XXI. THE CAPITAL AND THE PROVINCES…

XXI. THE CAPITAL AND THE PROVINCES

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COURT AND THE FUJIWARA

We now arrive at a period of Japanese history in which the relations of the Fujiwara family to the Throne are so complicated as greatly to perplex even the most careful reader. But as it is not possible to construct a genealogical table of a really helpful character, the facts will be set down here in their simplest form.

THE SIXTY-SECOND SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR MURAKAMI (A.D. 947-967)

Murakami, son of Daigo by the daughter of the regent, Fujiwara Mototsune, ascended the throne in succession to Shujaku, and Fujiwara Tadahira held the post of regent, as he had done in Shujaku's time, his three sons, Saneyori, Morosuke, and Morotada, giving their daughters; one, Morosuke's offspring, to be Empress, the other two to be consorts of the sovereign. Moreover, Morosuke's second daughter was married to the Emperor's younger brother, Prince Takaaki, who afterwards descended from princely rank to take the family name of Minamoto. Saneyori, Morosuke, and Takaaki took a prominent part in the administration of State affairs, and thus indirectly by female influence at Court, or by their own direct activity, the Fujiwara held a supreme place. Murakami has a high position among Japan's model sovereigns. He showed keen and intelligent interest in politics; he sought to employ able officials; he endeavoured to check luxury, and he solicited frank guidance from his elders. Thus later generations learned to indicate Engi (901-923), when Daigo reigned, and Tenryaku (947-957), when Murakami reigned, as essentially eras of benevolent administration. But whatever may have been the personal qualities of Murakami, however conspicuous his poetical ability and however sincere his solicitude for the welfare of his subjects, he failed signally to correct the effeminate tendency of Kyoto society or to protect the lives and property of his people. Bandits raided the capital, broke into the palace itself, set fire to it, and committed frequent depredations unrestrained. An age when the machinery for preserving law and order was practically paralyzed scarcely deserves the eulogies of posterity.

THE SUCCESSION

The lady with whom Murakami first consorted was a daughter of Fujiwara Motokata, who represented a comparatively obscure branch of the great family, and had attained the office of chief councillor of State (dainagori) only. She bore to his Majesty a son, Hirohira, and the boy's grandfather confidently looked to see him named Prince Imperial. But presently the daughter of Fujiwara Morosuke, minister of the Right, entered the palace, and although her Court rank was not at first superior to that of the dainagon's daughter, her child had barely reached its third month when, through Morosuke's irresistible influence, it was nominated heir to the throne. Motokata's disappointment proved so keen that his health became impaired and he finally died--of chagrin, the people said. In those days men believed in the power of disembodied spirits for evil or for good. The spirit of the ill-fated Sugawara Michizane was appeased by building shrines to his memory, and a similar resource exorcised the angry ghost of the rebel, Masakado; but no such prevention having been adopted in the case of Motokata, his spirit was supposed to have compassed the early deaths of his grandson's supplanter, Reizei, and of the latter's successors, Kwazan and Sanjo, whose three united reigns totalled only five years.

A more substantial calamity resulted, however, from the habit of ignoring the right of primogeniture in favour of arbitrary selection. Murakami, seeing that the Crown Prince (Reizei) had an exceedingly feeble physique, deemed it expedient to transfer the succession to his younger brother, Tamehira. But the latter, having married into the Minamoto family, had thus become ineligible for the throne in Fujiwara eyes. The Emperor hesitated, therefore, to give open expression to his views, and while he waited, he himself fell mortally ill. On his death-bed he issued the necessary instruction, but the Fujiwara deliberately ignored it, being determined that a consort of their own blood must be the leading lady in every Imperial household. Then the indignation of the other great families, the Minamoto and the Taira, blazed out. Mitsunaka, representing the former, and Shigenobu the latter, entered into a conspiracy to collect an army in the Kwanto and march against Kyoto with the sole object of compelling obedience to Murakami's dying behest. The plot was divulged by Minamoto Mitsunaka in the sequel of a quarrel with Taira no Shigenobu; the plotters were all exiled, and Takaaki, youngest son of the Emperor Daigo, though wholly ignorant of the conspiracy, was falsely accused to the Throne by Fujiwara Morotada, deprived of his post of minister of the Left, to which his accuser was nominated, and sent to that retreat for disgraced officials, the Dazai-fu. Another instance is here furnished of the readiness with which political rivals slandered one another in old Japan, and another instance, also, of the sway exercised over the sovereign by his Fujiwara ministers.

THE SIXTY-THIRD SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR REIZEI (A.D. 968-969)

THE SIXTY-FOURTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR ENYU (A.D. 970-984)

The reigns of Reizei and Enyu are remarkable for quarrels among the members of the Fujiwara family--quarrels which, to be followed intelligently, require frequent reference to the genealogical table (page 203). Fujiwara Morosuke had five sons, Koretada, Kanemichi, Kaneiye, Tamemitsu, and Kinsuye. Two of these, Koretada and Kaneiye, presented one each of their daughters to the Emperor Reizei, and Koretada's daughter gave birth to Prince Morosada, who afterwards reigned as Kwazan, while Kaneiye's daughter bore Okisada, subsequently the Emperor Sanjo. After one year's reign, Reizei, who suffered from brain disease, abdicated in favour of his younger brother, Enyu, then only in his eleventh year. Fujiwara Saneyori acted as regent, but, dying shortly afterwards, was succeeded in that office by his nephew, Koretada, who also had to resign on account of illness.

Between this latter's two brothers, Kanemichi and Kaneiye, keen competition for the regency now sprang up. Kanemichi's eldest daughter was the Empress of Enyu, but his Majesty favoured Kaneiye, who thus attained much higher rank than his elder brother. Kanemichi, however, had another source of influence. His sister was Murakami's Empress and mother of the reigning sovereign, Enyu. This Imperial lady, writing to his Majesty Enyu at Kanemichi's dictation, conjured the Emperor to be guided by primogeniture in appointing a regent, and Enyu, though he bitterly disliked Kanemichi, could not gainsay his mother. Thus Kanemichi became chancellor and acting regent. The struggle was not concluded, however. It ended in the palace itself, whither the two brothers repaired almost simultaneously, Kanemichi rising from his sick-bed for the purpose. In the presence of the boy Emperor, Kanemichi arbitrarily transferred his own office of kwampaku to Fujiwara Yoritada and degraded his brother, Kaneiye, to a comparatively insignificant post. The sovereign acquiesced; he had no choice. A few months later, this dictator died. It is related of him that his residence was more gorgeous than the palace and his manner of life more sumptuous than the sovereign's. The men of his time were wont to say, "A tiger's mouth is less fatal than the frown of the regent, Kanemichi."

THE SIXTY-FIFTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR KWAZAN (A.D. 985-986)

THE SIXTY-SIXTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR ICHIJO (A.D. 987-1011)

Eldest son of the Emperor Reizei, Kwazan ascended the throne in 985. His mother was a daughter of Fujiwara Koretada, and Yoritada, whose appointment as regent has just been described, continued to act in that capacity. Kaneiye's opportunity had now come. Kwazan having succeeded Enyu, nominated the latter's son to be Crown Prince, instead of conferring the position on his own brother, Prince Okisada (afterwards Sanjo). Now the Crown Prince was the son of Kaneiye's daughter, and that ambitious noble determined to compass the sovereign's abdication without delay. Kwazan, originally a fickle lover, had ultimately conceived an absorbing passion for the lady Tsuneko. He could not be induced to part with her even at the time of her pregnancy, and as there was no proper provision in the palace for such an event, Tsuneko died in labour. Kwazan, distraught with grief, was approached by Kaneiye's son, Michikane, who urged him to retire from the world and seek in Buddhism the perfect peace thus alone attainable. Michikane declared his own intention of entering the "path," and on a moonlight night the two men, leaving the palace, repaired to the temple Gwangyo-ji to take the tonsure. There, Michikane, pretending he wished to bid final farewell to his family, departed to return no more, and the Emperor understood that he had been deceived.

Retreat was now impossible, however. He abdicated in favour of Ichijo, a child of seven, and Kaneiye became regent and chancellor. He emulated the magnificence of his deceased brother and rival, Kanemichi, and his residence at Higashi-Sanjo in Kyoto was built after the model of the "hall of freshness" in the palace. He had five sons, the most remarkable of whom were Michitaka, Michikane, and Michinaga. It will be presently seen that in the hands of the last the power of the Fujiwara reached its zenith. On the death of Kaneiye the office of kwampaku fell to his eldest son, Michitaka, and, in 993, the latter being seriously ill, his son, Korechika, looked to be his successor. But the honour fell to Michitaka's brother, Michikane. Seven days after his nomination, Michikane died, and, as a matter of course, men said that he had been done to death by the incantations of his ambitious nephew. Again, however, the latter was disappointed. Kaneiye's third son, Michinaga, succeeded to the regency.

Almost immediately, the new regent seems to have determined that his daughter should be Empress. But the daughter of his elder brother, the late Michitaka, already held that position. This, however, constituted no sort of obstacle in the eyes of the omnipotent Michinaga. He induced--"required" would probably be a more accurate expression--the Empress to abandon the world, shave her head, and remove to a secluded palace, (the Kokideri); where-after he caused his own daughter to become the Imperial consort under the title of chugu,* her residence being fixed in the Fujitsubo, which was the recognized palace of the Empress.

*A lady on introduction to the palace received the title of jokwan. If the daughter of a minister of State, she was called nyogo. Chugu was a still higher title devised specially for Michinaga's purpose, and naturally it became a precedent.

It is not to be imagined that with such a despotic regent, the Emperor himself exercised any real authority. The annals show that Ichijo was of benevolent disposition; that he sympathized with his people; that he excelled in prose composition and possessed much skill in music. Further, during his reign of twenty-four years many able men graced the era. But neither their capacity nor his own found opportunity for exercise in the presence of Michinaga's proteges, and, while profoundly disliking the Fujiwara autocrat, Ichijo was constrained to suffer him.

THE SIXTY-SEVENTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR SANJO (A.D. 1012-1017)

THE SIXTY-EIGHTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR GO-ICHIJO (A.D. 1017-1036)

Prince Okisada, younger brother of the Emperor Kwazan, ascended the throne at the age of thirty-six, on the abdication of Ichijo, and is known in history as Sanjo. Before his accession he had married the daughter of Fujiwara Naritoki, to whom he was much attached, but with the crown he had to accept the second daughter of Michinaga as chugu, his former consort becoming Empress. His Majesty had to acquiesce in another arbitrary arrangement also. It has been shown above that Michinaga's eldest daughter had been given the title of chugu in the palace of Ichijo, to whom she bore two sons, Atsunari and Atsunaga. Neither of these had any right to be nominated Crown Prince in preference to Sanjo's offspring. Michinaga, however, caused Atsunari to be appointed Prince Imperial, ignoring Sanjo's son, since his mother belonged to an inferior branch of the Fujiwara. Further, it did not suit the regent's convenience that a ruler of mature age should occupy the throne. An eye disease from which Sanjo suffered became the pretext for pressing him to abdicate, and, in 1017, Atsunari, then in his ninth year, took the sceptre as Emperor Go-Ichijo, or Ichijo II. Michinaga continued to act as regent, holding, at the same time, the office of minister of the Left, but he subsequently handed over the regency to his son, Yorimichi, becoming himself chancellor.

Go-Ichijo was constrained to endure at Michinaga's hands the same despotic treatment as that previously meted out to Sanjo. The legitimate claim of his offspring to the throne was ignored in favour of his brother, Atsunaga, who received for consort the fourth daughter of Michinaga. Thus, this imperious noble had controlled the administration for thirty years; had given his daughters to three Emperors; had appointed his son to be regent in his place, and had the Crown Prince for grandson. Truly, as his historians say, he held the empire in the hollow of his hand. His estates far exceeded those of the Crown; the presents offered to him by all ranks reached an enormous total; he built for himself a splendid mansion (Jotomon) with forced labour requisitioned from the provinces, and for his wife a scarcely less magnificent residence (Kyogoku) was erected at the charges of the Emperor Go-Ichijo. At the approach of illness he took refuge in Buddhism, but even here the gorgeous ostentation of his life was not abated. He planned the building of a monastery which should prove a worthy retreat for his declining years, and it is on record that his order to the provincial governor was, "though you neglect your official duties, do not neglect to furnish materials and labour for the building of Hojo-ji." Even from the palace itself stones were taken for this monastery, and the sums lavished upon it were so enormous that they dwarfed Michinaga's previous extravagances. Michinaga retired there to die, and on his death-bed he received a visit from the Emperor, who ordered three months' Court mourning on his decease. There is a celebrated work entitled Eigwa Monogatari (Tales of Splendour), wherein is depicted the fortunes and the foibles of the Fujiwara family from the days (889) of the Emperor Uda to those (1092) of the Emperor Horikawa. Specially minute is the chronicle when it treats of the Mido kwampaku, as Michinaga was called after he set himself to build the monastery Hojo-ji.

Loyal Japanese historians shrink from describing this era, when the occupants of the throne were virtually puppets in the hands of the Fujiwara. There was, however, one redeeming feature: amid this luxury and refinement literature flourished vigorously, so that the era of Tenryaku (947-957) lives in the memory of the nation as vividly as that of Engi (901-923). Oye Tomotsuna, Sugawara Fumitoki, Minamoto Shitago--these were famous littérateurs, and Minamoto Hiromasa, grandson of the Emperor Uda, attained celebrity as a musical genius. Coming to the reigns of Kwazan, Enyu, and Ichijo (985-1011), we find the immortal group of female writers, Murasaki Shikibu, Izumi Shikibu, Sei Shonagon, and Akazome Emon; we find also in the Imperial family, Princes Kaneakira and Tomohira; we find three famous scribes, Fujiwara Yukinari, Fujiwara Sari, and Ono no Tofu, and, finally the "Four Nagon" (Shi-nagori), Fujiwara Yukinari, Fujiwara Kinto. Minamoto Narinobu, and Minamoto Toshikata.

It is observable that in this necessarily brief summary the name "Minamoto" occurs several times, as does that of "Fujiwara" also. But that the scions of either family confined themselves to the arts of peace, is not to be inferred. There were Fujiwara among the military magnates in the provinces, and we shall presently see the Minamoto taking the lead in the science of war. Already, indeed, the Fujiwara in the capital were beginning to recognize the power of the Minamoto. It has been related above that one of the rebel Masakado's earliest opponents was a Minamoto, vice-governor of Musashi. His son, Mitsunaka, a redoubtable warrior, assisted the Fujiwara in Kyoto, and Mitsunaka's sons, Yorimitsu and Yorinobu, contributed materially to the autocracy of the regent Michinaga. Yorimitsu was appointed by the regent to command the cavalry of the guard, and he is said to have brought that corps to a state of great efficiency.

