JAMES MURDOCH' HISTORY OF JAPAN FROM THE ORIGINS

TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE IN 1542 AD

 

CHAPTER XIV.

THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU.(1200 - 1225A.D.)

 

IN even a cursory perusal of the history of Japan, the reader must be forcibly struck by one feature which at first blush seems very puzzling and confusing. To assert that individuality and personal ability have counted and count for but little in this Empire is utterly at variance with fact, for the Japanese have been at all times notorious for their hero-worshipping proclivities, while the national polity has from time to time been profoundly modified by the genius of great warriors and statesmen. But the strange thing is that the national heroes have rarely, if ever, occupied the very highest rank and position. The grand exception to this is that Reform Prince Naka-no-E, who later on ascended the throne as Tenchi Tenno; and for long years this Prince persisted in doing his work not as Emperor, but through the institution of the Throne, and of the two harmless figure-heads he successively placed upon it. In China, and indeed in most European countries, it is almost certain, new Imperial or Royal dynasties would have been established by such men as Taira Kiyomori, Yoritomo, Ashikaga Takauji, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Toku­gawa Iyeyasu; Hideyoshi having indeed been actually counselled by the Emperor of China to depose the Dairi and to instal himself in his seat. But not one of these great and illustrious Japanese subjects ever thought for a moment of usurping the throne. If constrained to do so by the exigencies of the situation, some of them, such as Ashikaga Takauji, would have small compunctions about replacing one titular Sovereign by another. But the new and rival Emperor was invariably selected from among the lineal descendants of the Sun-Goddess. The simple fact of the matter is that the institution of the Emperor has always been a most convenient one through which to work in Japan. If the titular occupant of the throne proved refractory, it was, as the Fujiwaras had conclusively shown through successive generations, the easiest thing in the world to find some plausible excuse for either inducing him to abdicate or for actually deposing him, and replacing him by another of his kith and kin more amenable to the sweet reasonableness of the suggestions proffered by his maternal relatives.

Furthermore, the fact must not be overlooked that besides the Empress,—sometimes indeed two Empresses at the same time,—the Sovereign had always a liberal allowance of secondary consorts, and that some one or other of these hand­maidens might not unreasonably hope—as in the case of the mother of the great Kwammu—to give birth to the future Sovereign of Yamato. To illustrate by a concrete case: if the Japanese Imperial succession practices had prevailed in the England of 1685, it is highly probable that there would never have been any Hanoverian Dynasty on the British Throne, for the Duke of Monmouth would then have easily been recognised as King. If we coolly reflect upon the infinite precautions that were taken to keep the male members of the Imperial line well furnished with consorts of one kind or another, we shall find no room left for wonder at that pheno­menon of an Imperial line unbroken for ages on which Japanese writers so often descant. Hence the Fujiwaras and other powerful and ambitious subjects had at all times a sufficient personnel at their disposal from which to select a successor to replace any Sovereign who showed himself unduly restive under the curb they placed upon him and his actions. Moreover, the Imperial Succession Law was, in practice at least, exceedingly loose and indefinite; and this still further facilitated recourse to the highly convenient device of Puppet Emperors. Hence Japanese Kingmakers,—whether civilian Fujiwara autocrats or military Mayors of the Palace,—have never thought of dispossessing the August Line of the Sun­Goddess of the Throne of Yamato. It has always better served their purposes to work through that line and that institution as their instruments.

Now, with the establishment of the new Shogunate in 1192, the throne had divested itself of all direct control over the greater portion of the military class, which, now thoroughly organised and reduced to strict discipline and control by a master hand, had become the dominating force in the Empire. In plain language, a great deal of the most essential administrative, judicial, and legislative authority had been trans­ferred or delegated to the Shogunate. Now, in connection with this great office, we witness yet another instance of the notorious tendency of able and ambitious subordinates to effect their purposes through institutions. The Reforming Prince, Naka-no-E, who had died as Tenchi Tenno in 671, had been a man of rare and supereminent ability. But between his death and the accession of Kwammu in 782, the throne had been occupied by a succession of mediocrities. And yet, during most of these 111 years, the government of Japan had been tolerably efficient and fairly satisfactory. Yoritomo, the founder of the new Shogunate, was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most illustrious statesmen that Japan has ever produced; and through the Shogunate he established in 1192, the Empire was, with two brief interruptions, destined to be governed for the best part of 700 years. And yet, only one of Yoritomo’s immediate titular heirs or successors showed the faintest spark of ability, or exercised any considerable measure of authority. In fact, we have to pass over 140 years before we again meet with a Shogun who was so in reality as well as in name. Notwithstanding, during the greater portion of these 140 years, the Shogunal administration was at once strong, efficient, and on the whole highly beneficent. The secret is that it was the office of Shogun itself, and not its titular occupant, that counted. Under the cover of the name of the latter, the able and ambitious subordinate was doing the work.

At his death in 1199, Yoritomo had left two legitimate sons,—Yoriiye, a youth of seventeen, and Sanetomo, a boy of seven.

The following chart may be found serviceable:—

Yoritomo-Masako

                   Yoriiye (1182-1204) ------------- Sanetomo (1192-1219)

Ichiman……………Kugyo…..      Senju-maru

(1200 1203)      (1201-1219)         (1201-1214)

Under the title of So Shugo-Jito (practically Lord High Constable), the elder of these succeeded to his father’s power. But his mother, the masterful and masculine-minded Lady Masa, was not inclined to entrust him with authority prematurely; and a special council of thirteen members, selected from the personnel of the three great permanent Boards of Kamakura, was established for the provisional conduct of affairs. At its head stood Masako’s father, Hojo Tokimasa; and under him served the Kyoto savants Oe Hiromoto, Miyoshi Yoshinobu, and Nakahara Chikayoshi, and eight or nine military men, among whom were Miura Yoshizumi, Wada Yoshimori, Hiki Yoshikazu, Hatsuda Tomoye, Adachi, and Kajiwara Kagetoki. The last-named, whose ill services towards the gallant Yoshitsune have been already dwelt upon, at once proved a disturbing element, bringing unfounded accusations of treachery against some of his fellow vassals. The result was that Miura, Wada, and others formed a league against him and resolved to put him out of the way. He escaped into Suruga to raise forces there; but next year (1200) he was overpowered and killed, together with his son, Kagesuye. Even with the opportune removal of Kajiwara, however, the new Council of State was far from being a united and a harmonious body. Its civilian members, who appear to have kept on the best of terms with each other, and constantly acted in concert, were time and again sorely put to it to smooth over the mutual jealousies and to compose the acrimonious quarrels of their hot-tempered military colleagues. Even when Yoriiye’s patent of investiture as Sei-i-Tai Shogun at last arrived in Kamakura, in August 1202, their anxieties were by no manner of means at an end, for a few months in actual office served conclusively to confirm the already prevalent impression that the young chieftain would prove but a degenerate successor to his illustrious father.

Yoritomo had attended with the greatest care to the education of his eldest son, and had been delighted to witness the zest with which the boy had devoted himself to the acquisition of those martial accomplishments for which the Minamotos had always been famous. Yoriiye had indeed given early promise of becoming an excellent soldier. But from first to last that is really all the good that could, or can, be said of him. The one single other direction in which he showed any indications of having inherited his father’s extraordinary precocity was in the evil art of seducing the wives or daughters of his vassals. Shortly after his father’s death he surrendered himself into the hands of a few unworthy favourites, whom he insisted upon shielding from the consequences of their out rages and crimes, in spite of all remonstrances. Latterly he had been fascinated by the charms of hand-ball; had brought down its great and chief exponent from the capital to Kamakura; and had spent more than three solid months, day after day, from morning till eve, in the court-yard. Strange, indeed, it is that a son of Yoritomo and Masako should have shown himself intellectually torpid and indolent; but the fact is that Yoriiye simply could not concentrate his attention upon anything except the pursuit of his own phy­sical pleasure. On a certain occasion, a boundary dispute between two landowners in Mutsu was submitted to him for adjudication, as many such suits had been put before Yoritomo for settlement. Both litigants were fortified with numerous witnesses and documents; but Yoriiye simply called for a map of the two fiefs. Thereupon, without hearing witnesses or examining documents, he took up an ink-brush, drew it across the middle of the sketch, and assigned a section to each of the parties to the suit, impatiently remarking that if litigants were not satisfied to have their differences settled in that manner, they simply must refrain from having disputes! One great saving and redeeming feature had characterised Yoritomo’s usurpation—(if such, indeed, it may be called)—from beginning to end. From first to last that great ruler had insisted that the administration of justice must be pure and impartial, and that the sifting of all evidence must be thorough and painstaking. On the seat of judgement, he had repeatedly shown himself to be a model of all that a judge should be. Bearing this notorious fact in mind, is it strange that the Kyoto jurists in the Kamakura Council of State should have found their vitals churning within them with indignant apprehension at such a decision as this of the strong-thewed, intellectually-torpid young profligate who had succeeded to the all-important positions of Head of the Minamoto stock, and Sei-i-Tai Shogun.

To these most astute administrators and jurisconsults it very soon became hopelessly and appallingly clear that a very few years of this thick-headed muscular wastrel as Lord of Kamakura would infallibly relegate them to their threadbare hackwork as humble official scribes and givers of private tuition in the gay capital of Kyoto, where life would be one continual struggle against the importunities of the pestilent collector of overdue bills. Still greater than theirs must have been the anxiety of the Lady Masa and her father Hojo Tokimasa. But, while up to a certain point the aims of daughter and father were identical, beyond that point they became divergent to the extent of being irreconcilable. Undoubtedly what Masako thought of chiefly was the interests of her husband and of his and her own progeny; what occupied the chief place in the mind of her father, Hojo Tokimasa, was the conservation and utilisation of the institution of the new Shogunate. More than once it has been insisted on that this Tokimasa was one of the most astute, if not indeed the astutest politician of his times. It is beyond question that not on one, but on several fateful occasions, he prompted his son-in-law, Yoritomo, with all the proverbial wisdom of an Achitophel or a Cineas. How far Yoritomo’s great and original idea of the recasting of the office of Shogun with a permanent commis­sion was actually the creature of the brain of his father in-law it is now hopeless to attempt to ascertain. But any one who undertakes the drudgery of reading the dog-Chinese of the Azuma Kagami, and the more worthy task of putting things together and reading between the lines, will, I am convinced, admit that from first to last Yoritomo’s most trusted and most potent and most unfailing kuromaku was the father of his spouse, the Lady Masa. It is tolerably safe to conclude that the untimely and unexpected death of Yoritomo was regarded as no matter for secret rejoicing by his father-in-law, for the fortunes of the latter were not a whit bettered by it. True, as President of the new Council of Regency, he occupied a great and a prominent position. But even in the Council of Regency he was far from being supreme; and his sagest counsels were often neglected or negatived. While Yoritomo had been alive, they had been almost invariably adopted. Now, when the kuromaku is compelled to appear in the open, and to assume the direction of affairs with all its responsibilities, he is wont to find himself and his projects opposed and hampered in multifarious unexpected directions. Where formerly by the simple means of dropping his words into the ears of a seeminglv all-powerful chief, who thought it a privilege to listen to them, he could accomplish all that he thought highest and best in the sphere of constructive statesmanship, he now finds himself seriously fettered,—if not actually in the position of a Samson shorn of his locks. Instead of having to carry conviction to one single master mind, ready to lend itself to be dominated by him, he is now called upon to argue at length with jealous rivals, to explain laboriously to mediocrities who fancy themselves as good or even better than he,—and eke to slow-witted, short-sighted, puzzle-headed coadjutors whose assent has somehow or other to be extorted. Small wonder, then, if by 1203 Hojo Tokimasa found himself profoundly dissatisfied with his apparently magnificent position, and with the general trend of affairs, which seemed to be placing the institution of the new Shogunate on the very brink of the descent to Avernus.

