A History of the Japanese People Part 13

*The distinction of Shimbetsu and Kwobetsu was not nominally recognized until the fourth century, but it undoubtedly existed in practice at an early date.

Thus, the t.i.tle omi (grandee) held by the Kami of a Kwobetsu-uji was deemed higher than that of muraji (chief) held by the Kami of a Shimbetsu-uji. The blood relations of sovereigns either a.s.sisted at Court in the administration of State affairs or went to the provinces in the capacity of governors. They received various t.i.tles in addition to that of omi, for example sukune (n.o.ble), ason or asomi (Court n.o.ble), kimi (duke), wake (lord), etc.

History gives no evidence of a fixed official organization in ancient times. The method pursued by the sovereign was to summon such omi and muraji as were notably influential or competent, and to entrust to them the duty of discharging functions or dealing with a special situation. Those so summoned were termed mae-isu-gimi (dukes of the Presence). The highest honour bestowed on a subject in those days fell to the n.o.ble, Takenouchi, who, in consideration of his services, was named O-mae-tsu-gimi (great duke of the Presence) by the Emperor Seimu (A.D. 133). Among the omi and muraji, those conspicuously powerful were charged with the superintendence of several uji, and were distinguished as o-omi and o-muraji. It became customary to appoint an o-omi and an o-muraji at the Court, just as in later days there was a sa-daijin (minister of the Left) and an u-daijin (minister of the Right). The o-omi supervised all members of the Kwobetsu-uji occupying administrative posts at Court, and the o-muraji discharged a similar function in the case of members of Shimbetsu-uji. Outside the capital local affairs were administered by kuni-no-miyatsuko or tomo-no-miyatsuko* Among the former, the heads of Kwobetsu-uji predominated among the latter, those of Shimbetsu-uji.

*Tomo is an abbreviation of tomo-be.

VALUE OF LINEAGE

It will be seen from the above that in old j.a.pan lineage counted above everything, alike officially and socially. The offices, the honours and the lands were all in the hands of the lineal descendants of the original Yamato chiefs. Nevertheless the omi and the muraji stood higher in national esteem than the kuni-no-miyatsuko or the tomo-no-miyatsuko; the o-omi and the o-muraji, still higher; and the sovereign, at the apex of all. That much deference was paid to functions. Things remained unaltered in this respect until the sixth century when the force of foreign example began to make itself felt.

ENGRAVING: FISHERMAN'S BOAT AND NET

CHAPTER XI

THE PREHISTORIC SOVEREIGNS (Continued)

THE FIFTEENTH SOVEREIGN, OJIN (A.D. 270-310)

The fifteenth Sovereign, Ojin, came to the throne at the age of seventy, according to the Chronicles, and occupied it for forty years. Like a majority of the sovereigns in that epoch he had many consorts and many children--three of the former (including two younger sisters of the Emperor) and twenty of the latter. Comparison with Korean history goes to indicate that the reign is antedated by just 120 years, or two of the s.e.xagenary cycles, but of course such a correction cannot be applied to every incident of the era.

MARITIME AFFAIRS

One of the interesting features of Ojin's reign is that maritime affairs receive notice for the first time. It is stated that the fishermen of various places raised a commotion, refused to obey the Imperial commands, and were not quieted until a n.o.ble, Ohama, was sent to deal with them. Nothing is stated as to the cause of this complication, but it is doubtless connected with requisitions of fish for the Court, and probably the fishing folk of j.a.pan had already developed the fine physique and stalwart disposition that distinguish their modern representatives. Two years later, instructions were issued that hereditary corporations (be) of fishermen should be established in the provinces, and, shortly afterwards, the duty of constructing a boat one hundred feet in length was imposed upon the people of Izu, a peninsular province so remote from Yamato that its choice for such a purpose is difficult to explain. There was no question of recompensing the builders of this boat: the product of their labour was regarded as "tribute."

