji began his political career he was in command of a strong
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 579

and well-equipped army which made him the virtual master

of the situation ; at his death a quarter of a century later on,
the flames of civil war were raging furiously in almost every
corner of the Empire, the fuel being in a large measure sup-
plied by vassals of his own —such as the Yamana and the
Momonoi —whom he lacked the capacity to control. And these
twenty-five years from first to last had been years of fierce

and fell internecine strife, of factions, of desertions, and in

many parts of Japan of absolutely chaotic confusion. Yori-
tomo entered upon his struggle with the Taira at the head of
a band of no more than 300 desperate men and yet in less ;

than ten years his control over the military class from Mutsu
to Satsuma was complete, absolute, and unquestioned; and
the peace and order that reigned within the " four seas " was
such as Japan rarely knew. Then the new Shogunate, that
wonderful administrative engine the Kamakura Bakufu, the
new military capital of Kamakura itself, are eloquent testi-
mony to Yoritomo's originality. On the other hand what did
Takauji originate ? Absolutely nothing, —except perhaps' a
new line of Shoguns, who, with one or two exceptions perhaps,
were remarkable for nothing so much as for lack of fibre and

gross incapacity. To the all important matter of the ad-

ministration iof law and justice, Yoritomo paid the closest
personal attention; either to this or to the working of his
administrative machinery in general Takauji paid scarcely
any personal attention at all. Much —far too much —was
entrusted to the Ko family, especially to Moronao, whose name
became synonymous with all that was haughty and all that
was arbitrary. Under Yoritomo the Kos would unquestion-
ably have been kept in their proper places and restrained from
all misuse or abuse of their undoubted abilities. Under Yori-
tomo the laws were strictly enforced; in Kyoto almost from
the very first the very excellent though commonplace provi-
sions of the Kemmu Shikimoku were merely so much dead-
letter. Take the first article of that " Code " which enjoins
the universal practise of economy for example. " Under the
designation of smart there prevails," so runs the commen-
'
' —
tary to it
—" a love of eccentricity or originality, figured
brocades and embroidered silks, of elaborately mounted
swords, and a hunting after fashions, and of everything cal-
culated to strike the eye. The age may almost be said to have
580 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

become demented. Those who are rich become more and more
filled with pride; and 1he less wealthy are ashamed of not
being able to keep up with them. Nothing could be more
injurious to the cause of good manners. This must be strictly
kept within bounds.'
1
Now, by the very man chiefly responsible
for the enforcement of this regulation, Ko Moronao, the ar-
ticle was wantonly flouted in the most open and ostentatious
manner. In the pomp and luxury of his own establishment
he w as the Cardinal Wolsey of the age. Nor was Takauji him-
r

self much better in this respect. The tone of his household

was that of the most extravagant of the greatest Court nobles
the state he maintained was almost imperial. The death of
an Ashikaga female infant sufficed to bring all public business
to a temporary stand-still. Simplicity and economy! About
their traditions the Ashikaga line of Shoguns knew nothing.
We hear of Yoritomo drawing his sword and cutting off the too
ample skirts of a certain Vice-Governor of Chikuzen who had
appeared in a costume which contravened a Kamakura sump-
tuary regulation. For Takauji or any of his line to have
administered any such an object-lesson to a vassal would have
been a glaring case of Satan reproving sin. And until Hoso-
kawa Yoriyuki's time (1368-1379) most of the injunctions of
the Kemmu
Khildmolm were regarded as being more honoured
in the breach than in the observance. Possessed of no great
measure of originality. Takauji can hardly be described as
great, whether as an organiser, an administrator, or as a
law-giver. Nor was either he or his brother Tadayoshi a great
captain in the sense that Yoshitsune was. The best achieve-
ment of the two brothers was perhaps the campaign which led
up to the battle of the Minato-gawa in 1336. But there the
opposing Commander-in-Chief, Nitta Yoshisada, was anything
but a genius in strategy; if Kusunoki Masashige had been in
his place, that campaign might have ended very differently.
Takauji may indeed have been the greatest man of his time;

but that is not saying very much, for the middle of the

fourteenth century in Japan was the golden age, not merely

of turncoats, but of mediocrities.
The troublous decade (1358-1368) of the second Ashikaga
Shogun's rule may be briefly dismissed. Yoshiakira's want
of resolution and his readiness to be ruled by the advice of the
counsellor who held his ear for the moment involved him in
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS.- 581

frequent troubles with his great vassals, several of whom re-

volted and went over to the Southerners. In 1362 one of

these, Hosokawa Kiyouji, disappointed in his expectations of
reward, drove the Shogun from the capital, and then returned
to his native province of Awa intending to reduce Shikoku on
behalf of the South. Kiyouji however was soon overpowered
by his cousin, the famous Yoriyuki. In this same year of
1362 the redoubtable Yamanas, who had meanwhile over-run
the five provinces ofMimasaka, Bitchu, Bizen, Inaba, and
Tamba, abandoned the Southern cause, and after a ten years'
defection made their peace with Yoshiakira. An evidence of
the straits in which they had placed him is to be seen in the
fact that the administration of these live provinces was now
entrusted to the elder Yamana. Certain foreign writers speak
of these provinces being given to him in fief. This is nonsense
he was merely made Shu go, as which of course he was entitled
to retain a certain proportion of the taxes as official revenue.
Then followed troubles with the Shibas and certain other
great vassals. In 1366 and 1367 Yoshiakira endeavoured to
arrange terms of accommodation between the rival Courts and
to reunite Japan under a single Sovereign, but the negotia-
tions ended in smoke.
The one satisfactory section of the Empire at this time was
the Kwanto, where Takauji's fourth son Motouji held the
office of Kwanryo. In 1358 his officers settled matters effec-
tually with that disturbing factor the Nittas, by seizing their
chief, Yoshioki, and drowning him in the Tamagawa and ;

henceforth Motouji was truly master of the eight Eastern

Provinces. His vassals then strongly urged him to march
to Kyoto and dispossess Yoshiakira of the Shogunate, who was
known to be jealous of him. But Motouji stoutly refused to do
so,and sent a strong force under his Shitsuji, Hatakeyania
Kunikiyo, to aid Yoshiakira in his campaign against Yoshino.
A series of considerable victories followed ; but Hatakeyama's
conduct brought him into collision with his brother officers,
and he abandoned the Ashikaga cause and tried to form a
party of his o^vn. On returning to the East he was attacked
and vanquished by Motouji, who thereupon recalled his former
Shitsuji, Uyesugi Noriaki, who had been in exile since the
death of Tadayoshi in 1352. At, or shortly after this time,
Kai and Izu, and, later on, Mutsu, were put under Kamakura
582 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

jurisdiction; and their peaceful and orderly condition formed

a marked contrast to the general state of the rest of the Empire.
On the whole this Motouji, who died at the early age of twenty-
eight in 1367, was perhaps the best and ablest of the Ashikagas.
Meanwhile, except in Kyushu, whither, by the way, the
remnants of the Nittas had betaken themselves in considerable
force, the fortunes of the Southern cause were decidedly on
the downward grade. Had Kitabatake Chikafusa survived ten
or twelve years longer the probabilities are that the x^shikaga
Shogunate would have fallen. But on Kitabatake's death in
1354 there was no one capable of filling his place. Nor was
this the worst of it. Where the three Northern ex-Emperors
had been conveyed far within the Southern lines in 1352, they
had been followed by a huge influx of Court nobles from
Kyoto. Now these, instead of proving an element of addi-
tional strength,had turned out to be a great source of weakness
and discord. The Emperor Murakami II. had expressed an
intention to abdicate; and immediately these worthies split
into two hostile camps each supporting the claims of a
different son of his to the succession, and expended all their
strength not in opposing the Northerners, but in internal
squabbles. The Emperor did not abdicate but the cabals went
;

on notwithstanding; and when he died in 1368 the same —

—
year as Yoshiakira the discord was really serious. This dis-
gusted many of the military men and took all the heart for
the cause out of them; and early in 1369 the chief of the
hitherto loyal Kusunoki, Masanori, abandoned it as hopeless,
and went over to the Northerners. Ckokei had become Emperor
and his brother Crown Prince; but even on the abdication of
the former and the accession of the latter as Kameyama II. in
1372, the faction in the Southern camp was by no means at
an end. It was only the natural strength of the mountain
fastness of the Kii peninsula that enabled the Southerners
to maintain a precarious existence.
But in Kyushu, by 1371, they had triumphed unquestionably,
and the Ashikaga had either been beaten to their knees or
driven from the island. However with the appointment of the
highly capable Imagawa Sadayo as Tandai things began to
change there also; and although it took him more than a
decade to re-establish the Ashikaga supremacy and to restore
order in Kyushu, he at last succeeded in doing so.
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 583

On the death of Yoshiakira, in 1368, the Ashikaga adminis-

tration had greatly gained in efficiency and vigour. This was
indirectly the result ofMotoujPs counsel, who discerning the
great abilities and sterling character of Hosokawa Yoriyuki
had advised Yoshiakira to entrust the fortunes of his ten-year-
old son, Yoshimitsu, to his charge. Of Yoriyuki it suffices to
say that he was fully the peer of the very best of the Hojos;
and that in addition he was thoroughly devoted to the very
best interests of the youthful Shogun. Yoshimitsu was most
carefully brought up; everything was done to develop his
intelligence, to build up his character, and to him for the
fit

proper discharge of the duties of the great office and illustrious

position for which he was destined. And it is greatly to Yoshi-
mitsu's credit that he never forgot the immense debt of grati-
tude he owed to the guardian of his early years. Now under
Yoriyuki, for the first time, the Kcmmu Shikimoku ceased to
be nothing more than empty phraseology, setting forth the
pious aspirations of a few belated Puritans mocked by being-
called upon to legislate for a fourteenth-century Japanese
Vanity Fair in arms. The spirit of its clauses was now
strictly, sternly, and impartially enforced. Naturally enough
this brought Yoriyuki into serious collision not only with
individuals but with classes; especially with the priests, on
some of whom his hand fell heavily. Truculent tihugo, incom-
petent officials, venal parasites, intriguing Court nobles and
high-born dames were all presently loud in the expression of
their grievances against him. At last in 1379 he set fire to
his mansion in Kyoto and retired to his own acres in Shikoku
in disgust.

Twelve years later, however, Yoriyuki's services were again

in request. A member of the Yamana family had reduced the
provinces of Kishu. and Idzumi in the Shogun's name, but
showed no inclination to surrender them to his suzerain.
Meanwhile the Yamana power had been steadily growing in
the West of the Main Island, and the family now had the
administration of no fewer than eleven of the sixty-six pro-
vinces of the Empire.The Shogun, naturally enough, felt this
to be a seriousmenace to his power; and now that Kyushu
had been thoroughly reduced and pacified, and that the
Southern Court was merely existing on sufferance, he recalled
Yoriyuki and determined to curb the Yamanas. Just at this
584 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

time the Yamana chief Mitsuyuki seized some domains be-

longing to the ex-Emperor in Idznnio, one of the provinces
lie not owned but administered. Thereupon Yoshimitsu
mobilised a force to punish him; but on January 24, 1392,
Mitsuyuki suddenly threw himself at the head of a vast force
upon Kyoto. After desperate fighting he was repulsed; and
in less than a month he was hopelessly overwhelmed and had
to submit, and retire from the headship of the family, which
was now stripped of the office of Shugo in nine provinces.
Shortly afterwards Hatakeyama Motokuni and Ouchi
Yoshihiro captured the castle of Chihaya, and, although Kusu-
noki Masakatsu made good his escape, nearly all his followers
surrendered. The situation of the Southern Court was now
becoming desperate; and when Yoshimitsu opened up nego-
tiations with it through Ouchi Yoshihiro, a definite settlement
was presently arranged. The exact particulars cannot be de-
finitely ascertained. What is certain is that a deputation of
six Southern Court nobles appeared in Kyoto (1392), and
handed over the sacred emblems to a commission of twenty-one
Northern Kuge; that the Northern Emperor, Komatsu II.,
was then acknowledged sole and undisputed Sovereign of the
Empire, and that Kameyama II. became Dajo Tenno, and
presently took up his residence at Saga near the capital. The
(Southern) ex-Emperor was guaranteed in the possession of
all his manors in Yr oshino and elsewhere, while the Southern
Kuge were also assigned estates for their support.
The chief doubtful point is whether it was stipulated that
the Imperial succession should thenceforth be regulated by the
provisions of Saga II. 's will.
The commonly-accepted view is
that it was and certain subsequent events lend
so covenanted;
support to this contention. The military men who had sup-
ported the Southern cause till the end did not make their
appearance in the capital they withdrew into various retreats
;

to await the day when an Emperor of the Junior line should

again be on the throne. If Saga II.'s will was still authorita-
tive that day should have come in 1412, when Komatsu II.
abdicated. But he was succeeded not by a Prince of the
Southern line, but by his own son Shokd (1412-1428). This
Sovereign was greatly addicted to the study and practice of
magic arts, in which it was believed that proficiency could not
be attained without the strict observance of continence, and he
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 585

died without children. This contingency should have pro-

vided a fair opening for the Junior line, Hanazono II.
but
(1428-1404) who was now raised to the throne was a grandson
of the third Northern Emperor Suko. In 1413 or 1414, Kita-
batake Mitsumasa had risen on behalf of a Prince of the
Junior branch, and now he and Kusunoki Mitsumasa made
another abortive effort in the same cause. The last and
perhaps the most sensational attempt of the partisans of the
Southern line was made in 1443. On the night of October lf>
in that year, a band of determined men under Kusunoki Jiro
and the Court noble Hino Arimitsu suddenly assailed the
Palace from two directions, all but succeeded in killing or
capturing the Emperor, and actually got possession of the
regalia. They were soon driven out, however, and in their
llight to Hi-ei-zan, where one body of them entrenched them-

selves, the Mirror and the Sword were dropped and recovered
by the pursuers. The other body made good their escape to
the wilds of Odaigahara, carrying with them the Seal; and
it was not until a year later that it found its way back to

Kyoto, when the " rebels " had been overpowered and ex-
tirpated. Naturally enough immense importance was placed
upon the possession of the sacred emblems; and the fact that
from 1338 to 1352 the Northern Emperors held only a fabri-
cated set of them, and from 1352 to 1392 no sacred emblems
at all, has caused orthodox Japanese historians to omit them
from the list of Sovereigns.
One natural result of this wasting and interminable suc-
cession war was greatly to weaken the reverence and respect
in which the Emperor and his Court had been held. KG Moro-
nao is accused of having told his followers to " take the
estates of the Emperor if they wanted estates. A living
Emperor is a mere waster of the world's substance, and a
burden upon the people. He is not a necessity, but if we
must have him a wooden effigy will do equally well." The truth
of this specific charge I have so far Been unable to verify ; but
what is certain is that the behaviour of some of the Bushi
towards the ex-Emperor in the streets of Kyoto was so out-
rageously insolent that Tadayoshi had the offenders decapitated
(1342), and that military men did endeavour to seize the
Imperial estates
is plain from the incident that gave rise to the
war between the Shogun and the Yamana chieftain in 1392.
586 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Under the Kamakura regime the Imperial law courts had

been by no manner of means superseded throughout the
length and breadth of the Empire. The territorial ex-
tent and the territorial limitations of the Bakufu
jurisdiction have already been fully, and it is to be
hoped clearly, dealt with. Tu Kyoto especially nearly
all ecclesiastical disputes about manors and what not,
and all civilian cases had been decided not by Kamakura but
by Imperial tribunals. Under the Ashikagas this ceased to
be so; the tendency was to draw all legal business into the
Muromachi Courts. In the words of a contemporary
chronicler :
" Ministers of State, who from generation to

generation had received the nation's homage, had to bow their

heads to petty officials appointed by the Shogun, who was now
the depositary of power. The Five Great Families began to
curry favour with these low-born officials. They studied the
provincial dialects and gestures because their own language
and fashions were ridiculed by the Samurai whom they met
in the streets. They even copied the costumes of the rustic
warriors. But it was impossible for them to hide their old
selves completely. They lost their traditional customs, and
did not gain those of the provinces, so that, in the end, they
were like men who had wandered from their way in town and
country alike they were neither Samurai nor Court Nobles."
:

The loss of their traditional customs by the Kuge, however,

was of much less consequence than the loss of their patri-
monial acres. As has been stated over and over again, their
revenues came from manors in the provinces, which were
exempt from the control of the Bakufu or the attention of its
taxation officials. But the stress of maintaining his armies
in the field had constrained Takauji to procure an Imperial

rescript authorising his officers to collect half the annual taxes

of all civilian and ecclesiastical estates, the whole of which
had hitherto been paid to the proprietors. Nor was this the
worst of it. Military men began to encroach on the bounda-
ries of such estates; and not unfrequently even to evict the
bailiffs and to seize the manors of the civilians in their en-

tirety. Naturally when the partisans of one or other of the

rival Courts triumphed in their localities they promptly con-
fiscated all the lands belonging to those on the losing side
there. Then from 1347 onwards Kyoto was frequently in a
 THE GREAT SUCCESSION WARS. 587

virtual state of blockade; and as the Kuge could then get no

supplies from their properties in the provinces, they were often
on the brink of starvation. This drove great numbers of them
manors in the vain hope of being
to betake themselves to their
able to save something from the wreck with which their for-
tunes were threatened, and Kyoto for the time being became
a solitude, we are told.
If the Muromachi Bakufu gained at the expense of the
Imperial law courts in the capital, it rapidly got shorn of its

influence in the provinces. Formerly all succession disputes

in, and boundary disputes between, military families in the
country had been settled by the Kamakura tribunals. These
were now, in default of being composed by the clan councillors,
generally decided by an appeal to the sword. Sometimes for
months at a time the Muromachi law courts were closed on
account of the war, and to carry local cases there would
often have been a sheer bootless waste of time and money.
And besides these tribunals had often an unsavoury reputa-
tion for bribery. The hold of Takauji over his great vassals
was comparatively loose; that of Yoshiakira notoriously so.
Their support had to be bought by gifts of manors, and with
investiture as Shugo sometimes over two or three or more
provinces. To scan their administration too closely would in
many cases simply drive them over into the opposing camp.
Hence the net result was that the Imperial Court lost all con-
trol not only over the provinces but over the capital itself;
that the Shoguns usurped the last shred of central authority
possessed by the Emperors ; while the Muromachi Bakufu was
impotent to control the military class in the various circuits
of the Empire as the Kamakura Boards had done. The pro-
cess of decentralisation had undoubtedly set in strongly.
And what, it may be asked in conclusion, was the general
effect of this Japanese analogue of the Wars of the Roses upon
the fortunes of the common people ? In England the struggle
between York and Lancaster fell but lightly on the farmers,
the labourers, and the ' artisans, who seem to have generally
gone on their way prosperously, while the nobles and gentry
with their mercenary troops Avere massacring each other. In
fourteenth-century Japan things were very different; then
perhaps the lot of the peaceful toilers and fillers of the soil
was quite as miserable as that of the French peasant during
588 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the contemporary Hundred Years' War. In many provinces

each Court had its partisans, its Shugo, its taxation and other
officials, and the hapless peasant was often so harried by re-
quisitions first by one side and then by the other that he
was reduced not to the verge of, but to actual, starvation. Then
his house was frequently burned over his head, and his crops
either trampled down and destroyed or cut down and carried
off. The result was that the able-bodied absconded and took
to brigandage and piracy. Once possessed of arms it was not
difficult to find service with some chieftain in need of fighting-

men. We actually find the Southern Court utilising the ser-

bands in operations against some of the enemy's
vices of pirate
maritime fortresses on the Higo sea-board. Then on several
occasions we read of promising campaigns having to be aban-
doned on account of the hopeless break-down of the commis-
sariat. In sheer defence, the great houses ultimately found
themselves compelled to accord their peasants and serfs better
treatment; and thus perhaps the position of the labourer was
better in 1392 than it had been half-a-century before.
Seemingly the only industry that flourished in the Empire
in theseyears was that of the armourer and the sword-smith,
swords in fact constituting the chief in the limited list of
items of export in the renewed trade with China.
 589

CHAPTER XX.
ASHTKAGA FEUDALISM.
A T the death of Hosokawa Yoriyuki shortly after the over-
-*-*-
throw of the Yamanas in 1392, Yoshimitsu found himself
in the possession of power and authority such as no Ashikaga
Shogun had ever wielded before. The long succession war was
now at an end, and a single Emperor once more reigned in
Japan. Inasmuch as this Sovereign owed his position to
Yoshjmitsu, and inasmuch as all the Court nobles, especially
—
those who had betaken themselves to Yoshino were more or
less dependent upon his bounty, the Shogun was now all-

powerful at Court. Furthermore his hold over his great vas-

sals had become firm and strict, for any revolt against
him was now a rebellion which could not be legalised by the
simple expedient of taking service with a rival Emperor.
Moreover the Muromachi Bakufu machine suddenly brought
to a high state of efficiency, presently succeeded in making
itself respected in most parts of the Empire. Kamakura
under a Kwanryo of Ashikaga stock was responsible for
the administration of Kai and Izu in addition to the Eight
Provinces of the Kwanto. One Tandai was at the head of
affairs in Kyushu, while another had charge of Oshu, which
was again withdrawn from the jurisdiction of Kamakura.
In the previous chapter the constitution of the central
Muromachi administration has been already outlined. It only
remains to say that in 1367 Shiba Yoshimasa, who had been
was made Kwanryo, and that thenceforth
Shitsuji since 1362,
the Shogun's first Ministerwas known by that title. This, in
most respects, was the Shikken of Kamakura under a new
name; only the office, of Kwanryo was not hereditary in a
single family as that of the Shikken had been in the house of
the Hojo. After Shibas, Hosokawas held the post; and in

1398 a member of the house of Hatakeyama occupied it for

the first time. Ultimately a tradition established itself that
the Kwanryo might come from any of these three houses, and
that he must come from one of them,
590 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

This appointment of Hatakeyama to the post gave rise to

serious troubles in the following year. He and Ouchi Yoshihiro
were on notoriously bad terms, and Ouchi was by no means
inclined to bend to his will or to take orders , from
him. The Ouchi family was descended from the Korean
Prince, Rinsei, who Japan in 611 and in 1180 its
settled in ;

chieftain, then settled in Suwo, was admitted into the military

class. In the early half of the great succession war the Ouchis

had fought on the Southern side; but in 13C>4 the then head
of the clan passed over to the Ashikagas, and was rewarded
with the office of Shugo in Nagato and Iwami, where the
Southern partisans were still strong. His son, Yfoshihiro, had
done good service Kyushu against the Kikuchis, and in the
in
r
overthrow of the Y amanas he had played a prominent part in
1892, while in the same year he had shown great diplomatic
tact and skill in successfully arranging the terms of accom-
modation between the rival Courts which brought the ex-
hausting civil war to a close. As the reward of these dis-
tinguished services he was ultimately invested with the ad-
ministration of the six provinces of Nagato, Suwo, Aid, Buzen,
Kii, and Idzumi, and was in a fair way to become as powerful
r
as the l amanas had been. Accordingly he was in no mood to
allow himself to be overshadowed by the new Kwanryo, Hata-
keyama, his personal foe. Besides he conceived he had other
grievances against Y'oshimitsu himself; and his first deter-

mination to effect the removal of the Minister presently deve-

loped into a design to substitute Mitsukane, the third Ashikaga
Kwanryo of Kamakura, for Yfoshimitsu. The latter was too
prompt, however; before Kwanto troops could arrive Ouchi
was invested in Sakai by Hatakeyama Motokuni and Shiba
r
Y oshishige, and the rebellion ended with his fall in battle there

(1399). Although there were some troubles in Kyushu, in

Shinano, in the Kwanto (where the Oyama clan was extir-
pated), and in Mutsu, (where the Dates had to be dealt with,)
r
this revolt of Ouchi's was the only serious commotion Y oshi-
mitsu had to face in his later years.
Under his four immediate successors, the peace of the
central portion of the Empire remained comparatively undis-

turbed, for although all four, except perhaps Yoshinori (1428-

1441), were anything but strong and able rulers, the Muro-
machi Bakufu machine continued to run well and smoothly
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 591

on the whole. At the same time, such halcyon days of peace

as the Empire had enjoyed between 1221 and 1274 under the
firm but beneficent rule of the Hojo's were no longer known.*
Even in the Home Provinces and in Central Japan there were

* At this point it may be convenient to append the following

genealogical charts: —
/Tadafuyu

YOSHIAKIRA— r YOSHIMOCHT — YoSHIKAZU

YOSHIMITSD < YOSHIKATSU
I Y0SHn<0RI— YOSHIMASA— YOSHIHISA
TAKArji /
Yoshimi— Yoshitake— Yoshifuyu
YOSHIHIDE
Ma ? atomo{ Chacha
1
YOSOIZUMI — r YOSHITERU
Yoshiharu \ Shnkei
V Yo HIAKI
yMotonji (Kamakura Branch)
Birth. Nomination. Abdication. Death.

1. Takauji 1305 1338 1358

2. Ycshiakira 1330 1358 1367 1368
3. Yoshimitsu 1358 1367 1395 1408
4. Yoshimochi 1386 1395 1423 1428
5. Yoshikazu 1407 1423 1425
6. Yoshinori 1394 1428 1441
7. Yoshikatsu 1433 1441 1443
8. Yoshimasa 1435 1443 1474 1490
9. Yoshihisa 1465 1474 1489
10. Yoshitane (1) 1465 1490 1493
1 1. Yoshizumi 1478 1493 1508 1511
Yoshitane (2) 1508 1521 1522
12. YJO'Shiharu 1510 1521 1545 1550
13. Yoshitieru 1535 1545 1565
14. Yoshihide 1565 1568 1568
15. Yoshiaki 1537 1568 1573 1597

It, will be observed that no fewer than eleven of these Ashikaga

Shoguns were minors at the date of their nomination to the office. On
the death of his son (5) Yoshikazu in 1423, (4) Yoshimochi
reassumed the reins of administration and held them down to his
death in 1428. >
'
i j

Kamakura Branch. Birth. Death.

1. Motouji 1340 1367

2. Ujimitsu 1357 1398
3. Mitsukane 1376 1409
4. Mochiuji 1398 1439
a. Shigeuji 1434 1497
b. Masauji 1531
c. Takamoto
d. Haruuji 1560
e. Ycshiuji

The descent here is from father to son in every case. The first four
hr.d their seat in Kamakura and ruled the whole of the Kwanto,
together with Kai and Izu. The others residing at Koga in Shimosa
592 TTTSTORY OP JAPAN.

sporadic risings of the partisans of the Southern line. More

than once the Kwanto was the scene of sanguinary strife, while
Kyushu for one reason or another was generally in a state of
turmoil and confusion. And meanwhile the Ashikagas in
Kyoto, in spite of all their seeming prosperity, were surely
paving the way for the undoing of their house.
The Shogun Yoshimitsu is a baffling character
third
to read. It was undoubtedly to Hosokawa Yoriyuki that

he mainly owed his success, for, as has been said, it was

Yoriyuki who was responsible for the efficient organisation
or re-organisation of the administrative machinery as well as
for the training and education of the young Shogun. How-
ever, on reaching manhood, while retaining a sincere affection
and respect for Yoriyuki, Yoshimitsu broke with the traditions
of Yoriyuki in several essential respects. From the day that
Yoriyuki fired his Kyoto mansion, and retired to his estates,
frugality and simplicity ceased to be the watchwords of the
Ashikaga administration, and that regime of unbridled and
wasteful extravagance set in which was soon destined to make
the Ashikaga peace a greater scourge to the people at large
than the long succession war had been.
The first article of the Kemmu Shikimolm had been directed
against Basara, or the luxuries of fashion the comment
;

"
winding up with the assertion that this must be strictly kept
within bounds." Under Yoshimitsu this " Basara " was prac-
tically elevated to the position of a divinity, and easily became
the best and most devoutly worshipped of all the eight million
gods of the land. The Shogun was continually making pro-
gresses to various parts of the Empire, once to worship at
Itsukushima, once to view Fuji-san, and frequently to fanes
and shrines within a few days' journey of the capital. On
these occasions the magnificence of his retinue reminds the
P-uropean student of the accounts of the Field of the Cloth of
Gold he read in his schoolboy days, just as the description of

had a more or less precarious hold over the provinces of Shimotsuke,

Shimosa, Kadzusa, and Awa only.
Down to 1439 the Ashikaga Lord of Kamakura continued to bear
the tit'e of Kwanto Kwanryo, while his first Minister, usually the head
of the Uyesugi house, was known as the Shitsuji. In 1439, on the
expulsion of the Ashikagas from Kamakura to Koga, their chief be-
came known as Gosho or Kub5, the title of Kwanryo being then either
bestowed upon or assumed by the Uyesugi Shitsuji, who remained in
possession of Kamakura.
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 593

Yoshimitsu's Kinkalcuji (Golden Pavilion) recalls Nero's

famous Golden House. Besides the Kinkakuji, which cost a
fabulous sum, the Shogun erected or repaired many temples,
and was as faithfully imitated in his building enterprises as
in his other extravagances by his great vassals and wealthy
subjects; and indeed by some who were not wealthy. And for
the next half-century this mad craze continued. A somewhat
later writer gives the following account of the capital in the
first half of the fifteenth century:
" The finest edifices were of course the Imperial Palaces.
Their roofs seemed to pierce the sky and their balconies to
touch the clouds. A lofty hall revealed itself at every fifth

step and another at every tenth. In the park, weeping willows,

plum-trees, peach-trees and pines were cleverly planted so as
to enhance the charm of the artificial hills. Rocks shaped like

whales, sleeping tigers, dragons or phoenixes, were placed

around the lake where mandarin ducks looked at their own
images in the clear water. Beautiful women wearing per-
fumed garments of exquisite colours played heavenly music.
As for the '
Flower Palace ' of the Shogun, it cost six hundred
thousand pieces of gold (about a million pounds sterling). The
tiles of its roof were like jewels or precious metals. It defies
description. In the Takakura Palace resided the mother of the
Shogun, and his wife. A single door cost as much as twenty
thousand pieces of gold (£32,000). In the eastern part of the
city stood the Karasu-maru Palace built by Yoshimasa during
his youth. It was scarcely less magnificent. Then there was
the Fujiwara Palace of Sanjo, where the mother of the late
Shogun was born. All the resources of human intellect had
been employed to adorn it. At Hino and Hirohashi were man-
sions out of which the mother of the present Shogun came.
They were full of jewels and precious objects. (The writer
then enumerates the palaces of twenty-seven noble families.)
Even men that made medicine and fortune-telling their pro-
fession and petty officials like secretaries had stately resi-
dences. There were some 200 of such buildings, constructed
entirely of white pineand having four-post gates (i.e. gates with
flank entrances for persons of inferior rank). Then there were
a hundred provincial nobles, great and small, each of whom

MM
594 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

had a stately residence, so that there were altogether from

6,000 to 7,000 houses of a fine type in the capital."*
In contradistinction to Yoritomo, who cared little for high
Court rank or office himself, and who left instructions that his
descendants should be very chary of accepting such until their
career was obviously nearing its end, Yoshimitsu had a most
and rank and honours. Although
insatiate appetite for titles
the Ashikaga was a comparatively junior branch of the Mina-
motos he constituted himself or got himself constituted Uji-
Choja, or Head of the great warlike clan at large, while about
the same date he declared the Presidency of the two Colleges
of Junwa, and Sogaku, at that time held by Kuga, who was
descended from the Emperor Kwammu, to be hereditary in
the line of the Shoguns. And henceforth no one of non-Mina-
moto stock was to be eligible for the office of Shogun.
All this, of course, might in itself be allowed to pass with-
out comment. But Yoshimitsu sought and obtained the First
Degree of Court rank, had himself declared equal with the
Three Palaces, and invested with the Chancellorship of the
—
Empire, and much more of a similar nature. Since Taira
Kiyomori's time, no military man had held the Chancellorship
and for that reason perhaps Yoshimitsu has often been com-
pared to Kiyomori. But in truth the methods of the two men
were radically different in most respects. Yoshimitsu sought
no matrimonial connections wifh the Imperial House, and he
had nothing of Kiyomori's swaggering truculence. In many
—
points he recalls Fujiwara Mfchinaga, although Michinaga
owed his influence mainly to his position of " maternal rela-
tive." Yoshimitsu's attitude towards the Sovereign was
courteous and friendly; so friendly indeed that their two
households seemed to be one and the same. As Shitsuji, or

High Steward in the establishment of the ex-Emperor who pro-

fessedly conducted the administration, the Shogun was supreme
even in the ordering of the internal and domestic affairs of the
Court, which by the way was amply provided with means to

support its dignity.