There was, indeed, much need of a strong hand. One had only to emerge from the palace gates to find oneself among the haunts of bandits. The names of such robber chiefs as Hakamadare no Yasusuke, Kidomaru, Oeyama Shutendoji, and Ibaraki-doji have been handed down as the heroes in many a strange adventure and the perpetrators of many heinous crimes. Even the Fujiwara residences were not secure against the torches of these plunderers, and during the reign of Ichijo the palace itself was frequently fired by them. In Go-Ichijo's tune, an edict was issued forbidding men to carry bows and arrows in the streets, but had there been power to enforce such a veto, its enactment would not have been necessary. Its immediate sequel was that the bandits broke into Government offices and murdered officials there.

THE INVASION OF JAPAN BY THE TOI

In the spring of 1019, when Go-Ichijo occupied the throne, a large host of invaders suddenly poured into the island of Tsushima. There had not been any warning. Tsushima lies half-way between the south of Korea and the northeast of Kyushu, distant about sixty miles from either coast. Since the earliest times, its fine harbours had served as a military station for ships plying between Japan and Korea, but such intercourse had long been interrupted when this invasion took place.

The invaders were the Toi, originally called Sushen or Moho, under the former of which names they make their appearance in Japanese history in the middle of the sixth century. They inhabited that part of the Asiatic continent which lies opposite to the island of Ezo, but there is nothing to show what impulse they obeyed in making this sudden descent upon Japan. Their fleet comprised some fifty vessels only, each from forty to sixty feet long and propelled by thirty or forty oars, but of how many fighting men the whole force consisted, no record has been preserved. As to arms, they carried swords, bows, spears, and shields, and in their tactical formation spearmen occupied the front rank, then came swordsmen, and finally bowmen. Every man had a shield. Their arrows were short, measuring little over a foot, but their bows were powerful, and they seem to have fought with fierce courage.

At first they carried everything before them. The governor of Tsushima, being without any means of defence, fled to the Dazai-fu in Kyushu, and the inhabitants were left to the mercy of the invaders, who then pushed on to the island of Iki. There the governor, Fujiwara Masatada, made a desperate resistance, losing his own life in the battle. It is said that of all the inhabitants, one only, a Buddhist priest, escaped to tell the story.

Ten days after their first appearance off Tsushima, the Toi effected a landing in Chikuzen and marched towards Hakata, plundering, burning, massacring old folks and children, making prisoners of adults, and slaughtering cattle and horses for food. It happened, fortunately, that Takaiye, younger brother of Fujiwara Korechika, was in command at the Dazai-fu, whither he had repaired partly out of pique, partly to undergo treatment for eye disease at the hands of a Chinese doctor. He met the crisis with the utmost coolness, and made such skilful dispositions for defence that, after three days' fighting, in which the Japanese lost heavily, Hakata remained uncaptured.

High winds and rough seas now held the invaders at bay, and in that interval the coast defences were repaired and garrisoned, and a fleet of thirty-eight boats having been assembled, the Japanese assumed the offensive, ultimately driving the Toi to put to sea. A final attempt was made to effect a landing at Matsuura in the neighbouring province of Hizen, but, after fierce fighting, the invaders had to withdraw altogether. The whole affair had lasted sixteen days, and the Japanese losses were 382 killed and 1280 taken prisoners. Two hundred and eighty of the latter--60 men and 220 women--were subsequently returned. They were brought over from Koma six months later by a Koma envoy, Chong Cha-ryang, to whom the Court presented three hundred pieces of gold.

Kyoto's attitude towards this incident was most instructive. When the first tidings of the invasion reached the capital, the protection of heaven was at once invoked by services at Ise and ten other shrines. But when, on receipt of news that the danger had been averted, the question of rewarding the victors came up for discussion, a majority of the leading statesmen contended that, as the affair had been settled before the arrival of an Imperial mandate at the Dazai-fu, no official cognizance could be taken of it. This view was ultimately overruled since the peril had been national, but the rewards subsequently given were insignificant, and the event clearly illustrates the policy of the Central Government--a policy already noted in connexion with the revolt of Masakado--namely, that any emergency dealt with prior to the receipt of an Imperial rescript must be regarded as private, whatever its nature, and therefore beyond the purview of the law.

A more effective method of decentralization could not have been devised. It was inevitable that, under such a system, the provincial magnates should settle matters to their own liking without reference to Kyoto, and that, the better to enforce their will, they should equip themselves with armed retinues. In truth, it is not too much to say that, from the tenth century, Japan outside the capital became an arena of excursions and alarms, the preservation of peace being wholly dependent on the ambitions of local magnates.

A history of all these happenings would be intolerably long and tedious. Therefore only those that have a national bearing will be here set down. Prominent among such is the struggle between the Taira and the Minamoto in the Kwanto. The origin of these two families has already been recounted. Some historians have sought to differentiate the metropolitan section of the Minamoto from the provincial section--that is to say, the men of luxury and literature who frequented the capital, from the men of sword and bow who ruled in the provinces. Such differentiation is of little practical value. Similar lines of demarcation might be drawn in the case of the Taira and Fujiwara themselves. If there were great captains in each of these famous families, there were also great courtiers. To the former category belonged Taira Tadatsune. For generations his family had ruled in the province of Shimosa and had commanded the allegiance of all the bushi of the region. Tadatsune held at one time the post of vice-governor of the neighbouring province of Kazusa, where he acquired large manors (shoen). In the year 1028, he seized the chief town of the latter province, and pushing on into Awa, killed the governor and obtained complete control of the province.* The Court, on receiving news of these events, ordered Minamoto Yorinobu, governor of Kai, and several other provincial governors to attack the Taira chief.

*Murdoch, in his History of Japan, says that in three years Tadatsune's aggressions "reduced the Kwanto to a tangled wilderness. Thus, in the province of Shimosa, in 1027, there had been as much as 58,000 acres under cultivation; but in 1031 this had shrunk to forty-five acres."

Yorinobu did not wait for his associates. Setting out with his son, Yoriyoshi, in 1031, he moved at once against Tadatsune's castle, which stood on the seashore of Shimosa, protected by moats and palisades, and supposed to be unapproachable from the sea except by boats, of which Tadatsune had taken care that there should not be any supply available. But the Minamoto general learned that the shore sloped very slowly on the castle front, and marching his men boldly through the water, he delivered a crushing attack.

For this exploit, which won loud plaudits, he was appointed commandant of the local government office, a post held by his grandfather, Tsunemoto, whom we have seen as vice-governor of Musashi in the days of Masakado; by his father, Mitsunaka, one of the pillars of the Minamoto family, and by his elder brother, Yorimitsu, who commanded the cavalry of the guards in Kyoto. The same post was subsequently bestowed on Yorinobu's son, Yoriyoshi, and on the latter's son, Yoshiiye, known by posterity as "Hachiman Taro," Japan's most renowned archer, to whom the pre-eminence of the Minamoto family was mainly due. Tadatsune had another son, Tsunemasa, who was appointed vice-governor of Shimosa and who is generally spoken of as Chiba-no-suke. The chief importance of these events is that they laid the foundation of the Minamoto family's supremacy in the Kwanto, and thus permanently influenced the course of Japanese history.

THE CAMPAIGN OF ZEN-KUNEN

It is advisable at this stage to make closer acquaintance with the Japanese bushi (soldier), who has been cursorily alluded to more than once in these pages, and who, from the tenth century, acts a prominent role on the Japanese stage. History is silent as to the exact date when the term "bushi" came into use, but from a very early era its Japanese equivalent, "monono-fu," was applied to the guards of the sovereign's palace, and when great provincial magnates began, about the tenth century, to support a number of armed retainers, these gradually came to be distinguished as bushi. In modern times the ethics of the bushi have been analysed under the name "bushido" (the way of the warrior), but of course no such term or any such complete code existed in ancient days. The conduct most appropriate to a bushi was never embodied in a written code. It derived its sanctions from the practice of recognized models, and only by observing those models can we reach a clear conception of the thing itself.

ENGRAVING: HALL OF BYODOIN TEMPLE (1052), AT UJI

To that end, brief study may be given to the principal campaigns of the eleventh century, namely, the century immediately preceding the establishment of military feudalism. It must be premised, however, that although the bushi figured mainly on the provincial stage, he acted an important part in the capital also. There, the Throne and its Fujiwara entourage were constrained to enlist the co-operation of the military nobles for the purpose of controlling the lawless elements of the population. The Minamoto family were conspicuous in that respect. Minamoto Mitsunaka--called also Manchu--served at the Court of four consecutive sovereigns from Murakami downwards, was appointed governor of several provinces, and finally became commandant of the local Government office. Yorimitsu, his son, a still greater strategist, was a prominent figure at five Courts, from the days of Enyu, and his brothers, Yorichika and Yorinobu, rendered material assistance in securing the supremacy of the great Fujiwara chief, Michinaga. Indeed, the Minamoto were commonly spoken of as the "claws" of the Fujiwara. It was this Yorinobu who won such fame by escalading the castle of Taira Tadatsune and who established his family's footing in the Kwanto. His uncle, Yoshimitsu, had a large estate at Tada in Settsu, and this branch of the family was known as Tada Genji.*

Then there were:

The Yamato Genji descended from Yorichika

" Suruga " " " Mitsumasa

" Shinano " " " Mitsunaka

" Uda " of Omi, called also the Sasaki family

" Saga " of Settsu " " " Watanabe

" Hizen " of Hizen " " " Matsuura

The Taira family became famous from the time of Sadamori, who quelled the insurrection of Masakado. Of this clan, there were these branches:

The Daijo-uji of Hitachi, so called because for generations they held the office of daijo in Hitachi.

The Ise-Heishi of Ise, descended from Korehira, son of Sadamori.

" Shiro-uji of Mutsu, Dewa, Shinano, and Echigo, descended from Shigemori and Koremochi

" Nishina-uji " " " " " " " "

" Iwaki-uji " " " " " " " "

" Miura-no-suke of Musashi, Kazusa, and Shimosa, descendants of Taira no Yoshibumi

" Chiba-no-suke " " " " "

" Chichibu-uji " " " " "

Soma family, who succeeded to the domains of Masakado.

*"Gen" is the alternative pronunciation of "Minamoto" as "Hei" is of "Taira." The two great families who occupy such a large space in the pages of Japanese history are spoken of together as "Gen-Pei," and independently as "Genji" and "Heishi," or "Minamoto" and

The Fujiwara also had many provincial representatives, descended mainly from Hidesato, (called also Tawara Toda), who distinguished himself in the Masakado crisis. There were the Sano-uji of Shimotsuke, Mutsu, and Dewa; and there were the Kondo, the Muto, the Koyama, and the Yuki, all in different parts of the Kwanto. In fact, the empire outside the capital was practically divided between the Minamoto, the Taira, and the Fujiwara families, so that anything like a feud could scarcely fail to have wide ramifications.

The eleventh century may be said to have been the beginning of such tumults. Not long after the affair of Taira Tadatsune, there occurred the much larger campaign known as Zen-kunen no Sodo, or the "Prior Nine Years' Commotion." The scene of this struggle was the vast province of Mutsu in the extreme north of the main island. For several generations the Abe family had exercised sway there, and its representative in the middle of the eleventh century extended his rule over six districts and defied the authority of the provincial governors. The Court deputed Minamoto Yoriyoshi to restore order. The Abe magnate was killed by a stray arrow at an early stage of the campaign, but his son, Sadato, made a splendid resistance.

In December, 1057, Yoriyoshi, at the head of eighteen hundred men, led a desperate assault on the castle of Kawasaki, garrisoned by Sadato with four thousand picked soldiers. The attack was delivered during a heavy snow-storm, and in its sequel the Minamoto general found his force reduced to six men. Among these six, however, was his eldest son, Yoshiiye, one of the most skilful bowmen Japan ever produced. Yoshiiye's mother was a Taira. When she became enceinte her husband dreamed that the sacred sword of the war deity, Hachiman, had been given to him, and the boy came to be called Hachiman Taro. This name grew to be a terror to the enemy, and it was mainly through his prowess that his father and their scanty remnant of troops escaped over roads where the snow lay several feet deep.

On a subsequent occasion in the same campaign, Yoshiiye had Sadato at his mercy and, while fixing an arrow to shoot him, composed the first line of a couplet, "The surcoat's warp at last is torn." Sadato, without a moment's hesitation, capped the line, "The threads at last are frayed and worn,"* and Yoshiiye, charmed by such a display of ready wit, lowered his bow. Nine years were needed to finish the campaign, and, in its sequel, Yoriyoshi was appointed governor of Iyo, and Yoshiiye, governor of Mutsu, while Kiyowara Takenori, without whose timely aid Sadato could scarcely have been subdued, received the high post of chinju-fu shogun (commandant of the local Government office). Yoshiiye's magnanimity towards Sadato at the fortress of Koromo-gawa has always been held worthy of a true bushi.

*The point of this couplet is altogether lost in English. It turns upon the fact that the word tate used by Yoshiiye means either a fortress or the vertical threads in woven stuff, and that koromo was the name of the fortress where the encounter took place and had also the significance of "surcoat."

Sadato was ultimately killed, but his younger brother Muneto had the affection and full confidence of Yoshiiye. Muneto, however, remembered his brother's fate and cherished a desire to take vengeance on Yoshiiye, which mood also was recognized as becoming to a model bushi. One night, the two men went out together, and Muneto decided that the opportunity for vengeance had come. Drawing his sword, he looked into the ox-carriage containing Yoshiiye and found him sound asleep. The idea of behaving treacherously in the face of such trust was unendurable, and thereafter Muneto served Yoshiiye with faith and friendship. The confidence that the Minamoto hero reposed in the brother of his old enemy and the way it was requited--these, too, are claimed as traits of the bushi.

Yet another canon is furnished by Yoshiiye's career--the canon of humility. Oye no Masafusa was overheard remarking that Yoshiiye had some high qualities but was unfortunately ignorant of strategy. This being repeated to Yoshiiye, he showed no resentment but begged to become Masafusa's pupil. Yet he was already conqueror of the Abe and governor of Dewa.

THE GO-SANNEN CAMPAIGN

Thereafter the provinces of Mutsu and Dewa were again the scene of another fierce struggle which, since it began in the third year (1089) of the Kwanji era and ended in the fifth year (1091), was called the "After Three-years War." With regard to the nature of this commotion, no enumeration of names is necessary. It was a family quarrel between the scions of Kiyowara Takenori, a magnate of Mutsu who had rendered conclusive assistance to Yoshiiye in the Nine-years' War; and as a great landowner of Dewa, Kimiko Hidetake, took part, the whole north of Japan may be said to have been involved. It fell to Yoshiiye, as governor of Mutsu, to quell the disturbance, and very difficult the task proved, so difficult that the issue might have been different had not Fujiwara Kiyohira--who will be presently spoken of--espoused the Minamoto cause.

