Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation Part 8

These two bodies of samurai formed the special military force of the shogun; the hatamoto being greater va.s.sals, with large incomes; and the gokenin lesser va.s.sals, with small incomes, who ranked above other common samurai only because of being directly attached to the shogun's service.... The total number of samurai of all grades was about 2,000,000. They were exempted from taxation, and privileged to wear two swords.

Such, in brief outline, was the general ordination of those n.o.ble and military cla.s.ses by whom the nation was ruled with great severity.

The bulk of the common people were divided into three cla.s.ses (we might even say castes, but for Indian ideas long a.s.sociated with the term): Farmers, Artizans, and Merchants.

[244] Of these three cla.s.ses, the farmers (hyakusho) were the highest; ranking immediately after the samurai. Indeed, it is hard to draw a line between the samurai cla.s.s and the farming-cla.s.s,--because many samurai were farmers also, and because some farmers held a rank considerably above that of ordinary samurai. Perhaps we should limit the term hyakusho (farmers, or peasantry) to those tillers of the soil who lived only by agriculture, and were neither of Kobetsu nor Shinbetsu descent.... At all events, the occupation of the peasant was considered honourable: a farmer's daughter might become a servant in the imperial household itself--though she could occupy only an humble position in the service. Certain farmers were privileged to wear swords. It appears that in the early ages of j.a.panese society there was no distinction between farmers and warriors: all able-bodied farmers were then trained fighting-men, ready for war at any moment,--a condition paralleled in old Scandinavian society.

After a special military cla.s.s had been evolved, the distinction between farmer and samurai still remained vague in certain parts of the country. In Satsuma and in Tosa, for example, the samurai continued to farm down to the present era: the best of the Kyushu samurai were nearly all farmers; and their superior stature and strength were commonly attributed to their rustic occupations. In other parts of the country, as in Izumo, farming was forbidden to samurai: [245] they were not even allowed to hold rice-land, though they might own forest-land. But in various provinces they were permitted to farm, even while strictly forbidden to follow any other occupation,--any trade or craft.... At no time did any degradation attach to the pursuit of agriculture. Some of the early emperors took a personal interest in farming; and in the grounds of the Imperial Palace at Akasaka may even now be seen a little rice-field. By religious tradition, immemorially old, the first sheaf of rice grown within the imperial grounds should be reaped and offered by the imperial hand to the divine ancestors as a harvest offering, on the occasion of the Ninth Festival,--Shin-Sho-Sai.*

[*At this festival the first new silk of the year, as well as the first of the new rice-crop, is still offered to the Sun-G.o.ddess by the Emperor in person.]

Below the peasantry ranked the artizan-cla.s.s (Shokunin), including smiths, carpenters, weavers, potters,--all crafts, in short. Highest among these were reckoned, as we might expect, the sword-smiths.

Sword-smiths not infrequently rose to dignities far beyond their cla.s.s: some had conferred upon them the high t.i.tle of Kami, written with the same character used in the t.i.tle of a daimyo, who was usually termed the Kami of his province or district. Naturally they enjoyed the patronage of the highest,--emperors and Kuge. The Emperor Go-Toba is known to have worked at sword-making in a smithy [246] of his own. Religious rites were practised during the forging of a blade down to modern times....

All the princ.i.p.al crafts had guilds; and, as a general rule, trades were hereditary. There are good historical grounds for supposing that the ancestors of the Shokunin were mostly Koreans and Chinese.

The commercial cla.s.s (Akindo), including bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, and traders of all kinds, was the lowest officially recognized. The business of money-making was held in contempt by the superior cla.s.ses; and all methods of profiting by the purchase and re-sale of the produce of labour were regarded as dishonourable. A military aristocracy would naturally look down upon the trading-cla.s.ses; and there is generally, in militant societies, small respect for the common forms of labour. But in Old j.a.pan the occupations of the farmer and the artizan were not despised: trade alone appears to have been considered degrading,--and the discrimination may have been partly a moral one. The relegation of the mercantile cla.s.s to the lowest place in the social scale must have produced some curious results. However rich, for example, a rice-dealer might be, he ranked below the carpenters or potters or boat-builders whom he might employ,--unless it happened that his family originally belonged to another cla.s.s. In later times [247] the Akindo included many persons of other than Akindo descent; and the cla.s.s thus virtually retrieved itself.

Of the four great cla.s.ses of the nation--Samurai, Farmers, Artizans, and Merchants (the Shi-No-Ko-Sho, as they were briefly called, after the initial characters of the Chinese terms used to designate them)--the last three were counted together under the general appellation of Heimin, "common folk." ll heimin were subject to the samurai; any samurai being privileged to kill the heimin showing him disrespect. But the heimin were actually the nation: they alone created the wealth of the country, produced the revenues, paid the taxes, supported the n.o.bility and military and clergy. As for the clergy, the Buddhist (like the Shinto) priests, though forming a cla.s.s apart, ranked with the samurai, not with the heimin.

Outside of the three cla.s.ses of commoners, and hopelessly below the lowest of them, large cla.s.ses of persons existed who were not reckoned as j.a.panese, and scarcely accounted human beings. Officially they were mentioned generically as chori, and were counted with the peculiar numerals used in counting animals: ippiki, nihiki, sambiki, etc. Even to-day they are commonly referred to, not as persons (hito), but as "things" (mono). To English readers (chiefly through Mr. Mitford's yet unrivalled Tales of Old [248] j.a.pan) they are known as Eta; but their appellations varied according to their callings.

