JAMES MURDOCH' HISTORY OF JAPAN FROM THE ORIGINS

TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE IN 1542 AD

 

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MONGOL INVASIONS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES.

 

IN the first half of the ninth century we found the “three Learned Emperors” so deeply impressed with the culture and magnificence of the Court of Hsian that they wasted no inconsiderable portion of their resources in paying it the sincerest form of flattery,—imitation to wit. Before that century was out, however, the Middle Kingdom had so far fallen from its high estate in Japanese estimation, that on the representation of Sugawara Michizane it was determined to send no more embassies to the Chinese capital. In thus cutting herself oil from all diplomatic relations with China, it is nor probable that Japan lost very much, for during the ensuing centuries the stale of China was on the whole deplorable.

In 907 the great Tang dynasty fell; and before 960, there had been as many as five dynasties and no fewer than thirteen Sovereigns in the Middle Kingdom, while not a few of the great satrapies became virtually independent States. Under the succeeding Sung dynasty, which ruled the whole Empire from 960 to 1120, and on the south of the Yang-tse-kiang down to 1280, great things were indeed done in Literature, Philosophy, and Art; but even so, the unhappy country was scarcely ever at peace. From first to last it was engaged in a desperate struggle with three distinct hordes of northern barbarians,—the second of which established a dynasty in Northern China and the third of which actually overran and held the whole of the Empire.

Two of these hordes were Tartars; the third was the Mongols. Of the Tartars, it was the Khitans who first came upon the scene. At the accession of the first Sung Sovereign these held Manchuria and the Liao tung Peninsula, and for the next half-century hostilities between them and China were almost incessant. Shortly after the opening of the eleventh century, the Chinese Emperor agreed to pay them an annual tribute if they would abstain from their incursions; and this, later on, was increased to 200,000 taels of silver and a great quantity of silken piece goods. Even then, the unrest continued; and, at the beginning of the next century, the Emperor invited another horde of Tartars, the Kin or Golden, to expel the Khitans from Liao tung. As is generally the wont in such cases, the remedy turned out to be infinitely worse than the disease. The invitation was promptly accepted, and the service effectually rendered; but once possessed of the Khitan country, the Kins insisted on holding it themselves, and China found herself face to face with a new power, far stronger and more restless and aggressive than the one that had originally harassed and harried her northern marches. In no long space of time the Kins overran the provinces, of Chih li, Shen si, Shan-si, and Honan; and by 1160 they had advanced their frontiers to the line of the Yang-tse. In the seat of their conquests they established a dynasty of their own, which lasted from 1115 down to 1234, and counted as many as fourteen Sovereigns. This “Golden” Tartar Dynasty was finally overthrown by a horde that had originally been vassals, or dependants, of its own,—the Mongols. These also established a Chinese dynasty of their own, which in most books is given as lasting from 1280 to 1368. But, in truth, it was of considerably greater duration; for even half-a-century before 1280 the major portion of Northern China had been in Mongol hands, while it was in 1264 that the Mongol capital was transferred from Central Asia to Peking (Cambaluc).

The cessation of the interchange of diplomatic courtesies between the Sovereigns of Japan and China did not mean that the Japanese people were cut off from all culture-contact with the continent. Those who became the great lights in the Buddhist Church in Japan in the eighth and ninth centuries had spent long years in study in China; and this tradition, although sometimes interrupted, was never entirely abandoned; and the great monasteries of China were still from time to time frequented by Japanese monks. Again, the harbours of Japan, and especially of Kyushu, were occasionally visited by Chinese merchantmen, whose cargoes found eager purchasers. We read of certain of these being conveyed to Kyoto, and of the competition to secure their items being so keen as to lead to scenes of disorder somewhat akin to riot. On more than one occasion we find the Court issuing rescripts and making regulations dealing with such contingencies. Then, there are one or two authentic notices of Chinese traders settling in Japan as naturalised subjects. Taira Kiyomori’s efforts to improve the harbour of Hyogo were mainly in the interest of that Chinese trade he was so eager to promote; he even went so far as to receive the foreign merchants as honoured guests in his great Fukuwara mansion. It will be remembered that Kiyomori’s son, Shigemori, when stricken with mortal illness declined to avail himself of the services of a distinguished Chinese physician then in Japan, on sentimentally patriotic grounds.

It was the harbours of Chikuzen that were most frequented by Chinese vessels; for generations the Great Shrine of Munakata had kept itself and its auxiliary six-and-seventy buildings in repair with timber from the wrecks cast upon the Chikuzen coast. The practice was to confiscate such wrecks and their cargoes, until Hojo Yasutoki put a stop to it. Another port much frequented by the Chinese was Bonotsu in Southern Satsuma. When Amano Tokage was sent down by Yoritomo as Chinzei Bugyo to Kyushu, he imposed customs duties upon all foreign vessels; but when he endeavoured to exact them in Bonotsu Haven, the great house of Konoye, who held wide manors in Satsuma and Hyuga, successfully insisted that the Bonotsu customs were their property.