When news of the struggle reached Kyoto, Yoshiiye's younger brother, Yoshimitsu, who held the much coveted post of kebiishi, applied for permission to proceed at once to his brother's assistance. The Court refused his application, whereupon he resigned his office and, like a true bushi, hastened to the war. Yoshimitsu was a skilled performer upon a musical instrument called the sho. He had studied under a celebrated master, Toyohara Tokimoto, now no more, and, on setting out for the field of battle in the far north, he became apprehensive lest the secrets imparted to him by his teacher should die with him. He therefore invited Tokimoto's son, Tokiaki, to bear him company during the first part of his journey, and to him he conveyed all the knowledge he possessed. The spectacle of this renowned soldier giving instruction in the art of music to the son of his deceased teacher on moonlit nights as he travelled towards the battlefield, has always appealed strongly to Japanese conception of a perfect samurai, and has been the motive of many a picture.

This Go-sannen struggle furnished also another topic for frequent pictorial representation. When about to attack the fortress of Kanazawa, to which the approaches were very difficult, Yoshiiye observed a flock of geese rising in confusion, and rightly inferred an ambuscade of the enemy. His comment was, "Had not Oye Masafusa taught me strategy, many brave men had been killed to-night." Yet one more typical bushi may be mentioned in connexion with this war. Kamakura Gongoro, a youth of sixteen, always fought in the van of Yoshiiye's forces and did great execution. A general on the enemy's side succeeded in discharging a shaft which entered the boy's eye. Gongoro, breaking the arrow, rode straight at the archer and cut him down. A shrine in Kamakura was erected to the memory of this intrepid lad.

When Yoshiiye reported to the Throne the issue of this sanguinary struggle, Kyoto replied that the war had been a private feud and that no reward or distinctions would be conferred. Yoshiiye therefore devoted the greater part of his own manors to recompensing those that had followed his standard. He thus won universal respect throughout the Kwanto. Men competed to place their sons and younger brothers as kenin (retainers) in his service and the name of Hachiman-ko was on all lips. But Yoshiiye died (1108) in a comparatively low rank. It is easy to comprehend that in the Kwanto it became a common saying, "Better serve the Minamoto than the sovereign."

THE FUJIWARA OF THE NORTH

Fujiwara Kiyohira, who is mentioned above as having espoused the cause of the Minamoto in the Go-sannen, was descended from Hidesato, the conqueror of Masakado. After the Go-sannen outbreak he succeeded to the six districts of Mutsu which had been held by the insurgent chiefs. This vast domain descended to his son Motohira, and to the latter's son, Hidehira, whose name we shall presently find in large letters on a page of Japanese history.

The Mutsu branch of the Fujiwara wielded paramount sway in the north for several generations. Near Hiraizumi, in the province of Rikuchu, may still be seen four buildings forming the monastery Chuson-ji. In one of these edifices repose the remains of Kiyohira, Motohira, and Hidehira. The ceiling, floor and four walls of this Konjiki-do (golden hall) were originally covered with powdered gold, and its interior pillars are inlaid with mother-of-pearl on which are traced the outlines of twelve Arhats. In the days of Kiyohira the monastery consisted of forty buildings and was inhabited by three hundred priests.

ENGRAVING: A CONJUROR

ENGRAVING: SIDE VIEW OF THE "KOHO-AN" OF DAITOKU-JI, AT KYOTO

XXII. RECOVERY OF ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORITY BY THE THRONE

The 69th Sovereign, the Emperor Go-Shujaku A.D. 1037-1045

70th " " Go-Reizei 1046-1068

71st " " Go-Sanjo 1069-1072

72nd " " Shirakawa 1073-1086

73rd " " Horikawa 1087-1107

74th " " Toba 1108-1123

75th " " Sutoku 1124-1141

76th " " Konoe 1142-1155

77th " " Go-Shirakawa 1156-1158

DECADENCE OF FUJIWARA AUTOCRACY

During two centuries the administrative power remained in the hands of the Fujiwara. They lost it by their own timidity rather than through the machinations of their enemies. When the Emperor Go-Shujaku was mortally ill, he appointed his eldest son, Go-Reizei, to be his successor, and signified his desire that the latter's half-brother, Takahito, should be nominated Crown Prince. Fujiwara Yorimichi was then regent (kwampaku). To him, also, the dying sovereign made known his wishes. Now Takahito had not been born of a Fujiwara mother. The regent, therefore, while complying at once in Go-Reizei's case, said that the matter of the Crown Prince might be deferred, his purpose being to wait until a Fujiwara lady should bear a son to Go-Reizei.

In thus acting, Yorimichi obeyed the policy from which his family had never swerved through many generations, and which had now become an unwritten law of the State. But his brother, Yoshinobu, read the signs of the times in a sinister light. He argued that the real power had passed to the military magnates, and that by attempting to stem the current the Fujiwara might be swept away altogether. He therefore repaired to the palace, and simulating ignorance of what had passed between the late sovereign and the kwampaku, inquired whether it was intended that Prince Takahito should enter a monastery. Go-Reizei replied emphatically in the negative and related the facts, whereupon Yoshinobu declared that the prince should be nominated forthwith. It was done, and thus for the first time in a long series of years a successor to the throne was proclaimed who had not the qualification of a Fujiwara mother.

There remained to the kwampaku only one way of expressing his dissent. During many years it had been customary that the Prince Imperial, on his nomination, should receive from the Fujiwara regent a famous sword called Tsubo-kiri (Jar-cutter). Yorimichi declined to make the presentation in the case of Prince Takahito on the ground that he was not of Fujiwara lineage. The prince--afterwards Go-Sanjo--had the courage to deride this omission. "Of what service is the sword to me?" he said. "I have no need of it."

Such an attitude was very significant of the changing times. During more than twenty years of probation as Crown Prince, this sovereign, Go-Sanjo, had ample opportunity of observing the arbitrary conduct of the Fujiwara, and when he held the sceptre he neglected no means of asserting the authority of the Crown, one conspicuous step being to take a daughter of Go-Ichijo into the palace as chugu, a position created for a Fujiwara and never previously occupied by any save a Fujiwara.

Altogether, Go-Sanjo stands an imposing figure in the annals of his country. Erudition he possessed in no small degree, and it was supplemented by diligence, high moral courage and a sincere love of justice. He also set to his people an example of frugality. It is related that, observing as he passed through the streets one day, an ox-carriage with gold mountings, he stopped his cortege and caused the gold to be stripped off. Side by side with this record may be placed his solicitude about the system of measures, which had fallen into disorder. With his own hands he fashioned a standard which was known to later generations as the senshi-masu of the Enkyu era (1069-1074). The question of tax-free manors (shoen) also received much attention. During the reign of Go-Shujaku, decrees were frequently issued forbidding the creation of these estates. The Fujiwara shoen were conspicuous. Michinaga possessed wide manors everywhere, and Yorimichi, his son, was not less insatiable. Neither Go-Shujaku nor Go-Reizei could check the abuse. But Go-Sanjo resorted to a really practical measure. He established a legislative office where all titles to shoen had to be examined and recorded, the Daiho system of State ownership being restored, so that all rights of private property required official sanction, the Court also becoming the judge in all disputes as to validity of tenure.

These orders came like a clap of thunder in a blue sky. Many great personages had acquired vast manorial tracts by processes that could not endure the scrutiny of the Kiroku-jo (registrar's office). Yorimichi, the kwampaku, was a conspicuous example. On receipt of the order to register, he could only reply that he had succeeded to his estates as they stood and that no documentary evidence was available. Nevertheless, he frankly added that, if his titles were found invalid, he was prepared to surrender his estates, since the position he occupied required him to be an administrator of law, not an obstacle to its administration. This was the same noble who had refused to present the sword, Tsubo-kiri, to Go-Sanjo when the latter was nominated Crown Prince. The Emperor might now have exacted heavy reparation. But his Majesty shrank from anything like spoliation. A special decree was issued exempting from proof of title all manors held by chancellors, regents, or their descendants.

SALE OF OFFICES AND RANKS

Another abuse with which Go-Sanjo sought to deal drastically was the sale of offices and ranks. This was an evil of old standing. Whenever special funds were required for temple building or palace construction, it had become customary to invite contributions from local magnates, who, in return, received, or were renewed in their tenure of, the post of provincial governor. Official ranks were similarly disposed of. At what time this practice had its origin the records do not show, but during the reign of Kwammu (782-805,) the bestowal of rank in return for a money payment was interdicted, and Miyoshi Kiyotsura, in his celebrated memorial to Daigo (898-930), urged that the important office of kebiishi should never be conferred in consideration of money. But in the days of Ichijo, the acquisition of tax-free manors increased rapidly and the treasury's income diminished correspondingly, so that it became inevitable, in times of State need, that recourse should be had to private contributions, the contributors being held to have shown "merit" entitling them to rank or office or both.

Go-Sanjo strictly interdicted all such transactions. But this action brought him into sharp collision with the then kwampaku, Fujiwara Norimichi. The latter built within the enclosure of Kofuku-ji at Nara an octagonal edifice containing two colossal images of Kwannon. On this nanen-do the regent spent a large sum, part of which was contributed by the governor of the province. Norimichi therefore applied to the Emperor for an extension of the governor's term of office. Go-Sanjo refused his assent. But Norimichi insisted. Finally the Emperor, growing indignant, declared that the kwampaku's sole title to respect being derived from his maternal relationship to the sovereign, he deserved no consideration at the hands of an Emperor whose mother was not a Fujiwara. It was a supreme moment in the fortunes of the Fujiwara. Norimichi angrily swept out of the presence, crying aloud: "The divine influence of Kasuga Daimyojin* ceases from to-day. Let every Fujiwara official follow me." Thereat all the Fujiwara courtiers flocked out of the palace, and the Emperor had no choice but to yield. Victory rested with the Fujiwara, but it was purchased at the loss of some prestige.

*Titulary deity of the Fujiwara-uji.

CAMERA SOVEREIGNTY

Their obviously selfish device of seating a minor on the throne and replacing him as soon as he reached years of discretion, had been gradually invested by the Fujiwara with an element of spurious altruism. They had suggested the principle that the tenure of sovereign power should not be exercised exclusively. Go-Sanjo held, however, that such a system not only impaired the Imperial authority but also was unnatural. No father, he argued, could be content to divest himself of all practical interest in the affairs of his family, and to condemn the occupant of the throne to sit with folded hands was to reduce him to the rank of a puppet. Therefore, even though a sovereign abdicated, he should continue to take an active part in the administration of State affairs. This was, in short, Go-Sanjo's plan for rendering the regent a superfluity. He proposed to substitute camera government (Insei) for control by a kwampaku. But fate willed that he should not carry his project into practice. He abdicated, owing to ill health, in 1073, and died the following year.

SHIRAKAWA

Go-Sanjo was succeeded by his eldest son, Shirakawa. He had taken for consort the daughter of Fujiwara Yorimichi. This lady, Kenko, had been adopted into the family of Fujiwara Morozane, and it is recorded that Yorimichi and Morozane shed tears of delight when they heard of her selection by the Crown Prince--so greatly had the influence of the Fujiwara declined. Shirakawa modelled himself on his father. He personally administered affairs of State, displaying assiduity and ability but not justice. Unlike his father he allowed himself to be swayed by favour and affection, arbitrarily ignored time-honoured rules, and was guilty of great extravagance in matters of religion. But he carried into full effect the camera (or cloistered) system of government, thereafter known as Insei. For, in 1086, after thirteen years' reign, he resigned the sceptre to an eight-year-old boy, Horikawa, his son by the chugu, Kenko. The untimely death of the latter, for whom he entertained a strong affection, was the proximate cause of Shirakawa's abdication, but there can be little doubt that he had always contemplated such a step. He took the tonsure and the religious title of Ho-o (pontiff), but in the Toba palace, his new residence, he organized an administrative machine on the exact lines of that of the Court.

ENGRAVING: KO-NO-MA (ROOM) NISHI (WEST) HONGWAN-JI TEMPLE, AT KYOTO (An example of "Shoinzukuri" building)

Thenceforth the functions of Imperialism were limited to matters of etiquette and ceremony, all important State business being transacted by the Ho-o and his camera entourage. If the decrees of the Court clashed with those of the cloister, as was occasionally inevitable, the former had to give way. Thus, it can scarcely be said that there was any division of authority. But neither was there any progress. The earnest efforts made by Go-Sanjo to check the abuse of sales of rank and office as well as the alienation of State lands into private manors, were rendered wholly abortive under the sway of Shirakawa. The cloistered Emperor was a slave of superstition. He caused no less than six temples* to be built of special grandeur, and to the principal of these (Hosho-ji) he made frequent visits in state, on which occasions gorgeous ceremonies were performed. He erected the Temple of the 33,333 Images of Kwannon (the Sanjusangen-do) in Kyoto; he made four progresses to the monastery at Koya and eight to that at Kumano; he commissioned artists to paint 5470 Buddhist pictures, sculptors to cast 127 statues each sixteen feet high; 3150 life-size, and 2930 of three feet or less, and he raised twenty-one large pagodas and 446,630 small ones.

*These were designated Roku-sho-ji, or "six excellent temples."

His respect for Buddhism was so extreme that he strictly interdicted the taking of life in any form, a veto which involved the destruction of eight thousand fishing nets and the loss of their means of sustenance to innumerable fishermen, as well as the release of all falcons kept for hawking. It has even been suggested that Shirakawa's piety amounted to a species of insanity, for, on one occasion, when rain prevented a contemplated progress to Hosho-ji, he sentenced the rain to imprisonment and caused a quantity to be confined in a vessel.* To the nation, however, all this meant something very much more than a mere freak. It meant that the treasury was depleted and that revenue had to be obtained by recourse to the abuses which Go-Sanjo had struggled so earnestly to check, the sale of offices and ranks, even in perpetuity, and the inclusion of great tracts of State land in private manors.

*This silliness was spoken of by the people as ame-kingoku (the incarceration of the rain).

TOBA

Horikawa died in 1107, after a reign of twenty years, and was succeeded by his son Toba, a child of five. Affairs of State continued to be directed by the cloistered sovereign, and he chose for his grandson's consort Taiken-mon-in, who bore to him a son, the future Emperor Sutoku. Toba abdicated, after a reign of fifteen years, on the very day of Sutoku's nomination as heir apparent, and, six years later, Shirakawa died (1128), having administered the empire from the cloister during a space of forty-three years.

As a device to wrest the governing power from the grasp of the Fujiwara, Go-Sanjo's plan was certainly successful, and had he lived to put it into operation himself, the results must have been different. But in the greatly inferior hands of Shirakawa this new division of Imperial authority and the segregation of its source undoubtedly conspired to prepare the path for military feudalism and for curtained Emperors.

