represented a majority of the ancient nobility, claiming divine
descent. Ninety-five out of the total one hundred and fifty-five
families of Kuge belonged to it,--including the five families,
Go-Sekke, from which alone the Emperor was by tradition allowed to
choose his Empress. Its historic name dates only from the reign of
the Emperor [262] Kwammu (782-806 A.D.), who bestowed it as an honour
upon Nakatomi no Kamatari; but the clan had long previously held the
highest positions at Court. By the close of the seventh century most
of the executive power had passed into its hands. Later the office of
Kwambaku, or Regent, was established, and remained hereditary in the
house down to modern times--ages after all real power had been taken
from the descendants of Nakatomi no Kamatari. But during almost five
centuries the Fujiwara remained the veritable regents of the country,
and took every possible advantage of their position. All the civil
offices were in the hands of Fujiwara men; all the wives and
favourites of the Emperors were Fujiwara women. The whole power of
government was thus kept in the hands of the clan; and the political
authority of the Emperor ceased to exist. Moreover the succession was
regulated entirely by the Fujiwara; and even the duration of each
reign was made to depend upon their policy. It was deemed advisable
to compel Emperors to abdicate at an early age, and after abdicating
to become Buddhist monks,--the successor chosen being often a mere
child. There is record of an Emperor ascending the throne at the age
of two, and abdicating at the age of four; another Mikado was
appointed at the age of five; several at the age of ten. Yet the
religious dignity of the throne remained undiminished, or, rather,
continued [263] to grow. The more the Mikado was withdrawn from
public view by policy and by ceremonial, the more did his seclusion
and inaccessibility serve to deepen the awe of the divine legend.
Like the Lama of Thibet the living deity was made invisible to the
multitude; and gradually the belief arose that to look upon his face
was death.... It is said that the Fujiwara were not satisfied even
with these despotic means of assuring their own domination, and that
luxurious forms of corruption were maintained within the palace for
the purpose of weakening the character of young emperors who might
otherwise have found the energy to assert the ancient rights of the
throne.
Perhaps this usurpation--which prepared the way for the rise of the
military power--has never been rightly interpreted. The history of
all the patriarchal societies of ancient Europe will be found to
illustrate the same phase of social evolution. At a certain period in
the development of each we find the same thing happening,--the
withdrawal of all political authority from the Priest-King, who is
suffered, nevertheless, to retain the religious dignity. It may be a
mistake to judge the policy of the Fujiwara as a policy of mere
ambition and usurpation. The Fujiwara were a religious aristocracy,
claiming divine origin,--clan-chiefs of a society in which religion
and government were identical, and holding to that society much the
same relation as that of the [264] Eupatridae to the ancient Attic
society. The Mikado had originally become supreme magistrate,
military commander, and religious head by consent of a majority of
the clan-chiefs,--each of whom represented to his own following what
the "Heavenly Sovereign" represented to the social aggregate. But as
the power of the ruler extended with the growth of the nation, those
who had formerly united to maintain that power began to find it
dangerous. They decided to deprive the Heavenly Sovereign of all
political and legal authority, without disturbing in any way his
religious supremacy. At Athens, at Sparta, at Rome, and elsewhere in
ancient Europe, the same policy was carried out, for the same
reasons, by religious senates. The history of the early kings of
Rome, as interpreted by M. de Coulanges, best illustrates the nature
of the antagonism developed between the priest-ruler and the
religious aristocracy; but the same thing took place in all the Greek
communities, with about the same result. Everywhere political power
was taken away from the early kings; but they were mostly left in
possession of their religious dignities and privileges: they remained
supreme priests after having ceased to be rulers. This was the case
also in Japan; and I imagine that future Japanese historians will be
able to give us an entirely new interpretation of the Fujiwara
episode, as reviewed in the light of modern sociology. At all events,
there can be little doubt [265] that, in curtailing the powers of the
Heavenly Sovereign, the religious aristocracy must have been actuated
by conservative precaution as well as by ambition. There had been
various Emperors who made changes in the laws and customs--changes
which could scarcely have been viewed with favour by many of the
ancient nobility; there had been an Emperor whose diversions can
to-day be written of only in Latin; there had even been an
Emperor--Kotoku--who, though "God Incarnate," and chief of the
ancient faith, "despised the Way of the Gods," and cut down the holy
grove of the shrine of Iku-kuni-dama. Kotoku, for all his Buddhist
piety (perhaps, indeed, because of it), was one of the wisest and
best of rulers; but the example of a heavenly sovereign "despising
the Way of the Gods," must have given the priestly clan matter for
serious reflection.... Besides, there is another important fact to be
noticed. The Imperial household proper had become, in the course of
centuries, entirely detached from the Uji; and the omnipotence of
this unit, independent of all other units, constituted in itself a
grave danger to aristocratic privileges and established institutions.
