Historical Tales Volume Xii Part 7

For the next European knowledge of j.a.pan we must step forward to the year 1542. Columbus had discovered America, and Portugal had found an ocean highway to the spice islands of the East. A Portuguese adventurer, Mendez Pinto by name, ventured as far as China, then almost unknown, and, with two companions, found himself on board a Chinese junk, half trader, half pirate.

In a sea-fight with another corsair their pilot was killed, and soon after a fierce storm blew them far off sh.o.r.e. Seeking to make the Loochoo Islands, they lost them through lack of a pilot, and were tossed about at the ocean's will for twenty-three days, when they made harbor on Tane, a small island of j.a.pan lying south of Kiushiu. Pinto, after his return to Europe, told so many marvellous stories about j.a.pan that people doubted him as much as they had doubted Marco Polo. His very name, Mendez, was extended into "mendacious." Yet time has done justice to both these old travellers, who either told, or tried to tell, the truth.

The Portuguese travellers were well received by the islanders,--who knew not yet what firebrands they were welcoming. It took a century for Europeans to disgust the j.a.panese so thoroughly as to force the islanders to drive them from the land and put up the bars against their return. What interested the j.a.panese even more than their visitors were the new and strange weapons they bore. Pinto and his two comrades were armed with arquebuses, warlike implements such as they had never before seen, and whose powers filled them with astonishment and delight. It was the era of civil war in j.a.pan, and the possession of a new and deadly weapon was eagerly welcomed by that martial people, who saw in it visions of speedy success over their enemies.

Pinto was invited to the castle of the daimio of Bungo, whom he taught the arts of making guns and gunpowder. The j.a.panese, alert at taking advantage of the discoveries of other people, were quick to manufacture powder and guns for themselves, and in the wars told of in our last few tales native cannon were brought into use, though the razor-edged sword continued the most death-dealing of their weapons.

As for the piratical trader which conveyed Pinto to j.a.pan, it sold its cargo at an immense profit, while the three Portuguese reached China again rich in presents. This was not Pinto's only visit to j.a.pan. He made three other voyages thither, the last in 1556, as amba.s.sador from the Portuguese viceroy in the East. On this occasion he learned that the islanders had made rapid progress in their new art of gun-making, they claiming to have thirty thousand guns in Fucheo, the capital of Bungo, and ten times that number in the whole land of j.a.pan.

The new market for European wares, opened by the visit of Pinto, was quickly taken advantage of by his countrymen, and Portuguese traders made their way by hundreds to j.a.pan, where they met with the best of treatment. Guns and powder were especially welcome, as at that time the power of the Ashikaga clan was at an end, anarchy everywhere prevailed, and every local chief was in arms to win all he could from the ruins of the state. Such was the first visit of Europeans to j.a.pan, and such the gift they brought, the fatal one of gunpowder.

The next gift of Europe to j.a.pan was that of the Christian faith. On Pinto's return to Malacca he met there the celebrated Francis Xavier, the father superior of the order of the Jesuits in India, where he had gained the highest reputation for sanct.i.ty and the power of working miracles. With the traveller was a j.a.panese named Anjiro, whom he had rescued from enemies that sought his death, and converted to Christianity. Xavier asked him whether the j.a.panese would be likely to accept the religion of the Christians.

"My people will not be ready to accept at once what may be told them,"

said Anjiro, "but will ask you a mult.i.tude of questions, and, above all, will see whether your conduct agrees with your words. If they are satisfied, the king, the n.o.bles, and the people will flock to Christ, since they const.i.tute a nation that always accepts reason as a guide."

Thus encouraged, Xavier, whose enthusiasm in spreading the gospel was deterred by no obstacle, set sail in 1549 for j.a.pan, accompanied by two priests and Anjiro, the latter with a companion who had escaped with him in his flight from j.a.pan.

The missionary party landed at Kagoshima, in Satsuma. Here they had little success, only the family and relatives of Anjiro accepting the new faith, and Xavier set out on a tour through the land, his goal being Kioto, the mikado's capital. Landing at Amanguchi, he presented himself before the people barefooted and meanly dressed, the result of his confessed poverty being that, instead of listening to his words, the populace hooted and stoned him and his followers. At Kioto he was little better received.

