A Fantasy of Far Japan; Or, Summer Dream Dialogues

by Kencho Suematsu

—'I understand now the nature of your feudal system,' said one; 'but it must have been a great sacrifice for the feudal lords to give up all their possessions.'

'It was so in one sense, no doubt,' I answered, 'but, as I have already told you, the lands of our feudal lords were never regarded as private properties. The Shogun had the power to dispose of those tenures, but the Shogun was supposed to have possessed that authority by the delegation of the Imperial prerogative. "Even the remotest sea coast is the emperor's land, and even the humblest creature is the emperor's subject." This was the politico-ethical maxim of China, so also in Japan. This notion had been brought into special prominence, in recent centuries, and patriotic lords and statesmen kept the maxim very vividly in their minds, especially at the time of the great change. The lords had their feudal governments in their locality. They regarded themselves as being the heads of those governments, acting for the emperor. They did not, therefore, feel so much pain as when one gives up a property which is one's own private possession in the strictest sense. Besides, the deep sentiments of loyalty and patriotism swayed them and animated them to adopt the step without any hesitation. I may also add that all the lords used to be invested with some titles of distinction, which were names of some official function of the Imperial court, and also personal ranks, resembling Western orders. These they received through the Shogunate, but the giver was the emperor. Thus you can see that the fountain of honour had always remained with the Imperial court, nay more, the Shogun himself received his function and title from the emperor.'

—'What do you mean by the re-shuffling of the feudal lords?' asked one.

—'I mean that in the early stage of the Tokugawa régime a complete rearrangement of that system, which is generally called feudal, was effected, by transferring all the old lords from one place to another and by creating new lords, to whom new localities were given to govern, whilst many of the older lords lost their possessions. By removal also, some lords were made greater and some smaller. In making that rearrangement, the Shogunate took great care to distribute the lands among the lords in such a way that a combination of several lords against the Shogunate might be impossible. Smaller lords were placed round large ones, and the more trustworthy against less trustworthy, and so on. This rearrangement or shifting I called "re-shuffling." The same thing was done even down to the last days of the Shogunate, though on a limited scale and less frequently. I can therefore say that there was no feudal lord who continued to possess the same seat from the pre-Tokugawa period. There were, however, a few exceptions, and Satsuma was the most significant example. In the earlier state of the feudal system, the lords and retainers did not necessarily reside side by side. The lords had their chief seats where they resided, but the custom of building strong castles had not yet come into existence, and their retainers lived here and there on their domains. From the middle of the sixteenth century, the custom of constructing large castles came into existence. The lords resided in the castles and the retainers lived in houses around them. This became more markedly the case when the re-shuffling of the lords was made and the lords removed, together with their retainers, from one place to another like swarms of bees. It was also at that time that the separation of the Samurai, that is, the retainers, from the ordinary avocations of the people became more thoroughly distinct. The Samurai received their annual allowance from their lords, and did not carry on any commercial business nor trouble themselves about agricultural pursuits. There was great difference of grandeur between the different feudal lords. Our usual way of estimating their relative grandeur was by measuring the reputed quantity of rice produced on their land. According to that method, the degree varied from ten thousand to one million koku. There were some two hundred and seventy lords, and their grandeur varied between those quantities. There were also many petty lords, whose produce of rice from their lands did not amount to ten thousand koku. They were called quasi-lords. Such being the variety of grandeur of the lords, large retainers of great lords often exceeded in grandeur the smaller lords.'

—'You said Satsuma was an exception. Will you explain how it was?'

—'Well, Prince Shimazu was the lord of Satsuma. The greater parts of the provinces Hiuga and Osumi were also included in his dominion. His family had been great lords in that part of the country for some seven hundred years. When the famous Hideyoshi invaded Kiusiu, and reached Satsuma, the prince, namely, the lord of Satsuma, surrendered to that great hero after several battles. Hideyoshi did not consider it politic to push the matter to extremes, so the prince retained his former position. When Tokugawa assumed the Shogunate, the prince was left undisturbed in spite of his having once taken up cudgels against Tokugawa at the famous battle of Sekigahara. His seat of government was Kagoshima, but there was scarcely any establishment worth calling a castle. A certain number of his retainers lived around his residence, but a large number of them lived in different parts of his territory, their lives being partly devoted to agriculture. Satsuma was one of the few strong clans, and its combination with Chosiu resulted, as I said before, in the restoration of the Imperial régime.'

—'Will you please explain in outline the financial system of the Shogunate, and how it was transferred to the Imperial government?' asked one.

'The Shogunate had under its immediate control territorial possessions which were roughly reckoned, in the terms of rice, eight million koku. The Shogunate was clever enough to have the lions share of the landed possessions, which included the best parts of the country, generally comprising prosperous towns, as, for instance, the city of Osaka. The expenditure of the Shogunate was maintained by the income from those territories. No feudal lord had to contribute anything to the exchequer of the Shogunate, except that they were at times ordered to undertake some public works allotted to them; for example, the reparation of some river banks or damage done to the Shogun's castle. The revenue of the Shogunate was scarcely sufficient for maintaining the Shogunate in its normal state, and towards its latter days, when the external relations and internal disturbances began to press heavily, the financial difficulty was much felt. As to the Imperial court, it had no regular revenue at all, except a comparatively trifling sum contributed by the Shogunate, which was supposed to be the equivalent to the taxes collected by the Shogun's officials in the provinces in the immediate vicinity of the Imperial seat. There was no land under the direct control of the court; even the city of Kioto itself was under the administration of the officials of the Shogunate. Consequently the Imperial court was always in a needy condition. It follows, also, that the court nobles were also in an extremely needy condition, though high in personal rank. They only received paltry annual allowances out of the Shogun's contribution, though a very few high court nobles had small landed possessions. Such being the case, it was natural that the Imperial government, when it first came into a renewed existence, should have met with much financial difficulty.'

—'But how did you manage to tide over the transitory period?' asked one.

—'The troops,' I answered, 'which fought for the Imperial cause were generally supported at the expense of their own feudal clan-governments. For the current expenses, some rich merchants either contributed or advanced the necessary sum of money, and also new paper money was issued. By such means as these the government managed to carry on its affairs, and in the course of time some revenue began to accrue to the Imperial treasury from the regions which had been under the control of the Shogunate, but the sum was insignificant. It follows, therefore, that for financial reasons only some great change was necessary, and thus a double impetus was given to the idea of such men as Kido and Okubo for the abolition of the feudal system.'