Twenty-six years later the Karano, as this vessel was called, having become unserviceable, the Emperor ordered a new Karano to be built, so as to perpetuate her name. A curious procedure is then recorded, ill.u.s.trating the arbitrary methods of government in those days. The timbers of the superannuated ship were used as fuel for roasting salt, five hundred baskets of which were sent throughout the maritime provinces, with orders that by each body of recipients a ship should be constructed. Five hundred Karanos thus came into existence, and there was a.s.sembled at Hyogo such a fleet as had never previously been seen in j.a.panese waters. A number of these new vessels were destroyed almost immediately by a conflagration which broke out in the lodgings of Korean envoys from Sinra (Shiragi), and the envoys being held responsible, their sovereign hastened to send a body of skilled shipmakers by way of atonement, who were thereafter organized into a hereditary guild of marine architects, and we thus learn incidentally that the Koreans had already developed the shipbuilding skill destined to save their country in later ages.

IDEALISM OF THE THIRD CENTURY

In connexion with the Karano incident, j.a.panese historians record a tale which materially helps our appreciation of the men of that remote age. A portion of the Karano's timber having emerged unscathed from the salt-pans, its indestructibility seemed curious enough to warrant special treatment. It was accordingly made into a lute (koto),* and it justified that use by developing "a ringing note that could be heard from afar off." The Emperor composed a song on the subject:

"The ship Karano "Was burned for salt: "Of the remainder "A koto was made.

"When it is placed on "One hears the saya-saya "Of the summer trees, "Brushing against, as they stand, "The rocks of the mid-harbour, "The harbour of Yura." [Aston.]

*The j.a.panese lute, otherwise called the Azuma koto, was an instrument five or six feet long and having six strings. History first alludes to it in the reign of Jingo, and such as it was then, such it has remained until to-day.

LAW, INDUSTRY, LOYALTY

Five facts are already deducible from the annals of this epoch: the first, that there was no written law, unless the prohibitions in the Rituals may be so regarded; the second, that there was no form of judicial trial, unless ordeal or torture may be so regarded; the third, that the death penalty might be inflicted on purely ex-parte evidence; the fourth, that a man's whole family had to suffer the penalty of his crimes, and the fifth, that already in those remote times the code of splendid loyalty which has distinguished the j.a.panese race through all ages had begun to find disciples.

An incident of Ojin's reign ill.u.s.trates all these things. Takenouchi, the sukune (n.o.ble) who had served Ojin's mother so ably, and who had saved Ojin's life in the latter's childhood, was despatched to Tsukushi (Kyushu) on State business. During his absence his younger brother accused him of designs upon the Emperor. At once, without further inquiry, Ojin sent men to kill the ill.u.s.trious minister. But Maneko, suzerain (atae) of Iki, who bore a strong resemblance to Takenouchi, personified him, and committing suicide, deceived the soldiers who would have taken the sukune's life, so that the latter was enabled to return to Yamato. Arriving at Court, he protested his innocence and the ordeal of boiling water was employed. It took place on the bank of the Shiki River. Takenouchi proving victorious; his brother with all his family were condemned to become tomo-be of the suzerain of Kii.

THE GRACE OF LIFE

Side by side with these primitive conditions stands a romantic story of Ojin's self-denial in ceding to his son, Osazaki, a beautiful girl whom the sovereign has destined to be his own consort. Discovering that the prince loved her, Ojin invited him to a banquet in the palace, and, summoning the girl, made known by the aid of poetry his intention of surrendering her to his son, who, in turn, expressed his grat.i.tude in verse. It is true that the character of this act of renunciation is marred when we observe that Ojin was eighty years old at the time; nevertheless the graces of life were evidently not wanting in old-time j.a.pan, nor did her historians deem them unworthy of prominent place in their pages. If at one moment they tell us of slanders and cruelty, at another they describe how a favourite consort of Ojin, gazing with him at a fair landscape from a high tower, was moved to tears by the memory of her parents whom she had not seen for years, and how the Emperor, sympathizing with her filial affection, made provision for her return home and took leave of her in verse:

"Thou Island of Awaji "With thy double ranges; "Thou Island of Azuki "With thy double ranges "Ye good islands, "Ye have seen face to face "My spouse of Kibi."

