An Introduction to the History of Japan Part 5

Whatever might have been the real motive of Yasutoki and his legal councillors, the very act of the compilation cannot in itself fail to betray the consciousness on the part of the Shogunate that it had already a sufficiency of test cases decided to supply models for the decision of most of the disputes that might be brought before them in the future. Or we might say that the Hojo became confirmed in their belief that the Shogunate was now so firmly established as not to be easily shaken at its foundation, and that they could henceforth command in the name of a regular government without any fear of serious disturbances. Certainly their victory in the civil war must have rid them of any apprehension of danger from the side of Kyoto.

This compilation was issued in the year 1232, that is to say, about fifty years after the founding of the Kamakura Shogunate. Thus we can see that this half-century had wrought an important change in the history of j.a.pan. During this time the military regime was enabled to strike a firm root deep into the national life of the j.a.panese. The family of the Minamoto soon became extinct by the death of the second son of Yoritomo, and scions of a Fujiwara n.o.ble and then some of the imperial princes were brought from Kyoto one after another as the successors to the Shogunate. Yet they were all but tools in the capable hands of the Hojo family, which remained the real master of the military government of Kamakura. In course of time, the Hojo also fell, but other military families successively arose to power, and the military regime was kept up by them in j.a.pan until the middle of the nineteenth century. It is true that those changes in the headship and in the location of the Shogunate caused as a matter of fact corresponding changes in the nature of the respective military regime. The Shogunate of the Ashikaga family was of a different sort from that of Kamakura, while that of the Tokugawa at Yedo was again of another type than the Ashikaga's at Kyoto. Throughout all these different Shogunates, however, certain common characteristics prevailed, so that a wide gap may be discerned between them as a whole and the government of the Fujiwara courtiers. And those characters indeed have their origin all in this first half century of the Kamakura Shogunate.

What most distinguished the military regime from the preceding government was its being pragmatic and unconventional. It was not on account of n.o.ble lineage alone, that Yoritomo was able to establish his Shogunate. He owed a great deal to the willing a.s.sistance of the warriors scattered in the eastern provinces, who claimed descent from some ill.u.s.trious personages in our history, but in fact had forefathers of modest living for many generations, and had maintained very intimate relations with the common people. The Shogunate was bound by this reason not to neglect the interests of those who had thus contributed to its establishment. Moreover, in order to be able to raise a strong army at any time when necessary, the Shogunate was obliged to take minute care of the welfare of the retainers and of the people at large, for the faithfulness of the former and popularity among the latter counted more than other things as props of the regime. The contrast is remarkable when we compare it to the government by the Fujiwara n.o.bles, who made an elaborate legislation, professing to govern uprightly and leniently, and to be beneficial even to the lowest stratum of the people, yet in reality caring very little for the felicity of the governed, looking on them always with contempt, though this lack of sympathy might be attributed more to some old racial relation than to the morality of those n.o.bles. After all, the government of the Shogun, being regulated by a few decrees and guided by practical common sense, operated far better than the Fujiwara's. Where formalism had reigned, reality began now to prevail. The spirit of the age was about to be emanc.i.p.ated from convention. j.a.pan was regenerated.

It was this regeneration of j.a.pan, which kept up and nourished what was initiated in the Taira period. But for the Kamakura Shogunate, however, those germs of the new era might have been blasted forever. One thread of the continuous development from the Taira to the Minamoto period may be clearly discerned in the sphere of religion. In 1212 died Honen, the reformer of Buddhism, of whom I have already spoken in the preceding chapter, but before his death his teachings had gathered a great many adherents around him, and the sect of the Jodo became independent of that of the Tendai. It was from this Jodo sect that the Shinshu or the "orthodox" Jodo, now one of the most influential Buddhist sects in j.a.pan, sprang up, and became independent also. Shinran, the founder of the latter sect, is said to have been one of the disciples of Honen, and the tenets of his sect, initiated by Shinran himself and supplemented by his successors, bear striking resemblance to the reform tenets of Luther in laying stress on faith and in denouncing reliance on the merit of good works in order to arrive at salvation. That the priests belonging to this sect have avowedly led a matrimonial life, a custom which was unique to this sect among j.a.panese Buddhists, is another point of resemblance to Lutheranism. In other respects, for example, in preaching the doctrine of predestination, it can be considered as a.n.a.logous to Calvinism also.

Another important sect, which branched off from the Tendai, is that of the followers of Nichiren. His sect is called the Hokke, or Nichiren, after the name of the founder himself, and the sect still contains a vast number of devotees. It is the most militant sect of Buddhism in j.a.pan, and that militancy might be traced to the personality of Nichiren, the founder, who was the most energetic and aggressive priest j.a.panese Buddhism has ever produced. He, too, never claimed to have founded a new sect, and insisted that his doctrine was simply a resuscitated Tendai tenet. We can easily see, however, that in its pervading tendency it approached other reformed sects of the same age rather than the old or orthodox Tendai. Nichiren died in the year 1282, so that his most flourishing period falls in the middle of the thirteenth century.

