II. JAPAN.
CHANGES IN GOVERNMENT.—In the seventh century A.D., there began changes in Japan which resulted in a dual government, and eventually in a feudal system which continued until recent times. The Mikados retired from personal contact with their subjects; and the power by degrees fell into the hands of the families related to the Mikado, and combined into clans. Military control was exercised by the generals (Shoguns), and towards the end of the eighth century devolved on the two rival clans of Gen and Hei, or Taira and Minamoto. About the same time (770-780) the agricultural class became distinct from the military, and were compelled to labor hard for their support. One family, the Fujiwara, by degrees absorbed the civil offices. They gradually sank into luxury. From the middle to the end of the twelfth century, there was terrible civil war between the Taira clan and the Minamoto clan, in which the former were destroyed. The military power passed from one family to another; but a main fact is that the Shoguns acquired such a control as the "mayors of the palace" had possessed among the Franks. The Mikados lost all real power, and the Shoguns or Tycoons had the actual government in their hands. In recent times (1868) a revolution occurred which restored to the Mikado the power which had belonged to him in the ancient times, before the changes just related took place.
CIVIL WAR: FEUDALISM.—The final struggle of the two clans, the Hei or Taira, and the Gen or Minamoto, was in the naval battle of Dannoura, in 1185, which was followed by the extermination of the Taira. Yoritomo, the victor, was known as the Shogun after 1192. The supremacy of his clan gave way in 1219 to that of their adherents, the Hôjô family, who ruled the Shogun and the emperor both. The invasion of the Mongol Tartars failed, their great fleet being destroyed by a typhoon (1281). The Hôjô rule terminated, after a period of anarchy and civil war, in 1333. The "war of the chrysanthemums"—so called from the imperial emblem, the chrysanthemum—was between two rival Mikados, one in the North, and the other in the South (1336-1392). There ensued a period of confusion and internal war, lasting for nearly two centuries. Gradually there was developed a system of feudalism, in which the daimios, or lords of larger or smaller principalities, owned a dependence, either close or more loose, on the Shogun. But feudalism was not fully established until the days of the Tokugama dynasty, early in the seventeenth century.