Towards his great vassals also Yoshimitsu was exceedingly

affable, often attending feasts and functions in their mansions,
and returning their hospitality on a lavish scale. So success-
fulwas this course of conduct in preserving the peace of the

* Quoted by Captain Brinkley in his Japan, Vol. II., pp. 55-56.

 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 595

Empire, that one cannot help the suspicion that it was adopted
as much from well-pondered policy as from natural inclination.
The age was essentially a luxury-loving one; devoted to gaiety,
to ostentatious display, to extravagance and magnificence.
Hosokawa Yoriyuki's severe Puritanism had brought him into
serious conflict with many influential interests, which Yoshi-
mitsu afterwards exerted himself to conciliate. In short after
the death of Yoriyuki in 1392, Yoshimitsu's policy in many
respects was a forerunner of that of Louis XIV. of France.
By drawing all the wealth and men of mark in the Empire to
Kyoto, and inveigling the great Barons into a profuse and
lavish way sapped at once their
of living there, he insidiously
moral and their material resources, and so placed the
fibre

provinces more and more at the mercy of the capital, and of

the central administration. In the Hyojoshu or Great Coun-
cil, sixteen of the twenty-four seats were occupied by great

feudal chiefs, each of whom administered one or more pro-

vinces, —generally by means of a deputy or deputies. That
concord among these powerful and by nature often turbulent
chieftains was on the whole so well maintained speaks elo-
quently on behalf of Yoshimitsu's ability and social tact.
The priesthood was still a mighty power in the land; and
Yoshimitsu made great and successful exertions to earn the
good-will of the monks. The older great monasteries, such as
Hi-ei-zan, Kofukuji, and Koyasan, had indeed decayed in wealth
and influence; and the Zenshu was now on the whole the most
flourishing sect. In Kamakura their five great fanes were
known as the Go-zan (Five Temples) and later on five of
;

their chief seats in the metropolis or its vicinity were placed

on a similar status, the only difference being that these five
were made subordinate to a sixth, the Nanzenji. Yoshimitsu
conferred special favours upon these, and furthermore directed
that each province should have its own great Zen monastery.
The Zen Abbot, Soseki, as confidential counsellor to Takauji
and Yoshiakira had been a great political power in his time,
and Manzai now occupied a similar position, while yet other
Zen ecclesiastics were later on exceedingly influential as
kuromalai. Their usual work was to draft the public and offi-
cial documents of the time; but in addition to this it is un-

questionable that the opinions they expressed were of great

weight in deciding certain administrative questions of high
importance.
59 G HISTORY OF JAPAN.

As has been recorded, Takauji had appropriated half the

taxes of all non-military estates for the support of his troops,
and this regulation still held good in the ease of all manors
owned by civilians. But those held by temples and shrines
were now relieved from that burden, while many religious
houses received additional gifts of valuable landed property.
Many monasteries were also repaired by a levy of the tax
known as Dansen, which was imposed to meet special exigen-
most miscellaneous character, while certain of them
cies of the

were endowed with the proceeds of custom-duties and transit-

dues levied at barriers which were now erected all over the
country. For instance, *the Kofukuji Nara henceforth had
of
a right to the customs of the port of Hydgo. The priests were
not slow to erect barriers of their own on many roads and
levy taxes on all traffic there; but this practice, as well as
their possession of weapons of war, was forbidden. On the
whole Yoshimitsu remained on very friendly terms with the
religieux, who were flattered by the high consideration and
reverence he exhibited towards them, and by his devotion to
the study of the Sutras. In 1395, he nominally retired from
active life and entered the priesthood ; but as a matter of fact
he continued to direct the administration down to his death
in 1408.

Under Yoshimitsu the foreign relations and policy of Japan

again became matters of importance. He was exceedingly
anxious to establish commercial relations with China, for the
profits from the Chinese trade were enormous and Yoshi-
mitsu's extravagance made a fresh source of revenue a vital
necessity to him. Besides, he was greatly swayed by his Zen
counsellors and as; the prestige of the Zen priests was greatly
owing to the traditional prosecution of their studies in China,
they were naturally eager to promote intercourse between
Japan and the Middle Kingdom. In Takauji's time the
management of the Chinese trade had been almost entirely
entrusted to them and now that the gateway of Kyushu was
;

again in Ashikaga hands they strongly urged a resumption of

commercial intercourse with the Middle Kingdom. The chief
obstacle, they knew, lay in the inveterate persistence of the
Chinese Sovereigns in affecting to treat all neighbouring States
as vassal kingdoms. But just as Henry IV. deemed the pos-
session of Paris " well worth a mass/' Yoshimitsu sadly in
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 597

need of money considered that the immense profits of a lucra-

tive foreign trade were no inadequate compensation for
humouring Chinese vanity for the time Japanese
being.
pirates had been and were, worrying the whole Korean and
Chinese sea-board, and when Chinese envoys appeared in order
to remonstrate, the Shogun at once issued orders to the
Kyushu Shugo to deal drastically with all the sea-rovers
they could lay hands on. The efforts of these officers by no
means put an end to the evil, but they served to show that the
Japanese Government was sincere in its professions; and
Yoshimitsu was presently furnished with permits for the dis-
patch of a certain number of merchant vessels yearly. In the
diplomatic intercourse which followed Yoshimitsu is un-
doubtedly addressed as " King of Japan " by the Ming
Emperor, and in his repty the Shogun not only makes use of
the Chinese calendar, but he also speaks of himself as a vassal.
Furthermore he proceeded to meet Chinese envoys at Hyogo;
and escorting them to his Kinkakuji Palace, welcomed them
there in a manner which led them to believe that they were
dealing with a tributary to their master. These incidents
have excited the hot indignation of successive generations of
Japanese patriots.
The old State of Koryu came to an end in 1392, and the
ancestor of the present line of Korean Sovereigns ascended
the throne of what was henceforth known as the Kingdom of
Chosen. Before the year was out envoys arrived in Kyoto
and Yoshimitsu at once embraced the opportunity of entering
into friendly diplomatic and commercial relations with the
new Peninsular dynasty.
Yoshimochi, Yoshimitsu's son and successor (1408-1428),
deviated from his father's policy in two particulars. His re-

lations with the Imperial Household were less intimate; in

fact he treated it with a neglect that amounted to something
like disrespect; and he showed no eagerness to maintain the
intercourse with China. He was fortunate in his Zenshu
counsellors; especially so in the person of Mansai; and his
social relations with his great vassals in the Hyojoshu assured
him of their support. As a matter of fact he troubled himself
very little about administrative details personally; his life

appears to have been spent in an interminable round of

feasting and banqueting with some of the Daiinyo and the
598 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Court nobles. His repeated failure to appear at Court func-

tions was often owing to the circumstance that at the time he
was sleeping off the effects of the debauch of the previous day.
In modern times the Japanese are certainly a temperate
people; but at this date the drunkenness that prevailed was
worse than a scandal. Falstaff would have been thoroughly
in his element in contemporary Kyoto. In 1423 Yoshimochi
entered the priesthood, and resigned office in favour of his son
Yoshikazu, then sixteen years old. But in two years this
young hopeful literally drank himself to death! As Yoshikazu
had been Yoshimochi's only son, a grave succession question
arose on the death of the latter in 1428. All his six brothers
except Yoshitsugu, whom he had caused to be killed in 1418,
had taken the tonsure and so the way
; to the Kyoto Shogunate
appeared to be open for the Ashikaga Lord of Kamakura, the
ambitious third Kwanto-Kwanryo, Mochiuji. But one of
Yoshimochi's priestly brothers was selected as his successor.
Yoshinori, as this sixth Ashikaga Shogun was thenceforth
called, was then and during his rule
thirty-four years of age;
(from 1428 to 1441) he showed a considerable measure of
vigour and determination. In the matter of intercourse with
China he returned to the traditions of his father Yoshimitsu.
As usual the Chinese were loud in their complaints about the
ravages of Japanese pirates, whose numbers and audacity had
notoriously increased since the death of Yoshimitsu in 1408.
This was, no doubt, partly the result of recent developments
in Kyushu. There had been a serious succession dispute in
the Shimadzu family in Satsuma, a border warfare between
Shimadzu and the Itos in Hyuga, a long and bloody contest
between the two powerful houses of Aso and Kikuchi in Higo,
and a triangular duel for the possession of the north of the
island between Shoni, Otomo, and Ouchi, which latter house
was now rapidly recovering from the disasters that had over-
taken it in 1399. Shoni had been driven from his domains,
and compelled to take refuge in Tsushima, while at one time
the Bakufu Tandai had also been forced to abandon his office
and retire to Kyoto. One outcome of all this was that many
Kyushu Samurai were stripped of all their property and re-
duced to beggary; and these men of broken fortunes generally
betook themselves to sea-roving. In many Japanese historical
manuals we meet with mention of the reappearance of a
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 599

Mongol fleet at Tsushima, and a Japanese victory there in

which 2,700 heads were taken (1420). A glance at Korean
records suffices lo show that the Mongols had nothing to do
with the affair; it was a Korean punitive expedition fitted out
to make reprisals for a great piratical raid in the previous
spring that then came into collision with the Japanese.
However the matter went no further and from about 1436 So,
;

the Daimyo of Tsushima, was allowed to send 50 merchant

vessels every year with cargoes of Japanese goods to be ex-
changed for Chinese and Korean produce, while he also re-
ceived a permit for the establishment of a Japanese settlement
of not more than sixty houses at each of the ports of Fusan,
Che-pho, and Yom-pho.
During the first four decades of the fifteenth century the
Kwanto was much less disturbed than Kyushu, but still it was
not altogether without its commotions. There the great house
was that of Uyesugi, which was divided into the three branches
of Inukake, Yamanouchi, and (later on) Ogigayatsu, so named
from their respective seats in the neighbourhood of Kamakura.
A Uyesugi chieftain was also Shugo of Echigo, and so was
under the jurisdiction of the Kyoto Bakufu, in the Great
Council of which he occupied a seat. About 1415 Uyesugi
Ujinori of the Inukake branch was Ashikaga Mochiuji's
Shitsuji; but for some obscure reasons he was stripped of his
office in 1416. He thereupon determined to replace Mochiuji
by his brother Mochinaka. When Ujinori seized Kamakura
the young Kwanryo fled first to Izu, and then to
Suruga. Hence he was escorted to Kyoto by Imagawa, the
&hugo of the province; and the Kyoto Shogun Yoshimochi
thereupon ordered the Kwanto Daimyo to crush Ujinori and
restore the fugitive Kwanryo. Meanwhile another Uyesugi,
Norimoto of the Yamanouchi branch, had marched upon Ka-
makura at the head of Echigo levies; and as Ujinori had
been abandoned by most of his partisans, this Echigo army
had an easy triumph. Mochinaka, Ujinori and forty of their
followers then committed harakiri, while in Kyoto Yoshi-
mochi's own brother Yoshitsugu, who was found to be impli-
cated in the affair, was put to death in 1418.
Uyesugi Norimoto was succeeded in the office of Shitsuji
by his son, the famous Norizane, in 1419. In 1428 this Nori-
zane did not encourage his master Mochiuji in his preten-
600 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

sions to the Kyoto Shogunate; and accordingly he became an

object of dislike and hatred to the latter, who several times
endeavoured to compass the death of his all-powerful Minis-
ter. In 1437 Mochiuji, who always spoke slightingly of
Yoshinori as the Priest Shogun, formed a plot for his over-
throw, and as a first step attempted to arrest Norizane. Nori-
zane however escaped to Kodzuke, and there mustered his vas-
sals and at the same dispatched urgent messengers to Kyoto
for support. The result was that Mochiuji went down before
the overwhelming force thrown against him and was driven to
commit harakiri, as were also his uncle Mitsusada and
his eldest son Yoshihisa (143"9) His three youngest sons
(
.

escaped to Nikko; and in the following year Yuki, the Lord

of Koga in Shimosa, received them in his castle and espoused
their cause. He was soon invested and reduced by the Uye-
sugi; and two of his three proteges were captured in their
flight and put to death at the respective ages of thirteen and

eleven, only the youngest, a child of live, escaping. Henceforth

there was no Ashikaga Lord Kamakura; and until 1449
of
the Uyesugi exercised the Kwanryo without dispute.
office of

At this conjuncture the Shogun Yoshinori had acted with

great promptness and resolution, qualities he had already dis-
played on several occasions. In 1435 he had made very short
work of the monks of Hi-ei-zan when their Reverences once
more essayed to disturb the peace of the capital; and since
then they had been praying for his death. Certain abuses in
the Court, in the households of the Imperial Princes and
among the Court nobles had been repressed not over gently;
and the Shogun had succeeded in making many enemies in
these circles. But these were impotent to do him harm; it
was only when he made an effort to curb certain of his great
military vassals that he became threatened with real danger.
He had caused the chiefs of the Toki and Isshiki clans to be
executed; and in 1441 he formed the project of breaking the
power of the great Akamatsu family by partitioning its ex-
tensive domains of Bizen, Harima, Mimasaka, and some can-
tons of Inaba and Tajima. The Akamatsu chieftain on
learning of this held his peace, and invited the Shogun to a
banquet to be held in his Kyoto mansion on July 16, 1441.
When the carouse was at its height, two of Akamatsu's re-
tainers set loose all the horses in the stables and drove them
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 601

out into the courtyard, where they bit and kicked each other
and created a great uproar. In the midst of this, all the doors
were suddenly shut; and another retainer jumped up and
seized the Shogun by the hands. As he was struggling to
free himself, another vassal came behind him and cut off his
head at a blow. With this grisly trophy Akamatsu made his
escape to his castle of Shifahata in Harima, where he was
presently invested by Hosokawas, Takedas and Yainanas all
eager for a share in his domains. He and several of his leading
vassals committed suicide, and the power of the clan was
broken for the time being.
Yoshinori was succeeded by his eldest son Yoshikatsu, who
died in his tenth year in 1443, and was then followed by his
brother Yoshimasa, two years his junior. Of course this child,
who received his patent as Shogun in 1447, cannot reasonably
be held responsible for the maladministration of the next ten
or twelve years. But the fact remains that the very worst that
the Empire had to suffer during the minority of this eighth
Ashikaga Shogun, Y"oshimasa, was the merest trifle to the
miseries that had to be endured under his personal rule.
And yet the period from 1443 to 1454 was the reverse of a
quiet or happy one. Kyushu as usual was in a state of tur-
moil. In Yoshinori's time the Tandai had been hunted out of
the island, and Yoshinori, unable any commander
to find
willing or competent to undertake the dutfes of the office, had
been compelled to content himself with sanctioning Ouchi's
operations against Otomo and Shoni.
Now, in 1441, neither
Otomo nor Shoni nor Kikuchi nor Chiba had moved, when
ordered to join in the attack upon Akamatsu to avenge the
murder of the Shogun Yoshinori and by the Bakuf u this was
;

regarded as a dire offence. Ouchi was thereupon commissioned

to resume operations against them. This time, the Ouchis
were highly successful ; Shoni was again driven to take refuge
in Tsushima ; Otomo's capital of Funai was captured, and
the north of the island practically reduced. One result of this
was a marked increase of the corsair bands, who now had an
opportunity of doing Ouchi serious damage at sea, for he had
lately been entrusted with the apportionment of the Chinese
permits for 200 Japanese merchantmen to make an annual
voyage to Ningpo. What with its victories in Kyushu, and
with the resources being amassed in the over-sea trade, the
602 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

house of Ouchi was now rapidly recovering from the great

disaster that had overtaken it in 1399. The Yamanas, by
whose fall the Ouchis had so greatly profited in 1392, had now
also all but regained their former strength. As the reward of
their distinguished services in the campaign against Akamatsu
in 1441 they had been entrusted with the administration of his
provinces of Harima, Hizen, and Mimasaka, and this with
their own provinces of Tajima, Inaba, and Hold made them
exceedingly formidable, all the more so as they were within
easy striking distance of Kyoto, where the central administra-
tion was daily becoming weaker.
The nemesis of Yoshimitsu's extravagance and magni-
ficence was now overtaking his descendants. The fall of the
Hojos had been mainly occasioned by economic and social
abuses, and history was now repeating itself in the case of
the Ashikaga, whose fiscal and financial administration was
perhaps the very worst that Japan has ever seen.
From first to last under the feudal system the chief source
of revenue was the land-tax. At no time perhaps has the rate
of this been uniform over the whole of this Empire; it has
generally varied not so much in different provinces, as in
and often on neighbouring manors. Even at
different fiefs,
the present day it is far from uniform in Japan, for while in

some circuits the survey is accurate and exact, in others it is

not so. So to state what the true rate is or has been at
any time is always a matter of great difficulty. But from
an examination of many documents so much is clear. Under
the Kamakura Bakufu before the Mongol invasions the levy
was generally comparatively light; in Tokugawa times it was
considerably heavier, and under the Ashikagas it was still
more onerous. Yoshimitsu had ordered a general survey of
the Empire; but about the result of this details are lacking.
What we do have is a return or perhaps an estimate of merely
the rice-lands under cultivation about the middle of the
fifteenth century. As the tan of those days measured 1,440
square yards against the 1,200 square yards of that of the pre-
sent time, the 946,606 cho of 1450 would be equal to 1,037,920
cho of the twentieth century, when the total extent is a little

under 3,000,000 cho, or some 7,500,000 acres. Besides this

there was, of course, a considerable superficies under othe?
crops; but of the exact extent of that we know nothing.
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 603

It is no doubt surprising to find so much of the soil under

cultivation after the long and devastating civil war, and at a
time when the Empire was still in a state of turmoil in many
quarters. But, as in France, the recovery of prosperity after
the ravages of war has always been rapid in Japan. The ex-
planation is that the actual destruction of capital has never
been very great. Stock-farming was almost unknown; agri-

and most inexpensive

cultural implements were of the simplest
nature; the farmer needed no clothing at all in summer and

not much in winter; his household furniture consisted of little

more than a rice-pot, a few bowls, and some sets of chopsticks.
When his house was burned over his head it was no irreparable
loss, for it was nothing but a ffimsy hut that could be run up
again in a few days. In the fighting around Sakai in 1399,
we are told that more than 10,000 farmers' houses were re-

duced to ashes. This on the face of it looks a great calamity

for the poor peasants; but the probability is that it did not
interfere Avith their work in the fields for more than a day or
two. What the farmer dreaded was not so much war, as
famine, plague, and above all the tax-gatherer, who in Ashi-
kaga times exacted in one guise or another something like 70
per cent of the produce of his fields. As a certain quantity
of the manure necessary to raise a crop had generally to be
bought, not much, if indeed anything at all, could have re-

mained in the cultivator's hands.

In seasons of famine the misery of the farmers was
unspeakable. Such of them as had the strength left to do
so would crawl into the gay capital in the vain hope of
finding something to keep soul and body together there. In the
great dearth of 1421-2 2 Yoshimochi did indeed issue orders to
his officers to adopt some sadly inadequate relief measures;
but in 1454 the famine-stricken peasants were simply left to

perish in the streets, and a daily average of 700 or 800 corpses

bad to be taken up and disposed of. The females of the family
were then consigned to the brothels, while the boys were often
sold to the priests, who shaved their eyebrows, powdered their
faces, dressed them in female garb and put them to the vilest
of uses, for since the days of Yoshimitsu, who had set an
evil example in this as in so many other matters, the practice
of paederasty had become very common, especially in the mo-
604 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

nasteries, although it was by no means confined to them.*

And in the midst of all this misery the Shoguns usually
deigned to evince no tokens of compassion for the stricken
multitude. While the people were dying by the road-sides
Yoshimochi made a progress to Nara whose magnificence
almost equalled those of his father; and in 1454 Yoshimasa
abated not a bit in the indulgence of his most dissolute and
extravagant whims. And in 1461, when in the course of two
months as many as 80,000 people perished of plague and
famine in Kyoto alone, he went on with his fantastic building-
projects, until the receipt of a satirical poem from the
Emperor put him to the blush. Even then, all he did was to
request certain of the metropolitan temples to distribute some
miserable doles, the administration making no further effort
to grapple with the awful crisis. For all the world, the
Shogun and his minions in this terrible year might well have
been of the breed of the Gods of the Choric Song in Tennyson's
" Lotos-Eaters." In the great famine of 1231-2 Hojo Yasu-
toki wore nothing but old clothes, and reduced the number of
his meals —
always of the plainest fare to two a day, thus—
setting an excellent example to his officers, who were not slow
to imitate him, while at the same time both he and they
laboured strenuously from morn to eve devising and super-
intending measures of effective relief.

The Impot fonder in course of time came to constitute

only a fraction of the liabilities of the tax-payer —house tax,

door tax, cart tax, rice-shop tax, taxes on pawn-shops, on sake

and on sake-warehouses, of which there were 327 in the capital
alone, and on fire-proof " godowns," were imposed and levied
with increasing stringency. The sake-warehouse tax, for ex-
ample, under Yoshimitsu had been exacted only four times a
year; later on it was levied once a month and under Yoshi-
masa several times a month. But perhaps the worst impost of
all was the Dansen, an extraordinary tax imposed at first

perhaps once in six or seven years to meet such contingencies

as the expenses of a coronation, or the rebuilding of the palace.
But latterly it had come to be raised several times a year, on
the most frivolous of pretences; sometimes indeed on no pre-

* Xavier the practice prevalent a hundred years later,

found
especially the Zen priests, who, wrote Fernandez, " tendo
among
publicamente muitos meninos com os quales cometiao sus maldades."
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 605

fence at all. Outraging as it did every single one of Adam

Smith's four maxims of equality, certainty, convenience, and
economy, it was really nothing more or less than a sponge to
absorb what the revenue officers might so far have left in the
possession of the producer.
In their own provinces and districts the Rluigo and the
Jito were not slow to imitate the fiscal vagaries of the central
administration ; and in addition to this they went on estab-
lishing barriers on the highways and on the waterways, where
heavy tolls were exacted from all passengers and merchandise
passing through them. The 81>u go and the Daimyd were in
urgent need of money to enable them to keep afloat in the
maelstrom whirl of the fashionable life of the capital, where
they had to give elaborate banquets and other entertainments
in their palatial residence?, to present the Shognn with costly
gifts, and latterly to bribe the minions who had come to have
the disposal of patronage and the plums of office. But some
of the great provincial Lords were beginning to use their
money for other purposes; for instance in 1454 we read that
the Yamana chieftain caused great anxiety to his neighbours
and in Kyoto, by taking men without any occupa-
" landless

tion " into his service. In a few years this practice was
destined to become not unusual if not general and it was this
;

that really dealt the death-blow to slavery if not serfdom in

Japan. There being no such things as bankruptcy courts in
those days, an insolvent debtor often had to become the prac-
tical slave of his creditor. Now with an opening for service
under a great feudal chief, able-bodied debtors who could
handle sword or bow could afford to lough at creditors and
law-courts alike.
It is tolerably plain that all the fabulous magnificence and
grandeur of the capital at this time were reared upon the op-
pression and degradation of the people at large.For centuries
the common had been wonderfully
folk, the base-born semrnin,

patient and submissive, and apart from absconding and taking

to brigandage they had made but few practical protests
against the iniquitous treatment they were subjected to.
Now at last, however, the worm began to turn. From 1447
onward there was a series of well-organised and concerted
popular emeutes, the fellows of Wat Tyler's rebellion in Eng-
land, and of the Jacquerie in France. Kyoto was generally
606 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

ilieir centre; but they spread all through the Home Provinces,
— (much damage being done in Kara especially) on to —
Harima on the one hand and to Omi on the other. The de-
mand of these mobs was for a Tokusci (Benevolent (Act of)
Government), which was just the equivalent of the old
Roman novce tabulce, or a summary cancellation of all in-
debtedness. This Tokusci was no new thing; we have already
met with one so early as towards the end of the seventh cen-
tury; and since that time, in seasons of great national dis-
tress, and even on such occasions as the death of a Sovereign,

they had been proclaimed in a modified form. The theory was

civil, what an amnesty was in criminal, law.
that they were in
Already under the Ashikagas there had been Tokusei on
several occasions, but not of the sweeping nature now de-
manded by the rioters, while the Muromachi Bakufu had made
important modifications in the old usury laws. As the result
of the great riots (1447, 1451, 1457 and 1461) the nuthori ties
yielded so far as to declare debts to be liquidated by the pay-
ment of one-tenth of the principal, obligations to shrines and
temples being excepted. Thereupon some of the religious
houses were fired and pillaged. In Kyoto itself it was the
" godowns "
and the pawn-brokers' shops that were the chief
objects of attack, for the mob was intent on destroying all
bonds and mortgages and such-like legal documents. But as
a matter of fact a very considerable portion of the city was
burnt and countless houses entered and pillaged. Certain of
the Daimyo were called upon to restore order; but in 1461 it
took them several weeks to do so. And the cure was almost
as bad as the disease, for many of their retainers being heavily
in debt, now took the opportunity of firing the money-lender's
house or breaking into his strong room and repossessing them-
selves of the acknowledgements they had given him. Yoshi-
masa yielded to the demand of the mob greatly because it

suited his own purposes to do so. He himself was deeply in

debt at most times; and his frequent proclamations of

Tokusei subsequently were dictated as much by the wish to
evade his own financial obligations as by any other considera-
tion. Naturally the result of these Tokusei was untold dis-

aster to industry and commerce, for apart from rendering any

system of credit impossible, they together with the Dansen
made the merchant and the manufacturer abandon all hope
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 607

of acquiring a competency and the capitalist all expectation

of accumulating wealth.
Meanwhile a course of events was in train destined to
thrust all economic and industrial problems into the back-
ground, to reduce most of the capital to a heap of ashes, and
to make its ruins the battle-ground of two great hosts for more
than a decade. Here with the incidents that led up
in dealing
to the Great War On in (1467-1477) exigencies of space
of
compel me to compress into a few paragraphs what can only
be properly elucidated in a series of chapters.*
In the previous chapter something was said about the
fashion in which succession disputes in the great feudal fami-
lies were wont to be decided during the Great Civil War.
After the conclusion of peace in 1302 Yoshimitsu made a
tolerably successful effort to have such questions settled by
the Bakufu, and not by an appeal to arms. But on his death,
in the outlying portions of the Empire at least, such matters
were almost invariably determined by the sub-feudatories of
—
the house in which they arose, sometimes without fighting,
but often after a trial of strength on the battlefield. Now in

Yoshimasa's time these succession disputes became ex-

ceedingly common ; and in the cases where the Shogun was

appealed to his intervention generally served to do nothing
but aggravate the situation. Yoshimasa was possessed of no
independent judgement of his own; he was almost entirely
under the influence of his consort Tomi Ko and other Court
ladies, and of favourites like Ise Sadachika. And the most
unfortunate part of the business was that he was always in-

clined to adopt the views of the latest counsellor who had

chanced to get his ear, the result being that since the time of
Temmu Tenno the Empire had never perhaps witnessed such
an exhibition of Chorei Bokai,f incompetence and confusion.
I shall pass over dissensions like those in the Shinano
house of Ogasawara, and in that of the Togashi, — (which
had furnished Kaga with Governors or Shugo for four cen-
turies), —without comment, inasmuch as the disturbances they
* Readers who may care to make an exhaustive study of this

period should be warned to use Japanese biographical dictionaries

with circumspection. I have found many of the details given in some
of them to be at once inaccurate and confusing.