One more sect I cannot pa.s.s without commenting on is the Zen sect. Its founder in j.a.pan is Yosai, whose time coincided with that of Honen.

Twice he went over to China, which had been for more than two hundred years under the sovereignty of the Sung dynasty, and studied there the doctrine of the Zen sect, which was then prevailing in that country.

After his return from abroad, he began to preach first at Hakata, which had long continued the most thriving port for the trade with China.

Afterwards he removed to Kyoto and thence to Kamakura, making enthusiasts everywhere, especially among the warriors. Like all other new sects, the teaching of Yosai was not entirely a novelty, being a development of one of the many elements which const.i.tuted old Buddhism.

The specialty of the sect was, instead of arriving at salvation by belief in some supernatural being outside and above one's self, to encourage meditation and introspection and its general character tended to be mystic, intuitive, and individualistic. Strong self-reliance and resolute determination, qualities indispensable to warriors, were the natural and necessary outcome of this teaching. It was largely patronised by the Shogunate and the Hojo on that account. Though Yosai became the founder of the sect, neither he himself nor his teaching could hardly be called sectarian. To establish an hierarchical community or to organise a systematised doctrine was beyond his purpose, but the result of his preaching was precisely to bring both into being.

Not only the characteristics of these new sects, but the manner of their propagation deserves close attention. Some of them were started in the eastern provinces, and gradually extended their missionary activity toward the west, that is to say, in the direction which is contrary to that of the extension of civilisation in former times. Others, though started in the west or at Kyoto, concentrated their efforts in the eastern provinces with Kamakura as centre of propagation. In short, all the reformed sects turned their attention rather to the eastern than to the western provinces. This preference of the east to the west originated in the circ.u.mstance that the less civilised east gave to those missioners a greater prospect of enlisting new adherents, than western j.a.pan, which would of a surety be slow to follow their new teachings, having been already won over by the older cults. It might, however, be added that the preachers of the new doctrines saw, or rather overvalued, the importance of the new political centre as the nucleus of a fresh civilisation which might rapidly develop.

To say sooth, the field of activity of those untiring priests was not restricted to those eastern provinces, which are denoted by the general appellation of "Kwanto", but was extended into the far northern provinces of Mutsu and Dewa. This region at the extremity of Honto was long ago created as provinces, but had lagged far behind the rest of j.a.pan in respect of civilisation. A considerable number of the Ainu were still lingering in the northern part of the two provinces.

Fujiwara-no-Hidehira, the generalissimo of the region, who harboured Yos.h.i.tsune, the younger brother and victim of Yoritomo, is said to have been of Ainu blood. His sphere of influence reached Shirakawa on the south, which was considered at that time the boundary between civilised and barbarous j.a.pan. The time had arrived, however, when this barrier was at last to be done away with. When a quarrel arose between the two brothers, Yoritomo and Yos.h.i.tsune, after the annihilation of the Taira, and the latter sought refuge with Hidehira, Yoritomo thought of marching into Mutsu. This expedition was undertaken in the year 1189, after the death of Hidehira. His sons were easily defeated. The land taken from them was distributed by Yoritomo among his soldiers, who followed him from the Kwanto and fought under his banner. The vast region, by coming thus under the military authority of the Kamakura Shogunate, was for the first time, taken into j.a.pan proper. It was on account of this extension of political j.a.pan over the whole of Honto, that the new sects had a chance to penetrate into those provinces.

We have seen that religion was the first and the most forcible exponent of the new age. If the Shogunate of Kamakura had remained in power longer than it did, other factors of the new civilisation might have developed quite afresh around the Shogunate. Art and literature of another type than that which flourished at Kyoto might have blossomed forth. The time was, however, not yet ripe for the total regeneration of j.a.pan. The conventionalism of the Kyoto civilisation more and more influenced the Shogunate, which was still too young and had nothing solid of its own civilisation capable of resisting the infiltration of the old. Besides, several difficulties which lay in the way of the Shogunate cooperated in bringing about its fall in the year of 1332.

j.a.pan had to go on in a half regenerated state for some time.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WELDING OF THE NATION THE POLITICAL DISINTEGRATION OF THE COUNTRY

A war with a foreign power or powers is generally a very efficient factor in history, conducing to the unification of a nation, especially when that nation is composed of more than one race. The German Empire, which was consolidated mainly by virtue of the wars of 1864, 1866, and 1870-1871, is one of the most exemplary instances. j.a.pan, being surrounded by sea on all sides, has had more advantages than any continental country in moulding into one all the racial elements which happened to find their way into the insular pale. These are the very same advantages which Great Britain has enjoyed in Europe. We should have been able, perhaps, without any coercion from without, to become a solid nation by the sole operation of geographical causes. If we had been left, however, to the mercy of influences of those kinds only, then we might have been obliged to wait for long years in order to see the nation welded, for in respect of the complexity of racial composition, j.a.pan cannot be said to be inferior to any national state in either hemisphere. To facilitate the national consolidation, therefore, the force acting from without was most welcome for us.

