The geography of the Japanese kingdom is included in a string of islands on the northeast coast of Asia, not far distant from the main land, commencing with the Kurile islands, a portion of which the empire exercises sovereignty over, and extending to the straits of Van Diemen on the south. The islands and uninhabited rocks are said to comprise three thousand eight hundred and fifty; but Japan of the present day is understood to include Yezo, Niphon, Kew Sew, and Sikok; among which the principal is Niphon, Nipon, Zipon, Zipango, or Cipango, by which names it has been called indifferently. It was for “Cipango” that Columbus sailed from Palos, and from the masthead of the “Pinto” the western world was first descried in 1492. Exactly fifty years afterward, Pinto, a Portuguese first descried “Cipango,”—“the kingdom of the origin of the sun.”
The authentic history of Japan commences in 660, B. C., with the first mortal ruler, surnamed the “Divine Conqueror.” In Niphon he built him a dairi, or temple-palace dedicated to the sun goddess. From him all the mikados, or sovereigns, claim to descend.
These self-styled divine rulers, from ceasing to command their armies, and intrusting military commands to kinsmen and others, came to abdicating so early, that the heirs of their power were still mere infants. These infants fell into the custody of others, who loved them about as well as the Duke of Gloster did those of his brothers he had conveyed to the Tower; and so the partisans of the legitimate descent, and of usurpers, immersed the kingdom in a civil war. In favor of the authority of an infant mikado, then threatened, came forth, a champion named Yoritomo, who saved the throne, by his efforts, for the imperiled juvenile sovereign, and for this service the regent allowed the real power to remain in the hands of Yoritomo, under the title of sio-i-dai-ziogoon, or “generalissimo fighting against the barbarians.” Very soon these ziogoons, from generalissimos fighting against barbarians, became generalissimos fighting against mikados. They became tenants of power by will, not by courtesy; they saved the spiritual head from overthrow, but they retained his temporal kingdom for themselves; their offices of trust became offices of power, and hereditarily so; and from Buddhist nunneries widows were even called to govern for infant ziogoons. The spiritual emperor soon became impotent in the hands of the military emperor, and the dual government gradually dwindled until the accession of the plebeian—the self-made, the Napoleon of Japan—Taico Sama, to the ziogoonship, who died in 1598, at the age of sixty-three, after having subdued Corea, curtailed the power of the princes, abolished the feudal system, and made the mikado, a mikado “about nothing!”
It would, no doubt, be now entirely true to say, that the sceptre wrenched from the mikado by the ziogoon, has in turn been wrested from the ziogoon by a council of state, and the supreme authority of Japan is now exercised by the president of the council, though the emperor is the John Doe in whose name he speaks.
Kublai-khan, when he ascended the Mongol throne, determined upon an invasion of the Japanese empire from his dependency of Kaou-le. The better to pave the way for this proceeding, he sent an embassador with the following letter to Japan:—
“The exalted emperor of the Mongols to the wang [king] of Niphon:—
“I am the prince of a formerly small state, to which the adjacent lands have united themselves, and my endeavor is to make inviolable truth and friendship reign among us. What is more, my ancestors have, in virtue of their splendid warrant from Heaven, taken possessions of Hia dominions. The number of the distant countries, of the remote cities, that fear our power and love our virtue, passes computation. When I ascended the throne, the harmless people of Kaou-le were suffering under the calamities of war. I immediately ordered a cessation of hostilities, recalling the troops from beyond the frontiers to the encampment of their colors. The prince of Kaou-le and his subjects appeared at my court to give me thanks, and I treated them kindly, as a father treats his children. So I intend that your servants shall be treated. Kaou-le is my eastern frontier; Niphon lies near, and has from the beginning held intercourse with the central empire. But during my reign, not a single envoy has appeared to open a friendly intercourse with me. I apprehend that the state of things is not, as yet, well known in your country, whereupon I send envoys, with a letter, to make you acquainted with my views, and I hope we may understand each other. Already philosophers desire to see the whole world form one family. But how may this one-family principle be carried into effect, if friendly intercourse subsist not between the parties? I am resolved to call this principle into existence, even should I be obliged to do so by force of arms. It is now the business of the wang of Niphon to decide what course is most agreeable to him.”
A contemptuous silence was the only answer that the Japanese returned to this demand. The ziogoon went immediately to work to put their coasts in a state of defence, while the mikado had stated prayers offered up.
The invaders, a hundred thousand strong, came as “the winds come when forests are rended,” and by the winds, as they came, their “navies were stranded.” The necks of those who escaped from shipwreck were severed by the Japanese blades, and three alone were spared to bear back to their country and the summer-state lord of Xanadu, the tale of disaster, and the fate of his armada. This was in October of the year 1280.
Of the advent of the Jesuits in Japan, three hundred years afterward, and the simultaneous commencement of commercial intercourse by the Portuguese; the butchery of the Christians at Simbara, (which, to their eternal infamy be it said, was assisted by the Dutch,) and the expulsion of the Portuguese; of the subsequent and continued intercourse of the Dutch; and the repulse of other Europeans and Americans, at later times, in their attempt to open a trade, down to 1837, there is no room to speak in these pages. In the introduction to the “Voyages of the Morrison and Himmaleh,” by C. W. King, the first of which ships was fired upon and driven from Japan in 1837, the history of foreign intercourse is given in a succinct form; or more elaborately in book i. of Macfarlane.