At this date, Japan lagged far behind China in shipbuilding and maritime enterprise; but that Japanese vessels did occasionally reach China is undoubted. The route was along the Korean coast, and the shores of the Gulf of Pechili. Such as reached Eastern China seem to have been mostly derelicts, or vessels blown out of their course, for such Japanese craft as were built at this time were intended for inland navigation and hugging the coast, not for standing boldly out across the high seas. The great “Queen Bee Ship” in the Taira fleet at Dan-no-ura was regarded as something of a wonder; for that vessel was Chinese rigged. Sanetomo in 1215 conceived the project of going to China in person; and for nearly a year he had a Chinaman at Kamakura superintending the construction of a great ship for the intended voyage. The vessel, however, proved a failure, and was left to rot where she lay, and the voyage was never undertaken. It was about this date that bills of exchange began to be used in Kamakura for inter­provincial trade; and this device, known in China for long, was probably suggested to the Bakufu Councillors by Sanetomo’s guest, the unsuccessful shipwright. Shortly before this the tea-plant had been reintroduced into Japan. It had been first brought to the country in 895 by Dengyo Daishi. who had had tea-seed planted at Uji, although some authorities maintain that the priest Eishu had grown the plant in the grounds of his monastery in Omi some time before. But its culture never became general; and by the time when Eisai returned from China in 1191 bringing tea-seed with him, tea had become utterly unknown in Japan. Eisai planted his seed partly in Chikuzen, partly at Togano in the neighbourhood of Kyoto. At first people regarded the leaf as poison, and would have nothing to do with it until Eisai was fortunate enough to be called in to prescribe for the young Shogun Sanetomo, who had drunk too much sake the night before. A few cups of tea served to clear the Shogun’s head; and from that day it began to be held in the highest estimation. For more than a century the fine leaf was so highly prized, that a tiny jar of it used to be bestowed on warriors as a reward for uncommon exploits; and the fortunate recipients assembled their friends and relations to partake of the precious gift. Here, perhaps, we have the tea ceremonial in embryo.

For centuries past Japan has been famous for the produce of her kilns, no less than for her tea. But down to 1230 Japanese pottery continued to be of the crudest and most commonplace description. But “simultaneously with the import of the (tea) leaf some of the vessels employed in infusing it were brought to Japan, and from these it became apparent that the Chinese potter under the Sung dynasty had completely distanced both Korea and Japan in technical processes, while at the same time a new need was felt by the Japanese for utensils of improved quality. Accordingly Kato Shirozaemon, a potter who had already acquired some reputation, determined to make the voyage to China, and in 1223 accomplished his object in company with a priest, Doen. After an absence of six years, Kato returned and settled at Seto, in the province of Owari, where he commenced the manufacture of a ware which to this day is regarded with the utmost esteem by his countrymen... The chief productions were tea-jars of various sizes and shapes, which, having been from the very first treasured up with greatest care by their fortunate possessors, still exist in considerable numbers, and are still highly valued by amateurs of the Cha-no-Yu (Tea Ceremonial). So great a reputation did this Toshiro-yaki, as it was commonly called, enjoy, and such prestige did its appearance give to the potters of Owari, that everything which preceded it was forgotten, and the name Retomono (i.e. ware of Seto) thenceforth became the generic term for all keramic manufactures in Japan, just as ‘China’ in Europe.”

Ordinary men are governed as much by ceremonial and fashion as by the precepts of religion or the decrees of the Government and the laws of the land. As has been repeatedly set forth, the claims of mere ceremonial and etiquette in Japan have been at most times insistent, and absurdly onerous. So much Hideyoshi, whom Froez at an early date pronounced to be “tortuous and cunning past all measure of belief,” appreciated fully; and hence his unceasing efforts to raise the “Tea Ceremonial” to the dignity of a veritable cult, as a means of taming the ferocity and curbing the spirit of many who were inclined to question his authority. But for the reintroduction into Japan of the tea-plant by his Reverence Eisai in 1191, and for Kato Shirdzaemon’s sojourn in China between 1223 and 1229, Cha-lio-Yu as an instrument of government would never have been at the disposal of the preternaturally acute and rase peasant-ruler, Hideyoshi.

At this date, also, Japan was largely dependent upon China for her medium of exchange. A succinct account of the old Japanese mint has already been given. It had finally stopped operations in 958; and so naturally by this time there was a sad dearth of native coin in the Empire. And as the Hojos endeavoured to collect as much of their taxes as they could in money, coin became a greater necessity than it might otherwise have been. Tt was with the aid of the influx of Chinese coins, mainly of the Sung dynasty, that the Kamakura Regents were able to carry out some of their fiscal reforms. The craze for China and Chinese institutions had long been a thing of the past; the Japanese Court highly resented the traditional attitude of the Sovereigns of the Middle Kingdom towards surrounding nations, and on more than one occasion left dispatches from the Chinese Court unanswered, on the ground that their tone and phraseology were unsatisfactory. But withal, as should abundantly appear from what has just been set forth, the obligations of Japan to China for the development of her social culture were by no means yet at an end.

