An Introduction to the History of Japan

by Katsuro Hara

Minamoto-no-Yoritomo preferred, at the establishment of his Shogunate, a course quite different from that of the Taira. Having been brought up during his boyhood at Kyoto, and being therefore acquainted with the realities of the metropolitan modes of life, he might have been, perhaps, averse to the Sybaritism of the court. If, on the other hand, he had been inclined to follow in the footsteps of the Taira, he was not in a position to behave as he would have liked, for it was not by any exertion of his own that he was exalted to the virtual dictatorship of the military government. The Minamoto and the Taira who had settled in the eastern provinces, in spite of the difference of their families, had been accustomed to the same condition of living, and they fought often under the same banner against the Ainu. Though quarrels were not lacking among them, they could not help feeling the warmth of the fraternity of arms toward one another. These "rough riders" had gradually become refined by the education imparted by country priests; terakoya, the "hut in a temple," was the sole substitute for the elementary school at that time. They had, too, occasion to come into contact with the civilised life of the metropolis, for it was their duty to stay there by turns, sometimes for years, as guards of the capital and of the imperial residence. Intelligent warriors among them took to the city life and mastered some of the accomplishments highly prized by courtiers. Most of them, however, looked with scornful smile upon the degenerate courtiers, like the Germans in the Eternal City looking with disgust on the decadent state of Imperial Rome. When Yoritomo entered into their company as an exile from Kyoto, these warriors were very glad to receive him, for he was descended from the family of the generals whom their forefathers had served hereditarily, and whose names they still revered. With this exile as their leader, they rose united against the Taira, the traditional enemy of the family to which he belonged. After the success of their arms they had no desire to have their chief turned into a pseudo-courtier after the example of the Taira soldiers. Kamakura was therefore chosen as the seat of the military government. This was in the year 1183.

In truth, Kamakura cannot be said to be a place strategically impregnable even in those early times. It is too narrow to become the capital of Japan, being closely hemmed in by a chain of hills. Though situated on the sea, its bay is too shallow, not fit for mooring even a small wooden bark. The reason why the place happened to be chosen must be sought, therefore, not in its geographical position, but in that the town was planted nearly in the centre of the region inhabited by the supporters of Yoritomo. That it was also the location of the Shinto shrine, Hachiman of Tsurugaoka, might have had not a little weight in influencing the choice, because it was in this shrine that Yoshiiye, the forefather of Yoritomo and the adored demigod of the warriors of Japan, performed the ceremony of the attainment of his full manhood.

The military government, the Shogunate, set up at Kamakura, was in its nature of quite a different type from that of the Taira at Kyoto. Before entering into details, it is necessary, however, to say something about the change in the signification of government. When the Fujiwara became the real masters of Japan, they tried at first to govern wisely and sincerely. But as time passed their energy and determination gradually relaxed. Their growing wealth obtained by encroachment on public lands tended to mould them as a profligate and indolent folk, so that they became at last wholly unfitted for any serious state affairs. Moreover, from the lack of any event which would have necessitated united action of all the family, a condition which might have been exceedingly difficult to attain even if they had wished it, on account of the multiplication of branches, never-ceasing internal feuds which helped only to weaken the prestige of the family as a whole were perpetually arising. It was at this juncture that the Emperor Go-Sanjô tried to recover the reins once lost to the hands of his ancestors. The task which he left unfinished was achieved by his son and successor, the Emperor Shirakawa. When the power was restored to the emperor, however, it was not in the same condition as when lost. The state business decreased in scope and significance, all that was left being merely the disposal of not very numerous manor lands, which had been left untouched by the greedy Fujiwara, and the policing of the capital. The Emperor Shirakawa did not deem it necessary as reigning Emperor to pay regular attention to them. He abdicated, therefore, in favour of his son, and from his retired position he managed the so-called state affairs. As the result of such an assumption of power, the position of the reigning emperor became very problematic, and irresponsibility prevailed everywhere. The imperial family thus regained some of its historical prestige, and succeeded in curbing the arrogance of the Fujiwara. The latter, however, continued very rich and powerful, though not so politically mighty as before. For a short while the Taira achieved its object in partially supplanting the influence of the Fujiwara, but it could not perceptibly weaken the latter. The downfall of the Taira showed clearly that in such a state of the country mere names and titles meant practically nothing, and that the military power supported by material resources was the thing most worth coveting. The Taira started on this line, but soon collapsed by abandoning it. How could a shrewd politician like Yoritomo be expected to imitate the blunder of his opponent?