Of wars serviceable to such an end, however, there had been very scanty chances offered to us. Though the wars against the Ainu had continued much longer than is apt to be imagined by modern j.a.panese, and had made their influence felt in bringing about the consolidation of the j.a.panese as a nation, the spasmodic insurrections of the aborigines were but flickerings of cinders about to die out. For several centuries the Ainu had been a race destined only to wane irrevocably more and more, so that no serious danger was to be feared from that quarter. Outside of the Ainu, no other foreign people dared for a long time to invade us on so large a scale as to cause any serious damage.

As regards China, the dynasty of the Sung, which began to reign over the empire in the year 960, had been constantly hara.s.sed by the incursions of various northern tribes. After an existence of a century and a half, the greater portion of northern China was bereft of the dynasty by the Chin, a state founded by a Tartar tribe called the Churche. The Chin, however, was in turn overthrown in the year 1234 by the Mongols, another nomadic tribe, which rose in the rear of the latter state. Within a half century from that, the Chinese dynasty of the Sung, which had been long gasping in the south, drew its last breath under pressure of the same Mongols that founded the Empire of the Yuan.

From China, therefore, in the state it had been, we had nothing to fear.

As to the Korean peninsula, which had come under the influence of China at the time of the T'ang dynasty, the state founded there by the inhabitants was enabled now to breathe freely on account of the anarchical condition of the suzerain state. Though Kokuri and Kutara had, in spite of our a.s.sistance, been both destroyed by the army of the T'ang, Shiragi, which had been left unmolested by the T'ang as a half independent ally, conquered the greater part of the peninsula, and the people of that state frequently pillaged our western coasts. This Shiragi surrendered at the beginning of the tenth century to Korea, a new state which arose in the north of the peninsula. The relations of the new Korea with our country were on the whole very peaceful, except for some interruptions caused by the incursions of the pirates from that country on our coast at the end of the same century.

Besides the Koreans, there were many tribes inhabiting the north and the east of Korea and along the coast of the Sea of j.a.pan, which made themselves independent of China one after the other, though all the states founded by them had but an ephemeral existence. Some of those minor states kept up a very cordial intercourse with our country, while others acted in a contrary way. Among the latter may be counted the pirates from Toi, that is to say, from the region of a Churche tribe, though the real home of this throng of sea-thieves has not yet been identified with any exactness, pirates who devastated the island of Iki and the northern coast of Kyushu with a fleet consisting of more than fifty ships. This took place in the year 1019, and the repulse of this piratical attack was the last military exploit of the Fujiwara n.o.bles.

After that complete tranquillity reigned in our western quarter for more than two centuries and a half until the first Mongolian invasion of 1274. Hitherto, to repel the inroads of pirates, the forces which could be set in motion in the western provinces only, had proved to be more than sufficient for the purpose. Against the first Mongolian invasion also, the retainers of the Shogun in the western provinces only were mobilised as usual by command from Kamakura. The battle scenes of the war were described by one of the warriors who took part in it, and painted by a contemporary master on a scroll, which has come down in good preservation to our day, and now forms one of the imperial treasures to be handed on to prosperity. The expeditionary fleet of the Yuan consisted of more than nine hundred ships, with 15,000 Mongols and Chinese and 8,000 Koreans on board, besides 6,700 of the crews, so that it was too overwhelming in numbers even for our valiant soldiers to fight against with some hope of victory. It was not by the valour of our soldiers alone, therefore, that the invasion was frustrated. The elements, the turbulent wind and wave, did virtually more than mere human efforts could have achieved in destroying the formidable enemy's ships.

Irritated at this failure of the first expedition, Khubilai, the Emperor of Yuan, immediately ordered the preparation of another expedition on a far larger scale. The second invasion of j.a.pan was undertaken at last in the 1281, after an interval of seven years. This time the invading forces far outnumbered those of the first expedition, totalling more than one hundred thousand in all. On the other hand, the forces which the Shogunate could raise in the western provinces only proved this time plainly inadequate. Seeing this, Tokimune Hojo, who was the virtual master of the Shogunate, mobilised the retainers in the eastern provinces too, and sent them to the battlefield in Kyushu. A fierce battle was fought on the sh.o.r.e near Hakata. Our soldiers made a desperate effort to prevent the landing of the enemy's troops, contending inch by inch against fearful odds, so that the Mongols could not complete their disembarkment, before a hurricane suddenly arose that swept away at least two-thirds of their men and ships. A lasting check was thus put upon the expansion of the triumphant Mongols on the east, just forty years after the battle of Liegnitz in Silesia had been fought successfully by the Teutonic n.o.bles on the west against the same foe.