f Revising in the evening the edict issued in the morning,

608 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

gave rise to were local merely. But those in the great houses of
Shiba and Hatakeyama developed into national questions and
precipitated a terrible civil war.
There were two branches of the Shiba family, one settled
in Echizen, the other in Mutsu. The latter had split up into
the sept of Ozaki and that of Mogami, which played a promi-
nent part in the north-east of Japan in the early Tokugawa
age. Hut was the Echizen branch that was the great Shiba
it

house in Ashikaga times. The first Kwanryd had been a

Shiba; and besides holding this great office he had been Shugo
of the six provinces of Echizen, Etchu, Noto, Shinano, Sado,
and Wakasa. About 1450 we find the Shiba chieftain Yoshi-
take invested with the administration of Echizen, Owari, and
Totomi. These provinces were not contiguous; and so in two
of them at least Yoshitake had to be represented by a Shugodai
or Deputy Shugo. Now the position of these Deputy Shugo
was very different from that of the old Vice-Governors. The
latter had not been appointed by their immediate superior the
Governor; but by the central authorities. The Vice-Governor
was no vassal of the Governor's, but his fellow officer. The
Deputy Shugo, on the other hand, was not only the mere
nominee of the Shugo, but was actually his vassal. Further-
more the office of Deputy Shugo tended to become hereditary
in the family of the holder of the office, and these great vassals

in the provinces they administered often became more influen-

tial than their lords. At this time the chief great vassals of
the Shiba were the Oda in Owari, and the Asakura and Kai
in Echizen, the last being the most powerful of all. In fact
the Kai chieftain was at this time to the Shibas, what the
Mayor of the Palace was to the Merovingians.
Shiba Yoshitake, being childless, had adopted the adopted
son of an uncle of his; and on Yoshitake's death in 1452 the
Shiba family made this adopted son, Yoshitoshi, his successor.
Kai was not satisfied with this, and Yoshitoshi was not
minded to brook his vassal's interference. Sometime later on
Yoshitoshi was put in command of 10,000 troops for service
in the Kwanto; but after starting from Kyoto, he suddenly
wheeled the north and invested Kai in Tsuruga by land
off to

and Kai had only 800 men in his castle; but taking
sea.
advantage of a great typhoon he found these quite numerous
enough to rout his beleaguerers. The Shogun could not over-
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 609

look this episode and the ultimate result was the extirpation
;

of the Kais on the one hand, and the flight of Yoshitoshi

to Suwo on the other, a new head for the house of Shiba being
provided in the person of Yoshikado, the son of* Shibukawa
Yoshino, who was nominated by the great vassals. Yoshi-
masa's assent to this was obtained through his favourite, Ise
Sadachika, to whom the retainers had made suitable presents.
This was in 1459, and some time afterwards Ise Sadachika
married the sister of the fugitive Yoshitoshi's wife. This lady
at last prevailedupon her husband to espouse Yoshitoshi's
cause; and in 1466, Yoshitoshi was recalled to Kyoto, and
the Shogun then decided that he was the rightful head of the
house of Shiba. Meanwhile the man in possession,—Yoshi-
kado —had. married a daughter of the great Yamana Sozen,
and Yoshikado now invoked the support of his formidable
father-in-law, who at once mustered a strong army and
marched upon Kyoto. This greatly frightened the vacillating
Shogun; and Yoshikado was now not only recognised as the
Shiba, but actually invested (1467) with the office of
Kwanryo, Yoshitoshi having to flee for his life!
Synchronous with the succession-dispute in the Shiba family
had been a similar one in the house of Hatakeyama. The chief
difference was that whereas among the Shibas the com-
plications occurred after the death of the childless chief
Yoshitake, those in the Hatakeyama family arose while the
Kwanryo, Mochikuni, was still alive. Here, too, the struggle
was really between the great vassals of the clan. Mochikuni
wished to make his son Yoshinari his successor. Now this
would throw the power into tTie hands of a certain Suva, who
had been appointed Yoshinari's guardian, a contingency which
the hitherto all-powerful vassals Jimbo and Yusa could not
view with equanimity. Accordingly they declared that Yoshi-
nari, being the son of a concubine, was not the rightful heir,
and armed support of the claims of Mochikuni's nephew,
in
Masanaga. Mochikuni then appealed to the Shogun, who
authorised him to put Masanaga to death. The latter there-
upon took refuge in the mansion of Yamana Sozen, with whom
Mochikuni had been on notoriously bad terms, ever since
Mochikuni had endeavoured to re-establish the house of Aka-
matsu in Harima, which province had come into Yamana's
possession in 1441. In 1451 a Yamana vassal had been killed

NN
610 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

by one of Mochikuni's followers. Thereupon Yamana chal-

lenged Mochikuni to single combat; and when the was
affair

patched up by the surrender of the offender to Yamana,

Yamana had cut him to pieces with his own hand.
Yamana now espoused Hatakeyaina Masanaga's cause with
great vigour. One night in September 1454 he invested Mochi-
kuni's mansion and fired it over his head. Mochikuni took
refuge in one of the big temples, while his son Yoshinari fled

to Kawachi. Thereupon Masanaga went and paid his re-

spects to the Shogun, who cancelled the warrant for his arrest
and execution, and declared him head of the Hatakeyaina
house, Mochikuni having just then died (1455). Next year
Yoshinari appeared at the head of a strong body of Kawachi
troops to attack Masanaga, but the Shogun succeeded in
patching up a peace between them, and the house of Hatake-
yaina was then divided into two branches.
For some years Yoshinari was greatly favoured by the
Shogun; but in 1460 all the trees presented by him to adorn
the grounds of one of the Shogun's new buildings withered,
a very serious omen, —while Yoshinari was also accused of in-
fringing the lately issued ordinances against the taking of
animal life. This was sufficient to bring Yoshinari into ill

odour with the capricious and superstitious Shogun and to

restore Masanaga to high favour. Yoshinari had fled to the
south, and Masanaga was commissioned to pursue and kill
him. In Kawachi, Yoshino, and Koyasan, a war between
them went on for some six or seven years (1460-1467). In the
course of the struggle Yoshinari with vastly inferior forces
established such a reputation as a skilful and capable captain
that Yamana Sozen, now knitting a great party together, en-
tered into an alliance with him and threw his former protege
Masanaga overboard. Masanaga had been made Kwanryo in
1464; he had now (1467) to give way to Yamana's nominee
Shiba Yoshikado, and muster troops to defend his life.
The great faction that Yamana was now banding together
was really directed against his own son-in-law Hosokawa
Katsumoto. This Hosokawa was perhaps the ablest and most
remarkable man of his time. Noted for his refinement and
culture, in the Europe of his day he would undoubtedly have
made his mark among the great Humanists of the age. In
manv directions his erudition was sound and solid, especially
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 611

in medicine, of which he was an ardent student. As an ad-

ministrator he was exceedingly capable; and if not in states-
manship, at all events in the devious ways of statecraft, he
had no equal in contemporary Japan. Born iu 1430, he be-
came Kwanryo in 1445 at the age of fifteen and with a break
;

of three years (1449-1452) he held this important post down

to 1464. In the exercise of the office, although not so great as
Yoriyuki had been, he was no failure; but it was in the ad-
ministration of his own wide domains that he made his lasting*
reputation. At a word from him 60,000 retainers of his own
would take the field at any moment, while he could always
rely upon the fidelity of collateral Hosokawas, who could
muster 21,000 more. From first to last he kept his great
vassals in strict order; it was not until a score of years after
his demise that the family of Hosokawa began to be scourged
with the curse that had smitten the fellow-Kwanryo houses
of Shiba and Hatakeyama.
Originally Hosokawa's relations with his turbulent father-
in-law, Yamana Sozen, had been exceedingly friendly. When
the Red Monk, — (as the latter was nick-named from his flame-
coloured countenance), —had firedHatakeyama Mochikuni's
mansion over his head, the Shogun Yoshimasa in his exaspera-
tion declared him an outlaw, and was on the point of issuing
orders to have him put to the sword. However Hosokawa,
who had from the first associated bimself with his father-in-
law in espousing the cause of Hatakeyama Masanaga, suc-
ceeded in mitigating Yoshimasa's wrath, and the Red Monk
was merely punished by relegation to his own provinces.
Shortly after, one of Hosokawa's relatives then in the
capital revived the project of restoring the Akamatsu family
to its former possessions; and with the Shogun's approval, he
induced the former Akamatsu retainers in Harima to rise
against the Yamanas. At once the Red Monk took the field
at the head of 20,000 men. Pouring into Harima, his troops
swept everything before them; and then pushing on to the
capital, entered it with drums beating and war conches
blowing. This effectually over-awed the Shogun; and Harima
had to be left in Yamana's hands.
Three years later (1458) certain escheated manors in Kaga,
Ise, Izumo, and Bizen were bestowed upon the Akamatsu
chief; and the Red Monk discerning, as he fancied, the hand
612 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of his son-in-law the Kwanryo came to the conclusion

in this,
that ultimately a struggle between them was inevitable. For
the next few years he devoted all his energies to making
friends with the great Daimyo; and by 1466 he deemed him-
self ready for the contest. True, against the 81,000 Hosokawa
vassals he could muster no more than 41,000 retainers of his
own; but his alliances with Isshiki (5,000), Told (8,000), Rok-
kaku (5,000), Shiba Yoshikado (10,000), and the Hatake-
—
yamas Yoshinari (7,000) and Yoshitd (3,000),— put 38,000
more men at his disposal, while he could count upon the
active sympathy of at least 10,000 besides. This would give
him a grand total of some 90,000 troops. At last all that was
wanted was a plausible pretext for a rupture. This, however,
Hosokawa was in no haste to supply, for he was aware that the
Red Monk was just as much his superior in the field, as he
was the Red Monk's at the council-board.
Meanwhile the situation in the Shogun's court had become
peculiar. Yoshimasa had got tired of office, and wished to
resign it soon. But although he was now thirty years of age,
he so far had had no son. Accordingly he begged his younger
brother, Yoshimi, who had entered the priesthood and become
an Abbot, to return to secular life with a view to succeeding
him. At first Yoshimi would not listen to the proposal; but
on Yoshimasa undertaking to make any son that might be
born to him become a priest, Yoshimi at last yielded to his
entreaties (1464). Thereupon Hosokawa resigned the office
of Kwanryo to his friend and protege Hatakeyama Masanaga,
and assumed the stewardship of the household which Yoshimi
now established. Then in the following year the Shogun's
consort Tomi Ko at last presented him with the son who was
afterwards known as Yoshihisa. Although Yoshimasa was
ready to abide by his agreement, the Lady Tomi was not in-
clined to see her offspring deprived of the succession. Ac-
cordingly she secretly opened up communications with the
Red Monk, and obtained a promise from him to support her
when the proper season arrived.
Now at this date Yoshimasa was greatly under the sway
of Ise Radaehika, who was very justly regarded by Hosokawa
as a banefully corrupting and disturbing influence in the ad-
ministration. Sadachika had given mortal offence to the Red
Monk in the Rhiba affair; and when the Red Monk success-
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 613

fully exerted himself to get Sadachika degraded and banished,

Hosokawa purposely, kept very quiet. He had however been
very unobtrusively bringing up his own troops to Kyoto, and
forming compacts with other chieftains which presently swelled
his forces to 160,000 fighting men —not all in the capital,
of course. Even when adherents of the Red Monk (February
1467) assailed and routed the ex-Kwanryo Hatakeyama Masa-
naga in his retreat in the outskirts of the capital, Hosokawa
made no movement, although he stood pledged to support
Masanaga. The reason was that the Shogun had sent Yoshimi
to both camps to warn the leaders that the first to strike a blow
would be proclaimed a rebel.
For some months the armies lay watching each other, Hoso-
kawa's lines being to the east and north of the Bakufu offices
in Muromachi, and the Red Monk's to the west and south.
The troops filled all the great mansions of their Lords, and
occupied the temples and all buildings of strategic impor-
tance, while barricades and other defences were thrown up at
weak spots in the lines where attacks might be expected.
Again in May, Yoshimi acting upon instructions from Yoshi-
masa visited both leaders and repeated his previous warning,
and for a few days the barricades disappeared. But neither
of the chiefs felt that he could afford to withdraw his forces
from Kyoto; if he did so and his opponent remained, he
would infallibly be declared a rebel by Yoshimasa as soon as
he was left exposed to pressure from one side only. As weeks
passed the strain became unbearable; and at last, on July 7,
1467, the collision came, when some of the subordinate cap-
tains began to contest the possession of a mansion that lay
between the outposts of the rival hosts. In this special affair
Hosokawa's men had the best of it, but in the general fighting
which at once ensued they made no great headway. Still their
numerical superiority promised them an ultimate triumph,
and for the rest of the summer the Red Monk was very
anxious about the result.
Then, in September, Ouchi Masahiro with 20,000 men from
Yamaguchi, and Kono with 2,000 from Iyo, fought their way up
to Kyoto, and joined Yr amana. This substantial reinforcement
entirely altered the aspect of affairs. The Red Monk now as-

sumed the offensive, and in the great battles of September 29,

when the Imperial Palace was taken, and of October o0, when
614 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

the Sokokuji was captured, his followers w^on decided successes.

Both edifices were fired and burned to the ground; in the
first contest 50 000 Yamana troops came into action, and after
;

the second, we are told, the streets for miles were heaped w ith T

" several tens of thousands of corpses."

The year 1467 expired with the military situation in the
capital entirely in favour of the Yamanas; and in 1468 they
continued to have the best of it on the whole. On the Japanese
New Year's day, when almost everything in that drunken age
was supposed to be incapable of taking care of itself, Hosokawa
ordered a general assault, mainly with the object of recovering
the site of the Sokokuji. The result was tremendous slaughter
and a disastrous repulse. Then ensued a lull in active opera-
tions, but on April 28 there was another serious engagement,

in which as usual the Red Monk was victorious. Hosokawa

was now thrust into a narrow nook behind the Bakufu offices,
which he had the greatest difficulty in maintaining. And yet
although thus handsomely beaten in Kyoto, it was Hosokawa
who was the real victor in the strife.
It w as Hosokawa's gifts as a statesman, or, if you like, his
r

statecraft that saved him. He had been careful not to move

till he was assured in his own mind that the Skogun would

formally commission him to chastise the Red Monk. This

was no easy matter to compass; for Yoshimasa was then per-
sonally well-disposed towards Yamana, while his consort, the
Lady Tomi, backed by a strong faction in her husband's Court,
exerted herself strongly on behalf of her secret confederate.
Hosokawa, however, was able to secure the banishment of
twelve of the faction opposed to him some time after he got his
commission and so provided against the chance of having it
revoked. He furthermore made sure of the Emperor and the
ex-Emperor by inducing them to remove to the Bakufu offices,
where quarters were provided for their reception. Hosokawa's
position was thoroughly legalised, while the Red Monk was
technically a public enemy; and this circumstance in course
of time began to weigh seriously with certain of the Yamana
confederates, some of whom came over to the Hosokawa
camp, while others quietly slipped off home. Yet these deser-
tions were not so numerous as to affect the general result. But
meanwhile Hosokawa had taken still more effective measures
to cause a serious shrinkage in the numbers opposed to him in
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 615

and around Kyoto. Emissaries of his were presently at work

in the provinces of his antagonists, inciting their vassals to
revolt, or their neighbours to attack them, and matters ulti-

mately became so threatening in Ouchi's domains that that

formidable chieftain was at last constrained to hasten home
to defend his own ancestral possessions, while the Red Monk
himself had to detach contingents to help to make head against
local adversaries. In other directions this device of Hoso-
kawa's was equally successful, and he w as strong in the fact
T

that his previous excellent administration of his own broad

domains, and the firm hold he had upon the fidelity of his sub-
feudatories, made it hopeless for his adversaries to attempt to
retaliate upon him in kind.

By between Hosokawa and Yamana

this time the struggle
had assumed the appearance of a succession war between
members of the Shogunal house itself. On September 24, 1467,
Ashikaga Yoshimi, feeling his position insecure, had from
fled

Kyoto; and for the last year or so he had been living in Ise
under the protection of Kitabatake, the Governor of the
Province. After repeated requests to return to the capital, he
at last did so in October 1468, attended by an escort of 2,500
men. Meanwhile the favourite, Ise Sadachika, had returned
to the Skogun's Court and was again as influential as before,
while LTino Katsuakira, the Lady Tomi's close confederate, was
also in possession of Yoshimasa's ear. Yoshimi demanded the
removal of these two intriguers; and upon the demand being
refused he went into Hosokawa's camp. There to his profound
astonishment he was advised to re-enter the priesthood. He
thereupon again escaped and took refuge on Hi-ei-zan; whence
on December 17 he was escorted into the Yamana camp, the Red
Monk now declaring that the object he was fighting for was
the assertion of Yoskimi's just rights! Ten days later the
Bhogun obtained a decree from the Court stripping Yoshimi
and putting him to the ban and early in 1469
of all his offices ;

Yoshimasa's four-year-old son Yoshihisa was formally declared

heir to the Shogunate. This was a new shuffling of the cards
with a vengeance The Red Monk, the Lady Tomi's secret con-
!

federate, was now fighting for nothing but the assertion of the
just rights of the Lady Tomi's most detested enemy.*

* It is interesting to remember that it was just at this time that

Warwick went over to the Lancastrians in England.
616 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Two years later there was perhaps a

still more startling

development. So long as the Sovereign remained in Hoso-

kawa's hands, the Red Monk must remain, technically at least,
a rebel. At many supporters had fallen away on that
last so

account that Yamana resorted to the desperate expedient of

reviving the claims of the Southern line. In 1470 a pretender
calling himself Prince Hidaka, and claiming to be a descen-
dant of Daigo II., January 1471
raised his flag in Kii; but in
his career was brought to an end by Hatakeyama Masanaga.
Then, in September 1471, a Prince of the Southern line was
actually brought into the Yamana camp, and treated as
Emperor, the Red Monk now professing to be fighting in sup-
port of the legitimate Imperial line ! This did not please
Yoshimi and in course of time, but when or how is not
;

known, this Imperial Prince vanished from the Yamana camp

and from history alike.
Kyoto had long before this been reduced to little better than
a heap of ruins; and the hostile armies had mostly retired
to strategic positions around it, where their efforts were
mainly directed to cutting off the enemy's supplies. In these
operations there were scores, perhaps hundreds, of skirmishes;
but nothing in the shape of a general, much less of a decisive,
action. The struggle was now really being fought out in the
much more sub-
provinces, where the rew ards of victory were
r

stantial For instance, the

than they were in the capital.
Shiba captain, Asakura, who had hitherto fought most gal-
lantly on Shiba Yoshikado's behalf, was seduced by the
promise of his master's province of Echizen, about 1471 or
1472. At once proceeding there, he speedily reduced his fellow
vassals, the Kai and the Ninomiya and established a new
;

great feudal house of his own. This perhaps was one of the
most conspicuous of many instances.
In Kyoto, where the contest had long before developed into
a stalemate on a chessboard of blackened ruins, almost every
one was getting tired or disgusted with the situation. The
dearest wish of the two great opposing chiefs themselves for
some time past had been for peace. But when they did endea-
vour to compose their differences they found that the war they
had raised was a veritable Frankenstein whose vagaries they
were powerless to control and who had them both at his mercy.
Certain of their most influential confederates would have
 FEUDAL iA^OF JAPAN
during Own and
capita I fetters

Daimyo in italics

tn Kwanta ;
-

J*ix)\iticrs ci dottred reddish -yellow belong to As/uK-ago of Kogas.

,, yellow « » 'fycsugi qf' }ainniioiielti

purple .. .< lyemgi of Ogi-ga-yatsu

In A'

Provinces eotoured nd belong to Uosoka*

Yamana

i?
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 617

nothing to do with proposals of peace. Among these Aka-

matsu Masanori was the most important. During the war his
partisans had at last recovered the old family provinces of
Harima, Bizen, and Mimasaka from the Yamanas; and on
reaching any accommodation with Hosokawa, the very first
thing the Red Monk would do would be to hurry home and
fall upon Akamatsu with every man he could muster. Ac-
cordingly the negotiations came to nothing. So weary of the
whole thing and so chagrined was Hosokawa that he
threatened to enter the priesthood and retire from the world.
The Red Monk, being a priest already, vowed that he would
commit the happy dispatch.
However, release from the worries of their own raising was
nearer at hand than they expected, for the Red Monk died
on May 16, 1473, and Hosokawa on June 6 of the same year.
Yet the wasting war continued to drag its weary length along
until the winter of 1477. The position of the Yamana (or
Yoshimi) faction had grown less and less secure owing to
the fact that they were " rebels," and that the Shogun stripped
their leaders of their offices of Shugo, and, as in the case of
Asakura in Echizen, assigned their provinces to subordinates
who were expected to reduce them, or otherwise undermine
their influence in their native seats. The consequence was
that some surrendered, while others withdrew to retrieve their
fortunes at home. At last Ouchi Masahiro arranged terms of
accommodation for himself; and on the night of December
17, 1477, the sky around Kyoto was ruddy with the glare of the
blazing cantonments the Yamaha men were abandoning. On
the morrow it was found that they had vanished; and the
long and disastrous struggle around Kyoto was at an end.
But elsewhere the war was by no means over. The Yamana
leaders had actually arranged to resume operations in the capi-
tal as soon as they had settled things in their own provinces.
Rut there things were not to be settled in a month or even in a
year; and meanwhile Yoshimi, who had withdrawn with Toki
into Mino, made peace with his brother the Shogun, and con-
sequently there was no further pretext for the Yamana men to

attack the capital.

But this simply meant that the war was now wholly trans-
ferred to the provinces; for the subordinate chiefs in the op-
posing camps had made no truce with each other. For example
618 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

the old struggle in Yamato, Kii, and

Kawachi between the Hata-
keyamas, Masanaga, and Yoshinari was resumed, and ended
only with the death of both of them in 1493. As for the great
house of Shiba it found itself threatened with ruin. In Echizen
it had been replaeed by its former vassal, Asakura ; in Owari,
its great retainers the Odas had seized most of the province,
while the raids of Imagawa, the Lord of Suruga, upon Totoini
had left the Shibas but slender foothold there. It w as not
r
in-

deed until 1572 that the family disappeared from history; but
during the last century of its existence it was nothing but a
mere shadow of its former self. As regards the Yamanas, they
had lost a good deal more than half their domains. In fact the
only great chiefs who emerged from the struggle with, if not
bettered, at least unimpaired fortunes were Akamatsu, Hoso-
kawa, and Ouchi.
Meanwhile the Empire at large had been seething with
armed strife and disorder, a good deal of which had no connec-
tion with the great War of Onin at all. In the very winter that
saw the end of this struggle, a twenty -four years' civil war in
the Kwanto was brought to a temporary conclusion.
In the general doom of Ashikaga Mochiuji (1439) and his
family (1440) only his five-year-old son, Shigeuji, had escaped.
For the next ten years Kamakura remained in the hands of the
Uyesugis; but in 1449 this Ashikaga Shigeuji was appointed
Kwanto Kwanryo, with Uyesugi Noritada as his Shitsiiji. Now
this Noritada was the son of the man who had been responsible
for the death of Shigeuji's father and brothers, and Shigeuji's
mind kept brooding on thoughts of revenge. Besides this, Nori-
tada sent reports of Shigeuji's conduct to Kyoto, where he was
beginning to be distrusted; and this fact served to intensify
Shigeuji's hatred. In 1454 Shigeuji sent Yuki and Sa.tomi, his
confederates, to invest Noritada's mansion and put him out of
the way. The murder of their chief at once drove all the
Uyesugis to arms; Shigeuji was hunted from Kaniakura, and
Noritada's son Fusaaki was then made Kwanryo. After five
years' fighting Fusaaki asked the Kyoto Shogun to send down
his brother Ashikaga Masatomo as Kwanto Kwanryo. But Shige-
uji, who had established himself at Koga in Shimosa, received

the support of the great families of Chiba, Yuki, Oyama, Utsu-

nomiya, Nasu, Satomi, Satake, and Oda and although Masa- ;

tomo was backed by the Uyesugis and the men of Kai and Izu,
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. (U9

he never was able to install himself in Kamakura and had to

rest content with establishing his court at Horikoshi in Izu.
The war between the rival Kwanto Kwanryos of Koga and Hori-
koshi went on until 1478, when the Shogun Yoshimasa induced
Shigeuji to abandon the contest and return to Kyoto.
Echigo, being a Uyesugi province, was deeply involved in
theseKwanto disturbances. Kaga, which had been partitioned
between the two branches of the Togashi family, and in which
the two rival branches of the Monto (or True Jodo) Sect had
acquired many manors, had been convulsed since 1474 by a
struggle between one branch of the Togashi house, allied with
one branch of the Monto Sect, against the other Togashi sept,
supported by the other Monto faction. Shinano, Suruga, and
Mikawa each had local contests of their own. Kyushu was
almost in asevil a plight. At the southern end of the island,
the Shimadzu and the Ito families were at war; in Higo the
Sagaras were slaughtering the Nawas, and the Kikuchis were
fighting out a succession quarrel among themselves, while in
the north the Otomos and Shoni, who had again come back from
Tsushima, were raiding Ouchi's domains.
And was merely the prologue to the piece, for it
yet all this
is the period between 1490 and 1600 that is known in Japanese

histo^ as the Sengoku Jidai, or " Epoch of the Warring

Country "
Before the outbreak of the War of Onin in 1467 the control
of the central administration over the provinces had already
become feeble. One was to destroy it
result of that cataclysm
utterly. Imperial Decrees and Instructions from the Shogun
had come to be alike disregarded with impunity, and it was pre-
sently recognised that it was futile to issue them. The peasant,
the craftsman, the trader, and' the traveller were still taxed
as before; but, outside of Kyoto and the single province of
Yamashiro, scarcely a cent of all this revenue was now paid
into the coffers of the Shogun. This meant that the great mili-
tary families had made themselves independent. In the follow-
ing century we find the early missionaries speaking of mere
local chiefs as " Kings," —the " King " of Bungo, the " King "
of Satsuma, the " King " of Hirado, of Arima, and Omura, and
so on. As a matter of fact, although technically at fault, the
worthy Jesuit Fathers were practically correct in their termi-
nology, for within his domains even the pettiest of these poten-
620 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

tates was possessed of virtual regal powers. It is true that

they did not coin money for no money was coined in Japan at
;

that date, nor had been coined in it for centuries, the country
being almost entirely dependent upon China for supplies of
a metallic medium of circulation. But, while imposing what
taxes they themselves chose upon their subjects, they paid no
tax, not even " feudal aids," to any superior. They exercised
not merely " original " but unlimited judicature within their
domains; while the laws enforced there were all of their own

making. And made peace without in-

they declared war and
voking any one's permission and when they did by any chance
;

profess to be acting in a Shogun's name it was merely to serve

special temporary purposes of their own. Then on their own
sole initiative they bestowed lands or revenues upon their re-

tainers, who had to render military service in return and the

;

greatest of these vassals had their sub-feudatories, who had to

take the field with their personal following when occasion arose.
In short, we are at last face to face with a fully developed
Feudal System.
In Kamakura days we had to deal with manors, rarely
exceeding 500 acres of good rice-land in extent. Besides, at that
epoch, only a proportion of these manors were held by military
service. A large, perhaps an equal, number were held by civi-

lians, — Imperial Princes, great Court nobles, and the like.

Besides these the wide estates of temples and shrines were

ordinarily exempt from the attentions of the Kamakura Shugo
and Jito, while a certain portion of tne soil of the country was
not manorial property at all, and paid its dues directly to the
Civilian Governor or his staff appointed by the Imperial Court.
The manorial system still lingers on; but the manors now be-
come integral portions of great fiefs. The military leaders now
seize every acre of ground they can lay hold on. The Imperial
Household domains, the estates of the Imperial Princes and of
the Court nobles, are all " swallowed up," to use the expressive
Japanese phrase, while everywhere save in a few quarters where
he lingers on as an anachronistic curiosity, the civilian Provin-
cial Governor vanishes, there being not a rood of ground left

for him to govern, or a single sheaf of rice to collect as a tax.

The only non-military manors that survive are those of the
Shrines and Temples, for the warrior class had generally a salu-
tary dread of the wrath of the gods, and a superstitious re-
 ASHTKAGA FEUDALISM. 621

verence for the three sacred things, Buddha, the Law, and the
Priesthood. Even these ecclesiastical manors assume, or rather
resume, a warlike appearance; and we shall presently find the
Monto Chief Priest figuring as a great military potentate in
possession of the whole province of Kaga, and with many
estates and numerous throngs of mailed vassals in other quar-

ters of the Empire.

