The Mikados Empire

A History of Japan from the

Age of Gods to the Meiji Era
(660 bcad 1872)

The Mikados Empire

A History of Japan from the
Age of Gods to the Meiji Era
(660 bcad 1872)

William Elliot Gris, A.M.

Formerly of the Imperial University of Tokio, Japan

Originally published in 1883 by Harper & Brothers, New York. This

edition contains the text of Book I: History of Japan from 660 B.C. to 1872
A.D., 8th edition, 1895.
Published simultaneously in the United States by Stone Bridge Press,
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and in Japan by IBC Publishing, Akasaka Community Bldg 5f, 1-1-8
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Cover and book design by Robert Goodman, Silvercat, San Diego,

California.
2006 Stone Bridge Press.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission
from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America.
2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006
ISBN 978-1-933330-18-1 (usa)
ISBN 978-4-89684-290-6 ( Japan)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

to
Japanese lovers of knowledge in every age:
the dead,
who rst kindled the sacred re, who passed on the torch;
the martyrs,
who suered death for their loyalty, patriotism, devotion to
national unity, restoration, and regeneration;
the students,
who, in noble thirst for truth, found honored graves in alien soil;
the living,
with whom rests the future of their beautiful land,
this sketch of their country and people, made in the interest of
truth, and set down without extenuation or malice, is, with
fraternal regard, dedicated by their comrade and friend,
the author.

Contents
the orthography and
pronunciation of japanese words ix
preface xi
preface to the second edition xvii
i. The Background 1
ii. The Aborigines 13
iii. Materials of History 25
iv. Japanese Mythology 33
v. The Twilight of Fable 49
vi. Sujin, the Civilizer 57
vii. Yamato-Dak, the Conqueror of the Kuant 67
viii. The Introduction of Continental Civilization 77
ix. Life in Ancient Japan 89
x. The Ancient Religion 101
xi. The Throne and the Noble Families 109
xii. The Beginning of Military Domination 127
xiii. Yoritomo and the Minamoto Family 139
xiv. Creation of the Dual System of Government 157
xv. The Glory and the Fall of the Hj Family 165
xvi. Buddhism in Japan 181
xvii. The Invasion of the Mongol Tartars 199
xviii. The Temporary Mikadoate 205
xix. The War of the Chrysanthemums 211
xx. The Ashikaga Period 219
xxi. Life in the Middle Ages 225

xxii. The Growth and Customs of Feudalism 245

xxiii. Nobunaga, the Persecutor of the Buddhists 263
xxiv. Hideyoshis Enterprises.The Invasion of Corea 271
xxv. Christianity and Foreigners 283
xxvi. Iyyasu, the Founder of Yedo 305
xxvii. The Perfection of Duarchy and Feudalism 313
xxviii. The Recent Revolutions in Japan 339
SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER
i. Japan in 1883 381
ii. Japan in 1886 415
iii. Japan in 1890 417
iv. Japan in 1894 433
v. The War with China 449
APPENDICES
The Testament of Iyyasu 467
Notation of Time 473
Enumeration of the Years by Year-Periods 475
INDEX

479

The Orthography and Pronunciation

of Japanese Words

t is impossible to represent Japanese words exactly by any foreign

alphabet; but a knowledge of the sounds heard in Japan, and by
using letters which have each one invariable value, will enable a foreigner to reproduce Japanese names with tolerable accuracy. When
the native authors and grammarians do not agree, absolute unanimity
among foreign scholars is not to be expected; but palpable absurdities,
impossible combinations of letters, and mistakes arising out of pure
ignorance of the language may be avoided. The system given below,
and used throughout this work, is, at least, rational, and is based on the
structure and laws of combination in the language itself. Th is system
is substantially (the dierences aiming to secure greater simplicity)
that of Hepburns Japanese-English and English-Japanese, and of
Satows English-Japanese dictionary; the Romanized version of the
Scriptures, published by the American Bible Society; of the American
Cyclopaedia; the revised editions of Worcesters, and Websters, dictionix

the mikados empire

ary; in Browns, Astons, Satows, Brinckleys, and Hepburns grammar

and works on the Japanese language; Monteiths, Mitchells, Cornells,
Warrens, and Harpers (American), and the Students (English) geography and atlas; Mitfords Tales of Old Japan; Adamss History of Japan;
the ocial documents of the Japanese Government, Department of
Education, schools, and colleges; the British and Ameriean Legations
and Consulates; the Anglo-Japanese press, and almost all scholars and
writers who make accuracy a matter of concern.
The standard language (not the local dialect) of Tkinow the literary as well as the political capital of the nationis taken as the basis,
and the words are then transliterated from the katagana spelling, as
given by the best native scholars. The vowels are sounded as follows:
a
ai
i
u
ua
e
ei
o

has the sound of a in father, arm;

has the sound of ai in aisle, or i in bite;
has the sound of i in pique, machine;
has the sound of u in rule, or oo in boot;
has the sound of ua in quarantine;
has the sound of e in prey, they;
has the sound of ay in saying;
has the sound of o in bore, so.

Long vowels are marked thus, , .

The combination uai is sounded as wai; iu as yu; E or , as e in prey;
but e, as in men; g is always hard, and s surd, as in sit, sap.
C before a vowel, g as in gin, gem; l, q, s sonant; x, and the digraphs
ph and th, are not used.

Preface

apan, once in the far-o Orient, is now our nearest Western neighbor. Her people walk our streets; her youth sit, peers and rivals of
our students, in the class-room; her art adorns our homes, and has
opened to us a new Gate Beautiful. The wise men from the West
are, at this writing, opening their treasures of tea, silk, gold-lacquer,
bronzes, and porcelain at the rst centennial of our nations birth.
We hail the brightness of the rising of this rst among Asiatic
nations to enter modern life, to win and hold a place among the
foremost peoples of the earth. It is time that a writer treated Japan as
something else than an Oriental puzzle, a nation of recluses, a land
of fabulous wealth, of universal licentiousness or of Edenic purity,
the fastness of a treacherous and ckle crew, a Paradise of guileless
children, a Utopia of artists and poets. It is time to drop the license
of exaggeration, and, with the light of common day, yet with sympathy and without prejudice, seek to know what Dai Nippon is and
has been.
It has been well said by a literary critic and reader of all the books
on the subject that to write a good history of Japan is dicult, not
so much from lack of materials, but from the dierences in psychology. Th is I realize. My endeavor, during eight years living contact
with these people, has been, from their language, books, life, and
xi

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customs, to determine their mental parallax, and nd out how they

think and feel.
I have not made this book in libraries at home, but largely on the
soil of the mikados empire. I have slight obligation to acknowledge
to foreign writers, except to those working scholars in Japan who have
written during the last decade with knowledge of the language. To
them I owe much; rst and most of all to Mr. Ernest Satow, who, in
the special department of historical research, stands leader. To Messrs.
W. Dixon, Aston, Mitford, Hepburn, Brown, Blakiston, Von Brandt,
and Parkes, I am also indebted. I am under many obligations to the
editor of The Japan Mail. This scholarly paper, published in Yokohama,
is a most valuable mirror of contemporaneous Japanese history, and a
rich store-house of facts, especially the papers of the Asiatic Society of
Japan. The Japan Herald and The Japan Gazette have also been of great
service to me, for which I here thank the proprietors. The constant
embarrassment in treating many subjects has been from wealth of
material. I have been obliged to leave out several chapters on important subjects, and to treat others with mere passing allusions.
In the early summer of 1868, two Higo students, Is and Numagawa,
arrived in the United States. They were followed by retainers of the
daimios of Satsuma and Echizen, and other feudal princes. I was surprised and delighted to nd these earnest youth equals of American
students in good-breeding, courtesy, and mental acumen. Some of
them remained under my instruction two years, others for a shorter
time. Among my friends or pupils in New Brunswick, New Jersey,
are Mr. Yoshida Kiyonari, H. I. J. M. Minister Plenipotentiary at
Washington; Mr. Takagi Samro, H. I. J. M. Vice-consul at San
Francisco; Mr. Tomita Tetsunosuk, H. I. J. M. Consul at New York;
Mr. Hatakyama Yoshinari, President of the Imperial University of

Preface

xiii

Japan; Captain Matsumura Junzo, of the Japanese navy. Among others were the two sons of Iwakura Tomomi, Junior Prime Minister of
Japan; and two young nobles of the Shimadzu family of Satsuma. I
also met Prince Adzuma, nephew of the mikado, and many of the
prominent men, ex-daimis, Tokugawa retainers, soldiers in the war
of 1868, and representatives of every department of service under the
old shgunate and new National Government. Six white marble shafts
in the cemetery at New Brunswick, New Jersey, mark the restingplace of Kusukab Tar, of Fukui, and his fellow-countrymen, whose
devotion to study cost them their lives. I was invited by the Prince
of Echizen, while Regent of the University, through the American
superintendent, Rev. G. F. Verbeck, to go out to organize a scientic
school on the American principle in Fukui, Echizen, and give instruction in the physical sciences. I arrived in Japan, December 29th, 1870,
and remained until July 25th, 1874. During all my residence I enjoyed
the society of cultivated scholars, artists, priests, antiquaries, and
students, both in the provincial and national capitals. From the living
I bore letters of introduction to the prominent men in the Japanese
Government, and thus were given to me opportunities for research and
observation not often aorded to foreigners. My facilities for regular
and extended travel were limited only by my duties. Nothing Japanese
was foreign to me, from palace to beggars hut. I lived in Dai Nippon
during four of the most pregnant years of the nations history. Nearly
one year was spent alone in a daimis capital far in the interior, away
from Western inuence, when feudalism was in its full bloom, and
the old life in vogue. In the national capital, in the time well called
the owering of the nation, as one of the instructors in the Imperial
University, having picked students from all parts of the empire, I was
a witness of the marvelous development, reforms, dangers, pageants,

xiv

the mikados empire

and changes of the epochal years 1872, 1873, and 1874. With pride I may
say truly that I have felt the pulse and heart of New Japan.
I have studied economy in the matter of Japanese names and titles,
risking the charge of monotony for the sake of clearness. The scholar
will, I trust, pardon me for apparent anachronisms and omissions. For
lack of space or literary skill, I have had, in some cases, to condense
with a brevity painful to a lover of fairness and candor. The title justies the emphasis of one idea that pervades the book.
In the department of illustrations, I claim no originality, except in
their selection. Many are from photographs taken for me by natives
in Japan. Those of my artist-friend, zawa, were nearly all made
from life at my suggestion. I have borrowed many ne sketches from
native books, through Aim Humbert, whose marvelously beautiful
and painstaking work, Japon Illustr, is a mine of illustration. Few
artists have excelled in spirit and truth Mr. A. Wirgman, the artist
of The London Illustrated News, a painter of real genius, whose works
in oil now adorn many home parlors of ex-residents in Japan and
whose gems, ne gold, and dross ll the sprightly pages of The Japan
Punch. Many of his sketches adorn Sir Rutherford Alcocks book on
the vicissitudes of diplomatists, commonly called The Capital of the
Tycoon, or Three Years in Japan. I am indebted both to this gentleman
and to Mr. Laurence Oliphant, who wrote the charming volume,
Lord Elgins Mission to China and Japan, for many illustrations, chiey
from native sketches. Th rough the liberality of my publishers, I am
permitted to use these from their stores of plates. I believe I have in
no case reproduced old cuts without new or correct information that
will assist the general reader or those who wish to study the various
styles of the native artists, ve of which are herein presented. Hokusai,
the Dickens, and Kano, the Audubon of Japanese art, are well represented. The photographs of the living and of the renowned dead, from

Preface

xv

temples, statues, or old pictures, from the collections of daimis and

nobles, are chiey by Uchida, a native photographer of rare ability,
skill, and enthusiasm, who unfortunately died in 1875. Four vignettes
are copied from the steel-plate engravings on the greenbacks printed
in New York for the Ono National Banking Company of Tki, by
the Continental Banknote Company of New York.
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance derived from native scholars in Fukui and Tki, especially Messrs. Iwabuchi, Takakashi, and
Ideura, my readers and helpers. To the members of the Mei Roku Sha,
who have honored me with membership in their honorable body, I
return my best thanks. Th is club of authors and reformers includes
such men as Fukuzawa, Arinori Mori, Nakamura Masanawo, Kato
Hiroyuki, Nishi Shiu, the Mitsukuri brothers, Shiuhei and Rinsh,
Uchida Masawo, Hatakyama Yoshinari, and others, all names of
fame and honor, and earnest workers in the regeneration of their
country. To my former students now in New York, who have kindly
assisted me in proof-reading, and last and rst of all to Mr. Tosui
Imadat, my friend and constant companion during the last six years,
I return my thanks and obligations. I omit in this place the names of
high ocers in the Japanese Government, because the responsibility
for any opinion advanced in this work rests on no native of Japan.
That is all my own. To my sister, the companion, during two years,
of several of my journeys and visits in the homes of the island empire,
I owe many an idea and inspiration to research. To the publishers of
the North American Review, Appletons Journal, and The Independent
my thanks are due for permission to print part of certain chapters rst
published in these periodicals.
I trust the tone of the work will not seem dogmatic. I submit with
modesty what I have written on the Ains. I am inclined to believe that
India is their original home; that the basic stock of the Japanese people

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the mikados empire

is Ain; and that in this fact lies the root of the marvelous dierence in
the psychology of the Japanese and their neighbors, the Chinese.
Can a nation be born at once? With God all things are possible.
W. E. G.
New York, May 10th, 1876.
[The illustrations were almost omitted with regret in this edition.
The publisher.]

Preface to the Second Edition

new issue of this work having been called for in a little over four
months from the date of its publication, the author has endeavored to render the second edition more worthy than the rst. Th is
has been done by the addition of valuable matter in the appendix and
foot-notes, and the recasting of a few pages, on which original has
been substituted for compiled matter.
Critics have complained that in Book i, the line between the mythical, or legendary, and the historic period has not been clearly drawn.
A writer in The Japan Mail of November 25th, 1876, says:
After an introductory chapter on the physical features of the country, the author plunges into the dense mists of the historic and
the prehistoric ages, where he completely loses his way for about
a millennium and a half, until he at length strikes into the true
path, under the guidance of the Nihon Guai Shi.

Did the critic read Chapter iii? The author, before essaying the
task, knew only too well the diculties of the work before him. He
made no attempt to do the work of a Niebuhr for Japan. His object
was not to give an infallible record of absolute facts, nor has he pretended to do so. He merely sketched in outline a picture of what
xvii

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thirty-three millions of Japanese believe to be their ancient history.

He relied on the intelligence of his readers, and even on that of the
critics (who should not skip Chapter iii), to appreciate the value of the
narratives of the Kojiki and the Nihongithe oldest extant books in
the Japanese language, and on which all other accounts of the ancient
period are based. He was not even afraid that any school-boy who
had been graduated beyond his fairy tales would think the dragonborn Jimmu a character of equal historic reality with that of Csar
or Charlemagne.
On the other hand, the author believes that history begins before
writing, and that he who would brand the whole of Japanese tradition
before the sixth century a.d. as all but valueless must demonstrate,
and not merely a rm. The author preferred to introduce Jingu and
Yamato Dak to Occidental readers, and let them take their chances
before the light of research. Will this century see the scholar and
historian capable of reeling o the thread of pure history, clear and
without fracture, from the cocoon of Japanese myth, legend, and
language? The author, even with his profound reverence for AngloJapanese scholarship, hopes for, yet doubts it.
In one point the author has been misapprehended. He nowhere
attempts to explain whence came the dominant (Yamato) tribe or
tribes to Japan. He believes the Japanese people are a mixed race,
as stated on page 86; but where the original seats of that conquering
people may have been on whom the light of written, undoubted history dawns in the seventh century, he has not stated. That these were
in Mantchuria is probable, since their mythology is in some points
but a transguration of Mantchu life. The writer left the question
an open one. He is glad to add, without comment, the words of the
Mail critic, who is, if he mistakes not, one of the most accomplished
linguists in Japan, and the author of standard grammars of the written
and spoken language of Japan:

Preface to the Second Edition

xix

As regards the position of the Japanese language, it gives no dubious response. Japanese has all the structural and syntactical peculiarities common to the Alatyan or Ural-Altaic group; and the evidence of the physiognomical tests points unmistakably to the same
origin for the people. The short, round skull, the oblique eyes, the
prominent cheek-bones, the dark-brown hair, and the scant beard,
all proclaim the Mantchus and Coreans, as their nearest congeners.
In fact, it is no longer rash to assert is certain that the Japanese are
a Tungusic race, and their own traditions and the whole course of
their history are incompatible with any other conclusion than that
Corea is the route by which the immigrant tribes made their passage into Kiushiu from their ancestral Mantchurian seats.

The brevity of the chapter on the Ashikaga period, which has been
complained of, arose, not from any lack of materials, but because the
writer believed that this epoch deserved a special historian. Another
reason that explains many omissions, notably, that of any detailed
reference to Japanese art, is, that this volume is not an encyclopedia.
The author returns his hearty thanks to his Japanese friends, and
to the critics whose scrutiny has enabled him in any way to improve
the work.
W. E. G.
NEW YORK, January 10th, 1877

Dai Nippon (the Empire of Japan)

The Background

t is manifest that to understand a people and their national life,

the physical conditions under which they live must be known. To
enjoy the picture, we must study the background.
Dai Nippon, as the natives call their beautiful land, occupies a
signicant position on the globe. Lying in the Pacic Ocean, in the
temperate zone, it bends like a crescent o the continent of Asia. In
the extreme north, at the island of Saghalin, the distance from the
main-land of Asia is so slight that the straits may be crossed easily in
a canoe. From Kiushiu, with the island of Tsushima lying between,
the distance from Corea is but one days sail in a junk. For 4,000
miles eastward from the main island stretches the Pacic, shored in
by the continent of America. From Yezo to Kamtchatka, the Kuriles
stretch like the ruins of a causeway, prolonged by the Aleutian Islands,
to Alaska. The conguration of the land is that resulting from the
combined eects of volcanic action and the incessant motion of the
corroding waves. The area of the empire is nearly equal to that of our
Middle and New England States. Of the 150,000 square miles of
surface, two-thirds consist of mountain land. The island of Saghalin
(ceded to Russia in May, 1875) is one mountain chain; that of Yezo one

the mikados empire

mountain mass. On the main island,* a solid backbone of mountainous elevations runs continuously from Rikuoku to Shinano, whence
it branches o into subordinate chains that are prolonged irregularly
to Nagato and into Kiushiu and Shikoku. Speaking generally, the
heights of the mountains gradually increase from the extremities to
the centre. In Saghalin, they are low; in Yezo, they are higher: increasing gradually on the north of the main island, they culminate in the
centre in the lofty ranges of Shinano, and the peaks of Nantaizan,
Yatsugadak, Hakuzan (nine thousand feet high), and Fuji, whose
summit is over twelve thousand feet above the sea. Thence toward the
south they gradually decrease in height. There are few high mountains
along the sea-coast. The land slopes up gradually into hills, thence
into lesser peaks, and nally into lofty ranges.
As Fuji, with his tall satellites, sweeps up from the land, so Japan
itself rises up, peak-like, from the sea. From the shores the land
plunges abruptly down into deep water. Japan is but an emerged crest
of a submarine mountainperhaps the edge of hard rock left by the
submergence of the earth-crust which now oors the Sea of Japan and
the Gulf of Tartary. There seems little reason to doubt that Saghalin,
Yezo, Hondo, and Kiushiu were in geologic ages united together,
forming one island. Surrounded on all sides by swift and variable
currents, the islands everywhere on the sea-borders exhibit the eect
of their action. At most points the continual detritus is such as to seriously encroach on the land area, and the belief holds among certain
native sea-coast dwellers, strengthened by the traditional tales of past
* Dai Nippon, or Nihon, means Great Japan, and is the name of the entire
empire, not of the main island. The foreign writers on Japan have almost
unanimously blundered in calling the largest island Niphon. Hondo is the
name given to the main island in the Military Geography of Japan (Heiyo
Nippon Chiri Yoshi, Tki, 1872) published by the War Department, and
which is used in this work throughout.

The Background

ravages, that in process of time the entire country, devoured by successive gnawings of the ocean, will nally sink into its insatiable maw.
The geological formations of the countrythe natural foundations
are not as yet accurately determined. Enough, however, is known to give
us a fair outline of fact, which future research and a thorough survey
must ll up.* Of the soil, more is known.
Even in a natural state, without articial fertilization, most of the
tillable land produces good crops of grain or vegetables. On myriads
* Baron Richthofen, in a paper read before the Geological Society of Berlin,
June 4th, 1873, thus generalizes the geology of Japan: The west and east portion of the aggregate body of the Japanese islands is in every way the direct
continuation of the mountain system which occupies the south-eastern portion
of China, the axial chain of which extends from the frontier of Annam to the
island of Chusan, in the direction of W. 30 S.,E. 30 N. It is accompanied on
either side by a number of parallel chains. The prolongation of this group of
linear chains passes through the island of Kiushiu to the great bend of Japan
(Suruga and Shinano). Th rough Kiushiu and the southern part of the main
island, the structure of the hills and the rocks of which they are made up
(chiey Silurian and Devonian strata, accompanied by granite) and the lines
of strike are the same as those observed in South-eastern China. This system
is intersected at either end by another, which runs S.S.W., N.N.E. On the
west it commences in Kiushiu, and extends southward in the direction of the
Liu Kiu Islands, while on the east it constitutes the northern branch of the
main island, and, with a slight deviation in its course, continues through the
islands of Yezo and Saghalin. A third system, which properly does not belong
to Japan, is indicated by the S.W. and N.E. line of the Kuriles.
The above outline throws light on the distribution of volcanoes. The rst
system, where it occupies the breadth of the country for itself alone, is as free
from volcanoes, or any accumulation of volcanic rocks, as it is in South-eastern China. The second system is accompanied by volcanoes. But the greatest
accumulation of volcanic rocks, as well as of the extinct volcanoes, is found in
the places of interference, or those regions where the lines of the two systems
cross each other, and, besides, in that region where the third system branches
o from the second. To the same three regions the volcanoes which have been
active in historic times have been conned.
In the geological structure of Kiushiu, the longer axis is from N. to S., but
intersected by several solid bars made up of very ancient rocks, and following the

the mikados empire

of rice-elds, which have yielded richly for ages, the fertility is easily
maintained by irrigation and the ordinary application of manure, the
natives being procient in both these branches of practical husbandry.
The rivers on such narrow islands, where steep mountains and
sharply excavated valleys predominate, are of necessity mainly useless for navigation. Ordinarily they are little more than brooks that
ow lazily in narrow and shallow channels to the sea. After a storm,
in rainy weather, or in winter, they become swollen torrents, often
strike of W. 30S., E. 30N. They form high mountain barriers, the most central
of which, south of the provinces of Higo and Bungo, rises to over seven thousand feet, and is extremely wild and rugged. In Satsuma, the various families
of volcanic rocks have arrived at the surface in exactly the same order of succession as in the case of Hungary, Mexico, and many other volcanic regions,
viz., rst, propylite, or trachytic greenstone; second, andesite; third, trachyte
and rhyolite; fourth, the basaltic rocks. The third group was not visited by him.
Thomas Antisell, M.D., and Professor Benjamin J. Lyman, M.E., and Henry S.
Munroe, M.E., American geologists in Yezo, have also elucidated this interesting problem. From the rst I quote. The mountain systems of Yezo and farther
north are similar to those in the northern part of the main island. There are in
Yezo two distinct systems of mountains. One, coming down directly from the
north, is a continuation of the chain in Karafto (Saghalin), which, after passing
down south along the west shore of Yezo, is found in Rikuoku, Ugo, Uzen, and
farther south. The second enters Yezo from the Kuriles Islands and Kamtchatka,
running N. 2025E., and S. 2025W., and crossing in places the rst system. It
is from the existence and crossing of these chains that Yezo derives its triangular
form. The two systems possess very dierent mineral contents for their axes.
The rst has an essentially granitic and feldspathic axis, produced, perhaps, by
shrinkage, and is slow of decomposition of its minerals forming the soils. The
second has an axis, plutonic or volcanic, yielding basalts, traps, and diorites,
decomposing readily, producing deep and rich soils. Hence the dierent kinds
of vegetation on the two chains. Where the two chains cross, also, there is found
a form of country closed up in the north and east by hills, the valleys opening
to the south and west. Th is volcanic chain is secondary in the main island of
Japan; but in Yezo and in Kiushiu it attains great prominence.
Professor Benjamin S. Lyman, an American geologist, has also made valuable surveys and explorations in Yezo, the results of which are given in the
Reports of Horace Capron and his Foreign Assistants, Tki. 1875.

The Background

miles wide sweeping resistlessly over large tracts of land which they
keep perpetually desolatewildernesses of stones and gravel, where
fruitful elds ought to be. The area of land kept permanently waste in
Japan on this account is enormous. The traveler, who to-day crosses
a clear brook on a plank, may to-morrow be terried at a roaring
ood of muddy water in which neither man, beast, nor boat can live a
moment. There are, however, some large plains, and in those we must
look to nd the navigable rivers. In the mountains of Shinano and
Kdzuk are found the sources of most of the streams useful for navigation on the main island. On the plains of the Kuant (from Suruga
to Iwaki), shiu (Rikuchiu and Rikuzen), Mino, and Echigo, are a
few rivers on which one may travel in boats hundreds of miles. One
may go by water from Tki to Niigata by making a few portages, and
from zaka to the end of Lake Biwa by natural water. In the northern part of Hondo are several long rivers, notably the Kitagami and
Sakata. In Yezo is the Ishikari. In Shikoku are several ne streams,
which are large for the size of the islands. Kiushiu has but one or two
of any importance. Almost every one of these rivers abounds in sh,
aording, with the surrounding ocean, an inexhaustible and easily
attainable supply of food of the best quality. Before their history
began, the aboriginal islanders made this brain-nourishing food their
chief diet, and through the recorded centuries to the quick-witted
Japanese proper it has been the daily meat.
In the geologic ages volcanic action must have been extremely violent, as in historic time it has been almost continual. Hundreds, at least,
of mountains, now quiet, were once blazing furnaces. The ever-greenery
that decks them to-day reminds one of the ivy that mantles the ruins,
or the owers that overgrow the neglected cannon on the battle-eld.
Even within the memory of men now living have the most awful and
deadly exhibitions of volcanic desolation been witnessed. The annals
of Japan are replete with the records of these ame-and-lava-vomiting

the mikados empire

mountains, and the most harrowing tales of human life destroyed and
human industry overwhelmed are truthfully portrayed by the pencil
of the artist and the pen of the historian in the native literature. Even
now the Japanese count over twenty active and hundreds of dormant
volcanoes. As late as 1874, the volcano of Taromai, in Yezo, whose
crater had long since congealed, leaving only a few pung solfataras,
exploded, blowing its rocky cap far up into the air, and scattering a rain
of ashes as far as the sea-shore, many miles distant. Even the nearly
perfect cone of Shiribshi, in Yezo, is but one of many of natures colossal ruins. Asama yama, never quiet, pus o continual jets of steam,
and at this moment of writing is groaning and quaking, to the terror
of the people around it. Even the superb Fuji, that sits in lordly repose
and looks down over the lesser peaks in thirteen provinces, owes its
matchless form to volcanic action, being clothed by a garment of lava
on a throne of granite. Hakuzan, on the west coast, which uprears its
form above the clouds, nine thousand feet from the sea-level, and holds
a lakelet of purest water in its bosom, once in re and smoke belched
out rocks and ulcered its crater jaws with oods of white and black lava.
Not a few of these smoking furnaces by day are burning lamps by night
to the mariner. Besides the masses and elds of scoria one everywhere
meets, other evidences of the erce unrest of the past are noticed. Beds
of sulphur abound. Satsuma, Liu Kiu, and Yezo are noted for the large
amount they easily produce. From the sides of Hakuzan huge crystals
of sulphur are dug. Solfataras exist in active operation in many places.
Sulphur-springs may be found in almost every province. Hot-springs
abound, many of them highly impregnated with mineral salts, and
famous for their geyser-like rhythm of ebb and ow. In Shinano and
Echigo the people cook their food, and the farmer may work in his
elds by night, lighted by the inammable gas which issues from the
ground, and is led through bamboo tubes.

The Background

Connected with volcanic are the seismic phenomena. The records

of Japan from the earliest time make frequent mention of these devastating and terrifying visitations of subterranean disorder. Not only
have villages, towns, and cities been shaken down or ingulfed, but
in many neighborhoods tradition tells of mountains that have disappeared utter]y, or been leveled to earth. The local histories, so
numerous in Japan, relate many such instances, and numerous gullies
and depressions produced by the opening and partial closure of the
earth-lips are pointed out. One, in the province of Echizen, is over a
mile long, and resembles a great trench.
In addition to a good soil, Japan has been generously endowed by
the Creator with mineral riches. Most of the useful varieties of stone
are found throughout the empire. Granite and the harder rocks,
through various degrees of softness, down to the easily carved or
chipped sandstones and secondary formations useful for fortications,
buildings, tombs, walks, or walls, exist in almost every province.
Almost all the useful metals long known to man are found in this
island empire. Gold and silver in workable quantities are found in
many places. The island of Sado is a mass of gold-bearing quartz.
Copper is very abundant, and of the purest kind. Lead, tin, antimony,
and manganese abound. Of zinc and mercury there is but little. Iron
is chiey in the form of magnetic oxide. It occurs in the diluvium of
rivers and along the sea-coast, lying in beds, often of great thickness.
The rst quality of iron may be extracted from it. Iron-stone and
many other varieties of ore are also found. Petroleum issues from the
ground in Echigo, Suruga, Echizen, Yezo, and in Saghalin; the ocean
at some portions on the coast of the latter is said to be smeared with
a oating scum of oil for miles.
The botanical wealth of Japan is very great. A considerable number of
vegetable species have doubtless been introduced by human agency into

the mikados empire

Japan from the Asiatic continent, but the indigenous plants and those
imported by natural means are very numerous.
The timber of the main island, Kiushiu, and Shikoku is superb in
appearance and growth, of great variety, beauty, and adaptability to
the uses of man. Yezo is one vast boom and lumber yard. Thirty-six
varieties of useful timber-trees, including true oak, are found there.
The Kuriles also aord rich supplies, and are capable of becoming to
the empire proper what forest-clad Norway is to England. Yamato,
on the main-land, is also famous for its forests, ranging from tallest
evergreen trees of great size, neness of grain, and strength of bre, to
the soft and easily whittled pines; but the incessant demands for ring
and carpentry make devastating inroads on the growing timber. Split
wood for cooking, and charcoal for warmth, necessitate the system
of forestry long in vogue in some parts of the empire requiring a tree
to be planted for every one cut down; and nurseries of young forest
trees are regularly set out, though the custom is not universal. Most
of the trees and many of the plants are evergreen, thus keeping the
islands clothed in perpetual verdure, and reducing the visual dierence between winter and summer, in the southern half of Hondo, at
least, to a nearly tropical minimum.
The various varieties of bamboo, graceful in appearance, and by its
strength, symmetry, hollowness, and regularity of cleavage, adapted
to an almost endless variety of uses, are almost omnipresent, from the
scrub undergrowth in Yezo to that cultivated in luxuriant groves in
Satsuma so as to be almost colossal in proportion. There is, however,
as compared with our own country, a deciency of fruit-trees and
edible vegetables. The rst use of most of the bread grains and plants is
historic. In very ancient times it is nearly certain that the soil produced
very little that could be used for food, except roots, nuts, and berries.

The Background

This is shown both by tradition and history, and also by the fact that
the names of vegetables in Japan are mostly foreign.
The geographical position of the Japanese chain would lead us to
expect a ora American, Asiatic, and semi-tropical in its character. The
rapid variations of temperature, heavy and continuous rains, succeeded
by scorching heats and the glare of an almost tropical sun, are accompanied and tempered by strong and constant winds. Hence we nd
semi-tropical vegetable forms in close contact with Northern temperate
types. In general the predominant nature of the Japan ora is shrubby
rather than herbaceous.*
The geographical position of Japan hardly explains the marked resemblance of its ora to that of Atlantic America, on the one hand, and
that of the Himalaya region, on the other. Such, however, is the fact:

* In the Enumeratio Plantarum, which treats of all the known exogens and
conifers in Japan, 1,699 species are enumerated, distributed in 643 genera,
which are collocated in 122 orders. In other words, an imperfect botanical
survey of the Nippon chain of islands shows that in it are represented nearly
half the natural orders, ten percent of the genera, and nearly three percent of
the species of dicotyledons known to exist on the surface of the globe. Future
research must largely increase the number of species.
Very large and splendidly illustrated works on botany exist in the Japanese
language. The native botanists classify according to the Linnan system. In
their Enumeratio Plantarum (Paris, 1874), Drs. A. Franchet and L. Savatier
have given a rsum of all the known dicotyledonous plants in Japan. It is
a work of great research and conscientious accuracy. I have seen excellent
and voluminous native works, richly illustrated, on ichthyology, conchology, zology, entomology, reptilology, and mineralogy. Some of these works
are in ninety volumes each. Ten thousand dollars were spent by a wealthy
scholar in Mino in the publication of one of them. They would not satisfy
the requirements of the exact science of this decade, but they constitute an
invaluable thesaurus to the botanical investigator. I am indebted for most of
the information concerning the Japanese ora to a paper in the Japan Mail of

10

the mikados empire

the Japanese ora resembles that of Eastern North America more than
that of Western North America or Europe.
The fauna of the island is a very meagre one, and it is also quite
probable that the larger domestic animals have been imported. Of wild
beasts, the bear, deer, wolf, badger, fox, and monkey, and the smaller
ground animals, are most probably indigenous. So far as studied,
however, the types approach those of the remote American rather than
those of the near Asiatic continent.
It is most probable, and nearly certain, that prehistoric Japan did
not possess the cow, horse, sheep, or goat. Even in modern Japan, the
poverty of the fauna strikes the traveler with surprise. The birds are
mostly those of prey. Eagles and hawks are abundant. The crows, with
none to molest their ancient multitudinous reign, are now, as always
in the past, innumerable. The twittering of a noticeably small number of the smaller birds is occasionally heard; but bird-song seems to
have been omitted from the catalogue of natural glories of this island
September 25th, 1875, from the pen of a competent reviewer of Dr. Savatiers
great work.
The results of Dr. Asa Grays investigations of the herbarium brought to the
United States by the Perry expedition are summed up as follows:
48 percent had corresponding European representatives,
37 percent had corresponding Western North American representatives,
61 percent had corresponding Eastern North American representatives;
while
27 percent were identical with European species,
20 percent were identical with Western North American species,
23 percent were identical with Eastern North American species.
Dr. Grays report was drawn up in 1858, when Japanese botany was little
known, and considerable alteration might be made in his gures; but there
can be little doubt that the general result would be the same.

The Background

11

empire. Two birds, the stork and heron, now, as anciently, tread the
elds in stately beauty, or strike admiration in the beholder as they sail
in perfect grace in mid-air. The wild ducks and geese in ocks have,
from time immemorial, summered in Yezo and wintered in Hondo.
The domestic fowls consist almost entirely of ducks and chickens.
The others have, doubtless, been imported. Of sea-birds there are
legions on the uninhabited coasts, and from the rocks the shermen
gather harvests of eggs.
Surrounding their land is the great reservoir of food, the ocean.
The seas of Japan are probably unexcelled in the world for the multitude and variety of the choicest species of edible sh. The many
bays and gulfs indenting the islands have been for ages the happy
hunting-grounds of the sherman. The rivers are well stocked with
many varieties of fresh-water sh. In Yezo the nest salmon exist in
inexhaustible supply, while almost every species of edible shell-sh,
mollusca and crustacea, enlivens the shores of the islands, or fertilizes the soil with its catacombs. So abundant is sh that sh-manure
is an article of standard manufacture, sale, and use. The variety and
luxuriance of edible sea-weed are remarkable.
The aspects of nature in Japan, as in most volcanic countries, comprise a variety of savage hideousness, appalling destructiveness, and
almost heavenly beauty. From the mountains burst volcanic eruptions;
from the land come tremblings; from the ocean rises the tidal wave;
over it blows the cyclone. Floods of rain in summer and autumn give
rise to inundations and land-slides. During three months of the year
the inevitable, dreaded typhoon may be expected; as the invisible
agent of hideous ruin. Along the coast the winds and currents are
very variable. Sunken and emerging rocks line the shore. All these
make the dark side of nature to cloud the imagination of man, and
to create the nightmare of superstition. But Natures glory outshines
her temporary gloom, and in presence of her cheering smiles the past

12

the mikados empire

terrors are soon forgotten. The pomp of vegetation, the splendor of

the landscape, and the heavenly gentleness of air and climate come to
soothe and make vivacious the spirits of man. The seasons come and
go with well-nigh perfect regularity; the climate at times reaches the
perfection of that in a temperate zonenot too sultry in summer, nor
raw in winter. A majority of the inhabitants rarely see ice over an inch
thick, or snow more than twenty-four hours old. The average lowest
point in cold weather is probably 20 Fahrenheit.*
The surrounding ocean and the variable winds temper the climate
in summer; the Kuro Shiwo, the Gulf Stream of the Pacic, modies
the cold of winter. A sky such as ever arches over the Mediterranean
bends above Japan, the ocean walls her in, and ever green and fertile
land is hers. With healthful air, fertile soil, temperate climate, a land
of mountains and valleys, with a coast-line indented with bays and
harbors, food in plenty, a country resplendent with natural beauty,
but liable at any moment to awful desolation and hideous ruin, what
inuences had Nature in forming the physique and character of the
people who inhabit Japan?

* For statistics relating to nearly all the subjects treated of in this chapter, see
appendices at the end of this volume.

II

The Aborigines*

n seeking the origin of the Japanese people, we must take into consideration the geographical position of their island chain, with reference to its proximity to the main-land, and its situation in the ocean
currents. Japanese traditions and history may have much to tell us
concerning the present people of Japanwhether they are exclusively
an indigenous race, or the composite of several ethnic stocks. From a
study, however imperfect, of the language, physiognomy, and bodily
characteristics, survivals of ancient culture, historic geology, and the
relics of mans struggle with nature in the early ages, and of the actual
varieties of mankind now included within the mikados dominions,
we may learn much of the ancestors of the present Japanese.
* I use the term aborigines for the sake of convenience, being by no means
absolutely sure that those I so designate were the rst people in situ. It has
been conjectured and held by some native scholars that there was in Japan a
pre-Ain civilization; though of this there is scarcely a shadow of proof, as
there is proof for an ancient Malay civilization higher than the present condition of the Malays. By the term aborigines I mean the people found on the
soil at the dawn of history.
In compiling this chapter I have used, in addition to my own material
and that derived from Japanese books, students, and residents in Yezo, the
careful notes of the English travelers, Captains Bridgeford and Blakiston,
and Mr. Ernest Satow, and the reports and verbal accounts of the American

13

14

the mikados empire

The horns of the crescent-shaped chain of Dai Nippon approach

the Asiatic continent at the southern end of Corea and at Siberia.
Nearly the whole of Saghalin is within easy reach of the continent by
canoe. At the point called Norato, a little north of the fty-second
parallel, the opposite shore, but ve miles distant, is easily seen. The
water is here so shallow that junks can not cross it at low tide. After
long prevalent favorable winds, the ground is left dry, and the natives
can walk dry-shod into Asia. During three or four months in the year
it is frozen over, so that, with dog-teams or on foot, communication
is often a matter of a single hour. In Japanese atlases, on the map
of Karafto, a sand-bank covered by very shallow water is gured as
occupying the space between the island and the continent. A people
even without canoes might make this place a gate of entrance into
Saghalin. The people thus entering Japan from the north would have
the attraction of richer supplies of food and more genial climate to
tempt them southward. As matter of fact, communication is continually taking place between the Asiatic main-land and Saghalin.
Japan occupies a striking position in the ocean currents which ow
up from the Indian Ocean and the Malay peninsula. That branch of
the great equatorial current of the Pacic, called the Kuro Shiwo, or
Black Stream, on account of its color, ows up in a westerly direction
past Luzon, Formosa, and the Liu Kiu Islands, striking the south
point of Kiushiu, and sometimes, in summer, sending a branch up the
Sea of Japan. With great velocity it scours the east coast of Kiushiu,
the south of Shikoku; thence, with diminished rapidity, enveloping
both the group of islands south of the Bay of Yedo and shima; and,
at a point a little north of the latitude of Tki, it leaves the coast of
engineers and geologists in the service of the Kai Taku Shi (Department for
the Development of Yezo), organized in 1869 by the Imperial Government
of Japan. Of these latter, I am especially indebted to Professors B. S. Lyman,
Henry S. Munroe, and Thomas Antisell, M.D.

The Aborigines

15

Japan, and ows north-east toward the shores of America. With the
variable winds, cyclones, and sudden and violent storms continually
arising, for which the coasts of Eastern Asia are notorious, it is easily seen that the drifting northward from the Malay Archipelago of
boats and men, and sowing of the shores of Kiushiu, Shikoku, and
the western shores of Hondo with people from the south and west,
must have been a regular and continuous process. This is shown to be
the fact in Japanese history, in both ancient and modern times, and is
taking place nearly every year of the present century.
It seems most probable that the savages descended from the north,
tempted south by richer sheries and a warmer climate, or urged on
by successive immigrations from the continent. There is abundant
evidence from Japanese history of the habitation of the main island by
the Ains, the savages whose descendants now occupy Yezo. Shikoku
and Kiushiu were evidently peopled by mixed races, sprung of the
waifs from the various shores of Southern Asia. When the conquerors
landed in Kiushiu, or, in sacred Japanese phrase, when our divine
ancestors descended from heaven to the earth, they found the land
peopled by savages, under tribal organizations, living in villages, each
governed by a head-man. Conquering rst the aborigines of Kiushiu
and Shikoku, they advanced into the main island, fought and tranquilized the Ains, then called Ebisu, or barbarians, and xed their
capital not far from Kito. The Ains were not subjugated in a day,
however, and continual military operations were necessary to keep
them quiet. Only after centuries of ghting were they thoroughly
subdued and tranquilized. The traveler to-day in the northern part
of the main island may see the barrows of the Ainos bones slain by
Japanese armies more than a millennium ago. One of these mounds,
near Morioka, in Rikuchiu, very large, and named Yezo mori (Ain
mound), is especially famous, containing the bones of the aborigines
slaughtered, heaps upon heaps, by the Japanese shgun (general),

16

the mikados empire

Tamura, who was noted for being six feet high, and for his many
bloody victories over the Ebisu.
For centuries more, the distinction between conquerors and conquered, as between Saxon and Norman in England, was kept up; but
at length the fusion of races was complete, and the homogeneous
Japanese people is the result. The remnants of Ains in Yezo, shut o
by the straits of Tsugaru from Hondo, have preserved the aboriginal
blood in purity.
The traditional origin of the Ains, said to be given by themselves,
though I suspect the story to be an invention of the conquerors, or of
the Japanese, is as follows: A certain prince, named Kamui, in one
of the kingdoms in Asia, had three daughters. One of them having
become the object of the incestuous passion of her father, by which her
body became covered with hair, quit his palace in the middle of the
night, and ed to the sea-shore. There she found a deserted canoe, on
board which was only a large dog. The young girl resolutely embarked
with her only companion to journey to some place in the East. After
many months of travel, the young princess reached an uninhabited
place in the mountains, and there gave birth to two children, a boy
and a girl. These were the ancestors of the Ain race. Their ospring
in turn married, some among each other, others with the bears of the
mountains. The fruits of this latter union were men of extraordinary
valor, and nimble hunters, who, after a long life spent in the vicinity
of their birth, departed to the far north, where they still live on the
high and inaccessible table-lands above the mountains; and, being
immortal, they direct, by their magical inuences, the actions and
the destiny of men, that is, the Ains.
The term Ain is a comparatively modern epithet, applied by the
Japanese. Its derivation, as given by several eminent native scholars
whom I have consulted, is from inu, a dog. Others assert that it is

The Aborigines

17

an abbreviation of ai no ko, ospring of the middle; that is, a breed

between man and beast. Or, if the Japanese were believers in a theory
called of late years the Darwinian, an idea by no means unknown
in their speculations, the Ains would constitute the missing link,
or intermediate between man and the brutes. In the ancient Japanese
literature, and until probably the twelfth century, the Ains were
called Ebisu, or savages.
The proofs from language of the Ain ancestry of the Japanese are
very strong. So far as studied, the Ain tongue and the Altai dialects
are said to be very similar. The Ain and Japanese languages dier
no more than certain Chinese dialects do from each other. Ains and
Japanese have little diculty in learning to speak the language of each
other. The most ancient specimens of the Japanese tongue are found
to show as great a likeness to the Ain as to modern Japanese.
Further proofs of the general habitation of Hondo by the Ains
appear in the geographical names which linger upon the mountains
and rivers. These names, musical in sound, and possessing, in their
signicance, a rude grandeur, have embalmed the life of a past race,
as the sweet names of Juniata and Altamaha, or the sonorous onomatopes of Niagara, Katahdin, and Tuscarora echo the ancient
glories of the well-nigh extinct aborigines of America, who indeed
may be brethren of the Ains. These names abounding in the north,
especially in the provinces north of the thirty-eighth parallel, are rare
in the south, and in most cases have lost their exact ancient pronunciation by being for centuries spoken by Japanese tongues.
The evidences of an aboriginal race are still to be found in the
relics of the Stone Age in Japan. Flint, arrow and spear heads, hammers, chisels, scrapers, kitchen refuse, and various other trophies, are
frequently excavated, or may be found in the museum or in homes
of private persons. Though covered with the soil for centuries, they

18

the mikados empire

seem as though freshly brought from an Ain hut in Yezo. In scores of

striking instances, the very peculiar ideas, customs, and superstitions,
of both Japanese and Ain, are the same, or but slightly modied.
Amidst many variations, two distinctly marked types of features
are found among the Japanese people. Among the upper classes, the
ne, long, oval face, with prominent, well-chiseled features, deepsunken eye-sockets, oblique eyes, long, drooping eyelids, elevated and
arched eyebrows, high and narrow forehead, rounded nose, bud-like
mouth, pointed chin, small hands and feet, contrast strikingly with
the round, attened face, less oblique eyes almost level with the face,
and straight noses, expanded and upturned at the roots. The former
type prevails among the higher classeshe nobility and gentry; the
latter, among the agricultural and laboring classes. The one is the
Ain, or northern type; the other, the southern, or Yamato type. In
the accompanying cut this dierence is fairly shown in the strongly
contrasting types of the Japanese lady and her servant, or childs nurse.
The modern Ains are found inhabiting the islands of Yezo, Saghalin,
the Kuriles, and a few of the outlying islands. They number less than
twenty thousand in all.
As the Ain of to-day is and lives, so Japanese art and traditions
depict him in the dawn of history: of low stature, thick-set, fullbearded, bushy hair of a true black, eyes set at nearly right angles
with the nose, which is short and thick, and chipped at the end,
muscular in frame and limbs, with big hands and feet. His language,
religion, dress, and general manner of life are the same as of old. He
has no alphabet, no writing, no numbers above a thousand. His rice,
tobacco, and pipe, cotton garments, and worship of Yoshitsun, are of
course later innovationssteps in the scale of civilization. Since the
Restoration of 1868, a number of Ains of both sexes have been living
in Tki, under instruction of the Kai Taku Shi (Department for the

The Aborigines

19

Colonization of Yezo). I have had frequent opportunities of studying

their physical characteristics, language, and manners.
Their dwellings in Yezo are made of poles covered over with thick
straw mats, with thatched roofs, the windows and doors being holes
covered with the same material. The earth beaten down hard forms
the oor, on which a few coarse mattings or rough boards are laid.
Many of the huts are divided into two apartments, separated by a mud
and wattle partition. The re-place, with its pot-hooks, occupies the
centre. There being no chimney, the interior walls become thickly
varnished with creosote, densely packed with akes of carbon, or
festooned with masses of soot. They are adorned with the implements
of the chase, and the skulls of animals taken in hunting. Scarcely any
furniture except cooking-pots is visible. The empyreumatical odor
and the stench of sh do not conspire to make the visit to an Ain
hut very pleasant.
Raised benches along two walls of the hut aord a sleeping or
lounging place, doubtless the original of the tokonoma of the modern
Japanese houses. They sit, like the Japanese, on their heels. Their
food is mainly sh and sea-weed, with rice, beans, sweet-potatoes,
millet, and barley, which, in Southern Yezo, they cultivate in small
plots. They obtain rice, tobacco, sak, or rice-beer, an exhilarating
beverage which they crave as the Indians do re-water, and cotton
clothing from their masters, the Japanese. The women weave a coarse,
strong, and durable cloth, ornamented in various colors, and ropes
from the barks of trees. They make excellent dug-out canoes from
elm-trees. Their dress consists of an under, and an upper garment
having tight sleeves and reaching to the knees, very much like that
of the Japanese. The womans dress is longer, and the sleeves wider.
They wear, also, straw leggings and straw shoes. Their hair, which is
astonishingly thick, is clipped short in front, and falls in masses down

20

the mikados empire

the back and sides to the shoulders. It is of a true black, whereas the
hair of the Japanese, when freed from unguents, is of a dark or reddish brown, and I have seen distinctly red hair among the latter. The
beard and mustaches of the Ains are allowed to attain their fullest development, the former often reaching the length of twelve or
fourteen inches. Hence, Ains take kindly to the hairy foreigners,
Englishmen and Americans, whose bearded faces the normal Japanese
despise, while to a Japanese child, as I found out in Fukui, a man with
mustaches appears to be only a dragon without wings or tail. Some,
not all, of the older men, but very few of the younger, have their bodies and limbs covered with thick black hair, about an inch long. The
term hairy Kuriles, applied to them as a characteristic hairy race,
is a mythical expression of book-makers, as the excessively hirsute
covering supposed to be universal among the Ains is not to be found
by the investigator on the ground. Their skin is brown, their eyes are
horizontal, and their noses low, with the lobes well rounded out. The
women are of proportionate stature to the men, but, unlike them, are
very ugly. I never met with a handsome Ain female, though I have
seen many of the Yezo women. Their mouths seem like those of ogres,
and to stretch from ear to ear. This arises from the fact that they tattoo a wide band of dirty blue, like the woad of the ancient Britons,
around their lips, to the extent of three-quarters of an inch, and still
longer at the tapering extremities. The tattooing is so completely
done, that many persons mistake it for a daub of blue paint, like the
articial exaggeration of a circus clowns mouth. They increase their
hideousness by joining their eyebrows over the nose by a fresh band
of tattooing. This practice is resorted to in the case of married women
and females who are of age, just as that of blackening the teeth and
shaving the eyebrows is among the Japanese.
They are said to be faithful wives and laborious helpmates, their
moral qualities compensating for their lack of physical charms. The

The Aborigines

21

women assist in hunting and shing, often possessing equal skill with
the men. They carry their babies pickapack, as the Japanese mothers,
except that the strap passing under the child is put round the mothers
forehead. Polygamy is permitted.
Their weapons are of the rudest form. The three-pronged spear is
used for the salmon. The single-bladed lance is for the bear, their most
terrible enemy, which they regard with superstitious reverence. Their
bows are simply peeled boughs, three feet long. The arrows are one
foot shorter, and, like those used by the tribes on the coast of Siberia
and in Formosa, have no feather on the shaft. Their pipes are of the
same form as those so common in Japan and China; and one obtained
from an Ain came from Santan, a place in Amurland.
The Ains possess dogs, which they use in hunting, understand the
use of charcoal and candles, make excellent baskets and wicker-work
of many kinds; and some of their ne bark-cloth and ornamented
weapons for their chiefs show a skill and taste that compare very
favorably with those exhibited by the North American Indians. Their
oars, having handles xed crosswise, or sculls made in two pieces, are
almost exactly like those of the Japanese. Their river-canoes are dug
out of a log, usually elm. Two men will fashion one in ve days. For
the sea-coast, they use a frame of wood, lacing on the sides with bark
bre. They are skillful canoe-men, using either pole or paddle.
The language of the Ain is rude and poor, but much like the
Japanese. It resembles it so closely, allowing for the fact that it is
utterly unpolished and undeveloped, that it seems highly probable it
is the original of the present Japanese tongue. They have no written
character, no writing of any sort, no literature. A further study may
possibly reveal valuable traditions held among them, which at present
they are not known by me to have.
In character and morals, the Ains are stupid, good-natured, brave,
honest, faithful, peaceful, and gentle. The American and English travelers

22

the mikados empire

in Yezo agree in ascribing to them these qualities. Their method of

salutation is to raise the hands, with the palms upward, and stroke
the beard. They understand the rudiments of politeness, as several of
their verbal expressions and gestures indicate.
Their religion consists in the worship of kami, or spirits. They do
not appear to have any special minister of religion or sacred structure.*
They have festivals commemorative of certain events in the past, and
they worship the spirit of Yoshitsun, a Japanese hero, who is supposed
to have lived among them in the twelfth century, and who taught them
some of the arts of Japanese civilization.
The outward symbols of their religion are sticks of wood two or
three feet long, which they whittle all around toward the end into
shavings, until the smooth wand contains a mass of pendent curls.
* Some visitors to the Ain villages in Yezo declare that they have noticed
there the presence of the phallic shrines and symbols. It might be interesting
if this assertion, and the worship of these symbols by the Ains, were clearly
proved. It would help to settle denitely the question of the origin in Japan of
this oldest form of fetich worship, the evidences of which are found all over the
Nippon island-chain, including Yezo. I have noticed the prevalence of these
shrines and symbols especially in Eastern and Northern Japan, having counted
as many as a dozen, and these by the roadside, in a trip to Nikk. The barren
of both sexes worship them, or oer them ex voto. In Sagami, Kadzusa, and
even in Tki itself, they were visible as late as 1874, cut in stone and wood.
Formerly the toy-shops, porcelain-shops, and itinerant venders of many wares
were well supplied with them, made of various materials; they were to be seen
in the cornucopia-banners at New-years, paraded in the festivals, and at unexpected times and places disturbed the foreign spectator. It was like a glimpse of
life in the antediluvian world, or of ancient India, whence doubtless they came,
to see evidences of this once widely prevalent form of early religion. Buddhist
priests whom I have consulted a rm, with some warmth, that they arose in
the wicked time of Ashikaga, though the majority of natives, learned and
unlearned, say they are the relics of the ancient people, or aborigines. In 1872
the mikados Government prohibited the sale or exposure of these emblems in
any form or shape, together with the more artistic obscenities, pictures, books,
carvings, and photographs, sent out from the studios of Paris and London.

The Aborigines

23

They insert several of these in the ground at certain places, which they
hold sacred. The Ains also deify mountains, the sea, which furnishes
their daily food, bears, the forests, and other natural objects, which
they believe to possess intelligence. These wands with the curled
shavings are set up in every place of supposed danger or evil omen.
The traveler in Yezo sees them on precipices, gorges of mountains,
dangerous passes, and river banks.
When descending the rapids of a river in Yezo, he will notice that
his Ain boatmen from time to time will throw one of these wands
into the river at every dangerous point or turning. The Ains pray
raising their hands above their heads. The Buddhist bonzes have in
vain attempted to convert them to Buddhism. They have rude songs,
which they chant to their kami, or gods, and to the deied sea, forest, mountains, and bears, especially at the close of the hunting and
shing season, in all aairs of great importance, and at the end of the
year. The following is given as a specimen:
To the sea which nourishes us, to the forest that protects us, we
present our grateful thanks. You are two mothers that nourish the
same child; do not be angry if we leave one to go to the other.
The Ains will always be the pride of the forest and the sea.

The inquirer into the origin of the Japanese must regret that as
yet we know comparatively little of the Ains and their language.
Any opinion hazarded on the subject may be pronounced rash. Yet,
after a study of all the obtainable facts, I believe they unmistakably
point to the Ains as the primal ancestors of the Japanese; that the
mass of the Japanese people of to-day are substantially of Ain stock.
An infusion of foreign blood, the long eects of the daily hot baths
and the warm climate of Southern Japan, of Chinese civilization, of

24

the mikados empire

agricultural instead of the hunters method of life, have wrought the

change between the Ain and the Japanese.
It seems equally certain that almost all that the Japanese possess
which is not of Chinese, Corean, or Tartar origin has descended from
the Ain, or has been developed or improved from an Ain model.
The Ains of Yezo hold politically the same relation to the Japanese
as the North American Indians do to the white people of the United
States; but ethnically they are, with probability bordering very closely
on certainty, as the Saxons to the English.*

* I need scarcely, except to relieve, by borrowed humor, the dull weighing of

facts, and the construction of an opinion void of all dogmatism, notice the
assertion elaborated at length by some Americans, Scotchmen, and others too,
for aught I know, that the Ains are the ten lost tribes of Israel, or that they
are the descendants of the sailors and gold-hunters sent out by King Solomon
to gain spoil for his temple at Jerusalem. Really, this search after the lost
tribesor have they consolidated into the Wandering Jew?is becoming
absurd. They are the most discovered people known. They have been found
in America, Britain, Persia, India, China, Japan, and in Yezo. I know of but
one haystack left to nd this needle in, and that is Corea. It will undoubtedly
be found there. It has been kindly provided that there are more worlds for
these Alexanders to conquer. It is now quite necessary for the archaeological
respectability of a people that be the lost tribes. To the inventory of wonders
in Japan some would add that of her containing the dispersed among the
Gentiles, notwithstanding that the same claim has been made for a dozen
other nations.
The Ain Arrow-poison.Dr. Stuart Eldredge, who has studied the properties
of the Ain arrow-poison, states that it is made by macerating and pounding
the roots of one or more of the virulent species of aconite, mixing the mass
into a paste, with (perhaps) inert ingredients, and burying it in the ground for
some time. The sti, dark, reddish-brown paste is then mixed with animal fat,
and about ten grains weight of the paste is applied to the bamboo arrow-tips
which are used to set the bear-traps. The wounded animals are found dead
near the trap, and their esh is eaten with impunity, though the hunter cuts
o the parts immediately near the wound. The Ains know of no antidote for
the poison. (See Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1876.)

III

Materials of History

efore attempting a brief sketch of Japanese history, it may be interesting to the reader to know something of the sources of such
history, and the character and amount of the materials. A dynasty of
rulers who ostentatiously boast of twenty-ve centuries of unbroken
succession should have solid foundation of fact for their boast. The
august representatives of the mikado Mutsuhito,* the one hundred
and twenty-third of the imperial line of Dai Nippon, who, in the
presence of the President and Congress of the United States, and of
the sovereigns of Europe, claimed the immemorial antiquity of the
Japanese imperial rule, should have credentials to satisfy the foreigner
and silence the skeptic.
In this enlightened age, when all authority is challenged, and a
century after the moss of oblivion has covered the historic grave of
* Mutsuhito (meek man), the present emperor, is the second son of the
mikado Komei (18471867), whom he succeeded, and the Empress Fujiwara
Asako. He was born November 3d, 1850. He succeeded his father February
3d, 1867; was crowned on the 28th day of the Eighth month, 1868; and was
married on the 28th of the Twelfth month, 1868, to Haruko, daughter of
Ichij Tadaka, a noble of the second degree of the rst rank. She was born
on the 17th of the Fourth month, 1850. The dowager-empress Asako, mother
of the emperor, is of the house of Kuj, and was born on the 14th day of the
Twelfth month, 1833.

25

26

the mikados empire

the doctrine of divine right, the Japanese still cling to the divinity of
the mikado, not only making it the dogma of religion and the engine
of government, but accrediting their envoys as representatives of, and
asking of foreign diplomatists that they address his imperial Japanese
majesty as the King of Heaven (Tenn). A nation that has passed
through the successive stages of aboriginal migration, tribal government, conquest by invaders, pure monarchy, feudalism, anarchy, and
modern consolidated empire, should have secreted the material for
much interesting history. In the many lulls of peace, scholars would
arise, and opportunities would oer, to record the history which previous generations had made. The foreign historian who will bring the
necessary qualications to the task of composing a complete history of
Japan, i.e., knowledge of the languages and literature of Japan, China,
Corea, and the dialects of the Malay Archipelago, Siberia, and the
other islands of the North Pacic, historical insight, sympathy, and
judicial acumen, has before him a virgin eld.
The body of native Japanese historical writings is rich and solid. It is
the largest and most important division of their voluminous literature.
It treats very fully the period between the rise of the noble families from
about the ninth century until the present time. The real history of the
period prior to the eighth century of the Christian era is very meagre.
It is nearly certain that the Japanese possessed no writing until the sixth
century a.d. Their oldest extant composition is the Kojiki, or Book
of Ancient Traditions. It may be called the Bible of the Japanese.
It comprises three volumes, composed a.d. 711, 712. It is said to have
been preceded by two similar works, written respectively in a.d. 620
and a.d. 681; but neither of these has been preserved. The rst volume
treats of the creation of the heavens and earth; the gods and goddesses,
called kami; and the events of the holy age, or mythological period. The

Materials of History

27

second and third give the history of the mikados* from the year 1 (660
b.c.) to the 1288th of the Japanese era. It was rst printed during a.d.
16241642. The Nihongi, completed a.d. 720, also contains the Japanese
cosmogony, records of the mythological period, and brings down the
annals of the mikado to a.d. 699.
These are the oldest books in the language. Numerous and very
valuable commentaries upon them have been written. They contain so
much that is fabulous, mythical, or exaggerated, that their statements,
especially in respect of dates, can not be accepted as true history.
According to the Kojiki, Jimmu Tenn was the rst emperor; yet it is
extremely doubtful whether he was a historical personage. The best
foreign scholars and critics regard him as a mythical character. The
accounts of the rst mikados are very meagre. The accession to the
throne, marriage and death of the sovereign, with notices of occasional
rebellions put down, tours made, and worship celebrated, are recorded,
and interesting glimpses of the progress of civilization obtained.
* The term mikado is in general adhered to throughout this work. Other
titles found in the native literature, and now or formerly in common use, are,
Tenshi (Son of Heaven); Tenn, or Ten (Heaven-king); Kotei (Sovereign
Ruler of Nations); Kinri (The Forbidden Interior); Dairi (Imperial Palace);
Chotei (Hall of Audience); -, or Dai (Great King); Uji (The Great
Family); Gosho (Palace). In using these titles, the common people add sama, a
respectful term, after them. Several of them, as is evident, were used originally
to denote places. It was quite common for the people in later time to speak of
the mikado as Miako sama, or Uy sama (Superior Lord), in distinction from
the shgun, whom they designated as Yedo sama. The Chinese characters
employed to express the term mikado mean Honorable Gate, an idea akin to
the Turkish Sublime Porte. Satow, however, derives it from mi, great, august,
awful; and to (do in composition), place; the notion being that the mikado is
too far above ordinary mortals to be spoken of directly. Hence the Gate of the
Palace is used as a gure for him. So, also, Ren-ka (Base of the Chariot, or
Below the Palanquin); and Hei-ka (Foot of the Throne, or of the Steps leading
to the Das), are used to denote the imperial person. A term anciently used
was Nin (King of Men).

28

the mikados empire

A number of works, containing what is evidently good history,

illustrate the period between the eighth and eleventh centuries. A
still richer collection of both original works and modern compilations treat of the medival period from the eleventh to the sixteenth
centurythe age of intestine strife and feudal war. The light which
the stately prose of history casts upon the past is further heightened
by the many poems, popular romances, founded on historic fact, and
the classic compositions called monogatari, all of which help to make
the perspective of by-gone centuries melt out into living pictures.
That portion of the history which treats of the introduction, progress,
and expulsion of Christianity in Japan has most interest to ourselves.
Concerning it there is much deciency of material, and that not of a
kind to satisfy Occidental tastes. The profound peace which followed
the victories of Iyyasu, and which lasted from 16001868the scholastic era of Japangave the peaceful leisure necessary for the study
of ancient history, and the creation of a large library of historical
literature, of which the magnicent works called the Dai Nihon Shi
(History of Great Japan), and Nihon Guai Shi (Japanese Outer, or
Military History), are the best examples.
Under the Tokugawa shguns (16031868) liberty to explore, chronicle,
and analyze the past in history was given; but the seal of silence, the ban
of censorship, and the mandate forbidding all publication were put upon
the production of contemporary history. Hence, the peaceful period, 1600
to 1853, is less known than others in earlier times. Several good native
annalists have treated of the post-Perry period (18531872), and the events
leading to the Restoration.
In the department of unwritten history, such as unearthed relics,
coins, weapons, museums, memorial stones, tablets, temple records, etc.,
there is much valuable material. Scarcely a year passes but some rich
trover is announced to delight the numerous native archologists.

Materials of History

29

The Japanese are intensely proud of their history, and take great care
in making and preserving records. Memorial-stones, keeping green the
memory of some noted scholar, ruler, or benefactor, are among the most
striking sights on the highways, or in the towns, villages, or templeyards, betokening the desire to defy the ravages of oblivion and resist
the inevitable tooth of Time.
Almost every large city has its published history; towns and villages have their annals written and preserved by local antiquarians;
family records are faithfully copied from generation to generation;
diaries, notes of journeys or events, dates of the erections of buildings, the names of the ociating priests, and many of the subscribing worshipers, are religiously kept in most of the large Buddhist
temples and monasteries. The bonzes (Jap. bzu) delight to write of
the lives of their saintly predecessors and the mundane aairs of their
patrons. Almost every province has its encyclopedic history, and every
high-road its itineraries and guide-books, in which famous places
and events are noted. Almost every neighborhood boasts its Old
Mortality, or local antiquary, whose delight and occupation are to
know the past. In the large cities professional story-tellers and readers
gain a lucrative livelihood by narrating both the classic history and
the legendary lore. The theatre, which in Japan draws its subjects for
representation almost exclusively from the actual life, past or present, of the Japanese people, is often the most faithful mirror of actual
history. Few people seem to be more thoroughly informed as to their
own history: parents delight to instruct their children in their national
lore; and there are hundreds of childs histories of Japan.
Besides the sober volumes of history, the number of books purporting to contain truth, but which are worthless for purposes of historical
investigation, is legion. In addition to the motives, equally operative in
other countries for the corruption or distortion of historical narrative,

30

the mikados empire

was the perpetual desire of the Buddhist monks, who were in many
cases the writers, to glorify their patrons and helpers, and to damn
their enemies. Hence their works are of little value. So plentiful are
these garbled productions that the buyer of books always asked for
jitsu-roku, or true records, in order to avoid the zu-zan, or editions
of Zu, so called from Zu, a noted Chinese forger of history.
In the chapters on the history of Japan, I shall occasionally quote
from the text of some of the standard histories in literal translation.
I shall feel only too happy if I can imitate the terse, vigorous, and
luminous style of the Japanese annalists. The vividness and pictorial
detail of the classic historians fascinate the reader who can analyze
the closely massed syntax. Many of the pages of the Nihon Guai Shi,
especially, are models of compression and elegance, and glow with the
chastened eloquence that springs from clear discernment and conviction of truth, gained after patient sifting of facts, and groping through
diculties that lead to discovery. Many of its sentences are epigrams.
To the student of Japanese it is a narrative of intensest interest.
The Kojiki and Nihongi, which give the only records of very ancient
Japan, and on which all other works treating of this period are based,
can not be accepted as sober history. Hence, in outlining the events
prior to the second century of the Christian era, I head the chapters,
not as the Dawn of History, but the Twilight of Fable. From these
books, and the collections of ancient myths (Koshi Seibun), as well as
the critical commentaries and explanations of the Japanese rationalists, which, by the assistance of native scholars, I have been able to
consult, the two following chapters have been compiled.*
* In the following chapters, I use throughout the modern names of places and
provinces, to avoid confusion. The ancient name of Kiushiu was Tsukushi,
which was also applied to the then united provinces of Chikuzen and Chikugo.
Buzen and Bungo were anciently one province, called Toyo. Higo and Hizen
are modern divisions of Hi no kuni (The Land of Fire). Tamba, corrupted

Materials of History

31

from Taniwa, and Tango (Back of Taniwa) were formerly one. Kadzusa and
Shimsa, contracted from Kami-tsu-fusa and Shimo-tsu-fusa (kami, upper;
shimo, lower; tsu, ancient form of no; fusa, a proper name, tassel), were once
united. Kdzuke and Shimotsuk, formed like the preceding, were Upper
and Lower K. All the region north of Echizen, known and unknown,
including Echizen, Etchiu, Echigo, Kaga, Noto, Uzen, and Ugo, was included
under the name Koshi no kuni. Later synonyms for Kiushiu are Saikoku
(Western Provinces), or Chinzei in books. Chiugoku (Central Provinces) is
applied to the region from Tamba to Nagato. Kamigata is a vague term for
the country around and toward Kito.
The Language.The apparatus for the study of the Japanese language and
the critical examination of its texts is now, thanks to Anglo-Japanese scholars,
both excellent and easily accessible. The following are such: GrammarsW.
G. Astons Grammar of the Spoken Language (Nagasaki, 1869), and Grammar of
the Written Language of Japan, with a short Chrestomathy; London, 1872: second
edition, 1877. E. Satows Kuaiwa Hen, 25 Exercises in the Yedo Colloquial, for the
Use of Students, with Notes, 4 vols; Yokohama, 1873. J. J. Ho man, A Japanese
Grammar; Leiden, 1868: second edition, 1876. S. R. Brown, Colloquial Japanese;
Shanghai, 1863. Prendergasts Mastery System, adapted to the Study of Japanese or
English; Yokohama, 1875. DictionariesJ. C. Hepburn, Japanese-English and
English-Japanese; Shanghai, 1867: second edition, with grammatical introduction; Shanghai, 1872: pocket edition, New York, 1873. Satow and Ishibashi,
English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language; London, 1876. See also
valuable papers by Messrs. Satow, Aston, Dallas, Edkins, and Chamberlain,
in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.

IV

Japanese Mythology

n the beginning all things were in chaos. Heaven and earth were
not separated. The world oated in the cosmic mass, like a sh in
water, or the yolk in an egg. The ethereal matter sublimed and formed
the heavens, the residuum became the present earth, from the warm
mold of which a germ sprouted and became a self-animate being,
called Kuni-toko-tachi no mikoto.* Two other beings of like genesis
appeared. After them came four pairs of beings (kami). These were
all single (hitori-gami, male, sexless, or self-begotten).
* It will be seen at once that the Japanese scheme of creation starts without
a Creator, or any First Cause; and that the idea of space apart from matter is
foreign to the Japanese philosophical system. Mikoto (masc.), mikami (fem.),
mean augustness. It is not the same term as mikado. No is the particle of.
The opening sentence of the Kojiki is as follows: At the time of the beginning of heaven and earth there existed three hashira-gami (pillar or chief
kami, or gods). The name of one kami was Am-no-naka-nushi-no-kami (Lord
of the Middle of Heaven); next, Taka-mi-musubi-no-kami (High Ineable
Procreator); next, Kami-musubi-no-kami (Ineable Procreator). These three,
existing single, hid their bodies (died, or passed away, or became pure spirit
[?]). Next, when the young land oated like oil moving about, there came into
existence, sprouting upward like the ashi (rush) shoot, a kami named Umajiashikabi-kikoji-no-kami (Delightful Rush-sprout); next, Am-no-toko-tachino-kami. These two chief kami, existing single, hid their bodies. Next, came
into existence these three, Kuni-no-toko-tachi-no-mikoto, etc., etc.

33

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the mikados empire

Proceeding now to the work of creation, the kami separated the

primordial substance into the ve elementswood, re, metal, earth,
and waterand ordained to each its properties and combination.
As yet, the division into sexes had not taken place. In [Chinese]
philosophical language, the male (yo) and female (in) principles that
pervade all things had not yet appeared. The rst manifestation of the
male essence was Izanagi; of the female, Izanami. Standing together
on the oating bridge of heaven, the male plunged his jeweled falchion, or spear, into the unstable waters beneath them, and withdrawing it, the trickling drops formed an island, upon which they
descended. The creative pair, or divine man and woman, designing
to make this island a pillar for a continent, separatedthe male to
the left, the female to the right to make a journey round the island.
At their meeting, the female spirit spoke rst, How joyful to meet a
lovely man! The male spirit, oended that the rst use of the tongue
had been by a woman, required the circuit to be repeated. On their
second meeting, the man cried out, How joyful to meet a lovely
woman! They were the rst couple; and this was the beginning of
the art of love, and of the human race. The island (Awaji), with seven
The Nihongi opens as follows: Of old, when heaven and earth were not yet
separated, and the in (male, active, or positive principle) and the yo (female,
passive, or negative principle) were not yet separated, chaos, enveloping all
things, like a fowls egg, contained within it a germ. The clear and ethereal
substance expanding, became heaven; the heavy and thick substance agglutinating, became earth. The ethereal union of matter was easy, but the thickened
substance hardened with diculty. Therefore, heaven existed rst; the earth
was xed afterward. Subsequently deity (kami) was born (umaru). Now, it is
said that, in the beginning of heaven and earth, the soil oated about like a
sh oating on the top of the water, etc.
Evidently in the Kojiki we have the purely Japanese theory of creation, and
in the Nihongi the same account, with Chinese philosophical ideas and terms
added. In both, matter appears before mind, and the deities have no existence
before matter.

Japanese Mythology

35

other large, and many thousand small ones, became the Everlasting
Great Japan.* At Izanamis rst conception, the female essence in
being more powerful, a female child was born, greatly to the chagrin
of the father, who wished for male ospring. The child was named
Ama-terasu mikami, or, the Heaven-illuminating Goddess. She
shone beautifully, and lighted the heavens and the earth. Her father,
therefore, transferred her from earth to heaven, and gave her the
ethereal realm to rule over. At this time the earth was close to heaven,
* The various names of Japan which I have found in the native literature, or
have heard in colloquial use, are as follows: 1. Nihon, or Nippon, compounded
of the words ni, nichi, or nitsu (sun, day) and hon (root, origin, beginning);
hence Sunrise, Dawn, or Dayspring. Japan is the foreigners corruption of the
Chinese Ji-pun, or Ji-puan. The name may have been given by the Chinese
or Coreans to the land lying east of them, whence the sun rose, or by the
conquerors coming from Manchuria, by way of Corea eastward. Or, it may
have arisen anciently among the natives of the western provinces of Japan. It
is found in Chinese books from the time of the Tang dynasty (618905 A.D.).
2. Dai Nihon Koku (Country of Great Japan). 3. Yashima no Kuni (Country
of the Eight Great Islands), created by Izanagi and Izanami. 4. Onogorojima
(Island of the Congealed Drops), which fell from the jeweled falchion or spear
of Izanagi. 5. Shiki Shima (Outspread Islands), a name common in poetry, and
referring to their being spread out like stepping-stones in a Japanese garden.
6. Toyohara Akitsu Kuni (Country between Heaven and Earth). 7. Toyoakitsu
Kuni (Dragon-y-shaped Country), from the resemblance to this insect with
its wings outspread. 8. Toyo Ashiwara Kuni (Fertile Plain of Sweet Flags). 9.
Yamato no Kuni (Land of Great Peace). The same characters are read Wa
Koku by the Chinese, and sometimes by the Japanese. 10. Fuso Koku. Fuso is
the name of a tree which is fabled to petrify; hence, an emblem of national
stability. 11. On Koku (Honorable Country). 12. Shin Koku (Land of the Holy
Spirits). 13. Kami no Kuni (The God-land, or Land of the Gods). 14. Horai
no Kuni (Land of the Elixir of Immortality), an allusion to the legend that
a Chinese courtier came to Japan in search of the elixir of immortality. He
brought a troop of young men and maidens with him. Dying in Japan, he was
buried in Kii, and the young couples, marrying, colonized Japan. 15. Ko Koku
(The Mikados Empire), Land ruled by a Theocratic Dynasty. 16. Tei Koku
Nihon (The Empire ruled by a Theocratic Dynasty, or, Japan, the Empire
governed by Divine Rulers).

36

the mikados empire

and the goddess easily mounted the pillar, on which heaven rested,
to her kingdom.
The second child was also a female, and was called Tsuki no kami,
and became the Goddess of the Moon. The third child, Hiruko
(leech), was a male, but not well formed. When three years old, being
still unable to stand, his parents made an ark of camphor-wood, and
set him adrift at sea. He became the rst sherman, and was the God
of the Sea and of Storms.
After two girls and a cripple had thus been born, the father was
delighted with the next fruit of his spouse, a ne boy, whom they
named Sosano no mikoto. Of him they entertained the highest
hopes. He grew up, however, to be a most mischievous fellow, killing
people, pulling up their trees, and trampling down their elds. He
grew worse as he grew up. He was made ruler over the blue sea; but
he never kept his kingdom in order. He let his beard grow down over
his bosom. He cried constantly; and the land became a desert, the
rivers and seas dried up, and human beings died in great numbers.
His father, inquiring the reason of his surly behavior, was told that he
wished to go to his mother, who was in the region under the earth. He
then made his son ruler over the kingdom of night. The august scapegrace still continued his pranks, unable to refrain from mischief. One
day, after his sister, the Sun-goddess, had planted a eld with rice, he
turned a wild horse loose, which trampled down and spoiled all her
work. Again, having built a store-house for the new rice, he de led it
so that it could not be used. At another time, his sister was sitting at
her loom, weaving. Sosano, having skinned a live horse by drawing
its skin o from the tail to the head, ung the reeking hide over the
loom, and the carcass in the room. The goddess was so frightened
that she hurt herself with the shuttle, and, in her wrath, retired to a
cave, closing the mouth with a large rock. Heaven, earth, and the four
quarters became enshrouded in darkness, and the distinction between

Japanese Mythology

37

day and night ceased. Some of the turbulent and ill-mannered gods
took advantage of the darkness to make a noise like the buzzing of
ies, and the confusion was dreadful.
Then all the gods (eight hundred thousand in number) assembled
on the heavenly river-plain of Yasu, to discuss what was to be done
to appease the anger of the great goddess. The wisest of the gods was
intrusted with the charge of thinking out a stratagem to entice her
forth. The main part of the plan was to make an image of the selfimprisoned goddess, which was to be more beautiful than herself,
and thus excite at once her curiosity and her jealousy. It was to be a
round mirror like the sun.
A large rock from near the source of the river was taken to form an
anvil. To make the bellows, they took the whole skin of a deer, and,
with iron from the mines of heaven, the blacksmith-god made two
mirrors, which successively failed to please the gods, being too small.
The third was large and beautiful, like the sun.
The heavenly artisans now prepared to make the nest clothes
and jewelry, and a splendid palace for the Sun-goddess, when she
should come out. Two gods planted the paper-mulberry and hemp,
and prepared bark and bre; while three other gods wove them into
coarse, striped, and ne cloth, to deck her dainty limbs. Two gods,
the rst carpenters, dug holes in the ground with a spade, erected
posts, and built a palace. Another deity, the rst jeweler, made a string
of magatama (curved jewels), the material for a necklace, hair-pins,
and bracelets. Two other gods held in their hands the sacred wands,
called tama-gushi.
Two gods were then appointed to nd out, by divination, whether
the goddess was likely to appear. They caught a buck, tore out a bone
from one of its forelegs, and set it free again. The bone was placed in
a re of cherry-bark, and the crack produced by the heat in the blade
of the bone was considered a satisfactory omen.

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the mikados empire

A sakaki-tree was then pulled up by the roots. To the upper

branches was hung the necklace of jewels, to the middle was attached
the mirror, and from the lower branches depended the coarse and ne
cloth. This was called a gohei. A large number of perpetually crowing
cocks was obtained from (what had been) the region of perpetual day.
These irrepressible chanticleers were set before the cave, and began
to crow lustily in concert. The God of Invincibly Strong Hands was
placed in concealment near the rocky door, ready to pull the goddess
out at her rst peering forth. A goddess with a countenance of heavenly glossiness, named Uzume, was appointed manager of the dance.
She rst bound up her owing sleeves close to her body, under the
armpits, by a creeping plant, called masaki, and donned a headdress
made of long moss. While she blew a bamboo tube, with holes pierced
in it between the joints, the other deities kept time to the music with
two at, hard pieces of wood, which they clapped together. Another
kami took six bows, and, from the long moss hanging from the pinetrees on the high hills, she strung the bows, and made the harp called
the koto. His son made music on this instrument by drawing across
the strings grass and rushes, which he held in both hands. Bonres
were now lighted before the door of the cavern, and the orchestra
of fes, drums, cymbals, and harp began. The goddess Uzum now
mounted the circular box, having a bton of twigs of bamboo grass
in one hand, with a spear of bamboo twined with grass, on which
small bells tinkled. As she danced, the drum-like box prepared for
her resounded, and she, becoming possessed by a spirit of folly, sung
a song in verses of six syllables each, which some interpret as the
numerals, l, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000. The goddess, as
she danced, loosened her dress, exposing her nude charms. All this
was caused by the spirit which possessed her. It so excited the mirth
of the gods that they laughed so loudly that heaven shook. The song
and its interpretations are:

Japanese Mythology

Hito, futa, miyo

Itsu, muyu, nana
Ya, koko-no, tari
Momo, chi, yorodzu

39

One, two, three, four,

Five, six, seven,
Eight, nine, ten,
Hundred, thousand, ten thousand.

Ye gods, behold the cavern doors!

Majesty appearshurra!
Our hearts are quite satised;
Behold my charms.
or,

Gods, behold the door!

Lo! the majesty of the goddess!
Shall we not be lled with rapture?
Are not my charms excellent?
The Sun-goddess within, unable to account for the ill-timed mirth,
since heaven and earth were in darkness, rose, and approaching the
rocky door, listened to the honeyed words of one of the gods, who
was praising her. Impelled further by curiosity, she opened the door
slightly, and asked why Uzum danced and the gods laughed? Uzum
replied, I dance because there is an honorable deity who surpasses
your glory. As she said this, the exceedingly beauteous god Futodama
showed the mirror. The Sun-goddess within, astonished at her own
loveliness, which she now rst beheld in the reection, stepped out
a little further to gratify her curiosity. The God of Invincibly Strong
Hands, who stood concealed, pulled the rock door open, caught her
by the hand, and dragged her forth. The wisest of the gods, who
superintended the whole proceedings, took a rope of twisted ricestraw, passed it behind her, and said, Do not go behind this. They

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the mikados empire

then removed the Sun-goddess to her new palace, and put a straw rope
around it to keep o evil gods. Her wicked brother was punished by
having each particular hair of his head pulled out, and his nger and
toe nails extracted. He was then banished.
Izanamis fth child, the last in whose conception the two gods
shared, was a son, called the God of Wild Fire. In bringing him
forth the goddess suered great pain; and from the matter which
she vomited in her agony sprung the God and Goddess of Metal.
She afterward created the gods of Clay and Fresh Water, who were
to pacify the God of Fire when inclined to be turbulent. Izanami
had enjoined her consort not to look at her during her retirement,
but he disregarded her wish. She ed from him, and departed to the
nether regions. Izanagi, incensed at the God of Fire, clove him in
three pieces with his sword. From these fragments sprung the gods
of Thunder, of Mountains, and of Rain. He then descended into the
region of night to induce Izanami to come back to the earth. There
he met his consort, who would not return. He found the region to be
one of perpetual and indescribable foulness, and, before he left, he
saw the body of his wife had become a mass of putrefaction. Escaping
into the upper world, he washed himself in the sea, and, in the act of
escape and purication, many gods were created. According to one
version, Amaterasu was produced out of his left eye, and Sosanoo
out of his nose. Those deities created out of the lth from which he
cleansed himself became the wicked gods, who now war against the
good gods and trouble mankind. The God of Clay and the Goddess
of Fresh Water married. Their ospring was Naka musubi. From his
head grew the mulberry and silk-worm, and from his navel sprung
the ve cereals, rice, wheat, beans, millet, and sorghum.
Another legend, changing the sex of Sosano, says the Sun-goddess
spoke to Sosano (the Moon-goddess), who reigned jointly with her
over the high plain of heaven, and said, I have heard that there is a

Japanese Mythology

41

food-possessing goddess in the central country of luxuriant reedy moors

(Japan). Go and see. Descending from heaven, he came to the august
abode of the Goddess of Food, and asked for refreshment. The goddess,
creating various forms of food, such as boiled rice from the land, sh
from the sea, beasts, with coarse and ne hair, from the hills, set them
on a banqueting-table before Sosano, who, enraged at the manner of
the creation of the food, killed her.
Reporting the matter in heaven, Amaterasu was angry at Sosano,
and degraded her (the Moon-goddess) from joint rule, and condemned her to appear only at night, while she, the Sun-goddess, slept.
Amaterasu then sent a messenger the second time to see whether the
Food-goddess was really dead. This was found to be the case. Out of
the dead body were growing, millet on the forehead; silk-worms and
a mulberry-tree on the eyebrows; grass on the eyes; on the belly, rice,
barley, and large and small beans. The head nally changed into a
cow and horse. The messenger took them all, and presented them to
Amaterasu. The Sun-goddess rejoiced, and ordained that these should
be the food of human beings, setting apart rice as the seed of the
watery elds, and the other cereals as the seed of the dry elds. She
appointed lords of the villages of heaven, and began for the rst time
to plant the rice-seeds. In the autumn the drooping ears ripened in
luxuriant abundance. She planted the mulberry-trees on the fragrant
hills of heaven, and rearing silk-worms, and chewing cocoons in her
mouth, spun thread. Thus began the arts of agriculture, silk-worm
rearing, and weaving.
When Sosano was in banishment, there was a huge eight-headed
dragon that had devastated the land and eaten up all the fair virgins.
Sosano enticed the monster to partake of an intoxicating liquor set
in eight jars, and then slew him while in stupor. In the tail of the
dragon he found a sword of marvelous temper, which he presented to
Amaterasu. This sword, called Cloud-cluster, afterward became one

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the mikados empire

of the three sacred emblems constituting the regalia of the Japanese

sovereigns. In these last days of commerce, Sosanos exploit is pictured on the national paper money. He is also said to have invented
poetry. Being as irregularly amorous as the Jupiter of another mythology, he was the father of many children by various mothers. One of
the most illustrious of his o spring was Daikoku, now worshiped
in every household as the God of Fortune. In the later stages of the
mythology, heaven and earth are found peopled with myriads of kami,
some of whom have inhabited heaven from the beginning, while
those on the earth have been ruling or contending together from an
indenite period. Finally, before ushering in the third or nal stage
of the mythical history, there are general war and confusion among
the gods on earth, and Amaterasu resolves to bring order out of the
troubles, and to subdue and develop the land for herself.
She desired to make a son of her own a ruler over the terrestrial
world. One had been produced from her necklace, called Oshi-homi no mikoto, who married Tamayori him no mikoto, one of the
granddaughters of Izanagi and Izanami. Their ospring was Ninigi
no mikoto. After much delay, caused by the dispatch and failure of
envoys to the gods of the earth, he prepared to descend from heaven
to his realm on earth. The Sun-goddess gave her grandson various
treasures, chief of which were the mirror, emblem of her own soul,
and now worshiped at Is, the sword Cloud-cluster, taken by Sosano
from the dragons tail, and a stone or seal. Concerning the mirror she
said. Look upon this mirror as my spirit; keep it in the same house
and on the same oor with yourself, and worship it as if you were
worshiping my actual presence.
Another version of this divine investiture is given in these words:
For centuries upon centuries shall thy followers rule this kingdom.
Herewith receive from me the succession and the three crown

Japanese Mythology

43

talismans. Should you at any future time desire to see me, look in
this mirror. Govern this country with the pure lustre that radiates
from its surface. Deal with thy subjects with the gentleness which
the smooth rounding of the stone typies. Combat the enemies of
thy kingdom with this sword, and slay them on the edge of it.

Accompanied by a number of inferior gods of both sexes, he

descended on the oating bridge of heaven, on which the rst pair had
stood when separating the dry land from the water, to the mountain of
Kirishima, between Hiuga and zumi, in Kiushiu. After his descent,
the sun and earth, which had already receded from each other to a
considerable distance, became further separated, and communication
by the oating bridge of heaven ceased. According to the commentators on the sacred books, as Japan lay directly opposite to the sun when
it separated from the earth, it is clear (to a devout Japanese) that Japan
lies on the summit of the globe. As it was created rst, it is especially
the Land of the Gods, the Holy Land, the Country of the Divine
Spirits. All other countries were formed later by the spontaneous consolidation of the foam and mud of the sea. All foreign countries were
of course created by the power of the heavenly gods, but they were not
begotten by Izanagi and Izanami, nor did they give birth to the Sungoddess, which is the cause of their inferiority. Japan is superior to all
the world for the reasons given above. The traditions current in other
countries as to the origin of the world are of course incorrect, since,
being so far from the sources of truth, they can not be accurate, and
must be greatly distorted. From the fact of the divine descent of the
Japanese people proceeds their immeasurable superiority to the natives
of other countries in courage and intelligence. This opinion, long held
by Japanese in general, still lingers among the fanatical Shint scholars, and helps to explain the intense hatred and contempt manifested
toward foreigners as late as within the last decade.

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the mikados empire

Ninigi no mikoto descended on Kirishima yama, and was received

with due honors by one of the kami of the place. He had a son, who
lived ve hundred and eighty years. This son married a sea-monster,
who appeared to him in the form of a woman, and by her he had a
son, who became ruler, and was succeeded by a son born of an aunt.
Ninigi, the heavenly descendant, was thus the great-grandfather of
Jimmu Tenn, the rst emperor of Japan.
It is not easy to weave into a continuous and consistent whole the
various versions of the Japanese accounts of creation and the acts of
the gods, or to be always safe in deciding their origin, sex, or relations
to each other; for these spirits act like Miltons, and as they please,
they limb themselves. These myths arising among the primitive
Japanese people of various localities, who never attempted to formulate them, are frequently at hopeless variance with each other; and
the ingenuity and ability of the learned native commentators on the
sacred books, especially the Nihongi and Kojiki, are exercised to the
highest degree to reconcile them.
One author devotes twenty volumes of comment to two of the text
of the Kojiki in these earnest eorts, making his works a rich mine
to the student of Japanese antiquities. Translated into English, in the
spirit of a devout Japanese, an exalted Biblical or Miltonic style should
be used. Mr. Aston thus renders a passage from the Nakatomi no harai,
one of the most ancient monuments of the language, describing the
descent of the god Ninigi to the earth (Japan): They caused him to
thrust from him heavens eternal throne, to ing open heavens eternal doors, to cleave with might his way from out heavens many piled
clouds, and then to descend from heaven.
A literal, or even free, translation into plain English could not,
however, be made in a book to be read, unexpurgated, in the family
circle. Many physiological details, and not a few references probably,
pure to the native pure, would not be suered by the tastes or moral

Japanese Mythology

45

codes in vogue among the mass of readers in Europe or America. Like

the mythology of Greece, that of Japan is full of beauty, pathos, poetic
fancy, charming story, and valorous exploit. Like that, it forms the soil
of the national art, whether expressed in bronze, porcelain, colors; or
poetry, song, picture, the dance, pantomime, romance, symbolism;
or the sthetics of religion.
In spite of Buddhism, rationalism, and skeptical philosophy, it has
entered as fully into the life and art and faith of the people of Japan as
the mythology of the Aryan nations has entered into the life and art
of Europe. Like that of the nations classic to us, the Japanese mythology, when criticised in the light of morals, and as divorced from art,
looked at by one of alien clime, race, and faith, contains much that
is hideous, absurd, impure, and even revolting. Judged as the growth
and creation of the imagination, faith, and intellect of the primitive
inhabitants of Japan, inuenced by natural surroundings, it is a faithful mirror of their country, and condition and character, before these
were greatly modied by outside religion or philosophy. Judged as a
religious inuence upon the descendants of the ancient Nihonesethe
Japanese, as we know themit may be fairly held responsible for much
of the peculiar moral traits of their character, both good and evil. The
Japanese mythology is the doctrinal basis of their ancient and indigenous religion, called Kami no michi, or Shint (way or doctrine of
the gods, or, by literal rendering, theology).
One of the greatest pleasures to a student of Japanese art, antiquities, and the life as seen in the Japan of to-day, is to discover the
survivals of primitive culture among the natives, or to trace in their
customs the fashions and ceremonies current tens of centuries ago,
whose genesis is to be sought in the age of the gods. Beneath the
poetic and mythical costume are many beautiful truths.
One of the many Japanese rationalistic writers explains the hiding
of Amaterasu in the cave as an eclipse of the sun. Ebisu, the third

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the mikados empire

child of the rst pair, is now worshiped as the God of Daily Food,
sh being the staple of Japanese diet. He is usually represented as a
jolly angler, with a red sh (tai) under one fat arm, and a rod and line
under the other. One need not go far from Kito to nd the identical
spots of common earth which the fertile imagination of the children
of Nippon has transgured into celestial regions. Thus, the prototype
of the dry bed of the river Ame no yasu is now to be seen in front of
the city of Kito, where the people still gather for pleasure or public
ceremony. The land of roots, to which Sosano was banished, is a
region evidently situated a few miles north-west of Kito. The dancing
of Suzum before the cavern is imitated in the pantomimic dance still
seen in every Japanese village and city street. The mirror made from
iron in the mines of heaven by the Blacksmith god was the original
of the burnished disks before which the Japanese beauty of to-day,
sitting for hours on knee and heels, and nude to the waist, heightens
her charms. A mask of Suzum, representing the laughing face of
a fat girl, with narrow forehead, having the imperial spots of sable,
and with black hair in rifts on her forehead, cheeks pued out, and
dimpled chin, adorns the walls of many a modern Japanese house, and
notably on certain festival days, and on their many occasions of mirth.
The stranger, ignorant of its symbolic import, could, without entering the palace, nd its prototype in ve minutes, by looking around
him, from one of the jolly fat girls at the well or the rice-bucket. The
magatama jewels, curved and perforated pieces of soapstone occasionally dug up in various parts of Japan, show the work of the nger
of man, and ancient pictures depict the chiefs of tribes decked with
these adornments. In the preparations made to attract forth the Sungoddess, we see the origin of the arts of music by wind and stringed
instruments, dancing, divination, adornment, weaving, and carpentry.
To this day, when the Japanese female is about to sweep, draw water,
or perform household duties, she binds up her sleeves to her armpits,

Japanese Mythology

47

with a string twisted over her shoulders, like the sleeve-binder of the
dancing goddess. Before Shint shrines, trees sacred to the kami, at
New-years-day before gates and doors, and often in childrens plays,
one sees stretched the twisted ropes of rice-straw. In the month of
August especially, but often at the fairs, festivals, and on holidays,
the wand of waving jewels, made by suspending colored paper and
trinkets to a branch of bamboo, and something like a Christmastree, is a frequent sight. The gohei is still the characteristic emblem
seen on a Shint shrine. All these relics, trivial and void of meaning
to the hasty tourist, or the alien, whose only motive for dwelling on
the island is purely sordid, are, in the eye of the native, and the intelligent foreigner, ancient, sacred, and productive of innocent joy, and
to the latter, sources of fresh surprise and enjoyment of a people in
themselves intensely interesting.

The Twilight of Fable

etween the long night of the unknown ages that preceded the advent
of the conquerors, and the morning of what may be called real history, there lies the twilight of mythology and fabulous narration.
The mythology of Nippon, though in essence Chinese, is Japanese
in form and coloring, and bears the true avor of the soil from whence
it sprung. The patriotic native or the devout Shintist may accept the
statements of the Kojiki as genuine history; but in the cold, clear eye
of an alien they are the inventions of men shaped to exalt the imperial family. They are a living and luxurious growth of fancy around
the ruins of facts that in the slow decay of time have lost the shape by
which recognition is possible. Chinese history does indeed, at certain
points, corroborate what the Japanese traditions declare, and thus gives
us some sure light; but for a clear understanding of the period antedating the second century of the Christian era, the native mythology and
the fabulous narrations of the Kojiki are but as moonlight.
Jimmu Tenno, the rst mikado, was the fth in descent from the
Sun-goddess. His original name was Kan Yamato Iware Hiko no
mikoto. The title Jimmu Tenn, meaning spirit of war, was posthumously applied to him many centuries afterward. When the Kojiki
was compiled, pure Japanese names only were in use. Hence, in that
book we meet with many very long quaint names and titles which,
49

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the mikados empire

when written in the Chinese equivalents, are greatly abbreviated.

The introduction of the written characters of China at a later period
enabled the Japanese to express almost all their own words, whether
names, objects, or abstract ideas, in Chinese as well as Japanese. Thus,
in the literature of Japan two languages exist side by side, or imbedded
in each other. This applies to the words only. Japanese syntax, being
incoercible, has preserved itself almost entirely unchanged.
The Kojiki states that Jimmu was fty years old when he set out
upon his conquests. He was accompanied by his brothers and a few
retainers, all of whom are spoken of as kami, or gods. The country
of Japan was already populated by an aboriginal people dwelling in
villages, each under a head-man, and it is interesting to notice how
the inventors of the Kojiki account for their origin. They declare, and
the Japanese popularly believe, that these aboriginal savages were the
progeny of the same gods (Izanagi and Izanami) from whom Jimmu
sprung; but they were wicked, while Jimmu was righteous.
The interpretation doubtless is, that a band of foreign invaders
landed in Hiuga, in Kiushiu, or they were perhaps colonists, who had
occupied this part of the country for some time previous. The territory
of Hiuga could never satisfy a restless, warlike people. It is mountainous, volcanic, and one of the least productive parts of Japan.
At the foot of the famous mountain of Kirishima, which lies on
the boundary between Hiuga and zumi, is the spot where Jimmu
resided, and whence he took his departure.
Izanagi and Izanami rst, and afterward Ninigi, the fourth ancestor
of Jimmu, had descended from this same height to the earth. Every
Japanese child who lives within sight of this mountain gazes with reverent wonder upon its summit, far above the sailing clouds and within
the blue sky, believing that here the gods came down from heaven.
The story of Jimmus march is detailed in the Kojiki, and the numerous popular books based upon it. A great many wonderful creatures

The Twilight of Fable

51

and men that resembled colossal spiders were encountered and overcome. Even wicked gods had to be fought or circumvented. His path
was to Usa, in Buzen; thence to Okada; thence by ship through the
windings of the Suwo Nada, a part of the Inland Sea,* landing in Aki.
Here he built a palace, and remained seven years. He then went to
the region of Bizen, and, after dwelling there eight years, he sailed
to the East. The waves were very rough and rapid at the spot near the

* The Inland Sea (Sto Uchi) is a name which has been given by foreigners, and
adopted by the Japanese, who until modern times had no special name for it as a
whole. Indeed, the whole system of Japanese geographical nomenclature proves
that the generalizations made by foreigners were absent from their conceptions.
The large bays have not a name which unies all their parts and limbs into one
body. The long rivers possess each, not one name, but many local appellations
along their length. The main island was nameless, so were Shikoku and Kiushiu
for many centuries. Yezo, to the native, is a region, not an island. Even for the
same street in a city a single name, as a rule, is not in use, each block receiving
a name by itself. Th is was quite a natural proceeding when the universe, or all
beneath heaven, meant Japan. The Sto Uchi has been in Japanese history what
the Mediterranean was to the course of empire in Europe, due allowance being
made for proportions, both physical and moral. It extends nearly east and west two
hundred and forty miles, with a breadth varying from ten to thirty miles, with
many narrow passages. It has six divisions (nada), taking their names from the
provinces whose shores they wash. It contains a vast number of islands, but few
known dangers, and has a sea-board of seven hundred miles, densely populated,
abounding with safe and convenient anchorages, dotted with many large towns
and provincial capitals and castled cities, and noted for the active trade of its
inhabitants. It communicates with the Pacic by the channels of Kii on the east,
Bungo on the south, and by the Straits of Shimonoski (the Gibraltar of Japan),
half a mile wide, on the west. It can be navigated safely at all seasons of the year
by day, and now, under ordinary circumstances, by night, thanks to the system of
light-houses thoroughly equipped with the latest instruments of optical science,
including dioptric and catoptric, xed and revolving, white and colored lights, in
earthquake-proof towers, erected by English engineers in the service of the mikados Government. The tides and currents of the Sto Uchi are not as yet perfectly
known, but are found to be regular at the east and west entrances, the tidewaves coming from the Pacic. In many parts they run with great velocity. The

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the mikados empire

present site of zaka, where he nally succeeded in landing, and

he gave the spot the name Nami Haya (swift waves). This afterward
became, in the colloquial, and in poetry, Naniwa.
Hitherto the career of the invaders had been one of victory and
easy conquest, but they now received their rst repulse. After severe
ghting, Jimmu was defeated, and one of his brothers was wounded.
A council of war was held, and sacred ceremonies celebrated to discover the cause of the defeat. The solemn verdict was that as children
of the Sun-goddess they had acted with irreverence and presumption
in journeying in opposition to the course of the sun from west to east,
instead of moving, as the sun moves, from east to west. Thereupon
they resolved to turn to the south, and advance westward. Leaving the
ill-omened shores, they coasted round the southern point of Kii, and
landed at Arasaka. Here a peaceful triumph awaited them, for the chief
surrendered, and presented Jimmu with a sword. A representation of
this scene, engraved on steel, now adorns the greenback of one of the
denominations of the national bank-notes issued in 1872. The steps of
the conqueror were now bent toward Yamato. The mountain-passes
cut on page 57 shows one of these narrow passages where the eddying currents
rush past a rock in mid-channel, scouring the shores, and leaving just enough
room for the passage of a large steamer. (The cut was omitted in this edition.)
A very destructive species of mollusk inhabits the Inland Sea, which perforates timber, making holes one-third of an inch in diameter. Sailing-vessels
bound to Nagasaki sometimes nd it better in winter to work through the
Inland Sea rather than to beat round Cape Chichakoff against the Kuro
Shiwo. Th is latter feat is so dicult that sailors are apt to drop the o from the
Japanese name (Satano) of this cape (misaki) and turn it into an English or
Hebrew word. Those who are trying to prove that the Japanese are the lost
tribes might make one of their best arguments from this fact. Kaempfer, it
may be stated, derived the Japanese, by rapid transit, from the Tower of Babel,
across Siberia to the islands.
The spelling of zaka (accent on the ) is in accordance with the requirements of
Japanese rules of orthography, and the usage of the people in zaka and Kito.