Though the frustration of the two Mongolian attempts upon our country should rather be attributed to the intervention of elemental forces which worked at very propitious opportunities, than to the bravery of our warriors, it cannot be disputed that they fought to their utmost, so that it would be derogatory to the military honour of our forefathers, if we supposed that nothing worth mentioning was achieved by them at all. In any case, the annihilation of the Mongolian fleet by us is an historical feat which might be considered together with the defeat of the Invincible Armada by the English three centuries later. In both countries the memorable victory was due to the dauntless courage of the warriors engaged in the battle, and the firm att.i.tude of the person who stood then at the helm of the state. In j.a.pan, Tokimune did not lend his ears to the milder counsels of the shrewder diplomatists at the court of Kyoto.

What is more noteworthy, however, than anything else in this war was not the bravery of our forefathers, but the fact that men recruited from the eastern as well as from the western provinces of the empire fought for the first time side by side against the foreign invaders. Such a cooperation of the people from all quarters of j.a.pan in defence of the country was not a sight which could have been witnessed before the establishment of the military regime, for until that time the unification of the Empire had not extended to the northern extremity of Honto, and for ninety years after the inauguration of the Shogunate at Kamakura, there had been no occasion for our warriors to try their fortune in arms against any foreign enemy. Now the j.a.panese were induced for the first time to feel the necessity for national solidarity, only because enterprising Khubilai dared to attack the island empire, which would have done no harm to him if he had left it unmolested, and would have added very little to his already overgrown empire, if he had succeeded in his adventurous expedition. It may be perhaps exaggerating a little to call this war a national undertaking on our part when we consider the small number of men engaged in it. The retainers of the Shogunate, however, who were the representatives of the j.a.panese of that time, all hurried to the northern coast of Kyushu, even from the remotest part of the empire, in order to defend their country against their common foe. The peculiar custom of intimidating children to stop their crying, by reminding them of the Mongolian invasion, an obsolescent custom which has existed even in the northernmost region of Honto, shows how thoroughly and deeply the Mongol scare shook the whole empire, and left its indelible impress on the nation as a whole. The first beat of the pulse of a national enthusiasm has thus become audible.

If this feeling of national solidarity had gone deep into the consciousness of the people, and had continued steadily increasing without relaxation, then it might have done considerable good in facilitating the wholesome organisation of our national state. Viewed from this point, it must be considered rather a misfortune to our country that the terrible enemy was too easily put to rout. The pressure once removed, men no more troubled themselves about the need for solidarity. Nay, the war itself sowed the seeds of discontent among the warriors engaged, on account of the incapacity of the Shogunate to recompense them amply for their services. Already after the civil war of the Jokyu era, the military government of Kamakura had been reduced to a straitened condition, for what it could get by the confiscation of the properties of the vanquished proved insufficient to provide the rewards for the faithful followers of the Shogunate. In the war with the Mongols, there was no enemy within the country from whom land could be confiscated. Nevertheless those warriors had to be rewarded with grants of land only, which the Shogunate could find nowhere. If the private moral bond, which had linked the retainers with the Shogun at the time of Yoritomo, could long continue in the state it had been, the Shogunate could have sometimes expected from them service without recompense. The military government, with the Hojo family as its real master, however, could not likewise exact gratuitous service from them. The relation between the Shogunate and its retainers became too public and formal for this.

Those who were appointed as _djito_ by Yoritomo at the beginning of the Shogunate had all been retainers of the Minamoto family from the first.

Though they discharged the duties of military police within their respective manors as if they were public officials, yet their private character far outweighed their public semblance. As the Shogunate gradually took the form of a regular government, this private and personal bond between the Shogun and his retainers grew weaker, and the public character of the _djito_ began to predominate. This was especially the case after the virtual management of the Shogunate fell into the hands of the Hojo family. It is true that those retainers still called themselves the _go-kenin_, or the domestics of the Shogun of Kamakura. The later Shogun, however, sprung from the Fujiwara family or of blood imperial, and could not demand the same obedience which Yoritomo had found easy to obtain from his hereditary va.s.sals. In effect, the Shogunate reserved to the end the right of giving sanction as regards the inheritance of the office of _djito_, but the exercise of the reserved right was generally nominal. A _djito_ could appoint as his successor either his wife or any of his children, or could divide his official tenure among many inheritors. No Salic law and no law of primogeniture yet existed in j.a.pan of the Kamakura period, so that, besides many _djito_ who were incapable of discharging the military duties in person on account of s.e.x or age, there were to be found eventually a great number of _djito_, whose official tenure covered a very small patch of ricefield, so small that it was too narrow to exercise any jurisdiction within it! Moreover, men of utterly unwarlike professions like priests, and corporations such as Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, were also ent.i.tled to succeed to the inheritance of the office of _djito_, if only it were bequeathed to them by a lawful will. In these cases, where the rightful _djito_ could not officiate in person, a lieutenant, private in character, used to be appointed. Those lieutenants, however, not being publicly responsible to the Shogun, behaved very arbitrarily. That was a breach severely felt in the military system of the Shogunate.