Toba, with the title of Ho-o, took the tonsure and administered from the cloister after Shirakawa's death. One of his first acts after abdication was to take another consort, a daughter of Fujiwara Tadazane, whom he made Empress under the name of Kaya-no-in; but as she bore him no offspring, he placed in the Toba palace a second Fujiwara lady, Bifuku-mon-in, daughter of Nagazane. By her he had (1139) a son whom he caused to be adopted by the Empress, preparatory to placing him on the throne as Emperor Konoe, at the age of three. Thus, the cloistered sovereigns followed faithfully in the footsteps of the Fujiwara.

SOLDIER-PRIESTS

A phenomenon which became conspicuous during the reign of Shirakawa was recourse to violence by Buddhist priests. This abuse had its origin in the acquisition of large manors by temples and the consequent employment of soldiers to act as guards. Ultimately, great monasteries like Kofuku-ji, Onjo-ji, and Enryaku-ji came to possess thousands of these armed men, and consequently wielded temporal power. Shirakawa's absorbing belief in Buddhism created opportunities for the exercise of this influence. Keenly anxious that a son should be born of his union with Kenko, the daughter of Fujiwara Yorimichi, his Majesty bespoke the prayers of Raigo, lord-abbot of Onjo-ji. It happened that unsuccessful application had frequently been made by the Onjo-ji monks for an important religious privilege. Raigo informed the Emperor that, if this favour were promised, the prayer for a prince would certainly be heard. Shirakawa made the promise, and Kenko gave birth to Prince Atsubumi. But when the Emperor would have fulfilled his pledge, the priests of Enryaku-ji (Hiei-zan), jealous that a privilege which they alone possessed should be granted to priests of another monastery, repaired to the Court en masse to protest. Shirakuwu yielded to this representation and despatched Oye no Masafusa to placate Raigo. But the abbot refused to listen. He starved himself to death, passing day and night in devotion, and shortly after his demise the little prince, born in answer to his prayers, died of small-pox.

In an age when superstition prevailed widely the death of the child was, of course, attributed to the incantations of the abbot. From that time a fierce feud raged between Onjo-ji and Enryaku-ji. In the year 1081, the priest-soldiers of the latter set the torch to the former, and, flocking to Kyoto in thousands, threw the capital into disorder. Order was with difficulty restored through the exertions of the kebiishi and the two Minamoto magnates, Yoshiiye and Yoshitsuna, but it was deemed expedient to guard the palace and the person of the Emperor with bushi. Twelve years later (1093), thousands of cenobites, carrying the sacred tree of the Kasuga shrine, marched from Nara to Kyoto, clamouring for vengeance on the governor of Omi, whom they charged with arresting and killing the officials of the shrine. This became a precedent. Thereafter, whenever the priests had a grievance, they flocked to the palace carrying the sacred tree of some temple or shrine. The soldier cenobites of Enryaku-ji--yama-hoshi, as they were called--showed themselves notably turbulent. They inaugurated the device of replacing the sacred tree with the "divine car," against which none dare raise a hand or shoot an arrow. If their petition were rejected, they would abandon the car in the streets of the capital, thus placing the city under a curse.

A notable instance occurred, in 1095, when these yama-hoshi of Hiyoshi preferred a charge of blood-guiltiness against Minamoto Yoshitsuna, governor of Mino. They flocked to the palace in a truculent mob, but the bushi on duty, being under the command of a Minamoto, did not hesitate to use their bows. Thereupon the yama-hoshi discarded the divine car, hastened back to the temple, and assembling all the priests, held a solemn service invoking the wrath of heaven on the State. In an age of profound superstition such action threw the Court into consternation, and infinite pains were taken to persuade Shinto officials of an independent shrine to carry the divine car back to Hiei-zan.

Instances of such turbulence were not infrequent, and they account in part for the reckless prodigality shown by Shirakawa in building and furnishing temples. The cenobites did not confine themselves to demonstrations at the palace; they had their own quarrels also. Kofuku-ji's hand was against Kimbusen and Todai-ji, and not a few priests doffed the stole and cassock to engage in temporary brigandage. The great Taira leader, Tadamori, and his son, Kiyomori--one of the most prominent figures on the stage of medieval Japan--dealt strongly with the Shinto communities at Hiyoshi and Gion, and drove the Kofuku-ji priests out of the streets of Kyoto, the result being that this great military family became an object of execration at Kofuku-ji and Enryaku-ji alike. With difficulty the Court kept peace between them. It is related of Shirakawa Ho-o that the three things which he declared to defy his control were the waters of the Kamo River, the fall of the dice, and the yama-hoshi.

ENGRAVING: PLAYING BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK (From a painting)

XXIII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE HEIAN EPOCH

GENERAL SUMMARY

THE period we are considering is a long one which owes its unity to the sole fact that the capitol was at Kyoto. It is, therefore, unsafe to generalize on its manners and customs. But we may say with a degree of accuracy that the epoch was marked by an increasing luxury and artificiality, due largely to the adoption of Chinese customs. The capital city was built on a Chinese pattern and the salient characteristics of the Court during the period named from the new capital are on the Chinese pattern too. The Chinese idea of a civil service in which worth was tested by examinations was carried to a pedantic extreme both in administration and in society. In these examinations the important paper was in Chinese prose composition, which was much as if Latin prose were the main subject to prove the fitness of a candidate for an English or American administrative post! And the tests of social standing and the means of gaining fame at Court were skill in verse-writing, in music and dancing, in calligraphy and other forms of drawing, and in taste in landscape gardening.

Ichijo was famed as a musician and a prose writer, and Saga as a calligraphist. The Ako incident (see p. 240) illustrates the lengths to which pedantry was carried in matters of administration. And the story of the ill-success at the capital of the young soldier Taira Masakado, contrasted with the popularity of his showily vicious kinsman Sadabumi (see p. 253), illustrate what Murdoch means when he says that the early emperors of the Heian epoch had an "unbalanced craze for Chinese fashions, for Chinese manners, and above all for Chinese literature." Remarkable though the power of the Japanese people always seems to have been to assimilate foreign culture in large doses and speedily, it is hardly to be expected that at this period, any more than at a later one when there came in a sudden flood of European civilization, the nation should not have suffered somewhat--that it should not have had the defects of its qualities.

LUXURY OF THE COURT

Of Nimmyo's luxury and architectural extravagance we have already spoken, and of the arraignment of prodigality in dress, banquets, and funerals in the famous report of Miyoshi Kiyotsura (see p. 246). Indeed, we might almost cite the madness of the Emperor Yozei as being a typical, though extreme, case of the hysteria of the young and affected court nobles. Two of the Fujiwara have been pilloried in native records for ostentation: one for carrying inside his clothes hot rice-dumplings to keep himself warm, and, more important, to fling them away one after another as they got cold; and the other for carrying a fan decorated with a painting of a cuckoo and for imitating the cuckoo's cry whenever he opened the fan.

CONVENTION AND MORALITY

If the men of the period were effeminate and emotional, the women seem to have sunk to a lower stage of morals than in any other era, and sexual morality and wifely fidelity to have been abnormally bad and lightly esteemed. The story of Ariwara Narihira, prince, poet, painter and Don Juan, and of Taka and her rise to power (see p. 238) has already been told; and it is to be noted that the Fujiwara working for the control of the Throne through Imperial consorts induced, even forced, the Emperors to set a bad example in such matters. But over all this vice there was a veneer of elaborate etiquette. Even in the field a breach of etiquette was a deadly insult: as we have seen (p. 254) Taira Masakado lost the aid of a great lieutenant in his revolt because he forgot to bind up his hair properly before he received a visitor. At Court, etiquette and ceremony became the only functions of the nominal monarch after the camera government of the cloistered ex-Emperors had begun. And aristocratic women, though they might be notoriously unfaithful, kept up a show of modesty, covering their faces in public, refusing to speak to a stranger, going abroad in closed carriages or heavily veiled with hoods, and talking to men with their faces hid by a fan, a screen, or a sliding door, these degrees of intimacy being nicely adjusted to the rank and station of the person addressed. Love-making and wooing were governed by strict and conventional etiquette, and an interchange of letters of a very literary and artificial type and of poems usually took the place of personal meetings. Indeed, literary skill and appreciation of Chinese poetry and art were the main things sought for in a wife.

ENGRAVING: ARIWARA NARIHARA (Poet and Painter)

AMUSEMENTS

The pastimes of Court society in these years differed not so much in kind as in degree from those of the Nara epoch. In amusement, as in all else, there was extravagance and elaboration. What has already been said of the passion for literature would lead us to expect to find in the period an extreme development of the couplet-tournament (uta awase) which had had a certain vogue in the Nara epoch and was now a furore at Court. The Emperor Koko and other Emperors in the first half of the Heian epoch gave splendid verse-making parties, when the palace was richly decorated, often with beautiful flowers. In this earlier part of the period the gentlemen and ladies of the Court were separated, sitting on opposite sides of the room in which the party was held. Later in the Heian epoch the composition of love letters was a favorite competitive amusement, and although canons of elegant phraseology were implicitly followed, the actual contents of these fictitious letters were frankly indecent.

Other literary pastimes were: "incense-comparing," a combination of poetical dilletantism and skill in recognizing the fragrance of different kinds of incense burned separately or in different combinations; supplying famous stanzas of which only a word or so was given; making riddles in verse; writing verse or drawing pictures on fans,--testing literary and artistic skill; and making up lists of related ideographs. The love of flowers was carried to extravagant lengths. The camera Court in particular organized magnificent picnics to see the cherry-trees of Hosho-ji and the snowy forest at Koya. There were spring festivals of sunrise at Sagano and autumn moonlight excursions to the Oi River. The taste of the time was typified in such vagaries as covering trees with artificial flowers in winter and in piling up snow so that some traces of snowy landscapes might still be seen in spring or summer. Such excess reminds the student of decadent Rome as portrayed by the great Latin satirists.

Other favorite amusements at Court were: gathering sweet-flag in summer and comparing the length of its roots, hawking, fan-lotteries, a kind of backgammon called sugoroku, and different forms of gambling. Football was played, a Chinese game in which the winner was he who kicked the ball highest and kept it longest from touching the ground.

Another rage was keeping animals as pets, especially cats and dogs, which received human names and official titles and, when they died, elaborate funerals. Kittens born at the palace at the close of the tenth century were treated with consideration comparable to that bestowed on Imperial infants. To the cat-mother the courtiers sent the ceremonial presents after childbirth, and one of the ladies-in-waiting was honoured by an appointment as guardian to the young kittens.

ENGRAVING: SKETCH OF "SHINDENZUKUBI" (Style of Dwelling House of Nobles in the Heian Epoch)

MUSIC AND DANCING

With the growth of luxury in the Heian epoch and the increase of extravagant entertainment and amusement, there was a remarkable development of music and the dance. Besides the six-stringed harp or wagon, much more complex harps or lutes of thirteen or twenty-five strings were used, and in general there was a great increase in the number and variety of instruments. Indeed, we may list as many as twenty kinds of musical instruments and three or four times as many varieties of dance in the Heian epoch. Most of the dances were foreign in their origin, some being Hindu, more Korean, and still more Chinese, according to the usual classification. But imported dances, adaptations of foreign dances, and the older native styles were all more or less pantomimic.

ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING

Except in the new capital city with its formal plan there were no great innovations in architecture. Parks around large houses and willows and cherry-trees planted along the streets of Kyoto relieved this stiffness of the great city. Landscape-gardening became an art. Gardens were laid out in front of the row of buildings that made up the home of each noble or Court official.

Convention was nearly as rigid here as it was in Court etiquette. In the centre of this formal garden was a miniature lake with bridges leading to an island; there was a waterfall feeding the lake, usually at its southern end; and at the eastern and western limits of the garden, respectively, a grotto for angling and a "hermitage of spring water"--a sort of picnic ground frequented on summer evenings. The great artist, Kanaoka, of the end of the ninth century worked at laying out these rockeries and tiny parks. A native school of architects, or more correctly carpenters, had arisen in the province of Hida. There was less temple building than in the Nara epoch and more attention was given to the construction of elegant palaces for court officials and nobles. But these were built of wood and were far from being massive or imposing. As in other periods of Japanese architecture, the exterior was sacrificed to the interior where there were choice woodworking and joinery in beautiful woods, and occasionally screen-or wall-painting as decoration. There was still little house-furnishing. Mats (tatami), fitted together so as to cover the floor evenly, were not used until the very close of the period; and then, too, sliding doors began to be used as partitions. The coverings of these doors, silk or paper, were the "walls" for Japanese mural paintings of the period. As the tatami came into more general use, the bedstead of the earlier period, which was itself a low dais covered with mats and with posts on which curtains and nets might be hung, went out of use, being replaced by silken quilts spread on the floor-mats. Cushions and arm-rests were the only other important pieces of furniture.

COSTUME

In the Heian epoch, Court costume was marked by the two characteristics that we have seen elsewhere in the period--extravagance and convention. Indeed, it may be said that Chinese dress and etiquette, introduced after the time of Kwammu were the main source of the luxury of the period. Costume was extreme, not alone in being rich and costly, but in amount of material used. Princely and military head-dresses were costly, jewelled, and enormously tall, and women wore their hair, if possible, so that it trailed below their elaborate skirts. Men's sleeves and trousers were cut absurdly large and full; and women's dress was not merely baggy but voluminous. At a palace fete in 1117 the extreme of elegance was reached by ladies each wearing a score or so of different coloured robes. In this period the use of costly and gorgeous brocades and silks with beautiful patterns and splendid embroideries began.

Women at Court, and the Court dandies who imitated them, painted artificial eye-brows high on the forehead, shaving or plucking out the real brows, powdered and rouged their faces and stained their teeth black.

ART

Ceramics did not advance in the Heian epoch, but in all other branches of art there were rapid strides forward. The development of interior decoration in temples, monasteries, and palaces was due to progress on the part of lacquerers and painters. Gold lacquer, lacquer with a gold-dust surface (called nashi-ji), and lacquer inlaid with mother-of-pearl were increasingly used. Thanks in part to the painters' bureau (E-dokoro) in the palace, Japanese painters began to be ranked with their Chinese teachers. Koze Kanaoka was the first to be thus honored, and it is on record that he was engaged to paint figures of arhats on the sliding doors of the palace. The epoch also boasted Fujiwara Tameuji, founder of the Takuma family of artists, and Fujiwara Motomitsu, founder of the Tosa academy. The sculpture of the time showed greater skill, but less grandeur of conception, than the work of the Nara masters. Sculpture in wood was important, dating especially from the 11th century. Jocho, possibly the greatest of the workers in this medium, followed Chinese models, and carved a famous Buddha for Michinaga's temple of Hosho-ji (1022). Jocho's descendant Unkei was the ancestor of many busshi or sculptors of Buddhist statues; and Kwaikei, a pupil of Unkei's brother Jokaku, is supposed to have collaborated with Unkei on the great gate-guardians of the Todai-ji temple. It is important to note that, especially in the latter half of the Heian epoch, painters and sculptors were usually men of good family. Art had become fashionable.