The state of things in the Korean Peninsula had meanwhile undergone a great change. The small northern State of Bokkai, with which Japan long maintained a friendly intercourse, had disappeared, as that dire old foe of Japan the Kingdom of Silla had done, in 935. Silla had been swallowed up in the new Kingdom of Koryu, which originating in the north in 918, soon extended its sway over the whole of the Korean Peninsula and far over the Yalu into Manchuria. On several occasions Koryu Sovereigns attempted to establish diplomatic relations with the Japanese Court; but as the language of their dispatches was nearly always considered to be lacking in courtesy and respect, the overtures were almost invariably coldly received, Still there were no actual hostilities between the two nations, although Koryu pirates occasionally harried Tsushima, and gave trouble to the Kyushu authorities. Now, at last, in 1227, things began to look serious. Three or four years before this, bands of Japanese had begun to ravage the Korean coast, where they committed great depredations; and in 1227, a Koryu envoy, named Pak In, appeared in Kyoto with demands for redress. The Japanese Court was in great anxiety, for a war with Koryu would be a very serious thing. The matter was entrusted to the Bakufu for settlement; and Hojo Yasutoki, on investigating the circumstances, found that Koryu had well-grounded reasons for complaint. He forth­with gave orders for the arrest and execution of the corsairs; and the affair was promptly settled. It is not at all unlikely that these Japanese corsairs had been driven to sea-roving as the result of the numerous confiscations of 1221, and that Yasutoki was not at all sorry at finding a good excuse for dealing drastically with former opponents who would be only too glad to snatch at any opportunity of giving trouble to the Bakufu.

What perhaps greatly facilitated the amicable settlement of this difficulty was the fact that at this date Koryu had so much to occupy her attention elsewhere that she was really in no condition to enter upon an armed contest with the Island Empire. Although the Khitans had been temporarily overthrown by the Kins, their power had been by no means irretrievably broken; and by the opening of the thirteenth century they had again become formidable in the Liao-tung and Southern Manchuria. However, just about this time the Mongols, who had generally acknowledged the supremacy of Genghis Khan in 1206, appeared in the Liao-tung; and the Khitans, finding it hopeless to withstand them, poured across the Yalu into the Korean Peninsula, with a view of carving out a new State there for themselves. After a series of fierce struggles Koryu succeeded in crushing the invaders; but it was only with Mongol help that she was able to do so. Then quarrels broke out between her and her allies; and in 1231 and 1238 huge Mongol armies crossed the Yalu, and in the latter years swept the Peninsula from end to end and from sea to sea. The Koryu Sovereign took refuge in the island of Kang-Wha, where he had to spend the remaining twenty years of his reign, defying all the attempts of the invaders to get him out of it, for the Mongols were no sailors and were completely helpless on the blue water. In 1259, the year of the old Koryu King’s death, Kublai Khan became Emperor; and in 1264 established his capital at Peking. By this time Koryu had acknowledged the Mongol suzerainty, and in 1265 the seed was sown that led to the Mongol attacks upon Japan.

A Koryu citizen, Cho I, found his way to Peking, and there having gained the ear of the Emperor, told him that the Mongol power ought to secure the vassalage of Japan. Kublai thereupon appointed two ambassadors to Japan, ordering them to proceed by way of Koryu, and to take a Koryu envoy along with them as well. The Koryu King named two officers to accompany the Mongols; but on putting to sea, the mission was driven back by a tempest, and the Koryu King thereupon sent the two Mongols back to Peking. The simple fact of the matter was that the Koryu Sovereign, although the reverse of a great statesman or ruler, had enough common-sense to perceive that he had absolutely nothing to gain, and probably a great deal to lose if Kublai Khan persisted in his project of “securing the vassalage of Japan.” For ages the proud­stomached islanders had shown themselves abnormally sensitive about their national dignity, to say nothing of their national independence; that they would ever acknowledge the suzerainty of the semi-barbarous Mongols without a most resolute and determined struggle was simply incredible. Koryu, at most times not unwilling to be regarded as a satellite of the great and enlightened Middle Kingdom, had itself only submitted to the Mongol domination after having been hopelessly beaten to her knees and subjected to a long succession of horrors and miseries absolutely unparalleled in the history of the unhappy Peninsula. She was now completely exhausted, poverty-stricken and famine-smitten; and whenever any faint signs of a recovery manifested themselves, hopes were quickly blasted by the rapacity of the Mongol officers and the exactions of the Peking Court. In a Mongol assault upon Japan, Koryu would infallibly have to bear the brunt of the struggle. As has been said, the Mongols were no sailors; and so Koryu would certainly be called upon to supply the naval armament and the transports and to contribute a military contingent. Koryu certainly did not desire any quarrel with Japan, nor did Japan wish any war with Koryu at this time. It is true that Japanese pirates kept harrying the Korean coasts; but Koryu had the best of reasons for knowing that these freebooters were in no way encouraged by the Japanese Government. Some half-dozen years before, the Bakufu had again willingly exerted itself to give Koryu the redress she demanded for the depredations of certain Japanese subjects, had punished the wrong-doers, and had made restitution of their booty.

In 1268 Kublai’s envoy, accompanied by a Koryu suite, at last made good the passage of the Straits and appeared in Dazaifu, where he handed over the original dispatch of 1266 to Shoni, the Bakufu representative there, who at once forwarded it to Kamakura by relays of express couriers. The Bakufu Councillors found its contents to be of such portentous moment that they did not venture to deal with it on their own initiative. It was promptly transmitted to Kyoto, for consideration by the Imperial Court.

The tenor of this fateful missive was as follows:—

“ (We) by the Grace and decree of Heaven,

“ Emperor of Great Mongolia,

“ Present a letter to

“ The King of Japan.

“We have pondered (over the fact) that from ancient time even the princes of small States have striven to cultivate friendly intercourse with those of adjoining territories.

“To how much greater an extent have Our ancestors, who have received the Middle Empire by the inscrutable decrees of Heaven, become known in numerous far-off foreign lands, all of whom have reverenced their power and majesty!