Too much might depend upon the personal character and will of an
omnipotent God-King, capable of breaking with all clan-custom, and of
abrogating clan-privileges. On the other hand, there was safety for
all alike under the patriarchal rule of the clan, which [266] could
cheek every tendency on the part of any of its members to exert
predominant influence at the expense of the rest. But for obvious
reasons the Imperial cult--traditional source of all authority and
privilege--could not be touched: it was only by maintaining and
reinforcing it that the religious nobility could expect to keep the
real power in their hands. They actually kept it for nearly five
centuries.
The history of all the Japanese regencies, however, amply illustrates
the general rule that inherited authority is ever and everywhere
liable to find itself supplanted by deputed authority. The Fujiwara
appear to have eventually become the victims of that luxury which
they had themselves, for reasons of policy, introduced and
maintained. Degenerating into a mere court-nobility, they made little
effort to exert any direct authority in other than civil directions,
entrusting military matters almost wholly to the Buke. In the eighth
century the distinction between military and civil organization had
been made upon the Chinese plan; the great military class then came
into existence, and began to extend its power rapidly. Of the
military clans proper, the most powerful were the Minamoto and the
Taira. By deputing to these clans the conduct of all important
matters relating to war, the Fujiwara eventually lost their high
position and influence. As soon [267] as the Buke found themselves
strong enough to lay hands upon the reins of government,--which
happened about the middle of the eleventh century,--the Fujiwara
supremacy became a thing of the past, although members of the clan
continued for centuries to occupy positions of importance under
various regents.
But the Buke could not realize their ambition without a bitter
struggle among themselves,--the longest and the fiercest war in
Japanese history. The Minamoto and the Taira were both Kuge; both
claimed imperial descent. In the early part of the contest the Taira
carried all before them; and it seemed that no power could hinder
them from exterminating the rival clan. But fortune turned at last in
favour of the Minamoto; and at the famous sea-fight of Dan-no-ura, in
1185, the Taira were themselves exterminated.
Then began the reign of the Minamoto regents, or rather shogun. I
have elsewhere said that the title "shogun" originally signified, as
did the Roman military term Imperator, only a commander-in-chief: it
now became the title of the supreme ruler de facto, in his double
capacity of civil and military sovereign,--the King of kings. From
the accession of the Minamoto to power the history of the
shogunate--the long history of the military supremacy--really begins;
Japan thereafter, down to the present era of Meiji, having really two
Emperors: [268] the Heavenly Sovereign, or Deity Incarnate,
representing the religion of the race; and the veritable Imperator,
who wielded all the powers of the administration. No one sought to
occupy by force the throne of the Sun's Succession, whence all
authority was at least supposed to be derived. Regent or shogun bowed
down before it: divinity could not be usurped.