FOREIGN INTERCOURSE

The most important feature of the Ojin era was the intercourse then inaugurated with China. It may be that after the establishment of the Yamato race in j.a.pan, emigrants from the neighbouring continent settled, from early times, in islands so favoured by nature. If so, they probably belonged to the lowest orders, for it was not until the third and fourth centuries that men of erudition and skilled artisans began to arrive. Modern j.a.panese historians seem disposed to attribute this movement to the benign administration of the Emperor Ojin and to the repute thus earned by j.a.pan abroad. Without altogether questioning that theory, it may be pointed out that much probably depended on the conditions existing in China herself. Liu Fang, founder of the Han dynasty (202 B.C.), inaugurated the system of compet.i.tive examinations for civil appointments, and his successors, Wen-Ti, Wu-Ti, and Kw.a.n.g-wu, "developed literature, commerce, arts, and good government to a degree unknown before anywhere in Asia." It was Wu-Ti (140-86 B.C.) who conquered Korea, and unquestionably the Koreans then received many object lessons in civilization. The Han dynasty fell in A.D. 190, and there ensued one of the most troubled periods of Chinese history. Many fugitives from the evils of that epoch probably made their way to Korea and even to j.a.pan. Then followed the after-Han dynasty (A.D. 211-265) when China was divided into three princ.i.p.alities; one of which, since it ruled the littoral regions directly opposite to j.a.pan, represented China in j.a.panese eyes, and its name, Wu, came to be synonymous with China in j.a.panese years.

It was, however, in the days of the Tsin dynasty (A.D. 265-317) and in those of the Eastern Tsin (A.D. 317-420) that under the pressure of the Hun inroads and of domestic commotions, numbers of emigrants found their way from China to Korea and thence to j.a.pan. The Eastern Tsin occupied virtually the same regions as those held by the Wu dynasty: they, too, had their capital at Nanking, having moved thither from Loh-yang, and thus the name Wu was perpetuated for the j.a.panese. In the year A.D. 283, according to j.a.panese chronology, Koreans and Chinese skilled in useful arts began to immigrate to j.a.pan. The first to come was a girl called Maketsu. She is said to have been sent by the monarch of Kudara, the region corresponding to the metropolitan province of modern Korea. It may be inferred that she was Chinese, but as to her nationality history is silent. She settled permanently in j.a.pan, and her descendants were known as the kinu-nui (silk-clothiers) of k.u.me in Yamato. In the same year (A.D.

283), Yuzu (called Yutsuki by some authorities), a Chinese Imperial prince, came from Korea and memorialized the Yamato Throne in the sense that he was a descendant of the first Tsin sovereign and that, having migrated to Korea at the head of the inhabitants of 120 districts, he had desired to conduct them to j.a.pan, but was unable to accomplish his purpose owing to obstruction offered by the people of Sinra (Shiragi). Ojin sent two emba.s.sies--the second accompanied by troops--to procure the release of these people, and in A.D. 285 they reached j.a.pan, where they received a hearty welcome, and for the sake of their skill in sericulture and silk weaving, they were honoured by organization into an uji--Hata-uji (hata in modern j.a.panese signifies "loom," but in ancient days it designated silk fabrics of all kinds).

An idea of the dimensions of this Chinese addition to the population of j.a.pan is furnished by the fact that, 175 years later, the Hata-uji having been dispersed and reduced to ninety-two groups, steps were taken to rea.s.semble and reorganize them, with the result that 18,670 persons were brought together. Again, in A.D. 289, a sometime subject of the after-Han dynasty, accompanied by his son, emigrated to j.a.pan.