“When We first ascended Our throne, many innocent people in Koryu were suffering from (the effects of) continuous war. Thereupon we put an end to the fighting, restored their territories, and liberated the captives both old and young. Both the prince of Koryu and his people, feeling grateful towards Us, have visited Our country, and while the relation between Us and them is that of Lord and vassal, its nature is as felicitous as that of parent and child, and of this, no doubt, you, 0 King, are well aware.

“Koryu is situated on the eastern border of Our dominions, Nihon is near to it, and ever since communication was opened with Koryu intercourse has, from time to time, been carried on with China also.

“Since the commencement of Our reign not a single messenger of peace and friendship has appeared, and as We fear that your country is not fully acquainted with these facts, We have specially sent a messenger bearing a letter to inform you, O King, of Our sentiments,

“We beg that hereafter yoo, 0 King, will establish friendly relations with us so that the sages may make the four seas (the World) their home.

“Is it reasonable to refuse intercourse with each other? It will lead to war, and who is there who likes such a state of things!

“Think of this, 0 King!

“8th month of the 3rd year of Shi gen.”

When we consider the arrogant phraseology in which Chinese dispatches were usually couched, the tone of this special communication may at first blush appear comparatively mild and inoffensive. But as a matter of fact it must have been extremely galling to Japanese national pride. In the first place, while Kublai arrogated to himself the title of Emperor, he addresses the Sovereign of Japan as a mere King, thus placing him on a footing with the nominal ruler of Koryu, who was an acknowledged Mongol vassal. Then, in the event of a failure to respond to the overture, there was something more than a merely veiled threat of coercion. And the Kamakura authorities at least, must have been fully alive to the hideous travesty of history contained in the third paragraph of the missive.

Kublai’s dispatch threw the Court and the capital into the greatest perturbation. Kyoto was then in the midst of preparations for a great fête to celebrate Saga II’s fiftieth birthday. The preparations were at once abandoned, and Court and courtiers did nothing but hold councils as to how this dire emergency was to be faced. An answer was finally drafted, and sent on to Kamakura for transmission to the envoy. But the Bakufu Councillors were made of sterner stuff; and they decided not to hand the reply to the ambassador, but to dismiss him after a five or six months’ stay without so much as an acknowledgement of the receipt of the dispatch he had brought.

For some time previous to this the Japanese people had been living in a highly-wrought state of nervous tension and excitement. From 1260 onwards there had been a rapid and unceasing succession of comets, meteors, and other dire and menacing portents in the heavens, all interpreted as fore­boding impending national calamity and disaster. What greatly intensified the apprehension and terror with which these supposed harbingers of ruin were regarded was the fact that the nation was then in the throes of the last and greatest of the famous religious revivals of the thirteenth century. It was in 1254 that Nichiren had begun to preach his new, and what he insisted was the only true creed: and since that date Kamakura and the east of Japan had been in a constant state of ferment and turmoil. Exile, as a disturber of the public peace, had only served to intensify the influence of this, the first and the greatest of all Japanese street-preachers. There cannot be the slightest doubt that both by voice and by pen this great and remarkable man profoundly affected his contemporaries and the spirit of the age. Into any exhaustive discussion of his peculiar position or of his doctrines it is impossible to enter here. But what is especially to the point in the present connection is this:—In the first place he addressed himself not merely to the individual, but also to the national conscience. And then in calling the people to repentance for their sins, he foretold that the wrath of Heaven would speedily be visited upon them either in the form of the curse of civil war, or in the shape of the scourge of foreign invasion! In this he may merely have been drawing the bow at a venture. Bill it is much more probable that his commanding order of intellect enabled him to read the signs of the times aright.

As to what was happening over sea in China and Korea, it is perfectly plain that the Japanese were well apprised. Jn these days we hear a great deal about the ‘‘Yellow Peril.” In the thirteenth century Europe, it is true, was really exposed to such a menace in the form of the Mongols. But so was China, so was Korea, and so was Japan. China and Korea had either been or were being overwhelmed; and with the maritime resources of these two countries and the skill and experience of their sailors at the complete disposal of the Mongols, a much less acute and penetrating mind than that of Nichiren might readily presage that Japan’s immemorial record of a happy immunity from serious foreign aggression was nearing its close. Be this as it may, and whatever may have been the exact truth of the matter, it is incontestable that the vehement, turbulent Nichiren,—a strange compound of old Hebrew prophet, Dominican friar, and John Knox,—rendered his countrymen the highest and most essential of services. What above all things at this time was necessary was an intense feeling of nationality. The genuine religion of Gautama, whose central idea was the impermanency of all things and the vanity of human wishes, was essentially quietist and unaggressive, and was ill-fitted to foster any such feeling. But in breaking with the traditional Buddhism of the past at many points, and in many wavs, Nichiren introduced into religion a more robust and a most pronouncedly aggressive spirit. He was the first great religious leader in Japan who persecuted such as differed from him in points of doctrine; and he endeavoured to make his a national cult. Nichiren’s preaching undoubtedly did much to stimulate the spirit of nationality at a time when a crisis was impending which could only be met by the Japanese people standing shoulder to shoulder, and thinking and acting as if animated by one single soul. That there was such a thing as a spirit of nationality, or rather of race, in Japan before Nichiren began his crusade is quite true. But it was derived, not from Buddhism, which was essentially cosmopolitan, but from the traditions in the Kojiki and the Nihongi, and from the old Shinto cult. And for long, the fortunes of Shinto had been cast upon evil days.