Yet peace did not follow upon the battle of Dan-no-ura: the clan-wars
initiated by the great struggle of the Minamoto and the Taira,
continued, at irregular intervals, for five centuries more; and the
nation remained disintegrated. Nor did the Minamoto long keep the
supremacy which they had so dearly won. Deputing their powers to the
Hojo family, they were supplanted by the Hojo, just as the Fujiwara
had been supplanted by the Taira. Three only of the Minamoto shogun
really exercised rule. During the whole of the thirteenth century,
and for some time afterwards, the Hojo continued to govern the
country; and it is noteworthy that these regents never assumed the
title of shogun, but professed to be merely shogunal deputies. Thus a
triple-headed government appeared to exist; for the Minamoto kept up
a kind of court at Kamakura. But they faded into mere shadows, and
are yet remembered by the significant appellation of "Shadow-Shogun,"
or "Puppet Shogun." There was nothing shadowy, however, about the
administration of the Hojo, [269]--men of immense energy and
ability. By them Emperor or shogun could be deposed and banished
without scruple; and the helplessness of the shogunate can be
inferred from the fact, that the seventh Hojo regent, before deposing
the seventh shogun, sent him home in a palanquin, head downwards and
heels upwards. Nevertheless the Hojo suffered the phantom-shogunate
to linger on, until 1333. Though unscrupulous in their methods, these
regents were capable rulers; and proved themselves able to save the
country in a great emergency,--the famous invasion attempted by
Kublai Khan in 1281. Aided by a fortunate typhoon, which is said to
have destroyed the hostile fleet in answer to prayer offered up at
the national shrines, the Hojo could repel this invasion. They were
less successful in dealing with certain domestic
disorders,--especially those fomented by the turbulent Buddhist
priesthood. During the thirteenth century, Buddhism had developed
into a great military power,--strangely like that church-militant of
the European middle ages: the period of soldier-priests and
fighting-bishops. The Buddhist monasteries had been converted into
fortresses filled with men-at arms; Buddhist menace had more than
once carried terror into the sacred seclusion of the imperial court.
At an early day, Yoritomo, the far-seeing founder of the Minamoto
dynasty, had observed a militant tendency in Buddhism, and had
attempted to check [270] it by forbidding all priests and monks
either to bear arms, or to maintain armed retainers. But his
successors had been careless about enforcing these prohibitions; and
the Buddhist military power developed in consequence so rapidly that
the shrewdest Hojo were doubtful of their ability to cope with it.
Eventually this power proved capable of giving them serious trouble.
The ninety-sixth Mikado, Go-Daigo, found courage to revolt against
the tyranny of the Hojo; and the Buddhist soldiery took part with
him. He was promptly defeated, and banished to the islands of Oki;
but his cause was soon espoused by powerful lords, who had long
chafed under the despotism of the regency. These assembled their
forces, restored the banished Emperor, and combined in a desperate
attack upon the regent's capital, Kamakura. The city was stormed and
burned; and the last of the Hojo rulers, after a brave but vain
defence, performed harakiri. Thus shogunate and regency vanished
together, in 1333.
For the moment the whole power of administration had been restored to
the Mikado. Unfortunately for himself and for the country, Go-Daigo
was too feeble of character to avail himself of this great
opportunity. He revived the dead shogunate by appointing his own son
shogun; he weakly ignored the services of those whose loyalty and
courage had restored him; and he foolishly strengthened [271] the
hands of those whom he had every reason to fear. As a consequence
there happened the most serious political catastrophe in the history
of Japan, a division of the imperial house against itself.
The unscrupulous despotism of the Hojo regents had prepared the
possibility of such an event. During the last years of the thirteenth
century, there were living at the same time in Kyoto, besides the
reigning Mikado, no less than three deposed emperors. To bring about
a contest for the succession was, therefore, an easy matter; and this
was soon accomplished by the treacherous general Ashikaga Takeuji, to
whom Go-Daigo had unwisely shown especial favour. Ashikaga had
betrayed the Hojo in order to help the restoration of Go-Daigo: he
subsequently would have betrayed the trust of Go-Daigo, in order to
seize the administrative power. The Emperor discovered this
treasonable purpose when too late, and sent against Ashikaga an army
which was defeated. After some further contest Ashikaga mastered the
capital, drove Go-Daigo a second time into exile, set up a rival
Emperor, and established a new shogunate. Now for the first time, two
branches of the Imperial family, each supported by powerful lords,
contended for the right of succession. That of which Go-Daigo
remained the acting representative, is known in history as the
Southern Branch (Nancho), and by Japanese historians is held to be
the only legitimate branch. [272]
The other was called the Northern Branch (Hokucho), and was
maintained at Kyoto by the power of the Ashikaga clan; while
Go-Daigo, finding refuge in a Buddhist monastery, retained the
insignia of empire. Thereafter, for a period of fifty-six years Japan
continued to have two Mikado; and the resulting disorder was such as
to imperil the national integrity. It would have been no easy matter
for the people to decide which Emperor possessed the better claim.