The Twilight of Fable

53

were dicult, and the way unknown; but by act of one of the gods,
Michi no Omi no mikoto, who interposed for their guidance, a gigantic
crow, having wings eight feet long, went before the host, and led the
warriors into the rich land of Yamato. Here they were not permitted
to rest, for the natives fought stoutly for their soil.
On one occasion the clouds lowered, and thick darkness brooded
over the battle-eld, so that neither of the hosts could discern each
other, and the con ict staved. Suddenly the gloom was cleft by the
descent from heaven of a bird like a hawk, which, hovering in a ood
of golden e ulgence, perched upon the bow of Jimmu. His adversaries, dazzled to blindness by the awful light, ed in dismay. Jimmu,
being now complete victor, proceeded to make his permanent abode,
and xed the miako, or capital, at Kashiwabara, some miles distant
from the present site of Kito. Here he set up his government, and
began to rule over all the lands which he had conquered. Peace was
celebrated with rejoicings, and religious ceremonies of imposing
magnicence. He distributed rewards to his soldiers and ocers, and
chose his chief captains to be rulers over provinces, apportioning them
lands, to be held in return for military service. It will be noticed that
this primal form of general government was a species of feudalism.
Such a political system was of the most rudimentary kind; only a little
better than the Council of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, or was
similar to that of the Aztecs of Mexico.
The country being now tranquilized, weapons were laid aside,
and attention was given to the arts of peace. Among the rst things
accomplished was the solemn deposit of the three sacred emblems
mirror, sword, and ballin the palace. Sacrices were oered to
the Sun-goddess on Torimino yama.
Jimmu married the princess Tatara, the most beautiful woman in
Japan, and daughter of one of his captains. During his life-time his
chief energies were spent in consolidating his power, and civilizing

54

the mikados empire

his subjects. Several rebellions had to be put down. After choosing

an heir, he died leaving three children, at the age of one hundred and
twenty-seven years, according to the Nihongi, and of one hundred and
thirty-seven, according to the Kojiki.
It is by no means certain that Jimmu was a historical character. The
only books describing him are but collections of myths and fables, in
which exists, perhaps, a mere skeleton of history. Even the Japanese
writers, as, for instance, the author of a popular history (Dai Nihon
Koku Kai Biaku Yuraii Ki), interpret the narratives in a rationalistic
manner. Thus, the eight-headed serpents in the Kojiki are explained
to be persistent arch-rebels, or valorous enemies; the ground-spiders,
to be rebels of lesser note; and the spider-pits or holes, the rebels
lurking-places. The gigantic crow, with wings eight feet long, that led
the host into Yamato was probably, says the native writer, a famous
captain whose name was Karasu (crow), who led the advance-guard
into Yamato, with such valor, directness, and rapidity, that it seemed
miraculous. The myth of ascribing the guidance of the army to a crow
was probably invented later. A large number of the incidents related
in the Kojiki have all the characteristics of the myth.
Chinese tradition ascribes the peopling of Japan to the following
causes: The grandfather (Taiko) of the rst emperor (Buwo) of the Shu
dynasty (thirty-seven emperors, eight hundred and seventy-two years,
b.c. 1120249) in China, having three sons, wished to bequeath his titles
and estates to his youngest son, notwithstanding that law and custom
required him to endow the eldest. The younger son refused to receive the
inheritance; but the elder, knowing that his father Taiko would persist in
his determination, and unwilling to cause trouble, secretly left his fathers
house and dominions, and sailed away to the South of China. Thence he
is supposed to have gone to Japan and founded a colony in Hiuga. His
name was Taihaku Ki. From this legend the Chinese frequently apply
the name Kishi Koku, or country of the Ki family, to Japan.

The Twilight of Fable

55

Whatever may be the actual facts, Jimmu Tenn is popularly

believed to have been a real person, and the rst emperor of Japan. He
is deied in the Shint religion, and in thousands of shrines dedicated
to him the people worship his spirit. In the ocial list of mikados,
he is named as the rst. The reigning emperor refers to him as his
ancestor from whom he claims unbroken descent. The 7th day of the
Fourth month (April 7th) is xed as the anniversary of his ascension
to the throne, and that day is a national holiday, on which the ironclad navy of modern Japan res salutes, from Krupp and Armstrong
guns, in his honor, and the military, in French uniforms, from Snider
and Remington ries, burn in memoriam powder.
The era of Jimmu is the starting-point of Japanese chronology,
and the year 1 of the Japanese era is that upon which he ascended the
throne at Kashiwabara.* A large number of Japanese students and
educated men who have been abroad, or who, though remaining at
home, have shed their old beliefs, and imbibed the modern spirit of
nihilism, regard Jimmu as a myth. The majority, however, cling to
their old belief that the name Jimmu represents a historical verity, and
hold it as the sheet-anchor of their shifting faith. A young Japanese,
fresh from several years residence in Europe, was recently rallied
concerning his belief in the divinity of the mikado and in the truth of
the Kojiki. His nal answer was, It is my duty to believe in them.

* Dr. J. J. Homan, who has written the best Japanese grammar yet published,
in expressing the exact date given in the Kojiki, in terms of the Julian style, says
the 19th of February (660 b.c.) was the day of Jimmus ascension. Professor F.
Kaiser has found out by calculation that at eight a.m. on that day of the said
year there was a new moon at the miako. Therefore, says this grammarian,
leaping on the wings of his own logic to a tremendous conclusion, and settling
down into assured satisfaction, the correctness of the Japanese chronology
may not be called in question. (See page 173, and note of A Japanese Grammar,
J. J. Ho man, Leyden, 1868.)

VI

Sjin, the Civilizer

rom the death of Jimmu Tenn to that of Kimmei, in whose

reign Buddhism was introduced (a.d. 571), there were, according to the Dai Nihon Shi, thirty-one mikados. During this period of
twelve hundred and thirty-six years, believed to be historic by most
Japanese, the most interesting subjects to be noted are the reforms
of Sjin Tenn, the military expeditions to Eastern Japan by Yamato
Dake, the invasion of Corea by the Empress Jingu Kg, and the
introduction of Chinese civilization and of Buddhism.
The Nihongi details the history and exploits of these ancient rulers with a minuteness and exactness of circumstance that are very
suspicious. It gives the precise birthdays and ages of the emperors,
who in those days attained an incredible longevity. Taknouchi, the
Japanese Methusaleh, lived to be over three hundred and fty years
old, and served as prime minister to ve successive emperors. Twelve
mikados lived to be over one hundred years old. One of them ruled
one hundred and one years. The reigns of the rst seventeen averaged over sixty-one years. From the seventeenth to the thirty- rst,
the average reign is little over twelve years. In the list there are many
whose deeds, though exaggerated in the mirage of fable, are, in the
main, most probably historic.
57

58

the mikados empire

Sjin, also called Shjin or Sunin (b.c. 9730), was, according to

the Dai Nihon Shi, a man of intense earnestness and piety. The traits
of courage and energy which characterized his youth gave him in
manhood signal tness for his chosen task of elevating his people.
He mourned over their wickedness, and called upon them to forsake
their sins, and turn their minds to the worship of the gods. A great
pestilence having broken out, and the people being still unrepentant,
the pious monarch rose early in the morning, fasted, and puried his
body with water, and called on the kami to stay the plague. After
solemn public worship the gods answered him, and the plague abated.
A revival of religious feeling and worship followed. In his reign dates
the building of special shrines for the adoration of the gods. Hitherto
the sacred ceremonies had been celebrated in the open air. Further,
the three holy regalia (mirror, sword, and ball) had hitherto been
kept in the palace of the mikado. It was believed that the ecacy
of the spirit was so great that the mikado dwelling with the spirit
was, as it were, equal to a god. These three emblems had been placed
within the palace, that it might be said that where they were dwelt
the divine power. A rebellion having broken out during his reign, he
was led to believe that this was a mark of the disfavor of the gods,
and in consequence of his keeping the emblems under his own roof.
Reverencing the majesty of the divine symbols, and fearing that they
might be deled by too close proximity to his carnal body, he removed
them from his dwelling, and dedicated them in a temple erected for
the purpose at Kasanui, a village in Yamato. He appointed his own
daughter priestess of the shrine and custodian of the symbolsa
custom which has continued to the present time.
The shrines of Uji, in Is, which now hold these precious relics of the
divine age, are always in charge of a virgin princess of imperial blood.
Later, being warned by the goddess Amaterasu to do so, she carried
the mirror from province to province, seeking a suitable locality; but

Sjin, the Civilizer

59

having grown old in their search, Yamato him* continued it, and
nally, after many changes, they were deposited in their present place
a.d. 4. Copies of the mirror and sword were, however, made by Sjin,
and placed in a separate building within the palace called the place of
reverence. This was the origin of the chapel still connected with the
mikados imperial palace.
From the most early time the dwelling and surroundings of the
mikado were characterized by the most austere simplicity, quite like
the Shint temples themselves, and the name miya was applied to
both. In imagining the imperial palace in Japan, the reader on this
side the Pacic must dissolve the view projected on his mind at the
mention of the term palace. Little of the stateliness of architecture
or the splendor and magnicence of the interior of a European palace belongs to the Japanese imperial residence. A simple structure,
larger than an ordinary rst-class dwelling, but quite like a temple
in outward appearance, and destitute of all meretricious or artistic
ornamentation within, marks the presence of royalty, or semi-divinity, in Japan. Even in Kito, for centuries, the palace, except for its
size and slightly greater elevation, could not be distinguished from
the residences of the nobles, or from a temple. All this was in keeping with the sacredness of the personage enshrined within. For vain
mortals, sprung from inferior or wicked gods, for upstart generals, or
low traders bloated with wealth, luxury and display were quite seemly.
Divinity needed no material show. The circumstances and attributes
of deity were enough. The indulgence in gaudy display was opposed
to the attributes and character of the living representative of the
Heavenly Line. This rigid simplicity was carried out even after death.
* The su x him after female proper names means princess. It is still used
by the ladies of the imperial family, and by the daughters of the court nobles.
Maye, with no, was also added to names of ladies of rank.

60

the mikados empire

In striking contrast with the royal burial customs of the nations of

Asia are those of Japan. All over the East, the tombs of dead dynasties
are edices of all others the most magnicent. The durable splendor of
the homes of the departed far exceed that of the palaces of the living.
But in Japan, in place of the gorgeous mausoleums and the colossal
masterpieces of mortuary architecture of continental Asia, the sepulchres of the mikados seem monuments of chaste poverty. Nearly
all of the imperial tombs are within the three provinces of Yamato,
Yamashiro, and Settsu. A simple base of stone, surmounted by a low
shaft, set upon a hillock, surrounded by a trench, and inclosed with a
neat railing of timber, marks the resting-places of the dead emperors.
All this is in accordance with the precepts of Shint.
The whole life of Sjin was one long eort to civilize his half-savage
subjects. He ordained certain days when persons of both sexes must lay
aside their regular employment, and give the Government his or her
quantum of labor. The term for the labor of the men means bow-point,
and of the women hand-point, implying that in the one case military
service was the chief requirement, and in the other that of the loom or
the eld. He endeavored, in order to secure just taxation, to inaugurate a regular periodical census, and to reform the methods of dividing
and recording time.* He encouraged the building of boats, in order to
increase the means of transportation, promote commerce, and to bring
* The twenty-four divisions of the solar year (according to the lunar calendar),
by which the Japanese farmers have for centuries regulated their labors, are
as follows:
Beginning of Spring

February 3

Beginning of Autumn

August 7

Rainwater

February 19

Local Heat

August 23

Awakening of the Insects

March 5

White Dew

September 8

Middle of the Spring

March 20

Middle of Autumn

September 23

Clear Weather

April 5

Cold Dew

October 8

Sjin, the Civilizer

61

the people at the extremities of the country in contact with each other.
Communication between Corea and Kiushiu was rendered not only
possible, but promised to be regular and protable. We read that, during
his reign, an envoy, bringing presents, arrived from Mimana, in Corea,
b.c. 33. Six years later, it is recorded that the prince, a chief of Shiraki,
in Corea, came to Japan to live. It is evident that these Coreans would
tell much of what they had seen in their own country, and that many
useful ideas and appliances would be introduced under the patronage of
this enlightened monarch. Sjin may be also called the father of Japanese
agriculture, since he encouraged it by edict and example, ordering canals
to be dug, water-courses provided, and irrigation to be extensively carried on. Water is the rst necessity of the rice-farmer of Asia. It is to
him as precious a commodity as it is to the miner of California. Rice
must be sown, transplanted, and grown under water. Hence, in a country
where this cereal is the staple crop, immense areas of irrigated elds are
necessary. One of the unique forms of theft in rice-countries, which, in
popular judgment, equals in iniquity the stealing of ore at the mines,
or horses on the prairies, is the drawing off water from a neighbors
eld. In those old rude times, the Japanese water-thief, when detected,
received but little more mercy than the horse-robber in the West. The
immense labor necessary to obtain the requisite water-supply can only be
appreciated by one who has studied the umes of California, the tanks

Seed Rain

April 20

Fall of Hoar-frost

October 23

Beginning of Summer

May 5

Beginning of Winter

November 7

Little Plenty

May 20

Little Snow

November 22
December 7

Transplanting the Rice

June 5

Great Snow

Height of the Summer

June 21

Height of the Winter

December 22

Little Heat

July 6

Little Frost

January 6

Great Heat

July 23

Great Frost

January 20

62

the mikados empire

of India, or the various appliances in Southern Asia. In Japan, it is very

common to terrace, with great labor, the mountain gulches, and utilize
the stream in irrigating the platforms, thus changing a noisy, foaming
stream into a silent and useful servant. In many cases, the water is led
for miles along articial canals, or ditches, to the fertile soil which needs
it. On at lands, at the base of mountains, huge reservoirs are excavated,
and tapped as often as desired. In the bosom of the Hakon Mountains,
between Sagami and Suruga, is a deep lake of pure cold water, over ve
thousand feet above the sea-level. On the plain below are few or no natural streams. Centuries ago, but long after Sjins time, the mountain wall
was breached and tunneled by manual labor, and now through the rocky
sluices ows a ood sucient to enrich the millions of acres of Suruga
province. The work begun by Sjin was followed up vigorously by his
successor, as we read that, in the year a.d. 6, a proclamation was issued
ordering canals and sluices to be dug in over eight hundred places.

The emperor had two sons, whom he loved equally. Unable to

determine which of them should succeed him, he one day told them
to tell him their dreams the next morning, and he should decide the
issue by interpretation. The young princes accordingly washed their
bodies, changed their garments, and slept. Next day the elder son said,
I dreamed that I climbed up a mountain, and, facing the east, I cut
with the sword and thrust with the spear eight times. The younger
said, I climbed the same mountain, and, stretching snares of cords
on every side, tried to catch the sparrows that destroy the grain. The
emperor then interpreted the dream, You, my son, said he to the
elder, looked in one direction. You will go to the East, and become
its governor. You, my son, said he to the younger, looked in every
direction. You will govern on all sides. You will become my heir. It
happened as the father had said. The younger became emperor, and
a peaceful ruler. The elder became the governor of, and a warrior in,
the East.

Sjin, the Civilizer

63

The story is interesting as illustrating the method of succession to

the throne. Usually it was by primogeniture, but often it depended
upon the will or whim of the father, the councils of his chiefs, or the
intrigues of courtiers.
The energies of this pious mikado were further exerted in devising and executing a national military system, whereby his peaceably disposed subjects could be protected and the extremities of his
dominions extended. The eastern and northern frontiers were exposed
to the assaults of the wild tribes of Ains who were yet unsubdued.
Between the peaceful agricultural inhabitants who owned the sway
of the ruler in Yamato, and the untamed savages who gloried in their
freedom, a continual border-war existed. The military division of the
empire into four departments was made, and a shgun, or general, was
appointed over each. These departments were the T, Nan, and Sai
kai d, and Hokurikud, or the East, South, and West-sea Circuits,
and the Northern-land Circuit. The strict division of the empire into
, or circuits, according with the natural features and partitions of
the country, which is still recognized, was of later time; but already,
b.c. 25, it seems to have been foreshadowed by Sjin.
One of these shguns, or generals, named Obiko, who was assigned
to the Northern Department, lying north of Yamato and along the
west coast, holds a high place of renown among the long list of famous
Japanese warriors. It is said that when, just after he had started to join
his command, he heard of a conspiracy against the mikado, returning quickly, he killed the traitor, restored order, and then resumed
his duties in the camp at the North. His son held command in the
East. In the following reign, it is written that military arsenals and
magazines were established, so that weapons and rations were ready
at any moment for a military expedition to repel incursions from the
wild tribes on the border, or to suppress insurrections within the pale
of the empire. The half-subdued inhabitants in the extremes of the

64

the mikados empire

realm needed constant watching, and seem to have been as restless

and treacherous as the Indians on our own frontiers. The whole history of the extension and development of the mikados empire is one
of war and blood, rivaling, if not exceeding, that of our own country
in its early struggles with the Indians. This constant military action
and life in the camp resulted, in the course of time, in the creation of
a powerful and numerous military class, who made war professional
and hereditary. It developed that military genius and character which
so distinguish the modern Japanese, and mark them in such strong
contrast with other nations of Eastern Asia. The long-sustained military operations also served to consolidate the empire. In these ancient
days, however, there was no regular army, no special class of warriors,
as in later times. Until the eighth century, the armies were extemporized from the farmers and people generally, as occasion demanded.
The war over, they returned to their daily employments. The mikados
were military chiefs, and led their armies, or gave to their sons or near
relatives only, the charge of expeditions.
It is not my purpose to follow in detail the long series of battles, or
even court conspiracies and intrigues, which ll the Japanese histories,
and lead some readers to suppose that war was the normal condition
of the palace and empire. I prefer to show the condition of the people,
their methods of life, customs, ideas, and beliefs. Although wars without and intrigues within were frequent, these by no means made up the
life of the nation. Peace had its victories, no less renowned than those
of war. A study of the life of the people, showing their progress from
barbarism to civilization, will, I think, be of more interest to the reader
than details concerning imperial rebels, poisoners, or stabbers.
In the Japanese histories, and in ocial language, literature, and
etiquette of later days, there exists the conception of two great spheres
of activity and of two kinds of transactions, requiring two methods

Sjin, the Civilizer

65

of treatment. They are the nai and guai, the inner and the outer, the
interior and exterior of the palace, or the throne and the empire.
Thus the Nihon Guai Shi, by Rai Sany, or External History of
Japan, treats of the events, chiey military, outside the palace. His
other work, Nihon Seiki, treats rather of the aairs of the forbidden
interior of the palace. In those early days this conception had not
been elaborated.
The mikado from ancient times has had two crests, answering to
the coats of arms in European heraldry. One is a representation of a
chrysanthemum (kiku), and is used for government purposes outside
the palace. It is embroidered on ags and banners, and printed on
ocial documents. Since the Restoration, in 1868, the soldiers of
the imperial army wear it as a frontlet on their caps. The other crest,
representing a blossom and leaves of the Paulownia imperialis (kiri),
is used in business personal to the mikado and his family. The ancient
golden chrysanthemum has, since 1868, burst into new bloom, like
the owering of the nation itself, and has everywhere displaced the
trefoil of the parvenus of later feudalism the Tokugawas, the only
military vassals of the mikado who ever assumed the preposterous
title of Tycoon.

VII

Yamato-dak,
the Conqueror of the Kuant*

new hero appears in the second century, whose personality seems

so marked that it is impossible to doubt that within the shell of
fabulous narration is a rich kernel of history. This hero, a son of the
twelfth emperor, Keik (71130 a.d.), is pictured as of fair mien, manly
and graceful carriage. In his youth he led an army to put down a rebellion in Kiushiu; and, wishing to enter the enemys camp, he disguised
himself as a dancing-girl, and presented himself before the sentinel,
who, dazed by the beauty and voluptuous gure of the supposed damsel, and hoping for a rich reward from his chief, admitted her to the
arch-rebels tent. After dancing before him and his carousing guests,
* Kuant (east of the barrier). The term Kuant was, probably as early as the
ninth century, applied to that part of Japan lying east of the guard-gate, or
barrier, at zaka, a small village on the borders of Yamashiro and mi. It
included thirty-three provinces. The remaining thirty-three provinces were
called Kuansei (west of the barrier). In modern times and at present, the term
Kuant (written also Kant) is applied to the eight provinces (Kuan-hasshiu) east of the Hakon range, consisting of Sagami, Musashi, Kdzuk,
Shimotsuk, Kadzusa, Awa, Shimsa, and Hitachi. Sometimes Idzu, Kai, and
the provinces of Hondo north of the thirty-eighth parallel, formerly called
Mutsu and Dwa, are also included.

67

68

the mikados empire

the delighted voluptuary drew his prize by the hand into his own tent.
Instead of a yielding girl, he found more than his match in the heroic
youth, who seized him, held him powerless, and took his life. For this
valorous eort he received the name Yamato-Dak, or, the Warlike.
Thirteen years after this victory, a.d. 110, the tribes in eastern Japan
revolted, and Yamato-Dak went to subdue them. He stopped at the
shrine of the Sun-goddess in Is, and, leaving his own sword under
a pine-tree, he obtained from the priestess the sacred sword, one of
the holy emblems enshrined by Sjin. Armed with this palladium,
he penetrated into the wilds of Suruga, to ght the Ains, who ed
before him from the plains into the woods and mountain fastnesses.
The Ain method of warfare, like that of our North American Indians,
was to avoid an encounter in the open eld, and to ght in ambush
from behind trees, rocks, or in the rank undergrowth, using every
artice by which, as pursued, they could in ict the greatest damage
upon an enemy with the least loss and danger to themselves. In the
lore of the forest they were so well read that they felt at home in the
most tangled wilds. They were able to take advantage of every sound
and sign. They were accustomed to disguise themselves in bear-skins,
and thus act as spies and scouts. Fire was one of their chief means of
attack. On a certain occasion they kindled the underbrush, which is
still seen so densely covering the uncleared portions of the base of Fuji.
The ames, urged by the wind, threatened to surround and destroy the
Japanese armya sight which the Ains beheld with yells of delight.
The Sun-goddess then appeared to Yamato-Dak, who, drawing the
divinely bestowed swordMurakumo, or Cloud-clustercut the
grass around him. So invincible was the blade that the ames ceased
advancing and turned toward his enemies, who were consumed, or
ed defeated. Yamato-Dak then gratefully acknowledging to the
gods the victory vouchsafed to him, changed the name of the sword
to Kusanagi (Grass-mower).

Yamato-dak, the Conqueror of the Kuant

69

Crossing the Hakon Mountains, he descended into the great

plain of the East, in later days called the Kuant, which stretches
from the base of the central ranges and table-land of Hondo to the
shores of the Pacic, and from Sagami to Iwaki. On reaching the Bay
of Yedo at about Kamizaki, near Uraga, o which Commodore Perry
anchored with his steamers in 1853, the hills of the opposite peninsula
of Awa seemed so very close at hand, that Yamato-Dake supposed it
would be a tri ing matter to cross the intervening channel. He did
not know what we know so well now, that at these narrows of the bay
the winds, tides, currents, and weather are most treacherous. Having
embarked with his host, a terric storm arose, and the waves tossed
the boat so helplessly about that death seemed inevitable. Then the
frightened monarch understood that the Sea-god, insulted by his
disparaging remark, had raised the storm to punish him. The only
way to appease the wrath of the deity was by the sacrice of a victim.
Who would oer? One was ready. In the boat with her lord was his
wife, Tachibana him. Bidding him farewell, she leaped into the mad
waves. The blinding tempest drove on the helpless boat, and the victim
and the saved were parted. But the sacrice was accepted. Soon the
storm ceased, the sky cleared, the lovely landscape unveiled in serene
repose. Yamato-Dak landed in Kadzusa, and subdued the tribes. At
the head of the peninsula, at a site still pointed out within the limits
of modern Tki, he found the perfumed wooden comb of his wife,
which had oated ashore. Erecting an altar, he dedicated the precious
relic as a votive oering to the gods. A Shint shrine still occupies
the site where her spirit and that of Yamato-Dak are worshiped
by the shermen and sailors, whose junks ll the Bay of Yedo with
animation and picturesque beauty. As usual, a pine-tree stands near
the shrine. The artist has put Mount Fuji in the distance, a beautiful
view of which is had from the strand. Yamato-Dak then advanced
northward, through Shimsa, sailing along the coast in boats to the

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the mikados empire

border, as the Japanese claimed it to be, between the empire proper

and the savages, which lay at or near the thirty-eighth parallel. The
two greatest chiefs of the Ains, apprised of his coming, collected a
great army to overwhelm the invader. Seeing his eet approaching,
and awed at the sight, they were struck with consternation, and said,
These ships must be from the gods. If so, and we draw bow against
them, we shall be destroyed. No sooner had Yamato-Dak landed
than they came to the strand and surrendered. The hero kept the leaders as hostages, and having tranquilized the tribes, exacting promise
of tribute, he set out on the homeward journey. His long absence from
the capital in the wilds of the East doubtless disposed him to return
gladly. He passed through Hitachi and Shimsa, resting temporarily
at Sakura, then through Musashi and Kai. Here he is said to have
invented the distich, or thirty-one-syllable poem, so much used at
the present day. After his army had been refreshed by their halt,
he sent one of his generals into Echizen and Echigo to tranquilize
the North-west and meet him in Yamato. He himself marched into
Shinano. Hitherto, since crossing the Hakon range, he had carried
on his operations on the plains. Shinano is a great table-land averaging twenty-ve hundred, and rising in many places over ve thousand,
feet above the sea-level, surrounded and intersected by the loftiest
peaks and mountain ranges in Japan. Ninety-ve miles north-west of
Tki is the famous mountain pass of Usui Tg, the ascent of which
from Sakamoto, on the high plain below, is a toilsome task. At this
point, twenty-six hundred feet above Sakamoto, unrolls before the
spectator a magnicent view of the Bay of Yedo and the plain below,
one of the most beautiful and impressive in Japan. Here Yamato stood
and gazed at the land and water, draperied in the azure of distance,
and, recalling the memory of his beloved wife, who had sacriced
her life for him, he murmured, sadly, Adzuma, adzuma (My wife,
my wife). The plain of Yedo is still, in poetry, called Adzuma. One

Yamato-dak, the Conqueror of the Kuant

71

of the princes of the blood uses Adzuma as his surname; and the exConfederate iron-clad ram Stone-wall, now of the Japanese navy, is
christened Adzuma-kuan.
To cross the then almost unknown mountains of Shinano was a
bold undertaking, which only a chief of stout heart would essay.* To
travel in the thinly populated mountainous portions of Japan even
at the present time, at least to one accustomed to the comfort of the
palace-cars of civilization, is not pleasant. In those days, roads in the
Kuant were unknown. The march of an army up the slippery ascents,
through rocky de les, over lava-beds and river torrents, required as
much nerve and caution as muscle and valor. To their superstitious
fancies, every mountain was the abode of a god, every cave and de le
the lurking-place of spirits. Air and water and solid earth were populous with the creatures of their imagination. Every calamity was the
manifestation of the wrath of the local gods; every success a proof
that the good kami were specially favoring them and their leaders.
The clouds and fogs were the discomting snares of evil deities to
cause them to lose their path. The asphyxiating exhalations from
* The cold in winter in the high mountain regions of Shinano is severe, and
res are needed in the depth of summer. Heavy falls of snow in winter make
traveling tedious and dicult. I went over this part of Yamato-Daks journey
in 1873, completing a tour of nine hundred miles. As I have gone on foot over
the mountain tgs (passes) from Takata, in Echigo, to Tki, in Musashi,
and likewise have been a pedestrian up and over the pass of St. Bernard, I
think, all things considered, the achievement of Yamato-Dak fully equal in
courage, skill, daring, patience, and romantic interest to that of Napoleon. The
tourist to-day who makes the trip over this route is rewarded with the most
inspiring views of Fuji, Asama yama, Yatsugadak, and other monarchs in this
throne-room of nature in Japan. In the lowlands of Kdzuk also is the richest
silk district in all Japan, the golden cocoons, from which is spun silver thread,
covering the oors of almost every house during two summer months, while
the deft ngers of Japanese maidens, pretty and otherwise, may be seen busily
engaged in unraveling the shroud of the worm, illustrating the living proverb,
With time and patience even the mulberry-leaf becomes silk.

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the mikados empire

volcanoes, or from the earth, which to this day jet out inammable
gas, were the poisonous breath of the mountain gods, insulted by the
daring intrusion into their sacred domain. On one occasion the god of
the mountain came to Yamato-Dak, in the form of a white deer, to
trouble him. Yamato-Dak, suspecting the animal, threw some wild
garlic in its eye, causing it to smart so violently that the deer died.
Immediately the mountain was shrouded in mist and fog, and the path
disappeared. In the terror and dismay, a white doga good kami in
disguiseappeared, and led the way safely to the plains of Mino.
Again the host were stricken by the spirit of the white deer. All the
men and animals of the camp were unable to stand, stupeed by the
mephitic gas discharged among them by the wicked kami. Happily,
some one bethought him of the wild garlic, ate it, and gave to the men
and animals, and all recovered. At the present day in Japan, partly in
commemoration of this incident, but chiey for the purpose of warding o infectious or malarious diseases, garlic is hung up before gates
and doors in time of epidemic, when an attack of disease is apprehended. Thousands of people believe it to be fully as ecacious as a
horseshoe against witches, or camphor against contagion. Descending
to the plains of Mino, and crossing through it, he came to Ibuki
yama, a mountain shaped like a truncated sugar-loaf, which rears its
colossal at head in awful majesty above the clouds. Yamato-Dak
attempted to subdue the kami that dwelt on this mountain. Leaving
his sword, Grass-mower, at the foot of the mountain, he advanced
unarmed. The god transformed himself into a serpent, and barred his
progress. The hero leaped over him. Suddenly the heavens darkened.
Losing the path, Yamato-Dak swooned and fell. On drinking of a
spring by the way, he was able to lift up his head. Henceforward it was
called Sam no idzumi, or the Fountain of Recovery. Reaching tsu,
in Is, though still feeble, he found, under the pine-tree, the sword

Yamato-dak, the Conqueror of the Kuant

73

which he had taken o before, and forthwith composed a poem: O

pine, were you a man, I should give you this sword to wear for your
delity. He had been absent in the Kuant three years. He recounted
before the gods his adventures, diculties, and victories, made votive
oerings of his weapons and prisoners, and gave solemn thanks for
the deliverance vouchsafed him. He then reported his transactions to
his father, the mikado, and, being weak and nigh to death, he begged
to see him. The parent sent a messenger to comfort his son. When
he arrived, Yamato-Dak was dead. He was buried at Nobono, in
Is. From his tomb a white bird ew up; and on opening it, only the
chaplet and robes of the dead hero were found. Those who followed
the bird saw it alight at Koto-hiki hara (Plain of the Koto-players) in
Yamato, which was henceforth called Misazaki Shiratori (Imperial
Tomb of the White Bird). His death took place a.d. 113, at the age of
thirty-six. Many temples in the Kuant and in various parts of Japan
are dedicated to him.
I have given so full an account of Yamato-Dak to show the style
and quality of ancient Japanese tradition, and exhibit the state of
Eastern Japan at that time, and because under the narration there
is good history of one who extended the real boundaries of the early
empire.* Yamato-Dak was one of the partly historic and partly ideal
heroes that are equally the cause and the eect of the Japanese military spirit. It may be that the future historians of Japan may consider
this chapter as literary trash, and put Yamato-Dak and all his deeds
in the same limbo with Romulus and his wolf-nurse, William Tell
* The Names of the various provinces of Japan are given below. Each name
of Japanese origin has likewise a synonym compounded of the Chinese word
shiu (province), a xed to the pronunciation of the Chinese character with
which the rst syllable of the native word is written. In some cases the Chinese
form is most in use, in which case it is italicized. In a few cases, both forms
are current.

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and his apple; but I consider him to have been a historical personage,
and his deeds a part of genuine history.
Go Kinai (Five Home Provinces)
Yamashiro, or Joshiu
Yamato, or Washiu
Kawachi, or Kashiu
Idzumi, or Senshiu
Settsu, or Sesshiu
Tkaid (Eastern-sea Region)
Iga, or Ishiu
Is, or Seishiu
Shima, or Shishiu
Owari, or Bishiu
Mikawa, or Sanshiu
Ttmi, or Enshiu
Suruga, or Sunshiu
Idzu, or Dzushiu
Kai, or Kshiu
Sagami, or Sshiu
Musashi, or Bushiu
Awa, or Bshiu
Kadzusa, or Sshiu
Shimsa, or Sshiu
Hitachi, or Jshiu
Tzand (Eastern-mountain Region)
mi, or Gshiu
Mino, or Noshiu
Hida, or Hishiu
Shinano, or Shinshiu
Kdzuk, or Jshiu
Shimotsuk, or Yashiu
Iwashi, or shiu
Iwashiro, or shiu
Rikuzen, or shiu

Rikuchiu, or shiu
Michinoku, or shiu
Uzen, or Ushiu
Ugo, or Ushiu
Hokurikud (Northern-land Region)
Wakasa, or Jakushiu
Echizen, or Esshiu
Kaga, or Kashiu
Noto, or Nshiu
Etchiu, or Esshiu
Echigo, or Esshiu
Sado (island), or Sashiu
Sanind (Mountain-back Region)
Tamba, or Tanshiu
Tango, or Tanshiu
Tajima, or Tanshiu
Inaba, or Inshiu
Hki, or Hakushiu
Idzumo, or Unshiu
Iwami, or Sekishiu
Oki (islands)
Sanyd (Mountain-front Region)
Harima, or Banshiu
Mimasaka, or Sakushiu
Bizen, or Bishiu.
Bitchiu, or Bishiu
Bingo, or Bishiu
Aki, or Geishiu
Suw, or Bshiu
Nagato, or Chshiu

Yamato-dak, the Conqueror of the Kuant

Nankaid (Southern-sea Region)
Kii, or Kishiu
Awaji (island), or Tanshiu
Awa, or Ashiu
Sanuki, or Sanshiu
Iyo, or Yoshiu
Tosa, or Toshiu
Saikaid (Western-sea Region)
Chikuzen, or Chikushiu
Chikugo, or Chikushiu

Buzen, or Hshiu
Bungo, or Hshiu
Hizen, or Hishiu
Higo, or Hishiu
Hiuga, or Nisshiu
zumi, or Gushiu
Satsuma, or Sasshiu
The Two Islands
Tsushima, or Taishiu
Iki, or Ishiu.

75

VIII

The Introduction of Continental Civilization

f Japan is to Asia what Great Britain is to Europeaccording to the

comparison so often made by the modern Japanesethen Corea
was to Dai Nippon what Norman France was to Saxon England.
Th rough this peninsula, and not directly from China, owed the
inuences whose conuence with the elements of Japanese life produced the civilization which for twelve centuries has run its course
in the island empire. The comparison is not perfect, inasmuch as
Japan sent the conqueror to Corea, whereas Normandy sent William
across the Channel. In the moral and sthetic conquest of Rome by
Greece, though vanquished by Roman arms, we may perhaps nd a
closer resemblance to the events of the second triad of the Christian
centuries in the history of Japan.
Is it true among historic nations that anciently the position of
woman was higher than in later times? It has been pointed out by
more than one writer on Greece that in the former and ruder period
women had undoubtedly the higher place, and their type exhibited
the highest perfection. This is certainly the case in Japan. The women
of the early centuries were, according to Japanese history, possessed
of more intellectual and physical vigor, lling the oces of state, religion, and household honors, and approaching more nearly the ideal
cherished in those countries in which the relation of the sexes is that
77

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the mikados empire

of professed or real equality. Certain it is that, whereas there are many

instances of ancient Japanese women reaching a high plane of social
dignity and public honor, in later ages the virtuous woman dwelt in
seclusion; exemplars of ability were rare; and the courtesan became
the most splendid type of womanhood. This must be more than the
fancy of poets. As in the Greece of Homer and the tragedians, so in
early Nippon, womans abilities and possibilities far surpassed those
that were hers in the later days of luxury and civilization. To a woman
is awarded the glory of the conquest of Corea, whence came letters,
religion, and civilization to Japan.
In all Japanese tradition or history, there is no greater female
character than the empress Jingu (godlike exploit). Her name was
Okinaga Tarashi him, but she is better known by her posthumous
title of Jingu Kg, or Jingu, the wife or spouse of the mikado. She
was equally renowned for her beauty, piety, intelligence, energy, and
martial valor. She was not only very obedient to the gods, but they
delighted to honor her by their inspiration. She feared neither the
waves of the sea, the arrows of the battle-eld, nor the diculties that
wait on all great enterprises. Great as she was in her own person, she
is greater in the Japanese eyes as the mother of the god of war.
In the year 193 a rebellion broke out at Kumaso, in Kiushiu. The
mikado Chiuai (191200) headed his army, and marched to subdue
the rebels. Jingu Kg, or Jingu, the empress, followed him by ship,
embarking from Tsuruga, in Echizena port a few miles north-west
of the head of Lake Biwameeting her husband at Toyo no ura, near
the modern Shimonoski, of indemnity fame. While worshiping on
one of the islands of the Inland Sea, the god spoke to her, and said,
Why are you so deeply concerned to conquer Kumaso? It is but a poor,
sparse region, not worth conquering with an army. There is a much
larger and richer country, as sweet and lovely as the face of a fair virgin.
It is dazzling bright with gold, silver, and ne colors, and every kind of

The Introduction of Continental Civilization

79

rich treasures is to be found in Shiraki (in Corea). Worship me, and I

will give you power to conquer the country without bloodshed; and by
my help, and the glory of your conquest, Kumaso shall be straightway
subdued. The emperor, hearing this from his wife, which she declared
was the message of the gods, doubted, and, climbing to the summit of
a high mountain, looked over the sea, and seeing no land to the westward, answered her: I looked everywhere and saw water, but no land.
Is there a country in the sky? If not, you deceived me. My ancestors
worshiped all the gods: is there any whom they did not worship?
The gods, answering through the inspired empress, made reply: If
you believe only your doubts, and say there is no country when I have
declared there is one, you blaspheme, and you shall not go thither;
but the empress, your wife, has conceived, and the child within her
shall conquer the country. Nevertheless, the emperor doubted, and
advanced against Kumaso, but was worsted by the rebels. While in
camp, he took sick and died suddenly. According to another tradition, he was slain in battle by an arrow. His minister, Taknouchi,
concealed his death from the soldiers, and carried the corpse back to
Toyo no ura, in Nagato. The brave Jingu, with the aid of Taknouchi,
suppressed the rebellion, and then longed for conquest beyond the
sea.
While in Hizen, in order to obtain a sign from the gods she went
down to the sea-shore, and baited a hook with a grain of boiled rice,
to catch a sh. Now, said she, I shall conquer a rich country if
a sh be caught with this grain of rice. The bait took. A sh was
caught, and Jingu exultingly accepted the success of her venture as
a token of celestial approval of her design. Mdzurashiki mono!
(wonderful thing), exclaimed the royal lady. The place of the omen
is still called Matsura, corrupted from the words she used. In further
commemoration, the women of that section, every year, in the rst
part of the Fourth month, go shing, no males being allowed the

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privilege on that day. The pious Jingu prepared to invade Corea; but
wishing another indication of the will of the kami, she on one occasion immersed her hair in water, saying that, if the gods approved
of her enterprise, her tresses would become dry, and be parted into
two divisions. It was as she desired. Her luxuriant black hair came
from the water dry, and parted in two. Her mind was now xed.
She ordered her generals and captains to collect troops, build ships,
and be ready to embark. Addressing them, she said: The safety or
destruction of our country depends upon this enterprise. I intrust the
details to you. It will be your fault if they are not carried out. I am a
woman, and young; I shall disguise myself as a man, and undertake
this gallant expedition, trusting to the gods, and to my troops and
captains. We shall acquire a wealthy country. The glory is yours, if we
succeed; if we fail, the guilt and disgrace shall be mine. Her captains,
with unanimity and enthusiasm, promised to support her and carry
out her plans. The enterprise was a colossal one for Japan at that time.
Although the recruiting went on in the various provinces, and the
ships were built, the army formed slowly. Chang at the delay, but not
discouraged, again she had recourse to the ecacy of worship and an
appeal to the gods. Erecting a tabernacle of purication, with prayers
and lustrations and sacrices she prayed the kami to grant her speedy
embarkation and success. The gods were propitious. Troops came in.
The army soon assembled, and all was ready, a.d. 201.
Before starting, Jingu issued orders to her soldiers, as follows:
No loot.
Neither despise a few enemies nor fear many.
Give mercy to those who yield, but no quarter to the stubborn.
Rewards shall be apportioned to the victors; punishments shall
be meted to the deserters.

The Introduction of Continental Civilization

81

Then the words of the gods came, saying, The Spirit of Peace
will always guide you and protect your life. The Spirit of War will go
before you and lead your ships.
Jingu again returned thanks for these fresh exhibitions of divine
favor, and made her nal preparations to start, when a new impediment
threatened to delay hopelessly the expedition, or to rob it of its soul and
leader, the Amazonian chief. She discovered that she was pregnant.
Again the good favor of the gods enabled her to triumph over the
obstacles which nature, or the fate of her sex, might throw in the path
of her towering ambition. She found a stone which, being placed in her
girdle, delayed her accouchement until her return from Corea.
It does not seem to have been perfectly clear in the minds of those
ancient libusters where Corea was, or for what particular point of
the horizon they were to steer. They had no chart or compass. The
sun, stars, and the ight of birds were their guides. In a storm they
would be helpless. One sherman had been sent to sail westward and
report. He came back declaring there was no land to be seen. Another
man was dispatched, and returned, having seen the mountains on
the main-land. The eet sailed in the Tenth month. Winds, waves,
and currents were all favorable. The gods watched over the eet, and
sent shoals of huge shes to urge on the waves that by their impact
lifted the sterns and made the prows leap as though alive. The ships
beached safely in Southern Corea, the Japanese army landed in the
glory of sunlight and the grandeur of war in splendid array. The king
of this part of Corea had heard from his messengers of the coming
of a strange eet from the East, and, terried, exclaimed, We never
knew there was any country outside of us. Have our gods forsaken
us! The invaders had no ghting to do as they expected. It was a
bloodless invasion. The Coreans came, holding white ags, and surrendered, oering to give up their treasures. They took an oath that
they would be tributary to Japan, that they would never cause their

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conquerors to dispatch another expedition, and that they would send

hostages to Japan. The rivers might ow backward, or the pebbles in
their beds leap up to the stars, yet would they not break their oath.
Jingu set up weapons before the gate of the king in token of peace.
By his order eighty ships well laden with gold and silver, articles of
wealth, silk and precious goods of all kinds, and eighty hostages, men
of high families, were put on board.
The stay of the Japanese army in Corea was very brief, and the
troops returned in the Twelfth month. Jingu was, on her arrival,
delivered of a son, who, in the popular estimation of gods and mortals, holds even a higher place of honor than his mother, who is
believed to have conquered Southern Corea through the power of her
yet unborn illustrious ospring. After leaving her couch, the queenregent erected in Nagato (Chshiu) a shrine, and in it dedicated the
Spirit of War that had guided her army. She then attended to the
funeral rites of her deceased husband, and returned to the capital.
The conquest of Corea, more correctly a naval raid into one of the
southern provinces, took place a.d. 203. The motive which induced the
invasion seems to have been the same as that carried out by Hideyoshi
in 1583, and contemplated in 1873mere love of war and conquest. The
Japanese refer with great pride to this their initial exploit on foreign
soil. It was the rst time they had ever gone in ships to a foreign country to ght. For the rst time it gave them the opportunity of displaying their valor in making the arms of Japan shine beyond the seasa
pet phrase which occurs in many documents in Japan, even in this
2536th year of the Japanese empire, and of our Lord 1876. Nevertheless,
the honor of the exploit is given to the unborn son on whom dwelt the
Spirit of War, rather than to the mother who bore him.
The queen-mother is worshiped in many temples as Kashii dai mi
jin. The son, jin, afterward a great warrior, was, at his death, 313
a.d., deied as the god of war; and down through the centuries he

The Introduction of Continental Civilization

83

has been worshiped by all classes of people, especially by soldiers, who

oer their prayers, pay their vows, and raise their votive oerings to
him. Many of the troops, before taking steamer for Formosa, in 1874,
implored his protection. In his honor some of the most magnicent
temples in Japan have been erected, and almost every town and village,
as well as many a rural grove and hill, has its shrine erected to this
Japanese Mars. He is usually represented in his images as of frightful,
scowling countenance, holding, with arms akimbo, a broad two-edged
sword. One of the favorite subjects of Japanese artists of all periods is
the group of gures consisting of the snowy-bearded Taknouchi, in
civil dress, holding the infant of Jingu Kg in his arms, the mother
standing by in martial robes. Jingu is the heroine and model for boys,
not of the girls. In the collection of pictures, images, and dolls which
in Japanese households on the 5th of May, every year, teach to the
children the names and deeds of the national heroes, and instill the
lessons taught by their example, this warrior-woman is placed among
the male, and not among the female, groups.
Nine empresses in all have sat upon the throne of Japan as rulers,
four of whom reigned at the capital, Nara. None have won such martial renown as Jingu. It is not probable, however, that military enterprise will ever again give the nation another ideal woman like the
conqueror of Corea. It is now, in modern days, given to the Empress
of Japan to elevate the condition of her female subjects by graciously
encouraging the education of the girls, and setting a noble example,
not only of womanly character and of active deeds of benevolence,
but also in discarding the foolish and barbarous customs of past ages;
notably that of blacking the teeth and shaving o the eyebrows. This
the present empress, Haruko, has done. Already this chief lady of the
empire has accomplished great reforms in social customs and fashions,
and, both by the encouragement of her presence and by gifts from her
private purse, has greatly stimulated the cause of the education and

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the elevation of woman in Japan. Haply, it may come to pass that this
lady in peaceful life may do more for the good and glory of the empire
than even the renowned queen-regent, Jingu Kg.
The early centuries of the Christian era, from the third to the
eighth, mark that period in Japanese history during which the future
development and character of the nation were mightily inuenced
by the introduction, from the continent of Asia, of the most potent
factors in any civilization. They were letters, religion, philosophy,
literature, laws, ethics, medicine, science, and art. Heretofore the
rst unfoldings of the Japanese intellect in the composition of sacred
hymns, odes, poems, myths, and tradition had no prop upon which
to train, and no shield against oblivion but the unassisted memory.
The Japanese were now to have records. Heretofore religion was
simply the rude ospring of human imagination, fear, and aspiration, without doctrinal systems, moral codes, elaborate temples, or
sacerdotal caste. Henceforth the Japanese were to be led, guided,
and developed in morals, intellect, and worship by a religion that
had already brought the nations of Asia under its swaya strong,
overpowering, and aggressive faith, that was destined to add Japan
to its conquests. Buddhism, bringing new and greater sanctions,
penalties, motives, and a positive theology and code of morals, was
to develop and broaden the whole nature of the individual man, and
to lead the entire nation forward. Chinese philosophy and Confucian
morals were to form the basis of the education and culture of the
Japanese statesman, scholar, and noble, to modify Shint, and with
it to create new ideals of government, of codes, laws, personal honor,
and household ordering. Under their inuence, and that of circumstances, have been shaped the unique ideals of the samurai; and by it
a healthy skepticism, amidst dense superstition, has been maintained.
The coming of many immigrants brought new blood, ideas, opinions,
methods, improvements in labor, husbandry, social organization.

The Introduction of Continental Civilization

85

Japan received from China, through Corea, what she is now receiving
from America and Europea new civilization.
For nearly a century after the birth of jin, the record of events
is blank. In 249 a.d. a Japanese general, Arata, was sent to assist one
state of Corea against another. Occasional notices of tribute-bearers
arriving from Corea occur. In 283 a number of tailors, in 284 excellent horses, were sent over to Japan. In 285, Wani, a Corean scholar,
came over to Japan, and, residing some time at the court, gave the
mikados son instruction in writing. If the Nihongithe authority for
the date of Wanis arrival in Japancould be trusted in its chronology, the introduction of Chinese writing, and probably of Buddhism,
would date from this time; but the probabilities are against positive
certainty on this point. If it be true, it shows that the rst missionary conquest of this nation was the work of four centuries instead
of as many decades. Wani died in Japan, and his tomb stands near
zaka. In a.d. 403 a court annalist was chosen. Envoys and tributebearers came, and presents were exchanged. In 462 mulberry-trees
were plantedevidently brought, together with the silk-worm, for
whose sustenance they were intendedfrom China or Corea. Again,
tailors in 471, and architects in 493, and learned men in 512, arrived.
An envoy from China came in 522. The arrival of fresh immigrants
and presents from Corea in 543 is noted. In 551, during a famine in
Corea, several thousand bushels of barley were dispatched thither
by Japan. In 552, a company of doctors, diviners, astronomers, and
mathematicians from Corea came to live at the Japanese court. With
them came Buddhist missionaries. This may be called the introduction of continental civilization. Beginning with Jingu, there seems to
have poured into the island empire a stream of immigrants, skilled
artisans, scholars, and teachers, bringing arts, sciences, letters and
written literature, and the Buddhist religion. Th is was the rst of
three great waves of foreign civilization in Japan. The rst was from

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China, through Corea in the sixth; the second from Western Europe,
in the fteenth century; the third was from America, Europe, and the
world, in the decade following the advent of Commodore Perry. These
innovations were destined to leaven mightily the whole Japanese
nation as a lump. Of these none was so powerful and far-reaching in
eects as that in the sixth century, and no one element as Buddhism.
This mighty force was destined to exert a resistless and unifying
inf luence on the whole people. Nothing, among all the elements
that make up Japanese civilization, has been so potent in forming
the Japanese character as the religion of Buddha. That the work of
these new civilizers may be fully appreciated, let us glance at life in
Dai Nippon before their appearance.*

* The Empress Jingu, after her return, made a very important change in the
divisions of the empire. Seimu Tenn (a.d. 131190) had divided the empire
into provinces, the number of which was thirty-two in all, the land above
the thirty-eighth parallel being still unknown, and inhabited by the wild
tribes of Ains. Jingu, imitating the Corean arrangement, divided the empire
into ve home provinces, and seven do, or circuits, naming them in relation
to their direction from the capital. These are analogous to our Eastern,
Middle, Southern, Western, Trans-Mississippi, and Pacic-coast
divisions of States. The ve home provinces (Go Kinai) are Yamashiro,
Yamato, Kawachi, Idzumi, and Settsu. The Tkaid, or Eastern-sea Circuit,
comprised the provinces skirting the Pacic Ocean from Iga to Hitachi,
including Kai.
The Tzand, or Eastern-mountain Circuit, included those provinces from
mi to the end of the main island, not on the Sea of Japan, nor included
within the Tkaid.
The Hokurikud, or Northern-land Circuit, comprised the provinces
from Wakasa to Echigo inclusive, bordering on the Sea of Japan, and Sado
Island.
The Sanind, or Mountain-back Circuit, comprised with the Oki group of
islands the provinces from Tamba to Iwami, bordering on the Sea of Japan.
The Sanyd, or Mountain-front Circuit, comprised the provinces from
Harima to Nagato (or Chshiu) bordering the Inland Sea.

The Introduction of Continental Civilization

87

The Saikaid, or Western-sea Circuit, comprises nine provinces of Kiushiu

(kiu, nine; shiu, province).
The two islands are Iki and Tsushima.
This division accords with the physical features of the country, and has ever
since been retained, with slight modications as to provinces. It is very probable that in the time of Jingu, the Japanese did not know that Hondo was an
island. A foreigner looking at the map of the empire, or a globe representing
the world, could hardly imagine that the Japanese have no special and universally used name for the main island. Yet such is the fact, that neither they
nor their books popularly apply any particular name to the main island. It may
be even doubted whether the people in general ever think of the main island
as being a particular division requiring a name, as the foreigner conceives it,
and thus feels a name to be a necessity. Th is necessity has given rise to the
error of applying the term Niphon (Nihon, Nippon, or Nifon), rst done
by Kaempfer. The Japanese had no more necessity to apply a special name to
the main island than the early American colonists had to give a name to the
region beyond the Mississippi. Even now we have no name in general use
for that now well-known part of our country. To foreigners, the absence of a
name for the largest island seems an anomaly. In the Japanese mind it never
existed. He rarely spoke even of Kiushiu or Shikoku as names of islands,
always using the names of the do, or circuits, just as an American speaks of
the New England or the Eastern States. In modern times, native scholars who
have, from their study, comparisons and foreign methods of thought, felt the
need of a distinctive name, have used Hondo (main continent or division),
Honjima (main island) or Honjiu (main country). Of these, Hondo seems
to be the best; and as it is used in the ocial geography recently issued by
the War Department, I have made use of it. Nippon is not, nor ever was, the
name of the main island, as Kaempfer rst asserted. Nippon, or Dai Nippon,
is the name of the whole empire. The word is Chinese, and must have been
applied in very ancient times, as the Nihongi contains the three characters
with which the name is written. The very name of the book, Nippongi, or,
more elegantly, Nihongi, shows that the use of the term Nippon antedates the
eighth century. Tenchi Tenn, in a.d. 670, rst ocially declared Nippon to
be the name of Japan. It has been asserted that the use of Dai (Great) before
Nippon is quite recent, and that the motive of the modern natives of Japan in
thus designating their empire is from a desire to imitate what they mistake
for the pride or vainglory of Great Britain, not knowing that the term Great
was used there to distinguish it from a smaller French province of the same
name. To this remarkable statement it is sucient to answer, that one of the
most ancient names of Japan is Yamato, the word o meaning great, and the
Japanese equivalent of the Chinese word tai or dai. When Chinese writing

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the mikados empire

was introduced, the Japanese, in seeking an equivalent for Yamato, found

it in Dai Nippon, as may be seen in the Nihongi. The Chinese have always
been in the habit of pre xing dai or tai to whatever relates to their country,
government, or any thing which they in their pride consider very superior.
Anciently they called China Dai T, and they now call it Dai Tsin (or Dai
Chin), Great China. The Japanese have done the same analogous thing for at
least twelve, probably for fteen, centuries. That the use of Dai (Great) before
Nippon is not the fashion of the present century is proved by the fact that the
Japanese encyclopedia San Sai Dzu Ye, nished in 1712, contains the name
with the pronunciation as now used, and that it is found in the very name Dai
Nihon Shi, a book completed in 1715. The use of Nippon (or Niphon, or Nipon),
applied to the main island, is altogether unwarrantable and confusing. The
Japanese have very properly protested against this improper naming of their
chief island, and, notwithstanding the long use of the name in Europe and
America, I believe it should be expunged. The Japanese have some geographical rights which we are bound to respect.
Map of Japan.The best map of Japan is that by Mr. R. Henry Brunton,
C.E., F.R.G.S., late Engineer-in-chief of the Light-house Department of the
Japanese Government. It is ve feet by four, and drawn to a scale of twenty
miles to the inch. It is well engraved, and gives also rules of pronunciation,
explanation of terms, Japanese lineal measures, railways, highways, by-roads,
telegraph lines, light-houses, depths of water along the coast, steamer routes,
lists of principal mountains, rivers, islands, promontories, lakes, open ports,
classes of population, provinces, fu, ken, and a comparative scale of English
miles and Japanese ri.

IX

Life in Ancient Japan

he comparatively profound peace from the era of Sjin Tenn

to the introduction of Chinese civilization was occasionally
interrupted by insurrections in the southern and western parts of
the empire, or by the incursions of the unsubdued aborigines in the
North and East.
During these centuries there continued that welding of races the
Ain, Malay, Nigrito, Corean, and Yamatointo one ethnic compositethe Japaneseand the development of the national temperament, molded by nature, circumstances, and original bent, which have
produced the unique Japanese character. Although, in later centuries,
Japan borrowed largely from China, blood, language, religion, letters,
education, laws, politics, science, art, and the accumulated treasures
of Chinese civilization, her children are to-day, as they have ever
been, a people distinct from the Chinese, ethnologically, physically,
and morally.
Though frequent ghting was necessary, and many of the aborigines
were slaughtered, the great mass of them were tranquilized. To rude
men, in a state of savagery whose existence is mainly animal, it matters little who are their masters, so long as they are not treated with
intolerable cruelty. The aborigines attached to the land roamed over it
to hunt, or remained upon it to till it, and, along the watercourses and
89

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the mikados empire

sea-coast, to sh. With a soil that repaid generously the rude agriculture of that day, an ample food-supply in the sea, without severe labor,
or exorbitant tribute to pay, the conquered tribes, when once quieted,
lived in happiness, content, and peace. The government of them was
the easiest possible. The invaders from the very beginning practiced
that system of concubinage which is practical polygamy, and lled
their harems with the most attractive of the young native females. The
daughter of the former chief shared the couch of the conqueror, and
the peasant became the wife of the soldier, securing that admixture
of races that the merest tyro in ethnology notices in modern Japan.
In certain portions, as in the extreme north of Hondo, the Ain type
of face and head and the general physical characteristics of skin, hair,
eyes, and form, have suered the least modication, owing to later
conquest and less mixture of foreign blood. In Southern and Central
Japan, where the fusion of the races was more perfect, the oval face,
oblique eyes, aquiline nose, prominent features, and light skin prevail. Yet even here are found comparatively pure specimens of the
Malay and even Nigrito races, besides the Ain and Corean types.
The clod-hopper, with his at, round face, upturned nose, expanded
at the roots and wide and sunken at the bridge, nostrils round, and
gaping like the muzzle of a proboscidian, bears in his veins the nearly
pure blood of his aboriginal ancestors. Intellectually and physically,
he is the developed and improved Ainthe resultant of the action
upon the original stock of the soil, food, climate, and agricultural life,
prolonged for more than twenty centuries.
In the imperial family, and among the kug, or court-nobles, are
to be oftener found the nearest approach to the ideal Japanese of
high birth. Yet even among these, who claim twenty-ve centuries
of semi-divine succession, and notably among the daimis, or territorial noblesthe parvenus of feudalismthe grossly sensual cast,
the animal features, the beastly expression, the low type, the plebeian

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91

face of some peasant ancestor re-appear to plague the descendant,

and to imbitter his cup of power and luxury. Th is phenomenon is
made abundant capital of by the native ction-writers, caricaturists,
and dramatists. The diversity of the two types is shown, especially
by the artists, in strongly marked contrast. In the pictures illustrative
of legendary or historic lore, and notably on the Japanese fans, now
so fashionably common among us, the noble hero, the chivalrous
knight, or the doughty warrior, is delineated with oblique eyes, high
eyebrows, rounded nose, oval face, and smooth skin; while the peasant, boor, vanquished ruan, or general scape-goat, is invariably a
man of round, at face, upturned and depressed nose, gaping nostrils,
horizontal eyes, and low eyebrows. In painting the faces of actors,
singing-girls, and those public characters who, though the popular
idols, are of low birth and blood, the fan-artist exaggerates the marks
of beauty to the delight of his native, and to the disgust of his foreign
patrons. What depreciates the value of his wares in the eyes of the
latter enhances it in those of the natives.
All savages worship heroes, and look upon their conquerors, who
have been able apparently to overcome not only themselves, but even
the gods in whom they trusted, if not as gods themselves, at least as
imbued with divine power. The Ains of Yezo to this day adore the
warrior Yoshitsune. Their fathers doubtless considered Jimmu and his
followers as gods or men divinely assisted. The conquerors were not
slow in cultivating such a belief for their own benet, and thus what
was once the fancy of savages became the dogma of religion and the
tool of the magistrate. The reverence and obedience of the people were
still further secured by making the government purely theocratic, and
its general procedure and ceremonial identical with those of worship.
The forms of local authority among the once independent tribes were
but little interfered with, and the government exercised over them
consisted at rst chiey in the exaction of tribute. The oating legends,

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the mikados empire

local traditions, and religious ideas of the aborigines, gathered up,

amplied by the dominant race, transformed and made coherent by
the dogmatics of a theocracy, became the basis of Shint, upon which
a modied Chinese cosmogony and abstract philosophical ideas were
afterward grafted. It was this background that has made the resultant
form of Shint dierent from what is most probably its prototype, the
ante-Confucian Chinese religion. In its origin, Shint is from the
main-land of Asia. In growth and development it is a genuine product
of Japanese soil. As yet, before the advent of Buddhism and Chinese
philosophy, there were no moral codes, no systems of abstract doctrines, no priestly caste. These were all later developments. There were
then no colossal temples with their great belfries and immense bells
whose notes quivered the air into leagues of liquid melody; no sacred
courtyards decked with palm-trees; no costly shrines decked out in the
gaudy magnicence characteristic of Buddhism, or impure Shint. No
extensive monasteries, from which oated on the breeze the chanting
of priests or the droning hum of students, were then built. No crimson
pagodas peeped out from camphor groves, or cordons of re-warding
rs and keyaki-trees. No splendid vestments, gorgeous ritual, waves
of incense, blazing lights, antiphonal responses, were seen or heard in
the thatched huts which served as shrines of the kami. No idols decked
the altars. No wayside images dotted the mountain or the meadow
paths. No huge portals (torii) of stone or red-lacquered timber stood
fronting or opening the path to holy edices.
On the hill-top, or river-side, or forest grove, the people assembled
when invocations were oered and thanksgiving rendered to the gods.
Confession of sin was made, and the wrath of the kami, therefore, was
deprecated. The priest, after fasting and lustrations, puried himself
and, robed in white, made oerings of the fruits of the earth or the
trophies of the net and the chase.

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93

At the court, a shrine of the Sun-goddess had been set up and

sacrices oered. Gradually in the towns and villages similar shrines
were erected, and temples built; but for long centuries among the
mountains, along the rivers and sea-coasts, the child of the soil set up
his fetich, made the water-worn stone, the gnarled tree, or the stormcloud his god. Wherever evil was supposed to lurk, or malignity reside,
there were the emblems of the Ain religion. On precipice, in gorge,
in that primeval landscape, stood the plume of curled shavings to
ward o the evil inuences. In agony of terror in presence of the awful
phenomenon of nature, earthquake, typhoon, ood, or tidal wave, the
savage could but supplicate deied Nature to cease from wrath and
tumult, and restore her face in peace of sunshine and calm.
The houses of the ancient Japanese were oblong huts, made by placing poles of young trees, with the bark on, upright in the ground, with
transverse poles to make the frame, and fastened together with ropes
made of rushes or vines. The walls were of matted grass, boughs, or
rushes, the rafters of bamboo, and the sloping roof of grass-thatch,
fastened down by heavy ridge-poles. The two larger rafters at each
end projected and crossed each other, like two bayonets in a stack of
guns. Across the ridge-pole, and beneath it and another heavy tree
laid lengthwise on top of the thatch, projected at right angles on
either side short, heavy logs, which by their weight, and from being
rmly bound by withes running under the ridge-pole, kept the thatch
rmly in its place. This primeval hut is the model of the architecture
of a pure Shint temple. A short study of one easily reveals the fact.
The oor, of hardened earth, had the re in the centre; the doors and
windows were holes covered at times with matsin short, the Aino
hut of to-day. The modern Japanese dwelling is simply an improvement upon that ancient model.

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the mikados empire

The clothing of that period consisted of skins of animals, coarsely

woven stu of straw, grass, bark, palm-bre, and in some cases of
asbestos. Silk and cotton fabrics were of later invention and use. It is
evident, even from modern proof, as exhibited in the normal Japanese
of to-day, that the wearing of many garments was not congenial to the
ancient people. As for straw and grass, these materials are even now
universally used in town and country for hats, rain-coats, leggings,
sandals, and a great variety of wearing apparel. A long loose garment,
with the breech, or loin-cloth, and girdle, leggings, and sandals of
straw, comprised a suit of ancient Japanese clothing. The food of the
people consisted chiey of sh, roots, and the esh of animals. They
ate venison, bear-meat, and other esh, with untroubled consciences,
until Buddhism came with its injunctions. The conquerors evidently
brought cereals with them, and taught their cultivation; but the main
reliance of the masses was upon the spoils of the rivers and sea. Even
now the great centres and lines of the population are rivers and the
sea-coast. Roots, sea-weed, and edible wild vegetables were, as at
present, an important portion of native diet.
The landscape of modern Japan is one of minute prettiness. It is
one continued succession of mountains and valleys. The irregularities of the surface render it picturesque, and the labors of centuries
have brought almost every inch of the cultivable soil in the populous
districts into a state of high agricultural nish. The peasant of to-day
is in many cases the direct descendant of the man who rst plunged
mattock and hoe into the rooty soil, and led the water from a distance
of miles to his new-made elds. The gullies, gorges, and valleys are
everywhere terraced for the growth of rice. Millions of irrigated elds
without fences or live-stock, bounded by water-courses, and animate
with unharmed and harmless wild-fowl, the snowy heron, and the
crane, and whose fertility astonishes the stranger, and the elaborate
system of reservoirs, ditches, and umes, are the harvest of twenty

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95

centuries of toil. The face of nature has been smoothed; the unkempt
luxuriance of forest and undergrowth has been sobered; the courses
of rivers have been bridled; the once inaccessible sides of mountains
graded, and their summits crossed by the paths of the traveler or
pilgrim. The earth has been honey-combed by miners in quest of its
metallic wealth.
In the primeval landscape of Japan there were no meadows, hedges,
cattle, horses, prairies of ripening rice, irrigated elds, and terraced
gulches. Then also, as now, the landscape was nude of domestic animal life. Instead of castled cities, fortied hills, gardens, and hedges,
were only thatched villages, or semi-subterranean huts. There were no
roads, no dikes. No water-courses had been altered, no slopes or hills
denuded of timber. The plethora of nature was unpruned; the scrub
bamboo, wild owers, or grass covered the hills. The great plains of
the East and North were luxuriant moors, covered with grass, reeds,
or bamboo, populous with wild animal life. No laden junks moved up
the rivers. The mulberry and tea plantations had not yet been set out.
The conquerors found a virgin soil and a land of enrapturing beauty.
They brought with them, doubtless, a knowledge of agriculture and
metals. Gradually the face of nature changed. The hunter became
a farmer. The women learned to spin and weave cotton and hemp.
Division of labor began. The artisan and merchant appeared. Arts,
sciences, skilled agriculture, changed the face of the land. Society
emerged from its savage state, and civilization began.
As yet there was no writing. All communications were oral, all teachings handed down from father to son. Memory was the only treasury
of thought. There is, indeed, shown in Japan at the present day a socalled ancient Japanese alphabetthe kami, or god, letters which it
is asserted the ancient Japanese used. Th is assertion is voided of truth
by the testimony of the best native scholars to the contrary. No books
or ancient inscriptions exist in this character. I have myself sought in

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vain, in the grave-yards of Kioto and other ancient places, to discover

any of these characters upon the old tombs. The best authorities, scholars
who have investigated the subject, pronounce the so-called god-letters a
forgery, that reveals their articial and modern character upon a slight
examination. They consist almost entirely of a system of straight lines
and circles, which has, doubtless, either been borrowed from Corea, or
invented by some person in modern times. Yet the morning of literature had dawned before writing was known. Poems, odes to the gods,
prayers, fragments of the Shint liturgy, which still exist in the Kojiki
and Nihongi, had been composed. From these fragments we may presume that a much larger unwritten literature existed, which was enjoyed
by the men who, in those early days, by thought and reection, attained
to a certain degree of culture above their fellows. The early sovereigns
worshiped the gods in person, and prayed that their people might enjoy
a suciency of food, clothing, and shelter from the elements; and twice
a year, in the Sixth and Twelfth months, the people assembled at the
river-side, and, by washings and prayer, celebrated the festival of General
Purication, by which the whole nation was purged of oenses and
pollutions. This was the most characteristic of Shint festivals, and the
liturgy used in celebrating it is still in vogue at the present day. Time
was measured by the phases of the moon, and the summer and winter
solstices. The division of months and years was in use. The ancient
laws and punishments were exceedingly severe. Besides the wager of
battle to decide a quarrel, the ordeal still in use among the Ains was
then availed of. The persons involved immersed their hands in boiling
water. He whose hand was scalded most was the guilty one. The wholly
innocent escaped without scath, or was so slightly injured that his hand
rapidly healed.
Japanese art had its birth in mercy, about the time of Christs advent
on earth. A custom long adhered to among the noble classes was the
burial of the living with the dead ( jun-shi, dying with the master).

Life in Ancient Japan

97

The wife, and one or more servants, of the deceased lord committed
suicide, and were inhumed with him. The mikado Suinin, son of Sjin,
attempted (b.c. 2) to abolish the cruel rite by imperial edict. Yet the old
fashion was not immediately abandoned. In a.d. 3, the empress died.
Nomi no Tsukun, a courtier, having made some clay images, succeeded in having these substituted for the living victims. This was the
birth of Japanese art. Henceforth these rst products of mans unfolding genius stood vicarious for the breathing beings they simulated. For
this reform, the originator was given the honorable designation, Haji
(ha, clay; shi, ji, teacher = clay-image teacher, or artist).
The domestic life and morals of those days deserve notice. There
were no family names. The institution of marriage, if such it may be
called, was upon the same basis as that among the modern Ains or
North American Indians. Polygamy was common. Marriage between
those whom we consider brothers and sisters was frequent, and a thing
not to be condemned. Children of the same fathers by dierent mothers were not considered fraternally related to each other, and hence
could marry; but marriage between a brother and sister born of the
same mother was prohibited as immoral.
The annexed illustration is taken from a native work, and represents a chief or nobleman in ancient Japan. It will be noticed that
beards and mustaches were worn in those days. The artist has depicted
his subject with a well-wrinkled face to make him appear venerable,
and with protruding cheeks to show his lusty physique, recalling the
ideals of Chinese art, in which the men are always portly and massive,
while the women are invariably frail and slender. His pose, expression, folded arms, and dress of gured material (consisting of one long
loose robe with owing sleeves, and a second garment, like very wide
trousers, girded at the waist with straps of the same material) are all
to be seen, though in modied forms, in modern Japan. The fashions
of twenty centuries have changed but slightly. Suspended from his

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the mikados empire

girdle may be seen the magatama chatelaine, evidently symbolizing

his rank. The magatama are perforated and polished pieces of soapstone or cornelian, of various colors, shaped something like a curved
seed-pod. They were strung together like beads. Other ornaments of
this age were the kudatama, jewels of gold, silver, or iron. The ancient
sword was a straight, double-edged blade, about three feet long.
Buddhists and Confucianists assert that there existed no words in
their language for benevolence, justice, propriety, sagacity, and truth.
Doubtless these virtues existed, though not as necessary principles,
to be taught, formulated, and incorporated into daily life. Chastity
and restraint among the unmarried were not reckoned as necessary
virtues; and the most ancient Japanese literature, to say nothing of
their mythology, proves that marriage was a imsy bar against the
excursions of irregular passion. Great feasts and drinking-bouts,
in which excessive eating was practiced, were common. They were
fond of the chase, and hunting-parties were frequent from the most
ancient times. Among the commendable features of their life were
the habit of daily bathing and other methods of cleanliness. They
treated their women with comparative kindness and respect. They
loved the beautiful in Nature, and seemed to have been ever susceptible to her charms. In brief, they had neither the virtues nor vices
of high civilization.
The arts were in the rudest state. Painting, carving, and sculpture
were scarcely known. No theatre existed. Sacred dancing with masks,
at the holy festivals, was practiced as part of the public worship, with
music from both wind and stringed instruments.
Until the seventh century of our era, when the Chinese centralized system was adopted, the government of the Japanese empire was
a species of feudalism. The invaders, on conquering the land, divided
it into efs that were held sometimes by direct followers of Jimmu, or
by the original Ain chiefs, or nobles of mixed blood, on their rendi-

Life in Ancient Japan

99

tion of homage or tribute to the conqueror. The frequent defection of

these native or semi-Japanese chiefs was the cause of the numerous
rebellions, the accounts of which enter so largely into the history of
the rst centuries of the empire. The mikado himself ruled over what
is now called the Kinai, or Five Home Provinces, a space of country
included between Lake Biwa and the bays of zaka and Owari. The
provinces in Shikoku, Kiushiu, and the circuits west, north, and east,
were ruled by tributary chiefs who paid homage to the mikado as
their suzerain, but most probably allowed him to interfere to a slight
extent in the details of the administration of their lands. In cases of
dispute between them, the mikado doubtless acted as umpire, his
geographical position, superior power, and the sacredness of person
insuring his supremacy at all times, even in the height of turbulence
and riot so often prevailing.
In the ancient mikadoate, called by the Japanese the sei era, or
the government of monarchs, there were several features tending to
increase the power of the suzerain, or central chief. The rst was the
essentially theocratic form of the government. The sovereign was
the centre of that superstitious awe, as well as of loyalty and personal
reverence, which still exists. There grew into being that prestige, that
sense of hedging divinity and super-mortal supremacy of the mikado
that still forms the most striking trait of the Japanese character, and
the mightiest political, as it is a great religious and moral, force in
Japan, overshadowing even the tremendous power of Buddhism,
which is, as Shint is not, armed with the terrors of eternity. In both
a theological and political sense, in him dwelt the fullness of the
gods bodily. He was their hypostasis. He was not only their chosen
servant, but was himself a god, and the vicegerent of all the gods. His
celestial fathers had created the very ground on which they dwelt.
His wrath could destroy, his favor appease, celestial anger, and bring
them fortune and prosperity. He was their preserver and benefac-

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tor. In his custody were the three sacred symbols. It was by superior
intellect and the dogmatism of religion, as well as with superior valor,
weapons, and skill, that a handful of invaders conquered and kept a
land populated by millions of savages.
To the eye of a foreigner and a native of Japan, this imperfect picture of primitive Japan which I have given appears in very dierent
lights. The native who looks at this far-o morning of Great Japan,
the Holy Country, sees his ancestors only through the atmosphere
in which he has lived and breathed. The dim religious light of reverent teaching of mother, nurse, father, or book falls on every object
to reveal beauty and conceal defects. The rose-tints which innocent childhood casts upon every object here makes all things lovely.
Heaven lies about his countrys infancy. The precepts of his religion
make the story sacred, and forbid the prying eye and the sandaled
foot. The native loves, with passionate devotion, the land that nursed
his holy ancestors, and thrills at the oft-told story of their prowess and
their holy lives. He makes them his model of conduct.
The foreigner, in cold blood and with critical eye, patiently seeks
the truth beneath, and, regarding not the dogma which claims to
rest upon it, looks through dry light. To the one Nippon is the Land
of the Gods, and the primal ages were holy. To the other, Japan is
merely a geographical division of the earth, and its beginnings were
from barbarism.

The Ancient Religion

he ancient religion of the Japanese is called Kami no michi (way

or doctrine of the gods; i.e., theology). The Chinese form of the
same is Shint. Foreigners call it Shintism, or Sintooism. Almost
all the foreign writers* who have professed to treat of Shinto have
described only the impure form which has resulted from the contact
with it of Buddhism and Chinese philosophy, and as known to them
since the sixteenth century. My purpose in this chapter is to give a
mere outline of ancient Shint in its purity. A sketch of its traditional
and doctrinal basis has been given. Only a very few Shint temples,
called miya, have preserved the ancient purity of the rites and dogmas
during the overshadowing inuences of Buddhism.
In Japanese mythology the universe is Japan, the legends relating
to Japan exclusively. All the deities, with perhaps a few exceptions,
are historical personages; and the conclusion of the whole matter of
cosmogony and celestial genealogy is that the mikado is the descen* By far the best writing on Shint, based on profound researches, is the long
article of Mr. Ernest Satow, entitled The Revival of Pure Shint, in the
Japan Mail, 1874, and contained in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of
Japan for the same year. Also on The Shint Temples of Is, by the same writer.
A scholarly article, by Mr. P. Kemperman, secretary to the German legation
in Japan, was published in the Japan Mail of August 26th, 1874.

101

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the mikados empire

dant and representative of the gods who created the heavens and earth
(Japan). Hence, the imperative duty of all Japanese is to obey him.
Its principles, as summed up by the Department of Religion, and
promulgated throughout the empire so late as 1872, are expressed in
the following commandments;
1. Thou shalt honor the Gods, and love thy country
2. Thou shalt clearly understand the principles of Heaven and the
duty of man
3. Thou shalt revere the Mikado as thy sovereign, and obey the
will of his court

The chief characteristic, which is preserved in various manifestations, is the worship of ancestors, and the deication of emperors,
heroes, and scholars. The adoration of the personied forces of nature
enters largely into it. It employs no idols, images, or e gies in its
worship. Its symbols are the mirror and the gohei strips of notched
white paper depending from a wand of wood. It teaches no doctrine of
the immortality of the soul, though it is easy to see that such a dogma
may be developed from it, since all men (Japanese) are descended from
the immortal gods. The native derivation of the term for man is hito
(light-bearer); and the ancient title of the mikados heir-apparent
was light-inheritor. Fire and light (sun) have from earliest ages been
the objects of veneration.
Shint has no moral code, no accurately dened system of ethics or belief. The leading principle of its adherents is imitation of
the illustrious deeds of their ancestors, and they are to prove themselves worthy of their descent by the purity of their lives. A number
of salient points in their mythology are recognized as maxims for
their guidance. It expresses great detestation of all forms of uncleanness, and is remarkable for the fullness of its ceremonies for bodily

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purication. Birth and death are especially polluting. Anciently, the

corpse and the lying-in woman were assigned to buildings set apart,
which were afterward burned. The priest must bathe and don clean
garments before ociating, and bind a slip of paper over his mouth,
lest his breath should pollute the oerings. Many special festivals
were observed for purication, the ground dedicated for the purpose
being rst sprinkled with salt. The house and ground were de led by
death, and those who attended a funeral must also free themselves
from contamination by the use of salt. The ancient emperors and
priests in the provinces performed the actual ablution of the people,
or made public lustrations. Later on, twice a year, at the festivals of
purication, paper gures representing the people were thrown into
the river, allegorical of the cleansing of the nation from the sins of the
past six months. Still later, the mikado deputized the chief minister
of religion at Kito to perform the symbolical act for the people of
the whole country.
After death, the members of a family in which death had occurred
must exclude themselves from all intercourse with the world, attend
no religious services, and, if in ocial position, do no work for a
specied number of days.
Thanksgiving, supplication, penance, and praise are all represented in the prayers to the gods, which are oered by both sexes.
The emperor and nobles often met in the temple gardens to compose
hymns or sacred poems to the gods. Usually in prayer the hands are
clapped twice, the head or the knees bowed, and the petition made in
silence. The worshiper does not enter the temple, but stands before it,
and rst pulls a rope dangling down over a double gong, like a huge
sleigh-bell, with which he calls the attention of the deity. The kami
are believed to hear the prayer when as yet but in thought, before it
rises to the lips. Not being intended for human ears, eloquence is not
needed. The mikado in his palace daily oers up petitions for all his

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people, which are more eectual than those of his subjects. Washing
the hands and rinsing out the mouth, the worshiper repeats prayers,
of which the following is an example: O God, that dwellest in the
high plain of heaven, who art divine in substance and in intellect, and
able to give protection from guilt and its penalties, to banish impurity,
and to cleanse us from uncleannesshosts of gods, give ear and listen
to these our petitions. Or this: I say with awe, deign to bless me by
correcting the unwitting faults which, seen and heard by you, I have
committed; by blowing o and clearing away the calamities which
evil gods might in ict; by causing me to live long, like the hard and
lasting rock; and by repeating to the gods of heavenly origin, and to
the gods of earthly origin, the petitions which I present every day,
along with your breath, that they may hear with the sharp-earedness
of the forth-galloping colt.
The oerings, most commonly laid with great ceremony by the
priest, in white robes, before the gods, were fruit and vegetables in
season, sh and venison. At night they were removed, and became the
property of the priest. Game and fowls were oered up as an act of
worship, but with the peculiarity that their lives were not sacriced.
They were hung up by the legs before the temple for some time, and
then permitted to escape, and, being regarded as sacred to the gods,
were exempt from harm. The new rice and the products furnished by
the silk-worm and the cotton-plant were also dedicated.
Before each temple stood a torii, or bird-rest. This was made of two
upright tree-trunks. On the top of these rested a smoother tree, with
ends slightly projecting, and underneath this a smaller horizontal
beam. On this perched the fowls oered up to the gods, not as food,
but as chanticleers to give notice of day-break. In later centuries
the meaning of the torii was forgotten, and it was supposed to be a
gateway. The Buddhists attached tablets to its cross-beam, painted or
coppered its posts, curved its top-piece, made it of stone or bronze,

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105

and otherwise altered its character. Resembling two crosses with their
ends joined, the torii is a conspicuous object in the landscape, and a
purely original work of Japanese architecture.
All the miyas were characterized by rigid simplicity, constructed
of pure wood, and thatched. No paint, lacquer, gilding, or any meretricious ornaments were ever allowed to adorn or de le the sacred
structure, and the use of metal was avoided. Within, only the gohei
and the daily oerings were visible. Within a closet of purest wood is a
case of wood containing the august spirit-substitute, or gods-seed,
in which the deity enshrined in the particular temple is believed to
reside. This spirit-substitute is usually a mirror, which in some temples
is exposed to view. The principal Shint temples are at Is, in which
the mirror given by Amaterasu to Ninigi, and brought down from
heaven, was enshrined. Some native writers assert that the mirror was
the goddess herself; others, that it merely represented her. All others
in Japan are imitations or copies of this original.
The priests of Shint are designated according to their rank. They
are called kannushi (shrine-keepers). Sometimes they receive titles
from the emperor, and the higher ranks of the priesthood are court
nobles. They are, in the strictest sense of the word, Government
ocials. The oce of chief minister of religion was hereditary in the
Nakatomi family. Ordinarily they dress like other people, but are
robed in white when ociating, or in court-dress when at court. They
marry, rear families, and do not shave their heads. The oce is usually
hereditary. Virgin priestesses also minister at the shrines.
After all the research of foreign scholars who have examined the
claims of Shint on the soil, and by the aid of the language, and the
sacred books and commentators, many hesitate to decide whether
Shint is a genuine product of Japanese soil, or whether it is not
closely allied with the ancient religion of China, which existed before
the period of Confucius. The weight of opinion inclines to the latter

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belief. Certain it is that many of the Japanese myths are almost exactly
like those of China, while many parts of the cosmogony can be found
unaltered in older Chinese works. The Kojiki (the Bible of the Japanese
believers in Shint) is full of narrations; but it lays down no precepts,
teaches no morals or doctrines, prescribes no ritual. Shint has very
few of the characteristics of a religion, as understood by us. The most
learned native commentators and exponents of Shint expressly maintain the view, that Shint has no moral code. Motori, the great modern revivalist of Shint, teaches, with polemic emphasis, that morals
were invented by the Chinese because they were an immoral people;
but in Japan there was no necessity for any system of morals, as every
Japanese acted aright if he only consulted his own heart. The duty
of a good Japanese consists in obeying the commands of the mikado
without questioning whether these commands are right or wrong. It
was only immoral people, like the Chinese, who presumed to discuss
the character of their sovereigns. Among the ancient Japanese, government and religion were the same.*
* In this chapter, I have carefully endeavored to exclude mere opinions and
conjectures, and to give the facts only. I append below the views held by
gentlemen of cosmopolitan culture, and earnest students of shinto on the soil,
whose researches and candor entitle them to be heard.
Shint, as expounded by Motori, is nothing else than an engine for reducing the people to a condition of mental slavery.Ernest Satow, English, the
foremost living Japanese scholar, and a special student of Shint.
There is good evidence that Shinto resembles very closely the ancient religion of the Chinese. A distinction should be drawn between the Shinto
of ancient times and the doctrine as developed by writers at the court of the
mikado in modern times. The sword and dragon, the thyrsus sta and ivy,
the sta of sculapius and snakes, most probably had the same signicance
as the Japanese gohei; and, as Siebold has remarked, it symbolized the union
of the two elements, male and female. The history of the creation of the
world, as given by the Japanese, bore the closest resemblance to the myths
of China and India; while little doubt existed that these (symbol and myth)
were imported from the West, the diculty being to x the date. Little was

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known of Shint that might give it the character of a religion as understood

by Western nations.J. A. Von Brandt, German, late minister of the German
empire to Japan, and now to Peking, a student of Japanese archaeology, and founder
of the German Asiatic Society of Japan.
Japanese, in general, are at a loss to describe what Shint is; but this circumstance is intelligible if what was once an indigenous faith had been turned in
later days, into a political engine. Infallibility on the part of the head of the
state, which was naturally attributed to rulers claiming divine descent, was a
convenient doctrine for political purposes in China or Japan, as elsewhere.
We must look to early times for the meaning of Shint. Its origin is closely
allied to the early religion of the Chinese. The practice of putting up sticks
with shavings or paper attached, in order to attract the attention of the spirits,
is observable among certain hill tribes of India, as well as among the Ains of
Yezo. The Hindoos, Burmese, and Chinese have converted these sticks into
ags, or streamers. If Shint had ever worked great results, or had taken
deep hold on the Japanese people, it would scarcely have been superseded
so completely as it had been by Buddhism.Sir Harry S. Parkes, British
minister plenipotentiary in Japan, a ne scholar, and long resident in both China
and Japan.
The leading idea of Shinto is a reverential feeling toward the dead. As to
the political use of it, the state is quite right in turning it to account in support
of the absolute government which exists in Japan. The early records of Japan
are by no means reliable.Arinori Mori, Japanese, formerly charg daaires
of Japan at Washington, U. S. A., now Vice-Minister of Foreign Aairs in Japan.

XI

The Throne and the Noble Families

rom the beginning of the Japanese empire, until the century after
the introduction of Buddhism, the mikados were the real rulers of
their people, having no hedge of division between them and their subjects. The palace was not secluded from the outer world. No screen hid
the face of the monarch from the gaze of his subjects. No bureaucracy
rose, like a wall of division, between ruler and ruled. No hedge or net
of ocialdom hindered free passage of remonstrance or petition. The
mikado, active in word and deed, was a real ruler, leading his armies,
directing his Government. Those early days of comparative national
poverty when the mikado was the warrior-chief of a conquering tribe;
and, later, when he ruled a little kingdom in Central Japan, holding
the distant portions of his quasi-empire in tribute; and, still later,
when he was the head of an undivided empiremark the era of his
personal importance and energy. Then, in the mikado dwelt a manly
soul, and a strong mind in a strong body. Th is era was the golden
age of the imperial power. He was the true executive of the nation,
initiating and carrying out the enterprises of peace or war. As yet,
no military class had arisen to make themselves the arbiters of the
throne; as yet, that throne was under no proprietorship; as yet, there
was but one capital and centre of authority.
109

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the mikados empire

Gradually, however, there arose families of nobility who shared and

dictated the power, and developed the two ocial castes of civilian
and military ocials, widening the distance between the sovereign
and his subjects, and rendering him more and more inaccessible to
his people. Then followed in succession the decay of his power, the
creation of a dual system of government, with two capitals and centres
of authority; the domination of the military classes; the centuries of
anarchy; the progress of feudalism; the rending of the empire into
hundreds of petty provinces, baronies, and feudal tenures. Within
the time of European knowledge of Japan, true national unity has
scarcely been known. The political system has been ever in a state of
unstable equilibrium, and the nation but a conglomeration of units,
in which the forces of repulsion ever threatened to overcome the
forces of cohesion. Two rulers in two capitals gave to foreigners the
impression that there were two emperors in Japanan idea that
has been incorporated into most of the text-books and cyclopedias of
Christendom. Let it be clearly understood, however, that there never
was but one emperor in Japan, the mikado, who is and always was
the only sovereign, though his measure of power has been very different at various times. Until the rise and domination of the military
classes, he was in fact, as well as by law, supreme. How the mikados
actual power ebbed away shall form the subject of this and the following chapter.
From the death of Nintoku Tenno, the last of the long-lived mikados, to Kimmei (540571), in whose time continental civilization was
introduced, a period of one hundred and forty-one years, fourteen
emperors ruled, averaging a little over ten years each. From Kimmei
to Gotoba (a.d. 1198) fty-three emperors reigned, averaging eleven
years each. (See list of emperors, p. 138.)
In a.d. 603, the rst attempt to create orders of nobility for the
nobles, already numerously existing, was made by the Empress Suiko.

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111

Twelve orders were instituted, with symbolic names, after the Chinese
customsuch as Virtue, Humanity, Propriety, etc.distinguished by
the colors of the caps worn. In 649, this system was changed for that
having nine ranks, with two divisions. In each of the last six were two
subdivisions, thus in reality making thirty grades. The rst grade was
a posthumous reward, given only to those who in life had held the
second. Every ocer, from the prime minister to the ocial clerks,
had a rank attached to his oce, which was independent of birth or
age. All ocers were presented, and all questions of precedence were
settled, in accordance with this rank.
The court ocials, at rst, had been very few, as might be imagined
in this simple state of society without writing. The Jin Gi Kuan, which
had existed from very ancient times, supervised the ceremonies of
religion, the positions being chiey held by members of the Nakatomi
family. This was the highest division of the Government. In a.d. 603,
with the introduction of orders of nobility, the form of government
was changed from simple feudalism to centralized monarchy, with
eight ministries, or departments of state, as follows:
1. Nakatsukasa no Sh (Department of the Imperial Palace)

2. Shiki bu Sh (Department of Civil Oce and Education)

3. Ji bu Sh (Department of Etiquette and Ceremonies)
4. Mim bu Sh (Department of Revenue and Census)
5. Hi bu Sh (Department of War)
6. Gi bu Sh (Department of Justice)
7. O kura Sh (Department of Treasury)
8. Ku nai Sh (Department of Imperial Household)
The Jin Gi Kuan (Council of Religion; literally, Council of the Gods
of Heaven and Earth), though anciently outranking the Dai J Kuan
(Great Government Council), lost its prestige after the introduction of

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Buddhism. The Dai J Kuan, created a.d. 786, superintended the eight
boards and ruled the empire by means of local governors appointed
from the capital. In it were four ministers:
1. Dai J Dai Jin (Great Minister of the Great Government)
2. Sa Dai Jin (Great Minister of the Left)
3. U Dai Jin (Great Minister of the Right)
4. Nai Dai Jin (Inner Great Minister)
Of the eight departments, that of War ultimately became the most
important. A special department was necessary to attend to the public
manners and forms of society, etiquette being more than morals, and
equal to literary education. The foreign relations of the empire were
then of so little importance that they were assigned to a bureau of the
above department. The treasury consisted of imperial store-houses
and granaries, as money was not then in general use. Rice was the
standard of value, and all taxes were paid in this grain.
The introduction of these orders of nobility and departments of
state from China brought about the change from the species of feudalism hitherto existing to centralized monarchy, the rise of the noble
families, and the xing of ocial castes composed, not, as in most
ancient countries, of the priestly and warrior classes, but, as in China,
of the civilian and military.
The seeds of the medival and modern complex feudalism, which
lasted until 1872, were planted about this time. A division of all the
able-bodied males into three classes was now made, one of which
was to consist of regular soldiers permanently in service. Th is was
the military class, from which the legions kept as garrisons in the
remote provinces were recruited. The unit of combination was the
go, consisting of ve men. Two go formed a kua, ve kua a tai, two
tai a rio, ten rio a dan. These terms may be translated le, squad,

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113

company, battalion, regiment. The dan, or regiment, could also

be regularly divided into four detachments. The generals who commanded the army in the eld were in many cases civil ocials, who
were more or less conversant with the rude military science of the day.
In their time, success in war depended more on disciplined numbers
and personal valor, and was not so much a problem of weight, mathematics, machinery, and money as in our day. The expeditions were
led by a shgun, or general, who, if he commanded three regiments,
was called a tai-shgun, or generalissimo. The vice-commanders were
called fuku-shgun. Thus it will be seen that the term shgun is
merely the Japanese word for general. All generals were shguns,
and even the eete gure-head of the great usurpation at Yedo, with
whom Commodore Perry and those who followed him made treaties,
supposing him to be the secular emperor was nothing more.
Muster-rolls were kept of the number of men in the two remaining
classes that could be sent in the eld on an emergency; and whenever
an insurrection broke out, and a military expedition was determined
upon, orders were sent to the provinces along the line of march to be
ready to obey the imperial command, and compare the quota required
with the local muster-rolls. An army would thus be quickly assembled
at the capital, or, starting thence, could be re-enforced on the route to
the rebellious province. All that was necessary were the orders of the
emperor. When war was over, the army was dissolved, and the army
corps, regiments, and companies were mustered out of service into
their units of combination, go of ve men. The general, dong helmet,
made his votive oering to the gods, and returned to garrison duty.
Until about the twelfth century, the Japanese empire, like the old
Roman, was a centre of civilization surrounded by barbarism, or,
rather, like a wave advancing ever farther northward. The numerous revolts in Kiushiu, Shikoku, and even in the North and East of
Hondo, show that the subjugation of these provinces was by no means

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the mikados empire

complete on their rst pacication. The Kuant needed continual

military care, as well as civil government; while the northern provinces were in a chronic state of riot and disorder, being now peaceful and loyally obedient, and anon in rebellion against the mikado.
To keep the remote provinces in order, to defend their boundaries,
and to collect tribute, military occupation became a necessity; and,
accordingly, in each of the distant provinces, especially those next
to the frontier, beyond which were the still unconquered savages, an
army was permanently encamped. This, in the remote provinces, was
the permanent military force. Throughout the country was a reserve
militia, or latent army; and in the capital was the regular army, consisting of the generals and the Six Guards, or household troops, who
formed the regular garrison of Kito in peace, and in war became the
nucleus of the army of chastisement.
This system worked well at rst, but time showed its defects, and
wherein it could be improved. Among that third of the population
classed as soldiers, some naturally proved themselves brave, apt, and
skillful; others were worthless in war, while in the remaining twothirds many who were able and willing could not enter the army.
About the end of the eighth century a reform was instituted, and a
new division of the people made. The court decided that all those
among the rich peasants who had capacity, and were skilled in archery
and horsemanship, should compose the military class, and that the
remainder, the weak and feeble, should continue to till the soil and
apply themselves to agriculture. The above was one of the most signicant of all the changes in the history of Japan. Its fruits are seen
to-day in the social constitution of the Japanese people. Though there
are many classes, there are but two great divisions of the Japanese, the
military and the agricultural. It wrought the complete severance of the
soldier and the farmer. It lifted up one part of the people to a plane of
life on which travel, adventure, the profession and the pursuit of arms,

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115

letters, and the cultivation of honor and chivalry were possible, and
by which that brightest type of the Japanese man, the samurai, was
produced. This is the class which for centuries has monopolized arms,
polite learning, patriotism, and intellect of Japan. They are the men
whose minds have been ever open to learn, from whom sprung the
ideas that once made, and which later overthrew, the feudal system,
which wrought the mighty reforms that swept away the shgunate
in 1868, restored the mikado to ancient power, who introduced those
ideas that now rule Japan, and sent their sons abroad to study the
civilization of the West. To the samurai Japan looks to-day for safety
in war, and progress in peace. The samurai is the soul of the nation. In
other lands the priestly and the military castes were formed. In Japan
one and the same class held the sword and the penliberal learning
and secular culture. The other classthe agriculturalremained
unchanged. Left to the soil to till it, to live and die upon it, the
Japanese farmer has remained the same to-day as he was then. Like
the wheat that for successive ages is planted as wheat, sprouts, beards,
and lls as wheat, the peasant, with his horizon bounded by his riceelds, his water-courses, or the timbered hills, his intellect laid away
for safe-keeping in the priests hands, is the son of the soil; caring
little who rules him, unless he is taxed beyond the power of esh and
blood to bear, or an overmeddlesome ocialdom touches his land to
transfer, sell, or re-divide it: then he rises as a rebel. In time of war,
he is a disinterested and a passive spectator, and he does not ght.
He changes masters with apparent unconcern. Amidst all the ferment
of ideas induced by the contact of Western civilization with Asiatic
within the last two decades, the farmer stolidly remains conservative: he knows not, nor cares to hear, of it, and hates it because of the
heavier taxes it imposes upon him.
To support the military, a certain portion of rice was set apart
permanently as revenue, and given as wages to the soldiers. This is the

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the mikados empire

A Japanese Farmer (seed beds of rice protected

from the birds by strings and slips of wood)*

origin of the pensions still enjoyed by the samurai, and the burden of
the Government and people, which in 1876, after repeated reductions,
amounts to nearly $18,000,000.
Let us notice how the noble families originated. To this hour
these same families, numbering one hundred and fty-ve in all,
dwell in Tki or Kito, intensely proud of their high descent from
the mikados and the heavenly gods, glorying in their pedigree more
* In the above sketch by Hokusai, the farmer, well advanced in life, bent
and bald is looking dubiously over a piece of newly tilled land, perhaps just
reclaimed, which he defends from the birds by the device of strings holding
strips of thin wood and bamboo stretched from a pole. With his ever-present
bath-towel and headkerchief on his shoulders, his pipe held behind him, he
stands in meditative attitude, in his old rice-straw sandals, run down and out
at the heels, his well-worn cotton coat, darned crosswise for durability and
economy, wondering whether he will see a full crop before he dies, or whether
he can pay his taxes, and ll his childrens mouths with rice. The writing at
side is a proverb which has two meanings: it may be read, A new eld gives a
small crop, or Human life is but fty years. In either case, it has pregnant
signicance to the farmer. The pathos and humor are irresistible to one who
knows the life of these sons of toil.

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117

than the autochthons of Greece gloried in their native soil. The existence of this feeling of superiority to all mankind among some of the
highest ocials under the present mikados government has been
the cause of bitter quarrels, leading almost to civil war. Under the
altered circumstances of the national life since 1868, the ocials of
ancient lineage, either unable to conceal, or desirous of manifesting
their pride of birth, have on various occasions stung to rage the rising
young men who have reached power by sheer force of merit. Between
these self-made men, whose minds have been expanded by contact
with the outer world, and the high nobles nursed in the atmosphere
of immemorial antiquity, and claiming descent from the gods, an
estrangement that at times seems irreconcilable has grown. As the
chasm between the forms and spirit of the past and the present widens, as the modern claims jostle the ancient traditions, as vigorous
parvenuism challenges eete antiquity, the diculty of harmonizing
these tendencies becomes apparent, adding another to the catalogue
of problems awaiting solution in Japan. I have heard even high ocers
under the Government make the complaint I have indicated against
their superiors; but I doubt not that native patience and patriotism
will heal the wound, though the body politic must suer long.
The kug, or court nobles, sprung from mikados. From the rst,
polygamy was common among both aborigines and conquerors. The
emperor had his harem of many beauties who shared his couch. In
very ancient times, as early as Jimmu, it was the custom to choose
one woman, called kg, who was wife or empress in the sense of
receiving special honor, and of having her ospring most likely to
succeed to the throne. In addition to the wife, the mikado had twelve
concubines, whose ospring might ll the throne in case of failure
of issue by the wife. To guard still further against desinence, four
families of imperial descent were afterward set apart, from which an
heir to the throne or a husband of the mikados daughter might be

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the mikados empire

sought. In either case the chosen one became mikado. Only those
sons, brothers, or grandsons of the sovereign, to whom the title was
specially granted by patent, were called princes of the blood. There
were ve grades of these. Surnames were anciently unknown in Japan;
individuals only having distinguishing appellatives. In 415, families
were rst distinguished by special names, usually after those of places.
Younger sons of mikados took surnames and founded cadet families.
The most famous in the Japanese peerage are given below. By long
custom it came to pass that each particular family held the monopoly
of some one high oce as its prerogative. The Nakatomi family was
formerly charged with the ceremonies of Shint, and religious oces
became hereditary in that family. The Fujiwara (Wistaria meadow)
family is the most illustrious in all Japan. It was founded by Kamatari,
who was regent of the empire (a.d. 645649), who was said to have
been descended from Am no ko yan no mikoto, the servant of the
grandfather of Jimmu. The inuence of this family on the destinies
of Japan, and the prominent part it has played in history, will be fully
seen. At present ninety-ve of the one hundred and fty-ve families
of kug are of Fujiwara name and descent. The oce of Kuambaku,
or Regent, the highest to which a subject could attain, was held by
members of this family exclusively. The Sugawara family, of which
six families of kug are descendants, is nearly as old as the Fujiwara.
Its members have been noted for scholarship and learning, and as
teachers and lecturers on religion.
The Taira family was founded by Takamochi, great grandson of the
Emperor Kuammu (a.d. 782805), and became prominent as the great
military vassals of the mikado. But ve kug families claim descent
from the survivors.
The Minamoto family was founded by Tsunmoto, grandson of the
Emperor Seiwa (839880). They were the rivals of the Taira. Seventeen
families of kug are descended from this old stock. The oce of Sei-i

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119

Tai Shgun, or Barbarian-chastising Great General, was monopolized

by the Minamoto, and, later, by other branches of the stock, named
Ashikaga and Tokugawa.
Though so many oces were created in the seventh century, the
kug were suciently numerous to ll them. The members of the
Fujiwara family gradually absorbed the majority, until almost all of
the important ones at court, and the governorships of many provinces, were lled by them. When vacancies occurred, no question
was raised as to this or that mans fitness for the position: it was
simply one of high descent, and a man of Fujiwara blood was sure
to get the appointment, whether he had abilities or not. Th is family,
in spite of its illustrious name and deeds, are to be credited with the
formation of a ring around the mikado, which his people could
not break, and with the creation of one of the most accursed systems
of nepotism ever seen in any country. Proceeding step by step, with
craft and signal ability, they gradually obtained the administration
of the government in the mikados name. Formerly it had been the
privilege of every subject to petition the sovereign. The Fujiwara
ministers gradually assumed the right to open all such petitions, and
decide upon them. They also secured the appointment of younger
sons, brothers, nephews, and kinsmen to all the important positions.
They based their hold on the throne itself by marrying their daughters
to the mikado, whose will was thus bent to their own designs. For
centuries the empresses were chiey of Fujiwara blood. In this way,
having completely isolated the sovereign, they became the virtual rulers of the country and the proprietors of the throne, and dictated as
to who should be made emperor. Every new oce, as fast as created,
was lled by them. In the year 888, the title of Kuambaku (literally,
the bolt inside the gate, but meaning to represent to the mikado)
was rst used and bestowed on a Fujiwara noble. The Kuambaku was
the highest subject in the empire. He was regent during the minority

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the mikados empire

of the emperor, or when an empress lled the throne. The oce of

Kuambaku, rst lled by Fujiwara Mototsun, became hereditary in
the family, thus making them all powerful. In time the Fujiwaras,
who had increased to the proportions of a great clan, were divided into
ve branches called the Sekk, or Regent families, named Konoy,
Kuj, Nij, Ichij and Takadzukasa.
So long as the succession to the throne was so inde nite, and on
such a wide basis, it was easy for this powerful family to choose the
heir whenever the throne was empty, as it was in their power to make it
empty when it so suited them, by compelling the mikado to abdicate.
In a.d. 794 the capital was removed to Kito, seven miles from
Lake Biwa, and there permanently located. Before that time it was
at Kashiwabara, at Nara,* or at some place in the Home Provinces
(kinai) of Yamato, Yamashiro, or Settsu. So long as the course of
empire was identied with that of a central military chief, who was
the ruler of a few provinces and suzerain of tributaries, requiring him
* The ancient town of Nara, one of the most interesting in all Japan, lies about
twenty miles due east of zaka, in Yamato. The town and neighborhood abound
with antiquities, mikados tombs, grand old temples, and colossal images of
Buddha. Seven sovereigns, of whom four were females, ruled at Nara from a.d.
708782. Their reigns were prosperous and glorious, and were distinguished for
the cultivation of the arts, literature, and religion. Here, in 711, the Kojiki was
written and in 713, by orders of the imperial court, sent to all the governors
of provinces; a book, in sixty-six volumes, descriptive of the provinces, cities,
mountains, rivers, valleys, and plains, plants, trees, birds, and quadrupeds, was
begun, and nished in 1634. Only fragments of this ne work are now extant.
In the period 708715 copper was discovered. In 739, the colossal gilded copper
image of Buddha, fty-three feet high, was cast and set up. Many envoys from
China, and Buddhist priests from Siam, India, and China, visited Nara, one of
the latter bringing a library of ve thousand volumes of Buddhist literature. In
749 it was forbidden by imperial edict to slaughter animals in Japan. A large collection of the personal and household articles in the possession of the mikados
of the eighth century was exhibited at Nara in June, 1875, the inventories made
at that ancient period being accessible for comparison.

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121

to be often in camp or on the march, government was by the sword

rather than by the sceptre, and the permanent location of a capital
was unnecessary. As the area of dominion increased and became more
settled the government business grew apace, in amount and complexity, and division of labor was imperative, and a permanent capital was
of prime importance. The choice was most felicitous. The ancient
city of Heianj, seven miles south-west of the southern end of Lake
Biwa, was chosen. The Japanese word meaning capital, or large city,
is miako, of which ki or kito is the Chinese equivalent. The name
Heianjo soon fell into disuse, the people speaking of the city as the
miako. Even this term gave way in popular usage to Kito. Miako
is now chiey used in poetry, while the name most generally applied
has been and is Kito, the miako by excellence. Kito remained the
capital of Japan until 1868, when the miako was removed to Yedo,
which city having become the kio, was renamed Tki, or Eastern
capital. The name Yedo is no longer in use among the Japanese. No
more eligible site could have been chosen for the purpose. Kito lies
not mathematically, but geographically and practically in respect of
the distribution of population and habitable area, in the centre of
Japan. It is nearly in the middle of the narrowest neck of land between
the Sea of Japan and the Pacic Ocean. It lies at the foot, and stands
like a gate between the great mountain ranges, diverging north and
south, or east and west. Its situation at the base of the great central
lake of Biwa, or mi, forty miles from whose northern point is the
harbor and sea-port of Tsuruga, makes it accessible to the ships coming from the entire west coast and from Yezo. On the west and east
the natural mountain roads and passes slope down and open toward it.
Forty miles to the south are the great harbors lining the bay of zaka,
the haven of all ships from northern or southern points of the eastern
coast. Easy river communications connect zaka with Kito.

