Hokkaido 36,328.34 610,155 88 3 19 456

* This is not the population of the city proper, but that of the

urban prefecture.

_Local Administrative System._--In the system of local administration

full effect is given to the principle of popular representation. Each

prefecture (urban or rural), each sub-prefecture, each town and each

district (urban or rural) has its local assembly, the number of members

being fixed in proportion to the population. There is no superior limit

of number in the case of a prefectural assembly, but the inferior limit

is 30. For a town assembly, however, the superior limit is 60 and the

inferior 30; for a sub-prefectural assembly the corresponding figures

are 40 and 15, and for a district assembly, 30 and 8. These bodies are

all elective. The property qualification for the franchise in the case

of prefectural and sub-prefectural assemblies is an annual payment of

direct national taxes to the amount of 3 _yen;_ and in the case of town

and district assemblies, 2 _yen_; while to be eligible for election to a

prefectural assembly a yearly payment of 10 _yen_ of direct national

taxes is necessary; to a sub-prefectural assembly, 5 _yen_, and to a

town or district assembly, 2 _yen_. Under these qualifications the

electors aggregate 2,009,745, and those eligible for election total

919,507. In towns and districts franchise-holders are further divided

into classes with regard to their payment of local taxes. Thus for town

electors there are three classes, differentiated by the following

process: On the list of ratepayers the highest are checked off until

their aggregate payments are equal to one-third of the total taxes.

These persons form the first class. Next below them the persons whose

aggregate payments represent one-third of the total amount are checked

off to form the second class, and all the remainder form the third

class. Each class elects one-third of the members of assembly. In the

districts there are only two classes, namely, those whose payments, in

order from the highest, aggregate one-half of the total, the remaining

names on the list being placed in the second class. Each class elects

one-half of the members. This is called the system of _o-jinushi_ (large

landowners) and is found to work satisfactorily as a device for

conferring representative rights in proportion to property. The

franchise is withheld from all salaried local officials, from judicial

officials, from ministers of religion, from persons who, not being

barristers by profession, assist the people in affairs connected with

law courts or official bureaux, and from every individual or member of a

company that contracts for the execution of public works or the supply

of articles to a local administration, as well as from persons unable to

write their own names and the name of the candidate for whom they vote.

Members of assembly are not paid. For prefectural and sub-prefectural

assemblies the term is four years; for town and district assemblies, six

years, with the provision that one-half of the members must be elected

every third year. The prefectural assemblies hold one session of 30 days

yearly; the sub-prefectural assemblies, one session of not more than 14

days. The town and district assemblies have no fixed session; they are

summoned by the mayor or the head-man when their deliberations appear

necessary, and they continue in session till their business is

concluded.

The chief function of the assemblies is to deal with all questions of

local finance. They discuss and vote the yearly budgets; they pass the

settled accounts; they fix the local taxes within a maximum limit

which bears a certain ratio to the national taxes; they make

representations to the minister for home affairs; they deal with the

fixed property of the locality; they raise loans, and so on. It is

necessary, however, that they should obtain the consent of the

minister for home affairs, and sometimes of the minister of finance

also, before disturbing any objects of scientific, artistic or

historical importance; before contracting loans; before imposing

special taxes or passing the normal limits of taxation; before

enacting new local regulations or changing the old; before dealing

with grants in aid made by the central treasury, &c. The governor of a

prefecture, who is appointed by the central administration, is

invested with considerable power. He oversees the carrying out of all

works undertaken at the public expense; he causes bills to be drafted

for discussion by an assembly; he is responsible for the

administration of the funds and property of the prefecture; he orders

payments and receipts; he directs the machinery for collecting taxes

and fees; he summons a prefectural assembly, opens it and closes it,

and has competence to suspend its session should such a course seem

necessary. Many of the functions performed by the governor with regard

to prefectural assemblies are discharged by a head-man (_gun-chô_) in

the case of sub-prefectural assemblies. This head-man is a salaried

official appointed by the central administration. He convenes, opens

and closes the sub-prefectural assembly; he may require it to

reconsider any of its financial decisions that seem improper,

explaining his reasons for doing so, and should the assembly adhere to

its original view, he may refer the matter to the governor of the

prefecture. On the other hand, the assembly is competent to appeal to

the home minister from the governor's decision. The sub-prefectural

head-man may also take upon himself, in case of emergency, any of the

functions falling within the competence of the sub-prefectural

assembly, provided that he reports the fact to the assembly and seeks

its sanction at the earliest possible opportunity. In each district

also there is a head-man, but his post is always elective and

generally non-salaried. He occupies towards a district assembly the

same position that the sub-prefecture head-man holds towards a

sub-prefectural assembly. Over the governors stands the minister for

home affairs, who discharges general duties of superintendence and

sanction, has competence to delete any item of a local budget, and

may, with the emperor's consent, order the dissolution of a local

assembly, provided that steps are taken to elect and convene another

within three months.

The machinery of local administration is completed by councils, of

which the governor of a prefecture, the mayor[11] of a town, or the

head-man of a sub-prefecture or district, is _ex officio_ president,

and the councillors are partly elective, partly nominated by the

central government. The councils may be said to stand in an executive

position towards the local legislatures, namely, the assemblies, for

the former give effect to the measures voted by the latter, take their

place in case of emergency and consider questions submitted by them.

This system of local government has now been in operation since 1885,

and has been found to work well. It constitutes a thorough method of

political education for the people. In feudal days popular

representation had no existence, but a very effective chain of local

responsibility was manufactured by dividing the people--apart from the

samurai--into groups of five families, which were held jointly liable

for any offence committed by one of their members. Thus it cannot be

said that the people were altogether unprepared for this new system.

The Ancient System.

_The Army._--The Japanese--as distinguished from the aboriginal

inhabitants of Japan--having fought their way into the country, are

naturally described in their annals as a nation of soldiers. The

sovereign is said to have been the commander-in-chief and his captains

were known as _o-omi_ and _o-muraji_, while the duty of serving in the

ranks devolved on all subjects alike. This information is indeed

derived from tradition only, since the first written record goes back

no further than 712. We are justified, however, in believing that at the

close of the 7th century of the Christian era, when the empress Jito sat

upon the throne, the social system of the Tang dynasty of China

commended itself for adoption; the distinction of civil and military is

said to have been then established for the first time, though it

probably concerned officials only. Certain officers received definitely

military commissions, as generals, brigadiers, captains and so on; a

military office (_hyobu-sho_) was organized, and each important district

throughout the empire had its military division (_gundan_).

One-third--some say one-fourth--of the nation's able-bodied males

constituted the army. Tactically there was a complete organization, from

the squad of 5 men to the division of 600 horse and 400 foot. Service

was for a defined period, during which taxes were remitted, so that

military duties always found men ready to discharge them. Thus the

hereditary soldier--afterwards known as the _samurai_ or _bushi_--did

not yet exist, nor was there any such thing as an exclusive right to

carry arms. Weapons of war, the property of the state, were served out

when required for fighting or for training purposes.

At the close of the 8th century stubborn insurrections on the part of

the aborigines gave new importance to the soldier. The conscription list

had to be greatly increased, and it came to be a recognized principle

that every stalwart man should bear arms, every weakling become a

bread-winner. Thus, for the first time, the distinction between

"soldier" and "working man"[12] received official recognition, and in

consequence of the circumstances attending the distinction a measure of

contempt attached to the latter. The next stage of development had its

origin in the assumption of high offices of state by great families, who

encroached upon the imperial prerogatives, and appropriated as

hereditary perquisites posts which should have remained in the gift of

the sovereign. The Fujiwara clan, taking all the civil offices, resided

in the capital, whereas the military posts fell to the lot of the Taira

and the Minamoto, who, settling in the provinces and being thus required

to guard and police the outlying districts, found it expedient to

surround themselves with men who made soldiering a profession. These

latter, in their turn, transmitted their functions to their sons, so

that there grew up in the shadow of the great houses a number of

military families devoted to maintaining the power and promoting the

interests of their masters, from whom they derived their own privileges

and emoluments.

