An Introduction to the History of Japan

by Katsuro Hara

Though the frustration of the two Mongolian attempts upon our country should rather be attributed to the intervention of elemental forces which worked at very propitious opportunities, than to the bravery of our warriors, it cannot be disputed that they fought to their utmost, so that it would be derogatory to the military honour of our forefathers, if we supposed that nothing worth mentioning was achieved by them at all. In any case, the annihilation of the Mongolian fleet by us is an historical feat which might be considered together with the defeat of the Invincible Armada by the English three centuries later. In both countries the memorable victory was due to the dauntless courage of the warriors engaged in the battle, and the firm attitude of the person who stood then at the helm of the state. In Japan, Tokimune did not lend his ears to the milder counsels of the shrewder diplomatists at the court of Kyoto.

What is more noteworthy, however, than anything else in this war was not the bravery of our forefathers, but the fact that men recruited from the eastern as well as from the western provinces of the empire fought for the first time side by side against the foreign invaders. Such a coöperation of the people from all quarters of Japan in defence of the country was not a sight which could have been witnessed before the establishment of the military régime, for until that time the unification of the Empire had not extended to the northern extremity of Honto, and for ninety years after the inauguration of the Shogunate at Kamakura, there had been no occasion for our warriors to try their fortune in arms against any foreign enemy. Now the Japanese were induced for the first time to feel the necessity for national solidarity, only because enterprising Khubilai dared to attack the island empire, which would have done no harm to him if he had left it unmolested, and would have added very little to his already overgrown empire, if he had succeeded in his adventurous expedition. It may be perhaps exaggerating a little to call this war a national undertaking on our part when we consider the small number of men engaged in it. The retainers of the Shogunate, however, who were the representatives of the Japanese of that time, all hurried to the northern coast of Kyushu, even from the remotest part of the empire, in order to defend their country against their common foe. The peculiar custom of intimidating children to stop their crying, by reminding them of the Mongolian invasion, an obsolescent custom which has existed even in the northernmost region of Honto, shows how thoroughly and deeply the Mongol scare shook the whole empire, and left its indelible impress on the nation as a whole. The first beat of the pulse of a national enthusiasm has thus become audible.

If this feeling of national solidarity had gone deep into the consciousness of the people, and had continued steadily increasing without relaxation, then it might have done considerable good in facilitating the wholesome organisation of our national state. Viewed from this point, it must be considered rather a misfortune to our country that the terrible enemy was too easily put to rout. The pressure once removed, men no more troubled themselves about the need for solidarity. Nay, the war itself sowed the seeds of discontent among the warriors engaged, on account of the incapacity of the Shogunate to recompense them amply for their services. Already after the civil war of the Jôkyu era, the military government of Kamakura had been reduced to a straitened condition, for what it could get by the confiscation of the properties of the vanquished proved insufficient to provide the rewards for the faithful followers of the Shogunate. In the war with the Mongols, there was no enemy within the country from whom land could be confiscated. Nevertheless those warriors had to be rewarded with grants of land only, which the Shogunate could find nowhere. If the private moral bond, which had linked the retainers with the Shogun at the time of Yoritomo, could long continue in the state it had been, the Shogunate could have sometimes expected from them service without recompense. The military government, with the Hôjô family as its real master, however, could not likewise exact gratuitous service from them. The relation between the Shogunate and its retainers became too public and formal for this.

