Empires and Emperors of Russia, China, Korea, and Japan Part 21

I

j.a.pAN

The question of the Yellow Peril has once again come to the front through the recent East-Asiatic war. The unprecedented success of j.a.pan, both by land and sea, has roused universal surprise. When the first news of victories gained by the small insular power reached Western Europe, they were received with genuine joy; but as the j.a.panese advanced on the mainland of Asia, symptoms of anxiety began to manifest themselves.

What would happen if they conquered all Eastern Asia, and perhaps Siberia also? Above all, what would happen if j.a.pan, united with China, were to overrun the Russian dominions, and one day threaten Central Europe? Already here and there the sad recollection of the old Tartar campaigns was being revived; and indeed, why should not a modern, ambitious commander follow in the wake of his famous predecessor, Genghis Khan? A modern military genius, a Yellow Napoleon, enjoying equal popularity and possessing the same magic power, with millions of money and countless troops at his disposal, might surely become a very serious and formidable antagonist. But would it be to the interest of the yellow race to overrun Europe? This problem is yet awaiting its solution.

I venture to think that under the present conditions the majority of the Eastern people have no intention or desire to enlarge their territory beyond its original borders. If they can only get back what is nominally theirs--what, not more than half a century ago, was possessed by them--they will be satisfied. j.a.pan, which is decidedly overpopulated, and cannot adequately provide for its nearly fifty millions of inhabitants, dispersed over the various islands, may possibly have an eye on some of the neighbouring Asiatic coastlands, but for colonizing purposes is more likely to turn its attention towards the South Sea. And since the ambition of j.a.pan has been awakened, and its adaptabilities to modern culture, its unflagging energy, and its admirable military skill, been developed, there is more possibility that in a remote future Nippon might make Australasia the Utopia of its colonizing efforts.

Certain it is that a brilliant future awaits j.a.pan. The land is rich, and its position, between Eastern Asia and Western America, most advantageous, both from an economic and from a strategic point of view.

The people are healthy, strong, industrious, and possess in an extraordinary degree the faculty of a.s.similation. In this respect, indeed, j.a.pan is unrivalled by any other race.

The primary cause of their present marvellous success must unquestionably be sought in this faculty of a.s.similation and in the power of discipline--in the wonderful ease wherewith they appropriate all the acquisitions of the West--the way in which they carry them out.

The second cause of their success is their old military system of government, which has produced the present-day soldiers. But in order to grasp thoroughly the situation it is necessary to cast a cursory glance on the past history of j.a.pan. In doing so we should remember in the first place that ancient Nippon was built upon the system of va.s.salage.

The land was divided into princ.i.p.alities of various sizes, at the head of each of which was a _Daimio_, or va.s.sal chieftain, just as the empires of the West were formerly protected and ruled over by baronial chiefs. Feudalism in Europe led to perpetual frontier quarrels and wars, and this was the case also in j.a.pan. The Daimios were always at enmity with one another, and their government was a period of petty warfare.

The military element, therefore, naturally occupied a prominent position, and just as in Europe the knight became the founder of _Chivalry_, so in j.a.pan the _Samurais_ established the _Bushido_. And as the German knight of Chivalry created a legal system called _Club-law_, for the protection of his own interests, so the soldiers of j.a.pan had their own military code. The military thus became the privileged cla.s.s of society. This caste, with its rigorous rules and external organization, had a perfectly developed existence, a special moral standard, and to a certain extent a religion of its own. As the age of Chivalry was created by the knights of old, so "Bushido," the ethics of the Samurais, originated in the Land of the Rising Sun.

To give an exact definition of the word "Bushido" is impossible, because the conception of it is unknown to us. There are no a.n.a.logous circ.u.mstances necessitating its existence with us. The idea of chivalry is the nearest approach to an interpretation of the word, although literally "Bushido" means "Military manner"--the manner and the way in which it is the duty of the armed n.o.bility to fight, to live, and to die. We notice that according to this definition the word includes more than a mere t.i.tle; it expresses a whole social system, and regulates the views and appreciations of life of all its members.