In the September of that year (1203), Yoriiye became so seriously ill that the succession question became vital and all-absorbing. Yoriiye’s eldest son was not yet three years of age; while his own brother, Sanetomo, was scarcely eleven. Both had their claims and supporters. It was finally resolved that there should be a partition between them: Sanetomo to receive the administration of the military class in the 38 provinces to the west of the Osaka barrier (in Omi); while Ichiman, Yoriiye’s eldest son, was to become Lord of Kamakura with sway over the remaining 28 provinces of the Empire. Now, Ichiman’s mother was the daughter of Hiki Yoshikazu, who had been one of Yorimoto’s ablest and most trusted Captains.

 

 Yoritomo had seduced Yoshikazu’s sister,—who, by the way, was a professed nun at the time,—and by her he became the father of a child who was destined to found one of the very greatest feudal families of Japan, and to transmit his blood to this very day. The strong-minded Masako was at all times very jealous of any invasion of her conjugal rights; and, to save her life, the hapless nun who had been favoured with Yoritomo’s attentions had to flee westward and take re­fuge in the wilds of Kyushu. Here she gave birth to a son, who was named Tadahisa, and who on reaching manhood married the daughter of Koremune Hidenobu, and assumed the name of his father-in-law. In 1186 he received the manor of Shioda in Shinano, and was shortly after appointed Shugo (High Constable) of Satsuma. Honda Sadachika was sent to that province as a deputy, while Tadahisa remained behind, and served under his father in the great Mutsu campaign of 1189. It was not until 1196 that he betook himself to Satsuma. Soon after, he reduced Osumi and part of Hyuga; and on the confines of the latter two provinces he reared a castle for himself in the old Fuji­wara Sho-en of Shimadzu, about the origin of which details have already been furnished. From this illegitimate son of Yoritomo’s (Koremune Tadahisa) has sprung the illustrious house of Shimadzu of Satsuma.

The house of Koremune, into which this son of Yoritomo’s was adopted, is Interesting. In the reign of the mythical Emperor Ojin. the Prince Koman, a descendant of the Chinese Emperor Shiko (Chin Dynasty) is said to have settled in Japan with a large body of followers. His successors received the family name of Shin, and, about 880, this was changed to Koremune. In 958 the head of the Koremune house was that Kinkata, Doctor of Chinese Law, who filled the offices of Kebiishi and Okura-gon-daisuke, and who drafted all the public documents and all the laws issued about that date.

 

In the event of the death of Yoriiye. Hiki saw a splendid vista opening np to him as the grandfather and prospective guardian of an infant Shogun. Great, then, was his wrath and chagrin when intelligence of this partition project reached his ears. Determined to have it frustrated at all hazards, he burst into Yoriiye’s sick-room, and vehemently urged him to make away with Sanetomo and all his relatives and supporters. If he had known that Masako was then behind a folding-screen, listening to every word he said, he might have escaped his impending doom. Shortly afterwards, he was informed that Hojo Tokimasa wished to consult with him on certain ecclesiastical matters. On being ushered into Tokimasa’s house, he was promptly cut down by Amano Tokage and Nitta Tadatsune. On hearing of his father’s assassination, Hiki’s son, Munetomo, at once assembled all his relatives and with them threw himself into Ichiman’s palace. Thereupon Tokimasa dispatched his son Yoshitoki, his grandson Yasutoki, Hatakeyama and Wada with a strong following to make an end of the business at once. Munetomo, seeing that resistance was hopeless, set fire to the mansion, and together with Ichiman and most of his adherents perished in the flames, while such of his followers as tried to escape from the burning building were summarily put to the sword.

Yoriiye was terribly incensed at all this; and he at once sent for Wada Yoshimori and Nitta Tadatsune, and ordered them to bring him the head of Hojo Tokimasa. The former, being on the best of terms with Tokimasa, refused to move in the matter; the latter lost his life when he attempted to carry out the commission. Masako thereupon counselled the Shogun to shave his head, and retire to Shuzenji in Tzu; and Yoriiye deemed it advisable to accept his mother’s advice. With the consent of all Yoritomo’s former great vassals, Sanetomo (eleven years of age) was then made Head of the House of Minamoto; and before the end of the year (1203) he received his patent as Sei-i-Tai Shogun. At the same time, his grand­father, Hojo Tokimasa. was made Shikken (Regent), or Ad­ministrator of Affairs, till the young Shogun attained his majority. Here we have the very modest and very unobtrusive origin of yet another extraneous institution that was soon destined to bring those of the Throne and of the new Shogunate to hopeless ineptitude and impotence. In reality, the Shikken and his successor the Kwanryo were the true analogues of the Merovingian Mayors of the Palace in Japan; for while the fainéant Puppet Shoguns were the nominal Mayors of the Palace to the legitimate Sovereign, the Shikken, and, latterly, the Kwanryo, were for ages the makers and unmakers of Shoguns, and eke of Emperors.

However, the efforts of the first Shikken at Shogun-making were completely and ingloriously abortive, while his tenure of the newly created office was of the briefest. As has been said, the strong-minded Lady Masa was the offspring of her father’s first spouse. Her step-mother, the Lady Maki, also a strong-minded woman, cherished ambitions and projects of her own. Her daughter had been wedded to Hiraga Tomomasa, in whose veins flowed the blood of the Minamoto, and who on more than one fateful occasion had proved himself in “close fight a champion grim, in camps a leader sage,” while at the Council-board his words were not destitute of weight. At this date he was titular Governor of Musashi and Shugo in Kyoto, where he was then residing.

The Ise Heishi had not really been so bitterly hounded to earth as is usually represented; the great Kyoto earthquake of 1185, and the superstitious interpretation placed upon it, had done not a little towards saving the hapless remnants of the great house of Kiyomori from extermination. Since then, a new generation had grown to manhood. The great Lord of Kamakura had passed away, and bitter intestine strife had broken out between his apparently incompetent successors, or between their respective partisans and supporters. A bold and determined push might very well effect a happy turn in the wheel of fickle fortune, and restore the Ise Heishi to their own. So reasoned the two chieftains Motomori and Moritoki; and they resolved to attempt in Ise what Yoritomo had accomplished in Izu a quarter of a century before. Their initial efforts were crowned with a rapid success. When the red flag was once more flung to the breeze, the two chiefs speedily found themselves at the head of a much greater following than that with which Yoritomo had vainly endeavoured to hold Stone-Bridge Hill, in 1180. In a few days, the whole of Northern Ise was in their hands, and the neighbouring province of Iga reduced. The news of this wholly unexpected outbreak excited great apprehensions in Kamakura, while Kyoto was in an uproar. There, however, the Commandant, Hiraga, proved to be fully capable of grappling with the emergency. Rapidly mustering what forces he could in the capital, he at once advanced upon Iga, picking up troops on the way; and, after some very hard fighting, he was soon able to dispatch couriers to Kamakura announcing the suppression of the revolt.

This episode did not a little to add to the growing reputa­tion of Hiraga; and his mother-in-law, Tokimasa’s second wife, began to press her husband to make him Shogun. Possibly as a preliminary step, Yoriiye was put out of the way. Three months after the suppression of the Taira revolt, Tokimasa’s emissaries murdered the ex-Shogun at Shuzenji; and when his personal attendants endeavoured to avenge him, they were cut to pieces by Sagami troops. Some time after this, certain probable opponents to the scheme, such as the Hatakeyamas, were “removed” on one plea or another. Then one day, in August 1205, Sanetomo went to Tokimasa’s mansion; and the Lady Maki urged Tokimasa to seize the opportunity to kill him. Meanwhile, the suspicions of the everwatchful Masako had been excited; and she suddenly appeared and carried off Sanetomo to the mansion of her brother, Hojo Yoshitoki, where troops were hastily mustered. Damning evidence in connection with the intrigue was presently laid before the Council of Regency. The result was that Hojo Tokimasa had to resign the post of Shikken, to shave his head, and to withdraw to his manors in Izu, while Kamakura troops invested Hiraga in his Kyoto mansion, and put him to death.

That the able Hiraga would have proved more competent to discharge the onerous duties of the Shogunate than any of Yoritomo’s progeny can hardly admit of any question; and it was probably this consideration that weighed most with Toki­masa when he set the intrigue afoot. If the plot had succeeded, the Council of Regency would have been dissolved, as a matter of course; and Tokimasa would, doubtless, have reassumed that rôle of kuromaku for which his talents so eminently fitted him. But beyond this, it is really difficult to see what he could have gained personally by the success of the project. With the fashion in which things had been going at Kamakura since the death of Yoritomo, he had abundant reasons to be dissatisfied on public grounds; for the rank incompetence of Yoritomo’s titular successors threatened to wreck that great institution of the new Shogunate, which had already conferred upon the Empire the great benefit of a decade of unwonted tranquillity, and from which so much future good might be looked for. If Tokimasa, then an old man of 67, had been thinking chiefly about the aggrandisement of his own house, it would have naturally been the interests of his own son, Yoshitoki, which he would have consulted before all things. Now, with an able and vigorous Shogun in the seat of authority at Kamakura, Yoshitoki’s prospects could certainly not have been improved; and, possibly enough, they might have suffered disastrous eclipse. Certain non-Japanese writers appear to have done a serious wrong to the reputation of the Lady Masa as well as that of her father. Writes one of them: “The parental authority and influence in Japan, as in China, is often far greater than that of any other. Not even death or the marriage relation weakens to any great extent the hold of a father on a child. With affection on one hand, and cunning on the other, an unscrupulous father may do what he will. We have seen how the Fujiwara and Taira families controlled Court, Throne, and Emperor, by marrying their daughters to infant or boy Mikados. We shall now find the Hojo dispensing the power at Kamakura by means of a crafty woman willing to minister to her father’s rather than to her soil’s aggrandisement.”