Hitherto the imperial presence had represented the national divinity;
and the imperial palace had been regarded as the temple of the
national religion: the division maintained by the Ashikaga usurpers
therefore signified nothing less than the breaking up of the whole
tradition upon which existing society had been built. The confusion
became greater and greater, the danger increased more and more, until
the Ashikaga themselves took alarm. They managed then to end the
trouble by persuading the fifth Mikado of the Southern Dynasty, Go
Kameyama, to surrender his insignia to the reigning Mikado of the
Northern Dynasty, Go-Komatsu. This having been done, in 1392,
Go-Kameyama was honoured with the title of retired Emperor, and
Go-Komatsu was nationally acknowledged as legitimate Emperor. But the
names of the other four Emperors of the Northern Dynasty are still
excluded from the official list. The Ashikaga shogunate thus averted
the supreme [273] peril; but the period of this military domination,
which endured until 1573, was destined to remain the darkest in
Japanese history. The Ashikaga gave the country fifteen rulers,
several of whom were men of great ability: they tried to encourage
industry; they cultivated literature and the arts; but they could not
give peace. Fresh disputes arose; and lords whom the shogunate could
not subdue made war upon each other. To such a condition of terror
was the capital reduced that the court nobility fled from it to take
refuge with daimyo powerful enough to afford them protection. Robbery
became rife throughout the land; and piracy terrorized the seas. The
shogunate itself was reduced to the humiliation of paying tribute to
China. Agriculture and industry at last ceased to exist outside of
the domains of certain powerful lords. Provinces became waste; and
famine, earthquake, and pestilence added their horror to the misery
of ceaseless war. The poverty prevailing may be best imagined from
the fact that when the Emperor known to history as
Go-Tsuchi-mikado--one hundred and second of the Sun's Succession
--died in the year 1500, his corpse had to be kept at the gates of
the palace forty days, because the expenses of the funeral could not
be defrayed. Until 1573 the misery continued; and the shogunate
meanwhile degenerated into insignificance. Then a strong captain
arose and ended the house of Ashikaga, and seized the reins of power.
[274] This usurper was Oda Nobunaga; and the usurpation was amply
provoked. Had it not occurred, Japan might never have entered upon an
era of peace.
For there had been no peace since the fifth century. No emperor or
regent or shogun had ever been able to impose his rule firmly upon
the whole country. Somewhere or other, there were always wars of clan
with clan. By the time of the sixteenth century personal safety could
be found only under the protection of some military leader, able to
exact his own terms for the favour of such protection. The question
of the imperial succession,--which had almost wrecked the empire
during the fourteenth century,--might be raised again at any time by
some reckless faction, with the probable result of ruining
civilization, and forcing the nation back to its primitive state of
barbarism. Never did the future of Japan appear so dark as at the
moment when Oda Nobunaga suddenly found himself the strongest man in
the empire, and leader of the most formidable Japanese army that had
ever obeyed a single head. This man, a descendant of Shinto priests,
was above all things a patriot. He did not seek the title of shogun,
and never received it. His hope was to save the country; and he saw
that this could be done only by centralizing all feudal power under
one control, and strenuously enforcing law. Looking about him for the
ways and means of effecting [275] this centralization, he perceived
that one of the very first obstacles to be removed was that created
by the power of Buddhism militant,--the feudal Buddhism developed
under the Hojo regency, and especially represented by the great Shin
and Tendai sects. As both had already given aid to his enemies, it
was easy to find a cause for quarrel; and he first proceeded against
the Tendai. The campaign was conducted with ferocious vigour; the
monastery-fortresses of Hiyei-san were stormed and razed, and all the
priests, with all their adherents, put to the sword--no mercy being
shown even to women and children. By nature Nobunaga was not cruel;
but his policy was ruthless, and he knew when and why to strike hard.
The power of the Tendai sect before this massacre may be imagined
from the fact that three thousand monastery buildings were burnt at
Hiyei-san. The Shin sect of the Hongwanji, with headquarters at
Osaka, was scarcely less powerful; and its monastery, occupying the
site of the present Osaka castle, was one of the strongest fortresses
in the country. Nobunaga waited several years, merely to prepare for
the attack. The soldier-priests defended themselves well; upwards of
fifty thousand lives are said to have been lost in the siege; yet
only the personal intervention of the Emperor prevented the storming
of the stronghold, and the slaughter of every being within its walls.