The names of these Chinese are given as Achi and Tsuka, and the former is described as a great-grandson of the Emperor Ling of the after-Han dynasty, who reigned from A.D. 168 to 190. Like Yuzu he had escaped to Korea during the troublous time at the close of the Han sway, and, like Yuzu, he had been followed to the peninsula by a large body of Chinese, who, at his request, were subsequently escorted by j.a.panese envoys to j.a.pan. These immigrants also were allowed to a.s.sume the status of an uji, and in the fifth century the t.i.tle of Aya no atae (suzerain of Aya) was given to Achi's descendants in consideration of the skill of their followers in designing and manufacturing figured fabrics (for which the general term was aya).

When Achi had resided seventeen years in j.a.pan, he and his son were sent to Wu (China) for the purpose of engaging women versed in making dress materials. The t.i.tle of omi (chief amba.s.sador) seems to have been then conferred on the two men, as envoys sent abroad were habitually so designated. They did not attempt to go by sea. The state of navigation was still such that ocean-going voyages were not seriously thought of. Achi and his son proceeded in the first instance to Koma (the modern Pyong-yang) and there obtained guides for the overland journey round the sh.o.r.e of the Gulf of Pechili. They are said to have made their way to Loh-yang where the Tsin sovereigns then had their capital (A.D. 306). Four women were given to them, whom they carried back to j.a.pan, there to become the ancestresses of an uji known as Kure no kinu-nui and Kaya no kinu-nui (clothiers of Kure and of Kaya), appellations which imply Korean origin, but were probably suggested by the fact that Korea had been the last continental station on their route. The journey to and from Loh-yang occupied four years. This page of history shows not only the beginning of j.a.pan's useful intercourse with foreign countries, but also her readiness to learn what they had to teach and her liberal treatment of alien settlers.

THE ART OF WRITING

It is not infrequently stated that a knowledge of Chinese ideographs was acquired by the j.a.panese for the first time during the reign of Ojin. The basis of this belief are that, in A.D. 284, according to the j.a.panese chronology--a date to which must be added two s.e.xagenary cycles, bringing it to A.D. 404--the King of Kudara sent two fine horses to the Yamato sovereign, and the man who accompanied them, Atogi by name, showed himself a competent reader of the Chinese cla.s.sics and was appointed tutor to the Prince Imperial. By Atogi's advice a still abler scholar, Wani (w.a.n.g-in), was subsequently invited from Kudara to take Atogi's place, and it is added that the latter received the t.i.tle of fumi-bito (scribe), which he transmitted to his descendants in j.a.pan. But close scrutiny does not support the inference that Chinese script had remained unknown to j.a.pan until the above incidents. What is proved is merely that the Chinese cla.s.sics then for the first time became an open book in j.a.pan.

As for the ideographs themselves, they must have been long familiar, though doubtless to a very limited circle. Chinese history affords conclusive evidence. Thus, in the records of the later Han (A.D.

25-220) we read that from the time when Wu-Ti (140-86 B.C.) overthrew Korea, the j.a.panese of thirty-two provinces communicated with the Chinese authorities in the peninsula by means of a postal service.

The Wei annals (A.D. 220-265) state that in A.D. 238, the Chinese sovereign sent a written reply to a communication from the "Queen of j.a.pan"--Jingo was then on the throne. In the same year, the j.a.panese Court addressed a written answer to a Chinese rescript forwarded to Yamato by the governor of Thepang--the modern Namwon in Chollado--and in A.D. 247, a despatch was sent by the Chinese authorities admonishing the j.a.panese to desist from internecine quarrels. These references indicate that the use of the ideographs was known in j.a.pan long before the reign of Ojin, whether we take the j.a.panese or the corrected date for the latter. It will probably be just to a.s.sume, however, that the study of the ideographs had scarcely any vogue in j.a.pan until the coming of Atogi and Wani, nor does it appear to have attracted much attention outside Court circles even subsequently to that date, for the records show that, in the reign of the Emperor Bidatsu (A.D. 572-585), a memorial sent by Korea to the Yamato Court was illegible to all the officials except one man, by name w.a.n.g-sin-i, who seems to have been a descendant of the Paikche emigrant, Wan-i.

