A History of the Japanese People Part 33

"The genealogy of my house shows that I am the fifth in descent from the Emperor Kwammu. Therefore, though I hold one-half of a province, that cannot be attributed to mere good fortune. In the history of ancient times there are occasions where a whole country was appropriated by force of arms. Nature has endowed me with military talent. None, I presume, excels me in that respect. You, however, had no praise to bestow on me. Rather was I frequently reprimanded when I served in the capital, so that my shame was unendurable, whereas your sympathy would have delighted me. While Masakado was still a youth he served Tadahira, the prime minister, for tens of years, and when Tadahira became regent, Masakado never entertained his present project. I have no words to express my regret. Though I have conspired to revolt, I will not forget my old master, and I hope that he will make allowances for the circ.u.mstances in which I am placed."

*The vice-governor of Musashi, Minamoto Tsunemoto, was at feud with the governor, Prince Okiyo, and Masakado espoused the latter's cause.

Had it rested with Kyoto to subdue this revolt, Masakado might have attained his goal. But chance and the curious spirit of the time fought for the Court. A trifling breach of etiquette on the part of Masakado--not pausing to bind up his hair before receiving a visitor--forfeited the co-operation of a great soldier, Fujiwara Hidesato, (afterwards known as Tawara Toda), and the latter, joining forces with Taira Sadamori, whose father Masakado had killed, attacked the rebels in a moment of elated carelessness, shattered them completely, and sent Masakado's head to the capital. The whole affair teaches that the Fujiwara aristocrats, ruling in Kyoto, had neither power nor inclination to meddle with provincial administration, and that the districts distant from the metropolis wore practically under the sway of military magnates in whose eyes might const.i.tuted right. This was especially notable in the case of the Kwanto, that is to say the eight provinces surrounding the present Tokyo Bay, extending north to the Nikko Mountains. Musashi, indeed, was so infested with law-breakers that, from the days of the Emperor Seiwa (859-876), it became customary to appoint one kebiishi in each of its districts, whereas elsewhere the establishment was one to each province. The kebiishi represented the really puissant arm of the law, the provincial governors, originally so powerful, having now degenerated into weaklings.

THE REVOLT OF FUJIWARA SUMITOMO

Another event, characteristic of the time, occurred in Nankai-do (the four provinces of the island of Shikoku) contemporaneously with the revolt of Masakado. During the Shohei era (931-937) the ravages of pirates became so frequent in those waters that Fujiwara no Sumitomo was specially despatched from Kyoto to restrain them. This he effected without difficulty. But instead of returning to the capital, he collected a number of armed men together with a squadron of vessels, and conducted a campaign of spoliation and outrage in the waters of the Inland Sea as well as the channels of Kii and Bungo.

Masakado's death, in 939, relieved the Court from the pressure in the east, and an expedition was despatched against Sumitomo under the command of Ono no Yoshifuru, general of the guards.

Yoshifuru mustered only two hundred ships whereas Sumitomo had fifteen hundred. The issue might have been foretold had not the pirate chief's lieutenant gone over to the Imperial forces. Sumitomo, after an obstinate resistance and after one signal success, was finally routed and killed. Some historians* have contended that Masakado and Sumitomo, when they were together in Kyoto, conspired a simultaneous revolt in the east and the south; but such a conclusion is inconsistent with the established fact that Masakado's treason was not premeditated.

*Notably the authors of the Okagami and the Nihon Gwaishi.