From the middle of the 10th century, therefore, the terms _samurai_ and

_bushi_ acquired a special significance, being applied to themselves and

their followers by the local magnates, whose power tended more and more

to eclipse even that of the throne, and finally, in the 12th century,

when the Minamoto brought the whole country under the sway of military

organization, the privilege of bearing arms was restricted to the

samurai. Thenceforth the military class entered upon a period of

administrative and social superiority which lasted, without serious

interruption, until the middle of the 19th century. But it is to be

observed that the distinction between soldier and civilian, samurai and

commoner, was not of ancient existence, nor did it arise from any

question of race or caste, victor or vanquished, as is often supposed

and stated. It was an outcome wholly of ambitious usurpations, which,

relying for success on force of arms, gave practical importance to the

soldier, and invested his profession with factitious honour.

Weapons.

The bow was always the chief weapon of the fighting-man in Japan.

"War" and "bow-and-arrow" were synonymous terms. Tradition tells how

Tametomo shot an arrow through the crest of his brother's helmet, in

order to recall the youth's allegiance without injuring him; how

Nasuno Michitaka discharged a shaft that severed the stem of a fan

swayed by the wind; how Mutsuru, ordered by an emperor to rescue a

fish from the talons of an osprey without killing bird or fish, cut

off the osprey's feet with a crescent-headed arrow so that the fish

dropped into the palace lake and the bird continued its flight; and

there are many similar records of Japanese skill with the weapon.

Still better authenticated were the feats performed at the

"thirty-three-span halls" in Kioto and Yedo, where the archer had to

shoot an arrow through the whole length of a corridor 128 yards long

and only 16 ft. high. Wada Daihachi, in the 17th century, succeeded in

sending 8133 arrows from end to end of the corridor in 24 consecutive

hours, being an average of over 5 shafts per minute; and Masatoki, in

1852, made 5383 successful shots in 20 hours, more than 4 a minute.

The lengths of the bow and arrow were determined with reference to the

capacity of the archer. In the case of the bow, the unit of

measurement was the distance between the tips of the thumb and the

little finger with the hand fully stretched. Fifteen of these units

gave the length of the bow--the maximum being about 7½ ft. The unit

for the arrow was from 12 to 15 hand-breadths, or from 3 ft. to 3¾ ft.

Originally the bow was of unvarnished boxwood or _zelkowa_; but

subsequently bamboo alone came to be employed. Binding with cord or

rattan served to strengthen the bow, and for precision of flight the

arrow had three feathers, an eagle's wing being most esteemed for that

purpose, and after it, in order, that of the copper pheasant, the

crane, the adjutant and the snipe.

Next in importance to the bow came the sword, which is often spoken of

as the samurai's chief weapon, though there can be no doubt that

during long ages it ranked after the bow. It was a single-edged weapon

remarkable for its three exactly similar curves--edge, face-line and

back; its almost imperceptibly convexed blade; its admirable

tempering; its consummately skilled forging; its razor-like sharpness;

its cunning distribution of weight, giving a maximum efficiency of

stroke. The 10th century saw this weapon carried to perfection, and it

has been inferred that only from that epoch did the samurai begin to

esteem his sword as the greatest treasure he possessed, and to rely on

it as his best instrument of attack and defence. But it is evident

that the evolution of such a blade must have been due to an urgent,

long-existing demand, and that the _katana_ came as the sequel of

innumerable efforts on the part of the sword-smith and generous

encouragement on that of the soldier. Many pages of Japanese annals

and household traditions are associated with its use. In every age

numbers of men devoted their whole lives to acquiring novel skill in

swordsmanship. Many of them invented systems of their own, differing

from one another in some subtle details unknown to any save the master

himself and his favourite pupils. Not merely the method of handling

the weapon had to be studied. Associated with sword-play was an art

variously known as _shinobi_, _yawara_, and _jujutsu_, names which

imply the exertion of muscular force in such a manner as to produce a

maximum of effect with a minimum of effort, by directing an

adversary's strength so as to become auxiliary to one's own. It was an

essential element of the expert's art not only that he should be

competent to defend himself with any object that happened to be within

reach, but also that without an orthodox weapon he should be capable

of inflicting fatal or disabling injury on an assailant. In the many

records of great swordsmen instances are related of men seizing a

piece of firewood, a brazier-iron, or a druggist's pestle as a weapon

of offence, while, on the other side, an umbrella, an iron fan or even

a pot-lid served for protection. The samurai had to be prepared for

every emergency. Were he caught weaponless by a number of assailants,

his art of yawara was supposed to supply him with expedients for

emerging unscathed. Nothing counted save the issue. The methods of

gaining victory or the circumstances attending defeat were scarcely

taken into consideration. The true samurai had to rise superior to all

contingencies. Out of this perpetual effort on the part of hundreds of

experts to discover and perfect novel developments of swordsmanship,

there grew a habit which held its vogue down to modern times, namely,

that when a man had mastered one style of sword-play in the school of

a teacher, he set himself to study all others, and for that purpose

undertook a tour throughout the provinces, challenging every expert,

and, in the event of defeat, constituting himself the victor's pupil.

The sword exercised a potent influence on the life of the Japanese

nation. The distinction of wearing it, the rights that it conferred,

the deeds wrought with it, the fame attaching to special skill in its

use, the superstitions connected with it, the incredible value set

upon a fine blade, the honours bestowed on an expert sword-smith, the

traditions that had grown up around celebrated weapons, the profound

study needed to be a competent judge of a sword's qualities--all these

things conspired to give the katana an importance beyond the limits of

ordinary comprehension. A samurai carried at least two swords, a long

and a short. Their scabbards of lacquered wood were thrust into his

girdle, not slung from it, being fastened in their place by cords of

plaited silk. Sometimes he increased the number of swords to three,

four or even five, before going into battle, and this array was

supplemented by a dagger carried in the bosom. The short sword was not

employed in the actual combat. Its use was to cut off an enemy's head

after overthrowing him, and it also served a defeated soldier in his

last resort--suicide. In general the long sword did not measure more

than 3 ft., including the hilt; but some were 5 ft. long, and some 7.

Considering that the scabbard, being fastened to the girdle, had no

play, the feat of drawing one of these very long swords demanded

extraordinary aptitude.

Spear and glaive were also ancient Japanese weapons. The oldest form

of spear was derived from China. Its handle measured about 6 ft. and

its blade 8 in., and it had sickle-shaped horns at the junction of

blade and hilt (somewhat resembling a European _ranseur_). This weapon

served almost exclusively for guarding palisades and gates. In the

14th century a true lance came into use. Its length varied greatly,

and it had a hog-backed blade tempered almost as finely as the sword

itself. This, too, was a Chinese type, as was also the glaive. The

glaive (_naginata_, long sword) was a scimitar-like blade, some 3 ft.

in length, fixed on a slightly longer haft. Originally the warlike

monks alone employed this weapon, but from the 12th century it found

much favour among military men. Ultimately, however, its use may be

said to have been limited to women and priests. The spear, however,

formed a useful adjunct of the sword, for whereas the latter could not

be used except by troops in very loose formation, the former served

for close-order fighting.

Armour.

Japanese armour (_gusoku_) may be broadly described as plate armour,

but the essential difference between it and the European type was

that, whereas the latter took its shape from the body, the former

neither resembled nor was intended to resemble ordinary garments.

