A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

**£150,000—$7,300,000.

The Palace of Flowers came into existence in 1459, just on the eve of a period of natural calamities which culminated in famine and pestilence. In 1462, these conditions were at their worst. From various, provinces people flocked to the capital seeking food, and deaths from starvation became frequent in the city. A Buddhist priest, Gwana, constructed grass huts to which the famished sufferers were carried on bamboo stretchers to be fed with soft, boiled millet. It is recorded that, during the first two months of 1462, the number of persons thus relieved totalled eighty-two thousand. Another Buddhist priest erected a monument to the dead found in the bed of the river below the bridge, Gojo. They aggregated twelve hundred. Scores of corpses received no burial, and the atmosphere of the city was pervaded with a shocking effluvium.

But even the presence of these horrors does not seem to have sobered the Muromachi profligate. The costly edifices were pushed on and the people's resources continued to be squandered. Even the Emperor, Go-Hanazono, was sufficiently shocked to compose a couplet indirectly censuring Yoshimasa, and a momentary sense of shame visited the sybarite. But only momentary. We find him presently constructing in the mansion of his favourite retainer, Ise Sadachika, a bath-house which was the wonder of the time, a bath-house where the bathers were expected to come robed in the most magnificent costumes. One of the edifices that formed part of his palace after his retirement from active life, in 1474, was a "Silver Pavilion" intended to rival the "Golden Pavilion" of his ancestor, Yoshimitsu. During the last sixteen years of his life—he died in 1490—he patronized art with a degree of liberality that atones for much of his previous profligacy. In the halls of the Jisho-ji monastery, constructed on a grand scale as his retreat in old age, he collected chefs d'oeuvre of China and Japan, so that the district Higashi-yama where the building stood became to all ages a synonym for choice specimens, and there, too, he instituted the tea ceremonial whose votaries were thenceforth recognized as the nation's arbitri elegantiarum. Landscape gardens also occupied his attention. Wherever, in province or in capital, in shrine, in temple, in private house, or in official residence, any quaintly shaped rock or picturesque tree was found, it was immediately requisitioned for the park of Higashi-yama-dono, as men then called Yoshimasa, and under the direction of a trio of great artists, So-ami, Gei-ami, and No-ami, there grew up a plaisance of unprecedented beauty, concerning which a poet of the time wrote that "every breeze coming thence wafted the perfume of tea." The pastimes of "listening to incense," of floral arrangement, of the dramatic mime, and of the parlour farce were all practised with a zest which provoked the astonishment even of contemporary annalists.

ENGRAVING: A PICNIC DURING THE FLOWER SEASON IN THE ASHIKAGA PERIOD

All this contributed materially to educate the nation's artistic faculties, but the cost was enormous and the burden of taxation correspondingly heavy. It was under this financial pressure that Yoshimasa approached the Ming emperor seeking pecuniary aid. Thrice the shogun's applications were successful, and the amounts thus obtained are said to have totalled three hundred thousand strings of cash (equivalent of £450,000, or $2,200,000). His requests are said to have assumed the guise of appeals in behalf of famine-stricken people, but there is no evidence that any of the presents were devoted to that purpose. Partial apologists for Yoshimasa's infatuation are not wanting. Thus, it is alleged that he was weary of failure to reform the administration; that the corruption and confusion of society induced him to seek consolation in art; that outside the precincts of his palace he was restrained by the provincial magnates, and inside he had to obey the dictation of his wife, Tomi, of her brother, Katsumitsu, and of his own favourite page, Ise Sadachika, so that only in his tea reunions and his private theatricals could a semblance of independence be obtained; that his orders were not obeyed or his injunctions respected by any save the artists he had gathered around him, and that in gratifying his luxurious tastes, he followed the example of his grandfather, Yoshimitsu. But such exculpations amount to saying that he was an essentially weak man, the slave of his surroundings.

THE KWANTO TUMULT

The lawlessness of the time and the indifference with which the shogun's mandates were treated find illustration in the story of the Kwanto. When (1439) Mochiuji perished, the only member of his family that survived was his five-year-old son, Shigeuji. This child placed himself under the protection of Muromachi. It will be remembered that Uesugi Norizane, lamenting his unwilling share in Mochiuji's destruction, had entered religion. His son, Noritada, was then appointed to act as manager (shitsuji) to Shigeuji, his colleague being Uesugi Akifusa (Ogigayatsu Uesugi). But the Yuki family, who had given shelter to two sons of Mochiuji, objected to bow their heads to the Uesugi, and persuaded Shigeuji to have Noritada killed. Therefore, the partisans of the murdered man placed themselves under the banner of his brother, Fusaaki, and having received a commission from Muromachi as well as a powerful contingent of troops under Imagawa Noritada, they marched in great force against Kamakura from Kotsuke, Kazusa, and Echigo.

Kamakurawas well-nigh reduced to ruins, but Shigeuji retired to the fortress of Koga in Shimosa, and his cause against the Uesugi was espoused by the eight families of Chiba, Koyama, Satomi, Satake, Oda, Yuki, Utsunomiya, and Nasu, thenceforth known as the "eight generals" of the Kwanto. Against such a league it was difficult to operate successfully. Masatomo, a younger brother of Yoshimasa, built for himself a fortress at Horigoe, in Izu, which was thereafter known as Horigoe Gosho (the Horigoe Palace), Shigeuji in his castle of Koga being designated Koga Kuba (the Koga shogun). Castle building acquired from this time greatly increased vogue. Uesugi Mochitomo fortified Kawagoe in Musashi; Ota Sukenaga (called also Dokan), a vassal of the Ogigayatsu Uesugi, built at Yedo a fort destined to have world-wide celebrity, and his father, Sukekiyo, entrenched Iwatsuki in the same province of Musashi. Thus the Kwanto became the arena of warring factions.

PREFACE TO THE ONIN WAR

We now arrive at a chapter of Japanese history infinitely perplexing to the reader. It is generally called the Onin War because the struggle described commenced in the year-period of that name, but whereas the Onin period lasted only two years (1467-1469), the Onin War continued for eleven years and caused shocking destruction of life and property. When war is spoken of, the mind naturally conjectures a struggle between two or perhaps three powers for a cause that is respectable from some points of view. But in the Onin War a score of combatants were engaged, and the motive was invariably personal ambition. It has been described above that when the Ashikaga chief, Takauji, undertook to re-establish the Minamoto Bakufu, he essayed to overcome opposition by persuasion rather than by force. Pursuing that policy, he bestowed immense estates upon those that yielded to him, so that in time there came into existence holders of lands more extensive than those belonging to the shogun himself. Thus, while the landed estates of the Muromachi shogun measured only 15,798 cho* there were no less than eight daimyo more richly endowed. They were: