It has already been shown that in spite of the disorder and unrest which marked the military era, that era saw the birth of a great art movement under the Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimasa. It has now to be noted that this movement was rapidly developed under the Taiko. "The latter it was whose practical genius did most to popularize art. Although his early training and the occupations of his life until a late period were not calculated to educate esthetic taste, he devoted to the cause of art a considerable portion of the sovereign power that his great gifts as a military leader and a politician had brought him." His earnest patronage of the tea ceremonial involved the cultivation of literature, and although he himself did not excel in that line, he did much to promote the taste for it in others. In the field of industrial art, however, his influence was much more marked. Not only did he bestow munificent allowances on skilled artists and art artisans, but also he conferred on them distinctions which proved stronger incentives than any pecuniary remuneration, and when he built the celebrated mansions of Juraku and Momo-yama, so vast were the sums that he lavished on their decoration, and such a certain passport to his favour did artistic merit confer, that the little town of Fushimi quickly became the art capital of the empire, and many of the most skilful painters, lacquerers, metal-workers, and wood-carvers within the Four Seas congregated there.
Historians speak with profound regret of the dismantling and destruction of these splendid edifices a few years after the Taiko's death; but it is more than probable that the permanent possession of even such monuments of applied art could not have benefited the country nearly as much as did their destruction. For the immediate result was an exodus of all the experts who, settling at Fushimi, had become famous for the sake of their Momo-yama work. They scattered among the fiefs of the most powerful provincial nobles, who received them hospitably and granted them liberal revenues. From that time, namely, the close of the sixteenth century, there sprang up an inter-fief rivalry of artistic production which materially promoted the development of every branch of art and encouraged refinement of life and manners. Not less noteworthy in the history of this military epoch is the improvement that took place in the social status of the merchant during the sixteenth century. Much was due to the liberal views of the Taiko. He encouraged commercial voyages by his countrymen to Macao and to Cambodia, to Annam, and to other places. Nine ships engaged in this trade every year. They carried licences bearing the Taiko's vermilion stamp, and the ports of departure were Nagasaki, Osaka, and Sakai.
ENGRAVING: SIGNATURE OF TOKUGAWA IEYASU
ENGRAVING: MOUNTAIN "KAGO"
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN
DISCOVERY OF JAPAN BY EUROPEANS
THE Portuguese discovered Japan in 1542 or 1543—the precise date is not known. Three of them, travelling by junk from Spain to Macao, were driven from their course and landed at Tanegashima, a small island off the south of Kyushu. The strangers were hospitably received by the Japanese, and great interest was excited by their arquebuses, the first firearms ever seen in Japan. It was, of course, out of the question to hold any oral direct conversation, but a Chinese member of the junk's crew, by tracing ideographs upon the sand, explained the circumstances of the case. Ultimately, the junk was piloted to a convenient port, and very soon the armourers of the local feudatory were busily engaged manufacturing arquebuses. News of the discovery of Japan circulated quickly, and several expeditions were fitted out by Portuguese settlements in the Orient to exploit the new market. All steered for Kyushu, and thus the Island of the Nine Provinces became the principal stage for European intercourse during the second half of the sixteenth century.
THE JESUITS
There were, at that time, not a few Jesuits at Macao, Goa, and other outposts of Western commerce in the Far East. But not until 1549 was any attempt made to proselytize Japan. On August 15th of that year, Francis Xavier, a Jesuit priest, landed at Kagoshima. Before his coming, the Portuguese traders had penetrated as far as Kyoto, which they reported to be a city of some ninety-six thousand houses, and their experience of the people had been very favourable, especially with regard to receptivity of instruction. Xavier was weary of attempting to convert the Indians, whom he had found "barbarous, vicious, and without inclination to virtue," and his mind had been turned towards Japan by a message from a Japanese daimyo (whose identity and reasons for inviting him have never been explained), and by a personal appeal from a Japanese, whose name appears in Portuguese annals as "Anjiro," and who, having committed a serious crime in Japan, had taken refuge in a Portuguese vessel, whose master advised him to repair to Malacca and confess his sins to Xavier.