One great immediate cause of the breakdown of the Ashi-
kaga Shogunatc was the incapacity of Yoshimasa as a ruler.
The work of administration was as distasteful to him as it had
been to Yoritomo's son Yoriiye in Kamakura; but whereas
Yoriiye had been a robust and strong-thewed roysterer, Yoshi-
masa's sensuality was of the soft and passively self-indulgent
kind. Intellectually torpid he was not, but he possessed little
or nothing of his grandfather Yoshimitsu's faculty of con-
centrating his attention upon objects that demanded any con-
siderable mental strain. From first to last he was an aesthete
and a dilettante. From and especially
the single fact that art,
pictorial art, was one and that he patro-
of his chief interests,
nised artists in a princely way, he has been called a Japanese
Medici. But this is doing a serious wrong to the great rulers of
Florence, for of their vigorous and robust qualities, their power
Yoshimasa had nothing. He
of work, their many-sided ability
had all Yoshimitsu's craze for pomp and magnificence, and
—
more, and although the financial position of the State was
now as desperate as it had been sound in Yoshimitsu's time,
Yoshimasa would persist in aping his grandfather's extra-
vagances. Immediately after the War of Onin he set to work
to immortalise himself by the erection of tlie Ginkaknji (Silver
Pavilion) as a fellow or rival to the Kinkakuji, while he was
also responsible for other structures, all magnificent, but all
unnecessary or worse at the time. In his Ginkakuji, he gave
his " Cha-no-yu " parties, his " Incense-Comparing " parties, his
" —
Poem-Comparing " parties, refined frivolities innocent
enough as mere pastimes perhaps, but not so innocent when they
became the main interest of the man responsible for the ad-
ministration of a great Empire, which was proceeding swiftly
along the downward path to disintegration, if not actually to
ruin. And harmless too, perhaps, compared with the drinking
bouts and foul debauchery in which His Highness habitually
indulged. In the midst of one of the greatest battles in 1467,
622 HISTORY OP JAPAN.

Yoshimasa had held high revel in his Palace. Like Nero he

evidently enjoyed the spectacle of " the earth being mixed with
lire " in his lifetime.*

There were something like forty Court dames all struggling

for a share of the Shogun's favour, and many
became of these
rich thanks to the presents they received
from the Lords who
made them their medium of approaching His Highness with
their requests for office or other petitions. Bnt the usual
avenue to his ear was through Ise Sadachika or Hino, the
younger brother of the Lady Tomi. The itching of Hino's palm
—
was constant and unappeasable, and at a time when the other
Court nobles had sunk into such abject destitution that many
of them could not appear at the rare Court functions still held
because their robes had been sold or pawned, Hino continued
to amass fabulous wealth. Nor was the Lady Tomi a whit less
rapacious than her younger brother. Yoshimasa's indolence
threw many details of the administration into her hands; and
at last she came to intermeddle in most affairs. Barriers had
been erected at the seven great entrances to Kyoto where
transit dues were levied; but on the outbreak of the War of
On in the mob had thrown these down. Now, on pretext of
contributing funds for the re-erection of the Imperial Palace
the Lady Tomi had the barriers restored and very heavy tolls
exacted at them. But not a penny of the money thus collected
was devoted to the purpose for which it was professedly in-
tended; it all went into the Lady Tomi's bottomless privy
purse. At last the city mob rose, overthrew the barriers, and
took to indiscriminate plundering and burning. The troops sent
by the Daimyo to quell the riot were beaten off and Kyoto was
at the mercy of a famished and infuriated rabble. The distur-
bance was only allayed by the proclamation of a Tokusei. This
special emeute was a truly popular movement; but many of the
Tokusei disturbances were not so, being incited by Samurai,
many of whom their notorious gambling propensities and gene-
ral debauchery had reduced to beggary. In the course of the
great war Nara suffered greatly from an outbreak of this nature.
Presently the cry of " Equalisation of Property " spread to far
distant provinces; and we find Ouchi and others having to deal
with Socialistic disturbances in their own domains.

* Suetonius, Be Vitd Caesarum, Nero, § 38.

 ASHTKAGA FEUDALISM. 623

Yoshimasa had nominally resigned in favour of his son

Yoshihisa, then nine years old, in 1474, — a step that threw more
and more power into the grasping hands of the Lady Tomi, the
Ashikaga Agrippina. As Yoshihisa grew to manhood he
showed himself possessed of a penetrating intelligence, a strong
will, and a fondness for hard work. This greatly disconcerted
his mother; and the Lady Tomi thereupon began, only with
too much success, to encourage in her oavii son that fondness
for wine and women for which the Ashikagas were traditionally
notorious. Yoshihisa's physical constitution was not robust;
and his sensual excesses cost him his life at the early age of
twenty-five. And yet he died in camp in the middle of a
vigorously conducted and victorious campaign. Under happier
auspices this unfortunate Yoshihisa might possibly have be-
come the greatest of his stock.
He seems to have been able to analyse the causes of the decay
of his house tolerably and had set to work with
correctly,
vigour to repair the errors of the past. One of the first things
to be done was to curb the insolence and repress the aggres-
sions of the great military chiefs. In 1487 or 1488, some forty-
six landowners in Omi had appealed against the Shugo, Sasaki
Takayori, who had seized their estates, and had all but " swal-
lowed up " the whole of the province. The Sasakis were origi-
nally of Uda-Genji stock; but on the adoption of Sasaki Hide-
yoshi by Minamoto Tameyoshi in 1125 the family had become
a Seiwa-Genji house. Under Yoritomo some half-dozen Sasakis
had distinguished themselves as able captains and intrepid
soldiers and in his days or a little later we find Sasaki acting
;

as Shugo in Aid, Iwami, Tzumo, and Omi. Omi remained the

chief seat of the house, which in the fourteenth century parted
into the branches of Rokkaku and Kyogoku. As usual in such
cases, no great love was lost between these consanguineous
septs ; and in the great War of Onin they had fought on oppo-
site sides. In Omi they were now at bitter feud with each other,

and this afforded the young Shdgun his opportunity. In 1488

several of the other great Daimyo responded to his summons;
and Sasaki had been all but crushed, when Yr oshihisa suddenly
died in camp.
As Yr oshihisa was childless, Yoshimasa now adopted
Yoshimi's son, Yoshitane, then twenty-five years of age, and
made him Shogun. About 1491 or 1492 operations against
624 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Sasaki, who meanwhile had retrieved his position, were re-

sumed and Omi was again overrun by the loyal Daimyo, Sasaki
;

having to escape for his The Kwanryo at this time was

life.

that Hatakeyama Masanaga, who had held the post just before
the outbreak of the War of Onin. This was his fourth term of
service in an office which he occupied for a total of some one-
and-twenty years. He was the only one of the leaders in the
Great War that survived; and his long experience of affairs
gave him a great ascendancy. Unfortunately his arrogance and
haughtiness made him very offensive to the great Daimyo who
had served under him in the Omi campaign, —especially to
Hosokawa's Masamoto, who, by the way, had already acted
son,
as Kwanryo for a brief season on two occasions.
As has been said, Hatakeyama Masanaga had been carrying
on a private war against the rival branch of the house for years
and he now prevailed upon the Shogun to declare this war a
national one, and to throw the troops that had been employed
v
in Omi campaign against Kawachi and Kii. The rival
the
Hatakeyama chief thereupon appealed to the monks of the
Kofukuji and to Sasaki, who at once joined him, while he also
came to an understanding with Hosokawa Masamoto, then m
Kyoto. As soon as Masanaga and the Shogun entered Kawachi,
Hosokawa rose and seized the capital, and then marched
swiftly after them. Taken completely by surprise Masanaga
committed suicide, while the Shogun fled north to Etchu.
Hosokawa thereupon (1403) set up a new Shogun in the
r
person of Yoshizumi. the son of that brother of l oshimasa s. ?

Masatomo, who had been nominal Kwanryo of the Kwanto

since 1461. With the exception of the thirteen years between
1508 and 1521, the Ashikaga Shoguns were henceforth destined
to be nothing better than puppets in the hands of the Hoso-
kawas or of the Hosokawa vassals, who were presently to over-
throw and supplant that great house.
Hosokawa Masamoto was Kwanryo from 1494 to 1507 and ;

during that time he exerted himself to reduce the provinces

around Kyoto and to place vassals of his own in them as
—
Shugo-dai, or Deputy-Shugo. Some of these Deputies pre-
sently acquired so much strength as to be a menace to their
master. His continued residence in Kyoto made it necessary
for Masamoto to entrust the administration of his Shikoku
 ASH1KAGA FEUDALISM. 625

domains to his great vassals Miyoshi Nagateru and Kosai Moto-

chika,who presently became deadly rivals.
Now, Hosokawa Masamoto was devoted to magic arts, and
to attain proficiency in these it was believed that sexual con-
tinence was absolutely indispensable. Hence Masamoto was
childless; and so he adopted a son of the Court noble Kujo
and also a collateral relative of his own. The former, known
as Sumiyuki, was entrusted to the care of Kosai, while the
latter, Sumimoto, had Miyoshi for his guardian. In 1507,
Kosai, fearing that Sumimoto was to be declared heir, caused
Hosokawa Masamoto to be assassinated in Kyoto; and then
at once set up Sumiyuki as chief of the house. This brought
up Miyoshi with an army from Shikoku; and in the fighting
that ensued Kosai and his protege perished. Sumimoto was
then made head of the great clan, and Kwanryo as well. As he
was only eleven years of age, of course it was Miyoshi who
was the master of the situation.
But just at this point things took a new turn. The former
Shogun had by no means abandoned his claims. In 1499 he
had come down from the Hokurikudo with a strong army and
had been admitted into Hi-ei-zan. Here he was assailed and
routed by Hosokawa Masamoto, who burned all the priests'
quarters to the ground. However, the ex-Shogun made good his
escape; and after various vicissitudes at last reached Yama-
guchi, where he was accorded safe asylum by Ouchi Yoshioki.
In 1508, Ouchi, on learning of recent events in Kyoto, mustered
a great force and marched upon the capital, whence the
Shogun Yoshizumi had to flee to Omi, while Yoshitane was re-
stored to office, and Ouchi appointed Deputy-Kwanryo.

Hosokawa Masamoto had adopted a third son, known as

Hosokawa Takakuni and this ^on also aspired to the positions
;

of head of the house and of Kwanryo. Failing to realise his

ambitions he had thrown in his lot with Yoshitane and Ouchi
and he now became the most influential personage in the capi-
tal. Although the struggle was ostensibly -between rival
Shoguns, it was at bottom a contest between the Hosokawas,
Takakuni and Sumimoto, the latter being a puppet of Miyoshi's.
The Sumimoto faction presently made a successfn] effort to
recover the capital, whence Yoshitane and Ouchi withdrew into
Tamba to muster fresh troops. In the battle of Funaoka-yama
Ouchi and Yoshitane gained a decisive success, and Kyoto again
oo
626 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

fell into their hands (1511). So long as Ouchi remained in the

capital Yoshitane's position as well as that of Takakuni was

secure. But in 1518 troubles in his own provinces claimed
Ouchi's presence there; besides he had really been the
main
financial support of the Emperor and the Shogun for the last
ten years, and this generosity had impoverished and crippled
him so seriously that a season of retrenchment was impera-
tively necessary.

By Hosokawa Takakuni was carrying things with such

1520
a high hand that the Shogun began to find the situation im-
possible and when Miyoshi re-appeared at the head of a strong
;

force and drove Takakuni from the capital, YosEitane at once

recognised his rival Sumimoto as head of the house of Hoso-
kawa. Meanwhile Takakuni, supported by Sasaki, had raised
an army of 40,000 men; and against these Miyoshi with only
3,000 troops could make no head ; and finding his flight cut off
he retired to the temple of Chionin and there committed hara-
kiri. When Sumimoto died a few months later on in Awa,
Takakuni attained his plenitude of power. In 1521 Yoshitane
had to flee to Awaji, and Takakuni then set up the eleven-year-
old son of Yoshizumi as Shogun. In 1528 Yoshiharu, as this
twelfth Shogun was called, was driven from the capital by
Miyoshi Nagamoto and had then to spend four years in Omi.
In 1539 he was compelled to flee before another Miyoshi,
Chokei, — into Yaraato, where he lurked for three years. In
1545 he resigned; but even then his troubles were not at an
end, for in the next year he was again constrained to seek
asylum in Omi, where he died in 1550.
Thus within forty years three successive Ashikaga Shoguns,
—the 10th, 11th, and 12th —had died in exile. A similar fate
was in store for the fourteenth and the fifteenth, the last of the
line, while the thirteenth, Y"osliiteru, had to commit harakiri
in his ow n blazing palace (1565).
T

As for the Hosokawas, they failed to outlive their puppets.

In 1527 Takakuni was driven from Kyoto by Miyoshi Nagainoto,
who had espoused the cause of Sumimoto's eight-year-old son,
Harumoto. Takakuni did indeed retrieve his position on this
occasion but in 1531 he was again attacked and he was then
;

defeated and slain in his flight. Harumoto, the last Hosokawa

Kwanryo, was overthrown by his vassals Miyoshi and Matsu
naga in 1558, and died a prisoner in their hands in 1503.
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 627

Aud a few years later Miyoshi and Matsunaga alike were to

go down before the might of Nobunaga of the house of Oda
which had risen on the ruins of its suzerains, the Shiba.
During all this time the Kwanto, so far as any interference
by Kyoto in its affairs was concerned, might well be con-
sidered a foreign country. It simply went its own way. solely
occupied with its own domestic problems and with its atten-
tion wholly engrossed by its long and monotonous tale of
intrigue, aggression, battle, murder, and sudden death in
various forms. There was one Ashikaga Shogun, or, as he was
popularly termed, Kiibo, with his court at Koga in Shimosa,
exercising a precarious superiority over some half-score or
dozen of great houses in Awa, Kadzusa, Shimosa, and Shiino-
tsuke, and another with his seat at Horikoshi in Izu with
authority over little more than that single province. The
greatest power in the Kwanto was really the Uyesugi family,
which, as has been said, had parted into the three branches of
Inukake, Yamanouchi, and Ogigayatsu. The first had become
extinct with the Shitsuji, Noritomo, who fell a victim to the
great plague of 1401. When Fusaaki, the head of the Yamano-
uchi sept, died in 1466 he left only a daughter behind him ; and
a husband for her was provided in the person of Akisada of
the Ogigayatsu stock, who now became the head of the Yama-
nouchi house. Akisada had owed his advancement to Nagao
Masakata, one of the eight great Uyesugi vassals, and on the
death of this Masakata, xVkisada mortally offended his son,
Kageharu, by depriving him of the succession in favour of
another Nagao. Kageharu thereupon transferred his services
to the Ogigayatsu branch, and in 1477 raised an army and
attacked his former over-lord. This civil war went on until
1486, when a truce was patched up. But in 1493 it broke out
again, and continued to rage till 1505, when the two families
were constrained to sink their differences and unite to main-
tain their existence, now threatened by a new power which had
found its opportunity in their dissensions. This new power
—
was the second house of Hojo, that of Odawara.
About 1490, the Ashikaga Shogun of Horikoshi, Masatomo,
with the view of securing the succession to his favourite
younger son, Yoshizumi, had ordered his eldest son, Cha-cha, to
enter the priesthood. In 1491 Cha-cha assassinated his father
and assumed his office. The crime excited profound indigua-
628 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

tion, whether real or simulated; and a retainer of Imagawa,

the Lord of Suruga, took upon himself the duty of punishing it.
This retainer, Ise Shinkuro by name, marched against the
patricide Cha-cha, overthrew him and put him to death, and
—
then coolly established himself at Nirayama as Lord of Izu !

His next step was to interfere in the Uyesugi quarrel. The head-
quarters of the Yamanouchi branch were in Sagami, which is
contiguous with Izu, and Ise offered his services to the other,
the Ogigayatsu branch, which held the comparatively remote
provinces of Echigo and Kodzuke. Passing into Sagami he
seized Odawara (1495) and at once proceeded to raise a castle
;

there and to seize the adjoining country, just as he had already

" swallowed up " Izu. In 1505, the Uyesugis, as has been said,

awoke to a full sense of their folly and united their forces for
a common effort against this interloping land-thief. But soon
after, Nagao Tamekage, the chief Echigo vassal of the house
of Ogigayatsu, ventured to remonstrate with his Lord about
the laxity of his administration, and this so irritated the latter
that he endeavoured to put Nagao out of the way. In the
lighting that ensued many of Nagao's fellow-vassals es-

poused his cause; and their Lord was defeated and slain in
1509. This brought the Yamanouchi chieftain, Akisada, into
Echigo; but he also was defeated and killed (1510). A section
of Nagao's fellow-vassals now banded themselves together to
avenge the death of the suzerain; and between these factions
of Ogigayatsu retainers war raged in Echigo down to 1538.
This meant that the Yamanouchi house was practically left

alone to deal with the land-thief of Odawara. Long before this

the latter had married his son to a female descendant of the
Hojos, had then assumed the name of Hojo, and having taken
the tonsure and the priestly name of Soun, was now known as
Hojo Soun. With the death of Miura Yoshiatsu and the cap-
ture of his castle of Arai in 1518, the whole of Sagami passed
into the hands of the great land-lhief, who died in the following
year at the patriarchal age of eighty-seven.
Hojo Somrs son, Ujitsuna ("1487-1541), seized the Uyesugi
strongholds of Yedo (1524) and Kawagoye (1538) routed and ;

killed theKoga Shogun Yoshiaki (1539), and at the same time

secured the submission of the ^atomis of Awa, and thus re-
duced the whole of the Kwanto to his rule. Both he and his
father had worked hard to establish a sound and just adminis-
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 629

tration in the wide domains they had so unblushingly pur-

loined ; and Samurai flocked to them from the Home Provinces,
from Shikoku, and from other equally disturbed parts of the
Empire.
The Ogigayatsu branch of the house of Uyesugi became
extinct in 1544, while that ofYamanouchi was really per-
petuated by the Nagaos, Tamekage's third son, the famous
Kenshin, having been adopted as heir in 1551. Henceforth the
seat of the Yamanouchi-Fyesugi power was not Kamakura, but
Echigo.
The story of the rise of the later Hojds is a striking example
of the fashion inwhich new feudal houses were now displacing
many of those hitherto most prominent in the annals of the
nation. In Mino, the old house of Told was presently destined
to succumb to that of Saito, the founder of which had been
fust a priest and then an oil who began his
merchant, and
career as a military man by assassinating the Samurai who had
adopted him. In northern f)mi, the Asai had made themselves
independent of their suzerains, the Sasakis. Meanwhile a
hitherto obscure offshoot of the Sasakis, the Amako, had estab-
lished themselves as Lords of Idzumo, and were pushing their
conquests into the provinces to the south, where among others
they came into collision with the Ouchi, with whom at times
they carried on a by no means unequal strife. The great house
1

of Akamatfeu, racked and riven by a series of succession dis-

putes, was now confined to a precarious hold over the single
province of Harima, several of its former great vassals having

thrown off their allegiance and established themselves as in-

dependent chieftains. In Kyushu, the Shoni and the Kikuchi
alike disappear; while in Shikoku, Chosokabe, a hitherto ob-
scure vassal of the Hosokawas and the Miyoshis, is now rising
to greatness on the ruin of his over-lords. In Kaga, the Togashi
go down before the militant Monto monks. The old Minamoto
houses of Shiba, Hatakeyama, Yamana, Hosokawa, Isshiki
have all either hopelessly fallen from their previous high estate,
or are engaged in a final despairing struggle for existence.
The old houses that continue to survive with unjeopardised
fortunes can easily be counted. Among such are the Date and
Ashina in Mutsu, the Satake in Hitachi, the Takeda in Kai, the
Imagawa in Suruga, the (Yamanouchi) Uyesugi in Echigo, and
the Ouchi in the six provinces around Yamaguchi. In Kyushu
630 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

we still find the Shimadzu, the ltd, the Aso, and the Otomo,
while in Shikoku the Kdno still retain something of their
former power.
Sandwiched in between the great families were many scores,
perhaps some two hundred of smaller ones, all strenuously
engaged in land-thieving, —a species of larceny then highly
respectable. The position of these was naturally very pre-
carious any time they might be " swallowed up " by a
; at
neighbouring great house, or even overthrown by some small
clan with which they happened to be at feud. Hence a ten-
dency to " commend " themselves to the nearest great house
then in the ascendant. Their bonds of allegiance generally lay
very lightly upon them, however ; often at the slightest pros-
pect of advantage they would either shake it off, or transfer
it elsewhere. Then, they no less than the great houses were
frequently convulsed by succession disputes and other domestic
quarrels. Sometimes, as in the case of the later Hdjo, the chief-

tain was truly the head of the clan, a veritable king and
leader of men within the domains he had either inherited or
stolen. As a rule it was only clans with such heads that were
able to extend their frontiers at the expense of their neigh-
bours, or even to survive. But often the real power lay with
one or other or several of the great sub-feudatories, and these
were frequently jealous of each other's influence in the counsels
of their common master, and were generally on the outlook
for an opportunity to trip each other up. A disputed succes-
sion to the headship of the fief was nearly always the occasion
of a local civil war, by which, of course, neighbours were
prompt Sometimes too the fortunes of a great house
to profit.
depended upon the astuteness of some exceptionably able re-
tainer; and in such a case the baseness of the trickery and
fraud to which hostile clans would resort to bring this retainer
under his lord's suspicion, and so effect his fall and the sub-
sequent ruin of the house whose main support he was, makes
one blush for human nature.*
The country was now in an interminable turmoil of war;
but by " war " a great deal more was meant than the mere
ordering of campaigns and the handling of troops on the battle-

* The Taikoki relates many such cases. For one of them, and —
that —
by no means of the very worst type, see Dening's Life of
Hideyoshi, pp. 74-78.
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 631

field. It was " war " conducted on the principles expounded in

such Chinese manuals as Sonshi's. These works were now in
the hands of nearly every one of the few that could peruse them
at night a professor —sometimes a Chinaman —would be set
to read them aloud to the Samurai gathered in the castle-hall
1o hear him. In these Chinese analogues of Jomini and Clause-
witz, what was chiefly expounded was not so much the prin-
ciples of war as the dirtiest form of statecraft with its un-
speakable depths of duplicity. The most cynical, the very worst
passages in the notorious Eighteenth Chapter of " The Prince,"
pale before the naked and full-bodied depravity of the old
Chinese lore on. espionage. Sonshi , s section on spies is truly
abominable and revolting; yet this special section must be care-
fully conned by any one who wishes to understand the fashion
in which " war " was waged in Japan at this time. In most
respects the standard of public morality in the Empire was
perhaps lower than it was in contemporary Italy, the only
marked difference in favour of Japan being the comparative
rarity, if not total absence, of cases of poisoning.

Yet vile as this age may seem to be, it was not without
great redeeming features. was only the strong and vigorous
It
ruler that could hope to survive; and this had the effect of
opening up careers to obscure men of ability, whose services
a few centuries before would have been totally lost to the
nation. Unsupported by capable sub-feudatories and subor-
dinate the great chieftain was now inevitably doomed.
officers,

Hence the unceasing exertions of men like the Odawara Hojos

to attract Samurai from other fiefs to their flag. Furthermore,
without material resources no large following could be main-
tained; and hence the strenuous efforts made by intelligent
chiefs to establish a sound and just financial and judicial ad-
ministration within their domains. It now became perilous to
regard the farmers as mere slaves; harsh treatment would
surely drive them across the border into some neighbouring
fief, where they would be eagerly welcomed and set to work to

convert waste lands into fruitful rice-fields; while in an era

when fighting-men were in so much request, able-bodied peasants
who absconded could readily count on finding service under
some hostile standard. In the great War of Onin we begin
to hear of bodies of Ashigaru being employed. These bore the
same relation to the heavy-panoplied Samurai that the peltasts
632 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

of Iphierates did to the hoplites of his age. For a peasant

to procure the not very costly equipment of an Ashigani was
comparatively easy; and once possessed of arms he readily
found employment as a soldier.

Tims the attainment of any lasting success in the warfare

of the time demanded the exercise of high practical ability, not
in one, but in multifarious directions, —at the council-board,
on the judgement seat, in the fiscal and financial administra-

tion of the fief. The best intellect of the nation, no longer

doomed to stagnation and a deathlike torpidity as it had
been in the tenth and eleventh centuries under the Fujiwaras,
was now thoroughly awake and vigorously at work. No doubt
it was entirely concentrated on the pressing practical problems

of the moment. But exercise on these work-a-day problems did

more to develop the native vigour of the national mind at large
than the practise of versification, whether in Japanese or
Chinese, or the poring over glosses on Confucius or Mencius
had ever effected for it. The fruit of this was to be seen in the
last three decades of the sixteenth century, which produced a
names of constructive ability such as Japan
roll of illustrious

had never seen before, and has never seen since.

The political condition of early sixteenth-century Japan
bore a not remote resemblance to that of contemporary Ger-
many, minus the Free Cities. In both countries the central
power had entirely broken down. In 1495 Maximilian told his
Diet that " the Empire was as a heavy burden with little gain
therefrom " and at the Diet of Speyer Granvella asserted that
;

" for the support of His Majesty's dignity not a hazel-nut's

worth of profit came from the Empire." The Japanese Sove-
reign was in infinitely worse case than these Holy Koman
Emperors, for unlike them he had no external resources to de-

pend on. The situation cannot be better set forth than in the

words of an annalist who wrote some few years later. Says

he :
—
"After the War of Onin (1467-1477) the Samurai aban-
doned the and went back to the provinces. The hey-day
capital,
of the Imperial city was over. The Dairi was rebuilt, but on a
greatly reduced scale, and the Shogun Yoshimasa reared some
fine structures. But in the Kydroku period (1528-1532) the
war again became fierce; and temples, palaces, and mansions
 ASHTKAGA FEUDALISM. 633

went up in flames, while the citizens fled for their lives to re-
mote places.*
" The Dairi was a roughly built structure. It was without

earthen walls, and was surrounded by nothing but a bamboo

fence. Common people made
and sold it in the garden
tea,

of the Palace, under the very shadow of the Cherry of the Right
and the Orange of the Left. Children made it their play-
ground. By the sides of the main approach to the Imperial
pavilion they modelled mud toys; sometimes they peeped be-
hind the blind that screened the Imperial apartments. The
Sovereign himself lived chiefly on money gained by selling his
autographs. The meanest might deposit a few coins
citizen
—
with a written request such as, I wish such and such a verse
—
from the Hundred Poets, or a copy of this or that section of
the Isc Tales. After some days the commission was sure to
be executed. At night the dim light of the room where the
Palace Ladies lodged could be seen from Sanjo Bridge. So
miserable and lowly had everything become."
It is significant that between 1465 and 1585 there was no
case of an Emperor's abdication and that during that period
;

the succession in each case passed from sire to son without oc-
casioning any dispute. t One reason for this was that the
Throne as an Institution had ceased to be of any practical im-
portance, and another was that although the Sovereigns often
wished to abdicate there were no funds available to defray the
expenses of the indispensable attendant ceremony. During the
War of Onin, as the result of which the Emperor had to spend
some thirteen years within the narrow confines of the Bakufu
buildings in Muromachi, all the Court functions were aban-
doned; and when they were resumed they were Ryaku-Shiki,
or Abridged Ceremonies only. The reason, of course, was the
utter lack of funds, which at last came to be so extreme that
on the death of Tsuchimikado II. in 1500, it was 44 days before

* It was in these years that Miyoshi drove the Shogun to take

refuge in omi, while incessant fighting for the possession of the
capital went on between Miyoshi and Hosokawa Takakuni. But it was
in 1537 that greatest single calamity overtook Kyoto, when more
its
than one half of it was reduced to ashes by the monks of Hi-ei-zan.
f The following table completes the list of Sovereigns
within our
period: —
103. Tsuchimikado IT., born 1442; succeeded 1465; died 1500.
104. Kashiwabara II., born 1464; succeeded 1500; died 1526.
105. Nara II., born 1496; succeeded 1526; died 1557,
106. Ogimachi, born 1517; succeeded 1557,
634 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

enough could be collected to defray the expenses of his

obsequies, while Nara II., who became Emperor in that year,

was in no position to celebrate his coronation until 1521.*

It may indeed seem extraordinary to find that an era of such
unceasing turmoil and of such chronic misery and destitution
should have been the golden age of Japanese pictorial art. The
explanation is really very simple, however. The great patrons
of painting from before the days of the renowned Kose no
Kanoka (later ninth century) down to the outbreak of the
Succession War in 1337had been the Imperial Court, which had
done much to foster —
the native Japanese schools, the Yamato-
ryu and the Tosa-ryii. As a consequence of the great civil strife
of 1337 to 1392 the Court was greatly impoverished; and the
third Ashikaga Shdgun, Yoshimitsu, then assumed the role of

a Japanese Medici. In this he was emulated by his grandson,

Yoshimasa, who, although said at one time to have been ac-

tually driven to pawn his armour to raise money to defray the

expenses of the accouchement of his consort, yet lavished fabu-
lous sums upon the indulgement of his artistic fancies. The
older schools were not neglected; but it was the new school
whose work was based on Chinese traditions of the Sung and
Mongol dynasties that chiefly profited by Ashikaga munificence.
Most of the artists of this new school were Zen priests in fact ;

the great academy of the age was that Zen monastery of

Sokokuji, for the possession of which one of the first great
battles of the War of Onin was fought, to be followed by a
still fiercer one for the recapture of its ruins. It had been
founded by Yoshimitsu in 1383 as a mortuary temple for the
Ashikaga Shoguns, had become the headquarters of the ten
Rinzai Zen sects, and had waxed fabulously wealthy. Here
Josetsu taught; and under him studied Sesshu, Shu bun, and
Kano Masanobu, " the founders of the three new academies
which were to apotheosise in Japan the works of the great
Chinese masters of the Sung and Yuen dynasties." All these
and most of the other great artists of the age took the tonsure
and as even in the general anarchy that followed the collapse

* It used to be generally asserted that it was the Monto monks

who contributed the necessary funds on this occasion; and that in
return for this service their chief priest was made a Monzeki. This
seems to be a mistake, for it is plain that it was the Shogun Yoshitane
who at last raised the money, while the Monto Chief Priest did not
become a Monzeki until the Tembun period (1532-1554),
 ASHIKAGA FEUDALISM. 635

of the Ashikaga power the monasteries and their possessions

were left comparatively undisturbed, these great priest painters
were always assured of tranquillity and an honourable sub-
sistence. Besides, among the great feudal potentates the Ouchi
of Yamaguchi were not the only ones inclined to play the r61e
of Moecenas.

It has just been said that in Japan there were no Free

Cities. To this assertion there is one single exception. In the
disorders of the civil war between the Hatakeyamas, the people
of Sakai dug a moat and threw up walls around their town;
and hiring a military force of their own to protect them, con-
stituted themselves into a sort of commercial republic. Later,
in 1562, Villela tells us that " the city of Sakai is very exten
sive, exceedingly thronged with many rich merchants, and
governed by its own laws and customs in the fashion of
Venice." From other sources we know that there were not a
few Samurai among these traders. The merchant in Japan
was generally regarded with contempt, and in the social scale

he was placed at the bottom, below the farmer and the artisan.
The consequence was that trade was forced into the hands of a
class of men who would not be likely to exhibit the possession
of any very high sense of integrity and honour. At the pre-
sent day Japan is paying a very severe penalty for this. Now,
the continued existence of Sakai, and of a few autonomous
commercial cities like it, would have done much to elevate the
position of the merchant in the national estimation; and an
unwritten code of commercial morality might well have been
evolved as strict as that which has earned for the Chinese
trader the confidence and respect of Europeans.
It is well to remember that if Japan had no Free Cities, she
had what either Germany, or indeed any other European
country, had not, —a single great city with a population of half-

a-million. Such Kyoto was even at one of the lowest ebbs in

its prosperity, at the date of Xavier's visit to it in 1551. In
1467, at the outbreak of the War of Onin, it contained 180,000
families or perhaps 900,000 souls. Few cities in contemporary
Europe could boast of even a tenth part of that population.
Yet when in Kyoto, in 1551, Xavier was very soon forced to
the conclusion that " the most powerful of the Lords then in
Japan was the King of Yamrguchi " (Ouchi). This was in the
very middle of what Japanese historians call the Sengoku
636 HISTORY OF JAPAN.

Jidai. During the and longer half of the hundred and

first

ten years between 1400 and 1000 the centrifugal forces were
in the ascendant; and when the Apostle of the Indies was in
the land the process of disintegration was still advancing
apace. But in 1551 Nobunaga was seventeen, Hideyoshi fifteen,
and Iyeyasu nine years of age, and the successive efforts of this
great trio were destined to reunite the warring fragments of
the Empire under a central sway as strong as that of Kama-
kura times and to impose the meed of a full quarter of a
millennium of peace upon a people whose lust for war and
slaughter appeared to be utterly beyond human control. But
the work men lies beyond the scope
of these three illustrious
of the present volume the story of what they accomplished, and
;

how they accomplished it, has already been fully told in

Murdoch and Yamagata's History of Japan During the
Century of Early Foreign Intercourse.
INDEX,
 INDEX.
In the following index the references to persons are given under
the family names where available, but for the convenience of readers
the personal names are also indexed, with the family names in paren-
theses after them, the words " see under " being dispensed with.

Abdication, 139, 226, 239, 244, 277, 633 Administration (contd.) —

Abe, 139, 269, 271, 284, 289 circuit envoys from Central
Muneto, 271 Boards, 472
Abeno (Settsu),563 Bukc and Kugc, 547 et seq.
Abe Sadatd, 270, 271, 289 Muromachi Bakufu, 586 et seq.
Yoritoki, 269, 270, 289 revival of old institutions in
Achiki, 216 Meiji era, 21
Achi no Omi, 102 Afumi no Kena no Omi, 108
Adachi, 470 Agricultural Be, 101
Kagemori, 470 Ainu (Yemishi) —
Kiyotsune, 393, 416, 457 resemblance to Luchuans, 36
Munekage, 527 (note)
Yasumori, 527 migration from the continent,
Administration (also see Bakufu 47
and under various family expeditions against, 66, 215
names) — soldiers, 132
central government, 58 revolts, 13, 210
sinicisation, 92 ousted from Tokyo region, 152
clan system, 94 et seq. Buddhist propaganda, 178
regulations for the capital, 152 operations under Kwammu, 210
home provinces, 153i, 154 raids on Japanese, 216, 217, 233
establishment of- Ministries, 158 fixing of status, 233
et seq. origin of Eta, 233, 234
under Kwammu, 209 employment of Ainu captives,
weakness of Kyoto administra- 234
tion, 230, 619 General Superintendent of the
provincial governors, 276 Aborigines, 269
government by Cloistered Em- feudal system in Ainu districts,
peror (Insei) 277 et seq., 458, 289
460 Ainu auxiliaries, 532
confusion of rights, 309 Akamaitsu, 600, 601, 611, 618, 629
organisation on feudal basis, Enshin, 540, 541, 543, 556, 558
372 et seq. Masanori, 617
high constables (Shugo) and Akasaka, 540
land stewards (Jito), 385 Aki, 64, 231, 283, 325
et seq., 472, 557, 567 Akiiye (Kitabatake)
concurrent jurisdiction, 391 Akiko, 237
Kamakura Bakufu, 405 et seq. Akinobu (Kitabatake)
Rokuhara system, 452 Akisada (Uyesugi)
Councils of State, 471 Akita, 233
640 INDEX
Akiyoshi (Kitabatake) Ashikaga Takauji
Amagasaki Hill, 131 commander of Bakufu army,
Amagaseki, 365 541
Amagashi Hill, 56 expedition against Daigo II.,
Amako (Awa), 360 542
Amako (Sasaki), 629 fall of Rokuhara, 543
Amano Tokage, 420, 493 provincial governorship, 550
Ama-terasu no Ohokami, 67 recovery of Kamakura, 555,
Amida, 135 et seq., 576
Amida (Buddha), 479 et seq. flight from Chinjufun Shogun,
Anaho, 83. 84 557
Anahobe, 91, 117 et seq. investiture as Shogun, 569
Ando, 531 assailed by the Nittas, 576
Ando Goro, 531 appropriation of taxes, 586, 596
Anjiro, 16 death, 578
Ankan, 80, 90, 109 character, 578 et seq.
Anko, 81, 83 other references, 413, 544, 549,
Annen, 425 574, 575
Antoku, 325, 335, 347, 348, 350, 361, Ashikaga Yoshiakira, 569, 577, 578,
365 580, 583
Aohaka (Mino), 305, 309 Yoshihara, 626
Aoto Fiijitsuna, 462 (note) Yoshihisa, 600, 612, 615, 623
Arai, 628 Yoshikane, 347
Arako Kawachi no Mumakahi no Yoshikazu, 598
Obito, 90
Yoshimasa
Are, 54 assumption of Shogunate, 601
Arihara no Yukihira, 229 extravagance, 604, 621
Arima, Prince, 141 granting of Tokusei, 606
Arimitsu (Hino)
succession disputes, 607
Arinori (Hino)
female influence, 607, 615, 622
Army (see Military system) extirpation of Kais, 609
Art, 634
yields to Yoshikado's claims,
Asahina Saburd, 426
609
Asai, 629
favours Yoshinari, 610
Asakura, 608, 616
exasperation against Yamana
Asawara Tameyori, 535 (note)
Sozen, 611
Ashigaru, 631
Ashikaga (family) — resignation of office, 612
warning to Hosokawa and Ya-
origin, 236 (note), 288, 300, 542
genealogy, 591 (note)
mana leaders, 613
epitome of administration, 26 bans Yoshimi and declares
struggle against Imperialists, Yoshihisa Shogun, 615
incapacity as ruler, 621
557 et seq.
intestine strife, 575 erection of Ginkakuji, 621
Shogunate, 569 et seq. debauchery, 621, 622
war against southerners, 573 adoption of Yoshitane as Sho-
extravagance, 592. 593, 623 gun, 623
heavy taxation, 602, 603 patron of art, 634
decline, 621 Ashikaga Yoshimi, 612, 613, 615
puppets in hands of Hosokawas, et seq.
624 Yoshimitsu
last of the line, 626 early training, 583
Ashikaga Cha-cha, 627 defeat of Yamana Mitsuyuki,
Isshiki, 515. 612 584
Masatomo, 618, 624, 627 extension of power, 589
Mitsusada, 600 revolt of ouchi Yoshihiro, 590
Mochinaka, 599 character, 592, 594, 621
Mochiuji, 598, 599, 600, 618 extravagance, 592, 596
Motouji, 581, 583 attitude to religion, 592, 595,
Shigeuji, 618, 619 596
Tadafuyu, 574. 577 encouragement of foreign trade,
Tadatsuna, 329 596
Tadayoshi, 542, 550, 554, 570, succession disputes, 607
574 et seq., 580 encouragement of art, 634
 INDEX. 641

Ashikaga Yoshimochi, 597, 598, 599, Benkei (Musashi-B6)

603, 604 Bidatsu, 90, 91, 92, 116, 117, 132
Yoshinori, 590, 598, 600, 601 Bifuku Mon-in, 293, 295, 296
Yoshitane, 623 et seq., 634 Bin (Min), 145, 147, 148 (note),
(note) 149, 158, 176
•
Yoshiteru, 626 Bitchu, 211, 350
Yoshitsugu, 599 Bizen, 47, 350
Yoshizumi, 624, 625, 627 Bokkai, 496
Ashina, 629 Bonotsu, 493
<Vso, 317, 564, 575, 598 630 Buddhism (also see Temples) —
Astronomy, 75, 143 in Korea, 41 (note)
Ata, 298, 311, 317 introduction into Japan, 53, 58,
Atogi, 43 110 et seq.
91, 105,
Awa, 203, 265, 341, 342, 448 gifts from Pakche king, 110, 114
Awaji, 59, 100. 187, 199, 206 reception by Emperor, 113
Awazu, 353, 354 (note) proscription, 113, 115
Aya, 103, 104, 121, 132, 137, 139 reinstatement, 118
Ayabito (Kuromaro Takamuku no) influence of the Soga, 120
Ayakasu, 132 Pakche propaganda, 121
Azechi, Lady, 365 corruption among the priest-
Azuchi Castle, 45 hood, 125
Azuma Kagami, 395, 418 effect of new religion on Shin-
toism, 24, 172, 173, 193
Bakufu (also see Administration growth of power, 24, 174, 175
and under various family restrictive legislation against
names) — priesthood, 175
composition, 405 gorgeousness of fanes and idols,
control of military class, 414 176
establishment of Shogunate, prophylactic against pestilence,
414 192
position of women, 423, 467 absorption of Shinto, 24, 193
critical periods, 428, 447 Nara Daibutsu, 193, 194
waning of influence, 433, 434, transfer of land to temples to
461, 527, 529 escape taxation, 195
internal dissensions, 435, Kwammu's attempt to diminish
Kyoto's failure to control, 437, influence, 207
438 sects, 265, 266, 477 et seq.
Toba II. 's attempt to overthrow, war between the monasteries,
442 et seq. 290, 490
punishment of Imperial family, material enterprises, 487
449 revival, 25
the Rokuhara replica, 452 images, 119, 176, 191, 192, 194.
the Hojo Regents. 461 208, 279, 332, 487, 488
administration of justice, 462, nuns, 116, 120, 125
463, 531 Bungo, 108, 297, 317, 350, 359, 386
Kwanto Customary, 464 et seq., Buretsu, 81 et seq., 86 et seq., 126
468 Burial customs (see Funeral cus-
control of clergy, 467 toms)
State Council deliberations, 471 Burying alive, 69
control of domains, 471 et seq., Bushido, 37 (note)
Kamakura officials, 473 Buzen, 64, 108, 272
economic difficulties, 445, 530 Byo-do-in, 328, 329
fall of Bakufu, 544
establishment at Murcmachi, Calendars, 75, 78, 112, 149
569 et' seq. Carters' Be, 99
impotency of M^^omachi Ba- Castles in Japan, 45
kufu, 587 Cha-cha (Ashikaga)
reorganisation under Yoshimi- Chen-han, 73
tsu, 589 Che pho, 599
conspiracy against officials, 425 Chiba. 339, 341, 601, 618
Bamba, 543 Chichibu range, 190
Barbarities, 84 et seq.. 241 Chihaya, 540, 584
Battles (see Ainu, Civil War. China, Chi Hwang-ti. 32, 103
Korea, and Mongo'ian Invasion) Chikafusa (Kitabatake)
Be (tomo), 98 ei seq. Chikahira, Izumi, 425

PP
€42 INDEX
Chikatada (Tate) Civil war (contd.) —
Chlkayoshi Nakahara)
( capture of Fujiwara Oshikatsu,
Chikuzen, 108 et seq., 151, 215 199
(note), 316, 493, 494 Taira feud, 264, 283
China (also see Simcisation of seizure of Kadzusa and Shi-
Japan and individual Chinese moso byTaira, 265
names) — Nine Years' War, 270
disorder in, 142, 491 defence of Kurigaya, 271
feudalism in, 31, 72 revolt in Mutsu, 285
Great Wall of, 32 siege of Kanazawa, 285 et
harried by Japanese pirates, seq.
15 strife between temples, 290, 291,
intercourse with, 36, 37, 142, 314
145, 243, 491, 493, 588, 596, Sutoku's attempt to regain
597 throne, 296 et seq.
Japanese envoys to, 36, 144 capture of Shiran wa IT. by
Japanese in, 145, 147 Tairas, 302
struggle with Tartars and Mon- Minamoto assault on Rokuhara.
gols, 491 305
topography, 31, 151 Taira and Minamoto rivalry,
trade with, 493, 588, 596, 597 307. 329
Chinese art, 634 p?ot to overthrow Tairas, 319
attack on Korean States. et seq.
181,182 battle of Byo-doin, 329
ceremonial, 160 battle of Stone-Bridge Hill, 341
chronology, 75, 79 retreat of Tairas from Fuji
civilisation, 146, 148, 491 river, 342, 343
class divisions, 163 et seq. Taira defeat at Tcnami, Shi-
classics, 159 (note), 160 nowara. etc., 347
emigration to Japan, 102, Taira rally in Shikoku, 350
145 capture of Shirakawa II. by
envoys to Japan, 505, 597 Yoshitsune, 353
- — in Japan, 48, 102, 132,145.
493 517
Minamoto
tani,
victory at Ichi-no-
355 et seq.
institutions, 21. 153. 157. Minamoto attack on Tairas in
163 et seq.. 190, 204, 228, Shikoku. 360 et seq.
386, 494 naval encounter at Dan-no-ura,
language. 48, 49, 203 363 et seq.
learning. 7 et seq., 58, 143. reduction of Mutsu, 395, 396
572 league against Kajiwara Ka-
legend. 87 getoki, 416
literature, 78. 143, 177.229. conspiracy against Bakufu offi-
243 cials. 425
military instruction. 631 war between Bakufu and Im-
origin of Japanese, 48 perialists, 444
records. 24, 36 et seq., 74 capture of Kyoto by Hojo Ya-
79, 87, 93, 143, 144 sut_oki, 444
CMn-han, 34. 80 capture of Daigo II. by Bakufu
Chivo Doji, 272 army, 540
Chogen, 404 escape of Daigo II. and attack
Cho I. 498 on Ky5to, 541
Chokei, 582 insurrection in Kwanto, 543
Chokei (Miyoshi) fall of Kamakura, 544
Cbokodo. 460 Hojo revolts, 555
Chomei, 331 clash between Ashikaga Taka
Chonen (Pujiwara) uji and Imperialists, 556
Chosokabe, 27, 629 siege of Hi-ei-zan, 556, 557
Chosen (Korea) battle of Hyogo, 558
Chow dynasty, 31. 72 capture of Kyoto by Ashikagas.
Chronicles of Emperors, 54 543. 560
Chiiai. 40. 65, 67, 72, 89 fall of Kanzaki keep, 562
Chnkyo (Kanenari), 404, 442,448 capture of Kamakura by Aki-
Civil war iye, 563
succession dispute in Yamato. private wars, 564 et seq., 598,
119 619, 627, 628, G30
 INDEX. 643

Civil war (contd.) — Dairi. 632, 633

north v. south, 563 et seq. Dan-no ura, 364, 367, 405, 494, 510,
Kitabatake's movement on 521
Kyoto, 572 Danrinji 486
battle of Shijo-nawate, 573 Date, 590, 629
recovery of Kamakura by Ta- Dazaifu, 190, 196, 246, 347, 349,
kauji, 576 513
defeat of Yamanas, 584 Dengyo-daishi (Saicho), 207, 266,
rapture of Chihaya caste 584 494
determined assault on Pa'ace Deshima, 12
in Kyoto, 585 Dewa. 215. 218, 220, 234, 269, 271,
effect of succession wars, 587 386, 391, 395 et seq.
plot against Yoshinori, 600 Divination. 39, 349
Yoshitoshi's attack on Kai. 608 Dei, 339
Kyoto threatened by Shiba Sanehira, 358, 367, 386
Yoshikado, 609 Dokyo, 198, 199, 200 235
Hatakeyama dissension. 610 Dolmens 44, 46, 47. 90, 108
Kyoto attacked by Yamana So- Doryu, 517
zen, 611 Dosho, 193, 204
Hosokawa versus Yamana (War
of onin), 14, 613 et seq., Earthquakes, 379. 393
632, 633 Echigo, 342, 344. 345. 347, 348, 424
war in the Kwantd, 618 (note), 619, 628. 629
Sengoku Jidai. 619 Echizen. 229. 261, 345. 346
Ashikaga Yoshitane's stand at Edict of Reforms. 150. 152. 155
Hi-ei-zan, 625 Education. 165, 166, 177, 203, 229,
battle of Funaoka-yama. 625
242, 523
battle of Mimikawa. 14
Eight Gods of Thunder, 59
battle of Sekigahara, 15 Eisai, 486, 487, 494
battle of Shimabara, 19
Eishu, 494
Clans, 94 et seq. Emishi (Soga Yemishi)
Class distinctions, 163 et seq., 172, Emperors. Chronicles of, 54
635 Enchin. 266
C'av-workers' Company, 69 Endo Morito (Mongaku Shonin)
Coinage. 186, 190, 191, 221, 222, Engi. 189 (note), 547
496. 620 Enqi-Shiki. 189 (note), 250
conflagrations. 114, 299, 331, 573
Enki (Nagasaki)
Confucius, 205 Enryaku-ji (see Hi-ei-zan)
Corvee (see Forced labour) Enshin (Akamatsu)
Daibutsu at Nara (see Nara — Dai- En-vu, 226
Epidemics
butsu)
Daigo, 189 (note), 236 (note), 244, pestilence in Yamato, 67, 113,
250, 258, 280 115, 116, 128
Daigo II.
attributed to adoption of Bud-
character, 280 dhism, 113, 115
factor in overthrow of Hojos, smallpox, 192, 195, 489
532 propitiation of divinities, 192
genealogy, 533 advantage to the priesthood,
accession, 536 195, 489
Bakufu's distrust, 536 contagious disease ascribed to
solicitude for poor, 539 angry spirits. 248 (note)
support of priests, 539 pestilence in Kyoto, 330-333,
deposed and banished, 540 344, 490, 539, 573, 604
escape from Oki. 540 Eta, 183. 238, 239
rally of partisans, 541 Etchu. 345, 346
defeat of Kamakura, 542 et seq. Even Pass of Hades, 59
recovery of throne at Kyoto,
546 Famine. 128, 330, 331, 332, 344, 490.
ambition to restore civil power, 573, 603, 604
548 Feudalism (also see Administration
besieged on Hi-ei-zan, 560 and Bakufu) —
escape to Yoshino, 561 primeval system, 71
death, 563 anti Taikwa organisation, 94
Dai Nihon Kolunsho, 190 (note) sustenance-flefs, 150
644 INDEX
Feudalism (contd.) — Fujiwara (contd.) —
class distinctions in feudal power over the throne, 25,
Japan, 164 238, 239, 276
substituted for clan system, 165 Regents, 250, 256, 282, 294
causes of the rise of feudalism, height of splendour, 256, 258
170 et seq. autocracy, 259
mildness of Penal Code as a harmony with Minamoto, 259,
contributory cause, 262 264
consolidation of Mutsu fief, Fujiwara in the Kwanto, 263
289 effeminacy of Fujiwara in
confusion of rights, 309 Kyoto, 263
grants to Taira Kiyomori, 316 alliance with Taira and Mina-
sub-infeudation, 316, 620, 630 moto. 268
spread in Kyushu, 316 power broken, 268, '275
work of Yoritomo, 372 et seq. exclusion from household of
contemporary feudatories of Empress, 318
Yoritomo-, 386 supplanted by Taira, 370
end of Mutsu as a fief, 397 Fujiwara Akimitsu, 258, 259
centralised feudalism, 411 Arihira, 177 (note)
feudal jurisprudence, 463 Chonen, 179
supp'anting of Imperial law, Fubito, 192, 197, 235
464, 465 Fusasaki, 197 (note), 256
appointment of governors a ne- Fuyutsugu, 229, 232, 236
gation of feudal system, 550 Gemmyo, 254
enlargement of fiefs, 566 Hidehira
abolition of female fiefs, 566
disobeys order to punish Yori-
internal policy of 566
fiefs,
tomo, 352
"Feudal Code," 463, 570, 571 shelters Yoshitsune, 356, 394
Ashikaga feudalism, 589 et sen. lord of Mutsu and Dewa, 383,
feudal chiefs in Great Council.
386, 391
595
feared by Yoritomo, 383
Shogun's relations with vas-
commands sons to support Yo-
sals, 594, 597
shitsune, 394
taxes under feudal system, 602,
death, 394
604
cancellation of indebtedness
Fujiwara Hidesato (Tawara T5da),
256, 263, 264
(Tokusei). 606
succession disputes, 607 Hirotsugu, 196, 197 (note)
abolition, 20 Kamatari
Fire God, 59 land scheme, 25
Flesher's Be, 99 establishment of centralised
" Following the dead," 69 civilian government, 25
Football. 473 declines hereditary post, 133
Forced labour (corvee), 156, 157, friendship with Princes, 134,
172, 224, 249, 268, 519 135
Foreign trade, 12, 493, 588, 596. successful plot against Sogas,
597, 599 134
Free Cities, 635 adviser in succession questions,
Fubito (Fujiwara) 139
Fujihara no Umakai, 215 founder of Fujiwara house.
Fuji River, 342 140, 235
Fujitsuna (Aoto) character, 134, 140
Fujiwara (family) — study of Chinese doctrines,
origin, 67, 96, 140 135, 149, 160
genealogy, 197 (note), 258 death, 44
Imperial consorts, 51, 235, 239, burial in dolmen tumulus, 44
275 daughters married to Tenchi,
exclusive policy, 177 184
victims to smallpox, 192 other references. 145. 174
relation to Emperors, 197, 259 Fujiwara Kaneie. 258, 259
civil war, 199 Kanemichi, 258. 259
internal dissension, 235, 293, Kiyohira, 285. 289
294, 306 Kiyotsura, 248 (note)
basis of Fujiwara greatness, Korechika, 259, 262
238 Korekata, 303, 304
 INDEX 645

Fujiwara Kunitsuna, 313, 334 Fujiwara Yoshitsugu, 188, 197

Kusuri, Lady, 227, 235, 248 (note),
474
(note) Yoshiyasu, 429
Matate, 197 (note) Yoshiyo, 245
Michiiye, 457, 474 Yukimasa, 406
Michinaga, 258 et seq., 264, Fukakusa II., 458, 459, 533
267, 375 Fukuwara, 319, 320, 324, 325, 330,
Michinori (Shinsai), 299, 301, 354, 357
302, 307 Fumiya no Watamaro, 227, 233
Mitsuyori, 303 Funai, 601
Momokawa, 187, 197 (note), Funeral customs
200 et seq. mourning, 39
Moroiye, 324 prohibition to erect mausolea,
Moromitsu (Saito), 319 et seq 45
Moronaga, 324 dolmens, 44 et seq., 70, 90, 108
Morosuke, 250, 258 elaborate funerals, 45, 176
Moroye, 352 eulogies of deceased, 53
Motofusa, 313, 318, 323, 324, burial of attendants alive, 69
352 clay images substituted for liv-
Motcmichi, 313, 314, 324, 334. ing bodies. 69, 70
347, 352 cremation, 204
Motosane, 308, 313 Furubito no oye, 130, 135, 137. 139,
Mototsune, 189 (note), 239 et 149
seq., 258
245, Fusaaki (Uyesugi)
Muchimaro, 197 (note) 198 Fusan, 599
(note) Fusasaki (Fujiwara)
Nagate, 187, 197 (note) Fushimi, 311, 459, 475, 533, 535
Nakamaro (see Fujiwara no Fushimi II., 459
Oshikaitsu Fuyutsugu (Fujiwara)
Nakanari, 227, 235, 299
Nariakira, 265 Gakumonjo Ban, 473
Narichika. 319 et seq. Gembo, 196, 197
Nobuyori, 301 et seq. Gemmyo, 54, 186, 187
Norimichi, 275, 276 Gemmyo (Fujiwara)
Oshikatsu (Nakamaro), 197 Genealogical discrepancies, 72
(note), 198, 199, 235 Genku (Honen Shonin), 478,480
Saneyori, 250, 258 Gensho, 186, 187, 215
Saneyoshi, 288 Ginkakuji, 621
Seigwa, 10 Gion temple. 266, 291
Sugane, 246. 247 Go (Japanese checkers), 203
Sumitomo, 251, 252, 255. 265 Go-Daigo (see Daigo II.)
Tadabumi, 256 Go-Ichij5 (see Ichijo II.)
Tadahira. 189 (note), 250, 251, Gojo Bridge, 356
253 et seq., 258 Gcngoro (Kamakura)
Tadamichi, 294, 295, 299 Goro (Ando)
Tadazane, 294, 295, 299 Go-Sanjo (see Sanjo II.)
Tokihira, 189 (note), 232,240, Go-Shirakawa (see Shirakawa II.)
244 et seq., 258 Go-Shujaku (see Shujaku II.)
Toshinaga, 406 Go-Toba (see Toba II.)
Tsugunawa, 189 (note) Gozen (Tomoe and Shizuka)
Tsunekiyo, 271. 289 Gyobu-Sho. 158, 162
Uchimaro, 235, 236 Gyogi Bosatsu, 192, 193
Uona. 197 (note). 256
Yasuhira, 14. 379, 394 et seq. Hachiman, 200, 254. 272, 273, 374
Yasumasa, 263 Hachiman Tard (Minamoto Ycshi-
Yasunori, 233, 245, 247, 249 iye)
Yoirinaga. 294 et seq. Hada, 103, 104
Yorimichi, Hakata, 251, 252, 350, 508, 522
267, 268, 269, 274,
275 (note), 276 Hakatoko, 85
Yoritsune, 429, 439, 453, 462, Hakozaki, 350, 511. 512, 519
470, 474 Han, 102 et seq., 113
Yoshifusa, 197 (note), 236 et Hanazono, 529, 536
seq. Hanazono II., 585
Yoshinobu, 274, 275 Hansho, 81, 82
646 INDEX
Han States, 73 Hi-ei-zan (contd.) —
Han 34
tribes, Daigo II.besieged in the mo-
Harada, 298, 316 nastery, 560
Hara-kiri, 312, 313, 329, 471, 600, decay of influence, 595
626 battle between Ashikaga Yoshi-
Harima, 88, 100, 231, 249, 303, 350, tane and Hosokawa Masa-
358, 514 moto, 625
Harumoto (Hosokawa) other references, 325, 347, 352
Hash! no Muraji (Chief of Clay- Higashiyama, 319
workers), 69 Higo, 108, 200, 264, 298, 317
Hashi no Omi, 69 Higuchi, 351
Hatakeyama, 289, 420, 422, 590, Kanemitsu, 354 (note)
608, 609, 629, 635 Hikaru (Minamoto)
Kunikiyo, 581 Hiki, 395
Masanaga, 609 et seq., 624 Munetomo, 420
Mochikuni, 609, 610 Yoshikazu, 416, 419, 420
Motokuni, 584, 590
Hikoshima, 359, 361
Shigetada, 342, 392
Himeko, Queen, 37
Yoshinari, 609, 610, 612, 618
Himekuko, 37
Yoshito, 612
Himuka, 64
Hatsiida Tomoye, 416
Hayairu Ban, 473 Hing, 81, 83
Hayanari (Tachibana) Hino. 532
Hayato. 50, 82 (note), 117, 132,
Arimitsu, 585
63,
215 Arinori, 480
177,
Heavenly Grandchild, 63, 70, 116 Katsuakira, 615, 622
Heguri, 91. 95 Hinckuma, 85
Heianjo, 399 Hirado, 271, 519
Heiji, 333 Hiraga. 288
Heij5, 206, 226, 227, 229, 232 Tomomasa, 369, 421, 422
Heishi (see Taira) Hirakori, 200
Hemi, 288 Hiromoto (oye and Nakahara)
Heung-nu. 142 Hirose, 116, 120
Hi. 108 et seq. Hiroshima, 64, 325
Hiburi, 251 Hirotsugu, 196, 197 (note)
Hida, 114, 115, 151, 219 Hirotsune (Taira)
Hidaka, Prince, 616 Hiru-ka-kojima, 336
Hidehira (Fujiwara) Hisa-akira, 475, 533
Hidenobu (Koremune) Hisashi-Ban, 473
Hidesato (Fujiwara) History, Official (see Nihongi)
Hidetake (Kimiono) History of the Country, 54
Hidetcki (H6j5) History of the Emperors. 54
Hideyori, 120 (footnote), 191 Hitachi, 228, 252, 253, 254, 343
Hideyoshi, 2, 14, 16, 26, 292, 374. Hi-uchi-yama, 346
379, 380. 387, 411, 413, 495, 550, Hiung-nu Tartars, 32
636 Hiyeda, 201
Hideyoshi (Satake and Sasaki) no Are, 54
Hi-ei-zan Hiyodori Pass. 356, 357
foundation of Enryaku-ji, 207 Hiyoshi, 291, 325
relation to Buddhist sects, 266
Hizen, 108, 196, 283. 317, 389,519
strife with other temples, 266
290, 291, 314, 440, 490
Hojo (familv^ —
origin, 339
attack on Fujiwara Yorimichi,
Jdei Shikimoku Code, 281 (also
267
see Laws)
feud with the Taira, 267
treatment of Emperors. 455, 456
hotbed of vice. 290
contrast with Minamotcs, 461,
conflict with Government, 291
297 462
relations with Miuras. 470, 471
clash with Minamoto, 291, 297.
305 attitude towards religion, 488
league with the Taira. 328 weakening of power, 529
monastery of the Tendai sect. contributory causes of decline,
477 529. 531
burnt by Miirlera. 490 fall, 545
an Abbot Prince, 539 rise of later H6j5s, 629
 INDEX 647