Finding that a display of poverty was not the way to impress the j.a.panese, the missionary returned to the city of Kioto richly clothed and bearing presents and letters from the Portuguese viceroy to the emperor. He was now well received and given permission to preach, and in less than a year had won over three thousand converts to the Christian faith.

Naturally, on reaching Kioto, he had looked for the splendor spoken of by Marco Polo, the roof and ceilings of gold and the golden tables of the emperor's palace. He was sadly disenchanted on entering a city so desolated by fire and war that it was little more than a camp, and on beholding the plainest and least showy of all the palaces of the earth.

Returning to the port of Fucheo for the purpose of embarking for India, whence he designed to bring new laborers to the virgin field, Xavier preached with such success as to alarm the Buddhist bonzes, who made futile efforts to excite the populace against him as a vagabond and an enchanter. From there he set out for China, but died on the way thither.

He had, however, planted the seed of what was destined to yield a great and n.o.ble harvest.

In fact, the progress of Christianity in j.a.pan was of the most encouraging kind. Other missionaries quickly followed the great Jesuit pioneer, and preached the gospel with surprising success. In less than five years after the visit of Xavier to Kioto that city possessed seven Christian churches, while there were many others in the southwest section of the empire. In 1581, thirty years after Xavier's death, there were in j.a.pan two hundred churches, while the number of converts is given at one hundred and fifty thousand. Several of the daimios were converted to the new faith, and n.o.bunaga, who hated and strove to exterminate the Buddhists, received the Christians with the greatest favor, gave them desirable sites for their churches, and sought to set them up as a foil to the arrogance of the bonzes.

The Christian daimios went so far as to send a delegation to the pope at Rome, which returned eight years afterwards with seventeen Jesuit missionaries, while a mult.i.tude of mendicant friars from the Philippine Islands and elsewhere sought the new field of labor, preaching with the greatest zeal and success. It is claimed that at the culminating point of proselytism in j.a.pan the native Christians numbered no less than six hundred thousand, among them being several princes, and many lords, high officials, generals, and other military and naval officers, with numerous women of n.o.ble blood. In some provinces the Christian shrines and crosses were as numerous as the Buddhist shrines had been before, while there were thousands of churches, chapels, and ecclesiastical edifices.

This remarkable success, unprecedented in the history of Christian missionary work, was due in great measure to certain conditions then existing in j.a.pan. When Xavier and his successors reached j.a.pan, it was to find the people of that country in a state of the greatest misery, the result of a long era of anarchy and misrule. Of the native religions, Shintoism had in great measure vanished, while Buddhism, though affecting the imaginations of the people by the gorgeousness of its service, had little with which to reach their hearts.

Christianity came with a ceremonial more splendid than that of Buddhism, and an eloquence that captivated the imaginations of the j.a.panese.

Instead of the long series of miseries of Buddhist transmigration, it offered admission to the glories of heaven after death, a doctrine sure to be highly attractive to those who had little to hope for but misery during life. The story of the life and death of Christ strongly impressed the minds of the people, as compared with the colder story of Buddha's career, while a certain similarity between the modes of worship of the two religions proved of the greatest a.s.sistance to the advocates of the new creed. The native temples were made to serve as Christian churches; the images of Buddha and his saints were converted into those of Christ and the apostles; and, aside from the more attractive doctrines of Christianity, there were points of resemblance between the organization and ceremonial of the two religions that aided the missionaries in inducing the people to change from their old to the new faith.

One of the methods pursued in the propagation of Christianity had never been adopted by the Buddhists, that of persecution of alien faiths. The spirit of the Inquisition, then active in Europe, was brought to j.a.pan.

The missionaries instigated their converts to destroy the idols and desert the old shrines. Gold was used freely as an agent in conversion, and the Christian daimios compelled their subjects to follow them in accepting the new faith. In whole districts the people were ordered to accept Christianity or to exile themselves from their homes. Exile or death was the fate of many of the bonzes, and fire and the sword lent effect to preaching in the propagation of the doctrine of Christianity.