Hence the only changes that occurred in Japanese armour from

generation to generation had their origin in improved methods of

construction. In general appearance it differed from the panoply of

all other nations, so that, although to its essential parts we may

apply with propriety the European terms--helmet, corselet,

&c.--individually and in combination these parts were not at all like

the originals of those names. Perhaps the easiest way of describing

the difference is to say that whereas a European knight seemed to be

clad in a suit of metal clothes, a Japanese samurai looked as if he

wore protective curtains. The Japanese armour was, in fact, suspended

from, rather than fitted to, the person. Only one of its elements

found a counterpart in the European suit, namely, a tabard, which, in

the case of men of rank, was made of the richest brocade. Iron and

leather were the chief materials, and as the laminae were strung

together with a vast number of coloured cords--silk or leather--an

appearance of considerable brilliancy was produced. Ornamentation did

not stop there. Plating and inlaying with gold and silver, and finely

wrought decoration in chiselled, inlaid and _repoussé_ work were

freely applied. On the whole, however, despite the highly artistic

character of its ornamentation, the loose, pendulous nature of

Japanese armour detracted greatly from its workmanlike aspect,

especially when the _horo_ was added--a curious appendage in the shape

of a curtain of fine transparent silk, which was either stretched in

front between the horns of the helmet and the tip of the bow, or worn

on the shoulders and back, the purpose in either case being to turn

the point of an arrow. A true samurai observed strict rules of

etiquette with regard even to the garments worn under his armour, and

it was part of his soldierly capacity to be able to bear the great

weight of the whole without loss of activity, a feat impossible to any

untrained man of modern days. Common soldiers were generally content

with a comparatively light helmet and a corselet.

War-horses.

The Japanese never had a war-horse worthy to be so called. The

mis-shapen ponies which carried them to battle showed qualities of

hardiness and endurance, but were so deficient in stature and

massiveness that when mounted by a man in voluminous armour they

looked painfully puny. Nothing is known of the early Japanese saddle,

but at the beginning of historic times it approximated closely to the

Chinese type. Subsequently a purely Japanese shape was designed. It

consisted of a wooden frame so constructed that a padded numnah could

be fastened to it. Galled backs or withers were unknown with such a

saddle: it fitted any horse. The stirrup, originally a simple affair

resembling that of China and Europe, afterwards took the form of a

shoe-sole with upturned toe. Both stirrups and saddle-frame were often

of beautiful workmanship, the former covered with rich gold lacquer,

the latter inlaid with gold or silver. In the latter part of the

military epoch chain-armour was adopted for the horse, and its head

was protected by a monster-faced mask of iron.

Early Strategy and Tactics.

Flags were used in battle as well as on ceremonial occasions. Some were

monochrome, as the red and white flags of the Taira and the Minamoto

clans in their celebrated struggle during the 12th century; and some

were streamers emblazoned with figures of the sun, the moon, a dragon, a

tiger and so forth, or with religious legends. Fans with iron ribs were

carried by commanding officers, and signals to advance or retreat were

given by beating drums and metal gongs and blowing conches. During the

military epoch a campaign was opened or a contest preluded by a human

sacrifice to the god of war, the victim at this rite of blood

(_chi-matsuri_) being generally a prisoner or a condemned criminal.

Although ambuscades and surprises played a large part in all strategy,

pitched battles were the general rule, and it was essential that notice

of an intention to attack should be given by discharging a singing

arrow. Thereafter the assaulting army, taking the word from its

commander, raised a shout of "Ei! Ei!" to which the other side replied,

and the formalities having been thus satisfied, the fight commenced. In

early medieval days tactics were of the crudest description. An army

consisted of a congeries of little bands, each under the order of a

chief who considered himself independent, and instead of subordinating

his movements to a general plan, struck a blow wherever he pleased. From

time immemorial a romantic value has attached in Japan to the first of

anything: the first snow of winter; the first water drawn from the well

on New Year's Day; the first blossom of the spring; the first note of

the nightingale. So in war the first to ride up to the foe or the

wielder of the first spear was held in high honour, and a samurai strove

for that distinction as his principal duty. It necessarily resulted,

too, not only from the nature of the weapons employed, but also from the

immense labour devoted by the true samurai to perfecting himself in

their use, that displays of individual prowess were deemed the chief

object in a battle. Some tactical formations borrowed from China were

familiar in Japan, but their intelligent use and their modification to

suit the circumstances of the time were inaugurated only by the great

captains of the 15th and 16th centuries. Prior to that epoch a battle

resembled a gigantic fencing match. Men fought as individuals, not as

units of a tactical formation, and the engagement consisted of a number

of personal duels, all in simultaneous progress. It was the samurai's

habit to proclaim his name and titles in the presence of the enemy,

sometimes adding from his own record or his father's any details that

might tend to dispirit his hearers. Then some one advancing to cross

weapons with him would perform the same ceremony of self-introduction,

and if either found anything to upbraid in the other's antecedents or

family history, he did not fail to make loud reference to it, such a

device being counted efficacious as a means of disturbing an adversary's

_sang-froid_, though the principle underlying the mutual introduction

was courtesy. The duellists could reckon on finishing their fight

undisturbed, but the victor frequently had to endure the combined

assault of a number of the comrades or retainers of the vanquished. Of

course a skilled swordsman did not necessarily seek a single combat; he

was equally ready to ride into the thick of the fight without

discrimination, and a group of common soldiers never hesitated to make a

united attack upon a mounted officer if they found him disengaged. But

the general feature of a battle was individual contests, and when the

fighting had ceased, each samurai proceeded to the tent[13] of the

commanding officer and submitted for inspection the heads of those whom

he had killed.

Change of Tactics.

The disadvantage of such a mode of fighting was demonstrated for the

first time when the Mongols invaded Japan in 1274. The invaders moved in

phalanx, guarding themselves with pavises, and covering their advance

with a host of archers shooting clouds of poisoned arrows.[14] When a

Japanese samurai advanced singly and challenged one of them to combat,

they opened their ranks, enclosed the challenger and cut him to pieces.

Many Japanese were thus slain, and it was not until they made a

concerted movement of attack that they produced any effect upon the

enemy. But although the advantage of massing strength seems to have been

recognized, the Japanese themselves did not adopt the formation which

the Mongols had shown to be so formidable. Individual prowess continued

to be the prominent factor in battles down to a comparatively recent

period. The great captains Takeda Shingen and Uyesugi Kenshin are

supposed to have been Japan's pioneer tacticians. They certainly

appreciated the value of a formation in which the action of the

individual should be subordinated to the unity of the whole. But when it

is remembered that fire-arms had already been in the hands of the

Japanese for several years, and that they had means of acquainting

themselves with the tactics of Europe through their intercourse with

the Dutch, it is remarkable that the changes attributed to Takeda and

Uyesugi were not more drastic. Speaking broadly, what they did was to

organize a column with the musqueteers and archers in front; the

spearmen and swordsmen in the second line; the cavalry in the third

line; the commanding officer in the rear, and the drums and standards in

the centre. At close quarters the spear proved a highly effective

weapon, and in the days of Hideyoshi (1536-1598) combined flank and

front attacks by bands of spearmen became a favourite device. The

importance of a strong reserve also received recognition, and in theory,

at all events, a tolerably intelligent system of tactics was adopted.

But not until the close of the 17th century did the doctrine of strictly

disciplined action obtain practical vogue. Yamaga Soko is said to have

been the successful inculcator of this principle, and from his time the

most approved tactical formation was known as the _Yamagaryu_ (Yamaga

style), though it showed no other innovation than strict subordination

of each unit to the general plan.

Military Principles.

Although, tactically speaking, the samurai was everything and the system

nothing before the second half of the 17th century, and although

strategy was chiefly a matter of deception, surprises and ambushes, it

must not be supposed that there were no classical principles. The

student of European military history searches in vain for the rules and

maxims of war so often invoked by glib critics, but the student of

Japanese history is more successful. Here, as in virtually every field

of things Japanese, retrospect discovers the ubiquitous Chinaman. The

treatises of Sung and 'Ng (called in Japan Son and Go) Chinese generals

of the third century after Christ, were the classics of Far-Eastern

captains through all generations. (See _The Book of War_, tr. E. F.

