Kiōto remained the source of authority. But with the growth of luxury and effeminacy in the capital the Fujiwara became more and more averse from the hardships of campaigning, and in the 9th and 10th centuries, respectively, The Taira and the Minamoto. the Taira and the Minamoto[1] families came into prominence as military leaders, the field of the Taira operations being the south and west, that of the Minamoto the north and east. Had the court reserved to itself and munificently exercised the privilege of rewarding these services, it might still have retained power and wealth. But by a niggardly and contemptuous policy on the part of Kiōto not only were the Minamoto leaders estranged but also they assumed the right of recompensing their followers with tax-free estates, an example which the Taira leaders quickly followed. By the early years of the 12th century these estates had attracted the great majority of the farming class, whereas the public land was left wild and uncultivated. In a word, the court and the Fujiwara found themselves without revenue, while the coffers of the Taira and the Minamoto were full: the power of the purse and the power of the sword had passed effectually to the two military families. Prominent features of the moral condition of the capital at this era (12th century) were superstition, refinement and effeminacy. A belief was widely held that calamity could not be averted or success insured without recourse to Buddhist priests. Thus, during a reign of only 13 years at the close of the 11th century, the emperor Shirakawa caused 5420 religious pictures to be painted, ordered the casting of 127 statues of Buddha, each 11 ft. high, of 3150 life-sized images and of 2930 smaller idols, and constructed 21 large temples as well as 446,630 religious edifices of various kinds. Side by side with this faith in the supernatural, sexual immorality prevailed widely, never accompanied, however, by immodesty. Literary proficiency ranked as the be-all and end-all of existence. “A man estimated the conjugal qualities of a young lady by her skill in finding scholarly similes and by her perception of the cadence of words. If a woman was so fortunate as to acquire a reputation for learning, she possessed a certificate of universal virtue and amiability.” All the pastimes of the Nara epoch were pursued with increased fervour and elaboration in the Heian (Kiōto) era. The building of fine dwelling-houses and the laying out of landscape gardens took place on a considerable scale, though in these respects the ideals of later ages were not yet reached. As to costume, the close-fitting, business-like and comparatively simple dress of the 8th century was exchanged for a much more elaborate style. During the Nara epoch the many-hued hats of China had been abandoned for a sober head-gear of silk gauze covered with black lacquer, but in the Heian era this was replaced by an imposing structure glistening with jewels: the sleeves of the tunic grew so long that they hung to the knees when a man’s arms were crossed, and the trowsers were made so full and baggy that they resembled a divided skirt. From this era may be said to have commenced the manufacture of the tasteful and gorgeous textile fabrics for which Japan afterwards became famous. “A fop’s ideal was to wear several suits, one above the other, disposing them so that their various colours showed in harmoniously contrasting lines at the folds on the bosom and at the edges of the long sleeves. A successful costume created a sensation in court circles. Its wearer became the hero of the hour, and under the pernicious influence of such ambition men began even to powder their faces and rouge their cheeks like women. As for the fair sex, their costume reached the acme of unpracticality and extravagance in this epoch. Long flowing hair was essential, and what with developing the volume and multiplying the number of her robes, and wearing above her trowsers a many-plied train, a grand lady of the time always seemed to be struggling to emerge from a cataract of habiliments.” It was fortunate for Japan that circumstances favoured the growth of a military class in this age of her career, for had the conditions existing in Kiōto during the Heian epoch spread throughout the whole country, the penalty never escaped by a demoralized nation must have overtaken her. But by the middle of the 12th century the pernicious influence of the Fujiwara had paled before that of the Taira and the Minamoto, and a question of succession to the throne marshalled the latter two families in opposite camps, thus inaugurating an era of civil war which held the country in the throes of almost continuous battle for 450 years, placed it under the administration of a military feudalism, and educated a nation of warriors. At first the Minamoto were vanquished and driven from the capital, Kiyomori, the Taira chief, being left complete master of the situation. He established his headquarters at Rokuharu, in Kiōto, appropriated the revenues of 30 out of the 66 provinces forming the empire, and filled all the high offices of state with his own relatives or connexions. But he made no radical change in the administrative system, preferring to follow the example of the Fujiwara by keeping the throne in the hands of minors. And he committed the blunder of sparing the lives of two youthful sons of his defeated rival, the Minamoto chief. They were Yoritomo and Yoshitsunē; the latter the greatest strategist Japan ever produced, with perhaps one exception; the former, one of her three greatest statesmen, the founder of military feudalism. By these two men the Taira were so completely overthrown that they never raised their heads again, a sea-fight at Dan-no-ura (1155) giving them the coup de grâce. Their supremacy had lasted 22 years.