That the two events synchronized is attributable wholly to the conditions of the time. We have seen what was the state of affairs in Kwanto, and that of Kyushu and Shikoku is clearly set forth in a memorial presented (946) by Ono Yoshifuru on his return from the Sumitomo campaign. In that doc.u.ment he says: "My information is that those who pursue irregular courses are not necessarily sons of provincial governors alone. Many others make lawless use of power and authority; form confederacies; engage daily in military exercises; collect and maintain men and horses under pretext of hunting game; menace the district governors; plunder the common people; violate their wives and daughters, and steal their beasts of burden and employ them for their own purposes, thus interrupting agricultural operations. Yesterday, they were outcasts, with barely sufficient clothes to cover their nakedness; to-day, they ride on horseback and don rich raiment. Meanwhile the country falls into a state of decay, and the homesteads are desolate. My appeal is that, with the exception of provincial governors' envoys, any who enter a province at the head of parties carrying bows and arrows, intimidate the inhabitants, and rob them of their property, shall be recognized as common bandits and thrown into prison on apprehension."

In a word, the aristocratic officialdom in Kyoto, headed by the Fujiwara, though holding all the high administrative posts, wielded no real power outside the capital, nor were they competent to preserve order even within its precincts, for the palace itself was not secure against incendiarism and depredation. When the heads of the Minamoto and the Taira families were appointed provincial governors in the Kwanto, they trained their servants in the use of arms, calling them iye-no-ko (house-boys) or rodo (retainers), and other local magnates purchased freedom from molestation by doing homage and obeying their behests. Taira Masakado, Minamoto Tsunemoto, Fujiwara Hidesato, and Taira Sadamori, who figure in the above narrative, were all alike provincial chiefs, possessing private estates and keeping armed retinues which they used for protection or for plunder. The Imperial Court, when confronted with any crisis, was constrained to borrow the aid of these magnates, and thus there came into existence the buke, or military houses, as distinguished from the kuge, or Court houses.

ENGRAVING: UMBRELLAS

ENGRAVING: KINKAKU-JI, AT KYOTO

CHAPTER XXI

THE CAPITAL AND THE PROVINCES

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COURT AND THE FUJIWARA

We now arrive at a period of j.a.panese history in which the relations of the Fujiwara family to the Throne are so complicated as greatly to perplex even the most careful reader. But as it is not possible to construct a genealogical table of a really helpful character, the facts will be set down here in their simplest form.

THE SIXTY-SECOND SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR MURAKAMI (A.D. 947-967)

Murakami, son of Daigo by the daughter of the regent, Fujiwara Mototsune, ascended the throne in succession to Shujaku, and Fujiwara Tadahira held the post of regent, as he had done in Shujaku's time, his three sons, Saneyori, Morosuke, and Morotada, giving their daughters; one, Morosuke's offspring, to be Empress, the other two to be consorts of the sovereign. Moreover, Morosuke's second daughter was married to the Emperor's younger brother, Prince Takaaki, who afterwards descended from princely rank to take the family name of Minamoto. Saneyori, Morosuke, and Takaaki took a prominent part in the administration of State affairs, and thus indirectly by female influence at Court, or by their own direct activity, the Fujiwara held a supreme place. Murakami has a high position among j.a.pan's model sovereigns. He showed keen and intelligent interest in politics; he sought to employ able officials; he endeavoured to check luxury, and he solicited frank guidance from his elders. Thus later generations learned to indicate Engi (901-923), when Daigo reigned, and Tenryaku (947-957), when Murakami reigned, as essentially eras of benevolent administration. But whatever may have been the personal qualities of Murakami, however conspicuous his poetical ability and however sincere his solicitude for the welfare of his subjects, he failed signally to correct the effeminate tendency of Kyoto society or to protect the lives and property of his people. Bandits raided the capital, broke into the palace itself, set fire to it, and committed frequent depredations unrestrained. An age when the machinery for preserving law and order was practically paralyzed scarcely deserves the eulogies of posterity.