They were pariah-people: j.a.panese writers have denied, upon apparently good grounds, that the chori belong to the j.a.panese race.

Various tribes of these outcasts followed occupations in the monopoly of which they were legally confirmed: they were well-diggers, garden-sweepers, straw-workers, sandal-makers, according to local privileges. One cla.s.s was employed officially in the capacity of torturers and executioners; another was employed as night-watchmen; a third as grave-makers. But most of the Eta followed the business of tanners and leather-dressers. They alone had the right to slaughter and flay animals, to prepare various kinds of leather, and to manufacture leather sandals, stirrup-straps, and drumheads,--the making of drumheads being a lucrative occupation in a country where drums were used in a hundred thousand temples. The Eta had their own laws, and their own chiefs, who exercised powers of life and death.

They lived always in the suburbs or immediate neighbourhood of towns, but only in separate settlements of their own. They could enter the town to sell their wares, or to make purchases; but they could not enter any shop, except the shop of a dealer in footgear.* [*This is still the rule in certain parts of the country.] As professional singers they were tolerated; but they were forbidden to enter any house--so they could perform their music or sing [249] their songs only in the street, or in a garden. Any occupations other than their hereditary callings were strictly forbidden to them. Between the lowest of the commercial cla.s.ses and the Eta, the barrier was impa.s.sable as any created by caste-tradition in India; and never was Ghetto more separated from the rest of a European city by walls and gates, than an Eta settlement from the rest of a j.a.panese town by social prejudice. No j.a.panese would dream of entering an Eta settlement unless obliged to do so in some official capacity.... At the pretty little seaport of Mionoseki, I saw an Eta settlement, forming one termination of the crescent of streets extending round the bay. Mionoseki is certainly one of the most ancient towns in j.a.pan; and the Eta village attached to it must be very old. Even to-day, no j.a.panese habitant of Mionoseki would think of walking through that settlement, though its streets are continuations of the other streets: children never pa.s.s the unmarked boundary; and the very dogs will not cross the prejudice-line. For all that the settlement is clean, well built,--with gardens, baths, and temples of its own. It looks like any well-kept j.a.panese village. But for perhaps a thousand years there has been no fellowship between the people of those contiguous communities.... n.o.body can now tell the history of these outcast folk: the cause of their social excommunication has long been forgotten.

[250] Besides the Eta proper, there were pariahs called hinin,--a name signifying "not-human-beings." Under this appellation were included professional mendicants, wandering minstrels, actors, certain cla.s.ses of prost.i.tutes, and persons outlawed by society. The hinin had their own chiefs, and their own laws. Any person expelled from a j.a.panese community might join the hinin; but that signified good-by to the rest of humanity. The Government was too shrewd to persecute the hinin. Their gipsy-existence saved a world of trouble.

It was unnecessary to keep petty offenders in jail, or to provide for people incapable of earning an honest living, so long as these could be driven into the hinin cla.s.s. There the incorrigible, the vagrant, the beggar, would be kept under discipline of a sort, and would practically disappear from official cognizance. The killing of a hinin was not considered murder, and was punished only by a fine.

The reader should now be able to form an approximately correct idea of the character of the old j.a.panese society. But the ordination of that society was much more complex than I have been able to indicate,--so complex that volumes would be required to treat the subject in detail. Once fully evolved, what we may still call Feudal j.a.pan, for want of a better name, presented most of the features of a doubly-compound society of the militant type, with [251] certain marked approaches toward the trebly-compound type. A striking peculiarity, of course, is the absence of a true ecclesiastical hierarchy,--due to the fact that Government never became dissociated from religion. There was at one time a tendency on the part of Buddhism to establish a religious hierarchy independent of central authority; but there were two fatal obstacles in the way of such a development. The first was the condition of Buddhism itself,--divided into a number of sects, some bitterly opposed to others. The second obstacle was the implacable hostility of the military clans, jealous of any religious power capable of interfering, either directly or indirectly, with their policy. So soon as the foreign religion began to prove itself formidable in the world of action, ruthless measures were decided; and the frightful ma.s.sacres of priests by n.o.bunaga, in the sixteenth century, ended the political aspirations of Buddhism in j.a.pan.

Otherwise the regimentation of society resembled that of all antique civilizations of the militant type,--all action being both positively and negatively regulated. The household ruled the person; the five-family group; the household; the community, the group; the lord of the soil, the community; the Shogun, the lord. Over the whole body of the producing cla.s.ses, two million samurai had power of life and death; over these samurai the daimyo held a like power; and the daimyo were subject to the Shogun. [252] Nominally the Shogun was subject to the Emperor, but not in fact: military usurpation disturbed and shifted the natural order of the higher responsibility.

However, from the n.o.bility downwards, the regulative discipline was much reinforced by this change in government. Among the producing cla.s.ses there were countless combinations--guilds of all sorts; but these were only despotisms within despotisms--despotisms of the communistic order; each member being governed by the will of the rest; and enterprise, whether commercial or industrial, being impossible outside of some corporation.... We have already seen that the individual was bound to the commune--could not leave it without a permit, could not marry out of it. We have seen also that the stranger was a stranger in the old Greek and Roman sense,--that is to say an enemy, a hostis,--and could enter another community only by being religiously adopted into it. As regards exclusiveness, therefore, the social conditions were like those of the early European communities; but the militant conditions resembled rather those of the great Asiatic empires.