To quote a single instance, from Charlevoix's "History of the Christianizing of j.a.pan," "In 1577 the lord of the island of Amacusa issued his proclamation, by which his subjects--whether bonzes or gentlemen, merchants or traders--were required either to turn Christians, or to leave the country the very next day. They almost all submitted, and received baptism, so that in a short time there were more than twenty churches in the kingdom. G.o.d wrought miracles to confirm the faithful in their belief."

Miracles of the kind here indicated and others that might be quoted were not of the character of those performed by Christ, and such methods of making proselytes were very likely to recoil upon those that indulged in them. How the result of the introduction of European methods manifested itself in j.a.pan will be indicated in our next tale.

_THE DECLINE AND FALL OF CHRISTIANITY IN j.a.pAN._

We have described in the preceding tale the rise of Christianity in j.a.pan, and the remarkable rapidity of its development in that remote land. We have now to describe its equally rapid decline and fall, and the exclusion of Europeans from j.a.panese soil. It must be said here that this was in no sense due to the precepts of Christianity, but wholly to the hostility between its advocates of different sects, their jealousy and abuse of one another, and to the quarrels between nations in the contest to gain a lion's share of the trade with j.a.pan.

At the time when the Portuguese came to j.a.pan all Europe was torn with wars, civil, political, and religious. These quarrels were transferred to the soil of j.a.pan, and in the end so disgusted the people of that empire that Europeans were forbidden to set foot on its sh.o.r.es and the native Christians were ma.s.sacred. Traders, pirates, slave-dealers, and others made their way thither, with such a hodge-podge of interests, and such a medley of lies and backbitings, that the j.a.panese became incensed against the whole of them, and in the end decided that their room was far better than their company.

The Portuguese were followed to j.a.pan by the Spaniards, and these by the Dutch, each trying to blacken the character of the others. The Catholics abused the Protestants, and were as vigorously abused in return. Each trading nation lied with the most liberal freedom about its rivals. To the seaports of Hirado and Nagasaki came a horde of the outcasts of Europe, inveterately hostile to one another, and indulging in quarrels, riots, and murders to an extent which the native authorities found difficult to control. In addition, the slave-trade was eagerly prosecuted, slaves being so cheap, in consequence of the poverty and misery arising from the civil wars, that even the negro and Malay servants of the Portuguese indulged in this profitable trade, which was continued in spite of decrees threatening all slave-dealers with death.

This state of affairs, and the recriminations of the religious sects, gave very natural disgust to the authorities of j.a.pan, who felt little respect for a civilization that showed itself in such uncivilized shapes, and the disputing and fighting foreigners were rapidly digging their own graves in j.a.pan. During the life of n.o.bunaga all went on well.

In his hatred to the Buddhist bonzes he favored the Jesuits, and Christianity found a clear field. With the advent of Hideyoshi there came a change. His early favor to the missionaries was followed by disgust, and in 1587 he issued a decree banishing them from the land.

The churches and chapels were closed, public preaching ceased, but privately the work of conversion went actively on, as many as ten thousand converts being made each year.

The Spanish mendicant friars from the Philippines were bolder in their work. Defying the decree, they preached openly in the dress of their orders, not hesitating to denounce in violent language the obnoxious law. As a result the decree was renewed, and a number of the priests and their converts were crucified. But still the secret work of the Jesuits continued and the number of converts increased, among them being some of the generals in the Corean war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN STREET, YOKOHAMA.]

With the accession of Iyeyasu began a rapid downfall of Christianity in j.a.pan. In the great battle which raised him to the head of affairs some of the Christian leaders were killed. Konishi, a Christian general, who had commanded one division of the army in Corea, was executed. On every side there was evidence of a change in the tide of affairs, and the Christians of j.a.pan began to despair.