Those who were appointed as djito by Yoritomo at the beginning of the Shogunate had all been retainers of the Minamoto family from the first. Though they discharged the duties of military police within their respective manors as if they were public officials, yet their private character far outweighed their public semblance. As the Shogunate gradually took the form of a regular government, this private and personal bond between the Shogun and his retainers grew weaker, and the public character of the djito began to predominate. This was especially the case after the virtual management of the Shogunate fell into the hands of the Hôjô family. It is true that those retainers still called themselves the go-kenin, or the domestics of the Shogun of Kamakura. The later Shogun, however, sprung from the Fujiwara family or of blood imperial, and could not demand the same obedience which Yoritomo had found easy to obtain from his hereditary vassals. In effect, the Shogunate reserved to the end the right of giving sanction as regards the inheritance of the office of djito, but the exercise of the reserved right was generally nominal. A djito could appoint as his successor either his wife or any of his children, or could divide his official tenure among many inheritors. No Salic law and no law of primogeniture yet existed in Japan of the Kamakura period, so that, besides many djito who were incapable of discharging the military duties in person on account of sex or age, there were to be found eventually a great number of djito, whose official tenure covered a very small patch of ricefield, so small that it was too narrow to exercise any jurisdiction within it! Moreover, men of utterly unwarlike professions like priests, and corporations such as Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, were also entitled to succeed to the inheritance of the office of djito, if only it were bequeathed to them by a lawful will. In these cases, where the rightful djito could not officiate in person, a lieutenant, private in character, used to be appointed. Those lieutenants, however, not being publicly responsible to the Shogun, behaved very arbitrarily. That was a breach severely felt in the military system of the Shogunate.

The worst evil of all was that the Shogunate, which should have been an office for household affairs and the camp of the Shogun, was gradually turned into a princely court. Those warriors who did valiant service under Yoritomo in establishing the Shogunate had been in a great measure illiterate, so that only with great difficulty could the Shogun find a secretary among his retainers. As the organisation of the military government approached completion, the need of a literary education on the part of the warriors increased accordingly. Such an education, the source of which, however, was not to be sought at that time out of Kyoto, could hardly be introduced into Kamakura without being accompanied by other elements of the metropolitan civilisation represented by the Fujiwara nobles. The installation of a scion of the Fujiwara and of princes of the blood imperial into the Shogunate facilitated the permeation of the Kyoto culture, which by its nature was too refined to suit congenially men of military profession. The bodyguard of the Shogun began to be chosen from warriors whose demeanor was the most courtier-like, and one of the accomplishments necessary was the ability to compose short poems. Such a condition of the Shogunate could not fail to estrange those retainers who did not live habitually in Kamakura, and were, therefore, not yet tainted with the effeminacy of a courtier's life. The main support, on whom the Shogun should have been able to depend in time of stress, became thus unreliable. At this juncture an Ainu insurrection, which was the last recorded in our history, broke out in the year 1322, and continued till the downfall of the Kamakura Shogunate. It was by this insurrection that the tottering edifice of the military government was finally shaken, instantly leading to its catastrophe.

The force which gave the finishing stroke to the Shogun's power and prestige came, as had long been expected, from Kyoto. Inversely as the warriors of Kamakura had been turned to pseudo-courtiers, the court-nobles of Kyoto had become tainted by the militaristic temperament of the Kamakura warriors. The training in archery, the dog-shooting in an enclosure, which was considered a specially good training for a real battle, and many other martial pastimes became the fashion among the Kyoto nobles, as it had been among warriors. After their defeat in the civil war of the Jôkyu, they felt more keenly than before the magnitude of their power lost to Kamakura, and became the more discontented. Moreover, from the four corners of the empire the malcontents against the Hôjô family flocked to Kyoto, and persuaded the already disaffected courtiers, to attempt the restoration of the real command of the government to themselves. The Shogunate, having been apprised of the plot, tried to suppress it in time by force, but was unable to strike at the root of the evil, for the recalcitrants rose against the Hôjô one after another. On the other hand, those retainers who would have willingly died for a Shogun of the Minamoto family did not like to stake their lives on behalf of the Hôjô. Kamakura was at last taken by a handful of warriors from the neighbouring provinces led by a chieftain of one of the branch families of the Minamoto. The last of the Hôjô committed suicide, and with the downfall of the family, the Shogunate of Kamakura broke down. This happened in the year 1334. The real power of the state was restored to Kyoto in the name of the Emperor Go-Daigo.