Of course such a society had nothing in common with any modern form of Occidental civilization. It was a huge ma.s.s of clan-groups, loosely united under a duarchy, in which the military head was omnipotent, and the religious head only an object of [253]

worship,--the living symbol of a cult. However this organization might outwardly resemble what we are accustomed to call feudalism, its structure was rather like that of ancient Egyptian or Peruvian society,--minus the priestly hierarchy. The supreme figure is not an Emperor in our meaning of the word,--not a king of kings and viceregent of heaven,--but a G.o.d incarnate, a race-divinity, an Inca descended from the Sun. About his sacred person, we see the tribes ranged in obeisance,--each tribe, nevertheless, maintaining its own ancestral cult; and the clans forming these tribes, and the communities forming these clans, and the households forming these communities, have all their separate cults; and out of the ma.s.s of these cults have been derived the customs and the laws. Yet everywhere the customs and the laws differ more or less, because of the variety of their origins: they have this only in common,--that they exact the most humble and implicit obedience, and regulate every detail of private and public life. Personality is wholly suppressed by coercion; and the coercion is chiefly from within, not from without,--the life of every individual being so ordered by the will of the rest as to render free action, free speaking, or free thinking, out of the question. This means something incomparably harsher than the socialistic tyranny of early Greek society: it means religious communism doubled with a military despotism of [254] the most terrible kind. The individual did not legally exist,--except for punishment; and from the whole of the producing-cla.s.ses, whether serfs or freemen, the most servile submission was ruthlessly exacted.

It is difficult to believe that any intelligent man of modern times could endure such conditions and live (except under the protection of some powerful ruler, as in the case of the English pilot Will Adams, created a samurai by Iyeyasu): the incessant and multiform constraint upon mental and moral life would of itself be enough to kill....

Those who write to-day about the extraordinary capacity of the j.a.panese for organization, and about the "democratic spirit" of the people as natural proof of their fitness for representative government in the Western sense, mistake appearances for realities.

The truth is that the extraordinary capacity of the j.a.panese for communal organization, is the strongest possible evidence of their unfitness for any modern democratic form of government. Superficially the difference between j.a.panese social organization, and local self-government in the modern American, or the English colonial meaning of the term, appears slight; and we may justly admire the perfect self-discipline of a j.a.panese community. But the real difference between the two is fundamental, prodigious,--measurable only by thousands of years. It is the difference between compulsory and free [255] cooperation,--the difference between the most despotic form of communism, founded upon the most ancient form of religion, and the most highly evolved form of industrial union, with unlimited individual right of compet.i.tion.

There exists a popular error to the effect that what we call communism and socialism in Western civilization are modern growths, representing aspiration toward some perfect form of democracy. As a matter of fact these movements represent reversion,--reversion toward the primitive conditions of human society. Under every form of ancient despotism we find exactly the same capacity of self-government among the people: it was manifested by the old Egyptians and Peruvians as well as by the early Greeks and Romans; it is exhibited to-day by Hindoo and Chinese communities; it may be studied in Siamese or Annamese villages quite as well as in j.a.pan. It means a religious communistic despotism,--a supreme social tyranny suppressing personality, forbidding enterprise, and making compet.i.tion a public offence. Such self-government also has its advantages: it was perfectly adapted to the requirements of j.a.panese life so long as the nation could remain isolated from the rest of the world. Yet it must be obvious that any society whose ethical traditions forbid the individual to profit at the cost of his fellow-men will be placed at an enormous disadvantage when forced into the [256] industrial struggle for existence against communities whose self-government permits of the greatest possible personal freedom, and the widest range of compet.i.tive enterprise.

We might suppose that perpetual and universal coercion, moral and physical, would have brought about a state of universal sameness,--a dismal uniformity and monotony in all life's manifestations. But such monotony existed only as to the life of the commune, not as to that of the race. The most wonderful variety characterized this quaint civilization, as it also characterized the old Greek civilization, and for precisely the same reasons. In every patriarchal civilization ruled by ancestor-worship, all tendency to absolute sameness, to general uniformity, is prevented by the character of the aggregate itself, which never becomes h.o.m.ogeneous and plastic. Every unit of that aggregate, each one of the mult.i.tude of petty despotisms composing it, most jealously guards its own particular traditions and customs, and remains self-sufficing. Hence results, sooner or later, incomparable variety of detail, small detail, artistic, industrial, architectural, mechanical. In j.a.pan such differentiation and specialization was thus maintained, that you will hardly find in the whole country even two villages where the customs, industries, and methods of production are exactly the same.... The customs [257] of the fishing-villages will, perhaps, best ill.u.s.trate what I mean. In every coast district the various fishing-settlements have their own traditional ways of constructing nets and boats, and their own particular methods of handling them. Now, in the time of the great tidal-wave of 1896, when thirty thousand people perished, and scores of coast-villages were wrecked, large sums of money were collected in Kobe and elsewhere for the benefit of the survivors; and well-meaning foreigners attempted to supply the want of boats and fishing implements by purchasing quant.i.ties of locally made nets and boats, and sending them to the afflicted districts. But it was found that these presents were of no use to the men of the northern provinces, who had been accustomed to boats and nets of a totally different kind; and it was further discovered that every fishing-hamlet had special requirements of its own in this regard.... Now the differentiations of habit and custom, thus exhibited in the life of the fishing-communities, is paralleled in many crafts and callings.