The worst evil of all was that the Shogunate, which should have been an office for household affairs and the camp of the Shogun, was gradually turned into a princely court. Those warriors who did valiant service under Yoritomo in establishing the Shogunate had been in a great measure illiterate, so that only with great difficulty could the Shogun find a secretary among his retainers. As the organisation of the military government approached completion, the need of a literary education on the part of the warriors increased accordingly. Such an education, the source of which, however, was not to be sought at that time out of Kyoto, could hardly be introduced into Kamakura without being accompanied by other elements of the metropolitan civilisation represented by the Fujiwara n.o.bles. The installation of a scion of the Fujiwara and of princes of the blood imperial into the Shogunate facilitated the permeation of the Kyoto culture, which by its nature was too refined to suit congenially men of military profession. The bodyguard of the Shogun began to be chosen from warriors whose demeanor was the most courtier-like, and one of the accomplishments necessary was the ability to compose short poems. Such a condition of the Shogunate could not fail to estrange those retainers who did not live habitually in Kamakura, and were, therefore, not yet tainted with the effeminacy of a courtier's life. The main support, on whom the Shogun should have been able to depend in time of stress, became thus unreliable. At this juncture an Ainu insurrection, which was the last recorded in our history, broke out in the year 1322, and continued till the downfall of the Kamakura Shogunate. It was by this insurrection that the tottering edifice of the military government was finally shaken, instantly leading to its catastrophe.

The force which gave the finishing stroke to the Shogun's power and prestige came, as had long been expected, from Kyoto. Inversely as the warriors of Kamakura had been turned to pseudo-courtiers, the court-n.o.bles of Kyoto had become tainted by the militaristic temperament of the Kamakura warriors. The training in archery, the dog-shooting in an enclosure, which was considered a specially good training for a real battle, and many other martial pastimes became the fashion among the Kyoto n.o.bles, as it had been among warriors. After their defeat in the civil war of the Jokyu, they felt more keenly than before the magnitude of their power lost to Kamakura, and became the more discontented. Moreover, from the four corners of the empire the malcontents against the Hojo family flocked to Kyoto, and persuaded the already disaffected courtiers, to attempt the restoration of the real command of the government to themselves. The Shogunate, having been apprised of the plot, tried to suppress it in time by force, but was unable to strike at the root of the evil, for the recalcitrants rose against the Hojo one after another. On the other hand, those retainers who would have willingly died for a Shogun of the Minamoto family did not like to stake their lives on behalf of the Hojo. Kamakura was at last taken by a handful of warriors from the neighbouring provinces led by a chieftain of one of the branch families of the Minamoto. The last of the Hojo committed suicide, and with the downfall of the family, the Shogunate of Kamakura broke down. This happened in the year 1334. The real power of the state was restored to Kyoto in the name of the Emperor Go-Daigo.

The courtiers of Kyoto rejoiced in the thought that they could now conduct themselves as the true masters of j.a.pan, but they were instantly disillusioned. Those warriors who had a.s.sisted them in the restoration of their former power, would not allow the courtiers to have the lion's share of the booty. Supported by a mult.i.tude of such dissatisfied soldiery, Takauji Ashikaga, another scion of the Minamoto, made himself the real master of the situation, and was appointed Shogun. Though once defeated by the army of his opponents at Kyoto, he was soon enabled to raise a large host in the western provinces, where, since the Mongolian invasion, the majority of the warriors thirsted for the change more than in other provinces, and he captured the metropolis. His opponents, however, continued their resistance in various parts of the empire. The courtiers, too, were divided into two parties, and the majority sided with the stronger, that is to say, with the Ashikaga family. At the same time the imperial family was divided into two. Thus the civil war, which strongly resembled the War of the Roses, ensued and raged all over the provinces for about fifty-six years, until the two parties were reconciled at last in the year 1392. In this way the whole of the empire came again under one military regime, and for about two centuries, the family of the Ashikaga continued at the head of the new Shogunate.

The new Shogunate was established at Kyoto, instead of Kamakura, which became now the seat of a lieutenancy, administered by a branch of the Ashikaga, and therefore reduced in political importance. This change of the seat of the military government is a matter of great moment in the history of our country. One of the several reasons which may be a.s.signed for the change, was that the supporters of the Ashikaga were not limited to the warriors of the eastern provinces, as they had been with the Kamakura Shogunate. Takauji owed his ultimate success rather to the soldiers from the western provinces, so that Kyoto suited far better as the centre of his new military regime than Kamakura.

Another reason which the Ashikaga Shogunate had in view in changing its seat, was that a great apprehension which had been entertained by the former Shogunate, would thereby cease. One of the anxieties which had hara.s.sed the government of Kamakura constantly had been the fear that it might one day be overthrown by attack from Kyoto. To provide against the danger a resident lieutenant,--afterwards increased to two,--a member of the family of Hojo, was stationed at Kyoto. The function of these lieutenants was to look out for the interests of the Shogunate at Kyoto, and at the same time to superintend the retainers in the western provinces. Besides, being two in number, these lieutenants watched each other closely, so that it was impossible for either of them to try to make himself independent of Kamakura. This system worked excellently for a time, but was ultimately unable to save the declining Shogunate.