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the mikados empire

The miako is beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole empire of
Japan. The tone of reverential tenderness, of exulting joy, the sparkling
of the eyes with which Japanese invariably speak of Kito, witness to
the fact of its natural beauty, its sacred and classic associations, and
its place in the aections of the people. The city stands on an elliptical plain walled in on all sides by evergreen hills and mountains, like
the oor of a huge attened crater no longer choked with lava, but
mantled with owers. On the south the river Kamo, and on the north,
east, and west, owing in crystal clearness, the auents of Kamo
curve around the city, nearly encircle it, uniting at the south-west to
form the Yodo River. Through the centre and in several of the streets
the branches of the river ow, giving a feeling of grateful coolness in
the heats of summer, and is the source of the cleanliness characteristic
of Kito. The streets run parallel and cross at right angles, and the
whole plan of the city is excellent. The mikados palace is situated in
the north-eastern quarter. Art and nature are wedded in beauty. The
monotony of the clean squares is broken by numerous groves, temples,
monasteries, and cemeteries. On the mountain overlooking the city
peep out pagodas and shrines. The hill-slopes blossom with gardens.
The suburbs are places of delight and loveliness. The blue Lake of
Biwa, the tea-plantations of Uji, the thousand chosen resorts of picnic
groups in the adjacent shady hills, the resorts for ramblers the leafy
walks for the poet, the groves for the meditative student or the pious
monk, the thousand historical and holy associations invest Kito with
an interest attaching to no other place in Japan. Here, or in its vicinity,
have dwelt for seventeen centuries the mikados of Japan.
As the children and descendants of the mikados increased at the
capital there was formed the material for classes of nobility. It was to
the interest of these nobles to cherish with pride their traditions of
divine descent. Their studied exaltation of the mikado as their head
was the natural consequence. The respect and deference of distant

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123

tributary princes wishing to obtain and preserve favor at court served

only to increase the honor of these nobles of the capital. The fealty of
the distant princes was measured not only by their tribute and military
assistance, but by their close conformity to the customs of the miako,
which naturally became the centre of learning and civilization.
Previous to the era of Sjin, the observance of the time of beginning the new year, as well as the celebration of the sacred festivals to
the gods, was not the same throughout the provinces. The acceptance
of a uniform calendar promulgated from the capital was then, as now,
a sign of loyalty of far greater signicance than would appear to us at
rst sight. This was forcibly shown in Yokohama, as late as 1872, after
the mikado had abolished the lunar, and ordered the use of the solar,
or Gregorian, calendar in his dominions. The resident Chinese, in an
incendiary document, which was audaciously posted on the gates of
the Japanese magistrates oce, denounced the Japanese for having
thus signied, by the adoption of the barbarians time, that they had
yielded themselves up to be the slaves of the foreign devils.
The mikado has no family name. He needs none, because his
dynasty never changes. Being above ordinary mortals, no name is
necessary to distinguish him from men. He need be personally distinguished only from the gods. When he dies, he will enter the company
of the gods. He is deied under some name, with Tenn (son, or king,
of heaven) a xed. It was not proper (until 1872, when the custom was
abrogated) for ordinary people to pronounce the name of the living
mikado aloud, or to write it in full: a stroke should be left out of each
of the characters.
Previous to the general use of Chinese writing, the mikados, about
fty in all, had long names ending in mikoto, a term of respect
equivalent to augustness, and quite similar to those applied to the
gods. These extremely long names, now so unmanageable to foreign,
and even to modern native, tongues, gave place in popular use to the

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greatly abbreviated Chinese equivalents. A complete calendar of the

names of the gods and goddesses, mikados and empresses and heroes,
was made out in Chinese characters. It is so much more convenient to
use these, that I have inserted them in the text, even though to do so
seems in many an instance an anachronism. The dierence in learned
length and thundering sound of the Japanese and the Chinese form
of some of these names will be easily seen and fully appreciated after
a glance, by the Occidental reader who is terried at the uncouthness
of both, or who fears to trust his vocal organs to attempt their pronunciation. Amaterasu mikami becomes Ten Sh Dai Jin; Okinaga
Tarashi Him becomes Jingu Kg.
After the Chinese writing became fashionable, the term mikoto
was dropped. The mikados after death received a different name
from that used when living: thus Kan Yamato Iware hiko no mikoto
became, posthumously, Jimmu Tenno.
The Golden Age of the mikados power ceased after the introduction of Buddhism and the Chinese system of ocialdom. The decadence of his personal power began, and steadily continued. Many of
the high ministers at court became Buddhists, as well as the mikados.
It now began to be a custom for the emperors to abdicate after short
reigns, shave o their hair in token of renunciation of the world,
become monks, and retire from active life, taking the title H- (ho,
law of Buddha; , mikado = cloistered emperor). During the eighth
century, while priests were multiplying, and monasteries were everywhere being established, the court was the chief propaganda. The
courtiers vied with each other in holy zeal and study of the sacred
books of India, while the minds of the empresses and boy-emperors
were occupied with schemes for the advancement of Buddhism. In
741, the erection of two great temples, and of a seven-storied pagoda
in each province, was ordered. The abdication after short reigns made
the mikados mere puppets of the ministers and courtiers. Instead of

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125

warriors braving discomforts of the camp, leading armies in battle, or

ghting savages, the chief rulers of the empire abdicated, after short
reigns, to retire into monasteries, or give themselves up to license. This
evil state of aairs continued, until, in later centuries, eeminate men,
steeped in sensual delights, or silly boys, who droned away their lives
in empty pomp and idle luxury, or became the tools of monks, lled
the throne. Meanwhile the administration of the empire from the
capital declined, while the inuence of the military classes increased.
As the mikados actual power grew weaker, his nominal importance
increased. He was surrounded by a hedge of etiquette that secluded
him from the outer world. He never appeared in public. His subjects,
except his wife and concubines and highest ministers, never saw his
face. He sat on a throne of mats behind a curtain. His feet were never
allowed to touch the earth. When he went abroad in the city, he
rode in a car closely curtained, and drawn by bullocks. The relation
of emperor and subject thus grew mythical, and the way was paved
for some bold usurper to seize the actuality of power, while the name
remained sacred and inviolate.

XII

The Beginning of Military Domination

ith rank, place, and power as the prizes, there were not wanting rival contestants to dispute the monopoly of the Fujiwara.
The prosperity and domineering pride of the scions of this ancient
house, instead of overawing those of younger families that were forming in the capital, served only as spurs to their pride and determination to share the highest gifts of the sovereign. It may be easily
supposed that the Fujiwara did not attain the summit of their power
without the sacrice of many a rival aspirant. The looseness of the
marriage tie, the intensity of ambition, the greatness of the prizehe
throne itselfmade the court ever the fruitful soil of intrigue, jealousies, proscription, and even the use of poison and the dagger. The
fate of many a noble victim thus sacriced on the altars of jealousy
and revenge forms the subject of the most pathetic passages of the
Japanese historians, and the tear-compelling scenes of the romance
and the drama. The increase of families was the increase of feuds.
Arrogance and pride were matched by craft and subtlety that nally
led to quarrels which rent the nation, to civil war, and to the almost
utter extinction of one of the great families.
The Sugawara were the most ancient rivals of the Fujiwara. The
most illustrious victim of court intrigue bearing this name was
Sugawara Michizan. Th is polished courtier, the Beauclerc of his
127

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the mikados empire

age, had, by the force of his talents and learning, risen to the position
of inner great minister. As a scholar, he ranked among the highest
of his age. At dierent periods of his life he wrote, or compiled, from
the oldest records various histories, some of which are still extant.
His industry and ability did not, however, exempt him from the jealous annoyances of the Fujiwara courtiers, who imbittered his life by
poisoning the minds of the emperor and courtiers against him. One of
them, Tokihira, secured an edict banishing him to Kiushiu. Here, in
the horrors of poverty and exile, he endeavored to get a petition to the
mikado, but failed to do so, and starved to death, on the 25th day of
the Second month, 903. Michizan is now known by his posthumous
name of Tenjin. Many temples have been erected in his honor, and
students worship his spirit, as the patron god of letters and literature.
Children at school pray to him that they may become good writers,
and win success in study. Some of his descendants are still living.
When Michizan died, the Sugawara were no longer to be dreaded as
a rival family. Another brood were springing up, who were destined to
become the most formidable rivals of the Fujiwara. More than a century
before, one of the concubines, or extra wives, of the Emperor Kuammu
had borne a son, who, having talents as well as imperial blood, rose to be
head of the Board of Civil Oce, and master of court ceremoniesan
oce similar to the lord high chamberlain of England.* To his grandson
Takamochi was given the surname of Taira in 889one hundred and
one years before the banishment of Michizan.
The civil oces being already monopolized by the Fujiwara, the
members of the family of Taira early showed a fondness and special,
* Princes of the blood were eligible to the following oces: Minister of the
imperial household, lord high chamberlain, minister of war, president, of the
censorate, and the governorships of Kdzuk, Kadzusa, and Hitachi. The
actual duties of the oce were, however, performed by inferior ocials.

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tness for military life, which, with their experience, made them
most eligible to the commands of military expeditions. The Fujiwara
had become wholly wedded to palace life, and preferred the ease and
luxury of the court to the discomforts of the camp and the dangers
of the battle-eld. Hence the shoguns, or generals, were invariably
appointed among sons of the Taira or the Minamoto, both of which
families became the military vassals of the crown. While the men
led the armies, fought the foe, and returned in triumph, the mothers
at home red the minds of their sons with the recital of the deeds of
their fathers. Thus bred to arms, inured to war, and living chiey in
the camp, a hardy race of warriors grew up and formed the military
caste. So long as the Taira or Minamoto leaders were content with
war and its glory, there was no reason for the Fujiwara to fear danger
from them as rivals at court. But in times of peace and inaction, the
minds of these men of war longed to share in the spoils of peace;
or, having no more enemies to conquer, their energies were turned
against their fellows. The peculiar basis of the imperial succession
opened an equally wide eld for the play of female ambition; and
while Taira and Minamoto generals lusted after the high oces held
by Fujiwara courtiers, Taira and Minamoto ladies aspired to become
empresses, or at least imperial concubines, where they might, for the
glory of their family, beard the dragon of power in his own den. They
had so far increased in inuence at court, that in 1008, the wife of the
boy-emperor, Ichij, was chosen from the house of Minamoto.
The Minamoto family, or, as the Chinese characters express the
name, Genji, was founded by Tsunmoto, the grandson of Seiwa
(859880) and son of the minister of war. His great-grandson Yoriyoshi
became a shgun, and was sent to ght the Ains; and the half-breeds,
or rebels of mixed Ain and Japanese blood, in the east and extreme
north of Hondo. Yoriyoshis son, Yoshiiy, followed an his father in
arms, and was likewise made a shgun. So terrible was Yoshiiy in

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battle that he was called Hachiman Tar. The name Tar is given to
the rst-born son. Hachiman is the Buddhist form of jin, the deied
son of Jingu Kg, and the patron of warriors, or god of war. After
long years of ghting, he completely tranquilized the provinces of the
Kuant. His great-grandson Yoshitomo* became the greatest rival of
the Taira, and the father of Yoritomo, one of the ablest men in Japanese
history. The star of Minamoto was in the ascendant.
Meanwhile the Taira shguns, who had the military oversight of
the South and West, achieved a succession of brilliant victories. As a
reward for his services, the court bestowed the island of Tsushima on
Tadamori, the head of the house. It being a time of peace, Tadamori
came to Kito to live, and while at court had a liaison with one of the
palace lady attendants, whom he afterward married. The fruit of this
union was a son, who grew to be a man of stout physique. In boyhood he gave equal indications of his future greatness and his future
arrogance. He wore unusually high clogsthe Japanese equivalent
* The family name (uji) precedes the personal, or what we call the baptismal or
Christian name. Thus the full name of the boy Kotar, son of Mr. Ota, would
be Ota Kotar. Family names nearly always have a topographical meaning,
having been taken from names of streets, villages, districts, rivers, mountains,
etc. The following are specimens, taken from the register of my students in
the Imperial College in Tki, many of whom are descendants of the illustrious personages mentioned in this book, or in Japanese history. The great
bulk of the Samurai claim descent from less than a hundred original families:
Plain-village, Crane-slope, Hill-village, Middle-mountain, Mountain-foot,
Grove-entrance, High-bridge, East-river, River-point, Garden-mountain,
River-meadow, Pine-village, Great-tree, Pine-well, Shrine-promontory,
Cherry-well, Cedar-bay, Lower-field, Stone-pine, Front-field, Bamboobridge, Large-island, Happy-eld, Shrine-plain, Temple-island, Hand-island,
North-village, etc., etc. It was not the custom to have godparents, or namesakes, in our sense of these words. Middle names were not given or used,
each person having but a family and a personal name. Neither could there
be a senior and junior of exactly the same name in the same family, as with
us. The father usually bestowed on his son half of his name; that is, he gave
him one of the Chinese characters with which his own was written. Thus,

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for riding a high horse. His fellows gave the strutting roisterer the
nickname of kohda (high clogs). Being the son of a soldier, he
had abundant opportunity to display his valor. At this time the seas
swarmed with pirates, who ravaged the coasts and were the scourge
of Corea as well as Japan. Kiyomori, a boy full of re and energy,
thirsting for fame, asked to be sent against the pirates. At the age of
eighteen he cruised in the Sea of Iyo, or the Suwo Nada, which is part
of the Inland Sea, a sheet of water extremely beautiful in itself, and
worthy, in a high degree, to be called the Mediterranean of Japan.
While on shipboard, he made himself a name by attacking and capturing a ship full of the most desperate villains, and by destroying
their lurking-place. His early manhood was spent alternately in the
capital and in service in the South. In 1153, at the age of thirty-six,
he succeeded his father as minister of justice. The two families of
Minamoto and Taira, who had together emerged from comparative
obscurity to fame, place, and honor, had dwelt peacefully together in
Kito, or had been friendly rivals as soldiers in a common cause on
distant battle-elds, until the year 1156, from which time they became
Yoriyoshi named his rst-born son Yoshiiy, i.e., Yoshi (good) and iy (house
or family). Yoshiiye had six sons, named, respectively, Yoshimune, Yoshichika,
Yoshikuni, Yoshitada, Yoshitoki, and Yoshitaka. The Taira nobles retained the
mori in Tadamori, in their own personal names. Female names were borrowed
from those of beautiful and attractive objects or of auspicious omens, and were
usually not changed at marriage or throughout life. Males made use during life
of a number of appellations given them, or assumed on the occasions of birth,
reaching adult age, ocial promotion, change of life; or on account of special
events, entering a monastery, and after death. This custom as a police measure,
as well as for other reasons, was abolished in 1872. Often a superior rewarded
an inferior by bestowing upon him a new name, or by allowing him to incorporate one of the syllables expressed vividly to the eye by a Chinese character,
of the superiors name. It was never the custom to name children after great
men, as we do after our national heroes. Formerly the genitive particle no (of)
was used; as Minamoto no Yoritomo means Yoritomo of the Minamoto family.
In 1872, the peasantry were allowed to have family as well as individual names.

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implacable enemies. In that year the rst battle was fought between
the adherents of two rival claimants of the throne. The Taira party was
successful, and obtained possession of the imperial palace, which gave
them the supreme advantage and prestige which have ever since been
possessed by the leader or party in whose hands the mikado is. The
whole administration of the empire was now at Kiyomoris disposal.
The emperor, who thus owed his elevation to the Taira, made them
the executors of his policy. This was the beginning of the domination
of the military classes that lasted until 1868. The ambition of Kiyomori
was now not only to advance himself to the highest position possible
for a subject to occupy, but also to raise the inuence and power of
his family to the highest pitch. He further determined to exterminate
the only rivals whom he fearedthe Minamoto. Not content with
exercising the military power, he lled the oces at court with his
own relatives, carrying the policy of nepotism to a point equal to that
of his rivals, the Fujiwara. In 1167, at the age of fty years, having,
by his energy and cunning, made himself the military chief of the
empire, having crushed not only the enemies of the imperial court,
but also his own, and having tremendous inuence with the emperor
and court, he received the appointment of Dai J Dai Jin.
Kiyomori was thus, virtually, the ruler of Japan. In all his measures
he was assisted, if not often instigated to originate them by the exemperor, Go-Shirakawa, who ascended the throne in 1156, and abdicated in 1159, but was the chief manager of aairs during the reigns
of his son and two grandsons. This mikado was a very immoral man,
and the evident reason of his resigning was that he might abandon
himself to debauchery, and wield even more actual power than when
on the throne. In 1169, he abdicated, shaved o his hair, and took
the title of H-, or cloistered emperor, and became a Buddhist
monk, professing to retire from the world. In industrious seclusion,
he granted the ranks and titles created by his predecessor in lavish

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profusion. He thus exercised, as a monk, even more inuence than

when in actual oce. The head of the Taira hesitated not to use all
these rewards for his own and his familys private ends. In him several
oces were held by one person. He argued that as others who had
done no great services for court or emperor had held high oces, he
who had done so much should get all he could. Finally, neither court
nor emperor could control him, and he banished kug, and even moved
the capital and court at his pleasure. In 1168, the power of the Taira
family was paramount. Sixty men of the house held high oces at
court, and the lands from which they enjoyed revenue extended over
thirty provinces. They had splendid palaces in Kito and at Fukuwara,
where the modern treaty-port of Higo now stands overlooking the
splendid scenery of the Inland Sea. Hesitating at nothing that would
add to his glory or power, Kiyomori, in 1171, imitating his predecessors, made his daughter the concubine, and afterward the wife, of the
Emperor Takakura, a boy eleven years old. Of his children one was
now empress, and his two sons were generals of highest rank. His
cup of power was full.
The fortunes of the Fujiwara and Minamoto were under hopeless
eclipse, the former having no military power, the latter being scattered
in exile. Yoshitomo, his rival, had been killed, while in his bath, by
Osada, his own traitorous retainer, who was bribed by Kiyomori to
do the deed. The head of Yoshitomos eldest son had fallen under the
sword at Kito, and his younger sonsthe last of the Minamoto, as
he supposedwere in banishment, or immured in monasteries.
The most famous archer, Minamoto Tamtomo, took part in many of
the struggles of the two rival families. His great strength, equal to that
of many men (fty, according to the legends), and the fact that his right
arm was shorter than his left, enabled him to draw a bow which four
ordinary warriors could not bend, and send a shaft ve feet long, with
enormous bolt-head. The court, inuenced by the Taira, banished him,

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in a cage, to Idzu (after cutting the muscles of his arm), under a guard.
He escaped, and ed to the islands of shima and Hachij, and the
chain south of the Bay of Yedo. His arm having healed, he ruled over
the people, ordering them not to send tribute to Idzu or Kito. A eet of
boats was sent against him. Tamtomo, on the strand of shima, sped
a shaft at one of the approaching vessels that pierced the thin gunwale
and sunk it. He then, after a shout of deance, shut himself up, set the
house on re, and killed himself. Another account declares that he ed
to the Liu Kiu Islands, ruled over them, and founded the family of Liu
Kiu kings, being the father of Sunten, the rst historical ruler of this
group of islands. A picture of this doughty warrior has been chosen to
adorn the greenback currency of the banks of modern Japan.
Woe unto thee, O land, when thy king is a child! The mikados*
during the Taira period were nearly all children. Toba began to reign
* For convenience of reference, the following chronological list of the sovereigns of Japan is here appended. It is based on the list given in the Nihon
Riyaku Shi (Abridgment of Japanese History), Tki, 1874a book from
which I have drawn freely in this work. The dates of their reigns, in terms of
the Gregorian calendar, are obtained chiey from a comparative almanac of
Chinese, Japanese, and Western dates, compiled by a learned native scholar,
who brings down this invaluable chronological harmony to the third day of the
Twelfth month of Meiji (January 1st, 1874), when the solar or Gregorian calendar was adopted in Japan. The year dates approximate to within a few weeks of
exactness. The names in italics denote female sovereigns. In two instances (37
and 39, 48 and 50), one empress reigned twice, and has two posthumous titles.
I have put the name of Jingu Kg in the list, though the Dai Nihon Shi does
not admit it, she having never been crowned or formally declared empress by
investiture with the regalia of sovereignty. In several cases the duration of the
reign was lees than a year. The five false emperors, printed in black spaces,
are omitted from this list. Only the posthumous titles under which the mikados
were apotheosized are here given, though their living names, and those of their
parents, are printed in the Nihon Riyaku Shi. Including Jingu, there were 123
sovereigns. The average length of the reigns of 122 was nearly twenty-one
years. There has been but one dynasty in Japan. In comparison, the present
emperor of China is the 273d, and the dynasty the 23d or 24th.

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at six, abdicating at seventeen in behalf of his son Shiutoku, four years

old; who at twenty-four resigned in favor of Konoy, then four years
old. The latter died at the age of sixteen, and was succeeded by GoShirakawa, who abdicated after three years in favor of Nij, sixteen
years old, who died after six years, when Rokuj, one year old, succeeded. After three years, Takakura, eight years old, ruled thirteen
years, resigning to Antoku, then three years of age. It is easily seen
that the real power lay not with these boys and babies, but with the
august wire-pullers behind the throne.
The Heik Monogatari, or the Historic Romance of the Taira,
is one of the most popular of the many classic works of ction read
by all classes of people in Japan. In this book the chief events in the
lives, and even the manners and personal appearance, of the principal
actors of the times of the Taira are seen, so that they become more
than shadows of names, and seem to live before us, men of yesterday.
The terms Heik and Genji, though Chinese forms of the names Taira
and Minamoto, were, from their brevity, popularly used in preference
to the pure native, but longer, forms of Taira and Minamoto.

Chronological List of Japanese Emperors

Posthumous Title
(Age at Death)
1. Jimmu (127)
2. Suisei (84)
3. Annei (57)
4. Itoku (77)
5. Ksh (114)
6. Kan (137)
7. Krei (128)
8. Kgen (116)
9. Kuaika (115)

Date
of Reign
b.c. 660585
581549
548511
510477
475393
392291
290215
214158
15798

Posthumous Title
(Age at Death)
10. Sjin (119)
11. Suinin (141)
12. Keik (143)
13. Seimu (108)
14. Chiuai (52)
15. Jingu Kg (100)
16. Ojin (111)
17. Nintoku (110)
18. Richiu (77)

Date
of Reign
9730
29 b.c.70 a.d.
71130
131191
192200
201269
270310
313399
400405

136

the mikados empire

Posthumous Title
(Age at Death)

Date
of Reign

Posthumous Title
(Age at Death)

19. Hansh (60)

20. Inki (80)
21. Ank (50)
22. Yuriyaku (62)
23. Seinei (41)
24. Kens (38)
25. Ninken (51)
26. Buretsu (57)
27. Keitai (82)
28. Ankan (70)
29. Senkua (73)
30. Kimmei (63)
31. Bidatsu (48)
32. Ymei (69)
33. Sujun (73)
34. Suiko (75)
35. Jomei (49)
36. Kgioku (68)
37. Ktoku (59)
38. Saimei (..)
39. Tenchi (58)
40. Kbun (25)
41. Temmu (65)
42. Jit (58)
43. Mommu (25)
44. Gemmi (61)
45. Gensh (69)
46. Shmu (56)
47. Kken (53)
48. Junnin (33)
49. Shtoku (..)
50. Knin (73)
51. Kuammu (70)
52. Heij (51)
53. Saga (57)
54. Junwa (55)
55. Nimmi (41)
56. Montoku (32)
57. Seiwa (31)

406411
412453
454456
457479
480484
485487
488498
499506
507531
534535
536539
540571
572585
586587
588592
593628
629641
642-644
645-654
655-661
668-672
672-672
673-686
690-696
697-707
708-714
715-723
724-748
749-758
759-764
765-769
770-781
782-805
806-809
810-823
824-833
834-850
851-858
859-876

58. Yzei (82)

59. Kk (58)
60. Uda (65)
61. Daigo (46)
62. Shunjaku (30)
63. Murakami (42)
64. Reizei (62)
65. Enniu (33)
66. Kuasan (41)
67. Ichij (32)
68. Sanj (43)
69. Go-Ichij (29)
70. Go-Shujaku (37)
71. Go-Reizei (44)
72. Go-Sanj (40)
73. Shirakawa (77)
74. Horikawa (29)
75. Toba (55)
76. Shiutoku (46)
77. Konoy (17)
78. Go-Shirakawa (66)
79. Nij (23)
80. Rokuj (13)
81. Takakura (21)
82. Antoku (8)
83. Go-Toba (60)
84. Tsuchimikado (37)
85. Juntoku (46)
86. Chiuki (17)
87. Go-Horikawa (23)
88. Shij (12)
89. Go-Saga (53)
90. Go-Fukakusa (62)
91. Kamyama (57)
92. Go-Uda (58)
93. Fushimi (53)
94. Go-Fushimi (49)
95. Go-Nij (24)
96. Hanazono (52)

Date
of Reign
877-884
885-887
888-897
898-930
931-946
947-967
968-969
970-984
985-986
987-1011
1012-1016
1017-1036
1037-1046
1047-1068
1069-1072
1073-1086
1087-1107
1108-1123
1124-1141
1142-1155
1156-1158
1159-1165
1166-1168
1169-1180
1181-1185
1184-1198
1199-1210
1211-1221
1222-1222
1222-1232
1233-1242
1243-1246
1247-1259
1260-1274
1275-1287
1288-1298
1299-1301
1302-1307
1308-1318

The Beginning of Military Domination

Posthumous Title
(Age at Death)
97. Go-Daigo (52)
98. G0-Murakami (41)
99. Chkei (..)
100. Go-Kamyama (78)
101. Go-Komatsu (57)
102. Shk (28)
103. Go-Hanazono (52)
104. Go-Tsuchimikado (59)
105. Go-Kashiwara (63)
106. Go-Nara (62)
107. gimachi (75)
108. Go-Yzei (47)
109. Go-Miwo (85)

Date
of Reign
1319-1338
1339-1367
1368-1383
1383-1392
1393-1412
1413-1428
1429-1464
1465-1500
1501-1526
1527-1557
1558-1586
1587-1611
1612-1629

Posthumous Title
(Age at Death)
110. Mij (74)
111. Go-Kmi (22)
112. Gosai (49)
113. Reigen (79)
114. Higashiyama (35)
115. Nakanomikado (37)
116. Sakuramachi (31)
117. Momozono (22)
118. Go-Sakuramachi (74)
119. Go-Momozono (22)
120. Kokaku (70)
121. Nink (47)
122. Kmei (37)
123. Mutsuhito (..)

137
Date
of Reign
1630-1643
1644-1654
1655-1662
1663-1686
1687-1709
1710-1735
1736-1746
1747-1762
1763-1770
1747-1762
1780-1816
1817-1846
1847-1866
1867

XIII

Yoritomo and the Minamoto Family

ext to portraying the beauties of nature, there is no class of

subjects in which the native artists delight more than in the
historical events related in their classics. Among these there are none
treated with more frequency and spirit than the ight of Yoshitomos
concubine, Tokiwa, after the death of her lord at the hands of bribed
traitors. After the fight with the Taira in Kito, in 1159, he f led
eastward, and was killed in a bath-room by three hired assassins at
Utsumi, in Owari. Tokiwa was a young peasant-girl of surpassing
beauty, whom Yoshitomo had made his concubine, and who bore him
three children. She ed, to escape the minions of Taira. Her ight
was in winter, and snow lay on the ground. She knew neither where
to go nor how to subsist; but, clasping her babe to her bosom, her
two little sons on her right, one holding his mothers hand, the other
carrying his fathers sword, trudged on. That babe at her breast was
Yoshitsuna name that awakens in the breast of a Japanese youth
emotions that kindle his enthusiasm to emulate a character that was
the mirror of chivalrous valor and knightly conduct, and that saddens
him at the thought of one who suered cruel death at the hands of
a jealous brother. Yoshitsun, the youngest son of Yoshitomo, lives,
and will live, immortal in the minds of Japanese youth as the Bayard
of Japan.
139

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the mikados empire

Kiyomori, intoxicated with success, conceived the plan of exterminating the Minamoto family root and branch. Not knowing where
Tokiwa and her children had ed, he seized her mother, and had her
brought to Kito. In Japan, as in China, lial piety is the highest
duty of man, lial aection the strongest tie. Kiyomori well knew
that Tokiwas sense of a daughters duty would prevail over that of a
mothers love or womanly fear. He expected Tokiwa to come to Kito
to save her mother.
Meanwhile the daughter, nearly frozen and half starved, was met
in her ight by a Taira soldier, who, pitying her and her children, gave
her shelter, and fed her with his own rations. Tokiwa heard of her
mothers durance at Kito. Then came the struggle between maternal and lial love. To enter the palace would be the salvation of her
mother, but the death of her children. What should she do? Her wit
showed her the way of escape. Her resolution was taken to go to the
capital, and trust to her beauty to melt the heart of Kiyomori. Thus
she would save her mother and the lives of her sons.
Her success was complete. Appearing in the presence of the dreaded
enemy of her children, Kiyomori was dazed by her beauty, and wished
to make her his concubine. At rst she utterly refused; but her mother,
weeping oods of tears, represented to her the misery of disobedience,
and the happiness in store for her, and Tokiwa was obliged to yield.
She consented on condition of his sparing her ospring.
Kiyomoris retainers insisted that these young Minamotos should
be put to death; but by the pleadings of the beautiful mother, backed
by the intercession of Kiyomoris aunt, their lives were spared. The
babe grew to be a healthy, rosy-cheeked boy, small in stature, with
a ruddy face and slightly protruding teeth. In spirit he was fiery
and impetuous. All three of the boys, when grown, were sent to a
monastery near Kito, to be made priests: their ne black hair was
shaved, and they put on the robes of Buddhist neophytes. Two of them

Yoritomo and the Minamoto Family

141

remained so, but Yoshitsun gave little promise of becoming a grave

and reverend bonze, who would honor his crape, and inspire respect
by his bald crown and embroidered collar. He refused to have his
hair shaved o, and in the monastery was irrepressibly merry, lively,
and self-willed. The task of managing this young ox (Ushi-waka, he
was then called) gave the holy brethren much trouble, and greatly
scandalized their reverences. Yoshitsun, chang at his dull life, and
longing to take part in a more active one, and especially in the wars
in the North, of which he could not but hear, determined to escape.
How to do it was the question.
Among the outside lay-folk who visited the monastery for trade
or business was an iron-merchant, who made frequent journeys from
Kito to the north of Hondo. In those days, as now, the mines of
Oshiu were celebrated for yielding the best iron for swords and other
cutting implements. This iron, being smelted from the magnetic oxide
and reduced by the use of charcoal as fuel, gave a steel of singular
purity and temper which has never been rivaled in modern times.
Yoshitsun begged the merchant to take him to Mutsu. He, being
afraid of oending the priest, would not at rst consent. Yoshitsun
persuaded him by saying that the priests would be only too glad to
be rid of such a troublesome boy. The point was won, and Yoshitsune
went o. The boys surmises were correct. The priest thought it excellent riddance to very bad rubbish.
While in the East, they stopped some time in Kadzusa, then
infested with robbers. Here Yoshitsun gave signal proof of his
mettle. Among other exploits, he, on one occasion, single-handed
and unarmed, seized a bold robber, and, on another, assisted a rich
man to defend his house, killing ve of the ruans with his own
hand. Yorishig, his companion and bosom-friend, begged him not to
indulge in any unnecessary displays of courage, lest the Taira would
surely hear of him, and know he was a Minamoto, and so destroy him.

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the mikados empire

They nally reached their destination, and Yoshitsun was taken to

live with Hidhira, a nobleman of the Fujiwara, who was prince of
Mutsu. Here he grew to manhood, spending his time most congenially, in the chase, in manly sports, and in military exercises. At the
age of twenty-one, he had won a reputation as a soldier of peerless
valor and consummate skill, and the exponent of the loftiest code
of Japanese chivalry. He became to Yoritomo, his brother, as Ney to
Napoleon. Nor can the splendor of the marshals courage outshine
that of the young Japanese shoguns.
Yoritomo, the third son of Yoshitomo, was born in the year 1146,
and consequently was twelve years old when his brother Yoshitsun
was a baby. After the defeat of his father, he, in the retreat, was separated from his companions, and nally fell into the hands of a Taira
ocer. On his way through a village called Awohaka, in mi, a girl,
the child of the daughter of the head-man whom Yoshitomo had once
loved, hearing this, said, I will follow my brother and die with him.
Her people stopped her as she was about to follow Yoshitomo, but
she afterward went out alone and drowned herself. The Taira ocer
brought his prize to Kito, where his execution was ordered, and the
day xed; but there, again, womans tender heart and supplications
saved the life of one destined for greater things. The boys captor had
asked him if he would like to live. He answered, Yes; both my father
and brother are dead; who but I can pray for their happiness in the next
world? Struck by this lial answer, the ocer went to Kiyomoris stepmother, who was a Buddhist nun, having become so after the death of
her husband, Tadamori. Becoming interested in him, her heart was
deeply touched; the chambers of her memory were unlocked when the
ocer said, Yoritomo resembles Prince Uma. She had borne one son
of great promise, on whom she had lavished her aection, and who
had been named Uma. The mothers bosom heaved under the robes
of the nun, and, pitying Yoritomo, she resolved to entreat Kiyomori

Yoritomo and the Minamoto Family

143

to spare him. After importunate pleadings, the reluctant son yielded

to his mothers prayer, but condemned the youth to distant exilea
punishment one degree less than death, and Yoritomo was banished to
the province of Idzu. He was advised by his former retainers to shave
o his hair, enter a monastery, and become a priest; but Morinaga,
one of his faithful servants, advised him to keep his hair, and with a
brave heart await the future. Even the few that still called themselves
vassals of Minamoto did not dare to hold any communication with
him, as he was under the charge of two ocers who were responsible
to the Taira for the care of their ward. Yoritomo was a shrewd, selfreliant boy, gifted with high self-control, restraining his feelings so
as to express neither joy nor grief nor anger in his face, patient, and
capable of great endurance, winning the love and respect of all. He was
as Prince Hal. He afterward became as blu King Harry, barring
the latters bad eminence as a marrier of many wives.
Such was the condition of the Minamoto family. No longer in
power and place, with an empress and ministers at court, but scattered, in poverty and exile, their lives scarcely their own. Yoritomo was
fortunate in his courtship and marriage, the story of which is one of
great romantic interest.* His wife, Masago, is one of the many female
characters famous in Japanese history. She contributed not a little to
the success of her husband and the splendor of the Kamakura court,
* Yoritomo had inquired which of the daughters of Hj Tokimasa was most
beautiful. He was told the eldest was most noted for personal charms, but the
second, the child of a second wife, was homely. Yoritomo, afraid of a stepmothers jealousy (though fearing neither spear nor sword), deemed it prudent
to pay his addresses to the homely daughter, and thus win the mothers favor
also. He sent her a letter by the hand of Morinaga, his retainer, who, however,
thought his masters aection for the plain girl would not lasts; so he destroyed
his masters letter, and, writing another one to Masago, the eldest, sent it to
her. It so happened that on the previous night the homely daughter dreamed
that a pigeon came to her, carrying a golden box in her beak. On awaking,

144

the mikados empire

during her life, as wife and widow. She outlived her husband many
years. Her father, Hj Tokimasa, an able man, in whose veins ran
imperial blood, made and ful lled a solemn oath to assist Yoritomo,
and the Hj family subsequently rose to be a leading one in Japan.
The tyranny and insolence of Kiyomori at Kito had by this time
(1180), one year before his death, become so galling and outrageous
that one of the royal princes, determining to kill the usurper, conspired with the Minamoto men to overthrow him. Letters were sent
to the clansmen, and especially to Yoritomo, who wrote to Yoshitsun
and to his friends to join him and take up arms. Among the former
retainers of his father and grandfather were many members of the
Miura family. Morinaga personally secured the fealty of many men
of mark in the Kuant; but among those who refused to rise against
the Taira was one, Tsunetoshi, who laughed scornfully, and said, For
an exile to plot against the Heishi [Taira] is like a mouse plotting
against a cat.
At the head of the peninsula of Idzu is a range of mountains, the
outjutting spurs of the chain that trends upward to the table-lands of
Shinano, and thus divides Eastern from Western Japan. Th is range
she told her dream to her sister, who was so interested in it that, after eager
consideration, she resolved to buy her sisters dream, and, as a price, gave
her toilet mirror to her sister, saying, as the Japanese always do on similar
occasions, The price I pay is little. The homely sister, perhaps thinking some
of Masagos beauty might be reected to hers, gladly bartered her unsubstantial happiness. Scarcely had she done this, than Yoritomos (Morinagas)
letter came, asking her to be his bride. It turned out to be a true love-match.
Masago was then twenty-one years of ageit being no ungallantry to state
the age of a Japanese lady, living or dead. Masagos father, on his way home
from Kito, not knowing of the betrothal of the young couple, promised
Masago to Kanetaka, a Taira ocer. On coming home, he would not break
his word, and so married her to Kantaka. But early on the wedding night
Masago eloped with Yoritomo, who was at hand. Kantaka searched in vain
for the pair. Tokimasa outwardly professed to be very angry with Yoritomo,
but really loved him.

Yoritomo and the Minamoto Family

145

is called Hakon, and is famous not only as classic ground in history;

but also as a casket enshrining the choicest gems of nature. It is well
known to the foreign residents; who resort hither in summer to enjoy
the pure air of its altitudes. Its inspiring scenery embraces a lake of
intensely cold pure water, and of great depth and elevation above the
sea-level, groves of aromatic pines of colossal size, savage gorges, sublime mountain heights, overcrowned by cloud-excelling Fuji, foaming
cataracts, and boiling springs of intermittent and rhythmic ow, surrounded by infernal vistas of melted sulphur enveloped in clouds of
poisonous steam, or incrusted with myriad glistening crystals of the
same mineral. Over these mountains there is a narrow pass, which is
the key of the Kuant. Near the pass, above the village of Yumoto,
is Ishi Bashi Yama (Stone-bridge Mountain), and here Yoritomos
second battle was fought, and his rst defeat experienced. Every time
his bowstring twanged an enemy fell, but nally he was obliged to
ee. He barely escaped with his life, and fortunately eluded pursuit,
secreting himself in a hollow log, having rst sent his father-in-law
to call out all his retainers and meet again. He afterward hid in the
priests wardrobe, in one of the rooms of a temple. Finally, reaching
the sea-shore, he took ship and sailed across the bay to Awa. At
this time the sea and land were covered with his enemies. Fortune
favored the brave. Yoritomo, defeated, but not discouraged, while
on the water met a company of soldiers, all equipped, belonging to
the Miura clan, who became his friends, and oered to assist him.
Landing in Awa, he sent out letters to all the Minamoto adherents to
bring soldiers and join him. He met with encouraging and substantial
response, for many hated Kiyomori and the Taira; and as Yoritomos
father and grandfather had given protection and secured quiet in
the Kuant, the prestige of the Minamoto party still remained. The
local military chieftains had fought under Yoritomos father, and were
now glad to join the son of their old leader. He chose Kamakura as a

146

the mikados empire

place of retreat and permanent residence, it having been an old seat

of the Minamoto family. Yoriyoshi had, in 1063, built the shrine of
Hachiman at Tsurugaka, near the village, in gratitude for his victories. Yoritomo now organized his troops, appointed his ocers, and
made arrangements to establish a xed commissariat. The latter was
a comparatively easy thing to do in a fertile country covered with
irrigated rice-elds and girdled with teeming seas, and where the daily
food of soldier, as of laborer, was rice and sh. Marching up around
the country at the head of the Bay of Yedo through Kadzusa, Shimsa,
Musashi, and Sagami, crossing, on his way, the Sumida River, which
ows through the modern Tki, many men of rank, with their followers and horses, joined him. His father-in-law also brought an army
from Kai. In a few months he had raised large forces, with many noted
generals. He awakened new life in the Minamoto clan, and completely
turned the tide of success. Many courtiers from Kito, disappointed in
their schemes at court, or in any way chagrined at the Taira, ocked
to Yoritomo as his power rose, and thus brought to him a fund of
experience and ability which he was not slow to utilize for his own
benet. Meanwhile the Taira had not been idle. A large army was
dispatched to the East, reaching the Fuji River, in Suruga, about the
same time that the Minamoto, headed by Yoritomo, appeared on the
other side. The Taira were surprised to see such a host in arms. Both
armies encamped on opposite banks, and glared at each other, eager
for the ght, but neither attempting to cross the torrent. This is not
to be wondered at. The Fujikawa bears the just reputation of being
the swiftest stream in Japan. It rises in the northern part of Kai, on
the precipitous side of the group of mountains called Yatsu dak, or
eight peaks, and, winding around the western base of the lordly
Fuji, collecting into its own volume a host of impetuous tributaries
born from the snows of lofty summits, it traverses the rich province
of Suruga in steep gradient, plunging across the Tokaid, in arrowy

Yoritomo and the Minamoto Family

147

celerity and volcanic force, into the sea near the lordly mountain
which it encircles. To cross it at any time in good boats is a feat requiring coolness and skill; in a ood, impossibility; in the face of a hostile
attack, sure annihilation. Though supremely eager to measure swords,
neither party cared to cross to the attack, and the wager of battle was
postponed. Both armies retired, the Taira retreating rst.
It is said that one of the Taira men, foreseeing that the tide would
turn in favor of Yoritomo, went to the river ats at night, and scared
up the ocks of wild fowl; and the Taira, hearing the great noise,
imagined the Minamoto host was attacking them, and ed, panicstricken. Yoritomo returned to Kamakura, and began in earnest
to found a city that ultimately rivaled Kito in magnicence, as it
excelled it in power. He gathered together and set to work an army
of laborers, carpenters, and armorers. In a few months a city sprung
up where once had been only timbered hills and valleys, matted with
the perennial luxuriance of reeds or scrub bamboo, starred and fragrant with the tall lilies that still abound. The town lay in a valley surrounded by hills on every side, opening only on the glorious
sea. The wall of hills was soon breached by cuttings which served
as gate-ways, giving easy access to friends, and safe defense against
enemies. While the laborers delved and graded, the carpenters plied
axe, hooked adze, and chisel, and the sword-makers and armorers
sounded a war chorus on their anvils by day, and lighted up the hills
by their forges at night. The streets marked out were soon lined with
shops; and merchants came to sell, bringing gold, copper, and iron,
silk, cotton, and hemp, and raw material for food and clothing, war
and display. Store-houses of rice were built and lled; boats were
constructed and launched; temples were erected. In process of time,
the wealth of the Kuant centred at Kamakura. While the old Taira
chief lay dying in Kito, praying for Yoritomos head to be laid on
his new tomb, this same head, safely settled on vigorous shoulders,

148

the mikados empire

was devising the schemes, and seeing them executed, of xing the
Minamoto power permanently at Kamakura, and of wiping the name
of Taira from the earth.
The long night of exile, of defeat, and defensive waiting of the
Minamoto had broken, and their day had dawned with sudden and
unexpected splendor. Henceforward they took the initiative. While
Yoritomo carried on the enterprises of peace and the operations of
war from his sustained stronghold, his uncle, Yukiiy, his cousin,
Yoshinaka, and his brother, Yoshitsun, led the armies in the eld.
Meanwhile, in 1181, Kiyomori fell sick at Kito. He had been a
monk, as well as a prime minister. His death was not that of a saint.
He did not pray for his enemies. The Nihon Guai Shi thus describes
the scene in the chamber where the chief of the Taira lay dying: In
the Second leap-month, his sickness having increased, his family
and high ocers assembled round his bedside, and asked him what
he would say. Sighing deeply, he said, He that is born must necessarily die, and not I alone. Since the period of Heiji (1159), I have
served the imperial house. I have ruled under heaven (the empire)
absolutely. I have attained the highest rank possible to a subject. I
am the grandfather of the emperor on his mothers side. Is there still
a regret? My regret is only that I am dying, and have not yet seen the
head of Yoritomo of the Minamoto. After my decease, do not make
oerings to Buddha on my behalf; do not read the sacred books.
Only cut o the head of Yoritomo of the Minamoto, and hang it
on my tomb. Let all my sons and grandsons, retainers and servants,
each and every one, follow out my commands, and on no account
neglect them. So saying, Kiyomori died at the age of sixty-four. His
tomb, near Higo, is marked by an upright monolith and railing of
granite. Munmori, his son, became head of the Taira house. Strange
words from a death-bed; yet such as these were more than once used

Yoritomo and the Minamoto Family

149

by dying Japanese warriors. Yoritomos head was on his body when,

eighteen years afterward, in 1199, he died peacefully in his bed.
Nevertheless, while in Kamakura, his bed-chamber was nightly
guarded by chosen warriors, lest treachery might cut o the hopes of
the Minamoto. The ames of war were now lighted throughout the
whole empire. From Kamakura forces were sent into the provinces
of Hitachi, in the East, and of Echizen and Kaga, North and West,
destroying the authority of the Kito bureaucracy. Victory and increase
made the army of the rising clan invincible. After numerous bloody
skirmishes, the victors advanced through mi, and swooped on the
chief prize, and Kito, the coveted capital, was in their hands. The
captors of the city were Yukiiy and Yoshinaka, the uncle and cousin
of Yoritomo respectively. The Taira, with the young mikado, Antoku,
and his wife, Kiyomoris daughter, ed. Go-Toba, his brother, was
proclaimed mikado in his stead, and the estates and treasures of the
Taira were conscated, and divided among the victors.
Yoshinaka was called the Asahi shgun (Morning-sun General),
on account of the suddenness and brilliancy of his rising. Being now
in command of a victorious army at the capital, swollen with pride,
and intoxicated with sudden success, and with the actual power then
in his hands, he seems to have lost his head. He was elevated to high
rank, and given the title and oce of governor of Echigo; but having
been bred in the country, he could not endure the cap and dress of
ceremony, and was the subject of ridicule to the people of Kito. He
became jealous of his superior, Yoritomo, who was in Kamakura, two
hundred miles away. He acted in such an arbitrary and over-bearing spirit that the wrath of the cloistered emperor Go-Shirakawa
was roused against him. Being able to command no military forces,
he incited the monks of the immense monasteries of Hiyeizan and
Miidera, near the city, to obstruct his authority. Before they could

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the mikados empire

execute any schemes, Yoshinaka, with a military force, seized them,

put the ex-mikado in prison, beheaded the abbots, and deprived
the high ocers of state of their honors and titles. He then wrested
from the court the title of Sei-i Shgun (Barbarian-subjugating
General). His exercise of power was of brief duration, for Yoshitsun
was invested with the command of the forces in the West, and, sent
against him, he was defeated and killed,* and the ex-mikado was
released, and the reigning emperor set free from the terrorism under
which he had been put.
Meanwhile the Taira men, in their fortied palace at Fukuwara,
were planning to recover their lost power, and assembling a great
army in the South and West. The Minamoto, on the other hand, were
* The details of this struggle are graphically portrayed in the Nihon Guai
Shi. Yoshinaka had married the lady Fujiwara, daughter of the court noble,
Motofusa. When the Kamakura army was approaching Kito, and quite near
the city, he left his troops, and called at the palace to take leave of his wife.
A Long while having elapsed before he appeared, and every moment being
critical, two of his samurai, grieved at his unseasonable delay, remonstrated
with him, and then committed suicide. Th is hastened his movements. He
attempted to carry o the cloistered emperor, but was repulsed by Yoshitsun
in person, and ed. His horse, falling into a quagmire in a rice-eld, fell, and
he, turning around to look at Kanhira, his faithful vassal, was hit by an arrow
in the forehead and fell dead. He was thirty-one years old. Kanhira, having
but eight arrows left in his quiver, shot down eight of the enemys horsemen;
and then, hearing a cry among the enemy that his lord was dead, said, My
business is done, and, putting his sword in his mouth, fell skillfully from
his horse so that the blade should pierce him, and died. His beautiful sister,
Tomoy, was a concubine of Yoshinaka; and being of great personal strength,
constantly followed her lord in battle, sheathed in armor and riding a swift
horse. In this last battle she fought in the van, and, among other exploits, cut
o the head of Iyyoshi, one of Yoshitsuns best men. When her lord ed,
she asked to be allowed to die with him. He refused to allow her, and, in spite
of her tears, persisted in his refusal. Dong her armor, she reached Shinano
by private paths, and thence retired into Echigo, shaved o her hair, became
a nun, and spent the remainder of her life praying for the eternal happiness
of Yoshinaka.

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151

expending all their energies to destroy them. The bitter animosity of

the two great families had reached such a pitch that the extermination
of one or the other seemed inevitable. In 1184, Yoshitsun laid siege to
the Fukuwara palace, and, after a short time, set it on re. The son of
Kiyomori and his chief followers ed to Sanuki, in Shikoku. Thither,
as with the winged feet of an avenger, Yoshitsun followed, besieged
them at the castle of Yashima, burned it, and drove his enemies, like
scattered sheep, to the Straits of Shimonoski.
Both armies now prepared a eet of junks, for the contest was to
be upon the water. In the Fourth month of the year 1185, all was ready
for the struggle. The battle was fought at Dan no ura, near the modern town of Shimonoseki, where, in 1863, the combined squadrons
of England, France, Holland, and the United States bombarded the
batteries of the Chshiu clansmen. In the latter instance the foreigner
demonstrated the superiority of his artillery and discipline, and, for
the sake of trade and gain, wreaked his vengeance as savage and unjust
as any that stains the record of native war.
In 1185, nearly seven centuries before, the contest was between
men of a common country. It was the slaughter of brother by brother.
The guerdon of ambition was supremacy. The Taira clan were at bay,
driven, pursued, and hunted to the sea-shore. Like a wounded stag
that turns upon its pursuers, the clan were about to give nal battle; by
its wager they were to decide their future destiny a grave in a bloody
sea, or peace under victory. They had collected ve hundred vessels.
They hurried on board their aged fathers and mothers, their wives
and children. Among them were gentle ladies from the palace, whose
silken robes seemed sadly out of place in the crowded junks. There
were mothers, with babes at breast, and little children, too young to
know the awful passions that kindle man against man. Among the
crowd were the widow and daughter of Kiyomori, the former a nun,
the latter the empress-dowager, with the dethroned mikado, a child

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six years old. With them were the sacred insignia of imperial power,
the sword and ball.
The Minamoto host was almost entirely composed of men, unincumbered with women or families. They had seven hundred junks.
Both eets were gayly uttering with ags and streamers. The Taira
pennant was red, the Minamoto white, with two black bars near the
top. The junks, though clumsy, were excellent vessels for ghting
purposesfully equal to the old war-galleys of Actium.
On one side were brave men ushed with victory, with passions
kindled by hate and the memory of awful wrongs. On the other side
were brave men nerved with the courage of despair, resolved to die
only in honor, scorning life and country, wounds and death.
Tho battle began. With impetuosity and despair, the Taira drove
their junks hard against the Minamoto, and gained a temporary
advantage by the suddenness of their onset. Seeing this, Yoshitsun,
ever fearless, cried out and encouraged his soldiers. Then came a lull
in the combat. Wada, a noted archer of the Minamoto, shot an arrow,
and struck the junk of a Taira leader. Shoot it back! cried the chief.
An archer immediately plucked it out of the gunwale, and, tting it
to his bow before the gaze of the crews of the hostile eet, let y. The
arrow sped. It grazed the helmet of one, and pierced another warrior.
The Minamoto were ashamed. Shoot it back! thundered Yoshitsun.
The archer, plucking it out and coolly examining it, said, It is short
and weak. Drawing from his quiver an arrow of fourteen sts length,
and tting it to the string, he shot it. The ve-feet length of shaft
leaped through the air, and, piercing the armor and esh of the Taira
bowman who reshot the rst arrow, fell, spent, into the sea beyond.
Elated with the lucky stroke, Yoshitsun emptied his quiver, shooting with such celerity and skill that many Taira fell. The Minamoto,
encouraged, and roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, redoubled
their exertions with oar and arrow, and the tide of victory turned.

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153

The white ag triumphed. Yet the Taira might have won the day
had not treachery aided the foe. The pages of Japanese history teem
with instances of the destruction of friends by traitors. Perhaps the
annals of no other country are richer in the recitals of results gained
by treachery. The Arnold of the Taira army was Shigyoshi, friend to
Yoshitsun. He had agreed upon a signal, by which the prize could be
seen, and when seen could be surrounded and captured. Yoshitsun,
eagerly scanning the Taira eet, nally caught sight of the preconcerted signal, and ordered the captains of a number of his junks to surround the particular one of the Taira. In a trice the junks of the white
pennant shot along-side the devoted ship, and her decks were boarded
by armed men. Seeing this, a Taira man leaped from his own boat to
kill Yoshitsun in close combat. Yoshitsun jumped into another junk.
His enemy, thus foiled, drowned himself. In the hand-to-hand ght
with swords, Tomomori and six other Taira leaders were slain.
Seeing the hopeless state of aairs, and resolving not to be captured alive, the nun, Kiyomoris widow, holding her grandson, the
child emperor, in her arms, leaped into the sea. Taigo, the emperors
mother, vainly tried to save her child. Both were drowned. Munmori,
head of the Taira house, and many nobles, gentlemen, and ladies,
were made prisoners.
The combat deepened. The Minamoto loved ghting. The Taira
scorned to surrender. Revenge lent its maddening intoxication. Life,
robbed of all its charms, gladly welcomed glorious death. The whizzing of arrows, the clash of two-handed swords, the clanging of
armor, the sweep of churning oars, the crash of colliding junks, the
wild song of the rowers, the shouts of the warriors, made the stormchorus of battle. One after another the Taira ships, crushed by the
prows of their opponents, or scuttled by the iron bolt-heads of the
Minamoto archers, sunk beneath the bubbling waters, leaving red
whirlpools of blood. Those that were boarded were swept with sword

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and spear of their human freight. The dead bodies clogged the decks,
on which the mimic tides of blood ebbed and owed and splashed
with the motion of the waves, while the scuppers ran red like the
spouts of an abattoir. The warriors who leaped into the sea became
targets for the avengers arrows. Noble and peasant, woman and babe,
rower and archer, lifting imploring arms, or sullenly spurning mercy,
perished by hundred.
That May morning looked upon a blue sea laughing with unnumbered ripples, and glinting with the steel of warriors decked in all the
glory of battle-array, and aunting with the gay pennants of the eet
which it seemed proud to bear. At night, heaving crimson like the vat
of a dyer, de led by oating corpses, and spewing its foul corruption
for miles along the strand, it bore awful though transient witness to
the hate of man.
The Taira, driven o the face of the earth, were buried with wars
red burial beneath the sea, that soon forgot its stain, and laughed
again in purity of golden gleam and deep-blue wave. The humble
sherman casting his nets, or trudging along the shore, in astonishment saw the delicate corpses of the court lady and the tiny babe, and
the sun-bronzed bodies of rowers, cast upon the shore. The child who
waded in the surf to pick up shells was frightened at the wave-rolled
carcass of the dead warrior, from whose breast the feathered arrow or
the broken spear-stock protruded. The peasant, for many a day after,
burned or consigned to the burial ames many a fair child whose
silken dress and light skin told of higher birth and gentler blood than
their own rude brood.
Among a superstitious people dwelling by and on the sea, such
an awful ingulng of human life made a profound impression. The
presence of so many thousand souls of dead heroes was overpowering.
For years, nay, for centuries afterward, the ghosts of the Taira found
naught but unrest in the sea in which their mortal bodies sunk. The

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155

sailor by day hurried with bated breath past the scene of slaughter
and unsubstantial life. The mariner by night, unable to anchor, and
driven by wind, spent the hours of darkness in prayer, while his vivid
imagination converted the dancing phosphorescence into the white
hosts of the Taira dead. Even to-day the Chshiu peasant fancies he
sees the ghostly armies baling out the sea with bottomless dippers,
condemned thus to cleanse the ocean of the stain of centuries ago.
A few of the Taira escaped and ed to Kiushiu. There, secluded in
the fastnesses of deep valleys and high mountains, their descendants,
who have kept themselves apart from their countrymen for nearly
seven hundred years, a few hundred in number, still live in poverty
and pride. Their lurking-place was discovered only within the last
century. Of the women spared from the massacre, some married their
conquerors, some killed themselves, and others kept life in their deled
bodies by plying the trade in which beauty ever nds ready customers.
At the present day, in Shimonoski,* the courtesans descended from
the Taira ladies claim, and are accorded, special privileges.
The vengeance of the Minamoto did not stop at the sea. They
searched every hill and valley to exterminate every male of the doomed
*Shimonoski is a town of great commercial importance, from its position at
the entrance of the Inland Sea. It consists chiey of one long street of two
miles, at the base of a range of low steep hills. It lies four miles from the
western entrance of Hayato no sto, or strait of Shimonoski. The strait is
from two thousand to ve thousand feet wide, and about seven miles long.
Mutsur Island (incorrectly printed as Rockuren on foreign charts) lies near
the entrance. On Hiku Island, and at the eastern end of the strait, are lighthouses equipped according to modern scientic requirements. Four beacons,
also, light the passage at night. The current is very strong. A submarine telegraphic cable now connects the electric wires of Nagasaki, from Siberia to St.
Petersburg; and of Shanghae (China) to London and New York, with those
of Tki and Hakodat. On a ledge of rocks in the channel is a monument
in honor of Antoku, the young emperor who perished here in the arms of his
grandmother, Tokiko, the Nii no ama, a title composed of Nii, noble of the
second rank, and ama, nun, equal to the noble nun of the second rank.

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clan. In Kito many boys and infant sons of the Taira family were living. All that were found were put to death. The Herod of Kamakura
sent his father-in-law to attend to the bloody business.
In the Fourth month the army of Kamakura returned to Kito,
enjoying a public triumph, with their spoils and prisoners, retainers
of the Taira. They had also recovered the sacred emblems. For days
the streets of the capital were gay with processions and festivals, and
the coers of the temples were enriched with the pious oerings of
the victors, and their walls with votive tablets of gratitude.
Munmori was sent to Kamakura, where he saw the man whose
head his father had charged him on his death-bed to cut o and hang
on his tomb. His own head was shortly afterward severed from his
body by the guards who were conducting him to Kito.

XIV

Creation of the Dual System of Government

eanwhile Yoritomo was strengthening his power at Kamakura

and initiating that dual system of government which has puzzled
so many modern writers on Japan, and has given rise to the supposition
that Japan had two emperors, one temporal, the other spiritual.
The country at this time was distracted with the disturbances of the
past few years; robbers were numerous, and the Buddhist monasteries
were often nests of soldiers. Possessed of wealth, arms, and military
equipments, the bonzes were ever ready to side with the party that
pleased them. The presence of such men and institutions rendered it
dicult for any one ruler to preserve tranquillity, since it was never
known at what moment these professedly peaceful men would turn out
as trained bands of military warriors. To restore order, prosperity, revenue, and rm government was now the professed wish of Yoritomo.
He left the name and honor of government at Kito. He kept the
reality in Kamakura in his own hands, and for his own family.
In 1184, while his capital was rapidly becoming a magnicent city,
he created the Mandokoro, or Council of State, at which all the government aairs of the Kuant were discussed, and through which the
administration of the government was carried on. The ocers of the
Internal Revenue Department in Kito, seeing which way the tide of
power was owing, had previously come to Kamakura bringing the
157

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records of the department, and became subject to Yoritomos orders.

Thus the rst necessity, revenue, was obtained. A criminal tribunal
was also established, especially for the trial of the numerous robbers,
as well as for ordinary cases. He permitted all who had objections
to make or improvements to suggest to send in their petitions. He
requested permission of the mikado to reward all who had performed
meritorious actions, and to disarm the priests, and to conscate their
war materials. These requests, urged on the emperor in the interest of
good government, were no sooner granted, and the plans executed,
than the news of the destruction of the Taira family at Dan no ura was
received. Then Yoritomo prayed the mikado that ve men of his family
name might be made governors of provinces. The petition was granted,
and Yoshitsun was made governor of Iyo by special decree.
Here may be distinctly seen the rst great step toward the military
government that lasted nearly seven centuries.
The name of the shguns government, and used especially by its
opposers, was bakufuliterally, curtain government, because anciently
in China, as in Japan, a curtain (baku) surrounded the tent or headquarters of the commanding general. Bakufu, like most technical
military terms in Japan, is a Chinese word.
The appointing of ve military men as governors of provinces was
a profound innovation in Japanese governmental aairs. Hitherto it
had been the custom to appoint only civilians from the court to those
oces. It does not appear, however, that Yoritomo at rst intended
to seize the military control of the whole empire; but his chief minister, y no Hiromoto, president of the Council of State, conceived
another plan which, when carried out, as it afterward was, threw
all real power in Yoritomos hands. As the Kuant was tranquil and
prosperous under vigorous government, and as the Kuant troops
were used to put down rebels elsewhere, he proposed that in all the
circuits and provinces of the empire a special tax should be levied

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159

for the support of troops in those places. By this means a permanent

force could be kept, by which the peace of the empire could be maintained without the expense and trouble of calling out the Eastern
army. Alsoand here was another step to military government and
feudalismthat a shiugoa military chief, should be placed in each
province, dividing the authority with the kokushiu, or civil governor,
and a jit, to be appointed from Kamakura, should rule jointly with
rulers of small districts, called shyen. Still furtheranother step in
feudalismhe proposed that his own relations who had performed
meritorious service in battle should ll these oces, and that they
should all be under his control from Kamakura. This was done, and
Yoritomo thus acquired the governing power of all Japan.
It seems, at rst sight, strange that the mikado and his court should
grant these propositions; yet they did so. They saw the Kuant
half the empiretranquil under the strong military government of
Yoritomo. Hj, his father-in-law, was commanding the garrison at
Kito. The mikado, Gotoba, may be said to have owed his throne to
Yoritomo, whose ancestors had conquered, almost added to the realm,
all the extreme Northern and Eastern parts of Japan. Th is portion,
merely tributary before, was now actually settled and governed like
the older parts of the empire.
In 1180, Yoritomo made a campaign in that part of Japan north
of the thirty-seventh parallel, then called Mutsu and Dwa. On his
return, being now all-victorious, he visited the court at Kito. The
quondam exile was now the foremost subject in the empire. His reception and treatment by the reigning and cloistered emperors were in
the highest possible scale of magnicence. The splendor of his own
retinue astonished even the old courtiers, accustomed to the gay
pageants of the capital. They could scarcely believe that such wealth
existed and such knowledge of the art of display was cultivated in
the Kuant. Military shows, athletic games, and banquets were held

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for many days, and the costliest presents exchanged, many of which
are still shown at Kamakura and Kito. Yoritomo returned, clothed
with the highest honor, and with vastly greater jurisdiction than had
ever been intrusted to a subject. With all the civil functions ever held
by the once rival Fujiwara, he united in himself more military power
than a Taira had ever wielded.
In 1192, he attained to the climax of honor, when the mikado
appointed him Sei-i Tai Shgun (Barbarian-subjugating Great
General), a title and oce that existed until 1868. Henceforth the
term shgun came to have a new signicance. Anciently all generals
were called shguns; but, with new emphasis added to the name, the
shgun acquired more and more power, until foreigners supposed him
to be a sovereign. Yet this subordinate from rst to lastfrom 1194
until 1868was a general only, and a military vassal of the emperor.
Though he governed the country with a strong military hand, he did
it as a vassal, in the name and for the sake of the mikado at Kito.
Peace now reigned in Japan. The soldier-ruler at Kamakura spent
the prime of his life in consolidating his power, expecting to found a
family that should rule for many generations. He encouraged hunting
on Mount Fuji, and sports calculated to foster a martial spirit in the
enervating times of peace. In 1195, he made another visit to Kito,
staying four months. Toward the end of 1198, he had a fall from his
horse, and died early in 1199. He was fty-three years old, and had
ruled fteen years.
Yoritomo is looked upon as one of the ablest rulers and greatest generals that ever lived in Japan. Yet, while all acknowledge his
consummate ability, many regard him as a cruel tyrant, and a heartless and selsh man. His treatment of his two brothers, Noriyori
and Yoshitsun, are evidences that this opinion is too well founded.
Certain it is that the splendor of Yoritomos career has never blinded
the minds of posterity to his selshness and cruelty; and though, like

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Napoleon, he has had his eulogists, yet the example held up for the
imitation of youth is that of Yoshitsun, and not Yoritomo. Mori says
of the latter: He encouraged each of his followers to believe himself
the sole condant of his leaders schemes, and in this cunning manner separated their interests, and made them his own. Nearly all of
those around him who became possible rivals in power or popularity were cruelly handled when he had exhausted the benet of their
service. His simple tomb stands at the top of a knoll on the slope of
hills a few hundred yards distant from the great temple at Kamakura,
overlooking the elds on which a mighty city once rose, when called
into being by his genius and energy, which ourished for centuries,
and disappeared, to allow luxuriant Nature to again assert her sway.
The rice-swamps and the millet-elds now cover the former sites of
his proudest palaces. Where metropolitan splendor and luxury once
predominated, the irreverent tourist bandies his jests, or the toiling
farmer stands knee-deep in the fertile ooze, to win from classic soil
his taxes and his daily food.
The victory over the Taira was even greater than Yoritomo had
supposed possible. Though exulting in the results, he burned with
jealousy that Yoshitsun had the real claim to the honor of victory.
While in this mood, there were not wanting men to poison his mind,
and fan the suspicions into res of hate. There was one Kajiwara, who
had been a military adviser to the expedition to destroy the Taira. On
one occasion, Yoshitsun advised a night attack in full force on the
enemy. Kajiwara opposed the project, and hindered it. Yoshitsun,
with only fty men, carried out his plan, and, to the chagrin and
disgrace of Kajiwara, he won a brilliant victory. This man, incensed at
his rival, and consuming with wrath, hied to Yoritomo with tales and
slanders, which the jealous brother too willingly believed. Yoshitsun,
returning as a victor, and with the spoils for his brother, received
peremptory orders not to enter Kamakura, but to remain in the village

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of Koshigoy, opposite the isle of Enoshima. While there, he wrote

a touching letter, recounting all his toils and dangers while pursuing the Taira, and appealing for clearance of his name from slander
and suspicion. It was sent to y no Hiromoto, chief councilor of
Yoritomo, whom Yoshitsun begged to intercede to his brother for
him. Th is letter, still extant, and considered a model of lial and
fraternal aection, is taught by parents to their children. It is among
the most pathetic writings in Japanese literature, and is found in one
of the many popular collections of famous letters.
Wearying of waiting in the suburbs of the city, Yoshitsun went
to Kito. Yoritomos troops, obeying orders, attacked his house to
kill him. He ed, with sixteen retainers, into Yamato. There he was
again attacked, but escaped and ed. He now determined to go to
shiu, to his old friend Hidhira. He took the route along the west
coast, through Echizen, Kaga, and Echigo, and found a refuge, as
he supposed, with Hidhira. The spies of his brother soon discovered
his lurking-place, and ordered him to be put to death. The son of
Hidhira attacked him. According to popular belief, Yoshitsun, after
killing his wife and children with his own hands, committed harakiri. His head, preserved in sak, was sent to Kamakura.
The exact truth concerning the death of Yoshitsun is by no means
yet ascertained. It is declared by some that he escaped and ed to
Yezo, where he lived among the Ains for many years, and died
among them, either naturally or by hara-kiri. The Ainos have a great
reverence for his deeds, and to this day worship his spirit, and over
his grave in Hitaka they have erected a shrine. Others assert that
he ed to Asia, and became the great conqueror, Genghis Khan.*
* In a Chinese book called Seppu, a collection of legends and historical miscellanies, published in China, it is stated that Genghis Khan was one Yoshitsun,
who came from Japan. The Chinese form of Minamoto Yoshitsun is Gen
Gike. He was also called, after his reputed death, Temujin (or Tenjin). As is

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Concerning this last, a Japanese student once remarked, Nothing

but the extraordinary vanity of the Japanese people could originate
such a report.
Nevertheless, the immortality of Yoshitsun is secured. Worshiped
as a god by the Ains, honored and beloved by every Japanese youth as
an ideal hero of chivalry, his features pictured on boys kites, his mien
and form represented in household egies displayed annually at the
boys great festival of ags, gloried in art, song, and story, Yoshitsun,
the hero warrior and martyr, will live in unfading memory so long as
the ideals of the warlike Japanese stand unshattered or their traditions
are preserved.*
well known, the Mongol conquerors name was originally, on his rst appearance, Temujin. The Japanese Ains have also apotheosized Yoshitsun under
the title Hanguan Dai Mi JinGreat Illustrious Lawgiver. Yoshitsun was
born in 1159; he was thirty years old at the time of his reputed death. Genghis
Khan was born, according to the usually received data, in 1160, and died 1227.
If Gen Gik and Genghis Khan, or Gengis Kan, were identical, the hero had
thirty-eight years for his achievements. Genghis Khan was born, it is said,
with his hand full of blood. Obeying the words of a shaman (inspired seer),
he took the name Genghis (greatest), and called his people Mongols (bold).
The conquest of the whole earth was promised him. He and his sons subjugated China and Corea, overthrew the caliphate of Bagdad, and extended
the Mongolian empire as far as the Oder and the Danube. They attempted
to conquer Japan, as we shall see in the chapter headed The Invasion of the
Mongol Tartars.
* The struggles of the rival houses of Gen and Hei form an inexhaustible
mine of incidents to the playwright, author, poet, and artist. I can not resist
the temptation of giving one of these in this place. The artists representation
of it adorns many a Japanese house. At the siege of Ichinotani, a famous captain, named Naozan, who fought under the white ag, while in camp one
day investing the Taira forces, saw a boat approach the beach fronting the
fort. Shortly after, a Taira soldier rode out of the castle-gate into the waves
to embark. Naozan saw, by the splendid crimson armor and golden helmet
of the rider, that he was a Taira noble. Here was a prize indeed, the capture
of which would make the Kuant captain a general. Naozan thundered out

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the challenge: Do my eyes deceive me? Is he a Taira leader; and is he such

a coward that he shows his back to the eye of his enemy? Come back and
ght! The rider was indeed a Taira noble, young Atsumori, only sixteen years
of age, of high and gentle birth, and had been reared in the palace. Naozan
was a bronzed veteran of forty years. Both charged each other on horseback,
with swords drawn. After a few passes, Naozan ung away his sword, and,
unarmed, rushed to grasp his foe. Not yet to be outdone in gallantry, Atsumori
did the same. Both clinched while in the saddle, and fell to the sand, the old
campaigner uppermost. He tore o the golden helmet, and, to his amazement,
saw the pale, smooth face and noble mien of a noble boy that looked just like
his own beloved son of the same age. The father was more than the soldier.
The victor trembled with emotion. How wretched the life of a warrior to have
to kill such a lovely boy! How miserable will those parents be who nd their
darling is in an enemys hand! Wretched me, that I thought to destroy this life
for the sake of reward! He then resolved to let his enemy go secretly away,
and make his escape. At that moment a loud voice shouted angrily, Naozan
is double-hearted: he captures an enemy, and then thinks to let him escape.
Thus compelled, Naozan steeled his heart, took up his sword, and cut o
Atsumoris head. He carried the bloody trophy to Yoshitsun, and, while all
stood admiring and ready to applaud, Naozan refused all reward, and, to the
amazement of his chief and the whole camp, begged leave to resign. Dong
helmet, armor, and sword, he shaved o his hair, and became a disciple of the
holy bonze Hnen, learned the doctrines of Buddha, and becoming profoundly
versed in the sacred lore, he resolved to spend the remnant of his days in a
monastery. He set out for the Kuant, riding with his face to the tail of the
animal, but in the direction of paradise. Some one asked him why he rode
thus. He replied,
In the Clear Land, perchance theyre me reputing
A warrior brave,
Because I turn my back, refusing
Fame, once so dear.

XV

The Glory and the Fall of the Hj Family

hough there may be some slight justication of Yoritomos setting up a dual system of government to control and check the
intrigues of courtiers at Kito, yet at best it was a usurpation of the
power belonging only to the mikado. The creation of a duarchy was
the swift and sure result of Japan having no foreign enemies.
So long as the peace or existence of the empire was threatened by
the savages on the frontier, or by invading eets on the sea-coast, there
was an impelling cause to bind together the throne and people; but
when the barbarians were tranquilized, China and Corea gave no signs
of war; and especially when the nobility were divided into the civil and
military classes, and the mikado was no longer a man of physical and
mental vigor, a division of the governing power naturally arose.
From the opening of the thirteenth century, the course of Japanese
history ows in two streams. There were now two capitals, Kito and
Kamakura, and two centres of authority: one, the lawful but overawed
emperor and the imperial court; the other, the military vassal, and a
government based on the power of arms. It must never be forgotten,
however, that the fountain of authority was in Kito, the ultimate seat
of power in the ancient constitution. Throughout the centuries the prestige of the mikados person never declined. The only conditions under
which it was possible for this division of political power to exist was the
165

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the mikados empire

absence of foreigners from the soil of Japan. So soon as Japan entered

into political relations with outside nations, which would naturally seek
the real source of power, the duarchy was doomed.
When Yoritomo died, all men wondered whether the power would
remain at Kamakura, the country rest peaceful, and his successors
reign with ability. The Japanese have a proverb conveying a bitter
truth, learned from oft-repeated experience, Taish ni tan ga nashi
(The general has no child, or, There is no seed to a great man). The
spectacle of a great house decaying through the inanity or supineness
of sons is constantly repeated in their history. The theme also forms
the basis of their standard novels. Yoritomos sons, not inheriting
their fathers ability, failed to wield his personal power of administration. From the day of his death, it may be said that the glory of the
Minamoto family declined, while that of the Hj began.
Yet it seemed strange that the proverb should be veried in this
case. Yoritomo had married no ordinary female. His wife, Masago,
was a woman of uncommon intellectual ability, who had borne him
a son, Yoriiy. Th is young man, who was eighteen years old at his
fathers death, was immediately appointed chief of all the military
ocers in the empire, and it was expected he would equal his father
in military prowess and administrative skill. His mother, Masago,
though a shorn nun, who had professed retirement from the world,
continued to take a very active part in the government.
The parental authority and inuence in Japan, as in China, is often
far greater than that of any other. Not even death or the marriage
relation weakens, to any great extent, the hold of a father on a child.
With aection on the one hand, and cunning on the other, an unscrupulous father may do what he will. We have seen how the Fujiwara
and Taira families controlled court, throne, and emperor, by marrying
their daughters to infant or boy mikados. We shall now nd the Hj

The Glory and the Fall of the Hj Family

167

dispensing the power at Kamakura by means of a crafty woman willing

to minister to her fathers rather than to her sons aggrandizement.
Hj Tokimasa was the father of Masago, wife of Yoritomo. The
latter always had great condence in and respect for the abilities of
his father-in-law. At his death, Tokimasa became chief of the council of state. Instead of assisting and training Yoriiy in government
aairs, giving him the benet of his experience, and thus enabling
the son to tread in his fathers footsteps, he would not allow Yoriiy
to hear cases in person, or to take active share in public business.
When the youth plunged into dissipation and idleness, which terminated in a vicious course of life, his mother often reproved him,
while Tokimasa, doubtless rejoicing over the fact, pretended to know
nothing of the matter. All this time, however, he was lling the oces
of government, not with the Minamoto adherents, but with his own
kindred and partisans. Nepotism in Japan is a science; but cursed as
the Japanese have been, probably none exceeded in this subtle craft
the master, Tokimasa; though Yoriiy, receiving his fathers oce,
had been appointed Sei-i Tai Shgun, with the rank ju-ni-i (second division of the second rank), his grandfather still kept the real
power. When twenty-two years of age, while he was suering from
sicknessprobably the result of his manner of life -- his mother and
Tokimasa, who instigated her, attempted to compel him to resign his
oce, and to give the superintendency of the provincial governors
to his infant son, and set over the Kuansei, or Western Japan, his
younger brother, aged twelve years. This was the old trick of setting
up boys and babies on the nominal seat of power, in order that crafty
subordinates might rule.
Yoriiy heard of this plan, and resolved to avert its execution. He
failed, and, as is usual in such cases, was compelled to shave o his
hair, as a sign that his interest in political aairs had ceased. He was

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the mikados empire

exiled to a temple in Idzu. There he was strangled, while in his bath,

by the hired assassins sent by Tokimasa.
Santomo, brother of Yoriiy, succeeded in oce. The boy was
but twelve years old, and very unlike his father. He cared nothing
for hunting or military exercises. His chief occupation was in playing foot-balla very mild game, compared with that played in this
countryand composing poetry. His time was spent with fair girls
and women, of whom he had as many as he wished. All this was
in accordance with the desire and plans of the Hj family, who
meanwhile wielded all power. Santomo lived his luxuriant life in
the harem, the bath, and the garden, until twenty-eight years old.
Meanwhile, Kugi, the son of Yoriiy, who had been made a priest,
grew up, and had always looked upon Santomo, instead of Tokimasa,
as his fathers murderer. One night as Santomo was returning from
worship at the famous shrine of Tsurugakathe unusual hour of
nine having been chosen by the divinersKugio leaped out from
behind a staircase, cut o Santomos head, and made o with it, but
was himself beheaded by a soldier sent after him. The main line of
the Minamoto family was now extinct. Thus, in the very origin and
foundation of the line of shoguns, the same fate befell them as in the
case of the emperorsthe power wielded by an illustrious ancestor,
when transferred to descendants, was lost. A nominal ruler sat on the
throne, while a wire-puller behind directed every movement. Th is is
the history of every line of shguns that ruled from the rst, in 1196,
until the last, in 1868.
The usurpation of the Hj was a double usurpation. Properly, they
were vassals of the shgun, who was himself a vassal of the mikado. It
must not be supposed that the emperor at Kito calmly looked on, caring for none of these things at Kamakura. The meshes of the Minamoto
had been woven completely round the imperial authority. Now the

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169

Hj, like a new spider, was spinning a more fatal thread, sucking from
the emperor, as from a helpless y, the lifeblood of power.
The Hj family traced their descent from the mikado Kuammu
(782805) through Sadamori, a Taira noble, from whom Tokimasa was
the seventh in descent. Their ancestors had settled at Hj, in Idzu,
whence they took their name. While the Minamoto rose to power, the
Hj assisted them, and, by intermarriage, the two clans had become
closely attached to each other.
The names of the twelve rulers, usually reckoned as seven generations, were: Tokimasa, Yoshitoki, Yasutoki, Tsuntoki, Tokiyori,
Masatoki, Tokimun, Sadatoki, Morotoki, Hirotoki, Takatoki, and
Moritoki. Of these, the third, fourth, and fth were the ablest, and
most devoted to public business. It was on the strength of their
merit and fame that their successors were so long able to hold power.
Yasutoki established two councils, the one with legislative and executive, and the other with judicial powers. Both were representative of
the wishes of the people. He promulgated sixty regulations in respect
to the method of judicature. This judicial record is of great value to the
historian; and long afterward, in 1534, an edition of Yasutokis laws,
in one volume, with a commentary, was published. In later times it
has been in popular use as a copy-book for children. He also took an
oath before the assembly to maintain the same with equity, swearing by the gods of Japan, saying, We stand as judges of the whole
country; if we be partial in our judgments, may the Heavenly Gods
punish us. In his private life he was self-abnegative and benevolent,
a polite and accomplished scholar, loving the society of the learned.
Tsuntoki faithfully executed the laws, and carried out the policy of
his predecessor. Tokiyori, before he became regent, traveled, usually
in disguise, all over the empire, to examine into the details of local
administration, and to pick out able men, so as to put them in oce

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when he should need their services. In his choice he made no distinction of rank. Among the upright men he elevated to the judges
bench was the Awodo, who, for conscientious reasons, never wore silk
garments, nor a lacquered scabbard to his sword, nor ever held a bribe
in his hand. He was the terror of venal ocials, injustice and bribery
being known to him as if by sorcery; while every detected culprit was
sure to be disgracefully cashiered. Hj Akitoki established a library,
consisting of Chinese, Confucian, Buddhistic, and native literature, at
Kanazawa, in Sagami. Here scholars gathered, and students ocked,
to hear their lectures and to study the classics, or the tenets of the
faith, nearly all the learned men of this period being priests. While
the writer of the Guai Shi attacks the Hj for their usurpations, he
applauds them for their abilities and excellent administration.
The line of shguns who nominally ruled from 1199 to 1333 were
merely their creatures; and that period of one hundred and forty
years, including seven generations, may be called the period of the
Hj. The political history of these years is but that of a monotonous
recurrence of the exaltation of boys and babies of noble blood, to
whom was given the semblance of power, who were sprinkled with
titles, and deposed as soon as they were old enough to be troublesome.
None of the Hj ever seized the oce of Shgun, but in reality they
wielded all and more of the power attaching to the oce, under the
title of shikken. It was an august game of state-craft, in which little
children with colossal names were set up like nine-pins, and bowled
down as suited the playful fancies of subordinates who declined name
and titles, and kept the reality of power. The counters were neglected,
while the prize was won.
After the line of Yoritomo became extinct, Yoritomos widow,
Masago, requested of the imperial court at Kito that Yoritsun, a
Fujiwara baby two years old, should be made shgun. The Fujiwara
nobles were glad to have even a child of their blood elevated to a

The Glory and the Fall of the Hj Family

171

position in which, when grown, he might have power. The baby came
to Kamakura. He cast the shadow of authority twenty-ve years,
when he was made to resign, in 1244, in favor of his own baby boy,
Yoshitsugu, six years old. This boy-shgun when fourteen years old, in
1252, was deposed by Hj Tokiyori, and sent back to Kito. Tired of
the Fujiwara scions, the latter then obtained as shgun a more august
victim, the boy Muntaka, a son of the emperor Go-Saga, who after
fourteen years fell ill, in 1266, with that very common Japanese diseaseocial illness. He was probably compelled to feign disease. His
infant son, three years of age, was then set up, and, when twenty-three
years of age (1289), was bowled down by Hj Sadatoki, who sent
him in disgrace, heels upward, in a palanquin to Kito. Hisaakira,
the third son of the emperor Go-Fukakusa, was set up as shogun in
1289. The Hj bowled down this fresh dummy in 1308, and put up
Morikuni, his eldest son. This was the last shgun of imperial blood.
The game of the players was now nearly over.
The ex-emperor, Go-Toba, made a desperate eort to drive the
usurping Hj from power. A small and gallant army was raised;
ghting took place; but the handful of imperial troops was defeated
by the overwhelming hosts sent from Kamakura. Their victory riveted
the chains upon the imperial family. To the arrogant insolence of the
usurper was now added the cruelty of the conscious tyrant.
Never before had such outrageous deeds been committed, or such
insults been heaped upon the sovereigns as were done by these upstarts
at Kamakura. Drunk with blood and exultation, the Hj wreaked
their vengeance on sovereign and subject alike. Banishment and conscation were the order of their day. The ex-emperor was compelled
to shave o his hair, and was exiled to the island of Oki. The reigning
mikado was deposed, and sent to Sado. Two princes of the blood were
banished to Tajima and Bizen. The ex-emperor Tsuchimikadothere
were now three living emperorsnot willing to dwell in palace luxury

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while his brethren were in exile, expressed a wish to share their fate. He
was sent to Awa. To complete the victory and the theft of power, the
Hj chief Yasutoki conscated the estates of all who had fought on
the emperors side, and distributed them among his own minions. Over
three thousand efs were thus disposed of. No camp-followers ever
stripped a dead heros body worse than these human vultures tore from
the lawful sovereign the last fragment of authority. All over Japan the
patriots heard, with groans of despair, the slaughter of the loyal army,
and the pitiful fate of their emperors. The imperial exile died in Sado
of a broken heart. A nominal mikado at Kito, and a nominal shogun
at Kamakura, were set up, but the Hj were the keepers of both.
The later days of the Hj present a spectacle of tyranny and misgovernment such as would disgrace the worst Asiatic bureaucracy.
The distinguished and able men such as at rst shed lustre on the
name of this family were no more. The last of them were given to
luxury and carousal, and the neglect of public business. A horde of
rapacious ocials sucked the life-blood and paralyzed the energies
of the people. To obtain means to support themselves in luxury,
they increased the weight of taxes, that ever crushes the spirit of
the Asiatic peasant. Their triple oppression, of mikado, shgun and
people, became intolerable. The handwriting was on the wall. Their
days were numbered.
In 1327, Moriyoshi, son of the Emperor Go-Daigo, began to mature
plans for the recovery of imperial power. By means of the ubiquitous
spies, and through treachery, his schemes were revealed, and he was
only saved from punishment from Hj by being ordered by his father
to retire into a Buddhist monastery. This was ostensibly to show that
he had given up all interest in worldly aairs. In reality, however,
he assisted his father in planning the destruction of Hj. He lived
at t, and was called, by the people, t no miya. The Emperor

The Glory and the Fall of the Hj Family

173

Go-Daigo, though himself put on the throne by the king-makers at

Kamakura, chafed under the galling dictatorship of those who were
by right his vassals. He resolved to risk life, and all that was dear to
him, to overthrow the dual system, and establish the original splendor
and prestige of the mikadoate. He knew the reverence of the people
for the throne would sustain him, could he but raise sucient military
force to reduce the Hj.
He secured the aid of the Buddhist priests and, in, 1330, fortied
Kasagi, in Yamato. Kusunoki Masashig about the same time arose
in Kawachi, making it the aim of his life to restore the mikadoate.
The next year Hj sent an army against Kasagi, attacked and burned
it. The emperor was taken prisoner, and banished to Oki. Kusunoki,
though twice besieged, escaped, and lived to win immortal fame.
Connected with this mikados sad fate is one incident of great
dramatic interest, which has been enshrined in Japanese art, besides
nding worthy record in history. While Go-Daigo was on his way
to banishment, borne in a palanquin, under guard of the soldiers of
Hj, Kojima Takanori attempted to rescue his sovereign. This young
nobleman was the third son of the lord of Bingo, who occupied his
hereditary possessions in Bizen. Setting out with a band of retainers
to intercept the convoy and to release the imperial prisoner, at the
hill of Funasaka he waited patiently for the train to approach, nding, when too late, that he had occupied the wrong pass. Hastening
to the rear range of hills, they learned that the objects of their search
had already gone by. Kojimas followers, being now disheartened,
returned, leaving him alone. He, however, cautious, followed on,
and for several days attempted in vain to approach the palanquin and
whisper a word of hope in the ear of the imperial exile. The vigilance
of the Hj vassals rendering all succor hopeless, Kojima hit upon a
plan that baed his enemies and lighted hope in the bosom of the

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the mikados empire

captive. Secretly entering the garden of the inn at which the party
was resting at night, Kojima scraped o the bark of a cherry-tree, and
wrote in ink, on the inner white membrane, this poetic stanza,
Ten Ksen wo horobosu nakar
Toki ni Hanrei naki ni shimo aradzu.
(O Heaven! destroy not Ksen,
While Hanrei still lives.)
The allusion, couched in delicate phrase, is to Ksen, an ancient
king in China, who was dethroned and made prisoner, but was afterward restored to honor and power by the faithfulness and valor of his
retainer, Hanrei.
The next morning, the attention of the soldiers was excited by the
fresh handwriting on the tree. As none of them were able to read, they
showed it to the Emperor Go-Daigo, who read the writing, and its
signicance, in a moment. Concealing his joy, he went to banishment,
keeping hope alive during his loneliness. He knew that he was not
forgotten by his faithful vassals. Kojima afterward fought to restore the
mikado, and perished on the battle-eld. The illustration given above
is borrowed from a picture by a native artist, which now adorns the
national-bank notes issued under the reign of the present mikado.
This darkest hour of the mikados fortune preceded the dawn.
Already a hero was emerging from obscurity who was destined to be
the destroyer of Kamakura and the Hj. This was Nitta Yoshisada.
The third son of Minamoto Yoshiiy, born a.d. 1057, had two sons.
The elder son succeeded his father to the ef of Nitta, in the province
of Kdzuk. The second inherited from his adopted father. Tawara,
the ef of Ashikaga, in Shimotsuk. Both these sons founded families
which took their name from their place of hereditary possession. At
this period, four hundred years later, their illustrious descendants

The Glory and the Fall of the Hj Family

175

became conspicuous. Nitta Yoshisada, a captain in the army of Hj,

had been sent to besiege Kusunoki, one of the mikados faithful vassals; but, refusing to ght against the imperial forces, Nitta deserted
with his command. He sent his retainer to t no miya, son of the
emperor, then hiding in the mountains, who gave him a commission
in the name of his exiled father. Nitta immediately returned to his
native place, collected all his retainers, and before the shrine of the
village raised the standard of revolt against Hj. His banner was a
long white pennant, crossed near the top by two black bars, beneath
which was a circle bisected with a black zone. Adopting the plan of
attack proposed by his brother, and marching down into Sagami, he
appeared at Inamura Saki, on the outskirts of Kamakura, in thirteen
days after raising his banner as the mikados vassal.
At this point, where the road from Kamakura to Enoshima strikes
the beach, a splendid panorama breaks upon the vision of the beholder.
In front is the ocean, with its rolling waves and refreshing salt breeze.
To the south, in imposing proportions, and clothed in the blue of distance, is the island of shima; and farther on are the mountains of the
peninsula of Idzu. To the right emerges, fair and lovely, in perpetual
green, the island of Enoshima. Landward is the peak of yama,
with its satellites; but, above all, in full magnicence of proportion,
stands Fuji, the lordly mountain. Here Nitta performed an act that
has become immortal in song and poem, and the artists colors.
On the eve before the attack, Nitta, assembling his host at the edge of
the strand, and removing his helmet, thus addressed his warriors: Our
heavenly son (mikado) has been deposed by his traitorous subject, and
is now in distant exile in the Western Sea. I, Yoshisada, being unable to
look upon this act unmoved, have raised an army to punish the thieves
yonder. I humbly pray thee, O God of the Sea, to look into my loyal
heart; command the tide to ebb and open a path. Thus saying, he bowed
reverently, and then, as Rai says, with his head bare (though the artist

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the mikados empire

has overlooked the statement), and in the sight of heaven cast his sword
into the waves as a prayer-oering to the gods that the waves might
recede, in token of their righteous favor. The golden hilt gleamed for a
moment in the air, and the sword sunk from sight. The next morning the
tide had ebbed, the strand was dry, and the army, headed by the chief
whom the soldiers now looked upon as the chosen favorite of Heaven,
marched resistlessly on. Kamakura was attacked from three sides. The
ghting was severe and bloody, but victory everywhere deserted the
banners of the traitors, and rested upon the pennons of the loyal. Nitta,
after performing great feats of valor in person, nally set the city on re,
and in a few hours Kamakura was a waste of ashes.
Just before the nal destruction of the city, a noble named And,
vassal of the house of Hj, on seeing the ruin around him, the soldiers slaughtered, and the palaces burned, remarking that for a hundred years no instance of a retainer dying for his lord had been known,
resolved to commit hara-kiri. The wife of Nitta was his niece. Just as
he was about to plunge his dirk into his body, a servant handed him
a letter from her, begging him to surrender. The old man indignantly
exclaimed: My niece is the daughter of a samurai house. Why did she
make so shameless a request? And Nitta, her husband, is a samurai
Why did he allow her to do so? He then took the letter, wrapped it
round his sword, which he plunged into his body, and died. A great
number of vassals of Hj did likewise.
While Nitta was ghting at Kamakura, and thus overthrowing the
Hj power in the East, Ashikaga Takauji had drawn sword in Kito,
and with Kusunoki re-established the imperial rule in the West. The
number of the doomed clan who were slain in battle, or who committed hara-kiri, as defeated soldiers, in accordance with the code of honor
already established, is set down at six thousand eight hundred.

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177

All over the empire the people rose up against their oppressors and
massacred them. The Hj domination, which had been paramount
for nearly one hundred and fty years, was utterly broken.
From a.d. 1219 until 1333, the mikados at Kito were:
Juntoku
Chiuki (reigned four months)
Go-Horikawa
Shij
Go-Saga
Go-Fukakusa
Kamyama
Go-Uda
Fushimi
Go-Fushimi
Go-Nij
Hanazono
Go-Daigo

1211-1221
1222
1222-1232
1233-1242
1243-1246
1247-1259
1260-1274
1275-1287
1288-1298
1299-1301
1302-1307
1308-1318
1319 -1338

From the establishment of Kamakura as military capital, the shguns were:

minamoto
Yoritomo
Yoriiy
Sanetomo

1185-1199
1201-1203
1203-1219
fujiwara

Yoritsun
Yoritsugu

1220-1243
1244-1251

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the mikados empire

Muntaka
Koryasu
Hisaakira
Morikuni

emperors sons
1252-1265
1266-1289
1289-1307
1308-1333

The Hj have never been forgiven for their arbitrary treatment of

the mikados. The author of the Nihon Guai Shi terms them serpents,
ends, beasts, etc. To this day, historian, dramatist, novelist, and
story-teller delight to load them with vilest obloquy. Even the peasants keep alive the memory of the past. One of the most voracious
and destructive insects is still called the Hj bug. A great annual
ceremony of extermination of these pests keeps alive the hated recollection of their human namesakes. The memory of the wrongs suered
by the imperial family goaded on the soldiers in the revolution of
1868, who wreaked their vengeance on the Tokugawas, as successors
of the Hj. In ghting to abolish forever the hated usurpation of
six hundred years, and to restore the mikado to his ancient rightful
and supreme authority, they remembered well the deeds of the Hj,
which the Nihon Guai Shi so eloquently told. In 1873, envoys sent out
from the imperial court in Tki, proceeded to the island of Sado,
and solemnly removing the remains of the banished emperor, who had
died of a broken heart, buried them, with due pomp, in the sacred soil
of Yamato, where sleep so many of the dead mikados.
I have given a picture of the Hj rule and rulers, which is but the
reection of the Japanese popular sentiment, and the opinion of native
scholars. There is, however, another side to the story. It must be conceded that the Hj were able rulers, and kept order and peace in the
empire for over a century. They encouraged literature, and the cultivation of the arts and sciences. During their period, the resources of the
country were developed, and some branches of useful handicraft and

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179

ne arts were brought to a perfection never since surpassed. To this

time belong the famous image-carver, sculptor, and architect, Unkei,
and the lacquer-artists, who are the old masters in this branch of art.
The military spirit of the people was kept alive, tactics were improved,
and the methods of governmental administration simplied. During
this period of splendid temples, monasteries, pagodas, colossal images,
and other monuments of holy zeal, Hj Sadatoki erected a monument over the grave of Kiyomori at Higo. Hj Tokimun raised and
kept in readiness a permanent war-fund, so that the military expenses
might not interfere with the revenue reserved for ordinary government
expenses. To his invincible courage, patriotic pride, and indomitable
energy are due the vindication of the national honor and the repulse
of the Tartar invasion.

XVI

Buddhism in Japan

he religion founded by Buddha, which is older by six centuries

than that founded by Christ, which is professed by nearly onethird of the human race, which has a literature perhaps larger than
all other religious literatures combined, I shall not attempt to treat of
except in the broadest terms. My object in this chapter is to portray
the entrance and development of Buddhism in Japan, to outline its
rise and progress, and to show its status in that now fermenting nation
in which its latest fruits are found.
Christians must surely be interested in knowing of the faith they
are endeavoring to destroy, or, at least, to displace. When it is considered that Buddhist temples are already erected upon American
soil, that a new development of this ancient faith may yet set itself up
as a rival of Christianity in the Western part of our country, that it
has already won admirers, if not professors, in Boston, London, and
Berlin, the subject will be seen to possess an immediate interest.
Buddhism originated as a pure atheistic humanitarianism, with
a lofty philosophy and a code of morals higher, perhaps, than any
heathen religion had reached before, or has since attained. Its three
great distinguishing characteristics are atheism, metempsychosis, and
absence of caste. First preached in a land accursed by secular and spiritual oppression, it acknowledged no caste, and declared all men equally
181

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the mikados empire

sinful and miserable, and all equally capable of being freed from sin
and misery through knowledge. It taught that the souls of all men
had lived in a previous state of existence, and that all the sorrows of
this life are punishments for sins committed in a previous state. Each
human soul has whirled through countless eddies of existence, and has
still to pass through a long succession of birth, pain, and death. All is
eeting. Nothing is real. This life is all a delusion. After death, the soul
must migrate for ages through stages of life, inferior or superior, until,
perchance, it arrives at last in Nirvana, or absorption in Buddha.
The total extinction of being, personality, and consciousness is
the aspiration of the vast majority of true believers, as it should be of
every suering soul, i.e., of all mankind. The true estate of the human
soul, according to the Buddhist of the Buddhists, is blissful annihilation. The morals of Buddhism are superior to its metaphysics. Its
commandments are the dictates of the most rened morality. Besides
the cardinal prohibitions against murder, stealing, adultery, lying,
drunkenness, and unchastity, every shade of vice, hypocrisy, anger,
pride, suspicion, greediness, gossiping, cruelty to animals, is guarded
against by special precepts. Among the virtues recommended, we
nd not only reverence of parents, care of children, submission to
authority, gratitude, moderation in time of prosperity, submission
in time of trial, equanimity at all times; but virtues such as the duty
of forgiving insults, and not rewarding evil with evil. Whatever the
practice of the people may be, they are taught, as laid down in their
sacred books, the rules thus summarized above.
Such, we may glean, was Buddhism in its early purity. Besides its
moral code and philosophical doctrines, it had almost nothing. An
ecclesiastical system it was not in any sense. Its progress was rapid
and remarkable. Though nally driven out of India, it swept through
Burmah, Siam, China, Thibet, Manchuria, Corea, Siberia, and nally,
after twelve centuries, entered Japan. By this time the bare and bald

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original doctrines of Shaka (Buddha) were glorious in the apparel

with which Asiatic imagination and priestly necessity had clothed
and adorned them. The ideas of Shaka had been expanded into a
complete theological system, with all the appurtenances of a stock
religion. It had a vast and complicated ecclesiastical and monastic
machinery, a geographical and sensuous paradise, denitely located
hells and purgatories, populated with a hierarchy of titled demons,
and furnished after the most approved theological fashion. Of these
the priests kept the keys, regulated the thermometers, and timed or
graded the torture or bliss. The system had, even thus early, a minutely
catalogued hagiology. Its eschatology was well outlined, and the hierarchs claimed to be as expert in questions of casuistry as they were
at their commercial system of masses still in vogue. General councils
had been held, decrees had been issued, dogmas dened or abolished;
Buddhism had emerged from philosophy into religion. The Buddhist
missionaries entered Japan having a mechanism perfectly tted to play
upon the fears and hopes of an ignorant people, and to bring them
into obedience to the new and aggressive faith.
If there was one country in which the success of Buddhism as a
popular religion seemed foreordained, that country was Japan. It
was virgin soil for any thing that could be called a religion. Before
Buddhism came, very little worthy of the name existed. Day by day,
each new ray of the light of research that now falls upon that gray
dawn of Japanese history shows that Shint was a pale and shadowy
cult, that consisted essentially of sacricing to the spirits of departed
heroes and ancestors, with ceremonies of bodily purication, and that
the coming of Buddhism quickened it, by the force of opposition, into
something approaching a religious system. Swarms of petty deities,
who have human passions, and are but apotheosized historical heroes,
ll the pantheon of Shint. The end and aim of even its most sincere
adherents and teachers is political. Strike out the dogma of the divinity

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of the mikado and the duty of all Japanese to obey him implicity, and
almost nothing is left of modern Shint but Chinese cosmogony, local
myth, and Confucian morals.*
If the heart of the ancient Japanese longed after a solution of the
questions whence? whither? why?if it yearned for religious truth,
as the hearts of all men doubtless doit must have been ready to
welcome something more certain, tangible, and dogmatic than the
bland emptiness of Shint. Buddhism came to touch the heart, to re
the imagination, to feed the intellect, to oer a code of lofty morals, to
point out a pure life through self-denial, to awe the ignorant, and to
terrify the doubting. A well fed and clothed Anglo-Saxon, to whom
conscious existence seems the very rapture of joy, and whose soul
yearns for an eternity of life, may not understand how a human soul
could ever long for utter absorption of being and personality, even in
God, much less for total annihilation.
* I have long endeavored to nd out what there is in Shint, but have long
given it up, unable to nd any thing to reward my labor, excepting a small book
of Shint prayers, in which man was recognized as guilty of the commission
of sin, and in need of cleansing.J. C. Hepburn, M.D., LL.D., American,
seventeen years resident in Japan, author of the Japanese-English and EnglishJapanese Dictionary.
Shint is in no proper sense of the term a religion. It is difficult to see how
it could ever have been denominated a religion. It has rather the look of an
original Japanese invention.Rev. S. R. BROWN, D.D., American, author of A
Grammar of Colloquial Japanese, seventeen years resident in Japan.
My own impressions of Shint, given in an article in The Independent in 1871,
remain unaltered after ve years further study and comparison of opinions,
pro and con: In its higher forms. Shint is simply a cultured and intellectual atheism. In its lower forms, it is blind obedience to governmental and
priestly dictates. The united verdict given me by native scholars, and even
Shint ocials, in Fukui and Tki, was, Shint is not a religion: it is a
system of government regulations, very good to keep alive patriotism among
the people. The eectual, and quite justiable, use made of this tremendous
political engine will be seen in the last chapter of Book I., entitled The Recent
Revolutions in Japan.