Through respect for the Emperor, Nobunaga agreed [276] to spare the
lives of the Shin priests: they were only dispossessed and scattered,
and their power forever broken. Buddhism having been thus effectually
crippled, Nobunaga was able to turn his attention to the warring
clans. Supported by the greatest generals that the nation ever
produced,--Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu,--he proceeded to enforce
pacification and order; and his grand purpose would probably have
been soon accomplished, but for the revengeful treachery of a
subordinate, who brought about his death in 1583.
Nobunaga, with Taira blood in his veins, had been essentially an
aristocrat, inheriting all the aptitudes of his great race for
administration, and versed in all the traditions of diplomacy. His
avenger and successor, Hideyoshi, was a totally different type of
soldier: a son of peasants, an untrained genius who had won his way
to high command by shrewdness and courage, natural skill of arms, and
immense inborn capacity for all the chess-play of war. With the great
purpose of Nobunaga he had always been in sympathy; and he actually
carried it out,--subduing the entire country, from north to south, in
the name of the Emperor, by whom he was appointed Regent (Kwambaku).
Thus universal peace was temporarily established. But the vast
military powers which Hideyoshi had collected and disciplined,
threatened to become refractory. He found employment for them by
declaring unprovoked [277] war against Korea, whence he hoped to
effect the conquest of China. The war with Korea opened in 1592, and
dragged on unsatisfactorily until 1598, when Hideyoshi died. He had
proved himself one of the greatest soldiers ever born, but not one of
the best among rulers. Perhaps the issue of the war in Korea would
have been more fortunate, if he could have ventured to conduct it
himself. As a matter of fact, it merely exhausted the force of both
countries; and Japan had little to show for her dearly bought
victories abroad except the Mimidzuka or "Ear-Monument" at
Nara,--marking the spot where thirty thousand pairs of foreign ears,
cut from the pickled heads of slain, were buried in the grounds of
the temple of Daibutsu....
Into the vacant place of power then stepped the most remarkable man
that Japan ever produced,--Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Iyeyasu was of Minamoto
descent, and an aristocrat to the marrow of his bones. As a soldier
he was scarcely inferior to Hideyoshi, whom he once defeated,--but he
was much more than a soldier, a far-sighted statesman, an
incomparable diplomat, and something of a scholar. Cool, cautious,
secretive,--distrustful, yet generous,--stern, yet humane,--by the
range and the versatility of his genius he might be not unfavourably
contrasted with Julius Caesar. All that Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had
wished to do, and failed to [278] do, Iyeyasu speedily accomplished.
After fulfilling Hideyoshi's dying injunction, not to leave the
troops in Korea "to become ghosts haunting a foreign land,"--that is
to say, in the condition of spirits without a cult,--Iyeyasu had to
face a formidable league of lords resolved to dispute his claim to
rule. The terrific battle of Sekigahara left him master of the
country; and he at once took measures to consolidate his power, and
to perfect, even to the least detail, all the machinery of military
government. As shogun, he reorganized the daimiates, redistributed a
majority of fiefs; among those whom he could trust, created new
military grades, and ordered and so balanced the powers of the
greater daimyo as to make it next to impossible for them to dare a
revolt. Later on the daimyo were even required to furnish security
for their good behaviour: they were obliged to pass a certain time of
the year* in the shogun's capital, leaving their families as hostages
during the rest of the year. The entire administration was readjusted
upon a simple and sagacious plan; and the Laws of Iyeyasu prove him
to have been an excellent legislator. For the first time in Japanese
history the nation was integrated,--integrated, at least, in so far
as the peculiar nature of the social unit rendered possible. The
counsels [279] of the founder of Yedo were followed by his
successors; and the Tokugawa shogunate, which lasted until 1867, gave
the country fifteen military sovereigns. Under these, Japan enjoyed
both peace and prosperity for the time of two hundred and fifty
years; and her society was thus enabled to evolve to the full limit
of its peculiar type. Industries and arts developed in new and
wonderful ways; literature found august patronage. The national cult
was carefully maintained; and all precautions were taken to prevent
the occurrence of another such contest for the imperial succession as
had nearly ruined the country in the fourteenth century.
[*The period of obligatory residence in Yedo was not the same for all
daimyo. In some cases the obligation seems to have extended to six
months; in others, the requirement was to pass every alternate year
in the capital.]