A third instance, convenient for our purpose, is typical of the complications caused both in the matter of succession to the Throne, and in appointments to the office of Shōgun, by the difficulty of reconciling the custom of adoption with the dictates of filial piety, as laid down in Confucian doctrine. The time was the end of the eighteenth century. There were then a boy-Emperor eight years of age and a boy-Shōgun a few years older. Each had been adopted by his predecessor, who in each case had died shortly afterwards, the young Emperor’s succession to the Throne antedating the appointment of the young Shōgun by some six years. It was necessary to appoint a guardian for the young Shōgun, and some members of the Yedo ministry wished to appoint to this post the father, who belonged to the Hitotsubashi branch of the Tokugawa family. This course received the support of the boy-Shōgun, who, to show his filial respect, desired to instal his father with the title of ex-Shōgun (Taigiōsho) in the palace at Yedo set apart for the Shōgun’s heir. The proposal was resisted by the other Ministers on the ground that it was against precedent and would disturb public morals, in which ceremonial propriety played, as we know, so important a part. In the event of the adoptive parent dying in the lifetime of the real father—which in this case actually happened—the latter might, it was said, claim to be received in the former’s place into the adoptive family, a contingency which would lead to inconvenience and confusion. While the dispute was going on matters were complicated by the receipt of a similar request from the boy-Emperor in Kiōto, who desired that his father might be honoured by being given the title of ex-Emperor. There were precedents for the favour requested in the latter instance, and it would probably have been granted had the Government not felt that the concession would weaken their position in regard to the young Shōgun. Both requests were consequently refused; whereupon stormy scenes, we are told, occurred at the Yedo palace, in the course of which the Shōgun drew his sword on one of the offending Councillors, and an angry correspondence continued for two or three years between Kiōto and Yedo. In the end neither request was granted, and the Ministers whose counsel prevailed had at least the satisfaction of feeling that the apprehended danger to public morals had been averted.
Before closing this chapter it may be convenient to dwell for a moment on two points—the terms used to designate the Sovereign in Japan and the titles of daimiōs.
That the impersonality shrouding everything Japanese, to which reference has already been made, should show itself in the terms used to designate the Sovereign is not surprising. Nor is it in any way strange that these should include such expressions as “The Palace,” “The Palace Interior” and “The Household,” for sovereigns are commonly spoken of in this way, the habit having its origin in respect. What is curious is that in the case of a sovereign venerated from the first as a God, and so closely associated with the native faith, the terms by which he is known to his subjects should, with one exception, be borrowed from China, and that this one exception, the name “Mikado,” which means “Honourable Gate,” should be the term least used.
The titles borne by the feudal nobility were of two kinds—territorial titles, and the official titles conferred by the Court. The territorial title of a daimiō consisted originally of the word Kami joined to the name of the province in which his territories lay. The title of a daimiō, therefore, in early days had direct reference to the province in which his fief was situated. In the course of time, however, though this territorial title remained in general use, it by no means followed that there was any connection between the particular province mentioned and the territory actually possessed by a daimiō. This change in the significance of the title was due to several causes: to the partition amongst several daimiōs of lands originally held by a single individual, to the removal of a daimiō to another fief, to which he often carried his old title, and to the formation of cadet houses, which sometimes retained the title of the senior branch. The multiplication of similar titles led to much confusion, and in the later days of the Shōgunate, by way of remedying this inconvenience, a daimiō on appointment to the Council of State was obliged to change his title, if it were one already borne by an older member.
The history of the other, or official, titles is this. When the government of the country passed out of the hands of the Kugé or Court nobles, into those of the military class, the official posts previously held by the former were filled by members of the feudal nobility, who accordingly assumed the official titles attached to those posts. In the course of time, as successive changes in the details of administration occurred, the duties of these posts became merely nominal, until at last the titles, some of which had become hereditary, came to be merely honourable distinctions, having no connection with the discharge of official duties. There were in Iyéyasu’s time about sixty of these official titles, which were, nominally, in the gift of the Crown. Until the end of the Shōgunate there was much competition for these titles, which were the cause of constant intrigue between the Imperial Court and the Yedo Government.
CHAPTER IV
Political Conditions—Reopening of Japan to Foreign Intercourse—Conclusion of Treaties—Decay of Shōgunate.
Much space has been given in the preceding chapter to the Tokugawa period of administration. For this no apology is due to the reader. The period in question, held in grateful remembrance by the nation as the Era of Great Peace, is the most important in Japanese history. This importance it owes to its long duration; to the singular character of its government—a centralized and autocratic bureaucracy flavoured with feudalism; to the progress which took place in literature, art and industry; to its being the immediate predecessor of what is known as the Meiji Era—the reign of the late Emperor, which began in 1868; and, consequently, to the fact that the Japanese people, as we see them to-day, are the product of that period more than of any other. Before leaving the subject, therefore, it may perhaps be convenient to explain very briefly what kind of feudal system it was which formed, as it were, the basis of Tokugawa government, for one feature of it still survives.