The description given by Dr. Nitobe enables us to form some idea of Bushido from a j.a.panese standpoint. "Bushido is the code of moral principles which the knights were required or instructed to observe. It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down by oral tradition or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant. More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, but impressed on the fleshy tablets of the heart. It was founded, not on the creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single personage, however renowned. It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career. It perhaps fills the same position in the history of ethics that the English Const.i.tution does in political history; yet it has nothing to compare with the Magna Carta or the Habeas Corpus Act. It is true that early in the seventeenth century Military Statutes (Buke Hatto) were promulgated, but their thirteen short articles were taken up mostly with marriages, castles, leagues, etc., and didactic regulations were but meagrely touched upon. We cannot, therefore, point out any definite time and place, and say, Here is its fountain-head. It is not till the feudal age that it attains consciousness. Its origin, in respect to time, may be identified with feudalism. But feudalism itself is woven of many threads, and Bushido shares its intricate nature. As in England the political inst.i.tution of feudalism may be said to date from the Norman Conquest, so we may say that in j.a.pan its rise was simultaneous with the ascendancy of Toritomo late in the twelfth century. As, however, in England we find the social elements of feudalism far back in the period previous to William the Conqueror, so, too, the germs of feudalism in j.a.pan have been long existent before.

"Again, in j.a.pan as in Europe, when feudalism was formally inaugurated, the professional cla.s.s of warriors naturally came into prominence. These were known as samurai, meaning literally, like the old English cniht (knecht, knight), guards or attendants, resembling in character the soldurii, whom Caesar mentioned as existing in Aquitania. A Sinico-j.a.panese cla.s.s, named Bu-Ke or Bu-Shi (fighting knights), was also adopted in common use. They were a privileged cla.s.s, and must originally have been a rough breed who made fighting their vocation.

Coming to profess great honour and great privileges, and correspondingly great responsibilities, they soon felt the need of a common standard of behaviour, especially as they were always on a belligerent footing and belonged to different clans.

"'Fair play in fight!' What fertile germs of morality lie in this primitive sense of savagery and childhood! Is it not the root of military and civic virtues? We smile (as if we had outgrown it!) at the boyish desire of the small Britisher, Tom Brown, 'to leave behind him the name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy or turned his back on a big one.' And yet, who does not know that this desire is the cornerstone on which moral structures of mighty dimensions can be reared? May I not go even so far as to say that the gentlest and most peace-loving of religions endorses this aspiration? This desire of Tom's is the basis on which the greatness of England is largely built, and it will not take us long to discover that Bushido does not stand on a lower pedestal. If fighting in itself, be it offensive or defensive, is, as Quakers rightly testify, brutal and wrong, we can still say with Lessing, 'We know from what failings our virtue springs.' Sneaks and cowards are epithets of the worst opprobrium to healthy, simple natures.

Childhood begins life with those notions, as does also knighthood; but as life grows larger and its relations become many-sided, the early faith seeks sanction from higher authority and more rational sources for its own justification, satisfaction, and development. If military systems had operated alone, without higher moral support, how far short of chivalry would the moral ideal have fallen! In Europe Christianity, interpreted with concessions convenient to chivalry, infused it nevertheless with a spiritual ideal. 'Religion, war, and glory were the three rules of a perfect Christian knight,' says Lamartine."

Bushido has no written laws; it has been handed down as a tradition from father to son. Its originator was not a sage like Confucius, not an ascetic like Buddha; it was the people itself. It is the immediate expression of past ages, and, as far as man's memory reaches, the interpreter of the sentiments of victorious warriors.

With the increasing power of the Samurais grew also the necessity, as was the case with knighthood, to purify the atmosphere of their fortresses by self-prescribed rules. And it lies in the natural order of things, embracing all national codes, that those points should be most carefully guarded on which the people felt themselves to be weakest.

The first principle, then, was, Justice to all. The Samurais despise above all things trickery and deceit, all unfairness. "Adhere inflexibly to thy principle,"--thus writes a Bushi--"and be ready to die for the sake of duty; but also be ready to strike and to kill if honour demand it of thee." And the more the general situation became degenerated, the more prominent became the letter of this law in the clash of swords.

The second principle was courage. From his earliest childhood the j.a.panese boy was brought up to be a soldier, and in his education many points remind us of the old Spartan rigour. Often the mother would admonish a crying child with such words as: "Shame not the honour of thy family; men of this house have never been known to cry." Or again, she might stimulate her son's courage by saying: "What wilt thou say when in battle thou losest arm or leg?" or, "How wilt thou control thy face if the Emperor should bid thee to cut off thine ears or to perform the hara-kiri?" To be brave was the aim of every boy, and frequently was he called upon to prove his courage. He was made to go hungry, to walk great distances, and in many cases this system of hardening verged on cruelty.

On the other hand, the benevolence of the Samurai often degenerated into sentimentality, and the Bushida-nashake--the warm soldier's heart--has become proverbial. To render a.s.sistance to the weak and helpless was one of the soldier's paramount duties, and, like the Italian Condottieri and the knights of the Middle Ages who, although they tyrannized over the people, were yet anxious to appear civilized and cultured, and were not blind to their own faults and cruelties, so the Samurais laid special stress upon the observance of social forms, and taught their boys, besides the military arts, such accomplishments as poetry, music, and other fine arts.