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But, among the Asiatic poor, where ceaseless drudgery is often the
lot for life, where a vegetable diet keeps the vital force low, where the
tax-gatherer is the chief representative of government, where the earthquake and the typhoon are so frequent and dreadful, and where the
forces of nature are feared as malignant intelligences, life does not wear
such charms as to lead the human soul to long for an eternity of it. No
normal Japanese would thrill when he heard the unexplained announcement, The gift of God is eternal life, or, Whosoever believeth on me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live. Such words would be painful
to him, announcing only a fateful fact. To him life is to be dreaded;
not because death lies at the end of it, but because birth and life again
follow death, and both are but links in an almost endless chain. Herein
lies the power of Buddhist preaching: Believe in the true doctrine,
and live the true believers life, says the bonze, and you will be born
again into higher states of existence, thence into higher and higher
heavens, until from paradise you rise as a puried and saintly soul, to
be absorbed in the bosom of holy Buddha. Reject the truth, or believe
false doctrine (e.g., Christianity), and you will be born again thousands
of times, only to suer sickness and pain and grief, to die or be killed a
thousand times, and, nally, to sink into lower and lower hells, before
you can regain the opportunity to rise higher. This is really the popular
form of Shakas doctrine of metempsychosis. The popular Buddhism
of Japan, at least, is not the bare scheme of philosophy which foreign
writers seem to think it is. It is a genuine religion in its hold on man.
It is a vinculum that binds him to the gods of his fathers. This form of
Buddhism commended itself to both the Japanese sage and the ignorant boor, to whom thought is misery, by reason of its deniteness, its
morals, its rewards, and its punishments.
Buddhism has a cosmogony and a theory of both the microcosm and
the macrocosm. It has fully as much, if not more, science in it than
our mediaeval theologians found in the Bible. Its high intellectuality

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made noble souls yearn to win its secrets, and to attain the conquests
over their lusts and passions, by knowledge.
Among the various sects of Buddhism, however, the understanding
of the doctrine of Nirvana varies greatly. Some believe in the total
nonentity of the human soul, the utter annihilation of consciousness;
while others, on the contrary, hold that, as part of the divine whole,
the human soul enjoys a measure of conscious personality.
Persecution and opposition at rst united together the adherents
of the new faith, but success and prosperity gave rise to schisms.
New sects were founded in Japan, while many priests traveled abroad
to Corea and China, and came back as new lights and reformers, to
found new schools of thought and worship. Of these the most illustrious was Kb, famed not only as a scholar in Pali, Sanskrit, and
Chinese, but as an eminently holy bonze, and the compiler of the
Japanese alphabet, or syllabary, i, ro, ha, ni, ho, he, to, etc., in all fortyseven characters, which, with diacritical points, may be increased to
the number of seventy. The katagana is the square, the hiragana is the
script form. Kb was born a.d. 774; and died a.d. 835. He founded a
temple, and the sect called Shin Gon (True Words). Eight sects were
in existence in his time, of which only two now survive.
The thirteenth of the Christian era is the golden century of Japanese
Buddhism; for then were developed those phases of thought peculiar
to it, and sects were founded, most of them in Kito, which are still
the most ourishing in Japan. Among these were, in 1202, the Zen
(Contemplation); in 1211, the Jdo (Heavenly Road); in 1262, the Shin
(New); in 1282, the Nichiren. In various decades of the same century
several other important sects originated, and the number of brilliant
intellects that adorned the priesthood at this period is remarkable. Of
these, only two can be noticed, for lack of space.
In a.d. 1222, there was born, in a suburb of the town of Kominato,
in Awa, a child who was destined to inuence the faith of millions, and

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to leave the impress of his character and intellect indelibly upon the
minds of his countrymen. He was to found a new sect of Buddhism,
which should grow to be one of the largest, wealthiest, and most
inuential in Japan, and to excel them all in proselyting zeal, polemic
bitterness, sectarian bigotry, and intolerant arrogance. The Nichiren
sect of Buddhists, in its six centuries of history, has probably furnished a greater number of brilliant intellects, uncompromising zealots, unquailing martyrs, and relentless persecutors than any other in
Japan. No other sect is so fond of controversy. The bonzes of none
other can excel those of the Nichiren shiu (sect) in proselyting zeal,
in the bitterness of their theological arguments, in the venom of their
revilings, or the force with which they hurl their epithets at those who
dier in opinion or practice from them. In their view, all other sects
than theirs are useless. According to their vocabulary, the adherents
of Shin Gon are not patriots; those of Ritsu are thieves and rascals;
of Zen, are furies; while those of certain other sects are sure and
without doubt to go to hell. Among the Nichirenites are to be found
more prayer-books, drums, and other noisy accompaniments of revivals, than in any other sect. They excel in the number of pilgrims, and
in the use of charms, spells, and amulets. Their priests are celibates,
and must abstain from wine, sh, and all esh. They are the Ranters
of Buddhism. To this day, a revival-meeting in one of their temples
is a scene that often beggars description, and may deafen weak ears.
What with prayers incessantly repeated, drums beaten unceasingly,
the shouting of devotees who work themselves into an excitement
that often ends in insanity, and sometimes in death, and the frantic
exhortation of the priests, the wildest excesses that seek the mantle of
religion in other lands are by them equaled, if not excelled. To this sect
belonged Kat Kiyomasa, the bloody persecutor of the Christians in
the sixteenth century, the vir ter execrandus of the Jesuits, but who
is now a holy saint in the calendar of canonized Buddhists.

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Nichiren (sun-lotus) was so named by his mother, who at conception had dreamed that the sun (nichi) had entered her body. This story
is also told of other mothers of Japanese great men, and seems to be
a favorite stock-belief concerning the women who bear children that
afterward become men of renown or exalted holiness. The boy grew up
surrounded by the glorious scenery of mountain, wave, shore, and with
the innity of the Pacic Ocean before him. He was a dreamy, meditative child. He was early put under the care of a holy bonze, but when
grown to manhood discarded many of the old doctrines, and, being
dissatised with the other sects, resolved to found one, the followers
of which should be the holders and exemplars of the pure truth.
Nichiren was a profound student of the Buddhist classics, or
sutras, brought from India, and written in Sanskrit and Chinese, for
the entire canon of Buddhist holy books has at various times been
brought from India or China, and translated into Chinese in Japan.
Heretofore, the common prayer of all the Japanese Buddhists had
been Namu, Amida Butsu (Hail, Amida Buddha! or, Save us, Eternal
Buddha!). Nichiren taught that the true invocation was Namu mi h
rn ge ki (Glory to the salvation-bringing book of the law; or, literally, Hail, the true way of salvation, the blossom of doctrine). This is
still the distinctive prayer of the Nichiren sect. It is inscribed on the
temple curtains, on their tombstones and wayside shrines, and was
emblazoned on the banners carried aloft by the great warriors on sea
and land who belonged to the sect. The words are the Chinese translation of Mamah Saddharma-pundarika-sutra, one of the chief canonical
books of the Buddhist Scriptures, and in use by all the sects. Nichiren
professed to nd in it the true and only way of salvation, which the
other expounders of Shakas doctrine had not properly taught. He
declared that the way as taught by him was the true and only one.
Nichiren founded numerous temples, and was busy during the whole
of his life, when not in exile, in teaching, preaching, and itinerating.

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He published a book called Ankoku Ron (An Argument to tranquilize the Country). The bitterness with which he attacked other sects
roused up a host of enemies against him, who complained to Hj
Tokiyori, the shikken, or holder of the power, at Kamakura, and prayed
to have him silenced, as a destroyer of the public peace, as indeed the
holy man was. The title of his book was by no means an exponent of
its tone or style.
Nichiren was banished to Cape Ito, in Idzu, where he remained
three years. On his release, instead of holding his tongue, he allowed it
to run more violently than ever against other sects, especially decrying
the great and learned priests of previous generations. Hj Tokiyori
again arrested him, conned him in a dungeon below ground, and
condemned him to death.
The following story is told, and devoutly believed, by his followers:
On a certain day he was taken out to a village on the strand of the
bay beyond Kamakura, and in front of the lovely island of Enoshima.
Th is village is called Koshigoy. At this time Nichiren was fortythree years old. Kneeling down upon the strand, the saintly bonze
calmly uttered his prayers, and repeated Namu mi h ren g ki
upon his rosary. The swordsman lifted his blade, and, with all his
might, made the downward stroke. Suddenly a ood of blinding light
burst from the sky, and smote upon the executioner and the ocial
inspector deputed to witness the severed head. The sword-blade was
broken in pieces, while the holy man was unharmed. At the same
moment, Hj, the Lord of Kamakura, was startled at his revels in
the palace by the sound of rattling thunder and the ash of lightning,
though there was not a cloud in the sky. Dazed by the awful signs of
Heavens displeasure, Hj Tokiyori, divining that it was on account
of the holy victim, instantly dispatched a eet messenger to stay the
executioners hand and reprieve the victim. Simultaneously the ocial
inspector at the still unstained blood-pit sent a courier to beg reprieve

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for the saint whom the sword could not touch. The two men, coming
from opposite directions, met at the small stream which the tourist
still crosses on the way from Kamakura to Enoshima, and it was
thereafter called Yukiai (meeting on the way) River, a name which it
retains to this day. Through the pitiful clemency and intercession of
Hj Tokimun, son of the Lord of Kamakura, Nichiren was sent to
Sado Island. He was afterward released by his benefactor in a general
amnesty. Nichiren founded his sect at Kito, and it greatly ourished
under the care of his disciple, his reverence Nichizo. After a busy
and holy life, the great saint died at Ikgami, a little to north-west of
the Kawasaki railroad station, between Yokohama and Tki, where
the scream of the locomotive and the rumble of the railway car are
but faintly heard in its solemn shades. There are to be seen gorgeous
temples, pagodas, shrines, magnicent groves and cemeteries. The
dying presence of Nichiren has lent this place peculiar sanctity; but
his bones rest on Mount Minobu, in the province of Kai, where was
one of his homes when in the esh.
While in Japan, I made special visits to many of the places rendered most famous by Nichiren, of his birth, labors, triumph, and
death, and there formed the impressions of his work and followers
which I have in this chapter set forth. So far as I am able to judge,
none of the native theologians has stamped his impress more deeply
on the religious intellect of Japan than has Nichiren. It may be vain
prophecy, but I believe that Christianity in Japan will nd its most
vigorous and persistent opposers among this sect, and that it will be
the last to yield to the now triumphing faith that seems clasping the
girdle of world-victory in Japan.
Their astonishing success and tremendous power, and their intolerance and bigotry, are to be ascribed to the same causethe precision,
distinctness, and exclusiveness of the teachings of their master. In their
sacred books, and in the sermons of their bonzes, the Nichirenites are

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exhorted to reect diligently upon the peculiar blessings vouchsafed to

them as a chosen sect, and to understand that they are favored above
all others in privilege, that their doctrines are the only true ones, and
that perfect salvation is attainable by no other method or system. It
is next to impossible for them to fraternize with other Buddhists, and
they themselves declare that, though all the other sects may combine
into one, yet they must remain apart, unless their tenets be adopted.
The proscription of other sects, and the employment of reviling and
abuse as a means of propagation introduced by Nichiren, was a comparatively new thing in Japan. It stirred up persecution against the
new faith and its followers; and this, coupled with the invincible
fortitude and zeal of the latter, were together as soil and seed.
The era and developments of Nichiren may be called the second
revival of Buddhism in Japan, since it infused into that great religion,
which had, at the opening of the thirteenth century, reached a stage
of passive quiescence, the spirit of proselytism which was necessary
to keep it from stagnant impurity and heartless formality.
Though the success of Nichiren inaugurated an era of zeal and
bigotry, it also awoke fresh life into that power which is the best
representative of the religious life of the nation. Whether we call
Buddhism a false or a true religion, even the most shallow student of
the Japanese people must acknowledge that the pure religious, as well
as the superstitious, character of the masses of the Japanese people
has been fostered and developed more by Buddhism than by any and
all other inuences.
Some of the superstitions of the Nichirenites are gross and revolting, but among their beliefs and customs is the nagar kanj (owing
invocation). I shall call it the mothers memorial. It is practiced
chiey by the followers of Nichiren, though it is sometimes employed
by other sects.

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A sight not often met with in the cities, but in the suburbs and
country places frequent as the cause of it requires, is the nagar kanj
(owing invocation). A piece of cotton cloth is suspended by its four
corners to stakes set in the ground near a brook, rivulet, or, if in
the city, at the side of the water-course which fronts the houses of
the better classes. Behind it rises a higher, lath-like board, notched
several times near the top, and inscribed with a brief legend. Resting
on the cloth at the brookside, or, if in the city, in a pail of water, is a
wooden dipper. Perhaps upon the four corners, in the upright bamboo,
may be set bouquets of owers. A careless stranger may not notice
the odd thing, but a little study of its parts reveals the symbolism of
death. The tall lath tablet is the same as that set behind graves and
tombs. The ominous Sanskrit letters betoken death. Even the owers
in their bloom call to mind the tributes of aectionate remembrance
which loving survivors set in the sockets of the monuments in the
grave-yards. On the cloth is written a name such as is given to persons after death, and the prayer, Namu mi h ren g ki (Glory to
the salvation-bringing Scriptures). Waiting long enough, perchance
but a few minutes, there may be seen a passer-by who pauses, and,
devoutly oering a prayer with the aid of his rosary, reverently dips a
ladleful of water, pours it upon the cloth, and waits patiently until it
has strained through, before moving on.
All this, when the signicance is understood, is very touching. It
is the story of vicarious suering, of sorrow from the brink of joy, of
one dying that another may live. It tells of mother-love and motherwoe. It is a mute appeal to every passer-by, by the love of Heaven, to
shorten the penalties of a soul in pain.
The Japanese (Buddhists) believe that all calamity is the result of
sin either in this or a previous state of existence. The mother who dies
in childbed suers, by such a death, for some awful transgression, it
may be in a cycle of existence long since passed. For it she must leave

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her new-born infant, in the full raptures of mother-joy, and sink into
the darkness of Hades, to wallow in a lake of blood. There must she
groan and suer until the owing invocation ceases, by the wearing-out of the symbolic cloth. When this is so utterly worn that the
water no longer drains, but falls through at once, the freed spirit of
the mother, purged of her sin, rises to resurrection among the exalted
beings of a higher cycle of existence. Devout men, as they pass by,
reverently pour a ladleful of water. Women, especially those who have
felt mother-pains, and who rejoice in life and loving ospring, repeat
the expiatory act with deeper feeling; but the depths of sympathy are
fathomed only by those who, being mothers, are yet bereaved. Yet, as
in presence of natures awful glories the reverent gazer is shocked by
the noisy importunity of the beggar, so before this sad and touching
memorial the proofs of sordid priest-craft chill the warm sympathy
which the sight even from the heart of an alien might evoke.
The cotton cloth inscribed with the prayer and the name of the
deceased, to be ecacious, can be purchased only at the temples. I
have been told, and it is no secret, that rich people are able to secure
a napkin which, when stretched but a few days, will rupture, and let
the water pass through at once. The poor man can get only the stoutest
and most closely woven fabric. The limit of purgatorial penance is thus
xed by warp and woof, and warp and woof are gauged by money.
The rich mans napkin is scraped thin in the middle. Nevertheless,
the poor mother secures a richer tribute of sympathy from her humble
people; for in Japan, as in other lands, poverty has many children,
while wealth mourns for heirs; and in the lowly walks of life are more
pitiful women who have felt the woe and the joy of motherhood than
in the mansions of the rich.
In Echizen, especially in the country towns and villages, the custom is rigidly observed; but though I often looked for the nagar kanj
in Tki, I never saw one. I am told, however, that they may be seen

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in the outskirts of the city. The drawing of one seen near Takfu, in
Echizen, was made for me by my artist-friend zawa, a number of
whose sketches appear in this work.
The Protestants of Japanese Buddhism are the followers of Shin
shiu, founded by his reverence Shinran, in 1262. Shinran was a pupil of
Hnen, who founded the Jodo shiu, and was of noble descent. While
in Kito, at thirty years of age, he married a lady of noble blood,
named Tamayori him, the daughter of the Kuambaku. He thus
taught by example, as well as by precept, that marriage was honorable, and that celibacy was an invention of the priests, not warranted
by pure Buddhism. Penance, fasting, prescribed diet, pilgrimages,
isolation from society, whether as hermits or in the cloister, and generally amulets and charms, are all tabooed by this sect. Nunneries and
monasteries are unknown within its pale. The family takes the place
of monkish seclusion. Devout prayer, purity, and earnestness of life,
and trust in Buddha himself as the only worker of perfect righteousness, are insisted upon. Other sects teach the doctrine of salvation by
works. Shinran taught that it is faith in Buddha that accomplishes
the salvation of the believer.
Buddhism seems to most foreigners who have studied it but Roman
Catholicism without Christ, and in Asiatic form. The Shin sect hold
a form of the Protestant doctrine of justication by faith, believing
in Buddha instead of Jesus. Singleness of purpose characterizes this
sect. Outsiders call it Ikk, from the initial word of a text in their
chief book, Muriju Ki (Book of Constant Life). By others it is
spoken of as Monto (gate-followers), in reference to their unity of
organization. The Scriptures of other sects are written in Sanskrit
and Chinese, which only the learned are able to read.
Those of Monto are in the vernacular Japanese writing and idiom.
Other sects build temples in sequestered places among the hills. The
Shin-shiuists erect theirs in the heart of cities, on main streets, in the

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centres of population. They endeavor, by every means in their power,

to induce the people to come to them. In Fukui their twin temples
stood in the most frequented thoroughfares. In Tki, zaka, Kito,
Nagasaki, and other cities, the same system of having twin temples in
the heart of the city is pursued, and the largest and nest ecclesiastical structures are the duplicates of this sect. The altars are on a scale
of imposing magnicence, and gorgeous in detail. A common saying
is, As handsome as a Monto altar. The priests marry, rear families,
and their sons succeed them to the care of the temples. In default of
male issue, the husband of the daughter of the priest, should he have
one, takes the oce of his father-in-law. Many members of the priesthood and their families are highly educated, perhaps more so than the
bonzes of any other sect. Personal acquaintance with several of the
Monto priests enables me to substantiate this fact asserted of them.
The followers of Shinran have ever held a high position, and have
wielded vast inuence in the religious development of the people.
Both for good and evil they have been among the foremost of active
workers in the cause of religion. In time of war the Monto bonzes put
on armor, and, with their families and adherents, have in numerous
instances formed themselves into military battalions. We shall hear
more of their martial performances in succeeding chapters.
After the death of Shinran, Renni, who died in 1500, became the
revivalist of Monto, and wrote the Ofumi, or sacred writings, which
are now daily read by the disciples of this denomination. With the
characteristic object of reaching the masses, they are written in the
common script hiragana writing, which all the people of both sexes
can read. Though greatly persecuted by other sectaries, they have
continually increased in numbers, wealth, and power, and now lead
all in intelligence and inuence. To the charges of uncleanness which
others bring against them, because they marry wives, eat and drink
and live so much like unclerical men, they calmly answer, the bright

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rays of the sun shine on all things alike, and that it is not for them
to call things unclean which have evidently been created for mans
use; that righteousness consists neither in eating nor drinking, nor
in abstinence from the blessings vouchsafed to mortals in this vale of
woe; and that the maxims and narrow-minded doctrines, with the
neglect of which they are reproached, can only have proceeded from
the folly or vanity of men. They claim that priests with families are
purer men than celibates in monasteries, and that the purity of society is best maintained by a married priesthood. Within the last two
decades they were the rst to organize their theological schools on
the model of foreign countries, that their young men might be trained
to resist Shint or Christianity, or to measure the truth in either. The
last new charge urged against them by their rivals is that they are so
much like Christians, that they might as well be such out and out.
Liberty of thought and action, an incoercible desire to be free from
governmental, traditional, ultra-ecclesiastical, or Shint inuencein
a word, Protestantism in its pure sense, is characteristic of the great
sect founded by Shinran.
To treat of the doctrinal dierence and various customs of the
dierent denominations would require a volume. Japanese Buddhism
richly deserves thorough study, and a scholarly treatise by itself.* The
part played by the great Buddhist sects in the national drama of history in later centuries will be seen as we proceed in our narrative.
* It is a question worthy the deepest research and fullest inquiry, as to the
time occupied in converting the Japanese people to the Buddhist faith. It is
not probable, as some foreigners believe, that Wani (see page 86) brought the
knowledge of the Indian religion to Japan. The Nihongi gives the year 552 as
that in which Buddhist books, images, rosarios, altar furniture, vestments, etc.,
were bestowed as presents at the imperial palace, and deposited in the court of
ceremony. The imported books were diligently studied by a few court nobles,
and in 584 several of them openly professed the new faith. In 585, a frightful
pestilence that broke out was ascribed by the patriotic opponents of the foreign

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faith to the anger of the gods against the new religion. A long and bitter dispute followed, and some of the new temples and idols were destroyed. In spite
of patriotism and conservative zeal, the worship and ritual were established in
the palace, new missionaries were invited from Corea, and in 624 two bonzes
were given ocial rank, as primate and vice-primate. Temples were erected,
and, at the death of a bonze, in 700, his body was disposed of by cremationa
new thing in Japan. In 741, an imperial decree, ordering the erection of two
temples and a seven-storied pagoda in each province, was promulgated. In
765, a priest became Dai J Dai Jin. In 827, a precious relicone of Shakas
(Buddhas) boneswas deposited in the palace. The master stroke of theological dexterity was made early in the ninth century, when Kb, who had studied
three years in China, achieved the reconciliation of the native belief and the
foreign religion, made patriotism and piety one, and laid the foundation of
the permanent and universal success of Buddhism in Japan. Th is Japanese
Philo taught that the Shint deities, or gods, of Japan were manifestations, or
transmigrations, of Buddha in that country, and, by his scheme of dogmatic
theology, secured the ascendency of Buddhism over Shint and Confucianism.
Until near the fourteenth century, however, Buddhism continued to be the
religion of the ocial, military, and educated classes, but not of the people at
large. Its adoption by all classes may be ascribed to the missionary labors of
Shinran and Nichiren, whose banishment to the North and East made them
itinerant apostles. Shinran traveled on foot through every one of the provinces
north and east of Kito, glorying in his exile, everywhere preaching, teaching,
and making new disciples. It may be safely said that it required nine hundred
years to convert the Japanese people from fetichism and Shint to Buddhism.
It is extremely dicult to get accurate statistics relating to Japanese Buddhism.
The following table was compiled for me by a learned bonze of the Shin denomination, in the temple of Nishi Honguanji, in Tsukiji, Tki. I have compared
it with data furnished by an ex-priest in Fukui, and various laymen.
The ecclesiastical centre of Japan has always been at Kito. The chief temples
and monasteries of each sect were located there.
Tabular List of Buddhist Sects in Japan
Chief Sects (Shiu)
I. Tendai. Founded by Chisha, in China: 3 sub-sects
II. Shingon. Founded by Kb, in Japan, A.D. 813: 3 sub-sects
III. Zen. Founded by Darma, in Japan: 6 sub-sects
IV. Jodo. Founded by Hnen, in Japan, 1173: 2 sub-sects
V. Shin. Founded by Shinran, in Japan, 1213: 5 sub-sects
VI. Nichiren. Founded by Nichiren, in Japan, 1262: 2 sub-sects
VII. Ji. Founded by Ippen, in Japan, 1288

Total Number
of Temples
6,391
15,503
21,547
9,819
13,718
......
586

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the mikados empire

Besides the above, there are twenty-one irregular, local, or independent

sects, which act apart from the others, and in some cases have no temples or
monasteries. A number of other sects have originated in Japan, ourished for
a time, decayed, and passed out of existence. According to the census of 1872,
there were in Japan 211,846 Buddhist religieux of both sexes and all grades and
orders. Of these, 75,925 were priests, abbots, or monks, 9 abbesses; 37,327 were
reckoned as novices or students, and 98,585 were in monasteries or families
(mostly of Shin sect); 151,677 were males, 60,159 were females, and 9,621 were
nuns. By the census of 1875, the returns gave 207,669 Buddhist religieux, of
whom 148,807 were males, and 58,862 females.

XVII

The Invasion of the Mongol Tartars

uring the early centuries of the Christian era, friendly intercourse

was regularly kept up between Japan and China. Embassies were
dispatched to and fro on various missions, but chiey with the mutual
object of bearing the congratulations to an emperor upon his accession
to the throne. It is mentioned in the Gazetteer of Echizen (Echi-zen
Koku Mei Seiki K) that embassadors from China, with a retinue and
crew of one hundred and seventy-eight persons, came to Japan a.d.
776, to bear congratulations to the mikado, Knin Tenn. The vessel
was wrecked in a typhoon o the coast of Echizen, and but forty-six
of the company were saved. They were fed and sheltered in Echizen.
In a.d. 779, the Japanese embassy, returning from China, landed at
Mikuni, the sea-port of Fukui. In 883, orders were sent from Kito
to the provinces north of the capital to repair the bridges and roads,
bury the dead bodies, and remove all obstacles, because the envoys
of China were coming that way. The civil disorders in both countries
interrupted these friendly relations in the twelfth century, and communications ceased until they were renewed again in the time of the
Hj, in the manner now to be described.
In China, the Mongol Tartars had overthrown the Sung dynasty,
and had conquered the adjacent countries. Through the Coreans, the
Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, at whose court Marco Polo and his
199

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the mikados empire

uncles were then residing, sent letters demanding tribute and homage
from Japan. Chinese envoys came to Kamakura, but Hj Tokimun,
enraged at the insolent demands, dismissed them in disgrace. Six
embassies were sent, and six times rejected.
An expedition from China, consisting of ten thousand men, was
sent against Japan. They landed at Tsushima and Iki. They were
bravely attacked, and their commander slain. All Kiushiu having
roused to arms, the expedition returned, having accomplished nothing. The Chinese emperor now sent nine envoys, who announced their
purpose to remain until a denite answer was returned to their master.
They were called to Kamakura, and the Japanese reply was given by
cutting o their heads at the village of Tatsu no kuchi (Mouth of
the Dragon), near the city. The Japanese now girded themselves for
the war they knew was imminent. Troops from the East were sent
to guard Kito. Munitions of war were prepared, magazines stored,
castles repaired, and new armies levied and drilled. Boats and junks
were built to meet the enemy on the sea. Once more Chinese envoys
came to demand tribute. Again the sword gave the answer, and their
heads fell at Daizaifu, in Kiushiu, in 1279.
Meanwhile the armada was preparing. Great China was coming
to crush the little strip of land that refused homage to the invincible
conqueror. The army numbered one hundred thousand Chinese and
Tartars, and seven thousand Coreans, in ships that whitened the sea
as the snowy herons whiten the islands of Lake Biwa. They numbered
thirty-ve hundred in all. In the Seventh month of the year 1281,
the tasseled prows and uted sails of the Chinese junks greeted the
straining eyes of watchers on the hills of Daizaifu. The armada sailed
gallantly up, and ranged itself o the castled city. Many of the junks
were of immense proportions, larger than the natives of Japan had
ever seen, and armed with the engines of European war fare, which
their Venetian guests had taught the Mongols to construct and work.

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The Invasion of the Mongol Tartars

The Japanese had small chance of success on the water; as, although
their boats, being swifter and lighter, were more easily managed,
yet many of them were sunk by the darts and huge stones hurled by
the catapults mounted on their enemys decks. In personal prowess
the natives of Nippon were superior. Swimming out to the eet, a
party of thirty boarded a junk, and cut o the heads of the crew; but
another company attempting to do so, were all killed by the now wary
Tartars. One captain, Kusanojiro, with a picked crew, in broad daylight, sculled rapidly out to an outlying junk, and, in spite of a shower
of darts, one of which took o his left arm, ran his boat along-side
a Chinese junk, and, letting down the masts, boarded the decks. A
hand-to-hand ght ensued, and, before the enemys eet could assist,
the daring assailants set the ship on re and were o, carrying away
twenty-one heads. The eet now ranged itself in a cordon, linking
each vessel to the other with an iron chain. They hoped thus to foil
the cutting-out parties. Besides the catapults, immense bow-guns
shooting heavy darts were mounted on their decks, so as to sink all
attacking boats. By these means many of the latter were destroyed,
and more than one company of Japanese who expected victory lost
their lives. Still, the enemy could not eect a landing in force. Their
small detachments were cut o or driven into the sea as soon as they
reached the shore, and over two thousand heads were among the trophies of the defenders in the skirmishes. A line of fortications many
miles long, consisting of earth-works and heavy palisading of planks,
was now erected along-shore. Behind these the defenders watched the
invaders, and challenged them to land.
There was a Japanese captain, Michiari, who had long hoped for
this invasion. He had prayed often to the gods that he might have
opportunity to ght the Mongols. He had written his prayers on
paper, and, learning them, had solemnly swallowed the ashes. He was
now overjoyed at the prospect of a combat. Sallying out from behind

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the mikados empire

the breastwork, he deed the enemy to ght. Shortly after, he lled

two boats with brave fellows and pushed out, apparently unarmed,
to the eet. He is mad, cried the spectators on shore. How bold,
said the men on the eet, for two little boats to attack thousands of
great ships! Surely he is coming to surrender himself. Supposing this
to be his object, they refrained from shooting. When within a few
oars-lengths, the Japanese, inging out ropes with grappling-hooks,
leaped on the Tartar junk. The bows and spears of the latter were
no match for the two-handed razor-like swords of the Japanese. The
issue, though for a while doubtful, was a swift and complete victory
for the men who were ghting for their native land. Burning the
junk, the surviving victors left before the surrounding ships could
cut them o. Among the captured was one of the highest ocers in
the Mongol eet.
The whole nation was now roused. Re-enforcements poured in
from all quarters to swell the host of defenders. From the monasteries and temples all over the country went up unceasing prayer to the
gods to ruin their enemies and save the land of Japan. The emperor
and ex-emperor went in solemn state to the chief priest of Shinto,
and, writing out their petitions to the gods, sent him as a messenger
to the shrines at Is. It is recorded, as a miraculous fact, that at the
hour of noon, as the sacred envoy arrived at the shrine and oered the
prayerthe day being perfectly cleara streak of cloud appeared in
the sky, which soon overspread the heavens, until the dense masses
portended a storm of awful violence.
One of those cyclones, called by the Japanese tai-fu, or kaz, of
appalling velocity and resistless force, such as whirl along the coasts
of Japan and China during late summer and early fall of every year,
burst upon the Chinese eet. Nothing can withstand these maelstroms of the air. We call them typhoons; the Japanese say tai-fu, or
kaz (great wind). Iron steamships of thousands of horse-power are

203
The Invasion of the Mongol Tartars

almost unmanageable in them. Junks are helpless: the Chinese ships

were these only. They were butted together like mad bulls. They were
impaled on the rocks, dashed against the clis, or tossed on land like
corks from the spray. They were blown over till they careened and
lled. Heavily freighted with human beings, they sunk by hundreds.
The corpses were piled on the shore, or oating on the water so thickly
that it seemed almost possible to walk thereon. Those driven out to sea
may have reached the main-land, but were probably overwhelmed. The
vessels of the survivors, in large numbers, drifted to or were wrecked
upon Taka Island, where they established themselves, and, cutting
down trees, began building boats to reach Corea. Here they were
attacked by the Japanese, and, after a bloody struggle, all the ercer
for the despair on the one side and the exultation on the other, were
all slain or driven into the sea to be drowned, except three, who were
sent back to tell their emperor how the gods of Japan had destroyed
their armada. The Japanese exult in the boast that their gods and their
heaven prevailed over the gods and the heaven of the Chinese.
This was the last time that China ever attempted to conquer Japan,
whose people boast that their land has never been deled by an invading army. They have ever ascribed the glory of the destruction of the
Tartar eet to the interposition of the gods at Is, who thereafter
received special and grateful adoration as the guardian of the seas and
winds. Great credit and praise were given to the lord of Kamakura,
Hj Tokimun, for his energy, ability, and valor. The author of the
Guai Shi says, The repulse of the Tartar barbarians by Tokimun, and
his preserving the dominions of our Son of Heaven, were sucient
to atone for the crimes of his ancestors.
Nearly six centuries afterward, when the barbarian Perry
anchored his f leet in the Bay of Yedo, in the words of the native
annalist, Orders were sent by the imperial court to the Shint priests
at Is to oer up prayers for the sweeping-away of the barbarians.

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the mikados empire

Millions of earnest hearts put up the same prayers as their fathers had
oered, fully expecting the same result.
To this day the Japanese mother in Kiushiu hushes her fretful
infant by the question, Do you think the Mogu (Mongols) are coming? Th is is the only serious attempt at invasion ever made by any
nation upon the shores of Japan.

XVIII

The Temporary Mikadoate

he rst step taken after the overthrow of the military usurpation

at Kamakura was to recall the mikado Go-Daigo from exile.
With the sovereign again in full power, it seemed as though the
ancient and rightful government was to be permanently restored. The
military or dual system had lasted about one hundred and fty years,
and patriots now hoped to see the country rightly governed, without
intervention between the throne and the people. The rewarding of
the victors who had fought for him was the rst duty awaiting the
restored exile. The methods and procedure of feudalism were now so
xed in the general policy of the Government, that Go-Daigo, falling into the ways of the Minamoto and Hj, apportioned military
efs as guerdons to his vassals. Among them was Ashikaga Takauji,
to whom was awarded the greatest prize, consisting of the rich provinces of Hitachi, Musashi, and Shimsa. To Kusunoki Masashig
were given Settsu and Kawachi; and to Nitta, Kdzuk and Harima,
besides smaller efs to many others.
This unfair distribution of spoils astounded the patriots, who
expected to see high rank and power conferred upon Nitta and
Kusunoki, the chief leaders in the war for the restoration, and both
very able men. It would have been well had the emperor seen the
importance of disregarding the claims and privileges of caste, and
205

206

the mikados empire

exalted to highest rank the faithful men who were desirous of maintaining the dignity of the throne, and whose chief fear was that the
duarchy would again arise. Such a fear was by no means groundless,
for Ashikaga, elated at such unexpected favor, became inf lamed
with a still higher ambition, and already meditated refounding the
shgunate at Kamakura, and placing his own family upon the military throne. Being of Minamoto stock, he knew that he had prestige
and popularity in his favor, should he attempt the re-erection of the
shgunate. Most of the common soldiers had fought rather against
Hj than against duarchy. The emperor was warned against this
man by his ministers; but in this case a womans smiles and caresses
and importunate words were more powerful than the advice of sages.
Ashikaga had bribed the mikados concubine Kadoko, and had so won
her favor that she persuaded her imperial lord to bestow excessive and
undeserved honor on the traitor.
The distribution of spoils excited discontent among the soldiers,
who now began to lose all interest in the cause for which they had
fought, and to murmur privately among themselves. Should such an
unjust government continue, said they, then are we all servants of
concubines and dancing-girls and singing-boys. Rather than be the
puppets of the mikados amusers, we would prefer a shgun again, and
become his vassals. Many of the captains and smaller clan-leaders
were also in bad humor over their own small shares. Ashikaga Takauji
took advantage of this feeling to make himself popular among the
disaected, especially those who clung to arms as a profession and
wished to remain soldiers, preferring war to peace. Of such inammable material the latent traitor was not slow to avail himself when
it suited him to light the ames of war.
Had the mikado listened to his wise counselor, and also placed
Kusunoki in an oce commensurate with his commanding abilities,

The Temporary Mikadoate

207

and rewarded Nitta as he deserved, the century of anarchy and bloodshed which followed might have been spared to Japan.
Go-Daigo, who in the early years of his former reign had been a
man of indomitable courage and energy, seems to have lost the best
traits of his character in his exile, retaining only his imperious will
and susceptibility to attery. To this degenerate Samson a Delilah was
not wanting. He fell an easy victim to the wiles of one man, though
the shears by which his strength was shorn were held by a woman.
Ashikaga was a consummate master of the arts of adulation and
political craft. He was now to further prove his skill, and to verify the
warnings of Nitta and the ministers. The emperor made Moriyoshi,
his own son, shgun. Ashikaga, jealous of the appointment, and having too ready access to the infatuated fathers ear, told him that his
son was plotting to get possession of the throne. Moriyoshi, hating
the atterer, and stung to rage by the base slander, marched against
him. Ashikaga now succeeded by means of his ally in the imperial bed
in making himself, in the eyes of the mikado, the rst victim to the
conspiracies of the prince. So great was his power over the emperor
that he obtained from the imperial hand a decree to punish his enemy
Moriyoshi as a chtki, or rebel, against the mikado.
Here we have a striking instance of what, in the game of Japanese
state-craft, may be called the checkmate move, or, in the native idiom,
t, kings hand. It is dicult for a foreigner to fully appreciate the
prestige attaching to the mikados persona prestige never diminishing. No matter how low his actual measure of power, the meanness
of his character, or the insignicance of his personal abilities, he was
the Son of Heaven, his word was law, his command omnipotent. He
was the fountain of all rank and authority. No military leader, however great his resources or ability, could win the popular heart or
hope for ultimate success unless appointed by the emperor. He who

208

the mikados empire

held the Son of Heaven in his power was master. Hence it was the
constant aim of all the military leaders, even down to 1868, to obtain
control of the imperial person. However wicked or villainous the
keeper of the mikado, he was master of the situation. His enemies
were chtki, or rebels against the Son of Heaven; his own soldiers
were the kuan-gun, or loyal army. Even might could not make right.
Possession of the divine person was more than nine-tenthsit was
the wholeof the law.
Moriyoshi, then, being chtki, was doomed. Ashikaga, having
the imperial order, had the kuan-gun, and was destined to win. The
sad fate of the emperors son awakens the saddest feelings, and brings
tears to the eyes of the Japanese reader even at the present day. He was
seized, deposed, sent to Kamakura, and murdered in a subterranean
dungeon in the Seventh month of the year 1335.
His child in exile, the heart of the emperor relented. The scales fell
from his eyes. He saw that he had wrongly suspected his son, and that
the real traitor was Ashikaga. The latter, noticing the change that had
come over his master, left Kito secretly, followed by thousands of
the disaected soldiery, and ed to Kamakura, which he had rebuilt,
and began to consolidate his forces with a view of again erecting the
Eastern capital, and seizing the power formerly held by the Hj.
Nitta had also been accused by Ashikaga, but, having cleared himself
in a petition to the mikado, he received the imperial commission to
chastise his rival. In the campaign which followed, the imperial forces
were so hopelessly defeated that the quondam imperial exile now
became a fugitive. With his loyal followers he left Kito, carrying
with him the sacred emblems of authority.
Ashikaga, though a triumphant victor, occupied a critical position.
He was a chtki. As such he could never win nal success. He had
power and resources, but, unlike others equally usurpers, was not
clothed with authority. He was, in popular estimation, a rebel of the

The Temporary Mikadoate

209

deepest dye. In such a predicament he could not safely remain a day.

The people would take the side of the emperor. What should he do?
His vigor, acuteness, and villainy were equal. The Hj had deposed
and set up emperors. It was Ashikaga who divided the allegiance of
the people, gave Japan a War of the Roses (or Chrysanthemums),
tilled the soil for feudalism, and lighted the ames of war that made
Kito a cock-pit, abandoned the land for nearly two centuries and a
half to slaughter, ignorance, and paralysis of national progress. To
clothe his acts with right, he made a new Son of Heaven. He declared
Kogen, who was of the royal family, emperor. In 1336, this new Son
of Heaven gave Ashikaga the title of Sei-i Tai Shgun. Kamakura
again became the military capital. The duarchy was restored, and
the War of the Northern and the Southern Dynasties began, which
lasted fty-six years.
The period 13331336, though including little more than two years
of time, is of great signicance as marking the existence of a temporary mikadoate. The fact that it lasted so short a time, and that the
duarchy was again set up on its ruins, has furnished both natives and
foreigners with the absurd and specious, but strongly urged, argument
that the Government of Japan, by a single ruler from a single centre, is
an impossibility, and that the creation of a dual system with a spiritual or nominal sovereign in one part of the empire, and a military
or secular ruler in another, is a necessity. During the agitation of
the question concerning the abolition of the dual system, and the
restoration of the mikado in 18601868, one of the chief arguments
of the adherents of the shgunate against the scheme of the agitators,
was the assertion that the events of the period 13331336 proved that
the mikado could not alone govern the country, and that it must have
duarchy. Even after the overthrow of the Tycoon in 1868, foreigners,
as well as natives, who had studied Japanese history, fully believed
and expected that in a year or two the present mikados Government

210

the mikados empire

would be overthrown, and the Tycoon return to power, basing

their belief on the fact that the mikadoate of 13331336 did not last.
Whatever force such an argument might have had when Japan had
no foreign relations, and no aliens on her soil to disturb the balance
between Kito and Kamakura, it is certain that it counts for naught
when, under altered conditions, more than the united front of the
whole empire* is now required to cope with the political pressure
from without.
* Certain writers, and one as late as 1873, dispute the right of Japan to be called
an empire, and the mikados to be styled emperor, inasmuch as they [the
mikados] sent tribute to the Emperor of China. As matter of fact, none of
the mikados ever did this, though one shgun (Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, page
212) did. Chinese books, and even the ocial gazettes of Peking, speak of all
nationseven England, France, and the United Statesas paying tribute
to China, and their envoys as tribute-bearers. Japan has always remained in
total political independence of the Middle Kingdom and her Hwang Ti. That
Japan is an empire, the absolutism of the mikado, the diversity of her forms
of governmental administration, diering in Liu Kiu (having its lord, or feudal
vassal), Yezo (territory governed by a special department), and in the main
body of the empire, besides its varied nationalitiesJapanese, Liu Kiuans,
and Ains. Th is expression of sovereignty is graphically conveyed in the two
Chinese characters, pronounced, in Japanese, Ko-tei (page 4445, note), and
Hwang Ti in Chinese. The Japanese rulers, borrowing their notions of government and imperialism from China, as those of modern Europe have from
Rome, adopted the title for the mikado, who has ever ruled, not only over his
own subjects of like blood, but over ebisu, or barbarians, and tributary people.
When the character Ko is joined to Koku (country), we get K Koku, or The
Mikados Empire, the idea emphasized being personal, or that of the mikado
as government personied. When Tei is joined to Koku (Tei Koku Nihon, the
blazon, or distinctive tablet, inscribed with four Chinese characters over the
Japanese section at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia), we have the
idea of an empire ruled by deity, or divine governmenttheocracy. The fact
that Japan, though so much smaller than China, has always claimed equal
dignity, power, and glory with her mighty neighbor, and the fact that there can
not be two suns in the same heaven, helps to explain the deep-seated rivalry,
mutual jealousy, and even contempt, which the decayed old gentleman and
the conceited young upstart feel toward each other.

XIX

The War of the Chrysanthemums

he dynasty of the imperial rulers of Japan is the oldest in the

world. No other family line extends so far back into the remote
ages as the nameless family of mikados. Disdaining to have a family
name, claiming descent, not from mortals, but from the heavenly
gods, the imperial house of the Kingdom of the Rising Sun occupies
a throne which no plebeian has ever attempted to usurp. Throughout
all the vicissitudes of the imperial line, in plenitude of power or abasement of poverty, its members deposed or set up at the pleasure of
the upstart or the political robber, the throne itself has remained
unshaken. Unclean hands have not been laid upon the ark itself. As in
the procession of life on the globe the individual perishes, the species
lives on, so, though individual mikados have been dethroned, insulted,
or exiled, the prestige of the line has never suered. The loyalty or
allegiance of the people has never swerved. The soldier who would
begin revolution, or who lusted for power, would make the mikado
his tool; but, however transcendent his genius and abilities, he never
attempted to write himself mikado. No Japanese Csar ever had his
Brutus, nor Charles his Cromwell, nor George his Washington. Not
even, as in China, did one dynasty of alien blood overthrow another,
and reign in the stead of a destroyed family. Such events are unknown
211

212

the mikados empire

in Japanese annals. The student of this people and their unique history
can never understand them or their national life unless he measures
the mightiness of the force, and recognizes the place of the throne
and the mikado in the minds and hearts of its people.
There are on record instances in which the true heirship was declared
only after bitter intrigue, quarrels, or even bloodshed. In the tenth century, Taira no Masakado, disappointed in not being appointed Dai J
Dai Jin, left Kito, went to Shimsa in the Kuant, and set himself
up as Shinn, or cadet of the imperial line, and temporarily ruled the
eight provinces of the East as a pseudo-mikado.* In 1139, the military
families of Taira and Minamoto came to blows in Kito over the question of succession between the rival heirs, Shutoku and Go-Shirakawa.
The Taira being victors, their candidate became mikado. During the
decay of the Taira, they ed from Kito, carrying with them, as true
emperor, with his suite and the sacred insignia, Antoku, the child, ve
* Taira no Masakado, or, as we should say, Masakado Taira, was a man of great
energy and of unscrupulous character. He was at rst governor of Shimsa,
but aspired to rule over all the East. He built a palace on the same model as
that of the mikado, at Sajima, in Shimotsuk, and appointed ocers similar
to those at the imperial court. He killed his uncle, who stood in the way of
his ambition. To revenge his fathers death, Sadamori, cousin to Masakado,
headed two thousand men, attacked the false mikado, and shot him to death
with an arrow, carrying his head as trophy and evidence to Kito, where it
was exposed on the pillory. Shortly after his decease, the people of Musashi,
living on the site of modern Tki, being greatly a icted by the troubled
and angry spirit of their late ruler, erected a temple on the site within the
second castle enceinte near Kanda Bridge, and in that part of the city district
of Kanda (Gods Field) now occupied by the Imperial Treasury Department.
Th is had the eect of soothing the unquiet ghost, and the land had rest; and
later generations, mindful of the power of a spirit that in life ruled all the
Kuant, and in death could a ict or give peace to millions at will, worshiped
Masakado under the posthumous name of Kanda Mi Jin (Illustrious Deity
of Kanda), his history having been forgotten, or trans gured into the form
of a narrative, which to doubt was sin. When Iyyasu, in the latter end of the
sixteenth century, made Yedo his capital, he removed the shrine to a more

The War of the Chrysanthemums

213

years old, who was drowned in the sea when the Taira were destroyed.
The Minamoto at the same time recognized Gotoba.
It may be more analogical to call the wars of the Gen and Hei, with
their white and red ags, the Japanese Wars of the Roses. Theirs was
the struggle of rival houses. Now, we are to speak of rival dynasties,
each with the imperial chrysanthemum.
In the time of the early Ashikagas (13361390) there were two mikados
ruling, or attempting to rule, in Japan. The Emperor Go-Daigo had chosen his son Kuniyoshi as his heir, but the latter died in 1326. Kgen, son
of the mikado Go-Fushimi (12991301), was then made heir. Go-Daigos
third son Moriyoshi, however, as he grew up, showed great talent, and
his father regretted that he had consented to the choice of Kgen, and
wished his own son to succeed him. He referred the matter to Hj at
Kamakura, who disapproved of the plan. Those who hated Hj called
Kgen the false emperor, refusing to acknowledge him. When Nitta
destroyed Kamakura, and Go-Daigo was restored, Kogen retired to
obscurity. No one for a moment thought of or acknowledged any one but
Go-Daigo as true and only mikado. When, however, Ashikaga by his
treachery had alienated the emperor from him, and was without imperial
favor, and liable to punishment as a rebel, he found out and set up Kogen
as mikado, and proclaimed him sovereign. Civil war then broke out.
eligible location on the hill in the rear of the Kanda River and the Suido,
where, later, the university stood, and erected an edice of great splendor,
surrounded by groves and grounds of surpassing loveliness. Th is was perhaps
only policy, to gain the popular favor by honoring the local gods; but it stirred
up some jealousy among the mikado-reverencers and students of history
who knew the facts. Some accused him of treasonable designs like those of
Masakado. In 1868, when the mikados troops arrived in Yedo, they rushed to
the temple of Kanda Mi Jin, and, pulling out the idol or image of the deied
Masakado, hacked it to pieces with their swords, wishing the same fate to all
traitors. Thus, after nine centuries, the traitor received a traitors reward, a
clear instance of historic justice in the eyes of native patriots.

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the mikados empire

Into the details of the war between the adherents of the Northern
emperor, Ashikaga, with his followers, on the one side, and GoDaigo, who held the insignia of authority, backed by a brilliant array
of names famous among the Japanese, on the other, I do not propose
to enter. It is a confused and sickening story of loyalty and treachery,
battle, murder, pillage, re, famine, poverty, and misery, such as make
up the picture of civil wars in every country. Occasionally in this
period a noble deed or typical character shines forth for the admiration or example of succeeding generations. Among these none have
exhibited more nobly mans possible greatness in the hour of death
than Nitta Yoshisada and Kusunoki Masashig.
On one occasion the army of Nitta, who was ghting under the
ag of Go-Daigo, the true emperor, was encamped before that of
Ashikaga. To save further slaughter, Nitta sallied out alone, and,
approaching his enemys camp, cried out: The war in the country
continues long. Although this has arisen from the rivalry of two
emperors, yet its issue depends solely upon you and me. Rather than
millions of the people should be involved in distress, let us determine
the question by single combat. The retainers of Ashikaga prevailed
on their commander not to accept the challenge. In 1338, on the second day of the Seventh month, while marching with about fty followers to assist in investing a fortress in Echizen, he was suddenly
attacked in a narrow path in a rice-eld near Fukui by about three
thousand of the enemy, and exposed without shields to a shower of
arrows. Some one begged Nitta, as he was mounted, to escape. It
is not my desire to survive my companions slain, was his response.
Whipping up his horse, he rode forward to engage with his sword,
making himself the target for a hundred archers. His horse, struck
when at full speed by an arrow, fell. Nitta, on clearing himself and
rising, was hit between the eyes with a white-feathered shaft, and
mortally wounded. Drawing his sword, he cut o his own heada

The War of the Chrysanthemums

215

feat which the warriors of that time were trained to performso that
his enemies might not recognize him. He was thirty-eight years old.
His brave little band were slain by arrows, or killed themselves with
their own hand, that they might die with their master. The enemy
could not recognize Nitta, until they found, beneath a pile of corpses
of men who had committed hara-kiri, a body on which, inclosed in
a damask bag, was a letter containing the imperial commission in
Go-Daigos hand-writing, I invest you with all power to subjugate
the rebels. Then they knew the corpse to be that of Nitta. His head
was carried to Kito, then in possession of Ashikaga, and exposed
in public on a pillory. The tomb of this brave man stands, carefully
watched and tended, near Fukui, in Echizen, hard by the very spot
where he fell. I often passed it in my walks, when living in Fukui in
1871, and noticed that fresh blooming owers were almost daily laid
upon it the tribute of an admiring people. A shrine and monument
in memoriam were erected in his native place during the year 1875.
The brave Kusunoki, after a lost battle at Minatogawa, near Higo,
having suffered continual defeat, his counsels having been set at
naught, and his advice rejected, felt that life was no longer honorable, and solemnly resolved to die in unsullied reputation and with
a soldiers honor. Sorrowfully bidding his wife and infant children
goodbye, he calmly committed hara-kiri, an example which his comrades, numbering one hundred and fty, bravely followed.
Kusunoki Masashig was one of an honorable family who dwelt
in Kawachi, and traced their descent to the great-grandson of the
thirty-second mikado, Bidatsu (a.d. 572585). The family name,
Kusunoki (Camphor), was given his people from the fact that a
grove of camphor-trees adorned the ancestral gardens of the mansion. The twelfth in descent was the Vice-governor of Iyo. The father
of Masashig held land assessed at two thousand koku. His mother,
desiring a child, prayed to the god Bishamon for one hundred days,

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the mikados empire

and Masashige was born after a pregnancy of fourteen months. The

mother, in devout gratitude, named the boy Tamon (the Sanskrit
name of Bishamon), after the god who had heard her prayers. The
man-child was very strong, and at seven could throw boys of fteen
at wrestling. He received his education in the Chinese classics from
the priests in the temple, and exercised himself in all manly and
warlike arts. In his twelfth year he cut o the head of an enemy, and
at fteen studied the Chinese military art, and made it the solemn
purpose of his life to overthrow the Kamakura usurpation, and restore
the mikado to power. In 1330, he took up arms for Go-Daigo. He was
several times besieged by the Hj armies, but was nally victorious
with Nitta and Ashikaga. When the latter became a rebel, defeated
Nitta, and entered Kito in force, Kusunoki joined Nitta, and thrice
drove out the troops of Ashikaga from the capital. The latter then ed
to the West, and Kusunoki advised the imperialist generals to follow
them up and annihilate the rebellion. His superiors, with criminal
levity, neglecting to do this, the rebels collected together, and again
advanced, with increased strength by land and water, against Kito,
having, it is said, two hundred thousand men. Kusunokis plan of
operations was rejected, and his advice ignored. With Nitta he was
compelled to bear the brunt of battle against overwhelming forces
at Minato gawa, near Higo, and was there hopelessly defeated.
Kusunoki, now feeling that he had done all that was possible to a subordinate, and that life was no longer honorable, retired to a farmers
house at the village of Sakurai, and there, giving him the sword
bestowed on himself by the mikado, admonished his son Masatsura
to follow the soldiers calling, cherish his fathers memory, and avenge
his fathers death. Sixteen of his relatives, with unquailing courage,
likewise followed their master in death.
Of all the characters in Japanese history, that of Kusunoki Masashig
stands pre-eminent for pureness of patriotism, unselshness of devotion

The War of the Chrysanthemums

217

to duty, and calmness of courage. The people speak of him in tones

of reverential tenderness, and, with an admiration that lacks tting
words, behold in him the mirror of stainless loyalty. I have more than
once asked my Japanese students and friends whom they considered
the noblest character in their history. Their unanimous answer was
Kusunoki Masashig. Every relic of this brave man is treasured up
with religious care; and fans inscribed with poems written by him, in
facsimile of his handwriting, are sold in the shops and used by those
who burn to imitate his exalted patriotism.* His son Masatsura lived
to become a gallant soldier.
The war, which at rst was waged with the clearly dened object
of settling the question of the supremacy of the rival mikados, gradually lost its true character, and nally degenerated into a mle and
free ght on a national scale. Before peace was nally declared, all
the original leaders had died, and the prime object had been, in a
great measure, forgotten in the lust for land and war. Even the rival
emperors lost much of their interest, as they had no concern in brawls
by which petty chieftains sought to exalt their own name, and increase
their territory by robbing their neighbors. In 1392, an envoy from
Ashikaga persuaded Go-Kamyama to come to Kito and hand over
the regalia to Go-Komatsu, the Northern emperor. The basis of peace
was that Go-Kamyama should receive the title of Dai J Tenn
(ex-emperor), Go-Komatsu be declared emperor, and the throne be
occupied alternately by the rival branches of the imperial family. The
* I make no attempt to conceal my own admiration of a man who acted according to his light, and faced his soldierly ideal of honor, when conscience and
all his previous education told him that his hour had come, and that to inch
from the suicidal thrust was dishonor and sin. No enlightened Japanese of
to-day would show himself brave by committing hara-kiri, as the most earnest
writers, thinkers, and even soldiers admit. Fukuzawa, the learned reformer
and pedagogue, and a chaste and eloquent writer, in one of his works condemns the act of Kusunoki, not mentioning him by name, however, as lacking

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the mikados empire

ceremony of abdication and surrender of regalia, on the one hand,

and of investiture, on the other, were celebrated with due pomp and
solemnity in one of the great temples in the capital, and the war of
fty-six years duration ceased. All this redounded to the glory and
power of the Ashikaga.
The period 13361392 is of great interest in the eyes of all native students of Japanese history. In the Dai Nihon Shi, the Southern dynasty
are defended as the legitimate sovereigns, and the true descendants
of Ten Sh Dai Jin, the sun-goddess; and the Northern dynasty are
condemned as mere usurpers. The same view was taken by Kitabatak
Chikafusa, who was the author of the Japanese Red-book, who warned
the emperor Go-Daigo against Ashikaga, and in 1339 wrote a book
to prove that Go-Daigo was mikado, and the Ashikagas nominee a
usurper. This is the view now held in modern Japan, and only those
historians of the period who award legitimacy to the Southern dynasty
are considered authoritative. The Northern branch of the imperial
family after a few generations became extinct.*

the element of true courage, according to the enlightened view. He explains

and defends the Christian ideas on the subject of suicide. His book created
great excitement and intense indignation in the minds of the samurai at rst;
but now he carries with him the approbation of the leading minds in Japan,
especially of the students.
* The names of the Northern, or False, emperors are Kgen, Kmi,
Shinko, Go-Kgon, Go-Enyiu, and Go-Komatsu.

XX

The Ashikaga Period

he internal history of Japan during the period of time covered

by the actual or nominal rule of the thirteen shguns of the
Ashikaga family, from 1336 until 1573, except that portion after the
year 1542, is not very attractive to a foreign reader. It is a confused
picture of intestine war.
Ashikaga Takauji, the founder of the line was a descendant of
the Minamoto Yoshikuni, who had settled at Ashikaga, a village in
Shimotsuk, in the eleventh century. He died in 1356. His grandson
Yoshimitsu, called the Great Ashikaga, was made shgun when ten
years old, and became a famous warrior in the South and West. After
the union of the two dynasties, he built a luxurious palace at Kito,
and was made Dai J Dai Jin. He enjoyed his honors for one year. He
then retired from the world to become a shaven monk in a Buddhist
monastery.
Under the Hj, the oce of shgun was lled by appointment of
the imperial court; but under the Ashikaga the oce became hereditary in this family. As usual, the man with the title was, in nearly
every case, but a mere gure-head, wielding little more personal power
than that of the painted and gilded simulacrum of the admiral that
formerly adorned the prow of our old seventy-four-gun ships. During
this period the term Kub sama, applied to the shguns, and used
219

220

the mikados empire

so frequently by the Jesuit fathers, came into use. The actual work of
government was done by able men of inferior rank. The most noted
of these was Hosokawa Yoriyuki, who was a ne scholar as well as a
warrior. It was through his ordering that the young shgun Yoshimitsu
was well trained, and had for his companions noble youths who
excelled in literary and military skill. Th is was vastly dierent from
Hj Tokimasas treatment of the sons of Yoritomo. He attempted the
reform of manners and administration. He issued ve mottoes for the
conduct of the military and civil ocers. They were: 1. Thou shalt not
be partial in amity or enmity. 2. Thou shalt return neither favor nor
vengeance. 3. Thou shalt not deceive, either with a right or a wrong
[motive]. 4. Thou shalt not hope dishonestly [for a bribe]. 5. Thou shalt
not deceive thyself.
The pendulum of power during this period oscillated between
Kito and Kamakura; a tai (or great) shgun ruling at the former,
and a shgun at the latter place. An ocer called the shikken was the
real ruler of the capital and the central provinces; and another called
the kuan-rei (Governor of the Kuant), of Kamakura and the East.
War was the rule, peace the exception. Feudal ghts; border brawls;
the seizure of lands; the rise of great clans; the building, the siege,
and the destruction of castles, were the staple events. Every monastery
was now a stronghold, an arsenal, or a camp. The issue of a combat or
a campaign was often decided by the support which the bonzes gave
to one or the other party. The most horrible excesses were committed,
the ground about Kito and Kamakura, both of which were captured
and recaptured many times, became like the chitama (blood-pits) of
the execution-ground. Villages, cities, temples, monasteries, and
libraries were burned. The fertile elds lay waste, blackened by re,
or covered from sight, as with a cloth, by dense thickets of tall weeds,
which, even in one summers time, spring with astonishing fecundity
from the plethoric soil of Japan. The people driven from their homes

The Ashikaga Period

221

by war returned to nd a new wilderness, resounding with the din of

devouring insects. The people of gentle birth ed to mountain caves.
Education was neglected. The common herd grew up in ignorance and
misery. Reading and writing, except among the priests and nobles,
were unknown arts which the warriors scorned. War was the only
lucrative trade, except that of the armorers or sword-makers. Famine
followed on the footsteps of war, and with pestilence slew her tens of
thousands. Pirates on the seas ravaged not only the coasts of Japan, but
those of China and Corea, adding pillage and rapine to the destruction of commerce. The Chinese mothers at Ningpo even now are heard
to frighten their children by mentioning the names of the Japanese
pirates. On land the peasantry were impressed in military service to
build castles or intrenched camps; or, the most daring, becoming robbers, made their nests in the mountains and plundered the traveler,
or descended upon the merchants store-house. Japan was then the
paradise of thieves. To all these local terrors were added those gendered in the mind of man by the convulsions of nature. Earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions, oods, tidal waves, typhoons, and storms seem to
have been abnormally frequent during this period. The public morals
became frightfully corrupted, religion debased. All kinds of strange
and uncouth doctrines came into vogue. Prostitution was never more
rampant. It was the Golden Age of crime and anarchy.
The condition of the emperors was deplorable. With no revenues,
and dwelling in a capital alternately in the possession of one or the
other hostile army; in frequent danger from thieves, re, or starvation; exposed to the weather or the dangers of war, the narrative
of their suerings excites pity in the mind of even a foreign reader,
and from the native draws the tribute of tears. One was so poor that
he depended upon the bounty of a noble for his food and clothing;
another died in such poverty that his body lay unburied for several
days, for lack of money to have him interred. The remembrance of

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the mikados empire

the wrongs and suerings of these poor emperors red the hearts
and nerved the arms of the men who in 1868 fought to sweep away
forever the hated system by which such treatment of their sovereign
became possible.
So utterly demoralized is the national, political, and social life
of this period believed to have been, that the Japanese people make
it the limbo of all vanities. Dramatists and romancers use it as the
convenient ground whereon to locate every novel or play, the plot of
which violates all present probability. The chosen time of the bulk of
Japanese dramas and novels written during the last century or two is
that of the late Ashikagas. The satirist or writer aiming at contemporary folly, or at blunders and oppression of the Government, yet
wishing to avoid punishment and elude the censor, clothes his characters in the garb and manners of this period. It is the potters eld
where all the outcasts and Judases of moralists are buried. By common
consent, it has become the limbo of playwright and romancer, and the
scape-goat of chronology.
The act by which, more than any other, the Ashikagas have earned
the curses of posterity was the sending of an embassy to China in
1401, bearing presents acknowledging, in a measure, the authority
of China, and accepting in return the title of Nippon , or King of
Japan. Th is, which was done by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third of
the line, was an insult to the national dignity for which he has never
been forgiven. It was a needless humiliation of Japan to her arrogant
neighbor, and done only to exalt the vanity and glory of the usurper
Ashikaga, who, not content with adopting the style and equipage of
the mikado, wished to be made or called a king, and yet dared not
usurp the imperial throne.* The punishment of Ashikaga is the curse
of posterity. In 1853, when the treaty with the United States was made,
* The Ashikaga line of shoguns comprised the following:

The Ashikaga Period

223

a similar insult to the sovereign and the nation, as well as a contemptible deception of the American envoy and foreigners, was practiced
by the shgun calling himself Tycoon (Great King, or Sovereign
of Japan). In this latter instance, as we know, came not the distant
anathema of future generations, but the swift vengeance of war, the
permanent humiliation, the exile to obscurity, of the Tokugawa family, and the abolition of the shgunate and the dual system forever.
It was during the rst of the last three decades of the Ashikaga
period that Japan became known to the nations of Europe; while rearms, gunpowder, and a new and mighty faith were made known to
the Japanese nation.
1. Takauji

13351357

9. Yoshihisa

14721489

2. Yoshinori

13581367

10. Yoshitan

14901493

3. Yoshmitsu

13681393

11. Yoshizumi

14941507

4. Yoshimochi

13941422

12. Yoshitan
(same as the 10th)

15081520

5. Yoshikadzu

14231425

13. Yoshiharu

15211545

6. Yoshinori

14281440

14. Yoshiteru

15461567

7. Yoshikatsu

14411448

15. Yoshiaki

15681573

8. Yoshimasa

14491471

The term Kub sama, so often used by the Jesuit and Dutch writers, was not
an ocial title of the shgun, but was applied to him by the common people.
When at rst anciently used, it referred to the mikado, or, rather, the mikado
who had abdicated, or preceded the ruling sovereign; but later, when the people
saw in the Kamakura court and its master so close an imitation of the imperial
style and capital, they began gradually to speak of the shgun as the Kub,
with, however, only the general meaning of the governing power, or the
nobleman who enjoyed the right of riding to the court in a car, and entering
the imperial palace. The term was in use until 1868, but was never inherent in
any oce, being rather the exponent of certain forms of etiquette, privilege,

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the mikados empire

and display, than of ocial duties. The Jesuit fathers nearly always speak of the
mikado as the Dairi (see page 39), and at rst erroneously termed the daimios
kings. Later on, they seemed to have gained a clear understanding of the various titles and ocial relations. In some works the Kuambaku (with dono, lord,
attached) is spoken of as emperor. Nobunaga, who became Nai Dai Jin, is also
called emperor. During the supremacy of the military rulers at Kamakura and
Yedo, the oces and titles, though purely civil, once exclusively given to nobles
at the mikados court, were held by the ocials of the shgunate.
In later chapters, the writer of this work has fallen into the careless and
erroneous practice of calling daimis princes. The term prince should be
employed only in speaking of the sons of the mikado, or members of the imperial family. Collectively, the daimis were lords or barons, and all ranks of
the peerage were represented among them, from the kokushi, or dukes, down
to the hatamoto, or knights.

XXI

Life in the Middle Ages

istory, as usually written, gives the impression that the normal

condition of mankind is that of war. Japanese students who
take up the history of England to read, lay it down convinced that
the English people are a blood-loving race that are perpetually ghting. They contrast their own peaceful country with the countries of
Europe, to the detriment of the latter. They turn most gladly from the
monotonous story of battle, murder, and sieges, to Buckle, Guizot,
or Lecky, that they may learn of the victories no less renowned than
those of war which mark as mile-stones the progress of the race. I
greatly fear that from lack of literary skill my readers will say that my
story of Japan thus far is a story of bloody war; but such, indeed, it is as
told in their own histories. Permanent, universal peace was unknown
in Japan until, by the genius of Iyyasu in the sixteenth century, two
centuries and a half of this blessing were secured. Nevertheless, in
the eight centuries included between the eighth and the sixteenth
of our era were many, and often lengthened, intervals of peace. In
many sequestered places the sandal of the warrior and the hoof of the
war-horse never printed the soil. Peace in the palace, in the city, in
the village, allowed the development of manners, arts, manufactures,
and agriculture. In this period were developed the characteristic
growths of the Japanese intellect, imagination, social economy, and
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the mikados empire

manual skill that have made the hermit nation unique in the earth
and Japanese art productions the wonder of the world.
In this chapter, I shall simply glance at some of the salient features
of life in Japan during the Middle Ages.
The introduction of continental or Chinese civilization into Japan
was not a simple act of adoption. It was rather a work of selection and
assimilation. As in this nineteenth century, the Japanese is no blind
copyist, he improves on what he borrows. Although the traveler from
China entering Japan can see in a moment whence the Japanese have
borrowed their civilization, and though he may believe the Japanese
to be an inferior type to that of the Chinese, he will acknowledge
that the Japanese have improved upon their borrowed elements fully
as much as the French have improved upon those of Roman civilization. Many reecting foreigners in Japan have asked the question why
the Japanese are so unlike the Chinese, and why their art, literature,
laws, customs, dress, workmanship, all bear a stamp peculiar to themselves, though they received so much from them? The reason is to be
found in the strength and persistence of the primal Japanese type of
character, as inuenced by nature, enabling it to resist serious alteration and radical change. The greatest conquests made by any of the
imparted elements of continental civilization was that of Buddhism,
which became within ten centuries the universally popular religion.
Yet even its conquests were but partial. Its triumph was secured only
by its adulteration. Japanese Buddhism is a distinct product among
the many forms of that Asiatic religion. Buddhism secured life and
growth on Japanese soil only by being Japanized, by being grafted
on the original stock of ideas in the Japanese mind. Thus, in order to
popularize the Indian religion, the ancient native heroes and the local
gods were all included within the Buddhist pantheon, and declared to
be the incarnations of Buddha in his various forms. A class of deities
exist in Japan who are worshiped by the Buddhists under the general

Life in the Middle Ages

227

name of gongen. They are all deied Japanese heroes, warriors, or

famous men. Furthermore, many of the old rites and ceremonies of
Shint were altered and made use of by the bonzes. It may be doubted
whether Buddhism could have ever been popular in Japan, had it not
become thoroughly Japanized. Some of the rst-fruits of the success of
the new religion was the erection of temples, pagodas, idols, wayside
shrines, monasteries, and nunneries; the adoption of the practice of
cremation, until then unknown; and the cessation of the slaughter of
animals for food. The largest and richest of the ecclesiastical structures were in or near Kito. The priests acted as teachers, advisers,
counselors, and scribes, besides ociating at the altars, shriving the
sick, and attending the sepulture of the dead.
Among the orders and sects which grew and multiplied were many
similar to those in papal Europemendicants, sellers of indulgences,
builders of shrines and images, and openers of mountain paths. The
monasteries became asylums for the distressed, a icted, and persecuted. In them the defeated soldier, the penniless and the dissatised,
the refugee from the vendetta, could nd inviolate shelter. To them
the warrior after war, the prince and the minister leaving the palace,
the honors and pomp of the world, could retire to spend the remnant
of their days in prayer, worship, and the oces of piety. Often the
murderer, struck with remorse, or the soldier before his bloody victim,
would resolve to turn monk. Not rarely did men crossed in love, or
the ospring of the concubine displaced by the birth of the legitimate
son, or the grief-stricken father, devote himself to the priestly life.
In general, however, the ranks of the bonzes were recruited from
orphans or piously inclined youth, or from overstocked families. To
the nunneries, the fertile soil of bereavement, remorse, unrequited
love, widowhood furnished the greater number of sincere and devout
nuns. In many cases, the deliberate choice of wealthy ladies, or the
necessity of escaping an uncongenial marriage planned by relatives,

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the mikados empire

undesirable attentions, or the lusts of rude men in unsettled times,

gave many an inmate to the convents.
In general, however, natural indolence, a desire to avoid the round
of drudgery at the well, the hoe, or in the kitchen, or as nurse, sent
the majority of applicants to knock at the convent doors. Occasionally
a noble lady was won to recluse life from the very apartments of the
emperor, or his ministers, by the eloquence of a bonze who was more
zealous than loyal. In a few of the convents, only ladies of wealth
could enter. The monk and nun, in Japanese as in European history,
romance, and drama, and art, are staple characters. The rules of these
monastic institutions forbade the eating of sh or esh, the drinking of sak, the wearing of the hair or of ne clothes, indulgence in
certain sensuous pleasures, or the reading of certain books. Fastings,
vigils, reection, continual prayer by book, bell, candle, and beads,
were enjoined. Pious pilgrimages were undertaken. The erection of a
shrine, image, belfry, or lantern by begging contributions was a frequent and meritorious enterprise. There stand today thousands of these
monuments of the piety, zeal, and industry of the medival monks
and nuns. Those at Nara and Kamakura are the most famous. The
Kamakura Dai Butsu (Great Buddha) has been frequently described
before. It is a mass of copper 44 feet high, and a work of high art.
The image at Nara was rst erected in the eighth century, destroyed
during the civil wars, and recast about seven hundred years ago. Its
total height is 53 1 2 feet; its face is 16 feet long, and 9 1 2 feet wide.The
width of its shoulders is 28 710 feet. Nine hundred and sixty-six curls
adorn its head, around which is a halo 78 feet in diameter, on which
are sixteen images, each 8 feet long. The casting of the idol is said to
have been tried seven times before it was successfully accomplished,
and 3,000 tons of charcoal were used in the operation. The metal,
said to weigh 450 tons, is a bronze composed of gold (500 pounds),
mercury (1,954 pounds), tin (16,827 pounds), and copper (986,080

Life in the Middle Ages

229

pounds). Many millions of tons of copper were mined and melted to

make these idols. Equally renowned were the great temple-bells of
Kito, and of Miidera, and various other monasteries. Some of these
were ten feet high, and adorned with sacred texts from the Buddhist
Scriptures, and images of heavenly beings, or Buddha on the sacred
lotus in Nirvana, in high relief. As usual, the nimbus, or halo, surrounds his head. Two dragon-heads formed the summit, and ear, by
which it was hung to its beam by an iron ink. The bell was struck on
a raised round spot, by a hammer of wooda small tree-trunk swung
loosely on two ropes. After impact, the bellman held the beam on
its rebound, until the quivering monotone began to die away. Few
sounds are more solemnly sweet than the mellow music of a Japanese
temple-bell. On a still night, a circumference of twenty miles was
ooded by the melody of the great bell of Zzji. The people learned
to love their temple-bell as a dear friend, as its note changed with the
years and moods of life.
The casting of a bell was ever the occasion of rejoicing and public
festival. When the chief priest of the city announced that one was to
be made, the people brought contributions in money, or oerings of
bronze gold, pure tin, or copper vessels. Ladies gave with their own
hands the mirrors which had been the envy of lovers, young girls
laid their silver hair-pins and bijouterie on the heap. When metal
enough and in due proportion had been amassed, crucibles were made,
earth-furnaces dug, the molds fashioned, and huge bellows, worked
by standing men at each end, like a seesaw, were mounted; and, after
due prayers and consultation, the auspicious day was appointed. The
place selected was usually on a hill or commanding place. The people,
in their gayest dress, assembled in picnic parties, and with song and
dance and feast waited while the workmen, in festal uniform, toiled,
and the priests, in canonical robes, watched. The res were lighted,
the bellows oscillated, the blast roared, and the crucibles were brought

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to the proper heat and the contents to ery uidity, the joy of the
crowd increasing as each stage in the process was announced. When
the molten ood was nally poured into the mold, the excitement of
the spectators reached a height of uncontrollable enthusiasm. Another
pecuniary harvest was reaped by the priests before the crowds dispersed, by the sale of stamped kerchiefs or paper containing a holy
text, or certifying to the presence of the purchaser at the ceremony,
and the blessing of the gods upon him therefor. Such a token became
an heir-loom; and the child who ever afterward heard the solemn
boom of the bell at matin or evening was constrained, by lial as well
as holy motives, to obey and reverence its admonitory call. The belfry
was usually a separate building apart from the temple, with elaborate
cornices and roof.
In addition to the offices of religion, many of the priests were
useful men, and real civilizers. They were not all lazy monks or idle
bonzes. By the Buddhist priests many streams were spanned with
bridges, paths and roads made, shade or fruit trees planted, ponds
and ditches for purposes of irrigation dug, aqueducts built, unwholesome localities drained, and mountain passes discovered or explored.
Many were the school-masters, and, as learned men, were consulted
on subjects beyond the ken of their parishioners. Some of them, having a knowledge of medicine, acted as physicians. The sciences and
arts in Japan all owe much to the bonzes who from Corea personally
introduced many useful appliances or articles of food. Several edible
vegetables are still named after the priests, who rst taught their
use. The exact sciences, astronomy and mathematics, as well as the
humanities, owe much of their cultivation and development to clerical
scholars. In the monasteries, the brethren exercised their varied gifts
in preaching, study, calligraphy, carving, sculpture, or on objects of
ecclesiastical art.

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The monuments by which the memory of many a saintly bonze

is still kept green exist to-day as treasures on the altars, or in the
temple or its shady precincts, in winged words or material substance.
A copy of the Buddhist Scriptures, a sacred classic, in roll or bound
volume, might occupy a holy penman before his brush and ink-stone
for years. The manuscript texts which I have often seen in the hall of
worship on silky paper bound in damask, in Japanese monasteries,
could not be improved in elegance and accuracy by the printers art.
The transcription of a sutra on silk, made to adorn the wall of a shrine,
in many cases performed its mission for centuries.
Another monk excelled in improvisation of sacred stanzas, another
painted the pictures and scrolls by which the multitude were taught
by the priest, with his pointer in hand, the mysteries of theology, the
symbols of worship, the terrors of the graded hells and purgatories, and
the felicities of Nirvana. Another of the fraternity, with cunning hand,
compelled the wonder of his brethren by his skill in carving. He could,
from a log which to-day had its bark on, bring forth in time the serene
countenance of Buddha, the ravishing beauty of Kuanon, the Goddess
of Mercy, the scowling terrors of the God of War, the frightful visage
of Fudo, or the hideous face of the Lord of Hell. Another was famous
for molding the clay for the carver, the sculptor, or the bronze-smith.
Many articles of altar furniture, even to the incense-sticks and owers,
were often made entirely by clerical hands.
During the Middle Ages, the arts of pottery, lacquering, gilding, bronze-casting, engraving and chasing, chisel and punch work,
sword-making, goldsmiths work, were brought to a perfection never
since excelled, if indeed it has been equaled. In enameled and inlaid
metal work the hand of the Japanese artisan has undoubtedly lost
its cunning. Native archaeologists assert that a good catalogue of
lost arts may be made out, notably those of the composition and

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application of violet lacquer, and the ancient cloisonn enamel. The

delicacy of tact, freedom of movement, and perfection of nish visible
on Japanese work, are the result of long hereditary application and
concentrated skill. Hidden away in sequestered villages, or occupying
the same workshop in cities for centuries, generations of craftsmen
wrought upon one class of objects, until from the workmans hand
is born the o spring of a long pedigree of thought and dexterity.
Japanese antiquarians x the date of the discovery of lacquer-ware
variously at a.d. 724 and 900. Echizen, from the rst, has been noted
for the abundance and luxuriant yield of lacquer-trees, and the skill
of her workmen in extracting the milk-white virgin sap, which the
action of the air turns to black, and which by pigments is changed to
various colors. In the thirteenth century the art of gold-lacquering
attained the zenith of perfection. Various schools of lacquer art were
founded, one excelling in landscape, another in marine scenery, or the
delineation, in gold and silver powder and varnish, of birds, insects,
and owers. The masters who ourished during the Hj period still
rule the pencil of the modern artist.
Kito, as the civil and military as well as ecclesiastical capital of
the empire, was the centre and standard of manners, language, and
etiquette, of art, literature, religion, and government. No people are
more courtly and polished in their manners than the Japanese, and my
visit to Kito in 1873 impressed me with the fact that the citizens of
this proud miako surpass all others in Japan in rened manners, and
the graces of address and etiquette. The direct inuences of court life
have made themselves perceptibly felt on the inhabitants of the city.
From this centre radiated the multifarious inuences which have
molded the character of the nation. The country priest came as pilgrim
to the capital as to the Holy City, to strengthen his faith and cheer his
soul amidst its inspirations, to see the primate and magnates of his sect,
to pray at the famous shrines, to study in the largest monasteries, under

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the greatest lights and holiest teachers. Returning to his parish, new
sanctity was shed from his rustling robes. His brethren welcomed him
with awe, and the people thronged to see and venerate the holy man
who had drunk at the very fountains of the faith. The temple coers
grew heavy with the weight of oerings because of him. The sons of
the noblemen in distant provinces were sent to Kito to be educated, to
learn reading and writing from the priests, the perfection of the art of
war in the army, the etiquette of palace life as pages to, or as guests of,
the court nobles. The artisan or rich merchant from shiu or Kadzusa,
who had made the journey to Kito, astonished his wondering listeners
at home with tales of the splendor of the processions of the mikado, the
wealth of the temples, the number of the pagodas, the richness of the
silk robes of the court nobles, and the wonders which the Kito potters
and vase-makers, sword-forgers, goldsmiths, lacquerers, crystal-cutters,
and bronze-molders, daily exposed in their shops in profusion.
In Kito also dwelt the poets, novelists, historians, grammarians,
writers, and the purists, whose dicta were laws. By them were written the great bulk of the classic literature, embracing poetry, drama,
ction, history, philosophy, etiquette, and the numerous diaries and
works on travel in China, Corea, and the remote provinces of the
country, and the books called mirrors (kagami) of the times, now so
interesting to the antiquarian student. Occasionally nobles or court
ladies would leave the luxury of the city, and take up their abode in a
castle, tower, pagoda, or temple room, or on some mountain overlooking Lake Biwa, the sea, or the Yodo River, or the plains of Yamato;
and amidst its inspiring scenery, with tiny table, ink-stone and brush,
pen some prose epic or romance, that has since become an immortal
classic. Almost every mansion of the nobles had its looking-room,
or Chamber of Inspiring View, whence to gaze upon the landscape
or marine scenery. Rooms set apart for this aesthetic pleasure still
form a feature of the house of nearly every modern native of means.

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On many a coigne of vantage may be seen also the summer-houses or

rustic booths, where gather pleasure parties on picnics.
In the civil administration of the empire, the chief work was to
dispense justice, punish oenders, collect taxes, and settle disputes.
After the rude surveys of those days, the boundaries of provinces
and departments were marked by inscribed posts of wood or stone.
Before the days of writing, the same end was secured by charcoal
buried in the earth at certain points, the durability of which insured
the mark against decay. The peasants, after the rice-harvest was over,
brought their tribute, or taxes, with joyful ceremony, to the government granaries in straw bags, packed on horses gayly decorated with
scarlet housings, and jingling with clusters of small bells. A relic of
this custom is seen in the bunches of bells suspended by red cotton
stu from the rear of the pack-saddle, which dangle musically from
the ungainly haunches of the native sumpters.
From earliest times there existed ski (guard gates or barriers)
between the various provinces at mountain passes or strategic points.
As feudalism developed, they grew more numerous. A fence of palisades, stretched across the road, guarded the path through which,
according to time, or orders of the keepers, none could pass with
arms, or without the pass-word or passport. Anciently they were
erected at the Hakon and other mountain passes, to keep up the
distinction between the Ainos and the pure Japanese. The possession
of these barriers was ever an important object of rival military commanders, and the shifts, devices, and extraordinary artices resorted
to by refugees, disguised worthies, and forbidden characters, furnish
the historian, the novelist, and dramatist with some of their most
thrilling episodes.
It is related of Yoshitsun, after he had incurred the wrath of
Yoritomo, that, with Benkei, his servant, he arrived at a guard gate
kept by some Genji soldiers, who would have been sure to arrest him

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had they discovered his august personality. Disguised as wandering

priests of the Buddhist sect Yama-bushi, they approached the gate,
and were challenged by the sentinel, who, like most of his class at
that time, was ignorant of writing. Benkei, with great dignity, drawing from his bosom a roll of blank paper, began, after touching it
reverently to his forehead, to extemporize and read aloud in choicest
and most pious language a commission from the high-priest at the
temple of Hokoji, in Kito, in which stood the great image of Buddha,
authorizing him to collect money to cast a colossal bell for the temple.
At the rst mention of the name of his reverence the renowned priest,
so talismanic in all the empire, the soldier dropped down on his knees
with face to the ground, and listened with reverent awe, unaware that
the paper was as blank as the readers tongue was glib. To further lull
suspicion, Benkei apologized for the rude conduct of his servant-boy,
who stood during the reading, because he was only a boor just out
of the rice-elds; and, giving him a kick, bid him get down on his
marrow-bones, and not stand up in the presence of a gentleman and
a soldier. The ruse was complete. The illustrious youth and his servant
passed on.
Medical science made considerable progress in the course of centuries. The materia medica, system, practice, and literature of the healing
art were borrowed from China; but upon these, as upon most other
matters, the Japanese improved. Acupuncture, or the introduction of
needles into living tissues for remedial purposes, was much improved
by the Japanese. The puncturing needles, as ne as a hair, were made
of gold, silver, or tempered steel, by experts. The bones, large nerves,
or blood-vessels were carefully avoided in the process, which enjoyed
great repute in cases of a peculiar violent colic, to which the natives
are subject, and which sometimes becomes endemic. On the theory
that this malady was caused by wind, holes were made in the stomach
or abdomen, to the mystic number of ninecorresponding to the

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nine apertures of the body. Moxa (Japanese, mokusa; mo, re, from
moyeru, to burn, and kusa, herb, grass), or the burning of a small cone
of cottony bres of the artemisia, on the back or feet, was practiced
as early as the eleventh century, reference being made to it in a poem
written at that time. A number of ancient stanzas and puns relating to
Mount Ibuki, on the sides of which the mugwort grows luxuriantly,
are still extant. To this day it is an exception to nd the backs of the
common people unscarred with the spots left by the moxa. The use of
mercury in corrosive sublimate was very anciently known. The d-sha
powder, however, which was said to cure various diseases, and to relax
the rigid limbs of a corpse, was manufactured and sold only by the
bonzes (Japanese, bzu) of the Shin Gon sect. It is, and always was, a
pious fraud, being nothing but unecacious quartz sand, mixed with
grains of mica and pyrites.*
Of the medival sports and pastimes within and without of doors,
the former were preferred by the weak and eeminate, the latter by the
hale and strong. Banquets and carousals in the palace were frequent.
* See in Titsingh a long account of the wonderful virtues and eects claimed
for the d-sha (dosia) powder, and in various other old writers on Japan, who
have gravely described this humbug. I once tested this substance thoroughly
by swallowing a tea-spoonful, without experiencing any eects. It might
cause, but not cure, a headache. I also used up a packageful of the holy sand,
purchased at an orthodox Shin Gon temple, upon a stiened corpse that had
but a short time previous become such, but no unlimbering of the rigid body
took place. I also fused a quantity of the certied drug with some carbonate
of soda, dissolved the resultant mass in distilled water, and upon adding a few
drops of hydrochloric acid, a precipitate of gelatinous silica was the result. I
also subjected the d-sha to careful microscopic examination, nding it only
quartz sand, with akes of other minerals. That the corpse in my experiment was that of an old dog does not aect the validity of the test. It may be
remembered also that gelatinous silica is the substance sometimes used to
adulterate butter. The main objection to such butter is that one can buy sand in
a cheaper form; and the same may be said of that nostrum in the ecclesiastical
quackery and materia theologica of Japan called d-sha.

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The brewing of sak from rice was begun, according to record, in the
third century, and the oce of chief butler even earlier. The native
sauce, sh-yu, made of fermented wheat and beans, with salt and vinegar, which the cunning purveyors of Europe use as the basis of their
high-priced piquant sauces, was made and used as early as the twelfth
century. The name of this saline oil (sh, salt; yu, oil) appears as soy
in our dictionaries, it being one of the three words (soy, bonze, moxa)
which we have borrowed from the Japanese. At the feasts, besides the
wine and delicacies to please the palate, music, song, and dance made
the feast of reason and the ow of soul, while witty and beautiful
women lent grace and added pleasure to the festivities.
In long trailing robes of white, crimson, or highly gured silk, with
hair owing in luxuriance over the shoulders, and bound gracefully in
one long tress which fell below the waist behind, maids and ladies of
the palace rained glances and inuence upon the favored ones. They
red the heart of admirers* by the bewitching beauty of a well-formed
hand, foot, neck, face, or form decked with whatever added charms
cosmetics could bestow upon them. Japanese ladies have ever been
* The following is the native ideal of a Japanese woman, given by a young
Japanese gentleman at the International Congress of Orientalists held at Paris
in 1873: I will commence, gentlemen, with the head, which is neither too large
nor too small. Figure to yourself large black eyes, surmounted by eyebrows of
a strict arch, bordered by black lashes; a face oval, white, very slightly rosecolored on the cheeks, a straight high nose; a small, regular, fresh mouth,
whose thin lips disclose, from time to time, white teeth ranged regularly; a
narrow forehead, bordered by long, black hair, arched with perfect regularity.
Join this head by a round neck to a body large, but not fat, with slender loins,
hands and feet small, but not thin; a breast whose swell (saillie) is not exaggerated. Add to these the following attributes: a gentle manner, a voice like
the nightingale, which makes one divine its artlessness; a look at once lively,
sweet gracious, and always charming; witty words pronounced distinctly,
accompanied by charming smiles; an air sometimes calm, gay, sometimes
thoughtful, and always majestic; manners noble, simple, a little proud, but
without ever incurring the accusation of presumption.

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noted for neatness, good taste, and, on proper occasions, splendor and
luxuriance of dress. With fan, and waving long sleeve, the language of
secret but outwardly decorous passion found ample expression. Kisses,
the pressure of the hand, and other symbols of love as expressed in
other lands, were then, as now, unknown. In humble life also, in all
their social pleasures the two sexes met together to participate in
the same delights, with far greater freedom than is known in Asiatic
countries. As, however, wives or concubines had not always the attractions of youth, beauty, wit, maidenly freshness, or skill at the koto, the
geisha, or singing-girl, then as now, served the sak, danced, sung, and
played, and was rewarded by the gold or gifts of the host, or perhaps
became his Hagar. The statement that the empress was attended only
by vestals who had never beheld a man is disproved by a short study
of the volumes of poetry, amorous and otherwise, written by them,
and still quoted as classic. As to the standard of virtue in those days,
I believe it was certainly not below that of the later Roman empire,
and I am inclined to believe it was far above it.
In the court at Kito, besides games of skill or chance in the house,
were foot-ball, cock-ghting, falconry, horsemanship, and archery.
The robust games of the military classes were hunting the boar, deer,
bear, and smaller game. Hunting by falcons, which had been introduced by some Corean embassadors in the time of Jingu Kg, was
almost as extensively practiced as in Europe, almost every feudal lord
having his perch of falcons. Fishing by cormorants, though a useful
branch of the shermans industry, was also indulged in for pleasure.
The severe exercise of hunting for sport, however, never became as
absorbing and popular in Japan as in Europe, being conned more to
the professional huntsman, and the seeker for daily food.
The court ladies shaved o their eyebrows, and painted two sable
bars or spots on the forehead resembling false eyebrows. In addition to
the gentle tasks of needle-work and embroidery, they passed the time

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in games of chess, checkers, painted shells, and a diversion peculiar to

the palace, in which the skill of the player depended on her sensitiveness in appreciating perfumes, the necessary articles being vials of
fragrant extracts. Their pets were the peculiar little dogs called chin.
They stained their teeth black, like the women of the lower classes;
an example which the nobles of the sterner sex followed, as they
grew more and more eeminate. One of the staple diversions of both
sexes at the court was to write poetry, and recite it to each other. The
emperor frequently honored a lady or noble by giving the chosen one
a subject upon which to compose a poem. A happy thought, skillfully
wrought stanza, a felicitous grace of pantomime, often made the poetess a maid of honor, a concubine, or even an empress, and the poet a
minister or councilor.
Another favorite means of amusement was to write and read or
tell storiesthe Scheherezade of these being a beautiful lady, who
often composed her own stories. The following instance is abbreviated
from the Onna Dai Gaku (Womans Great Study): Is no Taiyu
was a daughter of Sukichika, the mikados minister of festivals,
and a highly accomplished lady. None among the ladies of the court
could equal her. One day a branch of luxuriant cherry - blossoms
was brought from Nara. The emperor gave it to her, and asked her to
extemporize a verse. She did so, and the courtiers were all astonished
at the beauty and delicate sentiment of the verse.
Here is another: Murasaki Shikibu was the daughter of the lord of
Echizen. One day a lady of Kamo asked if there was any new entertaining literature or novels, as the empress-dowager wished to read
something new. The lady invited Murasaki to write some stories. She,
knowing that the great Chinese scholar Shomei completed his collection of the essays of ancient writers by building a high house and
secluding himself in it, had a high tower erected at Ishiyama overlooking Lake Biwa, and aording a glorious view of the mountains,

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especially in the moonlight. There she retired, and one night when the
full moon shone upon the waters she was so inspired that she wrote
in one night two chapters of the Genji Monogatari,* a book containing fty-four chapters in all, which she nished in a few weeks. She
* The various forms of inarticulate language, by pantomime, owers, art,
and symbolism, in Japan dier in many respects from those expressed by us.
Among the gestures partly or wholly unknown to them are nictation, kissing, shaking hands, shrugging the shoulders, and the contemptuous gyratory
motion of the thumb set against the nose, with the ngers upright. Flirtation is
practiced not by the use of the fan or the handkerchief (which is of paper), but
with a wave of the right hand, with palms downward, or by the fair charmer
waving her long sleeve. Instead of winking, they convey the same meaning by
twitching the left corner of the mouth, or rolling the eyeballs to the right or
left. The girls simper by letting their eyelids fall, and the language of womans
eyes is in other respects the same as with us, as Japanese poetry shows. Jealousy
is indicated by the erecting the two fore ngers on the forehead, in allusion
to the monster which in Japan has horns and black hide, but not green eyes.
A jilt who wishes to give her lover the mitten sends him a branch of maple,
the color (iro) of whose leaves has changed, like her love (iro).
Turning up the nose and curling the lip in scorn are achieved with masterly
skill. In agony, the hands are not clasped, but put upright, palm to palm, at
length. People shake their heads to mean no, and nod them to mean yes.
Among the peculiarities in their code of etiquette, eructation is permissible
in company at all times, and after a hearty meal is rather a compliment to the
host. On the other hand, to attend to the requirements of nasal etiquette,
except with face apart from the company, is very bad manners. Toothpicks
must not be used, but in a semi-secret way, and with the left hand covering the
mouth. At banquets, the fragrant bark on these is carved ornamentally, and
under a shaving loosened from the white wood is written in tiny script a pun,
witticism, bon-mot, or sentimental proposal, like that on the secret papers
on bonbons at our refreshments. At feasts or daily meals, all such matters as
carving, slicing, etc., are looked upon as out of place, and properly belonging
to servants work and in the kitchen. In clothing, the idea that garments ought
to be loose and owing, so as to conceal the shape of the body and its parts,
and give no striking indication of sex, as among us, was never so general as in
China. In hair-dressing, besides marking age and sex, the female coi ure had
a language of its own. Generally a keen observer could distinguish a maiden,
a married wife, a widow who was willing to marry the second time, and the
widow who intended never to wed again. As marks of beauty, besides the ideals

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presented it to the empress-dowager, who gave it to the mikado. To

this day it is a classic.
Sei Shonagon was the daughter of Kiyowara no Motosuk. She was
one of the imperial concubines. She was well read in Japanese and
Chinese literature, and composed poetry almost from infancy, having
a wonderful facility of improvisation. One day, after a fall of snow, she
looked out from the southern door of the palace. The emperor, having
passed round the wine-cup to his lords and ladies at the usual morning
assembly of the courtiers and maids of honor, said, How is the snow
of Kuroho? No one else understood the meaning, but Sei Shonagon
instantly stepped forward and drew up the curtains, revealing the
mountains decked in fresh-fallen snow. The emperor was delighted,
and bestowed upon her a prize. Sei Shonagon had understood his
allusion to the line in an ancient poem which ran thus:
The snow of Kuroho is seen by raising the curtains.

Once when a certain kug was traveling in a province, he came,

on a moonlight night, to a poor village in which the cottages had
fallen into picturesque decay, the roofs of which gleamed like silver.
The sight of the gloried huts inspired the noble with such a ne
frenzy that he sat up all night gazing rapturously on the scene, anon
composing stanzas. He was so delighted that he planned to remain
in the place several days. The next morning, however, the villagers,
hearing of the presence of so illustrious a guest among them, began
spoken of on page 37, large ears were thought desirable, especially those with
long lobes. Fat people were much admired, and a rotund physique considered
a good gift of nature. Many of the striking details of military and social etiquette, such as falling on hands and knees, with forehead on the oor or on
the prone hand, and the simultaneous noisy sucking-in of the breath, which
sounds and seems so ridiculous to the foreigner, are very ancient.

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busily to repair the ruin, and to rethatch the roofs. The kug, seeing
all his poetic visions dispelled by this vandal industry, ordered his
bullock-car, and was o, disgusted.
During the rst centuries of writing in Japan, the spoken and the
written language were identical. With the study of the Chinese literature, and the composition of works by the native literati almost exclusively in that language, grew up dierences between the colloquial
and literary idiom and terminology. The infusion of a large number
of Chinese words into the common speech steadily increased; while
the learned aected a pedantic style of conversation, so interlarded
with Chinese words, names, and expressions, that to the vulgar their
discourse was almost unintelligible. Buddhism also made Chinese
the vehicle of its teachings, and the people everywhere became familiar, not only with its technical terms, but with its stock phrases and
forms of thought. To this day the Buddhist, or sham-religious, way
of talking is almost a complete tongue in itself, and a good dictionary
always gives the Buddhistic meaning of a word separately. In reading or hearing Japanese, the English-speaking resident continually
stumbles on his own religious cant and orthodox expressions, which
he believes to be peculiar to his own atmosphere, that have a meaning
entirely dierent from the natural sense: this vale of tears, this evil
world, gone to his reward, dust and ashes, worm of the dust,
and many phrases which so many think are exclusively Christian or
evangelical, are echoed in Japanese. So much is this true, that the missionaries, in translating religious books, are at rst delighted to nd
exact equivalents for many expressions desirable in technical theology,
or for what may fairly be termed pious slang, but will not use them,
for fear of misleading the reader, or rather of failing to lead him out
of his old notions into the new faith which it is desired to teach. So
general have the use and aectation of Chinese become, that in many
instances the pedantic Chinese name or word has been retained in the

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mouths of the people, while the more beautiful native term is almost
lost. In general, however, only the men were devoted to Chinese,
while the cultivation of the Japanese language was left to the women.
This task the women nobly discharged, fully maintaining the credit
of the native literature. Mr. W. G. Aston says, I believe no parallel
is to be found in the history of European letters, to the remarkable
fact that a very large proportion of the best writings of the best age of
Japanese literature was the work of women. The Genji Monogatari is
the acknowledged standard of the language for the period to which it
belongs, and the parent of the Japanese novel. Th is, with the classics
Is Monogatari and Makura Zoshi, and much of the poetry of the time,
are the works of women.
It is to be noted that the borrowed Chinese words were taken entirely
from the written, not the colloquial, language of China, the latter having never been spoken by the Japanese, except by a few interpreters
at Nagasaki. The Japanese literary style is more concise, and retains
archaic forms. The colloquial abounds in interjectional and onomatopoetic words and particles, uses a more simple inection of the verb,
and makes profuse use of honoric and polite terms. Though these
particles defy translation, they add grace and force to the language. As
in the English speech, the child of the wedded Saxon and Norman,
the words which express the wants, feelings, and concerns of everyday lifeall that is deepest in the human heartare for the most part
native; the technical, scientic, and abstract terms are foreign. Hence,
if we would nd the fountains of the musical and beautiful language
of Japan, we must seek them in the hearts, and hear them ow from
the lips, of the mothers of the Island Empire. Among the anomalies
with which Japan has surprised or delighted the world may be claimed
that of womans achievements in the domain of letters. It was womans
genius, not mans, that made the Japanese a literary language. Moses
established the Hebrew, Alfred the Saxon, and Luther the German

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tongue in permanent form; but in Japan, the mobile forms of speech

crystallized into perennial beauty under the touch of womans hand.

XXII

The Growth and Customs of Feudalism

apan, of all the Asiatic nations, seems to have brought the feudal
system to the highest state of perfection. Originating and developing at the same time as in Europe, it became the constitution of the
nation and the condition of society in the seventeenth century. When
in Europe the nations were engaged in throwing o the feudal yoke
and inaugurating modern government, Japan was riveting the fetters
of feudalism, which stood intact until 1871. From the beginning of
the thirteenth century, it had come to pass that there were virtually
two rulers in Japan, and as foreigners, misled by the Hollanders at
Dshima, supposed, two emperors.
The growth of feudalism in Japan took shape and form from the
early division of the ocials into civil and military. As we have seen,
the Fujiwara controlled all the civil oces, and at rst, in time of
emergency, put on armor, led their troops to battle, and braved the
dangers of war and the discomforts of the camp. In time, however,
this great family, yielding to that sloth and luxury which ever seem,
like an insidious disease, to ruin greatness in Japan, ceased to take the
eld themselves, and delegated the uncongenial tasks of war to certain
members of particular noble families. Those from which the greatest
number of shguns were appointed were the Taira and Minamoto,
that for several centuries held the chief military appointments. As
245

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luxury, corruption, intrigue, and eeminacy increased at the capital, the diculty of keeping the remote parts of the empire in order
increased, especially in the North and East. The War Department
became disorganized, and the generals at Kito lost their ability to
enforce their orders.
Many of the peasants, on becoming soldiers, had, on account
of their personal valor or merit, been promoted to the permanent
garrison of household troops. Once in the gay capital, they learned
the details of intrigue and politics. Some were made court pages, or
attendants on men of high rank, and thus learned the routine of ocial duty. They caught the tone of life at court, where every man was
striving for rank and his own glory, and they were not slow to imitate
their august examples. Returning to their homes with the prestige of
having been in the capital, they intrigued for power in their native districts, and gradually obtained rule over them, neglecting to go when
duty called them to Kito, and ignoring the orders of their superiors
in the War Department. The civil governors of the provinces dared
not to molest, or attempt to bring these petty tyrants to obedience.
Having armor, horses, and weapons, they were able to train and equip
their dependents and servants, and thus provide themselves with an
armed following.
Thus was formed a class of men who called themselves warriors,
and were ever ready to serve a great leader for pay. The natural consequence of such a state of society was the frequent occurrence of village
squabbles, border brawls, and the levying of black-mail upon defenseless people, culminating in the insurrection of a whole province. The
disorder often rose to such a pitch that it was necessary for the court
to interfere, and an expedition was sent from Kito, under the command of a Taira or Minamoto leader. The shogun, instead of waiting to
recruit his army in the regular manner a process doubtful of results
in the disorganized state of the War Department and of the country in

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247

generalhad immediate recourse to others of these veteran warriors,

who were already equipped, and eager for a fray.
Frequent repetition of the experience of the relation of brothers
in arms, of commander and commanded, of rewarder and rewarded,
gradually grew into that of lord and retainers. Each general had his
special favorites and followers, and the professional soldier looked
upon his commander as the one to whom his allegiance was directly
due. The distant court at Kito, being utterly unable to enforce its
authority, put the whole power of quieting the disturbed districts,
whenever the disorder increased beyond the ability of the civil magistrate to repress it, into the hands of the Minamoto and Taira. These
families thus became military clans and acquired enormous inuence,
enjoyed the monopoly of military patronage, and nally became the
virtual rulers of the land.
The power of the sword was, as early as the twelfth century, lost to
the court, which then attempted, by every means in its power, to check
the rising inuence of the military families and classes. They began by
denying them high rank, thus putting them under social ban. They
next attempted to lay an interdict upon the warriors by forbidding
them to ally themselves with either the Taira or the Minamoto. Th is
availed nothing, for the warriors knew who rewarded them. They then
endeavored, with poor success, to use one family as a check upon the
other. Finally, when the Minamoto, Yoriyoshi, and Yoshiiy conquered all the north of Hondo, and kept in tranquillity the whole of
the Kuant for fteen years, even paying governmental expenses from
their private funds, the court ignored their achievements. When they
petitioned for rewards to be bestowed on their soldiers, the dilatory
and reluctant, perhaps jealous, nobles composing the court not only
neglected to do so, but left them without the imperial commission,
and dishonored their achievements by speaking of them as private
feuds. Hence they took the responsibility, and conferred upon their

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soldiers grants of the conquered land in their own name. The Taira
followed the same policy in the south and west.
When Yoritomo became Sei-i Tai Shgun at Kamakura, erected
the dual system, and appointed a military with a civil governor of each
province in the interest of good order, feudalism assumed national
proportions. Such a distribution soon ceased to be a balance, the
military pan in the scale gained weight and the civil lost until it kicked
the beam. At the end of the Hj domination, the court had lost the
government of the provinces, and the kug (court nobles) had been
despoiled and impoverished by the buk (military). So thoroughly
had feudalism become the national polity, that in the temporary
mikadoate, 15341536, the Emperor Go-Daigo rewarded those who
had restored him by grants of land for them to rule in their own
names as his vassals.
Under the Ashikagas, the hold of even the central military authority, or chief daimi, was lost, and the empire split up into fragments.
Historians have in vain attempted to construct a series of historical
maps of this period. The pastime was wara game of patchwork in
which land continually changed possessors. There was no one great
leader of sucient power to overawe all; hence might made right; and
whoever had the ability, valor, or daring to make himself pre-eminent
above his fellows, and seized more land, his power would last until
he was overcome by a stronger, or his family decayed through the
eeminacy of his descendants. During this period, the great clans
with whose names the readers of the works of the Jesuits and Dutch
writers are familiar, or which have been most prominent since the
opening of the empire, took their rise. They were those of Hosokawa,
Uysugi, Satak, Takda, the later Hj of Odawara, Mri, tomo,
Shimadzu, Riuzji, Ota, and Tokugawa.
As the authority of the court grew weaker and weaker, the allegiance which all men owed to the mikado, and which they theoretically

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249

acknowledged, was changed into loyalty to the military chief. Every

man who bore arms was thus attached to some great name (daimi),
and became a vassal (krai). The agricultural, and gradually the other
classes, also put themselves, or were forcibly included, under the protection of some castle lord or nobleman having an armed following. The
taxes, instead of being collected for the central government, owed into
the treasury of the local rulers. This left the mikado and court without
revenue. The kug, or Kito nobles, were thus stripped of wealth, until
their poverty became the theme for the caricaturist. Nevertheless, the
eye of their pride never dimmed. In their veins, they knew, ran the
blood of the gods, while the daimis were only earth-thieves, and the
parvenus of feudalism. They still cherished their empty titles; and to all
students of history their poverty was more honorable than all the glitter
of the shguns train, or the splendor of the richest daimis mansion.
The daimis spent their revenues on their retainers, their personal
pleasures, and in building castles. In almost every feudal city, or
place of strategic importance, the towers, walls, and moats of these
characteristic specimens of Japanese architecture could be seen. The
strictest vigilance was maintained at the castle-gates, and a retainer
of another daimi, however hospitably entertained elsewhere, was
never allowed entrance into the citadel. A minute code of honor, a
rude sort of chivalry, and an exalted sense of loyalty were the growth
of the feudal system.
Many of the medival military customs were very interesting. During
this period the habit originated of the men shaving the hair o their
temples and from the middle of the scalp, and binding the long cue into
a top-knot, which was turned forward and laid on the scalp. The object
of this was to keep the hair out of the eyes during battle, and also to
mark the wearer as a warrior. Gradually it became a universal custom,
extending to all classes.