THE SUCCESSION

The lady with whom Murakami first consorted was a daughter of Fujiwara Motokata, who represented a comparatively obscure branch of the great family, and had attained the office of chief councillor of State (dainagori) only. She bore to his Majesty a son, Hirohira, and the boy's grandfather confidently looked to see him named Prince Imperial. But presently the daughter of Fujiwara Morosuke, minister of the Right, entered the palace, and although her Court rank was not at first superior to that of the dainagon's daughter, her child had barely reached its third month when, through Morosuke's irresistible influence, it was nominated heir to the throne. Motokata's disappointment proved so keen that his health became impaired and he finally died--of chagrin, the people said. In those days men believed in the power of disembodied spirits for evil or for good. The spirit of the ill-fated Sugawara Michizane was appeased by building shrines to his memory, and a similar resource exorcised the angry ghost of the rebel, Masakado; but no such prevention having been adopted in the case of Motokata, his spirit was supposed to have compa.s.sed the early deaths of his grandson's supplanter, Reizei, and of the latter's successors, Kwazan and Sanjo, whose three united reigns totalled only five years.

A more substantial calamity resulted, however, from the habit of ignoring the right of primogeniture in favour of arbitrary selection.

Murakami, seeing that the Crown Prince (Reizei) had an exceedingly feeble physique, deemed it expedient to transfer the succession to his younger brother, Tamehira. But the latter, having married into the Minamoto family, had thus become ineligible for the throne in Fujiwara eyes. The Emperor hesitated, therefore, to give open expression to his views, and while he waited, he himself fell mortally ill. On his death-bed he issued the necessary instruction, but the Fujiwara deliberately ignored it, being determined that a consort of their own blood must be the leading lady in every Imperial household. Then the indignation of the other great families, the Minamoto and the Taira, blazed out. Mitsunaka, representing the former, and Shigen.o.bu the latter, entered into a conspiracy to collect an army in the Kwanto and march against Kyoto with the sole object of compelling obedience to Murakami's dying behest. The plot was divulged by Minamoto Mitsunaka in the sequel of a quarrel with Taira no Shigen.o.bu; the plotters were all exiled, and Takaaki, youngest son of the Emperor Daigo, though wholly ignorant of the conspiracy, was falsely accused to the Throne by Fujiwara Morotada, deprived of his post of minister of the Left, to which his accuser was nominated, and sent to that retreat for disgraced officials, the Dazai-fu. Another instance is here furnished of the readiness with which political rivals slandered one another in old j.a.pan, and another instance, also, of the sway exercised over the sovereign by his Fujiwara ministers.

THE SIXTY-THIRD SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR REIZEI (A.D. 968-969)

THE SIXTY-FOURTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR ENYU (A.D. 970-984)

The reigns of Reizei and Enyu are remarkable for quarrels among the members of the Fujiwara family--quarrels which, to be followed intelligently, require frequent reference to the genealogical table (page 203). Fujiwara Morosuke had five sons, Koretada, Kanemichi, Kaneiye, Tamemitsu, and Kinsuye. Two of these, Koretada and Kaneiye, presented one each of their daughters to the Emperor Reizei, and Koretada's daughter gave birth to Prince Morosada, who afterwards reigned as Kwazan, while Kaneiye's daughter bore Okisada, subsequently the Emperor Sanjo. After one year's reign, Reizei, who suffered from brain disease, abdicated in favour of his younger brother, Enyu, then only in his eleventh year. Fujiwara Saneyori acted as regent, but, dying shortly afterwards, was succeeded in that office by his nephew, Koretada, who also had to resign on account of illness.

Between this latter's two brothers, Kanemichi and Kaneiye, keen compet.i.tion for the regency now sprang up. Kanemichi's eldest daughter was the Empress of Enyu, but his Majesty favoured Kaneiye, who thus attained much higher rank than his elder brother. Kanemichi, however, had another source of influence. His sister was Murakami's Empress and mother of the reigning sovereign, Enyu. This Imperial lady, writing to his Majesty Enyu at Kanemichi's dictation, conjured the Emperor to be guided by primogeniture in appointing a regent, and Enyu, though he bitterly disliked Kanemichi, could not gainsay his mother. Thus Kanemichi became chancellor and acting regent. The struggle was not concluded, however. It ended in the palace itself, whither the two brothers repaired almost simultaneously, Kanemichi rising from his sick-bed for the purpose. In the presence of the boy Emperor, Kanemichi arbitrarily transferred his own office of kwampaku to Fujiwara Yoritada and degraded his brother, Kaneiye, to a comparatively insignificant post. The sovereign acquiesced; he had no choice. A few months later, this dictator died. It is related of him that his residence was more gorgeous than the palace and his manner of life more sumptuous than the sovereign's. The men of his time were wont to say, "A tiger's mouth is less fatal than the frown of the regent, Kanemichi."