Now, one of the great surprises in store for any one who is to devote laborious days to an examination of the records of the age, is the very high position occupied by the women of the military class under the Kamakura Bakufu, during the earlier half of its administration, at least. It was certainly as high as that of the women of contemporary feudal Europe, which, it must not be overlooked, had risen immensely since the eleventh century. Not a few of the dames of the Feudal Japan of the age of Yoritomo had a marvellous power of thinking and acting for themselves. Some of them were sheer viragos; actually, like Tomoe Gozen, appearing in the field in command of squadrons of cavalry which they handled with rare ability and dash, or, again, like Shiro Nagamichi’s aunt, defending fortified posts with all the fierce courage and undismayed doggedness of a Black Agnes of Dunbar.

 

In 1201, this Shiro was Involved in a plot against the Bakufu Shuffo in Kyoto; and lost his life in consequence. He owned the castle of Torisaka-no-seki in Echigo; and this fort was now manned by his aunt, and held against all the assaults of the levies of Echigo and Sado for more than three months. When she yielded at last she was conducted to Kamakura, where, “in spite of her ugliness,” she was eagerly espoused by one of the most valiant warriors of the time, ‘‘on account of her great courage.”

 

Others of them, viragos, showed possession of administrative ability of a very high order; about 1191, we find Yoritomo appointing the widowed mother of one of his best captains (Oyama) to the responsible post of Jito over a whole county in the province of Kodzuke, as “a recognition of her great merit”. Now, among the strong minded females of the time, the Lady Masa had always occupied a notorious place. At no time had she been the mere plaything of her very able and very astute father. How she began wedded life and set up house-keeping on her own behalf has been already told; it was about as rank a defiance of parental authority as could possibly be conceived. At that time, Yoritomo of the Minamoto was of vastly more consequence to her than all the fathers in the Empire. And her vigorous action in August 1205 conclusively showed that she set but little account upon the Japanese equi­valent of the Jewish Fifth Commandment when the legitimate interests of her dead husband’s legitimate offspring were vitally at stake. Luckily for her, the interests of her very astute younger brother, Yoshitoki, happened to jump very nicely with those of her son, the minor Shogun, Sanetomo, on that fateful occasion. From that date till their deaths, a score of years later on. the accord between sister and brother was complete. During the last ten years of his life (1205-1215) their father was kept aloof from Kamakura, carefully attended to in more ways than one, and restrained from all interference in the ad­ministration of that Bakufu system he had done so much to help to establish.

For a matter of eight years Masako, Yoshitoki, and their councillors had no very serious problems to face. Then, in 1213,—the year before Magna Charta,—came something in the nature of a political cyclone. In the general massacre of Yoriiye’s personal adherents in 1204, a certain Izumi Chikahira, who owned large estates in the province of Shinano, had escaped. In an age when many things were decided by the primi­tive means of personal prowess on the battlefield, he counted for a good deal, for Izumi was one of the odd half-dozen of contemporary Japanese Goliaths, who were undoubtedly regarded with a wholesome measure of respect and awe by all who had to deal with them. He was profoundly dissatisfied at seeing his master’s sons set aside in favour of their accomplished but unwarlike uncle, Sanetomo; and he now deemed the time propitious for an attempt to instal Senju-Maru, Yoriiye’s youngest son, in his father’s office. No great scholar himself, Izumi got His Reverence, the priest Annen, to do what penwork was necessary in the course of knitting his conspiracy, in which as many as 130 military chieftains were involved. Somehow, the lynx-eyed Bakufu councillors had their attention directed to His Reverence Annen’s activity; and he was at once arrested and questioned. His replies being not entirely satisfactory, he was put to the torture. Then, the ghostly flesh proving weak, everything was divulged. Officers were sent to summon Izumi to appear and answer for himself; but his answer was simply to cut down the emissaries. As President of the Samurai-dokoro Board, Wada Yoshimori, then 66 years of age, found himself saddled with the responsibility of dealing with the conspirators. But, to his consternation, he soon learned that two sons and a cousin of his own were among their number. He at once implored mercy for his misguided sons; and when his petition was granted, “in consideration of the great services he had formerly rendered,” he exerted himself so vigorously that in a short time 98 of the 130 malcontents were lying fast bound in the dungeons of Kamakura. Then Wada begged for the life of his cousin; but Sanetomo ordered Hojo Yoshitoki to put this cousin in fetters and banish him to Oshu. This irritated Wada exceedingly. Shortly afterwards, he asked the Shogun to put him in possession of his cousin’s mansion and states,—most probably, with the view of keeping them and their revenues safe for him against his return from exile. At first, the petition was granted; but, shortly afterward, Sanetomo went back upon his word, and assigned the property in question to Hojo Yoshitoki. With Hojo Tokimasa, as has been said, Wada had been on the best of terms; but during the last few years there had been friction between him and the new Shikken, Yoshitoki, Tokimasa’s second son. This episode of 1213 raised Wada’s resentment against his rival to boiling point, and brought him to the conviction that Kamakura was becoming too small to hold both of them. On May 24, 1213, Wada suddenly invested the mansions of Sanetomo and Yoshitoki. Asahina Saburo, Wada’s Herculean son, forced the gate of Sanetomo’s palace, killed such of the inmates as failed to make good their escape, set fire to the buildings, and burned them to the ground. At Yoshitoki’s mansion, the defence was exceedingly vigorous: and the assailants were beaten off. Next morning, troops from the neighbouring districts began to pour into Kamakura; and before night fell, Wada and his ad­herents had been effectually disposed of, the only member of his family to escape death either on the field of strife, or at the hands of the executioner, being Asahina Saburo, the hero of so many romantic legends.

The net result of this abortive, but bloody émeute was a great accession to the already strong and rapidly rising in­fluence of Yoshitoki. The only really formidable rival he had to fear was now removed with all his following: and not only that,—but Yoshitoki at once stepped into Wada’s former position of President of the Samurai-dokoro Board, while still continuing to hold the office of Shikken. One possible future rival had also been removed from the path of Sanetomo, for Yoriiye’s third son, Senju-maru, was put to death on account of the use made of his name by Izumi in forming his conspiracy. As regards the late Shogun’s second son, Masako had placed him in Tsurugaoka, and had induced him to abandon the world, and become a priest; while a still younger illegitimate son of Yoriiye’s was similarly disposed of in a Kyoto monastery. But as the young acolyte in Tsurugaoka grew towards man’s estate, his mind began to run upon other than purely ghostly things. Kugyo, as he was now called, kept brooding over the fact that the great and splendid position occupied by his uncle was his own by hereditary right; and as the months and years passed on, his resentment at being kept out of his own became passionate and overwhelming. To form any party of his own was impossible, for he was too closely watched His only hope lay in acting for himself, and removing the usurper with His own hand.

At last, when he was about seventeen years of age, the opportunity he had long been looking for presented itself. Early in 1219, Sanetomo had been made U-Daijin, or Minister of the Right; and it was arranged that he should pay a solemn nocturnal visit to the Shrine of Hachiman, to thank the tutelary divinity of his house for his gracious favour and protec­tion. The night of February 12 was the date appointed for the function. Before setting out the Shogun had been strongly counselled by Oe Hiromoto to don armour; but Sanetomo refused to do so, and went forth in great state. Everything went well till he was descending the stone staircase on his return. Then suddenly, some one,—apparently a woman,—darted out from behind a tree, cut down first the Shogun, and then his nearest attendant, and vanished into the darkness with Sanetomo’s head! The astounded escort hurried back into the shrine; but not a trace of the assassin was to be discovered. The only clue was that he had been heard to call out “Enemy of my father, receive your punishment!” Kugyo, meanwhile, had taken refuge in the Yuki mansion, the chief of which great family he fancied to be devoted to him. Here food was set before him; and he devoured it without relaxing his hold of the grisly head for a moment. The Miuras, after the Hojos, were now the most powerful house in Kamakura; and Kugyo sent an urgent messenger to Yoshimura, the chief of that house, appealing to him for support. Presently, an emissary from Yoshimura appeared. This was Nagao Sadashige; and he, in accordance with his master’s instructions, at once cut Kugyo down, and carried his head to Hojo Yoshitoki.

If ever there was a blood-boltered stock, surely it was that of the Seiwa-Genji. All its traditions were cruel and ferocious,—sometimes pitilessly and unrelentingly so. But its cruelty and ferocity were not unlike those of the modern Frenchman. Towards its open and avowed enemies of other blood, it was not incapable of a considerable measure of leniency,—now and then, it must be frankly confessed, of real generosity, while kindness from opponents or outsiders was seldom, if ever, allowed to pass unrequited. It was for his own kith and kin, for those who were bone of one bone and flesh of one flesh with himself that the Minamoto Chieftain’s cruelty and ferocity were usually reserved. Of the intestine broils and battles of the Seiwa-Genji, before the rise of Yoritomo, enough has already been said. How Yoritomo hounded his uncle Yukiiye, his brothers Yoshitsune and Noriyori, his cousin Yoshinaka and Yoshinaka’s guiltless son, and Yoshitsune’s new-born infant to death needs no recapitulation. And now, in a score of years from his own death, a worse than Atreidan curse, after dogging his line only too sure-footedly, has fallen upon the last of his seed. The only vestige of it remaining, the bastard orphan of Yukiiye, even now immured in impotence in a Kyoto fane, will be summarily made away with in a year or two from now, for “reasons of State,”—that Moloch to whom so much that is best and most promising for the advance of true civilisation has been, and has still to be, sacrificed. As for Yoritomo’s collateral descendants, Noriyori had left sons behind him; but they had less than their father’s limited ability, and this proved to be their salvation. One of Yoshi­tsune’s brothers, Zenjo, was the father of a son (Tokimoto) of some mettle, who now aspired to the position of Shogun. His ambition cost him his life; when he began to muster forces in Suruga to back him in his pretensions, Hojo Yoshitoki promptly overwhelmed him and his meagre following.