The way of building houses, and of roofing them, differs in almost every province, also the methods of agriculture and of horticulture, the manner of making wells, the methods of weaving and lacquering and pottery-making and tile-baking. Nearly every town and village of importance boasts of some special production, bearing the name of the place, and unlike anything made elsewhere.... [258] No doubt the ancestral cults helped to conserve and to develop such local specialization of industries: the craft-ancestors, the patron-G.o.ds of the guild, were supposed to desire that the work of their descendants and worshippers should maintain a particular character of its own.

Though individual enterprise was checked by communal regulation, the specialization of local production was encouraged by difference of cults. Family-conservatism or guild-conservatism would tolerate small improvements or modifications suggested by local experience, but would be wary, perhaps superst.i.tious likewise, about accepting the results of strange experience.

Still, for the j.a.panese themselves, not the least pleasure of travel in j.a.pan is the pleasure of studying the curious variety in local production,--the pleasure of finding the novel, the unexpected, the unimagined. Even those arts or industries of Old j.a.pan, primarily borrowed from Korea or from China, appear to have developed and conserved innumerable queer forms under the influence of the numberless local cults.

[259]

THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER

Almost the whole of authentic j.a.panese history is comprised in one vast episode: the rise and fall of the military power.... It has been customary to speak of j.a.panese history as beginning with the accession of Jimmu Tenno, alleged to have reigned from 660 to 585 B.C., and to have lived for one hundred and twenty-seven years.

Before the time of the Emperor Jimmu was the Age of the G.o.ds,--the period of mythology. But trustworthy history does not begin for a thousand years after the accession of Jimmu Tenno; and the chronicles of those thousand years must be regarded as little better than fairy-tales. They contain records of fact; but fact and myth are so interwoven that it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other. We have legends, for example, of an alleged conquest of Korea in the year 202 A.D., by the Empress Jingo; and it has been tolerably well proved that no such conquest took place.* [*See Aston's paper, Early j.a.panese History, in the translations of the Asiatic Society of j.a.pan.] The later records are somewhat less mythical than the earlier. We have traditions apparently founded on [260] fact, of Korean immigration in the time of the fifteenth ruler, the Emperor Ojin; then later traditions, also founded on fact, of early Chinese studies in j.a.pan; then some vague accounts of a disturbed state of society, which appears to have continued through the whole of the fifth century. Buddhism was introduced in the middle of the century following; and we have record of the fierce opposition offered to the new creed by a Shinto faction, and of a miraculous victory won by the help of the Four Deva Kings, at the prayer of Shotoku Taishi,--the great founder of Buddhism, and regent of the Empress Suiko. With the firm establishment of Buddhism in the reign of that Empress (593-628 A.D.), we reach the period of authentic history, and of the thirty-third j.a.panese sovereign counting from Jimmu Tenno.

But although everything prior to the seventh century remains obscured for us by the mists of fable, much can be inferred, even from the half-mythical records, concerning social conditions during the reigns of the first thirty-three Emperors and Empresses. It appears that the early Mikado lived very simply--scarcely better, indeed, than their subjects. The Shinto scholar Mabuchi tells us that they dwelt in huts with mud walls and roofs of shingle; that they wore hempen clothes; that they carried their swords in simple wooden scabbards, bound round with the tendrils of a wild [261] vine; that they walked about freely among the people; that they carried their own bows and arrows when they went to hunt. But as society developed wealth and power, this early simplicity disappeared, and the gradual introduction of Chinese customs and etiquette effected great changes. The Empress Suiko introduced Chinese court-ceremonies, and first established among the n.o.bility the Chinese grades of rank. Chinese luxury, as well as Chinese learning, soon made its appearance at court; and thereafter the imperial authority appears to have been less and less directly exerted. The new ceremonialism must have rendered the personal exercise of the multiform imperial functions more difficult than before; and it is probable that the temptation to act more or less by deputy would have been strong even in the case of an energetic ruler. At all events we find that the real administration of government began about this time to pa.s.s into the hands of deputies,--all of whom were members of the great Kuge clan of the Fujiwara.

This clan, which included the highest hereditary priesthood, represented a majority of the ancient n.o.bility, claiming divine descent. Ninety-five out of the total one hundred and fifty-five families of Kuge belonged to it,--including the five families, Go-Sekke, from which alone the Emperor was by tradition allowed to choose his Empress. Its historic name dates only from the reign of the Emperor [262] Kwammu (782-806 A.D.), who bestowed it as an honour upon Nakatomi no Kamatari; but the clan had long previously held the highest positions at Court. By the close of the seventh century most of the executive power had pa.s.sed into its hands. Later the office of Kwambaku, or Regent, was established, and remained hereditary in the house down to modern times--ages after all real power had been taken from the descendants of Nakatomi no Kamatari. But during almost five centuries the Fujiwara remained the veritable regents of the country, and took every possible advantage of their position. All the civil offices were in the hands of Fujiwara men; all the wives and favourites of the Emperors were Fujiwara women. The whole power of government was thus kept in the hands of the clan; and the political authority of the Emperor ceased to exist. Moreover the succession was regulated entirely by the Fujiwara; and even the duration of each reign was made to depend upon their policy. It was deemed advisable to compel Emperors to abdicate at an early age, and after abdicating to become Buddhist monks,--the successor chosen being often a mere child. There is record of an Emperor ascending the throne at the age of two, and abdicating at the age of four; another Mikado was appointed at the age of five; several at the age of ten. Yet the religious dignity of the throne remained undiminished, or, rather, continued [263] to grow. The more the Mikado was withdrawn from public view by policy and by ceremonial, the more did his seclusion and inaccessibility serve to deepen the awe of the divine legend.

