The extension which, in the fluctuating condition of affairs, shortly afterwards took place of the dominions of the king of Bungo over the greater part of the island of Shimo, was very favorable to the new religion. The prince of Hirado was obliged to pay him tribute, and, notwithstanding the double-faced policy of that prince, the new doctrine continued to spread in his territories, where some of the members of the ruling family became converts. A new church was planted at Hakata, and the old original one at Kagoshima was reëstablished. Presently the new faith gained a footing also in the kingdoms of Arima and Gotō, which, as well as Hirado, had been dissevered from the ancient province of Hizen. The lord of Shimabara (afterwards famous as the last stronghold of the Catholics) invited the missionaries to his city. The king of Arima was also very friendly; he gave the missionaries an establishment, first at Yokoseura, and, after that city had been burned by the bonzes, at a port of his called Kuchinotsu, on the southern coast of the southwestern peninsula of Shimo. The prince of Ōmura, a dependency of Arima, and the prince of the island of Tanegashima, the same at which Pinto had first landed, then a dependency of Hirado, were both among the converts, and exceedingly zealous to induce their subjects to follow their example; and, notwithstanding the hostility of the bonzes, the frequent wars between the princes, and repeated internal commotions, by which the missionaries were often in danger, the new religion continued to spread in all parts of Shimo, and in fact to be carried by native converts to many parts of Nippon, which no missionary had yet reached. Meanwhile, new establishments also had been gained on the island of Nippon, in addition to that at Yamaguchi, at its western extremity. The fame of the missionaries had induced an old Jūji, or superior of a Buddhist monastery near Miyako (Kyōto), to send to Yamaguchi to ask information about the new religion. Father Vilela was despatched, in 1559, for his instruction, and though the Jūji died before the arrival of the missionary, his successor and many of the bonzes listened with respect to the words of Vilela. As none, however, were willing to receive baptism, he departed for Miyako, where he found means to approach Yoshiteru, the Kubō-Sama, and to obtain from him permission to preach. Having secured the favor of Miyoshi, the emperor’s principal minister, and presently that of Matsunaga, the chief judge, he converted many bonzes and nobles, and built up a large and flourishing church.
An attack upon the emperor by Mōri Motonari, king of Nagato, who forced the city of Miyako, and set it on fire, detained Vilela for a while in the neighboring town of Sakai, the most commercial place in Japan, which seems, at that time, to have been a free city, as it were, with an independent government of its own; and there also a church was planted. But the emperor soon reëstablished his affairs; and although, from the hostility of Mōri, the church at Yamaguchi was very much depressed, everything went on well at Miyako, where Vilela was joined, in 1565, by Louis Almeida, and by a young missionary, Louis Froez, lately arrived from Malacca. Of their journey from Kuchinotsu to Miyako we have a detailed account in a long and very interesting letter of Almeida’s. His visit to Miyako was only temporary. Froez remained there, and from him we have a long series of letters, historical and descriptive, as well as religious, which, for a period of thirty years following, throw great light on the history and internal condition of Japan.
At this time the entire empire, since and at present so stable, was the scene of constant revolutions. Very shortly after Froez’s arrival Miyoshi and Matsunaga conspired against their patron (i. e. the Shōgun Yoshiteru), dethroned him, and drove him to cut himself open, as did great numbers of his relatives and partisans. These nobles, hitherto favorable to the missionaries, now published an edict against them, probably to secure the favor of the bonzes; and Vilela and Froez were thus again driven to take refuge at Sakai, where they had a few converts. But the believers at Miyako stood firm, and a new revolution soon occurred, headed by a noble called Wada Iga-no-kami, and by Nobunaga (Oda Nobunaga), king of Owari,—which province adjoined the emperor’s special territory on the east, a prince whose military prowess had already made him from a petty noble the master of eighteen provinces in the eastern part of Nippon.
In 1566 Wada and Nobunaga proclaimed as emperor a brother of the late one—a bonze who had escaped from the rebels. Miyako was regained, and the new emperor established there A. D. 1567. All real authority remained, however, with Nobunaga, who showed himself very hostile to the Buddhist bonzes, they having generally taken the side of the late rebels. He even destroyed many of their temples, using the idols which they contained as materials for a new palace. He easily granted to Wada, who was himself a sort of half convert, the reëstablishment of the missionaries at Miyako, which was soon confirmed by an imperial edict, issued in 1568; and, in spite of an attempt at interference on the part of the Dairi, the new religion, under the protection of Wada, who was appointed governor of Miyako, soon reached a very flourishing condition.
Image of Oda Nobunaga
From Dening’s New Life of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
To this prosperity at Miyako a strong contrast was, however, presented by the state of things at Yamaguchi, whence the missionaries were expelled by the king of Nagato, though the church there was still kept alive by the zeal and constancy of some of the converts. In the island of Shimo the new religion continued to spread. Indeed, the baptized prince of Ōmura, not content with hacking idols to pieces, and refusing to join in the old national festivals, wished also to prohibit all the old ceremonies, and to compel his subjects to adopt the new ones,—an excess of zeal which, by displaying the intolerant spirit of the new sect, fostered a union of all the old ones against it, such as at last occasioned its destruction.
This prince had allowed certain Portuguese merchants to establish themselves at Nagasaki, then a mere fishing village, but having a capacious harbor, the port of Japan nearest to China and the Indies, at the head of a deep bay, opening to the west. Presently he built a church there, and, A. D. 1568, invited the missionaries to make it their headquarters, with a promise that no religion but theirs should be allowed. This invitation was accepted; many converts flocked thither, and Nagasaki soon became a considerable city. Fathers de Torres and Vilela both died in 1570,[43] worn out with years and labors, the latter being succeeded as head of the mission by Father Cabral, sent out from Goa as vice-provincial of the order, and accompanied by Father Gnecchi, who soon became an efficient laborer.
Meanwhile, an insurrection in the imperial provinces, on the part of the old rebels, which it cost the life of Wada to suppress, so provoked Nobunaga that he wreaked his vengeance anew upon the bonzes (who had again aided the insurgents), by destroying a great number of their monasteries on the famous mountain of Japan (Hieizan), and putting the inmates to death. This occurrence took place A. D. 1571, as the missionaries remarked, on the day of St. Michael, whom Xavier had named the patron saint of Japan. Cabral, the vice-provincial, having made a visit to Miyako, was very graciously received by Nobunaga. Shortly after the titular Kubō-Sama made a vain attempt to regain the exercise of authority. The defeated prince was still left in possession of his title, but Nobunaga was thenceforth regarded as, in fact, himself the emperor. This was in 1573. In 1576 the church received new and important accessions in Shimo. The king of Bungo, though from the beginning favorable to the missionaries, had, from reasons of policy, and through the influence of his wife, who was very hostile to the new religion, declined baptism; none of the courtiers had submitted to it, and the converts in that kingdom had consisted as yet of an inferior class. But the second son of the king having taken the resolution to be baptized, in spite of the violent opposition of the queen, his mother,—who had great influence over Yoshimune, the king’s eldest son, associated, according to a usual Japanese custom, in the government,—his example was followed by many persons of rank in the kingdom of Bungo, and even by the neighboring king of Arima, who died, however, shortly after, leaving his kingdom to an unbelieving successor.[44]