The fortunes of the Bakufu were now in a somewhat critical condition. But, since the death of Yoritomo, the Shogun had been not very much more than a figurehead; although Sanetomo now and then did actually contrive to assert himself, and make his councillors bend to his will. But it was not with the titular chief of the Kamakura bureaucracy that the real power lay; it was the Bureaucracy itself that was all-important. However, a nominal Shogun, in whose name it could professedly act, was absolutely necessary; and the filling of this position was now a very serious question indeed for the Lady Masa, her brother the Shikken, and their advisers. At first, the ex-Emperor, Toba II, was petitioned to allow one or other of his two younger sons to be .nominated to the office; but he refused to grant the request. Thereupon, the Bakufu authori­ties were constrained to turn their attention to the great house of Fujiwara. Yoritomo’s elder sister had married that Fujiwara Yoshiyasu who, during his closing years, had done his brother-in-law such important service as a sort of Bakufu watchdog in Kyoto. Their daughter had wedded Saionji Kintsune (1171-1244), who, by the way, was now on noto­riously bad terms with the ex-Emperor Toba II, having actually appealed to Kamakura against His ex-Majesty, two years before. Kintsune’s daughter had become the wife of Fujiwara Michiiye (1192-1252), now Minister of the Left, and had borne him three sons. Kamakura now proposed that the youngest of these should be sent down to the Kwanto to become the Head of the House of Minamoto, and the future Shogun. The overture was accepted; and Yoritsune, a child of two, was consigned to the care of the Lady Masa. It was not till 1226, however, that he received his patent of investiture; and thus, for some six or seven years the Bakufu Ship of State continued on its course without any figurehead.

On the surface all this seems very simple; but, as a matter of fact, these incidents were so many astute manoeuvres in the contest of wits which had been going on between Toba II and the Bakufu for a score of years, and which was soon to be decided by an appeal to the sword.

In many ways, this Toba II is one of the most interesting Sovereigns that ever sat upon the Imperial Throne of Japan: and, in spite of all his terrible mistakes and his ultimate failure as a ruler, one can hardly help suspecting that he might very well have been as great as Kwammu Tenno if he had been chastened by Kwammu’s long years of drudging for his own livelihood before he became Emperor. The strange tale of how Toba II was “selected” to occupy a throne, which was not really vacant, at the age of four has already been told at length. As a child and a youth, Toba II was vigorous at once phy­sically and mentally; and almost as precocious as one of the warlike Minamotos. That he had real natural ability appears to be beyond question. But what can be expected of a child Sovereign surrounded by venial lick-spittle flatterers and syco­phants of both sexes—all emulously intriguing for their own advancement and that of their relations ? To say nothing of the upbringing of Tenchi or Kwammu, just think of that of Hojo Tokimasa, of Masako, of Yoritomo, of Yoshitsune, of Oe Hiromoto, and the other astute Bakufu Councillors! The marvel is, not that Toba II made such a comparatively poor showing when pitted against the counsels of men like Oe Hiromoto, but that he made any showing against them at all! And yet the truth seems to be that he would infallibly have succeeded in overthrowing the Bakufu system but for the lack of the two qualities of self-restraint and judgement. And it was just these two all-important qualities that his position of child Sovereign made it impossible for him to acquire and develop.

As has been stated, he succeeded to the throne at the age of four, in 1184. Down to his twelfth year, his grandfather, Shirakawa II (d. 1192), merely used him as a tool, according to the traditional wont of Cloistered Emperors. During the next five or six years, he appears to have thought out matters for himself so far as to perceive that, if he wished to be master in his own Empire, he must promptly abdicate the throne. Meanwhile, before he was nineteen, he had become the father of at least three sons by different consorts. Which of these was the heir to the throne nobody knew; so Toba II, remembering, perhaps, the circumstances of his own accession, called in expert diviners and lot-casters to decide the knotty question. The lot repeatedly came out in favour of his first-born; although it was His Majesty’s dearest wish that it was another son, by a different consort, that should be the winner in this strange Imperial lottery. However, the difficulty was solved by a very astute politician, Michichika,—of which more anon. The favourite son was to be at once declared Ko-Tai-Tei; or “Younger Brother Successor to the Throne.” All this took place, in 1198, without any consultation with the Bakufu; and it gave Yoritomo so much concern that he caused it to “leak out” in Kyoto that he meditated a third journey to the capital in the following year. Meanwhile, in Kyoto things were carried out in ostensible order and decency according to precedent; and in the following year (1199), Yoritomo met his death by a fall from his horse.

The next few years (1199-1202) are interesting enough to any one who can probe below the surface. In Kyoto, an ex-Emperor of some twenty to twenty-three years of age, whose early training had not been so much neglected as utterly spoiled and perverted, his immature sexual instincts and appetites having been most disloyally abused by parasitic aristocratic tuft-and-place-hunters, who had been only too ready at all times to lend themselves to the most outrageous whims and freaks of the boy Sovereign. In Kamakura, a youthful Shogun of about the same years, whose training in all the martial accomplishments of the age, and eke in statecraft, had been carefully attended to; but who, in spite of all that, was showing himself the hopeless slave of unworthy favourites,— intellectually torpid, and criminally negligent, in the discharge of the most important duties of his high and responsible office.

At first blush, it might very well seem that there was but little to choose between the Shogun in Kamakura and the ex-Emperor in Kyoto. Both alike had their worthless and vicious and expensive favourites; both alike were allowing their sensual appetites to run unseemly riot; and, if the Shogun Yoriiye had become so infatuated with the fascinations of Japanese tennis that he could attend to nothing else, Toba II had meanwhile become one of the most expert exponents of Japanese football that were to be found within the four seas surrounding his Empire. But a little deeper inspection serves to disclose the fact that the advantages, after all, were immensely on the side of Kyoto. In Kamakura, a grand mass of muscle, and an abundance of hungry appetites, and nothing more. In Kyoto, there was all this indeed; but there was very much more besides, for the brain of Toba II, so far from being torpid, was preternaturally active and alert at all times. In some respects, he makes us think of Yurvaku and Buretsu, although he was guilty of but few of the atrocities attributed to the latter. The worst that can be said of him,—and this is indeed tolerably bad,—is that, like James II of England, he could “ assist ” at the examination of witnesses or prisoners by torture unmoved. On the other hand, little emerges to indicate that he was either faithless or a hypocrite. He has sometimes been called the Japanese Nero; but this is a great compliment to Nero, and a gross injustice to Toba II. All Nero’s artistic instincts and acquisitive ability he had in much greater measure than the Sovereign who fiddled while his capital was burning; but of Nero’s vanity and sickly sentimentality he was guiltless. The fact seems to be that the youthful ex-Emperor was simply the victim of his early breeding and his exalted position. After all said and done, after a close consideration of the terrible and regrettable irregularities of his private life, and of the untoward calamities in which these ultimately involved him, it seems to be tolerably plain that of the hundred odd Sovereigns of Japan who have occupied the throne since Nintoku Tenno, Toba II is one of the very few who could have made a great career for themselves if compelled to compete with the ordinary lieges for a livelihood. His great claim to fame is his eagerness to know, and his cheerful willingness to undergo any toil or drudgery,—no matter how menial or repulsive,—necessary for the attainment of excellence in any of the multifarious arts, pastimes, and occupa­tions which successively attracted his attention and absorbed his energies. He was at once poet, musician, sword-smith, a great hunter, and many other things besides. A great patron of cock-fighting, horse-racing, of the wrestling-ring, of archery with fugitive dogs as moving targets, he was also addicted to betting and gambling; in short, he had all the vices and not a few of the virtues of what is known in the slang of certain modern circles as a “good sport.” In sport—or sports—as in almost any individual thing on which he chose to concentrate his attention for the time being, he quickly and readily achieved mastery and proficiency. The shortest method of giving an approximately correct idea of the character of this extraordinary and most exceptional Emperor of Japan is by saying that he was, on the whole, the almost complete antithesis of the illustrious Tokugawa Iyevasu. Of all polite accomplishments, of all brilliant or showy qualities, the latter was almost entirely destitute. But reared in the hard school of adversity, where life was one continual struggle for survival, he had mastered the great principles of the art of war, of the art of making ends meet, of statecraft, and of the supremely important art of managing and using and ruling men. The extraordinary, but long-delayed, success he finally achieved was owing to the masterly fashion in which he contrived to co-ordinate and synthetize these very prosaic, work-a-day faculties. In other words, he owed his great position mainly to his far-reaching and sure, albeit somewhat slow-footed, judgement. There was scarcely any art or accomplishment then known in Japan that Toba II showed himself incompetent to acquire; but inasmuch as the synthesizing judgement and self-restraint were alike lacking, the superb natural endowments of this most exceptional Japanese Sovereign proved not so much valueless and ineffective as. positively fatal and mischievous,—fatal and mischievous not only to himself but to the subsequent fortunes of that Line of the Sun Goddess of which, with a happier breed­ing, he might perhaps have been the brightest and most illustrious ornament.

For the first three or four years after his abdication, Toba II was in tolerably safe and able hands. The mother of the child Sovereign, Tsuchimikado, was an adopted daughter of Minamoto Michichika (of Murakami Genji stock), who, although only about fifty years of age, had held office during six consecutive reigns. It is true that the posts he had filled bad been largely subordinate ones; but his ability, and his experience, now made him the most influential of all the Imperial officers. He was advanced to Ministerial rank, made Betto of the ex-Emperor’s Palace, and tutor of the infant Prince who had been designated as successor to the child Sovereign. Michichika’s efforts were greatly directed to em­ancipating the Court from all Kamakura influence, with a view to the possible eventual overthrow of the Bakufu system. Time and again, he over-reached the Shogunate and its Council­lors; and at his death, in 1202, the influence of Kamakura in Kyoto, at all events, did not amount to very much; and for years afterwards the Bakufu was very chary about intermed­dling with Court affairs. In 1210, for example, when Toba II  virtually compelled his eldest son to abdicate in favour of his younger brother, Juntoku (1210-1221), Kamakura was not consulted about the matter; and it did not dare to interfere, although Toba II’s conduct on this occasion was, on the face of it, most arbitrary and unwarranted. By this time, the young Shogun, Sanetomo, had attained his majority; and from first to last, Sanetomo showed himself eager to court the good graces of Toba II, and very ready to further all his projects and humour all his whims and fancies. More than once, when the Kamakura Councillors refused to entertain requests from Kyoto, the Shogun himself overrode them, and directed them to comply with the ex-Emperor’s mandate. With the many-sided, versatile Toba II, the young Shogun had at least one bond of sympathy and community; both were extremely fond, if not of literature, at all events of playing with ink-brush and paper; and Sanetomo was no doubt greatly flattered to find his “poem” so much appreciated and praised by the Imperial arbiter of taste and style.