The Feudal Era.—Yoritomo, acting largely under the advice of an astute counsellor, Oye no Hiromoto, established his seat of power at Kamakura, 300 m. from Kiōto. He saw that, effectively to utilize the strength of the military class, propinquity to the military centres in the provinces was essential. At Kamakura he organized an administrative body similar in mechanism to that of the metropolitan government but studiously differentiated in the matter of nomenclature. As to the country at large, he brought it effectually under the sway of Kamakura by placing the provinces under the direct control of military governors, chosen and appointed by himself. No attempt was made, however, to interfere in any way with the polity in Kiōto: it was left intact, and the nobles about the Throne—kuge (courtly houses), as they came to be called in contradistinction to the buke (military houses)—were placated by renewal of their property titles. The Buddhist priests, also, who had been treated most harshly during the Taira tenure of power, found their fortunes restored under Kamakura’s sway. Subsequently Yoritomo obtained for himself the title of sei-itai-shōgun (barbarian-subduing generalissimo), and just as the office of regent (kwambaku) had long been hereditary in the Fujiwara family, so the office of shōgun became thenceforth hereditary in that of the Minamoto. These changes were radical. They signified a complete shifting of the centre of power. During eighteen centuries from the time of Jimmu’s invasion—as Japanese historians reckon—the country had been ruled from the south; now the north became supreme, and for a civilian administration a purely military was substituted. But there was no contumely towards the court in Kiōto. Kamakura made a show of seeking Imperial sanction for every one of its acts, and the whole of the military administration was carried on in the name of the emperor by a shōgun who called himself the Imperial deputy. In this respect things changed materially after the death of Yoritomo (1198). Kamakura then became the scene of a drama analogous to that acted in Kiōto from the 10th century.

The Hōjō family, to which belonged Masa, Yoritomo’s consort, assumed towards the Kamakura shōgun an attitude similar to that previously assumed by the Fujiwara family towards the emperor in Kiōto. A child, who on Rule of the Hōjō. state occasions was carried to the council chamber in Masa’s arms, served as the nominal repository of the shōgun’s power, the functions of administration being discharged in reality by the Hōjō family, whose successive heads took the name of shikken (constable). At first care was taken to have the shōgun’s office filled by a near relative of Yoritomo; but after the death of that great statesman’s two sons and his nephew, the puppet shōguns were taken from the ranks of the Fujiwara or of the Imperial princes, and were deposed so soon as they attempted to assert themselves. What this meant becomes apparent when we note that in the interval of 83 years between 1220 and 1308, there were six shōguns whose ages at the time of appointment ranged from 3 to 16. Whether, if events had not forced their hands, the Hōjō constables would have maintained towards the Throne the reverent demeanour adopted by Yoritomo must remain a matter of conjecture. What actually happened was that the ex-emperor, Go-Toba, made an ill-judged attempt (1221) to break the power of Kamakura. He issued a call to arms which was responded to by some thousands of cenobites and as many soldiers of Taira extraction. In the brief struggle that ensued the Imperial partisans were wholly shattered, and the direct consequences were the dethronement and exile of the reigning emperor, the banishment of his predecessor together with two princes of the blood, and the compulsory adoption of the tonsure by Go-Toba; while the indirect consequence was that the succession to the throne and the tenure of Imperial power fell under the dictation of the Hōjō as they had formerly fallen under the direction of the Fujiwara. Yoshitoki, then head of the Hōjō family, installed his brother, Tokifusa, as military governor of Kiōto, and confiscating about 3000 estates, the property of those who had espoused the Imperial cause, distributed these lands among the adherents of his own family, thus greatly strengthening the basis of the feudal system. “It fared with the Hōjō as it had fared with all the great families that preceded them: their own misrule ultimately wrought their ruin. Their first eight representatives were talented and upright administrators. They took justice, simplicity and truth for guiding principles; they despised luxury and pomp; they never aspired to