6. New Empire [1868- ]. Opening of ports and cities; “Charter Oath”; telegraphs, light-houses, postal system, mint, dockyard, etc.; outcasts acknowledged as human beings; abolition of feudalism; first railway, newspaper, and church; Imperial University; Yokohama Missionary Conference; Gregorian calendar; anti-Christian edicts removed; Saga rebellion; Formosan Expedition; assembly of governors; Senate; treaty with Korea; Satsuma rebellion; bi-metallism; Loo Choo annexed; new codes; prefectural assemblies; Bank of Japan; Ōsaka Missionary Conference; new nobility; Japan Mail Steamship Company; Privy Council; Prince Haru made Crown Prince; anti-foreign reaction; promulgation of Constitution; first Diet; Gifu earthquake; war with China; Formosa; tariff revision; gold standard; freedom of press and public meetings; opening of Japan by new treaties; war with China; Tōkyō Missionary Conference; Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
The student of Japanese history is confronted, at the outset, with a serious difficulty. In ancient times the Japanese had no literary script, so that all events had to be handed down from generation to generation by oral tradition. The art of writing was introduced into Japan, from China probably, in the latter part of the third century A. D.; but it was not used for recording events until the beginning of the fifth century. All these early records, moreover, were destroyed by fire; so that the only “reliance for information about ... antiquity” has to be placed in the Kojiki,[74] or “Records of Ancient Matters,” and the Nihongi,[75] or “Chronicles of Japan.” The former, completed in 712 A. D., is written in a purer Japanese style; the latter, finished in 720 A. D., is “much more tinctured with Chinese philosophy”; though differing in some details, they are practically concordant, and supply the data upon which the Japanese have constructed their “history.” It is thus evident that the accounts of the period before Christ must be largely mythological, and the records of the first four centuries of the Christian era must be a thorough mixture of fact and fiction, which it is difficult carefully to separate.
ŌSAKA CASTLE
According to Japanese chronology, the Empire of Japan was founded by Jimmu Tennō in 660 B. C. This was when Assyria, under Sardanapalus, was at the height of its power; not long after the ten tribes of Israel had been carried into captivity, and soon after the reign of the good Hezekiah in Judah; before Media had risen into prominence; a century later than Lycurgus, and a few decades before Draco; and during the period of the Roman kingdom. But according to a foreign scholar who has sifted the material at hand, the first absolutely authentic date in Japanese history is 461 A. D.,[76]—just the time when the Saxons were settling in England. If, therefore, the Japanese are given the benefit of more than a century, there yet remains a millennium which falls under the sacrificial knife of the historical critic. But while we cannot accept unchallenged the details of about a thousand years, and cannot withhold surprise that even the Constitution of New Japan maintains the “exploded religious fiction” of the foundation of the empire, we must acknowledge that the Imperial family of Japan has formed the oldest continuous dynasty in the world, and can probably boast an “unbroken line” of eighteen or twenty centuries.
1. “Divine Ages.”
2. Prehistoric Period [660 B. C.—400 (?) A. D.].
Dr. Murray, in “The Story of Japan,” following the illustrious example of Arnold in Roman history, treats these more or less mythological periods in a reasonable way. He says: “Yet the events of the earlier period ... are capable, with due care and inspection, of furnishing important lessons and disclosing many facts in regard to the lives and characteristics of the primitive Japanese.” These facts concerning the native elements of civilization pertain to the mode of government, which was feudal; to food, clothing, houses, arms, and implements; to plants and domestic and wild animals; to modes of travel; to reading and writing, as being unknown; to various manners and customs; to superstitions; and to “religious notions,” which found expression in Shintō, itself not strictly a “religion,” but only a cult without a moral code. “Morals were invented by the Chinese because they were an immoral people; but in Japan there was no necessity for any system of morals, as every Japanese acted rightly if he only consulted his own heart”! So asserts a Shintō apologist. And from the fact that so many myths cluster around Izumo, it is a natural inference that one migration of the ancestors of the Japanese from Korea landed in that province, while the legends relating to Izanagi and Izanami, the first male and female deities, since they find local habitation in Kyūshiu, seem to indicate another migration (Korean or Malay?) to that locality. These different migrations are also supposed to account for the two distinct types of Japanese.
The story of the creation of the world bears considerable resemblance to that related in Ovid’s Metamorphoses; and this is only one of many points of remarkable similarity between the mythology of Japan and the Græco-Roman mythology.[77] And one famous incident in the career of the Sun-Goddess is evidently a myth of a solar eclipse.
Although the Emperor Jimmu cannot be accepted as a truly historical personage, neither can he be entirely ignored, for he is still an important “character” in Japanese “history” and continues to claim in his honor two national holidays (February 11 and April 3). And, just as Jimmu may be considered the Cyrus, or founder, of the Japanese Empire, so Sūjin, “the Civilizer,” may be called its Darius, or organizer. The Prince Yamato-Dake is a popular hero, whose wonderful exploits are still sung in prose and poetry. As for the Empress Jingu, or Jingō, although she is not included in the official list[78] of the rulers of the empire, she is considered a great heroine, and is especially famous for her successful invasion of Korea, assigned to about 200 A. d. And it is her son, Ōjin, who, deified as Hachiman, is still “worshipped” as god of war; while Take-no-uchi is renowned for having served as Prime Minister to five Emperors and one Empress (Jingu). It was during this period that the Chinese language and literature, together with the art of writing, were introduced into Japan through Korea.