Another great boon, for which Japan had to thank her lucky stars at this time, was the work of the great Yoritomo, and his highly capable successors, the much-abused Hojo Regents. Before Yoritomo’s date, to the average Bushi the immediate fortunes of his own sept or clan or feudal chief were of vastly greater consequence than those of the nation at large. If the Mongol Armada had appeared on the coasts of Kyushu just a century earlier, when the Empire was racked and riven by the deadly internecine strife between Taira and Minamoto, the very existence of Japan as a nation would have been in the direst jeopardy. Ten years later, when the Bushi had been subjected to the autocratic control of a single master mind, a patriotic Japanese bard might with the utmost truth and justice have bettered the proud vaunt of the gallant Bastard in King John:—

“This Nippon never did, nor ever shall,

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

Even when it first did help to wound itself.

Now that this Empire is at one again,

Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them; naught shall make us rue,

If Nippon to itself do rest but true.’’

And since the days of Yoritomo, Nippon had in the main remained true to herself. Since 1189 there had been only one great civil commotion in the Empire, and most fortunately that was most speedily allayed in a manner that made for the best interests of the nation. Had Toba II been successful in his struggle with Kamakura in 1221, the rule of the august descendants of the Sun-Goddess over an independent State might very readily have come to an end a single cycle later on. In spite of all his great talents and natural abilities, Toba II was no statesman; as soon as he had found leisure and adequate resources for indulging in his whims and hobbies, ecclesiastical architecture, poetising, football, horse-racing, wrestling, and, in plain and most uncourtly language, philandering and wantonly dallying with shirabyoshi, the prototype of the modern geisha, he would have consigned the dour and hard work of governance to incompetent favourites,—appointees of Lady Kane and the other great dames who were waxing rich by their traffic in official positions. With such soft-fibred gentry in control of the ship of State, the condition of the Empire would have speedily become more wretched than it had been even in the middle of the tenth century. Dissension, confusion, and anarchy would have been the almost infallible results long before 1281. And with these rife in the land, even the small Mongol expedition of 40,000 men of 1274 might very well have succeeded in establishing a permanent footing in Kyushu.

As it was, we find that in 1268 Kyoto was prepared to enter into parley with Kublai Khan. If the Bakufu had gone down before Toba II in 1221, it is not at all improbable that Kublai might very well have succeeded in securing at least the nominal vassalage of Japan. But with the Bushi united, and bending to one single strong will, the little Island Empire of the East could well and safely afford to present as resolute a front to the terrible and unconquerable Mongols as the fifty knights and twenty cross-bows of Neustadt had done in Austria seven-and-twenty years before. When the youthful Hojo Tokimune appealed in thrilling words to the Bushi, calling upon them to sink all petty, private differences, and to rally in defence of the national independence, he must have been assured that his appeal would fall upon no deaf ears for the very best of reasons. Tn the first place, during the Kamakura age there was such a thing as a national sentiment in Japan; and in the second, for long years the Kamakura Bakufu had been wont to have its instructions and orders to the Bushi implicitly obeyed. Even that perfervid and ultra­Imperialist historian of Japan, Rai Sanyo, is constrained to admit that “The repulse of the Mongol barbarians by Hojo Tokimune, and his preserving the dominions of our Son of Heaven were sufficient to atone for the crimes of his ancestors.” By “the crimes of his ancestors,” Rai Sanyo evidently refers Io the action of Tokimune’s grandfather, Yasutoki, and his great-grandfather Yoshitoki in the great crisis of 1221. But it needs no very profound exercise of intelligence to perceive that if Hojo Yoshitoki had quietly submitted in 1221, it would have been impossible for his descendant Tokimune, or perhaps for anyone else, to save the national independence of Japan sixty years later on.

It seems hopeless to recover the exact details of the next few years. That most invaluable Bakufu Chronicle, the Azuma Kagami, closes with the year 1266; and such contemporary Japanese records as we possess are exceedingly imperfect and unsatisfactory. In them we meet with no reference to certain important incidents which are recorded in the Great Korean History, the Tong-guk Tong-gam, and in contemporary Chinese records. Yet the outlines of the course of events may be traced. Between 126S and 1273 as many as five Chinese or Koryu missions appeared in Japan, none of which got beyond Dazaifu. To the second of these the Kyoto Court had drafted a reply, but the Bakufu did not choose to forward it to the envoys. Some authorities allege that this reply was actually delivered to the third mission without the intervention of the Bakufu; but this appears to be very doubtful. In 1269 two natives of Tsushima, called Tojiro and Yajiro, were captured by a Koryu vessel, and were sent on to Peking. Here they were kindly treated by Kublai, who showed them all the magnificence of his palace and his capital, reviewed his troops before them, and then set them at liberty, charging them to inform their countrymen of all they had seen, and to counsel them to submit. A year later these men and several others accompanied a subsequent Mongol mission to Dazaifu back to the Chinese capital, as Japanese envoys, but about this the contemporary Japanese records are silent. What is possible is that they were dispatched by the Bakufu agent in Kyushu (Shoni), ostensibly as envoys, but in reality as spies. The Chinese authorities allege that in the pour-parlers they entered into, they protested against the occupation of Kinchow in Koryu by the Mongols, and that the latter replied that the “occupation was only temporary in view of operations against Quelpart.” On this island of Quelpart the semi-independent kingdom of Tamna still survived; and here the remnants of the Koryu troops that had mutinied shortly before had taken refuge, and erected a great stronghold from which they were harrying the neighbouring districts. A Mongol commissioner bad in consequence been installed in the Koryu capital to deal with the prevalent disorder; and in 1272 Quelpart was actually reduced and garrisoned by Mongol and Koryu soldiers.