Ho jo (cuntd.) — Hojo Yasutoki (contd.) —

other references, 27, 241. 289, measures against pirates, 497
374, 630 abstinence during famine, 604
Hojo Hidetoki, 544 Hojo Yoshitoki
Masamura, 454, 462 dispached against Hiki Mune-
Mitsutoki, 462, 470 tomo, 420
Morotoki, 461, 528 shelters Sanetomo from Toki-
Nagoshi, 564 masa, 422
Sadatoki, 459, 461, 526, 527, accord with Lady Masa, 424
528 attacked by Wada Yoshimon,
Sanemasa, 513 426
rising influence, 426
Soun, 628
Takatoki, 528, 529, 537, 538,
defeat of Minamoto Tokimoto,
544 428
declared an outlaw, 442
Tokifusa, 451, 452
saved by friendship of Miura
Tokikuni, 527
Taneyoshi, 443
Tokimasa re-instated as shikken, 448
alliance with Minamoto Yori other references, 423, 425, 452
tomo, 336, 337 Hold, 59
slaughter of Taira Kanetaka.
Hoki, 46, 542, 546
338
Hokkedo, 470
control of Minamotos, 345, 352
Hokoji, 120. 137, 139
commissions from Yoritomo, " Home Provinces." 153, 154
368, 369, 390
Honan rebellion, 32
rigorous examination of Shi-
Honda Sadachika, 419 (note)
zuka Gozen, 392 Honen Shonin (Genku)
head of Kamakura Council of Horikawa, 274, 277
State, 416
Horikawa II., 449, 456
conflict of interests with Lady Horikoshi, 619
Masa, 418 Horses in Early Japan, 46, 70
assassination of Hiki Yoshi Hoshoji, 352
kazu, 420 Hosokawa, 288, 542, 611, 61S, 626,
Yoriiye's attempt to slay, 420 629
becomes Regent, 421 Harumoto, 626
resigns position, 422, 462
Katsumoto, 610, 612, 614, 617
Hojo Tokimune Kiyouji, 581
appeal to Bushi, 504 Masamoto, 624, 625
reply to Kublai's expedition, Sumimoto, 625, 626
507 Sumiyuki, 625
mobilisation against Mongol Takakuni, 625, 626
invaders, 508, 523 Yoriyuki, 581, 583, 589, 592,
skill in archery, 510 595, 611
death, 526 Hosso sect, 193, 196
other references, 461, 517 How Chow, 142
Hojo Tokiyori, 461, 462, 470, 476, How Leang, 142
484, 510
—— Tokiyuki, 544, 564
Hsian, 181, 188, 203, 229, 491
Hsiao Ghing, 205
Tsunetoki, 461 HyS-cha, 121
Ujitsuna, 628 Hye-chong, 121
Yasutoki Hye-phyon, 114
attack on Hiki Munetomo, 420 Hyobu-sho, 158, 162
capture of Kyoto, 444, 448 Hyogo, 319, 493, 558, 596
mercy to vanquished, 448 Hyuga, 47, 49, 60, 64, 70, 219, 268,
execution of Court nobles, 449 419 (note), 564, 598
assumption of Regency, 454
enthronement of Tsuchimika- Ichii, 118, 120
do, 457 Ichijo, 226, 259, 275 (note), 493
relatives and descendants, 461 (note)
administration of justice, 462, Ichijo II., 259
463 Ichiman (Minamoto)
economic problems, 476 Ichinei,525
drastic measures against priest- Ichinohe Oshiiwa, 81, 84, 88
hood, 190 Ichi-no-tani, 355, 358
648 INDEX
Idzu, 300, 310, 339, 341, 344, 371, Ito, Prince, 147
628 Ito Sukechika, 336, 337, 341
Idzumi, 231. 391 Itsukushima (Miyajima)
Idzumo, 46, 59, 66, 67, 69, 96, 283, Itsu-se, 64
629 Iwai, 57, 108 et seq.
Ifuya pass, 60 , Iwaki, 46
Iga, 369, 422, 560 Iwami, 46, 541
Mitsusue, 439, 442 Iware, 118
lhitoyo, 82, 88 Iwashimidzu, 273, 325, 490
Ii Kamon no Kami, 307 Iwate Ken, 269, 270
Ikaruga, 131 Iyehira (Kiycwara)
Ike no Gozen, Lady, 310, 311 Iyeyasu (Tokugawa)
Iki, 168, 508, 518 Iyeyoshi (Uchida)
Ikuta, 354, 355, 357 Iyo, Queen, 37
Ilia, 108 Iyo (Shikoku), 83, 251, 252, 348,
Imagawa, 629 361, 364, 381, 541
Sadayo, 582, 618, 628 Izanagi, 59
Images (see Buddhism images) — Izanami, 59
Imai Kanehira, 353, 354 Izawa, 273
Imatsu, 520 Izu (see Idzu)
Imibe, 40, 67 Izumi Chikahira, 425
Imiki, 166
Immigration into Japan, 102, 145, Japanese in Korea (see Korea)
182 Japanese language (see Language)
Imna (see Korea Mimana) — Jenghiz Khan, 497
Imoko, Mono no Omi, 144 Jibu-Sh6, 158, 161
Imperial burial mounds, 46 Jie Daishi (Ryogen)
domains, 97 et seq. Jimbo, 609
line, 52 Jimmu, 51, 63, 67, 71, 75, 96
" Impetuous Male/' 60 Jingo Kogo, 33, 43, 62, 67, 73
Inaba, 46 Jintdshotdlci, 569 et seq.
Inaki, 58, 97, 166 Jiro (Kusunoki)
Iname (Soga) Jito (see Administration)
India, 146 Jito, Empress, 164, 176 (note), 186,
Ingyo, 56, 81 et seq. 187, 188, 204
Inland Sea, 51, 59, 151, 231, 251, Jo, 289, 344
252, 283, 358 Jodo sect, 440, 478, 479
Inouye, Marquis, 147 Jodo Shinshu (New Sect), 480,486
Insei system (Cloistered Em Joe, 45
perors), 277 et seq., 458, 460 Jo-ei Shikimoku (see Laws)
Inukake, 599 Jomei, 45, 129, 187
Invasions (also see Mongol inva- Josetsu, 634
sions) Junna, 226 et seq., 237, 280
Chinese in Korea, 33, 181 Junnin, 186, 187, 198. 199, 215
Japanese in Korea, 42, 43, 73, Juntoku, 404, 442, 448, 457
108
southern invaders in Japan, 49, Kadzuraki, 88
50 Kaga, 218, 345, 346, 483, 619, 621
Kumaso and Hayato, 50 Kagechika (oba)
Mongols in Japan, 504 et seq., Kagemori (Adachi)
519, 524, 525 Kagesuye (Kajiwara)
fruka (Soga) Kagetoki (Kajiwara)
Ise, 192, 283, 293, 369,
67, 421, Kagetsuna, 298
422, 560 Kageyoshi (oba)
Ise Sadachika, 607, 609, 612, 615, Kagoshima Gulf. 49 (note), 63
622 Kai, 265, 305, 342, 608, 609, 616
Shinkuro, 628 Kaidu, 517
Ise shrine, 449 Kajiwara, 289
Ishibashi, 288, 341 Kagesuye, 416
Ishikawa, 115, 288 Kagetoki, 358, 360, 361, 367,
Iso-no-Kami. 117 381, 416
Isshiki (Ashikaga) Kamakura
Isshinden, 483 description, 378
Ito (Izu). 484 population, 378
ltd, 389, 564, 565, 598, 619, 630 earthquake, 379
 INDEX 649

Kamakura (contcl.) — Kanetaka (Taira)

shrine of Hachiman, 273, 379 Kaneto (Nakahara)
temples, 379, 462 (note), 595 Kanetsuna (Minamoto)
war with Kyoto, 342, 343, 350. Kang-Wha, 497
443, 541 Kano-gawa, 336
military authority, 378, 398, Kano Masanobu, 634
410 Kanzaki (omi), 182, 560, 562
control of provincial officials. Kaotsu, 77
389 Kara (Kaya), 74, 80, 106
Yoritomo, Lord of Kamakura, Ka-rak, 106 et seq.
399 Karu, Prince (see Kotoku)
administrative machinery,, 405, Karu, Princess, 82
408, 409 Kasagi, 540
legislation, 281, 387 et seq., Kasasa, Cape, 49 (note)
463 et seq. Kashigoye, 368
migration of scholars from Kata-kana, Invention of, 203
Kyoto, 408 Kato Shirozaemon, 495
Council of State, 416 *Katsuakira (Hino)
plot against Sanetomo, 420 Katsumoto (Hosokawa)
the Regency, 421 Katsuni (Nakatomi)
revolt of the Tairas, 422 Katsurabara, 252
position of women, 423 Kawachi, 103, 110, 119, 145, 282, 347,
frustration of Izumi conspiracy, 351, 560
425 Kawada, 396
defeat of Wada Yoshimori, 426 Kawagoye, 628
weakening of influence in Kawasaki, 270
Kyoto, 433 Kaya (see Kara)
administration of justice, 463 Kazuhito, 536
Imperial Prince as Shogun, Kazusa, 228, 252, 265, 341
474 Kebiishi-cho, 232
advent of civilian Shoguns, Keiko. 65, 72
475 Keitai, 80, 90, 97
religion in Kamakura, 481 et Kemmu-shikimoku, 468, 569, 570,
seq. 579
Buddha images, 487 Kena no Omi, 108
economic 530
difficulties. Kenrei-monin, 366, 369
intervention in succession dis- Kenshin (Yamanouchi)
putes, 535 Kenzo, 81, 87, 100
attack &n Emperor, 540 Kesa Gozen, 338
fall of city, 544 Khitans, 491, 497
capture by Kitabatake Akiiye, Ki, 91
563 Kibe (omi), 483
cut off from supplies, 568 Kibi, 47, 57, 64. 72, 97. 151
re-capture by Ashikaga Taka- no Mabi, 177 (note), 187,203,
uji, 576
204, 247
capture by Uyesugi NoTimoto, Ki-eh, 87
599 Kii peninsula, 47
Kamakura Gongoro, 286 Kikuchi, 298, 317, 541, 552, 565.
Kamatari (Fujiwara and Nakatomi) 566, 598, 601, 619, 629
Kame-giku, 437 Kimi-maro, 193
Kameyama. 458, 533, 535
Kimiono Hidetake, 284, 285
Kameyama II., 582, 584
Kim Ku-hyung, 106
Kamo, 325 Kimmei, 90, 91, 111, 117, 272
Kamo niyo-.im. 207 Kimotsuke. 317, 564
Kamo river, 291 Ki-nashi, 83
Kanamura (Ohoicmo)
Kinju-Ban, 473
Kanasa, 343
Kanazawa. 285. 286
Kinkakuji. 593
Kane Lady. 436 Kinkata, 420 (note)
Kanehira flmai) Ki no Omi, 110
Kaneie ( Fujiwara) Kin Tartars. 492, 497
Kanemichi (Fujiwara and Naka- Kintsune (Saionji)
hara) Kirokusho (Record Office), 275,
Kanemitsu (Higuchi) 408
Kanenari (Chukyo) Kise river, 342, 356, 385
650 INDEX.
Kitabatake, 565 Ko Moronao, 563, 570, 573 ct seq.,
Akiiye, 552, 556, 559, 562, 579,580, 585
563 Moroyasu, 573, 575
Akinobu, 563 Komyo, 560
Akiyoshi, 577 Konin, 187, 188, 201, 202, 218, 226,
Chikafusa 242
character, 536, 537 Kono 630
writings, 537, 569, 571, 572 Konoe, 274, 293, 294, 295, 493
takes the tonsure, 552 (note) K5no Michiari, 520
escape to Ise, 560 Michinobu, 361, 447, 448
war against Ashikagas, 5G8,
573 et seq.
- —
Konu,
Michitoki, 520
37, 47, 51
escape from Seki Castle, 569 Korea-
move on Kyoto, 572 Chinese invasion, 33, 36, 38,
death, 569, 578 181
Kitabatake Mitsumasa, 585 Chosen, establishment of, 597
Kitano, 248, 291 collapse of Japan's power in
11
Kitchen middens," 47 peninsula, 112
Kiyo-gimi (Sugawara) contest between Korean States,
Kiyohira (Fujiwara) 105, 110, 142, 181
Kiyomaro (Wake) Han tribes, 34, 35
Kiyomori (Taira) introduction of Buddhism into
Kiyomura, 203 Japan from Pakche, 105, 110,
Kiycsumidera, 483 111
Kiyotsune (Adachi) Japanese in Korea, 42, 105 et
Kiyotsura (Fujiwara and Miyoshi) seq., 132, 599
Kiyouji (Hosokawa) envoys, 42
Kiyowara, 271, 282, 289, 406 expeditions, 15, 42, 62, 74,
Tyehira, 284, 285. 287
108, 111, 182, 215
Sanehira, 284, 285 domination. 43, 80, 105,
Takehira. 284, 285, 287
106, 110
Takenori, 271. 272, 284
pirates on Korean coast,
Takesada, 284
497, 499, 597
K6. 575
Kara (Kaya), 74, 80, 106
Kobe, 330, 355, 560
Ka-rak, 106 et seq.
Koben (Myo-e). 488
Koguryu, 33, 73, 93, 102, 105
Kobo Daishi (Kukai). 227. 230, 265
et seq., 142, 145, 181
Kobun (Ohotomo), 184, 185, 187,
extent of, 34
188
Kobunji, 195 Korea in Japanese mythology,
61, 64 (no)te)
Kodzuke. 46. 109, 252, 254. 342, 344,
349. 424, 544
Korean envoys
to Japan, 43,
111, 182
110,
Kofuku-ji, 266, 276. 290. 291, 314.
tributes to Japan, 43, 10b,
325, 328 et seq., 440, 595, 596, 624
Koga. 619 180
Kogen, 91
science and art, 120, 143.
Kogcn, 543, 545, 546
215 (note)
Kogon II.. 577, 578 scribes, 44, 53, 103
Kognryu (see Korea) Koreans in Japan, 42, 48, 102,
Kosyoku, 129, 141 120, 132, 145, 182, 183, 215
Kohnng, 44 Kdryu, 496, 497, 498, 505, 511,
T^o-Tr>higo, 259 517, 523, 597
Kojiki, 40, 50, 53, 57, 79, SI et seq., allegiance to Kublai Khan,
188 498 et seq.
Kojima (Bizen), 321, 358 missions to Japan, 505
Koken. 186, 187. 195. 198. 203, 205 contingent in Mongol in-
Koko. 236 (note), 241 vasion of Japan, 511, 521
Kokubunji, 195 exhaustion of resources,
Kokyo (Hsiao Ching), 205 517, 523
Koma, 33, 73, 121 end in 1392, 597
Koman, 420 (note) language, 35, 49
Kcmaro. 135 et seq. Mimana (Imna), 34, 57, 74,
Komatsu, 584 80, 102, 107 et seq.
Kominato (Awa). 483 nuns sent to Pakche for in-
Ko Morofuyu, 575, 57C struction, 120
 INDEX. 651

Korea (contd.) — Kujo, 493 (note), 625

origin of western Koreans, 50 Kukai (Kobo Daishi)
Pakche (Kudara), 33, 73, 75, Kumano, 291, 301, 325
80. 85. 102, et seq., 120, Kumaso, 47, 50, 63, 72, 82 (note),
142, 143, 181 96, 132, 219
Japanese support against Kumonjo, 406
Silla and China, 112, 182 Kunai-Sho, 158, 161
fall of, 181, 182 Kunihito (Saga II.)
concubines for Japanese Kunika, 253
Emperor, 85 Kunikiyo (Hatakeyama)
politicaldevelopments, 33, 105- Kimlmiyakko (Kuni Miyatsuko,
107. 181, 182, 496 Kunitsuko), 55, 97, 99, 100, 124,
punitive expedition to Japan, 150, 154, 166, 171 (note)
599 Kunioshi, Takamuku no Omi,
records. 41, 43, 87, 203 137, 138
relations with Japan, 33, 42, Kunitsuko (see Kunimiyakko)
105, 143, 182, 496, 505, 599 Kunitsuna (Fujiwara)
Silla (Shiragi), 33, 42, 61, 73, Kurama, 355
80, 102, 105 et seq. 142, Kurando, 231, 232
181, 182, 192, 496 Kurayamada (Soga)
alleged conquest oif by Kurikara, 347
Jingo Kogo, 33, 43, 73 Kuriya-gawa, 271
seizure of Japanese pos- Kurodo, 302, 304
sessions, 110, 112 Kuro-hiko, 84
absorbed by Koryu, 496 Kuromaku, 140
smallpox brought to Japan Kuromaro Takamuku, 145, 147, 149,
from Silla, 192 158
Tartar and Mongol invasions, Kusakabe, 187
497 Kusunoki Jiro, 585
Korebito (Seiwa) Masakutsu, 584
Korechika (Fujiwara and Taira) Masanori, 565, 577, 582
Korehira (Taira) Masashige
Koretaka (Fujiwara) readiness to lead against Ka-
Koremori (Taira) makura, 539
Koremune, 420 (note) defence of Akasaka Castle, 540
Hidenobu, 419 attempt to capture Kyoto., 540
Tadahisa, 419 (note) appointment to Settsu Gover-
Koretaka, 238 norship, 550
Koreyasu, 475, 533 conflict against Kamakura
Koreyoshi (Sugawara) troops, 556, 557
Koromogawa. 218, 395 battle of Hyogo, 559
Koryo, 73 hara-kiri, 560
Koryu (see Korea Koryu) — other references, 550, 551
Kusunoki Masatsura, 573
Koryung, 106
Kosai Motochika, 625 Mitsumasa, 585
Kusuri, Lady (Fujiwara)
Kose, 91
Kuyehaha, 68
Notari, 232
Kwal-leuk, 143
no Tokudai, 137, 138
Koshi, 151
Kwammu
genealogy, 187
Koshi-Ban, 473
penalties against hoarders, 191,
Koshikijima, 524 221
Kotoku, 82, 83, 127, 134, 139, 141, character, 202. 209, 224. 280
149, 174 propitiation of departed spirits,
Koto-shiro ii"shi. 62 206
Koyasan. 265, 539, 595 attitude to Buddhism, 207
Kublai Khan (see a' so Mongolian removal of Court, 207
invasion), 438, 498, 500, 505 et establishment of Kyoto, 208
seq., 513, 517, 518, 523, 525 administration, 209 et seq., 221,
Kudara (see Korea — Pakche) 410
Kudo Shigemitsu, 312 operations against Ainu, 210,
Suketsune, 392 217, 220
Kuga. 594 campaign against vagabondage,
Kugyo (Minamoto) i
213, 214
Ku-hyung, 106 rising of a military caste, 214
652 INDEX.
Kwammu (contd.) Kyoto ( contd.) —
reform of military system, 218, !
capture by Ashikaga troops,
219 560, 577
establishment of granaries, 219 the Muromachi Bakufu, 569,
regulation of taxes. 222 586, 587
endowments to the University, re-capture by Southerners, 578
229 riots, 605, 622
Fujiwara consorts, 235 threatened by Shiba Ycshikado.
609
Kwampaku, 240
Kwampisei, 147 attacked by Yamana Sozen, 611
Kwanto, 217. 228, 251, 252 ct seq.,
War of onin, 613 et seq.
capture of Imperial Palace by
263. 264, 287, 344, 376, 464, 543.
Yamana Sozen. 612
576, 627, 628 reduced to desolation, 616
Kwazan, 226 toll barriers, 622
Kyogoku, 267, 623 Hosokawa struggle, 624, 625
Kyoto city half reduced to ashes, 633
construction, 208 (note)
description, 208, 593 other references, 256, 325. 379,
Imperial Palaces, 208. 209. 593 390, 411, 430, 431, 559, 573,
dearth of coinage, 221 598
Chinese institutions, 227 ct seq. Kyushu, 35. 47, 50. 62, 65, 72, 108
frivolity of administrators and ct seq.. 151. 193. 203, 218, 219,
courtiers, 230, 376, 621 233, 619
evil of Sho-en. 231
sanctioning of private war, 253 Land
Imperial Guards. 260, 261. 376 Imperial possession, 95, 98, 150,
astute device of a blockaded 171, 620
Governor, 261 ownership by clan leaders, 95
lawlessness, 262 Miia, 10J (note)
agricultural land, 155, 157
strife between temples, 266
conflict between Emperor and land taxation, 157, 170, 212
Ex-Emperor, 298 assignments to holders of high
ranks, 167, 168, 557
execution of outoku's suppor
tax-free estates (sho-en), 25,
ters. 299
169, 170, 195, 210, 211, 213,
transfer of capital to Fukuwara,
227, 228, 231, 280, 281, 390,
330
450, 620
famine and pestilence, 331, 332,
temple holdings, 195, 620
344, 573. 604
distribution to peasants, 211
flight of Tairas, 347
rewards to troops, 316
outrages by Yoshinaka's troops, confiscation, 450 (note), 586
349 appropriation of half taxes for
treachery of Minamoto Yukiiye, support of- troops. 586. 596
350 land under cultivation, 264, 602
raising of army against Tairas, land-thieving. 630
355, 358 Language, 2, 35, 48, 49, 203
weakening of central adminis- Laws
tration, 376 Yamato Constitution. 124. ]2h
population. 377, 635 Edict of Reforms, 150, 152. 155
rapture by Yoritcmo. 385 Cede of Taiho. 158. 167. 188.
respect for Yoritomo, 399 189 (note), 192, 464
Yoritomo's visits, 400. 411 Yamato judiciary. 162
exodus of learned. 408 sumptuary laws. 185, 249, 270.
capture by Hojo Yasutoki. 444 445, 477, 570, 579
Bakufu administration, 452 Tenchi Code, 188
the Rokuhara system. 452 Penal Codes, 189, 262
penury of Imperial Court, 459 Civil Code, 189
judicial defects, 463, 468, 551 Chinese Code, 189
religion, 488, 489 Engi-Shiki. 189 (note)
attack by Kusunoki, 540 special decrees, 221
fall of Rokuhara, 543 mildness of Penal Code. 262
military predominance, 547, 5.").°. general amnesties, 262
attempt to control military collision of Imperial and House
class, 547 et seq. laws, 281
 INDEX. 653

Laws (contd.) — Masatsura (Kusunoki)

Jo-ei Shikimoku. 281, 463
Masu-ko, 294
387,
et seq., 570 Mato, 110
criminal cases under Shugo, Matsunaga, 626
388 Matsuura, 271, 317
administration of justice under Michiari (Kono)
Yoritomo, 405, 417 Michichika (Minamoto)
Hojo Code, 450 (note) Michiiye (Fujiwara)
Tokusei, 530, 606, 622
Michinaga (Fujiwara)
Kyoto judicial machinery, 463,
Michinobu (Kono)
468, 551
Kemmu Shikimoku, 570 Michi-nc-Oho. 186
Leaou dynasty, 142 Michinori (Fujiwara)
Liang dynasty, 93 Michi no Shi, 166
Liao-tung, 496, 497 Michitoki (Kono)
Liu H'ii, 163 Michiyasu (Montoku)
Li Yuen (Prince of T'ang), 146 Michizane (Sugawara)
Lochana Buddha, 194 Miidera (Onvoji). 266. 290, 325,327
Lofc-yang, 37 (note). 143 et seq.. 352, 440, 477, 490
Lo Kuang-chung, 37 (note) Mikados, establishment of line, 61
Longevity of early Emperors, 40 Mikawa, 555
Luchu, 35, 50, 64 (note), 311, 312 Mikuni (Echizen), 89
Military institutions
Mabi (Kibi) capacity for organisation. 15
Mabito, 166 War Department, 162
Magadha, 146 Chinese organisation. 163, 164
Magari (Hirose), 120 privileged military class, 164,
Magic, Practice of, 118. 131, 259. 172, 219, 445
327, 584, 625 national army, 164, 172
Ma-han, 34, 49, 73 feudal system, 164
Maki, 212 (note) Imperial Guards, 172. 219 385
Maki, Lady, 421, 422 growth of miMtary spirit, 214,
Makko. Ill 217. 286
263,
Mamichi (Sugano) mobilisation against Ainu, 218.
Manciokoro, 406 219
Mane, 85 Kwammu's reform, 218
Manyoshu, 198 military groups. 263
Manzai. 595, 597 Sonshi on strategy, 285, 631
Masa (Udzu) seige of Kanazawa. 286
Masa, Lady Yoshinaka's warriors. 349
union with Yoritomo, 337. 338 tax for military purposes. 385
character, 340, 423, 424, 453 the operations against Mutsu.
taunted by Shizuka Gozen. 395, 396
392 Yoritomo's military authority,
clash of interests, 418 402
frustrates Hiki Yoshikazu's Samurai-dckoro, 405
" North-face " and " West-face "
plot, 420
influence over Yoriiye, 415, 420 warriors. 434
saves life of Sanetomo, 422 Bushi tactics. 508 et seq.
power over Kamakura leaders, Mongol warfare. 509 et seq.
443, 453 Chinese manuals, 631
Masahiro (ouchi) espionage, 631
Masahito (Shirakawa II.) Ashigaru. 631
Masakado (Taira) Mimana (see Korea —
Mimana)
Masakata (Nagao) Mimasaka, 358
Masakutsu (Kusunoki) Mimata. 118
Masamori (Taira) Mimbu-Sho. 158, 162, 209
Masamoto (Hosokawa) Mimikawa, 14
Masamura (Hojd) Min (see Bin)
Masanaga (Hatakeyama) Minabuchi, 135, 147, 173
Masanobu (Kano) Minamo+o (family) —
Masanori (Akamatsu) origin, 236
T'asashige (Kusunoki) colleagues of Fujiwara, 236,
Masatomo (Ashikaga) 259, 264
654 INDEX.
Minamoto (contd.) — Minamoto Tsunc. 237
support of military men, 204. —— Tsunemoto. 254
287 Wataru. 338 (note)
ailiance with Fujiwara and Yoriiye, 404, 415 et seq.. 422,
Taira,268 431
rise to power, 277, 282, 284, 287 Yorimasa, 288, 300, 305, 326
House laws, 281 et seq.
genealogy, 288, Yorimitsu, 260, 262, 267. 275
internal dissension, 289, 290, (note), 288
428 Yorimochi, 439
repression of turbulent priests Yorinobu, 263, 265. 270 275
291 (note), 288
traditional precocity, 309
Yoritomo
virtual extirpation, 334
extraction, 236 (note)
struggle with Tairas, 339, 360
character. 292, 336, 337, 351.
attack on Yashima. 360
366, 372, 375. 393
naval inferiority, 362
battle of Dan-nc-ira, 364
spared by Kiyomori. 309, 310
ferocity to kith and kin. 427 youthful precocity, 309
other references. 244. 263, 280 banished to Idzu, 310, 336
292, 338, 344. 370 headway in the Kwanto, 330,
Minamoto Hikaru, 246, 247, 249 332
Jchiman. 415, 419, 420 Taira Kiyomori's dying re-

Kanetsuna. 327 quest, 333

Kugyo, 415, 426, 427 construction of Kamakura. 335,
Michichika. 430, 433 et seq. 376
Mitsukuni, 291 trouble with Its Sukechika,
Mitsunaka, 263, 275 (note) 337
288 marriage with Lady Masa 337,
Nakatsuna, 288 327 338
Nobu, 237 summons to Minamotos. 338
Noriyori Minamotos versus Tairas. 339
command of armv agains' Kwanto Taira support. 340
Tairas. 355, 356. 358 367 defeat at Stone-Bridge Hill 341
escort of taxes, 353, 356 retreat of Tairas from Fuji
outmanoeuvred by Tomomori river, 342
358 domination in the Kwanto. 344
character, 359 defeat of Yoshinaka. 353
weakness as commander, 359 commission to destroy Tairas.
362, 363 355, 358
made awav with for " reason^ animosUv a°"nn^t Y^°hitsune.
of State." 411 359, 366, 367, 381. 382. 384
treatment by Yoritomo. 428 lust for power. 366, 380
Minamoto Sanetomo devotion of Kajiv.ara Kagetoki,
parentage. 415 367
partition of the Shogunate, 419 keen watch on Tairas. 371
lifeattempted. 420 administration 375 et seq.. 379,
appointed Sei-i-Tai Shogun. 385, 390. 397. 404 et sen.
420 holds aloof from Kvoto, 377.
life saved by Lady Masa, '1 22 381, 398
the Izumi plot. 425 conciliation of priesthood, 379,
palace attacked, 426 397
support of Toba II., 433. 435 Yoshitsune's commission to
project to visit China. 494 chastise Yoritomo. 383
introduction of tea, 494 occupation of Kyoto. 385
Minamoto Senju-maru, 415, 42: counter decree to punish Yoshi-
et seq. i
tsune, 385
Sukekata, 324 appointment of Shugo and Jito,
Tametomo, 297, 298, 300, 111 385 et seq.
312 proclaimed a rebel 390
Tameycshi, 288, 291, 296 et examination of Shizuka Gozen,
seq., 623 392
Tokimoto, 428
-— Tomonaga, 305, 309
cruelty to kith and kin, 393, 412
decree to kill Yoshjtsune, 394
 INDEX. 655