It will be remembered that one cardinal point in the polity of Yoritomo had been that none of his vassals, or of the military class, should have any direct relations or intercourse with the Imperial Court. Should any cases of misconduct on the part of Shugo or Jito be reported to the Kyoto authorities, the action of these latter was strictly limited to transmitting a request to the Bakufu to investigate and deal with the matter. Furthermore, no military vassal was allowed to accept any Court office or rank, unless specifically recommended for the same by the Lord of Kamakura. One of the chief causes of Yoritomo’s enmity with Yoshitsune had been that the latter had presumed to solicit and obtain Court rank, office, and preferment on his own initiative. On Yoritomo’s visit to Kyoto in 1192, the ex-Emperor, in honour of his visitor, wished to confer the usual marks of Court favour on some thirty of the latter’s officers. Yoritomo promptly declined the proffered honours; and finally, when the offer was pressed, grudgingly submitted a list of fourteen names only for Imperial recognition. Moreover, in the instructions he left for the guidance of his descendants and successors, he laid it down that the Shogun should accept no high Court office or rank until so advanced in years that the close of his career seemed to be in sight.

It was against these specific institutions of the Bakufu that the astute Minamoto Michichika had chiefly directed his able and insidious attack. Complaints against Shu go and Jito were, whenever it possibly could be done, dealt with directly, instead of being referred to Kamakura. Nor was this all. The ex-Emperor, Shirakawa II, had at one time formed a special guard of his own, the “North-face Warriors” (Hokumen Bushi); and Yoritomo exerted himself to get this body disbanded. Now, under the name of “West-face Warriors” (Saimen Bushi) this corps was re-organised, and soon became formid­able. We presently read of it arresting high Bakufu officials in the capital, of driving out objectionable Jito, and of even threatening Shugo in the surrounding provinces. At the same time, instances of military men receiving honours from the Court directly, without any recommendation from Kamakura, become not infrequent. The truth would seem to be that during the three years before his demise in 1202, Michichika had made a promising beginning of the work of sapping and mining the outworks of the Bakufu, at least. However, the mantle of the astute Michichika fell upon the shoulders of no successor, for the two or three Court grandees possessed of any real ability were on good terms with Kamakura, and not at all averse to furthering its projects. As for the ex-Emperor himself, his attention to affairs of State was distracted by perhaps a dozen rival interests and pursuits, each in its turn all-engrossing and, as a rule, more fascinating than the wearisome and weary­ing game of politics and statecraft. Provided His ex-Majesty was left unfettered in the prosecution of his hobby for the time, and provided he was supplied with the funds necessary for the realisation of certain of his projects—for some of them were indeed costly.—he did not seem to trouble himself very much about the Bakufu and its relations to the Court.

Meanwhile, the Bakufu from time to time was fully occupied with the settlement of its own bloody internal dissensions; and the cautious and clear-headed councillors of Kamakura deemed it prudent to abstain from giving any offence to Kyoto when their own house was so liable to be divided against itself. After the extermination of Wada and his partisans, in 1213, the Lady Masa, Hojo Yoshitoki, and their advisers felt they could at last afford to begin to assert themselves; but whenever they did venture to thwart his ex­Majesty’s will and wishes, Sanetomo, now grown to man’s estate, stepped forward and asserted his will in favour of his Sovereign friend, fellow-bard, and most appreciative critic. On such occasions,—not by any means infrequent,—there was doubtless much glooming and glowering on the wrinkled faces of the grey beards assembled in council in Kamakura, for men like Oe Hiromoto and Miyoshi Yasunobu must have clearly discerned that, unless all this complaisance was exchanged for a strong and stem policy, the Bakufu of the last seven years of Yoritomo had gone for ever.

At the death of Sanetomo in 1219, Oe Hiromoto was one, and Miyoshi Yasunobu nine, years beyond that span of three­score .nd ten when even patriarchs must be expected to be gathered to their fathers. Both these great and illustrious men had come to what was then the wilds of the Kwanto almost forty years before; and during all these years since the foundation of Kamakura their whole heart and soul had been devoted to the construction and the manipulation of that at one time wonderfully efficient machine, the Bakufu ad­ministration. Both now knew that they were presently destined to go down to the grave; and both seem to have felt that after-ages would say that they had lived in vain, for their best work of brain and hand now seemed to be threatened with imminent wreck and ruin. Somewhere about 1216 or 1217. Oe Hiromoto had been deputed by his colleagues to remonstrate with Sanetomo about the wanton manner in which he was in­fringing his father’s instructions forbidding the acceptance of Court rank and office; but his remonstrance had fallen upon deaf ears. Although Sanetomo did not actually purchase his honours by hard cash, or its equivalent, he felt in duty bound to testify his gratitude by something more substantial than neatly turned eulogistic verselets. Among Toba II’s many crazes, his mania for building was one of the most expensive; and some of the most costly of his architectural enterprises were either carried through entirely or completed by means of Bakufu contributions.

Mention has already been made of the huge proportions the scandal of the actual sale of Court rank and offices had assumed under certain former Sovereigns,—notably under Shirakawa I. Under His ex-Majesty Toba II the evil again revived and became as pronounced as ever. Provided with the necessary funds, even the most incompetent, or the most worthless in character, might safely aspire to official employment; especially if they had wit enough to make their approaches through the “proper” channels. As a matter of fact, these “proper” channels were most highly improper; for certain Ladies of the Court, notably the Lady Kane, amassed huge fortunes as brokers in this shameful and demoralising traffic. Then, if perchance a candidate found himself repelled by the Lady Kane, or her fellow high-born dames, he might count upon effecting something by getting one of His ex-Majesty’s favourite Shirabyoshi to speak a word for him in proper season. These Shirabyoshi (“white measure markers”) were the dancing-girls of the time—the prototypes of the modern geisha; and not a few of them in their way were highly accomplished and fascinating women. At all events, Toba II appears to have found certain of them abundantly entertaining, and to have spent a good deal of his leisure in their company. As a matter of fact, it was one of these highly-favoured members of the Kyoto demi-monde—the notorious Kame-giku—who proved to be the spark that set alight the great mass of political and social combustibles which had been accumulating for years, and which blazed out in the great commotion of 1221.

As has been alleged, Sanetomo’s assassination took place early in 1219; and before that year was out, Toba II had abundant reason for concluding that dealing with a youthful Shogun who was a fellow son of the Muses was one thing; and having to treat directly with the clear-headed, cold-blooded sagacity of the old foxes who manipulated the Bakufu machine was quite another and a vastly different affair. Instead of having all his requests entertained with ready complaisance, he now found them almost invariably repelled, the bitter pill being usually gilded with nothing better than prosy dissertations on constitutional law and practice. One of these nettled him greatly. He had asked the Bakufu to remove their Jito from two extensive manors in the province of Settsu, inasmuch as he wished to put his dancing-girl favourite, Kame-giku (Tortoise Chrysanthemum), in possession of them; and Kamakura had replied with a lecture on some of the principles of feudal law. Some months before, the reply would almost infallibly have been a neat set of verses, and the prompt transference of the Jito to better positions. This, together with other incidents, served to convince His ex-Majesty that, for the time being, he must perforce abandon many of the pursuits and interests most congenial to him, and concentrate his attention upon the banal and repulsive game of politics and statecraft. Down to 1219, this game had to him been nothing more than an insignificant Nebensache: now, at the age of forty he found himself compelled not only to learn its elementary rules, but to play it against some of the finest and most mature intellects in Asia. It is true that when things were brought to a head in the summer of 1221, the failure of Toba II, against the Bakufu machine was at once sudden, complete, and disastrous,—not only to himself, but to the fortunes of the Imperial House of Japan. But it is equally true that the efforts of this very exceptional Imperial amateur in the game of statecraft, suddenly called upon to match himself against such life-long professional proficients as Oe Hiromoto, Miyoshi Yasunobu, Hojo Yoshitoki, and his elder sister, the Lady Masa, Yoritomo’s widow, came within an ace of success. But while according Toba II’s magnificent natural abilities a just meed of admiration, the unprejudiced, unbiassed, cold-blooded foreign writer cannot refrain from expressing the honest conviction that His ex-Majesty’s success in 1221 would have been utterly fatal to the best interests of the Empire whose throne he had solemnly abdicated three-and-twenty years before. Fifty-three years later on, the first wave of Mongol invasion was to threaten the shores of Japan; seven years later came Kublai Khan’s really great effort to reduce this Empire to his yoke. As things turned out, between 1221 and 1281, Japan was blessed with one of the justest, the most honest, the most economical, the strongest, and, at the same time, the least tyrannical and repressive, administrations that have ever been known in Asia. The lieges were during these two generations in such peace and harmony and ordered security as had been undreamt of in the Empire, for three centuries at least. Thus when the foreign invader appeared, a great united national effort was not merely possible, but actually easy. Had the Bakufu gone down before Toba II in 1221, all the probabilities are that the land would have been presently re-subjected to all the horrors and miseries of misgovernment and anarchy; and in such a condition Japan might very well have fallen a comparatively easy prey to the Mongols and their allies.

When, on the death of Sanetomo, Masako and Hojo Yoshi­toki begged Toba II to appoint one or other of his younger sons to the vacant Shogunate, His ex-Majesty was prompt to discern the snare, and curtly refused the request. A Prince of the Blood as nominal head of the Bakufu machine would enhance not only the prestige, but the power of Kamakura. A mere youth would be nothing but a tool in the hands of the Shikken and his coadjutors; and such a tool might very readily be utilised for far-reaching purposes. In the event of any deadly clash between the Court and the Bakufu, a Shogun of Imperial stock might even be set up as Emperor; and Toba II was firmly resolved to keep the making and unmaking of Emperors in his own hands, as long as he lived. Kamakura then turned its attention to the great house of Fujiwara; and the infant Yoritsune was conveyed to the Kwanto as Shogun designate. The object was to attach a section of the Court nobles to the interests of the Bakufu; and so to restore its influence in Kyoto, where its power and prestige had latterly fallen very low indeed. Toha II  saw through the manoeuvre readily enough; and while keeping his own counsel, began to prepare for the struggle he perceived to be inevitable.