By shifting the seat of the military government to Kyoto itself, this anxiety might now be removed.

The greatest profit, however, which accrued to the Shogunate by the change of its government seat, was that one could facilitate the achievement of the political concentration of the empire, by making it coincide with the centre of civilisation. If the Shogunate of Kamakura could keep, with its political power, its original fresh spirit, which had remained latent during the long regime of the courtiers and begun suddenly to develop itself along with the establishment of the military government, the result would have been not only the prolonging of the duration of the Shogunate, but the full blossoming of a healthy and unenervated culture, and Kamakura might have become the political as well as the cultural centre of the empire. The history of our country, however, was not destined to run in that way. The time-honoured civilisation, which had been nurtured at Kyoto since many centuries, was, though of exotic origin, in itself a highly finished one.

Notwithstanding its effeminacy, it had its own peculiar charm, which ranked in perfection far above the nave culture of Kamakura, the latter being too rough and new, however refreshing. Those Buddhist priests who had once hoped to make Kamakura the centre of their new religious movement, found at last that unless they secured a firm foothold in the old metropolis, nothing permanent could be attained. The missionary campaign of the various reformed sects had been undertaken with renewed vigour at Kyoto since the end of the thirteenth century. In other words, the enervation of the Kamakura Shogunate disappointed those torch-bearers of the new civilisation, who might perhaps have expected too much from the political power of the military government established there. Thus the Shogunate of Kamakura had lost its _raison d'etre_, before other factors of civilisation, such as art and literature, had time to develop themselves there independent of those of Kyoto, so as to suit the new spirit of the new age, that is to say, before the Shogunate could accomplish its cultural mission in the history of j.a.pan. The culture of Kyoto proved itself to be omnipotent as ever.

Regarded in this manner, the return of the governmental seat to Kyoto had a great advantage. The new Shogunate, having located its centre in the same historical place where the cla.s.sical civilisation of j.a.pan had had its cradle also, its military and political organisation could work hand in hand with the social and cultural movement. The prestige of the Shogun was bedecked with a brighter halo than when Kamakura had been the seat of his government. The change, however, was accompanied with invidious results, ruinous not only to the Shogunate, but to the political integrity of the country at large.

After having experienced the vicissitudes of a long civil war, the courtiers became convinced that they could not overthrow by any means the military regime, which had already taken deep root in the social structure of our country. So they began to think that it was wiser for them to make use of that military power than to try any abortive attempts against it. They heaped, therefore, on the successive Shoguns of the Ashikaga family t.i.tles of high-sounding honour, much higher than those with which the Shoguns of Kamakura had been invested. In the imperial palace, too, special deference was paid to the Shogun. Such a rise in the court-rank of the Shogun induced his retainers to vie with one another in obtaining some official rank of distinction in the courtiers' hierarchical scale. Those who belonged to the higher cla.s.ses among them, though they were mostly the _shugo_ or military governors of one or more provinces, used to spend a greater part of their time at Kyoto, on account of holding some civil office in the government of the Shogun, and lived in a very aristocratic way, which was easy and indolent, that is to say, not much different from that of the courtiers.

There were many social meetings, in which both courtiers and warriors partic.i.p.ated together, and the object of these meetings mostly consisted in enjoying various kinds of literary pastimes, among which the commonest was a trick in versification called _renga_, that is to say, the composing by turns of a line of an unfinished poem, which should form a sequence to the preceding and at the same time become the prologue to the next. Through manifold channels of this and the like kinds of amus.e.m.e.nts, a very intimate relation between the two cla.s.ses was cemented. The refinement of the courtiers' circle, though somewhat vulgarised compared with that of the previous period, freely penetrated into the families of the rough soldiery. Marriages between members of the two cla.s.ses also took place frequently, by which the courtiers gained materially, while the soldiers could thereby a.s.suage the uneasiness of their parvenu-consciousness. A new social life thus sprang up.

Among the two parties, which were reconciled in this way, that which profited the more by it, was of course the courtiers. Although the income from their manors, to which they were ent.i.tled as proprietors _de jure_, might have become less in comparison with that of the age anterior to the establishment of the Kamakura Shogunate, yet they were now relieved of all the troubles which might have beset them had they remained holding the real power of the state. Having relinquished their political ambitions and shifted all the cares of the state and military affairs upon the shoulders of the Shogunate, they became utterly irresponsible, could breathe freely and enjoy their idle hours not in the least disturbed. On the other hand, the militarists, having found that it was no longer necessary to circ.u.mscribe the privileges of the courtiers still more narrowly than before, forgot that ultimately their interests must necessarily collide in principle with those of the latter. What were contradictory at bottom seemed to them practically reconcilable. The Shogunate thought that it was its duty to uphold the interests of the courtiers by its military power, a task which was soon found to be impossible. On account of the weakness of the central government, disorder ruled in Kyoto and in the provinces as well, and paved the way for the political disintegration of the whole empire. To explain the political phenomena I must turn for a while to the relations between the _shugo_, the military governors of provinces, and the _djito_ under their protection.

