A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

Remuneration to officials took the form of revenue derived from lands and houses, but this subject can be treated more intelligently when we come to speak of the land.

THE PEOPLE

According to the Daiho laws one family constituted a household. But the number of a family was not limited: it included brothers and their wives and children, as well as male and female servants, so that it might comprise as many as one hundred persons. The eldest legitimate son was the head of the household, and its representative in the eyes of the law. A very minute census was kept. Children up to three years of age were classed as "yellow" (kwo); those between three and sixteen, as "little" (sho); those members of the household between sixteen and twenty, as "middling" (chu); those between twenty and sixty, as "able-bodied" (tei), and those above sixty as "old" or "invalids," so as to secure their exemption from forced labour (kayaku or buyaku). The census was revised every six years, two copies of the revised document being sent to the privy council (Daijo-kwan) and one kept in the district concerned. It was customary, however, to preserve permanently the census of every thirtieth year* for purposes of record, and moreover the census taken in the ninth year of Tenchi's reign (670)** was also kept as a reference for personal names. To facilitate the preservation of good order and morality, each group of five households was formed into an "association of five" (goho or gonin-gumi) with a recognized head (hocho); and fifty households constituted a village (sato or mura), which was the smallest administrative unit. The village had a mayor (richo), whose functions were to keep a record of the number of persons in each household; to encourage diligence in agriculture and sericulture; to reprove, and, if necessary, to report all evil conduct, and to stimulate the discharge of public service. Thus the district chief (guncho or gunryo) had practically little to do beyond superintending the richo.

*This was called gohi-seki; i.e., comparative record for a period of five times six years.

**It was designated the Kogoanen-seki, from the cyclical name of the year.

THE LAND

The land laws of the Daiho era, like those of the Daika, were based on the hypothesis that all land throughout the country was the property of the Crown, and that upon the latter devolved the responsibility of equitable distribution among the people. Rice being the chief staple of diet and also the standard of exchange, rice-lands—that is to say, irrigated fields—were regarded as most important. The law—already referred to in connexion with the Daika era but here cited again for the sake of clearness—enacted that all persons, on attaining the age of five, became entitled to two tan of such land, females receiving two-thirds of that amount. Land thus allotted was called kubun-den, or "sustenance land" (literally, "mouth-share land"). The tan was taken for unit, because it represented 360 bu (or ho), and as the rice produced on one bu constituted one day's ration for an adult male, a tan yielded enough for one year (the year being 360 days).*

*The bu in early times represented 5 shaku square, or 25 square shaku (1 seki = 1 foot very nearly); but as the shaku (10 sun) then measured 2 sun (1 sun = 1.2 inch) more than the shaku of later ages, the modern bu (or tsubo) is a square of 6 shaku side, or 36 square shaku, though in actual dimensions the ancient and the modern are equal.

The theory of distribution was that the produce of one tan served for food, while with the produce of the second tan the cost of clothes and so forth was defrayed. The Daika and Daiho legislators alike laid down the principle that rice-fields thus allotted should be held for a period of six years only, after which they were to revert to the Crown for redistribution, and various detailed regulations were compiled to meet contingencies that might arise in carrying out the system. But, of course, it proved quite unpracticable, and though that lesson obviously remained unlearned during the cycle that separated the Daika and the Daiho periods, there is good reason to think that these particular provisions of the land law (Den-ryo) soon became a dead letter.

A different method was pursued, however, in the case of uplands (as distinguished from wet fields). These—called onchi*—were parcelled out among the families residing in a district, without distinction of age or sex, and were held in perpetuity, never reverting to the Crown unless a family became extinct. Such land might be bought or sold—except to a Buddhist temple—but its tenure was conditional upon planting from one hundred to three hundred mulberry trees (for purposes of sericulture) and from forty to one hundred lacquer trees, according to the grade of the tenant family. Ownership of building-land (takuchi) was equally in perpetuity, though its transfer required official approval, but dwellings or warehouses—which in Japan have always been regarded as distinct from the land on which they stand—might be disposed of at pleasure. It is not to be inferred from the above that all the land throughout the Empire was divided among the people. Considerable tracts were reserved for special purposes. Thus, in five home provinces (Go-Kinai) two tracts of seventy-five acres each were kept for the Court in Yamato and Settsu, and two tracts of thirty acres each in Kawachi and Yamashiro, such land being known as kwanden (official fields), and being under the direct control of the Imperial Household Department.