Two minor forms of sculpture call for special attention. The decoration of armour reached a high pitch of elaboration; and the beautiful armour of Minamoto Yoshitsune is still preserved at Kasuga, Nara. And masks to be used in mimetic dances, such as the No, received attention from many great glyptic artists.

ENGRAVING: RAKAN (BUDDHIST DISCIPLE) (Carving in Stone at Horiuji)

AGRICULTURE

In the year 799, cotton-seed, carried by an Indian junk which drifted to the coast of Mikawa, was sown in the provinces of Nankai-do and Saikai-do, and fifteen years later, when Saga reigned, tea plants were brought from overseas and were set out in several provinces. The Emperor Nimmyo (834-850) had buckwheat sown in the home provinces (Kinai), and the same sovereign encouraged the cultivation of sorghum, panic-grass, barley, wheat, large white beans, small red beans, and sesame. It was at this time that the ina-hata (paddy-loom) was devised for drying sheaves of rice before winnowing. Although it was a very simple implement, it nevertheless proved of such great value that an Imperial command was issued urging its wide use. In short, in the early years of the Heian epoch, the Throne took an active part in promoting agriculture, but this wholesome interest gradually declined in proportion to the extension of tax-free manors (shoen).

TRADE

The story of trade resembled that of agriculture prosperous development at the beginning of the era, followed by stagnation and decline. Under Kwummu (782-805) and his immediate successors, canals and roads were opened, irrigation works were undertaken, and coins were frequently cast. But coins were slow in finding their way into circulation, and taxes were generally paid in kind. Nevertheless, for purposes of trade, prices of staples were fixed in terms of coin. Thus in the year 996, a koku (about 5 bushels) of rice was the equivalent of 1000 cash (ik-kan-mon); a koku of barley was valued at 2500 cash, and a hiki (25 yards) of silk at 2000 cash. Yet in actual practice, commodities were often assessed in terms of silk or rice. Goods were packed in stores (kura) or disposed on shelves in shops (machi-ya), and at ports where merchantmen assembled there were houses called tsuya (afterwards toiya) where wholesale transactions were conducted on the commission system.

The city of Kyoto was divided into two parts, an eastern capital (Tokyo) and a western capital (Saikyo). During the first half of every month all commercial transactions were conducted in the eastern capital, where fifty-one kinds of commodities were sold in fifty-one shops; and during the second half the western capital alone was frequented, with its thirty-three shops and thirty-three classes of goods. After the abolition of embassies to China, at the close of the ninth century, oversea trade declined for a time. But the inhabitants of Tsukushi and Naniwa, which were favourably located for voyages, continued to visit China and Korea, whence they are reported to have obtained articles of value. Other ports frequented by foreign-going ships were Kanzaki, Eguchi, Kaya, Otsu, and Hakata.

SUPERSTITION

Turning to the inner life of the people in the Heian epoch, we may say with little fear of exaggeration that the most notable thing was the increase of superstition. This was due in part at least to the growth in Japan of the power of Buddhism, and, be it understood, of Buddhism of a degraded and debased form. The effort to combine Buddhism and Shinto probably robbed the latter of any power it might otherwise have had to withstand superstition. Although men of the greatest ability went into the Buddhist monasteries, including many Imperial princes, their eminence did not make them better leaders and guides of the people, but rather aided them in misleading and befooling the laity. Murdoch in speaking of the beginning of the 12th century says: "At this date, Buddhism in Japan from a moral point of view was in not a whit better case than was the Church of Rome between the death of Sylvester II and the election of Leo IX." An interesting parallel might be drawn between Japanese and European superstition, as each was consequent on the low standards of the clergy of the times. The famous report of Miyoshi Kiyotsura, to which we have so often alluded, spoke in no measured terms of the greed and vice of the Buddhist priests. And the character of these hireling shepherds goes far to explain the gross superstition of the tune. We have told (p. 274) the story of the abbot Raigo and how the Court was forced to purchase from him intercessory prayers for the birth of an heir,--and of the death of the heir in apparent consequence of Raigo's displeasure. Near the end of the ninth century one Emperor made a gift of 500,000 yen for prayers that seemed to have saved the life of a favourite minister. Prayers for rain, for prolonged life, for victory over an enemy, were implicitly believed to be efficient, and priests received large bribes to make these prayers. Or they received other rewards: the privilege of coming to Court in a carriage was granted to one priest for bringing rain after a long drought and to another for saving the life of a sick prince in 981. As men got along in years they had masses said for the prolongation of their lives,--with an increase in the premium each year for such life insurance. Thus, at forty, a man had masses said in forty shrines, but ten years later at fifty shrines in all.

In this matter, as in others, the influence of the Fujiwara was great. They were in a close alliance with the priests, and they controlled the Throne through consorts and kept the people in check through priests and superstitions.

With the widespread belief in the power of priestly prayer there was prevalent a fear of spirits and demons. Oda received a promise in a dream that he would become Emperor. In the next generation the Emperor Daigo exiled Sugawara Michizane to Kyusml, where the exile died in two years. Soon afterwards the Emperor fell sick; and this, the disaster of 930 when a thunderstorm killed many nobles in the Imperial palace, and the sudden death of Michizane's accusers and of the Crown Prince were explained as due to the ill-will of the injured man's spirit. His titles were restored and everything possible was done to placate the ghost (see p. 244). To an earlier period belongs the similar story of Kwammu and his efforts to placate the spirit of his younger brother whom he had exiled and killed. Kwammu, fearing that death was coming upon him, built a temple to the shade of this brother. A cloud over the palace of another Emperor was interpreted as a portentous monster, half monkey and half snake, and one of the Minamoto warriors won fame for his daring in shooting an arrow at the cloud, which then vanished. Equally foolhardy and marvellous was the deed of Fujiwara Michinaga, who alone of a band of courtiers in the palace dared one dark night to go unattended and without lights from one end of the palace to the other.

When the new city of Kyoto was built, a Buddhist temple was put near the northeast gate to protect the capital from demons, since the northeast quarter of the sky belonged to the demons; and on a hill a clay statue was erected, eight feet high and armed with bow, arrows and cuirass, to guard the city. So implicit was the belief in the power of this colossal charm that it was said that it moved and shouted to warn the city of danger.

ENGRAVING: EARTHEN-WARE HOUSE FOR ORNAMENT

EDUCATION

There was, of course, no organized system of schools in this period, but education was not neglected. A university was established in the newly built capital, and there were five family schools or academies for the youth of the separate uji. A school and hospital, founded by Fujiwara Fuyutsugu in 825, received an Imperial endowment. At almost exactly the same time (823) the Bunsho-in was founded by Sugawara. The Sogaku-in was founded in 831 by Arihara Yukihara. In 850 the consort of the emperor Saga built the Gakkwan-in for the Tachibana family; and in 841 the palace of Junna became a school. And there was one quasi-public school, opened in 828, in the Toji monastery south of the capital, which was not limited to any family and was open to commoners.

ENGRAVING: NETSUKE (Hand-carvings in Ivory)

ENGRAVING: ARCHERY IN OLD JAPAN

XXIV. THE EPOCH OF THE GEN (MINAMOTO) AND THE HEI (TAIRA)

SUPREMACY OF THE MILITARY CLASS

DESCRIBED superficially, the salient distinction between the epochs of the Fujiwara and the Gen-pei was that during the former the administrative power lay in the hands of the Court nobles in Kyoto, whereas, during the latter, it lay in the hands of the military magnates in the provinces. The processes by which this change was evolved have already been explained in part and will be further elucidated as we advance. Here, however, it is advisable to note that this transfer of authority was, in one sense, a substitution of native civilization for foreign, and, in another, a reversion to the conditions that had existed at the time of the Yamato conquest. It was a substitution of native civilization for foreign, because the exotic culture imported from China and Korea had found its chief field of growth in the capital and had never extended largely to the provinces; and it was a reversion to the conditions existing at the time of the Yamato conquest, because at that time the sword and the sceptre had been one.

The Mononobe and the Otomo families constituted the pillars of the State under the early Emperors. Their respective ancestors were Umashimade no Mikoto and Michi no Omi no Mikoto. The Japanese term monobe (or mononofu) was expressed by Chinese ideographs having the sound, bushi. Thus, though it is not possible to fix the exact date when the expression, bushi, came into general use, it is possible to be sure that the thing itself existed from time immemorial. When the Yamato sovereign undertook his eastward expedition, Umashimade with his monobe subdued the central districts, and Michi no Omi with his otomo and Okume-be consolidated these conquests. Thereafter the monobe were organized into the konoe-fu (palace guards) and the otomo into the emon-fu (gate guards). Not military matters alone, but also criminal jurisdiction, belonged to the functions of these two.

THE BUSHI

The earliest type of the Yamato race having thus been military, it becomes important to inquire what tenets constituted the soldier's code in old Japan. Our first guide is the celebrated anthology, Manyo-shu, compiled in the ninth century and containing some poems that date from the sixth. From this we learn that the Yamato monono-fu believed himself to have inherited the duty of dying for his sovereign if occasion required. In that cause he must be prepared at all times to find a grave, whether upon the desolate moor or in the stormy sea. The dictates of filial piety ranked next in the ethical scale. The soldier was required to remember that his body had been given to him by his parents, and that he must never bring disgrace upon his family name or ever disregard the dictates of honour. Loyalty to the Throne, however, took precedence among moral obligations. Parent, wife, and child must all be abandoned at the call of patriotism. Such, as revealed in the pages of the Myriad Leaves, were the simple ethics of the early Japanese soldier. And it was largely from the Mononobe and Otomo families that high officials and responsible administrators were chosen at the outset.

When Buddhism arrived in the sixth century, we have seen that it encountered resolute opposition at the hands of Moriya, the o-muraji of the Mononobe family. That was natural. The elevation of an alien deity to a pedestal above the head of the ancestral Kami seemed specially shocking to the soldier class. But the tendency of the time was against conservatism. The Mononobe and the Otomo forfeited their position, and the Soga stepped into their place, only to be succeeded in turn by the Fujiwara. These last, earnest disciples of Chinese civilization, looked down on the soldier, and delegated to him alone the use of brute force and control of the criminal classes, reserving for themselves the management of civil government and the pursuit of literature, and even leaving politics and law in the hands of the schoolmen.

In these circumstances the military families of Minamoto (Gen) and Taira (Hei), performing the duties of guards and of police, gradually acquired influence; were trusted by the Court on all occasions demanding an appeal to force, and spared no pains to develop the qualities that distinguished them--the qualities of the bushi. Thus, as we turn the pages of history, we find the ethics of the soldier developing into a recognized code. His sword becomes an object of profound veneration from the days of Minamoto Mitsunaka, who summons a skilled swordsmith to the capital and entrusts to him the task of forging two blades, which, after seven days of fasting and prayer and sixty days of tempering, emerge so trenchant that they are thereafter handed down from generation to generation of the Minamoto as treasured heirlooms.*

*The swords were named "Knee-cutter" and "Beard-cutter," because when tested for decapitating criminals, they severed not only the necks but also the beard and the knees.

That the bushi's word must be sacred and irrevocable is established by the conduct of Minamoto Yorinobu who, having promised to save the life of a bandit if the latter restore a child taken as a hostage, refuses subsequently to inflict any punishment whatever on the robber. That a bushi must prefer death to surrender is a principle observed in thousands of cases, and that his family name must be carefully guarded against every shadow of reproach is proved by his habit of prefacing a duel on the battle-field with a recitation of the titles and deeds of his ancestors. To hold to his purpose in spite of evil report; to rise superior to poverty and hardship; not to rest until vengeance is exacted for wrong done to a benefactor or a relation; never to draw his sword except in deadly earnest--these are all familiar features of the bushi's practice, though the order and times of their evolution cannot be precisely traced.

Even more characteristic is the quality called fudoshin, or immobility of heart. That this existed in practice from an early era cannot be doubted, but its cultivation by a recognized system of training dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the introspective tenet (kwanshin-ho) of the Zen sect of Buddhism taught believers to divest themselves wholly of passion and emotion and to educate a mind unmoved by its environment, so that, in the storm and stress of battle, the bushi remains as calm and as self-possessed as in the quietude of the council chamber or the sacred stillness of the cloister. The crown of all his qualities was self-respect. He rated himself too high to descend to petty quarrels, or to make the acquisition of rank his purpose, or to have any regard for money.

THE MILITARY ART

As for tactics, individual prowess was the beginning and the end of all contests, and strategy consisted mainly of deceptions, surprises, and ambushes. There were, indeed, certain recognized principles derived from treatises compiled by Sung and 'Ng,* two Chinese generals of the third century A.D. These laid down that troops for offensive operations in the field must be twice as numerous as the enemy; those for investing a fortress should be to the garrison as ten to one, and those for escalade as five to one. Outflanking methods were always to be pursued against an adversary holding high ground, and the aim should be to sever the communications of an army having a mountain or a river on its rear. When the enemy selected a position involving victory or death, he was to be held, not attacked, and when it was possible to surround a foe, one avenue of escape should always be left to him, since desperate men fight fiercely. In crossing a river, much space should separate the van from the rear of the crossing army, and an enemy crossing was not to be attacked until his forces had become well engaged in the operation. Birds soaring in alarm should suggest an ambush, and beasts breaking cover, an approaching attack. There was much spying. A soldier who could win the trust of the enemy, sojourn in his midst, and create dissensions in his camp, was called a hero.

*See Captain Calthrop's The Book of War.

Judged by this code of precepts, the old-time soldier of the East has been denounced by some critics as representing the lowest type of military ethics. But such a criticism is romantic. The secret-intelligence department of a twentieth-century army employs and creates opportunities just as zealously as did the disciples of Sung and 'Ng. It is not here that the defects in the bushi's ethics must be sought. The most prominent of those defects was indifference to the rights of the individual. Bushido taught a vassal to sacrifice his own interest and his own life on the altar of loyalty, but it did not teach a ruler to recognize and respect the rights of the ruled. It taught a wife to efface herself for her husband's sake, but it did not teach a husband any corresponding obligation towards a wife. In a word, it expounded the relation of the whole to its parts, but left unexpounded the relation of the parts to one another.