Like the Lama of Thibet the living deity was made invisible to the mult.i.tude; and gradually the belief arose that to look upon his face was death.... It is said that the Fujiwara were not satisfied even with these despotic means of a.s.suring their own domination, and that luxurious forms of corruption were maintained within the palace for the purpose of weakening the character of young emperors who might otherwise have found the energy to a.s.sert the ancient rights of the throne.

Perhaps this usurpation--which prepared the way for the rise of the military power--has never been rightly interpreted. The history of all the patriarchal societies of ancient Europe will be found to ill.u.s.trate the same phase of social evolution. At a certain period in the development of each we find the same thing happening,--the withdrawal of all political authority from the Priest-King, who is suffered, nevertheless, to retain the religious dignity. It may be a mistake to judge the policy of the Fujiwara as a policy of mere ambition and usurpation. The Fujiwara were a religious aristocracy, claiming divine origin,--clan-chiefs of a society in which religion and government were identical, and holding to that society much the same relation as that of the [264] Eupatridae to the ancient Attic society. The Mikado had originally become supreme magistrate, military commander, and religious head by consent of a majority of the clan-chiefs,--each of whom represented to his own following what the "Heavenly Sovereign" represented to the social aggregate. But as the power of the ruler extended with the growth of the nation, those who had formerly united to maintain that power began to find it dangerous. They decided to deprive the Heavenly Sovereign of all political and legal authority, without disturbing in any way his religious supremacy. At Athens, at Sparta, at Rome, and elsewhere in ancient Europe, the same policy was carried out, for the same reasons, by religious senates. The history of the early kings of Rome, as interpreted by M. de Coulanges, best ill.u.s.trates the nature of the antagonism developed between the priest-ruler and the religious aristocracy; but the same thing took place in all the Greek communities, with about the same result. Everywhere political power was taken away from the early kings; but they were mostly left in possession of their religious dignities and privileges: they remained supreme priests after having ceased to be rulers. This was the case also in j.a.pan; and I imagine that future j.a.panese historians will be able to give us an entirely new interpretation of the Fujiwara episode, as reviewed in the light of modern sociology. At all events, there can be little doubt [265] that, in curtailing the powers of the Heavenly Sovereign, the religious aristocracy must have been actuated by conservative precaution as well as by ambition. There had been various Emperors who made changes in the laws and customs--changes which could scarcely have been viewed with favour by many of the ancient n.o.bility; there had been an Emperor whose diversions can to-day be written of only in Latin; there had even been an Emperor--Kotoku--who, though "G.o.d Incarnate," and chief of the ancient faith, "despised the Way of the G.o.ds," and cut down the holy grove of the shrine of Iku-kuni-dama. Kotoku, for all his Buddhist piety (perhaps, indeed, because of it), was one of the wisest and best of rulers; but the example of a heavenly sovereign "despising the Way of the G.o.ds," must have given the priestly clan matter for serious reflection.... Besides, there is another important fact to be noticed. The Imperial household proper had become, in the course of centuries, entirely detached from the Uji; and the omnipotence of this unit, independent of all other units, const.i.tuted in itself a grave danger to aristocratic privileges and established inst.i.tutions.

Too much might depend upon the personal character and will of an omnipotent G.o.d-King, capable of breaking with all clan-custom, and of abrogating clan-privileges. On the other hand, there was safety for all alike under the patriarchal rule of the clan, which [266] could cheek every tendency on the part of any of its members to exert predominant influence at the expense of the rest. But for obvious reasons the Imperial cult--traditional source of all authority and privilege--could not be touched: it was only by maintaining and reinforcing it that the religious n.o.bility could expect to keep the real power in their hands. They actually kept it for nearly five centuries.

The history of all the j.a.panese regencies, however, amply ill.u.s.trates the general rule that inherited authority is ever and everywhere liable to find itself supplanted by deputed authority. The Fujiwara appear to have eventually become the victims of that luxury which they had themselves, for reasons of policy, introduced and maintained. Degenerating into a mere court-n.o.bility, they made little effort to exert any direct authority in other than civil directions, entrusting military matters almost wholly to the Buke. In the eighth century the distinction between military and civil organization had been made upon the Chinese plan; the great military cla.s.s then came into existence, and began to extend its power rapidly. Of the military clans proper, the most powerful were the Minamoto and the Taira. By deputing to these clans the conduct of all important matters relating to war, the Fujiwara eventually lost their high position and influence. As soon [267] as the Buke found themselves strong enough to lay hands upon the reins of government,--which happened about the middle of the eleventh century,--the Fujiwara supremacy became a thing of the past, although members of the clan continued for centuries to occupy positions of importance under various regents.

But the Buke could not realize their ambition without a bitter struggle among themselves,--the longest and the fiercest war in j.a.panese history. The Minamoto and the Taira were both Kuge; both claimed imperial descent. In the early part of the contest the Taira carried all before them; and it seemed that no power could hinder them from exterminating the rival clan. But fortune turned at last in favour of the Minamoto; and at the famous sea-fight of Dan-no-ura, in 1185, the Taira were themselves exterminated.