A strange episode happened just a little later on. Minamoto Yorimochi, the grandson of Yorimasa, who had perished at Uji Bridge in 1180, was Shugo of the Great Palace. Suddenly, without any warning, he found himself beset by Toba II’s “West-face Warriors,” who had been hurriedly dispatched to put him out of the way. He retired into a wing of the Palace, and made a stubborn fight of it; but at last seeing escape impossible, he fired the building and perished in the flames. The reason for all this remained a mystery; the most probable conjecture is that Yorimochi knew too much of what was really in the ex-Emperor’s mind, and that it had been discovered that his relations with Kamakura were too intimate.

News of this incident seems to have given the Bakufu great concern. A month or two later on, Yoshitoki’s brother-in-law, Iga Mitsusue, appeared in Kyoto with instructions to keep a strict watch upon the Court and the nobles. But this emissary appears to have been completely outwitted and hood­winked by Toba II, who, under Iga’s very eyes, succeeded in the course of the next year or so in attaching almost every military man in the capital to his interests by his robust affability. During all this time there was little or no apparent change in His ex-Majesty’s way of life outwardly. The only remarkable point, perhaps, was the extent to which his attention was occupied with ecclesiastical affairs. But even this was nothing specially new or unwonted, for even in his very worst seasons of orgy and excess, Toba II. had been neither remiss in the matter of his devotions, nor unmindful of the claims and interests of the Church.

In Japan, the opening years of the thirteenth century had been marked by an intense religious ferment, similar to that witnessed in contemporary Europe, where the Dominicans and Franciscans were soon to begin preaching their great revival. Several new sects,—among them the Judo and the Zen—arose in quick succession, and made such rapid headway that those already in possession of the field became seriously alarmed and exasperated for various reasons, among which the economic bulked largely. The result was a persecution (1206), to which Toba II lent support and countenance. But what was known as a “persecution” in mediaeval Japan was of a comparatively mild nature. Into the punishment of heresy, the rack, the stake, and the faggot never found any entrance; banishment to some remote part of the Empire was the severest penalty inflicted; and it was inflicted, not so much for preaching new and strange doctrines, as for provoking popular tumults and breaches of the peace. It is true that for generations the priests had been the most turbulent class in Japan, and that, when the Great Monasteries in the Home Provinces were not at actual warfare with each other, their mutual relations were little more satisfactory than those of an armed truce. But to dignify their broils and squabbles with the name of religious wars would be entirely beside the mark. Such bloodshed as there was took place, not in defence of disputed points of doctrine, or of any abstract theological propositions whatever. From first to last, in some shape or other, it was all merely a question of loaves and fishes, for the considerations that provoked these armed ecclesiastical debates were generally of the earth earthy, and not infrequently sordidly so.

During Yoritomo’s time, the priesthood throughout the Empire, while carefully conciliated and highly honoured, had been effectually restrained from all power of doing mischief, by a rare combination of judgement, tact, and firmness. After the death of Yoritomo, the same tradition was preserved in the Kwanto and where the Bakufu was strong. But in the Home Provinces, the Bakufu soon became the reverse of strong; and the Great Monasteries again got completely out of hand. By this date, of 1219 or 1220, they had become exceptionally turbulent. Miidera about this time once more got sacked and burned down by Hi-ei-zan; Kofukuji had been several times on the warpath, “Divine Tree” (Shimboku) and all; while the clamorous and riotous monks of Hi-ei-zan had forced upon Toba II the unfortunate necessity of manhandling them vigorously in front of his palace. They had come down, sacred cars and what not, to protest about his showing too much favour to some of their rivals; and when they refused either to listen to reason, or to withdraw Until the matter was properly looked into, the “West-face Warriors” were unslipped from the leash. In the scuttle that ensued, one of the bearers of a sacred car was most impiously and un­ceremoniously cut down; and thereupon his fellows, losing faith in the efficacy of their Ark of the Covenant to safe­guard their very precious skins, abruptly threw it on the ground, and in spite of the handicap of their ecclesiastical habiliments, conclusively evinced their possession of great “sprinting” capacity. They, and the rest of the disorderly monkish rabble, were incontinently on their way out of Kyoto like so many express-couriers, and up the slopes of Hi-ei-zan like a flock of goats. The big gates of the great mountain monastery were at once slammed to, and all the powers of Heaven and Hell volubly invoked to avenge the astounding sacrilege.

The net result of the whole thing was that Toba II made huge capital out of the incident. The ingloriously abandoned Ark of the Covenant was promptly returned with profound apologies and profuse expressions of regret; and when all these were rejected as insufficient, His ex-Majesty readily granted all the extra demands upon his patience and generosity. Later on, he went up the Holy Mountain, spent a night there incognito, and afterwards by various clever devices at­tached the whole might of this great sacerdotal fortress to his interests. United the various great Buddhist sects, with their enormously wealthy temples and monasteries, might very easily have made themselves supreme within the bounds of the four seas that ring the Empire of Japan around. In the Nara epoch (710-784), priestly ascendancy had been actually a dire menace, not only to the Ministers of the Crown, but to the throne itself. Kwammu, as has been stated, grappled with this pressing problem by removing the capital, and by favouring the rise of two new and powerful sects as a counterpoise to the great monasteries of Nara; and the rivalry between these had afforded another illustration of the virtue that is inherent in the trite old political maxim of Divide et impera. Now, for his own ulterior ends, it had become one of the immediate objects of Toba II to bring all the great monasteries to an amicable understanding with each other, so that their troops and other resources might be available for a great combined effort against a common foe. By ceaseless exertions and the exercise of a host of skilful devices, His ex-Majesty actually succeeded in his purpose; and when the brocade banner was flung to the breeze, almost every great shrine or fane in the Home Provinces sent its contingent to serve under it.       .

From February, or March, 1221, onwards Toba II had been engaged in an unceasing round of religious ceremonies and observances; and in May strange rumours about the nature of some of the petitions he had been preferring to the Gods became current. As soon as Toba II, and his son, the Emperor Juntoku—(for the latter was privy to his father’s designs)—were aware of this, they determined to take decisive action sooner than they had already intended. On May 16, Jun­toku abdicated the throne in favour of his son, Kanenari, then scarcely three years of age. This step was taken without any consultation with Kamakura. Then, on June 4, all the military men in Kyoto were summoned to attend a great horse­archery festival Toba II was to celebrate on that day. As many as 1,700 knights responded to the invitation,—all that were in Kyoto, in fact; and among them, the Shugo and all the other Bakufu officers then in the capital. The only absentee was Iga, Hojo’s brother-in-law and confidential agent, who had received timely warning from Saionji Kintsune of the real import of the apparently innocent gathering. That very day Saionji and his son were placed under arrest; and early on the morrow, Iga was attacked in his mansion, and buried under its blazing roof and rafters. On June 6, Hojo Yoshitoki was stripped of his offices and declared an outlaw; and three days later, it was proclaimed that the East was in a state of insurrection, and all loyal subjects summoned to join in chastising the rebels.

On the night of that same 9th of June, 1221, an express dispatched by Saionji’s steward arrived in Kamakura with news of events in Kyoto down to the morning of the sixth. Shortly afterwards, an Imperial emissary was arrested engaged in distributing copies of the Edict declaring Yoshitoki outlawed, while, about the same time, Miura Yoshimura called on Yoshitoki to hand over to him a letter he had just received from his younger brother, Miura Taneyoshi, then in Kyoto, vehemently urging him to make an end of the rebel and traitor, the former Shikken Hojo Yoshitoki. Since the extermination of the Wada family, eight years before, the Miura house had been the only one in the Kwanto that could be pitted against that of Hojo in power and prestige. Luckily for Yoshitoki, at this juncture, the Miura chietain, who had much to gain by complying with Toba II’s orders,—for Taneyoshi was merely the ex-Emperor’s mouthpiece—and everything to risk by supporting a proscribed rebel, set the claims of an old and sincere friendship above those of a highly profitable loyalty to the throne. Here a tribute to both Miura brothers alike, as well as to Toba II’s ability in the sphere of that statecraft which he plainly regarded as a minor accomplishment. The younger Miura (Taneyoshi) was a brave and gallant and simple-minded soldier, whom Toba II had easily subjugated by his Sydney Smith-like ability of talking “runts” to such as Were interested in nothing more than “runts.” Taneyoshi was indeed an important capture, inasmuch as Toba II counted upon being able to win over his elder brother, the head of the great Miura clan, through him. Had his ex-Majesty succeeded in doing so, the probabilities are that the Bakufu would have fallen.

On learning of how matters stood, the Lady Masa at once summoned five or six of the Kamakura leaders into her presence. Her words were brief, but stirring and to the point, and when she wound up by telling them that if any among them had thoughts of taking part with Kyoto, now was the time to say so clearly, they all professed their steadfast devotion with tears in their eyes. They were thereupon dismissed to hold a council of war. In this, opinion was all but unanimous in favour of shutting the Ashigara and Hakone barriers, standing on the defensive, and awaiting the course of events. Against this de Hiromoto alone protested vehemently, and later on Miyoshi Yasunobu, who was not then present, urged a prompt and vigorous offensive; and it was the counsels of these sturdy old patriarchs that were approved of by Masako.

In a few days, the whole of the East and North of Japan was under arms. The main force of 50,000 was to advance by the Central Mountain route; an army of 40,000 was to come down through the Echizen passes from the Hokurikudo, while 10,000 cavalry were to advance hotfoot along the Tokaido. The campaign was short, sharp, and decisive. It was on June 13 that Hojo Yasutoki left Kamakura to assume command of the Tokaido Division; on July 6 he was in possession of the capital. The first encounter had been on the Mino-Owhari frontier, whither an Imperialist force had been hastily thrown forward to hold the Tokaido column in check, while other bodies had been dispatched to deal with the Tosando and Hokurikudo armies. But Toba II’s commanders were assailed so impetuously that they had been forced to fall back and concentrate for the defence of the capital. At the Uji stream, the Kyoto troops did make a gallant stand, and held the position for a long summer’s day against all the assaults of the Easterners. But next morning, more Bakufu men arrived; and the imperialists were then outflanked and driven back upon the capital in disorder. About the same time, Seta was captured by the main Kama­kura force, which now came pouring on into the city. The Northern army did not make its appearance until some days later; before reaching the Echizen passes it had had to do some stiff fighting, for a considerable section of the population of the Hokurikudo had declared for the Imperialist cause.