Buddhism, introduced into j.a.pan in A.D. 552, doubtless supplied the chief incentive to the acquisition of knowledge. But had the j.a.panese a script of their own at any period of their history? The two oldest ma.n.u.scripts which contain a reference to this subject are the Kogo-shui, compiled by Hironari in A.D. 808, and a memorial (kammori) presented to the Throne in A.D. 901 by Miyoshi Kiyotsura. Both explicitly state that in remote antiquity there were no letters, and that all events or discourses had to be transmitted orally. Not until the thirteenth century does the theory of a purely j.a.panese script seem to have been conceived, and its author* had no basis for the hypothesis other than the idea that, as divination was practised in the age of the Kami, letters of some kind must have been in use.

Since then the matter has been much discussed. Caves used in ancient times as habitations or sepulchres and old shrines occasionally offer evidence in the form of symbols which, since they bear some resemblance to the letters of the Korean alphabet (onmuri), have been imagined to be at once the origin of the latter and the script of the Kami-no-yo (Age of the Kami). But such fancies are no longer seriously entertained. It is agreed that the so-called "letters" are nothing more than copies of marks produced by the action of fire upon bones used in divination. The j.a.panese cleverly adapted the Chinese ideographs to syllabic purposes, but they never devised a script of their own.

*Kanekata, who wrote the Shaku Nihongi in the era 1264--1274.

ETHICAL EFFECTS OF THE INTRODUCTION OF CHINESE LITERATURE

A generally accepted belief is that the study of the Chinese cla.s.sics exercised a marked ethical influence upon the j.a.panese nation. That is a conclusion which may be profitably contrasted with the views of j.a.pan's most distinguished historians. Mr. Abe Kozo says: "Acquaintance with the Chinese cla.s.sics may be supposed to have produced a considerable moral effect on the people of j.a.pan. Nothing of the kind seems to have been the case. The practical civilization of China was accepted, but not her ethical code. For any palpable moral influence the arrival of Buddhism had to be awaited. Already the principles of loyalty and obedience, propriety, and righteousness were recognized in j.a.pan though not embodied in any written code."

Dr. Ariga writes: "Our countrymen did not acquire anything specially new in the way of moral tenets. They must have been surprised to find that in China men did not respect the occupants of the throne. A subject might murder his sovereign and succeed him without incurring the odium of the people." Rai Sanyo says: "Moral principles are like the sun and the moon; they cannot be monopolized by any one country.

In every land there are parents and children, rulers and ruled, husbands and wives. Where these relations exist, there also filial piety and affection, loyalty and righteousness may naturally be found. In our country we lack the precise terminology of the cla.s.sics, but it does not follow that we lack the principles expressed. What the j.a.panese acquired from the cla.s.sics was the method of formulating the thought, not the thought itself."

THE SIXTEENTH SOVEREIGN, NINTOKU (A.D. 313-399)

This sovereign is represented by the Chronicles as having reigned eighty-six years, and by the Records as having died at the age of eighty-three. The same Chronicles make him the lover of a girl whom his father, also her lover, generously ceded to him. This event happened in A.D. 282. a.s.suming that Nintoku was then sixteen, he cannot have been less than 133 at the time of his death. It is thus seen that the chronology of this period, also, is untrustworthy.

Nintoku's reign is remembered chiefly on account of the strange circ.u.mstances in which he came to the throne, his benevolent charity, and the slights he suffered at the hands of a jealous consort. His father, Ojin, by an exercise of caprice not uncommon on the part of j.a.pan's ancient sovereigns, had nominated a younger son, Waka-iratsuko, to be his heir. But this prince showed invincible reluctance to a.s.sume the sceptre after Ojin's death. He a.s.serted himself stoutly by killing one of his elder brothers who conspired against him, though he resolutely declined to take precedence of the other brother, and the latter, proving equally diffident, the throne remained unoccupied for three years when Waka-iratsuko solved the problem by committing suicide.