A correlated fault was excessive reverence for rank and rigid exclusiveness of class. There was practically no ladder for the commoner,--the farmer, the artisan, and the merchant--to ascend into the circle of the samurai. It resulted that, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, gifted men of the despised grades sought in the cloister an arena for the exercise of their talents, and thus, while the bushi received no recruits, the commoners lost their better elements, and Buddhism became a stage for secular ambition. It can not be doubted that by closing the door of rank in the face of merit, bushido checked the development of the nation. Another defect in the bushido was indifference to intellectual investigation. The schoolmen of Kyoto, who alone received honour for their moral attainments, were not investigators but imitators, not scientists but classicists. Had not Chinese conservatism been imported into Japan and had it not received the homage of the bushi, independent development of original Japanese thought and of intellectual investigation might have distinguished the Yamato race. By a learned Japanese philosopher (Dr. Inouye Tetsujiro) the ethics of the bushi are charged with inculcating the principles of private morality only and ignoring those of public morality.

MILITARY FAMILES AND THEIR RETAINERS

It has been noticed that the disposition of the Central Government was to leave the provincial nobles severely alone, treating their feuds and conflicts as wholly private affairs. Thus, these nobles being cast upon their own resources for the protection of their lives and properties, retained the services of bushi, arming them well and drilling them assiduously, to serve as guards in time of peace and as soldiers in war. One result of this demand for military material was that the helots of former days were relieved from the badge of slavery and became hereditary retainers of provincial nobles, nothing of their old bondage remaining except that their lives were at the mercy of their masters.

FIEFS AND TERRITORIAL NAMES

As the provincial families grew in numbers and influence they naturally extended their estates, so that the landed property of a great sept sometimes stretched over parts, or even the whole, of several provinces. In these circumstances it became convenient to distinguish branches of a sept by the names of their respective localities and thus, in addition to the sept name (uji or sei), there came into existence a territorial name (myoji or shi). For example, when the descendants of Minamoto no Yoshiiye acquired great properties at Nitta and Ashikaga in the provinces of Kotsuke and Shimotsuke, they took the territorial names of Nitta and Ashikaga, remaining always Minamoto; and when the descendants of Yoshimitsu, younger brother of Yoshiiye, acquired estates in the province of Kai, they began to call themselves Takeda.

It is unnecessary to pursue the subject further than to note that, while the names of the great septs (uji) were few, the territorial cognomens were very numerous; and that while the use of myoji (or shi) was common in the case of the Fujiwara, the Taira, and the Minamoto septs, the uji alone was employed by the Abe, the Ono, the Takahashi, the Kusakabe, the Ban, the Hata, and certain others. It will readily be conceived that although the territorial sections of the same sept sometimes quarrelled among themselves, the general practice was that all claiming common descent supported each other in war. The Minamoto (Gen) bushi recognized as the principal family line that of Tsunemoto from whom were descended the following illustrious chiefs:

Minamoto (Gen) no Tsunemoto, commander-in-chief of local Governments | Mitsunaka | +---------+--------+ | | Yorimitsu Yorinobu | Yoriyoshi | Yoshiiye | +----------+------------+-----+-----+-----------+-----------+ | | | | | | Yoshimune Yoshichika Yoshikuni Yoshitada Yoshitoki Yoshitaka | Tameyoshi | +----------+------------+-----------+ | | | | Yoshitomo Yoshikata Tametomo Twenty others | | | Yoshinaka | (of Kiso) | +----------+---------+-----------+------------+ | | | | Yoritomo Noriyori Yoshitsune Six others

A similar table for the Taira (Hei) runs thus:

Taira (Hei) no Sadamori (quelled the Masakado revolt). | Korehira (of Ise province) | ------- | ------- | Masamori (governed Ise, Inaba, Sanuki, etc.; | quelled the rebellion of Minamoto +----------+ Yoshichika). | | Tadamasa Tadamori (served the Emperors Shirakawa, | Horikawa, and Toba;* subdued the | pirates of Sanyo-do and Nankai-do) | Kiyomori (crushed the Minamoto and temporarily | established the supremacy of the Taira). | Shigemori

In its attitude towards these two families the Court showed short-sighted shrewdness. It pitted one against the other; If the Taira showed turbulence, the aid of the Minamoto was enlisted; and when a Minamoto rebelled, a Taira received a commission to deal with him. Thus, the Throne purchased peace for a time at the cost of sowing, between the two great military clans, seeds of discord destined to shake even the Crown. In the capital the bushi served as palace guards; in the provinces they were practically independent. Such was the state of affairs on the eve of a fierce struggle known in history as the tumult of the Hogen and Heiji eras (1150-1160).

*It is of this noble that history records an incident illustrative of the superstitions of the eleventh century. The cloistered Emperor Shirakawa kept Tadamori constantly by his side. One night, Shirakawa, accompanied by Tadamori, went to visit a lady favourite in a detached palace near the shrine of Gion. Suddenly the two men saw an apparition of a demon covered with wirelike hair and having a luminous body. The Emperor ordered Tadamori to use his bow. But Tadamori advanced boldly and, seizing the demon, found that it was an old man wearing straw headgear as a protection against the rain, and carrying a lamp to kindle the light at the shrine. This valiant deed on Tadamori's part elicited universal applause, as indeed it might in an era of such faith in the supernatural.

THE HOGEN INSURRECTION

It has been related in Chapter XXII that Taiken-mon-in, consort of the Emperor Toba, was chosen for the latter by his grandfather, the cloistered Emperor Shirakawa, and that she bore to Toba a son who ultimately ascended the throne as Sutoku. But, rightly or wrongly, Toba learned to suspect that before she became his wife, the lady's relations with Shirakawa had been over-intimate and that Sutoku was illegitimate. Therefore, immediately after Shirakawa's demise, Toba took to himself an Empress, Kaya-no-in, daughter of Fujiwara Tadazane; and failing offspring by her, chose another Fujiwara lady, Bifuku-mon-in, daughter of Nagazane. For this, his third consort, he conceived a strong affection, and when she bore to him a prince, Toba placed the latter on the throne at the age of three, compelling Sutoku to resign. This happened in the year 1141, and there were thenceforth two cloistered Emperors, Toba and Sutoku, standing to each other in the relation of grandfather and grandson. The baby sovereign was called Konoe, and Fujiwara Tadamichi, brother of Bifu-ku-mon-in, became kwampaku.

Between this Tadamichi and his younger brother, Yorinaga, who held the post of sa-daijin, there existed acute rivalry. The kwampaku had the knack of composing a deft couplet and tracing a graceful ideograph. The sa-daijin, a profound scholar and an able economist, ridiculed penmanship and poetry as mere ornament. Their father's sympathies were wholly with Yorinaga, and he ultimately went so far as to depose Tadamichi from his hereditary position as o-uji of the Fujiwara. Thus, the enmity between Tadamichi and Yorinaga needed only an opportunity to burst into flame, and that opportunity was soon furnished.

The Emperor Konoe died (1155) at the early age of seventeen, and the cloistered sovereign, Sutoku, sought to secure the throne for his son Shigehito, whom Toba's suspicions had disqualified. But Bifuku-mon-in, believing, or pretending to believe, that the premature death of her son had been caused by Sutoku's incantations, persuaded the cloistered Emperor, Toba, in that sense, and having secured the co-operation of the kwampaku, Tadamichi, she set upon the throne Toba's fourth son, under the name of Go-Shirakawa (1156-1158), the latter's son, Morihito, being nominated Crown Prince, to the complete exclusion of Sutoku's offspring. So long as Toba lived the arrangement remained undisturbed, but on his death in the following year (1156), Sutoku, supported by the sa-daijin, Yorinaga, planned to ascend the throne again, and there ensued a desperate struggle. Stated thus briefly, the complication suggests merely a quarrel for the succession, but, regarded more closely, it is seen to derive rancour chiefly from the jealousies of the Fujiwara brothers, Yorinaga and Tadamichi, and importance from the association of the Minamoto and the Taira families. For when Sutoku appealed to arms against the Go-Shirakawa faction, he was incited by Fujiwara Yorinaga and his father Tadazane, and supported by Taira Tadamasa as well as by jthe two Minamoto, Tameyoshi and Tametomo; while Go-Shirakawa's cause was espoused by Fujiwara Tadamichi, by Taira no Kiyomori, and by Minamoto Yoshitomo.

Among this group of notables the most memorable in a historical sense are Minamoto Tametomo and Taira Kiyomori. Of the latter there will presently be occasion to speak again. The former was one of those born warriors illustrated by Yamato-dake, Saka-no-ye no Tamura-maro, and Minamoto no Yoshiiye. Eighth son of Minamoto Tameyoshi, he showed himself so masterful, physically and morally, that his father deemed it wise to provide a distant field for the exercise of his energies and to that end sent him to Bungo in the island of Kyushu. Tametomo was then only thirteen. In two years he had established his sway over nearly the whole island, and the ceaseless excursions and alarms caused by his doings having attracted the attention of the Court, orders for his chastisement were issued to the Dazai-fu, in Chikuzen--futile orders illustrating only Kyoto's ignorance. Tameyoshi, his father, was then removed from office as a punishment for his son's contumacy, and thereupon Tametomo, esteeming filial piety as one of the bushi's first obligations, hastened to the capital, taking with him only twenty-five of his principal retainers. His age was then seventeen; his height seven feet; his muscular development enormous, and he could draw a bow eight feet nine inches in length. His intention was to purchase his father's pardon by his own surrender, but on reaching Kyoto he found the Hogen tumult just breaking out, and, of course, he joined his father's party.

The relationship of the opposing nobles deserves to be studied, as this was probably one of the most unnatural struggles on record.

CLOISTERED EMPEROR'S SIDE REIGNING EMPEROR'S SIDE

Sutoku (the Jo-o) Go-Shirakawa, younger brother of Sutoku.

Fujiwara Yorinaga Fujiwara Tadamichi, son of Tadazane and brother of Yorinaga.

Fujiwara Tadazane

Minamoto Tameyoshi Minamoto Yoshitomo, son of Tameyoshi and brother of Tametomo.

Minamoto Tametomo

Taira no Tadamasa Taira no Kiyomori, nephew of Tadamasa

Sutoku's party occupied the Shirakawa palace. Unfortunately for the ex-Emperor the conduct of the struggle was entrusted to Fujiwara Yorinaga, and he, in defiance of Tametomo's advice, decided to remain on the defensive; an evil choice, since it entailed the tenure of wooden buildings highly inflammable. Yoshitomo and Kiyomori took full advantage of this strategical error. They forced the Shirakawa palace, and after a desperate struggle,* the defenders took to flight. Thus far, except for the important issues involved and the unnatural division of the forces engaged, this Hogen tumult would not have differed materially from many previous conflicts. But its sequel acquired terrible notoriety from the cruel conduct of the victors. Sutoku was exiled to Sanuki, and there, during three years, he applied himself continuously to copying a Buddhist Sutra, using his own blood for ink. The doctrine of the Zen sect had not yet prevailed in Japan, and to obtain compensation in future happiness for the pains he had suffered in life, it was essential that the exile's laboriously traced Sutra should be solemnly offered to the Buddha. He sent it to Kyoto, praying that the necessary step should be taken. But by the orders of his own brother, the Emperor, the request was refused, and the manuscript returned. Superstition ultimately succeeded where natural affection had failed; for the ex-Emperor, having inscribed maledictions on each of the five volumes of the Sutra with blood obtained by biting his tongue, and having hastened his demise by self-inflicted privations,--he died (1164) eight years after being sent into exile--the evils of the time were attributed to his unquiet spirit and a shrine was built to his memory.

*One incident of the fight has been admiringly handed down to posterity. The duty of holding the west gate of the Shirakawa palace fell to Tametomo and his handful of followers. The duty of attacking it happened to devolve on his brother, Yoshitomo. To avert such an unnatural conflict, Tametomo, having proclaimed his identity, as was usual among bushi, drew his bow with such unerring aim that the arrow shore off an ornament from Yoshitomo's helmet without injuring him in any way. Yoshitomo withdrew, and the Taira took up the attack.

Not less heartless was the treatment of the vanquished nobles. The Fujiwara alone escaped. Yorinaga had the good fortune to fall on the field of battle, and his father, Tadazane, was saved by the intercession of his elder son, Tadamichi, of whose dislike he had long been a victim. But this was the sole spot of light on the sombre page. By the Emperor's orders, the Taira chief, Kiyomori, executed his uncle, Tadamasa; by the Emperor's orders, though not without protest, the Minamoto chief, Yoshitomo, put to death his father, Tameyoshi; by the Emperor's orders all the relatives of Yorinaga were sent into exile; by the Emperor's orders his nephew, Prince Shigehito, was compelled to take the tonsure, and by the Emperor's orders the sinews of Tametomo's bow-arm were cut and he was banished to the Izu island.* In justice it has to be noted that Go-Shirakawa did not himself conceive these merciless measures. He was prompted thereto by Fujiwara Michinori, commonly known as Shinzei, whose counsels were all-powerful at the Court in those days.

*The celebrated littérateur, Bakin, adduced many proofs that Tametomo ultimately made his way to Ryukyu and that his descendants ruled the island. The great soldier himself died ultimately by his own hand in the sequel of an unsuccessful engagement with the forces of the vice-governor of Izu.

GO-SHIRAKAWA

Go-Shirakawa, the seventy-seventh sovereign, occupied the throne during two years only (1156-1158), but he made his influence felt from the cloister throughout the long period of thirty-four years (1158 to 1192), directing the administration from his "camera palace" (Inchu) during the reigns of five Emperors. Ambition impelled him to tread in the footsteps of Go-Sanjo. He re-opened the Office of Records (Kiroku-jo), which that great sovereign had established for the purpose of centralizing the powers of the State, and he sought to recover for the Throne its administrative functions. But his independence was purely nominal, for in everything he took counsel of Fujiwara Michinori (Shinzei) and obeyed that statesman's guidance. Michinori's character is not to be implicitly inferred from the cruel courses suggested by him after the Hogen tumult. He was a man of keen intelligence and profound learning, as learning went in those days: that is to say, he knew the classics by heart, had an intimate acquaintance with Buddhism and astrology, and was able to act as interpreter of the Chinese language. With his name is associated the origin of the shirabyoshi, or "white measure-markers"--girls clad in white, who, by posture and gesture, beat time to music, and, in after ages, became the celebrated geisha of Japan. To the practice of such arts and accomplishments Michinori devoted a great part of his life, and when, in 1140, that is to say, sixteen years before the Hogen disturbance, he received the tonsure, all prospect of an official career seemed to be closed to him. But the accession of Go-Shirakawa gave him an opportunity. The Emperor trusted him, and he abused the trust to the further unhappiness of the nation.