In the time of the Kamakura Shogunate, as aforesaid, each province had a military governor, called the _shugo_, appointed by the Shogun. The _shugo_, himself a _djito_, and a very influential one of that cla.s.s, served as an intermediate commander in transmitting to the _djito_ under him the military instructions which he had received from Kamakura. He was, therefore, nothing else but a marshal of all the _djito_ within that province. There existed no relation of va.s.salage between him and the _djito_ under his military jurisdiction. The latter remained to the end the direct va.s.sals of the Shogunate at Kamakura, and only as regards the military organisation were subordinated to the _shugo_. The office of the _shugo_ was not the hereditary possession of any family, so that the Shogun could nominate any _djito_ to be _shugo_ of any province at his pleasure, without fear of disturbing thereby the personal relation between him and his retainers in that province. In some respects this relation resembled that of the English king and the barons, who swore, besides their oath of fealty to a higher n.o.ble as their liege lord, direct allegiance to their king. As long as the line of Yoritomo, therefore, continued as hereditary Shogun, the Shogunate could depend on the fidelity of those _djito_, who were but the household va.s.sals of the Minamoto family, and by this personal tie keep the political unity of the country infrangible.

After the extinction of the Minamoto family, the Shogun who succeeded one after another had no hereditary nor personal relations with those _djito_, and could claim no more than the official prestige of the Shogun allowed them to do. As to the Hojo family, though the real power of the Shogunate was in its hands, originally it was no higher in rank than the _djito_, and could not, in its own name, command obedience from any of the Shogun's retainers. There is some similarity between the organisation of the time of the Kamakura Shogunate in this second phase and the "Kreis" inst.i.tution of the German empire in the fifteenth century, which was initiated with the object of political concentration by Maximilian I., whose real power lay in his being a duke of Austria, and not Emperor of Germany. However admirable as an organisation, such a political status was undoubtedly untenable. No wonder that the military regime of Kamakura gradually collapsed.

The relation of _shugo_ and _djito_ in the time of the Ashikaga was quite of a different sort from that in the former Shogunate. The office of _shugo_ became now the hereditary possession of certain privileged families, which const.i.tuted a body of higher warriors, towering above the common _djito_. The _shugo_ stood in the position of protector to all the _djito_ of the province he governed, and those _djito_ who stood under a _shugo_ were designated his "hikwan" or proteges. The relation of va.s.salage arose thus between the _shugo_ and the _djito_ in the same province, a legal status which had not existed in the Kamakura period.

The direct relation between the common _djito_ and the Shogun, which was the main spring of the political regime of the Kamakura era, was now cut off. No doubt the _shugo_ in the Ashikaga period had in their provinces, besides their suzerainty over the _djito_, the tenure of certain tracts of land, as in the days of Kamakura. The great difference between them, however, was that in the Kamakura era a retainer of the Shogun was first installed as a _djito_ of a manor, and then appointed _shugo_, while in the Ashikaga age the land which the _shugo_ held directly was his demesne as _shugo_ and not the land held as a retainer of the Shogun at Kyoto, independent of his office of _shugo_. To sum up, the _shugo_ of the Ashikaga period was not a mere office, as in the days of Kamakura, but a legal status of the warriors ranking next to the Shogun. As the result of such an organisation each province or group of provinces under a _shugo_ became a political ent.i.ty, while it had been but a military ent.i.ty in the Kamakura era. If the Shogun at Kyoto, therefore, had been strong enough to enforce his will over all the _shugo_ of the provinces, then the political unity of the country at large could safely continue in the hands of the Ashikaga.

The Shogunate of the Ashikaga, however, had not been originally so formulated as to enable it to impose implicit obedience on all the higher military officials of the _shugo_ cla.s.s. For this family, though a branch of the Minamoto, had nothing in its history that could attract, as Yoritomo did, a vast number of willing warriors to serve under its banner. That Takauji was promoted to the headship of the second military government was largely due to the a.s.sistance of the warriors from various parts of the empire who were not personally related to his family, but were disaffected at seeing the power of the courtiers restored, neither was it by any means to be attributed to his personal capacity, which was rather mediocre both as general and as statesman.

This origin of the Ashikaga family, therefore, made it difficult from the first for the Shogun of the line to curb the arrogance of his influential generals. Insurrection against the Shogunate followed one after another, so that no year pa.s.sed without some small disturbance somewhere.