The Shogunate set up by Yoritomo at Kamakura was not of the sort which could appropriately be called a regularly organised government. It was modelled after the organisation of a family-business office, which was common to all the noble families of high rank. There were several functionaries in the Shogunate, but they had the character rather of private servants than of state officials. The Shogun's secretaries, body-guards, butlers and so forth served under him not on account of any official regulation connecting them publicly with him, but only as his retainers, and were designated by the name of the go-kenin, which means "the men of the august household." To sum up, the Shogunate was established not for the state but for the family business. Yoritomo had never pretended to take possession of the government of Japan. The fact that at the beginning of the Shogunate its jurisdiction did not extend over the whole of the empire testifies to the same.

In the foregoing chapters I have spoken about the encroachment on public lands by the Fujiwara nobles. The private farms which were called the shô-yen and resembled in their character the manors or great landed estates in England, increased year by year, so that they extended at last to all the distant provinces of the country. Some emperors were resolute enough to try to put a stop to the growth of this onerous infringement of the public property, but the orders issued by them had very little effect. As to the management of these farms, they were not administered directly by those nobles who owned them, and it was not uncommon for many manors lying far apart from one another to belong to the same owner. The proprietors, therefore, generally stationed some of their domestic servants in those manors to act as caretakers, or confided the management to men who were the original reclaimers of those manors or their descendants, from whom the nobles had received the lands as a donation. By this assumption of the duty of management, these servants of these nobles arrogated to themselves the right to govern and command the people living upon the estates, without any appointment from the government itself. It cannot be disputed that it was a kind of usurpation not allowable in the regular state of any organised country. The provincial governors of that time, however, were impotent to put a bridle on those impudent managers, for most of the governors appointed stayed in Kyoto to enjoy the pleasure of city life, and left the business of the province to be administered by their lieutenants. Moreover, some of the manors were evidently exempted from the intervention of the provincial officials by a special order. In other words, most of the manors were communities which were to a great degree autonomous, each under the jurisdiction of a half independent manager, and that manager again standing in a subordinate position to his patron, who resided generally at Kyoto. So far I have spoken only of the manors belonging to the nobles of the higher class, including members of the imperial family. Other manors possessed by Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples were also under a régime not much different from those of the nobles. The Taira, too, at the zenith of their family power, had a great number of such estates and the sons of Kiyomori fought against the Minamoto with forces recruited from the tenants of those manors.

When Yoritomo overcame the Taira, he confiscated all the manors which had formerly been possessed by that family, and appointed one of his retainers to each of these appropriated manors as djito, which literally means a chief of the land. The duty of these djito was to collect for their lord Shogun a certain amount of rice, proportional to the area of the rice fields belonging to the estate. This reserved rice was destined to be used as provision for soldiers, and was in reality the income of the djito, for he was himself the very soldier who would use that rice as provision. Besides the collection of rice, he had to keep in order the manor to which he had been appointed as chief, that is to say, the police of the manor was in his hands. Once appointed, a djito could make his office hereditary, though for this the sanction of the Shogunate was necessary. Yoritomo appointed also a military governor to each of the provinces. The authority of this governor, called the shugo, extended over all the retainers of the Shogun in that province, including the djito. It should be noticed, however, that the shugo was as a rule a warrior, who held the office of djito at the same time, in or out of that province.