Calthrop, 1908.) Yoshitsune, in the 12th century, deceived a loving girl

to obtain a copy of Sung's work which her father had in his possession,

and Yamaga, in the 17th century, when he set himself to compose a book

on tactics, derived his materials almost entirely from the two Chinese

monographs. These treatises came into the hands of the Japanese in the

8th century, when the celebrated Kibi no Mabi went to study civilization

in China, just as his successors of the 19th century went to study a new

civilization in Europe and America. Thenceforth Son and Go became

household words among Japanese soldiers. Their volumes were to the

samurai what the _Mahayana_ was to the Buddhist. They were believed to

have collected whatever of good had preceded them, and to have forecast

whatever of good the future might produce. The character of their

strategic methods, somewhat analogous to those of 18th-century Europe,

may be gathered from the following:--

"An army undertaking an offensive campaign must be twice as numerous

as the enemy. A force investing a fortress should be numerically ten

times the garrison. When the adversary holds high ground, turn his

flank; do not deliver a frontal attack. When he has a mountain or a

river behind him, cut his lines of communication. If he deliberately

assumes a position from which victory is his only escape, hold him

there, but do not molest him. If you can surround him, leave one route

open for his escape, since desperate men fight fiercely. When you have

to cross a river, put your advance-guard and your rear-guard at a

distance from the banks. When the enemy has to cross a river, let him

get well engaged in the operation before you strike at him. In a

march, make celerity your first object. Pass no copse, enter no

ravine, nor approach any thicket until your scouts have explored it

fully."

Such precepts are multiplied; but when these ancient authors discuss

tactical formations, they do not seem to have contemplated anything like

rapid, well-ordered changes of mobile, highly trained masses of men from

one formation to another, or their quick transfer from point to point of

a battlefield. The basis of their tactics is _The Book of Changes_. Here

again is encountered the superstition that underlies nearly all Chinese

and Japanese institutions: the superstition that took captive even the

great mind of Confucius. The positive and the negative principles; the

sympathetic and the antipathetic elements; cosmos growing out of chaos;

chaos re-absorbing cosmos--on such fancies they founded their tactical

system. The result was a phalanx of complicated organization, difficult

to manoeuvre and liable to be easily thrown into confusion. Yet when

Yamaga in the 17th century interpreted these ancient Chinese treatises,

he detected in them suggestions for a very shrewd use of the principle

of échelon, and applied it to devise formations which combined much of

the frontal expansion of the line with the solidity of the column. More

than that cannot be said for Japanese tactical genius. The samurai was

the best fighting unit in the Orient--probably one of the best fighting

units the world ever produced. It was perhaps because of that excellence

that his captains remained indifferent tacticians.

Ethics of the Samurai.

In estimating the military capacity of the Japanese, it is essential to

know something of the ethical code of the samurai, the _bushido_ (way of

the warrior) as it was called. A typical example of the rules of conduct

prescribed by feudal chieftains is furnished in the code of Kato

Kiyomasa, a celebrated general of the 16th century:--

_Regulations for Samurai of every Rank; the Highest and Lowest alike._

1. The routine of service must be strictly observed. From 6 a.m.

military exercises shall be practised. Archery, gunnery and

horsemanship must not be neglected. If any man shows exceptional

proficiency he shall receive extra pay.

2. Those that desire recreation may engage in hawking, deer-hunting or

wrestling.

3. With regard to dress, garments of cotton or pongee shall be worn.

Any man incurring debts owing to extravagance of costume or living

shall be considered a law-breaker. If, however, being zealous in the

practice of military arts suitable to his rank, he desires to hire

instructors, an allowance may be granted to him for that purpose.

4. The staple of diet shall be unhulled rice. At social entertainments

one guest for one host is the proper limit. Only when men are

assembled for military exercises shall many dine together.

5. It is the duty of every samurai to make himself acquainted with the

principles of his craft. Extravagant displays of adornment are

forbidden in battle.

6. Dancing or organizing dances is unlawful; it is likely to betray

sword-carrying men into acts of violence. Whatever a man does should

be done with his heart. Therefore for the soldier military amusements

alone are suitable. The penalty for violating this provision is death

by suicide.

7. Learning shall be encouraged. Military books must be read. The

spirit of loyalty and filial piety must be educated before all things.

Poem-composing pastimes are not to be engaged in by samurai. To be

addicted to such amusements is to resemble a woman. A man born a

samurai should live and die sword in hand. Unless he is thus trained

in time of peace, he will be useless in the hour of stress. To be

brave and warlike must be his invariable condition.

8. Whosoever finds these rules too severe shall be relieved from

service. Should investigation show that any one is so unfortunate as

to lack manly qualities, he shall be singled out and dismissed

forthwith. The imperative character of these instructions must not be

doubted.

The plainly paramount purpose of these rules was to draw a sharp line of

demarcation between the samurai and the courtiers living in Kioto. The

dancing, the couplet-composing, the sumptuous living and the fine

costumes of the officials frequenting the imperial capital were strictly

interdicted by the feudatories. Frugality, fealty and filial

piety--these may be called the fundamental virtues of the samurai. Owing

to the circumstances out of which his caste had grown, he regarded all

bread-winning pursuits with contempt, and despised money. To be swayed

in the smallest degree by mercenary motives was despicable in his eyes.

Essentially a stoic, he made self-control the ideal of his existence,

and practised the courageous endurance of suffering so thoroughly that

he could without hesitation inflict on his own body pain of the most

horrible description. Nor can the courage of the samurai justly be

ascribed to bluntness of moral sensibility resulting from semi-savage

conditions of life. From the 8th century onwards the current of

existence in Japan set with general steadiness in the direction of

artistic refinement and voluptuous luxury, amidst which men could

scarcely fail to acquire habits and tastes inconsistent with acts of

high courage and great endurance. The samurai's mood was not a product

of semi-barbarism, but rather a protest against emasculating

civilization. He schooled himself to regard death by his own hand as a

normal eventuality. The story of other nations shows epochs when death

was welcomed as a relief and deliberately invited as a refuge from the

mere weariness of living. But wherever there has been liberty to choose,

and leisure to employ, a painless mode of exit from the world, men have

invariably selected it. The samurai, however, adopted in _harakiri_

(disembowelment) a mode of suicide so painful and so shocking that to

school the mind to regard it with indifference and perform it without

flinching was a feat not easy to conceive. Assistance was often rendered

by a friend who stood ready to decapitate the victim immediately after

the stomach had been gashed; but there were innumerable examples of men

who consummated the tragedy without aid, especially when the sacrifice

of life was by way of protest against the excesses of a feudal chief or

the crimes of a ruler, or when some motive for secrecy existed. It must

be observed that the suicide of the samurai was never inspired by any

doctrine like that of Hegesias. Death did not present itself to him as a

legitimate means of escaping from the cares and disappointments of life.

Self-destruction had only one consolatory aspect, that it was the

soldier's privilege to expiate a crime with his own sword, not under the

hand of the executioner. It rested with his feudal chief to determine

his guilt, and his peremptory duty was never to question the justice of

an order to commit suicide, but to obey without murmur or protest. For

the rest, the general motives for suicide were to escape falling into

the hands of a victorious enemy, to remonstrate against some official

abuse which no ordinary complaint could reach, or, by means of a dying

protest, to turn a liege lord from pursuing courses injurious to his

reputation and his fortune. This last was the noblest and by no means

the most infrequent reason for suicide. Scores of examples are recorded

of men who, with everything to make existence desirable, deliberately

laid down their lives at the prompting of loyalty. Thus the samurai rose

to a remarkable height of moral nobility. He had no assurance that his

death might not be wholly fruitless, as indeed it often proved. If the

sacrifice achieved its purpose, if it turned a liege lord from evil

courses, the samurai could hope that his memory would be honoured. But

if the lord resented such a violent and conspicuous mode of reproving

his excesses, then the faithful vassal's retribution would be an

execrated memory and, perhaps, suffering for his family and relatives.

Yet the deed was performed again and again. It remains to be noted that

the samurai entertained a high respect for the obligations of truth; "A

bushi has no second word," was one of his favourite mottoes. However, a

reservation is necessary here. The samurai's doctrine was not truth for

truth's sake, but truth for the sake of the spirit of uncompromising

manliness on which he based all his code of morality. A pledge or a

promise must never be broken, but the duty of veracity did not override

the interests or the welfare of others. Generosity to a defeated foe was

also one of the tenets of the samurai's ethics. History contains many

instances of the exercise of that quality.

Religious Influence.