The daimios no longer bade their followers to become Christians. On the contrary, they ordered them to renounce the new faith, under threat of punishment. Their harshness resulted in rebellion, so new a thing among the peasantry of j.a.pan that the authorities felt sure that they had been secretly instigated to it by the missionaries. The wrath of the shogun aroused, he sent soldiers against the rebels, putting down each outbreak with bloodshed, and in 1606 issued a decree abolishing the Christian faith. This the Spanish friars defied, as they had that of his predecessor.

In 1611, Iyeyasu was roused to more active measures by the discovery of a plot between the foreigners and the native converts for the overthrow of the government. Sado, whose mines were worked by thousands of Christian exiles, was to be the centre of the outbreak, its governor, Okubo, being chosen as the leader and the proposed new ruler of the land.

Iyeyasu, awakened to the danger, now took active steps to crush out the foreign faith. A large number of friars and Jesuits, with native priests, were forcibly sent from the country, while the siege and capture of the castle of Ozaka in 1615 ended the career of all the native friends of the Jesuits, and brought final ruin upon the Christian cause in j.a.pan.

During the reigns of the succeeding shoguns a violent persecution began.

The Dutch traders, who showed no disposition to interfere in religious affairs, succeeded in ousting their Portuguese rivals, all foreigners except Dutch and Chinese being banished from j.a.pan, while foreign trade was confined to the two ports of Hirado and Nagasaki. This was followed by a cruel effort to extirpate what was now looked on as a pestilent foreign faith. Orders were issued that the people should trample on the cross or on a copper plate engraved with the image of Christ. Those who refused were exposed to horrible persecutions, being wrapped in sacks of straw and burnt to death in heaps of fuel, while terrible tortures were employed to make them renounce their faith. Some were flung alive into open graves, many burned with the wood of the crosses before which they had prayed, others flung from the edge of precipices. Yet they bore tortures and endured death with a fort.i.tude not surpa.s.sed by that of the martyrs of old, clinging with the highest Christian ardor to their new faith.

In 1637 these excesses of persecution led to an insurrection, the native Christians rising in thousands, seizing an old castle at Shimabara, and openly defying their persecutors. Composed as they were of farmers and peasants, the commanders who marched against them at the head of veteran armies looked for an easy conquest, but with all their efforts the insurgents held out against them for two months. The fortress was at length reduced by the aid of cannon taken from the Dutch traders, and after the slaughter of great numbers of the garrison. The b.l.o.o.d.y work was consummated by the ma.s.sacre of thirty-seven thousand Christian prisoners, and the flinging of thousands more from a precipice into the sea below. Many were banished, and numbers escaped to Formosa, whither others had formerly made their way. The "evil sect" was formally prohibited, while edicts were issued declaring that as long as the sun should shine no foreigner should enter j.a.pan and no native should leave it. A slight exception was made in favor of the Dutch, of whom a small number were permitted to reside on the little island of Deshima, in the harbor of Nagasaki, one trading ship being allowed to come there each year.

Thus ended the career of foreign trade and European residence in j.a.pan.

It had continued for nearly a century, yet left no mark of its presence except the use of gunpowder and fire-arms, the culture of tobacco and the habit of smoking, the naturalization of a few foreign words and of several strange diseases, and, as an odd addition, the introduction of sponge-cake, still everywhere used as a favorite viand. As for Christianity, the very name of Christ became execrated, and was employed as the most abhorrent word that could be spoken in j.a.pan. The Christian faith was believed to be absolutely extirpated, and yet it seems to have smouldered unseen during the centuries. As late as 1829 seven persons suspected of being Christians were crucified in Ozaka. Yet in 1860, when the French missionaries were admitted to Nagasaki, they found in the surrounding villages no fewer than ten thousand people who still clung in secret to the despised and persecuted faith.

The French and English had little intercourse with j.a.pan, but the career of one Englishman there is worthy of mention. This was a pilot named Will Adams, who arrived there in 1607 and lived in or near Yedo until his death in 1620. He seems to have been a manly and honest fellow, who won the esteem of the people and the favor of the shogun, by whom he was made an officer and given for support the revenue of a village. His skill in ship-building and familiarity with foreign affairs made him highly useful, and he was treated with great respect and kindness, though not allowed to leave j.a.pan. He had left a wife and daughter in England, but married again in j.a.pan, his children there being a son and daughter, whose descendants may still be found in that country. Anjin Cho (Pilot Street) in Yedo was named from him, and the inmates of that street honor his memory with an annual celebration on the 15th of June.