Considering the seeming ease and astounding promptness with which the Bakufu stamped out what its retainers were wont to speak of as the “rebellion,” the reader may well be puzzled with the assertion that Toba II actually came within an ace of success in his project. But much may be urged in support of such a contention. In the first place, Toba II was steadily gaining adherents day by day. when the leaking out of his plans constrained him to take sudden and premature action. In the second place, he had counted upon the support of the great Miura clan in Kamakura itself, and in this he was totally disappointed. But nothing of all this need have proved essentially fatal. What really wrecked the Imperialist cause were the counsels of Oe Hiromoto and Miyoshi Yasunobu. If Kamakura had rested content with shutting the Hakone and Ashigara barriers, and standing on the defensive, one infallible result would have been that in the course of a few weeks, Toba II would have found himself with the greater portion of the rest of the Empire at his back. A few insignificant reverses to the Bakufu arms might even have led to the appearance of an Imperialist faction within the bounds of the Kwanto itself. And all this not for political or sentimental reasons. It was in the peculiar social and economic condition of the nation that Toba II. would have found his great opportunity.

During the great wars of the preceding generation it had been easily possible for strong and sturdy peasants to adopt the profession of arms; and hence, in spite of all the bloodshed and slaughter of that time, there had been a great accession to the numbers of the unproductive military class. In the thirty years of comparative peace that had followed, the ranks of this class had been still further swollen by mere natural increase. Soon, in spite of all the economy and sim­plicity of living insisted on by the sumptuary legislation of the Bakufu, the mere vulgar question of subsistence tended to become acute. As land was almost the only source of in­come, as properties were generally small,—Yoritomo speaks of an estate of from 250 to 500 acres as an exceptionally extensive holding—and as children were numerous,—as many as ten or a dozen in a family being not so very uncommon,— the question of who was to inherit the paternal home­stead was one of supreme and vital importance. Some attention was indeed paid to the claims of primogeniture; but the situation was generally complicated by the custom of concubinage, and occasionally by the practice of adoption. Theoretically the decision of the matter rested with the parents; but as a matter of fact, as a Japanese author writes, the head-post to the father’s grave had often been scarcely set up before his sons were at law about the family possessions. To relieve the courts from the incubus of having to deal with these succession worries, the Bakufu had ordered that each family, in the larger sense of the term, should have a General Head, with whom the decision of such internal squabbles should rest. But the situation was such that it could be relieved by no legislation which did not summarily enjoin a whole army of younger sons to exchange their swords for mattocks, and go back to rice-growing. The simple fact of the matter was that the loaves and fishes in most Samurai households could not possibly be made to go round. Hence it is not difficult to understand how the Japanese came by their proverb that “brotherhood is the beginning of estrangement”. All through the Empire were landless Bakufu vassals, forbidden by the traditions of their caste to engage in any money-earning industry, with absolutely nothing for their swords to do, and consequently often very little for themselves to eat. By such, any great civil commotion would in­fallibly be welcomed as a veritable godsend; while it lasted they would be sure of rations anyhow; and if they came out on the winning side there would be plenty of plums agoing in the shape of confiscated fiefs. Then, in addition to all this belly-pinched class of Bakufu vassals, there were not a few malcontents who had found the Kamakura law­courts too strict, and honest and impartial ; and still others who had been disappointed in their aspirations to office, as well as those—Jito especially,—who had been stripped of office either for incompetence, or venality, or other mal­practices, for the grey-beards on the Three Great Boards of Kamakura were terribly exacting in all their dealings with their subordinate agents. Then, outside the Bakufu vassals, there were military proprietors who cared just as much for the Bakufu as they did for the Court. As a matter of fact, not a few of these, especially in the West, while secretly send­ing their sons to fight under the Brocade Banner, remained on their lands at home, either maintaining a strictly non-committal attitude, or making great professions of devotion to Kamakura. Owing to imperious circumstances, mainly the near neighbourhood of Bakufu “dogs,’’—otherwise spies—and what not, down to June 5, 1221, Toba II had been con­strained to confine his moling to the Home Provinces, and Kishu at the outside. On that and the following day, when he prematurely appeared in the open, above ground, the capital and vicinity were (to change the figure) at once vigorously and merrily ablaze in his favour. Suppose that the Ashigara and Hakone barriers had been shut, and that the Bakufu had supinely confined itself to the defensive, by July 6, when Hojo Yasutoki was in possession of Kyoto, every province south of Echigo and Izu (inclusive) would have been as furiously aflame with professedly Imperialistic fervour as the capital itself was. So much Toba II in all probability foresaw; so much Oe Hiromoto did undoubtedly and unquestionably and unmistakably foresee. As a matter of fact, a considerable portion of the population of the Hokurikudo did respond to the Imperial appeal; while one of Yoritomo’s oldest and most trusted partisans, Kono Michinobu (1156— 1223), actually hoisted the Banner of Brocade against the Bakufu in Shikoku.

Yet another point there is that must not be overlooked. At this time the line of Yoritomo was extinct; and there was actually no Shogun either in Kamakura or in Japan, for the baby Fujiwara Yoritsune had been taken to Kamakura merely as Shogun designate; and in their innermost hearts many of the Kwanto warriors were profoundly dissatisfied with the fashion in which the succession to the position of the great and illustrious Yoritomo had been ordered. In truth, in 1221 the situation of the Bakufu was almost desperate; for besides being unpopular (mainly owing to its impartiality and honesty) in many quarters, it was certainly at that time, if not unconstitutional, at all events extra-constitutional. At this supreme crisis, one of the great geniuses in its organisation four decades before now proved its saviour. To a patriarch of seventy-three of the right sort, a few years more or less of the crepuscular existence that preludes the inevit­able descent into the tomb are not of any very great or con­suming consequence. But the survival of the best results of a laborious and beneficent exercise of his political or other genius, while in the full flush of his chastened and mature experience, is a vastly different and an infinitely more important matter. At this conjuncture Oe Hiromoto’s head was in all probability at stake; but that any consideration for his own safety ever entered into his calculations. I cannot, from what contemporary documents I have perused, believe lor even a single moment. As for Miyoshi Yasunobu, then in his eighty-second year, the simple reason why he did not ap­pear at that momentous council-of-war to support Oe Hiromoto, is that he was then on his death-bed, for he passed away a few weeks afterwards! What doubtlessly weighed most with these two really grand old men was the conviction that a hungry esurient mob of effeminate, venal, pleasure-ridden, utterly good-for-nothing courtiers and Court nobles were worse than hopeless as administrators of the affairs of the Empire; and that the task of ruling Japan was work for men. Not the smallest of the services rendered to their country by Hiromoto and Yasunobu was the training of that wonderful and admirable school of simple-living, hard-working, fearlessly just and honest officials which they left behind them, if not to perpetuate, at all events to prolong, their own splendid traditions of uprightness and efficiency.

Upon Entering the capital, the Bakufu Commander-in-chief, Hojo Yasutoki (Yoshitoki’s eldest son, then 38), was met by an official who announced that he was the bearer of an Rescript of an ex-Emperor. Yasutoki thereupon at once dismounted, and listened most respectfully, while one of his retainers read the document aloud. Its purport was to the effect that all this commotion had been caused by intriguing self-seeking (Imperial) counsellors; as it was entirely against the will of his ex-Majesty (Juntoku) that Hojo Yoshitoki had been put to the ban, the Shikken was now re­instated in all the offices he had formerly held. In the hour of victory, Yasutoki was inclined to be merciful; and through his efforts some of the military men, such as Kono Michinobu, were punished with nothing worse than banishment.

But it was not with Yasutoki that the fate of the vanquished rested. This was decided in Kamakura; and, mainly, it would appear, by Oe Hiromoto. A fortnight later on, a Bakufu envoy entered Kyoto with dispatches and a paper of secret instructions for Yasutoki. Early in the following month Toba II with a few attendants was relegated to the Island of Oki ; a week later, Juntoku was banished to Sado ; while two of his younger brothers, who had been made priests to conciliate the goodwill of the warlike monks, were exiled to Tajima and Bizen respectively. Toba II’s eldest son, the ex-Emperor Tsuchimikado, had studiously held aloof from his father’s projects; the Bakufu had no grounds for ill-will towards him personally. But it was felt his presence in the capital might possibly become a disturbing influence; and so he was removed, first to Tosa, and later on to Awa, where a palace was built for him, and where he was treated with far less rigour than his father and brother. As for the infant Sovereign Kanenari, he was removed to a mansion in the Kujo quarter, where he died thirteen years afterwards. The Bakufu refused to recognise him as a Sovereign; in fact, it was not until 1870 that he received the name of Chukvo, and, as such, was entered in the list of Emperors. The vacant throne was now filled by the elevation of the ten-year-old son of Prince Morisaba (Toba II’s elder brother,) who is known as the Emperor Horikawa II (1221-1232); his father, who had become a priest in 1212, being honoured with the style of Lajo-Ho-o and the name of Go-Takakura-in, although he had never occupied the Imperial seat.

The treatment thus accorded the Imperial family was harsh, indeed; but it was comparatively mild when compared to the stern measure now meted out to the Court nobles who had been implicated in the attempt to overthrow the Hakufu. Yasutoki had been secretly instructed to seize them and summarily execute them in the capital, together with four military chiefs whose guilt had been flagrant. As regards the latter, the mandate was promptly complied with: but Yasutoki dispatched the Court nobles to Kamakura under a strong guard. At various places on the route, they were, one after another, made away with, the last of them being drowned in the Havakawa in Sagami. One or two of this doomed band escaped the extreme penalty owing to Masako’s intercession. Later on, others who had not been so openly involved in the disturbance were banished to distant quarters of the Empire. In all probability, Oe Hiromoto was not at all sorry to have such an excellent opportunity of settling accounts with what he must have considered a wasteful and pestilent brood of arrogant, pretentious, blue-blooded incompetents. It is true that the execution of their leaders need not have been any fatal blow to the Court nobles, for none of these leaders were men of any very transcendent ability. Yet, withal, Hiromoto contrived to hit his old Kugé foes very shrewdly on this occasion. Even down to this time not a few of the courtiers had been very rich; in various parts of the Empire they still held large tracts of landed property. Now the greater bulk of these Kugé manors got confiscated in common with those of the military proprietors who had espoused the Imperialist cause. Naturally this brought many of the aristocratic families of the capital to poverty, and sadly impaired the consideration in which they had been held.