Immediately upon the failure of his first mission to Japan Kublai sent word to the Koryu monarch to begin building 1,000 vessels and collecting troops (40,000) and supplies for an invasion of the island realm. The King made answer that it was impossible for him to do so; but Kublai was resolute, and dispatched a commissioner to see that his orders were carried out, and to have the straits surveyed. Next year Kublai had rice-fields laid out at Pong-san, to raise supplies for the projected expedition, and instructed the Koryu King to furnish 6,000 ploughs and oxen and seed-grain. The King again protested his inability to do so, “but as the Emperor insisted he sent throughout the country and by force or persuasion obtained a fraction of the number demanded. The Emperor aided by sending 10,000 pieces of silk. The Koryu army had dwindled to such a point that butchers and slaves were enrolled in the lists.” What made the position of the King exceedingly difficult was the presence of certain renegade subjects at Kublai’s Court, who did everything they could to bring their Sovereign under the Emperor’s suspicion. About this time a horde of Japanese sea-rovers had established themselves on the Koryu coast, and the people, in fear of their lives, received them hospitably and gave them whatever they asked for. One of these Koryu renegades informed Kublai of this with embellishments of his own, and insinuated that Koryu was making friends with Japan, with a view to an invasion of China!

In 1273, 5,000 Mongols appeared in Koryu as the advance-guard of the force being levied for the invasion of Japan. But the pinch of famine was then so sharp in Koryu that Kublai had to forward supplies from China for the support of his troops, and had perforce to await the new rice-harvest before sending on the main body. Meanwhile he had kept on sending envoys to Japan; the last of whom had insisted on delivering his dispatches to the Emperor, or Shogun, in person. However, he had been at last induced to allow a copy of these dispatches to be transmitted to Kamakura; but he intimated that if a prompt answer was not forthcoming his master would at once appeal to the sword. As soon as ever the copy of the dispatch and the accompanying verbal message were communicated to Tokimune, he at once sent down orders to Dazaifu for the prompt deportation of the envoy and his suite. On learning of this, Kublai at last sent on the main body of the expeditionary force to join the 5,000 men already at the port of embarkation. In spite of all his missions to Japan, Kublai must have acquired but little real knowledge of the Island Empire and the sturdy and indomitable spirit of its inhabitants. Man for man, the Japanese Bushi were fully the equals of the very best Mongol troops in courage and endurance. In Japan at this time there must have been, at a very conservative estimate, at least 400,000 men who could be counted upon to fight to the death in defence of hearth and home and the national independence. And to reduce these 400,000 to slavery and subjection, Kublai fondly imagined that 25,000 of his Mongols would be sufficient! It is true that these were to be reinforced by 15,000 Koryu troops, in addition to the 8,000 Koryu sailors who manned the 900 craft that were to carry the fighting men over to the Japanese coast. But by this time Koryu had been brought so low that she had been forced to eke out her military rosters with slaves and butchers! And butchering inoffensive, unresisting kine and sheep was one thing; and slaughtering Japanese Samurai another and a vastly different affair!

At last, in November 1274, the first Mongol Armada directed against Japan put to sea. Its first effort was the reduction of the island of Tsushima. Here a grandson of the Taira Admiral, Tomomori, who had commanded and perished in the great sea-fight of Dan-no-ura (1185), was at the head of affairs. In history this grandson is known as So Sukekuni, for his father Tomomune, appointed ruler of Tsushima as a reward for his services in restoring order there in 1245, had assumed that family name of So which the gallantry of his descendants in maintaining this island outpost in the sea-way to Japan was destined to render so illustrious. With but 200 hastily mustered retainers So Sukekuni made a most gallant and intrepid stand against the overpowering force of the invaders; but as a mere matter of course he was overborne and lost his life. Nine days later (November 13) the island of Iki was attacked. Here also the Warden was of Taira descent, and here also the little garrison sold their lives right dearly. It goes without saying that both islands experienced to the full the atrocious barbarities that invariably attended a Mongol victory. From Iki the invaders stood over to Hako-saki Gulf, some miles behind which lay Dazaifu, the administrative capital of Kyushu. Here they arrived on November 18, and on the following day they landed at Hakata, and seized Imatsu, Sahara, Momomichi, Akasaka, and other places.

On the very day in which the hostile Armada entered Hakozaki Haven, a Dazaifu courier had arrived at the Roku- hara with intelligence of the disaster in Tsushima; and ten days later (November 27) yet another came in announcing the sad fate of Iki. As soon as these dispatches reached Kamakura, Hojo Tokimune at once sent instructions to the Shugo in the Sanyodo, Sanindo, and Kyushu, to get every landholder, whether a Bakufu vassal or not, under arms. Those who acted properly were to be rewarded; those who failed to respond to the summons were to be put to the sword. At the same time troops were to be hurried down from the Kwanto. But before these orders reached Kyushu, there was not a single living Mongol left upon the soil of Japan.