In his History of the Civilization of Europe, Guizot puts forward on behalf of feudalism the claim that it constitutes an essential stage in the evolution of nations. It certainly played a very noticeable part in the development of Japan, lasting as it did from the close of the twelfth century down to the middle of the nineteenth, a period of more than seven hundred years. The French author and statesman in question, however, might have been surprised had he known that one feature of Japanese feudalism would survive its abolition, and that feature one not known on the continent of Europe.
Though in its general character Japanese feudalism resembled the feudal systems prevailing at various times in the continental countries of Europe, in one respect—the position of the population inhabiting the fiefs—it came closer to the clan type of Scottish feudalism; with this important distinction, however, that, whereas the Scottish clan was a family, or tribal, organization, the basis of the Japanese clan was purely territorial, the clansmen being held together by no family link. The Japanese word Han (borrowed from China), the usual English rendering of which is “clan,” does not, in its feudal sense, refer to the territory included in a fief, but to the people inhabiting it. In unsettled times, which were the rule and not the exception before the middle of the sixteenth century, the map of feudal Japan was constantly changing. The area of a fief expanded, or contracted, according to the military fortunes of the daimiō concerned; and at times both fief and feudal owner disappeared altogether. Nor in the alterations thus occurring from time to time in the feudal map was any consideration paid to natural boundaries. A daimiō’s fief, or, in other words, the territories of a clan, might consist of the whole or only part of a province, of portions of two or three provinces, or even of several whole provinces, as in the case of the founder of the Tokugawa line of Shōguns, and, at one time, of Mōri, “the lord of ten provinces.” In earlier days the word “clan” (Han) was not much used, the personality of the daimiō of the fief being the chief consideration. As conditions became more settled, however, under the peaceful sway of the Tokugawa Shōguns, the boundaries of fiefs became more fixed and permanent. As a result, too, of these unwarlike conditions, and of the spread to feudal circles of the corrupt and effeminate atmosphere of the Imperial Court, the personality of a daimiō counted for less, while the term “clan” gradually came to be more commonly employed to express the idea of a distinct feudal community, united solely by territorial associations. These acted as provincial ties do everywhere, but where feudal and provincial boundaries were the same, the tie uniting the population of a fief was naturally stronger than elsewhere. Some idea of what the clan really was in Japan is necessary in order to understand how it was that clan spirit should have survived when feudalism died, and how it is that Japan to-day, more than half a century after its abolition, should be ruled by what the Japanese themselves speak of as a clan government (Hambatsu Séifu).
We now come to a new chapter in the history of Japan—the reopening of the country to foreign intercourse. At the close of the drama which ended in the expulsion, or death, of all missionaries and their converts the Dutch and Chinese were, as we have seen, the only foreigners allowed to trade with Japan, the reason being that neither, so far as the Japanese could judge, had any connection with Christianity, or missionaries. This was about the middle of the seventeenth century. Things remained in this state until the beginning of the nineteenth, by which time the commerce carried on by the traders of the two favoured nationalities had dwindled to very small proportions. During the last fifty years of this trade changes full of meaning for Japan, for the continent of Asia and for the world at large were taking place. Russia was extending her sphere of activity in Siberia, and threatening to become an intrusive neighbour in Saghalin and the Kuriles. American whalers had discovered a profitable field of enterprise in the Sea of Okhotsk, while, further south, landing parties from these vessels were making use of the Bonin islands to obtain water and fresh provisions. The development of America’s seaboard on the Pacific had led to the opening of a new trade route with the mainland of Asia, for which the Japanese islands offered convenient ports of call. And, finally, the governments of Great Britain and France were busily engaged in demolishing the barriers of conservative prejudice behind which China had for so long entrenched herself. These changes, due partly to the introduction of steam navigation, caused a sudden and rapidly growing increase in the visits of foreign vessels to Japan. The trend of affairs was perceived by the Dutch, who warned the Japanese authorities that the moment was approaching when the policy of isolation could no longer be pursued without danger to the country. It needed little to arouse Japanese apprehensions. A system of coast defence was at once organized. The Bay of Yedo, and its vicinity, the inland sea, and the harbours in Kiūshiū, including the immediate neighbourhood of Nagasaki, were places to which special attention was given. It is clear from the experience of foreign ships which accident or enterprise carried into Japanese waters, from the detailed instructions issued periodically from Yedo, and from the reports of movements of foreign vessels received by the authorities, that there was no lack of vigilance in the working of the system. Yet it was singularly ineffective; a result, under the circumstances, not surprising, since the policy of the Yedo Government varied according to the degree of apprehension existing at the moment in official circles, and there was a general desire to evade responsibility.