Courteousness became a second nature, and to this day, although it sometimes may lack sincerity and has in many cases become an empty form, j.a.panese politeness always excites the astonishment and admiration of the foreigner on his first arrival in the land. Nippon society manners are the most complicated and tedious imaginable. The smallest affairs of everyday life are circ.u.mscribed with the most childish and elaborate rules. The way to enter a friend's house, how to address him, what to talk about, everything is carefully prescribed, even the slight attention of offering the guest a cup of tea amounts to a ceremony, regulated in its minutest details. The Cha-no-yu (tea-drinking), in truth, is more than a ceremony, it is a precious tradition, a rite, ill.u.s.trating the refinement of taste and the imagination of the people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright, Nops Ltd._ MARSHALL OYAMA To face page 322]

The third fundamental principle of Bushido is honour; more particularly expressed in Guai-bun and Men-moku, which form the basis of the conception of the Samurai. But even the valour of the most heroic Samurai is as nothing compared to his pride and vanity, and to a certain extent these two qualities are still striking characteristics of the nation. Extreme sensitiveness and readiness to take offence are the unavoidable consequences of such highly developed self-constrictions.

The "affaires d'honneur" of the Latin races, and the often mistaken chivalry of the German "Junker" are but weak parallels to the sensitiveness of the Bushi. The hot-blooded Samurai was offended on every possible occasion, and many an innocent life has been sacrificed to this intensely developed military pride.

Whole volumes have been written upon the manner in which these "questions of honour" should be dealt with, and more than one tragic page had its comical features also. Thus, for instance, the story is told of a Busiaki, who killed a peasant for drawing his attention to the fact that there was an insect on his coat. For, argued the Busiaki, vermin feed on beasts, and therefore his remark amounts to an insult.

And as the simple peasant was not ent.i.tled to give satisfaction for the supposed offence in any other manner, he had to pay for it with his life, in order that the honour of the Busiaki might be cleared. This condition of things might lead also to vengeance and suicide, and the favourite form of the latter was "hara-kiri," which has attained world-wide fame. It is suicide by cutting open the abdomen, and this custom was one of the inst.i.tutions by which distant j.a.pan has been so often misjudged. To the European the idea is revolting and sinful, but the pride and imagination of that far-away people magnified it into a sublime action.

The most sympathetic characters in the history of j.a.pan have thus ended their days, and many popular heroes of national epics thus gave up their lives. In every j.a.panese drama there is at least one hero who dies on the stage in this manner, amid the thundering applause of an appreciative audience. If not a punishment, the motive for committing suicide is almost always an exaggerated conception, not of despair, but of offended dignity or vanity. And like every action of this enigmatical people, hara-kiri and supuku became in time a ceremony, in which every detail of the proceedings was carefully formulated. The victim, dressed in white, and with unmoved countenance, had to perform the operation with a sharp-edged sword. This formality gone through in the supreme manner in which Bushido prescribed it, and the personal vanity being apparently satisfied, the victim seemed not to feel the bodily suffering, and faced his death with calmness. To realize the pagan standpoint of hara-kiri I will quote the following lines of the j.a.panese author.

"I do not wish to be understood as a.s.serting religious or even moral justification of suicide, but the high estimate placed upon honour was ample excuse with many for taking one's own life. Death involving a question of honour was accepted in Bushido as a key to the solution of many complex problems, so that to an ambitious Samurai a natural departure from life seemed a rather tame affair and a consummation not devoutly to be wished. I dare say that many Westerners will admit the fascination of, if not a positive admiration for, the sublime composure with which Cato, Brutus, Petronius, and a host of other ancient worthies, terminated their own earthly existence. Is it too bold to hint that the death of the first of the philosophers was partly suicidal?

When we are told so minutely by his pupils how their master willingly submitted to the mandate of the state--which he knew was morally mistaken--in spite of the possibilities of escape, and how he took up the cup of hemlock in his own hand, even offering libation from its deadly contents, do we not discern in his whole proceeding and demeanour an act of self-immolation? No physical compulsion here, as in ordinary cases of execution. True the verdict of the judges was compulsory; it said, 'Thou shalt die, and that by thine own hand.' If suicide meant no more than dying by one's own hand, Socrates was a clear case of suicide.