THE SIXTY-FIFTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR KWAZAN (A.D. 985-986)

THE SIXTY-SIXTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR ICHIJO (A.D. 987-1011)

Eldest son of the Emperor Reizei, Kwazan ascended the throne in 985.

His mother was a daughter of Fujiwara Koretada, and Yoritada, whose appointment as regent has just been described, continued to act in that capacity. Kaneiye's opportunity had now come. Kwazan having succeeded Enyu, nominated the latter's son to be Crown Prince, instead of conferring the position on his own brother, Prince Okisada (afterwards Sanjo). Now the Crown Prince was the son of Kaneiye's daughter, and that ambitious n.o.ble determined to compa.s.s the sovereign's abdication without delay. Kwazan, originally a fickle lover, had ultimately conceived an absorbing pa.s.sion for the lady Tsuneko. He could not be induced to part with her even at the time of her pregnancy, and as there was no proper provision in the palace for such an event, Tsuneko died in labour. Kwazan, distraught with grief, was approached by Kaneiye's son, Michikane, who urged him to retire from the world and seek in Buddhism the perfect peace thus alone attainable. Michikane declared his own intention of entering the "path," and on a moonlight night the two men, leaving the palace, repaired to the temple Gw.a.n.gyo-ji to take the tonsure. There, Michikane, pretending he wished to bid final farewell to his family, departed to return no more, and the Emperor understood that he had been deceived.

Retreat was now impossible, however. He abdicated in favour of Ichijo, a child of seven, and Kaneiye became regent and chancellor.

He emulated the magnificence of his deceased brother and rival, Kanemichi, and his residence at Higashi-Sanjo in Kyoto was built after the model of the "hall of freshness" in the palace. He had five sons, the most remarkable of whom were Michitaka, Michikane, and Michinaga. It will be presently seen that in the hands of the last the power of the Fujiwara reached its zenith. On the death of Kaneiye the office of kwampaku fell to his eldest son, Michitaka, and, in 993, the latter being seriously ill, his son, Korechika, looked to be his successor. But the honour fell to Michitaka's brother, Michikane.

Seven days after his nomination, Michikane died, and, as a matter of course, men said that he had been done to death by the incantations of his ambitious nephew. Again, however, the latter was disappointed.

Kaneiye's third son, Michinaga, succeeded to the regency.

Almost immediately, the new regent seems to have determined that his daughter should be Empress. But the daughter of his elder brother, the late Michitaka, already held that position. This, however, const.i.tuted no sort of obstacle in the eyes of the omnipotent Michinaga. He induced--"required" would probably be a more accurate expression--the Empress to abandon the world, shave her head, and remove to a secluded palace, (the Kokideri); where-after he caused his own daughter to become the Imperial consort under the t.i.tle of chugu,* her residence being fixed in the Fujitsubo, which was the recognized palace of the Empress.

*A lady on introduction to the palace received the t.i.tle of jokwan.

If the daughter of a minister of State, she was called nyogo. Chugu was a still higher t.i.tle devised specially for Michinaga's purpose, and naturally it became a precedent.

It is not to be imagined that with such a despotic regent, the Emperor himself exercised any real authority. The annals show that Ichijo was of benevolent disposition; that he sympathized with his people; that he excelled in prose composition and possessed much skill in music. Further, during his reign of twenty-four years many able men graced the era. But neither their capacity nor his own found opportunity for exercise in the presence of Michinaga's proteges, and, while profoundly disliking the Fujiwara autocrat, Ichijo was constrained to suffer him.