As to the manors which were owned by Kyoto nobles, shrines, and temples, and therefore not at the disposal of the Shogun, no djito was appointed to them. Though the disputes about the boundaries, right of inheritance, and various other questions concerning the estates were decided by the legal councillors of the Shogunate, jurisdiction was restricted to those cases in which some retainer of the Shogun was a party. Otherwise, the right of decision was denied by the Shogun. The Shogun never claimed any right over the land which did not stand expressly under his jurisdiction. From this it can be inferred that he did not pretend to take over the civil government of the whole of Japan. By the foundation of the Shogunate, however, Yoritomo became a very powerful military chief, sanctioned by the Emperor with the conferment of the title of "generalissimo to chastise the Ainu", and at need he was able to mobilise a large number of soldiers, by giving orders to djito through the shugo of the provinces. None was able to compete with him in military strength, and the business of the civil government had necessarily to fall into the hands of him who was the strongest in material force.

If such an anomalous state, as we see in the beginning of the Shogunate, had continued very long, the Shogunate would never have become the regular government of the country, and the dismemberment of Japan might have been the ultimate result. But fortunately for the future of our country, it did not remain as it was first established. Those managers of manors not belonging to the Shogun, seeing that they could be better protected from above by turning themselves into retainers of the Shogun, volunteered for his service. Nobles, shrines, and temples possessing these manors complained of course about the enlistment of the manor-managers into the Shogunate service. For by the transformation of the managers, those manors ipso facto came under the military jurisdiction of Kamakura. As those owners, however, could not prevent the transformation, and as the income from those estates did not decrease in any great measure by the extension of the jurisdiction of the Shogun over them, they had nothing to do, but tacitly to acquiesce in the new conditions. The number of retainers thus increased rapidly, and with it the Shogunate's sphere of jurisdiction grew wider and wider, till at last it covered the greater part of the Empire. The Shogunate was then no more a mere business office of a family, but the government de facto recognised by the whole nation. This process was consummated in the middle of the first half of the thirteenth century.

It would be a mistake to suppose that such a momentous change was effected without any disturbance. The Kyoto nobles, who were unable at first to see the political importance of the establishment of the Shogunate in an insignificant provincial village, were gradually awakened to the real loss which they would surely suffer by it, and longed to recover the reins, which they had once forgotten to keep and guard. Besides, there were many malcontent warriors both within and without the Shogunate. For after the death of Yoritomo, though the title of Shogun was inherited by his two sons, one after the other, the real power of the Shogunate fell into the hands of his wife's relations, the family of Hôjô. Warriors of other families were excluded from a share in the military government, and they, dissatisfied on that account, wished for some change in order to overthrow the Hôjô. Needless to say that outside of the Shogunate ambitious men were not lacking, who desired to set up another Shogunate in place of that at Kamakura, if they could. All these discontented soldiery allied themselves with the Kyoto nobles, and caused the civil war of Jôkyu to ensue between them and the Shogunate represented by the Hôjô family. The war ended in the defeat of the former, and the Shogunate emerged out of the war far stronger than before.

Thirteen years after the war, the first compilation of laws of the Shogunate was undertaken by Yasutoki Hôjô. It is called "the compiled laws of the Jôyei," Jôyei being the name of the era in which the compilation was issued. This compilation was not so much a work of elaborate systematisation, nor an imitation of foreign laws, as was the reform legislation of the Taïhô. Rather it should be called a collection of abstracts of particular law cases decided by the judicial staff of the Shogunate. It is therefore an outcome of necessitated experiences like English "case-law", and had not the character of statute laws or provisions deduced from a certain fundamental legal principle in anticipation of all probable occurrences. The object of the compilation is clearly stated in the epilogue written by Yasutoki himself. According to this, it was far from the motive of the compilers to displace the old system of legislation by the promulgation of the new one. Old laws became a dead letter, without being formally abrogated, while the new code was issued only for the practical benefit of the people in charge of various businesses.