But n.o.body would charge him with a crime; Plato, who was averse to it, would not call his master a suicide. Now, my readers will understand that hara-kiri, or seppuku, was not a mere suicidal process. It was an inst.i.tution, legal and ceremonial. An invention of the Middle Ages, it was a process by which warriors could expiate their crimes, apologize for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their friends, or prove their sincerity. When enforced as a legal punishment it was practised with due ceremony. It was a refinement of self-destruction, and none could perform it without the utmost coolness of temper and composure of demeanour, and for these reasons it was particularly befitting the profession of bushi."

_Kataki-ushi_, or vengeance, is another strong feature of national feeling. Contrary to the Christian doctrine of forgiveness, the j.a.pan of olden days endeavoured to exalt the original instinct of human nature, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," into a decree. And how deep this notion has rooted itself into the hearts of the people is best ill.u.s.trated by the story of the forty-seven Ronins, which everybody in j.a.pan knows by heart, and which is the favourite nursery tale of each Nippon child.

Simple as the story is, it is very characteristic. A n.o.bleman is betrayed by his adversary and put to death. Forty-seven of his followers become bandits and swear to revenge their lord. After many vicissitudes the object of their revenge falls into their hands and they kill him.

When brought to justice all the forty-seven commit hara-kiri.

Their graves remain to this day in the grove of Siba, and it is one of the first places visited by country people who come to Tokio. Devout hands keep the modest little tombstones supplied with wreaths of fresh flowers. And thus the forty-seven Ronins have become the most popular heroes of the nation, because their offence and expiation interpret one of the most salient features characteristic of the race, which, judged from a national standard, shines in a different light as we can see from the following pa.s.sage:--

"We have thus seen the Bushido inst.i.tution of suicide; we will now see whether its sister inst.i.tution of revenge has its mitigating features. I hope I can dispose of the question in a few words, since a similar inst.i.tution--or call it custom, as you will--prevailed among all peoples, and has not yet become entirely obsolete, as attested by the continuance of duelling and lynching. Among a savage tribe which has no marriage, adultery is not a sin, so in a period which has no criminal court murder is not a crime, and only the vigilant vengeance of the victim's people preserves social order. 'What is the most beautiful thing on earth?' said Osiris to Horus. The reply was, 'To avenge a parent's wrongs.' To which a j.a.panese would have added 'and a nearer's.'

In revenge there is something which satisfies one's sense of justice.

The avenger reasons: 'My good father did not deserve death--he who killed him did great evil. My father, if he were alive, would not tolerate a deed like this. Heaven itself hates wrong-doing. It is the will of my father, it is the will of heaven, that the evil-doer should cease from his work. He must perish by my hand, because he shed my father's blood; I who am his flesh and blood must shed the murderer's.

The same heaven shall not shelter him and me.' The logic is simple and childish, but it shows an innate sense of exact balance and equal justice. Our sense of revenge is as exact as our mathematical faculty, and until both terms of the equation are satisfied we cannot get over the sense of something undone. Both of these inst.i.tutions of suicide and revenge lost their _raison d'etre_ at the promulgation of the criminal code. The sense of justice satisfied, there is no need of Kataki-uchi.

As to Hara-kiri, though it, too, has no existence _de jure_, we still hear of it from time to time, and shall continue to hear I am afraid, as long as the past is remembered."

In spite of his valour, his pa.s.sion for war, his thirst for revenge, the Samurai always preserved in his demeanour the utmost calm. Bushido ordained that a knight was never to show either joy or anger. And while remarking that the foreigner in j.a.pan is struck by the often exaggerated politeness of the people, I should have added that he is certainly no less impressed by the inexpressiveness of their faces. Whether sad or joyful, they always wear the same conventional smile, which is sometimes cold as ice, sometimes nervous, or in cases of strong emotion pa.s.ses into subdued laughter; but traces of really deep emotion are never visible.

What a Baldasare Castiglione or a Lord Chesterfield attempted to exemplify in the West, was bred in the blood of these people as the highest form of good manners. I have seen weddings and witnessed funeral processions where the family on either occasion wore exactly the same expression. In emotions of any kind that conventional smile alone betrays their feelings.

That same smile is on every countenance at great national festivals.

With that smile wives took leave of their husbands, children of their fathers, mothers of their sons, when the troops started for the battle-field. The outward form and expression of it remains the same always. The face, or rather the mask that is worn on the stage of life, as in the theatre of ancient Greece, never changes. No matter if the piece enacted change in its course to be a comedy, tragedy, or a drama.

So it was ordained by the code of Bushido, which, very likely because it was an unwritten law, came to be all the more binding.