The courtiers of Kyoto rejoiced in the thought that they could now conduct themselves as the true masters of Japan, but they were instantly disillusioned. Those warriors who had assisted them in the restoration of their former power, would not allow the courtiers to have the lion's share of the booty. Supported by a multitude of such dissatisfied soldiery, Takauji Ashikaga, another scion of the Minamoto, made himself the real master of the situation, and was appointed Shogun. Though once defeated by the army of his opponents at Kyoto, he was soon enabled to raise a large host in the western provinces, where, since the Mongolian invasion, the majority of the warriors thirsted for the change more than in other provinces, and he captured the metropolis. His opponents, however, continued their resistance in various parts of the empire. The courtiers, too, were divided into two parties, and the majority sided with the stronger, that is to say, with the Ashikaga family. At the same time the imperial family was divided into two. Thus the civil war, which strongly resembled the War of the Roses, ensued and raged all over the provinces for about fifty-six years, until the two parties were reconciled at last in the year 1392. In this way the whole of the empire came again under one military régime, and for about two centuries, the family of the Ashikaga continued at the head of the new Shogunate.

The new Shogunate was established at Kyoto, instead of Kamakura, which became now the seat of a lieutenancy, administered by a branch of the Ashikaga, and therefore reduced in political importance. This change of the seat of the military government is a matter of great moment in the history of our country. One of the several reasons which may be assigned for the change, was that the supporters of the Ashikaga were not limited to the warriors of the eastern provinces, as they had been with the Kamakura Shogunate. Takauji owed his ultimate success rather to the soldiers from the western provinces, so that Kyoto suited far better as the centre of his new military régime than Kamakura.

Another reason which the Ashikaga Shogunate had in view in changing its seat, was that a great apprehension which had been entertained by the former Shogunate, would thereby cease. One of the anxieties which had harassed the government of Kamakura constantly had been the fear that it might one day be overthrown by attack from Kyoto. To provide against the danger a resident lieutenant,—afterwards increased to two,—a member of the family of Hôjô, was stationed at Kyoto. The function of these lieutenants was to look out for the interests of the Shogunate at Kyoto, and at the same time to superintend the retainers in the western provinces. Besides, being two in number, these lieutenants watched each other closely, so that it was impossible for either of them to try to make himself independent of Kamakura. This system worked excellently for a time, but was ultimately unable to save the declining Shogunate. By shifting the seat of the military government to Kyoto itself, this anxiety might now be removed.

The greatest profit, however, which accrued to the Shogunate by the change of its government seat, was that one could facilitate the achievement of the political concentration of the empire, by making it coincide with the centre of civilisation. If the Shogunate of Kamakura could keep, with its political power, its original fresh spirit, which had remained latent during the long régime of the courtiers and begun suddenly to develop itself along with the establishment of the military government, the result would have been not only the prolonging of the duration of the Shogunate, but the full blossoming of a healthy and unenervated culture, and Kamakura might have become the political as well as the cultural centre of the empire. The history of our country, however, was not destined to run in that way. The time-honoured civilisation, which had been nurtured at Kyoto since many centuries, was, though of exotic origin, in itself a highly finished one. Notwithstanding its effeminacy, it had its own peculiar charm, which ranked in perfection far above the naïve culture of Kamakura, the latter being too rough and new, however refreshing. Those Buddhist priests who had once hoped to make Kamakura the centre of their new religious movement, found at last that unless they secured a firm foothold in the old metropolis, nothing permanent could be attained. The missionary campaign of the various reformed sects had been undertaken with renewed vigour at Kyoto since the end of the thirteenth century. In other words, the enervation of the Kamakura Shogunate disappointed those torch-bearers of the new civilisation, who might perhaps have expected too much from the political power of the military government established there. Thus the Shogunate of Kamakura had lost its raison d'être, before other factors of civilisation, such as art and literature, had time to develop themselves there independent of those of Kyoto, so as to suit the new spirit of the new age, that is to say, before the Shogunate could accomplish its cultural mission in the history of Japan. The culture of Kyoto proved itself to be omnipotent as ever.