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When, in 1873, the reformers persuaded the people to cut o their

knots and let their hair grow, the latter refused to imitate the foreigners, and supposed they were true conservatives, when, in reality, the
ancient Japanese knew nothing of shaven faces and scalps, or of topknots. The ancient warriors wore mustaches, and even beards. The practice of keeping the face scrupulously bare, until recently so universally
observed except by botanists and doctors, is comparatively modern.
The military tactics and strategic arts of the Japanese were anciently
copied from the Chinese, but were afterward modied as the nature of
the physical features of their country and the institutions of feudalism
required. No less than seven distinct systems were at dierent times
in vogue; but that perfected by Takda and Uysugi, in the Ashikaga
period, nally bore o the palm. These tactics continued to command
the esteem and practice of the Japanese until the revolution wrought
by the adoption of the European systems in the present century. The
surface of the country being so largely mountainous, uneven, and
covered with rice-swamps, cavalry were but little employed. A volley
of arrows usually opened the battle, followed by a general engagement along the whole line. Single combats between commanders of
hostile armies were of frequent occurrence. When they met on the
eld, their retainers, according to the strict etiquette of war, gave no
aid to either, but encouraged them by shouts, as they called out each
others names and rushed to the combat. The battle slackened while
the leaders strove, the armies becoming spectators. The victor cut
o the head of his antagonist, and, holding it up, shouted his name
and claimed the victory. The triumph or defeat of their leaders often
decided the fate of the army. Vengeance against the victor was not
permitted to be taken at the time, but must be sought again, the two
armies again joining battle. The ghting over, those who had slain
distinguished personages must exhibit their heads before their chiefs,
who bestowed rewards upon them. This practice still continues; and

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251

during the expedition in Formosa in 1874, the chief trophies were

the heads of the Boutan cannibals; though the commander, General
Saig, attempted to abolish the custom. Whoever saved his chieftains
life on the eld was honored with the place of highest rank in the
clan. These customs had a tremendous inuence in cultivating valor
and a spirit of loyalty in the retainer toward the prince. The meanest
soldier, if brave and faithful, might rise to the highest place of honor,
rank, emolument, and inuence. The bestowal of a reward, the investiture of a command, or military promotion, was ever an occasion of
impressive ceremony.
Even in time of peace the samurai never appeared out-of-doors
unarmed, invariably wearing their two swords in their girdle. The
oensive weaponsspears long and short, the bows, arrows, and
quiver, and battle-axeswere set on their butts on the porch or vestibule in front of the house. Within doors, in the tokonoma, or recess,
were ranged in glittering state the cuirass, helmet, greaves, gauntlets,
and chain-mail. Over the sliding partitions, on racks, were the long
halberds, which the women of the house were trained to use in case
of attack during the absence of the men.
The gate of a samurai, or nobles, house was permanently guarded
by his armed retainers, who occupied the porters lodge beside it.
Standing upright and ready were three long instruments, designed to
entangle, throw down, and pin to the earth a quarrelsome applicant.
Familiar faces passed unchallenged, but armed strangers were held
at bay till their business was known. A grappling-iron, with barbed
tongues turned in every direction, making a ball of hooks like an
iron hedgehog, mounted on a pike-sta ten feet long, thrust into the
Japanese loose clothing, suced to keep at a wholesome length any
swash-buckler whose sword left its sheath too easily. Another spiked
weapon, like a double rake, could be thrust between his legs and bring
him to the earth. A third, shaped like a pitchfork, could hold him

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helpless under its wicket arch. Three heavy quarter staves were also
ready, to belabor the struggling wight who would not yield, while
swords on the racks hung ready for the last resort, or when intruders
came in numbers. On rows of pegs hung wooden tickets about three
inches square, branded or inscribed with the names of the retainers
and servants of the lords house, which were handed to the keeper of
the gate as they passed in or out.
The soldiers wore armor made of thin scales of iron, steel, hardened
hide, lacquered paper, brass, or shark-skin, chain-mail, and shields.
The helmet was of iron, very strong, and lined within by buckskin.
Its ap of articulated iron rings drooped well around the shoulders.
The visor was of thin lacquered iron, the nose and mouth pieces being
removable. The eyes were partially protected by the projecting front
piece. A false mustache was supposed to make the upper lip of the
warrior dreadful to behold. On the frontlet were the distinguishing
symbols of the man, a pair of horns, a sh, an eagle, dragon, buckhorns, or ashing brass plates of various designs. Some of the helmets
were very tall. Kat Kiyomasas was three feet high. On the top was
a hole, in which a pennant was thrust, or an ornament shaped like a
pear inserted. The pear-splitter was the fatal stroke in combat and
the prize-cut in fencing. Behind the corslet on the back was another
socket, in which the clan ag was inserted. The breastplate was heavy
and tough; the arms, legs, abdomen, and thighs were protected by
plates joined by woven chains. Shields were often used; and for forlornhopes or assaults, cavalrymen made use of a stued bag resembling
a bolster, to receive a volley of arrows. Besides being missile-proof,
it held the arrows as spoils. On the shoulders, hanging loosely, were
unusually wide and heavy brassarts, designed to deaden the force of
the two-handed sword-stroke. Greaves and sandals completed the suit,
which was laced and bound with iron clamps, and cords of buckskin
and silk, and decorated with crests, gilt tassels, and glittering insignia.

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253

Suits of armor were of black, white, purple, crimson, violet, green,

golden, or silver colors.
The rations of the soldiers were rice, sh, and vegetables. Instead of
tents, huts of straw or boughs were easily erected to form a camp. The
generals head-quarters were inclosed by canvas, stretched on posts six
feet high, on which his armorial bearings were wrought. The weapons
were bows and arrows, spear, sword, and, rarely, battle-axes and bowguns; for sieges, re-arrows. The generals scabbard was of tiger-skin.
Supplies of this material were obtained from Corea, where the animal
abounds. His baton was a small lacquered wand, with a cluster of
strips of thick white paper dependent from the point. Flags, banners,
and streamers were freely used; and a camp, castle, or moving army, in
time of war, with its hundreds and thousands of ags, presented a gay
and lively appearance. Drums, hard-wood clappers, and conch-shells
sounded the reveille, the alarm, the onset, or the retreat.
Owing to the nature of the ground, consisting chiey of mountains and valleys, or plains covered with rice-swamps intersected by
narrow paths, infantry were usually depended upon. In besieging a
castle, the intrenchments of the investing army consisted chiey of a
line of palisades or heavy planks, propped up from within by hinged
supports, at an angle of forty-ve degrees, behind which the besiegers fought or lived in camp life, while sentinels paced at the gates.
Lookouts were posted on overlooking hills, in trees, or in towers
erected for the purpose. Sometimes huge kites able to sustain a man
were own, and a birds-eye view of the interior of the enemys castle
thus obtained. Fire, treachery, stratagem, starvation, or shooting at
long range having failed to compel surrender, an assault took place,
in which the gates were smashed in, or the walls scaled. Usually great
loss resulted before the besiegers were driven o, or were victorious.
Rough surgery awaited the wounded. An arrow-barb was usually
pulled out by a jerk of the pincers. A sabre-cut was sewed or bound

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together with tough paper, of which every soldier carried a supply.

The wonderfully adhesive, absorptive, and healing power of the soft,
tough, quickly wet, easily hardening, or easily kept pliable, Japanese
paper made excellent plasters, bandages, tourniquets, cords, and
towels. In the dressing of wounds, the native doctors to this day, as I
have often had occasion to witness, excel.
Seppuku (belly-cut) or hara-kiri also came into vogue about the time
of the beginning of the domination of the military classes. At rst,
after a battle, the vanquished wounded fell on their swords, drove
them through their mouth or breast, or cut their throats. Often a
famous soldier, before dying, would ay and score his own face beyond
recognition, so that his enemies might not glory over him. This grew
into a principle of honor; and frequently the unscathed survivors,
defeated, and feeling the cause hopeless, or retainers whose master
was slain, committed suicide. Hence arose, in the Ashikaga period,
the fashion of wearing two swords; one of which, the longer, was for
enemies; the other, shorter, for the wearers own body. The practice
of hara-kiri as a judicial sentence and punishment did not come into
vogue until in the time of the Tokugawas.
Thrust into a tiny scabbard at the side of the dirk, or small sword,
was a pair of chopsticks to eat with in camp. Anciently these were
skewers, to thrust through the top-knot of a decapitated enemy, that
the head might be easily carried. Besides, or in lieu of them, was a
small miniature sword, ko-katana (little sword), or long, narrow knife.
Although this was put to various trivial uses, such as those for which
we employ a penknife, yet its primary purpose was that of the card of
the owner. Each sword was adorned with some symbol or crest, which
served to mark the clan, family, or person of the owner.
The Satsuma men wore swords with red-lacquered scabbards.
Later, the Tokugawa vassals, who fought in the battle of Skigahara,
were called white hilts, because they wore swords of extraordinary

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255

length, with white hilts. The bat, the falcon, the dragon, lion, tiger,
owl, and hawk, were among the most common designs wrought in
gold, lacquer, carving, or alloy on the hilts, handles, or scabbard; and
on the ko-katana was engraved the name of the owner.
Feudalism was the mother of brawls innumerable, and feuds
between families and clans continually existed. The wife whose husband was slain by the grudge-bearer brought up her sons religiously
to avenge their fathers death. The vendetta was unhindered by law
and applauded by society. The moment of revenge selected was usually that of the victims proudest triumph. After promotion to oce,
succession to patrimony, or at his marriage ceremony, the sword of
the avenger did its bloody work. Many a bride found herself a widow
on her wedding-night. Many a child became an orphan in the hour of
the fathers acme of honor. When the murder was secret, at night, or
on the wayside, the head was cut o, and the avenger, plucking out his
ko-katana, thrust it in the ear of the victim, and let it lie on the public
highway, or sent it to be deposited before the gate of the house. The
ko-katana, with the name engraved on it, told the whole story.
Whenever the lord of a clan wished his rival or enemy out of the
way, he gave the order of Herodias to her daughter to his faithful
retainers, and usually the head in due time was brought before him,
as was Johns, on a charger or ceremonial stand.
The most minutely detailed etiquette presided over the sword, the
badge of the gentleman. The visitor whose means allowed him to be
accompanied by a servant always left his long sword in his charge when
entering a friends house; the salutation being repeated bowing of the
forehead to the oor while on the hands and knees, the breath being
sucked in at the same time with an impressive sound. The degree of
obeisance was accurately graded according to rank. If alone, the visitor
laid his sword on the oor of the vestibule. The hosts servants, if so
instructed by their master, then, with a silk napkin in hand, removed

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it inside and placed it, with all honor, on the sword-rack. At meetings
between those less familiar, the sheathed weapon was withdrawn from
the girdle and laid on the oor to the right, an indication of friendship,
since it could not be drawn easily. Under suspicious circumstances,
it was laid to the left, so as to be at hand. On short visits, the dirk
was retained in the girdle; on festal occasions, or prolonged visits, it
was withdrawn. To clash the sheath of ones sword against that of
another was a breach of etiquette that often resulted in instantaneous
and bloody reprisal. The accompanying cut by Hokusai represents
such a scene. The story is a true one, and well told by Mitford. Fuwa
Banzamonhe of the robe marked with the nurtsubami (swallow
in a shower)and Nagoya Sanzaburhe of the coat gured with
the device of lightningboth enemies, and rnin, as their straw hats
show, meet, and intentionally turn back to back and clash scabbards,
holding their hands in tragic attitude. In a moment more, so the
picture tells us, the insulted scabbards will be empty, and the blades
crossed in deadly combat. In the story, which has been versied and
dramatized, and which on the boards will hold an audience breathless,
Nagoya nally kills Fuwa. The writing at the side of the sketch gives
the clue to the incident: saya-at (scabbard-collision), equivalent to our
inging down the gauntlet.
To turn the sheath in the belt as if about to draw was tantamount
to a challenge. To lay ones weapon on the oor of a room, and kick
the guard toward a person, was an insult that generally resulted in a
combat to the death. Even to touch anothers weapon in any way was
a grave oense. No weapon was ever exhibited naked for any purpose,
unless the wearer rst profusely begged pardon of those present. A
wish to see a sword was seldom made, unless the blade was a rare one.
The owner then held the back of the sword to the spectator, with the
edge toward himself, and the hilt, wrapped in the little silk napkin
which gentlemen always carry in their pocket-books, or a piece of

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257

white paper, to the left. The blade was then withdrawn from the scabbard, and admired inch by inch, but never entirely withdrawn unless
the owner pressed his guest to do so, when, with much apology, the
sword was entirely withdrawn and held away from those present.
Many gentlemen took a pride in making collections of swords, and
the men of every samurai family wore weapons that were heir-looms,
often centuries old. Women wore short swords when traveling, and
the palace ladies in time of res armed themselves.
In no country has the sword been made an object of such honor as
in Japan. It is at once a divine symbol, a knightly weapon, and a certicate of noble birth. The girded sword is the soul of the samurai.
It is the precious possession of lord and vassal from times older than
the divine period. Japan is the land of many blades. The gods wore
and wielded two-edged swords. From the tail of the dragon was born
the sword which the Sun-goddess gave to the rst emperor of Japan.
By the sword of the clustering clouds of heaven Yamato-Dak subdued
the East. By the sword the mortal heroes of Japan won their fame.
Theres naught twixt heaven and earth that man need fear, who
carries at his belt this single blade. Ones fate is in the hands of
Heaven, but a skillful ghter does not meet with death. In the last
days, ones sword becomes the wealth of ones posterity. These are
the mottoes graven on Japanese swords.
Names of famous swords belonging to the Taira, Minamoto and
other families are, Little Crow, Beard-cutter, Knee-divider. The
two latter, when tried on sentenced criminals, after severing the heads
from the body, cut the beard, and divided the knee respectively. The
forging of these swords occupied the smith sixty days. No artisans
were held in greater honor than the sword-makers, and some of them
even rose to honorary rank. The forging of a blade was often a religious ceremony. The names of Munchicka, Masamun, Yoshimitsu,
and Muramasa, a few out of many noted smiths, are familiar words in

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the mouths of even Japanese children. The names, or marks and dates,
of famous makers were always attached to their blades, and from the
ninth to the fteenth century were sure to be genuine. In later times,
the practice of counterfeiting the marks of well-known makers came
into vogue. Certain swords considered of good omen in one family
were deemed unlucky in others.
I had frequent opportunities of examining several of the masterpieces of renowned sword-makers while in Japan, the property of
kugs, daimis, and old samurai families, the museum at Kamakura
being especially rich in famous old blades. The ordinary length of a
sword was a fraction over two feet for the long and one foot for the
short sword. All lengths were, however, made use of, and some of the
old warriors on horseback wore swords over six feet long.
The Japanese sword-blade averages about an inch in width, about
seven-eighths of which is a backing of iron, to which a face of steel is
forged along its entire length. The back, about one-fourth of an inch
thick, bevels out very slightly to near the centre of the blade, which
then narrows to a razor edge. The steel and the forging line are easily
distinguished by a cloudiness on the mirror-like polish of the metal.
An inch and a quarter from the point, the width of the blade having
been decreased one-fourth, the edge is ground o to a semi-parabola,
meeting the back, which is prolonged, untouched; the curve of the
whole blade, from a straight line, being less than a quarter of an
inch. The guard is often a piece of elaborate workmanship in metal,
representing a landscape, water-scene, or various emblems. The hilt
is formed by covering the prolonged iron handle by shark-skin and
wrapping this with twisted silk. The ferule, washers, and cleets are
usually inlaid, embossed, or chased in gold, silver, or alloy. The rivets
in the centre of the handle are concealed by designs, often of solid
gold, such as the lion, dragon, cock, etc.

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259

In full dress, the color of the scabbard was black, with a tinge of
green or red in it, and the bindings of the hilt of blue silk. The taste of
the wearer was often displayed in the color, size, or method of wearing
his sword, gay or proud fellows aecting startling colors or extravagant
length. Riven through ornamental ferules at the side of the scabbards
were long, at cords of woven silk of various tints, which were used
to tie up the owing sleeves, preparatory to ghting. Every part of a
sword was richly inlaid, or expensively nished. Daimis often spent
extravagant sums on a single blade, and small fortunes on a collection.
A samurai, however poor, would have a blade of sure temper and rich
mountings, deeming it honorable to suer for food, that he might
have a worthy emblem of his social rank as a samurai. A description of
the various styles of blade and scabbard, lacquer, ornaments, and the
rich vocabulary of terms minutely detailing each piece entering into
the construction of a Japanese sword, the etiquette to be observed, the
names, mottoes, and legends relating to them, would ll a large volume
closely printed. A considerable portion of native literature is devoted
to this one subject.
The bow and arrows were the chief weapons for siege and longrange operations. A Japanese bow has a peculiar shape, as seen in the
engraving. It was made of well-selected oak (kashi), incased on both
sides with a semi-cylinder of split bamboo toughened by re. The
three pieces composing the bow were then bound rmly into one piece
by thin withes of rattan, making an excellent combination of lightness, strength, and elasticity. The string was of hemp. Arrows were
of various kinds and lengths, according to the arms of the archer. The
average length of the war-arrow was three feet. The turnip-head,
frog-crotch, willow-leaf, armor-piercer, bowel-raker, were a
few of the various names for arrows. The turnip-top, so named from
its shape, made a singing noise as it ew. The frog-crotch, shaped

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like a pitchfork, or the hind legs of a leaping-frog, with edged blades,

was used to cut down ags or sever helmet lacings. The willow-leaf
was a two-edged, unbarbed head, shaped like the leaf of a willow. The
bowel-raker was of a frightful shape, well worthy of the name; and
the victim whose diaphragm it penetrated was not likely to stir about
afterward. The armor-piercer was a plain bolt-head, with nearly
blunt point, well calculated to punch through a breastplate. Barbs of
steel were of various shape; sometimes very heavy, and often handsomely open-worked. The shaft was of cane bamboo, with string-piece
of bone or horn, whipped on with silk. Quivers were of leather, waterproof paper, or thin lacquered wood, and often splendidly adorned.
Gold-inlaid weapons were common among the rich soldiers, and the
outt of an ocer often cost many hundreds of dollars. Not a few of
these old tools of war have lost their signicance, and have become
household adornments, objects of art, or symbols of peace. Such especially are the emblems of the carpenters guilds, which consist of the
half-feathered turnip-head arrow, wreathed with leaves of the same
succulent, and the frog-crotch, inserted in the mouth of a dragon,
crossed upon the ancient mallet of the craft. These adorn temples or
houses, or are carried in the local parades and festivals.
As Buddhism had become the professed religion of the entire
nation, the vast majority of the military men were Buddhists. Each
had his patron or deity. The soldier went into battle with an image
of Buddha sewed in his helmet, and after victory ascribed glory to
his divine deliverer. Many temples in Japan are the standing monuments of triumph in battle, or vows performed. Many of the noted
captains, notably Kato, inscribed their banners with texts from the
classics or the prayers, Namu Amida Butsu, or Namu mi h,
etc., according to their sect. Amulets and charms were worn almost
without exception, and many a tale is told of arrows turned aside, or
swords broken, that struck on a sacred image, picture, or text. Before

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261

entering a battle, or performing a special feat of skill or valor, the hero

uttered the warriors prayer, Namu Hachiman Dai-bosatsu (Glory
to Hachiman, the incarnation of Great Buddha). Though brave heroes
must, like ordinary men, pass through purgatory, yet death on the
battle-eld was reckoned highly meritorious, and the happiness of
the warriors soul in the next world was secured by the prayers of his
wife and children.

[Note on the Development of Feudalism.A thoroughly competent critic in The

Japan Mail of November 25th, 1876, in a review of this work, criticising the
authors treatment of Japanese feudalism, says: In Japan, as in other Asiatic
countries, the two main functions of government were the collection of the
land revenue and the repression of rapine. In the palmy days of the mikados
power, both these functions were united in the hands of the prefects, who were
appointed from Kito, with a tenure of oce restricted to four years. What
Yoritomo ostensibly did was to procure a division of these two departments of
governmental activity, leaving one (the collection of revenue) to the mikados
functionaries, and obtaining the control of the other (the repression of crime)
for himself. Th is control he acquired not.....in virtue of his military oce of
Sei-i-Tai Shgun, but by cloaking his military power under the guise of his
civil title, So Tsui-ho Shi, which might well be rendered Chief Commissioner
of Police, or High Constable of the Realm. The extension of the system of
appointing military magistrates, which was found to work so well in the
Kuant, to the central and western provinces, was eected some years before
he received his rank of Barbarian-quelling Generalissimo. The second step in
the direction of feudalism.....was the system, initiated by the Ashikaga shguns, of making the military magistracies hereditary in the families of their
own nominees. The third was when Hidyoshi parceled out the efs without
reference to the sovereign, by titles granted in his own names. Th is was the
precedent that Iyyasu followed when he based the power of his dynasty on
the tie of personal fealty of the Fudai daimis and hatamotos to himself and
his successors as lords-paramount of their lands.]

XXIII

Nobunaga, the Persecutor of the Buddhists

n the province of Echizen, a few miles from Fukui, on the seacoast, stands the mountain of Ochi, adorned with many a shrine
and sacred portal, and at its foot lies the village of Ota. Tradition
states that nearly a thousand years ago the pious bonze, Tai Ch,
ascended and explored this mountain, which is now held sacred and
resorted to by many a pilgrim. Here, in uninterrupted harmony, dwelt
for centuries priests of both the native Shint and Buddhist cultus,
until 1868, when, in the purication, all Shint shrines were purged of
Buddhist symbolism and inuences, as of a thing unclean. The priests
were wont to make occasional journeys to Kito, the ecclesiastical centre of the country. Centuries before the troublous times of Ashikaga,
and during the period of the Taira and Minamoto, one of the Shint
priests, while on his way through mi, stopped at Tsuda, and lodged
with the nanushi, or head-man of the village, and asked him for one
of his sons for the priesthood. The host gave him his step-son, whom
the priest named Ota Chikazan.
That boy was of Taira blood, the great-grandson of Kiyomori. His
father, Sukmori, had been killed by the Minamoto, but his mother had
ed to mi, and the head-man of the village of Tsuda had married her.
The mother, though grieving for the loss of her son, doubtless, as
a pious woman, rejoiced to see him in such excellent hands. The lad
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was returned to Ota, and lived in the village. He grew up, married
as became a kannushi (custodian of a Shint shrine), and founded a
family of Shinto priests. He was the common ancestor of the famous
hero of Echizen, Shibata Katsuiy, and of the renowned Nobunaga,
who deposed the Ashikaga, persecuted the Buddhists, encouraged the
Jesuits, and restored, to a great extent, the supremacy of the mikado.
In the History of the Church, a portrait is given of Nobunaga,
which is thus translated by Dr. Walter Dixon. He is described as a
prince of large stature, but of a weak and delicate complexion, with a
heart and soul that supplied all other wants; ambitious above all mankind; brave, generous, and bold, and not without many excellent moral
virtues; inclined to justice, and an enemy to treason. With a quick
and penetrating wit, he seemed cut out for business. Excelling in
military discipline, he was esteemed the ttest to command an army,
manage a siege, fortify a town, or mark out a camp, of any general in
Japan, never using any heads but his own. If he asked advice, it was
more to know their hearts than to prot by their advice. He sought
to see into others, and to conceal his own counsel, being very secret
in his designs. He laughed at the worship of the gods, convinced that
the bonzes were impostors abusing the simplicity of the people, and
screening their own debauches under the name of religion.
Nobunaga had four generals, whom the people in those days
were wont to nickname, respectively, Cotton, Rice, Attack,
Retreat. The one was so fertile of resources that he was like cotton,
that can be put to a multitude of uses; the second was as absolutely
necessary as rice, which, if the people be without for a day, they die;
the third excelled in onset; the fourth, in skillful retreat. They were
Hidyoshi, Goroza, Shibata, and Ikda. A rth afterward joined him,
whose name was Tokugawa Iyyasu. These three names, Nobunaga,
Hidyoshi, and Iyyasu, are the most renowned in Japan.

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265

Nobunaga rst appears on the scene in 1542. His father, after the
fashion of the times, was a warrior, who, in the general scramble for
land, was bent on securing a fair slice of territory. He died in 1549,
leaving to his son his arms, his land, and his feuds. Nobunaga gained
Suruga, Mino, mi and Mikawa, Is and Echizen, in succession.
Having possession of Kito, he built the ne castle of Nij, and took
the side of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who by his inuence was made shgun
in 1558. Six years later, the two quarreled. Nobunaga arrested and
deposed him, and the power of this family, which had lasted two
hundred and thirty-eight years, came to an end. From this time there
was no Sei-i Tai Shgun, until Iyyasu obtained the oce, in 1604.
By the aid of his commanders, Hidyoshi and Iyyasu, he brought
large portions of the empire under his authority, and nominally that
of the mikado, in whose name he governed. He became Naidaijin
(inner great minister), but never shgun. The reason of this, doubtless, was that the oce of shgun was by custom monopolized by the
Minamoto family and descendants, whereas Nobunaga was of Taira
descent. Like Yoritomo, he was a skillful and determined soldier,
but was never able to subdue the great clans. Unlike him, he lacked
administrative power, and was never able to follow up in peace the
victories gained in war.
He met his death in Kito, when in the fullness of his power and
fame, in the following manner. Among his captains was Akchi, a
brave, proud man, who had taken mortal oense at his leader. One
day, while in his palace, being in an unusually merry and familiar
mood, Nobunaga put Akchis head under his arm, saying he would
make a drum of it struck it with his fan, like a drumstick, playing a
tune. Akchi did not relish the joke, and silently waited for revenge.
His passion was doubtless nursed and kept warm by a previous desire
to seize the place and power and riches of his chief.

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In those days treachery was a common and trivial occurrence, and

the adherent of to-day was the deserter of to-morrow. The opportunity did not delay. Nobunaga had sent so large a re-enforcement into
the west, to Hidyoshi, who was ghting with Mri, that the garrison at the capital was reduced to a minimum. Akchi was ordered
to the Chiugoku, and pretended to march thither. Outside the city
he disclosed his plan of killing Nobunaga, whom he denounced to
his ocers, and promised them rich booty. They returned to Kito,
and surrounded the temple of Honnji, where their victim was then
residing. Hearing of the unexpected presence of so many soldiers in
armor around his dwelling, he drew aside the window of his room to
ascertain the cause. He was struck by an arrow, and instantly divined
the situation, and that escape was impossible. He then set the temple
on re, and committed suicide. In a few minutes the body of the great
hero was a charred crisp.
An uninscribed tomb of polygonal masonry, built in his honor,
stands in the ten-shiu, or keep, of his most famous castle, Azuchi
yama, on a high hill looking out upon the white walls of the fortress
of Hikon, the blue lake of Biwa, and the towering grandeur of Ibuki
yama. He died at the age of forty-nine.
The position of Ota Nobunaga in Japanese history would be illy
understood were the reader to regard him merely as a leader in clan
ghts, who by genius and vigor rose above the crowd of petty military
adventurers, or even as one who wished to tranquilize and unify all
Japan for the mikado. We must inquire why it is that no man has
won more execration and anathemas from the Buddhists in Japan
than he. They look upon him as an incarnate demon sent to destroy
their faith.
The period of the Ashikaga was that in which the Buddhist priests
reached the acme of power. Their monasteries were often enormous
stone-walled and moated fortresses. The bonzes kept armor and arsenals

Nobunaga, the Persecutor of the Buddhists

267

full of weapons to don and use themselves, or to equip the armies in

their pay when it suited their pleasure to cope with or assist either of the
changing sides, or to take spoil of both. Many bloody battles took place
between rival sects, in which temples were burned down, villages red,
and hundreds on both sides killed. Part of what is now the immense
castle of zaka belonged to the Ikko or Shin sect.
At Hiyeizan, on Lake Biwa, was the most extensive monastery
in Japan. The grounds, adorned and beautied with the rarest art of
the native landscape gardener, inclosed thirteen valleys and over ve
hundred temples, shrines, and priestly dwellings. Here thousands
of monks were congregated. They chanted before gorgeous altars,
celebrated their splendid ritual, reveled in luxury and licentiousness,
drank their sak, eat the forbidden viands, and dallied with their
concubines, or hatched plots to light or fan the ames of feudal war,
so as to make the quarrels of the clans and chiefs redound to their
aggrandizement. They trusted profoundly to their professedly sacred
character to shield them from all danger.
For these bonzes Nobunaga had no respect. His early life among
the priests had doubtless destroyed whatever reverence he might have
had for their sanctity. His education as a Shintist made him hate the
Buddhists as enemies. The bonzes continually foiled his schemes, and
he saw that, even if war between the clans ceased, the existence of
these monasteries would jeopard the national peace. He resolved to
destroy them.
In the Ninth month, 1571, says the Nihon Guai Shi, he encamped at
Sta, and ordered his generals to set Hiyeizan on re. The generals,
surprised at the order, lost countenance, and exhorted him not to do it,
saying, Since Kuammu Tenn [782806] built this monastery, nearly
a thousand years ago, it has been esteemed the most vigilant against
the devil. No one has yet dared to injure these temples; but now, do
you intend to do so? How can it be possible? To this Nobunaga

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answered: I have put down the thieves against the emperor [kokuzoku, robbers of country]; why do you hinder me thus? I intend to
tranquilize the whole land, and revive the declining power of the
imperial Government. I continually make light of my life for the
mikados sake, and hence I have no rest for a single day. Last year I
subdued Settsu, and both castles were about to be surrendered, when
Yoshikag [Daimi of Echizen] and Nagamasa [Daimi of mi]
attacked my rear, and I was obliged to raise the siege and retrace my
steps. My allowing the priests to remain on this mountain was in
order that I might destroy them. I once dispatched a messenger to
the priests, and set before them happiness and misery. The bonzes
never obeyed my word, but stoutly assisted the wicked fellows, and
so resisted the imperial army [shi, or kuangun]. Does this act not
make them [kokuzoku] country-thieves? If I do not now take them
away, this great trouble will continue forever. Moreover, I have heard
that the priests violate their own rules; they eat sh and stinking
vegetables [the ve odorous plants prohibited by Buddhismcommon
and wild leek, garlic, onions, scallions], keep concubines, and roll up
the sacred books [never untie them to read them or pray]. How can
they be vigilant against evil, or preserve justice? Then surround their
dwellings, burn them down, suer no one to live.
The generals, incited by the speech of their commander, agreed.
On the next day an awful scene of butchery and conagration ensued.
The soldiers set re to the great shrines and temples; and while the
stately edices were in ames, plied sword, lance, and arrow. None
were permitted to escape. Without discrimination of age or sex, the
toothless dotard, abbot, and bonze, maid-servant and concubine and
children, were speared or cut down without mercy. This was the rst
great blow at Buddhism.
In 1579, the two great sects of Nichiren and Jdo held a great
discussion upon religious subjects, which reached such a point of

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269

acrimony that the attention of the Government was called to it, and it
was continued and nished before Nobunaga, at his castle at Azuchi
yama, on the lands of which he had already allowed the Jesuits to
build churches. A book called Azuchi Ron, still extant, contains the
substance of the argument on both sides. One result of the wordy
contest was the suppression of a sub-sect of Jdo, whose doctrines
were thought to be dangerous to the State.
The immense fortied temple and monastery called Honguanji,
in zaka, was the property of the Monto, or Shin sect of Buddhists,
and the retreat and hiding-place of Nobunagas enemies. The bonzes
themselves were his most bitter haters, because he had so encouraged
the Jesuits. They had taken the side of his enemies for over twelve
years. At last, when some of his best captains had been killed by grassrebels, or ambuscaders, who ed into the monastery, he laid siege to it
in earnest, with the intention of serving the inmates as he did those of
Hiyeizan. Within the enceinte, crowded in ve connecting fortresses,
were thousands of women and children, besides the warriors and
priests. Another frightful massacre seemed imminent. The place was
so surrounded that every attempt of the garrison to escape was cut o.
On an intensely dark night, under cover of a storm then raging, several
thousands of the people, of all sexes and ages, attempted to escape
from one of the forts. They were overtaken and slaughtered. The main
garrison shortly afterward learned the fate of their late comrades by
seeing a junk, dispatched by the victors, laden with human ears and
noses, approach the castle with its hideous cargo. Another outpost of
the castle was surrendered. In the second month of the siege, a sortie
in force was repelled by showers of arrows and matchlock balls; but,
in the ghting, Nobunagas best ocers were slain. The besieging
army nally occupied three of the ve in the net-work of fortresses.
Thousands (twenty thousand) of the garrison had been killed by
arrow and ball, or had perished in the ames, and the horrible stench

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of burning esh lled the air for miles. The fate of the main body
within the walls was soon to be decided.
The mikado, grieving over the shedding of so much blood, sent
three court nobles and a priest of another sect to persuade the garrison to yield. A conference of the abbot and elders was called, and
a surrender decided upon. The castle was turned over to Nobunaga,
and from that day until the present has remained in the hands of the
Government. Pardon was granted to the survivors, and the bonzes
scattered to the other large monasteries of their sect. To this day, the
great sects in Japan have never fully recovered from the blows dealt
by Nobunaga. Subsequently, rulers were obliged to lay violent hands
upon the strongholds of ecclesiastical power that threatened so frequently to disturb the peace of the country; but they were able to do
it with comparative ease, because Nobunaga had begun the work with
such unscrupulous vigor and thoroughness.

XXIV

Hidyoshis EnterprisesThe Invasion of Corea

here are hundreds of mura, or villages, in Japan, called Nakamura

(naka, middle; mura, village), for the same reason that there are
many Middletowns in English-speaking countries, but none of them
claim to be the birthplace of Hidyoshi except that in the district of
Aichi, in Owari. There, in 1536, lived a peasant called Yasuk, whose
wife bore a wizen-faced, pithecoid baby, who grew up to be a cunning and reckless boy. Instead of going out to the hill-sides, grasshook in hand and basket on back, to cut green fodder for horses, or
standing knee-deep in the mud-pulp of the rice-elds weeding the
young plants, returning at night, with hoe on shoulder, he lived on
the streets, and sharpened his wits, afraid of no one. While a mere
boy, he became a bett, or groom, to Nobunaga, who noticed the
boys monkey face and restless eyes, and encouraged him to become
a soldier, which he did.
The number and variety of names possessed by him in his life-time
illustrate well the confusing custom in vogue among the Japanese of
frequently changing their names. The reader of the native literature or of
foreign works of Japan is perplexed, among the multitude of names and
titles, to distinguish the personage to whom they belong. When there
are many actors in the scene, and each is known by a half-dozen aliases,
confusion becomes confounded, and the patience is sorely taxed.
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In this work I designate one person by one name, although apparent

anachronisms must thereby be committed, and the eyes of the scholar
be often annoyed. It has, until recently, in Japan been the custom for
every samurai to be named dierently in babyhood, boyhood, manhood, or promotion, change of life or residence, in commemoration
of certain events, or on account of a vow, or from mere whim. Thus,
at his birth, Hidyoshis mother having, as it is said, dreamed that
she had conceived by the sun, called him Hiyoshi mar (good sun).
Others dubbed him Ko chiku (small boy), and afterward Saru matsu
(monkey-pine). As a soldier, he enlisted as Kinoshita Tokichiro, the
rst being an assumed name. As he grew famous, he was nicknamed
Momen Tokichi (Cotton Tokichi). When a general, from a mere
whim, he made himself a name by uniting two syllables, ha and shiba,
making Hashiba, from the names of two of his generals, Ni-wa or ha,
and Shibata, which the Jesuits wrote, as the Portuguese orthography
required, Faxiba.
When, in 1586, he attained the rank of Kuambaku (Cambaku
dono of the Jesuits), or premier, his enemies, who were jealous of the
parvenu, spoke of him as Saru Kuan ja, or crowned monkey. How he
obtained this high oce, even with all the limitless store of cunning
impudence and egotism, is not known, for no one except nobles of
Fujiwara blood had ever lled that oce, it being reserved exclusively
for members of that family. He obtained from the emperor the patent of a family name, and he and his successors are known in history
as the Toyotomi family, he being Toyotomi Hidyoshi. In 1591 he
resigned his high oce, and was succeeded by his son. Hence he
took the title of taik, and the people referred to him as Taik sama,
just as they put the term sama (Mr., or Sir, Honorable, etc.) after the
titles of emperor, shgun, other titled ocials, or after the name of
any person. Japanese address foreigners as Smith sama, or Smith
san, or an infant as baby san, instead of Mr. Smith, the baby,

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etc. The term sama ful lls, in a measure, the function of the denite
article or demonstrative pronoun, or serves as a social handle. Hence,
in foreign works, Hidyoshi, the taik; or that one of the many taik,
called Hidyoshi, is referred to as Taik sama.
Hidyoshi was a man of war from his youth up. His abilities and
soldierly qualities made him a favorite commander. His banner consisted of a cluster of gourds. At rst it was a single gourd. After each
battle another was added, until at last it became an imposing sheaf.
The standard-bearer carried aloft at the head of the columns a golden
representation of the original model, and wherever Hidyoshis banner
moved there was the centre of victory.
At the death of Nobunaga, the situation was as follows: His third
son, Nobutaka, was ruler over Shikoku; Shimadzu (Satsuma) was
ghting with tomo, and seizing his land in Kiushiu. Hidyoshi
and Nobuwo, second son of Nobunaga, with the imperial army, were
ghting with Mri, Prince of Chshiu, who held ten provinces in
the West. Iyeyasu, ruler of eight provinces in the Kuant, was in the
eld against Hj of Odawara. Shibata held Echizen. Hidyoshi and
Iyyasu were the rising men, but the former attained rst to highest
power. Immediately on hearing of Nobunagas death, Hidyoshi made
terms with Mri, hastened to Kito, and defeated and slew Akchi.
The fate of this assassin has given rise to the native proverb, Akchi
ruled three days. His name and power were now paramount. The
prizes of rank were before him, for the mikado and court could not
oppose his wishes. Of his masters sons, one had died, leaving an
infant; the second son was assisted by Iyyasu, with whom Hidyoshi
had made a compromise; the third, Nobutaka, was weak, and endeavored, seconded by his chief captain, Shibata, who had married the
sister of Nobunaga, to maintain his rights. Hidyoshi marched into
Mino, defeated him, pursued Shibata into Echizen, and, after several skirmishes, burned his castle. The account of this, as given by

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the Jesuits, is as follows: Among the confederates of Nobutaka was

one Shibata dono, brother-in-law to Nobunaga. He was besieged in
the fortress of Shibata [in what is now Fukui]; and seeing no way
of escape, he, having dined with his friends wife and children and
retainers, set re to his castle, rst killing his wife, his children, and
the female servants; and his friends, following his example, afterward
committed suicide, and lay there wallowing in their blood, till the re
kindled, and burned them to ashes.
My residence in Fukui, during the year 1871, was immediately on
the site of part of Shibatas old castle. His tomb stands under some
venerable old pine-trees some distance from the city. When I visited
it, the old priest who keeps the temple, since erected, brought out
several old boxes carefully labeled, and reverently opened them. One
contained the rusty breastplate and other portions of Shibatas armor,
picked up after the re. Other relics saved from the ashes were shown
me. The story, as it fell from the old bonzes lips, and was translated by
my interpreter, is substantially that given by the native historians.
Having ed, after many defeats, he reached the place now called
Fukui. Hidyoshi, in hot pursuit, xed his camp on Atagoyama, a
mountain which overlooks the city, and began the siege, which he
daily pressed closer and closer. Being hopelessly surrounded, and succor hopeless, Shibata, like a true Epicurean, gave a grand feast to all
his captains and retainers, in anticipation of the morrow of death. All
within the doomed walls eat, drank, sung, danced and made merry,
for the morrow was not to see them in this world. At the height of the
banquet, Shibata, quang the parting cup before death, addressed his
wife thus: You may go out of the castle and save your life. You are
a woman; but we are men, and will die. You are at liberty to marry
another. His wife, the sister of Nobunaga, with a spirit equal to his,
was moved to tears, thanked her lord for his love and kindness, and
declared she would never marry another, but would die with her

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husband. She then composed a farewell stanza of poetry, and, with

a soul no less brave because it was a womans, received her husbands
dirk into her heart.
Like true Stoics, Shibata and his companions put all the women
and children to the death they welcomed, and for which they gave
thanks; and then, with due decorum and ceremony, opening their
own bodies by hara-kiri, they died as brave Japanese ever love to die,
by their own hands, and not by those of an enemy.
Hidyoshi, on his return to Kito, began a career of usefulness,
developing the resources of the empire and strengthening the power
of the emperor. Knowing it was necessary to keep his captains and
soldiers busy in time of inaction, and having a genius for the works of
peace as well as war, he built splendid palaces at Kito, improved the
city, and paved the bed of the river Kamo with broad, at stones. He
laid the foundations of the future commercial greatness of zaka by
enlarging the site of the monastery destroyed by Nobunaga, building
the immense fortress, only part of which still remains, the pride of the
city, enlarged and deepened the river, and dug many of the hundreds
of canals which give this city whatever right it may have to be called
the Venice of Japan. It had, when I saw it in 1871, over eleven hundred
bridges, one of them of iron. He fortied Fushimi, the strategic key of
Kito, with a triple-moated castle, erected colossal towers and pagodas in many places. He sequestrated the ourishing commercial port
of Nagasaki from the Daimi of mura, and made it the property of
the crown. Neither Dshima nor Pappenberg was then historic; but
the lovely scenery was as much the subject of admiration as it is now.
His policy was to forgive those who had fought against him, and not
to put them to death, as Nobunaga had done, who, in the course of
his life, had killed his brother, father-in-law, and many of his enemies.
He reformed the revenues. His rule was highly popular, for, in his
execution of justice, he cared little for rank, name, or family line, or

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services done to himself. He was successful in inducing Iyyasu, after

the latter had secured the taiks mother as hostage, to come to Kito
and pay homage to the emperor; and the two rivals becoming friends,
Iyyasu married the taiks sister. Mri, lord of the Western provinces,
also came to the capital, and acknowledged him as his superior.
Among his other works, Hidyoshi followed out the policy of
Nobunaga, destroyed the great monastery at Kumano, the bonzes
of which claimed the province of Kii. He was never made shgun,
not being of Minamoto blood; but having become Kuambaku, and
being surrounded by nobles of high birth and the lofty etiquette of
the court, he felt the need of a pedigree. No one at court knew who
his grand-father was, if, indeed, he was aware himself. He made out
that his mother was the daughter of a kug, who, in the disturbed
times of Ashikaga, had ed from Kito, and, while in poverty and
great distress, had married his father, but had conceived him before
her marriage.
In his youth he had wedded a peasant girl; but as he rose step by
step to eminence, he kept on marrying until he had a number equal
to that of the polygamous English king, Henry VIII; but, unlike
that monarch, he enjoyed them all at once, and caused none of them
to lose her head. The last two of his spouses were, respectively, a
daughter of the house of Mada, of the rich province of Kaga, and the
Princess Azai, from mi, daughter of the wife of Shibata Katsuiy,
whom the Jesuits, under the name of Kita Mandocoro, say was the
rst wife of the taik, sweetest and best beloved. He had no son
until in old age.
The immoderate ambition of Hidyoshis life was to conquer Corea,
and even China. It had been his dream when a boy, and his plan when
a man. When under Nobunaga, he had begged of him the revenue of
Kiushiu for one year and weapons, while he himself would provide
the ships and provisions, oering to subdue Corea, and with an army

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of Coreans to conquer China, and thus make the three countries one.
His master laughed, but he kept thinking of it. When in the Kuant,
he visited Kamakura, and saw an image of Yoritomo, such as one may
still see in the temple of Tsurugaka. Rubbing and patting its back,
the parvenu thus addressed the illustrious egy: You are my friend.
You took all the power under Heaven (in Japan). You and I, only, have
been able to do this; but you were of a famous family, and not like me,
sprung from peasants. I intend, at last, to conquer all the earth, and
even China. What think you of that? Hidyoshi used to say, The
earth is the earths eartha doctrine which led him to respect very
slightly the claim of any one to land which he coveted, and had won
by his own eorts.
Under the declining power of Ashikaga, all tribute from Corea
had ceased and the pirates who ranged the coasts scarcely allowed a
precarious trade to exist. The S family, who held Tsushima, however,
had a small settlement in Corea. Some Chinese, emigrating to Japan,
told Hidyoshi of the military disorganization and anarchy in China,
which increased his desire to peep into China. He then sent two
embassies in succession to Corea to demand tribute. The second was
successful. He also sent word to the Emperor of China by some Liu
Kiu tribute-bearers that if he (the Emperor of China) would not hear
him, he would invade his territory with an army. To the Corean envoy
he recounted his exploits, and announced his intentions denitely.
Several embassies crossed and recrossed the sea between Corea and
Japan, Hidyoshi meanwhile awaiting his best opportunity, as the dispatch of the expedition depended almost entirely on his own will. His
wife, Azai, had borne him a child, whom he loved dearly, but it died,
and he mourned for it many months. One day he went out to a temple,
Kiyomidzu, in Kito, to beguile the sad hours. Lost in thought, in
looking over the western sky beyond the mountains, he suddenly
exclaimed to his attendant, A great man ought to employ his army

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beyond ten thousand miles, and not give way to sorrow. Returning
to his house, he assembled his generals, and red their enthusiasm
by recounting their exploits mutually achieved. He then promised to
march to Peking, and divide the soil of China in efs among them.
They unanimously agreed, and departed to the various provinces to
prepare troops and material. Hideyoshi himself went to Kiushiu.
On his way, some one suggested that scholars versed in Chinese
should accompany the expedition. Hideyoshi laughed, and said, This
expedition will make the Chinese use our literature. After worshiping at a shrine, he threw up a handful of one hundred cash in front
of the shrine, and said, If I am to conquer China, let the heads show
it, The Japanese copper and iron zeni, or kas, have Chinese characters
representing the chronological period of coinage on one side, and
waves representing their circulation as money on the reverse. The
lettered side is head, the reverse is tail. All the coins which the
taik ung up came down heads. The soldiers were delighted with
the omen. Maps of Corea were distributed among the commanders
of the eight divisions, and the plan of the expedition and their cooperation explained.
Kato Kiyomasa, who hated the Christians, and who afterward
became their bitterest persecutor, was commander of the rst; and
Konishi Yukinaga, the Christian leader, and a great favorite of the
Jesuits, of the second. These divisions were alternately to lead the van.
The naval and military force that embarked is set down in the Guai Shi
at ve hundred thousand men. A reserve of sixty thousand was kept
ready in Japan as re-enforcements. Many of the generals, captains, and
private soldiers were of the Christian faith. Kato despised Konishi,
and they were not friends. The latter was the son of a druggist, and
persisted, to the disgust of the high-born Kato, in carrying a banner
representing a paper medicine-bag, such as can be seen swinging in

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front of a native drug-shop to-day. He probably took his cue from the
august parvenu, the taik.
Hidyoshi expected to lead the army himself; but being sixty years
old, and inrm, and his aged mother sorrowing so that she could not
eat on account of it, he remained behind. He gave Kato ag, saying,
This was given me by Ota [Nobunaga] when I marched against Mri
[Chshiu]. To Konishi he presented a ne horse, saying, With this
gallop over the bearded savages [Coreans]. All being ready, the eet
set sail amidst the shouts of the army and the thunder of cannon on
the shore. Hidyoshi had attempted to buy or charter two Portuguese
ships, but was unsuccessful, and the eet consisted of large junks.
They were detained o Iki Island by stormy weather. As soon as it
was calm, Konishi, well acquainted with the route, sailed away with
his division, arrived at Fusan, in Southern Corea, rst, and seized the
castle. Without allowing his troops to rest, he urged them on to other
triumphs, that the glory might be theirs alone, and not be shared by
the other troops, who would soon arrive. Another large castle was
stormed, several towns captured, and brilliant victories won. Th ree
days later, Kato arrived, and heard, to his chagrin, of his rivals advance
into the interior. He exclaimed, The boy has taken my route; I shall
not follow in his tracks. He then burned the town, which Konishi had
spared, and advanced into the country by another way.
Corea was divided into eight circuits, and the taiks plan had
been for each corps of the army to conquer a circuit. The Corean
king appointed a commander-in-chief, and endeavored to defend his
country, but the Japanese armies were everywhere victorious. After
many battles fought, and fortresses stormed, nearly all the provinces of
the eight circuits were subdued, and the capital, Kenkitai, was taken.
The king and his son ed. At one great battle, ten thousand Coreans
are said to have been killed, and their ears cut o and preserved in salt

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or sak. The forts were garrisoned by Japanese troops. The Coreans

asked the aid of China, and a Chinese army of assistance was sent
forward, and after several severe battles the Japanese were compelled
to fall back. Reserves from Japan were dispatched to Corea, and the
Japanese were on the point of invading China, when, in 1598, the
death of the taik was announced, and orders were received from their
Government to return home. A truce was concluded, and Corean
envoys accompanied Konishi to Japan.
The conquest of Corea, thus ingloriously terminated, reects no
honor on Japan, and perhaps the responsibility of the outrage upon
a peaceful nation rests wholly upon Hidyoshi. The Coreans were a
mild and peaceable people, wholly unprepared for war. There was
scarcely a shadow of provocation for the invasion which was nothing less than a huge libustering scheme. It was not popular with
the people or the rulers, and was only carried through by the will
of the taiko. While Japan was impoverished by the great drain on
its resources, the soldiers abroad ruthlessly desolated the homes and
needlessly ravaged the land of the Coreans. While the Japanese were
destroying the liberties of the Coreans, the poor natives at home often
pawned or sold themselves as slaves to the Spaniards and Portuguese
slave-traders. The sacrice of life on either side must have been great,
and all for the ambition of one man. Nevertheless, a party in Japan has
long held that Corea was, by the conquests of the third and sixteenth
centuries, a part of the Japanese empire, and the reader will see how
in 1872, and again in 1875, the cry of On to Corea! shook the nation
like an earthquake.
The taik died on the 15th of September, 1598. Before his death, he
settled the form of government, and married his son Hidyori, then
six years old, to the granddaughter of Iyyasu, and appointed ve tair,
or ministers, who were to be guardians of the boy, and to acknowledge
him as his fathers successor. As Iyyasu was the rising man, the taik

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hoped thus to gain his inuence, so that the power might descend in
his own family. The last thoughts of the hero were of strengthening the
citadel at zaka. The old hero was buried in the grounds of Kodaiji,
in Kito.
The victorious army, returning from Corea, brought much spoil,
and ne timber to build a memorial temple to the memory of the
dead hero. Among other trophies were several thousands of ears,
which, instead of heads, the Japanese carried back to raise a barrow
in Kito. The temple was erected on a hill on the west side of Kito
by his wife, who, after the death of her husband, became a nun. Th is
splendid edice was afterward burned, and the site of the taiks
remains is uncertain.
In the city still stands the Mimidzuka (ear-tomb), a monument of
characteristic appearance. It consists of a cube, sphere, and pagodacurve, surmounted by two spheroids, the top-stone rising to a point.
The mound is seven hundred and twenty feet in circumference, and
ninety feet in height; the pedestal at the top being twelve feet square,
and the monument twelve feet high. As usual on Buddhist tombs
or ecclesiastical edices, a Sanskrit letter is carved on each side of
the four faces of the cube. Beneath this tomb is a barrow, covering
the dissevered ears of thousands of Coreans; but the most enduring
monuments of the great taik were the political institutions, and the
works of peace reared by his genius and labor.
It is not dicult to account for the tone of admiration and pride
with which a modern Japanese speaks of the age of Taik. There are
many who hold that he was the real unier of the empire, and that
Iyyasu merely followed in his footsteps, perfecting the work which
Hidyoshi began. Certain it is that in many of the most striking forms
of national administration, and notably in bestowing upon his vassals
grants of land, and making the conditions of tenure loyalty to himself
and family, Iyyasu was but the copyist of the taik. In his time, the

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arts and sciences were not only in a very ourishing condition, but
gave promise of rich development. The spirit of military enterprise
and internal national improvement was at its height. Contact with the
foreigners of many nations awoke a spirit of inquiry and intellectual
activity; but it was on the seas that genius and restless activity found
their most congenial eld.
This era is marked by the highest perfection in marine architecture,
and the extent and variety of commercial enterprises. The ships built
in this century were twice or thrice the size, and vastly the superior in
model, of the junks that now hug the Japanese shores, or ply between
China and Japan. The pictures of them preserved to the present day
show that they were superior in size to the vessels of Columbus,
and nearly equal in sailing qualities to the contemporary Dutch and
Portuguese galleons. They were provided with ordnance, and a model
of a Japanese breech-loading cannon is still preserved in Kito. Ever
a brave and adventurous people, the Japanese then roamed the seas
with a freedom that one who knows only of the modern shore-bound
people would scarcely credit. Voyages of trade, discovery, or piracy
had been made to India, Siam, Burmah, the Philippines, Southern
China, the Malay Archipelago, and the Kuriles, on the north, even
in the fteenth century, but were most numerous in the sixteenth.
The Japanese gave the name to the island of Roson (Luzon), and
the descendants of Japanese pirates or traders are still to be found in
numbers in this archipelago. In the city of Ayuthaya, on the Menam,
in Siam, a ourishing sea-port, the people call one part of the place
the Japanese quarter. The Japanese literature contains many references to these adventurous sailors; and when the records of the Far
East are thoroughly investigated, and this subject fully studied, very
interesting results will be obtained, showing the wide-spread inuence of Japan at a time when she was scarcely known by the European
world to have existence.

XXV

Christianity and Foreigners*

t seems now nearly certain that when Columbus set sail from Spain
to discover a new continent, it was not America he was seeking;
for of that he knew nothing. His quest was the land of Japan. Marco
Polo, the Venetian traveler, had spent seventeen years (12751292) at
the court of the Tartar emperor, Kublai Khan, and while in Peking
had heard of a land lying to the eastward called, in the language of
the Chinese capital, Jipangu, from which our modern name, Japan,
has been corrupted. Columbus was an ardent student of Polos book,
which had been published in 1298. He sailed westward across the
Atlantic to nd this kingdom of the sun-source. He discovered, not
Japan, but an archipelago in America, on whose shores he eagerly
inquired concerning Jipangu. The torch of modern discovery thus
kindled by him was handed on by Vasco da Gama, and a host of brave
Portuguese navigators, who drove their keels into the once unknown
seas of the Orient, and came back to tell of densely populated empires
* In compiling this chapter, I have made use of Hildreths Japan as it Was
and Is; Lon Pags Histoire de la Religion Chrtienne au Japon; Charlevoixs
Histoire du Christianismeau Japon; Dixons Japan; Shimabara: A Japanese Account
of the Christian Insurrection in 1637; the Japanese Encyclopdia, San Sai Dzu
Y; and the able paper of Herr Von Brandt (Minister of the North German
Confederation in Japan) read before the German Asiatic Society of Japan.

283

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enriched with the wealth that makes civilization possible, and of

which Europe had scarcely heard. Their accounts red the hearts of
the zealous who longed to convert the heathen, aroused the cupidity
of traders who thirsted for gold, and kindled the desire of monarchs
to found empires in Asia.
As the Spaniards had founded an empire in America, Portugal
was then nearing the zenith of her maritime glory. Mendez Pinto, a
Portuguese adventurer, seems to have been the rst European who
landed on Japanese soil. On his return to Europe, he told so many
wonderful stories that he was dubbed, by a pun on his Christian
name, the mendacious. His narrative was, however, as we now
know, substantially correct. Pinto, while in China, had got on board a
Chinese junk, commanded by a pirate. They were attacked by another
corsair, their pilot was killed, and the vessel was driven o the coast
by a storm. They made for the Liu Kiu Islands; but, unable to nd a
harbor, put to sea, and after twenty-three days beating about, sighted
the island of Tan (Tangashima, island of the seed), o the south of
Kiushiu, and landed. The name of the island was signicant. The
arrival of those foreigners was the seed of troubles innumerable.
The crop was priestcraft of the worst type, political intrigue, religious persecution, the Inquisition, the slave-trade, the propagation
of Christianity by the sword, sedition, rebellion, and civil war. Its
harvest was garnered in the blood of sixty thousand Japanese.
The native histories recount the first arrival of Europeans on
Tangashima in 1542, and note that year as the one in which re-arms
were rst introduced. Pinto and his two companions were armed with
arquebuses, which delighted this people, ever ready to accept whatever
will tend to their advantage. They were even more impressed with the
novel weapons than by the strangers. Pinto was invited by the Daimi
of Bungo to visit him, which he did. The natives began immediately
to make guns and powder, the secret of which was taught them by

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their visitors. In a few years, as we know from Japanese history, rearms came into general use. To this day many country people call
them Tangashima. Thus, in the beginning, hand-in-hand came
foreigners, Christianity, and re-arms. To many a native they are still
each and equal members of a trinity of terrors, and one is a synonym
of the other. Christianity to most of the heathen still means big
guns and powder.
In those days commerce and piracy, war and religion, were closely
united; and the sword and the cross were twin weapons, like the
cimeter and the Koran of the Turks, by which the pious robbers of the
most Christian empires of Spain and Portugal went forth to conquer
weak nations.
The pirate-trader who brought Pinto to Japan cleared twelve
hundred percent on his cargo, and the three Portuguese returned,
loaded with presents, to China. Th is new market attracted hundreds
of Portuguese adventurers to Japan, who found a ready welcome at the
hands of the impressible people. The daimis vied with each other in
attracting the foreigners to their shores, their object being to obtain
the weapons, and get the wealth which would increase their power,
as the authority of the Ashikaga shguns had before this time been
cast o, and each chief was striving for local supremacy.
The missionary followed the merchant. Already the Portuguese
priests and Franciscan friars were numerous in India and the straits.
A native of Satsuma named Anjir, who, having killed a man, had
ed to Pintos boat, and was carried o by him, after the long sufferings of remorse reached Goa, becoming a convert to Christianity.
Learning to read and write Portuguese, and having mastered the
whole Christian doctrine, he became Xaviers interpreter. To the
question whether the Japanese would be likely to accept Christianity,
Anjir answeredin words that seem fresh, pertinent, and to have
been uttered but yesterday, so true are they stillthat his people

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would not immediately assent to what might be said to them, but

they would investigate what I might a rm respecting religion by
a multitude of questions, and, above all, by observing whether my
conduct agreed with my words. Th is done, the king (daimi), the
nobility, and adult population would ock to Christ, being a nation
which always follows reason as a guide. The words are recorded by
Xavier himself.
In 1549, the party of two Jesuits and two Japanese landed at
Kagoshima, in Satsuma. Xavier, after studying the rudiments of the
language, beyond which he never advanced, and making diligent
use of the pictures of the Virgin and Child, soon left the capital of
this war-like clan, for the city had not been favored with the commerce of the Portuguese; and, as the missionaries had not come to
improve the material resources of the province, they were not warmly
welcomed. He then went to Bungo and Nagato. Besides having an
interpreter, though unable to preach, he used to read the Gospel of
Matthew translated by Anjir into Japanese, and Romanized. Though
unable to understand much of it, he read it in public with great eect.
There trade was ourishing and enriching the daimis, and he was
warmly received by them. His next step was a journey to Kito. There,
instead of the extraordinary richness of the sovereigns palace, which
he had expected to see plated with gold on the roofs and ceilings,
with tables of the same metal, and all the other wonders as related
by Marco Polo, he found it but a city which wars and res had rendered desolate, and almost uninhabitable, except as a camp. Here he
employed the policy of austerity and poverty, his appearance being
that of a beggar, though later he used wealth and great display in his
ministrations, with marked eect. The mikados (dairi) authority, he
found, was merely nominal; the shogun, Ashikaga Yoshitru, ruled
only over a few provinces around the capital. Every ones thoughts
were of war, and battle was imminent. The very idea of an interview

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with the mikado was an absurdity, and one with the Kub sama (shgun) an impossibility, his temporary poverty not permitting him to
make a present eectively large enough for the latter, and rendering
him contemptible in the eyes of the people. He attempted to preach
several times in the streets, but, not being master of the language,
failed to secure attention, and after two weeks left the city disgusted.
Not long after, having turned his attention to the furtherance of
trade and diplomacy, he departed from Japan, disheartened by the
realities of missionary work. He had, however, inspired others, who
followed him, and their success was amazingly great. Within ve
years after Xavier visited Kito, seven churches were established in
the vicinity of the city itself, while scores of Christian communities
had sprung up in the south-west. In 1581, there were two hundred
churches, and one hundred and fty thousand native Christians. In
Bungo, where Xavier won his way by costly gifts, as he did in Suwo
by diplomacy; in Harima and mura, the daimis themselves had
professed the new faith, while Nobunaga, the hater of the Buddhists,
openly favored the Christians, and gave them eligible sites upon which
to build dwellings and churches. Ready to use any weapons against
the bonzes, Nobunaga hoped to use the foreigners as a counterpoise
to their arrogance.
In 1583, an embassy of four young noblemen was dispatched by
the Christian daimis of Kiushiu to the pope, to declare themselves
vassals of the Holy See. Eight years afterward, having had audience
of Philip II of Spain, and kissed the feet of the pope at Rome, they
returned, bringing with them seventeen Jesuit missionariesan
important addition to the many Portuguese religious of that order
already in Japan. Spanish mendicant friars from the Philippine
Islands, with Dominicans and Augustans, also ocked into the country, preaching and zealously proselyting. The number of Christians
at the time of the highest success of the missionaries in Japan was,

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according to their own gures, six hundred thousanda number

which I believe is no exaggeration, the quantity, not quality, being
considered. The Japanese, less accurately, set down a total of two
million nominal adherents to the Christian sects, large numerical
statements in Japanese books being untrustworthy, and often worthless. Among their converts were several princes, and large numbers of
lords and gentlemen in high ocial position, generals and captains in
the army, and the admiral and ocers of the Japanese eets. Several
of the ladies of the households of Hidyoshi, Hidyori, and Iyyasu,
besides inuential women of noble blood in many provinces whose
rulers were not Christians, added to their power, while at the seat of
government the chief interpreter was a Jesuit father. Churches, chapels, and residences of the fathers were numbered by thousands, and
in some provinces crosses and Christian shrines were as numerous
as the kindred evidences of Buddhism had been before. The fathers
and friars had traveled or preached from one end of the western
half of Hondo to the other; northward in Echizen, Kaga, Echigo,
and shiu, and in the provinces of the Tkaid. They had also one
church in Yedo.
The causes of this astonishingly rapid success of the Jesuits are to be
sought in the mental soil which the missionaries found ready prepared
for their seed. It was in the later days of the Ashikaga, when Xavier
arrived in Japan. Centuries of misrule and anarchy had reduced the
people, on whom the burdens of war fell, to the lowest depths of poverty and misery. The native religions then aorded little comfort or
consolation to their adherents. Shint had sunk to a myth almost utterly
unknown to the people, and so overshadowed by Buddhism that only a
few scholars knew its origin. Buddhism, having lost its vitalizing power,
had degenerated into a commercial system of prayers and masses, in
which salvation could be purchased only by the merit, of the deeds and
prayers of the priests. Nevertheless, its material and outward splendor

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were never greater. Gorgeous vestments, blazing lights, imposing processions, altars of dazzling magnicence, and a sensuous worship captivated
the minds of the people, while indulgences were sold, and saints days
and holidays and festivals were multiplied.
The Japanese are an intensely imaginative people; and whatever
appeals to the sthetics of sense, or res the imagination, leads the
masses captive at the will of their religious leaders. The priests of Rome
came with cruci xes in their hands, eloquence on their lips, and with
rich dresses, impressive ceremonies, processions, and mysteries outdazzled the scenic display of the Buddhists. They brought pictures,
gilt crosses, and images, and erected gorgeous altars, which they used
as illuminated texts for their sermons. They preached the doctrine
of an immediate entrance into paradise after death to all believers,
a doctrine which thrilled their hearers to an uncontrollable pitch of
enthusiasm. Buddhism promises rest in heaven only after many transformations, births, and the repeated miseries of life and death, the very
thought of which wearies the soul. The story of the Cross, made vivid
by fervid eloquence, tears and harrowing pictures and colored images,
which bridged the gulf of remoteness, and made the act of Calvary
near and intensely real, melted the hearts of the impressible natives.
Furthermore, the transition from the religion of India to that of Rome
was extremely easy. The very idols of Buddha served, after a little
alteration with the chisel, for images of Christ. The Buddhist saints
were easily transformed into the Twelve Apostles. The Cross took the
place of the torii. It was emblazoned on the helmets and banners of
the warriors, and embroidered on their breasts. The Japanese soldiers
went forth to battle like Christian crusaders. In the roadside shrine
Kuanon, the Goddess of Mercy, made way for the Virgin, the mother
of God. Buddhism was beaten with its own weapons. Its own artillery
was turned against it. Nearly all the Christian churches were native
temples, sprinkled and puried. The same bell, whose boom had so

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often quivered the air announcing the orisons and matins of paganism, was again blessed and sprinkled, and called the same hearers to
mass and confession; the same lavatory that fronted the temple served
for holy-water or baptismal font; the same censer that swung before
Amida could be re lled to waft Christian incense; the new convert
could use unchanged his old beads, bells, candles, incense, and all the
paraphernalia of his old faith in celebration of the new.
Almost every thing that is distinctive in the Roman form of
Christianity is to be found in Buddhism: images, pictures, lights,
altars, incense, vestments, masses, beads, wayside shrines, monasteries,
nunneries, celibacy, fastings, vigils, retreats, pilgrimages, mendicant
vows, shorn heads, orders, habits, uniforms, nuns, convents, purgatory,
saintly and priestly intercession, indulgences, works of supererogation,
pope, archbishops, abbots, abbesses, monks, neophytes, relics and
relic-worship, exclusive burial-ground, etc., etc., etc.
The methods which the foreign priests employed to propagate the
new faith were not such as commend themselves to a candid mind.
The rst act of propagation was an act of Mariolatry. They brought
with them the spirit of the Inquisition, then in full blast in Spain and
Portugal, which they had used there for the reclamation of native
and Dutch heretics. In Japan they began to attack most violently the
character of the native bonzes, and to incite their converts to insult
the gods, destroy the idols, and burn or desecrate the old shrines.
They made plentiful use of the gold furnished liberally by the kings
of Portugal and Spain, under the name of alms. In two years and a
half Xavier received one thousand doubloons (fteen thousand dollars) for the support of his mission. Th is abundance of the foreign
precious metal was noticed especially by the native rulers. In Kiushiu
the daimis themselves became Christians, and they compelled their
subjects to embrace their religion. The people of whole districts of
country were ordered to become Christians, or to leave their land

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and the homes of their fathers, and go into banishment. The bonzes
were exiled or killed; and re and sword, as well as preaching, were
employed as instruments of conversion. Furthermore, ctitious miracles were frequently got up to utilize the credulity of the superstitious
in furthering the spread of the faith, glowing accounts of which may
be found in Lon Pags Histoire de la R. C. Not only do the native
Japanese writers record these things as simple matter of fact, but
the letters of the Jesuits themselves, and the books written by them,
teem with instances of ferocious cruelty and pious fraud wrought in
their behalf, or at their instigation. The following passages from the
Jesuit Charlevoixs Histoire du Christianisme au Japon are translated
by Dr. Walter Dixon in his Japan: Sumitanda, King of mura, who
had become a Christian in 1562, declared open war against the devils
[bonzes]. He dispatched some squadrons through his kingdom to ruin
all the idols and temples without any regard to the bonzes rage. . . .
In 1577, the lord of the island of Amacusa [Amakusa] issued his proclamation, by which his subjectswhether bonzes or gentlemen,
merchants or tradesmenwere 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. God wrought miracles to con rm
the faithful in their belief. The Daimi of Takatsuki, Settsu, labored
with a zeal truly apostolic to extirpate the idolaters out of his states.
He sent word that they should either receive the faith, or be gone
immediately out of his country, for he would acknowledge none for
his subjects but such as acknowledged the true God. The declaration
obliged them all to accept instruction, which cut out work enough for
all the fathers and missionaries at Meaco [Miako].
The Daimi of Bungo at one time, during war, destroyed a most
prodigious and magnicent temple, with a colossal statue, burning
three thousand monasteries to ashes, and razing the temples to the

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ground. The comment of the Jesuit writer on this is, This ardent zeal
of the prince is an evident instance of his faith and charity. Th is does
not, however, sound like an echo of the song once heard above the
Bethlehem hills, few echoes of which the Japanese have as yet heard.
As the dierent orders, Jesuits, Franciscans, and Augustinians,
increased, they began to trench upon each others parishes. This gave
rise to quarrels, indecent squabbles, and mutual vituperation, at which
the pagans sneered and the bonzes rejoiced. While the friars of these
orders were rigorously excommunicating each other, thinking heathen
were not favorably impressed with the new religion. Christianity
received her sorest wound in the house of her friends.
At this time, also, political and religious war was almost universal
in Europe, and the quarrels of the various nationalities followed the
buccaneers, pirates, traders, and missionaries to the distant seas of
Japan. The Protestant, Dutch, and English stirred up the hatred and
fear of the Japanese against the papists, and nally against each other.
Spaniards and Portuguese blackened the character of the heretics, and
as vigorously abused each other when it served their interest. All of
which impelled the shrewd Japanese to contrive how to use them one
against the other, an art which they still understand. All foreigners,
but especially Portuguese, then were slave-traders, and thousands
of Japanese were bought and sold and shipped to Macao, in China,
and to the Philippines. The long civil wars, and the misery caused by
them, and the expedition to Corea, had so impoverished the people
that slaves became so cheap that even the Malay and negro servants of
the Portuguese, speculated in the bodies of Japanese slaves who were
bought and sold and transported. Hidyoshi repeatedly issued decrees
threatening with death these slave-traders, and even the purchasers.
The sea-ports of Hirado and Nagasaki were the resort of the lowest
class of adventurers from all European nations, and the result was a
continual series of uproars, broils, and murders among the foreigners,

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293

requiring ever and anon the intervention of the native authorities to

keep the peace. To the everlasting honor of some of the Jesuit bishops
and priests be it said, they endeavored to do all they could to prevent
the trac in the bodies of men.
Such a picture of foreign inuence and of Christianity, which is
here drawn in mild colors, as the Japanese saw it, was not calculated
to make a permanently favorable impression on the Japanese mind.
While Nobunaga lived, and the Jesuits basked in his favor, all was
progress and victory. Hidyoshi, though at rst favorable to the new
religion, issued, in 1587, a decree of banishment against the foreign
missionaries. The Jesuits closed their churches and chapels, ceased to
preach in public, but carried on their proselyting work in private as
vigorously as ever, averaging ten thousand converts a year, until 1590.
The Spanish mendicant friars, pouring in from the Philippines, openly
deed the Japanese laws, preaching in their usual garb in public, and
in their intemperate language. Th is aroused Hidyoshis attention,
and his decree of expulsion was renewed. Some of the churches were
burned. In 1596, six Franciscan, three Jesuit, and seventeen Japanese
converts were taken to Nagasaki, and there crucied. Still the Jesuits
resided in the country, giving out to the people that the Spaniards
nourished the political designs against Japan, and that the decrees of
expulsion had been directed against the priests of that nation, and
that the late outburst of persecution was an explosion of zeal on the
part of a few subordinate ocials. Several of the generals of the army
in Corea still openly professed the Christian faith.
When the taik died, aairs seemed to take a more favorable turn,
but only for a few years. The Christians looked to Hidyori for their
friend and quasi-leader. The battle of Skigahara, and the defeat of
Hidyoris following, blew their hopes to the winds; and the ignominious death of Ishida, Konishi, and tani, the Christian generals who
had witnessed a good confession both as warriors and as upholders of

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the faith in Corea and at home, drove their adherents to the verge of
despair. Iyyasu re-adjusted the feudal relations of his vassals in Kiushiu;
and as the taik had also re-arranged the efs, the political status of
the Christians was profoundly altered. The new daimios, carrying the
policy of their predecessors as taught them by the Jesuits, but reversing its direction, began to persecute their Christian subjects, and to
compel them to renounce their faith. The native converts resisted even
to blood and the taking-up of arms. Th is was an entirely new thing
under the Japanese sun. Hitherto the attitude of the peasantry to the
Government had been one of passive obedience and slavish submission.
The idea of armed rebellion among the farmers was something so wholly
new that Iyyasu suspected foreign instigation. Color was given to this
idea by the fact that the foreigners still secretly or openly paid court
to Hidyori, and at the same time freely dispersed gold and gifts, in
addition to religious comfort, to the persecuted. Iyyasu became more
vigilant as his suspicions increased, and, resolving to crush this spirit of
independence and intimidate the foreign emissaries, met every outbreak
with bloody reprisals. In 1606, an edict from Yedo forbade the exercise
of the Christian religion, but an outward show of obedience warded o
active persecution. In 1610, the Spanish friars again aroused the wrath
of the Government by defying its commands, and exhorting the native
converts to do likewise. In 1611, Iyyasu obtained documentary proof
of what he had long suspected, viz., the existence of a plot on the part
of the native converts and the foreign emissaries to reduce Japan to the
position of a subject state. The chief conspirator, kubo, then Governor
of Sado, to which place thousands of Christian exiles had been sent to
work the mines, was to be made hereditary ruler by the foreigners. The
names of the chief native and foreign conspirators were written down,
with the usual seal of blood from the end of the middle nger of the
ringleader. With this paper was found concealed, in an iron box in an
old well, a vast hoard of gold and silver.

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295

Iyyasu now put forth strenuous measures to root out utterly what
he believed to be a pestilent breeder of sedition and war. Fresh edicts
were issued, and in 1614 twenty-two Franciscan, Dominican, and
Augustinian friars, one hundred and seventeen Jesuits, and hundreds
of native priests and catechists, were embarked by force on board junks,
and sent out of the country.
In 1615, Iyyasu pushed matters to an extreme with Hidyori, who
was then entertaining some Jesuit priests; and, calling out the troops
of Kiushiu and the Kuant, laid siege to the castle of zaka. A battle
of unusual ferocity and bloody slaughter raged, on the 9th of June, 1615,
ending in the burning of the citadel, and the total defeat and death of
Hidyori and thousands of his followers. The Jesuit fathers say that
one hundred thousand men perished in this brief war, of which vivid
details are given in the Histoire de la Religion Chrtienne. The Christian
cause was now politically and irretrievably ruined. Hildredth remarks
that Catholicism in Japan received its death-blow in that same year in
which a few Puritan pilgrims landed at Plymouth to plant the obscure
seeds of a new and still growing Protestant empire.
The exiled foreign friars, however, kept secretly returning, apparently desirous of the crown of martyrdom. Hidtada, the shgun,
now pronounced sentence of death against any foreign priest found in
the country. Iymitsu, his successor, restricted all foreign commerce
to Nagasaki and Hirado; all Japanese were forbidden to leave the
country on pain of death; and in 1624 all foreigners, except Dutch
and Chinese, were banished from Japan, and an edict was issued
commanding the destruction of all vessels beyond a certain diminutive size, and restricting the universal model in ship-building to that
of the coasting junk. Fresh persecutions followed, many apostate
lords and gentry now favoring the Government. Fire and sword were
used to extirpate Christianity, and to paganize the same people who
in their youth were Christianized by the same means. Thousands

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of the native converts ed to China, Formosa, and the Philippines.

All over the empire, but especially at zaka and in Kiushiu, the
people were compelled to trample on the cross, or on a copper plate
engraved with the representation of the Christian criminal God.
The Christians suered all sorts of persecutions. They were wrapped
in straw sacks, piled in heaps of living fuel, and set on re. All the
tortures that barbaric hatred or rened cruelty could invent were used
to turn thousands of their fellow-men into carcasses and ashes. Yet
few of the natives quailed, or renounced their faith. They calmly let
the re of wood cleft from the crosses before which they once prayed
consume them, or walked cheerfully to the blood-pit, or were ung
alive into the open grave about to be lled up. Mothers carried their
babes at their bosoms, or their children in their arms to the re, the
sword, or the precipices edge, rather than leave them behind to be
educated in the pagan faith. If any one doubt the sincerity and fervor
of the Christian converts of to-day, or the ability of the Japanese to
accept a higher form of faith, or their willingness to suer for what
they believe, they have but to read the accounts preserved in English,
Dutch, French, Latin, and Japanese, of various witnesses to the fortitude of the Japanese Christians of the seventeenth century. The
annals of the primitive Church furnish no instances of sacrice or
heroic constancy, in the Coliseum or the Roman arenas, that were not
paralleled on the dry river-beds and execution-grounds of Japan.
Finally, in 1637, at Shimabara, the Christians rose by tens of thousands in arms, seized an old castle, repaired and fortied it, and raised
the ag of rebellion. Armies from Kiushiu and the Kuant, composed
mainly of veterans of Corea and zaka, were sent by the shgun to
besiege it. Their commanders expected an easy victory, and sneered
at the idea of having any diculty in subduing these farmers and
peasants. A siege of two months, by land and water, was, however,

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297

necessary to reduce the fortress.* Thousands of the rebels, were hurled

from the rock of Pappenburg, or were banished to various provinces,
or put to death by torture. Others escaped, and ed to the island of
Formosa, joining their brethren already there. The edicts prohibiting
the evil sect were now promulgated and published permanently all
over the empire, and new ones commanded that, as long as the sun
should shine, no foreigners should enter Japan, or natives leave it. The
Dutch gained the privilege of a paltry trade and residence on the little
fan-shaped island of Dshima (outer island), in front of Nagasaki.
Here, under degrading restrictions and constant surveillance, lived a
little company of less than twenty Hollanders, who were allowed one
ship per annum to come from the Dutch East Indies and exchange
commodities of Japan for those of Holland.
After nearly a hundred years of Christianity and foreign intercourse,
the only apparent results of this contact with another religion and civilization were the adoption of gunpowder, and re-arms as weapons, the
use of tobacco, and the habit of smoking, the making of sponge-cake
(still called Castirathe Japanese form of Castile), the naturalization
into the language of a few foreign words, the introduction of new and
strange forms of disease, among which the Japanese count the scourge
of the venereal virus, and the permanent addition to that catalogue of
terrors which priest and magistrate in Asiatic countries ever hold as
weapons to overawe the herd. For centuries the mention of that name
would bate the breath, blanch the cheek, and smite with fear as with an
earthquake shock. It was the synonym of sorcery, sedition, and all that
was hostile to the purity of the home and the peace of society. All over
the empire, in every city, town, village, and hamlet; by the roadside,
* Dr. Geerts, in the Chrysanthemum, Jan., 1883, and in the Transactions of the
Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. xi., with original documents, vindicates the Dutch
from the aspersions cast upon them by Tavernier and Kaempfer.

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ferry, or mountain pass; at every entrance to the capital, stood the public
notice-boards, on which, with prohibitions against the great crimes that
disturb the relations of society and government, was one tablet, written
with a deeper brand of guilt, with a more hideous memory of blood,
with a more awful terror of torture, than when the like superscription
was a xed at the top of a cross that stood between two thieves on a
little hill outside Jerusalem. Its daily and familiar sight startled ever and
anon the peasant to clasp hands and utter a fresh prayer, the bonze to
add new venom to his maledictions, the magistrate to shake his head,
and to the mother a ready word to hush the crying of her fretful babe.
That name was Christ. So thoroughly was Christianity, or the Jashiu
mon (corrupt sect), supposed to be eradicated before the end of the
seventeenth century, that its existence was historical, remembered only
as an awful scar on the national memory. No vestiges were supposed to
be left of it, and no knowledge of its tenets was held, save by a very few
scholars in Yedo, trained experts, who were kept, as a sort of spiritual
blood-hounds, to scent out the adherents of the accursed creed.
So perfect was the work done, that the Government believed fully,
as Europeans, and among them Mr. Lecky, who uses the example to strengthen his argument, that persecution had extirpated
Christianity in Japan. It was left to our day, since the recent opening
of Japan, for them to discover that a mighty re had been smoldering for over two centuries beneath the ashes of persecutions. As late
as 1829, seven persons, six men and an old woman, were crucied in
zaka, on suspicion of being Christians and communicating with
foreigners. When the French brethren of the Mission Apostolique,
of Paris, came to Nagasaki in 1860, they found in the villages around
them over ten thousand people who held the faith of their fathers of
the seventeenth century.
A few interesting traces and relics of the century of Christianity
and foreigners still exist in Japan. In the language the names of God

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299

(Deus), Holy Spirit (Espiritu Santo), Jesus (Yesu), and Christ (Kirishito)
have remained. Castira is still the name of sponge-cake, so universally used, and the making of which was rst taught by the men of
Castile; and the Japanese having no l, change that letter into r. The
Japanese have no word for bread; they use the Latin pan. The words
tael (table), Dontaku (Sunday), cuppu (cup), rauda (laudanum), yerikter (electricity), bouton (button), briki (tin), and many of the names
of drugs and medicines, and rare metals and substances, terms in
science, etc., and even some in common use, are but the Japanized
forms of the Dutch words. I have seen Weird Specica and Voum
Von Mitter in large Roman letters, or in katagana, advertised on the
hanging signs of the drug-shops in every part of the country I have
been in, from Kob to near Niigata, and other travelers have noticed
it nearly everywhere in Japan. It is the old or incorrect spelling of the
name of some Dutch nostrum.
The natives speak of Christianity as the religion of the Lord of
Heaven. The destruction of the Christian churches, crosses, images,
etc., was so thorough that the discovery of relics by modern seekers has been very rare. A few years ago, shortly after Perrys arrival,
there was in Suruga a cave, to which the country people resorted in
large numbers, on account of the great ecacy believed to reside in
an image of the mother of Shaka (Buddha), with her infant in her
arms. The idol was reputed to have healed many diseases. An educated samurai, who hated all foreigners and their ways and works,
especially the Jesus doctrine, happening to enter the cave, perceived
in a moment that the image was a relic of the old Christian worship.
It was nothing else than an image of the Virgin Mary and the infant
Jesus. The samurai dashed it to pieces.
The attempts of the English and French to open a permanent
trade with Japan are described in Hildredths Japan as It Was and
Is. Captain John Saris, with the ships Clove, Thomas, and Hector, left

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England in April, 1611, with letters from the king, James I of England,
to the emperor (shgun) of Japan. Landing at Hirado, he was well
received, and established a factory in charge of Mr. Richard Cocks.
With Will Adams and seventeen of his company, Saris set out to see
Iyyasu, who was then living at the modern Shidzuoka. He touched
at Hakata, traversed the Inland Sea, past Shimonoski, to zaka;
thence by boat to Fushimi, thence by horse and palanquin to Sumpu
(Shidzuoka). In the interview accorded the English captain, Iyyasu
invited him to visit his son, Hidtada, the ruling shgun at Yedo.
Saris went to Yedo, visiting, on his way, Kamakura and the great
copper image of Dai Butsu, some of the Englishmen going inside of
it and shouting in it for the fun of the thing. They also wrote their
own names inside of it, as foreign tourists, visitors, and even personal friends of republican rulers do to this day, and as the natives
have always done, to immortalize themselves. After a stay in Yedo,
they touched at Uraga; thence returned to Sumpu, where a treaty, or
privileges of trade, in eight articles, was signed and given to Saris. It
bore the signature of Minamoto Iyyasu.
After a tour of three months, Saris arrived at Hirado again, having
visited Kito, where he saw the splendid Christian churches and Jesuit
colleges, on his way. After discouraging attempts to open a trade with
Siam, Corea, and China, and hostilities having broken out between
them and the Dutch, the English abandoned the project of permanent
trade with Japan; and all subsequent attempts to reopen it failed.
Will Adams, who was an English pilot, and the rst of his nation
in Japan, is spoken of frequently, and in no attering terms, by the
Jesuit fathers. He arrived in Japan in 1607, and lived in or near Yedo
till he died, in 1620. By the sheer force of a manly, honest character,
this sturdy Briton, who may have seen Shakespeare and Ben Jonson
and Queen Elizabeth, rose into favor with Iyyasu, and gained the
regard of the people. His knowledge of ship-building, mathematics,

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301

and foreign aairs made him a very useful man. Although treated
with honor and kindness, he was not allowed to leave Japan. He had
a wife and daughter in England. He was made an ocer, and given
the revenues of the village of Hmi, in Sagami, near the modern
Yokosuka, where are situated the dry-docks, machine-shops, and
ship-building houses in which the modern war-vessels of the imperial
navy are built and launcheda tting location, so near the ground
made classic by this exile from the greatest marine nation in the
world. Will Adams had a son and daughter born to him in Japan, and
there are still living Japanese who claim descent from him. One of the
streets of Yedo was named after him, Anjin Ch (Pilot Street), and
the people of that street still hold an annual celebration on the 15th
of June in his honor, one of which I attended in 1873. When Adams
died, he, and afterward his Japanese wife, were buried on the summit
of one of the lovely hills overlooking the Bay of Yedo, Goldsborough
Inlet, and the surrounding beautiful and classic landscape. Adams
chose the spot himself. The people of Yedo erected memorial-stone
lanterns at his tomb. Perrys eet, in 1854, anchored within the very
shadow of the Englishmans sepulchre. In May, 1872, Mr. Walters, of
Yokohama, after a study of Hildreth and some search, discovered the
tomb, which others had sought for in vain. Two neat stone shafts, in
the characteristic style of native monumental architecture, set on a
stone pediment, mark the spot. I visited it, in company of the bonze
in charge of the Shin shiu temple of the village, in July, 1873.
In Charlevoixs Histoire du Christianisme au Japon, it is related
that the Abb Sidotti, an Italian priest, came to Manila, with the
intention of landing in Japan, and once more attempting to regain
Japan to Christianity. After several years waiting, he persuaded the
captain of a vessel to take him to Satsuma and set him ashore. Th is
was done in 1709. He was arrested and sent to Yedo. There he was
con ned in a house in the city district, called Koishikawa, on the

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slope of a hill ever since called Kirishitan zaka (Christian slope), as

the valley at the foot is called Kirishitan dani (Christian valley), and
the place Kirishitan gumi (Christian neighborhood). Here the censors, judges, scholars, and interpreters assembled, and for many days
examined him, asking many questions and gaining much information
concerning foreign countries. In another building near by, an old man
and woman who had professed Christianity, and had been compelled
to recant, were conned. After the Abbs arrival, exhorted by him,
they again embraced their old faith. The Abb gave his name as Jean
Baptiste. He made a cross of red paper, which he pasted on the wall
of his room. He was kept prisoner, living for several years after his
arrival, in Yedo, and probably died a natural death.
About ten years ago, the Rev. S. R. Brown, D.D., discovered a
book called Sei Y Ki Bun (Annals of Western Nations), in three
volumes, written by the Japanese scholar who examined the Abb.
The books contain a summary of the history and judicial proceedings
in the case, and the information gained from the Italian. The whole
narrative is of intensest interest. While in Tki, in 1874, I endeavored
to nd the site of the Inquisition, and the martyrs tomb.
Tradition says that the Abb was buried on the opposite slope of
the valley corresponding to that on which he lived, under an old pinetree, near a spring. Pushing my way through scrub bamboo along a
narrow path scarcely perceptible for the undergrowth, I saw a nameless stone near a hollow, evidently left by a tree that had long since
fallen and rotted away. A little run of water issued from a spring hard
by. At the foot was a rude block of stone, with a hollow for water. Both
were roughly hewn, and scarcely dressed with the chisel. Such stones
in Japan mark the graves of those who die in disgrace, or unknown,
or uncared for. This was all that was visible to remind the visitor of
one whose heroic life deserved a nobler monument.

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The inuence of a century of Papal Christianity in Japan on the

national ethics and character was nil. A careful examination has not
revealed any trace of new principles of morals adopted by the Japanese
from foreigners in the sixteenth, as has been gained in the nineteenth
century, though the literary, scientic, and material gains were great.
The Japanese mental constitution and moral character have been profoundly modied in turn by Buddhism and Confucianism, but the
successive waves of Christianism that passed over Japan left no sediment teeming with fertility, rather a barren waste like that which the
river-oods leave in autumn. I should be glad to see these statements
disproved. Let us hope that the Christianity of the present, whether
Catholic, Protestant, or Russo-Greek, may work a profounder and
more benecent revolution in faith and moral practice, and that only
that kingdom may be established which is not of this world.

XXVI

Iyyasu, the Founder of Yedo

he last of struggles of rival military factions for the possession

of power is now to be narrated, and the weary record of war and
strife closed. Since 1159, when the Taira and Minamoto came to blows
in the capital, and the imperial palace fell into the hands of armed
men, and the domination of the military families began, until the
opening of the seventeenth century the history of Japan is but that
of civil war and slaughter. The history of two centuries and a half
that followed the triumphs of Iyyasu is that of profound peace. Few
nations in the world have enjoyed peace so long.
The man who now stood foremost among men, who was a legislator
as well as warrior, who could win a victory and garner the fruits of
it, was Tokugawa Iyyasu, the hero of Skigahara, the most decisive
battle in Japanese history, the creator of the perfected dual system and
of feudalism, and the founder of Yedo.
Yedo is not an ancient city. Its site becomes historic when Yamato
Dak, in the second century of our era, marched to conquer the
Eastern tribes. In later times, the Minamoto chieftains subdued the
plains of the Kuant. Until the twelfth century, the region around
the Bay of Yedo was wild, uncivilized, and sparsely populated, and
the inhabitants were called by the polished Kito people Adzuma
Ebisu, or Eastern boors.
305

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In the fteenth century, a small castle was built on the rising ground
within the western circuit of the present stronghold, and near Kji
machi (Yeast Street), where now stands the British Legation. East of
the castle was a small relay village, Temma Ch, near the modern site
of the prison, at which ocials or travelers, on their way to Kamakura
or Kito, vi the Tkaid, might stop for rest and refreshment, or to
obtain fresh kagos (palanquins), bearers, and baggage-carriers. The
name of the commander of the castle, ta Dokuan, a retainer of the
shgun at Kamakura, and a doughty warrior, is still preserved in the
memories of the people, and in poetry, song, art, and local lore. A hill
in the north of the city, a delightful picnic resort, bears his name, and
the neighborhood of Shiba was his favorite drill-ground and rendezvous
before setting out on forays or campaigns.
One romantic incident, in which a maiden of equal wit and beauty
bore chief part, has made him immortal, though the name of the fair
one has been forgotten. One day, while out hawking near Yedo, a
heavy shower of rain fell. Dismounting from his horse, he, with his
attendant, approached a house, and in very polite terms begged the
loan of a grass rain-coat (mino). A pretty girl, daughter of the man of
the house, came out, listened, blushing, to the request, but, answering not a word, ran to the garden, plucked a ower, handed it, with
mischief in her eyes, to the hero, and then coquettishly ran away. ta,
chagrined and vexed at such apparently frivolous manners and boorish inhospitality, and the seeming slight put upon his rank, returned
in wrath, and through the rain, to his castle, inwardly cursing the
Adzuma Ebisu, who did not know how to treat a gentleman. It happened that, shortly after, some court nobles from Kito were present,
sharing the hospitalities of the castle at Yedo, to whom he related the
incident. To his own astonishment, the guests were delighted. Here,
said they, in the wilderness, and among the Adzuma Ebisu, is a
gentle girl, who is not only versed in classic poetry, but had the wit

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307

and maidenly grace to apply it in felicitous style. ta had asked for

a rain-coat (mino); the little coquette was too polite to acknowledge
she had none. How could she say no to such a gallant? Rather, to
disguise her negative, she had handed him a mountain camellia; and
of this ower the poet of Yamato had, centuries ago, sung: Although
the mountain camellia has seven or eight petals, yet I grieve to say it
has no seed (mino).
After the death of Ota, no name of any great note is attached to the
unimportant village or fortress; but in 1590, at the siege of Odawara,
Hidyoshi suggested to his general, Iyyasu, Yedo as the best site for
the capital of the Kuant. After the overthrow of the later Hj
clan, and the capture of their castle at Odawara, Iyyasu went to
Yedo and began to found a city. He set up his court, and watched
his chances.
Iyyasu was born at Okasaki, in Mikawa, in 1542; he served with
Nobunaga and with Hidyoshi; again fought with the latter, and
again made terms with him. His rst possessions were Mikawa and
Suruga. In the latter province he built a ne castle at Sumpu (now
called Shidzuoka), and made it his residence for many years. He
seems to have had little to do with the Corean expedition. While
busy in building Yedo in 1598, he received news of the taiks sickness,
attended his death-bed, and was urged to swear to protect the interests
of Hidyori, then six years old. He evasively declined.
The prospects of the boy were not very ne. In the rst place, few
people believed him to be the son of the taik. In the second place,
the high-spirited lords and nobles, who prided themselves on their
blood and lineage, detested Hidyoshi as an upstart, and had been
kept in curb only by his indomitable will and genius. They were still
more incensed at the idea of his son Hidyori, even if a true son,
succeeding. Again: Hidnobu, the nephew of Nobunaga, was living,
and put in a claim for power. His professed conversion to Christianity

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gave him a show of support among the Christian malcontents. As for

Iyyasu, he was suspected of wishing to seize the military power of
the whole empire. The strong hand of the taik was no longer felt.
The abandonment of the Corean invasion brought back a host of men
and leaders, ushed with victory and ambition. Dierences sprung up
among the ve governors. With such elements at workthousands
of men, idle, to whom war was pastime and delight, princes eager for
a fray in which land was the spoil, more than one man aspiring to
ll the dead masters placeonly a spark was needed to kindle the
blaze of war.
The governors suspected Iyyasu. They began to raise an army.
Iyyasu was not to be surprised. He followed the example of his
rivals, and watched. I shall not tax the patience of the reader to follow
through the mazes of the intricate quarrels which preceded the nal
appeal to arms. Suce to say, that after the seizure and reseizure of
the citadel of zaka and the burning of the taiks splendid palace
in Fushimi, the army of the league and the army of Iyyasu met at
Skigahara (plain of the barrier), in mi, near Lake Biwa.
By this battle were decided the condition of Japan for over two
centuries, the extinction of the claims of the line of Nobunaga and
Hidyoshi, the settlement of the Tokugawa family in hereditary succession to the shgunate, the fate of Christianity, the isolation of Japan
from the world, the xing into permanency of the dual system and of
feudalism, the glory and greatness of Yedo, and peace in Japan for two
hundred and sixty-eight years.
In the army of the league were the ve governors appointed by the
taik, and the lords and vassals of Hidyoshi, and most of the generals and soldiers who had served in the Corean campaigns. Among
them were the clans of Satsuma, Chshiu, Uysugi, and Ukita, with
the famous Christian generals, Konishi and Ishida. This army, one
hundred and eighty thousand strong, was a heterogeneous mass of

Iyyasu, the Founder of Yedo

309

veterans, acting under various leaders, and animated by various interests. As the leaders lacked unity of purpose, so the army was made the
victim of discordant counsels and orders. On the other hand, the army
of one man, Iyyasu, had one soul, one discipline, and one purpose.
The Castle of Gifu, in Mino, was captured by one of his captains.
On the 1st of October, 1600, Iyyasu marched from Yedo over the
Tkaid with a re-enforcement of thirty thousand troops. His standard was a golden fan and a white ag embroidered with hollyhocks.
The diviners had declared the road to the West was shut. Iyyasu
answered, Then I shall open it by knocking. On the thirteenth day
he arrived at Gifu, where he eected a junction with his main body.
Some one oered him a persimmon (gaki). He said, as it fell in his
hand, gaki waga te ni otsuru (gaki has fallen into my hand ).
He threw it down, and allowed his attendants to eat the good-omened
and luscious pieces.
The battle-eld at Skigahara is an open, rolling space of ground,
lying just inside the eastern slope of hills on the west wall of Lake
Biwa, and part of the populous plain drained by the Kiso gawa, a
branch of which crosses the eld and winds round the hill, on which,
at that time, stood a residence of the Portuguese missionaries. The
Nakasend,* one of the main roads between Yedo and Kito, enters
* The Nakasend (Central Mountain Road) is three hundred and eighty-one miles
long. It begins at the Bridge of Sanj, over the river at Kito, and ends at Nihon
Bridge in Tki. It was used, in part, as early as the second century, but was more
fully opened in the early part of the eighth century. It passes through mi, Mino,
Shinano, Kdzuk, terminating in Musashi. It can be easily traversed in fourteen
days; but the tourist who can understand and appreciate all he sees would be
reluctant to perform the tour, if for pleasure, in less than a month. There are on
the route nine tog (mountain passes). It carries the traveler through the splendid
scenery of Shinano, which averages twenty-ve hundred feet above the sea-level,
along Lake Biwa, and nearly its whole length is classic ground. The Nakasend is
sometimes called the Kisokaid. An excellent guide-book, in seven volumes, full
of good engravings, published in 1805, called Kisoji Meish Dzuy (Collection of

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from mi, and bisects the eld from west to east, while from the
north-west, near the village of Skigahara, the road enters from
Echizen. By this road the writer, in 1872, came to reach the classic site
and study the spot around which cluster so many stirring memories.
The leaders of the army of the league, having arranged their plans,
marched out from the Castle of gaki at early morn on the fteenth
day of the Ninth month. They built a re on a hill overlooking the
narrow path, to guide them as they walked without keeping step. It
was raining, and the armor and clothes of the soldiers were very wet.
At ve oclock they reached the eld, the Satsuma clan taking up their
position at the foot of a hill facing east. Konishi, the Christian hero
of Corea, commanded the left centre, Ishida the extreme left. Four
famous commanders formed, with their corps, the right wing. Reserves
were stationed on and about the hills facing north. The cavalry and
infantry, according to the Guai Shi gures, numbered one hundred
and twenty-eight thousand.
At early morn of the same day one of the pickets of Iyyasus outposts hastened to the tent of his general and reported that all the
enemy had left the Castle of gaki. Other pickets, from other points,
announced the same reports simultaneously. Iyyasu, in high glee,
exclaimed, The enemy has indeed fallen into my hand. He ordered
his generals to advance and take positions on the eld, himself leading
the centre. His force numbered seventy-ve thousand.
This was the supreme moment of Iyyasus life. The picture as
given us by native artist and tradition is that of a medium-sized and
rotund man, of full, round, and merry face, who loved mirth at the
right time and place, and even when others could not relish or see
Pictures of Famous Places on the Nakasend), furnishes the information that
makes a sight of the famous places very enjoyable. The heights of the tog are
as follows: 620, 2150, 3060, 4340, 3680, 5590, 3240, and 4130 feet, respectively.

Iyyasu, the Founder of Yedo

311

its appropriateness. Of indomitable will and energy, and having a

genius for understanding mens natures, he astonished his enemies
by celerity of movement and the promptitude with which he followed
up his advantages. Nevertheless, he was fond of whims. One of these
was to take a hot bath before beginning a battle; another was to issue
ambiguous orders purposely when he wished to leave a subordinate
to act according to his own judgment. On the present occasion, his
whim was to go into battle with armor donned, but with no helmet
on, knotting his handkerchief over his bare forehead. A dense fog
hung like a pall over the battle-eld, so that one could not see farther
than a few feet.
The two armies, invisible, stood facing each other. However, Iyyasu
sent an ocer with a body of men with white ags, who advanced six
hundred feet in front of the main army, to prevent surprise. At eight
oclock the fog lifted and rolled away, and the two hosts de-scried
each other. After a few moments waiting, the drums and conchs of
the centre of each army sounded, and a sharp re of matchlocks and
a shower of arrows opened the battle. The easterners at rst wavered,
and till noon the issue was doubtful. Cannon were used during the
battle, but the bloodiest work was done with the sword and spear.
One of the corps in the army of the league deserted and joined the
side of Iyyasu. At noon, the discipline and unity of the eastern army
and the prowess and skill of Iyyasu triumphed. Ordering his conchblowers and drummers to beat a nal charge, and the reserves having
joined the main body, a charge was made along the whole line. The
enemy, routed, broke and ed. Nearly all the wounded, and hundreds
of unscathed on the battle-eld, committed hara-kiri in order not to
survive the disgrace. The pursuers cut o the heads of all overtaken,
and the butchery was frightful. The grass was dyed red, and the moor
became literally, not only an Aceldama, but a Golgotha. According
to the Guai Shis exaggerated gures, forty thousand heads were cut

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o. Of the Eastern army four thousand were slain, but no general

was killed. The soldiers assembled, according to custom, after the
battle in the centre of the eld, to show their captives and heads. On
this spot now stands a memorial mound of granite masonry within
a raised earthen embankment, surrounded and approached from the
road by rows of pine-trees. On the Kito side of the village, near
the shrine of Hachiman, may be seen a kubidzuka (barrow, or pile of
heads), the monument of this awful slaughter, and one of the many
such evidences of former wars which careful travelers in Japan so
often notice.
Iyyasu went into the ght bare-headed. After the battle he sat
down upon his camp-stool, and ordered his helmet to be brought. All
wondered at this. Donning it with a smile, and fastening it securely,
he said, quoting the old proverb, After victory, knot the cords of
your helmet. The hint was taken and acted upon. Neither rest nor
negligence was allowed.
The Castle of Hikon, on Lake Biwa, was immediately invested
and captured. zaka was entered in great triumph. Fushimi and Kito
were held; Chshiu and Satsuma yielded. Konishi and Mitsuda were
executed on the execution-ground in Kito. The nal and speedy result
was that all Japan submitted to the hero who, after victory, had knotted
the cords of his helmet.

XXVII

The Perfection of Duarchy and Feudalism

e have traced the rise and fall of no fewer than six families that
held governing power in their persons or in reality. These were
in succession the Sugawara, Fujiwara, Taira, Minamoto, Hj, and
Ashikaga. The last half of the sixteenth century witnessed the rise,
not of great families, but of individuals, the mark of whose genius and
energy is stamped upon Japanese history. These three individuals were
Nobunaga, Hidyoshi, and Iyyasu. Who and what were they?
Nobunaga was one of many clan-leaders who, by genius and daring, rose above the crowd, and planned to bring all the others in
subjection to himself, that he might rule them in the mikados name.
From having been called Baka Dono (Lord Fool) by his enemies, he
rose to be Nai Dai Jin, and swayed power equal to a shgun, but he
never received that name or honor; for not being a Minamoto, he was
ineligible. But for this inviolable precedent, Nobunaga might have
become Sei-i Tai Shgun, and founded a family line as proud and
powerful as that of the Tokugawas of later time.
Who was Hidyoshi? This question was often asked, in his own time,
by men who felt only too keenly what he was. This man, who manufactured his own ancestry on paper, was a parvenu from the peasant class,
who, from grooming his masters horses in the stable, continued his
313

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masters work, as shogun, in the eld, and, trampling on all precedent,

amazed the Fujiwara peers by getting the oce of kuambaku.
Who was Iyyasu? Neither of his two predecessors had Minamoto
blood. Iyyasu, though at rst an obscure captain under Nobunaga,
was of true Genji stock. The blood of mikados, and of the great
conquerors of Eastern Japan, was in his veins. He was destined to
eclipse even the splendor of his forefathers. He was eligible, by right
of descent, to become Sei-i Tai Shgun, or chief of all the daimis.
The family of Tokugawa took its name from a place and river
in Shimotsuk, near Ashikaga and Nittawhich are geographical as well as personal namesclaimed descent from the mikado
Seiwa through the Minamoto Yoshiiy, thence through that of Nitta
Yoshisada. Tokugawa Shiro, the father of Iyyasu, lived in the village
of Matsudaira, in Mikawa. Iyyasu always signed the documents sent
to foreigners, Minamoto no Iyyasu.
As it is the custom in Japan, as in Europe, to name families after
places, the name of this obscure village, Matsudaira, was also taken
as a family name by nearly all vassals, who held their lands by direct
grant from Iyyasu. In 1867, no fewer than fty-four daimis were
holding the name Matsudaira. The title of the daimi in whose capital
the writer lived in 1871, was Matsudaira Echizen no Kami.
The Tokugawa crest was a circle inclosing three leaves of the awoi (a
species of mallow, found in Central Japan) joined at the tips, the stalks
touching the circle. This gilded trefoil gleamed on the Government
buildings and property of the shgun, and on the ocial documents,
boats, robes, ags, and tombs. On Kaempfers and Hildreths books
there is printed under it the misleading legend, Insignia Imperatoris
Japonici. The trefoil ag uttered in the breeze when Commodore
Perry made his treaty under its shadow. To this day many foreigners
suppose it to be the national ag of Japan. It was simply the family
crest of the chief daimio in Japan.