This state culminated in the civil war begun in the Ohnin era, that is to say, in 1467. The war had its origin in the quarrel about the succession to the Shogunate between the son and the adopted son, in reality the younger brother, of the Shogun Yoshimasa. This family question of the Ashikaga became mixed up with other quarrels about the succession in two of the influential military families, Shiba and Hatakeyama. Other _shugo_ of various provinces sided with this or that party, brought their liege-men to Kyoto, and turned the streets of the metropolis into a battle-field. Thus the most desultory civil war in our history was waged under the eyes of the Emperor and of the Shogun, neither of whom had any power to stop it. After the burning, plundering, and killing, carried on most ruthlessly for nine years, the street-fighting in Kyoto ceased, leaving almost no trace of the historical city of yore. The scenes of anarchy were then transferred to the provinces, and it took many years before the whole country became pacified. Nay, complete peace was not restored till the fall of the Ashikaga Shogunate itself. Such was one phase of the political disintegration of the age, and its result was that j.a.pan was torn asunder into a number of semi-independent bodies, each with a _shugo_ at its head.

If the process of the political decomposition of the state had been limited to what is described above, then peace might have reigned at least within each of those bodies. Unfortunately, however, for the welfare of the people, none of these _shugo_ was strong enough to keep order even within his own sphere of military jurisdiction. Most of them had lost their military character, having become accustomed to life in the capital, as stated above, and they left the care of their respective provinces in the hands of their proteges, men who soon made themselves independent of their patrons, so that there arose a number of minor political bodies in the jurisdiction of each _shugo_. Again these proteges, that is to say, the heads of the minor political bodies, were put down in turn by their va.s.sals, and so forth. Moreover, some of these minor bodies were further divided into still smaller bodies, while others became aggrandised by annexation by the stronger of neighboring weaker ones. In this way j.a.pan fell into a state of chaos, being an agglomeration of political bodies of various sizes, with masters ever changing, and with frontiers constantly shifting without any reference to the former administrative boundaries. This second phase completed the total disintegration of the empire.

The last of the Shoguns who tried to stem this irresistible tendency to disintegration was Yoshihisa, the son of Yoshimasa. His succession to his father, as has already been described, was the cause of the civil war of the Ohnin era, for which, however, he was not responsible in the least, being only eight years old when he was invested with the Shogunate in the year 1473. He grew up, however, to be the most typical Shogun of all the Ashikaga. Though born in the highest of the military families, he had as his mother a daughter of a court-n.o.ble, and was educated in his boyhood by Kanera Ichijo, one of the most learned courtiers of the time. When Yoshihisa reached manhood, therefore, he was a courtier clad in military garments. He thought and acted as if he were a high Fujiwara n.o.ble, and even had his household managed by a courtier.

Through this confidant, the proprietors _de jure_ of manors, that is to say, courtiers, shrines, and temples, clung to the young Shogun, and pressed him to coerce, on their behalf, those arbitrary _shugo_ and minor captains who dared impudently to appropriate the whole of the revenue from those manors to themselves, so that the share due to these proprietors _de jure_ had been kept in arrears for many years. The Shogun was easily persuaded, and Takayori Sasaki, the _shugo_ of the province of Ohmi, was first chosen as the object of chastis.e.m.e.nt, for his province was the nearest to Kyoto and abounded in those manors belonging to the courtiers and the like. It was in the year 1487 that Yoshihisa in person led a punitive expedition into Ohmi, crossed lake Biwa, and pitched his camp on its eastern sh.o.r.e. Contemporary chronicles unanimously describe in vivid colours how the gallant and refined young prince, clad in bright military costume, marched out of Kyoto surrounded by a bizarre host of warriors and courtiers. The latter group, however, did not count for aught in warfare, while the former followed the Shogun only halfheartedly. It was especially so with those _shugo_ who were of the same caste and of the same status as the attacked, and therefore did not like to see him crushed in the interest of the _de jure_ but faineant proprietors. The victory of the army of the Shogun was hopeless from the first. After staying two years in camp Yoshihisa died without being able to see his enemy vanquished. One of his cousins, who succeeded to the Shogunate, renewed the expedition, and at last ousted the disobedient _shugo_ from his province, but the proprietors _de jure_ of the manors could not regain their lost rights, what was due to them having been usurped by other new pretenders, not less arbitrary than their predecessors.

The expedition of Yoshihisa was an epoch-making event in the history of our country. To support by military power the courtiers, whose cup had already begun to run over and whose interests could not be always consistent with the welfare of the Shogunate, was evidently a quixotic attempt. Still it cannot be disputed that Yoshihisa fought at least for an ideal, however unrealisable it might have been. He reminds us of the scions of the Hohenstaufen who fought in Italy for the imperial ideal traditional in their family. The failure of the expedition into Ohmi meant the utter impossibility of the restoration of the courtiers'

prestige and the approach of the total disappearance of the manorial system from the islands of j.a.pan. This is a mighty economical change for the empire, the importance of which could not be overvalued. The old regime initiated by the reform of the Taikwa was going down to its grave, and new j.a.pan was beginning to dawn side by side with the momentous political disintegration of the country. We see, indeed, simultaneous with this political and economical change, the transformation of various factors of civilisation, preparing themselves for the coming age. The first turning of the wheel of history, however, depended on the political regeneration of the country by a master-hand.