As the result of these confiscations the Bakufu authori­ties found themselves enabled to relieve the dire pressure of economic distress among their vassals. As many as 3,000 ad­ditional manors had come into their hands. Certain of these were bestowed upon the fanes and shrines—Ise and Suwa among the number,—that had remained steadfast to the cause of Kamakura and offered petitions on its behalf in its hour of peril. But these estates were mostly assigned as rewards to such as had rendered meritorious services in the recent strug­gle. It was nominally as Jito that the grantees were placed in these Sho-en; but this new class of Jito stood on a different footing from that already existing. The latter were simply administrative officers, removable for misconduct at any time; the new Jito were not only administrative officers, but they also enjoyed what was virtually proprietary rights. And what was more, their position was hereditary, capable of being transmitted to daughters even in exceptional cases. As these manors lay to a great extent exactly in those quarters of the Empire where the influence of Kamakura had hitherto been weakest, it is easy to understand why these new Jito were installed in their offices on such exceptionally favourable terms. In the case of any reverse to the fortunes of the Bakufu these functionaries would be the first to suffer; and so, by an adroit appeal to the all-important motive of self-interest, the Bakufu very easily riveted its grip upon sections of the Empire which otherwise might have given it great cause for apprehension and anxiety.

The following two clauses from the Hojo Code of 1232 throw a good deal of light upon the situation:—

“ Of the lands which were confiscated at the time of the mili­tary disturbance of Shokyu (1219-1221).

“ In the case of some whose tenements were confiscated in consequence of their having been reported to us as having taken part against us in the battle at the capital, it is now averred that they were innocent of such misdoing. Where the proof in support of this plea is full and clear, other lands will be assigned to the present grantees of the confiscated estates, which will be restored to the original holders. By the term present grantees is meant those of them who have performed meritorious services.

“ In the next place, amongst those who took part against us in the battle at the capital were some who had received the bounty of the Kwanto (i.e. had received grants of land from the Shogun). Their guilt was specially aggravated. Accordingly they were themselves put to death and their holdings were confiscated definitively. Of late years, however, it has come to our knowledge that some fellows of that class have, through force of circumstances, had the luck to escape punishment. Seeing that the time for severity has now gone by, in their case the utmost generosity will be exercised, and a slice only of their estates, amounting to one-fifth, is to be confiscated. However, as regards Sub-Controllers and village officials, unless they were vassals of the Shogun’s own house, it is to be understood that it is not now practicable to call them to account, even if it should come to be found out that they were guilty of siding with the capital. The case of these men was discussed in the Council last year and settled in this sense; consequently no different principle is applicable.

“ Next as regards lands confiscated on the same occasion in respect of which suits may be brought by persons claiming to be owners. It was in consequence of the guilt of the then holders that those lands were confiscated, and were definitively assigned to those who rendered meritorious service. Although those who then held them were unworthy holders, there are many persons we hear who now petition that in accordance with the principle of heredity the lands may be allowed to revert to them by grant. But all the tenures that were confiscated at that time stand irreversibly disposed of. Is it possible for us to put aside the present holders and undertake to make inquiry into claims of a past age ? Henceforth a stop must be put to disorderly expectations.

“ As regards the guilt of those who took part in the battle on the same occasion, a distinction is to be made between fathers and sons.

“ As regards cases in which although the father took the side of the capital the son nevertheless took service with the Kwanto, and likewise those in which although the son took the side of the capital the father took service with the Kwanto, the question of reward or punishment has been decided already by the difference of treatment. Why should one generation be confounded with the other as regards guilt ?

“ As regards cases of this kind occurring amongst residents in the Western provinces, if one went to the capital, whether he were the father or the son, then the son or the father who remained at home in the province cannot be held blameless. Although he may not have accompanied his guilty kinsman he was his accomplice at heart. Nevertheless in cases where owing to their being separated by long distances or boundaries it was impossible for them to have had communication with one another or to be cognisant of the cir­cumstances, they are not to be regarded as reciprocally involved in each other’s guilt.”

 

This highly politic step constitutes a by no means inconsiderable factor among the many that go to explain the wonderful stability of the subsequent Hojo administration during the ensuing century, and for years after it had forfeited all its claims to respect. These claims were simply that it could do that which Kyoto had utterly and completely failed in doing after having the fairest of chances for long centuries, viz. to manage the general affairs of the Japanese peo­ple with strict economy, rigid honesty, and efficiency; an ideal which Tenchi alone had realised, which Kwammu had done much to approach, and which with Sanjo II, during his all too brief reign and life, had been his dearest if unfulfilled aspiration. From these new Jito were descended many of the Shomyo, or lesser feudal nobility, and even some of the great houses we find prominent in the Empire at the date of the arrival of the Portuguese, three centuries later. In connection with the distribution of these confiscated manors it is to be noted that the Hojo themselves did not profit unduly. It is true that Yasutoki and his uncle, Tokifusa, were each awarded sixty new Sho-en in Ise; but the onerous and extensive establishment they had presently to maintain in Kyoto made it necessary for them to have a cer­tain amount of funds at their disposal. And, as a matter of fact, we soon hear of Tokifusa, at least, distributing his newly acquired property among Bakufu vassals whose merits in the contest had not been adequately rewarded. As for the Shikken, Hojo Yoshitoki himself, he absolutely refused to benefit personally even to the extent of a single acre.

Hitherto Kyoto had been the weak spot in the Bakufu system. A Shugo had been installed there with the duty of repressing disorder in the Home Provinces; but the authority of the Shugo had been overshadowed by that of the ex-Emperor with his “West-face Warriors,” with the Kebiishi, and other Imperial officers. Finally, in the great crisis of 1221 the Shugo had actually rallied to the Banner of Brocade. Plainly, something more than a Shugo was needed in the capital. Accordingly, Yoritomo’s palace in the grounds of Taira Kiyomori’s old mansion of the Rokuhara was now converted into administrative offices; and here Yasutoki and his uncle Tokifusa were installed as Kyoto Tandai. Three years later the work was found to be so onerous that it became necessary to divide it; and a new set of offices were erected in the south of the same grounds, and here one of the two Tandai took up his quarters. Hence the origin of the Two Rokuhara. The Rokuhara system was an almost complete replica of that of Kamakura. Under the Tandai were a Council of Government, a Headquarters Staff, and a High Court of Justice—all with an initiative of their own, but acting under instructions from Kamakura in gravely important matters. The Tandai were almost invariably members of the Hojo family; and the office was regarded as a sort of training for the future Shikken. Certain of the duties of the position were not very dignified, for no honourable man can find much satisfaction to his soul in the dirty work of espionage, and the Tandai were responsible for a strict surveillance of the Sovereign and the Court, and all their doings.

In the light of subsequent events, it is easy to perceive that, by postponing his great effort for a matter of five years, Toba II would almost infallibly have succeeded in overthrowing the Bakufu system, at least for a time. For the seven years following the death of Sanetomo in 1219, there was no Shogun in Kamakura; it was only in 1226 that Fujiwara Yoritsune, then eight years of age, received his patent of investiture with that office. Although there had been no great commotion among the Bakufu vassals in consequence, yet the selection of a baby Court noble as the prospective occupant of the seat of the great Yoritomo had been nowhere received with enthusiasm, and had given rise to many secret murmurs. For such a mere prospective civilian figurehead, little more than out of his swaddling-clothes, few warriors would have cared to unsheath their blades. But as regards the Lady Masa, Yoritomo’s widow, it was a vastly different matter. The Nun-Shogun, as she had been called since the death of her son Sanetomo, was stern, and short, and sharp of speech; but when she did speak, her words were the winged words of the true leader of men to which the heart of every Deloraine in the Kwanto thrilled responsively. In the Council she at once summoned on hearing of Toba II’s “ revolt” (as her henchmen called it), her few straight-flung words brought tears of sympathy and devotion into the eyes of every one of her auditors. Without their grand “Nun-Shogun’’ the Kwanto Bushi in 1221 would have had no rallying-point whatsoever. The Lady Masa, it must be frankly confessed by a writer who has a holy horror of petticoat ascendancy in politics (for in the majority of cases it has been banefully pernicious) must ever be reckoned as one of the very greatest glories of the Japanese nation. Now, Masako’s long and distinguished career of beneficent activity came to a close in the summer of 1225; and for the next few months there was neither a “Nun-Shogun,” nor any kind of Shogun, in Kama­kura. If Toba II’s blow had been reserved for such a season, it could scarcely have failed to prove fatal to the fortunes of the Bakufu.

Then, just about a month before the death of the Lady Masa, Oe Hiromoto had passed away at the age of seventy-­seven. If Toba II’s early training had been in the hands of Oe, and if Oe had afterwards had that opportunity for the display of his genius which he found in Kamakura, it is highly probable that the historian would have had to add yet another name to the scanty list of Great Emperors. But at an early date Oe had learned, to his grief and mortification, that either for himself, or for men like himself, there was no place, and never could be any place, in the Councils of Kyoto. For an obscure man, outside the narrow ring of favoured blue-blooded courtiers, to raise himself to a position of commanding power and usefulness by the dint of nothing but hard, honest, unflinching, intelligent work was then, and had been for long, an utter impossibility. No doubt it was an intricate complex of many circumstances that led to the decay and ultimate ruin of the Imperial Court; but among these the baneful importance of this latter fact should never be overlooked.

Again, in 1224, the sudden death of the Shikken, Hojo Yoshitoki had thrown the Kwanto into great perturbation. His second wife was a sister of that Iga who had been killed in Kyoto in 1221; and by her, he had a son Masamura, and a daughter who had been married to the Court noble Ichijo Sanemasa. The Igas now at once began to plot to have this noble made Shogun, while Masamura was to become Shikken, The situation was saved by the Lady Masa. Attended by a single maidservant she proceeded under cover of darkness to the mansion of the great Miura chief, who she had discovered was implicated in the project, and with a few of those winged words she could launch so unerringly in times of crisis, she promptly restored his wavering loyalty. A few days later on, the bedridden and almost blind Oe Hiromoto was consulted regarding the fate of the conspirators, who were mostly condemned to exile.

Hojo Yasutoki, who had hurried down from Kyoto on receiving news of his father’s death, had already assumed the office of Shikken before the conspiracy came to a head. The next year was free from disturbances; but Masako’s death (in 1225) had hardly been announced when the new Shikken was called upon to deal with a whole series of plots, conspiracies, and actual risings in various parts of the Empire. The last of these was crushed in 1227. The fortunate thing for the Bakufu was that, with perhaps one exception, these conspiracies were merely local, with no very wide ramifications, and that when risings actually took place, there was no concerted action between the various bands of malcontents. With a Toba II to furnish a rallying point for all the numerous elements of discontent and disorder the situation would have been menacing indeed.