Japan

by Walter G. Dickson

The power of the He family was thus completely broken, and that of the Gen or Minnamoto firmly established, mainly through the prowess and generalship of Yoshitzune. Yoritomo began to be jealous of his brother on account of the credit and reputation he had gained by his success. He picked a quarrel with him on the ground of his having married a daughter of the enemy of the house, Kio mori, and sent forces against him, demanding of the Emperor that his father-in-law, Hojio, should be appointed generalissimo, by this means filling the places of command with his own creatures. Yoshitzune left the capital and retired to Oshiu to his old friend Hide Hira, governor of the province. Yoritomo was enraged at an asylum being given to his brother in the north, and sent orders to have him put to death. Yasu hira, the son of his old friend, attacked him, and Yoshitzune, being unprepared and seeing no way of escape, destroyed himself, after first killing his wife and children. Yoritomo, angry with the man for doing what he himself had ordered, marched against Yasu hira with a large army, and finally destroyed him. Yoritomo built a palace for himself in Miako, but appears generally to have lived at Kamakura. At this latter place are to be seen to this day the remains of his work in the roads cut through rocks which confined the space of ground set apart for his residence.

In 1190 he went to Miako, where he had built a palace, and in great state visited the Emperor; but after a month’s residence in the capital he returned to Kamakura. In 1192 the old Emperor Go zira kawa died at the age of sixty-seven. He had lived, after his abdication, during parts of the reigns of five emperors, his sons and grandsons. He had during forty years taken a very active part in the working of the government, and had passed through the most exciting time in the history of his country. His last years were spent in tranquillity.

Yoritomo was appointed Sei dai Shiogoon. Suspecting his brother Nori Yori of plotting against him, he banished him to Idzu, where he was soon after put to death. He again visited the capital for four months in 1195, but returned to Kamakura, from which place he virtually ruled the empire. He fell from his horse toward the end of 1198, and died shortly after, in 1199, at the age of fifty-three. He is generally regarded as the greatest hero in Japanese history. But his treatment of his brother has been a great blot upon his character, and lowered him very much in the regard of his countrymen. Yoshitzune is looked upon as the mirror of chivalry, and his conduct is held up to the youth of the country for imitation, rather than the calculating, bloody, though brilliant career of Yoritomo.

Kamakura seems to have occupied under Yoritomo very nearly the same situation, in a political point of view, that Yedo does in the present day. The absence of external foes having created a necessity for internal division, two courts arose, the one with forms without power, the other wielding all the power and dispensing with the forms, except when it suited him to demand them. Yoritomo seems to have been the first to establish his court in the eastern part of the empire, a retreat which he chose probably on account of its retired and defensible situation. Standing upon the sea, the place is inclosed by hills, and in order to obtain access to the town a road was cut on either side through the hills. That to the east, toward Kanesawa, is a fine perpendicular cutting through sandstone. The houses occupied by Yoritomo, and after him by Ashikanga, or the sites where they stood, are pointed out. Here stands a fine temple to Hatchimang, erected since the days of Yoritomo, and upon the spot where his son was assassinated. It is known as Suruga oka Hatchimang. An avenue with three fine stone archways leads straight to the sea from the door of the temple. Upon the platform on which the temple stands is a small shrine to Inari, the god of rice, worshiped everywhere in Japan; another to the spirit of Yoritomo; another to stones in which some divine power is supposed to reside. Two stones below show that the Phallic worship lingers in Japan, female (so to speak) as well as male, while a temple on the shore, near Ooraga, is entirely devoted to this infatuation. The tomb of Yoritomo, an unpretending slab, is in the neighborhood. A small hill opposite has the name of Kinoo hari yama, taking this name from Yoritomo having ordered it to be covered with white silk to show some of his lady friends how it looked in winter. The story may be doubted, if it were only on account of the scarcity of silk at that time. At Kanesawa are the tombs of the servants of Yoshitzune. About half a mile from the temple of Hatchimang, on the road to Fusisawa, is the fine old temple called Kenchoji, built by order of Moone taka Sinwo, son of the Emperor Sanga. Further on is a nunnery or convent for ladies, the Matzunga oka. Looking toward the sea, the little island or peninsula of Eeno sima is visible. On the road in this direction is a temple built by a daughter of Mito; a little beyond is a place famous for the manufacture of swords; and beyond this is a village with a temple to Kunon, the goddess of mercy (Kwan yin of China).