On the very day on which they landed (November 20) the invaders were vigorously attacked by the levies of Shoni, Otomo, Shimadzu, Kikuchi, Matsuura, and other Kyushu chieftains. But the Japanese soon found themselves at a disadvantage in several respects. In the first place in tactics; tor it was not the wont of the islanders to fight as units of any Bushi’s tactical formation, but as individuals. “It was the Bushi’s habit to proclaim his names and titles in the presence of the enemy, sometimes adding from his own record or his father’s any details that might tend to dispirit his foes. Then some one advancing to cross weapons with him, would perforin the same ceremony of self-introduction, and if either found anything to upbraid in the other’s antecedents or family history, he did not fail to make log reference to it, such a device being counted efficacious as a means of disturbing the hearer’s sangfroid. The duel lists could reckon on finishing their fights undisturbed, but the victor frequently had to endure the combined assault of a number of the vanquished comrades or retainers. Of course a skilled swordsman did not necessarily seek a single combat; he was ready to ride into the thick of the foe without discrimination, and a group of common soldiers never hesitated to make a united attack upon a mounted officer when they found him disengaged. But the general feature of a battle was individual contests, and when the fighting ceased, each Bushi proceeded to the tent of the commander-in-chief and submitted for inspection the heads of those he had killed.’’ In addition to this it must be remembered that at that time no Japanese officer had ever commanded in a general engagement, or even seen a general or any other kind of serious action fought. On the other hand, among the invaders, the Mongols at least had been fighting during the greater part of their lives; and in their long contest with the Chinese, in which there was a great deal of siege warfare, they had been constrained to supplement their own original tactics by the adoption of more scientific formations, and the employment of the best artillery of the time.

By “artillery” cannon are not necessarily meant; in fact the “Fire-Pao” sometimes used by them would appear to have been of the nature of rockets. But even the “Fire-Pao” played a comparatively insignificant part in Mongol warfare. It was the great slings and the great cross-bows that were really formidable. With these the Mongols were now well equipped, and their discharges inflicted terrible damage upon the Japanese long before their own missiles could be of any service. So much can lie readily understood; but what is really surprising is to learn that even the Japanese bow was completely outranged by the Tartar weapon! The latter, we are told, sent short shafts a full 240 or 250 yards. But at the Battle of Dan-wo-ura (1185) we hear of Japanese long and heavy bolts being sped that distance with deadly effect. It is true that these came from Kwanto bows, which were the strongest and longest and heaviest in Japan, and that now, on the Japanese side, it was not Kwanto bows but Kyushu bows that were in question. But indications are not lacking that even Kwanto archery was no longer what it had been during the great civil wars three generations before. We more than once find Tokivori, the fifth Hojo Regent, censuring the Bushi for remissness in attention to military arts and especially to perfecting themselves in the use of the bow. In 1262, when Tokimune, Tokiyori’s son, was a boy of eleven, at an exhibition of archery in Kamakura, the young Shogun expressed a wish to see some ogasakake or shooting at a small hat target. In Yoritomo’s time this was common enough; but now all the Samurai were so diffident of their skill that not a single one of them ventured to come forward. At last Tokiyori ordered his son to try what he could do; and the first shaft loosed by the boy got home in the centre of the mark. Fifty years before, there would have been scores of eager competitors.

In all these points, fighting in well-ordered formation, the possession of the best artillery of the age, of which the Japanese had absolutely none, and of bows—(shooting poisoned arrows according to some authorities)—which outranged those of the Kyushu men, the Mongols were vastly superior. Besides, as cavalry and mounted archers the Mongols were simply superb; and that a certain proportion of the invaders were not only mounted, but capitally mounted, seems very plain. In one thing, and in one thing alone, but that the most cardinal of all things, the islanders were not one whit inferior to the staunchest of the invaders. In sheer courage and gallantry the best Japanese Bushi had then and has now few equals and no superior. In spite of all their disadvantages the Japanese here and there did manage to get within striking reach of their foes; and although few of these heroes survived, they worked terrible havoc in the Mongol and Koryu ranks. Late in the afternoon the islanders drew back behind the protection of the primitive fortifications of Mizuki, raised for Tenchi Tenno by Korean engineers six centuries before. Here the Kyushu men could have undoubtedly hung on till the levies from Shikoku, and the west of the main island, and the Rokuhara and Kamakura troops arrived, when the Mongols in spite of all their death-dealing artillery would have infallibly been overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.

But the Mongol stomach for fighting had already, all unknown to the Japanese, been fed full to repletion. Before night closed in the experienced Koryu pilots had discerned signs of an approaching tempest; and the safety of the Koryu fleet was their first and most important consideration. The Koryu contingent of 15,000 men, with mere slaves and butchers among them, had been especially man-handled by the Japanese that day; for the Japanese had a contempt for the Koryu soldiery, who had over and over again been worsted by Mongols on their own soil. Besides, it had been comparatively easy for the Japanese levies to get into close combat with the Koryu men; and when it had become a mere question of man to man and sword against sword, the Koryu “ butchers ” had gone down as easily as the placid-faced patient oxen had been wont to go down before their axes in the Song-do slaughter­yards. What the exact train of events on this most fateful evening and night of November 19, 1274, in and on the shores of Hakosaki Haven were can possibly never be rescued from the obscurity of such imperfect and inadequate contemporary records as have survived. However, after laboriously wading through all accessible contemporary documents—whether Japanese, Korean, or Chinese—that seem to bear on the matter, I have been brought (of course subject to correction) to the following conclusions:—

