The Coreans taught the Japanese the arts of peace, while the Coreans profited from their neighbors to improve in the business of war. We read that, in 316 A.D., a Corean ambassador, bringing the usual tribute, presented to the mikado a shield of iron which he believed to be invulnerable to Japanese arrows. The mikado called on one of his favorite marksmen to practice in the presence of the envoy. The shield was suspended, and the archer, drawing bow, sent a shaft through the iron skin of the buckler to the astonishment of the visitor. In all their battles the Coreans were rarely able to stand in open field before the archers from over the sea, who sent true cloth-yard shafts from their oak and bamboo bows.
The paying of tribute to a foreign country is never a pleasant duty to perform, though in times of prosperity and good harvests it is not difficult. In periods of scarcity from bad crops it is well nigh impossible. To insist upon its payment is to provoke rebellion. Instances are indeed given in Japanese history where the conquerors not only remitted the tribute but even sent ship loads of rice and barley to the starving Coreans. When, however, for reasons not deemed sufficient, or out of sheer defiance, their vassals refused to discharge their dues, they again felt the iron hand of Japan in war. During the reign of Yuriaki, the twenty-second mikado (A.D. 457–477), the three states failed to pay tribute. A Japanese army landed in Corea, and conquering Hiaksai, compelled her to return to her duty. The campaign was less successful in Shinra and Korai, for after the Japanese had left the Corean shores the “tribute” was sent only at intervals, and the temper of the half-conquered people was such that other expeditions had to be despatched to inflict chastisement and compel payment.
The gallant but vain succor given by the Japanese to Hiaksai during the war with the Chinese, in the sixth century, which resulted in the destruction of the little kingdom, has already been detailed. Among the names, forever famous in Japanese art and tradition, of those who took part in this expedition are Saté-hiko and Kasi-wadé. The former sailed away from Hizen in the year 536, as one of the mikado’s body-guard to assist their allies the men of Hiaksai. A poetical legend recounts that his wife, Sayohimé, [[59]]climbed the hills of Matsura to catch the last glimpse of his receding sails. Thus intently gazing, with straining eyes, she turned to stone. The peasants of the neighborhood still discern in the weather-worn rocks, high up on the cliffs, the figure of a lady in long trailing court dress with face and figure eagerly bent over the western waves. Not only is the name Matsura Sayohimé the symbol of devoted love, but from this incident the famous author Bakin constructed his romance of “The Great Stone Spirit of Matsura.”
Kasiwadé, who crossed over to do “frontier service” in the peninsula a few years later, was driven ashore by a snow squall at an unknown part of the coast. While in this defenceless condition his camp was invaded by a tiger, which carried off and devoured his son, a lad of tender age. Kasiwadé at once gave chase and followed the beast to the mountains and into a cave. The tiger leaping out upon him, the wary warrior bearded him with his left hand, and buried his dirk in his throat. Then finishing him with his sabre, he skinned the brute and sent home the trophy. From olden times Chō-sen is known to Japanese children only as a land of tigers, while to the soldier the “marshal’s baton carried in his knapsack” is a tiger-skin scabbard, the emblem and possession of rank.
As the imperial court of Japan looked upon Shinra and Hiaksai as outlying vassal states, the frequent military movements across the sea were reckoned under “frontier service,” like that beyond the latitude of Sado in the north of the main island, or in Kiushiu in the south. “The three countries” of Corea were far nearer and more familiar to the Japanese soldiers than were Yezo or the Riu Kiu Islands, which were not part of the empire till several centuries afterward. Kara Kuni, the country of Kara (a corruption of Korai?), as they now call China, was then applied to Corea. Not a little of classic poetry and legend in the Yamato language refers to this western frontier beyond the sea. The elegy on Ihémaro, the soldier-prince, who died at Iki Island on the voyage over, and that on the death of the Corean nun Riguwan, have been put into English verse by Mr. Chamberlain (named after the English explorer and writer on Corea, Basil Hall), in his “Classical Poetry of the Japanese.” This Corean lady left her home in 714, and for twenty-one years found a home with the mikado’s Prime Minister, Otomo, and his wife, at Nara. She died in 735, while her hosts were away at the mineral [[60]]springs of Arima, near Kobé; and the elegy was written by their daughter. One stanza describes her life in the new country.
“And here with aliens thou didst choose to dwell,
Year in, year out, in deepest sympathy;
And here thou builtest thee a holy cell,
And so the peaceful years went gliding by.”
An interesting field of research is still open to the scholar who will point out all the monuments of Corean origin or influence in the mikado’s empire, in the arts and sciences, household customs, diet and dress, or architecture; in short, what by nature or the hand of man has been brought to the land of Sunrise from that of Morning Calm. One of the Corean princes, who settled in Japan early in the seventh century, founded a family which afterward ruled the famous province of Nagatō or Chōshiu. One of his descendants welcomed Francis Xavier, and aided his work by gifts of ground and the privilege of preaching. Many of the temples in Kiōto still contain images, paintings, and altar furniture brought from Corea. The “Pheasant Bridge” still keeps its name from bygone centuries; in a garden near by pheasants were kept for the supply of the tables of the Corean embassies. The Arab and Persian treasures of art and fine workmanship, in the imperial archives and museums of Nara, which have excited the wonder of foreign visitors, are most probably among the gifts or purchases from Shinra, where these imports were less rare. A Buddhist monk named Shiuho has gathered up the traditions and learning of the subject, so far as it illustrated his faith, and in “Precious Jewels from a Neighboring Country,” published in 1586, has written a narrative of the introduction of Buddhism from Corea and its literary and missionary influences upon Japan.