Turning to the right from the village is a large copper figure of Buddha sitting in the open air, in a position and with an air of great repose. It is between forty and fifty feet high. Around this colossal figure are seen in the grass large flat stones. These are the bases of the pillars of a temple which once covered the figure. But during a severe earthquake a rush of the sea over a temporary subsidence of the land swept away everything but the massive figure and foundation-stones of the temple. It looks at present far out of reach of the renewal of any such devastation.

The glory of Kamakura has removed to Yedo, and what is said by the Jesuit fathers to have been at one time a town of 200,000 houses is now a village of not 200 cottages.

The son of Yoritomo, Yori ye, succeeded him in all his employments; but proving unequal to the task of governing, he retired, and his son, Sanne tomo, at twelve years of age, was appointed Sei dai Shiogoon, Tokimasa, father-in-law of Yoritomo, being regent; and from this date the power of the Hojio family began. The following year they put to death Yori ye. Tokimasa assassinated Hatake yama, and afterward had designs upon Sanne tomo’s life at the instigation of his wife; but they were discovered by Sanne tomo’s grandmother, Yoritomo’s widow, and Tokimasa was banished. Sanne tomo was assassinated by his brother Kokio (who had become a priest, and officiated in the temple) while descending the stairs of the large temple of Hatchimang goo, at Kamakura, after worshiping there at night. He was the last Shiogoon of the family of Yoritomo. The power fell to the hands of Hojio no Yoshi toki, who ruled with Masa go, widow of Yoritomo, known as “Ama shiogoon,” or the Nun commander-in-chief. Hojio Yasu toki was Sikken, a title which was afterward changed to Kwan rei, or minister to the Shiogoon at Kamakura, and began to assume a similar position toward the Shiogoon that the latter held toward the Emperor. Hojio and Hasago raised to the office of Shiogoon Yoritsone, son of Fusiwara no Mitsi ye. Yoritsone resigned the post of Shiogoon at the age of twenty-seven to his son, aged six, who the following year married a daughter of Hojio. The father and son, being in 1251 discovered to be concerned in a plot against the Emperor, were seized; and the office was now given to one of the royal family from Minko, Moone taka, “Sin wo.” In his time Hojio Toki yori, then Kwanrei, built the large temple of Kenchoji at Kamakura. The Hojio family (Fosio of Klaproth) at this time absorbed the chief authority in the empire.

The historical notes which follow are taken from a native almanac with the assistance of a native, and are in themselves uninteresting; but they give some short notice of the wars between the Emperors of the North and South, of the rise to power of different families—such as Hojio, Ashikanga, Nitta, Hossokawa, and others—who occupied prominent places in Japanese history down to the time of Nobu nanga, when a military genius arose to extract order out of confusion, and system out of a chaos of anarchy. But even the confused and uninteresting mass of names entangled in facts may give an impression of what the state of the country was during a period when nothing but turmoil and boiling brought one after another to the surface, to make way in turn for others from the abyss below. That some information is contained in these notes, may be an excuse for placing them here in such a meager and unentertaining form. But the names of individuals, of places, of temples, become interesting as more is known of the history of the country and the religion of Japan.

In 1260 the Nitsi ren sect of Buddhists was introduced at Kamakura, a sect which has become of more prominence lately, since foreigners arrived in Japan, owing to a saint of the sect, Saysho gosama, having been a great persecutor of Christians.

Hojio Toki yori, minister of the Shiogoon, one of the great men of Japan, died in 1263, aged thirty-seven; and the Shiogoon Moone taka was forced to resign, and his son, Kore Yassu, a child, raised to the office.