Such are the simplest outlines of the story. But its details, when filled in by critical j.a.panese historians of later ages, suggest a different impression. When Ojin died his eldest two sons were living respectively in Naniwa (Osaka) and Yamato, and the Crown Prince, Waka-iratsuko, was at Uji. They were thus excellently situated for setting up independent claims. From the time of Nintoku's birth, the prime minister, head of the great Takenouchi family, had taken a special interest in the child, and when the lad grew up he married this Takenouchi's granddaughter, who became the mother of three Emperors. Presently the representatives of all branches of the Takenouchi family came into possession of influential positions at Court, among others that of o-omi, so that in this reign were laid the foundations of the controlling power subsequently vested in the hands of the Heguri, Katsuragi, and Soga houses. In short, this epoch saw the beginning of a state of affairs destined to leave its mark permanently on j.a.panese history, the relegation of the sovereign to the place of a faineant and the usurpation of the administrative authority by a group of great n.o.bles.

Nintoku had the active support of the Takenouchi magnates, and although the Crown Prince may have desired to a.s.sert the t.i.tle conferred on him by his father, he found himself helpless in the face of obstructions offered by the prime minister and his numerous partisans. These suffered him to deal effectively with that one of his elder brothers who did not find a place in their ambitious designs, but they created for Waka-iratsuko a situation so intolerable that suicide became his only resource. Nintoku's first act on ascending the throne explains the ideographs chosen for his posthumous name by the authors of the Chronicles, since nin signifies "benevolence" and toku, "virtue." He made Naniwa (Osaka) his capital, but instead of levying taxes and requisitioning forced labour to build his palace of Takatsu, he remitted all such burdens for three years on observing from a tower that no smoke ascended from the roofs of the houses and construing this to indicate a state of poverty.

During those three years the palace fell into a condition of practical ruin, and tradition describes its inmates as being compelled to move from room to room to avoid the leaking rain.*

*Doubts have been thrown on the reality of this incident because a poem, attributed to Nintoku on the occasion, is couched in obviously anachronistic language. But the poem does not appear in either the Records or the Chronicles: it was evidently an invention of later ages.

Under Nintoku's sway riparian works and irrigation improvements took place on a large scale, and thus the eminent historian, Rai Sanyo, may not be without warrant for attributing to this ruler the sentiment quoted in the Chronicles: "A sovereign lives for his people. Their prosperity is his enrichment; their poverty, his loss."

Yet it is in connexion with Nintoku's repairs of the Manda river-bank that we find the first mention of a heinous custom occasionally practised in subsequent ages--the custom of sacrificing human life to expedite the progress or secure the success of some public work.

At the same time, that habits indicating a higher civilization had already begun to gain ground is proved by an incident which occurred to one of the Imperial princes during a hunting expedition. Looking down over a moor from a mountain, he observed a pit, and, on inquiry, was informed by the local headman that it was an "ice-pit." The prince, asking how the ice was stored and for what it was used, received this answer: "The ground is excavated to a depth of over ten feet. The top is then covered with a roof of thatch. A thick layer of reed-gra.s.s is then spread, upon which the ice is laid. The months of summer have pa.s.sed and yet it is not melted. As to its use--when the hot months come it is placed in water or sake and thus used."

[Aston's Nihongi.] Thenceforth the custom of storing ice was adopted at the Court. It was in Nintoku's era that the pastime of hawking, afterward widely practised, became known for the first time in j.a.pan.

Korea was the place of origin, and it is recorded that the falcon had a soft leather strap fastened to one leg and a small bell to the tail. Pheasants were the quarry of the first hawk flown on the moor of Mozu.