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315

Crest of Tokugawa Family

The imperial court, yearning for peace, and nding in Iyyasu the
person to keep the empire in order, command universal obedience,
and satisfy the blood requirements of precedent to the oce, created
him Sei-i Tai Shgun, and it was left to Minamoto Tokugawa Iyyasu
to achieve the perfection of duarchy and Japanese feudalism.
Let us see how he arranged the chess-board of the empire. There
were his twelve children, a number of powerful princes of large landed
possessions whom he had not conquered, but conciliated; the lesser
daimis, who had joined him in his career; his own retainers of every
grade; and a vast and miscellaneous array of petty feudal superiors,
having grants of land and retinues of from three to one hundred followers. The long hereditary occupation of certain lands had given the
holders a right which even Iyeyasu could not dispute. Out of such
complexity and chaos, how was such a motley array of proud and
turbulent men to be reduced to discipline and obedience? Upon such a
palimpsest, how was an accurate map to be drawn, or a durable legible
record to be written? Iyyasu had force, resources, and patience. He

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was master of the arts of conciliation and of letting alone. He could

wait for time to do its work. He would give men the opportunity of
being conquered by their own good sense.
Of Iyyasus twelve children, three daughters married the daimis of
Mimasaka, Sagami, and Hida. Of his nine sons, Nobuyasu died before
his father became shgun. Hidyasu, his second son, had been adopted
by the taik, but a son was born to the latter. Iyyasu then gave his son
the province of Echizen. Hence the Echizen clansmen, as relatives of
the shgunal family, were ever their stanchest supporters, even until the
cannon red at Fushimi in 1868. Their crest was the same trefoil as that
of their suzerain. When Hideyasu was enfeoed with Echizen, many
prominent men and heads of old families, supposing that he would, of
course, succeed his father in oce, followed him to his domain, and
lived there. Hence in Fukui, the capital of Echizen, in which I lived
during the year 1871, I became acquainted with the descendants of many
proud families, whose ancestors had nursed a profound disappointment
for over two centuries; for Iyyasu chose his third son, Hidtada, who
had married a daughter of the taiko, to succeed him in the shogunate.
Tadayashi, fth son of Iyyasu, whose title was Matsudaira Satsuma
no Kami, died young. At his death ve of his retainers disemboweled
themselves, that they might follow their young master into the happy
land. This is said to be the last instance of the ancient custom of jun-shi
(dying with the master), such as we have noticed in a former chapter.
During the early and mediaeval centuries occur authentic instances of
such immolation, or the more horrible test of loyalty in the burial of
living retainers to their necks in the earth, with only the head above
ground, who were left to starve slowly to death. Burying a man alive
under the foundations of a castle about to be built or in the pier of a
new bridge, was a similar instance of lingering superstitions.
In the Bu Kan (Mirror of the Military Families of Japan), a
complete list of the Yedo nobility, or clans, no record is given of

The Perfection of Duarchy and Feudalism

317

Iyyasus sixth and ninth male children. On his three last sons were
bestowed the richest efs in the empire, excepting those of Satsuma,
Kaga, Mutsu, Higo, and a few othersall-powerful daimios, whose
lands Iyyasu could not touch, and whose allegiance was only secured
by a policy of conciliation. These three sons were invested with the
principalities of Owari, Kii, and Mito. They founded three families,
who were called Gosank (the three illustrious families), and from
these, in case of failure of heirs in the direct line, the shgun was to be
chosen. The assessed revenue of these families were 610,500, 555,000,
and 350,000 koku of rice, respectively. They were held in great respect,
and wielded immense inuence. Their yashikis in Yedo were among
the largest, and placed in the most conspicuous and commanding
sites of the city. At the tombs of the shguns at Shiba and Uyno, the
bronze memorial lanterns presented in honor of the deceased ruler are
pre-eminent above all others for their size and beauty.
In the course of history down to 1868, it resulted that the rst seven
shguns were descendants of Iyyasu in the line of direct heirs.* From
* Shguns of the Tokugawa Family
1. Iyyasu

16031604

9. Iyshige

17451762

2. Hidtada

16051622

10. Iyharu

17621786

3. Iymitsu

16231649

11. Iynori

17871837

4. Iytsuna

16501680

12. Iyyoshi

18381852

5. Tsunayoshi

16811708

13. Iysada*

18531858

6. Iynobu

17091712

14. Iymochi

18581866

7. Iytsugu

17131716

15. Yoshinobu

18661868

8. Yoshimun

17171744

* First shgun ever styled Tai-kun (Tycoon) in a treaty document. The last
three shguns were styled Tai-kun by themselves and foreigners.
Keiki, or Hitotsubashi, the last Sei-i Tai Shgun, still living (1876) at
Shidzuoka, in Suraga.

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the eighth, and thence downward to the sixteenth, or next to the last,
the shguns were all really of the blood of Kii. The Owari family was
never represented on the seat of Iyyasu. It was generally believed, and
is popularly stated, that as the rst Prince of Mito had married the
daughter of an enemy of Iyyasu, the Mito family could not furnish
an heir to the shgunate. In 1867, however, as we shall see, Keiki, a
son of Mito, but adopted into the Hitotsubashi family, became the
thirty-ninth and last Sei-i Tai Shgun of Japan, the fteenth and last
of Tokugawa, and the fourth and last Tycoon of Japan.
Next to the Gosank ranked the Kokushiu (koku, province; shiu,
ruler) daimis, the powerful leaders whom Iyyasu defeated, or won
over to obedience, but never tamed or conquered. He treated them
rather as equals less fortunate in the game of war than himself. Some of
them were direct descendants of the Kokushiu appointed by Yoritomo,
but mess were merely successful military adventurers like Iyyasu
himself. Of these, Kaga was the wealthiest. He ruled over Kaga,
Noto, and Etchiu, his chief city and castle being at Kanzawa. His
income was 1,027,000 koku. The family name was Mada. There were
three cadet families ranking as Tozama, two with incomes of 100,000,
the other of 10,000 koku. The Mada crest consisted of ve circles,
around ten short rays representing sword-punctures. The Shimadzu
family of Satsuma ruled over Satsuma, zumi, Hiuga, and the Liu
Kiu Islandsrevenue, 710,000 koku; chief city, Kagoshima. There was
one cadet of the house of Shimadzu, with a revenue of 27,000 koku.
The crest was a white cross* within a circle.
* Th is cruciform gure of the Greek pattern puzzled Xavier, who suspected
theology in it. It has been a perpetual mares-nest to the many would-be antiquarians, who burn to immortalize themselves by unearthing Christian relics
in Japan. It is a standard subject of dissertation by new-comers, who help to
give a show of truth to the platitude of the ports, that the longer one lives in
Japan, the less he knows about it. It is simply a horses bit-ring.

The Perfection of Duarchy and Feudalism

319

The Datt family ruled over the old northern division of Hondo,
called Mutsu; capital, Sendai; revenue, 325,000 koku. There were
three cadet families, two having 30,000 koku; and one, Uwajima, in
Iyo, 100,000. Their crest was two sparrows within a circle of bamboo
and leaves.
The Hosokawa family ruled Higo; income 540,000: the chief city
is Kumamoto, in which is one of the nest castles in Japan, built by
Kato Kiyomasa. Of three cadets whose united incomes were 81,300
koku, two had cities in Higo, and one in Hitachi; crest, eight disks
around a central smaller disk.
The Kuroda family ruled Chikuzen; revenue, 520,000; chief city
Fukuka; crest, a black disk. One cadet in Kadzusa had 30,000 koku;
crest, a slice of cucumber. Another in Chikuzen; revenue, 50,000;
crest, Wistaria owers.
The Asano family ruled Aki; chief city, Hiroshima; revenue,
426,000; one cadet.
The Mri family ruled Chshiu; chief city, Hagi; revenue, 369,000.
Of three cadet families, two were in Nagato, one was in Suwo. Their
united incomes, 100,000 koku; crest, a kind of water-plant.
The above are a few specimens from the thirty-six families outside
of the Tokugawa, and the subject (fudai) clans, who, though not of the
shgunal family, took the name of Matsudaira. There were, in 1862,
two hundred and sixty-seven feudal families, and as many daimis of
various rank, income, and landed possessions. Japan was thus divided
into petty fragments, without real nationality, and utterly unprepared
to bear the shock of contact with foreigners.
The Tozama [outside (of the shgunal family) nobility] were cadet
families of the Kokushiu, or the smaller landed lords, who held hereditary possessions, and who sided with Iyyasu in his rise to power.
There were, in 1862, ninety whose assessed revenue ranged from ten
to one hundred thousand koku each.

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The Fudai (literally, successive generations) were the generals, captains, and retainers, both civil and military, on whom Iyyasu bestowed
land as rewards. They were the direct vassals of the Tokugawa family.
The shgun could order any of them to exchange their efs, or could
increase or curtail their revenues at will. They were to the shgun as
the old Six Guards of Kito, or household troops of the medival
mikadoate. There were, in 1862, one hundred and fteen of this class,
with lands assessed at from ten to one hundred thousand koku. It was
only the fudai, or lower-grade daimis, who could hold oce under
the Yedo bakufu, and one became regent, as we shall see.
When once rmly seated on the throne, Iyyasu found himself
master of almost all Japan. His greatest care was to make such a
disposal of his lands as to strike a balance of power, and to insure
harmony among the host of territorial nobility, who already held or
were about to be given lands. It must not be forgotten that Iyyasu and
his successors were, both in theory and reality, vassals of the emperor,
though they assumed the protection of the imperial person. Neither
the shgun nor the daimis were acknowledged at Kito as nobles
of the empire. The lowest kug was above the shgun in rank. The
shgun could obtain his appointment only from the mikado. He was
simply the most powerful among the daimis, who had won that preeminence by the sword, and who, by wealth and power, and a skillfully
wrought plan of division of land among the other daimis, was able
to rule for over two and a half centuries. Theoretically, he was primus
inter pares; in actuality, he was supreme over inferiors. The mikado was
left with merely nominal power, dependent upon the Yedo treasury
for revenue and protection, but he was still the fountain of honor and
preferment, and, with his court formed what was the lawful, and, in
the last analysis, the only true power. There was formed at Yedo the
de facto, actual administrative government of the empire. With the
imperial family, court, and nobles, Iyyasu had nothing to do except

The Perfection of Duarchy and Feudalism

321

as vassal and guardian. He simply undertook to settle the position and

grade the power of the territorial nobles, and rule them by the strong
hand of military force. Nevertheless, real titles were bestowed only by
the emperor; and an honor granted, however empty of actual power,
from the Son of Heaven in Kioto was considered immeasurably superior to any gift which the awe-compelling chief daimi in Yedo could
bestow. The possession of rank and ocial title is the ruling passion
of a Japanese. The richest daimis, not content with their power and
revenue, spent vast sums of money, and used every inuence at the
Kito court, to win titles, once, indeed, the exponent of a reality that
existed, but, since the creation of the duarchy and the decay of the
mikados actual power, as absurdly empty as those of the mediatized
princes of Germany, and having no more connection with the duties
implied than the title of Pontifex Maximus has with those of Chief
Bridge-builder in Rome.
The head of the proud Shimadzu family, with his vast provinces of
Satsuma, Hiuga, zumi, and the Liu Kiu Islands, cared as much for the
pompous vacuity of Shuri no daibu (Chief of the Oce of Ecclesiastical
Carpenters) as to be styled Lord of Satsuma.
It is in the geographical distribution of his feudal vassals that the
genius of Iyyasu is seen. Wherever two powerful clans that still bore
a grudge against the Tokugawa name were neighbors, he put between
them one of his own relatives or direct vassals, which served to prevent
the two daimis from combining or intriguing. Besides disposing of
his enemies so as to make them harmless, his object was to guard the
capital, Kito, so that aspiring leaders could never again seize the
person of the mikado, as had been repeatedly done in times past. He
thus removed a chronic element of disorder.
Echizen commands Kito from the north; it was given to his eldest
son. mi guards it from the east; it was divided among his direct
vassals, while Owari and Kii were assigned to his sons. His fudai

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vassals, or household troops, were also ranged on the west, while to

the south-west was zaka, a city in the government domain, ruled by
his own ocials. Thus the capital was completely walled in by friends
of Tokugawa, and isolated from their enemies.
Mri, once the lord of ten provinces, and the enemy of Tokugawa,
was put away into the extreme south-west of Hondo, all his territories except Nagato and Suwo being taken from him, and given
to Tokugawas direct vassals. Opposite to Nagato were Kokura and
Chikuzen, enemies of Nagato. We shall see the signicance of this
when we treat of events leading to the Restoration (18531868). Shikoku
was properly divided, so as to secure a preponderance of Tokugawas
most loyal vassals. Kiushiu was the weakest part of the system; yet
even here Satsuma was last and farthest away, and Higo, his feudal
rival and enemy, was put next, and the most skillful disposition possible made of the vassals and friends of Tokugawa.
In the daimiates succession to their lands was hereditary, but not
always to the oldest son, since the custom of adoption was very prevalent, and all the rights of a son were conferred on the adopted one.
Often the adopted child was no relation of the ruler. Sickly infants
were often made to adopt a son, to succeed to the inheritance and
keep up the succession. One of the most curious sights on occasions
of important gatherings of samurai, was to see babies and little boys
dressed in mens clothes, as heads of families, sustaining the dignity
of representing the family in the clan. I saw such a sight in 1871.
One great difference between the Japanese system and that of
entails in Europe lay in this, that the estate granted to each daimio
could not be added to, or diminished, either by marriage, or by purchase, or by might, except by express permission and grant from the
shgun, the superior of all.
Next to the daimis ranked the hatamoto, or ag-supporters (hata,
ag; moto, root, under), who were vassals of the shgunhis special

The Perfection of Duarchy and Feudalism

323

dependence in war timehaving less than ten thousand koku revenue.

Each had from three to thirty retainers in his train. They were, in most
cases, of good family, descendants of noted warriors. They numbered
eighty thousand in various parts of the empire, but the majority lived
in Yedo. They formed the great body of military and civil ocials. The
gokenin, many of the descendants of Iyyasus private soldiers, were
inferior in wealth and rank to the hatamoto, but with them formed
the hereditary personal following of the shgun, and constituted the
Tokugawa clan proper, whose united revenues amounted to nearly nine
million koku. The shgun, or chief daimi of the empire, has thus
unapproachable military resources, following, and revenue, and could
overawe court and emperor above, princes and vassals beneath.
All included within the above classes and their military retainers were samurai, receiving hereditary incomes of rice from the
Government. They were privileged to wear two swords, to be exempt
from taxes. They may be styled the military-literati of the country. To
the great bulk of these samurai were given simply their daily portion
of rice; to others, rations of rice for from two to ve persons. Some of
them received small oces or positions, to which land or other sources
of income were attached. The samurais ideas of honor forbade him
to do any work or engage in any business. His only duty was to keep
perfunctory watch at the castle or his lords house, walk in his lords
retinue, or on stated occasions appear in ceremonial dress. His life was
one of idleness and ease; and, as may be imagined, the long centuries
of peace served only to develop the dangerous character of this large
class of armed idlers. Some, indeed, were studious, or engaged with
zeal in martial exercises, or became teachers; but the majority spent
their life in eating, smoking, and lounging in brothels and tea-houses,
or led a wild life of crime in one of the great cities. When too deeply
in debt, or having committed a crime, they left their homes and the
service of their masters, and roamed at large. Such men were called

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rnins, or wave-men. Usually they were villains, ready for any deed
of blood, the reserve mercenaries from which every conspirator could
recruit a squad. Occasionally, the rnin was a virtuous citizen, who
had left the service of his lord for an honorable purpose.
Ill fared it with the merchants. They were considered so low in the
social scale that they had no right in any way to oppose or to remonstrate with the samurai. Among the latter were many noble examples
of chivalry, men who were ever ready to assist the oppressed and
redress their wrongs, often becoming knights-errant for the benet
of the wronged orphan and the widow, made so by a murderers hand.
But among the hatamoto and gokenin, especially among the victors of
Skigahara, cruelties and acts of violence were not only frequent and
outrageous, but winked at by the Government ocials. These blackmailers, in need of funds for a spree, would extort money under various pretexts, or none at all, from helpless tradesmen; or their servants
would sally out to a tea-house, and, having eaten or drunk their ll,
would leave without paying, swaggering, drunk, and singing between
their tipsy hiccoughs. Remonstrances from the landlord would be met
with threats of violence, and it was no rare thing for them, in their
drunken fury, to slash o his head. Yet these same non-producers and
genteel loafers were intensely sensitive on many points of honor, and
would be ready at any moment to die for their master. The possession
of swords, and the arrogance bred of their superiority as a privileged
class, acted continually as a temptation to brawls and murder.
Edinburgh, in the old days of the clans, is perhaps the best illustration
of Yedo during the Tokugawa times. Certain localities in Yedo at night
would not suer by a comparison with the mining regions of California
during the rst opening of the diggings, when to eat a man, or to kill
an Indian before breakfast, was a feather in the cap of men who lived
with revolvers constantly in their belts. As there were always men in the
gulches of whom it was a standing prophecy that they would die with

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325

their boots on, so there was many a man in every city of Japan of whom
it would be a nine days wonder should he die with his head on. Of such
men it was said that their death would be inujini (in a dogs place).
Yet the merchant and farmer were not left utterly helpless. The
Otokodat were gallant and noble fellows, not of the samurai class,
but their bitter enemies. The swash-bucklers often met their match in
these men, who took upon themselves to redress the grievances of the
unarmed classes. The Otokodat were bound together into a sort of
guild to help each other in sickness, to succor each other in peril, to
scrupulously tell the truth and keep their promises, and never to be
guilty of meanness or cowardice. They lived in various parts of Japan,
though the most famous dwelt in Yedo. They were the champions of
the people, who loved and applauded them. Many a bitter con ict
took place between them and the overbearing samurai, especially the
white-hilts. The story of their gallant deeds forms the staple of many
a popular story, read with delight by the common people.
Below the samurai, or gentry, the three great classes were the
farmers, artisans, and merchants. These were the common people.
Beneath them were the etas, who were skinners, tanners, leatherdressers, grave-diggers, or those who in any way handled raw-hide
or buried animals. They were the pariahs, or social outcasts, of Japan.
They were not allowed to enter a house, or to eat or drink, sit or cook
at the same re with other persons. These people were said by some
to be descendants of Corean prisoners; by others, to have been originally the people who killed animals for feeding the imperial falcons.
As Buddhism prohibited the eating of animals as food, the eta were
left out of the pale of society. The hinin (not human) were the lowest
class of beggars, the squatters on waste lands, who built huts along
the road, and existed by soliciting alms. They also attended to the
execution of criminals and the disposal of their corpses. In general,
they were lthy and disgusting, in their rags and dirt.

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There were thus, according to one division, eight classes of society:

1st, the kug, Kito or court nobility; 2d, the daimis, Yedo or territorial nobles; 3d, the buk, or hatamoto, or samurai of lower rank
than that of daimi and priest; 4th, landed proprietors without title,
and farmers, called hiyakush; 5th, artisans, carpenters, etc., called
shokunin; 6th, merchants, shop-keepers, and traders, called akindo;
7th, actors, prostitutes, genteel beggars, etc.; 8th, tanners, skinners,
hinin, and eta.
Another division is that into four classes: 1st, military and ocial
samurai; 2d, agriculturalfarmer; 3d, laboringartisan; 4th, tradingmerchant. Below the level of humanity were the eta and hinin.
This was the constitution of society in Japan during the rule of the
Tokugawa until 1868.
Iyyasu, in 1600 and the years following, employed an army of
300,000 laborers in Yedo, in enlarging the castle, digging moats and
canals, grading streets, lling marshes, and erecting buildings. His
eets of junks brought granite from Higo for the citadel and gate
buttresses, and the river-boats the dark stone for the walls of the
enceinte. His faith in the future of the city was shown in his ordering
an immense outer ditch to be dug, which far more than completely
encircled both castle and city, and gates and towers to be built, when
as yet there was no wall connecting, or dwelling-houses within them,
and city people sauntered out into the country to see and laugh at
them. According to tradition, the great founder declared that walls
would be built, and the city extend far beyond them. The prediction
was veried; for it is probable that within fty years, as we know from
old maps of Yedo, the land east of the river was built upon, and the
city had spread to within two-thirds of its present proportions, and
before the year 1700 had a population of over 500,000 souls. Yedo
never did have, as the Hollanders guessed, and as our old text-books,
in stereotyped phrase, told us, 2,500,000 souls. It is probable that, in

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327

1857, when Mr. Townsend Harris, the American envoy, rst entered
it, it had as many as 1,000,000. In 1872, by ocial census, the population of Tki, including that of the villages around it and under
the municipal jurisdiction, was 925,000; of the city proper, 790,000
permanent residents, to which should be added nearly 100,000 oating population.
Outside of Yedo, the strength of the great unier was spent on
the public roads and highways, especially the Tkaid, or road skirting the Eastern Sea, which begins at Kito and ends at Tki. He
arranged fty-three stations (shiku, relays, or post-stations), at which
were hotels, pack-horses, baggage-coolies, and palanquin-bearers. A
regular code of regulations to govern the movements of the daimis
and nobles when travelingthe etiquette to be observed, the scale
of prices to be chargedwas duly arranged, and continued in force
until 1868. The roads, especially the mountain-passes, bridges, and
ferries, were improved, and one ri (measure of two and two- fth
miles) hillocks to mark the distances set up. The regulations required
that the main roads should be thirty-six feet wide, and be planted
with pine-trees along their length. Cross-roads should have a width
of eighteen feet; foot-paths, six; and of by-paths through the elds,
three feet. At the ferry-landing on either bank of a river there was to
be an open space of about three hundred and sixty feet. Various other
regulations, pertaining to minute details of life, sumptuary laws, and
feudal regulations, were promulgated, and gradually came into force
throughout the empire.
To defend the Kuant, and strengthen his position as military
ruler of the empire, he built or improved the nine castles of Mito,
Utsunomiya, Takasaki, Odawara, and five others in the Kuant.
At Sumpu, zaka, and Nij, in Kito, were also ne castles, and
to their command ocers were assigned. All these, and many other
enterprises, required a vast outlay of money. The revenue of the empire

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amounted to nearly 30,000,000 koku (165,000,000 bushels) of rice.

Of this, nearly 9,000,000 koku were retained as the revenue of the
Tokugawas. The mines were government property; and at this time
the gold of Sado was discovered, which furnished Iyyasu with the
sinews of war and peace. This island may be said to be a mass of
auriferous quartz, and has ever since been the natural treasure-house
of Japan.
Iyyasu had now the opportunity to prove himself a legislator, as
well as a warrior. He began by granting amnesty to all who would
accept it. He wished the past forgotten. He regretted that so much
blood had been spilled. He entered upon a policy of conciliation that
rapidly won to his side all the neutral and nearly all the hostile clans.
There were some who were still too proud or sullen to submit or accept
pardon. These were left quietly alone, the great unier waiting for the
healing hand of time. He felt sure of his present power, and set himself diligently to work during the remainder of his life to consolidate
and strengthen that power so that it would last for centuries.
Iyyasu was created Sei-i Tai Shgun in 1603. Only twice during
his life-time was peace interrupted. The persecution of the Christians
was one instance, and the brief campaign against Hidyori, the son of
the taik, was the second. Around this young man had gathered most
of the malcontents of the empire. Iyyasu found or sought a ground of
quarrel against him, and on the 3d of June, 1615, attacked the Castle
of zaka, which was set on re. A bloody battle, the last fought on
the soil for two hundred and fty-three years, resulted in the triumph
of Iyyasu, and the disappearance of Hidyori and his mother, who
were probably consumed in the ames. His tomb, however, is said to
be in Kagoshima. It is most probably a cenotaph.
The greatest of the Tokugawas spent the last years of his life at
Sumpu (Shidzuoka), engaged in erasing the scars of war, securing
the triumphs of peace, perfecting his plans for xing in stability his

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329

system of government, and in collecting books and manuscripts.

He bequeathed his Legacy, or code of laws (see Appendix), to his
chief retainers, and advised his sons to govern in the spirit of kindness. He died on the 8th of March, 1616. His remains were deposited
temporarily at Kuno Zan, a few miles from Sumpu, on the side of a
lovely mountain overlooking the sea, where the solemnity of the forest monarchs and the grandeur of sea and sky are blended together.
Acting upon the dying wish of his father, Hidtada had caused to be
erected at Nikk Zan, one hundred miles north of Yedo, a gorgeous
shrine and mausoleum. The spot chosen was on the slope of a hill,
on which, eight centuries before, the saintly bonze Shd, following
Kb Daishis theology, had declared the ancient Shint deity of the
mountain to be a manifestation of Buddha to Japan, and named him
the Gongen of Nikk. Here Nature has gloried herself in snowranges of mighty mountains, of which glorious Nantaizan reigns
king, his feet laved by the blue splendors of the Lake Chiuzenji, on
which his mighty form is mirrored. Nikk means sunny splendor; and
through Japanese poetry and impassioned rhetoric ever sparkle the
glories of the mornings mirror in Chiuzenji, and the golden oods
of light that bathe Nantaizan. The water-fall of Kiri Furi (falling
mist); and of Kgon, the lakes outlet, over seven hundred feet high;
the foaming river, grassy green in its velocity; the colossal forests and
inspiring scenery, made it the t resting-place of the greatest character
in Japanese history.
In 1617, his remains were removed from Kuno, and in solemn
pageantry moved to Nikk, where the imperial envoy, vicar of the
mikado, court nobles from Kito, many of his old lords and captains,
daimis, and the shgun Hidtada, awaited the arrival of the august
ashes. The corpse was laid in its gorgeous tomb, before which the
vicar of majesty presented the gohei, signicant of the apotheosis of
the mighty warrior, deied by the mikado as the divine vice-regent

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of the gods of heaven and earth, under the title Sho ichi i T Sh
Dai Gongen, or Noble of the rst Degree of the rst Rank, Great
Light of the East, Great Incarnation of Buddha. During three days,
a choir of Buddhist priests, in their full canonical robes, intoned the
Hokk sacred classic ten thousand times. It was ordained that ever
afterward the chief priest of Nikk should be a prince of the imperial
blood, under the title of Rinnji no miya.
Of Hidtada, the successor of Iyyasu, there is little to record. The
chief business of his life seems to have been to follow out the policy of
his father, execute his plans, consolidate the central power, establish
good government throughout the empire, and beautify, strengthen,
and adorn Yedo.
Iymitsu, the grandson of Iyyasu, is acknowledged to have been
the ablest ruler of all the Tokugawas after the founder, whose system
he brought to perfection. In 1623, he went to Kito to do homage to
the mikado, who invested him with the title of Sei-i Tai Shgun. By
this time many of the leaders and captains who had fought under
Iyyasu, or those who most respected him for his prowess, were dead
or superannuated, and had been succeeded by their sons, who, as
though fated to follow historical precedent, failed to possess the vigor
of their fathers, their associations being those of peace, luxury, and
the eeminacy which follows war.
Iymitsu was a martinet as well as a statesman. He proposed that all
the daimis should visit and reside in Yedo during half the year. Being
at rst treated as guests, the shgun coming out to meet them in the
suburbs, they swore allegiance to his rules, sealing their signatures,
according to custom, with blood drawn from the third nger of the
right hand. Gradually, however, these rules became more and more
restrictive, until the honorable position degenerated into a condition
tantamount to mere vassalage. Their wives and children were kept
as hostages in Yedo, and the rendition of certain tokens of respect,

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331

almost equivalent to homage to the shgun, became imperative.

During his rule the Christian insurrection and massacre at Shimabara
took place. The Dutch were con ned to Dshima. Yedo was vastly
improved. Aqueducts, still in excellent use, were laid, to supply the
city with water. To guard against the ever-threatening enemy, re,
watch-towers, or lookouts, such as are to be seen in every city, were
erected in great numbers. Bells are hung at the top and a code of signals, and a prescribed number of taps give the locality and progress
of the conagration. Mints were established, coins struck, weights
and measures fixed; the system of official espionage, checks, and
counter-checks established; a general survey of the empire executed;
maps of the various provinces and plans of the daimis castles were
made, and their pedigrees made out and published; the councils called
Hij-sho (Discussion and Decision), and Wakadoshiyori (Assembly
of Elders), established, and Corean envoys received.
The height of pride and ambition which Iymitsu had already
reached is seen in the fact that, in a letter of reply from the bakufu to
Corea, the shgun is referred to as Tai Kun (Tycoon), a title never
conferred by the mikado on any one, nor had Iymitsu any legal
right to it. It was assumed in a sense honorary or meaningless to any
Japanese, unless highly jealous of the mikados sovereignty, and was
intended to overawe the barbarian Coreans. It is best explainable in
the light of the Virgilian phrase, magna pars fui, or the less dignied
Big Indian I.
The building of the ne temples of Toyeizan, at Uyno, in Yedo, and
at Nikk, were completed in Iymitsus time, he making ve journeys
thither. He died in 1649, after a prosperous rule of twenty-six years, and
was buried with his grandfather at Nikk.
The successors of Iyyasu, the shguns of the Tokugawa dynasty,
fourteen in all, were, with one exception, buried alternately in the
cemeteries of Zzji and Tyeizan, in the city districts of Shiba

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and Uyno. These twin necropolises of the illustrious departed were

the chief glories of Yedo, which was emphatically the city of the
Tokugawas. The remains of six of them lie in Uyno, and six in Shiba,
while two are at Nikk.
During the summer of 1872, in company with an American friend
and three of my brightest students, I made a journey to Nikk, and
for nearly a week reveled in its inspiring scenery and solemn associations. During my three years residence in Tki, I visited these
twin sacred places many times, spending a half-day at a visit. No
one has described these places better than Mr. Mitford, in his Tales
of Old Japan. He says: It is very dicult to do justice to their beauty
in words. I have the memory before me of a place green in winter,
pleasant and cool in the hottest summer, of peaceful cloisters, of the
fragrance of incense, of the subdued chant of richly robed priests,
and the music of bells of exquisite designs, harmonious coloring, and
rich gilding. The hum of the vast city outside is unheard here. Iyyasu
himself, in the mountains of Nikk, has no quieter resting-place than
his descendants in the heart of the city over which he ruled.
Passing through an immense red portal on the north side of Shiba,
we enter the precincts of the sacred place through a long, wide avenue,
lined by overarching rs, and rendered solemnly beautiful by their
shade. A runner is usually on hand to conduct visitors to the gate, inside
of which a priest is waiting. We enter a pebbled court-yard, in which
are ranged over two hundred large stone lanterns. These are the gifts
of the fudai daimios. Each lantern is inscribed with the name of the
donor, the posthumous title of the deceased shgun, the name of the
temple at Shiba, and the province in which it is situated, the date of the
oering, and a legend, which states that it is reverently oered. On the
following page is the reading on one, and will serve as a specimen:

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333

TO THE

ILLUSTRIOUS TEMPLE OF LEARNING*

[Posthumous title of the sixth Shgun Iynobu]

THIS STONE LANTERN,

SET UP BEFORE TEE TOMB AT THE TEMPLE OF ZZJI,

IN MUSASHI,
IS REVERENTLY OFFERED
BY THE
RULING DAIMI,
NOBLE OF THE FIFTH RANK,

MASUYAMA FUJIWARA MASATO,

LORD OF TSUSHIMA,
IN THE SECOND YEAR OF THE PERIOD OF STRICT VIRTUE,
IN THE CYCLE OF THE WATER DRAGON
[1711].

Passing through a handsomely gilt and carved gate-way, we enter

another court-yard, the sides of which are gorgeously adorned. Within
* The hmi, or posthumous titles of thirteen Tokugawa shguns, are: 1,
Great Light of the East; 2, Chief Virtue; 3. Illustrious Enterprise; 4, Strict
Holding; 5, Constant System; 6, Literary Brightness; 7, Upholder of the Plan;
8, Upholder of Virtue; 9, Profound Faith; 10, Steady Brightness; 11, Learned
Reverence; 12, Learned Carefulness; 13, Rigid Virtue.

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the area are bronze lanterns, the gift of the Kokushiu daimis. The
six very large gilded lanterns standing by themselves are from the
Go San K, the three princely families, in which the succession to
the oce of shgun was vested. To the left is a monolith lavatory;
and to the right is a splendid building, used as a depository of sacred
utensils, such as bells, gongs, lanterns, etc., used only on matsuri, or
festival days. Passing through another handsome gate which eclipses
the last in richness of design, we enter a roofed gallery somewhat like
a series of cloisters. In front is the shrine, a magnicent specimen of
native architecture.
Sitting down upon the lacquered steps, we remove our shoes, while
the shaven bonze swings open the gilt doors, and reveals a transept and nave, laid with nest white matting, and ceiled in squares
wrought with elaborate art. The walls of the transept are arabesqued,
and the panels carved with birds and owersthe fauna of Japan,
both real and mythicaland the various objects in Japanese sacred
and legendary art. In each panel the subjects are dierent, and richly
repay study. The glory of motion, the passionate life of the corolla,
and the perfection of natures colors have been here reproduced in
inanimate wood by the artist. At the extremity of the nave is a short
ight of steps. Two massive gilt doors swing asunder at the touch
of priestly hands, and across the threshold we behold an apocalypse
of splendor. Behind the sacred oertories, on carved and lacquered
tables, are three reliquaries rising to the ceiling, and by their outer
covering simulating masses of solid gold. Inside are treasured the tablets and posthumous titles of the august deceased. Descending from
this sanctum into the transept again, we examine the canonical rolls,
bell, book, and candles, drums and musical instruments, with which
the Buddhist rites are celebrated and the liturgies read. Donning our
shoes, we pass up a stone court fragrant with blossoming owers, and
shaded with rare and costly trees of every variety, form, and height,

The Perfection of Duarchy and Feudalism

335

but overshadowed by the towering rs. We ascend a ight of steps,

and are in another pebbled and stone-laid court, in which stands a
smaller building, called a haiden, formerly used by the living shgun
as a place of meditation and prayer when making his annual visit to
the tombs of his forefathers. Beyond it is still another ight of stone
steps, and in the inclosure is a plain monumental urn, Th is is the
simple ending to so much magnicencethe solemn application of
the gorgeous sermon.
The visitor, on entering the cemetery by the small gate to the
right of the temple, and a few feet distant from the great belfry, will
see three tombs side by side. The rst to the left is that of Iynobu,
the sixth of the line, who ruled in 17091713. The urn and gates of
the tomb are of bronze. The tomb in the centre is that of Iyyoshi,
the twelfth, who ruled 18381854. The third, to the right, is that of
Iymochi, the fourteenth shogun, who ruled 18581866, and was the
last of his line who died in power.
From the tomb of Iymochi, facing the east and looking to the
left, we may see the tombs of Iytsugu (17131716), the seventh, and
of Iyshige (17451762), the ninth, shgun. Descending the steps and
reaching the next stone platform, we may, by looking down to the
left, see the tombs of a shguns wife and two of his children. The
court-yards and shrines leading to the tombs of Iytsugu and Iyshige
are fully as handsome as the others. Hidtada (16061623), the second
prince of the line, is buried a few hundred yards south of the other
tombs. The place is easily found. Passing down the main avenue, and
turning to the right, we have a walk of a furlong or two up a hill, on
the top of which, surrounded by camellia-trees, and within a heavy
stone palisade, is a handsome octagon edice of the same material. A
mausoleum of gold lacquer rests upright on a pedestal. The tomb, a very
costly one, is in a state of perfect preservation. On one side of the path
is a curiously carved stone, representing Buddha on his death-bed. The

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great temple of Zzji belonged to the Jdo sect, within whose pale the
Tokugawas lived and died.*

* This splendid temple and belfry was reduced to ashes on the night of
December 31st, 1874, by a fanatic incendiary. It had been sequestrated by
the Imperial Government, and converted into a Shint miya. On a perfectly
calm midnight, during a heavy fall of snow, the sparks and the akes mingled
together with indescribable eect. The new year was ushered in by a perpendicular ood of dazzling green ame poured up to an immense height. The
background of tall cryptomeria trees heightened the grandeur of the ery
picture. As the volatilized gases of the various metals in the impure copper sheathing of the roof and sides glowed and sparkled, and streaked the
iridescent mass of ame, it aorded a spectacle only to be likened to a near
observation of the sun, or a view through a colossal spectroscope. The great
bell, whose casting had been superintended by Iymitsu, and by him presented
to the temple, had for two hundred years been the solemn monitor, inviting the
people to their devotions. Its liquid notes could be heard, it is said, at Odawara.
On the night of the re the old bell-ringer leaped to his post, and, in place of
the usual solemn monotone, gave the double stroke of alarm, until the heat
had changed one side of the bell to white, the note deepening in tone, until,
in red heat, the ponderous link softened and bent, dropping its burden to the
earth. It is to be greatly regretted that the once sacred grounds of Shiba groves
are now desecrated and common. Sic transit gloria Tokugawarum.
The family of Tokugawa, the city of Yedo, and the institutions of peaceful
feudalism took their rise and had their fall together. When the last shgun
resigned in 1868, Yedo became the Tki, or national capital, and with Old
Yedo, feudalism and Old Japan passed away. The desperate eorts afterward
made in 1874 at Saga, in Hizen, in 1876 at Kumamoto, in Higo, and in Satsuma
in 1877, to overthrow the mikados government, were but the expiring throes
of feudalism. Old Japan has forever passed away, to live only in art, drama,
and literature. The student will nd the following monographs valuable and
interesting: The Streets and Street Names of Yedo, in Transactions of the
Asiatic Society of Japan, 1873. The Tki Guide, and Map of Tki, with Notes
Historical and Explanatory; Yokohama, 1872. The Castle of Yedo, by T. R.
H. MClatchie, a valuable paper read before the Asiatic Society, Dec. 22d,
1877, and printed in the Japan Mail for Jan. 12th, 1878, and in the societys
Transactions for 1878. Mitfords Tales of Old Japan. Chiushingura; or, The Loyal
League, a Japanese Romance (of the 47 Ronins), enriched with native illustrations, notes, and appendix; New York, 1876. Japanese Heraldry, by T. R. H.

The Perfection of Duarchy and Feudalism

337

MClatchie, in Asiatic Societys Transactions for 1877. The best glimpse into
everyday humble life is aorded in Our Neighborhood; or, Sketches in the Suburbs
of Yedo, by T. A. P. (T. A. Purcell, M.D.); Yokohama, 1874. In Alcocks Three
Years in Japan (New York, Harper & Brothers) and Hildredths Japan are also
some good pictures as seen by foreign eyes.

XXVIII

The Recent Revolutions in Japan*

t is the popular impression in the United States and in Europe that

the immediate cause of the fall of the shguns Government, the
restoration of the mikado to supreme power, and the abolition of the
dual and feudal systems was the presence of foreigners on the soil of
Japan. No one who has lived in Dai Nippon, and made himself familiar with the currents of thought among the natives, or who has studied
the history of the country, can share this opinion. The foreigners and
their ideas were the occasion, not the cause, of the destruction of the
dual system of government, which would certainly have resulted from
the operation of causes already at work before the foreigners arrived.
Their presence served merely to hasten what was already inevitable.
I purpose in this chapter to expose the true causes of the recent
marvelous changes in Japan. These comprise a three-fold political
revolution within, a profound alteration in the national policy toward
foreigners, and the inauguration of social reforms which lead us to
hope that Japan has rejected the Asiatic, and adopted the European,
ideal of civilization. I shall attempt to prove that these causes operated mainly from within, not from without; from impulse, not from
impact; and that they were largely intellectual.
* Reprinted and enlarged from the North American Review of April, 1875.

339

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The history of Japan, as manifested in the current of events since

the advent of Commodore Perry, has its sources in a number of distinct movements, some logically connected, others totally distinct
from the rest. These were intended to effect: 1. The overthrow of
the shgun, and his reduction to his proper level as a vassal; 2. The
restoration of the true emperor to supreme power; 3. The abolition of
the feudal system and a return to the ancient imperial rgime; 4. The
abolition of Buddhism, and the establishment of pure Shint as the
national faith and the engine of government. These four movements
were historically and logically connected. The fth was the expulsion of the foreign barbarians, and the dictatorial isolation of Japan
from the rest of the world; the sixth, the abandonment of this design,
the adoption of Western civilization, and the entrance of Japan into
the comity of nations. The origin of the rst and second movements
must be referred to a time distant from the present by a century and
a half; the third and fourth, to a period within the past century; the
fth and sixth, to an impulse developed mainly within the memory
of young men now living.
There existed, long before the advent of Perry, denite conceptions
of the objects to be accomplished. These lay in the minds of earnest
thinkers, to whom life under the dual system was a perpetual winter
of discontent, like snow upon the hills. In due season the spring
would have come that was to make the ood. The presence of Perry
in the Bay of Yedo was like an untimely thaw, or a hot south-wind in
February. The snow melted, the streams gathered. Like houses built
upon the sand, the shgunate and the feudal system were swept away.
They were already too rotten and worm-eaten to have the great fall
which the simile might suggest. The mikado and the ancient ark of
state oated into power. Buddhism stood as upon a rock, damaged,
but rm. The foreigner, moored to the pile-driven foundations of
his treaties, held his own more rmly than before. The ood in full

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momentum was swollen by a new stream and deected into a new

channel. Abandoning the attempt to defy the gravitation of events,
to run up the hill of a past forever sloping backward into the impossible, the ood found surcease with the rivers of nations that make
the ocean of human solidarity.
The chief motors of these movements were intellectual. Neither
the impact of foreign cannon-balls at Kagoshima or Shimonoski,
nor the heavy and unjust indemnities demanded from the Japanese,
wrought of themselves the events of the last ten years, as foreigners so
complacently believe. An English writer resident in Japan concludes
his translation of the Legacy of Iyyasu by referring to it as the
constitution under which this country [Japan] was governed until the
time within the recollection of all, when it gave way to the irresistible
momentum of a higher civilization. The translator evidently means
that the fall of the dual form of government and the feudal system was
the direct result of contact with the higher civilization of Europe and
America. English writers on Japan seem to imply that the bombardment of Kagoshima was the paramount cause that impelled Japan to
adopt the foreign civilization.
Much, also, has been said and written in praise of Japan for her
abolition of the feudal system by a stroke of the pen, and thus
achieving in one day what it required Europe centuries to accomplish. An outsider, whose knowledge of Dai Nippon is derived from
our old text-books and cyclopedias, or from non-resident book-makers, may be so far dazed as to imagine the Japanese demi-gods in
state-craft, even as the American newspapers make them all princes.
To the writer, who has lived in a daimis capital before, during, and
after the abolition of feudalism, the comparison suggests the reason
why the Irish recruit cut o the leg instead of the head of his enemy.
Long before its abolition, Japanese feudalism was ready for its grave.
The overthrow of the shgun left it a headless trunk. To cut o its

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legs and bury it was easy, and in reality this was what the mikados
Government did, as I shall show.
As it would be vain to attempt to comprehend our own late civil war
by beginning at Sumter, or even with the Compromise measures of 1851;
so one will be misled who, in attempting to understand the Japan of today, looks only at events since Perrys time. The roots of the momentous
growth of 1868 are to be found within the past centuries.
Yoritomos acts were in reality the culmination of a long series of
usurpations, begun by the Taira. Under the plea of military necessity,
he had become an arch-usurper. In the period 11841199 a.d. began
that dual system of government which has been the political puzzle
of the world; which neither Kaempfer, nor the Dshima Hollanders,
nor the Portuguese Jesuits seem ever to have fully understood; which
has lled our cyclopedias and school-books with the misleading nonsense about two emperors, one spiritual and the other secular;
which led the astute Perry and his successors to make treaties with an
underling; which gave rise to a vast mass of what is now very amusing reading, embracing much prophecy, ction, and lamentations,
in the Diplomatic Correspondence from Japan; and which keeps
alive that venerable solecism heard among a few Rip Van Winkles
in Japan, who talk, both in Japanese and English, about the return
of the tycoon to power. There never was but one emperor in Japan;
the shogun was a military usurper, and the bombastic title tycoon
a diplomatic fraud.
We have seen how the policy of Yoritomo was continued by the
Hj, the Ashikaga, and the Tokugawas, who consummated the permanent separation of the throne and the camp. The custom of the
shoguns going to Kito to do the mikado homage fell into desuetude
after the visit of Iymitsu. The iron-handed rule of the great commander at Yedo was felt all over the empire, and after centuries of
war it had perfect peace. Learning ourished, the arts prospered. So

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perfect was the political machinery of the bakufu that the power of the
mikado seemed but a shadow, though in reality it was vastly greater
than foreigners ever imagined.
The dwellings of the two rulers at Yedo and Kito, of the domineering general and the overawed emperor, were typical of their
positions. The mikado dwelt, unguarded, in a mansion surrounded by
gardens inclosed within a plaster wall, in a city which was the chosen
centre of nobles of simple life, highest rank, and purest blood, men
of letters, students, and priests, and noted for its classic history and
sacred associations, monasteries, gardens, and people of courtly manners and gentle life. The shgun lived in a fortied and garrisoned
castle, overlooking an upstart city full of arsenals, vassal princes, and
military retainers. The feelings of the people found truest expression
in the maxim, The shgun all men fear; the mikado all men love.
The successors of Iyyasu, carrying out his policy, having exterminated the corrupt sect (Christianity), swept all foreigners out of
the empire, and bolting its sea-barred gates, proceeded to devise and
execute measures to eliminate all disturbing causes, and x in eternal
stability the peaceful conditions which were the fruit of the toils of
his arduous life. They deliberately attempted to prevent Chronos from
devouring his children.
According to their scheme, the intellect of the nation was to be
bounded by the Great Wall of the Chinese classics, while to the
hierarchy of Buddhismone of the most potent engines ever devised
for crushing and keeping crushed the intellect of the Asiatic masses
was given the ample encouragement of government example and
patronage. An embargo was laid upon all foreign ideas. Edicts commanded the destruction of all boats built upon a foreign model, and
forbade the building of vessels of any size or shape superior to that of
a junk, Death was the penalty of believing in Christianity, of traveling abroad, of studying foreign languages, of introducing foreign

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customs. Before the august train of the shgun men must seal their
upper windows, and bow their faces to the earth. Even to his tea-jars
and cooking-pots the populace must do obeisance with face in the
dust. To study ancient history, which might expose the origin of the
shgunate, was forbidden to the vulgar, and discouraged among the
higher. A rigid censorship dried the life-blood of many a master spirit,
while the manufacture and concoction of false and garbled histories
which extolled the reigning dynasty, or gloried the dual system of
government as the best and only one for Japan, were encouraged.
There were not wanting poets, fawning atterers, and even historians, who in their e usions styled the august usurper the -gimi
(Chinese, tai-kun, or tycoon), a term meaning great prince, or
exalted ruler, and properly applied only to the mikado. The blunders,
cruelties, and oppressions of the Tokugawa rulers were, in popular
ction and drama, removed from the present, and depicted in plots
laid in the time of the Ashikagas, and the true names changed. One
of the most perfect systems of espionage and repression ever devised
was elaborated to fetter all men in helpless subjection to the great
usurper. An incredibly large army of spies was kept in the pay of the
Government. Within such a hedge, the Government itself being a
colossal fraud, rapidly grew and ourished public and private habits of
lying, and deceit in all its forms, until the love of a lie apparently for
its own sake became a national habit. When foreigners arrived in the
Land of the Gods during the decade following Perrys arrival, they
concluded that the lying which was everywhere persistently carried
on in the Government and by private persons with such marvelous
facility and unique originality was a primal characteristic of Japanese
human nature. The necessity of hoodwinking the prying eyes of the
foreigners, lest they should discover the fountain of authority, and the
true relation of the shgun, gave rise to the use of ocial deception
that seemed as variegated as a kaleidoscope and as regular as the laws

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of nature. The majority of the daimis who had received lands and
titles from the shgun believed their allegiance to be forever due to
him, instead of to the mikado, a belief stigmatized as rank treason by
the students of history. As for the common people, the great mass of
them forgot, or never knew, that the emperor had ever held power or
governed his people; and being ocially taught to believe him to be
a divine personage, supposed he had lived thus from time immemorial. Knowing only of the troubled war times before the great and
good Tokugawas, they believed devoutly in the infallibility, paternal
benevolence, and divine right of the Yedo rulers.
The line of shguns, founded by Iyyasu, was the last that held,
or ever will hold, the military power in Japan. To them the Japanese
people owe the blessing of nearly two hundred and seventy years of
peace. Under their rm rule the dual form of government seemed xed
on a basis unchangeable, and the feudal system in eternal stability.
There did not exist, nor was it possible there should arise, causes such
as undermined the feudalism of Europe. The Church, the Empire,
free cities, industrialismthese were all absent. The eight classes of
the people were kept contented and happy. A fertile soil and genial
clime gave food in unstinted profusion, and thus was removed a cause
which is a chronic source of insurrection in portions of China. As
there was no commerce, there was no vast wealth to be accumulated,
nor could the mind of the merchant expand to a limit dangerous to
despotism by fertilizing contact with foreigners. All learning and
education, properly so called, were conned to the samurai, to whom
also belonged the sword and privilege. The perfection of the governmental machinery at Yedo kept, as was the design, the daimis poor
and at jealous variance with each other, and rendered it impossible for
them to combine their power. No two of them ever were allowed to
meet in private or to visit each other without spies. The vast army of
eighty thousand retainers of the Tokugawas, backed by the following

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of some of the richest clans, such as Owari, Kii, Mito, and Echizen,
who were near relatives of the shogunal family, together with the
vast resources in income and accumulation, made it appear, as many
believed, that the overthrow of the Tokugawas, or the bakufu, or the
feudal system, was a moral impossibility.
Yet all these fell to ruin in the space of a few months! The bakufu is
now a shadow of the past. The Tokugawas, once princes and the gentry of the land, whose hands never touched other tools than pen and
sword, now live in obscurity or poverty, and by thousands keep soul
and body together by picking tea, making paper, or digging the mud
of rice-elds they once owned, like the laborers they once despised.
Their ancestral tombs at Kuno, Shiba, Uyno, and Nikk, once the
most sacred and magnicently adorned of Japanese places of honor,
are now dilapidating in unarrested neglect, dishonor, and decay. The
feudal system, at the touch of a few daring parvenus, crumbled to dust
like the long undisturbed tenants of catacombs when suddenly moved
or exposed to the light of day. Two hundred and fty princes, resigning
lands, retainers, and incomes, retired to private life in Tki at the
bidding of their former servants, acting in the name of the mikado.
They are now quietly waiting to die. They are the dead facts stranded
on the shores of the oblivious years.
What were the causes of these three distinct results? When began
the rst gathering of the waters which burst into ood in 1868, sweeping away the landmarks of centuries, oating the old ship of state
into power, impelling it, manned with new men and new machinery,
into the stream of modern thought, as though Noahs ark had been
equipped with engines, steam, and propellers? To understand the
movement, we must know the currents of thought, and the men who
produced the ideas.
There were formerly many classes of people in Japan, but only three
of these were students and thinkers. The rst comprised the court

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nobles, the literati of Kito; the second, the priests, who brought into
existence that mass of Japanese Buddhistic literature, and originated
and developed those phases of the India cultus which have made
Japanese Buddhism a distinct product of thought and life among the
manifold developments of the once most widely professed religion in
the world. This intellectual activity and ecclesiastical growth culminated in the sixteenth century. Since that time Japanese thought has
been led by the samurai, among whom we may include the priests of
Shint. The modern secular intellectual activity of Japan attained its
highest point during the latter part of the last and the rst quarter
of the present century. Even as far back as the seventeenth century,
the students of ancient history began to understand clearly the true
nature of the duarchy, and to see that the shgunate could exist only
while the people were kept in ignorance. From that time Buddhism
began to lose its hold on the intellect of the samurai and lay educated
classes. The revival of Chinese learning, especially the Confucian and
Mencian politico-ethics, followed. Buddhism was almost completely
supplanted as a moral force. The invasion of Corea was one of the
causes tributary to this result, which was greatly stimulated by the
presence of a number of refugee scholars, who had ed from China
on the overthrow of the Ming dynasty. The secondary inuence of
the fall of Peking and the accession of the Tartars became a parallel
to the fall of Constantinople and the dispersion of the Greek scholars
through Europe in the thirteenth century. The relation between the
sovereign (mikado) and vassal (shgun) had become so nearly mythical, that most Japanese fathers could not satisfy the innocent and eager
questions of their children as to who was sovereign of Japan. The study
of the Confucian moral scheme of The Five Relations (i.e., sovereign
and minister, parent and child, husband and wife, elder and younger
brother, and between friends), in which the rst and great requirement is the obedience of the vassal to his lord, aroused an incoercible

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desire among the samurai to restore and dene that relation so long
obscured. This spirit increased with every blunder of the bakufu; and
when the revolution opened, the war-cry that led the imperial party
to victory was Daigi meibun, or the King and the subject; whereby it
was understood that the distinction between them must be restored,
and the shgun should be reduced to the proper relation of subject or
servant to his sovereign.*
The province of Mito was especially noted for the number, ability,
and activity of its scholars. In it dwelt the learned Chinese refugees as guests of the daimi. The classic, which has had so powerful
an inuence in forming the public opinion which now upholds the
mikados throne, is the product of the native scholars, who submitted
their text for correction to the Chinese scholars. The second Prince
of Mito, who was born 1622, and died 1700, is to be considered, as
was rst pointed out by Mr. Ernest Satow, as the real author of the
movement which culminated in the revolution of 1868. Assembling
around him a host of scholars from all parts of Japan, he began the
composition of the Dai Nihon Shi, or History of Japan. It is written
in the purest Chinese, which is to Japan what Latin is to learning in
Europe, and lls two hundred and forty-three volumes, or matter
about equal to Mr. Bancrofts History of the United States. It was
nished in 1715, and immediately became a classic. Though diligently
studied, it remained in manuscript, copied from hand to hand by
eager students, until 1851, when the wide demand for it induced its
publication in print. The tendency of this book, as of most of the many
publications of Mito, was to direct the minds of the people to the
mikado as the true and only source of authority, and to point out the
historical fact that the shgun was a military usurper. Mito, being a
* Arinori Mori: Introduction to Education in Japan, p. 26.
See article Japan, Literature of, in the American Cyclopdia.

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near relative of the house of Tokugawa, was allowed greater liberty in

stating his views than could have been granted to any other person.
The work begun by Mito was followed up by the famous scholar, Rai
Sanyo, who in 1827, after twenty years of continuous labor, completed
his Nihon Guai Shi (External History of Japan), in which he gives
the history of each of the military families, Taira, Minamoto, Hj,
Ashikaga, etc., who held the governing power from the period of the
decadence of the mikados. Th is work had to pass the ordeal of the
censorate at Yedo, and some of the volumes were repeatedly purged
by the censors before they were allowed to be published. The unmistakable animus of this great book is to show that the mikado is the
only true ruler, in whom is the fountain of power, and to whom the
allegiance of every Japanese is due, and that even the Tokugawas were
not free from the guilt of usurpation.
The long peace of two centuries gave earnest patriots time to think.
Though the great body of the people, both the governing and the
governed classes, enervated by prolonged prosperity and absence of
danger, cared for none of these things, the serious students burned
to see the mikado again restored to his ancient authority. This motive
alone would have caused revolution in due time. They felt that Japan had
retrograded, that the military arts had sunk into neglect, that the war
spirit slumbered. Yet on all sides the greedy foreigners were eying
the Holy Country. Already the ocean, once a wall, was a highway for
wheeled vessels. The settlement of California and the Pacic coast
made the restless Americans their neighbors on the east, with only
a wide steam ferry between. American whalers cruised in Japanese
waters, and hunted whales in sight of the native coasters. American
ships repeatedly visited their harbors to restore a very few of the
human waifs which for centuries in unintermitted stream had drifted
up the Kuro Shiwo and across the Pacic, giving to America wrecks
and spoils, her tribes men, her tongues words, and perhaps the civili-

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zation which in Peru and Mexico awoke the wonder and tempted the
cupidity of the Spanish marauders. Defying all precedent, and trampling on Japanese pride and isolation, the American captains refused
to do as the Hollanders, and go to Nagasaki, and appeared even in the
Bay of Yedo. The long scarfs of coal-smoke were becoming daily matters of familiar ugliness and prognostics of doom. The steam-whistle
heard by the junk sailorsas potent as the rams horns of oldhad
already thrown down their walls of exclusion. The black ships of
the barbarians passing Matsuma in one year numbered eighty-six.
Russia, on the north, was descending upon Saghalin; the English,
French, Dutch, and Americans were pressing their claims for trade
and commerce. The bakufu was idle, making few or no preparations
to resist the erce barbarians. Far-sighted men saw that, in presence
of foreigners, a collision between the two centres of government,
Yedo and Kito, would be immediate as it was inevitable. When it
should come, in the nature of the case, the shgunate must fall. The
samurai would adhere to the mikados side, and the destruction of
the feudal system would follow as a logical necessity. It was the time
of luxury, carousal, and the stupor of licentious carnival with most of
the daimis, but with others of gloomy forebodings.
Another current of thought was f lowing in the direction of a
restored mikadoate. It may be called the revival of the study of pure
Shint, and, in examining the causes of the recent revolution, can not
be overlooked. The introduction of Buddhism and Chinese philosophy
greatly modied or corrupted the ancient faith. A school of modern
writers has attempted to purge modern Shinto, and present it in its
original form.
According to this religion, Japan is pre-eminently the Land of the
Gods, and the mikado is their divine representative and vicegerent.
Hence the duty of all Japanese implicitly to obey him. During the
long reign of the shoguns, and of Buddhism, which they favored and

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professed, few, indeed, knew what pure Shint was. Its Bible is the
Kojiki, compiled a.d. 712. Several other works, such as the Nihongi,
Manyoshiu, are nearly as old and as valuable in the eyes of Shint
scholars as the Kojiki. They are written in ancient Japanese, and can
be read only by special students of the archaic form of the language.
The developments of a taste for the study of ancient native literature
and for that of history were nearly synchronous. The neglect of pure
Japanese learning for that of Chinese had been almost universal,
until Keichiu, Kada, and other scholars revived its critical study. The
bakufu discouraged all such investigation, while the mikado and court
at Kito lent it all their aid, both moral and, as it is said, pecuniary.
Mabuchi (16971769), Motori (17301801), and Hirata (17761843),
each successively the pupil of the other, are the greatest lights of
pure Shint; and their writings, which are devoted to cosmogony,
ancient history, and language, the true position of the mikado and the
Shint cultus, exerted a lively inuence at Kito, in Mito, in Echizen,
Satsuma, and in many other provinces, where a political party was
already forming, with the intention of accomplishing the abolition
of the bakufu and a return to the sei era. The necessary result of
the study of Shint was an increase of reverence for the mikado.
Buddhism, Chinese inuence, Confucianism, despotism, usurpation,
and the bakufu were, in the eyes of a Shintist, all one and the same.
Shint, the ancient true religion, all which a patriot could desire,
good government, national purity, the Golden Age, and a life best
explained by the conception of the millennium among Christians,
were synonymous with the mikado and his return to power. The arguments of the Shintists helped to swell the tide that came to its ood
at Fushimi. Th roughout and after the war of 18681870, there were
no more bitter partisans who urged to the last extremes of logic and
severity the issues of the war and the reformation. It was the study
of the literature produced by the Shint scholars and the historical

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writers that formed the public opinion that nally overthrew the
shgunate, the bakufu, and feudalism.
Long before foreigners arrived, the seeds of revolution were above
the soil. The old Prince of Mito, a worthy descendant of his illustrious
ancestor, tired of preaching Shint and of persuading the shgun to
hand over his authority to the mikado, resolved, in 1840, to take up
arms and to try the wager of battle. To provide the sinews of war, he
seized the Buddhist monasteries, and melted down their enormous
bronze bells and cast them into cannon. By prompt measures the
bakufu suppressed his preparations for war, and imprisoned him for
twelve years, releasing him only in the excitement consequent upon
the arrival of Perry.
Meanwhile Satsuma, Chshiu, and other Southern clans were
making extensive military preparations, not merely to be in readiness
to drive out the possible foreign invaders, but, as we now know, and
as events proved, to reduce the shgun to his proper level as one of
many of the mikados vassals. The ancestors of these most powerful
clans had of old held equal rank and power with Iyyasu, until the
fortunes of war turned against them. They had been overcome by
force, or had sullenly surrendered in face of overwhelming odds. Their
adhesion to the Tokugawas was but nominal, and only the strong
pressure of superior power was able to wring from them a haughty
semblance of obedience. They chafed perpetually under the rule of
one who was in reality a vassal like themselves. On more than one
occasion they openly deed and ignored the bakufus orders; and the
purpose, scarcely kept secret, of the Satsuma and Chshiu clans was
to destroy the shogunate, and acknowledge no authority but that of
the mikado.
From the Southern clans rose, nally, the voice in council, the
secret plot, the coup detat, and the arms in the eld that wrought the
purpose for which Mito labored. Yet they would never have been suc-

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cessful, had not a public sentiment existed to support them, which the
historical writers had already created by their writings. The scholars
could never have gratied their hearts wish, had not the sword and
pen, brain and handboth equally mightyhelped each other.
Notably pre-eminent among the Southern daimis, in personal
characteristics, abilities, energy, and far-sightedness, was the Prince of
Satsuma. Next to Kaga, he was the wealthiest of all the daimis. Had
he lived, he would doubtless have led the revolutionary movement
of 1868. Besides giving encouragement to all students of the ancient
literature and history, he was most active in developing the material
resources of his province, and in perfecting the military organization,
so that, when the time should be ripe for the onslaught on the bakufu,
he might have ready for the mikado the military provision to make his
government a complete success. To carry out his plans, he encouraged
the study of the Dutch and English languages, and thus learned the
modern art of war and scientic improvement. He established cannon-foundries and mills on foreign principles. He saw that something
more was needed. Young men must visit foreign countries, and there
acquire the theory and practice of the arts of war and peace. The laws
of the country forbade any subject to leave it, and the bakufu was ever
on the alert to catch runaways. Later on, however, by a clever artice,
a number of the brightest young men, about twenty-seven in number,
got away in one vessel to Europe, and, despite the surveillance of the
Yedo ocials, others followed to England and the United States.
Among these young men were some who are now high ocials of
the Japanese Government.
The renown of this prince extended all over the empire, and numbers of young men from all parts of the country ocked to be his
pupils or students. Kagoshima, his capital, became a centre of busy
manual industry and intellectual activity. Keeping pace with the
intense energy of mind and hand was the growing sentiment that the

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days of the bakufu were numbered, that its fall was certain, and that
the only fountain of authority was the mikado. The Satsuma samurai and students all looked to the prince as the man for the coming
crisis, when, to the inexpressible grief of all, he sickened and died,
in 1858. He was succeeded in actual power by Shimadzu Saburo, his
younger brother. No master ever left more worthy pupils; and those
most trusted and trusting, among many others, were Saig, kubo,
and Katsu. The mention of these names calls up to a native the most
stirring memories of the war. Saig became the leader of the imperial
army. kubo, the implacable enemy of the bakufu, was the masterspirit in council, and the power behind the throne which urged the
movement to its logical consequences. At this moment, the annihilator of the Saga rebellion, crowned with diplomatic laurels, and the
conqueror of a peace at Peking, he stands leader of the Cabinet, and
the foremost man in Japan. Katsu advised the bakufu not to ght
Chshiu, and his master to resign his position, thus saving Yedo from
destruction. The lesser men of note, pupils of Satsuma, who now hold
positions of trust, or who have become disinterested Cincinnati, to
show their patriotism, are too many to mention.

Familiarity with the facts above exposed will enable one to understand
the rush of events that followed the arrival of the American envoy. The
bakufu was apparently at the acme of power. The shgun Iyyoshi at
Yedo was fainant. The mikado at Kito, Komi Tenn, father of the
present emperor, was a man who understood well his true position,
hated the bakufu as a nest of robbers, and all foreigners as unclean
beasts. Within the empire, all was ripe for revolution. Beneath the
portentous calm, those who would listen could hear the rumble of the
political earthquake. From without came pus of news, like atmospheric
pulses portending a cyclone. On that 8th day of July, 1853, the natural sea

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and sky wearing perfect calm, the magnicent eet of the barbarian
ships sailed up the Bay of Yedo. It was the outer edge of the typhoon.
The Susquehanna was leading the squadrons of seventeen nations.
There was one spectator upon the blu s at Yokohama who was
persuaded in his own mind that the men who could build such ships
as those; who were so gentle, kind, patient, rm; having force, yet
using it not; demanding to be treated as equals, and in return dealing
with Japanese as with equals, could not be barbarians. If they were,
it were better for the Japanese to become barbarous. That man was
Katsu, now the Secretary of the Japanese Navy.
The barbarian envoy was a strange creature. He was told to leave
the Bay of Yedo and go to Nagasaki. He impolitely refused, and staid
and surveyed, and was dignied. This was anomalous. Other barbarians had not acted so; they had quietly obeyed orders. Furthermore, he
brought letters and presents, all directed To the Emperor of Japan.
The shgun was not emperor, but he must make believe to be so. It
would not do to call himself the mikados general only. This title awed
suciently at home; but would the strangers respect it? A pedantic
professor (not the Prince of Dai Gaku) in the Chinese college (Dai
Gaku K) at Yedo was sent to treat with the barbarian Perry. A chopper of Chinese logic, and a stickler for exact terms, the pedant must,
as in duty bound, exalt his master. He inserted, or at least allowed to
be used in the treaties the title tai-kun, a purely Chinese word, which
in those ocial documents signied that he was the supreme ruler of
all Japan. This title had never been bestowed upon the shgun by the
mikado, nor had it ever been used in the imperial ocial documents.
The bakufu and the pedantic professor, Hayashi, did not mean to lie
to the true sovereign in Kito. The bakufu, like a frog, whose front
is white, whose back is black, could look both ways, and present two
fronts. Seen from Kito, the lie was white; that is, meant nothing.
Looked at by those unsuspecting dupes, the barbarians, it was black;

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that is, The august Sovereign of Japan, as the preamble of the Perry
treaty says. Yet to the jealous emperor and court this white lie was, as
ever white lies are, the blackest of lies. It created the greatest uneasiness and alarm. The shgun had no shadow of right to this bombastic
gment of authority.
It was a new illustration in diplomacy of sops Fable No. 26. The
great Yedo frog pued itself to its utmost to equal the Kito ox, and it
burst in the attempt. The last carcass of these batrachians in diplomacy
was buried in Shidzuoka, a city ninety-ve miles south-west of Tki,
in 1868. The writer visited this ancient home of the Tokugawas in 1872,
and in a building within a mile of the actual presence of the last and
still living tycoon, and within shouting distance of thousands of
his ex-retainers, saw scores of the presents brought by Commodore
Perry lying, many of them, in mildew, rust, or neglect. They were all
labeled Presented by the of the United States to the
Emperor of Japan. Yet the mikado never saw them. The Japanese
excel at a jibe, but when did they perpetrate sarcasm so huge? The
mikados government, with Pilates irony, had allowed the tycoon to
keep the presents, with the labels on them!
We may fairly infer that so consummate a diplomatist as Perry,
had he understood the true state of aairs, would have gone with his
eet to zaka, and opened negotiations with the mikado at Kito,
instead of with his lieutenant at Yedo. Perhaps he never knew that he
had treated with an underling.
The immediate results of the opening of the ports to foreign commerce in 1859 were the disarrangement of the prices of the necessaries
of life, and almost universal distress consequent thereon, much sickness and mortality from the importation of foreign diseases, to which
was added an exceptional succession of destructive earthquakes,

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typhoons, oods, res, and storms. In the midst of these calamities

the shgun, Iysada, died.
An heir must be chosen. His selection devolved upon the tair,
or regent, Ii, a man of great ability, daring, and, as his enemies say,
of unscrupulous villainy. Ii,* though socially of low rank, possessed
almost supreme power. Ignoring the popular choice of Keiki (the seventh son of the Daimi of Mito), who had been adopted by the house
of Hitotsubashi, he chose the Prince of Kii, a boy twelve years of age.
In answer to the indignant protests of the princes of Mito, Echizen,
and Owari, he shut them up in prison, and thus alienated from his support the near relatives of the house of Tokugawa. It was his deliberate
intention, say his enemies, to depose the mikado, as the Hj did, and
set up a boy emperor again. At the same time, all who opposed him
or the bakufu, or who, in either Kito, Yedo, or elsewhere, agitated
the restoration of the mikado, he impoverished, imprisoned, exiled, or

* The premier, Ii, was the Daimi of Hikon, a castled town and ef on Lake
Biwa, in Mino; revenue, three hundred and fty thousand koku. He was at the
head of the fudai. His personal name was Nawosuk; his title at the emperors
court was kamon no kamihead of the bureau of the Ku Nai Sh (imperial
household)having in charge the hangings, curtains, carpets, mats, and the
sweeping of the palace on state occasions. His rank at Kito was Chiuj, or
general of the second class. In the bakufu, he was prime minister, or tairo.
He had a son, who was afterward educated in Brooklyn, New York.
It would be impossible in brief space to narrate the plots and counterplots at
Yedo and Kito during the period 18601868. As a friendly critic (in The Higo
News, June 9th, 1875) has pointed out, I allow that the Prince of Mito, while
wishing to overthrow the shgunate, evidently wished to see the restoration
accomplished with his son, Keiki, in a post of high honor and glory. While in
banishment, secret instructions were sent from Kito, which ran thus: The
bakufu has shown great disregard of public opinion in concluding treaties
without waiting for the opinion of the court, and in disgracing princes so

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beheaded. Among his victims were many noble scholars and patriots,
whose fate excited universal pity.*

closely allied by blood to the shgun. The mikados rest is disturbed by the spectacle of such misgovernment, when the erce barbarian is at our very door. Do
you, therefore, assist the bakufu with your advice; expel the barbarians; content
the mind of the people; and restore tranquillity to his majestys bosom.Kins
Shiriaku, p. 11, Satows translation. This letter was afterward delivered up to the
bakufu, shortly after which (September, 1861) the old prince died. The Mito
clan was for many years afterward divided into two factions, the Righteous
and the Wicked. There is no proof that the Prince of Mito poisoned Iysada,
except the baseless guess of Sir Rutherford Alcock, which has a value at par
with most of that writers statements concerning Japanese history.
* Among others was Yoshida Shoin, a samurai of Chshiu, and a student of
European learning. He was the man who tried to get on board Commodore
Perrys ship at Shimoda (Perrys Narrative, p. 485488). He had been kept
in prison in his clan since 1854. He wrote a pamphlet against the project of
taking up arms against the bakufu, for which he was rewarded by the Yedo
rulers with his liberty. After Iis arbitrary actions, Yoshida declared that the
shgunate could not be saved, and must fall. When the shguns ministers were
arresting patriots in Kito, Yoshida resolved to take his life. For this plot, after
detection, he was sent to Yedo in a cage, and beheaded. This ardent patriot,
whose memory is revered by all parties, was one of the first far-sighted men to
see that Japan must adopt foreign civilization, or fall before foreign progress,
like India. The national enterprises now in operation were urged by him in an
able pamphlet written before his death.
Another victim, a student of European literature, and a ne scholar in Dutch
and Chinese, named Hashimoto Sanai, of Fukui, brother of my friend Dr.
Hashimoto, surgeon in the Japanese army, fell a martyr to his loyalty and
patriotism. Th is gentleman was the instrument of arousing an enthusiasm for
foreign science in Fukui, which ultimately resulted in the writers appointment to Fukui. Hashimoto saw the need of opening peaceful relations with
foreigners, but believed that it could safely be done only under the restored
and unied government. Under a system of divided authority, he held that the
ruin of Japan would result. Had Perry treated with the mikado, foreign war
might possibly have resulted, though very probably not. By treating with the
counterfeit emperor in Yedo, civil war, foreign hostilities, impoverishment of
the country, and national misery, prolonged for years, were inevitable.

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The mikado being by right the supreme ruler, and the shgun
merely a vassal, no treaty with foreigners could be binding unless
signed by the mikado.
The shgun or his ministers had no right whatever to sign the treaties. Here was a dilemma. The foreigners were pressing the ratication
of the treaties on the bakufu, while the mikado and court as vigorously refused their consent. Ii was not a man to hesitate. As the native
chronicler writes: He began to think that if, in the presence of these
constant arrivals of foreigners of dierent nations, he were to wait for
the Kito people to make up their minds, some unlucky accident might
bring the same disasters upon Japan as China had already experienced.
He, therefore, concluded a treaty at Kanagawa, and a xed his seal to
it, after which he reported the transaction to Kito.
This signature to the treaties without the mikados consent stirred
up intense indignation at Kito and throughout the country, which
from one end to the other now resounded with the cry, Honor the
mikado, and expel the barbarian. In the eyes of patriots, the regent
was a traitor. His act gave the enemies of the bakufu a legal pretext of
enmity, and was the signal of the regents doom. All over the country
thousands of patriots left their homes, declaring their intention not
to return to them until the mikado, restored to power, should sweep
away the barbarians. Boiling over with patriotism, bands of assassins,
mostly rnins, roamed the country, ready to slay foreigners, or the
regent, and to die for the mikado. On the 23d of March, Ii was assassinated in Yedo, outside the Sakurada gate of the castle, near the spot
where now stand the oces of the departments of War and Foreign
Aairs, and the Gothic brick buildings of the Imperial College of
Engineering. Then followed the slaughter of insolent foreigners, and
in some cases of innocent ones, and the burning of their legations,
the chief object in nearly every case being to embroil the bakufu with
foreign powers, and thus hasten its fall. Some of these amateurs, who

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in foreign eyes were incendiaries and assassins, and in the native view
noble patriots, are now high ocials in the mikados Government.
The prestige of the bakufu declined daily, and the tide of inuence
and power set in steadily toward the true capital. The custom of the
shoguns visiting Kito, and doing homage to the mikado, after an
interval of two hundred and thirty years, was revived, which caused
his true relation to be clearly understood even by the common people,
who then learned for the rst time the fact that the rule existed, and
had been so long-insolently ignored. The Prince of Echizen, by a special and unprecedented act of the bakufu, and in obedience to orders
from the Kito court, was made premier. By his own act, as many
believe, though he was most probably only the willing cats-paw of
the Southern daimis, he abolished the custom of the daimis forced
residence in Yedo. Like wild birds from an opened cage, they, with all
their retainers, ed from the city in less than a week. Yedos glory faded
like a dream, and the power and greatness of the Tokugawas came
to naught. Few of the clans obeyed any longer the command of the
bakufu, and gradually the hearts of the people fell away. And so, says
the native chronicler, the prestige of the Tokugawa family, which had
endured for three hundred years; which had been really more brilliant
than Kamakura in the age of Yoritomo on a moonlight night when the
stars are shining; which for more than two hundred and seventy years
had forced the daimis to come breathlessly to take their turn of duty
in Yedo; and which had, day and night, eighty thousand vassals at its
beck and call, fell to ruin in the space of one morning.
The clans now gathered at the true miako, Kito, which became
a scene of gayety and bustle unknown since the days of the Taira
Ending their allegiance to the bakufu, they began to act either according to their own will, or only at the bidding of the court. They lled
the imperial treasury with gold, and strengthened the hands of the
Son of Heaven with their loyal devotion. Hatred of the foreigner, and

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a desire to ll their empty coers with the proceeds of commerce,

swayed the minds of many of them like the wind among reeds. Others
wished to open the ports in their efs, so as to pocket the prots of
foreign commerce, which the bakufu enjoyed as its monopoly. A war
of pamphlets ensued, some writers attempting to show that the clans
owed allegiance to the bakufu; others condemning the idea as treasonable, and, having the historic facts on their side, proved the mikado to
be the sole sovereign. The bakufu, acting upon the pressure of public
opinion in Kito, and in hopes of restoring its prestige, bent all its
eorts to close the ports and persuade the foreigners to leave Japan.
For this purpose they sent an embassy to Europe. To hasten their
steps, the ronins now began the systematic assassination of all who
opposed their plans, pillorying their heads in the dry bed of the river
in front of the city. As a hint to the Tokugawa usurpers, they cut
o the heads of wooden images of the rst three Ashikaga shoguns,
and stuck them on poles in public. The rnins were arrested; Chshiu
espoused their side, while Aidzu, who was governor of the city, threw
them into prison. The mikado, urged by the clamorous braves, and by
kug who had never seen one of the hairy foreigners, nor dreamed
of their power, issued an order for their expulsion from Japan. The
Chshiu men, the rst to act, erected batteries at Shimonoski. The
bakufu, which was responsible to foreigners, commanded the clan to
disarm. They refused, and in July, 1863, red on foreign vessels. They
obeyed the mikado, and disobeyed the shgun. During the next
month, Kagoshima was bombarded by a British squadron.
On the 4th of September, the Chshiu cannoneers red on a bakufu
steamer, containing some men of the Kokura clan who were enemies
of Chshiu, and who had given certain aid and comfort to foreign
vessels, and refused to re on the latter. The Chshiu men in Kito
besought the mikado to make a progress to Yamato, to show to the empire
his intention of taking the eld in person against the barbarians. The

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proposal was accepted, and the preliminaries arranged, when suddenly

all preparations were stopped, Chshiu became an object of blackest
suspicion, the palace gates were doubly guarded, the city was thrown
into violent commotion; while the deliberations of the palace ended in
the expulsion of Sanj Sanyoshi (now Dai J Dai Jin), Sawa (Minister
of Foreign Aairs, 187071), and ve other court nobles, who were
deprived of their rank and titles, while eighteen others were punished, and all retainers or members of the family of Mri (Chshiu)
were peremptorily forbidden to enter the capitala phrase that
made them outlaws. An army was levied, and the city put in a state
of defense.
The reason of this was, that the Chshiu men were accused of plotting to get possession of the mikados person, in order to dictate the
policy of the empire. The eighteen kug and the six ringleaders were
suspected of abetting the plot. Th is, and the ring on the steamer
containing their envoys, roused the indignation of the bakufu, and
the clans loyal to it, especially Aidzu, to the highest pitch. The men
of Chshiu, accompanied by the seven kug, ed, September 30th,
1863, to their province.
Chshiu now became the rendezvous of deserters and rnins from
all parts of Japan. In July of the following year, 1864, a body of many
hundred of irresponsible men of various clans, calling themselves
Irregulars, arrived in Kito from the South, to petition the mikado
to restore Mri and the seven nobles to honor, and to drive out the
barbarians. Aidzu and the shguns vassals were for attacking these
men with arms at once. The mikado, not adopting the views of the
petitioners, returned them no answer. On July 30th, the Irregulars
were increased by many hitherto calm, but now exasperated, Chshiu
men, and encamped in battle array in the suburbs, where they were
joined, August 15th, by two kars, and two hundred men from
Chshiu, sent by Prince Mri to restrain his followers from violence.

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While thus patiently waiting, a notification that they were to be

punished was issued, August 19th, to them by the court, then under
the inuence of Aidzu, and Keiki was put in command of the army
of chastisement.
With tears and letters of sorrowful regret to their friends at court,
the Chshiu men and the rnins, in a written manifesto vindicated
the justness of their cause, swore vengeance against Aidzu, whose
troops were encamped in the imperial ower-garden, and then asking
pardon of the Son of Heaven for making a disturbance so near the
base of the chariot (the throne), they accepted the wager of battle,
and rushed to the attack. The crisis had arrived, says the native
chronicler, and the spirit of murder lled and overowed heaven and
earth. The term chtki, which for centuries had been obsolete, now
again came into being. Many myriads of habitations were destroyed,
and millions of people were plunged into a ery pit. On the 20th
of August, 1864, at day-dawn, the battle began, the Chshiu men
advancing in three divisions, numbering in all thirteen hundred men,
their design being to attack the nine gates of the imperial palace and
surround the ower-garden. The Tokugawa and Aidzu troops were
backed by those of Echizen, Hikon, Kuwana and others. The battle
raged furiously for two days, involving the city in a con agration,
which, fanned by a gale, reduced large quarters of it to a level of ashes.
The fighting was by men in armor, equipped mostly with sword,
arrow, cannon, and musket: 811 streets, 27,400 houses, 18 palaces, 44
large and 630 small yashikis, 60 Shintshrines, 115 Buddhist temples,
40 bridges, 400 beggars huts, and one eta village were destroyed by
the ames; 1,216 re-proof store-houses were knocked to pieces by
the cannonading kept up after the battle to prevent the Chshiu men
from hiding in them. The capital, surrounded by a nine-fold circle
of owers, entirely disappeared in one morning in the smoke of the
ames of a war re. The homeless city populace ed to the suburbs,

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dwelling on rooess earth, pestered by the heat and clouds of mosquitoes, while men in soldiers dress played the robber without fear or
shame. The Blossom Capital became a scorched desert. The Choshiu
were utterly defeated, and driven out of the city. Thirty-seven of them
were decapitated in prison.
The next month the bakufu begged the imperial court to deprive
the Mri family and all its branches of their titles. Elated with success, an order was issued to all the clans to march to the chastisement
of the two provinces of Nagato and Suwo. The Tokugawa intended
thus to set an example to the wavering clans, and give proof of the
power it still possessed. During the same month, September 5th and
6th, 1864, Shimonoski was bombarded by an allied eet bearing the
ags of four foreign nations. After great destruction of life and property, the generous victors demanded an indemnity of three million
Mexican dollars. The brave clan, having deed the bakufu at Kito,
dared the prowess of the civilized world, and stood to their guns at
Shimonoski till driven away by overwhelming numbers of balls and
men, now prepared to face the combined armies of the shgunate.
Then was revealed the result of the long previous preparation in the
South for war. The Chshiu clansmen, united and alert, were lightly
dressed, armed with English and American ries, drilled in European
tactics, and abundantly provided with artillery, which they red rapidly and with precision. They had cast away armor, sword, and spear.
Chshiu had long been the seat of Dutch learning, and translations
of Dutch military works were numerously made and used there. Their
disciplined battalions were recruited from the common people, not
from the samurai alone, were well paid, and full of enthusiasm. The
bakufu had but a motley, half-hearted army, many of whom, when the
order was given to march, straightway fell ill, having no stomach for the
ght. Some of the most inuential clans declined or refused outright to

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join the expedition, whose purpose was condemned by almost all the
wisest leaders, notably by Katsu, the shguns adviser.
A campaign of three months, in the summer of 1866, ended in
the utter and disgraceful defeat of the bakufu, and the triumph of
Chshiu. The clans not yet in the eld refused to go to the front. The
prestige of the shgunate was now irretrievably ruined.
The young shgun, worn out with ceaseless anxiety, died at zaka,
September 19th, 1866. He had secured the mikados consent to the
treaties, on the condition that they should be revised, and that Higo
should never be opened as a port of foreign commerce. He was succeeded by Keiki, his former rival, who was appointed head of the
Tokugawa family by the court October, 1866. On the 6th of January,
1867, he was made shogun. He had repeatedly declined the position.
He brought to it numerous private virtues, but only the rmness of a
feather for the crisis at hand. The average Japanese lacks the stolidity
and obstinacy of the Chinaman, and ckleness is supposed to be his
chief characteristic. Keiki, as some of his once best friends say, was
ckleness personied. If, with the help of counselors, he could make
up his mind to one course of action, the keenest observers could never
forecast the change liable to ensue when new advisers appeared. It is
evident that the appointment of such a man at this crisis served only
to precipitate the issue. His popularity at the court most probably
arose from the fact that he was opposed to the opening of Higo and
zaka to the foreigners.
In October, 1867, the Prince of Tosa openly urged the new shogun to resign; while many able samurai, Saig, kubo, Got, Kido,
Hirozawa, Komatsu, backed by such men of rank as Shimadzu Sabur,
and the ex-princes of Echizen, Uwajima, Hizen, and Tosa, urged the
formation of the Government on the basis of the ante-shgun era
prior to 1200 a.d. They formed so powerful a combination that on the

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9th of November, 1867, the vacillating Keiki, yielding to the force of

public opinion, tendered his resignation as Sei-i Tai Shgun.
This was a long step toward the ancient rgime. Yet, as in Japan,
whichever party or leader has possession of the mikado is master of
the situation; and as the Aidzu clan, the most stanchly loyal to the
Tokugawa family, kept guard at the gates of the imperial palace, it
was still uncertain where the actual power would residewhether in
the Tokugawa clan, in the council of daimis, or, where it rightfully
belonged, with the imperial court. The inuential samurai of Satsuma,
and Chshiu, and the princes of Tosa, Echizen, and Uwajima were
determined not to let the question hang in suspense. Gradually, small
parties of the soldiers of the combination assembled in the capital.
Saig and kubo, Kido, Got, and Iwakura, were too much in earnest
to let the supreme opportunity slip. They began to stir up the court
to take advantage of the critical moment, the mikado Komi being
dead, and, by a bold coup detat, abolish the oce of shgun and the
bakufu, and re-establish the Government on the ancient basis, with
the young emperor at the head.
On the 3d of January, 1868, the troops of the combination (Satsuma,
Tosa, Echizen, Aki, and Owari) suddenly took possession of the palace gates. The court nobles hitherto surrounding the boy emperor were
dismissed, and only those favoring the views of the combination were
admitted to the palace. The court, thus purged, issued an edict in the
name of the mikado, which stated that the government of the country
was now solely in the hands of the imperial court. The bakufu and
oce of shgun were abolished. A provisional government, with three
grades of oce, was formed, and the positions were at once lled by
men loyal to the new rulers. The family of Mri was rehabilitated,
and the seven banished nobles were recalled. Sanj and Iwakura were
made assistants to the supreme administrator, Arisugawa Miya, a
prince of the blood.

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The indignation of the retainers of Tokugawa knew no bounds. The

vacillating shgun now regretted his resignation, and wished himself
back in power. He left Kito with the clans still loyal to him, with
the professed intention of calming the passions of his followers, but
in reality of seizing zaka, and blocking up the communications of
the Southerners. Shortly after, in Yedo, on the 19th of January, the
yashikis of the Satsuma clan were stormed and burned by the bakufu
troops. The Princes of Owari and Echizen were sent by the court to
invite Keiki to join the new Government, and receive an appointment to oce even higher than he had held before. He promised to
do so, but no sooner were they gone than he yielded to Aidzus warlike counsel to re-enter Kito in force, drive out the bad counselors
of the young emperor, and try the issue with the sword. He was
forbidden by the court to approach the city with a military following. Barriers were erected across the two roads leading to the capital,
and the Southern clansmen, numbering about two thousand, posted
themselves behind them, with artillery. Keiki set out from zaka
on the evening of the 27th of January, with the Aidzu and Kuwana
clans in the front of his following, amounting to over ten, or, as some
say, thirty thousand men. At Fushimi his messengers were refused
passage through the barriers. The kuan-gun (loyal army, Kito forces)
red their cannon, and the war was opened. The shguns followers,
by their last move on the political chess-board, had made themselves
chtki. Their prestige had own.
The battle lasted three days. In the presence of overwhelming
forces, the Southern samurai showed not only undaunted valor, but
the result of previous years of military training. The battle was not
to the strong. It was to the side of intelligence, energy, coolness, and
valor. The shguns army was beaten, and in wild disorder ed to
zaka, the historic castle of which was burned by the loyal army.
The chief, unrecognized, found refuge upon an American vessel,

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and, reaching Yedo on one of his own ships, sought the seclusion
of his castle. His own family retainers and most of the subject clans
(fudai), and the daimis of Aidzu, Sendai, and others of the North
and East, urged him to renew the ght and restore his prestige. One
of his ministers earnestly begged him to commit hara-kiri, urging its
necessity to preserve the honor of the Tokugawa clan. His exhortation
being unsuccessful, the proposer solemnly opened his own bowels.
With a large army, arsenals, munitions of war, and f leet of ships
vastly exceeding those of the mikado, his chances of success were
very fair. But this time the vassal was loyal, the waverer wavered no
more. Refusing to listen to those who advised war, abhorring the
very idea of being a chtki, he hearkened to the counsel of his two
highest ministers, Katsu and kubo Ichiz, and declaring that he
would never take up arms against his lord, the mikado, he retired to
private life. The comparison of this man with Washington because he
refused to head an army, and thus save the country from a long civil
war, does not seem to be very happy, though I have heard it made.
Personally, Keiki is a highly accomplished gentleman, though ambitious and weak. Politically, he simply did his duty, and made discretion the better part of valor. It is dicult to see in him any exalted
traits of character or evidences of genius; to Katsu and kubo is due
the last and best decision of his life. Katsu, the old pupil of Satsuma
and comrade of Saig, had long foreseen that the governing power
must and ought of right to revert to the mikado, and, braving odium
and assassination, he advised his master to resign. The victorious
Southerners, led by Saig, were in the southern suburb of Yedo, waiting to attack the city. To reduce a Japanese city needs but a torch, and
the impatient victors would have left of Yedo little but ashes had there
been resistance. Katsu, meeting Saig, assured him of the submissive
temper of the shgun, and begged him to spare the city. It was done.
The fanatical retainers of Keiki made the temple grounds of Uyno

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their stronghold. On the 4th of July they were attacked and routed,
and the magnicent temple, the pride of the city, laid in ashes. The
theatre of war was then transferred to the highlands of Aidzu at
Wakamatsu, and thence to Matsuma and Hakodat in Yezo. Victory
everywhere perched upon the mikados brocade banner. By July 1st,
1869, all vestiges of the rebellion had ceased, and the empire was
grateful for universal peace.
The mikados party was composed of the heterogeneous elements
which a revolution usually brings forth. Side by side with high-souled
patriots were disreputable vagrants and scalawags of every description,
rnins, or low, two-sworded men, jo-i, or foreigner-haters, port-closers, and Shint priests and students. There were a few earnest men
whose darling hope was to see a representative government established,
while fewer yet eagerly wished Japan to adopt the civilization of the
West, and join the brotherhood of nations. These men had utilized
every current and eddy of opinion to forward their own views and
achieve their own purpose. The object common to all was the exaltation
of the mikado. The bond of union which held the majority together was
a determination to expel the foreigners or to revise the treaties so as
to expunge the odious extra-territoriality clausethe thorn that still
rankles in the side of every Japanese patriot. For eighteen months the
energies of the jo-i, or foreigner-haters, were utilized in the camp
in ghting the rebellious Tokugawa retainers. The war over, the trials
of the new Government began. The low, two-sworded men clamored for the ful llment of the promise that the foreigners should be
expelled from Japan and the ports closed. The Shint ocials induced
the Government to persecute the native Christians, demanded the
abolition of Buddhism, the establishment of Shint by edict, and the
restoration of the Government on a purely theocratic basis, and echoed
the cry of Expel the barbarian. Even with the majority of the high
ocials there was no abandonment of the purpose to expel foreigners.

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They intended to do it, but the wisest of them knew that in their present condition they were not able. Hence they simply wished to bide
their time, and gain strength. It was a matter of diculty to keep
patient thousands of swaggering braves whose only tools for earning
bread were their swords. The rst attention was given to reorganizing a national army, and to developing the military resources of the
empire. All this was done with the cherished end in view of driving
out the aliens, closing the ports of commerce, and bringing back the
days of dictatorial isolation. The desire for foreign civilization existed
rather among the adherents of Tokugawa, among whom were many
enlightened gentlemen, besides students and travelers, who had been to
Europe and America, and who wished their country to take advantage
of the inventions of the foreigners. Yet many of the very men who once
wished the foreigners expelled, the ports closed, the treaties repudiated,
who were jo-i, or foreigner-haters, and who considered all aliens as
only a few degrees above the level of beasts, are now members of the
mikados Government, the exponents of advanced ideas, the defenders
and executors of philo-Europeanism, or Western civilization.
What caused the change that came over the spirit of their dreams?
Why do they now preach the faith they once destroyed? It was the
lessons taught them at Kagoshima and Shimonoski, say some.
It was the benets they saw would arise from commerce, say others. The child of the revolution was changed at nurse, and the
Government now in power was put into its cradle by mistake or
design, say others.
Cannon-balls, commerce, and actual contact with foreigners
doubtless helped the scales to fall from their eyes, but these were
helps only. All such means had failed in China, though tried for half
a century. They would have failed in Japan also. It was an impulse
from within that urged the Japanese to join the comity of nations.
The noblest trait in the character of a Japanese is his willingness to

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change for the better when he discovers his wrong or inferiority. This
led the leaders to preach the faith they once destroyed, to destroy the
faith they once preached.
The great work of enlightening the mikados followers was begun
by the Japanese leaders, kubo, Kido, Got, all of them students,
both of the ancient native literature and of foreign ideas. It was nished by Japanese writers. The kug, or court nobles, wished to ignore
the existence of foreigners, drive them out of the country, or worry
them by appointing ocers of low rank in the Foreign Oce, then
an inferior sub-bureau. kubo, Got, and Kido promptly opposed
this plan, and sent a noble of the imperial court, Higashi Kuz, to
Higo with Datt, Prince of Uwajima, to give the mikados consent
to the treaties, and to invite the foreign ministers to an audience with
the emperor in Kito. The British and Dutch ministers accepted the
invitation; the others declined. The train of the British envoy was
assaulted by fanatic assassins, one resisting bullet, lance, and sabre
of the English dragoons, only to lose his head by the sweep of the
sword of Goto, who rode by the side of the foreigners, determined to
secure their audience of the mikado. At rst sight of the strangers, the
conversion of the kug was thorough and instantaneous. They made
friends with the men they once thought were beasts.
In a memorial to the mikado, kubo further gave expression to
his ideas in a memorial that astounded the court and the wavering
daimis, as follows: Since the Middle Ages, our emperor has lived
behind a screen, and has never trodden the earth. Nothing of what
went on outside his screen ever penetrated his sacred ear; the imperial
residence was profoundly secluded, and, naturally, unlike the outer
world. Not more than a few court nobles were allowed to approach the
throne, a practice most opposed to the principles of heaven. Although
it is the rst duty of man to respect his superior, if he reveres that
superior too highly he neglects his duty, while a breach is created

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between the sovereign and his subjects, who are unable to convey their
wants to him. This vicious practice has been common in all ages. But
now let pompous etiquette be done away with, and simplicity become
our rst object. Kito is in an out-of-the-way position, and is unt to
be the seat of government. Let his majesty take up his abode temporarily at zaka, removing his capital hither, and thus cure one of the
hundred abuses which we inherit from past ages.
The memorial produced an immediate and lively eect upon the
court. The young mikado, Mutsuhito, came in person to the meetings
of the council of state, and before the court nobles and daimios took
an oath, as an actual ruler, promising that a deliberative assembly
should be formed; all measures be decided by public opinion; the
uncivilized customs of former times should be broken through; and
the impartiality and justice displayed in the workings of nature be
adopted as a basis of action; and that intellect and learning should be
sought for throughout the world, in order to establish the foundations
of the empire. This oath is the basis of the new Government.
These promises are either the pompous bombast of a puppet or the
pregnant utterances of a sovereign, who in magnanimity and wisdom
aspires to lead a nation into a higher life. That such words should in
that sublime moment fall from the lips of the chief of an Oriental
despotism excites our sympathetic admiration. They seem a sublime
echo of armation to the prophetic question of the Hebrew seer, Can
a nation be born at once? They sound like a glad harbinger of a new
and higher national development, such as only those with the strongest faith in humanity believe possible to an Asiatic nation. As matter
of fact, the words were uttered by a boy of sixteen years, who scarcely
dreamed of the tremendous signicance of the language put into his
mouth by the high-souled parvenus who had made him emperor de
facto, and who were resolved to have their ideas made the foundations
of the new Government. The result of the memorial, and the ceaseless

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activity of kubo and his colleagues, was the ultimate removal of the
Government to Yedo. It is not easy for a foreigner to comprehend the
profound sensation produced throughout the empire when the mikado
left Kito to make his abode in another city. During a millennium,
Kito had been the capital of Dai Nippon, and for twenty-ve centuries, according to popular belief, the mikados had ruled from some
spot near the site of the sacred city. A band of fanatics, red with the
Yamato damashi, religiously opposed, but in vain, his journey eastward. To familiarize his people with the fact that Yedo was now the
capital, its name was changed to Tki, or Eastern Capital.
Then was further developed the impulse to enter the path of modern civilization. While kubo, Kido, Got, Iwakura, Sanj, Itagaki,
ki, and the rising ocials sought to purge and strengthen the political system, the work of enlightening the people and the upstarts
raised suddenly to power was done by Japanese writers, who for the
rst time dared, without suering death, to tell their thoughts. A
large measure of freedom of the press was guaranteed; newspapers
sprung up in the capital. Kido, one of the prime movers and leaders,
himself established one of the most vigorous, still in existencethe
Shimbun Zasshi. The new Government acted with clemency equal to
the standard in Christian nations, and most generously to the literary
and scientic men among the retainers of the Tokugawas, and invited
them to ll posts of honor under the Government. They sent none
of the political leaders to the blood-pit, but by the gracious favor of
the mikado these were pardoned, and the conciliation of all sections
of the empire wisely attempted. Many of those who fought the loyal
forces at Fushimi, Wakamatsu, and Hakodat are now the earnest
advocates of the restoration and its logical issues. Even Enomoto
is envoy of the court of Tki to that of St. Petersburg. All of the
defeated daimios were restored to rank and income. A complete and
happy reunion of the empire was the result. Some of the scholars

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declined oce until the time when even greater freedom of speech
and pen was permitted.
There were men who in the old days, braving odium, and even death,
at the hands of the bakufu, had begun the study of the English and
Dutch languages, and to feed their minds at the Occidental fountains. They were obliged to copy their books in manuscript, so rare
were printed copies. Later on, the bakufu, forced by necessity to have
interpreters and men skilled in foreign arts and sciences, chose these
students, and sent them abroad to study. When the civil war broke out,
they were recalled, reaching Japan shortly after the ghting began. They
returned, says one of their number, with their faces ushed with enthusiastic sympathy with the modern civilization of Christendom. Then
they began the preparation of those original works and translations,
which were eagerly read by the new men in power. Edition after edition
was issued, bought, read, lent, and circulated. In these books the history
of the Western nations was faithfully told; their manners and customs
and beliefs were explained and defended; their resources, methods of
thought and education, morals, laws, systems of governments, etc., were
described and elucidated. Notably pre-eminent among these writers
was the school-master, Fukuzawa. Western ideas were texts: he clothed
them in Japanese words. He further pointed out the weaknesses, defects,
and errors of his countrymen, and showed how Japan, by isolation and
the false pride that scorned all knowledge derived from foreigners,
had failed to advance like Europe or America, and that nothing could
save his country from conquest or decay but the assimilation of the
ideas which have made the foreigners what they are. There is scarcely a
prominent or rising man in Japan but has read Fukuzawas works, and
gratefully acknowledges the stimulus and lasting benet derived from
them. Many of the leaders of the movement toward restoration, who
joined it with the cry, Expel the foreigners, found themselves, after
perusal of these works, unconsciously involved in the advance, without

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wish or invitation, and utterly unable to explain why they were in the
movement. Fukuzawa has declined every one of the many attering
oers of oce and power under the Government, and still devotes himself to his school and the work of teaching and translation, consuming
his life in noble drudgery. He has been the interpreter of Western ideas
and life, caring little about the merely external garnish and glitter of
civilization. His books on Western Manners and Customs, and his
volumes of tracts and essays, have had an enormous circulation.
Nakamura, also a school-master, has, besides writing original tracts,
translated a considerable body of English literature, John Stuart Mills
Essay on Liberty, Smiless Self-help, and a few smaller works on
morals and religion, which have been widely read. His memorial on
the subject of Christianity and religious liberty made a very profound
impression upon the emperor and court, and gave a powerful check
to the ultra Shintoists. Mori, Mitsukuri, Kato, Nishi, Uchida, Uriu,
have also done noble service as authors and translators. It is the writers
rm belief, after nearly four years of life in Japan, mingling among the
progressive men of the empire, that the reading and study of books
printed in the Japanese language have done more to transform the
Japanese mind, and to develop an impulse in the direction of modern
civilization, than any other cause or series of causes.
During the past decade the production of purely Japanese literature
has almost entirely ceased. A few histories of recent events, a few
war-poems and pamphlets urging the expulsion of the barbarians,
were issued previous to the civil war; but since then almost the entire
literary activity has been exhibited in translations, political documents, memoirs of mikado-reverencers who had been martyrs to
their faith, and largely in the expression of Western ideas adapted to
the understanding of the Japanese.
The war was ended by July, 1870. Rewards were distributed; and
the Government was still further consolidated by creating de nite

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oces, and making all titles, which had been for nearly six centuries
empty names, to have reality and power. There was still, however,
much dead wood in the ship of state, a condition of chronic strain, a
dangerous amount of friction in the machinery, wrangling among the
crew, and a vast freight of bad cargo that the purest patriots saw the
good ship must unload, if she was to be saved. Th is unloading was
accomplished in the usual way, by dismissing hundreds of ocials one
day, and re-appointing on the next only those favorable to the desired
policy of the mikado.
Furthermore, it became daily more certain that national development and peace could never be secured while the feudal system existed.
The clan spirit which it fostered was fatal to national unity. So long as
a Japanese meant by my country merely his own clan, loyalty might
exist, but patriotism could not. The time seemed ripe for action. The
press was busy in issuing pamphlets advocating the abolition of feudalism. Several of the great daimis, long before ready for it, now openly
advocated the change. The lesser ones knew better than to oppose it.
The four great clans, Satsuma, Chshiu, Tosa, and Hizen, were the
pioneers of the movement. They addressed a memorial to the throne,
in which it was argued that the daimis efs ought not to be looked
on as private property, but as the mikados own. They oered to restore
the registers of their clans to the sovereign. These were the external
signs of the times. Back of these, there were at least three men who
were determined to sweep feudalism away utterly. They were Kido,
kubo, Iwakura. The rst step was to abolish the appellation of court
noble (kug) and territorial prince (daimi), and to designate both as
kuazoku, or noble families. The former heads of clans were temporarily appointed chiji (governors of their clans). This smoothed the way.
In September, 1871, the edict went forth calling the daimis to Tki
to retire to private life. With scarcely an exception, the order was
quietly obeyed. The men behind the throne in Tki were ready and

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377

even willing to shed blood, should their (the mikados) commands be

resisted, and they expected to do it. The daimis who were hostile to
the measure knew too well the character of the men who framed the
edict to resist it. The writer counts among the most impressive of all his
lifes experiences that scene in the immense castle hall of Fukui, when
the Daimi of Echizen bid farewell to his three thousand two-sworded
retainers, and, amidst the tears and smiles and loving farewells of the
citys populace, left behind him lands, revenue, and obedient followers,
and retired to live as a private gentleman in Tki.
Japans feudalism began nearly eight centuries ago, and existed
until within the year 1871. It was not a tower of strength in its last
days. Long before its fall, it was an empty shell and a colossal sham.
Feudalism is only alive and vigorous when the leaders are men of
brain and action. Of all the daimis, there were not ten of any personal importance. They were amiable nobodies, great only in stomach
or silk robes. Many were sensualists, drunkards, or titled fools. The
real power in each clan lay in the hands of able men of inferior rank,
who ruled their masters. These are now the men who compose the present Government of Japan. They rose against the shgun, overthrew
him, sent him to private life, and then compelled their masters, the
daimis, to do likewise. They hold the emperor, and carry on the
government in his name. The mikado, however, is much more of a
ruler than his fainant ancestors. Still, the source of government is the
same. In 1872, by actual count, four-fths of the men in the higher
oces were of the four great clans of Chshiu, Satsuma, Hizen, and
Tosa. A like census in 1876 would show a larger proportion of ocials
from the northern and central provinces. Nevertheless, this is not
sectionalism. The ablest men rise to oce and power in spite of the
locality of their birth. Natural ability asserts its power, and in the
Cabinet and departments are now many of the old bakufu adherents,
even Katsu, kubo Ichiz, Enomoto, and several scions of the house

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of Tokugawa. The power has been shifted, not changed, and is displayed by moving new machinery and doing new work.
Who are now, and who have been, the actual leaders in Japan since
1868? They are kubo, Kido, Iwakura, Sanj, Got, Katsu, Soyjima,
kuma, ki, Ito, and many others, of whom but two or three are
kug, while none is a daimi. Almost all were simple samurai, or
retainers of the territorial nobles.
The objects of the revolution of 1868 have been accomplished. The
shgunate and the feudal system are forever no more. The mikado
is now the restored and beloved emperor. The present personage,
a young man of twenty-four years of age, has already shown great
independence and rmness of character, and may in future become
as much the real ruler of his people as the Czar is of his. The enterprise of establishing Shint as the national faith has failed vastly and
ignominiously, though the old Shint temples have been purged and
many new ones erected, while ocial patronage and inuence give
the ancient cult a fair outward show. Buddhism is still the religion of
the Japanese people, though doubtless on the wane.
To summarize this chapter: the shgun was simply one of the
many vassals of the mikado of comparatively inferior grade, and
historically a usurper; the term tycoon was a diplomatic fraud, a
title to which the shgun had, ocially, not the shadow of right;
the foreign diplomatists made treaties with one who had no right
whatever to make them; the bakufu was an organized usurpation;
the stereotyped statements concerning a spiritual and a secular
emperor are literary ctions of foreign book-makers; feudalism arose
upon the decadence of the mikados power; it was the chief hinderance to national unity, and was ready for its fall before the shock
came; in all Japanese history the reverence for the mikados person
and the throne has been the strongest national trait and the mightiest
political force; the bakufu exaggerated the mikados sacredness for its

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own purposes; the Japanese are impressible and ever ready to avail
themselves of whatever foreign aids or appliances will tend to their
own aggrandizement: nevertheless, there exists a strong tendency to
conserve the national type, pride, feelings, religion, and equality with,
if not superiority to, all the nations of the world; the true explanation
of the events of the last eight years in Japan is to be sought in these
tendencies and the internal history of the nation; the shgun, bakufu,
and perhaps even feudalism would have fallen, had foreigners never
landed in Japan; the movement toward modern civilization originated
from within, and was not simply the result of foreign impact or pressure; the work of enlightenment and education, which alone could
assure success to the movement, was begun and carried on by native
students, statesmen, and simple patriots.
A mighty task awaited the new Government after the revolution
of 1868. It was to heal the disease of ages; to uproot feudalism and
sectionalism, with all their abuses; to give Japan a new nationality; to
change her social system; to infuse new blood into her veins; to make
a hermit nation, half blinded by a sudden inux of light, competitor
with the wealthy, powerful, and aggressive nations of Christendom. It
was a problem of national regeneration or ruin. It seemed like entering
into history a second time, to be born again.
What transcendent abilities needed for such a task! What national
union, harmony in council, unselsh patriotism required! What chief,
towering above his fellows, would arise, who by mighty intellect and
matchless tact could achieve what Yoritomo, or the Taik, or Iyyasu
himself, or all, would be helpless to perform? At home were the stolidly conservative peasantry, backed by ignorance, superstition, priestcraft, and political hostility. On their own soil they were fronted by
aggressive foreigners, who studied all Japanese questions through the
spectacles of dollars and cents and trade, and whose diplomatists too
often made the principles of Shylock their system. Outside, the Asiatic

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the mikados empire

nations beheld with contempt, jealousy, and alarm the departure of

one of their number from Turanian ideas, principles, and civilization.
China, with ill-concealed anger, Corea with open deance, taunted
Japan with servile submission to the foreign devils.
For the rst time, the nation was represented to the world by an
embassy at once august and plenipotentiary. It was not a squad of
petty ocials or local nobles going forth to kiss a toe, to play the
part of gure-heads or stool-pigeons, to beg the aliens to get out of
Japan, to keep the scales on foreign eyes, to buy gun-boats, or to hire
employs. A noble of highest rank and blood of immemorial antiquity,
vicar of majesty and national government, with four cabinet ministers,
set out to visit the courts of the fteen nations having treaties with
Dai Nippon. These were Iwakura Tomomi, kubo Toshimiti, Kido
Takayoshi, Ito Hirobumi, and Yamaguchi Masaka. They were accompanied by commissioners representing every Government department,
sent to study and report upon the methods and resources of foreign
civilizations. They arrived in Washington, February 29th, 1872, and,
for the rst time in history, a letter signed by the mikado was seen
outside of Asia. It was presented by the embassadors, robed in their
ancient Yamato costume, to the President of the United States, on
the 4th of March, Mr. Arinori Mori acting as interpreter. The rst
president of the free republic and the men who had elevated the eta
to citizenship stood face to face in fraternal accord. The one hundred
and twenty-third sovereign of an empire in its twenty-sixth centennial saluted the citizen-ruler of a nation whose century aloe had not
yet bloomed. On the 6th of March they were welcomed on the oor
of Congress. This day marked the formal entrance of Japan upon the
theatre of universal history.