Then began the reign of the Minamoto regents, or rather shogun. I have elsewhere said that the t.i.tle "shogun" originally signified, as did the Roman military term Imperator, only a commander-in-chief: it now became the t.i.tle of the supreme ruler de facto, in his double capacity of civil and military sovereign,--the King of kings. From the accession of the Minamoto to power the history of the shogunate--the long history of the military supremacy--really begins; j.a.pan thereafter, down to the present era of Meiji, having really two Emperors: [268] the Heavenly Sovereign, or Deity Incarnate, representing the religion of the race; and the veritable Imperator, who wielded all the powers of the administration. No one sought to occupy by force the throne of the Sun's Succession, whence all authority was at least supposed to be derived. Regent or shogun bowed down before it: divinity could not be usurped.

Yet peace did not follow upon the battle of Dan-no-ura: the clan-wars initiated by the great struggle of the Minamoto and the Taira, continued, at irregular intervals, for five centuries more; and the nation remained disintegrated. Nor did the Minamoto long keep the supremacy which they had so dearly won. Deputing their powers to the Hojo family, they were supplanted by the Hojo, just as the Fujiwara had been supplanted by the Taira. Three only of the Minamoto shogun really exercised rule. During the whole of the thirteenth century, and for some time afterwards, the Hojo continued to govern the country; and it is noteworthy that these regents never a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of shogun, but professed to be merely shogunal deputies. Thus a triple-headed government appeared to exist; for the Minamoto kept up a kind of court at Kamakura. But they faded into mere shadows, and are yet remembered by the significant appellation of "Shadow-Shogun,"

or "Puppet Shogun." There was nothing shadowy, however, about the administration of the Hojo, [269]--men of immense energy and ability. By them Emperor or shogun could be deposed and banished without scruple; and the helplessness of the shogunate can be inferred from the fact, that the seventh Hojo regent, before deposing the seventh shogun, sent him home in a palanquin, head downwards and heels upwards. Nevertheless the Hojo suffered the phantom-shogunate to linger on, until 1333. Though unscrupulous in their methods, these regents were capable rulers; and proved themselves able to save the country in a great emergency,--the famous invasion attempted by Kublai Khan in 1281. Aided by a fortunate typhoon, which is said to have destroyed the hostile fleet in answer to prayer offered up at the national shrines, the Hojo could repel this invasion. They were less successful in dealing with certain domestic disorders,--especially those fomented by the turbulent Buddhist priesthood. During the thirteenth century, Buddhism had developed into a great military power,--strangely like that church-militant of the European middle ages: the period of soldier-priests and fighting-bishops. The Buddhist monasteries had been converted into fortresses filled with men-at arms; Buddhist menace had more than once carried terror into the sacred seclusion of the imperial court.

At an early day, Yoritomo, the far-seeing founder of the Minamoto dynasty, had observed a militant tendency in Buddhism, and had attempted to check [270] it by forbidding all priests and monks either to bear arms, or to maintain armed retainers. But his successors had been careless about enforcing these prohibitions; and the Buddhist military power developed in consequence so rapidly that the shrewdest Hojo were doubtful of their ability to cope with it.

Eventually this power proved capable of giving them serious trouble.

The ninety-sixth Mikado, Go-Daigo, found courage to revolt against the tyranny of the Hojo; and the Buddhist soldiery took part with him. He was promptly defeated, and banished to the islands of Oki; but his cause was soon espoused by powerful lords, who had long chafed under the despotism of the regency. These a.s.sembled their forces, restored the banished Emperor, and combined in a desperate attack upon the regent's capital, Kamakura. The city was stormed and burned; and the last of the Hojo rulers, after a brave but vain defence, performed harakiri. Thus shogunate and regency vanished together, in 1333.

For the moment the whole power of administration had been restored to the Mikado. Unfortunately for himself and for the country, Go-Daigo was too feeble of character to avail himself of this great opportunity. He revived the dead shogunate by appointing his own son shogun; he weakly ignored the services of those whose loyalty and courage had restored him; and he foolishly strengthened [271] the hands of those whom he had every reason to fear. As a consequence there happened the most serious political catastrophe in the history of j.a.pan, a division of the imperial house against itself.

The unscrupulous despotism of the Hojo regents had prepared the possibility of such an event. During the last years of the thirteenth century, there were living at the same time in Kyoto, besides the reigning Mikado, no less than three deposed emperors. To bring about a contest for the succession was, therefore, an easy matter; and this was soon accomplished by the treacherous general Ashikaga Takeuji, to whom Go-Daigo had unwisely shown especial favour. Ashikaga had betrayed the Hojo in order to help the restoration of Go-Daigo: he subsequently would have betrayed the trust of Go-Daigo, in order to seize the administrative power. The Emperor discovered this treasonable purpose when too late, and sent against Ashikaga an army which was defeated. After some further contest Ashikaga mastered the capital, drove Go-Daigo a second time into exile, set up a rival Emperor, and established a new shogunate. Now for the first time, two branches of the Imperial family, each supported by powerful lords, contended for the right of succession. That of which Go-Daigo remained the acting representative, is known in history as the Southern Branch (Nancho), and by j.a.panese historians is held to be the only legitimate branch. [272]

The other was called the Northern Branch (Hokucho), and was maintained at Kyoto by the power of the Ashikaga clan; while Go-Daigo, finding refuge in a Buddhist monastery, retained the insignia of empire. Thereafter, for a period of fifty-six years j.a.pan continued to have two Mikado; and the resulting disorder was such as to imperil the national integrity. It would have been no easy matter for the people to decide which Emperor possessed the better claim.