high official rank; they were content with two provinces for estates, and they sternly repelled the effeminate, depraved customs of Kiōto.” Thus the greater part of the 13th century was, on the whole, a golden era for Japan, and the lower orders learned to welcome feudalism. Nevertheless no century furnished more conspicuous illustrations of the peculiarly Japanese system of vicarious government. Children occupied the position of shōgun in Kamakura under authority emanating from children on the throne in Kiōto; and members of the Hōjō family as shikken administered affairs at the mandate of the child shōguns. Through all three stages in the dignities of mikado, shōgun and shikken, the strictly regulated principle of heredity was maintained, according to which no Hōjō shikken could ever become shōgun; no Minamoto or Fujiwara could occupy the throne. At the beginning of the 14th century, however, several causes combined to shake the supremacy of the Hōjō. Under the sway of the ninth shikken (Takatoki), the austere simplicity of life and earnest discharge of executive duties which had distinguished the early chiefs of the family were exchanged for luxury, debauchery and perfunctory government. Thus the management of fiscal affairs fell into the hands of Takasuke, a man of usurious instincts. It had been the wise custom of the Hōjō constables to store grain in seasons of plenty, and distribute it at low prices in times of dearth. There occurred at this epoch a succession of bad harvests, but instead of opening the state granaries with benevolent liberality, Takasuke sold their contents at the highest obtainable rates; and, by way of contrast to the prevailing indigence, the people saw the constable in Kamakura affecting the pomp and extravagance of a sovereign waited upon by 37 mistresses, supporting a band of 2000 dancers, and keeping a pack of 5000 fighting dogs. The throne happened to be then occupied (1310-1338) by an emperor, Go-Daigo, who had reached full maturity before his accession, and was correspondingly averse from acting the puppet part assigned to the sovereigns of his time. Female influence contributed to his impatience. One of his concubines bore a son for whom he sought to obtain nomination as prince imperial, in defiance of an arrangement made by the Hōjō that the succession should pass alternately to the senior and junior branches of the Imperial family. Kamakura refused to entertain Go-Daigo’s project, and thenceforth the child’s mother importuned her sovereign and lover to overthrow the Hōjō. The entourage of the throne in Kiōto at this time was a counterpart of former eras. The Fujiwara, indeed, wielded nothing of their ancient influence. They had been divided by the Hōjō into five branches, each endowed with an equal right to the office of regent, and their strength was thus dissipated in struggling among themselves for the possession of the prize. But what the Fujiwara had done in their days of greatness, what the Taira had done during their brief tenure of power, the Saionji were now doing, namely, aspiring to furnish prime ministers and empresses from their own family solely. They had already given consorts to five emperors in succession, and jealous rivals were watching keenly to attack this clan which threatened to usurp the place long held by the most illustrious family in the land. A petty incident disturbed this state of very tender equilibrium before the plan of the Hōjō’s enemies had fully matured, and the emperor presently found himself an exile on the island of Oki. But there now appeared upon the scene three men of great prowess: Kusunoki Masashige, Nitta Yoshisada and Ashikaga Takauji. The first espoused from the outset the cause of the Throne and, though commanding only a small force, held the Hōjō troops in check. The last two were both of Minamoto descent. Their common ancestor was Minamoto Yoshiiye, whose exploits against the northern Yemishi in the second half of the 11th century had so impressed his countrymen that they gave him the title of Hachiman Tarō (first-born of the god of war). Both men took the field originally in the cause of the Hōjō, but at heart they desired to be avenged upon the latter for disloyalty to the Minamoto. Nitta Yoshisada marched suddenly against Kamakura, carried it by storm and committed the city to the flames. Ashikaga Takauji occupied Kiōto, and with the suicide of Takatoki the Hōjō fell finally from rule after 115 years of supremacy (1219-1334). The emperor now returned from exile, and his son, Prince Moriyoshi, having been appointed to the office of shōgun at Kamakura, the restoration of the administrative power to the Throne seemed an accomplished fact.