Something more, however, than a profound conception of duty was needed

to nerve the samurai for sacrifices such as he seems to have been always

ready to make. It is true that Japanese parents of the military class

took pains to familiarize their children of both sexes from very tender

years with the idea of self-destruction at any time. But superadded to

the force of education and the incentive of tradition there was a

transcendental influence. Buddhism supplied it. The tenets of that creed

divided themselves, broadly speaking, into two doctrines, salvation by

faith and salvation by works, and the chief exponent of the latter

principle is the sect which prescribes meditation as the vehicle of

enlightenment. Whatever be the mental processes induced by this rite,

those who have practised it insist that it leads finally to a state of

absorption, in which the mind is flooded by an illumination revealing

the universe in a new aspect, absolutely free from all traces of

passion, interest or affection, and showing, written across everything

in flaming letters, the truth that for him who has found Buddha there is

neither birth nor death, growth nor decay. Lifted high above his

surroundings, he is prepared to meet every fate with indifference. The

attainment of that state seems to have been a fact in the case both of

the samurai of the military epoch and of the Japanese soldier to-day.

Abolition of the Samurai.

The policy of seclusion adopted by the Tokugawa administration after the

Shimabara insurrection included an order that no samurai should acquire

foreign learning. Nevertheless some knowledge could not fail to filter

in through the Dutch factory at Deshima, and thus, a few years before

the advent of the American ships, Takashima Shuhan, governor of

Nagasaki, becoming persuaded of the fate his country must invite if she

remained oblivious of the world's progress, memorialized the Yedo

government in the sense that, unless Japan improved her weapons of war

and reformed her military system, she could not escape humiliation such

as had just overtaken China. He obtained small arms and field-guns of

modern type from Holland, and, repairing to Yedo with a company of men

trained according to the new tactics, he offered an object lesson for

the consideration of the conservative officials. They answered by

throwing him into prison. But Egawa, one of his retainers, proved a

still more zealous reformer, and his foresight being vindicated by the

appearance of the American war-vessels in 1853, he won the government's

confidence and was entrusted with the work of planning and building

forts at Shinagawa and Shimoda. At Egawa's instance rifles and cannon

were imported largely from Europe, and their manufacture was commenced

in Japan, a powder-mill also being established with machinery obtained

from Holland. Finally, in 1862, the shogun's government adopted the

military system of the West, and organized three divisions of all arms,

with a total strength of 13,600 officers and men. Disbanded at the fall

of the shogunate in 1867, this force nevertheless served as a model for

a similar organization under the imperial government, and in the

meanwhile the principal fiefs had not been idle, some--as

Satsuma--adopting English tactics, others following France or Germany,

and a few choosing Dutch. There appeared upon the stage at this juncture

a great figure in the person of Omura Masujiro, a samurai of the Choshu

clan. He established Japan's first military school at Kioto in 1868; he

attempted to substitute for the hereditary soldier conscripts taken from

all classes of the people, and he conceived the plan of dividing the

whole empire into six military districts. An assassin's dagger removed

him on the threshold of these great reforms, but his statue now stands

in Tokyo and his name is spoken with reverence by all his countrymen. In

1870 Yamagata Aritomo (afterwards Field-Marshal Prince Yamagata) and

Saigo Tsugumichi (afterwards Field-Marshal Marquis Saigo) returned from

a tour of military inspection in Europe, and in 1872 they organized a

corps of Imperial guards, taken from the three clans which had been

conspicuous in the work of restoring the administrative power to the

sovereign, namely, the clans of Satsuma, Choshu and Tosa. They also

established garrisons in Tokyo, Sendai, Osaka and Kumamoto, thus placing

the military authority in the hands of the central government. Reforms

followed quickly. In 1872, the _hyobusho_, an office which controlled

all matters relating to war, was replaced by two departments, one of war

and one of the navy, and, in 1873, an imperial decree substituted

universal conscription for the system of hereditary militarism. Many

persons viewed this experiment with deep misgiving. They feared that it

would not only alienate the samurai, but also entrust the duty of

defending the country to men unfitted by tradition and custom for such a

task, namely, the farmers, artisans and tradespeople, who, after

centuries of exclusion from the military pale, might be expected to have

lost all martial spirit. The government, however, was not deterred by

these apprehensions. It argued that since the distinction of samurai and

commoner had not originally existed, and since the former was a product

simply of accidental conditions, there was no valid reason to doubt the

military capacity of the people at large. The justice of this reasoning

was put to a conclusive test a few years later. Originally the period of

service with the colours was fixed at 3 years, that of service with the

first and second reserves being 2 years each. One of the serious

difficulties encountered at the outset was that samurai conscripts were

too proud to stand in the ranks with common rustics or artisans, and

above all to obey the commands of plebeian officers. But patriotism soon

overcame this obstacle. The whole country--with the exception of the

northern island, Yezo--was parcelled out into six military districts

(headquarters Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, Hiroshima and Kumamoto) each

furnishing a division of all arms and services. There was also from 1876

a guards division in Tokyo. The total strength on a peace footing was

31,680 of all arms, and on a war footing, 46,350. The defence of Yezo

was entrusted to a colonial militia. It may well be supposed that to

find competent officers for this army greatly perplexed its organizers.

The military school--now in Tokyo but originally founded by Omura in

Kioto--had to turn out graduates at high pressure, and private soldiers

who showed any special aptitude were rapidly promoted to positions of

command. French military instructors were engaged, and the work of

translating manuals was carried out with all celerity. In 1877, this new

army of conscripts had to endure a crucial test: it had to take the

field against the Satsuma samurai, the very flower of their class, who

in that year openly rebelled against the Tokyo government. The campaign

lasted eight months; as there had not yet been time to form the

reserves, the Imperial forces were soon seriously reduced in number by

casualties in the field and by disease, the latter claiming many victims

owing to defective commissariat. It thus became necessary to have

recourse to volunteers, but as these were for the most part samurai, the

expectation was that their hereditary instinct of fighting would

compensate for lack of training. That expectation was not fulfilled.

Serving side by side in the field, the samurai volunteer and the

heimin[15] regular were found to differ by precisely the degree of their

respective training. The fact was thus finally established that the

fighting qualities of the farmer and artisan reached as high a standard

as those of the bushi.

Thenceforth the story of the Japanese army is one of steady progress

and development. In 1878, the military duties of the empire were

divided among three offices: namely, the army department, the general

staff and the inspection department, while the six divisions of troops

were organized into three army corps.

In 1879, the total period of colour and reserve service became 10

years. In 1883 the period was extended to 12 years, the list of

exemptions was abbreviated, and above all substitution was no longer

allowed. Great care was devoted to the training of officers; promotion

went by merit, and at least ten of the most promising officers were

sent abroad every year to study. A comprehensive system of education

for the rank and file was organized. Great difficulty was experienced

in procuring horses suitable for cavalry, and indeed the Japanese army

long remained weak in this arm. In 1886, the whole littoral of the

empire was divided into five districts, each with its admiralty and

its naval port, and the army being made responsible for coast defence,

a battery construction corps was formed. Moreover, an exhaustive

scheme was elaborated to secure full co-operation between the army and

navy. In 1888 the seven divisions of the army first found themselves

prepared to take the field, and, in 1893, a revised system of

mobilization was sanctioned, to be put into operation the following

year, for the Chino-Japanese War (q.v.). At this period the division,

mobilized for service in the field, consisted of 12 battalions of

infantry, 3 troops of cavalry, 4 batteries of field and 2 of mountain

artillery, 2 companies of sappers and train, totalling 18,492 of all

arms with 5633 horses. The guards had only 8 battalions and 4

batteries (field). The field army aggregated over 120,000, with 168

field and 72 mountain guns, and the total of all forces, field,

garrison and dépôt, was 220,580 of all arms, with 47,220 horses and

294 guns. Owing, however, to various modifications necessitated by

circumstances, the numbers actually on duty were over 240,000, with

6495 non-combatant employees and about 100,000 coolies who acted as

carriers. The infantry were armed with the Murata single-loader rifle,

but the field artillery was inferior, and the only two divisions

equipped with magazine rifles and smokeless powder never came into

action. The experiences gained in this war bore large fruit. The total

term of service with the colours and the reserves was slightly

increased; the colonial militia of Yezo (Hokkaido) was organized as a

seventh line division; 5 new divisions were added, bringing the whole

number of divisions to 13 (including the guards); a mixed brigade was

stationed in Formosa (then newly added to Japan's dominions); a high

military council composed of field-marshals was created; the cavalry

was brigaded; the garrison artillery was increased; strenuous efforts

were made to improve the education of officers and men; and lastly,

sanitary arrangements underwent much modification. An arsenal had been

established in Tokyo, in 1868, for the manufacture of small arms and

small-arm ammunition; this was followed by an arsenal in Osaka for the

manufacture of guns and gun-ammunition; four powder factories were

opened, and in later years big-gun factories at Kure and Mororan.