THE HEIJI TUMULT

Go-Shirakawa's son, Morihito, ascended the throne in 1159 and is known in history as Nijo, the seventy-eighth sovereign of Japan. From the very outset he resented the ex-Emperor's attempt to interfere in the administration of affairs, and the two Courts fell into a state of discord, Fujiwara Shinzei inciting the cloistered Emperor to assert himself, and two other Fujiwara nobles, Tsunemune and Korekata, prompting Nijo to resist. These two, observing that another noble of their clan, Fujiwara Nobuyori; was on bad terms with Shinzei, approached Nobuyori and proposed a union against their common enemy. Shinzei had committed one great error; he had alienated the Minamoto family. In the Hogen struggle, Yoshitomo, the Minamoto chief, an able captain and a brave soldier, had suggested the strategy which secured victory for Go-Shirakawa's forces. But in the subsequent distribution of rewards, Yoshitomo's claims received scant consideration, his merits being underrated by Shinzei.

This had been followed by a still more painful slight. To Yoshitomo's formal proposal of a marriage between his daughter and Shinzei's son, not only had a refusal been given, but also the nuptials of the youth with the daughter of the Taira chief, Kiyomori, had been subsequently celebrated with much eclat. In short, Shinzei chose between the two great military clans, and though such discrimination was neither inconsistent with the previous practice of the Fujiwara nor ill-judged so far as the relative strength of the Minamoto and the Taira was concerned for the moment, it erred egregiously in failing to recognize that the day had passed when the military clans could be thus employed as Fujiwara tools. Approached by Nobuyori, Yoshitomo joined hands with the plotters, and the Minamoto troops, forcing their way into the Sanjo palace, set fire to the edifice and killed Shinzei (1159). The Taira chief, Kiyomori, happened to be then absent in Kumano, and Yoshitomo's plan was to attack him on his way back to Kyoto before the Taira forces had mustered. But just as Fujiwara Yorinaga had wrecked his cause in the Hogen tumult by ignoring Minamoto Tametomo's advice, so in the Heiji disturbance, Fujiwara Nobuyori courted defeat by rejecting Minamoto Yoshitomo's strategy. The Taira, thus accorded leisure to assemble their troops, won such a signal victory that during many years the Minamoto disappeared almost completely from the political stage, and the Taira held the empire in the hollow of their hands.

Japanese historians regard Fujiwara Shinzei as chiefly responsible for these untoward events. Shinzei's record shows him to have been cruel, jealous, and self-seeking, but it has to be admitted that the conditions of the time were calculated to educate men of his type, as is shown by the story of the Hogen insurrection. For when Sutoku's partisans assembled at the palace of Shirakawa, Minamoto Tametomo addressed them thus: "I fought twenty battles and two hundred minor engagements to win Kyushu, and I say that when an enemy is outnumbered, its best plan is a night attack. If we fire the Takamatsu palace on three sides to-night and assault it from the fourth, the foe will surely be broken. I see on the other side only one man worthy to be called an enemy. It is my brother Yoshitomo, and with a single arrow I can lay him low. As for Taira Kiyomori, he will fall if I do but shake the sleeve of my armour. Before dawn we shall be victors."

Fujiwara Yorinaga's reply to this counsel was: "Tametomo's method of fighting is rustic. There are here two Emperors competing for the throne, and the combat must be conducted in a fair and dignified manner." To such silliness the Minamoto hero made apt answer. "War," he said, "is not an affair of official ceremony and decorum. Its management were better left to the bushi whose business it is. My brother Yoshitomo has eyes to see an opportunity. To-night, he will attack us.". It is true that Tametomo afterwards refrained from taking his brother's life, but the above proves that he would not have exercised any such forbearance had victory been attainable by ruthlessness. History does not often repeat itself so exactly as it did in these Hogen and Heiji struggles. Fujiwara Yorinaga's refusal to follow Tametomo's advice and Fujiwara Nobuyori's rejection of Yoshitomo's counsels were wholly responsible for the disasters that ensued, and were also illustrative of the contempt in which the Fujiwara held the military magnates, who, in turn, were well aware of the impotence of the Court nobles on the battle-field.

The manner of Yoshitomo's death, too, reveals something of the ethics of the bushi in the twelfth century. Accompanied by Kamada Masaie and a few others, the Minamoto chief escaped from the fight and took refuge in the house of his concubine, Enju, at Awobaka in Owari. There they were surrounded and attacked by the Taira partisans. The end seemed inevitable. Respite was obtained, however, by one of those heroic acts of self-sacrifice that stand so numerously to the credit of the Japanese samurai. Minamoto Shigenari, proclaiming himself to be Yoshitomo, fought with desperate valour, killing ten of the enemy. Finally, hacking his own face so that it became unrecognizable, he committed suicide. Meanwhile, Yoshitomo had ridden away to the house of Osada Tadamune, father of his comrade Masaie's wife. There he found a hospitable reception. But when he would have pushed on at once to the east, where the Minamoto had many partisans, Tadamune, pointing out that it was New Year's eve, persuaded him to remain until the 3d of the first month.

Whether this was done of fell purpose or out of hospitality is not on record, but it is certain that Tadamune and his son, Kagemune, soon determined to kill Yoshitomo, thus avoiding a charge of complicity and earning favour at Court. Their plan was to conceal three men in a bathroom, whither Yoshitomo should be led after he had been plied with sake at a banquet. The scheme succeeded in part, but as Yoshitomo's squire, Konno, a noted swordsman, accompanied his chief to the bath, the assassins dared not attack. Presently, however, Konno went to seek a bath-robe, and thereupon the three men leaped out. Yoshitomo hurled one assailant from the room, but was stabbed to death by the other two, who, in their turn, were slaughtered by the squire. Meanwhile, Masaie was sitting, unsuspicious, at the wine-party in a distant chamber. Hearing the tumult he sprang to his feet, but was immediately cut down by Tadamune and Kagemune. At this juncture Masaie's wife ran in, and crying, "I am not faithless and evil like my father and my brother; my death shall show my sincerity," seized her husband's sword and committed suicide, at which sight the dying man smiled contentedly. As for Konno, after a futile attempt to lay hands on Tadamune and Kagemune, he cut his way through their retainers and rode off safely. The heads of Yoshitomo and Masaie were carried to Kyoto by Tadamune and Kagemune, but they made so much of their exploit and clamoured for such high reward that Kiyomori threatened to punish them for the murder of a close connexion--Kiyomori, be it observed, on whose hands the blood of his uncle was still wet.

Yoshitomo had many sons* but only four of them escaped from the Heiji tumult. The eldest of these was Yoritomo, then only fourteen. After killing two men who attempted to intercept his flight, he fell into the hands of Taira Munekiyo, who, pitying his youth, induced Kiyomori's step-mother to intercede for his life, and he was finally banished to Izu, whence, a few years later, he emerged to the destruction of the Taira. A still younger son, Yoshitsune, was destined to prove the most renowned warrior Japan ever produced. His mother, Tokiwa, one of Yoshitomo's mistresses, a woman of rare beauty, fled from the Minamoto mansion during a snow-storm after the Heiji disaster, and, with her three children, succeeded in reaching a village in Yamato, where she might have lain concealed had not her mother fallen into the hands of Kiyomori's agents. Tokiwa was then required to choose between giving herself up and suffering her mother to be executed. Her beauty saved the situation. Kiyomori had no sooner seen her face than he offered to have mercy if she entered his household and if she consented to have her three sons educated for the priesthood. Thus, Yoshitsune survived, and in after ages people were wont to say of Kiyomori's passion and its result that his blissful dream of one night had brought ruin on his house.

*One of these sons, Tomonaga, fell by his father's hand. Accompanying Yoshitomo's retreat, he had been severely wounded, and he asked his father to kill him rather than leave him at Awobake to fall into the hands of the Taira. Yoshitomo consented, though the lad was only fifteen years of age.

THE TAIRA AND THE FUJIWARA

In human affairs many events ascribed by onlookers to design are really the outcome of accident or unforseen opportunity. Historians, tracing the career of Taira no Kiyomori, ascribe to him singular astuteness in creating occasions and marked promptness in utilizing them. But Kiyomori was not a man of original or brilliant conceptions. He had not even the imperturbability essential to military leadership. The most prominent features of his character were unbridled ambition, intolerance of opposition, and unscrupulous pursuit of visible ends. He did not initiate anything but was content to follow in the footsteps of the Fujiwara. It has been recorded that in 1158--after the Hogen tumult, but before that of Heiji--he married his daughter to a son of Fujiwara Shinzoi. In that transaction, however, Shinzei's will dominated. Two years later, the Minamoto's power having been shattered, Kiyomori gave another of his daughters to be the mistress of the kwampaku, Fujiwara Motozane. There was no offspring of this union, and when, in 1166, Motozane died, he left a five-year-old son, Motomichi, born of his wife, a Fujiwara lady. This boy was too young to succeed to the office of regent, and therefore had no title to any of the property accruing to the holder of that post, who had always been recognized as de jure head of the Fujiwara family. Nevertheless, Kiyomori, having contrived that the child should be entrusted to his daughter's care, asserted its claims so strenuously that many of the Fujiwara manors and all the heirlooms were handed over to it, the result being a visible weakening of the great family's influence.*

*See Murdoch's History of Japan.

RESULTS OF THE HOGEN AND HEIJI INSURRECTIONS

The most signal result of the Hogen and Heiji insurrections was to transfer the administrative power from the Court nobles to the military chiefs. In no country were class distinctions more scrupulously observed than in Japan. All officials of the fifth rank and upwards must belong to the families of the Court nobility, and no office carrying with it rank higher than the sixth might be occupied by a military man. In all the history of the empire down to the twelfth century there had been only one departure from this rule, and that was in the case of the illustrious General Saka-no-ye no Tamura-maro, who had been raised to the third rank and made dainagon.

The social positions of the two groups were even more rigidly differentiated; those of the fifth rank and upwards being termed tenjo-bito, or men having the privilege of entree to the palace and to the Imperial presence; while the lower group (from the sixth downwards) had no such privilege and were consequently termed chige-bito, or groundlings. The three highest offices (spoken of as san-ko) could not be held by any save members of the Fujiwara or Kuga families; and for offices carrying fifth rank upwards (designated taifu) the range of eligible families extended to only four others, the Ariwara, the Ki, the Oye, and the Kiyowara. All this was changed after the Heiji commotion. The Fujiwara had used the military leaders for their own ends; Kiyomori supplemented his military strength with Fujiwara methods. He caused himself to be appointed sangi (councillor of State) and to be raised to the first grade of the third rank, and he procured for his friends and relations posts as provincial governors, so that they were able to organize throughout the empire military forces devoted to the Taira cause.

These steps were mere preludes to his ambitious programme. He married his wife's elder sister to the ex-Emperor, Go-Shirakawa, and the fruit of this union was a prince who subsequently ascended the throne as Takakura. The Emperor Nijo had died in 1166, after five years of effort, only partially successful, to restrain his father, Go-Shirakawa's, interference in the administration. Nijo was succeeded by his son, Rokujo, a baby of two years; and, a few months later, Takakura, then in his seventh year, was proclaimed Prince Imperial. Rokujo (the seventy-ninth sovereign) was not given time to learn the meaning of the title "Emperor." In three years he was deposed by Go-Shirakawa with Kiyomori's co-operation, and Takakura (eightieth sovereign) ascended the throne in 1169, occupying it until 1180. Thus, Kiyomori found himself uncle of an Emperor only ten years of age. Whatever may have been the Taira leader's defects, failure to make the most of an opportunity was not among them. The influence he exercised in the palace through his sister-in-law was far more exacting and imperious than that exercised by Go-Shirakawa himself, and the latter, while bitterly resenting this state of affairs, found himself powerless to correct it. Finally, to evince his discontent, he entered the priesthood, a demonstration which afforded Kiyomori more pleasure than pain. On the nomination of Takakura to be Crown Prince the Taira leader was appointed--appointed himself would be a more accurate form of speech--to the office of nai-daijin, and within a very brief period he ascended to the chancellorship, overleaping the two intervening posts of u-daijin and sa-daijin. This was in the fiftieth year of his life. At fifty-one, he fell seriously ill and took the tonsure by way of soliciting heaven's aid. People spoke of him as Dajo Nyudo, or the "lay-priest chancellor." Recovering, he developed a mood of increased arrogance. His residence at Rokuhara was a magnificent pile of building, as architecture then went, standing in a park of great extent and beauty. There he administered State affairs with all the pomp and circumstance of an Imperial court. He introduced his daughter, Toku, into the Household and very soon she was made Empress, under the name of Kenrei-mon-in.

Thus completely were the Fujiwara beaten at their own game and the traditions of centuries set at naught. A majority of the highest posts were filled by Kiyomori's kinsmen. Fifteen of his family were of, or above, the third rank, and thirty were tenjo-bito. "Akitsushima (Japan) was divided into sixty-six provinces. Of these thirty were governed by Taira partisans. Their manors were to be found in five hundred places, and their fields were innumerable. Their mansions were full of splendid garments and rich robes like flowers, and the spaces before their portals were so thronged with ox-carriages and horses that markets were often held there. Not to be a Taira was not to be a man."*

*Gen-pei Seisuiki (Records of the Vicissitudes of the Minamoto and the Taira).

It is necessary to note, too, with regard to these manors, that many of them were tax-free lands (koderi) granted in perpetuity. Such grants, as has been already shown, were not infrequent. But they had been made, for the most part, to civilian officials, by whose serfs they were farmed, the proceeds being forwarded to Kyoto for the support of their owners; whereas the koden bestowed on Taira officers were, in effect, military fiefs. It is true that similar fiefs existed in the north and in the south, but their number was so greatly increased in the days of Taira ascendancy as almost to constitute a new departure. Kiyomori was, in truth, one of the most despotic rulers that ever held sway in Japan. He organized a band of three hundred youths whose business was to go about Kyoto and listen to the citizens' talk. If anyone was reported by these spies as having spoken ill of the Taira, he was seized and punished. One day Kiyomori's grandson, Sukemori, met the regent, Fujiwara Motofusa, and failing to alight from his carriage, as etiquette required, was compelled by the regent's retinue to do so. On learning of this incident, Kiyomori ordered three hundred men to lie in wait for the regent, drag him from his car and cut off his cue.

PLOTS AGAINST THE TAIRA: KIYOMORI'S LAST YEARS

All these arbitrary acts provoked indignation among every class of the people. A conspiracy known in history as the "Shishi-ga-tani plot," from the name of the place where the conspirators met to consult, was organized in 1177, having for object a general uprising against the Taira. At the Court of the cloistered Emperor the post of gon-dainagon was filled by Fujiwara Narichika, who harboured resentment against Kiyomori's two sons, Shigemori and Munemori, inasmuch as they held positions for which he had striven in vain, the Left and Right generals of the guards. There was also a bonze, Saiko, who enjoyed the full confidence of Go-Shirakawa. In those days any cause was legitimized if its advocates could show an Imperial edict or point to the presence of the sovereign in their midst. Thus, in the Heiji insurrection, the Minamoto received their severest blow when Fujiwara Korekata contrived that, under cover of darkness, the Emperor, disguised as a maid-of-honour in the household of the Empress, should be transported in her Majesty's suite, from the Kurodo palace to the Taira mansion at Rokuhara. The Minamoto were thus transformed into rebels, and the Taira became the representatives of Imperial authority. Therefore, in the Shishi-ga-tani plot the part assigned to the priest Saiko was to induce Go-Shirakawa to take active interest in the conspiracy and to issue a mandate to the Minamoto bushi throughout the country. No such mandate was issued, nor does it appear that the ex-Emperor attended any of the meetings in Shishi-ga-tani, but there can be no doubt that he had full cognizance of, and sympathized with, what was in progress.