Go-Daigo, however, was not in any sense a wise sovereign. The extermination of the Hōjō placed wide estates at his disposal, but instead of rewarding those who had deserved well of him, he used a great part of them to enrich The Ashikaga Shoguns. his favourites, the companions of his dissipation. Ashikaga Takauji sought just such an opportunity. The following year (1335) saw him proclaiming himself shōgun at Kamakura, and after a complicated pageant of incidents, the emperor Go-Daigo was obliged once more to fly from Kiōto. He carried the regalia with him, refused to submit to Takauji, and declined to recognize his usurped title of shōgun. The Ashikaga chief solved the situation by deposing Go-Daigo and placing upon the throne another scion of the imperial family who is known in history as Kōmyō (1336-1348), and who, of course, confirmed Takauji in the office of shōgun. Thus commenced the Ashikaga line of shōguns, and thus commenced also a fifty-six-year period of divided sovereignty, the emperor Go-Daigo and his descendants reigning in Yoshino as the southern court (nanchō), and the emperor Kōmyō and his descendants reigning in Kiōto as the northern court (hokuchō). It was by the efforts of the shōgun Yoshimitsu, one of the greatest of the Ashikaga potentates, that this quarrel was finally composed, but during its progress the country had fallen into a deplorable condition. “The constitutional powers had become completely disorganized, especially in regions at a distance from the chief towns. The peasant was impoverished, his spirit broken, his hope of better things completely gone. He dreamed away his miserable existence and left the fields untilled. Bands of robbers followed the armies through the interior of the country, and increased the feeling of lawlessness and insecurity. The coast population, especially that of the island of Kiūshiū, had given itself up in a great measure to piracy. Even on the shores of Korea and China these enterprising Japanese corsairs made their appearance.” The shōgun Yoshimitsu checked piracy, and there ensued between Japan and China a renewal of cordial intercourse which, upon the part of the shōgun, developed phases plainly suggesting an admission of Chinese suzerainty.

For a brief moment during the sway of Yoshimitsu the country had rest from internecine war, but immediately after his death (1394) the struggle began afresh. Many of the great territorial lords had now grown too puissant to concern themselves about either mikado or shōgun. Each fought for his own hand, thinking only of extending his sway and his territories. By the middle of the 16th century Kiōto was in ruins, and little vitality remained in any trade or industry except those that ministered to the wants of the warrior. Again in the case of the Ashikaga shōguns the political tendency to exercise power vicariously was shown, as it had been shown in the case of the mikados in Kiōto and in the case of the Minamoto in Kamakura. What the regents had been to the emperors and the constables to the Minamoto shōguns, that the wardens (kwanryō) were to the Ashikaga shōguns. Therefore, for possession of this office of kwanryō vehement conflicts were waged, and at one time five rival shōguns were used as figure-heads by contending factions. Yoshimitsu had apportioned an ample allowance for the support of the Imperial court, but in the continuous warfare following his death the estates charged with the duty of paying this allowance ceased to return any revenue; the court nobles had to seek shelter and sustenance with one or other of the feudal chiefs in the provinces, and the court itself was reduced to such a state of indigence that when the emperor Go-Tsuchi died (1500), his corpse lay for forty days awaiting burial, no funds being available for purposes of sepulture.