Japan was able to make 12-inch guns in 1902, and her capacity for this

kind of work was in 1909 second to none. She has her own patterns of

rifle and field gun, so that she is independent of foreign aid so far

as armaments are concerned. In 1900, she sent a force to North China

to assist in the campaign for the relief of the foreign legations in

Peking, and on that occasion her troops were able to observe at first

hand the qualities and methods of European soldiers. In 1904 took

place the great war with Russia (see RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR). After the

war important changes were made in the direction of augmenting and

improving the armed forces. The number of divisions was increased to

19 (including the guards), of which one division is for service in

Korea and one for service in Manchuria. Various technical corps were

organized, as well as horse artillery, heavy field artillery and

machine-gun units. The field-gun was replaced by a quick-firer

manufactured at Osaka, and much attention was given to the question of

remounts--for, both in the war with China and in that with Russia, the

horsing of the cavalry had been poor. Perhaps the most far-reaching

change in all armies of late years is the shortening of the term of

service with the colours to 2 years for the infantry, 3 years

remaining the rule for other arms. This was adopted by Japan after the

war, the infantry period of service with the reserves being extended

to 14{1/3} years, and of course has the effect of greatly augmenting

the potential war strength. As to this, figures are kept secret, nor

can any accurate approximation be attempted without danger of error.

Rough estimates of Japan's war strength have, however, been made,

giving 550,000 as the war strength of the first line army, plus 34,000

for garrisons overseas and 150,000 special reserves (_hoju_); 370,000

second line or _kobi_, and 110,000 for the fully trained portion of

the territorial forces, or _Kokumin-hei_. All these branches can

further draw upon half-trained elements to the number of about 800,000

to replace losses. Japan's available strength in the last resort for

home defence was recently (1909) stated by the Russian _Novoye Vremya_

at 3,000,000. In 20 years, when the present system has produced its

full effect, the first line should be 740,000 strong, the second line

780,000, and the third line about 3,850,000 (3,000,000 untrained and

850,000 partly trained). Details can be found in _Journal of the R.

United Service Institution_, Dec. 1909-Jan. 1910.

Recruiting.

At 20 years of age every Japanese subject, of whatever status, becomes

liable for military service. But the difficulty of making service

universal in the case of a growing population is felt here as in

Europe, and practically the system has elements of the old-fashioned

conscription. The minimum height is 5.2 ft. (artillery and engineers,

5.4 ft.). There are four principal kinds of service, namely, service

with the colours (_genyeki_), for two years; service with the first

reserves (_yobi_), for 7{1/3} years; service with the second reserves

(_kobi_), for 7 years; and service with the territorial troops (_ko

kumin-hei_) up to the age of 40. Special reserve (_hoju_) takes up men

who, though liable for conscription and medically qualified, have

escaped the lot for service with the colours. It consists of two

classes, one of men remaining in the category of _hoju_ for 7{1/3}

years, the other for 1{1/3} year, before passing into the territorial

army. Their purpose is similar to that of special or _ersatz_ reserves

elsewhere. The first class receives the usual short initial training.

Men of the second class, in ordinary circumstances, pass, after their

1{1/3} year's inability, to the territorial army untrained. As for the

first and second general reserves (_yobi_ and _kobi_), each is called

out twice during its full term for short "refresher" courses. After

reaching the territorial army a man is relieved from all further

training. The total number of youths eligible for conscription each

year is about 435,000, but the annual contingent for full service is

not much more than 100,000. Conscripts in the active army may be

discharged before the expiration of two years if their conduct and

aptitude are exceptional.

A youth is exempted if it be clearly established[16] that his family

is dependent upon his earnings. Except for permanent deformities men

are put back for one year before being finally rejected on medical

grounds. Men who have been convicted of crime are disqualified, but

those who have been temporarily deprived of civil rights must present

themselves for conscription at the termination of their sentence.

Educated men may enrol themselves as one-year volunteers instead of

drawing lots, this privilege of entry enduring up to the age of 28,

after which, service for the full term without drawing lots is

imposed. Residence in a foreign country secures exemption up to the

age of 32--provided that official permission to go abroad has been

obtained. A man returning after the age of 32 is drafted into the

territorial army, but if he returns before that age he must volunteer

to receive training, otherwise he is taken without lot for service

with the colours. The system of volunteering is largely resorted to by

persons of the better classes. Any youth who possesses certain

educational qualifications is entitled to volunteer for training. If

accepted after medical inspection, he serves with the colours for one

year, during three months of which time he must live in

barracks--unless a special permit be granted by his commanding

officer. A volunteer has to contribute to his maintenance and

equipment, although youths who cannot afford the full expense, if

otherwise qualified, are assisted by the state. At the conclusion of a

year's training the volunteer is drafted into the first reserve for 6¼

years, and then into the second reserve for 5 years, so that his total

period (12¼ years) of service before passing into the territorial army

is the same as that of an ordinary conscript. The main purpose of the

one-year voluntariat, as in Germany, is to provide officers for the

reserves to territorial troops. Qualified teachers in the public

service are only liable to a very short initial training, after which

they pass at once into the territorial army. But if a teacher abandons

that calling before the age of 28, he becomes liable, without lot,[17]

to two years with the colours, unless he adopts the alternative of

volunteering.

Officers.

Officers are obtained in two ways. There are six local preparatory

cadet schools (_yonen-gakko_) in various parts of the empire, for boys

of from 13 to 15. After 3 years at one of these schools[18] a graduate

spends 21 months at the central preparatory school

(_chuo-yonen-gakko_), Tokyo, and if he graduates with sufficient

credit at the latter institution, he becomes eligible for admission to

the officers' college (_shikan-gakko_) without further test of

proficiency. The second method of obtaining officers is by competitive

examination for direct admission to the officers' college. In either

case the cadet is sent to serve with the colours for 6 to 12 months as

a private and non-commissioned officer, before commencing his course

at the officers' college. The period of study at the officers' college

is one year, and after graduating successfully the cadet serves with

troops for 6 months on probation. If at the end of that time he is

favourably reported on, he is commissioned as a sub-lieutenant. Young

officers of engineers and artillery receive a year's further training

at a special college. Officers' ranks are the same as in the British

army, but the nomenclature is more simple. The terms, with their

English equivalents, are _shoi_ (second lieutenant), _chui_ (first

lieutenant), _tai_ (captain), _shosa_ (major), _chusa_

(lieut.-colonel), _taisa_ (colonel), _shosho_ (major-general), _chujo_

(lieut.-general), _taisho_ (general), _gensui_ (field-marshal). All

these except the last apply to the same relative ranks in the navy.

Promotion of officers in the junior grades is by seniority or merit,

but after the rank of captain all promotion is by merit, and thus many

officers never rise higher than captain, in which case retirement is

compulsory at the age of 48. Except in the highest ranks, a certain

minimum period has to be spent in each rank before promotion to the

next.

Soldiers.

There are three grades of privates: upper soldiers (_joto-hei_),

first-class soldiers (_itto-sotsu_), and second-class soldiers

(_nito-sotsu_). A private on joining is a second-class soldier. For

proficiency and good conduct he is raised to the rank of first-class

soldier, and ultimately to that of upper soldier. Non-commissioned

officers are obtained from the ranks, or from those who wish to make

soldiering a profession, as in European armies. The grades are

corporal (_gocho_), sergeant (_gunso_), sergeant-major (_socho_) and

special sergeant-major (_tokumu-socho_).

