Japan

by Walter G. Dickson

In 1466 the war known in history as the “Onin” commenced, and lasted during the following eleven years. The dispute arose between two sons of the chief Shibba, in which the late Shiogoon and his successor took opposite sides. This was the breeze which fanned the smoldering flame arising in the desire on the part of the wife of the abdicated Shiogoon that her son should be nominated to succeed, otherwise he would be compelled to shave his head and become a priest. The whole country around Miako was desolated by war and slaughter, great excesses being committed, during which houses, temples, libraries, and documents of value were destroyed, and, as might have been expected, a famine occurred in 1472. This, together with the death of the generals commanding on both sides—Yamana Sozeng and Hossokawa—led to a cessation of hostilities in 1474, when some years of quiet and peace followed.

1487. The famous Ota do Kwang was assassinated by Sadamasa. An anecdote related of him is often taken as a subject by Japanese artists. He was out hawking when a heavy rain came on. Seeing a little cottage, he with his attendants went to ask for a grass rain-coat. A beautiful young woman came out, and upon his asking for what he wanted, she went to the garden, pulled a branch of a flower, and kneeling down presented it to the gentleman. Looking at the plant, he at once perceived that she was modestly making a play upon the word rain-coat, the plant being known by the name of “no seed,” which implied also by a turn of words that she had no rain-coat to give him.

1487. War again broke out between the Shiogoon and Sasaki in the province of Oomi, which lasted for three or four years, when the Shiogoon fled to the territories of O-ooji, then chief of the western provinces of Nippon.

About 1494 the family of Hojio of Odawara took its rise in the person of Zinkio, who had been a merchant in Isse, but whose genius seems to have been military, and who was known afterward as Hojio so woon. He seized whatever territory in the Kwanto and around the castle of Odawara he could lay his hands upon. During these periods this unfortunate country was not only desolated by civil war and all its horrors, but it suffered severely in addition from convulsions of nature. In 1472 a famine arose as the concomitant of war. In 1475 a very extensive earthquake occurred on the sixth day of the eighth month, when a wave from the sea, during a temporary subsidence of the earth, carried away at one sweep a large part of the lower quarter of the city of Osaka. In 1496 there was a drought all over the empire, which was followed by a famine in 1497. And the next year was marked by severe earthquakes all over Japan; while in 1506 all the old fir-trees on the hill Kassunga yama near Narra died to the number of above 7,000. A similar disease had visited Japan in 1406, exactly a hundred years before. Severe drought and dreadful thunderstorms in 1514 were followed in 1515 by earthquakes over the whole country.

The new century brought no cessation from war and assassination. Hossokawa, then prime minister, was assassinated by his servant Kassai. O-ooji, from the western provinces, marched upon Miako, bringing his protégé, the late Shiogoon, with him, and, seizing the capital, caused the Emperor to install him as prime minister or Kwanrei, an office which had for many years been in the hold of the three families, Shibba, Hossokawa, and Hatake yama. An attempt was made in Miako to assassinate the Shiogoon during the night, but he killed the assassins with his own sword.

In 1510 Nangao, a servant, and relative of Ooyay Soongi, minister at Kamakura, rebelled against his master, defeated him, and entered into possession of his castle and territory in the province of Etsingo, where he afterward became very powerful as Ooyay Soongi Kengshing. Hossokawa and O-ooji drove one another alternately out of Miako, but ultimately the latter retired to his own western province of Suwo; and during the same time Hojio of Odawara was fighting in the Kwanto with Miura.

1486. Hossokawa massa moto was made Kwanrei.

In 1521, for the first time in many years, the Emperor made a public appearance. The officers and court were both impoverished. The land was barely and sparsely cultivated. The young were growing up in perfect ignorance. Hossokawa brought Yoshi haru to Miako, and made him Shiogoon, and put the Shiogoon, Yoshitanne, into confinement in the island of Awadsi. The following year the latter died in the province of Awa, where his descendants still live, and the head of the family is still known as “Awa kubo.”

In the year 1523 an attempt was made to commence a trade with China at Ningpo. O-ooji, the lord of the western provinces, sent over ships. But at this time the coasts of China were infested by Japanese pirates, and the attempt to trade does not seem to have been successful: it shows, however, that a commerce was beginning before the Portuguese visited Japan.

1528. Mioshi kaï woong, from the province of Awa in Sikok, attacked Miako; the Kwanrei, Takakooni, on the part of the Shiogoon, met him at the Katsura gawa, the river running into the sea at Osaka, but was defeated, and the Shiogoon fled to Oomi, where the head of the Sasaki family gave him shelter.