THE SIXTY-SEVENTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR SANJO (A.D. 1012-1017)

THE SIXTY-EIGHTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR GO-ICHIJO (A.D. 1017-1036)

Prince Okisada, younger brother of the Emperor Kwazan, ascended the throne at the age of thirty-six, on the abdication of Ichijo, and is known in history as Sanjo. Before his accession he had married the daughter of Fujiwara Naritoki, to whom he was much attached, but with the crown he had to accept the second daughter of Michinaga as chugu, his former consort becoming Empress. His Majesty had to acquiesce in another arbitrary arrangement also. It has been shown above that Michinaga's eldest daughter had been given the t.i.tle of chugu in the palace of Ichijo, to whom she bore two sons, Atsunari and Atsunaga.

Neither of these had any right to be nominated Crown Prince in preference to Sanjo's offspring. Michinaga, however, caused Atsunari to be appointed Prince Imperial, ignoring Sanjo's son, since his mother belonged to an inferior branch of the Fujiwara. Further, it did not suit the regent's convenience that a ruler of mature age should occupy the throne. An eye disease from which Sanjo suffered became the pretext for pressing him to abdicate, and, in 1017, Atsunari, then in his ninth year, took the sceptre as Emperor Go-Ichijo, or Ichijo II. Michinaga continued to act as regent, holding, at the same time, the office of minister of the Left, but he subsequently handed over the regency to his son, Yorimichi, becoming himself chancellor.

Go-Ichijo was constrained to endure at Michinaga's hands the same despotic treatment as that previously meted out to Sanjo. The legitimate claim of his offspring to the throne was ignored in favour of his brother, Atsunaga, who received for consort the fourth daughter of Michinaga. Thus, this imperious n.o.ble had controlled the administration for thirty years; had given his daughters to three Emperors; had appointed his son to be regent in his place, and had the Crown Prince for grandson. Truly, as his historians say, he held the empire in the hollow of his hand. His estates far exceeded those of the Crown; the presents offered to him by all ranks reached an enormous total; he built for himself a splendid mansion (Jotomon) with forced labour requisitioned from the provinces, and for his wife a scarcely less magnificent residence (Kyogoku) was erected at the charges of the Emperor Go-Ichijo. At the approach of illness he took refuge in Buddhism, but even here the gorgeous ostentation of his life was not abated. He planned the building of a monastery which should prove a worthy retreat for his declining years, and it is on record that his order to the provincial governor was, "though you neglect your official duties, do not neglect to furnish materials and labour for the building of Hojo-ji." Even from the palace itself stones were taken for this monastery, and the sums lavished upon it were so enormous that they dwarfed Michinaga's previous extravagances. Michinaga retired there to die, and on his death-bed he received a visit from the Emperor, who ordered three months' Court mourning on his decease. There is a celebrated work ent.i.tled Eigwa Monogatari (Tales of Splendour), wherein is depicted the fortunes and the foibles of the Fujiwara family from the days (889) of the Emperor Uda to those (1092) of the Emperor Horikawa. Specially minute is the chronicle when it treats of the Mido kwampaku, as Michinaga was called after he set himself to build the monastery Hojo-ji.

Loyal j.a.panese historians shrink from describing this era, when the occupants of the throne were virtually puppets in the hands of the Fujiwara. There was, however, one redeeming feature: amid this luxury and refinement literature flourished vigorously, so that the era of Tenryaku (947-957) lives in the memory of the nation as vividly as that of Engi (901-923). Oye Tomotsuna, Sugawara Fumitoki, Minamoto s.h.i.tago--these were famous litterateurs, and Minamoto Hiromasa, grandson of the Emperor Uda, attained celebrity as a musical genius.

Coming to the reigns of Kwazan, Enyu, and Ichijo (985-1011), we find the immortal group of female writers, Murasaki Shikibu, Izumi Shikibu, Sei Shonagon, and Akazome Emon; we find also in the Imperial family, Princes Kaneakira and Tomohira; we find three famous scribes, Fujiwara Yukinari, Fujiwara Sari, and Ono no Tofu, and, finally the "Four Nagon" (Shi-nagori), Fujiwara Yukinari, Fujiwara Kinto.