The pay of the conscript is, as it is everywhere, a trifle (1s.

10d.-3s. 0½d. per month). The professional non-commissioned officers

are better paid, the lowest grade receiving three times as much as an

upper soldier. Officers' pay is roughly at about three-quarters of the

rates prevailing in Germany, sub-lieutenants receiving about £34,

captains £71, colonels £238 per annum, &c. Pensions for officers and

non-commissioned officers, according to scale, can be claimed after 11

years' colour service.

The emperor is the commander-in-chief of the army, and theoretically

the sole source of military authority, which he exercises through a

general staff and a war department, with the assistance of a board of

field-marshals (_gensuifu_). The general staff has for chief a

field-marshal, and for vice-chief a general or lieutenant-general. It

includes besides the usual general staff departments, various survey

and topographical officers, and the military college is under its

direction. The war department is presided over by a general officer on

the active list, who is a member of the cabinet without being

necessarily affected by ministerial changes. There are, further,

artillery and engineer committees, and a remount bureau. The

headquarters of coast defences under general officers are Tokyo,

Yokohama, Shimonoseki and Yura. The whole empire is divided into three

military districts--eastern, central and western--each under the

command of a general or lieutenant-general. The divisional

headquarters are as follows:--Guard Tokyo, I. Tokyo, II. Sendai, III.

Nagoya, IV. Wakayama, V. Hiroshima, VI. Kumamoto, VII. Asahikawa,

VIII. Hirosaki, IX. Kasanava, X. Himeji, XI. Senzui, XII. Kokura,

XIII. Takata, XIV. Utsonomia, XV. Fushimi, XVI. Kioto, XVII. Okayama,

XVIII. Kurume. Some of these divisions are permanently on foreign

service, but their recruiting areas in Japan are maintained. There are

also four cavalry brigades, and a number of unassigned regiments of

field and mountain artillery, as well as garrison artillery and army

technical troops. The organization of the active army by regiments is

176 infantry regiments of 3 battalions; 27 cavalry regiments; 30 field

artillery regiments each of 6 and 3 mountain artillery regiments each

of 3 batteries; 6 regiments and 6 battalions of siege, heavy field and

fortress artillery; 20 battalions engineers; 19 supply and transport

battalions.

Medical Service.

The medical service is exceptionally well organized. It received

unstinted praise from European and American experts who observed it

closely during the wars of 1900 and 1904-5. The establishment of

surgeons to each division is approximately 100, and arrangements

complete in every detail are made for all lines of medical assistance.

Much help is rendered by the red cross society of Japan, which has an

income of 2,000,000 yen annually, a fine hospital in Tokyo, a large

nursing staff and two specially built and equipped hospital ships.

During the early part of the campaign in Pechili, in 1900, the French

column entrusted its wounded to the care of the Japanese.

Supply.

The staple article of commissariat for a Japanese army in the field is

_hoshii_ (dried rice), of which three days' supply can easily be

carried in a bag by the soldier. When required for use the rice, being

placed in water, swells to its original bulk, and is eaten with a

relish of salted fish, dried sea-weed or pickled plums. The task of

provisioning an army on these lines is comparatively simple. The

Japanese soldier, though low in stature, is well set up, muscular and

hardy. He has great powers of endurance, and manoeuvres with

remarkable celerity, doing everything at the run, if necessary, and

continuing to run without distress for a length of time astonishing to

European observers. He is greatly subject, however, to attacks of

_kakke_ (beri-beri), and if he has recourse to meat diet, which

appears to be the best preventive, he will probably lose something of

his capacity for prolonged rapid movement. He attacks with apparent

indifference to danger, preserves his cheerfulness amid hardships, is

splendidly patriotic and has always shown himself thoroughly amenable

to discipline.

Military Schools.

Of the many educational and training establishments, the most

important is the _rikugun daigakko_, or army college, where officers,

(generally subalterns), are prepared for service in the upper ranks

and for staff appointments, the course of study extending over three

years. The Toyama school stands next in importance. The courses

pursued there are attended chiefly by subaltern officers of dismounted

branches, non-commissioned officers also being allowed to take the

musketry course. The term of training is five months. Young officers

of the scientific branches are instructed at the _hokogakko_ (school

of artillery and engineers). There are, further, two special schools

of gunnery--one for field, the other for garrison artillery, attended

chiefly by captains and senior subalterns of the two branches. There

is an inspection department of military education, the

inspector-general being a lieutenant-general, under whom are fifteen

field and general officers, who act as inspectors of the various

schools and colleges and of military educational matters in general.

The Japanese officer's pay is small and his mode of life frugal. He

lives out of barracks, frequently with his own family. His uniform is

plain and inexpensive,[19] and he has no desire to exchange it for

mufti. He has no mess expenses, contribution to a band, or luxuries of

any kind, and as he is nearly always without private means to

supplement his pay, his habits are thoroughly economical. He devotes

himself absolutely to his profession, living for nothing else, and

since he is strongly imbued with an effective conception of the honour

of his cloth, instances of his incurring disgrace by debt or

dissipation are exceptional. The samurai may be said to have been

revived in the officers of the modern army, who preserve and act up to

all the old traditions. The system of promotion has evidently much to

do with this good result, for no Japanese officer can hope to rise

above the rank of captain unless, by showing himself really zealous

and capable, he obtains from his commanding officer the recommendation

without which all higher educational opportunities are closed to him.

Yet promotion by merit has not degenerated into promotion by favour,

and corruption appears to be virtually absent. In the stormiest days

of parliamentary warfare, when charges of dishonesty were freely

preferred by party politicians against all departments of officialdom,

no whisper ever impeached the integrity of army officers.

The training of the troops is thorough and strictly progressive, the

responsibility of the company, squadron and battery commanders for the

training of their commands, and the latitude granted them in choice of

means being, as in Germany, the keystone of the system.

Foreign Assistance.

Originally the government engaged French officers to assist in

organizing the army and elaborating its system of tactics and

strategy, and during several years a military mission of French

officers resided in Tokyo and rendered valuable aid to the Japanese.

Afterwards German officers were employed, with Jakob Meckel at their

head, and they left a perpetually grateful memory. But ultimately the

services of foreigners were dispensed with altogether, and Japan now

adopts the plan of sending picked men to complete their studies in

Europe. Up to 1904 she followed Germany in military matters almost

implicitly, but since then, having the experience of her own great war

to guide her, she has, instead of modelling herself on any one foreign

system, chosen from each whatever seemed most desirable, and also, in

many points, taken the initiative herself.

Military Finance.

When the power of the sword was nominally restored to the Imperial

government in 1868, the latter planned to devote one-fourth of the

state's ordinary revenue to the army and navy. Had the estimated

revenue accrued, this would have given a sum of about 3 millions

sterling for the two services. But not until 1871, when the troops of

the fiefs were finally disbanded, did the government find itself in a

position to include in the annual budgets an adequate appropriation on

account of armaments. Thenceforth, from 1872 to 1896, the ordinary

expenditures of the army varied from three-quarters of a million

sterling to 1½ millions, and the extraordinary outlays ranged from a

few thousands of pounds to a quarter of a million. Not once in the

whole period of 25 years--if 1877 (the year of the Satsuma rebellion)

be excepted--did the state's total expenditures on account of the army

exceed 1½ millions sterling, and it redounds to the credit of Japan's

financial management that she was able to organize, equip and maintain

such a force at such a small cost. In 1896, as shown above, she

virtually doubled her army, and a proportionate increase of

expenditure ensued, the outlays for maintenance jumping at once from

an average of about 1¼ millions sterling to 2¼ millions, and growing

thenceforth with the organization of the new army, until in the year

(1903) preceding the outbreak of war with Russia, they reached the

figure of 4 millions. Then again, in 1906, six divisions were added,

and additional expenses had to be incurred on account of the new

overseas garrisons, so that, in 1909, the ordinary outlays reached a

total of 7 millions, or about one-seventh of the ordinary revenue of

the state. This takes no account of extraordinary outlays incurred for

building forts and barracks, providing new patterns of equipment, &c.