Hitherto the imperial presence had represented the national divinity; and the imperial palace had been regarded as the temple of the national religion: the division maintained by the Ashikaga usurpers therefore signified nothing less than the breaking up of the whole tradition upon which existing society had been built. The confusion became greater and greater, the danger increased more and more, until the Ashikaga themselves took alarm. They managed then to end the trouble by persuading the fifth Mikado of the Southern Dynasty, Go Kameyama, to surrender his insignia to the reigning Mikado of the Northern Dynasty, Go-Komatsu. This having been done, in 1392, Go-Kameyama was honoured with the t.i.tle of retired Emperor, and Go-Komatsu was nationally acknowledged as legitimate Emperor. But the names of the other four Emperors of the Northern Dynasty are still excluded from the official list. The Ashikaga shogunate thus averted the supreme [273] peril; but the period of this military domination, which endured until 1573, was destined to remain the darkest in j.a.panese history. The Ashikaga gave the country fifteen rulers, several of whom were men of great ability: they tried to encourage industry; they cultivated literature and the arts; but they could not give peace. Fresh disputes arose; and lords whom the shogunate could not subdue made war upon each other. To such a condition of terror was the capital reduced that the court n.o.bility fled from it to take refuge with daimyo powerful enough to afford them protection. Robbery became rife throughout the land; and piracy terrorized the seas. The shogunate itself was reduced to the humiliation of paying tribute to China. Agriculture and industry at last ceased to exist outside of the domains of certain powerful lords. Provinces became waste; and famine, earthquake, and pestilence added their horror to the misery of ceaseless war. The poverty prevailing may be best imagined from the fact that when the Emperor known to history as Go-Tsuchi-mikado--one hundred and second of the Sun's Succession --died in the year 1500, his corpse had to be kept at the gates of the palace forty days, because the expenses of the funeral could not be defrayed. Until 1573 the misery continued; and the shogunate meanwhile degenerated into insignificance. Then a strong captain arose and ended the house of Ashikaga, and seized the reins of power.

[274] This usurper was Oda n.o.bunaga; and the usurpation was amply provoked. Had it not occurred, j.a.pan might never have entered upon an era of peace.

For there had been no peace since the fifth century. No emperor or regent or shogun had ever been able to impose his rule firmly upon the whole country. Somewhere or other, there were always wars of clan with clan. By the time of the sixteenth century personal safety could be found only under the protection of some military leader, able to exact his own terms for the favour of such protection. The question of the imperial succession,--which had almost wrecked the empire during the fourteenth century,--might be raised again at any time by some reckless faction, with the probable result of ruining civilization, and forcing the nation back to its primitive state of barbarism. Never did the future of j.a.pan appear so dark as at the moment when Oda n.o.bunaga suddenly found himself the strongest man in the empire, and leader of the most formidable j.a.panese army that had ever obeyed a single head. This man, a descendant of Shinto priests, was above all things a patriot. He did not seek the t.i.tle of shogun, and never received it. His hope was to save the country; and he saw that this could be done only by centralizing all feudal power under one control, and strenuously enforcing law. Looking about him for the ways and means of effecting [275] this centralization, he perceived that one of the very first obstacles to be removed was that created by the power of Buddhism militant,--the feudal Buddhism developed under the Hojo regency, and especially represented by the great Shin and Tendai sects. As both had already given aid to his enemies, it was easy to find a cause for quarrel; and he first proceeded against the Tendai. The campaign was conducted with ferocious vigour; the monastery-fortresses of Hiyei-san were stormed and razed, and all the priests, with all their adherents, put to the sword--no mercy being shown even to women and children. By nature n.o.bunaga was not cruel; but his policy was ruthless, and he knew when and why to strike hard.

The power of the Tendai sect before this ma.s.sacre may be imagined from the fact that three thousand monastery buildings were burnt at Hiyei-san. The Shin sect of the Hongwanji, with headquarters at Osaka, was scarcely less powerful; and its monastery, occupying the site of the present Osaka castle, was one of the strongest fortresses in the country. n.o.bunaga waited several years, merely to prepare for the attack. The soldier-priests defended themselves well; upwards of fifty thousand lives are said to have been lost in the siege; yet only the personal intervention of the Emperor prevented the storming of the stronghold, and the slaughter of every being within its walls.

Through respect for the Emperor, n.o.bunaga agreed [276] to spare the lives of the Shin priests: they were only dispossessed and scattered, and their power forever broken. Buddhism having been thus effectually crippled, n.o.bunaga was able to turn his attention to the warring clans. Supported by the greatest generals that the nation ever produced,--Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu,--he proceeded to enforce pacification and order; and his grand purpose would probably have been soon accomplished, but for the revengeful treachery of a subordinate, who brought about his death in 1583.

n.o.bunaga, with Taira blood in his veins, had been essentially an aristocrat, inheriting all the apt.i.tudes of his great race for administration, and versed in all the traditions of diplomacy. His avenger and successor, Hideyoshi, was a totally different type of soldier: a son of peasants, an untrained genius who had won his way to high command by shrewdness and courage, natural skill of arms, and immense inborn capacity for all the chess-play of war. With the great purpose of n.o.bunaga he had always been in sympathy; and he actually carried it out,--subduing the entire country, from north to south, in the name of the Emperor, by whom he was appointed Regent (Kwambaku).