Minamoto Yoritomo (contd.) — Minamoto Yoshitsune (contd.) —

•reduction of Mutsu and Dewa, commits hara-kiri, 395
395 other references, 361, 379, 383
defeat of Yasuhira, 14, 396 Minamoto Yukiiye
military rights, 398, 402 conveys summons to Mina-
Kyoto respect, 399 motos, 327, 338
visits to Kyoto, 400, 411 defeated by Tairas, 344, 346,
distrust of Shirakawa II., 401 351, 353
patent of Sei-i-Tai Shogun, 402 joins with Yoshinaka and beats
administration of justice, 405 Tairas, 347
patronises scholars, 407 offended by Yoshinaka, 349
death, 411 unfortunate as commander, 350,
other references, 263, 273, 305. 383, 384
343, 345 et seq., 349, 352, 356. slanders Yoshinaka, 351
374, 430 character, 351
Minamoto Ycriyoshi. 269, 270 et hides in Kawachi, 357
seq., 275 (note). 288, 374 fear of Yoritomo, 381
Yoshichika, 283, 288, 297, 298 intimacy with Yoshitsune, 381
life threatened by Yoritomo, 381
-Yoshifusa, 275 (note)
defeat of Shoshun, 382
Yoshihira, 304, 305, 306, 344
commission to punish Yorito-
Yoshiie (Hachiman Taro),
mo, 383. 384
270, 272. 273, 281 et seq., 285
wrecked in typhoon, 384
et seq., 316
Yoritomo charged with coun-
Yoshikata 297, 344 ter decree, 385
Yoshikuni, 288
— — Yoshikura, 297
Yukiiye captured and slain, 391
Minamoto Yukitsuna (Tada), 319,
Ycshimitsu, 282, 285, 287, 288 320, 347
Yoshinaka, 342. 344 et seq., 354 Zenjo, 428
et seq., 371, 383, 393 Minato-gawa, 559, 580
Yoshitaka, 346 Ming-ti, 86
Yoshitoki, 288, 442 Mining. 18, 194
Yoshitomo, 296, 298, 299, 300 Mino. 102 152, 263, 265, 629
et seq.. 348 Minobu, 484
Yoshitsuna, 270, 282, 288, 297 Miroku, 114. 115
Yoshitsune— Misasagi (tombs), 129
genealogy, 288 Mishima, 134
childhood, 311. 355 Mita, 107 (note)
spared by Taira Kiyomori, 311 Mii-snie (Nakahara)
attack en Kyoto 353 Mitsukuni (Minamoto)
victory at Ichi-no tani. 355, 357 Mitsumasa (Kitabatake and Kuannoki)
military genius, 356, 362 Mitsumura (Miura)
smuggled to Mutsu, 356 Mitsunaka (Minamoto)
encounter with Musashi-Bo- Mitsusada (Ashikaga)
Benkei and consequences, 356 Mitsusue (Iga)
animosi'y of Yoritomo, 359, 366, Mitsutoki (Hojo)
367, 381, 382, 384 Mitsuyori (Fujiwara)
official appointments, 360 Mitsuyuki (Yamana)
route of Tairas at Yashima. 360 Miura, 289, 339, 341, 427, 470, 471
victory at Dan-nc-ura, 363 et Mitsumura, 470
seq. Taneyoshi, 443
slandered by Kajivvara Kageto- Yasumura, 470
ki, 367 Ycshiatsu, 628
failure to conci iate Yoritomo. Ycshimura, 427, 442
368 Yoshizumi, 364. 416
attacked by Yori'cmo's emissa Miu a, 96
ries. 380 Miwa, Great God of. 63, 67
commission to punish Yorito- Miwa no Kimi, 117
mo, 381 Mivajima (Itsukushima), 325,361,
wrecked in typhoon, 384 592
aporehensions of Yoritomo, 391. Miyake. 34, 107 (note), 109
394 Miyakko, 55
Yoshitsune reaches Mutsu in Mivoshi, 406. 408
disguise, 394 Chokei, 626
65G INDEX
Miyoshi Kiyotsura, 249 Moon God 60
Nagamoto, 626 Morihito, 295
Nagateru, 625 626 Morikuni, 475, 533
Yasunobu, 405, 435, 443, 447, Mori Motonari, 27
464 Morinaga, 540, 548, 554 (note)
Yasutoshi, 406 Morioka, 269
Yasutsura, 463 Morisada Shinno, 404, 449
Yoshinobu, 416 Moritoki (Taira)
Mizuki, 511 et seq. Moriya (Mononobe)
Mizushima, 350 Korofuyu (K6)
Mochihito, 326 et seq., 341, 348
(Hatakeyama) Moroiye (Fujiwara)
Mochikuni
Moohiuji (Ashikaga)
Moronaga (Fujiwara)
Mommu, 186, 187 Moronao (Ko)
Momoka (Fujiwara) Morosuke (Fujiwara)
Momokawa, 197 Morotoki (Hojo)
Monchuyo, 405 Moroyasu (Ko)
Mongaku Shonin (Endo Morito), Moroye (Tachibana and Fujiwara)
338, 404 Motochika (Kosai)
Mongol invasions Motofusa (Fujiwara)
overthrow of China by Mongo's, Motokuni (Hatakeyama)
491, 492 Motomichi (Fujiwara)
Korean peninsula swept, 497 Motomitsu (Fujiwara)
allegiance of Koryu, 498 Motomori (Taira)
missions to Japan, 498, 505, 507 Motonari (Mori)
Kublai Khan's challenge, 499 Motosane (Fujiwara)
treatment of two Japanese sub- Mototsune (Fujiwara)
jects at Peking, 505
Motouji (Ashikaga)
first Armada, 507
Mountain Wardens' Be, 99, 100
reduction of Tsushima, 507
Mourning (see Funeral customs)
landing in Kyushu, F.08
Muchimaro (Fujiwara)
Japanese call arms, 508
to
Muku-hara, 113
tactical disadvantage ofde-
Mumakahi (Arako)
fenders, 508
Mongol warfare, 509, 510
Mumako (Soga)
retreat of invaders, 512
Mumayado (Shotoku Taishi)
Munakata, 317, 493
Kublai's second attempt, 513
execution of envoys, 513, 518
Munekage (Adachi)
unrest on the continent, 517 Munekata (Nasu)
formation of second Armada Munekiyo (Taira)
518
Munemori (Taira)
combined MongolKoryu Munetaka. 474, 533
and
fleets, 518 Muneto (Abe)
seizure of islands, 519 Munetomo (Hiki)
landing in Northern Hizen, 519 Muneyori (Taira)
Japanese assume the defensive Muraji, 55, 95 et seq., 103, 113, 120,
on the water, 521 166
composition of the invading Murakami, 258
fleet, 521 Murakami II., 563. 576, 582
overwhelmed by a hurricane Murakami Genji, 236 (note)
522 Mure, 360
preparations for third inva- Muretsu (see Buretsu)
sion, 523 Muroyama (Harima), 353
death of Kublai and abandon- Musa, 69
ment of attempt on Japan, Musashi. 46, 51, 190, 228, 254, 260,
525 265, 304, 341, 421, 544
Monkenzanketsw-Ban, 473 Musashi-Bo-Benkei, 356, 384, 394
Mononobe. 57, 85. 96, 118 et seq. Music, 203
no Moriya, 118 Mutsu, 194, 215, 218. 220. 263, 285,
no Oho-Muraji, 113, 115, 116 287, 289, 356, 386, 395 et seq., f52,
Mono no Omi (Tmoko) 562
Monto (True Jodo) sect. 619. 629 Mutsuhito, 202, 280
Mon'oku, 236 (note), 237, 238 Myo-e (KSben)
Montoku Jitsuroku, 189 Myung.nong, 110, 112
 INDEX. 657

Nagamichi, Sliiro, 424 Nasol Won, 111

Nagamoto (Miyoshi) Nasu, 618
Nagao, 286, 289 Nasu no Yoichi Munekata, 361
Nagaoka, 207, 208 National Doctors, 147
Nagao Kakeharu, 627 Nawa, 619
Masakata, 627 Nagatoshi, 541, 550, 556, tin
Sadashige,
427 Nayan, 523
Tamekage, 628 Nenoi Yukichika, 354 (note)

—
Nagasaki Enki, 528
Takasuke, 531, 538
Nagate (Fujivvara)
Nichiren, 483, 501 et seq., 516
Nigi-haya-hi no Mikoto, 65
Nihongi, 40, 43, 50, 54, 58, 64 et
Nagateru (Miyoshi) seq.. 75 et seq., 79, 81 et seq.,
71,
Nagato, 151, 190, 219, 228, 231, 93, 185, 188, 202
350, 358, 359, 363, 513, 541 NihonKoki, 189 (note)
Nagatoshi ( Na \va Nijo, 301, 302, 307, 308, 493 (nota)
Nagoshi (Hojo) Nijo II., 533 et seq.
Nagoshi Takaie. 512 Nikaido, 406, 457
Naito, 281 Nimmyo, 228, 230, 235, 236
Nakaha Kaneto, 344 (note), 237, 246, 259, 280
Nakahara, 406 Nine Years' War, 270
Chikayoshi, 416 Ningpo, 601
Hiromoto (oye Hiromoto) Ninigi no Mikoto, 63
Kanemichi, 354 (note) Ninken, 81, 86 et seq., 89, 100
Mitsuie, 406 Ninnaji, 306
Nakamaro (Oshikatsu) Nintoku, 59, 74, 79, 81 et seq. 88
Nakanari (Fujiwara) et seq., 100,
280
Naka no oye (Tenchi) " Nippon," Origin of name. 202, 203
Nakatomi, 57, 67, 90, 116 Nirayama, 330
no Daibu, 115 Nitta, 288, 343, 542, 553, 565, 576
—— no Kamatari (Fujiwara Kama- Tadatsune, 420
tari) Yoshioki, 581
no Katsumi, 118 Yoshisada
no Muraj 113
i , raises army in Imperial cause,
Xakatsickasa-Sho, 158 543
Nakatsnna (Minamata) capture of Kamakura, 544
Nakatsu, Prince, 82 defeat of Ko Moroyasu, 555
Names, Confusion of, 56 defeat of Ashikaga Takauji, 557
Nan-en-do, 276 character, 559, 580
Naniha Canal, 114, 115 defeat in the West, 559
Naniwa, 64 escape to Kanzaki Castle, 560
Nanotsu no Kuchi (Chikuzen), 109 fall in Echizen, 562
Nanzenji, 595 Nobu (Minamoto)
Naokata (Taira) Nobunaga, 14, 26, 292, 369, 411, 627,
Nara 636
establishment, 153, 188 Nobuyori (Fujiwara)
temples, 188 Nomi no Sukune, 68, 242
To-dai-ji bell, 191 Noriake (Uyesugi)
smallpox, 192 Norimichi (Fujiwara)
Daibutsn, 191 et seq. Norimoto (Uyesugi)
power of priesthood, 207, 377, Noritada (Uyesugi)
378 Noritomo (Uyesugi)
removal of capital, 20'i Noritsune (Taira)
intrigue to restore capital, 227 Noriyori (Minamoto and Taira)
Buddhist sects, 265, 477 Norizane (Uyesugi)
dispute between temples, 266 Notari, Kose, 232
militant priests, 329, 490 Ncto, 345, 346, 386, 389
Kofukuji and To-dai-ji fired, 330
Tokusci disturbance, 622 oba, 289
other references, 209, 276, 295 Kagechika, 341
Nara (Emperor) IT., 634 Kageyoshi, 403
Nariakira (Fujiwara) obaku sect, 485
Xarichika (Fujiwara) O-Ban, 473
Narimichi. 473 (note) Obffo (see Arako
Narinaga. 553 Oda, 608, 618, 627

W
Inks INDEX.
Odawara, 37 1, 627, 628 oye Hiromoto (conUl.) —
oe sec d\ e
( ) advice to Shogun disregarded.
dgano .".l'ii 427, 436
Ogasawara, 288, <><»7 urges offensive policy against
Ogasawara (Taira) Kyoto, 443, 447
Ogigayatsu, 599, 627 et seq. decides fate of vanquished, 448,
Oharida, 113 449
Ohoharahe. (Great Purification), death, 453
174 other references, 446, 464
Oho-hatsuse (see Yuryaku) oye Masahira, 265
Ohomahe no Sukune, 83 oye, Naka no (see Tench i)
Oho-mono-nushi (onamuji), G7 dye no Otohito, 229
Oho-muraji, 89. 113, 149 Tadafusa, 275, 285, 286. 340
Oho-omi, 89, 91, 113, 114, 149 dyomei (Wang Yang-ming), 11
Ohotomo, 91, 96, 109, 121
Ohotomo no Kanamura, 89
Ohotomo. Prince (see Kobun) Pa-derasty, 603
Ohotsu, Prince, 186 Pakche (see Korea — Pakche)
djin, 65, 67, 74, 89, 97, 100, 420 Pak-in, 497
(note) Palace archers, 99
Okada. Palace of. 64 attendants, 99
Oki, 283, 404, 448 stewards, 99
Okitsu. 576 Peasants, Treatment and condi-
Okiyo. 254 tions of, 126, 156, 170, 172, 211,
Okura-Slw, 158, 162 212, 222, 331, 465, 603, 604, 631
Okusaka. 81. 83 Pekchon river, 182
Omi. 55, 66, 95 et seq., 103, 120, 122, Pien-chen, 73
150. 166 Pin Tse, 142
omi, 152, 182, 185, 190, 330, 623, 629 Piracy, 15, 231, 250, 251, 255, 283,
Omi, Achi no, 102 598, 601
onamuji, 62, 67, 114, 117 Plague (see Epidemics)
Ondo, 325 Plain of High Heaven, 59
Onigashima, 311 Poetry, 515
dnin, 607 Poksin, 182
Onjoji (see Miidera) Pottery, 495
ono Goroemon, 488 Prostitution, 603
Ono Yoshifuru, 251 Punishments, 84 et seq., 97, 191,
Odeal by boiling water, 56 467
Osaka, 15, 19, 64, 568, 573 Purgation, 126, 127
Oshiiwa (Ichinohe) Pyon-han, 34
Oshikatsu (Fujiwara)
oshima, 312, 364
Quelpart, 506
osumi, 49 (note), 64, 70, 200, 212,
215, 219, 268, 317, 419 (note)
Ota. 288, 542 Racial types, 48
Otohohito (6ye) Rebellions.
dtomo, 14, 27. 57. 544, 552, 556, Honan, 32
.T67,598, 601, 619, 630 Iwai, 108
otsu, 152, 185, 266 Ainu revolts, 132, 210
duchi, 598, 601, 618. 619, 629, 635 Temmu wrests throne from
Masahiro, 613, 615, 617 Kobun, 185
Yoshihiro, 584, 590 revolt in Kyushu, 193
Yoshioki, 625, 626 Taira Masakado, 255, 256
Owari. 151. 152. 185, 291. 305, 344 Minamotio Yoshichika, 283
Oyama. 341. 424, 590, 618 Fujiwara Xobuyori, 303
dye, 406, 408 Minamoto revolt in Shinano,
oye (Furubito and Yamasbiro) 342
dye Hiromoto Taira revolt in Ise and Iga, 369,
character, 340 421
scheme of administration, 385. East proclaimed to be in insur-
135 rection, 442
president of Kumonjo, 406 Toba II., 444
member of Kamakura Council. Xayan, 523
416 Daigo II., 541
 INDEX. 659
Rebellions {could.) — Saito, 629
revolt in the Kwantd, 543 Saito, 406
ouchi Yoshihiro, 590 Sakae, Miwa no Kimi, 117
revolt in Kyoto, 606 Sakai, 26, 635
Record of Ancient Matters (see Sakamoto Takara no Omi, 204
Kojiki) Saka-no-Uye Tamura Maro, 216 218
Reizei, 226, 258 220, 221, 227, 233, 273
Reizei IL, 274, 275 Sakata, 262
Religious persecution, 440 Sake, Hada no Miyakko, 103
Renshi, Lady, 546, 549 Sam-guk-sa, 41, 44
Richu, 81, 82, 84, 99, 100 Samurai dokoro, 405, 547
Rinsei, 590 Sandai Jitsuroku, 189 (note), 250
Rin Shihei, 13 Sanehira (Kiyowara and Doi)
Rinzai sect, 485 Sanemasa (Hojo)
RiujurSandairKyaku, 189 (note) Sanetomo (Minamoito)
River of Heaven, 60 Saneyori (Fujiwara)
Riyu 312 (note) Saneyoshi (Fujiwara)
Rokkaku, 612, 623 San-in-do, 354
Rokudai (Taira) Sanjo, 236 (note), 259
Rokuhara, 304 ct scq., 321, 400, 152 Sanjo II., 239, 274 ct scq., 300, 390,
Rokuj5, 308, 317 410
Rokujogawara, 306 San Kuo Chili Yen, 37 (note)
Rokujo Tadaaki, 560 Sanuki, 243, 249, 251, 299
Ryogen (Jie Daishi), 266 Sanyodo, 46, 251, 350, 354, 358, 386
Ryujin (Ryugu), 312 (note) Sarume, 67
Ryumon (Yamato), 311 Sasaki, 629
Ryuzoji, 27, 389 Hideyoshi, 623
Takayori. 623, 624. 626
Sadachika (Honda and Ise) Satake, 288, 343, 347, 618, 629
Sadamori (Taira) Hideyoshi, 343. 383, 386, 397
Sadashige (Nagao) Satomi, 288, 542, 618, 628
Sadaito (Abe) Satsuma, 49 (note), 63, 70, 215. 219
Sadatoki (Hojo) 268, 298. 317, 386, 419 (note), 598
Sadayo (Imagawa) Satsuma dialect, 35
Sado. 404, 424 (note), 448 Scribes, 103
Saeki, 317 Scribes'* Company, 85
Saga Seamen's Be, 10099,
Kwamniu's reform abortive, 214 Sea-Plain, 64 (note)
military system, 219 Seen-pe tribe, 142
abdication, 226, 236 Seigwa (Fujiwara)
an accomplished scholar, 227 Seimu, 71, 75
alienation of land, 228 Seinei, 81, 88, 99
character, 227, 228 Seiwa (Korebito), 237, 238, 240
decline of Imperial authority, Seiwa-Genji, 236 (note), 253, 254,
228 259, 260, 264
craze for Chinese learning, 229 Seki Castle, 569
distrust of superior officials, Sekigahara, 15
232 S e n j u-nia r u ( M i n a m o to
reduces sons to status of sub- Senkwa, 90, 91, 109
jects, 236 Seo-o,_42
other references, 230, 237, 280, Sericulture, 104
486 Sesshu, 634
Saga II. (Kunihito), 157, 158, 474. Serta, 305, 347, 353, 444
Seto, 495
Saga-Geuji, 236 (note), 259 Settsu, 120, 231, 263, 568
Sagami, 339, 340, 341, 378, 411. 628 Shaka Bulsu, 105, 111, 112
Sagara. 619 Shiba, 608, .609, 618, 629
Saguri (A wo) Takatsune, 556, 562
Saianfu, 517 Tatto 114, 115, 119
Saicho (Dengyo-Daishi) Ujiyori, 558
Saiko (Fujiwara Moromitsu) Yoshikado, 609, 610, 612
Saimei, 141, 182. 238 Yoshimasa, 589
Saionji. 493 (note) Yoshishige, 590
Kintsune, 429, 412, 456, 457 Yoshitakc 60S
660
INDEX
Shiba Yoshitoshi, 608, 609 Shirakabe, Prince, 188
Shibukawa Yoshino, 609 Shirakawa
Shida Yoshihiro, 345 genealogy, 274
Shido Bay, 361 accession, 277
Shiga, 184, 520 Cloistered Emperor, 277, 278
Shigaraki (omi). 193 administration, 278, 410
Shigehira (Taira) character, 278
Shigehito, 294, 295, 299 proscription against taking of
Shigemitsu Kudo, 312 life, 279

Shigemori (Taira) support of Buddhism, 279

Shigotada (Hatakeyama) growth of Sho-en system, 280
Shigeuji (Ashikaga) farcical legislation, 281, 282
Shigevoshi (Taguchi and Uyesugi) commissions Taira troops to
Shigisen, 122, 123 crush Yoshichika, 283
Shihei, Rin, 13 treatment of Yoshiiye, 287
Shijo, 456, 458 (note) turbulence of priests, 291
Shijo-nawate, 573 death, 294
Shijo Takasuke, 573, 578 other references, 275, 293
Shiki, 187 Shirakawa II. (Masahito)
ShikibwBho, L58; 161, 242 genealogy, 274
Shiko, 420 (note) accession, 277, 295
Shikoku, 51, 215, 233, 251, 350, 358, threatened dethronement, 296
362, 363 administration, 300
Shima, 219, 560 character, 300
Shima (Zen-shin), 114, 115 abdication, 300
Shimabara, 15, 19, 28 intercession for Fujiwara Nobu-
Shimadzu, 27, 268, 419 (note). 544, yori, 306
552, 564, 567. 574, 598, 619, 630 control over Emperor, 307
ShimakSbe, 341 discord between father and son,
Shimonoseki, 358. 362 308
Shimosa, 253. 254, 264, 265. 341 deference to Kiyomori. 314
Shimotsuke, 46, 201, 228, 254, 283, Cloistered Emperor, 317
288, 296, 343, 395 connivance in plot against Tai-
Shin, 420 (note) ras. 319
Shinano, 62, 151, 305, 342, 344, 349, treatment by Kiyomori, 322,
554 324, 327
Shingon sect, 266, 477 confiscation of Shigemori's ma-
Shingu, 568 nors, 323
Shinno (Morisada) prisoner of Kiyomori, 326, 327,
ahinowara, 347, 368 330
Shinran, 480, 481 brought to Kobe with whole
Shinsai (Fujiwara Michinori) Court, 330
Shinto hatred against Tairas. 334
instrument of government, 11, escape to Hi-ei-zan, 347
24, 58, 178
reassumption of administration
in Kyoto, 347
dieties, 59 et seq., 127
proclamation of Toba II. as
worship abandoned in Pakche,
Emperor, 348
114
conciliation of Yoshinaka, 349
firstuse of word " Shinto," 114
directs operations against
(note)
Tairas, 349, 350, 355
public abuses, 126
urged to proceed against Yoshi-
prestige impaired by Buddhism,
naka, 352
173, 178
made virtual prisoner by Yoshi-
recovery under Tenchi and naka. 352
Temmu, 174 appointment of Yoshinaka as
Great Purification, 174 Sei i-tai Shogun, 353
a! sorption by Buddhism, 193 protected from Yoshinaka by
Kwammu's support of Shinto. Yoshitsune, 353
207 distrust of Yoritomo, 401
revival movement, 11, 572 death, 401
Shioda (Shinano), 419 (ncte) disciple of Genkti, 479
Shio san, 346 Shiro-hiko, 84
Shiragi (see Korea Silla) — Shiro Nagamichi, 424
 INDEX cm
Sh'ishigadani, 319, 320 Soga Oho-omi, 113, 133, 173
Shizuka Gozen, 384, 392 Yemishi, 92, 125, 129 et seq.
Shoan, 147, 148 (note) 138
Sho'en (see Land) Sogaku-in, 229
Shoko, 584 Scgdiana, 146
Shokugensho, 569 So-gei-shu-chi-in, 230
Shokuniliongi, 189 (note) Sogen, 517
Shoku-NihoK-Koki, 189 (note) .
Sogo, 125
Shokyii, 450 (note). 481 Sokokuji 634
Shomu, 186, 187, 188, 192, 194, 198, Scma, 289
226 Sonshi, 285, 631
Shdni, 499, 508, 522, 544, 552, 567,
Sen on, 312 (note)
575, 598, 601, 619, 629
Soseki, 595
Shdnin Mongaku)
(
So Sukekuni, 507, 50S
Snoshun (Tosabd) Tom om une, 507
Shotoku, Empress, 186, 187, 199,
Soto sect, 485
203
Shotoku Taishi (Mumayaclo) — Soun (Hojo)
genealogy, 90
Sozen (Yamana)
nominated Heir Prince. 91, 122 Succession disputes, 89. 117, 119.
laws, 93, 123, 124, 179 121, 184, 253, 294, 459, 531, 598,
vow to Four Heavenlv Kings. 607, 609
119 Sugane (Fujiwara)
zeal for Buddhism, 119, 122. Sugano no Mamichi, 189 (note)
123 Sugawaia, 229, 242, 244
character, 122 Kiyo-gimi, 229
administration, 122, 124, 129 Kcreyoshi, 242
238 no Michizane
encouragement of foreign learn- scholarship. 177 (note), 242, 243
ing, 143 writings, 189 (note)
Chinese Court institutions, 157 infant prodigy, 242
death, 122, 123, 125 official appointments, 243, 244,
Shiibun. 634 246
Shugo (see Administration) advice to cut off re'ations with
Shuh, 37 (note) China, 243. 491
Shiihosha, 248 (note) educates Daigo Tenno.. 244
Shujaku, 250. 258 remarkable rise to power, 245
Shujaku II., 274
jealcusy of great families, 245
Shunten, 312 (note)
rivalry" of Tokihira, 246
Shfizenji flzu), 420, 422
banishment, 246
Sii-she, 48
death at Dazaifu, 247
Silla( see Korea)
propitiation of ghost. 24S
Sinicisation of Japan, 92, 145, 177
enshrined, 196 (note), 204
202. 227
character, 248
Slaves, 172
other references, 257, 407
So (Kumaso), 63, 70, 96
Sni dvnasty, 142, 143, 145
So, 369
Suiko, Empress, 57, 90, 91, 122, 129,
Socialism. 622
Sodzu, 125 144, 238

Sogas Suinin, 66
attempt to usurp throne, 46 Sn.izei, 57

contention for supremacy, 57 Sujin, 67

consorts of Emperors, 124 Sujun, 90, 91, 119
91,
founder of house, 91 Sukechika (Ito)
authority wielded, 96, 148 Sukekata (Minamoto)
defended by Yamato Aya. 104 Sukekuni (So)
attitude to Buddhism, 115, 120 Sukemori (Taira)
Kamatari's coup d'etat, 135 et Suketsune (Kudo)
seq. Suko, 576, 577
power broken, 92, 135 rt srq. Sukune, 166
Sega no Tname, 91, 92, 113, 114 Sukune (Nomi, Ohomahe, and Ta-
Iruka, 92, 129 et seq., 183 184 keuchi)
Knrayamada, 135. 136, 138. 139 Suma, 355. 357
Mumako, 91, 92, 114 et seq., 124 Sumida river, 51, 341
662 INDEX.
Sumi Inlet, 73 Taira (contd.) —
Sumimoto (Hosokawa) assist Emperor Nijo to escape
Sumitomo Fujiwara) < fromconspirators, 304
Sumiyilki Hosokawa)
( attack en Kurodo Palace, 304
Sumptuary laws (see Laws) Provincial Governorships, 309
Snug-, 7 et seq., 17!). 491, 517 attempted overthrow, 313, 326
Sun Goddess, 51, 60, 67, 127 held responsible for calamities,
Suruga, L52, 342, 344, 356, 385, 428 333
Susa-no-wo ("Impetuous Male"). weakening of power, 333, 334
60 lack of effective leadership, 335
Sutoku, 274. 277, 293 et seq. retreat from Fuji river, 343
Suwa, 62, 449 driven from Kyushu, 350
Suwo, 132. 231, 251, 359. 363 entrenchment at Yashima, 350
Suva. 609 establishment at Fukuwara, 354
Suzuka, Prince. 197 defeat at Ichi-no-tani, 355
immunity in Shikoku, 357
Tabe, 107 (note) command of the sea, 357
Tachibana, 230. 242. 271 driven from Yashima, 360
Hayanari, 227. 237, 248 (note) an unfavourable omen, 361
no Moroye 194, 198 defeat at Dan-no-ura, 365
TSyasu, 252 revolt in Ise and Iga, 369
Ujigimi, 235, 237 power of Ise Heishi, 370
Tada, 288, 542 triumph of Minamoto, 383
Tadaaki (Rokujo) attempt to recover power, 421
Tadabumi (Fujiwara) Taira Hirotsune. 341, 383
Tadafusa (oye) Kanetaka, 337
Tadafuyu (Ashikaga) Katsurabara, 252
Tadahira (Fujiwara) Kiyomori
Tadahisa (Koremune) assumption of clan headship.
Tadamasa (Taira) 284
Tadamichi (Fujiwara) character, 292. 310. 322.
315,
Tadamori (Taira)
323. 333, 376, 399
Tadanari, 457
joins Minamoto force, 296
Tadanori (Taira)
defeat of Sutcku, 299
Tadatsuna (Ashikaga)
execution of Tadamasa. 299
Tadatsune (Taira and Nitta)
official appointments, 301. 308.
Tadayosbi (Ashikaga)
315
Tada Yukitsuna (Minamoto Yuki-
struggle with Minamoto Yoshi-
fsuna)
tomo, 301
Tndazane (Fujiwara)
rescue of Emneror Nijo 304
Taga, 215. 216
execution of Ncbuyori. 306
Taguohi. 350
Shigevoshi
head of Tse Heishi, 307
363 ct seq.
friendly relations with Mina-
Taihei-ki, 546. 551
Taiho Code (see Laws) moto Yorimasa 307. 326
spares Yoritomo, 309.. 310
Talma, 68
seizure of mother of Tokiwa,
T'ai Peh of Wu, 48
Taira (family) — 311
makes Tokiwa concubine, 311
*
origin, 252, 253
internal dissensions. 264. 289 spares Yoshitsune, 311
290. 300. 307 dread of Tametomo, 311
family feuds, 264, 283 influence over Fujiwaras. 313
feud with priests, 267 deference of Shirakawa II.. 314
alliance with Fujiwaras and rewarded with gifts of koden,
Minamotos, 268 315
intermarriage with other fami- becomes a priest. 317
lies, 271 control of sovereign, 317
rise to power. 277, 307. 308 treatment of Shirakawa TT..
House laws, 281 318, 323, 324
Imperial Guards. 282 outrage en Fujiwara Motofusa,
seat of power. 263. 283, 284, 332 318
rise of Tse Heishi, 283 mansion at Fukuwara, 319
division into septs, 288, 289 punishment of. Shishigadani
Taira versus Minamoto, 292 plotters, 321
3<)7. 339, 341, 349, 353 patronage of temples, 325
 T NDEX CC3