In 1909 the latter, owing to the necessity of replacing the weapons

used in the Russian War, and in particular the field artillery gun

(which was in 1905 only a semi-quickfirer), involved a relatively

large outlay.

Early Japanese War-vessels.

_The Navy._--The traditions of Japan suggest that the art of navigation

was not unfamiliar to the inhabitants of a country consisting of

hundreds of islands and abounding in bays and inlets. Some interpreters

of her cosmography discover a great ship in the "floating bridge of

heaven" from which the divine procreators of the islands commenced their

work, and construe in a similar sense other poetically named vehicles of

that remote age. But though the seas were certainly traversed by the

early invaders of Japan, and though there is plenty of proof that in

medieval times the Japanese flag floated over merchantmen which voyaged

as far as Siam and India, and over piratical craft which harassed the

coasts of Korea and China, it is unquestionable that in the matter of

naval architecture Japan fell behind even her next-door neighbours.

Thus, when a Mongol fleet came to Kiushiu in the 13th century, Japan had

no vessels capable of contending against the invaders, and when, at the

close of the 16th century, a Japanese army was fighting in Korea,

repeated defeats of Japan's squadrons by Korean war-junks decided the

fate of the campaign on shore as well as on sea. It seems strange that

an enterprising nation like the Japanese should not have taken for

models the great galleons which visited the Far East in the second half

of the 16th century under the flags of Spain, Portugal, Holland and

England. With the exception, however, of two ships built by a castaway

English pilot to order of Iyeyasu, no effort in that direction appears

to have been made, and when an edict vetoing the construction of

sea-going vessels was issued in 1636 as part of the Tokugawa policy of

isolation, it can scarcely be said to have checked the growth of Japan's

navy, for she possessed nothing worthy of the name. It was to the object

lesson furnished by the American ships which visited Yedo bay in 1853

and to the urgent counsels of the Dutch that Japan owed the inception of

a naval policy. A seamen's training station was opened under Dutch

instructors in 1855 at Nagasaki, a building-slip was constructed and an

iron factory established at the same place, and shortly afterwards a

naval school was organized at Tsukiji in Yedo, a war-ship the "Kwanko

Maru"[20]--presented by the Dutch to the shogun's government--being used

for exercising the cadets. To this vessel two others, purchased from the

Dutch, were added in 1857 and 1858, and these, with one given by Queen

Victoria, formed the nucleus of Japan's navy. In 1860, we find the

Pacific crossed for the first time by a Japanese war-ship--the "Kwanrin

Maru"--and subsequently some young officers were sent to Holland for

instruction in naval science. In fact the Tokugawa statesmen had now

thoroughly appreciated the imperative need of a navy. Thus, in spite of

domestic unrest which menaced the very existence of the Yedo government,

a dockyard was established and fully equipped, the place chosen as its

site being, by a strange coincidence, the village of Yokosuka where

Japan's first foreign ship-builder, Will Adams, had lived and died 250

years previously. This dockyard was planned and its construction

superintended by a Frenchman, M. Bertin. But although the Dutch had been

the first to advise Japan's acquisition of a navy, and although French

aid was sought in the case of the important and costly work at Yokosuka,

the shogun's government turned to England for teachers of the art of

maritime warfare. Captain Tracey, R.N., and other British officers and

warrant-officers were engaged to organize and superintend the school at

Tsukiji. They arrived, however, on the eve of the fall of the Tokugawa

shogunate, and as the new administration was not prepared to utilize

their services immediately, they returned to England. It is not to be

inferred that the Imperial government underrated the importance of

organizing a naval force. One of the earliest Imperial rescripts ranked

a navy among "the country's most urgent needs" and ordered that it

should be "at once placed on a firm foundation." But during the four

years immediately subsequent to the restoration, a semi-interregnum

existed in military affairs, the power of the sword being partly

transferred to the hands of the sovereign and partly retained by the

feudal chiefs. Ultimately, not only the vessels which had been in the

possession of the shogunate but also several obtained from Europe by the

great feudatories had to be taken over by the Imperial government,

which, on reviewing the situation, found itself owner of a motley

squadron of 17 war-ships aggregating 13,812 tons displacement, of which

two were armoured, one was a composite ship, and the rest were of wood.

Steps were now taken to establish and equip a suitable naval college in

Tsukiji, and application having been made to the British government for

instructors, a second naval mission was sent from England in 1873,

consisting of 30 officers and warrant-officers under Commander

(afterwards Vice-Admiral Sir) Archibald Douglas. At the very outset

occasions for active service afloat presented themselves. In 1868, the

year after the fall of the shogunate, such ships as could be assembled

had to be sent to Yezo to attack the main part of the Tokugawa squadron

which had raised the flag of revolt and retired to Hakodate under the

command of the shogun's admiral, Enomoto. Then in 1874 the duty of

convoying a fleet of transports to Formosa had to be undertaken; and in

1877 sea power played its part in crushing the formidable rebellion in

Satsuma. Meanwhile the work of increasing and organizing the navy went

on steadily. The first steam war-ship constructed in Japan had been a

gunboat (138 tons) launched in 1866 from a building-yard established at

Ishikawajima, an island near the mouth of the Sumida river on which

Tokyo stands. At this yard and at Yokosuka two vessels of 897 tons and

1450 tons, respectively, were launched in 1875 and 1876, and Japan now

found herself competent not only to execute all repairs but also to

build ships of considerable size. An order was placed in England in

1875, which produced, three years later, the "Fuso," Japan's first

ironclad (3717 tons) and the "Kongo" and "Hiei," steel-frame

sister-cruisers of 2248 tons. Meanwhile training, practical and

theoretical, in seamanship, gunnery, torpedo-practice and naval

architecture went on vigorously, and in 1878 the Japanese flag was for

the first time seen in European waters, floating over the cruiser

"Seiki" (1897 tons) built in Japan and navigated solely by Japanese. The

government, constantly solicitous of increasing the fleet, inaugurated,

in 1882, a programme of 30 cruisers and 12 torpedo-boats, and in 1886

this was extended, funds being obtained by an issue of naval loan-bonds.

But the fleet did not yet include a single battleship. When the diet

opened for the first time in 1890, a plan for the construction of two

battleships encountered stubborn opposition in the lower house, where

the majority attached much less importance to voting money for war-ships

than to reducing the land tax. Not until 1892 was this opposition

overcome in deference to an order from the throne that thirty thousand

pounds sterling should be contributed yearly from the privy purse and

that a tithe of all official salaries should be devoted during the same

interval to naval needs. Had the house been more prescient, Japan's

position at the outbreak of war with China in 1894 would have been very

different. She entered the contest with 28 fighting craft, aggregating

57,600 tons, and 24 torpedo-boats, but among them the most powerful was

a belted cruiser of 4300 tons. Not one battleship was included, whereas

China had two ironclads of nearly 8000 tons each. Under these conditions

the result of the naval conflict was awaited with much anxiety in Japan.

But the Chinese suffered signal defeats (see CHINO-JAPANESE WAR) off the

Yalu and at Wei-hai-wei, and the victors took possession of 17 Chinese

craft, including one battleship. The resulting addition to Japan's

fighting force was, however, insignificant. But the naval strength of

Japan did not depend on prizes. Battleships and cruisers were ordered

and launched in Europe one after the other, and when the Russo-Japanese

War (q.v.) came, the fleet promptly asserted its physical and moral

superiority in the surprise of Port Arthur, the battle of the 10th of

August 1904, and the crowning victory of Tsushima.

As to the development of the navy from 1903 onwards, it is not

possible to detail with absolute accuracy the plans laid down by the

admiralty in Tokyo, but the actual state of the fleet in the year 1909

will be apparent from the figures given below.

Japan's naval strength at the outbreak of the war with Russia in 1904

was:--

Number. Displacement.

Tons.

Battleships 6 84,652

Armoured cruisers 8 73,982

Other cruisers 44 111,470

Destroyers 19 6,519

Torpedo-boats 80 7,119

-- -------

Totals 157 283,742