His tomb may still be seen on one of the hills overlooking the Bay of Yedo, where two neat stone shafts, set on a pediment of stone, mark the burial-place of the only foreigner who in past times ever attained to honor in j.a.pan.

_THE CAPTIVITY OF CAPTAIN GOLOWNIN._

j.a.pan was persistent in its policy of isolation. To its people their group of islands was the world, and they knew little of and cared less for what was going on in all the continents outside. The Dutch vessel that visited their sh.o.r.es once a year served as an annual newspaper, and satisfied their curiosity as to the doings of mankind. The goods it brought were little cared for, j.a.pan being sufficient unto itself, so that it served merely as a window to the world. Once a year a delegation from the Dutch settlement visited the capital, but the visitors travelled almost like prisoners, and were forced to crawl in to the mikado on their hands and knees and to back out again in the same crab-like fashion. Some of these envoys wrote accounts of what they had seen, and that was all that was known of j.a.pan for two centuries.

This state of affairs could not continue. With the opening of the nineteenth century the ships of Europe began to make their way in large numbers to the North Pacific, and efforts were made to force open the locked gates of j.a.pan. Some sought for food and water. These could be had at Nagasaki, but nowhere else, and were given with a warning to move on. In some cases shipwrecked j.a.panese were brought back in foreign vessels, but according to law such persons were looked upon as no longer j.a.panese, and no welcome was given to those who brought them. In other cases wrecked whalers and other mariners sought safety on j.a.panese soil, but they were held strict prisoners, and rescued only with great difficulty. The law was that foreigners landing anywhere on the coast, except at Nagasaki, should be seized and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and that those landing at Nagasaki must strictly abstain from Christian worship.

Meanwhile the Russians had become, through their Siberian ports, near neighbors of j.a.pan, and sought to open trade with that country. In 1793 Lieutenant Laxman landed at Hakodate and travelled overland to Matsumai, bringing with him some shipwrecked j.a.panese and seeking for commercial relations with j.a.pan. He was treated with courtesy, but dismissed without an answer to his demand, and told that he could take his j.a.panese back with him or leave them as he pleased.

In 1804 the Russians came again, this time to Nagasaki. This vessel also brought back some shipwrecked j.a.panese, and had on board a Russian count, sent as amba.s.sador from the czar. But the shogun refused to receive the amba.s.sador or to accept his presents, and sent him word that j.a.pan had little need of foreign productions, and got all it wanted from the Dutch and Chinese. All this was said with great politeness, but the amba.s.sador thought that he had been shabbily treated, and went away angry, reproaching the Dutch for his failure. His anger against the j.a.panese was shown in a hostile fashion. In 1805 he sent out two small vessels, whose crews landed on the island of Saghalien, plundered a j.a.panese settlement there, carried off some prisoners, and left behind a written statement that this had been done to revenge the slights put upon the Russian amba.s.sador.

This violence was amply repaid by the j.a.panese. How they did so we have now to tell. In 1811 Captain Golownin, an intelligent and educated officer of the Russian navy, was sent in command of the sloop-of-war Diana to explore the Kurile Islands. These belonged to j.a.pan, and were partly settled. At the south end of Kunashir, one of these islands, was a j.a.panese settlement, with a garrison. Here Golownin, having landed with two officers, four men, and an interpreter, was invited into the fort. He entered unsuspectingly, but suddenly found himself detained as a prisoner, and held as such despite all the efforts of the Diana to obtain his release.

The prisoners were at once bound with small cords in a most painful way, their elbows being drawn behind their backs until they almost touched, and their hands firmly tied together, the cords being also brought in loops around their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and necks. A long cord proceeded from these fastenings and was held by a j.a.panese, who, if an attempt were made to escape, had only to pull it to bring the elbows together with great pain and to tighten the loop around the neck so as nearly to strangle the prisoner. Their ankles and knees were also firmly bound.