Alone among the vicissitudes of these troublous times the strength and influence of Buddhism grew steadily. The great monasteries were military strongholds as well as places of worship. When the emperor Kwammu chose Kiōto for his capital, he established on the hill of Hiyei-zan, which lay north-east of the city, a magnificent temple to ward off the evil influences supposed to emanate from that quarter. Twenty years later, Kōbō, the most famous of all Japanese Buddhist saints, founded on Koyasan in Yamato a monastery not less important than that of Hiyei-zan. These and many other temples had large tax-free estates, and for the protection of their property they found it expedient to train and arm the cenobites as soldiers. From that to taking active part in the political struggles of the time was but a short step, especially as the great temples often became refuges of sovereigns and princes who, though nominally forsaking the world, retained all their interest, and even continued to take an active part, in its vicissitudes. It is recorded of the emperor Shirakawa (1073-1086) that the three things which he declared his total inability to control were the waters of the river Kamo, the fall of the dice, and the monks of Buddha. His successors might have confessed equal inability. Kiyōmori, the puissant chief of the Taira family, had fruitlessly essayed to defy the Buddhists; Yoritomo, in the hour of his most signal triumph, thought it wise to placate them. Where these representatives of centralized power found themselves impotent, it may well be supposed that the comparatively petty chieftains who fought each for his own hand in the 15th and 16th centuries were incapable of accomplishing anything. In fact, the task of centralizing the administrative power, and thus restoring peace and order to the distracted empire, seemed, at the middle of the 16th century, a task beyond achievement by human capacity.

But if ever events create the men to deal with them, such was the case in the second half of that century. Three of the greatest captains and statesmen in Japanese history appeared upon the stage simultaneously, and moreover Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu. worked in union, an event altogether inconsistent with the nature of the age. They were Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi (the taikō) and Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Nobunaga belonged to the Taira family and was originally ruler of a small fief in the province of Owari. Iyeyasu, a sub-feudatory of Nobunaga’s enemy, the powerful daimyō[2] of Mikawa and two other provinces, was a scion of the Minamoto and therefore eligible for the shōgunate. Hideyoshi was a peasant’s son, equally lacking in patrons and in personal attractions. No chance seemed more remote than that such men, above all Hideyoshi, could possibly rise to supreme power. On the other hand, one outcome of the commotion with which the country had seethed for more than four centuries was to give special effect to the principle of natural selection. The fittest alone surviving, the qualities that made for fitness came to take precedence of rank or station, and those qualities were prowess in the battlefield and wisdom in the statesman’s closet. “Any plebeian that would prove himself a first-class fighting man was willingly received into the armed comitatus which every feudal potentate was eager to attach to himself and his flag.” It was thus that Hideyoshi was originally enrolled in the ranks of Nobunaga’s retainers.

Nobunaga, succeeding to his small fief in Owari in 1542, added to it six whole provinces within 25 years of continuous endeavour. Being finally invited by the emperor to undertake the pacification of the country, and appealed to by Yoshiaki, the last of the Ashikaga chiefs, to secure for him the shōgunate, he marched into Kiōto at the head of a powerful army (1568), and, having accomplished the latter purpose, was preparing to complete the former when he fell under the sword of a traitor. Throughout his brilliant career he had the invaluable assistance of Hideyoshi, who would have attained immortal fame on any stage in any era. Hideyoshi entered Nobunaga’s service as a groom and ended by administering the whole empire. When he accompanied Nobunaga to Kiōto in obedience to the invitation of the mikado, Okimachi, order and tranquillity were quickly restored in the capital and its vicinity. But to extend this blessing to the whole country, four powerful daimyōs as well as the militant monks had still to be dealt with. The monks had from the outset sheltered and succoured Nobunaga’s enemies, and one great prelate, Kenryō, hierarch of the Monto sect, whose headquarters were at Osaka, was believed to aspire to the throne itself. In 1571 Nobunaga attacked and gave to the flames the celebrated monastery of Hiyei-zan, established nearly eight centuries previously; and in 1580 he would have similarly served the splendid temple Hongwan-ji in Osaka, had not the mikado sought and obtained grace for it. The task then remained of subduing four powerful daimyōs, three in the south and one in the north-east, who continued to follow the bent of their own warlike ambitions without paying the least attention to either sovereign or shōgun. The task was commenced by sending an army under Hideyoshi against Mōri of Chōshū, whose fief lay on the northern shore of the Shimonoseki strait. This proved to be the last enterprise planned by Nobunaga. On a morning in June 1582 one of the corps intended to reinforce Hideyoshi’s army marched out of Kameyama under the command of Akechi Mitsuhide, who either harboured a personal grudge against Nobunaga or was swayed by blind ambition. Mitsuhide suddenly changed the route of his troops, led them to Kiōto, and attacked the temple Honnō-ji where Nobunaga was sojourning all unsuspicious of treachery. Rescue and resistance being alike hopeless, the great soldier committed suicide. Thirteen days later, Hideyoshi, having concluded peace with Mōri of Chōshū, fell upon Mitsuhide’s forces and shattered them, Mitsuhide himself being killed by a peasant as he fled from the field.