The conspiracy never matured. It was betrayed by Minamoto Yukitsuna. Saiko and his two sons were beheaded; Narichika was exiled and subsequently put to death, and all the rest were banished. The great question was, how to deal with Go-Shirakawa. Kiyomori was for leading troops to arrest his Majesty, and to escort him as a prisoner to the Toba palace or the Taira mansion. None of the despot's kinsmen or adherents ventured to gainsay this purpose until Kiyomori's eldest son, Shigemori, appeared upon the scene. Shigemori had contributed much to the signal success of the Taira. Dowered with all the strategical skill and political sagacity which his father lacked, he had won victories for the family arms, and again and again had restrained the rash exercise of Kiyomori's impetuous arrogance. The Taira chief had learned to stand in awe of his son's reproaches, and when Shigemori declared that he would not survive any violence done to Go-Shirakawa, Kiyomori left the council chamber, bidding Shigemori to manage the matter as he thought fit.* Thus, Go-Shirakawa escaped all the consequences of his association with the conspirators. But Kiyomori took care that a copy of the bonze Saiko's confession, extracted under torture and fully incriminating his Majesty, should come into the Imperial hands.

*It is recorded that, on this occasion, Kiyomori, learning of his son's approach, attempted unsuccessfully to conceal under priestly robes the armour he had donned to go to the arrest of Go-Shirakawa.

A final rupture between the ex-Emperor and the Taira leader became daily imminent. Two events contributed to precipitate it. One was that in the year following the Shishi-ga-tani conspiracy, Kiyomori's daughter, Toku, bore to Takakura a prince--the future Emperor Antoku (eighty-first sovereign). The Taira chief thus found himself grandfather of an heir to the throne, a fact which did not tend to abate his arrogance. The second was the death of Shigemori, which took place in 1179.

Shigemori's record shows him to have been at once a statesman and a general. He never hesitated to check his father's extravagances, and it has to be recorded in Kiyomori's favour that, however, intolerant of advice or opposition he habitually showed himself, his eldest son's remonstrances were seldom ignored. Yet, though many untoward issues were thus averted, there was no sign that growing responsibility brought to Kiyomori any access of circumspection. From first to last he remained the same short-sighted, passion-driven, impetuous despot and finally the evil possibilities of the situation weighed so heavily on Shigemori's nerves that he publicly repaired to a temple to pray for release from life. As though in answer to his prayer he was attacked by a disease which carried him off at the age of forty-two. There is a tradition that he installed forty-eight images of Buddha in his mansion, and for their services employed many beautiful women, so that sensual excesses contributed to the semi-hysterical condition into which he eventually fell. That is not impossible, but certainly a sense of impotence to save his father and his family from the calamities he clearly saw approaching was the proximate cause of his breakdown.

ENGRAVING: KIYOMIZU-DEKA TEMPLE, AT KYOTO

Results soon became apparent. The ex-Emperor, who had truly estimated Shigemori's value as a pillar of Taira power, judged that an opportunity for revolt had now arrived, and the Taira chief, deprived of his son's restraining influence, became less competent than ever to manage the great machine which fortune had entrusted to his direction. The first challenge came from the ex-Emperor's side. It has been related above that one of Kiyomori's politic acts after the Heiji insurrection was to give his daughter to the regent; that, on the latter's death, his child, Motomichi, by a Fujiwara, was entrusted to the care of the Taira lady; that a large part of the Fujiwara estates were diverted from the regent and settled upon Motomichi, and that the latter was taken into a Taira mansion. The regent who suffered by this arbitrary procedure was Fujiwara Motofusa, the same noble whom, a few years later, Kiyomori caused to be dragged from his car and docked of his queue because Motofusa had insisted on due observance of etiquette by Kiyomori's grandson. Naturally, Motofusa was ready to join hands with Go-Shirakawa in any anti-Taira procedure.

Therefore, in 1179, on the death of Kiyomori's daughter, to whose care Motomichi had been entrusted in his childhood, the ex-Emperor, at the instance of Motofusa, appropriated all her manors and those of Motomichi. Moreover, on the death of Shigemori shortly afterwards, the same course was pursued with his landed property, and further, Motomichi, though lawful head of the Fujiwara family, son-in-law of Kiyomori, and of full age, had been refused the post of chunagon, the claim of a twelve year-old son of Motofusa being preferred.* The significance of these doings was unmistakable. Kiyomori saw that the gauntlet had been thrown in his face. Hastening from his villa of Fukuhara, in Settsu, at the head of a large force of troops, he placed the ex-Emperor in strict confinement in the Toba palace, segregating him completely from the official world and depriving him of all administrative functions; he banished the kwampaku, Motofusa, and the chancellor, Fujiwara Moronaga; he degraded and deprived of their posts thirty-nine high officials who had formed the entourage of Go-Shirakawa; he raised Motomichi to the office of kwampaku, and he conferred on his son, Munemori, the function of guarding Kyoto, strong bodies of soldiers being posted in the two Taira mansions of Rokuhara on the north and south of the capital.

*See Murdoch's History of Japan.

THE YORIMASA CONSPIRACY

In 1180, at the instance of Kiyomori and partly, no doubt, because of the difficult position in which he found himself placed with regard to his imprisoned father, the Emperor Takakura, then in his twentieth year, resigned the throne in favour of Kiyomori's grandson, Antoku (eighty-first sovereign), a child of three. This was the culmination of the Taira's fortunes. There was at that time among the Kyoto officials a Minamoto named Yorimasa, sixth in descent from Minamoto Mitsunaka, who flourished in the tenth century and by whose order the heirloom swords, Hige-kiri and Hiza-kiri, were forged. This Yorimasa was an expert bowman, a skilled soldier, and an adept versifier, accomplishments not infrequently combined in one person during the Heian epoch. Go-Shirakawa, appreciating Yorimasa's abilities, nominated him director of the Imperial Estates Bureau (Kurando) and afterwards made him governor of Hyogo.

But it was not until he had reached the age of seventy-five that, on Kiyomori's recommendation, he received promotion, in 1178, to the second grade of the third rank (ju-sammi), thus for the first time obtaining the privilege of access to the Imperial presence. The explanation of this tardy recognition is, perhaps, to be sought in Yorimasa's preference of prudence to loyalty. In the year of Heiji, he held his little band of bushi in the leash until the issue of the battle could be clearly forseen, and then he threw in his lot with the Taira. Such shallow fealty seldom wins its way to high place. Men did not forget Yorimasa's record. His belated admission to the ranks of the tenjo-bito provoked some derision and he was commonly spoken of as Gen-sammi (the Minamoto third rank).

But even for one constitutionally so cautious, the pretensions of the Taira became intolerable. Yorimasa determined to strike a blow for the Minamoto cause, and looking round for a figure-head, he fixed upon Prince Mochihito, elder brother of Takakura. This prince, being the son of a concubine, had never reached Imperial rank, though he was thirty years of age, but he possessed some capacity, and a noted physiognomist had recognized in him a future Emperor. In 1170, at Yorimasa's instance, Prince Mochihito secretly sent to all the Minamoto families throughout the empire, especially to Yoritomo at his place of exile in Izu, a document impeaching the conduct of the Taira and exhorting the Minamoto to muster and attack them.

Yorimasa's story shows that he would not have embarked upon this enterprise had he not seen solid hope of success. But one of the aids he counted on proved unsound. That aid was the Buddhist priesthood. Kiyomori had offended the great monasteries by bestowing special favour on the insignificant shrine of Itsukushima-Myojin. A revelation received in a dream having persuaded him that his fortunes were intimately connected with this shrine, he not only rebuilt it on a scale of much magnificence, but also persuaded Go-Shirakawa to make three solemn progresses thither. This partiality reached its acme at the time of Takakura's abdication (1180), for instead of complying with the custom hitherto observed on such occasions--the custom of worshipping at one or more shrines of the three great monasteries--Enryaku (Hiei-zan), Kofuku (Nara), or Onjo (Miidera)--Takakura, prompted by Kiyomori, proceeded to Itsukushima.*

*See Murdoch's History of Japan.

A monster demonstration on the part of the offended monasteries was temporarily quieted, but deep umbrage rankled in the bosoms of the priests, and Yorimasa counted on their co-operation with his insurrection. He forgot, however, that no bond could be trusted to hold them permanently together in the face of their habitual rivalry, and it was here that his scheme ultimately broke down. At an early stage, some vague news of the plot reached Kiyomori's ears and he hastened from his Fukuhara villa to Kyoto. But it soon became evident that his information was incomplete. He knew, indeed, that Prince Mochihito was involved, but he suspected Go-Shirakawa also, and he entertained no conception of Yorimasa's complicity. Thus, while removing Go-Shirakawa to Rokuhara and despatching a force to seize Mochihito, he entrusted the direction of the latter measure to Yorimasa's son, Kanetsuna, who, it need scarcely be said, failed to apprehend the prince or to elicit any information from his followers.

Presently Kiyomori learned that the prince had escaped to Onjo-ji (Miidera). Thereupon secret negotiations were opened between Rokuhara and Enryaku-ji (Hiei-zan), not that the Taira chief suspected the latter, but because he appreciated that if Hiei-zan joined Miidera, the situation would become formidable. Meanwhile, his trust in Yorimasa remaining still unshaken, he sent him to attack Onjo-ji, which mission the old Minamoto warrior fulfilled by entering the monastery and joining forces with the prince. Yorimasa took this step in the belief that immediate aid would be furnished from Hiei-zan. But before his appeal reached the latter, Kiyomori's overtures had been accepted. Nothing now remained for Yorimasa and Mochihito except to make a desperate rush on Kyoto or to ride away south to Nara, where temporary refuge offered. The latter course was chosen, in spite of Yorimasa's advice. On the banks of the Uji River in a dense fog they were overtaken by the Taira force, the latter numbering twenty thousand, the fugitives three or four hundred. The Minamoto made a gallant and skilful resistance, and finally Yorimasa rode off with a handful of followers, hoping to carry Mochihito to a place of safety. Before they passed out of range an arrow struck the old warrior. Struggling back to Byodo-in, where the fight was still in progress, he seated himself on his iron war-fan and, having calmly composed his death-song, committed suicide.

CHANGE OF CAPITAL AND DEATH OF KIYOMORI

These things happened in May, 1180, and in the following month Kiyomori carried out a design entertained by him for some time. He transferred the capital from Kyoto to Fukuhara, in Settsu, where the modern town of Kobe stands. Originally the Taira mansions were at the two Fukuhara, one on the north of Kyoto, the other on the south, the city being dominated from these positions. But Kiyomori seems to have thought that as the centres of Taira strength lay in the south and west of the empire, the province of Settsu would be a more convenient citadel than Kyoto. Hence he built at Fukuhara a spacious villa and took various steps to improve the harbour--then called Muko--as well as to provide maritime facilities, among which may be mentioned the opening of the strait, Ondo no Seto. But Fukuhara is fifty miles from Kyoto, and to reach the latter quickly from the former in an emergency was a serious task in the twelfth century. Moreover, Kyoto was devastated in 1177 by a conflagration which reduced one-third of the city to ashes, and in April of 1180 by a tornado of most destructive force, so that superstitious folk, who abounded in that age, began to speak ominously of the city's doom.

What weighed most with the Taira leader, however, was the propinquity of the three great monasteries; Hiei-zan on the north, Miidera on the east, and Nara on the south. In fact, the city lay at the mercy of the soldier-priests. At any moment they might combine, descend upon the capital, and burn it before adequate succour could be marshalled. That such a peril should have been dreaded from such a source seems strange; but the Buddhist priests had shown a very dangerous temper more than once, and from Kiyomori's point of view the possibility of their rising to restore the fortunes of the Fujiwara was never remote.

Kiyomori carried with him to Fukuhara the boy-Emperor (Antoku), the ex-Emperor (Takakura), the cloistered Emperor (Go-Shirakawa), the kwampaku (Motomichi), and all the high Court officials with rare exceptions. The work of construction at Fukuhara not being yet complete, Go-Shirakawa had to be lodged in a building thirty feet square, to which men gave the name of the "jail palace." Kyoto, of course, was thrown into a state of consternation. Remonstrances, petitions, and complaints poured into the Fukuhara mansion. Meanwhile the Minamoto rose. In August of 1180, their white flag was hoisted, and though it looked very insignificant on the wide horizon of Taira power, Kiyomori did not underrate its meaning. At the close of the year, he decided to abandon the Fukuhara scheme and carry the Court back to Kyoto. On the eve of his return he found an opportunity of dealing a heavy blow to the monasteries of Miidera and Nara. For, it having been discovered that they were in collusion with the newly risen Minamoto, Kiyomori sent his sons, Tomomori and Shigehira, at the head of a force which sacked and burned Onjo-ji, Todai-ji, and Kofuku-ji. Thereafter a terrible time ensued for Kyoto, for the home provinces (Kinai), and for the west of the empire. During the greater part of three years, from 1180 to 1182 inclusive, the people suffered, first from famine and afterwards from pestilence. Pitiful accounts are given by contemporary writers. Men were reduced to the direst straits. Hundreds perished of starvation in the streets of Kyoto, and as, in many cases, the corpses lay unburied, pestilence of course ensued. It is stated that in Kyoto alone during two months there were forty-two thousand deaths. The eastern and western regions, however, enjoyed comparative immunity. By the priests and the political enemies of the Taira these cruel calamities were attributed to the evil deeds of Kiyomori and his fellow clansmen, so that the once omnipotent family gradually became an object of popular execration. Kiyomori, however, did not live to witness the ruin of his house. He expired at the age of sixty in March, 1181, just three months after the restoration of Kyoto to metropolitan rank. Since August of the preceding year, the Minamoto had shown signs of troublesome activity, but as yet it seemed hardly possible that their puny onsets should shake, still less pull down, the imposing edifice of power raised by the Taira during twenty years of unprecedented success. Nevertheless, Kiyomori, impatient of all reverses, bitterly upbraided his sons and his officers for incompetence, and when, after seven days' sickness, he saw the end approaching, his last commission was that neither tomb nor temple should be raised to his memory until Yoritomo's head had been placed on his grave.

ENGRAVING: ARTIST'S SEAL

ENGRAVING: SWORD-GUARDS (Tsuba) HAND-CARVED IN BRONZE