Minamoto Narin.o.bu, and Minamoto Toshikata.

It is observable that in this necessarily brief summary the name "Minamoto" occurs several times, as does that of "Fujiwara" also. But that the scions of either family confined themselves to the arts of peace, is not to be inferred. There were Fujiwara among the military magnates in the provinces, and we shall presently see the Minamoto taking the lead in the science of war. Already, indeed, the Fujiwara in the capital were beginning to recognize the power of the Minamoto.

It has been related above that one of the rebel Masakado's earliest opponents was a Minamoto, vice-governor of Musashi. His son, Mitsunaka, a redoubtable warrior, a.s.sisted the Fujiwara in Kyoto, and Mitsunaka's sons, Yorimitsu and Yorin.o.bu, contributed materially to the autocracy of the regent Michinaga. Yorimitsu was appointed by the regent to command the cavalry of the guard, and he is said to have brought that corps to a state of great efficiency.

There was, indeed, much need of a strong hand. One had only to emerge from the palace gates to find oneself among the haunts of bandits.

The names of such robber chiefs as Hakamadare no Yasusuke, Kidomaru, Oeyama Shutendoji, and Ibaraki-doji have been handed down as the heroes in many a strange adventure and the perpetrators of many heinous crimes. Even the Fujiwara residences were not secure against the torches of these plunderers, and during the reign of Ichijo the palace itself was frequently fired by them. In Go-Ichijo's tune, an edict was issued forbidding men to carry bows and arrows in the streets, but had there been power to enforce such a veto, its enactment would not have been necessary. Its immediate sequel was that the bandits broke into Government offices and murdered officials there.

THE INVASION OF j.a.pAN BY THE TOI

In the spring of 1019, when Go-Ichijo occupied the throne, a large host of invaders suddenly poured into the island of Tsushima. There had not been any warning. Tsushima lies half-way between the south of Korea and the northeast of Kyushu, distant about sixty miles from either coast. Since the earliest times, its fine harbours had served as a military station for ships plying between j.a.pan and Korea, but such intercourse had long been interrupted when this invasion took place.

The invaders were the Toi, originally called Sushen or Moho, under the former of which names they make their appearance in j.a.panese history in the middle of the sixth century. They inhabited that part of the Asiatic continent which lies opposite to the island of Ezo, but there is nothing to show what impulse they obeyed in making this sudden descent upon j.a.pan. Their fleet comprised some fifty vessels only, each from forty to sixty feet long and propelled by thirty or forty oars, but of how many fighting men the whole force consisted, no record has been preserved. As to arms, they carried swords, bows, spears, and shields, and in their tactical formation spearmen occupied the front rank, then came swordsmen, and finally bowmen.

Every man had a shield. Their arrows were short, measuring little over a foot, but their bows were powerful, and they seem to have fought with fierce courage.

At first they carried everything before them. The governor of Tsushima, being without any means of defence, fled to the Dazai-fu in Kyushu, and the inhabitants were left to the mercy of the invaders, who then pushed on to the island of Iki. There the governor, Fujiwara Masatada, made a desperate resistance, losing his own life in the battle. It is said that of all the inhabitants, one only, a Buddhist priest, escaped to tell the story.

Ten days after their first appearance off Tsushima, the Toi effected a landing in Chikuzen and marched towards Hakata, plundering, burning, ma.s.sacring old folks and children, making prisoners of adults, and slaughtering cattle and horses for food. It happened, fortunately, that Takaiye, younger brother of Fujiwara Korechika, was in command at the Dazai-fu, whither he had repaired partly out of pique, partly to undergo treatment for eye disease at the hands of a Chinese doctor. He met the crisis with the utmost coolness, and made such skilful dispositions for defence that, after three days'