Nobunaga’s removal at once made Hideyoshi the most conspicuous figure in the empire, the only man with any claim to dispute that title being Tokugawa Iyeyasu. These two had hitherto worked in concert. But the question Hideyoshi. of the succession to Nobunaga’s estates threw the country once more into tumult. He left two grown-up sons and a baby grandson, whose father, Nobunaga’s first-born, had perished in the holocaust at Honnō-ji. Hideyoshi, not unmindful, it may be assumed, of the privileges of a guardian, espoused the cause of the infant, and wrested from Nobunaga’s three other great captains a reluctant endorsement of his choice. Nobutaka, third son of Nobunaga, at once drew the sword, which he presently had to turn against his own person; two years later (1584), his elder brother, Nobuo, took the field under the aegis of Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu, now pitted against each other for the first time, were found to be of equal prowess, and being too wise to prolong a useless war, they reverted to their old alliance, subsequently confirming it by a family union, the son of Iyeyasu being adopted by Hideyoshi and the latter’s daughter being given in marriage to Iyeyasu. Hideyoshi had now been invested by the mikado with the post of regent, and his position in the capital was omnipotent. He organized in Kiōto a magnificent pageant, in which the principal figures were himself, Iyeyasu, Nobuo and twenty-seven daimyōs. The emperor was present. Hideyoshi sat on the right of the throne, and all the nobles did obeisance to the sovereign. Prior to this event Hideyoshi had conducted against the still defiant daimyōs of Kiūshiū, especially Shimazu of Satsuma, the greatest army ever massed by any Japanese general, and had reduced the island of the nine provinces, not by weight of armament only, but also by a signal exercise of the wise clemency which distinguished him from all the statesmen of his era.

The whole of Japan was now under Hideyoshi’s sway except the fiefs in the extreme north and those in the region known as the Kwantō, namely, the eight provinces forming the eastern elbow of the main island. Seven of these provinces were virtually under the sway of Hōjō Ujimasa, fourth representative of a family established in 1476 by a brilliant adventurer of Ise, not related in any way to the great but then extinct house of Kamakura Hōjōs. The daimyōs in the north were comparatively powerless to resist Hideyoshi, but to reach them the Kwantō had to be reduced, and not only was its chief, Ujimasa, a formidable foe, but also the topographical features of the district represented fortifications of immense strength. After various unsuccessful overtures, having for their purpose to induce Ujimasa to visit the capital and pay homage to the emperor, Hideyoshi marched from Kiōto in the spring of 1590 at the head of 170,000 men, his colleagues Nobuo and Iyeyasu having under their orders 80,000 more. The campaign ended as did all Hideyoshi’s enterprises, except that he treated his vanquished enemies with unusual severity. During the three months spent investing Odawara, the northern daimyōs surrendered, and thus the autumn of 1590 saw Hideyoshi master of Japan from end to end, and saw Tokugawa Iyeyasu established at Yedo as recognized ruler of the eight provinces of the Kwantō. These two facts should be bracketed together, because Japan’s emergence from the deep gloom of long-continued civil strife was due not more to the brilliant qualities of Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu individually than to the fortunate synchronism of their careers, so that the one was able to carry the other’s work to completion and permanence. The last eight years of Hideyoshi’s life—he died in 1598—were chiefly remarkable for his attempt to invade China through Korea, and for his attitude towards Christianity (see § VIII.: Foreign Intercourse).