Thus universal peace was temporarily established. But the vast military powers which Hideyoshi had collected and disciplined, threatened to become refractory. He found employment for them by declaring unprovoked [277] war against Korea, whence he hoped to effect the conquest of China. The war with Korea opened in 1592, and dragged on unsatisfactorily until 1598, when Hideyoshi died. He had proved himself one of the greatest soldiers ever born, but not one of the best among rulers. Perhaps the issue of the war in Korea would have been more fortunate, if he could have ventured to conduct it himself. As a matter of fact, it merely exhausted the force of both countries; and j.a.pan had little to show for her dearly bought victories abroad except the Mimidzuka or "Ear-Monument" at Nara,--marking the spot where thirty thousand pairs of foreign ears, cut from the pickled heads of slain, were buried in the grounds of the temple of Daibutsu....

Into the vacant place of power then stepped the most remarkable man that j.a.pan ever produced,--Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Iyeyasu was of Minamoto descent, and an aristocrat to the marrow of his bones. As a soldier he was scarcely inferior to Hideyoshi, whom he once defeated,--but he was much more than a soldier, a far-sighted statesman, an incomparable diplomat, and something of a scholar. Cool, cautious, secretive,--distrustful, yet generous,--stern, yet humane,--by the range and the versatility of his genius he might be not unfavourably contrasted with Julius Caesar. All that n.o.bunaga and Hideyoshi had wished to do, and failed to [278] do, Iyeyasu speedily accomplished.

After fulfilling Hideyoshi's dying injunction, not to leave the troops in Korea "to become ghosts haunting a foreign land,"--that is to say, in the condition of spirits without a cult,--Iyeyasu had to face a formidable league of lords resolved to dispute his claim to rule. The terrific battle of Sekigahara left him master of the country; and he at once took measures to consolidate his power, and to perfect, even to the least detail, all the machinery of military government. As shogun, he reorganized the daimiates, redistributed a majority of fiefs; among those whom he could trust, created new military grades, and ordered and so balanced the powers of the greater daimyo as to make it next to impossible for them to dare a revolt. Later on the daimyo were even required to furnish security for their good behaviour: they were obliged to pa.s.s a certain time of the year* in the shogun's capital, leaving their families as hostages during the rest of the year. The entire administration was readjusted upon a simple and sagacious plan; and the Laws of Iyeyasu prove him to have been an excellent legislator. For the first time in j.a.panese history the nation was integrated,--integrated, at least, in so far as the peculiar nature of the social unit rendered possible. The counsels [279] of the founder of Yedo were followed by his successors; and the Tokugawa shogunate, which lasted until 1867, gave the country fifteen military sovereigns. Under these, j.a.pan enjoyed both peace and prosperity for the time of two hundred and fifty years; and her society was thus enabled to evolve to the full limit of its peculiar type. Industries and arts developed in new and wonderful ways; literature found august patronage. The national cult was carefully maintained; and all precautions were taken to prevent the occurrence of another such contest for the imperial succession as had nearly ruined the country in the fourteenth century.

[*The period of obligatory residence in Yedo was not the same for all daimyo. In some cases the obligation seems to have extended to six months; in others, the requirement was to pa.s.s every alternate year in the capital.]

We have seen that the history of military rule in j.a.pan embraces nearly the whole period of authentic history, down to modern times, and closes with the second period of national integration. The first period had been reached when the clans first accepted the leadership of the chief of the greatest clan,--thereafter revered as the Heavenly Sovereign, Supreme Pontiff, Supreme Arbiter, Supreme Commander, and Supreme Magistrate. How long a time was required for this primal integration, under a patriarchal monarchy, we cannot know; but we have learned that the later integration, under a duarchy, occupied considerably more than a thousand years.... Now the extraordinary fact to note is that, during all those centuries, the imperial [280] cult was carefully maintained by even the enemies of the Mikado; the only legitimate ruler being, in national belief, the Tenshi, "Son of Heaven,"--the Tenno, "Heavenly King." Through every period of disorder the Offspring of the Sun was the object of national worship, and his palace the temple of the national faith.

Great captains might coerce the imperial will; but they styled themselves, none the less, the worshippers and slaves of the incarnate deity; and they would no more have thought of trying to occupy his throne, than they would have thought of trying to abolish all religion by decree. Once only, by the arbitrary folly of the Ashikaga shogun, the imperial cult had been seriously interfered with; and the social earthquake consequent upon that division of the imperial house, apprised the usurpers of the enormity of their blunder.... Only the integrity of the imperial succession, the uninterrupted maintenance of the imperial worship, made it possible even for Iyeyasu to clamp together the indissoluble units of society.

Herbert Spencer has taught the student of sociology to recognize that religious dynasties have extraordinary powers of longevity, because they possess extraordinary power to resist change; whereas military dynasties, depending for their perpetuity upon the individual character of their sovereigns, are particularly liable to disintegration. The immense duration of the j.a.panese imperial dynasty, as contrasted [281] with the history of the various shogunates and regencies representing a merely military domination, ill.u.s.trates this teaching in a most remarkable way. Back through twenty-five hundred years we can follow the line of the imperial succession, till it vanishes out of sight into the mystery of the past. Here we have evidence of that extreme power of resisting all changes which is inherently characteristic of religious conservatism; on the other hand, the history of shogunates and regencies proves the tendency to disintegration of inst.i.tutions having no religious foundation, and therefore no religious power of cohesion. The remarkable duration of the Fujiwara rule, as compared with others, may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the Fujiwara represented a religious, rather than a military, aristocracy. Even the marvellous military structure devised by Iyeyasu had begun to decay before alien aggression precipitated its inevitable collapse.