Supplement i

Japan in 1883

ur record of events in the last chapter closed with a notice of the

treaty made with Corea, February 27th, 1876, a diplomatic triumph which so silenced the disaected, and so strengthened the power
of the Government, that immediate advantage was taken of it to disarm
the samurai. In response to a public sentiment already grown strong,
and especially to the memorial of December 7th, 1875, from Yamagata,
the Minister of War, the Premier Sanj, on the 28th of March, 1876,
issued a proclamation abolishing the custom of wearing two swords:
No individual will henceforth be permitted to wear a sword unless he
be in court dress, a member of the military or naval forces, or a police
ocer. This measure, rst advocated by Arinori Mori, in 1870, now
became law throughout the landeven in Satsuma.
The Coreans responded promptly to their treaty obligations. A
Japanese steamer was sent to Fusan; and the embassy from Soul,
numbering eighty persons in all, landed at Yokohama May 29th, the
ambassador receiving audience of the mikado June 1st. These Coreans
were the rst accredited to Japan since 1835, and none had come as
far east as Yedo since the last century. Then they were the guests of
the shgun; but now direct ocial relations with the mikado were
resumed, after a lapse of nearly a millennium. These men, in huge
hats, and white, blue, and pink cotton or silk robes, were profusely
381

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the mikados empire

entertained in Tki. They visited the public buildings, schools,

founderies, and arsenals, inspecting the curious things of the nineteenth century, but avoiding all white foreigners as though they were
reptiles, and embarked for home June 18th.
Meanwhile the mikado, accompanied by several members of his
cabinet, set out on a tour overland to Yezo. No emperor of Japan had
ever visited the northern provinces, and the delight of the people at
seeing their sovereign was intense. Visiting Nikk and the castled
towns along the route, the emperor made himself everywhere visible, allowing no check to be placed upon the business or behavior
of the people, except that which their own sense of respect imposed.
Among the excellent fruits of this tour were: the erection of a monument to the patriot Rin Shihei;* the making public of the documents
and relics of Father Louis Sotelo; and the gracious reception of an
address to his majesty from the Greek Church Christians of Sendai,
which augured the near future of complete religious toleration. The
* Rin Shihei, a native of Sendaiwhose work San Koku Tsuran Dzu-setsu
(General View of the Three Kingdoms [tributary to Japan], i.e., Corea, Yezo, and
Riu Kiu), was printed in 1785, and translated by Klaproth in 1832was born in
1737. A far-seeing patriot, he studied military strategy while making pedestrian
excursions over the whole of Japan, especially along the coast, and by learning
from the Dutch at Nagasaki and the Russians in Yezo. He was keenly alive to
the subject of national progress and defense. His maps and books fell under
the eye of the censors (p. 323) of the shgun, who ordered the plates of his
publications to be destroyed, and had him thrown into prison, from which
he never came out alive.
Father Louis Sotelo was a Spanish Franciscan fria r, who, w ith
Hashikura Rokuymon, a retainer of the daimi of Sendai, sailed across
the Pacif ic in a Japanese ship (p. 266) to Mexico in 1613, and thence
reached Seville and Rome. They had audience of Pope Paul V., and
Hashikura was made a Roman senator. They returned by way of Mexico
to Japan; but Hashikura was compelled to renounce his faith, and
Sotelo was martyred at Nagasaki. (See Hildreths Japan, pp. 158,199.)

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383

imperial journey, begun June 2d, was continued until the middle of
July. His return to the capital amid many demonstrations of popular
joy was soon after signalized by another bold stroke of power. On the
5th of August the measure, long before conceived, of extinguishing
the hereditary pensions and life-incomes of the samurai, was proclaimed. Commutation in Government bonds, at from ve to fourteen
years purchase, was made obligatory upon all. The scheme provided
that the largest incomes should be extinguished first, and, when
completed, will relieve the national Treasury of an annual burden
of about $20,000,000. This act of the Government, which lightened
the enforced poverty of thirty millions of people, and compelled the
privileged classes to begin to earn their bread, was warmly welcomed
by the masses.
On the 21st of August another measure in the interest of public
economy and of centralization was carried out: the empire was redivided, and the sixty-eight ken or prefectures were reduced in number
to thirty-ve.
These radical measures enforced by the mikados advisersan
irresponsible ministry, possessing slight facilities for adequately gauging public opinionwere not executed without protest within and
without the cabinet. In the south-west, especially, were many earnest
men, narrow and unprogressive, perhaps, who grieved deeply over the
decay of old customs, the secularization of the Divine Country, the
arbitrary policy and personal extravagance of the bad councillors of
the emperor, and his imprisonment by them, the inuence of foreigners, the toleration of Christianity, and the loss of their swords and
pensions. Among the leaders of these conservatives were Maybara
and Uynothe one a discharged oce-holder, and the other a man
of seventywhose followers organized clubs named Jimp (Divine
Breath, or Wind) and Sonn-Ji (Reverence to the Mikado, and
Expulsion of the Barbarian).

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On the 24th of October a party of nearly two hundred of these

fanatics, dressed in beetle-headed iron helmets and old armor made
of steel and paper laced with silk, and armed with spears and swords,
attacked the imperial garrison at Kumamoto, in Higo. They succeeded in injuring about three hundred of the troops before they
were dispersed, taken prisoners, or had disemboweled themselves.
Other uprisings, more easily quelled, took place in Kiushiu; while in
Chshiu, Maybara led ve hundred armed men vainly against the
new order of things, in which ries, cannon, telegraphs, and steamers
played their part. As by some new Jove, with hands full of thunderbolts, these Titans of a later day were trans xed by the lightnings
hurled from Tki in the form of steamers and ried artillery. Quiet
was entirely restored by December. A few heads were struck off,
hundreds of the chtki were exiled or degraded, and another of the
throes of expiring feudalism was over.
The next insurrections were by men equipped in calico, with rush
hats and straw sandals, gathered under banners of matting inscribed
with mottoes daubed on in ink, and armed with spears made by
pointing and fire-hardening staves of bamboos. These embattled
farmers were enraged because the taxes had been changed from kind
to money, and, instead of being assessed on the produce, were laid
on the soil. Assaulting the local magistrates oces, they had to be
dispersed by the military, in some cases only after bloodshed. Time,
good roads, banking facilities, clearer understanding of the purpose
of the Government, have already changed temporary distress, caused
by innovations, into satised prosperity.
These violent expressions of the real grievances of the agricultural
class, on whom the burdens of taxation mainly fallthree-fourths, or
$50,000,000, of the total revenue of the empire ($69,000,000), being
drawn from the tax on landhastened another benecial reform.
On the 4th of January, 1877, the national land-tax was reduced from

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385

three to two and a half per cent.a loss to the Treasury of about
$8,000,000. The local tax, formerly amounting to one-third of the
land-tax, was reduced to one- fth, or nearly one-half. About the
same time two other sweeping measures of economy, intended as an
oset, were carried out. Besides thus directly relieving the people, the
salaries of nearly all the Government ocers and the expenses of the
departments were reduced, several thousand oce-holders were discharged, the Department of Religion (Ki Bu Sh) and the Prefecture
of Police were abolished, and their functions transferred to the Home
Department, and a saving of about $8,000,000 annually eected, to
balance the loss to the Treasury from reform in the tax on land. Such
a movement in ocial circles, popularly called a jishin (earthquake),
met with the keen satisfaction of the majority, the joy of the citizens
and peasantry being beyond imagination. The Government now
began to be less afraid of Satsuma; less careful, also, perhaps, to keep
informed of the state of public opinion, since the press laws were
excessively stringent, and there was no safety-valve for discontent.
The year 1876 will ever remain memorable as the critical year
in Japanese journalism, when the severity of the press laws and
Government prosecutions was more than equaled by the courage, rmness, and patience of a noble army of editors and writers, who crowded
the jails of Japan, and joyfully suered nes and imprisonment in order
to secure a measure of the freedom of the pressa phrase which is
the watch-word of liberty, not only in Europe and America, but among
the Japanese also, in whose language it has become domesticated in
common speech, like the new words which science, religion, and
advancing political knowledge require for their expression.
Closely connected with all measures of genuine reform is the name
of Kido, the nest intellect and the brain and pen of the revolution. While other leaders were eager and able to break down, Kido was
pre-eminently the builder-up, and his genius essentially constructive.

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Himself the purest representative of the mind of Japan, he had applied

the logic of the cardinal doctrines of Japanese politicsthe divine right
of the mikado to govern his peopleand feudalism fell. He believed in
discussion, in the wisdom of the majority, and so he established newspapers and pleaded for representative assemblies. He incarnated the soul
of peaceful progress. He opposed alike the Corean and Formosan war
projects, and the too rapid capitalization of the samurais pensions. He
applied himself to master the details of local administration, and carefully studied the problems of taxation and municipal procedure, both
at home and in Europe and America. To rare political ability he joined
an unselsh patriotism and a stainless record. Amidst all the clash of
opposing interests which the destruction of the old and the creation
of new institutions called out the voice of Kido was ever authoritative. While kubo represented the foreign side of the revolution, and
Saig the military genius of Old Nippon, Kido embodied in himself
the best elements of New Japan. He had been especially earnest and
inuential in bringing about the reforms in taxation and governmental
economy, and in the calling together of a deliberative body of the ken
and fu magistrates, which, meeting in Tki in 1875, was opened by the
mikado in person, and presided over by himself. He was now hoping
to conciliate the disaected samurai of Kiushiu and the one man whom
they trusted, after having been, as they believed, betrayed by kubo and
the irresponsible ministers in Tki. Had Kido lived, the sad and costly
civil war might not have broken out. In the moment of his countrys
greatest need this noble patriot, over-wearied and wounded in spirit,
was seized with a disease which soon made him understand that his
work was nearly over. He died at Kito, May 27th, 1877.
Ever since 1868 Satsuma had remained the one portion of the
empire unassimilated to the life of progressive Japan. The old clan
which of old had awed the Yedo shguns now terried the rest of the
country. Goaded by hatred and long-cherished revenge, the Satsuma

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men, without any sympathy with the nation at large, had led in the
overthrow of their enemies, the Tokugawas. The political education
of most of the clansmen was purely feudal. Their compass of duty,
vibrating between reverence to the mikado and hatred to barbarians, pointed to personal loyalty as their lodestar. Anything broader
in scope than the old elements of Japanese politicsloyalty to their
chief, clan-ghts, struggles between rival factions for the person of the
mikado, the reign of the sword held by the idle and privileged classes,
the grinding of the peasantry, and the expulsion or subordination of
foreignersin a word, the virtues and the vices of feudalismwas not
within their horizon. As for Saig, their leader, with all the qualities
in his character so attractive to a japanese, he lacked genuine patriotism, and probably aspired to be simply another man on horseback,
furnishing to history one more illustration of the Japanese variety of
Csarism. Had not this ninth decade of the nineteenth century been
one of steam and electricity, instead of armor and arrows, the Tki
ministers might have kneeled at the blood-pit as chtki while Saig
dictated to Dai Nippon as Sei-i Tai Shgun. Providence meant it
otherwise. The old style of Japanese Csarism was over.
After the revolution large numbers of Satsuma men had been
appointed to posts of honor in the army, navy, and police force, while
Saig and Shimadzu Sabur were oered seats in the Cabinet; but one
after another the liberal political measures were carried out against the
sentiments of men steeped in the vices of feudalism. Peace with Corea,
commutation of pensions, the abolition of swords, and the contempt
cast upon the wearing of the top-knotas signicant of the feudal
spirit to a Japanese of the old school as a Pawnees war-lock is to the red
rider of the prairiewere too much for both Saig and Shimadzu. The
former, retiring to Kagoshima, founded a military school, which was
soon attended by the ower of Satsumas youth, while nearly twenty
thousand men in Satsuma and zumi, living with their faces to the

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past, looked to Saig as their master. The writer cherishes very vivid
remembrances of walking unarmed in Tki, and meeting face to face
in narrow streets these ery men of the old swashbuckler spirit. With
their hair shorn o their temples, a general wildness of expression in
their faces, a scowl of mingled deance and contempt in their eyes, with
their protruding swords and long red-lacquered scabbards, they seemed
the incarnation of fanatical patriotism and diabolical pride. Their favorite proverb was, Though the eagle be starving, he will not eat grain,
and rather than earn their living by vulgar trade, and accept the new
order of things, they would gratify their thirst for blood. So great was
the inuence and prestige of Satsuma, that the impression became
general throughout the country that the Government was afraid of this
one sullen clan. What lent additional danger to the situation was, that
a large arsenal, equipped with steam machinery and full of military
stores, together with two powder-mills, capable of turning out thirty
thousand pounds of powder daily, stood near the city of Kagoshima.
Hitherto all revolts against the imperial authority had been minor
and sporadic, and led by men of no special fitness for their task.
That which we shall now describe was organized by the ablest military mind, backed by the best ghting blood in the empire. Had the
Government remained inert much longer, the plans of Saig would
have been matured, and with ampler resources the issue might have
been dierent, or the struggle prolonged to the ruin of the nation.
Wisely the rulers in Tki resolved to precipitate the crisis, or at
least unmask Saigs designs, and a vessel was sent to Kagoshima,
in January, 1877, under Admiral Kawamura, to remove the gunpowder. An attack threatened upon it by boats full of armed men was
avoided by the admiral, but the arsenals and powder-mills were seized
February 1st, 1877, by a body of two thousand ve hundred samurai. At
this time the mikado and most of his Cabinet were in Kito, whence
they had come to inaugurate the opening of the railway between

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Kb, zaka, and Kito, which was celebrated on the 5th of February.
At once recognizing the gravity of the situation, they dispatched the
ower of the army and police to Kiushiu in steamers. All doubts as
to Saigs personal participation in the uprising were set at rest by his
appearing before Kumamoto castle, to which he laid siege.
The Island of the Nine Provinces was ordered to be placed under
martial law, and Saig, now named Saig Takamori, was degraded
from his rank as Marshal of the Empire, and Prince Arisugawa no
Miya was appointed to the supreme command. Saig and his generals,
Kirino, Beppu, and Shinohara, were branded as chtki, but Shimadzu
Sabur remained loyal. The insurgent ports were blockaded, and
fresh levies of troops were made and hurried forward. After a siege of
fty-ve days, during which Kumamoto castle was nobly defended by
Colonel Tani and his little band, Saig was compelled to retreat.
The war soon became scattered. The imperial army, under Yamagata
and Kawaji, marched in two large divisions from Kumamoto and
Kagoshima, intending to inclose the rebels in a cordon. After many
bloody skirmishes and a great battle, the two divisions eected a
junction. Saig Tsukumichi, a brother of the rebel leader, took the
eld in July, during which month, owing to the hard ghting, six
thousand of the mikados troops were killed or wounded. While the
imperialists were largely raw levies from the peasantry and middle
classes, the rebels were in the main the veteran samurai of 1868. Even
their women fought under the rebel banner. Defending themselves in
some instances by making a shield of the light, thick oor-mats, or
tatami, the rebel swordsmen, by a sudden charge, drew the re of the
troops harmlessly, and rushing on them with their swords butchered
them easily.
On the 16th of August, Saig Takamoris forces, reduced to less
than ten thousand men, were attacked at Noboka, an old natural
stronghold, and the bloody con ict resulted in a complete victory

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for the imperialists. With a few hundred followers the rebel leaders
escaped into Hiuga, whence, on the 2d of September, they made a
dash on Kagoshima, and held it two weeks. Thence they were driven
out to Shiroyama, a few miles from the city. There, on the 24th of
September, Saig, Kirino, and Murata, having less than four hundred
followers, were attacked by fteen thousand troops of the imperial
army, with mortars, cannon, and ries. Armed only with swords, the
little band fought, scorning quarter. Many of them committed harakiri, and Saig was beheaded by one of his friends, who as a favor
performed this act of kindness. Not one of the imperial soldiers was
killed. The three leaders and nearly three hundred of the band gladly
met their death with unquailing courage, proud to die in blood by
their own or at their comrades hands, knowing no greater glory than
to imitate Kusunoki and the ancient models of that ferocious military
virtue of Old Japan Yamato damashii.
This was the mightiest rebellion, inspired by the spirit of the past,
against which the mikados Government has had to cope. It was
the supreme eort of deance of the forces of feudalism and misrule against order and united government. The Old met the New
medivalism was pitted against the nineteenth century, and failed.
What Saig could not achieve, no imitator will presume to attempt.
The rebellion cost Japan fty millions of dollars. The rebel troops of
Satsuma, zumi, and Hiuga numbered 39,760, of whom 3,533 men
were killed, 4,344 wounded, and 3,123 missing. Of the imperial army,
probably an equal number or more suered the fate of war, a very large
proportion of wounds being cuts from the old two-handed swordblades. In the cities and villages of Japan, once quite free from the
sight of legless and armless men and the results of gunshot wounds,
the spectacle of empty sleeves, of men hobbling on crutches, and of
bullet-scarred victims of gunpowder wars, is no longer a rarity. In the

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treatment of the rebels the Government displayed a spirit of leniency

unknown to Asia, and worthy of the Christian name. Of the 38,163
persons tried in Kiushiu, there were 295 acquitted, 35,918 pardoned,
20 ned, 117 degraded from the class of samurai, 1,793 condemned to
imprisonment, with hard labor, for terms varying from thirty days to
ten years. Twenty persons were decapitated.
Notwithstanding the war in the south, the enterprises of peace
went on. The National Industrial Exhibition at Uyno, on the site of
the battle-ground of 1868 (p. 345), which was closely modeled upon the
Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, was opened August 21st, and
closed November 30th, and was in every respect successful. During
this time the cholera broke out in Japan, but by the stringent enforcement of sanitary measures its ravages were slight. Out of 11,675 cases,
there were but 6,297 deathsa victory of science no less renowned
than that of the army at Noboka.
The year 1878 marked the rst decade of the mikados government
by means of an irresponsible ministry. The oath made by His Majesty
in Kito in 1868 to form a deliberative assembly had never been fully
carried out. The earnest men in oce were perhaps too busy to remind
the mikado of his promise; but the equally earnest men outside, continually advancing in political knowledge, and seeing one cause of the
troubles that aicted the nation in the ocial ignorance of public sentiment, had lost no opportunity to make their convictions known. By
agitation in the newspapers, by memorials to the Government, by public lectures, the subject was pressed. One or two steps had been taken.
In 1875 a Senate (Genr-in, or House of Eders) had been established,
and an assembly of the ken governorsthe creation of Kidoheld one
session in the capital, but only one. Under the pretext of the mikados
journey north in 1876, and of the war in Kiushiu in 1877, the meetings
of this body had been adjourned, greatly to the irritation of those who

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clamored for it as a national right, and complained both of the excess

of personal government, and of the agrant deance of popular rights
as based on the mikados oath.
Yet, more rapidly than the petitioners dreamed, the era of personal
government was drawing to a close; and, as usual in Japanese politics,
the new era was to be ushered in by assassination. kubo was murdered in the public highway in broad daylight May 14th, 1878.
Within one year Japan lost her three ablest menKido, Saig, and
kubo. Of all these, kubo, by temperament, training, and character,
was best tted to be the interpreter of foreign ideas to his colleagues.
Resolute, daring, ambitious, his will was iron and his action lightning.
His burning desire, to raise his country from the low level of semicivilized states to the height of equality with the proudest nations of
the earth, created in him a ceaseless energy, that showed itself in a
long list of reforms with which his name is inseparably associated.
He expected almost to see his country regenerated in a life-time. His
chief idea was the thorough unication of Japan, and the extirpation
of all vestiges of the feudal spirit and of sectionalism. He believed that
a railway built from Yezo to Kiushiu, even if it paid no dividend for
a thousand years, would be of incalculable advantage to the country
in unifying the people. In order to hasten the growth of a century in
a decade, he considered, perhaps too blindly, a strongly centralized
Government to be of the rst necessity, and in this opinion he was
seconded by his colleagues of like mind.*
Hence the error of these able men in not estimating at its proper
value the equally eager desire of men outside the Government to take
* I remember, while present at a dinner given by the junior Prime Minister,
Iwakura, at his house in Tki (July 16th, 1874), an American lady asked him
what had impressed him most while in America, and especially at Washington.
He answered at once, The strength of the central Government, which for a
republic seemed incredible to me.

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part in the tasks of civilization. Kido had warned them not to cling
too closely to the traditions of paternal government, and the charge
began to be made that kubo was an enemy to public discussion and
popular rights. Again the assassins sword cast its shadow.
On the evening of May 13th, 1878, having been warned of the
impending danger, kubo expressed before a party of friends his
belief in the decree of Heaven, that would protect him if his work
were not yet done, but which otherwise would permit his death, even
though he were surrounded by soldiers. His words were prophetic. He
spoke better than he knew. His workthe work of personal governmentwas over; the era of representative government had begun. The
next morning, while on his way to the mikados palace, unarmed, he
was murdered by six assassins, who were said to have been runaways
from the Satsuma rebellion. The mikado immediately conferred upon
his dead servant the highest rank, and elevated his sons to the nobility.
The funeral cortege, in which princes, nobles, and the foreign diplomatic corps joined, was the most imposing ever seen in Tki.*
The long step forward toward representative institutions was taken
July 22d, by the proclamation for the calling of Provincial Parliaments,
or Local Assemblies, composed of one delegate from each district
* kubos tall, arrowy form, luxuriant side-whiskers, large, expressive eyes, and
eager, expectant bearing, gave him the appearance of a European rather than an
Asiatic. When in Tki I enjoyed frequent conversations with this distinguished
statesman, the last of which was on the eve of leaving Japan for America (July
16th, 1874), during which kuko asked many questions about American politics. When about to leave I informed him of my intention to write a work on
Japan, explaining as best I could the recent revolutions, that Americans might
understand their true nature. kubos piercing black eyes shone with pleasure
for a moment, but immediately a shadow passed over his handsome face, and he
said, Your purpose is an excellent one. I am glad, and even grateful, that you
intend to explain our aairs to your countrymen, but I wish that some one would
write an instantly popular book explaining to our own people the intentions of
the Government. Too many of them refuse to understand.

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(kori), which were to sit once a year in each ken. Under the supervision
of the Minister of the Interior, these bodies are empowered to discuss
questions of local taxation, and to petition the central government on
other matters of local interest. The qualications for members and
electors are limited by ability to read and write, and the payment of
an annual land-tax of at least ve dollars. Each registered voter, who
must be twenty years of age, must himself write his own name and
the name of the candidate voted for on a ballot. In this one respect
the Japanese excels the American method. The foundations for further
improvements were now broadly based.
To anticipate, and pass over details, except to notice the constant
agitation kept up by new engines in Japanese politicsthe press, the
lecture platform, and the debating clubthe mikado, yielding to the
irresistible pressure of public opinion, expanded and con rmed his
oath of 1868, in the famous proclamation of October 12th. 1881: We
therefore hereby declare, that We shall in the 23d year of Meiji (1890)
establish a Parliament, in order to carry into full eect the determination We have announced [gradually to establish a constitutional
form of government], and We charge our faithful subjects bearing
our commissions to make, in the mean time, all necessary preparations to that end. With regard to the limitations upon the Imperial
Prerogative, and the constitution of the Parliament, We shall decide
hereafter, and shall make proclamation in due time.
Three political parties in Japan are now distinctly organized, each
with its newspapers, clubs, mass meetings, and peripatetic lecturers, or
stump-speakers. They are the Constitutional Monarchists, Liberals,
and Constitutional Reformers, with minor cliques representing various phases of radicalism or conservatism. Local societies cherishing
socialistic, communistic, and even nihilist principles add to the variety of opinions now distinguishable in a once hermit nation, whose
entire stock of political knowledge, a generation ago, consisted of the

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two ideas of personal loyalty and hatred of foreigners. As a Japanese

writer remarked in the Jiyu Shimbunthe organ of the liberalsThe
impulse of progress and innovation has invaded the nation with the
strength of a rushing torrent. A totally new Japanese empire is in
process of establishment.
Let us now glance at Japans foreign policy and state-craft. With
the Restoration of 1868 was born the desire to thoroughly consolidate
the empire, and bring its outlying portions into closer relations to the
throne. Some students of history will also say that the long-slumbering
lust of conquest awoke to new vigor. A school of Japanese thinkers
claimed that the fullest expression of nationality would include not
only Riu Kiu, Yezo, Saghalin, and the Bonin Islands, as constituent
portions, but also Corea and Eastern Formosa, as tributary dependenciesthe last claim being based on Japanese settlement, as well as
lack of Chinese jurisdiction. The solution of the Formosan and Corean
problems was, as we have seen, soon reached. The Bonin Islands, rst
held in ef by Ogasawara, a daimi, in 1593, and visited by a party of
explorers from Nagasaki in 1675, who gave the name Munin, or Bonin
(no mans), had been neglected by the Japanese for centuries, though
long a noted resort of whalers. In 1823 the American Captain Con,
and in 1827 Captain Beechy, an Englishman, visited the islands;
and Commodore M. C. Perry, in 1854, stocked them with sheep,
goats, and cattle. In 1877 there were on the islands a motley company
of seventy persons, chiey sailors from whaling-ships, Americans,
Englishmen, and Hawaiians. In 1878 the islands were formally taken
possession of in the name of the mikado, and a local government
established by Japanese ocers. Co n Island will probably be the
terminus of the proposed trans-Pacic submarine cable from San
Francisco to Yokohama.
Saghalin and the Kurile Islands had been the debatable ground
between the Japanese and Russians since 1790, the subject of conferences

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and mutual remonstrances, and the scene of some border-ruanism and

bloodshed. In 1875 Admiral Enomoto, at St. Petersburg, concluded a
convention by which Japan received all the Kurile Islands, or Chi-shima,
and Russia the whole of Saghalin. The Kuriles are rich sealing and shing grounds, and Saghalin is now a ourishing penal settlement. The
empire of Japan, as seen on the map of the world, now swings, by a long
chain of islands at either end, between Kamschatka and Formosa.
The island of Yezo was placed under the care of a special ministry the Kai Taku Shi, or Department for the Development of
Yezoand so administered until the year 1882. Its mineral and agricultural wealth, as exploited by American scientic men, is noted
in the Appendix to this work. Many millions of dollars were spent
in developing Yezo, under the oversight of Kuroda Kiyotakathe
negotiator of the Corean treaty, and a military leader of no mean
abilities, as shown in the civil wars of 1868 and 1877. On January
11th, 1882 General Kuroda was appointed Cabinet Adviser, and the
property and industrial undertakings of the department were solda
proceeding which provoked a furious controversy among the political
societies. On the 8th of February, Yezo was divided into the three ken,
or prefectures, of Hakodat, Nmuro, and Sapporo, and governed like
the rest of the empire.
Before examining into the matter of Riu Kiu let us glance at Corea,
with which a more vigorous policy was determined upon immediately
after the Satsuma rebellion. A legation was established in Soul, and
Hanabusa, one of the ablest of Japans rising young men, appointed
minister. In the Coreans the Japanese saw themselves as they had
beenhermits in the market-placeand many of the foreigners experiences with them before the opening of their ports were repeated in
Corea, the Japanese in this case being the aliens and reputed aggressors.
A fresh treaty opened Gensan (Corean, Wnsan), on the north-east
coast, May 1st, 1880, and three months later a second embassy of portly

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Corean men, in red, pink, green, violet, and azure visited Tki, to pray
that the opening of the port of In-chiun, near Soul, be postponed.
The Japanese refused their request. The Coreans were now divided into
conservatives and radicals, or progressives and reactionists. Even among
the liberals some favored friendship with and imitation of Japan, while
others looked to China as ally and model. One view of the Japanese
which gained ground in Corea, especially in 1881, was, that the Japanese
were arbitrary and high-handed in their dealing, and an Exclusion-ofthe-Japanese Party began to form. Evidently the same state of feeling
characteristic of Old Japan existed in Corea, in which all the elements
of a political explosion lay ready. To blind hatred of all foreigners there
was added a conservative bigotry willing to fan popular passions and
superstition into a ame, while of two great feudal houses in bitter
hostility to each other, one was in, and the other out of power.
A third party, or embassy, composed of Corean liberals anxious
to study civilization and progress in the neighbor-country, came to
Japan in 1881. At this time it was uncertain whether the reactionists
or progressives would sway the policy of the Soul government. The
young king, who had come to the throne in 1873, was backed in his
enlightened policy by his consort and her relatives, the kings ministers; but arrayed against them were the Tai-wen Kun, the late regent,
and father of the king, with his feudal retainers, and the conservative
and reactionary literati who looked to him as their exponent and
guide. As this old man had persecuted the Christians and driven o
the French in 1866, and the Americans in 1871, and was still full of
physical and mental vigor, he was a hopeful leader. The jealousy and
bitterness between his family (Ni) and that of the queens (Min) kept
increasing daily. (See Corea, the Hermit Nation.)
The treaty with the United States was made May 9th, 1882, at Inchiun, and soon after conventions were signed with Great Britain and
other European nations. Drought prevailed throughout the country,

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and the bigoted conservatives wrought upon the superstitions of

the masses by ascribing the lack of rain to the anger of the spirits,
because treaties had been made with foreigners. The soldiery of the
capital, led chiey by ocers of the house of Ni, were on the verge
of mutiny because of arrears of pay. They were further exasperated
because, while their rations of rice were stopped, or at least curtailed,
the foreigners (Japanese) had plenty. These apparently triing causes,
acting at a time when the relations of the two noble houses of Min
and Ni (the queens and the ex-regents, respectively) were so strained,
provoked a bloody riot at Soul, July 23d, 1882. The populace and
soldiery attacked the rice-granaries, the Japanese legation, the royal
palace, and the barracks, at which a picked force of native military
were being drilled by a Japanese lieutenant. Four of the court ministers and a number of minor Corean ocers were slain. The Japanese,
after holding the mob at bay for over seven hours, rushed out of their
burning quarters, charged the crowd, and made a dash for the royal
palace. Finding no help there, they crossed the river and marched
to In-chiun. While asleep in the governors house they were again
attacked, and started for the sea-shore. After some hours spent on the
water they were rescued by the British survey-ship Flying Fish. There
were but twenty-six survivors out of about forty persons. Soul and
the Corean Government were now under the control of the Tai-wen
Kun and his mob.
Immediate and thorough preparations for war were made in Japan,
and Hanabusa, after audience with the mikado in Tki, was sent
back to Soul, which he entered August 16th, with an escort of ve
hundred men. After delays and a menace of war ample apologies were
made, and the demands of Japan were acceded to. Corea agreed to
pay $50,000 to the families of the slain and $500,000 to the Japanese
government, to dispatch an embassy to Tki to oer apologies, to
allow an armed escort in Soul, and to extend farther privileges to

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Japanese ocers and residents in Corea. Hanabusa was soon after

promoted to be minister to Russia. A large deputation of Coreans
visited Tki in October, making a long stay, and receiving much
attention from foreigners as well as natives.
Chinas action after the Corean riot and usurpation of Tai-wen
Kun was remarkable and unjustiable. Dispatching a large eet, with
several thousand soldiers, to the peninsula, the capital was occupied, and the king restored to power. Tai-wen Kun, entrapped on
board a Chinese gun-boat, was kidnapped and taken to China, to
live imprisoned as an exile. This object of high-handed assumption
of power in a really independent state, and only nominally tributary,
was evidently to checkmate the suspected designs of Japan, to assert
Chinese supremacy, and to warn her ambitious neighbor that a third
aair, like those of Formosa and Riu Kiu, was no longer possible.
This warlike policy of China is but an indication of the state of feeling between the rival nations, which must at some future day eventuate in war. Ever since Japans full assumption of sovereignty over Riu
Kiu, the relations between China and Japan have been strained. At
this little island-kingdom, noted alike for its sugar and its peaceful
character, let us now glance.
On a Mercator map of the Western Pacic, looked at from the
east, the mikados empire (cutting o Yezo) resembles a silk-worm
erect, and spinning from its head (Kiushiu) a thread of islands which
are strung along southwardly to Formosa. To this lengthened cord
the name Okinawa (long rope) was very anciently given. The name
which the Japanese pronounce Riu Kiu, the Chinese Liu Kiu, and the
islanders Loo Choo, which means sleeping dragonwell describes
this land of perpetual afternoon. The people, numbering one hundred
and twenty thousandof whom as many as one-tenth lived on the
public treasuryare true Japanese in origin, language, and dynasty,
their rst historical rulers having been descendants of the renowned

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Tamtomo. As, however, the Riu Kiuanscalling China their father,

and Japan their mothersent tribute in junks to both countries, cultivated religious, literary, and friendly relations with either, both rival
empires claimed the little kingdom. So long as neither nation asserted
supreme right all was well. The Ming dynasty had given the Riu Kiu
king a silver seal, and to his kingdom a name signifying hangingballs, intimating that the thirty-six islands of his petty domain were
a fringe of tassels upon the skirts of Chinas robe. Hidyoshi once
demanded that the islanders should pay tribute only to Japan; but the
Corean war coming on, he had never enforced his demand. In 1609
Iyhisa, the daimi of Satsuma, conquered the islands, and secured
their tributary allegiance to his house and to the shgun. China,
however, knew nothing of this act of Japan until after it was over;
nor, on the other hand, does any restriction seem to have been laid
on the Riu Kiuans sending an annual tribute junk to Ningpo, China.
Fifteen embassies from Riu Kiu visited Yedo, for investiture of the
island-king, or to congratulate the shguns upon their accession to
power, between 1611 and 1850; but the same policy was pursued toward
China also. Both Corea and Riu Kiu were political Issachars bowing
down between two burdens and two masters. After the revolution
of 1868 Riu Kiu was made a han of the Japanese empire, and the king
acknowledged the mikado as his suzerain. When, for the sake of the
Riu Kiuans wrecked and murdered on Formosa, the Japanese sent an
expedition to chastise the Botan savages, they took a step forward,
and reducing the king to the status of a retired daimi, erected Riu
Kiu into a ken, or prefecture, like the other parts of the empire. To
this the Riu Kiuans did not all agree, and continuing to send a junk
to Ningpo, acted as suppliants for Chinas mercy; while the Peking
government considered that Japan was feloniously cutting o the
fringes of Chinas robe.

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401

Under Japans rule the sleepy dragon is waking up. Trade with
Corea has begun, and with the other ports of Japan increased; and
old customs are giving way to more enlightened methods of life. Yet
still the irritation between Japan and China continues. China having
already a large naval force and a numerous soldiery, the questions of
increasing the number of costly iron-clad war vessels, of building new
forts, of enlarging the army, and of levying taxes in order to provide
the sinews of war, have engaged the attention of the Cabinet in Tki
during the past year. A hundred vessels of war and a standing army
of one hundred thousand men are not considered too many in case
of war with China; but to provide and maintain such a force would
require vastly augmented resources, such as Japan, in this century at
least, will never possess, her estimated total revenue for 1883 being
but $66,814,122, of which every dollar is required. Forty ships and
forty thousand soldiers are thought to be the minimum for safety
in defense. Such enlargement of war material means, unfortunately,
curtailment in the amount devoted to education. A national debt of
$349,771,176 (May 31st, 1882) acts as a wholesome check upon too rapid
expenditure. A revision of the treaties with foreign nations which will
secure to Japan the rights of a sovereign state, especially the power,
now wrongfully denied her, of regulating her own tari, may enable
her to swell her revenue, and thus in some measure provide for that
collision with her giant neighbor which seems inevitable.
Christianity in three forms, Greek, Roman, and Reformed, is now
a potent factor in the development of the nation. At the opening of
the ports, in 1859, the Roman Catholics, with the advantage of historic
continuity, began their labors at Yokohama and Nagasaki. The Holy
Synod of Russia, ve Protestant missionary societiesfour American
and one Englishsent their agents to Japan. For ten years they were
unable to make many disciples, and none openly, on account of the

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the mikados empire

jealous hostility of the Japanese Government. The old anti-Christian

edicts were enforced, and a native became a disciple of Jesus at the risk
of his life. Some of the rst teachers of the foreigners were thrown into
prison, and several thousand villagers from Urakami, near Nagasaki,
were deported to northern provinces, away from the inuence of their
French teachers. Meanwhile the language was being mastered, and
the work of healing, teaching, and translation engaged in. The rst
Protestant church in Japan was organized in Japan by the Rev. J. H.
Ballagh, of the Reformed Church in America, March 10th, 1872; the
edice, costing $6000, standing on part of the Perry treaty ground.
Other churches were soon organized the rst in Tki, and the fourth
in Japan, being on the 3d of September, 1873. During this year the
anti-Christian edicts were removed, and Christian churches established in the interior, since which time the Christians have worshiped
unmolested. Most of the important evangelical societies in Great
Britain and the United States are now represented in the missionary
work in Japan, and Sunday-schools, theological seminaries, native
Christian associations, the press, Christian literature, Bible and tract
distribution, public discussions, and open-air meetings are among the
varied means used for the di usion of Gospel truths.
To Protestant missionaries belongs the honor of having translated
the Bible into Japanese. Eighty years of Roman Christianity in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries failed to give the people of Japan
the Scriptures in their own tongue. Gutzla, in 1838, and S. Wells
Williams, in 1839, at Singapore, made the rst attempts, which, after
several tentative translations by Brown, Verbeck, Hepburn, Green,
and others, ripened in the fruit of a complete Japanese New Testament
in the high middle style of the language. This event of national importance was celebrated by a public meeting of the missionaries and
native pastors in Tki, April 19th, 1880. Many thousands of copies
have been sold throughout the empire, and the Bible has now millions

Japan in 1883

403

of readers. There are now probably forty thousand nominal Christians

among the mikados subjects. Shint does not seem to ourish in
the air of the nineteenth century, though Buddhism, especially the
Reformed or Shin-shiu sect, which claims ten millions of adherents,
is vigorously contesting with Christianity the possession of Japan.
The wondrous assimilation of the salient features of modern
civilization by the Japanese has smoothed the path for success in
Christian missionary labor which is marvelous. The literary hostility
to Christianity was not at rst great, nor is it yet of a character to
inspire respect for the Japanese intellect. Nearly all the ammunition
of the priests, pagans, and opponents of the new faith is furnished
by translation from Occidental sources. The literary, medical, and
pedagogic work of the missionaries has borne a mighty harvest of
good to the nation at large, while the friendly rivalry between the
common schools and the missionary educational institutions is most
wholesome. The inuences of the religion of Jesus are penetrating
deeply into the social life of the people, and rooting themselves into
heart and intellect alike. Licentiousness, intemperance, and lying are
the moral cancers of the national character; but the ideals of Jesus are
seen by an increasing number of the people to be the best inspiration
to individual and national progress.

Supplement ii

Japan in 1886

he year of our Lord eighteen hundred and eighty-six, the nineteenth of the Restoration, and of the reign of Mutsuhito, the one
hundred and twenty-third mikado of Japan, nds the empire at peace,
and in full career of progress. The emperor, now thirty-three years of
age, is surrounded with a new generation of advisers. The old heroes
and counsellors of 68 have mostly passed away. The old nobilitiesof
court and of landhave shrunk to a status almost wholly non-political. With new men and times come new measures and problems.
Notable among those of national fame who have changed their
world have been the junior premier Iwakura Tomomi, a noble of
highest rank, and the elder prince Arisugawa. At an age still counted
as mid-life by European statesmen, Iwakura sank in the plenitude of
his inuence, dying of an hereditary disease July 20, 1883. Born in
Kito in 1825, of most illustrious ancestry, whose blood owed from
imperial and Minamoto stock, Iwakura was made personal attendant
upon the Mikado Komi at the age of twenty. Educated in traditions
of antagonism to the Yedo system, he was, in 1861, on account of his
opposition to the marriage of an imperial princess to a Tokugawa,
forced into exile. Living in retirement and with shorn head during
several years, he was yet in active communication with the leaders of the impending crisis; and in 1868, to the surprise of the Yedo
405

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the mikados empire

authorities, he emerged at the head and front of the new movement.

Until the age of forty-three he had never seen foreigners, but on his
rst interview with Sir Harry Parkes was converted to belief in their
equality, humanity, and abilities. Heartily accepting the principles
of western civilization, he sent his three sons to study under Guido
F. Verbeck, at Nagasaki, and thence to the United States. For fteen
years he was the close counsellor of the young mikado, who in 1871
personally visited his subject, and said, It is to you, under the favor
of the gods, that we owe the ourishing condition of the empire. It
was Iwakura who, when opportunity like a ame softened the national
heart as wax, bade the mikado with his divine prestige stamp it, and
give to the fusing mass the express image of a nation by the abolition
of feudalism. Utterly fearless of all personal consequences, this foremost man among the nobility pressed to their conclusion the results
of the revolution during his twelve years of incessant toil. Emerging
scathless from repeated attempts upon his life, he died quietly in his
bed. Buried with all possible funereal pomp, he received from the
mikado the posthumous title of Dai J Dai Jin. Like Moses, having
led a nation from narrow horizons to a higher outlook, he died at the
right time. His death, as we shall see, paved the way for a closer union
of the throne and the people. No successor to Iwakurawell named
Rock-thronecould be found, while from below the new man for
the new work was at hand.
Arisugawa Takahito no Miya, a prince of the blood and of the highest rank, father of the military leader who bore the imperial brocade
banner in 1868, died January 24, 1886. Among others who have bowed
to the harvest of death were many of the old daimis, the illustrious
merchant Godai, of zaka, several female children of the mikado,
and so many promising young men who had entered or were anticipating public life, as to suggest painfully the weakness of the Japanese
physique. The percentage of deaths among the students abroad and

Japan in 1886

407

at home is a constant source of sorrow and disappointment. Of one

hundred youths who begin their preparatory studies in the foreign language schools, not over ve win their degrees at the Tki University,
over forty dropping out on account of disease or weakness.*
Other causes than the knock of Pallida Mors have operated in the
retirement from public view of men once prominent. The tendency of
Japanese politics, in its evolution towards the goal of 1890, has been to
eliminate entirely the old nobility, and to advance to power men for the
time bred in the lower social ranks. The composite government which
rose on the ruins of the dual system in 1868 was founded on the theory
of a union of the throne with the people, the only intermediary being
the kug, or court nobles. This took the form of a triple premiership
of Dai-jins; Sanj and Iwakura lling two of the three highest oces,
while the details of administration were carried on by the ministers,
who were men of the samurai class. Gradually the forces of intellect,
of natural ability, and of education manifested themselves, driving
out inferior men, unable to cope with the new problems of statecraft
or to resist the pressure from below, and elevating to inuential position the able men of low rank. These demanded not only oce and
hearing, but tangible recognition, in the form of social advancement,
from the throne itself. In response to public opinion the mikado issued
an edict dated June 6, 1884, which readjusted the system of nobility.
In the newly-created orders of princes, marquises, counts, viscounts,
and barons, were found many men once in the class of gentry only,
who had performed distinguished services on behalf of their country.
Nearly three hundred persons in the aristocracy of intellect were thus
ennobled on the basis of merit. Orders and decorations have also
* Kiki, the last tycoon, was reported to have died in 1884. Th is was a mistake. In 1890 we read of his visiting the hot springs of Itami. On the 14th of
April, 1889, a monument to his retainers slain in the civil war of 1868-70 was
unveiled at Uyno, Tki.

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the mikados empire

been distributed with lavish hand to both natives and foreigners. It is

expected that the nobles will furnish the personnel of the Upper House
of Lords or Notables for the Parliament of 1890.
To this goal the forces of Japanese politics have kept steadily moving, though with many uctuations and vicissitudes, among which have
been the rise and fall of parties, plottings, riots, dynamite, suspicion,
imprisonments, trials, release or executions. For various reasons the
Liberal party was dissolved in October, 1884.
Within the Government circles there had been occasional shiftings
of oce without radical change: but a movement of almost revolutionary import took place at the end of 1885. The death of Iwakura, and the
apparently approaching senility of Sanj, gave the opportunity; while
necessity, in view of the strides of time that wait for no man, forced
the issue. With the unexpected suddenness of an earthquake shock,
every member of the old court party was retired from active oce,
while young men educated abroadIt, Inouy, Mori, Enomoto
stepped into the highest oces.
By recommendation (on paper at least) of Sanj, and by decree
of the mikado, December 22, 1885, the triple premiership, the privy
council, and the ministries as then constituted were abolished. In their
place a cabinet was established, at the head of which was a ministerpresident of state. The old boards of government, with a new one of
communications (railways, telegraphs, mails), were reorganized in
such a way as to discharge from public employ about eight thousand
oce-holders. The new crystallization of political forces is in the
interest of democracy and economy, as well as of executive uniformity
and vigor. All in the new cabinet are men of modern ideas, culture,
and conviction, while the Asiatic features of the Government have
retired into shadow. The Mikado Mutsuhito now meets his ministers
in council, deliberates with them, and must share personal responsibility. The throne, by having several courses of intermediaries quietly and

Japan in 1886

409

safely removed, is more nearly broad-based upon the peoples will. It

may be that the future parliament will check any undue tendency in
the ministry to bureaucracy. As yet it is uncertain whether the form
of representative government in Japan will most closely approach the
British or the Prussian model. It will be a bitter disappointment to
the liberal patriots if the ministry is to be made responsible to the
sovereign and not to the parliament.
The temptations which beset Asiatic nations in adopting the salient
features of modern civilization to embark upon costly schemes of
reform and equipment are great, and the possible dangers are greater.
The Japanese Government seems wisely anxious to study economy
and avoid undue expenditure. Besides reducing the once abnormal
force of oce-holders, western methods of book-keeping have been
introduced into the public service, and the nancial estimates for each
year are reduced to the lowest point. The total national revenue for the
nineteenth scal year of Meiji was $74,695,415, and the expenditure
was $74,689,014. About $20,000,000 is applied yearly to the extinguishing of the national debt, which in 1885 was $245,427,329.
The customs returns of trade since 1868, published in July, 1886,
shows that the foreign commerce of Japan is healthfully developing.
In 1869 the exports were less than $13,000,000, but during each of the
last ve years they have not fallen below $30,000,000. The imports in
1868 were valued at ten and a half, in 1880 at thirty-six, and in 1885 at
twenty-eight millions of dollars. The excess of imports over exports
during eighteen years of foreign trade amounts to fty-one millions.
Great Britain has been the largest importer, but her imports have
fallen from nineteen millions in 1880 to twelve millions in 1885. The
United States takes most of the silk and tea of Japan, and returns
machinery and oil, two-thirds of the exports to Japan being in petroleum. Japans silk crop, in all its products, is valued at eighteen and a
half millions of dollars, and her tea crop at over thirty-ve millions

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the mikados empire

of pounds. While the yield of tea has increased threefold since 1868,
the price has fallen one-half. In the manufacture and export of artproducts there has been a marked increase. Th is is manifested not
only in the customs returns, but in the houses, gardens, and museums
of Europe and America. Japan is already recognized as the land of
dainty decoration, and her art has added new elements of delight and
surprise to the worlds store.
The social revolution which has aected all classes in the mikados
empire has given rise to new industries and handicrafts. The concentration of capital, the improvement of labor, and the elevation of the
working-classes through the inuence of schools and the cheapening
of justice, have changed the entire industrial system. The pitiful tales
of the laborers wrongs, as told in Mitfords Tales of Old Japan, seem
now mythical. The introduction of machinery and the establishment
of large arsenals, founderies, mills, steamship and railway companies,
seem to prove that Japan is not only providing for her own needs, but
is developing her resources in order to enter as a competitor for the
manufacturing supremacy among Asiatic nations. Fully equipped
railroads, men-of-war, steam and sailing vessels, houses in European
style, the product of native brain and muscle, are no longer curiosities. Patents are issued, inventions are encouraged, and museums are
established in most of the large cities. In exhibitions of industry held
in the provinces and capital, art, mechanical ingenuity, trades, and
business are stimulated to higher excellence. In the expositions held
in Europe, America, Australia, and India, the artistic ability, manual
dexterity, and inventive genius of the Japanese have won abundant
recognition. An exhibition of Asiatic products is to be held at Uyno,
in Tki, in 1890.
It is a noteworthy fact that the opening of Japan to the world
was coincident with the age of iron, steel, steam, and electricity.
The telegraph, introduced in 1869, has become a net-work of fteen

Japan in 1886

411

thousand miles of wire. Four cables connect the island empire to the
Asian main-land, two making landfall at Vladivostok, one at Fusan in
Corea, and one at Shanghai in China. The telephone and the electric
light are seen in the large cities. Of railways there were, in the summer
of 1885, 265 miles open, 271 miles in course of construction, and 543
miles in contemplation. Except the railway from Sapporo to Poronai
in Yezo, these roads are constructed and equipped on the British
model. Most of the survey, engineering, and constructive work, and
all of the mechanical labor on the new roads, are done by natives. The
trains, engines, and oces are worked by Japanese, and the wood and
lighter metal portions are made at home, the heavy castings, engines,
and rails being brought from Great Britain. The Japan Mail Shipping
Company employs a large eet of steamships and sailing-vessels in
their coasting trade and passenger lines to China, Corea, and the
island portions of the empire. In 1885 the postal department forwarded
nearly one hundred million letters and packages.
The return, in 1884, of the principal of the Shimonoski Indemnity,
so long unjustly withheld by the United States from Japan, has been
of some assistance in carrying out her schemes of national improvement. Besides postal and money-order arrangement with the United
States, a treaty of extradition was ratied by the Senate June 21, 1886.
This important diplomatic action places Japan, so far as the American
Government is concerned, upon the same footing as that of the most
enlightened nations in Europe. In these two acts the United States
leads the way in encouragement and recognition of Japans purpose
to assimilate her civilization to that of Christendom.
Ever since the American ag was rst carried round the world
by Major Shaw, of the United States First Artillery, the part played
by our country towards Asiatic nations has been in the main kindly,
honorable, and unselsh. In the renovation of Japan this disposition
to assist and not to retard her progress has been manifest. In 1878,

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the mikados empire

in Tki, the Japanese themselves, in their own language and way,

celebrated, with congratulations and rejoicing, the quarter-century of
the arrival of Commodore M. C. Perry in Yedo bay.* Our American
teachers, missionaries, and scientic men in active labors on the soil;
our ministers in their diplomacy; our hospitable schools, homes, and
friends in need welcoming the students; our Government in treaties, have all shown a desire to assist Japan which is as sincere as it
is morally beautiful. The standard political literature of the United
States, translated and widely read, has done much to educate Japanese
opinion, and to show how liberty may exist under law. Science, religion, the press, and public-schools are now training the Japanese
people for their coming responsibilities. Nearly six hundred young
men have, since the rst exodus in 1865, been educated abroad at the
public expense, most of them in the United States. An equal or greater
number have attended foreign schools at their own charges, while the
number of travellers and those who have intelligently studied western
* See the Life of Matthew Calbraith Perry, a Typical American Naval Ocer, by
the author of this work.
The subject of the Japanese students abroad, how they came rst to New
Brunswick, N. J., with personal notes, statistics, etc., has been treated by
the author in a pamphlet published in 1886 by the Rutgers College Alumni
Association. During the civil war in Japan the Japanese students were unable to
receive any remittances. A company of gentlemen and ladies in the Reformed
[Dutch] Church was formed to loan them money without regard to future
repayment. Th is generous behavior was warmly appreciated by the mikados
government. On the eve of their departure from the United States, in 1872,
the ambassadors Iwakura and kubo, in a letter to the Rev. John Mason
Ferris, D.D., wrote: The generous conduct exhibited by yourself and other
gentlemen in this instance, as well as in all matters of educational interest
pertaining to the Japanese youth, will do more to correct this impression [that
foreign nations did not entertain kindly feelings toward our people], and
will do more to cement the friendly relations of the two countries, than all
other inuences combined.

Japan in 1886

413

civilization cannot fall short of three thousand. The Japanese have

now their legation, consulates, bank, clubs, and a Christian church
in the United States. At least three thousand in various industrial
capacities are living in Europe, China, Hawaii, and other countries.
No year passes without seeing delegations of public inspectors or private students abroad, all restlessly eager to know the secrets of power
possessed by the western nations.
Though the Japanese long ago accepted the axiom that education
is the basis of all progress, yet their eorts in intellectual advancement have been impeded by their long use of the Chinese graphic
system. The best years of a students life must be devoted to learning
thousands of arbitrary characters in order to know how to read. To be
a learned man in the Japan of today one must know, besides his own
language, the cumbrous Chinese system of writing, with much of its
body of learning, and, in addition, the English or some other modern
European language. No youth are more burdened in obtaining an
education than are the Japanese. Hence the vast sacrice of health
and life among them, and their early intellectual decay.
Fully realizing these indisputable facts, the thinking men of this
generation have resolved to break the yoke, to cast o the incubus, and
to free the intellect of the future. In 1884 the Rmaji Kai, or Romanletter Association, was formed in Tki, and has now six thousand
members, native and foreign, among whom are all the missionaries.
Their purpose is to supplant the Chinese character and native syllabary by the Roman alphabet as the vehicle of Japanese thought. They
have demonstrated that all possible sounds and vocal combinations
can be expressed by using twenty-two letters. They print a newspaper,
edit text-books, and will transliterate popular and classic texts in the
chosen letters of the alphabet now most widely used over all the earth.
It has been proved that a child can learn to read the colloquial and
book language in one-tenth of the time formerly required. The reform

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the mikados empire

is making rapid progress; and if, as seems very probable the natives
universally adopt the system, the gain to mind and body will be like
that of adding youth and years to a nations life.
By an imperial decree, issued November 29, 1884, the English language was made part of the order of studies in the common-schools.
Over three million children and youth now attend daily the public
institutions of learning. Education is both compulsory and free. English
seems destined to become the speech of the educated and the vehicle of
knowledge for all the mikados subjects.
The progress of Christianity shows no sign of check or halt. To all
three forms of the faith converts are ocking, but indications seem
to show at present (1886) a greater relative gain to the churches of
Reformed Christianity. The majority of the two hundred Protestant
missionaries now working in the white harvest-field of Japan are
Americans. The writer saw the organization of the rst Protestant
Christian church in Japan in 1872. There are now nearly two hundred
organized churches (about half of which are self-supporting), with
a membership of over thirteen thousand. In 1885 the adult converts
baptized numbered 3,115. Native Christian helpers, assisting the foreign teachers, number about two hundred and fty, of whom seventy
are ordained ministers. The native Christians contributed in 1885 over
twenty thousand dollars. The systems of heathenism are waning, and
the chief supporters of Buddhism are now old men and women. The
shaven-pated priests no longer hold the monopoly of fees for the performance of burial rites. Both belief and burial are now free. Religious
liberty has become a fact. The attitude of the intelligent people is that
of friendliness towards what they believe to be the best religion and
the one which Japan ought to have.
Japans opportunity seems unique in history. Under Divine
Providence she began renascence at a time coincident with the highest development of the forcesspiritual, mental, and material that

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415

control human society. Christianity, the press, and steam are transforming the nation. Under such continuing auspices people and rulers
confront the twentieth year of Meiji (Enlightened Peace), the twentyve hundred and forty-seventh from the foundation of the empire,
and the eighteen hundred and eighty-seventh of the Christian era.

Supplement iii

Japan in 1890

aking our survey of Japan in 1890, and writing in mid-August

with the election returns before us, it seems that the one event
which dwarfs all others since the year 1886, if not indeed since the
Japanese became a nation, is the proclamation of the Constitution of
February 11, 1889. In accordance with this instrument, the emperor
shares with his people the work and responsibilities of government.
The possibility of an Asiatic nations becoming constitutional and
representative in government excites surprise and even incredulity
in the minds of Western people. Since the solidity and permanence
of any form of political organization must depend upon how far it is
rooted in the past, and is in accord with the genius and necessities of
a people, let us examine the process by which the present status of
Japan has been attained. Is the Constitution of 1889 a manufacture
or a growth?
A rapid view shows us that in all Japanese history the central force
has been the reverence of the people for the throne, while the actual
administration has always been in the hands of some one family, clan,
or clan combination. Passing over the ages eternal of mythology,
and reckoning that the traditions of the house or tribe of Yamato are
trustworthy from the fourth century, then the imperial line of Japan
has been in existence, by blood and adoption, nearly sixteen hundred
417

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the mikados empire

years. Yet, excepting the individuals Nobunaga and Hidyoshi, the

actual rulers of the empire have been men of the Fujiwara, Taira,
Minamoto, Hj, Ashikaga, and Tokugawa families; and, since 1868,
of the Sa-cho-to, or the Satsuma, Chshiu, and Tosa clan combination. For the rst time in Japanese history the intermediary of family
or clan control of the throne is now to be abolished. The meaning
of the Constitution of 1889the expansion of the oath of 1868is
that the emperor invites his people to share with him the duties of
government. This time it is not a family, a clan, or a combination, but
the nobles, gentry, and people; but who are the people?
As there has been no true history of Japan yet writtenthat is,
one which sifts utterly the truth from early and late fable and mythologyso there exists no accurate history of the Japanese people. What
passes for history in the bald and dry native annals is the story of
their conquerors, masters, and tax-collectors. We see clearly outlined,
however, the separation of classes. At rst there were only tribes
and chiefs, the subjugators and the subjugated, agriculturists and
nomads. Then, in a long course of war, the soldiers, nding nearly
permanent employment, keep sword, spear, and armor, while the
farmers clinging to hoe and hook, two classes are formed out of the
mass of inhabitants beyond the court and beneath the nobles. Those
men, whose business it was to samurai the mikadothat is, to serve
or attend upon the orders of the emperor, made up the military class;
the farmers, as being next below, forming the most ancient and honorable of the lower classes. Among the social grades, formed by gradual
evolution and isolation during the intervals of peace, may be named
the merchant, artisan, and people of other occupations, even to the
outcast eta and hinin. Since 1868 all the grades below the samurai, or
gentry, have been fused into one class, the hei-min, or people.
The chief feature in the old Japanese political system was its tendency
to dualism. The division of the people into soldiers and farmers, and of

Japan in 1890

419

ocers into civil and military, or kug and buk, was a process which, in
the absence of foreign pressure or enemies, ended in a division of the
functions of government into those of the throne and the camp, with
two rulers and two capitals. Gradually this process of dualism became
one of disintegration. Authority slipped from the centres, and was held
locally by province lords, or daimis, each striving for himself; until,
duarchy having degenerated into feudalism, Japan had no unity, but
was a mass of warring factions. Politically or socially, the comminution
could no further go. Even when the man on horseback by military
force was able to clamp together some sort of a political edice, the
order thus kept was only of the sort possible when there was no pressure from the outside, and when no foreign enemy threatened. For over
two centuries the military despotism of Tokugawa held in peace by a
most elaborate and complicated system an empire which consisted of
about three hundred petty kingdoms, within each of which was a social
conglomeration of a dozen or more dierent classes.
Old Japan was a museum of political curiosities, while on the
graded shelves of the social classication was catalogued every specimen, from a god to the creatures labelled not human. Under outward splendor and picturesqueness, only a few far-seeing men saw
that, rst of all, Japan needed unity; fewer discerned that the country
must have government by men and not by custom; fewest yet that to
be a great nation Japan must have a people.
Heretofore public opinion has been the exclusive property of the
samurai. The people, in the modern, not to say the American, sense,
have not yet grown to consciousness, though the 11th of February,
1889, was the day of birth. Nineteen-twentieths of the inhabitants of
Japan have been simply burden-bearers and tax-payers; now they are
becoming the people. Japan, having cast o dualism, feudalism, and
other divisive elements, has entered upon a higher process of unity.
The people are now learning who and what they are.

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the mikados empire

Glancing now at the various forms of government, we discern

in the early ages a rudimentary feudalism, probably brought by the
Yamato conquerors from the Amoor or Sungari valleys. After this
follow in order centralized monarchy, duarchy, elaborate feudalism,
and then, in 1868, a composite government formed on the theory of
a union of the throne and the peoplethat is, the samurai. In this
government, the chief intermediaries being the triple premiership and
other various minor and temporary political expedients, the actual
administration was carried on by able samurai, formerly men of low
social rank, but well tted for the work in hand. In a survey of the
twenty-one years of the government of Meiji several facts stand out
prominently; the rst is that the former ruling class of daimios and
other nobles, and the people, have had very little, if any, political
power; second, that the Meiji statesmen have shown in their actions
a curious, perhaps admirable, combination of opportunism and farsighted statecraft; third, that natural force, ability, and education
have driven out incompetency; fourth, that despite all obstacles, they
have led the nation steadily forward to the goal set before them at
the Restoration, and far beyond it; fth, that Japan is to-day vastly
less the land of lies and sham than in the old days of seclusion, and is
more and more the country of reality and truth.
In brief, Old Japan was the result of certain conditions, chief of
which was isolation from the rest of the world. So long as no leaven
from without was dropped into the mass, the old constitution of society and government could remain stable. When, however, in addition
to the movements in the minds of scholars and thinkers previous to
a.d. 1853, which of themselves would have precipitated revolution and
compelled reconstruction, there was poured into Japan the ferment
of Christian civilization, the entire structure was doomed. A new
society, as well as a new government, must arise. Despotism, division,
and sectionalism had to give way in order that national unity should

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emerge. The old society, split up by feudalism, priestcraft, and ignorance, must be rst simplied, and by education, enlightenment, and
freedom the nation be strengthened and uplifted. Public opinion, as
the basis of national action, must be the real, though regulated, feeling
of all, from emperor to eta. In the attainable ideal system the humblest
member of the body politic is a man, and the highest nothing more.
That there were men who before 1853, the year of Perrys arrival
at Uraga, thus thought and felt, and to this end devoted their lives,
is manifest from tradition, history, and the writings of such men
as Takno Choy, Watanab Kwazan, Hashimoto Sanai, Fujita
Sinoshin, Sakama Shuri, Yoshida Torajir, Yokoi Hishiro,
Matsudaira Yoshinaga, daimi of Echizen, and many other noble
morning-stars of reformation. Under various pretexts, whether of
opposition to foreigners or to the Bakufu, these far-sighted patriots
veiled their larger purpose. Highest in rank and inf luence, and
most eager for national unity and representative government, the
pupil of Yokoi Hishiro, and probably the ablest of all the daimis,
was Matsudaira, lord of Echizen, who had already begun to form,
in his own dominions, before Perrys arrival, a miniature of the New
Japan of the Meiji era. He was one of the rst to propose to the Yedo
Government the calling of a council of daimis to deliberate upon
the American proposal to enter into treaty relations. In thus seeking
the public opinion of the country as represented by the feudal clans,
and in the holding, during many days and nights in 1854, of the great
council of both active and retired daimios, in Yedo, we see the rst
step towards the national parliament of 1890.
Yet this very step revealed the weakness of the despotism of Yedo
thus called to confront a new problem. To behold the Yedo autocrats,
who had hitherto by force required only instant obedience of their vassals, humbly inviting them to conference was a startling revelation to
men who watched every movement of the Bakufu. The samurai were

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aroused at once, but nding few or no leaders among their masters,

the daimis, who, with the noteworthy exceptions of Echizen, Mito,
Hizen, Tosa, and Uwajima, formed a Sahara of mediocrity, the thinking men turned for leadership to the court nobles in Kito, and then
strove to win their feudal masters to their side.
When confronted by Townsend Harris, and by the envoys of
Europe who followed after, who demanded residence and trade, there
was a choice, to the bakufu, between two methods of policy. One
was represented by Ii Kamon no Kami, who, with probably a noble
motive, chose the method of the autocrat, increasing despotism under
the plea of necessity. The other method was represented in the person
of Matsudaira, daimi of Echizen,* who had national modern and
Western ideas, and believed that all acts of government should be
upon the basis of public opinion. The one was destined to illustrate
the truth that government in Old Japan was despotism tempered by
assassination. The other lived to see grandly illustrated the capacity
of the nation for representative and constitutional government, dying

* The Marquis Matsudaira Yoshinaga, or Shungaku, was born in Yedo, a.d.

1827, and died in Tki, June 2, 1890. In 1838 he was adopted as a son by the
daimi of Echizen, and in 1843 became active ruler in Fukui. He introduced
various reforms in the arts of development and defence. He built a gun factory,
cannon foundery, and powder-mill; introduced vaccination, Dutch medical
practice and military tactics, the study of Dutch, and the translation of Dutch
books; organized a hospital, a medical school, a college of literature, invited
Yokoi Heishiro, the renowned Higo teacher, to be his counsellor, and made
Fukui a hospitable place for scholars and far-sighted patriots. All this was
done before 1854. At rst opposed to foreign intercourse on account of the
weakness of Japan, and the opponent of Ii Kamon no Kami, he became, in
1862, one of the most progressive men in Japan. After holding many oces of
high honor under the government of Meiji, including the presidency of the
university and head of the revenue department, he received from the mikado
the highest honors possible to a living subject, rising to the second degree of
the rst rank.

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423

in 1890. Heartily trusting the wisdom and abilities of the enlightened

men of the southern and western clans, he, when Supreme Director
of Aairs, in 1862, released them and the daimis from Yedo, made
Kito the real capital, and there opened the then possible avenues for
the expression of opinion.
Largely through the inuence of Echizen, while resident at the
palace during several months, the acts of the court were done in
accordance with the policy suggested by the clans. In the deliberations of the men who formed the Government proclaimed January
3, 1868, Echizen, with his troops, being then guardian of the palace,
this enlightened daimi, besides pleading for union of all the political
forces, old and new, without civil war or estrangement, urged above
all things the necessity of a national parliament. Though the outbreak
of war and the shedding of blood were keen disappointments to him,
he persevered in the work of national unity and reconstruction. By
an oath of the mikado (p. 349) the ve principles of the new government which form this Constitution of 1868 and the basis of New
Japanexpressed in their verbal form by Yuri Kinmasa, a samurai
of Echizen, and pupil of Yokoi Hishirowere published and established. In accordance with the promise that a deliberative assembly
should be formed, and all measures be decided by public opinion, the
rst parliament was opened in Kito in 1868, the representation being
in the persons of samurai only, each clan, according to its numbers,
sending one, two, or three members. When Yedo was made the ki,
or capital, and named Tki, a second parliament of two hundred
and seventy-six members, two hundred of whom were present, convened April 18, 1869. This new body was named Shiugi-In, or House
of Commons. After discussing various questions, especially that of
a new Constitution, and rejecting the proposition to relinquish the
wearing of swords, this assembly died a natural death. It was, in the
temper of its members, so far behind the needs of the time, and of the

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ideas of the progressive leaders in the Government, that it was likely

to defeat the very ends proposed in its creation.
Although the petition of Got, Yuri, and others, in 1874, was
rejected, and substitutes for a national assembly were supposed to
exist in the Sa-In, or Senate so called, formed in 1871, its members
being nominated by the premier, and in its successor the Genr-In,
also called a Senate, yet no decisive movement towards national representation was made until 1873, when a meeting of the governors of
the prefectures was called in Tki. Nevertheless, in the creation,
in April, 1875, of the Genr-In, or Senate, and the Dai Shin-In, or
Supreme Court of Appeals, and the promise in the same decree to
gradually confer upon the nation a constitutional form of government, we see the first clear step towards the modern division of
government into the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
In July, 1875, the promise to call a council of provincial ocials so
that the feelings of the people may be made known, and the public
welfare attained, was ful lled. The seventy province-governors were
addressed by the emperor, and Kido was made president. Actually
more inuential upon the people, however, than this too conservative
body was the action of certain advisers of the governors coming up
with them, who met in Tki, and petitioned the Government for a
national assembly based on popular surage. Adjourned in 1877, it was
not in 1878 accepted as the boon desired by the nation, even though
the foundations of local government by popular representation were
laid in the decree of the emperor. Then followed two years of amazing
activity in agitation for the long-desired parliament. Led by Itagaki,
kuma, Got, Soyjima, and others, public opinion, to which nobles,
gentry, and commoners contributed, compelled the proclamation of
October 12, 1887, naming 1890 as the year of the national assembly.
While thus, on the one hand, the political education of the people
in local aairs was provided for, so that the nation should have at

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425

least eight years of preparatory training in representative government, Count Ito Hirobumi was sent to Europe to study and compare the constitutions and laws of Western nations. Shortly after his
return, in 1884, it became increasingly evident that the Constitution
of 1890 would approach the German rather than the British model.
In December, 1885 (p. 599), a long step forward was taken in the
reorganization of the cabinet. During the next four years Ito and
Inouy were able guardians of the national policy. Especially were
their abilities manifest during the protracted treaty negotiations, and
the intense political excitement consequent upon the desire of the
liberal agitators that English rather than Prussian principles should
be emphasized in the new Constitution. The fears of the liberals led
by Count Itagaki of Tosa were, however, con rmed by the remarkable imperial rescript of December 25, 1887, by which several hundred
persons were ordered away from the capital.*
In April, 1888, a new body called the Privy Council was formed,
of which It became president, while Kuroda lled the position of
premier. In this body active debate upon the new Constitution began
in May, and proceeded until February 11, 1889, when the long-awaited
instrument was proclaimed.
Exactly to the day, almost to the very hour, thirty-five years
after the American treaty-ships were in sight of Idzu, the emperor
Mutsuhito took oath to maintain inviolate the government according
to the Constitution, the documents attesting which he, before the
*A discussion of Coercion in Japan, in The Nation of February 16, 1888,
precipitated a violent newspaper controversy on both sides of the Pacic.
Among other protests it was declared that the article had a curious air of
anachronism about it. Yet within two years, besides several futile attempts
at violence or assassination, the lives of two cabinet ministers (Mori and
kuma) were assailed, the one by knife and the other by bomb; the ministry
then in power was replaced by one more radical, while a strong reaction in
public sentiment followed.

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assembled audience of nobles, ocers, and foreign envoys, handed

to Kuroda, the Minister-president of State. Extraordinary popular
demonstrations of joy and approval followed in the capital and provinces. For the rst time in Japanese history the emperor rode beside
the empress in public. Posthumous titles of nobility granted to the
dead, illustrious rewards to the living, amnesty to prisoners, and other
marks of imperial favor carried joy to many hearts. The horrible blot
on the days beautiful record was the assassination of the Minister of
Education, Arinori Mori, by a Shintist fanatic.
The Constitution proper consists of sixty-six articles,* treating of
the emperor, the rights and duties of subjects, the Imperial Diet, the
ministers of state and the Privy Council, the judicature and nance,
with supplementary rules. With the laws proclaimed at the same time,
the articles number three hundred and thirty-two. In the rst chapter
relating to the emperor the foundation-principle of the whole past of
the nation is rearmed. The mikados person is sacred and inviolable.
He combines in himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them
according to the provisions of the present Constitution. Japan is still
the mikados empire.
Hitherto the rights of the common people have never been
acknowledged, de ned, or guaranteed. Chapter II is of immediate
interest to thirty-eight out of the forty millions of Japanese people.
Their status is to be determined by law. They have the right of abode
* See the writers article in The Forum of April, 1889, entitled Representative
Government in Japan; the pamphlet containing the text of the Constitution
(Kelly & Walsh, Yokohama); Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of
Japan, by Count Ito Hirobumi, translated into English by Miyoji It, Tki,
1889; and Prof. Basil Hall Chamberlains Things Japanese, Tki and London,
1890. This latter work is a mirror of contemporary Japan, and an encyclopdia
of valuable information. Also, the letters of J. H. Wigmore in The Nation, July,
and passim, 1890; and Constitution of the Empire of Japan, Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, Md.

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427

and of changing the same. Except according to law, they are not to be
arrested, detained, tried, or punished. Trial is always to be by Judges
determined by law. The right of domicile and freedom from search,
the secrecy and inviolability of letters, the freedom of religious belief,
and the liberty of speech, writing, publishing, public meeting, association, and petition within the limits of law, are guaranteed to every
subject. Under the sun of Japan these are indeed new things.
The Diet assembles once a year, and is opened, closed, prorogued,
and dissolved by the emperor, to whom the initiative of amendments
to the Constitution belongs. Deliberations are public. The ministers of
state may take seats and speak in either House, but are responsible to
the emperor and not to the Diet. In the judicature exercised by courts of
law in the name of the emperor the trials are public, and the judges are
persons properly qualied, and irremovable except for oence. Expenses
and revenue of the State require the consent of the Imperial Diet, but
the fixed expenditures based by the Constitution upon the powers
appertaining to the emperor, the organization of the dierent branches
of the administration, and the salaries of all civil and military ocers,
such expenditures as may have arisen by eect of law, or that relate to
the legal obligations of the Government, shall neither be rejected
nor reduced by the Diet without the concurrence of the Government.
Expenses of the Imperial House do not require the consent of the Diet
except for increase. The chief weapon of a hostile majoritythe stoppage of supplies to the ministry in poweris thus removed.
The government of Japan, then, is organized on the basis of immemorial tradition, with modern features that follow the German rather than
the English model. A denite amount of executive power is reserved to
the emperor and the ministers who are responsible to him. Under the
written lines of the Constitution are the watermarks of compromise,
and the party lines are marked out by the instrument itself. Against
the rushing stream of democracy, like their own mountain torrents, the

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conservatives will be the dikes (or ja-kago) to keep hard and fast the
imperial prerogative. The progressives will at once begin to demand
greater powers for the Diet, a broader electoral base, and greater control
of the nances. Revolutions move but in one direction.
The Upper House, or (mixed) House of Peers, consists partly
of hereditary, partly of elected, and partly of nominated members.
Members of the imperial family, princes, and marquises sit for life.
A certain number of counts, viscounts, and barons, elected by the
members of their respective orders, serve for seven years. Men of
ability and learning nominated by the emperor are life members. A
novel and interesting feature is that from each of the imperial cities
and prefectures a member (noble, gentleman, or commoner) elected by
the fteen highest tax-payers may serve for seven years. The combined
number of nominated and elected men is not to exceed the number of
members holding titles of nobility.
The House of Representatives consists of about three hundred
members, at least thirty years of age, who pay national taxes to the
amount of fteen yen, or dollars, and serve four years. Electors must be
twenty-ve years old, and pay national taxes to the amount of fteen
dollars. The average number of representatives from each prefecture
is not quite seven, the larger having from ten to thirteen members,
and three cities (Tki, zaka, and Kito) twelve, ten, and seven,
respectively. In 1887 there were 1,581,726 persons in the empire paying
taxes to the amount of over ve yen, of whom 1,488,700 had the right of
voting for members of local assemblies. Of those paying over ten dollars in taxes there were 882,517, of whom 802,975 were eligible to vote,
or sit after election in the local assemblies. In these local legislatures
2,172 members sat, the number of standing committees being 292. The
electorate of the National Diet numbers probably 300,000.

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429

With quietness and order the threefold election passed o in July,

1890, and we are now able to see the general complexion of the rst
Imperial Diet, and to form some idea of the eagerness of the Japanese
to avail themselves of their new privileges. About eighty-ve percent
of eligible voters availed themselves of the franchise, and the number
of candidates in each district varied from two to fteen, there being in
Tki ninety-two applicants for the twelve seats, and in eighty other
districts three hundred and thirteen.
For the House of Peers, so called, besides the nine members of the
imperial family, ten princes, and twenty-one marquises, who sit by
hereditary right, fteen counts, seventy viscounts, and twenty barons,
elected by members of their own orders (the nobles numbering nearly
six hundred, and one-fth of these electives being chosen), there were
chosen out of the forty-ve fully organized divisions of the empire, by
the fteen highest tax-payers in each, forty-ve members, of whom
thirty-three were hei-min, or commoners, eleven were of the gentry, and
one was a noble. Other members are to be nominated by the emperor.
Among the successful candidates for the House of Representatives,
a rough classication shows as great variety of political opinions as of
occupations. In a word, all of the existing classes of the people are well
represented. Without space to analyze the political parties, we may
say that at present, far more than in Western countries, the so-called
national parties are moulded by local and personal inuences rather
than by abstract questions of policy. The Government must confront
a majority hostile in form, the election showing conclusively that the
voting of the people is an expression of their own will, and not that
either of the ministers in oce or of the higher powers in authority.
To be in any way connected with governmental employ was, in almost
every case, to invite certain defeat; while on the other hand few of the

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old party leaders were chosen as standard-bearers in the new eld. All
things considered, the issue is most hopeful to the lover of humanity
and well-wisher of the Japanese people.
In the reconstruction of her foreign policy Japan has endeavored
to have the treaties revised in the interests of mutual justice, to secure
the removal of the extra-territoriality clauses, and her treatment by the
nations of Christendom as their equal. The long and weary question
cannot here be discussed, but is probably not now far from solution.
Since 1881 the new Criminal Code, based on the best principles of
Western jurisprudence, has been in successful operation; and on the
22d of April, 1890, the new Code of Civil Procedure, and the rst portion of the Civil Code, were promulgated. The fruit of fteen years
labor of foreign and native experts in law are thus set forth. In both
the letter of the documents and the spirit of their execution the sincerity of the Japanese in thus preparing to live up to what is expected of
them by the world is clearly manifest. Contrariwise, the condence
of foreign nations is equally shaken when such relapses, on the part
of the Government, into the vices of despotism and feudalism as
the issue of the so-called Peace Regulations of December 25, 1887, or
when the excesses of the so-shi, such as the assassination of Arinori
Mori, and the attempt by dynamite on the life of kuma, October
18, 1889, chill the hopes of those who believe in the right of Japan to
claim equality with Western nations.
For a solid basis to our hope in Japans future we look to the
large Christian community now increasing daily. In June, 1890, the
churches of reformed Christianity had 34,000 members enrolled;
those of the Roman form of the faith over 50,000 souls under their
care; while 17,000 or more receive spiritual nurture according to the
Greek method. These subjects of the mikado make in all a nominal
household of a half-million who hold the promise of this life and of
that which is to come through Jesus Christ. The celebration of the

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431

complete Bible in Japanese took place in Tki, February 3, 1888.

Already the fertilization of the native intellect by Christianity and the
Bible is manifest in the new literature. Qualities utterly absent from
the older writings are discerned in the essays, philosophy, history, ction, and journalism. Christian men are leaders in thought and letters.
The Japanese are even beginning to write critical history.
During these exciting years of 1889 and 1890, amid the ferment of
politics, and the erce discussion of treaty revision which has wrecked
more than one ministry, a strong movement to preserve what is best
in the national life, in language, art, government, and every department of achievement has been in progress. Such a movement naturally
exhibited some phases interpreted by foreigners to mean reaction; but
underneath much that is condemned by the best men of the nation
there is a larger purpose that will command the sympathy and admiration of the world. No nation can be great that merely imitates and
borrows. With wise selection the Japanese nationalistic movement
means, we think, the proving of all things, the holding fast that
which is good.
Strong in faith and hope of the prosperous future of this most
interesting of Asiatic nations, and in undisguised sympathy with her
noble purpose, we leave our inspiring theme of representative Japan.
From no nation of Christendom will Japan receive more hearty good
wishes than from that in which Matthew Calbraith Perry was born,
and which of modern States rst began its life and has longest lived
under a written Constitution.

Supplement iv

Japan in 1894

orty years ago the whistle of the American steamers awoke Old
Japan out of her hermit sleep. On the 8th day of July, 1853, the
four men-of-war arrived at Uraga. The signal rockets from the forts
were answered by the rattle of cables and the splash of anchors, and
Japans new era began.
That 8th day of July pregured the forty years of history which we
now survey. The day was ushered in with fog so thick that the land
was hidden. Only at intervals could the rocky outlines of the coast
be discerned. Gradually through the sun-rent curtains of mist the
mountains became visible. At meridian Fujis glorious form loomed
into view, and by mid-afternoon the whole panorama of the landscape
and blue waters greeted the eye. At sunset the peerless mountain wore
a crown of glory. From midnight until four oclock a.m. appeared from
the south-west a meteoric sphere of light that moved towards the
north-east, illuminating the whole atmosphere, nally falling towards
the sea and vanishing. The next day was one of sunny splendor.
So has it been with Japan, political and social. Foreigners in the
morning of their life on the soil found themselves in a fog of ignorance. Everything Japanese seemed veiled in mystery. Hiding the real
facts was a vague embodiment of something which was called The
Law; but what that Law was, by whom enacted, and under what
433

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the mikados empire

sanctions enforced, no one could tell, though all seemed to stand in

awe of it as something of superhuman ecacy; its mysteriousness was
only equalled by the abject submission it received. No country was
then less worthy of its numerous names, all making boast of the sun,
of light, of radiancy. Japan was then the Land of Darkness.
Gradually the dawn broke, the fogs of mystery were riven, and the
real Japan was discovered. Yet before the cloudless day was ushered
in, that great meteoric movement from the south-west towards the
north-eastthe uprising of the great clans which made New Japan
and seated the Emperor in Tkitook place. Like the coming of
the Sun-goddess out of her cave was the emergence of the mikado
into the white light of public duty. The mystery-play was over. To-day
Japan is worthy of her nameSunrise. It is the 9th of July.
Now, information on a thousand subjects is freely furnished by the
Government. Foreign scholars have penetrated the arcana of literature, have challenged and dissected tradition, chronology, and claims
even of the Heaven-descended dynasty. The Japanese themselves,
applying Western methods of collection, comparison, classication,
and research to their national treasures, land, language, and history, are coming to self-revelation as never before. They are seeing
themselves as they are. The process is not wholly safe to individuals,
and freedom of speech and of the press are not yet what we count
freedom. Yet there is at present probably as much liberty as can safely
be enjoyed. One signal proof of the willingness of the Government
to let light shine on what was once hidden, is its annual publication,
Rsum Statistique de L Empire du Japon.*
* This manual for 1893, packed with gures skillfully tabulated, maps, diagrams,
tables of weights and measures, comparatives, averages, totals, and other requisites for the students eye, tells an eloquent story of Japans progress. Area, population, agriculture and industry, commerce and public improvements, facilities of
transportation by land and sea, private and public nances, education, religion,

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435

Japan as wonder-land is as surprising in things vanished as in

things created during these forty years. Gone are Tycoon, the duarchy,
feudalism, the old codes, customs, ideals, personalities. In their places
has come one government dierentiated in three functionsexecutive, legislative, and judicialwith all the outward appliances of
modern civilization. New social, industrial, and ethical systems are
in process of formation. With much of the ancient and picturesque
ignorance and superstition have disappeared some things that were
worth keeping, yet in New Japan the new codes, ideals, and ambitions are vast improvements on those of the old days. The Japanese
have determined to take their place not only among the nations of
the world, but of Christendom, and to be found in the front rank.
Nothing less than this will satisfy them. Already, the record of forty
years is amazing, and the surprises are not all over.
Yet who have been the creators of New Japan? The natives or the
foreigners? Would the Japanese of themselves have attained to the
status already reached in this twenty-seventh year of Meiji? Are there
not, apart from exterior inuences, a power and a personality on the
soil of the New that were not in the Old Japan? As secret, as concealed
as leaven, were they not as potent?
Japan is not unique in history, not a case of entire self-reformation.
Without the leaven from Christendom this oriental lump would not
be as it is seen and felt to-day. The aliens employed by the Japanese
have not told their story, yet, as Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain,
hygiene, charities, with details of justice, police administration, army and navy,
and civil service at home and abroad, make a statistical appendix to this work
of ours no longer necessary. This invaluable publication has for seven years been
compiled and edited by Mr. Ishibashi, chief of the Imperial Bureau of Statistics
in Tki, author with Mr. E. Satow of a pocket dictionary of English-Japanese.
I had the pleasure of rst meeting Mr. Ishibashi when he was chief interpreter at
the Foreign Oce, in 1871, Mr. Trashima Munnori being then Vice-minister
of Foreign Aairs.

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in his Things Japanese, says, The foreign employ is the creator of

New Japan. As certainly as on the foundation-stones of the Japan
of the Meiji era belong the names of Rai, Sakuma, Yoshida, Yokoi,
Fukuzawa, and a host of others who, while living, were unrewarded
non-oceholders, so also should be inscribed those of the Yatoi Tjin, or hired foreigners. Whether in Japanese pay or not, as hirelings,
or as guests, or as forces healthfully stimulating, who from their own
governments or societies received stipend, or self-impelled wrought
for Japans good, their work abides. The world may forget the singer,
but the song is still heard.
For over a century the earnest thinkers of Japan went to school to
the Dutch at Nagasaki. These Europeans, professing to be neither
benefactors nor missionaries, but only merchants and physicians, gave
their pupils a long object-lesson in civilization. Pilgrims thirsting for
knowledge came from all over the empire to learn of the Hollanders,
and dispersing homeward lled the country with centres of light.
Maligned by their enemies in faith and by their rivals in commerce,
the work of the Dutchmen for a century in supplying a hermit nation
with books, science, and medicine, has been unknown or underrated.
The Dutch laid the foundations of scientic knowledge of the Japanese
and their country, secured the abolition of the insults to Christianity,
and made the way easy for Commodore Perry and Townsend Harris.
It would be hard to nd a single native pioneer of progress in the early
years of Meiji statesman, diplomatist, military leader, physician,
man of science, interpreter, author, preacherwho was not directly
indebted to the Dutch.
Not, however, until the decade following the apparition of Perry
did foreign inuence become an overwhelming force and the foreign
employ a permanent gure. Beginning probably with the American
Professor Pumpelly, who wrote Across America and Asia, the Japanese
Government and individuals enlisted a great army of auxiliaries from

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437

abroad. In what branch of science or friendly service are the makers of

New Japan not indebted? English scholarship as represented by Satow,
Aston, Chamberlain, McClatchie, Gubbins, and others, rst rent the
veil from ancient Japan, and gave to native students the impetus to
that critical and comparative study of their own language and traditions which they are now beginning bravely to pursue. British experts
organized the navy and trained the lads that are now ocers and
the junk-sailors that are now smart marines and skilful artillerists,
created and equipped the saka mint, struck the coinage of which
no Japanese is ashamed, and established the vernacular newspaper,
now the mighty power that even prime-ministers and Emperor must
reckon with. Frenchmen reorganized the army, codied the law, and
built the Yokoska dockyard. The Germans have directed the higher
medical education of the country. Not less a feat than the reform of
the entire educational system was chiey the work of a handful of
Americans. The posts, the telegraphs, the railways, the light-houses;
the trigonometrical, geological, and geodetic surveys; improved mining methods, prison reform, sanitary reform, cotton and paper mills;
manufactories of many kinds, chemical laboratories, water-works
and harbor-works, and a hundred other improvements which have
enriched the country, and which strike the eye and excite the admiration of the touristall are the creation of the foreign employes of
the Japanese Government.*
* It is not probable that the future Japanese historian will deign to use as
important material for his narrative any of the little accordeon-like publications entitled Yatoi T-jin such as we have before us. While the throne and
the gure-heads and a multitude of names such as already clog the pages of
the Japanese annals will doubtless occupy vast space on the historians page,
yet a glance at the little brochure giving names, salaries, and occupation of the
hired foreigners, is like a visit to the power-house of an electric railway. Here
are the generating forces, and the wheels, belts, and motors, while to the outside world the brilliancy and speed of the moving trains astonish the spectator.

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True type of the foreigners who not merely advised or inspected,

but who wrought by example and precept, patiently teaching technical
details, was the German Dr. Gottfried von Wagener, whose personal
friendship the writer enjoyed while a fellow-worker in the Imperial
University from 1871 to 1874. Dr. Wagener, born in Germany in 1831,
was a master of applied science when, in 1870, he entered the service of
the daimio of Hizen to improve the methods of porcelain manufacture
at Arita, in which he happily succeeded so far as the resources of that
province would then admit. One of his notable triumphs was in the
introduction of coal as fuel. Besides his services in education at Tki
and Kito, he assisted materially in preparing the art exhibits of the
Japanese at Vienna and Philadelphia. He established the Artisans
School in Tki, revolutionized the cloisonn-enamel industry, and
invented the famous Asahi yaki (Morning-sun faience), or pottery with
varied colors under the glaze. The writer has never known a man who
combined more nobly for the benet of his fellow-men self-absorption
in science with absolute self-effacement in disposition. He died at
Suruga Dai in Tki, November 8, 1892.
In the higher work of moral education and reform, the Christian
missionary is a noble gure. The rst teachers of language, literature,
science, and philosophy; the rst dispensers of medicine and healing,
active in charitable relief, constantly stimulating to the Government
and people by their hospitals, schools, colleges, preaching and advocacy of moral reforms; training tens of thousands of natives in the
Here are some of the names picked out at random: Pumpelly, Tracey, Hawes,
Douglas, Cargill, Savatier, Verbeck, Brinkley, Brunton, Knipping, Capron,
Antisell, Eldredge, Scott Wilson, Simmons, Geerts, Wagener, House, Divers,
Gower, Lyman, Murray, Smith, Boissonnade, Palmer, Chamberlain, Mller,
Homan, McCartee, Gowland, Milne, Mason, Clark, Clarke, Ingalls, Baelz,
Conder, Miquel, Bertin, etc., etc., with scores of others who have during longer or shorter periods of time imparted the secrets of Western science, learning, or technical skill, and patiently shown the Japanese how to do likewise.

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439

arts of self-government and parliamentary procedure; supplanting

the old Confucian and Chinese codes of ethics with nobler ideals and
practice, the teachers of Christianity have prepared the nation for the
adoption of a higher form of civilization. Greater even than the wants
of modern material forces and appliances, by the confessions of her
own most thoughtful men, is Japans need of moral power.
True types of the servant of servants, for Christs sake, to the
people of Japan, are Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Hepburn, who have done
so much to break down the barriers between natives and foreigners.
After thirty-three years of service in school, dispensary, home, and
study, Dr. Hepburn left Yokohama for the United States in October,
1892. The story of the American Missionary in Japan, of inuences
and results, and of native appreciation, has been modestly told in
part by Dr. M. L. Gordon.* Since the reaction against everything
foreign, which began in 1888, the Christian churches and schools have
suered. Yet the loss, or rather the retarded acceleration of progress,
signies no real change of purpose in the national mind.
Japan for the Japanese does not mean more than healthy patriotism.
Digestion and assimilation are as necessary as reception. Christianity,
now rooted in the soil and no longer a mere exotic, can live its own life
in the hearts and the minds of the people. Christian theology can live
and grow expressed in terms of far-oriental as well as in Greek or Latin
terminology. The Japanese Christians will create their own theology
and adapt it to the national consciousness more healthfully, truthfully,
and spiritually than can foreigners. In treating of The Theological
Movement in Japan,* we have summed up our impressions as follows:
The Japanese genius, as vitalized by the Holy Spirit, tends to assimilation rather than to mere acceptance. Vigorously has the Christian
consciousness of Japan cast o the sectarian and provincial creeds of
* An American Missionary in Japan. Boston. 1892.

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the mikados empire

merely English-speaking Christendom. Refusing the swaddling-bands

of the Scotch, Yankee, and Anglican phases of the faith, it has sought
the simplicity that is Christ.....They, with the Bible in hand, sought
the shortest path to Christ. Already the record of independent native
Christian life, work, and literature is a noble one. It shows clearly that
the believers in Christ in Japan want the Christianity of Christ not in
non-essential and accidental alien forms, but in its reality and purity
as far as it can be apprehended and assimilated by them.
The statistics for the year ending March 31, 1893, furnished by
Rev. Henry Loomis of Yokohama, show that the Christians of the
Roman order number 44,812 in 244 congregations; those of the Greek
order number 20,235 in 219 congregations; those of the Reformed
order number 35,534 in 365 local churches. Baptisms for 1892 were:
for the Roman, Greek, and Reformed phases of the one faith, 5324,
952, and 3731, respectively. Th irty-one organizations, usually called
Protestant, illustrate more of Christian unity than diversity, since
ve of these divisions comprise 33,390 Christians, all the self-supporting native churches being aliated with these groups. At present, the
religion of Jesus in Japan is better represented by the parable of the
leaven than by that of the mustard-seed. It is inuencing the national
life deeply, while not phenomenally increasing its supercial area.
Buddhism, still the religion of the majority of the mikados subjects,
is being quickened into wholesome activity. It has yet to show whether
it can hold the heart and intellect of New Japan.
Let us now turn to a survey of political history and see what has
been the root and the ospring of the forty-years movement. We shall
inquire what is down at the bottom of the ceaseless unrest in national
politics, especially in the long con ict, not between the people and
the Throne, but between the people and the Government.
* The Outlook [The Christian Union], April 1, 1893.

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441

The meteoric phenomenon of the night of July 8, 1853,* pregured in

its brilliancy, direction of movement, and apparent end the uprising of
the two (or three) great clans which, since 1868, under every form of government, have ruled the mikados empire. It made its appearance in the
southward and westward, and illuminated the whole atmosphere. . . . It
pursued a north-eastwardly course in a direct line for a long distance,
when it fell gradually towards the sea and disappeared.
So might a prophet have foretold the course of the coalition headed
by the great Satsuma and Chshiu clans, which we have described in
Book I., Chapter XXVIII. Fifteen years after the meteor seen from
the Susquehannas deck, the Sat-ch captured Kito and inaugurated
New Japan. Twenty-one years more had to pass before the promise in
the imperial oath to summon a parliament was ful lled. To-day we
write of the fth session of the Imperial Dietthat august assembly
representing the nobles, gentry, and people of the country ruled since
1868 by the Sat-ch. The story of the two elections and of the ve sessions is that of a erce and not wholly bloodless struggle between the
Liberal parties and the Government, or, more exactly, of the people
against the two mighty clans intrenched behind the throne.
The net results of four sessions seem at rst almost trivial, and the
story is soon told. In the rst session of 189091, the hostility of the
Opposition was against the cabinet led by Count Masagata. A reduction of the Budget to the extent of six and a half millions of yen was
secured, and a collision on the very threshold of representative government was happily averted. The second session of 189192 opened
even less hopefully for the Government, and, after a severe struggle,
ended in dissolution. The Kai-shin and Jiyu parties were so joined in
implacable opposition that the cabinet ministers soon found that the
situation was beyond their control; and so invoking the Emperors
* Perrys Narrative. Appletons N. Y. edition, p. 272.

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executive interference, they appealed to the country through fresh

elections. How far active government inuence was brought to bear
unfairly to secure a more tractable temper in the Diet cannot be stated,
yet it is evident not only that the estrangement between the popular
and the ocial classes was increased, but that the Government was
bitterly disappointed in results. The new Diet opened May 6th, 1892.
Although in this third session the Budget was not considered, yet
the Government escaped a formal, by receiving indirect, but real,
censure. A new and eclectic cabinet, not yet the creation of the Diet,
but chosen by the Emperor and made up of all the talents, was now
formed. It was led by the veteran Ito, father of the constitution, and
author of the best written commentary upon it, while Inouy became
minister of the Home Department. In the fourth session, the Jiyu-t,
or Radical party, whose favorite measure the reduction of the land
taxhad been accepted, manifested a desire to work with the cabinet.
For months, however, so great were the forces of opposition, that the
problem was one of either dissolution or compromise. A reduction in
the Budget of nearly nine millions, or a grand total of less than eightyfour millions, was insisted upon. The Opposition appealed to the
Emperor, who answered in a state paper of notable ability, in which
party strife and politics were ignored, and the xed expenditures
reduced by three and a half millions, his Majesty ordering that onetenth of his own income should be appropriated to secure the results
desired. Peace came through the Th rone, but the Kai-shin party is
still implacable and continues agitation.
The battle ostensibly rages round the Budget, but the real questions
at issue are these: Shall the government of the country be by party
after the British model, or according to the Prussian method? Shall
the Government be really responsible to the Diet, or nominally to the
sovereign? Shall the power be in the hands of an oligarchy consisting

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443

largely of two clans, or shall the clan spirit be banished, and sovereign
and people rule?
The roots of this diculty go back to the days of the Taik and
Iyyasu, to which rulers the great clans of Satsuma and Chshiu
never gave more than nominal submission. Proudly and sullenly they
maintained their semi-independence, and waited over two centuries
and a half for revenge. The coming of the alien in 1853 was the awaited
signal to begin their work. While individuals were unselshly consecrated to patriotism, the clans masked self-interest under the plea
of loyalty to the mikado, overthrowing in 1868 the shgunate. If in
Kito they devoured the prey, in Tki they divided the spoil. No
Benjamin or Saul in ancient Israel, no Fujiwara in medival Nippon,
no American politician, ever so held their grip on the treasury, or
excelled the Sat-ch in distributing oces to clansmen. The inside
view as eye-witness which the writer enjoyed in Tki during three
years, over two decades ago, showed him how grandly the Japanese
exceeded the American spoilsmen in nepotism. In this year of Meiji
the 27th, the lists of government ocers and employs show that the
men of only two clans, Satsuma and Chshiu, still ll a majority of
the most desirable oces. In the many changes of ministries, it is the
mats and not the oor that are rearranged. The Japanese political
edice for twenty-ve years past has been an oligarchy cemented by
clan spirit. This is the real meaning of the long struggle of the people
against the Government, of the Lower House of the Diet against
the Ministry. During the year 1893 the eort has been especially to
reform the navy, which in personnel, declare the Kai-shin politicians,
is virtually an organization of Satsuma men. Great as have been the
services of the illustrious statesmen of the Meiji periods, it is evidently
the deeply settled belief of the people that new times and problems
demand new men, and that clan spirit is now an anachronism not to

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be tolerated or excused. It is time for the meteor of July to fall into the
sea, so that the new morning of true national life may dawn.
The men of the Meiji era are now aging fast and passing away.
Sanj Sanyoshi, General Yamada, Yoshida Kiyonari, and Terashima
Munnori have changed their worlds since our last chapter was
written. Of some of those still in power and inuence, like Ito and
Inouy, it can be said that they have opposed the clan spirit, served
country and sovereign with pre-eminent ability and faithfulness, and
foreseen the needs of the nation. To such patriots, in and out of oce,
belongs much of the credit of Japans notable progress in wealth,
population, and prestige. For, despite all commotions, dangers, and
calamities, the increase is notably great. Whereas in 1872 the population of the empire was but 33,110,000, the census of 1892 shows a
total of 41,089,940 souls. There has been hopeful increase also of food
supply, savings, manufactures, mines, commerce and industry of all
sorts. The national wealth has doubled in ten years. Once Japan was
reckoned by Europeans as hardly worth trading with. In 1892, the
total of exports (91,102,753 yen) and imports (71,326,079 yen) amounted
to 162,428,832 yen, the increase in one decade being one hundred and
fty per cent. The United States, once having the least of the trade
with Japan, now leads every other nation as a buyer and seller, her
business aggregating in 1892 44,663,024 yen. Five-eighths of Japanese
trade is with English-speaking nations. It is from Anglo-Saxondom
that the leaders of thought and action derive their chief inspiration.
Resisting, for want of space, the temptation to prove and illustrate this
assertion, and to show the inuence on religion, science, philosophy,
and literature, as well as upon politics and national development, of
the nations using English speech, we make passing reference to her
representation at the Worlds Columbian Exposition.
It was wholly tting that Xipangu, the country which the Genoese,
in his Spanish caravels in 1492, was seeking, should join with the

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445

world in honoring his exploit. The rst Asian nation to send ships to
America across the Pacica sailer to Mexico in 1573, and a steamer
to California in 1860was Japan. In the generosity of her nancial
appropriation, and the variety and interest of her contribution to the
Chicago Exhibition, the mikados empire was exceeded by only two
other countries, while in the permanency and value of her gifts to
Chicago she leads the world. Her total space occupiedfalling far
short of the desire of intending exhibitorswas about 150,000 square
feet. Under the roofs of the halls of Manufactures and Liberal Arts,
of Agriculture, Fine Arts, Horticulture, Forestry, Mining, Fisheries,
and in the street devoted to entertainments, in bazaar and tea-house,
her portable products of native industry and genius were visible.
Yet, strange as it seems, the only permanent edices, except the Art
Exhibition building, that remain in Jackson Park after the White City
has vanished, are the specimens of Japanese historical architecture on
Wooded Island. Of the three separate buildings united so as to form
to the uncritical eye a single structure, called the H-den, or Phnix
Palace, the centre and right and left wings represent three epochs.
On the right the Fujiwara style (a.d. 10001200), before the days of
nails, metal hinges, sliding partitions, but of silken corded and tasselled curtains, such as Sei Shonagon could easily raise (p. 228), may
be studied. On the left stands the house typical of the Ashikaga era
(a.d. 13331579), when matted oors, papered walls and partitions,
elaborate metal-work, and other luxuries came into vogue. The main
edice, with its greater number of roof-timbers and detail of decoration, follows the fashion prevalent in Tokugawa times (16041868).
In its general ground plan the edice follows the lines of the Phnix
Temple built in Uji in the year 1050.
While the United States has celebrated its rst centennial of political
union, and the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America
by Columbus, Ti Koku Nippon proposes in 1895 to commemorate the

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the mikados empire

millennial of Kito. A thousand years ago, in the castle of Hi-an, the

mikado xed his residence, and around him, as the fountain of authority, grew up the Kio, or Blossom Capital.
The year 1894 opens in tumult and with portents that disturb the
warmest friends of Japan, shaking their faith in the capacity of an
Asiatic race for constitutional government or for participation in the
comity of nations. The Diet opened November 25, 1893. The Budget,
in six books, containing altogether 1,438 pages, estimated the revenue
at 90,675,196 yen and the expenditures at 85,472,159 yen. The House
of Representatives, in a spasm of political animosity, rst proceeded
to expel its speaker, Mr. Hoshi Toru, without any known charge
against him as a presiding ocer, and then attacked the Budget,
hoping to compel a resignation of the Cabinet ministers. On the
19th of December the Government suspended the sittings of the
House for ten days, apparently in order to consult what should be
donewhether the Diet should be dissolved, or the Ministry either
resign or set about reconstruction. Meeting again on December 29th,
the House was, after a turbulent session, suspended for another ten
days. On the next day the Diet was dissolved.
Thus far the people, as represented in the Diet, have steadily gained.
The military party in the Government, that wants the reign of force
continued, the Diet deed, and the Constitution rescinded, has been
beaten. Men of moderate counsels have held control. With them a section of the Jiyu party, led by Count Itagaki, the unfaltering patriot and
leader of a twenty years campaignpeaceful campaignis disposed
to co-operate. They are willing still to wait and not precipitate a crisis.
The Kai-shin party demands instant overthrow of clan government.
The ten political coteries or groups ,in the House, diering seriously
on minor points, are united in opposition to the Government, and in
hearty hatred of that clan rule which, whatever be the political issue,
seems doomed.