Taira Kiyomori (contd.) — Taira Shigemori {contd.) —

discovery of Minamoto plot, other references, 302, 318, 345
327 369
defeat of Yorimasa, 329 Taira Sukemori ?.1«
action against turbulent mon- Tadamasa, 297, 299, 300 307,
asteries, 329, 330 334
transfer cf capital, 330 Tadamori, 281, 283, 293, 310,
dying request, 333 1 OO

Kiyomori's widow, 365 Tadanori, 342

end of house of Kiyomori, 369 Tadatsune, 264. 265, 270
tactics in rising to power, 370, Tomochika, 340
375, 377 Tomomori, 330, 358, 359, 361,
improvement of Hyogo har- 362, 364, 365
bour, 493 Tcmoyasu, 352
Taira Korechika, 283 Ycrimori, 305, 369
Korehira, 263, 264 Yoritsuna, 527, 528
Koremori, 342, 369 Tairi. 312 (note)
Masakado, 196 (note), 253 Tai-tsung, 146, 147. 151
et seq., 265 Takachiho, Mount, 61, 96
Masamori, 283 Palace 64
Moritoki, 421
—— Motomori, 421
Takasi, 283, 317
Takaie (Nagoshi)
Munekiyo, 305, 309, 310 Taka island 521. 522
Munemori Takakuni (Hosokawa)
official appointments, 319. 324 Takakura, 308. 317, 324. 361. 479
escorts ex-Emperor Takakura
^akamatsu, 360
to Miyajima, 325
Takamochi. 252. 253
appointed commander to smite
rebels. 328
Takamuku (Knromaro")
character, 335, 340, 362
Takamuku no Omi (see Kunioshi)
appeal to monks for support.
Takamusubi, 62
347 Takanaka. 555
flight from capital, 347
Takao. Mount, 338 (note)
cowardice, 335. 358, 361
Takara no Omi, Sakamoto. 204
retreat from Yashima, 360
Takashima Palace. 64
fortification of Shimonoseki T'akasuke (Nagasaki and Shijo)
straits, 362
Takata (Shimotsuke), 483
incompetence, 363 Takatoki (H5.io)
1
capture at Dan-no-ura, 365 Takatsukasa 493 (note)
execution, 368 Takatsnne (Sbiba)
other references, 344. 353, 362. Takauji (Ashikaea)
364 Takayori (Sasaki)
Taira Muneyori. 263 264 Takeda, 26. 288. 342. 345. 629
Naokata, 265. 267 Takeda, Prince, 118
Noritsune, 358, 361 Takehira Kiyowara
(

Noriyori, 365 Take-minakata, 62

Osrasawara. 342. 344 Takenori (Kivowara)
Rokudai. 369 Takenouchi, 288
Sadamori, 253, 256 Takeri Palace. 64
Shigehira. 328, 330, 357, 368 Takesada (Kiyowara)
Shigemori Takeuchi no Sukune. 67. 72, 75. 91
advice to Kiyomori, 304 ^amagawa, 544
leads attack on Kurodo Palace Tamba, 46, 89, 132, 249. 347, 355
305 Tamekage (Nagao)
official appointments, 319 Tametomo (Minamoto)
intercedes for Narichika. 321 Tameyori (Asawara)
influence over Kiyomori, 322 Tameyoshi (Minamoto)
324, 333. 370 Tam-hye, 111
character. 322, 323, 340 Tamna. 506
declines services of Chinese Tamu-no-Mine, 290
physician, 323 Tamura Maro (see Saka-no-Uye)
death, "323 Tandai, 452
manors confiscated by Shira- Tanegashima, 215
kawa II„ 323 Taneyoshi (Miura)
CM INDEX
T'ang, 140, 163, 170, 181, 20?,, 244 Temmu (con-id.) —
»te)j 101 frivolous administration, 1S5
Tan-ki, 87 death, 186
Tan urn a, 28 descendants, 187, 201, 271
Tartars, 491, 492, 510 (note) cancellation of plebeian in-
Tasa. 85 debtedness, 212
Tatarahama, 558 Temples (also see under individual
Tale Chlkatada, 354 (note) names) —
Tattooing, 39 Buddhist temples in Yamato,
Tawara Toda (see Fujiwara Hide- 92, 125
sato) burning of temples, 114, 115,
Taxation 330, 490
silk as industrial tax, 10?,, 156, construction in propitiation,
172 119, 120, 195
sustenance-fiefs, 150 immorality, 125
taxes in kind. 153, 224 officialinspection, 125
Chinese system, 153, 157 land-holdings, 175, 195, 228,
degree of taxation.. 156, 602, 603 525
abolition of old taxes and temples in Nara, 188, 207
forced labour, 156 lavish expenditure on construc-
house-tax. 156 tion, 176, 191
contributions of horses, wea- conversion of Shint5 shrines,
pons, and rations. 156 193
land-tax, 157, 223, 224, 602 establishment of Enryaku-ji on
corvee (forced labour), 156, Hiyeizan, 207
157, 172. 224 enactment restricting construc-
immunity from taxation, 168 tion, 214
tax-free estates, 169, 170, 195, Shirakawa's patronge, 279
210, 211, 213, 227, 228, 231, strife between temples, 290,
269, 280, 281, 390, 450, 620 291, 490
314,
exemption of monasteries, 195 indignation against Emperor
depletion of treasury, 210, 211 Takakura, 325
fiscal malpractices, 211, 212 political strife, 329, 441, 490
remission in time of famine execution of monks, 330
212 renovaticn of temples by Yori-
payment in rash, 221 tomo, 379
Slozci or Kwanfo t
223 position at end of twelfth cen-
Seizei, 223 tury, 477
Kupe, 223 temples in Kamakura, 595
Zatto. 223 decay of older fanes, 595
failure to collect taxes in Tench i (Naka-no-oye)
Mutsu, 269 friendship with Kamatari, 134.
tax for military purposes. 385 135
586, 596 marriage, 135
Dansen. 596 assassination of Soga Iruka,
read barriers. 153. 596 136
miscellaneous taxes, 604 defence of HSkoji, 137
other references, 108, 154, 390. declines to accept throne. 139
465, 473. 514 620 slaying of Prince Furubito, 139
Tea ceremonial, 495. 496 influence over Kotoku, 139
Tea, Introduction of, 494 protagonist of Reformers, 140,
Temmu 160
historical commission, 54, 66, accession, 141
75, 77, 185 establishment of university, 165
re-arrangement of titles and support of Shinto, 174
ranks, 166, 167, 171 character, 183, 202. 280, 413
support of Shinto, 174 welcome to Koreans. 183
curtails temple holdings, 175 descendants, 187
donations to Buddhist Church, establishment of Dajo-kwan
176 (Council of State), 231
hesitation to accept throne, 184 Tendai sect, 266, 477, 478
becomes a priest, 184 Tennoji, 120 (footnote), 384
revolt in Owari, 185 Tenson, 312 (note)
wrests throne from KObun, L85 "Three Precious Things," 119, 121
 TNDEX 6cr>

Thunder, Eight Gods of, 59 Tok-sa-than, 108

Timur, 525 Toku, Lady, 317
Titles, Readjustment of, 166, 167 Tokudai (Kose)
Toba, 274, 277, 280, 282, 283, 29.3 Tokugawa, 13, 21, 45, 82, 92, 94,
et seq. 236, 280, 288, 397
Toba II.— lyeyasu, 16, 19, 26, 220, 411,
accession, 348, 430 432, 550, 636
removal to Yoshimune, 12
Hoshoji for safety,
352 Tokusei (see Laws)
assumes direction of affairs en Tomi, Lady, 612, 614, 615, 622, 623
death of ex-Emperor, 401 Tomo, 98 et seq.
character, 404, 429, 430. 432, 443 Tomochika (Taira)
refusal to nominate sons as Tomoe Gozen, 354 (note), 423
Shogun, 428, 438
Tom omasa (Hiraga)
contest with Bakufu, 429, 437.
Tcmomori (Taira)
Tcmomune (So)
439, 442, 444
Tomonaga (Minamoto)
nomination of successor, 430
Tomo no Miyakko, 55, 99, 100, 150,
abdication, 430
166, 171 (note)
patron of sport, 431. 432 Tomosada (Uyesugi) '

compels brother to abdicate. 433 Tomosugi (Echigo), 354 (note)

comparison with Shogun, 433 Tomoyasu (Taira)
neglects administration, 435 Tomoye, Hatsuda, 416
craze for architecture, 436 Tonami, 347
sale of offices, 436 Toneri, Prince, 57 (note), 186, 187,
"West-face Warriors," 439, 44"< 271
winning-over of military men, Tone river, -51
439 Tong-guJc To?ig-kam, 41
devotion to Church, 439, 442 Tong Kam. 41, 44
religious persecution, 440 Tori-sakP-no-seki, 424 (note)
clash with priests. 440. 441 Tosa. 251, 404, 448
consolidation of monasteries Tosabo Shoshun, 382, 392
442 Tosando, 265, 327, 349, 385
coup against Bakufu officers, Toshinaga (Fujiwara)
442 To-sim, 111
failure to gain Miura support. Totomi, 344
443, 444 Toyasu (Tachibana)
defeat of Imperialists, 444 et Tcyo. 64, 108, et seq.
seq. Tribute 36, 45
Toba II. banished to Old. 448 Tsan, 80
failure to overthrow Bakufu, Tsene- Ts'an, 205
Tsi. 80
444, 452, 453
Ts'in, 32, 102, 103. 104
other references. 456, 479, 501
To-dai ji, 191, 266, 330
Tsm. Eastern, dynasty, 142
Tsnbaki, 116
Togano 494
Tsubura, 95
Tcgashi. 607 619, 629
Tsuchimikado, 404, 433, 448, 456
Ton, 230 265, 477
Tsuchimikado II., 633
Tojiro, 505
Tsugunawa (Fujiwara)
To.io. 573
Tsukizaka, 69
Tckage (Amano) Tsukushi 64. 108 et seq.
Tokaido. 265. 327, 349. 385 Tsunetoki (Hojo)
Toki, 542, 612, 629 Tsunesada, 237
Tokifusa (Hojo) Tsuruga. 608
Tokihira (Fujiwara) Tsurugaoka. 273. 374, 402, 42G
Tokikuni (Hojo) Tsushima. 168 186 (note), 215, 283,
Tokimasa (Hojo) 369, 497, 507. 599
Tokimoto (Minamcto) Tunguses, 142
Tokimune (Hojo)
Tokitada, 366 Uchida Iyeyoshi, 354 (note)
Tokiuji (Yamana) Uchi no Omi, 111
Tokivva Lady, 310, 3 11 TTda, 241, 243, 244, 407
Tokiyori (Hojo) Uda II., 459, 533
Tokiyuki (Hojo) Udzu Masa, 103
ccc INDEX
T
T ji,275, 291, 328, 347, 353 Yahata (see Hachiman)
Uji (family names), 55, 94 Yajiro, 505
Djigawa, 328, 329. 444 Yakushiji, 201
I'jigimi (Tachibana) Yamabe no Muraji, 100
Ujinori (Uyesugi) Yamabe, Prince, 202
I'jitsuna (Hojo) Yamaguchi, 625
Ujiyori (Shiba) Yamamori Be (see Mountain War-
Ukida. 15 dens' Be)
Uma, 310 Yamamoto, 288
Tmakai, 197, 215 Yamana, 288, 542, 577. 581, 583, 601.
Unebi, Mount, 132 610, 614, 618, 629
Uneme (Court, ladies), 85 Mitsuyuki, 584
Uona (Fujiwara) Sozen, 609 et seq.
Urabe. 262 Tokiuji, 577
no Yoshika, 189 (note)
Yamanouchi, 599. 627, et seq.
Urazoye, 312 (note)
Kenshin, 629
Usa, 64, 200, 272
Yamashiro no oye, 129 et seq.
Usami. 395
Usui, 262, 345, 346
Yamato (early history) —
seat of Great Wa, 38
Usuki, 317
customs, 39
Utsunomiva. 397. 565, 618
early Emperors. 40
Uyesugi, House of, 27, 599, 618, 627
foreign relations, 41 et seq.,
628
105
Akisada. 627, 628
Fusaaki, 618, 627
dolmens 44. 46. 47. 90. 108
origin of Japanese, 48
Noriaki, 570. 576, 581
Norimoto. 599 conauest, 49. 64 65
Noritada, 618 establishment of central State.
51
Noritomo, 627
Norizane. 599. 600 Temmu's historical commission.
Shigeyoshi, 574 54 et seq.. 11
Tomosada. 570 the Great Reform. 57. 142 et
Ujinori, 599 seq.
introduction of Buddhism. 53.
Wa, 36, 38. 51, 80, 142 (note) 58. 105. 110 et seq.
91,
Wada Yoshimori, 405, 416, 420, 425. mvtbo'ogv. 59 et sen.
426 trouble with Idzmno 63. 67
Wake. 71. 97, 150 relations with Kyushu. 64. 66
no Kiyomaro, 200. 209 Kumaso migration 47. 50. 63
Wakiya Yoshisuke, 562 "
Imperial succession, 71
Wang Po-son, 111 atrocities of Bnretsn 86
Wang-san River (Korea), 106 Sini-isation. 92. 145
Wang To-nyang, 111 pdminist' ative s^pt^m 94 et sen.
Wang Yang-Kwi, 111 Be or Tonw (guilds), 99 rt
Wang Yang-ming. 11 sen.
Wani, 43 social organisations, 101
War, God of. 65
immigrants. 102
Watamaro (Fumiya) interests in Korea. 105 et seq.
Watanabe, 262
insurrection in Kyu-hu 108
Watanabe (Settsu), 360
assists Pakche against Silla.
Wataru (Minamoto)
Wei, 36 (note), 110
80, 142
Wei records, 36
Pakche presents 111
proscription of Buddhism, 114.
Wina Be, 85
Wodate, 100 115
Woharida, 84 succession disputes. 89. 119, 121
Wohodo, 89 consolidation of Soga power,
Women. Position of, 39, 466, 467 121
Wrestlers, Patron God of, 68 Shotoku Taishi's " Constitu-

Wrestling, 68 tion," 123. 124

Writing, Introduction of, 53 spread of Buddhism. 123. 125
Wu, 37 (note), 80, 81, 88, 89, 107, public abuses, 127
144, 203 famine and pestilence. 128
Wuti, 32 Soga's attempt to establish new
Wu-wang, 72 dynasty, 131, 132.
 INDEX 667
Yamato (contd.) — Yoshikata (Minamoto)
revolt of Ainu. 132 Yoshika, Urabe no, 189 (note)
assassination of Soga Iruka, Ycshikazu (Hiki and Ashikaga)
136 Yoshikuni (Minamoto)
extent, 151 Yoshikura (Minamoto)
Yamato-dake no Mikoto, 40, 65, 07, Yoshimasa (Shiba and Ashikaga)
72 Yoshimi, 528, 542
Yamato, Great God of, 67 Yoshimi (Ashikaga)
Yamato-hiko, 69, 89 Yoshimitsu (Minamoto and Ashi-
Yamato-hime no Mikoto, 67 kaga)
Yamazaki, 140 Yoshiniochi (Ashikaga)
Yanasa, 110 Yoshimori (Wada)
Yang Keen, 145 Yoshimune (Tokugawa)
Yang-san, 106 Yoshimura (Miura)
Yang-ti, 143, 145 Yoshinaka (Minamoto)
Yashima (Sanuki), 350, 354, 358, Yoshinari (Hatakeyama)
360 et seq. Yoshino, 151, 184, 185, 384, 540, 560.
Yasuda, 288 573, 581
Yasuhira (Pujiwara) Yoshino (Shibukawa)
Yasumaro, 54 Yoshinobu (Minamoto, and Miyoshi)
Yasumasa (Fujiwara) Yoshinori (Ashikaga)
Yasumori (Adachi) Yoshioki (Nitta and ouchi)
Yasumura (Miura) Yoshisada (Nitta)
Yasunobu (Miyoshi) Yoshishige (Shiba)
Yasunori (Fujiwara) Yoshisuke (Wakiya)
Yasutoki (Hojo) Yoshitaka (Minamoto)
Yasutoshi (Miyoshi) Yoshitake (Shiba)
Yasutsura (Miyoshi) Yoshitane (Ashikaga)
Yedo, 628 Yoshiteru (Ashikaga)
Yemishi (see Ainu) Yoshito (Hatakeyama)
Yemishi (Soga) Yoshitoki (Minamoto and Hojo)
Yezo, 47. 396 Yoshitomo (Minamoto)
Yoichi, Nasu no, 361 Yoshitoshi (Shiba)
Yomei, 90, 91, 118 et seq. Yoshitsugu (Fujiwara and Ashi-
Yom-pho. 599 kaga)
Yoriiye (Minamoto) Yoshitsuna (Minamotc)
Yoiimasa (Minamoto) Ycshitsune (Minamoto)
Yorimichi (Fujiwara) Ycshiyasu (Fujiwara)
Yorimochi Minamoto
(
Yoshiyo (Fujiwara)
Yorimori (Taira) Yoshizumi (Miura and Ashikaga)
Yorinaga (Fujiwara) Yozei, 236 (note), 240
Yorinobu (Minamotc) Yui-ga-hama, 374
Yoritomo (Minamoto) Yuki, 427, 541
Yoritsuna (Taira) Yuki. 600, 618
Yoritsune (Fujiwara) Yukichika (Nenoi)
Yoriyoshi (Minamoto) Yukihira (Arihara)
Ycriyuki (Hosokawa)
Yukiiye (Minamoto)
Yoshiakira (Ashikaga) Yukimasa (Fujiwara)
Yo^hiatsu (Miura)
Yukitsuna (Minamoto)
Yoshichika (Minamoto)
Yung-Hwui, 189
Yoshifuru, Ono_ 251
Yung-o, 42
Yoshifusa (Fujiwaia and Mina-
Yuryaku (Oho-hatsuse). 45. 77, 81
moto)
et seq., 97 et seq.. 107, 126
Ycshihara (Ashikaga)
Yusa, 609
Yoshihira (Minamoto)
Ycshihiro (Shida and ouchi)
Yoshihisa (Ashikaga) Zayton Harbour (Chinchew), 518
Yoshiie (Minamoto) Zenjo (Minamoto)
Yoshikado (Shiba) Zen sect, 440. 467, 4S1, 482, 484, 485,
Yoshikane, 253, 254 486. 595. 634
Yoshikane (Ashikaga) Zen-shin, Nun (Shima). 114, 115

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 A HISTORY OF JAPAN
DURING THE CENTURY OF EARLY EUROPEAN
INTERCOURSE (1542-1651)

BY

JAMES MURDOCH, M.A.,

IN COLLABORATION WITH

ISOH YAMAGATA.

One Octavo Volume of 714 pages, with Maps.

CONTENTS.
—
Introductory Chapter. The Portuguese Discovery of Japan. The —
—
Portuguese in the Orient and the Jesuits. Xavier in Japan. Kyushu—
—
and Christianity in Kyushu (1551-1582). Nobunaga and his Contem-
poraries. — —
Nobunaga, the Jesuits, and the Bonzes. Hideyoshi (1582-
1585).— Hideyoshi's Reduction of Kyushu; and Christianity. Reduc-—
tion of the Kwanto, and Foreign Relations. —
The Beginning of Spanish
—
and Portuguese Rivalry in Japan. The Korean War. Hideyoshi's —
— — —
Domestic Policy. Sekigahara. After Sekigahara. Christianity and
Foreign Relations (1598-1614).— The Great Osaka Struggle (1614-15).
— —
The Tokugawa Administrative Machine. The English Factory in
— —
Japan. Christianity and Foreign Relations (1614-1624). Portuguese
— —
and Dutch. The Shimabara Revolt. The Expulsion of the Portuguese:
—
The Dutch in Deshima. Internal Affairs after 1616.

The following is an excerpt from the Annual Report of the Council

of the Asiatic Society of Japan for 1909: —
The Council feels quite gratified that it is able to report the under-
taking of a special publication outside of its regular Transactions. It
has been so fortunate as to secure the right to publish Vols. I. and HI.
of Murdoch's " History of Japan." It will be remembered that Vol. II.
was published as a private venture a few years ago, and that it became
recognized at once as authoritative. Vol. I. is now in the press and is
expected to be out inApril, 1910: Vol. III. is still in the author's hands.
Vol. I. will be on sale at the regular price of 10 yen net, but with a
reduced rate of 9 yen, post free, to all who remit on or before May 1,
1910. And one copy will be furnished to any member of the Society at
the special price of 5 yen, post paid. This " History of Japan " in 3
volumes is, without doubt, the standard work on this subject.
 Extracts from Press Reviews.

Professor Basil H. Chambeblaih (Emeritus Professor of Japanese

and Philology in the Imperial University of Japan) in tne Kobe
Chronicle (Japan) :
—
"
—
There are two ways of writing history. One practised by most of
our would-be instructors in Japanese matters— is to take a few pre-
existing popular summaries and to boil them down, abridging, omitting
details, expanding only general judgements, so that each time this
process is repeated the result becomes vaguer, and a sort of general
formula is at length reached, which, with a judicious change of dates
and of proper names, might serve for the history,' so called, of almost
'

any country. The other method is to go back to the original documents,

to visit the scenes described therein, a:nd to attain by the use of one's
individual judgement to some measure of that complex, fragmentary,
'

doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth.' Mr. Murdocn has

chosen this better way, stony and briary though it be. To be sure, few
investigators are equipped for such a task as he is. Latin, Italian,
Portuguese, Spanish, French, also Dutch, German, and of course Eng-
lish, in which eight languages the original documents on the European
side are severally composed, are all familiar to him; and to guard
against a perhaps insufficient mastery over Japanese, he has associated
'vith himself a Japanese collaborator, who has supplied excellent
translations from the standard Japanese authorities and from
manuscripts hitherto unpublished. Mr. Murdoch's general culture
includes an intimate acquaintance with the standard literature of
Europe, ancient as well as modern, and more especially with European
history. When we add to this that he proves himself to possess the
historic sense and an impartial mind, and that he is the spokesman of
no party, either religious or political, it is evident that the beau ideal
of a historian is here very nearly realised. He is also fortunate in his
subject, woven as it is of two main threads, —
one Christian mis-
sionary enterprise, which is of perennial interest the other, the
;

foundation of that centralised Japanese government by three great

— —
rulers Nobunaga, Hideyos'hi, and Ieyasu which in our day has
blossomed forth into a world-power, and whose origines have therefore
become more than ever worthy of investigation. Jesuits, Portuguese
adventurers, Spanish galleons captured by Dutch rovers, honest Will
Adams at Ieyasu's Court, the weP-iigh incredibly sumptuous fetes given
by Hideyoshi, but paid for by that astute ruler's vassals, Buddhist
monks of the church militant marching to battle fifteen thousand strong,
fair Court ladies scouring the country on delicate political errands,
Daimyos so devoutly Christian that they offer their subjects the choice
between baptism and exile at a day's notice, intrigues, conversions,
apostasies, sieges, burning castles, and the happy dispatch, —
all these
pictures and a hundred more pass before us in breathless succession,
the story being often told in the very words of one of the original
actors, or at least of some contemporary. The beginnings of many
things Japanese are here found which would not have been expected.
For instance, it turns out that the Japanese gold and silver coinage had
its origin in the needs of the Portuguese trade. Japanese mining, too,
was nursed, by foreigners, as was her early shipbuilding industry.
Then, as now, this nation was eager for instruction in every useful
branch of knowledge. Then, as now, the cleverest men were at the
helm, and led the way in intelligent curiosity. No truth emerges more
clearly from numberless circumstances narrated in Mr. Murdoch's
pages than that the Japanese governments, both local and central,
—
during the first decades of intercourse with 'the Europeans, say, from
the discovery of Japan in 1542 or 1543 down to the year 1612 and even
later, —were most anxious to attract the foreign trade and to avail
themselves of every new invention and science which the foreigners
had to offer, from fire-arms and clocks to geography and mathe-
matics. . . .
 " Mr. Murdoch has enriched us not on-y with a multitude
of facts
hitherto well-nigh inaccesible but also, if we may so express ourselves,
with a scale by which to measure them and rate each in the order of
its importance We trust that this admirable book will find
n large circulation alike among diplomatists, missionaries, and all others
interested in Japanese political, religious, and sociological problems;
for scarcely any other sheds such a flood of light en matters with
which it behoves them to become acquainted. Mr. Murdoch's History
of the Christian Century is the most important work on Japan that
has appeared since the publication of Mr. Aston's History of Japanese
Literature."

Professor E. H. Parker in the Asiatic Quarterly: —

" . Mr. Murdoch's admirable work appears most opportunely.
. . .

Based, as it is, upon original documentary evidence, and upon personal

experience of the scenes and sites' described, it at once secures our
complete confidence, and securely enables us to trace, step by step, the
evolution of this astonishingly virile race from exclusive feudalism
into a genuine Welimacht. From first to last the book is replete with
European interest, so that the timid English reader need not fear
being confronted on every page with unsympathetic ideas. Mr. . . .

Murdoch's book describes how the Portuguese discovered Japan; the

introduction and vicissitudes of Christianity; the career of the Japanese
Napoleon, Hideyoshi the Tokugawa
; administrative system
(Shcgunate) the English Factory
; Will Adams ;the Portuguese and
;

Dutch rivalries; and the deliberate completion of the exclusion pro-

gramme (which lasted until forty-five years ago). It will be observed
that the history under notice does not deal with contemporary times, but
simply sets out, in an absolutely authentic way, the particulars of how
the Japanese developed into what they were when we first found them ' '

and had open and general relations with them in 1858. ... No library
worthy of the name should be without this book."
Dr. W. E. Griffis (Author of " The Mikado's Empire," " The Re-
ligions of Japan," &c.) in the American Historical Review: —
" This book has been written on Japanese soil by one who, using a
half-dozen languages, after reading long in the great libraries of Eu-
rope, and after years of research and critical comparison of native and
foreign authorities, has completed a great work, which will doubtless
help handsomely in stimulating the Japanese to produce something
like real history. The bulk of what is called history by the Japanese,
who indeed make this department the first in their literature, is for the
most part dry annals or imaginative or partisan presentations of cer-
tain phases of the national story. What Europeans are most eager to
know is very apt to be left out, as being of little importance, while for
anything like history before the fifth century we have our choice
between a vacuum and a rather luxuriant mythology that yet awaits
a critical explorer. Mr. James Murdoch. ....
begins his portly
volume with an introductory chapter which contains, with an outline of
chronology from the seventh century, a very luminous account with a
running commentary
" In most of the books heretofore written on this Christian cencury,'
'

we have what is in the main an ecclesiastical story with much

about martyrs and confessors. In Mr. Murdoch's hands it is vastly
more. . . .

" Although covering little mere than a century of time in its scope,
this volume will be exceedingly useful in correcting the multitudinous
errors found in those books on Japanese history which, unlike Mr.
Murdoch's, have been compiled from late deposits rather than from
early sources."
The Nation (New York) :
—
" The work before us is one of the very few books on Japanese history
which is based on original research, and written after long and
laborious examination and comparison of documents and the weighing
of evidence. . The maps show as does no ether work we know
.
'
.

of, outside of the native literature, the feudal divisions of Japan in

ihe times cf Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu. The battle plans are
remarkably accurate and informing. . . .

" We understand that another volume is to follow, for which we can

assure a very warm welcome from scholars. If for no other reason
than to correct the manifold and variegated errors in previous works
en .Japanese history, all libraries of any importance in Occidental
countries should possess this work."

Tli e Athenaeum (London): —

"
This book ...
is well worthy the attention of those who care
to acquire a trustworthy and adequate knowledge of that singular
phase in Japanese history which may be termed the Christian century."

Mr. Lafcadio Hearn in "Japan: an Interpretation" :

—
" I regret not having been able, in preparing this essay, to avail
myself of the very remarkable History of Japan during the century
'

of Early Foreign Intercourse (1542-1651),' —

by James Murdoch and
—
Isoh Yamagata, which was published at Kobe last winter. This im-
portant work contains much documentary material never before printed,
and shows new light on the religious history of the period. The authors
are inclined to believe that, allowing for numerous apostasies, the
total number of Christians in Japan at no time much exceeded 300,000;
and the reasons given for this opinion, if not conclusive, are at least
very strong. Perhaps the most interesting chapters are those dealing
with the Machiavellian policy of Hideyoshi in his attitude to the foreign
religion and its preachers; but there are few dul'l pages in the book.
Help to a correct understanding of the history of the time is furnished
by an excellent set of maps, showing the distribution of the great fiefs
and the political partition of the country before and after the estab-
lishment cf the Tokugawa Shogunate. Not the least merit of the work
is its absolute freedom from religious bias of any sort."
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