Bushido thus had its own ethical laws, its own religious tenets. As the knight of the Middle Ages created his own rules of life for use within his own turreted stronghold--a code which scarcely held good beyond the trenches of the castle, but which at the same time he magnified into a divine law, a "Gottesurtheil"--so also the Samurai created his own dogmas.

The basis of his creed is Buddhism mixed with the doctrines of Confucius and Shintoism, the primitive faith of the nation. Originally this was nature worship and the cult of the sun, but subsequently it came to be extended to the person of the Mikado. The Samurai thus elevated his emperor into a deity, or rather an idol, and the emperor, gradually more and more isolated from his people, pa.s.sed his days within the walls of his palace in a series of ritualistic ceremonies, while the burden of the government was laid upon the Shogun, who acted at the same time as Regent and Generalissimo. Loyalty and devotion to their ruler were exalted into a cult. The person of the Mikado was sacred and inviolable.

Land and people were, so to speak, his personal property, to do with as he liked. His smallest wish was a command, the blind fulfilment of which was inc.u.mbent upon every citizen of the state. The first pet.i.tion in the prayers of the Samurai was always for his emperor, and the second for his country. And if with us the first gift a child receives is a little cross, in token of his Christian calling, so the j.a.panese mother of old would place a miniature sword by the side of her babe, to show that his purpose in life was to defend his emperor, his country, and his honour.

At the age of five the soldier's boy would receive as a toy a small real sword, and at fifteen the Samurai was of age, and from that time he wore a sharp-bladed weapon.

The sword represented with them more than a weapon of defence. It was a precious and symbolic possession. The manner in which it should be worn was carefully prescribed, and whenever the warrior sat down to his meal or to rest, his weapon was placed on a tray by his side, and woe to the person who touched it with his foot! Such an offence could be wiped out only in blood.

As a mark of the highest reverence, the Samurai raised his sword to his brow, and this act, too, was made almost into a solemn rite. Cutlers and sword-makers occupied a privileged position among the tradespeople, and in welding the blade, every stroke of the hammer was accompanied by the repet.i.tion of appropriate sayings and heroic devices. And when the sword was finished, inlaid with gold and silver, in Damascene fashion, sharp as an arrow, and flexible as a Toledo stiletto, it was, of its kind, a masterpiece. We may safely a.s.sert that neither in painting nor in sculpture, nor in any branch of industrial art, has j.a.pan ever reached such a high standard of perfection as in the manufacture of bronzes and armour.

The most treasured possession of the Samurai, his pride and his glory, was his sword. And now, since these weapons have been replaced by Krupp guns and Maxim bayonets, every j.a.panese gentleman preserves the sword of his ancestors as a token of former greatness.

For times are changed. During the last forty years the feudal system of j.a.pan has grown into a representative government, and the old conservative manner of thought and conventions have had to give way to progressive ideas. In outward form the European system is generally adopted, although intrinsically many things remain eminently national; for whether the external form be American or English, the underlying principle remains national.

The j.a.panese are still as determined as of old; their valour is unchanged; their loyalty undimmed. The grandson of the Samurai of antiquity still boasts many of the proclivities of his ancestors, and above all, the moral law of Bushido is still in his blood. The ma.s.ses still think as their predecessors thought. It is only in dress and armament that they have changed: their feelings have remained as of old, and the same may be said of most of the national inst.i.tutions, from the organization of the family to the const.i.tution of the state. What has changed is the form and the colour; but the work of internal transformation is left for future generations to accomplish.

In order rightly to apprehend the present situation of j.a.pan, to explain the admirable military discipline of the soldiers, to understand why in their blind devotion to their country they think nothing of sacrificing thousands of lives, it is necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the inner workings of the feudal system, the moral basis of their actions, the principles of Bushido and Samuraism. For it is only by a full knowledge of all these influences, and the conditions of the past, that we can arrive at a true understanding of its present strength.

The life and the death of the forty-seven Ronins may account for the fixed determination wherewith the troops met their death before the walls of Port Arthur. Nippon's sons are in the first instance warriors.

They have fought for centuries; they have fought for the honour of their country, they have shed their blood for the glory of the Mikado, and with the same stoic determination they now fight to glorify their land.

To form a better idea of the j.a.panese army we must indeed bear in mind the peculiar features embodied in the principle of Bushido and the Samurais code. Even the true character of the j.a.panese youths studying in Western lands and wearing European clothing, can only be adequately understood by those who have been to a certain extent acquainted with their fathers. And the same applies to the whole of modern progressive, fighting j.a.pan; its administration, its state organization, its politics, its military ambition, its social agitations, its industrial developments, and the entire transformation of its labour.