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447

Meanwhile, awaiting with intense interest the solution of the

problems of State and of Church, we note, in closing, the advent
of the new book in New Japan and the literary movement so full of
promise.* Now that the old literature based on feudalism and Chinese
ethics no longer feeds the mind, it is cheering to see that fresh pens
respond to the needs of the new age. After Bakin and Ikku have come
Yamada, Tsubouchi, and Kotaro Han, in ction; after Rai Sanyo
appears Shimada Saburo in history; after Motori is Kum; while in
the other paths of thought and inquiry still walks many an earnest
pilgrim. Besides embroidering the old annals with romance, there
is a prodigious activity among native scholars, who now write their
countrys story on critical principles and in attractive literary form
for the people. On the granite front of the Boston Public Library, in
company with the hundreds of names of the literary torch-bearers of
every age and country, stand those of Sugawara Michizan and Rai
Sanyo. Recognizing the genius of the Japan that is past, Americans
welcome gladly the dawn of a day so full of literary promise. Even
in the morning of her life, Nippon was called Hi-no-moto (the days
beginning); to-day, in her larger and richer life, may Japan be the
Land Where the Day Begins for all Asia.

* The New Book in New Japan, The Literary World, May 6, 1893. The Literary
Movement in New Japan, The Outlook, January 27, 1894.

Supplement v

The War with China

o most of the people of the three countriesChina, Corea, and

Japanas well as to the world at large, the war of 1894, between
Dai Nippon, a unit, and some fractions of the Chinese Empire, came
like a lightning-bolt out of blue sky. To the rulers of the Middle and
Sunrise kingdoms it was not altogether unexpected, for the relations
between the governments of the two empires had become strained
over the debatable ground of Corea. In attempting to explain the
origin of the war, and in recounting the military and diplomatic
movements, we shall endeavor to be impartial.
As we view the situation, China stood like a great giant, imposing to the world because of size, numbers, and claims rather than by
inherent strength and simple truth. Trusting in antiquity, impervious to new ideas, contemptuous of every civilization except their
ownnever, indeed, dreaming that there was any otherthe Chinese
were in a chronic state of unreadiness. Japan, like an athlete, having
all available powers in hand, was alert, vigilant, and prepared. Corea,
like a pygmy, and without a government worthy of the name, stood
between the jealous rivals soon to become hostile and combatant.
Strictly speaking, the war was provoked by a very few mandarins.
The congeries of peoples called the Chinese Empire form in reality
only a patriarchal state which has no real, but only a nominal, unity.
449

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the mikados empire

There is no such thing as China considered as a political entity, but

there are various provinces, each having its own local government.
There are also powerful viceroys, and a great central gure-head of
parental authority in Peking, under whom is a bureaucratic administration. One of these powerful viceroys, Li Hung Chang, with
patriotic motives, and desirous of stirring up the authorities at Peking
to arm and equip for modern defence, to open the mines of coal
and iron, to lay the railroad from the heart of China to its farthest
frontier, to forestall Russian aggression, provoked the war of 1894.
He and those who thought with him expected, with their superior
ships to overpower the Japanese navy, and with his private, or at least
provincial, army drilled by German ocers, to beat back the troops
of Japan from Corea. Thus would the two objectsof retaining Corea
as a buer state, and of exciting the Peking authorities suciently to
secure appropriationsbe secured. In Japans intestine quarrels, the
coveted opportunity seemed at hand. Deceived by surface indications,
and not knowing the temper of the Japanese, China forced the war.
Those who during the past eight years have studied the behavior and aggressive advances of YuanChinas, or, rather, Li Hung
Changs, envoy in Coreaknow how well the servant obeyed his
master, giving abundant excuse and justication to Japan, the United
States, or some other power to interfere. The Japanese, having opened
the once Hermit Nation to the diplomacy and commerce of the world,
having created her modern trade and incipient industries, having
interests outweighing and outnumbering those of all other foreigners
within her borders, resented the action of China in virtually outlawing the treaties which Corea had made, and in practically keeping her
subject and vassal to the Middle Kingdom.
On the other hand, Japan was internally nearing a political crisis
in the virtual deadlock between the emperors ministers and the lower
and more important house of the Imperial Diet. It seemed as though

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451

something must be done to divert the attention of the people and

of the too rapidly growing class of active politicians from intestine
quarrels to some great national enterprise abroad. Further, the pressure of a population increasing at the rate of half a million a year has
forced a colonizing nation like the Japanese to look longingly aeld
for expansion. A magnicent army and navy, superbly organized,
drilled, ocered, and ready for the severest trial of powers and patriotism, were awaiting only a signal. For twenty-ve years the Japanese,
oppressed by treaty, powerless under a diplomacy which they looked
upon as galling and unjust, had apparently yielded only with and for
the purpose of becoming victor in the end. Whether in time, had the
provocation still remained, Japan would have outlawed the treaties
made in her political childhood cannot be certainly a rmed; but of
her desire to impress the world at large with her abilities as a military
power, which her intelligent friends already knew she possessed, there
can be no question.
Nevertheless, patiently biding the favorable time, knowing that
China considered her as a traitor to Asia and to Confucianism, Japan
kept herself ready to draw instantly the sharp line whenever and
wherever patience should cease to be a virtue. Caring not a jot for
the size, the numbers, or the reputed colossal resources and enduring
powers of her giant rival, the athlete watched and waited. Jack and the
Ogre, or rather Momotar and the Onis Castle, was to the Japanese
an unforgotten childhoods tale.
In modern times, whatever forces have upheaved the Asiatic
nations, stagnating in the dreaminess of Buddhism or the savagery
of Confucian conceit, have been born of Christianity. In Corea the
old elements and institutions of a society founded upon patriarchal
and Confucian ideas had already been shaken. As far back as 1777
the rst wind-wafted seeds of the Roman form of the faith began to
germinate in Corean soil. By the year 1859 the wide-spreading and

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deeply rooted tree was able to survive a prolonged storm of persecutions, the cruelty of which could be matched only in the annals of the
Inquisition. The bigotry that banned and the tortures that followed
were the direct result of a narrow Confucianism. A Corean scholar,
Choi, impressed with the convictions, zeal, and consecration of the
foreign priests and native Christians, withal astonished at their tremendous success, pondered deeply as to whether theirs might not be
the true religion. While thinking long upon the subject, he became
ill even to the point of death. In a trance he received a revelation
from God, whom he himself named, after the Roman Catholic title,
Lord of Heaven. Called, as he believed, to found a new religion,
Choi forthwith proceeded, from the elements of the three systems of
Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tsze, to compose a sacred book, and
to write the prayer which his followers still daily repeat. Thus began
a great movement which, originating in religion, ended in politics,
in time degenerating into lawlessness. It caused a great uprising of
the most oppressed people on the face of the earth, which the feeble
government at Seoul could not suppress. It inamed Japan and China
in war. Only by that new force in modern history, the Japanese soldier,
was the revolt quelled.
The name of this new sect or party is Tong Hak, or Eastern
Culture. Its Great Sacred Scripture, penned by Choi, combines what
he deemed best in the three religions already known to Chinese
Asia. In its literary features this cultus bears likeness at many points
to the Shin Gaku, or Heart-Learning movement, which, in Japan
in the rst half of the nineteenth century, was started to cleanse the
abysses of Japanese immorality and irreligion. Eclecticism in doctrine,
earnestness of conviction, intensity of purpose, and practicality in
benevolence marked both movements. The Tong Haks took from the
Chinese classics the idea of the ve relations governing human duty,
from the sutras and shastras the law of purity of life, and from the Tao

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453

the rules for cleansing the body from lust and lth. One term for the
so-called Tong Hak Bible combines the names of the three old religions, while in the title used for the Deity in the daily prayer we see
the debt to Roman Christianity. The founder intended his scripture
and work to be set over against So Hak, or Western Culture. In Japan
the coming of Perry and the foreigners from Christendom paled the
Shin Gaku as the sun drowns the tapers beams in daylight. To the
hermits of Corea no such morning dawned.
Within six years persecution broke out, and the founder, Choi,
was charged with being a foreign-Corean and follower of the Lord
of Heaventhat is, a Roman Catholic Christian. After trial and
torture he was beheaded, and his doctrines outlawed. Nevertheless,
the new religion grew through a whole human generation, winning
many followers. At a time of oppression and rapacity, extraordinary even in Corea, it was not astonishing that poor peasants should
be goaded to rebellion. Nerved by their new zeal, they struck even
against authority, though abominably misused, for enough freedom
to make life tolerable. Early in 1893 fty followers of the Tong Hak
creed entered the Corean capital. On a table before the palace gate
they spread a red cloth, and laid thereon a petition, praying that their
martyred founder might be declared innocent, receive posthumous
rank, be allowed a monument in his honor, that the ban on their
religion be removed, and that they be put on a political equality with
the Roman Catholics. The alternative, if their petition were rejected,
was expressed in a threat to expel all foreigners from the country. The
king refused their prayer. They were driven away, and some of their
local leaders arrested.
No sooner had the snow of the next winter vanished than a widespread uprising in the southern provinces of Corea took place. The
military sent from Seoul in April melted before the Tong Haks like
frost in the sun. The civil magistrates were driven from their oces,

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swift vengeance in many cases following their horrible cruelties in the

past. Instead of a few hundred zealots there were myriads of people in
wild insurrection, bent only on destroying their oppressors. The May
danger seemed to threaten the whole kingdom. The June moment
was critical.
In Soul the pro-Chinese faction at court, then vastly outnumbering their moderately pro-Japanese rivals, sent to Peking for a Chinese
force to put down the Tong Hak rebels. According to the ChinoJapanese treaty of 1885 negotiated by Li and It, neither power was
to send armed men into Corea without rst notifying the other. In
violation of this convention, the Chinese soldiers were rst sent, and
then the Government at Tki was notied. On June 7th China sent a
despatch which compromised not only Japan, but all the treaty powers
which had acknowledged the sovereignty of Corea, by declaring her a
subject country. It is in harmony with our constant practice, declared
this document, to protect our tributary states by sending our troops
to assist them . . . . General Yeh has been ordered to proceed at once
to Zenra . . . in order to restore the peace of our tributary state. Thus
China, against the world, reasserted her ancient claim of suzerain over
Corea as a vassal state, and ung down the gauntlet to Japan, virtually
bidding her to maintain her rights if she could. Treaties being usually
held as sacred, the smaller country gained, even as the larger forfeited,
the sympathies of the civilized world.
The Tong Hak match had fallen between two petroleum tanks
that were already leaking. The whole Japanese people, through an
extraordinary incident, which we shall recount, were at this moment
on the point of combustion and explosion. The Chinese despatch red
both rulers and people of Japan to national conagration.
Nine years before, the attempt of the Corean Liberals returning from America, Europe, and Japan, to eect a revolution in the
Government in favor of modern civilization had failed. One of them,

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455

Kim Ok Kiun, eeing to Japan, received the same protection which,

under the treaties, would have been granted to any foreigner. During
his long residence he made himself extraordinarily popular, contriving, also, to elude his assassins. At last, in April, 1894, when lured to
Shanghai by a false telegram and a forged bank draft, he was promptly
murdered by a Corean emissary. With indecent haste, and with a
barbarism that reveals the Chinese ocial character, the body of the
murdered man was packed on board of a man-of-war to be delivered
up to his real destroyers in Soul, for public mincing, distribution,
and exposure. The carrion was duly displayed at the capital and in the
provinces, while the assassin gained gold and won ocial honor.
The news of this union of Chinese and Corean barbarism produced
an extraordinary excitement in Japan. To Government and people it
seemed as if China and her pupils in Corea had, with unnecessary
ostentation, outed and insulted the newly adopted civilization of
Japan. It is not strange that the emperor and his ministers decided
that, with Chinas forcible reiteration of her claim upon Corea, following a fresh outbreak of barbarism, and backed as it was by military
force, the line of forbearance had been reached. The time for the wager
of battle between two incompatible civilizations had come.
Down at the bottom this Chino-Japanese war meant, in its provocation and origin, the right of a nation to change its civilization. It is
dicult for people in the Occident to understand the depth of pedantic polemic that underlies the estrangement between New Japan and
unawakened China. For years the idea in Peking had been that Japan
was not only a neighbor-disturbing nation, but had been colossally
wicked in discarding the Chinese calendar, and in turning away from
Confucius and the civilization of the sages to adopt and assimilate
that of Christendom. What the Chinese residents of Yokohama did
in 1872tumultuously engaging in public protest against that change
of chronology, which in far-eastern Asia means also change in mental

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attitude, with repudiation of every suggestion of intellectual or political vassalage the Chinese Government has been doing tacitly ever
since. When, in 1879, Japan and China were on the verge of war over
the question of the ownership of the Riu Kiu islands, the two governments, at the suggestion of General U. S. Grant, agreed to settle the
matter by reference to a joint High Commission. Prince Kung, with
colleagues, and Mr. Shishido were appointed as plenipotentiaries,
and the conference began at Peking August 15th, 1880. On the 21st
of October, by Chinese ocial notice, the Articles of Agreement
were ready for signature. The commissioners indulged in mutual
congratulations, and agreed to sign the instruments ten days later,
when lo! on the 17th of November, sixteen days after the date xed,
the Emperor of China turned the whole aair into a burlesque. In a
word, his majesty virtually cancelled the commission of the plenipotentiaries, transferring their function in a modied and incomplete
form to the Northern and Southern Superintendents of Trade. The
profession which the Chinese Government made in conferring full
powers upon any one but the emperor was an empty farce.
After such an experience, the Japanese statesmen were not likely
to be lured into another similar humiliation. Furthermore, since in
the unhappy Corean aair of 1885, in which the Japanese Legation
guard of ninescore men had been attacked by fteen hundred Chinese
troopsone-half of the three thousand which had been encamped
near Soulthe mikados ministers were fore-warned by experience
not again to be caught napping. Hence, on the 12th of June, 1894,
Japan, asserting her treaty rights, replied to China, announcing the
despatch of a body of troops under strictest discipline to Corea.
The next step, ve days later, was highly creditable to the government which had made the rst treaty with Corea. It was an invitation
from Japan to China to undertake jointly some needed reforms, nancial and administrative, in the peninsular state, in order to preserve the

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457

peace of the East. This oer was curtly refused, China demanding the
immediate withdrawal of the Japanese troops. Japans reply was that,
pending an amicable settlement of the questions in dispute, any further
despatch of Chinese troops into Corea would mean war. China, having
already chartered the Kow-Shing, a British transport, lled it with soldiers and despatched it to A-San, a well-fortied camp in a peninsula a
formed by two rivers owing into Prince Jerome Gulf, some forty miles
southwest of Soul. At the same time the Tartar forces in Manchuria
began the march overland to Corea.
All this, through their spies, regular servants, and the telegraph,
the Tki Government knew well. Resolving once for all to settle the
long string of questions inherited from the past; to break the power
of Chinese insolence, and if possible shatter the old Chinese world
of ideas, with its perpetual menace of implied or explicit claim of
supremacy; to compel the elimination of Corea as a factor of disturbance in the aairs of the Far East; to assert her imperilled rights and
dignity; to make proof of her duty and power to graduate from foreign
tutelage and dependence; to reveal to her own people their power in
union, and to impress the world with her ability to hold and maintain
her place as equal among the great nations of the world, Japan called
forth her military strength. With a secrecy, order, precision, celerity,
and punctuality incredible, except to those who, as helpers and friends,
had lived inside the country, away from the seaports, Japan landed
rst a brigade and then an army corps at Chemulpo. Her engineers
completed in twenty minutes, a pontoon-bridge over the Han River.
Within twelve days after orders received in camp in Japan a military
cordon had been drawn around Seoul, in Corea. On the 23d of July,
after a skirmish in front of the palace between the military escort of
the Japanese minister, Mr. Hoshi Toru, and some pro-Chinese native
troops, the question of Coreas independence and willingness to stand
by her treaty was answered by the king in the armative.

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On the water the Chinese were the rst aggressors, the Chen-yuen
ring on the Naniwa. The Chinese troops on the transport Kow-Shing,
not knowing or unwilling to believe that the Japanese had adopted
civilized rules of warfare, refused to surrender. After keeping his
signals ying four hours, and these armed men refusing to surrender,
the captain of the Naniwa quickly sank the transport. Th is was on
July 25th. Four days later General shimas mixed brigade moved out
from Soul, and after a battle at Song-kwan, in which the brave Major
Matsusaki lost his life, A-San was occupied July 30th, and the Chinese
driven back from their stronghold. The declaration of war came from
the Japanese emperor on August 1st, in a document strikingly clear in
phrase and temperate in tone.
The reinforcements despatched by way of Gensan, as well as
Chemulpo, formed with the pioneer regiments the First Army. As
geography is half of war, it was matter of foreordination and necessity that the decisive battle should in a.d. 1894 be fought just where
the decisive battles in Corean annals always had been foughtat
Ping Yang. Here, three centuries before, Konishi had lost a battle and
retreated southward before an overwhelming Ming and Tartar host.
Now the pendulum of history, despite forty days time for defence and
fortication by the Chinese, was to swing to reverse eect.
The Chinese declaration of wara new thing in the history of the
Middle Kingdom, showing strikingly the progress of international
lawwas also dated August 1st, and was characteristic of mandarins
who were not yet willing either to learn or to forget. From beginning
to end the writing displayed utter ignorance of the enemy to be fought
and the work to be done. It was declared that the Wo-jen, or pygmies
(Japanese), had, without any cause whatever, invaded our small
tributary; that Japan had violated the treaties, and was running
rampant with her false and treacherous actions, while we [China]
have always followed the paths of philanthropy and perfect justice.

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459

The Chinese braves were called upon to hasten with all speed to root
the Wo-jen out of their lairs. A comparatively small number of really
disciplined soldiers, armed and drilled in the European manner, was,
with the usual mob of native military, hurried forward to Ping Yang,
which, aided by the fugitives from A-San, they began to fortify.
China actually went to war without a hospital corps, or any organization of surgeons, nurses, or accommodations for the wounded or
sick worthy of the name. Except detachments from Li Hung Changs
private army, very few of the Chinese ocers or men had been educated in modern tactics. In their equipment all sorts of prehistoric
accoutrementsags, banners, umbrellas, and fans were mingled
with modern imported weapons, in a medley which resembled the
diplomacy of Peking. On the other hand, besides a thoroughly wellofficered, armed, drilled, equipped, and provisioned army of fifty
thousand young men, the ower of the Japanese nation, the Tki
Government was able to call out for service a reserve of one hundred
thousand strong and healthy. Patriots, burning with enthusiasm and
familiar with the weapons, machinery, and practice of modern war.
Furthermore, besides her numerous public and private hospitals, her
splendid medical eld-corps, her four hundred surgeons and pharmacists, and her fourteen hundred trained nurses, she had an ecient Red
Cross society. Immediately both the nation and the government began
the organization and consolidation of all public and private resources
in order to strike as a unit. At home and abroad all sons and daughters
of Nippon vied in diligence and sacrice for the ecient carrying on
of the war, and for securing the comfort of the soldiers at the front.
The secrets of Japanese success are patent to the student. In such a
time as this, life for the average man in Nippon is worth living. With
a aming patriotism that surprises Europeans who have imagined the
Japanese to be only average Asiatics and mere imitators, all classes,
sexes, and ages rallied intelligently to the support of the national

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the mikados empire

cause. A quarter of a century ago Japan was the hot-bed of caste,

monopoly, and privilege. These seemed to crush out every germ of
popular liberty and ambition. Even the proverbial politeness and submissiveness of the Japanese common people is in large part the result
of ages of military despotism. To-day, with the soil virtually in the
hands of the people who cultivate it; the courts open to all who seek
even-handed justice; schools and education free to every one; military
privilege no longer the prerogative of a special class; the existence of
pariahs no more than a memory; government becoming more national
and representative; democracy making strides every day, with little or
nothing to hinder the advance of the individual in every line of human
achievement, it is not strange to see a whole nation rising up in an outburst of intensest energy. Self-sacrice, loyalty, and patriotism, with
an unquenchable ambition to humble China, to impress the whole
world, and to make their country great, characterize the Japanese of
a.d. 1895. In this war they have irrevocably committed themselves to
cosmopolitan as against Chinese or merely ethnic principles.
The sympathies of those who began, even twenty-ve years ago,
to help in making the New Japan have been from the rst with the
smaller country. Their seat of observation has not been the fence, in
order to be sure, before applauding, which side would win. Seeing so
clearly that the Japanese were triply armed in having their quarrel just,
and knowing their earnestness, their former teachers and helpers not
only, but Americans in general, have not been surprised at the swift
success of the armies under the sun-banner. They have not wondered
at the tenacity and staying power of the soldier-lads, or at the sustained ability and seriousness of statesmen and generals, and their
power of mastering the secrets and applying the forces of Western
civilization. In the campaign of 1894 the Japanese were no longer
pupils. They went to war not only without foreign aids or advisers, but
in clothes, arms, and ships made in large part by themselves.

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461

Almost simultaneously the supremacy of Japan on both sea and

land was demonstrated. The future historian will mark two days of
September as the dates of battles that decided the future of Eastern
Asia. On the 15th, at Ping Yang, General Nodzu, attacking in front,
on the anks, and in the rear, broke up the Chinese army. Within a
fortnight every Chinese soldier had been driven out of Corea. Near
the mouth of the Yalu River, on the 17th, the first great conf lict
between eets of steel-armored ships took place. The cruisers of Japan,
unevenly matched against the Chinese battle-ships and men-of-war
from noon to sunset, so decided the issue that the dragon-ag was
not again mirrored on the deep in presence of the sun-banner. Then
followed the brilliant Manchurian campaign, in which the First Army
won an almost unbroken series of victories, holding, in April, 1895,
Chinese territory vastly greater in area than the Japanese Empire.
Neither snow and ice nor exposure and hardship seem in any way to
cool the ardor of the young Japanese conscripts.
The Second Army, under Field-Marshal yama, was despatched to
Port Arthur. This vast fortress had, after twenty years of toil, been fortied at a cost of two hundred millions of dollars. After bombardment
by the eet on the sea-front, and attack by the land forces in the rear,
beginning before the dawn on the 21st of November, the town, forts,
and ships were captured within ten hours. The glory of the victors was
dimmed by an outbreak of cruelty, the reports of which, however, were
highly exaggerated in the newspapers of America and Europe.
The Third Army was despatched to Wei-Hai-Wei, to reduce the
fortress guarding the southern entrance to the Gulf of Pechili. After
brilliant naval and land operations, this stronghold passed under the
Japanese ag January 31st, 1895. The remaining ships of the Chinese
northern eet were captured, sunk, or destroyed. With both sea-gates
defending the capital broken down, the Japanese eet soon appeared
before the Taku forts. Another expedition, despatched to Formosa,

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captured the fortications in the Pescadores Islands, bombarded

Tai-wan, and made a landing upon the main island.
From the rst outbreak of the war, but especially after her multiplying reverses, China attempted, as suppliant, to secure sympathy,
practical mediation, and direct help from the governments of Europe.
Th is policy showed a vast change from that of ancient days, and a
reverse of attitude that seems astounding. The inherent weakness of the
geographical colossus was exposed. In area and population immense,
a venerable patriarchal system but scarcely a political entity, the sham
collapsed, and the truth about China is now known to the world.
Neither mere bulk nor blind numbers, however great, are anything,
and with her rhinoceros-crust of conceit pierced by the Murata rie, it
is to be hoped that China will be the gainer because of her bitter experience. Slow, however, in learning their lesson, the Peking mandarins
tried to gain time and secure a favorable place in the line of indirection.
In November, 1894, she sent a foreigner, Mr. G. Dietring, her faithful
servant in the customs service, as peace envoy to Japan. As a matter
of decency and of course the mikados ministers did not receive him.
Then, through oers of mediation from the Government of the United
States, the Peking Government pretended to send two plenipotentiaries, Messrs. Chang and Shao, who, despite lofty titles, were in reality
only very limited subordinates. They arrived at Hiroshima January 31st,
1895. Their credentials when examined showed that they had no powers
to settle terms of peace. After her experience of Chinas behavior in the
diplomacy of the Riu Kiu aair in 1879, Japan resolved not again to be
duped. The two Chinese envoys with their suite of twenty-four other
persons, including one honored American statesman and adviser, were
politely sent home to their master. Throughout, Japan acted upon the
principle expressed by Premier Ito, The usages peculiar to China must
give way to and be ruled by the canons of International Law.

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463

In their third attempt to gain time, advantage, and peace the Tsung
Li Yamen acted with honesty. The emperor, recalling from disgrace,
real or nominal, Li Hung Chang, despatched him with full powers to
Japan. At the historic city of Shimonoski the peace conference was
opened March 21st. The rst request of Li was for an armistice, which
at rst was refused. On Sunday, the 24th of March, a fanatical soshi,
attempting to assassinate the venerable Chinaman, red a pistol, the
bullet of which lodged in the cheek of the envoy. Thus again the old
murderous spirit which has so repeatedly stained Japans recordthe
same spirit in which the ruan ronins used to cut down unsuspecting
foreigners from behind, which has again and again butchered ministers
of the Government, which has disgraced the nation in the eyes of the
world by the insult and attempted murder even of the nations guests,
which has made a river of blood ow through her history, which is the
exponent of one of her greatest dangers, and which may yet deluge her
soil with an inundation of sanguinary anarchy broke forth.
May 8th, the date appointed to exchange ratifications of the
Shimonoski treaty at Chifu, China, was an auspicious one. On that
day in 1853 Perrys squadron lay at rst morning anchor o Yokohama.
On May 8, 1858, Townsend Harris and the shguns commissioners
completed in Yedo the negotiations that opened Japan to light, science, and the gospel, introducing missionaries, teachers, physicians,
and merchants, and making possible to Japan her new career. On this
same day in 1895, in the era of Meiji, or enlightened appropriation of
Western ideas, Japan obtained from China, as the results of her forty
years training and eight months war:
The independence of Corea
Permanent cession of Formosa
Opening of China to manufactures and commerce
Cash indemnity to cover cost of the war

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the mikados empire

The question of the release of Manchurian territory occupied by

Japanese troops was settled in such a way as to gain the good-will of
Europe and avert war with Russia while satisfying China.
Formosa, rst discovered and occupied by Japanese in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is geologically and ethnically a part
of Dai Nippon. Under Japanese rule, and probably within a generation, its interior will cease to be a lair of savages and its coasts a haunt
of pirates, the whole island being opened to the worlds commerce.
Within four days of the signed treaty, the mikado appointed the
military and civil administrators of Formosa. The island chain of Ti
Koku Nippon now extends through nearly thirty degrees of latitude.
Fronting Asia and its conquered nations, independent Japan now
calls a halt to European aggression. Amid Spanish, British, French,
Russian, and Chinese neighbors, she means to hold her own. Can
she do it?
Aside from the extraordinary manifestations of popular joy called
forth on account of the silver wedding of their imperial majesties
the emperor and empress, the year 1894 will stand in history as that in
which Japan received justice at the hands of Western powers. All the
treaties allowing foreign trade and residence, except the one negotiated with Mexico in 1890, have been either based on, or debased from,
that instrument made by Townsend Harris in 1858, who expected
revision to take place in 1872. He, mourning over conditions then
necessary and at rst benecial, but which when perpetuated became
wrongs, but hoping to see justice done, died without the sight.* After
twenty-two years of agitation and the wreck of three cabinets, Great
Britain, in a new treaty signed August 26th by Lord Kimberly and
* See the biography and journal of his residence in Japan (18561862) in the
book Townsend Harris, First American Envoy in Japan, by William Elliot
Gris: Houghton, Mi in & Co., Boston, 1895.

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465

Viscount Mutsu, virtually recognized Japan as an equal. The new

American treaty received the signatures of Secretary Gresham and
Minister Kurino November 22d, and was ratied by the United States
Senate December 28th.
Whatever be the issues of the Chino-Japanese war of 189495,
probably the most signicant in its inuences of the Asiatic wars of
many centuries, it is evident that after peace Japans real diculties
begin and her greatest problems come up for solution. The con ict
between clan government and the whole nation, and between the
Ministry and the Diet is yet to be fought out. Furthermore, the trend
towards democracy is unmistakable, and the perils of militarism are
real. The impending revolution in industry is likely not only to modify,
even to destruction, much of her beautiful landscape, but threatens to
annihilate many things that are lovely and charming in the life of her
people. The building of the factory, the introduction of machinery,
and the rearrangement of industrial forces and combinations will sow
seed for fresh crops of diculty which only great wisdom and vast
increase of moral power can overcome.
Yet, despite all the omens of evil and prognostications of gloom,
there have been many signs made visible, even during the present
war, of the increasingly serious purpose of the Japanese to persevere in their career of progress, and to seek to base this progress on
education. Already earnest natives are raising warnings against the
dangers which are sure to ow from excessive militarism and the
intoxication of conceit. That great purifying and uplifting force, a
belief in God, one and personal, is the expulsive power before which
the fog and dreams of Buddhism and the agnosticism and paralysis
of Confucianism are surely passing away. Japan has the great task
before her of educating her masses and elevating her women. One
thing seems certain, and that is that Christianity has taken root in the
minds and hearts of the people. Japan will never be converted in the

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way that many old-fashioned folk hoped a generation or even a decade

ago; but in the adoption and assimilation of the true spirit and real
teachings of Jesus the Japanese are making steady advance. Despite
so-called reactions and the tendency to Japanize Christianity, we
discern no real retrogression in the steady movement towards a Japan
that knows but one Deity.
In ages that are past there could be and was a variety of civilizations,
narrow, ethnic, defective. Now there can be but one civilizationthat
founded by Jesus. He fused the many ideals and inheritances into one.
To his vision no one nation has yet fully attained or can attain. When
all the families of the earth bend the knee unto the Father whom the
Christ revealed, his ideas may be ful lled in human history. Japans
best hope is that already some of her sons dwell in this open vision.

Appendix

The Testament of Iyyasu

he Legacy of Iyyasu is a document whose authenticity is yet

to be proved. It purports to be the testament of the founder of
the last shgunate; but a thoroughly critical examination of its claims
has not, I believe, been made. It is certain that it was not popularly
or generally known in Japan, nor ever reckoned as within the body of
standard legal literature. It was translated into English (thirty-seven
pages print) by Mr. J. F. Lowder, some years before its publication
by him in Yokohama, in 1874. The title of the pamphlet read thus:
The Legacy of Iyyasu (deied as Gongen-sama): a Posthumous
Manuscript, in One Hundred Chapters, translated from three collated
Copies of the Original, printed at The Japan Herald oce.
Dr. Walter Dixon, also, in his work on Japan, gives (chapter vii)
another version, with notes and comments. W. E. Grigsby, Professor of
Law in the Imperial College in Tki, in a paper read before the Asiatic
Society of Japan, has given a scholarly analysis of the document, showing especially its similarity to most ancient law codes, such as those
of Solon and Lycurgus, the Twelve Tables, the Mosaic, and the early
Teutonic codes. He terms it the most original monument which Japan
has produced in the way of legislation, with which compare Dixon, pp.
269, 270. Whether authentic or not, it embodies the policy of Iyyasu,
is a mirror of feudalism, and is of great historic value.
467

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the mikados empire

The work consists of one hundred sections, in no logical sequence,

and dicult to determine in the original. Of these, sixteen consist of
moral maxims and reections, which are quotations, or intended to
be such, from Confucius and Mencius; fty-ve are connected with
politics and administrations; twenty-two refer to legal matters; and
in seven Iyyasu relates episodes in his own personal history. No sharp
distinction is made in it between law and morality, between the duties
of the citizen and the virtue of the man. The man who obeys the law
is virtuous; he who disobeys it is vicious and low. It is the province of
the legislator to inculcate virtue. All that we understand by lawall
that embraces the main bulk of modern law, the law of contracts, of
personal property, of will, commercial and maritime lawnds no
place in this code. This arose from the fact that human life within the
daimiate was regulated by custom, not by agreement; and there was
hardly any intercourse between the various daimioates, because the
only property of any importance was land, and no will was allowed.
On the other hand, great stress was laid on criminal law, the law relating to landed property, the law relating to the status of persons and
classes, to etiquette and ceremonial, to tables of rank and precedence,
and to political administration and government. On these points,
especially the latter, minute details are entered into with a peculiarity which is striking, when compared with the poverty of the code in
respect to those matters which seem to us most important in a system
of law. Another of the many points of similarity to ancient codes of
law, notably the Mosaic, is the elaborate provisions with respect to
the avenging of blood and personal satisfaction for injuries done. The
individual does not, as in more advanced societies, give up his right of
private vengeance. Great stress is laid on caste distinctions, which are
made more sharp and distinct by reducing them to writing, and thus
perpetuating the unequal stages into which early society is divided.

Appendix

469

Professor Grigsby further remarks that there is one great dierence between this and all other early codes, viz., its secrecy. It was
in express terms forbidden to be promulgated. The perusal of it was
only allowed to the chief councilors of state (rjiu). How can people
obey laws if they do not know their nature? A parallel is found in
the history of the Aryan race. In Greece and Rome, at the beginning
of their history, the knowledge of the laws and their administration
was con ned to the aristocratic class, and the rst struggle of the
commons was to force this knowledge from thema struggle which
ended in these codes being reduced to writing and promulgated. The
parallel is not complete in respect to writing. In the case of Greece and
Rome, the laws were unknown because not written: in Japan, though
written, they were yet to be unknown. In early communities, custom
has absolute sway. The magistrates, as Iyyasu says, are the reectors
of the mode of government; they interpret, not make, the law. Any
additions to the old customs were to reach the multitudes by ltering
down through the magistrates, who alone would be conscious that
they were new. To the multitude they would only be slight modications of the customs they had always observed. As a code of laws, this
was the character of the testament of Iyyasu, who claims merely to
be a transmitter, not a framer, of the law. His work is a compilation,
not a creation; a selection from old, not a series of new, laws.
The Legacy is invaluable in representing to us the condition of
society in feudal Japan. The basis of Japanese life, the unit of civilization, is the family, which is a corporation, the most characteristic
mark of which was its perpetuity. The head of the family held a power
similar, in nearly all respects, to that of the paterfamilias at Rome,
having complete power over the persons and property of his children,
and doing as he pleased with both, fettered only by that custom which
is the great hinderance to despotism in all early communities. But

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his liabilities were equally great with his rights. He was responsible
for all the ill-doings of any of his family. A Japanese family was not,
however, what we understand by the word. It was often not natural,
but articial. Persons whom we should exclude from the family were
admitted into it, and those who with us are constant members were
sometimes excluded from it. Adoption (yoshi ni naru) on the one hand,
and emancipation, or the sending-away (kand suru) of a son from the
family, on the other, were in constant practice. In Rome, adoption was
employed merely to enlarge the family; in Japan, solely to perpetuate
it. The son adopted by a man having no male heir lled exactly the
place of a natural child; and, in early times at least, he must take the
name of the adopting parent. If the adopting parent had a daughter,
the adopted son married her, becoming heir himself, in which respect
the Japanese custom diered from the Roman, which held that the
natural tie of brother and sister was formed by adoption, and hence
their marriage was illegal. Only an adult could adopt; but if the head
of the family were an infant, he could adopt. This practice was often
resorted to in Japan for two reasonsthe religious and the feudal;
to prevent the extinguishment of the ancestral sacrices, with the
consequent disgrace to the family; and because the land, being held
only on condition of military service, if a vassal died leaving no male
children, the lands escheated to the lord. The second method which
rendered the family articial were the expulsion and disinheritance
of a son from the family, which, however, were only eected when he
was of an irredeemably bad character.
Marriage in Japan, which was allowedrather, enjoinedin the
case of a man at sixteen, of a woman at thirteen, was not a contract
between the parties or a religious institution, but a handing-over of
the bride to the family of her husband by her own family, she passing
completely under the control of her husband, both as to person and
property, subject to reference to a council of family relations.

Appendix

471

So far the internal aspect of the family. Each family, however, was
connected with other families, as in early Greece and Rome; and
thus about fty great clans were formed, of which the four principal
were the Minamoto, Fujiwara, Taira, and Sugawara, all the families
of which were, or claimed to be, descended from a common ancestor.
Certain sacrices were peculiar to each, and certain dignities conned
to certain families. Thus the oce of kuambaku was monopolized by
the Fujiwara, and the shogunate by the Minamoto clans (the families in succession being, the line of Yoritomo, the Ashikaga, and the
Tokugawa). Th is condition of society was analogous to that in Italy
and Greece from 1000 b.c. to 500 a.d. But what is peculiar to Japan is
that, with this primitive form of society remaining unchanged, we nd
a system that did not arise in Europe till about the eleventh century
a.d. Thus the superstructure of feudalism was reared on the basis of
the familyan incongruous social edice, as it seems to our minds.
In Japan, then, at the time of the formation of the code, the mikado
and the imperial court were above, and not included in, the theory
of feudalism, at the head of which was the shgun, and beneath him
the daimis, each with a territory of greater or lesser extent, which he
farmed out to the samurai, or vassals, in return for military service. In
the greater daimiates these vassals underlet their lands on the same
conditions; in other words, subfeudation was common. A vassal not
able, by reason of age or sickness, to perform this service abdicated in
favor of his son. If a man died without leaving any children, natural
or adopted, his property was retained for him by a legal ction, for his
death was concealed till permission was given by his lord for him to
adopt a son, and only after such permission was given was his death
announced. The necessity of having an heir, that the vassals land
might not escheat to the lord, but be kept in the vassals family, greatly
extended the practice of adoption. If the vassal proved faithless to his
lord, both escheat and forfeiture were incurred.

472

the mikados empire

The leading principles of Iyyasus policy are thus summarized:

The position of the shgun to the mikado was to be one of reverential
homage. The shguns were in no way to interfere with the mikados
theoretical supremacy, but to strengthen it in every way, and show
all respect to the emperors relatives, and the old court aristocracy.
Secondly, toward their inferiors the shguns were to behave with
courtesy and consideration. All insult and tyranny were to be avoided,
and the weight of power was not to press too harshly. The neglect
of this principle, as shown in insolence to inferiors, was the rock on
which the governments in nearly all ancient communities struck.
This caution proves the consummate knowledge of human nature and
the profound mastery of state-craft possessed by Iyyasu. Another
recommendation of Iyyasu was, that the government of the lesser
daimis should be frequently changed. The motive alleged for this
was the prevention of misgovernment; but the real reason was, that
they might not acquire local inuence, and so endanger the power
of the shguns. This was similar in its purpose to the policy adopted
by William the Conqueror, in portioning out the territories of his
barons among several counties. In England the plan was completely
successful; in Japan it failed, as we have seen, because the shguns
never dared to enforce the measure in the case of the greater daimis,
who were the only ones to be dreaded.

Notation of Time

he rst systematic attempt at marking and recording time was

in a.d. 602, when a Buddhist missionary from Corea, named
Kuanroku, brought to Japan a Chinese almanac, and taught its use.
From this time, the years, lunar months, and days arc counted, and
the years named after the characters in a cycle of sixty years, which is
made up of one series of ten, and another series of twelve, characters.
The cycle of ten series is called from the ve elements, Wood, Fire,
Earth, Metal, and Water, each of which is taken double, or masculine
and feminine.
The cycle of twelve series is formed, according to the division of the
zodiac, into twelve equal parts, to each of which the name of some
Japanese animal is assigned. These are the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Hare,
Dragon, Serpent, Horse, Goat, Ape, Cock, Dog, Hog.
By making a square, in which twelve lines are drawn horizontally,
and ten perpendicularly, we have one hundred and twenty squares, of
which sixty are used. Place the ten-series at the top, and the twelveseries on the left side, and the numerals from 1 to 60 in diagonal lines
in the spaces from left to right, and from top to bottom. Thus the
cyclical name of the year 1711 (see page 314) is water-dragon, or
the ten-series name, water, and the twelve-series name, dragon.
The rst year of the current cycle is 1864, and the cyclical name of 1877
473

474

the mikados empire

is re-bull, the rst belonging to the ten-series, and the second

to the twelve-series cycle. (See diagram in Ho mans Grammar,
page 156.) Th is method of reckoning time is still in use among the
Chinese, Coreans, and the Japanese Buddhist world and priesthood.
All Japanese literature is full of it, and it will be printed in the native
almanacs for some years to come.

Enumeration of the Years by Year-periods

rom 645 a.d., under the mikado Ktoku, the system of reckoning
the years by chronological periods called nen-g, or year-names,
has been in use. In historical works, and in Japanese literature generally, these year-periods are always referred to, and formerly many
natives committed the entire list to memory. Others used little reference-tables, kept in their pocket books or near at hand. No special
rule or system was observed in changing the names, though the accession of a new sovereign, the advent of war or peace, a great national
calamity or blessing, a profound social change or great national event,
was made the pretext for adopting a new name. It thus results that
from 645 to 1868 a.d. there have been 249 year-names, including those
used by the northern dynasty during the period 13361392, treated of
in Chapter XIX. The year-names are appointed by the mikado, and
are chosen from sixty-eight Chinese words or characters specially
reserved for that purpose. They are often very poetic and striking.
(See in Dr. J. J. Homans Grammar, page 157.) In the following list,
it will be noticed that the same syllables recur often. The dates can
not exactly correspond to our years, since the Japanese New-Yearsday was often as much as six weeks later than January 1st. A few
years ago1872the Government xed upon the year 660 b.c. as
that in which Jimmu Tenno ascended the throne, and Christmas,
475

476

the mikados empire

December 25th, as the day. Hence, in the newspapers, ocial documents, and books printed since 1872, the time is expressed in years
of the Japanese empire, or from the foundation of the empire, or
from the accession of Jimmu Tenn. These phrases have a value at
par with the Roman Ab urbe condita, the date of Jimmus ascension being purely arbitrary.
a.d.
Taikua
645
Hakuchi
650
Sujaku
672
Hakuho
673
Shucho
686
Taikua
695
Taicho
697
Taiho
701
Keiun
704
Wado
708
Hoki
715
Yoro
717
Jinki
724
Tempio
729
Tempio Shoho 749
Tempio Hoji 757
Tempio Jingo 765
Jingo Keiun
767
Hoki
770
Tno
781
Enrki
782
Daido
806

a.d.
Konin
Tencho
Jowa
Kasho
Ninjiu
Saiko
Tenan
Jokuan
Genkei
Ninna
Kuampei
Shotai
Engi
Encho
Shohei
Tengio
Tenrki
Tentoku
Owa
Koho
Anwa
Tenroku

810
824
834
848
851
854
857
859
877
885
889
898
901
923
931
938
947
957
961
964
968
970

a.d.
Tenyen
Jogen
Tengen
Eikuan
Kuanwa
Eiyen
Eiso
Shorki
Chotoku
Choho
Kuanko
Chowa
Kuannin
Chian
Manjiu
Chogen
Chorki
Chokiu
Kuantoku
Ejo
Tenki
Kohei

973
976
978
983
985
987
989
990
995
999
1004
1012
1017
1021
1024
1028
1037
1040
1044
1046
1053
1058

Appendix
Chirki
Enkiu
Joho
Jorki
Eiho
Otoku
Kuanji
Kaho
Eicho
Shotoku
Kowa
Choji
Kajo
Tennin
Tenyei
Eikiu
Genyei
Hoan
Tenji
Daiji
Tensho
Chosho
Hoyen
Eiji
Koji
Tenyo
Kiuan
Nimpei
Kinjiu
Hogen
Heiji

1065
1069
1074
1077
1081
1084
1087
1094
1096
1097
1099
1104
1106
1108
1110
1113
1118
1120
1124
1126
1131
1132
1135
1141
1142
1144
1145
1151
1154
1156
1159

Eirki
Oyei
Chokuan
Eiman
Ninan
Kawo
Shoan
Angen
Jijo
Yowa
Juyei
Monji
Kenkiu
Shoji
Kennin
Genkiu
Kenyei
Shogen
Kenrki
Kempo
Jokiu
Jowo
Gennin
Karoku
Antei
Kuanki
Joyei
Tembuku
Bunrki
Katei
Rkinin

1160
1161
1163
1165
1166
1169
1171
1175
1177
1181
1182
1185
1190
1199
1201
1204
1206
1207
1211
1213
1219
1222
1224
1225
1227
1229
1232
1233
1234
1235
1238

477
Enwo
Ninji
Kuangen
Hoji
Kencho
Kogen
Shoka
Shogen
Bunwo
Kocho
Bunyei
Kenji
Koan
Showo
Einin
Shoan
Kengen
Kagen
Tokuji
Enkei
Ocho
Showa
Bumpo
Genwo
Genko
Shochiu
Karki
Gentoku
Genko
Kemmu

1239
1240
1243
1247
1249
1256
1257
1259
1260
1261
1264
1275
1278
1288
1293
1299
1302
1303
1306
1308
1311
1312
1317
1319
1321
1324
1326
1329
1331
1334

478

the mikados empire

SOUTHERN
DYNASTY
Engen
1336
Kokoku
1340
Shohei
1346
Kentoku
1370
Bunchiu
1372
Tenjiu
1375
Kowa
1381
Genchiu
1384

Eikio
Kakitsu
Bunan
Hotoku
Kiotoku
Kosho
Choroku
Kuansho
Bunsho
Onin
Bummei
Chokio
Entoku
Meiwo
Bunki
Eisei
Taiyei
Kioroku
Tembun
Koji
Eiroku
Genki
Tensho
Bunroku
Keicho
Genwa
Kuanyei
Shoho
Keian
Showo
Meirki

NORTHERN
DYNASTY
Rkiwo
1338
Koyei
1342
Teiwa
1345
Kuanwo
1350
Bunwa
1352
Embun
1356
Owa
1361
Toji
1362
Oan
1368
Eiwa
1375
Korki
1379
Eitoku
1381
Shitoku
1384
Kakei
1387
Kowo
1389
Meitoku
1390
Oyen
1394
Seicho
1428

1429
1441
1444
1449
1452
1455
1457
1460
1466
1467
1469
1487
1489
1492
1501
1504
1521
1528
1532
1555
1558
1570
1573
1592
1596
1615
1624
1644
1648
1652
1655

Manji
Kuambun
Empo
Tenwa
Jokio
Genroku
Hoyei
Shotoku
Hokio
Gembun
Kuampo
Enkio
Kuanyen
Horki
Meiwa
Anyei
Temmei
Kuansei
Kiowa
Bunkwa
Bunsei
Tempo
Kokwa
Kayei
Ansei
Manyen
Bunkiu
Genji
Keiwo
Meiji

1658
1661
1673
1681
1684
1688
1704
1711
1716
1736
1741
1744
1748
1751
1764
1772
1781
1789
1801
1804
1818
1830
1844
1848
1854
1860
1861
1864
1865
1868

Index
A in Japanese, pronounced as a in
arm. See also under Ha
Ha..
Abb Sidotti, 301.
Abdication, 124, 218.
Aborigines of America, 17.
Aborigines of Japan.
Actors, 91, 135, 271, 326
Acupuncture, 235.
Adams, Mr. F. O., author of History of
Japan, x
Adams, Will, 300, 301.
Adoption, 123, 197, 226, 227, 250, 297,
322, 340, 417, 439, 466, 470, 471.
Adzuma, 70, 71, 305, 306.
Agricultural class, 384.
Agriculture, 41, 61, 90, 95, 114, 225,
434, 445.
Aidzu, Prince of,. 361363, 366369
Ain, 1524, 68, 89, 90, 93, 98, 129.
Akamagaski, See Shimonoski
Shimonoski..
Akchi, 265, 266, 273.
Alaska, 1.
Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 358.
Alphabets, 95, 186
Ama. See Nun
Nun,, and 155.
Amakusa, 291.
Amatrasu. 6062, 65
America, relations with Japan.
See, under Perry, United States.
States.
Amida, 188, 260, 290.
Amulets, 187, 194, 260.
And, 176.
Animals, domestic, 10.

Anjiro, 285, 286.

Antimony, 7.
Antisell, Thomas, Dr., 4, 14
Antoku, 135, 136, 149, 155, 212.
Aqueducts, 230, 331.
Arata, 85.
Archers, 153, 214.
Archery, 114, 238.
Architecture, 59, 60, 93, 105, 249, 282, 301,
334, 445.
Area of Japan.
Arisugawa no Miya, 389.
Armor, 150, 152, 153, 163, 164, 195, 245, 246,
252, 253, 266, 274, 310, 311, 363, 364, 384,
387, 418.
Armorer. 167, 241
Armorial bearings. See Crests and.
Army, 54, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70, 70, 71, 78, 78,
80, 81, 82, 113, 114, 146, 147, 149, 150, 153,
156, 159, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 200, 203,
208, 214, 221, 233, 246, 250, 253, 264, 268,
269, 273, 276, 277, 279, 280, 281, 288, 293,
308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 326, 344, 345, 354,
358, 362, 363, 364, 367, 368, 370, 385, 387,
389, 390, 391, 401, 435, 436, 437, 450, 451,
457, 458, 459, 461.
Arrows, 21, 78, 150, 153, 154, 214, 215, 250,
251, 252, 253, 259, 260, 269, 311, 387.
Art, 18, 34, 45, 84, 89, 96, 97, 104, 122,
159, 163, 173, 179, 216, 226, 232, 235, 240,
260, 292, 306, 334, 410, 431, 438, 445.
Artisans, 37, 85, 257, 325, 326. 479, 480
Asama yama, 6, 71.

479

480

the mikados empire

A-San, 457, 458, 459.

Asano family, 319.
Ashikaga, 7, 22, 119, 174, 176, 205, 206,
207, 208, 209, 210, 213, 214, 215, 216,
217, 218, 219, 222, 223, 248, 250, 254, 261,
263, 264, 265, 266, 276, 277, 285, 286,
288, 313, 314, 342, 349, 361, 418, 445, 471.
Ashikaga Takauji, 176, 205, 206, 219.
Ashikaga Yoshiaki, 265.
Aspects of nature, 11.
Assassinations. 361
Aston, Mr. W. G., quoted, 243.
Atagoyama. 274
Atsumori, 164.
Augustinian friars, 295.
Austin, Don. See Konishi
Konishi..
Awa, 67, 69, 74, 75, 145, 172, 186.
Awaji, 34, 75.
Awodo, 170.
Ayuthaya, 282.
Azai, 276, 277.
Azuchiyama. 286, 289
B, from the Japanese h or f, by nigori
nigori,,
or in combination.
Bakufu, 158, 320, 331, 343, 346, 348, 350,
351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 357, 358, 359, 360,
361, 362, 364, 365, 366, 367, 374, 377,
378, 379, 421, 422.
Bamboo, 6, 8, 24, 38, 47, 93, 95, 116, 147,
192, 259, 260, 302, 319, 384.
Banishment, 41, 128, 133, 171, 173, 174, 197,
291, 293, 357.
Banner of Taira, of Minamoto, of Nitta,
174; 176, 207, 214, 215, 314, of Iyyasu,
28, 225, 280, 305, 308, 310, 311, 314, 316,
317, 318, 321, 323, 328, 330, 331, 341, 343,
467, 469, 472.
Bark, 19, 21, 37, 93, 94, 174, 231, 240.
Barriers, 4, 234, 367, 439. See Gates
Gates..
Barrows, 15.
Baths, 23.
Bay of Yedo, 14, 69, 70, 134, 146, 203, 301,
305, 340, 350, 355.
Beans, 19, 40, 41, 237.
Beards, 97, 115, 250.

Bells, 38, 92, 229, 234, 290, 331, 332, 334, 352.
Benkei, 234, 235.
Bett, 271.
Birds, 10, 11, 81, 116, 120, 232, 334, 360.
Bishamon, 215.
Biwa, Lake, 5, 78, 120, 121, 122, 200, 233,
239, 266, 267, 308, 309, 312, 357.
Blakiston, Captain.
Blacksmith, 37, 46.
Boats, 5, 15, 60, 69, 134, 147, 200, 201, 202,
203, 314, 343, 380, 388.
Bzu, 29, 236.
Bonin Islands, 395.
Bonzes, 23, 29, 157, 187, 190, 195, 197, 220,
227, 230, 236, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269,
270, 276, 287, 290, 291, 292.
Botan Savages, 400.
Botany, 9, 10.
Bows, 21, 38, 202, 251, 253.
Bread, 8, 299, 370, 383.
Breath-sucking. 261
Breech-loaders. 302
Bridgeford, Captain. 13
Bridges, 199, 230, 275, 327, 363.
Brown, Rev. S. R., 31, 184, 302.
Buddhism, 23, 45, 57, 84, 85, 86, 92, 94, 99,
101, 107, 109, 112, 124, 181, 182, 183, 184,
185, 186, 187, 191, 194, 196, 197, 226, 227,
242, 260, 268, 288, 289, 290, 303, 325,
340, 343, 347, 350, 351, 369, 378, 403, 414,
440, 451, 465.
Bungo, 4, 30, 51, 75, 284, 286, 287, 291.
Burial, 60, 96, 154, 316, 414.
Burmah, 182, 282.
C. See under K or S.
Calendar, 60, 123, 124, 134, 187, 455.
California, 61, 324, 349, 445.
Camellia, 307, 335.
Camphor-trees, 215.
Cannon, 5, 279, 282, 311, 316, 352, 363, 367,
384, 390, 422.
Capital, 15, 53, 70, 82, 83, 86, 91, 109, 112,
113, 114, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 127, 131, 133,
140, 149, 156, 157, 159, 177, 199, 208, 209,
212, 216, 218, 220, 221, 223, 232, 246, 266,

Index
276, 279, 283, 286, 298, 305, 307, 314, 316,
319, 321, 322, 336, 341, 353, 360, 362, 363,
364, 366, 367, 372, 373, 383, 391, 398, 399,
410, 423, 425, 426, 446, 453, 455, 461.
Capron, General Horace. 4
Carpenters, 37, 147, 321, 326.
Carving, 22, 98, 230, 231, 240, 255.
Castira. See Sponge-cake
Sponge-cake..
Castles, 200, 220, 221, 249, 268, 319, 327,
331.
Catapults, 201.
Cemeteries, 122, 190, 331.
Chamberlain, 31, 128, 426, 435, 437, 438.
Character of the Japanese. 289
Charcoal, 8, 21, 141, 228, 234.
Charlevoix quoted, 283, 291, 301.
Chemulpo, 457, 458.
Chin (lap-dog), 18, 46, 88, 239.
China, 3, 21, 24, 26, 50, 54, 77, 85, 86, 88,
89, 105, 106, 107, 112, 120, 134, 140, 155,
158, 162, 163, 165, 166, 174, 182, 186, 188,
197, 199, 200, 202, 203, 210, 211, 221,
222, 226, 233, 235, 240, 243, 276, 277,
278, 280, 282, 284, 285, 292, 296, 300,
345, 347, 359, 370, 380, 397, 399, 400,
401, 411, 413, 449, 450, 451, 452, 454, 455,
456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 462, 463, 464.
Chishima (Kuriles), 1, 3, 4, 8, 18, 20, 282,
396.
Chiuzenji, 329.
Chopsticks, 254.
Chshiu clan.
Chtki, 207, 208, 363, 367, 368, 384, 387,
389.
Christianity, 28, 181, 185, 190, 196, 283,
284, 285, 290, 292, 293, 295, 297, 298,
299, 301, 302, 303, 307, 308, 343, 375,
383, 401, 402, 403, 414, 415, 430, 431,
436, 439, 440, 451, 453, 465, 466.
Chronology, 55, 85, 222, 434, 455.
Chrysanthemum, 7, 65, 209, 211, 213, 297.
Cipango. See Jipangu
Jipangu..
Civilization, 13, 18, 22, 23, 27, 57, 64, 71,
77, 78, 84, 85, 86, 89, 95, 98, 110, 114,
115, 123, 226, 284, 297, 339, 340, 341, 358,
369, 370, 373, 374, 375, 379, 380, 393,

481

397, 403, 406, 409, 411, 413, 420, 435,

436, 439, 449, 454, 455, 460, 466, 469.
Clans, 169, 220, 247, 248, 255, 265, 267, 308,
316, 319, 321, 324, 328, 346, 352, 360, 361,
362, 364, 365, 367, 367, 368, 376, 377, 421,
423, 434, 441, 443, 471. See under names
of military families.
Classes of society, 326.
Climate, 12, 14, 15, 23, 90.
Clogs, 130, 131.
Cloistered emperor, 124, 132, 149, 150, 159.
Clothing, 19, 94, 96, 147, 240, 251.
Cloud-cluster, 41, 42, 68.
Coasts of Japan, 202, 221.
Cocks, 38, 300.
Cocks, Mr. Richard, 300.
Coinage, 278, 437.
College, See Imperial College.
College of Engineering, 359.
Columbus, 282, 283, 445.
Commandments, 102, 182.
Commerce, 42, 60, 221, 285, 286, 295, 345,
350, 356, 361, 365, 370, 409, 434, 436,
444, 450, 463, 464.
Conchs, 311.
Concubines, 117, 125, 128, 129, 206, 238, 241,
267, 268.
Confucianism, 197, 303, 351, 451, 452, 465.
Conquerors, 15, 16, 35, 49, 82, 91, 94, 95, 117,
155, 314, 418, 420.
Conquest of ancient Japan. 1516
Constitution, 114, 165, 245, 303, 326, 341,
394, 417, 418, 420, 423, 425, 426, 427, 431,
442, 446.
Convents, 228, 290.
Copper, 7, 104, 120, 147, 228, 229, 278, 296,
300, 336.
Corea, 1, 14, 24, 26, 35, 57, 61, 77, 78, 79, 80,
81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 96, 131, 163, 165, 182, 186,
197, 203, 221, 230, 233, 253, 271, 276, 277,
278, 279, 280, 281, 292, 293, 294, 296, 300,
310, 331, 347, 380, 381, 382, 387, 395, 396,
397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 411, 449, 450, 451,
453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 461, 463, 473.
Cormorants, 238.
Cosmogony, 27, 92, 101, 106, 184, 185, 351.

482

the mikados empire

Cotton, 18, 19, 94, 95, 104, 116, 147, 192,

193, 234, 236, 264, 272, 381, 437.
Councils, 63, 169, 183, 331.
Court noble, 233, 248, 270, 306, 329, 362,
366, 371, 372, 376, 407, 422.
Courtesans, 155.
Creation, 26, 28, 33, 34, 41, 44, 45, 64, 106,
110, 119, 157, 165, 209, 321, 386, 391, 424,
437, 442, 469.
Cremation, 197, 227.
Crest, Tokugawa Family.
Crow, 38, 53, 54, 257.
Currents, 2, 11, 13, 14, 51, 52, 69, 81, 339,
346.
Curtains, 188, 241, 357, 433, 445.
D, from t by nigori
nigori,, or in combination.
Dai Butsu, 228, 300.
Dai J Dai Jin, 112, 132, 197, 212, 219, 362,
406.
Dai J Kuan, 111, 112.
Dai Koku, 35, 42, 54.
Daimi, 90, 224, 248, 249, 268, 275,
284, 286, 291, 314, 321, 323, 326, 333, 341,
348, 357, 376, 377, 378, 382, 395, 400,
421, 422, 423.
Dai Nihon Shi, 28, 57, 58, 88, 134, 218, 348.
Dai Nippon, 1, 2, 14, 25, 77, 86, 87, 88,
339, 341, 373, 380, 387, 449, 464.
Dai Shin-In, 424.
Dairi, 27, 224, 286.
Daizaifu, 200.
Dancing, 46, 47, 67, 98, 155.
Datt family, 319.
Dazaifu. See Daizaifu
Daizaifu..
Dcima. See Dshima
Dshima..
Departments of government, 261.
Dshima, 245, 275, 297, 331, 342.
Dwa, 67, 159.
Dzima. See Dshima
Dshima..
Diet, 5, 46, 94, 185, 194, 426, 427, 428,
429, 441, 442, 443, 446, 450, 465.
Dirk, 176, 254, 256, 275.
Diseases, 72, 236, 299, 356.
Divination, 37, 46.
Divinity of the mikado, 26, 55.

Dixon, Dr. Walter, quoted, 264, 291, 467.

Do, or circuits, 86, 87.
Dogs, 21, 239.
Dominicans, 287.
D-sha. 236
Dsia. See D-sha.
Dragon, 20, 41, 42, 106, 129, 200, 229, 252,
255, 257, 258, 260, 333, 399, 401, 461, 473.
Dress. See Clothing
Clothing..
Dual system of government. See Duarchy
Duarchy..
Duarchy. 7, 110, 157, 165, 339, 342, 344
Dungeons. 208
Dutch, 223, 248, 282, 290, 292, 295, 296,
297, 299, 300, 331, 350, 353, 358, 364, 280,
341, 350, 371, 374, 382,
412, 422, 436,
Dynasties, 60, 209, 213, 219.
E, pronounced as e in prey
prey;; before a
nal liquid, or double consonant,
as e in men
men..
Earthquakes, 221, 356.
Eastern Japan, 57, 68, 73, 314.
Ebisu, 15, 16, 17, 45, 210, 305, 306.
Echizen, Prince of, 13, 360
Echizen, 7, 31, 70, 74, 78, 149, 162, 193, 194,
199, 214, 215, 232, 239, 263, 264, 265, 268,
273, 288, 310, 314, 321, 346, 351, 357, 360,
363, 365, 366, 366, 367, 377, 421423.
Edinburgh and Yedo, 324.
Education, 83, 84, 89, 111, 112, 216, 217, 345,
348, 374, 379, 387, 401, 403, 407, 412, 413,
420, 421, 424, 426, 434, 437, 438, 460,
465.
Embassies, 199, 200, 277, 400.
Emperors, list of, 110
Enamel-ware, 231-232.
English, 13, 21, 24, 31, 44, 51, 52, 88, 106,
184, 225, 242, 243, 271, 276, 292, 296, 299,
300342, 353, 364, 371, 374, 375, 401, 413,
414, 425427, 435, 437, 440, 444, 467.
Enomoto, 373, 377, 396, 408.
Enoshima, 162, 175, 189, 190.
Espionage, 331, 344.
Eta, 325, 326, 363, 380, 418, 421.
Evergreens, 18.

Index
Executions. See Laws
Laws..
Exile, 128, 133, 143, 144, 148, 159, 172, 184,
175, 188, 197, 205, 207, 208, 223, 301,
399, 405. See Banishment
Banishment..
Extra-territoriality, 369, 430.
Eyes, 18, 20, 41, 78, 90, 91, 122, 164, 200,
207, 208, 213, 214, 218, 237, 240, 249,
252, 272, 287, 306, 337, 344, 351, 371, 359,
360, 370, 380, 388, 393, 463.
F, for words in Dutch books, or in writings copied therefrom, see under
H, or A. In foreign books,f
books,f or is
often inserted, or made terminal in a
Japanese word which ends in an open
vowel. Thus Shikoku and Hokusai,
appear as Shikokf, Hoksai, etc.
Faces, Ain and Yamato, 18.
Falconry, 238.
Fans, 459, 217, 459.
Farmers, 60, 64, 294, 296, 345, 326, 404,
418.
Fauna, 10, 334.
Faxiba. See Hidyoshi
Hidyoshi..
Female divinity, 3536.
Festivals, 22, 47, 96, 98, 103, 123, 156, 239,
260, 289.
Feudalism, 26, 53, 65, 90, 98, 110, 111, 112,
159, 205, 209, 234, 245, 2448, 248, 249,
250, 255, 261, 305, 308, 315, 336, 341, 345,
352, 376, 377, 378, 379, 384, 386, 387,
390, 406, 419, 420, 421, 430, 435, 447,
467, 471.
Feuds, 127, 247, 255, 265.
Firando. See Hirado
Hirado..
Fire-lookouts, 331.
Fish, 238, 398.
Fishing, 238.
Flowers, 7.
Food, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 18, 23, 41, 90, 94,
96, 104, 146, 147, 161, 221, 227, 230, 238,
259, 325, 345, 444.
Foot-ball, 168, 238.
Foreigner-haters. See J-i.
Forests, 8, 23, 329.
Formosa, 14, 21, 81, 251, 296, 297, 386, 395,
396, 399, 400, 461, 463, 464.

483

Franciscans, 292.
Francis Xavier, 295300, 318.
Freedom of the press, 373, 385.
French, 55, 87, 226, 296, 298, 299, 350, 397,
402, 437, 464.
Fudai, 261, 319, 320, 320, 321, 332, 357, 368.
Fuji san, or Fuji yama (mountain), 160.
Fuji River, 146.
Fujiwara, 25, 118, 118, 119, 120, 127, 128, 129,
132, 133, 142, 150, 160, 166, 170, 171, 177,
245, 272, 313, 314, 333, 418, 443, 445, 471.
Fukui, 20, 184, 195, 197, 199, 214, 215, 215,
263, 274, 358, 377, 422.
Fukuwara, 133, 150, 151.
Fusan, 279, 381, 411.
Fushimi, 177, 213, 275, 300, 308, 312, 316,
351, 367, 373.
Fusi yama. See Fuji san
G, pronounced hard. From k by nigori
nigori,, or
in combination. Few pure
Japanese words begin with g.
Games, 159, 238, 239.
Garlic, 72, 268.
Gas, illuminating, 6, 72.
Gates, 47, 72, 123, 234, 249, 253, 326, 335,
343, 362, 363, 366, 461.
Gazetteers of Echizen, 199.
Gisha, 238.
Gen. See Minamoto
Minamoto..
Genghis Khan, 162, 163.
Genji. 129, 135, 234, 240, 243, 314 See
Minamoto..
Minamoto
Genji Monogatari, 240, 243.
Genro-in, 391, 424.
Gensan, 396, 458.
Geography of Japan, 2.
Geology of Japan, 3.
Germans, 437.
Ghosts, 154.
Gifu, 309.
Go, honorary pre x. See under letters following go
go..
Goa, 285.
Goddesses, 26, 124.
Go-Daigo, 172174, 177, 205, 207, 213216,
218, 248.

484

the mikados empire

Gohei, 38, 47, 102, 105, 106, 329.

Go-Kamyama, 137, 217.
Goknin, 323324.
Go-Komatsu, 137, 217, 218.
Gold, 7, 7, 24, 53, 65, 71, 78, 82, 98, 147,
228, 229, 232, 235, 238, 255, 258, 260, 284,
286, 290, 294, 328, 334, 335, 360, 455.
Goldsborough Inlet, 301.
Gongen, 227, 329, 330, 467.
Goroza, 264.
Gosank. 317, 318 See Sank.
Go-Shirakawa, 132, 135, 136, 149, 212.
Gotoba, 110, 159, 213.
Gourds, 273.
Government, 14, 22, 26, 51, 53, 60, 65, 84,
88, 90, 91, 98, 99, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110,
111, 112, 114, 116, 117, 119, 121, 157, 158,
159, 161, 163, 165, 166, 167, 167, 179, 184,
185, 196, 205, 206, 209, 210, 220, 222,
232, 234, 245, 248, 249, 261, 268, 269,
270, 280, 280, 288, 294, 295, 298, 314,
320, 322, 323, 324, 328, 329, 330, 336,
336, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 344,
345, 350, 351, 353, 356, 358, 360, 365, 366,
367, 369, 370, 372, 373, 375, 377, 379, 380,
381, 383, 384, 385, 388, 390, 390, 391, 392,
393, 393, 394, 395, 398, 400, 402, 407,
408, 409, 411, 412, 417427, 429431,
434, 443, 446, 449, 450, 452, 454457,
459, 460, 462, 463, 465, 468, 469.
Gray, Dr. Asa, 10.
Gunpowder, 223, 297, 388, 390.
Guns, 55, 93, 201, 284, 285, 264.
H. In Dutch and Portuguese books f
often takes the place of h. See under F.
In combination, or by nigori
nigori,, becomes
b,f, or p.
Hachiman. 130, 146, 261, 312; See jin
Tenn..
Tenn
Hachiman, temple of, 146.
Hachiman Tar, 130.
Hachij, 134.
Hair, 16, 18, 19, 20, 40, 41, 46, 80, 90, 124,
132, 140, 141, 143, 150, 164, 167, 171, 228,
235, 237, 249, 250, 388.
Hakodat, 155, 369, 373, 396.

Hakon, 62, 67, 69, 70, 145, 234.

Hakuzan, 2, 6.
Hanabusa, 396, 398, 399.
Hand or head kerchief, 126, 240, 250.
Hara-kiri. 162, 176, 215, 215, 217, 254, 275,
311, 368 See Sppuku
Sppuku..
..
Harima, 74, 86, 205, 287.
Harris, Townsend, Hon, 327.
Haruko, 25, 83.
Hashiba. 272 See Hidyoshi
Hidyoshi..
Hashikura Rokuymon, 382.
Hashimoto Sanai, 358, 421.
Hashimoto, Dr., 358.
Hatamoto, 224, 261, 322, 323, 324, 326.
Hayashi, Dai Gaku no Kami, 375.
Hei. 23, 449 See Taira
Taira..
Heik Monogatari, 135.
Heishi. 144, 422 See Taira
Taira..
Helmets, 252, 289, 384.
Hmi village, 321.
Hemp, 37, 95, 147, 259.
Hepburn, Dr. J. C., 184.
Heron, 11, 94.
Hidnobu, 307.
Hidtada, 295, 300, 316, 317, 329, 329, 330,
335.
Hidyasu, 316.
Hidyori, 280, 288, 293, 293, 294, 295, 307,
328.
Hidyoshi, 261, 264266, 271273, 275, 276,
277, 279, 281, 288, 293, 307, 307, 308, 313,
400, 418.
Higashi Kuz, 371.
Higo, 4, 30, 75, 317, 319, 322, 336, 384, 422.
Hikon, 266, 312, 357, 363.
Hildreth, 283, 301, 314, 402.
Him, 42, 59, 69, 78, 124, 194.
Hinin, 325, 326, 418.
Higo, 133, 148, 179, 215, 216, 326, 357, 365,
365, 371.
Hirado, 292, 295, 300.
Hiragana, 186, 195.
Hirata, 351.
Hirozawa, 365.
History, materials of, 25.
Hiuga, 43, 50, 54, 75, 318, 321, 390.
Hiyizan, 149, 267, 269.

Index
Hizen clan, 377.
Ho man, Dr. J. J., 55, 475.
Hj family, 144, 168, 169.
Hj of Odawara, 248, 273.
Hokk, classic, 330.
Hokusai, 116, 256.
Hmi, 330.
Hondo, 2, 5, 8, 11, 15, 16, 17, 67, 69, 87, 90,
113, 129, 141, 247, 288, 319, 322.
Hnen, 164, 194, 197.
Honguanji, 197, 269.
Honnji, 266.
Honor, code of, 176, 249.
Hosokawa family, 319.
Hosokawa Yoriyuki, 220.
Hotels, 327.
Hot springs, 6, 407.
I, pronounced as i in machine
machine;; before a
nal liquid, as i in tin
tin.. For names in
Dutch books, see under Y or E.
Ibukiyama, 72, 236, 266.
Ice, 12.
Idzu, 67, 134, 143, 144, 168, 169, 175, 189,
425.
Ii, Kamon no Kami, 422.
Ikda, 264.
Ikgami, 183.
Ik Island, 279.
Ikk. See Shin sect.
Imperial College of Tki, 130, 355, 359,
412, 422, 467.
In-chiun, 397, 398.
Inamura Saki, 175.
India, 22, 24, 62, 106, 107, 120, 124, 182,
188, 282, 285, 289, 347, 358, 410.
Indians of North America, 21, 24, 69.
Inns. See Hotels.
Inland Sea, 51, 52, 78, 86, 131, 133, 155, 300.
Inouye Kaoru, 425, 442, 444.
Inquisition, 284, 290, 302, 452.
Interpreters, 243, 302, 374.
Iron, 7, 37, 46, 98, 141, 147, 153, 201, 202,
229, 251, 252, 258, 275, 278, 294, 342,
384, 392, 410, 450.
Irrigation, 4, 61, 230.

485

Is (shrines), 42, 58, 68, 72, 73, 101, 05, 202,

203, 239, 243, 265.
Ishi Bashi Yama, 145.
Ishida, 293, 308, 310.
Ito Hirobumi, 380, 425, 426.
Iwakura Tomomi, 380, 405.
Iymitsu, 295, 317, 330, 331, 336, 342.
Iymochi, Prince of Kii, 315, 335.
Iysada, 317, 357, 358.
Iyyasu, 379, 443, 467469, 472.
Iyyoshi, 150, 317, 335, 35.
Izanagi, 34, 35, 40, 42, 43, 50.
Izanami, 34, 35, 40, 42, 43, 50.
J, derived from chi or shi by nigori
nigori,, or in
combination. See, also, under Y, E, or Z .
Jean Baptiste, 302.
Jenghiz Khan. See Genghis Khan
Khan..
Jesuits, 187, 248, 264, 269, 272, 272, 274,
276, 278, 286, 288, 291295.
Jewels, 37, 38, 46, 47, 98.
Ji. See Shi
Shi..
Jimmu, 27, 44, 49, 50, 5255, 57, 91, 98, 117,
118, 124, 135, 475, 476.
Jimpu, 383.
Jin Gi Kuan, 111.
Jingu, 57, 78, 79, 8087, 124, 130, 134, 135,
238.
Jit, 136, 159.
Jipangu, 283.
Jdo sect, 336.
J-i, 369370.
Journalism, 385
Junshi, 96
Jurisprudence 430. See Laws
Laws..
Justice, department of,. See Laws
Laws..
K becomes g by nigori
nigori,, or in combination.
Ka. See, also, Kua
Kadoko, 206.
Kadzusa 31, 319.
Kaempfer, 52, 342.
Kaga, 317, 318, 353. See Mada
Mada..
Kago, 316.
Kagoshima, 286, 318, 328, 341, 353, 361, 370,
387, 388, 389, 390.

486

the mikados empire

Kai, 67, 74, 146, 190, 413.

Kai Taku Shi 396.
Kamakura, 147, 148, 149, 156, 159, 161, 165,
166, 172, 173, 175, 176, 189, 190, 200, 203,
206, 208, 210, 213, 220, 248, 277, 306.
Kamatari, 118.
Kami, 22, 23, 31, 33, 36, 42, 47, 50, 80, 92,
95, 316, 422. See Shint
Shint..
Kamo River, 275.
Kanda, 211.
Kanda Mi Jin, 213.
Kanazawa, in Sagami, 170.
Kannushi, 115, 264.
Karafto. See Saghalin
Saghalin..
Kars, 362.
Kashiwabara, 53, 55, 120.
Katagana, 299.
Kat Kiyomasa, 187.
Katsu Awa, 354.
Katsuiy. See Shibata
Shibata..
Kiki, 317, 318, 357, 363, 365368, 407.
Krai, 249.
Kido Takayoshi, 380
Kii family, 318.
Kii promontory, 5152.
Kim Ok Kiun, 455.
Kings, 134, 224,.290
Kito, 46, 59, 116, 120, 121, 222, 131, 133,
139, 140, 142, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 156,
157, 160, 165, 172, 176, 186, 190, 194, 195,
197, 208, 212, 215, 216, 219, 229, 232, 233,
235, 238, 246, 247, 261, 263, 265, 266,
273, 275, 276, 277, 287, 300, 306, 309,
320, 321, 327, 329, 343, 350, 351, 354, 355,
356, 357, 358, 360, 361, 364, 386, 388,
422, 438.
Kiri Furi Fall, 329.
Kirishima, 43, 50.
Kirishitan, zaka, dani, gumi, 312.
Kishiu. See Kii
Kii..
Kisokaid,See Nakasend
Nakasend..
Kisses, 238.
Kita Mandocoro, 276. See Azai
Azai..
Kites, 163, 253.
Kiushiu, 200, 204, 273, 276, 278, 284, 287,
290, 294, 295, 296, 322, 384, 386, 389,
391, 392., 399

Kiyomidzu, 277.
Kiyomori, 131, 133, 140, 151.
Kb Daishi, 190, 310.
Kdzuk, 5, 67, 71, 74, 128, 174, 205, 309.
Kgen, 135, 209, 213, 218, 477.
Kojiki, 26, 27, 44, 50, 55, 351.
Kojima Takanori, 173.
Kokatana, 254, 255.
Koku, 54, 210, 318, 319.
Kokura clan, 361.
Kokushiu daimis, 334
Komatsu, 217, 365.
Kmei Tenn, 43, 332, 343, 381.
Kominato, 186.
Konishi, 278, 279, 293, 310.
Koshi no kuni, 31.
Kuambaku, 118, 120, 276,
Kuammu, 118, 128, 136, 169, 267.
Kuangun, 208, 367
Kuanri, 220.
Kuant, 69
69,, 145,
145, 164, 212, 261, 273, 277, 295,
296, 327.
Kublai Khan, 199, 283.
Kub sama, 219, 223.
Kug, 90, 117, 118, 119, 133, 241, 242, 248,
249, 258, 276, 320, 326, 361, 362, 371, 376,
378, 407, 419. See
Court noble.
Kugi, 168.
Kumagay. See Naozan
Naozan..
Kumamoto, 319, 336, 384, 389,
Kuno Zan, 329.
Kuriles, 1, 3, 4, 8, 18, 20, 262.282, 396,
Kuro Shiwo, 12, 14, 52, 349.
Kuroda family, 319.
Kusanagi sword, 68.
Kusanojiro, 201
Kusunoki Masashig, 173, 205, 214,
215, 216, 217.
Kusunoki Masatsura, 217.
Kuwana, 363, 367.
L. There is no letter l in Japanese. The name
Liu Kiu is Chinese; Japanese, Riu Kiu.
The Kurile, or Kuril, Islands derive their
name from the Russian Kuril, to smoke,

Index
from the active volcanoes on them.
Saghalin is Russian. See under R .
Laborers, 147, 326, 346. See Coolies
Coolies..
Lacquer, no, 105, 179, 232, 255, 259, 335.
Lake Biwa, See Biwa.
Land, 5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 30,
33, 35, 36, 41, 42, 43, 46, 53, 63, 69, 70,
74, 79, 81, 86, 89, 92, 95, 98, 100, 115,
116, 121, 134, 145, 164, 181, 188, 200, 201,
202, 203, 209, 212, 215, 216, 217, 221, 247,
248, 257, 261, 265, 268, 276, 277, 280,
281, 283, 290, 296, 308, 315, 316, 320,
323, 326, 344, 346, 350, 385, 399, 410,
411, 420, 433, 434, 442, 447, 461, 468,
470, 471.
Landscape. See Scenery
Scenery..
Language, Ain, 17, 21.
Lanterns, stone, or bronze, 332334.
Laws, 84, 89, 96, 169, 226, 233, 293, 327,
329, 344, 353, 362, 374, 385, 425, 426, 469.
Lecky, Mr., 298.
Legacy of Iyyasu, 341, 467, 469.
Letters, 78, 84, 85, 89, 95, 96, 115, 128, 144,
145, 162, 192, 200, 243, 291, 299, 300,
343, 355, 363, 411, 413, 426, 427, 431.
Li Hung Chang, 450, 459, 463.
Lilies, 147.
Lists of shguns, 177178, 223, 317.
Literature, 6, 17, 21, 26, 27, 28, 35, 50, 64,
84, 85, 96, 98, 120, 128, 162, 170, 178,
181, 226, 232, 233, 235, 239, 241, 242, 243,
259, 271, 278, 289, 336, 347, 348, 351, 353,
358, 371, 375, 402, 412, 422, 431, 434,
438, 440, 444, 447, 467, 474, 475.
Liu Kiu, 3, 6, 14, 134, 210, 277, 284, 318,
321, 399.
Longevity, 57.
Lost Tribes of Israel, 24.
Lotus, 229.
Love, 34, 82, 102, 140, 143, 144, 192, 227,
229, 238, 240, 274, 275, 343, 344.
Luzon, 14, 282.
Lyman, Prof. B. S., 4, 14.
Mabuchi, 351.
Mada family, 276, 318.

487

Magatama, jewels, 46.

Main island. See Hondo
Hondo..
Malays, 13.
Manchuria, 35, 182, 457, 461, 464.
Mandokoro, 157.
Manners, 19, 112, 135, 220, 222, 225, 232, 237,
240, 306. 343, 374, 375.
Manyshiu, 351.
Maps, 248, 278, 326, 331, 382, 434.
Marco Polo, 199, 283, 286.
Marine. See Naval
Naval..
Marriage, 27, 97, 98, 127, 131, 143, 166, 194,
227, 255, 276, 322, 405, 470.
Martyrs, 5, 187, 375.
Masago, 143, 144, 166, 167, 170.
Masakado, 212, 213.
Matsudaira, 314, 316, 319, 421, 422.
Matsudaira, Echizen no kami, 314, 316.
Matsuma, 350, 369.
Maxims. See Proverbs
Proverbs..
Mayda. See Mada
Mada..
Medicine, 84, 230, 278, 299, 436, 438.
Mendez Pinto. See Pinto
Pinto..
Merchants, 147, 291, 324, 325, 326, 436, 463.
Mercury, 7, 228, 236.
Metals, 7, 95, 299, 336.
Metempsychosis, 181, 185.
Mexico, 4, 53, 350, 382, 445, 464.
Miako. See Kito
Kito..
Mica, 236.
Michiari, 201.
Michizan, 127, 128, 447.
Miidra, 149, 229.
Mikado, 25, 372, 405, 408, 425; see
Mutsuhito..
Mutsuhito
Mikuni, 199.
Military classes, 110, 125, 132, 165, 238, 254.
Military families. See Clans, Taira,
Taira,
and Minamoto
Minamoto..
Military government. See Bakufu,
Minamoto.
Military system, 63.
Mimidzuka, 281.
Minamoto family, 7, 118, 129, 131, 139, 140,
141, 143, 145, 146, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155,
166, 168, 265.
Minatogawa, 215.

488

the mikados empire

Mineral wealth, 7.
Mines, 37, 46, 61, 141, 294, 328, 444, 450.
Mino, 5, 9, 72, 74, 265, 273, 306, 307, 309,
357.
Minobu mountain, 190.
Mint, 437.
Mirror, 29, 37, 38, 39, 42, 43, 45, 46, 53,
58, 59, 102, 105, 139, 144, 217, 316, 329,
426, 467.
Missionaries, Buddhist, 85, 183,
Missionaries, Christian. 283304
Mitford, Mr. A. B., quoted, 332.
Mito family, 318.
Mito, Prince of, 318, 352, 357, 358.
Miya, 59, 101, 172, 175, 330, 336, 366, 389,
406.
Moats, 249, 326.
Monasteries, 29, 92, 122, 124, 125, 133, 149,
157, 179, 194, 196, 197, 198, 202, 220, 227,
229, 230, 231, 232, 266, 267, 270, 290,
291, 343, 352.
Money, 42, 112, 113, 193, 221, 229, 235, 278,
321, 324, 327, 384, 412.
Mongols, 163, 200, 201, 204.
Monkeys, 10, 271272.
Monks, 30, 124, 125, 149, 198, 228, 230,
267, 290.
Monogatari, 28, 135, 240, 243.
Monto. 194, 198, 267, 269 See Shin sect.
Monuments, 44, 60, 179, 192, 228, 231, 260,
281. See Tombs, Memorial Stones.
Moon-goddess, 40, 41.
Morality, 182, 468.
Mori Arinori, 107, 348, 380, 381, 426, 430.
Mri family, 37, 40, 41, 71, 85, 95
Moriyoshi, 172, 207, 208, 213.
Mountains, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 16, 17, 23,
40, 62, 69, 71, 81, 88, 93, 94, 95, 120,
122, 130, 144, 145, 146, 155, 175, 221, 239,
241, 253, 277, 329, 332, 433.
Motori, 106, 351, 447.
Moxa, 236, 237.
Mulberry, 37, 40, 41, 71, 85, 95.
Munmori, 148, 153, 156.
Munroe, Prof. Henry S., 14.
Musashi, 67, 70, 71, 74, 146, 205, 212, 309,
333.

Music, 38, 46, 98, 229, 237, 332.

Mustaches, 20, 97, 250.
Mutsu, 67, 141, 142, 159, 317, 319, 465.
Mutsuhito, 25, 137, 372, 405, 408, 425.
Mythology, 33, 42, 45, 49, 98, 101, 102, 417,
418.
Nagar Kanj, 191, 192, 193.
Nagasaki, 31, 52, 155, 195, 243, 275, 292,
293, 295, 297, 298, 350, 355, 382, 395, 402,
406, 436.
Nagato. 2, 31, 74, 79, 82, 86, 286, 319, 322,
364 See Chshiu
Chshiu..
Nai Dai Jin, 112, 224, 313.
Naiguai, 65.
Nakamura (village), 271, 375.
Nakasend, 309, 310.
Nakatomi, 44, 105, 111, 118.
Naniwa, 52, 458.
Nantaizan, 2, 329.
Naozan, 163, 164.
Nara, 83, 120, 137, 228, 239.
Needles, 222, 235, 280.
Nepotism, 119, 132, 167, 443.
Ng; for this combination, see under G.
Nichiren, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 197,
268.
Nichiren sect, 187, 188.
Nichiz, 190.
Nigori, the impure or soft sound of a
consonant, expressed in Japanese by
two dots or a circle. Chi or shi by nigori
become ji; ho, bo, po; tsu, dzu; su, zu; ku,
gu; fo, bo; etc., etc.
Nigrito, 89, 90.
Nihon Bridge, 309.
Nihon Guai Shi, 28, 30, 65, 148, 150, 178,
267, 349.
Nihongi, 27, 30, 34, 44, 54, 57, 85, 87, 88,
96, 196, 351.
Nikk, 22, 329, 330, 331, 332, 346, 382.
Ningpo, 221, 400.
Ninigi, 42, 44, 45, 50, 105.
Niphon. 2, 5, 8, 11, 16, 17, 67, 69, 87, 90, 113,
129, 141, 247, 288, 319, 322 See Hondo
Hondo..
Nippon, 88, 100, 201, 222, 339, 341, 373, 380,
386, 387, 443, 445, 447, 449, 459, 464.

Index
Nirvana, 182, 186, 229, 231.
Nitta Yoshisada, 174, 175, 214, 314.
No, Japanese particle of, sometimes
omitted, sometimes expressed. E.g.,
Fuii yama or Fuji no yama.
Nobles, orders of, 112.
Nobunaga, 224, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267,
269, 270, 271, 273, 274, 275, 276, 279,
287, 293, 307, 308, 313, 314, 418.
Northern dynasty, 218, 475.
Nuns, 198, 227, 228, 290.
O, pronounced as o in bone
bone..
denotes prolonged o.
, pre x, meaning great, large, imperial.
(king), 17.
O, honorary pre x, to be neglected
in analyzing a word.
Kura Sh, 111.
Oak, 8, 259.
Oath, 81, 82, 144, 169, 372, 391, 392, 394,
418, 423, 425, 441.
Obiko, 63.
Ocean, 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 86, 121, 155,
175, 188, 341, 349.
Odawara, 248, 273, 307, 327, 336.
Ocials, 331.
Ofumi, 195.
gaki, 309, 310.
Oho. See .
jin, Tenn, 92.
Okasaki, 307.
Oki Island, 74.
Okinawa, 3, 6, 14, 134, 210, 277, 284, 318,
321, 399 See Liu Kiu, kubo, Governor
of Sado,
kubo Ichiz, 368, 377.
kubo Toshimiti, 380.
Omens, 131, 465.
mura, 275, 287, 291.
Oo, sound of oo in boot
boot.. See under U.
Origin of Ain, 15.
sei era, 99, 351.
shima, 14, 134, 175, 458.
Ota, 130, 248, 263, 264, 266, 279, 307, See
Nobunaga..
Nobunaga
Ota Dkuan, 306.

489

Otani, 277.
Otokodate, 325.
Owari family, 318.
Owo. See .
yama, 175, 461.
ye no Hiromoto, 158, 162
zaka, 5, 52, 67, 85, 99, 120, 121, 195, 267,
269, 275, 281, 295, 296, 298, 300, 308, 312,
322, 327, 328, 356,
365, 367, 372, 389, 406, 428.
P is the second modication of h or f, and
the rst of b. Probably no pure Japanese
word begins with p except onomatopes,
or childrens words. Double p (pp) in a
compound word is the strengthening of
a vowel and an aspiraye into two explosives, a sign of careless speaking, and
lack of cultivation. The repetition of the
vowel and aspirate is the mark of good
lingual breeding. Nihon and Yohodo of
the Japanese gentleman are far more
elegant than Nippon and Yoppodo of the
common people. One can tell a person
of cultivation by this one sound.
Pag, Lon, 283, 291.
Pagodas, 92, 122, 179, 190, 227, 233, 275.
Palace, 16, 27, 37, 40, 46, 51, 53, 58, 59, 60, 64,
65, 71, 103, 109, 111, 122, 129, 130, 132, 133,
140, 150, 151, 161, 164, 171, 176, 189, 196,
197, 212, 219, 223, 225, 227, 233, 236, 237,
239, 241, 257, 265, 275, 286, 305, 308, 357,
362, 363, 366, 393, 398, 423, 445, 453, 457.
Palm-trees, 92.
Pappenberg (island), 275.
Parental authority, 166, 450.
Pariahs. 325, 460 See Eta
Eta..
Parkes, Sir Harry, quoted, 406.
Parliament, 393, 394, 408, 409, 421, 423,
424, 441.
Paulownia imperialis, 65.
Peasantry, 131, 221, 294, 379, 385, 387, 389.
Peking, 107, 210, 278, 283, 347, 354, 400,
450, 454, 455, 456, 459, 462.
Perfumes, 239.
Perry, Commodore, 69, 86, 113, 114, 340,
356, 358, 436.

490

the mikados empire

Peru, 350.
Phallic symbols, 22.
Philip II. of Spain, 287.
Philippine Islands, 287.
Picnics, 287.
Pigeon, 143, 380.
Pilgrims, 187, 295, 436.
Pillory, 212, 215.
Pinto, 284, 285.
Pipes, 21.
Pirates, 131, 221, 277, 282, 292, 464.
Poetry, 35, 42, 45, 52, 70, 121, 168, 233, 238,
239, 240, 241, 243, 275, 306, 329.
Polygamy, 21, 90, 97, 117.
Portuguese, 272, 279, 280, 282, 283, 284,
285, 286, 287, 292, 309, 342.
Posthumous names and titles, 333.
Prayers, 80, 83, 96, 103, 104, 184, 187, 189,
201, 203, 204, 216, 229, 260, 261, 288.
Priests. See Bonzes, Shint.
Princes of the blood, 71, 118, 128, 171.
Processions, 156, 233, 289.
Prostitutes, 326.
Proverbs, 71, 116, 166, 273, 312, 388.
Provinces, names of, 7475.
Pseudo-mikado, 212.
Purgatory, 261, 290.
Q. See Kiu, Kua,
Kua, or Ka
Ka..
R in ri sounds like dr
dr..
Races in Japan, 8990.
Rai Sany, 65.
Rain-coat, 94, 306, 307.
Ranks, 105, 111, 132, 224, 227, 407.
Ranters, 187.
Rationalists, 30.
Reception at Washington, 380.
Regalia of the Japanese sovereigns,.
Relics, 13, 17, 22, 28, 47, 58, 274, 290, 298,
299, 318, 382.
Religion, 18, 22, 26, 45, 55, 77, 78, 84, 85,
86, 89, 91, 92, 93, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105,
106, 107, 111, 118, 120, 181, 183, 184, 185,
187, 191, 195, 196, 197, 221, 226, 227, 230,
232, 260, 264, 283, 285, 286, 288, 289,
290, 292, 293, 294, 295, 297, 299, 347,

350, 351, 375, 378, 379, 385, 403, 412, 414,

434, 440, 444, 452, 453.
Rennio, 195.
Revenge, 127, 153, 212, 255, 265, 386, 443.
Revenue, 111, 115, 133, 157, 158, 179, 249, 261,
276, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 323, 327, 328,
357, 377, 384, 401, 409, 422, 427, 446.
Rice, 4, 18, 36, 40, 41, 46, 47, 61, 79, 94, 95,
104, 112, 115, 116, 146, 147, 150, 161, 214,
234, 235, 237, 250, 253, 264, 271, 317, 323,
328, 346, 398.
Rin Shihei, 382.
Rinnji no miya, 330.
Ri, 112.
Riu Kiu. 382, 395, 396, 399, 400, 456, 462
See Liu Kiu.
Kiu.
Rivers of Japan, 45.
Roads, 71, 88, 95, 121, 199, 230, 309, 327,
367, 384, 411.
Robbers, 141, 157, 158, 221, 268, 285, 354.
Rnin, 256, 324.
Roofs, 19, 241, 242, 286, 445.
Rooms, 145, 233.
Russians, 382, 395.
S, always sibilant as s in sip
sip.. In combination, z . See under J and Z .
Sadamori, 169, 212.
Sado, 7, 74, 86, 171, 172, 178, 190, 294, 328.
Sagami, 22, 62, 67, 69, 74, 146, 170, 175,
301, 316.
Saghalin, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 14, 18, 350, 395, 396.
Saig Kichinosuke, 389.
Saig Takamori. See Saig Kichinosuke.
Saig Yorimichi, 237, 366.
Saiki, or Saiki. See Kito
Kito..
Sailors, native, 24, 52, 69, 282, 350, 437.
Sajima, 212.
Sak, 49, 162, 228, 238, 267.
Sakurada Gate, 359.
Salis, Captain John, 282.
Salt, 103, 108, 175, 237, 279.
Sama, title, 27, 219, 223, 272.
Samurai, 115, 116, 150, 251, 259, 299, 322,
323, 325, 345, 347, 365, 378, 383, 391, 418,
420, 471.
Santomo, 168.

Index
Sanjo Sanyoshi, 339, 343, 359.
Sank, 299, 314.
Sanskrit, 186.
Santan, 21.
Sapporo, 396, 411.
Satow, Mr. Ernest, 13, 27, 101, 348.
Satsuma, clan, 308, 310, 312, 318, 321,
352354, 366367, 376.
Savatiers, Enumeratio, 19.
Sawa Nobuyoshi, 362.
Scenery, 133, 145, 188, 232, 233, 275, 309,
329, 332.
Sculling, 39.
Seasons, 12, 51.
Sea-weed, 11, 19, 94.
Sects of Buddhism, 186.
Sei-i Tai Shgun, 160, 167, 209, 248, 261,
265, 313, 314, 315, 317, 318, 328, 330, 366,
387.
Skigahara, 254, 293, 305, 310, 324.
Semman. 168 See Santomo
Santomo..
Soul, 381, 396, 397, 398, 454, 455, 456,
457, 458.
Sppuku, 172, 205, 240, 258, 345.
Stouchi. 51, 52, 78, 86, 131, 133, 155, 300
See Inland Sea.
Sea.
Sttsu, 71.
Shaka. See Buddha
Buddha..
Shanghai, 31, 411, 455.
Shi, 134, 150, See under Ji
Ji..
Shiba, 272, 332, 346.
Shibata Katsuiy, 264, 276.
Shidzuoka, 317, 356.
Shikken, 189.
Shikoku, 15, 99, 113.
Shimabara, 296.
Shimadzu family. See Satsuma Clan.
Clan.
Shimadzu Sabur, 365, 387, 389.
Shimonoski, 78, 155, 300, 341, 370.
Shimotsuk, 31, 67, 74, 212, 219, 314.
Shinano, 2, 74, 144, 309.
Shinn, 212.
Shinran, 194, 195, 197.
Shin sect, 187, 253, 379.
Shint, 84, 92, 101, 106, 118, 184, 350;
model of temple, 107.
Ships, 81, 219

491

Shiribeshi, 25.
Shd, 329.
Shgun, 27, 63, 113, 119, 129, 167, 168, 170,
223, 261, 265, 272, 276, 295, 313, 314, 315,
317, 322, 323, 331, 332, 340, 344, 357, 365,
368, 377, 379, 382, 471.
Shgunate, 115, 206, 209, 223, 224, 308, 318,
340, 344, 347, 350, 352, 357, 358, 364, 365,
378, 443, 478.
See Bakufu
Bakufu..
Shyen, 156.
Shyu, 225.
Si. See under Shi
Shi..
Siam, 120, 182, 282, 300.
Siberia, 26, 182.
Silk, 147, 231, 237, 252, 384.
Singing-girls, 91. See Gisha
Gisha..
Single combats, 237.
Sonn-Ji, 383. See J-i.
Sosanoo, 51, 52, 5561.
Sotelo, Louis, 382.
Spiritual emperor, 154.
Sponge-cake, 299.
Stone Age, 36.
Sjin, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 68, 89,
97, 123, 135.
Sumida River, 146.
Sump. See Shidzuoka
Shidzuoka..
Sun-goddess, 36, 37, 41
T in combination, d.
Tachibana him, 79.
Tadamori, 130, 131.
Tai-wen Kun, 397, 398, 399.
Taik, 272, 273, 276, 308, 316, 328, 379. See
Hidyoshi..
Hidyoshi
Taikun, 344.
Taira family, 118, 133, 156, 158.
Taka Island, 203.
Takeno Choy, 421.
Takda, 248.
Tama-gushi, 37.
Tamtomo, 133, 134.
Tangashima, 284.
Taromai, 284.
Tartars, 163, 199, 200, 201, 347.
Tartary, 2.

492

the mikados empire

Tatsu no kuchi, 200.

Tattooing, 20.
Tea, 346.
Temujin, 162, 163.
Ten Sh Dai Jin. See Amatrasu
Amatrasu..
Tenn, 26, 27, 44, 49, 55, 57, 86, 87, 89, 123,
199, 217, 267, 354, 476.
Th ibet.
Th ree jewels. See Regalia
Regalia..
Titsingh, 236.
Tki; another pronunciation of
Tki, which see.
Tokimun, 169, 179, 190. 200, 203.
Tokiyori, 169, 171, 189.
Tokonoma, 19, 251.
Tong Hak, 452454.
Torii, 92, 104105, 289.
Toronosqui. See Kat Kiyomasa.
Kiyomasa.
Toyotomi, 256. See Hidyoshi
Hidyoshi..
Tozama, 318, 319.
Two-sworded men, 369. See Samurai
Samurai..
Tycoon, 369 See Shgun, Tai-kun.
U, pronounced as u in rule
rule,, or 00 in
boot..
boot
University. See Imperial College
College..
Uraga, 69, 421.
Usurpation, 168, 349 See Bakufu
Bakufu..
Uyno, 317, 331, 332, 346, 368, 383, 391,
407, 410.
V. There is no v in Japanese. See
under W.
Vasco da Gama, 283.

Venice of Japan, 275; See zaka

zaka..
Wakamatsu, 369, 373
Wani, 85. 196.
Watanabe Kuazan, 395.
Wei-Hai-Wei, 461.
Wo. See under O or .
Woo. See under U.
X. For words beginning with x in
Portuguese books, or those copied
therefrom, see under Shi
Shi..
Xavier, 285, 286, 287, 288, 290, 318.
Y. See also under E.
Yamagata, 381.
Yamato, 8, 54, 60, 63, 73, 74, 86, 87, 120,
178, 361.
Yamato-Dak no mikoto, 33, 36, 42, 44.
Yamato damashi, 373, 390.
Yedo, 134, 288, 300, 301, 305, 323, 325, 330,
350, 355, 356, 360, 373 See Tki
Tki..
Yezo, 2, 4. 6, 7, 13, 16, 18, 19, 23, 51, 162, 382,
395, 396, 411.
Yoriiy, 167, 168.
Yoritomo, 130, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147,
149, 159, 162, 234, 265, 277, 318, 379, 471.
Yoshitsun, 18, 22, 139, 141, 148, 152, 153,
160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 234.
Z. See under J or S.
Zinc, 7.
Zzji, 229, 331, 333, 336.