Although the Mongols had inflicted terrible losses on the islanders, and had beaten them off, still there had been no rout. The Japanese now entrenched behind the Mizuki dyke were still vastly superior to the Mongols in numbers; and reinforcements might reach them at any moment. They knew the ground thoroughly, as the Mongols did not; and if the invaders encamped on the battle-field, a night attack was a good deal more than a mere possibility. In such a night engagement the invaders could reap no advantage from their artillery or the greater range of their bows; it would all be close-quarter sword work, and even fighting in orderly critical formations would be impossible. In fine, in a night engagement, the primitive Japanese tactics would have been terribly effective, for the Mongols would infallibly have had to meet their foes at close quarters and in individual sword contests. And what these island fanatics could accomplish with their heavy, two-handed razor-edged blades the Mongols had just experienced with lively disgust. In fact, although the Japanese loss had been far greater than that of the expeditionary force, the Mongol casualties on that day had been such as few Mongol armies of 25,000 men had sustained in a contest of eight hours during all the years they had fought in China. Plainly, the risk of a night attack could not be faced with prudence; especially so when experienced seamen declared that there were clear indications that a tornado was brewing. The best course was to re-embark and pass the night on board the vessels of the fleet.

So orders for a general re-embarkation were issued; and to cover that operation the great shrine of Hakozaki was fired, and several of the villages fringing the strand were set ablaze. Soon the Japanese behind the Mizuki embankment saw the evening sky ruddy with the lurid glow of wildly leaping and rapidly spreading flames, announcing the ruin of the altars of their gods, and of their own hearths and homes. However, the conflagration cannot have lasted long, for it must have been drowned out by the terrible deluge of rain accompanying the tornado which presently burst with devastating fury. All through the darkness of the night the Japanese cowered shelterless behind the Mizuki dyke; and when morning at last dawned they saw the last vessels of the invaders’ fleet running out through the mouth of Hakozaki Bay. One ship with about a hundred men on board ran aground on Shiga spit, which forms the northern horn of the Haven; and these unfortunates were promptly captured, carried to Mizuki, and there put to the sword. Many of the Koryu vessels foundered on the open sea; and when the remnants of the expedition rendezvoused at Hap harbour, it was found that its operations, so far, had cost it the lives of 13,200 men. Doubtless a large proportion of these perished by shipwreck; but it is undoubted that the Mongol casualties on Hakozaki strand had been exceedingly heavy. The resistance the invaders there met with had been so determined, that the leaders of the expedition must have had their eyes fully opened to the fart that the idea of conquering the islands of Japan with a force of but 40,000 men was ludicrously absurd.

Yet Kublai was very loath to take any such view of the matter; for his generals, by way of explaining away their ill success, appear to have attributed the disastrous result of the expedition to the accident of the fury of the elements. It is but natural that they should have made the most of their having successfully beaten off the Japanese assault and compelled the islanders to retire behind the Mizuki wall in the actual fighting. At all events, the Emperor evidently believed that the Japanese had got such a lesson that they would now be somewhat readier to respond to his diplomatic advances than they had hitherto shown themselves to be. Accordingly, yet another mission was dispatched; this time actually to summon the Sovereign of Japan to repair to Peking in order to do obeisance, as the Koryu King had done! On this occasion the envoys landed in Nagato, whence they were sent to Dazaifu. Hence in June 1275 four of the mission were sent on to Kamakura without being allowed to enter Kyoto on the way and a little later the Bakufu ordered yet another of the envoys to be brought up. Three or four months afterwards these were all executed outside the city of Kamakura, and their heads exposed on the public pillories.

Meanwhile Hojo Sanemasa, the first Kyushu Tandai, had been sent down to Dazaifu to put the island in a thorough state of defence; while the office of the Nagato Keigoban, which was soon to become the Nagato Tandai, was also organised. Kyushu and Nagato would be the likeliest immediate objectives of any invading armament; but other points were also provided for. The Mongols next time might make some eastern Koryu harbour their base, and crossing the Sea of Japan might attempt to assail Kyoto from the north. Accordingly the levies of the Hokurikudo were specially charged with the watch and ward of Tsuruga Haven. The invaders might also make their way up the Inland Sea; and so Harima was put under arms. Of course it was hopeless for any Japanese naval force to try to cope with the enemy on the high seas; but along the coasts and in inland waters, the small Japanese war junks might very well be expected to prove of great service. Accordingly we find a very strict maritime conscription of capable helmsmen and able seamen enforced at this date. At the same time everything possible was done to lighten the fiscal burdens of the people, and to economise the national resources.

All this, of course, was highly admirable. But there is another side to the shield. The notion that all Japanese are and have been at all times superhumanly or supernaturally patriotic, ready to sink every idea of self-interest at the national call, can easily be shown to be mistaken. The Japanese are pretty much the same as the other sinful sons of man; there have been and still are good and bad, brave men and cowards, self-seekers and true patriots among them, just as there have been and are among Britishers and Americans and all their “even Christians.” There are Bakufu dispatches still in existence charging Otomo, Shimadzu, and Shoni to see to it that the landed proprietors who had failed to rise in defence of the national liberties in November 1274 should be suitably dealt with! On the other hand, we find that not a few of those who had responded to the call had been actuated by the hope of glory and reward as much as by anything else, for we find some of the most prominent chiefs proceeding to Kamakura for the express purpose of pressing their claims to “recompense” there. In Japan, at all times, there have always been a few choice spirits who have looked upon the practice and exercise of virtue as its own sufficient and exceeding great reward. But in Dai Nippon, as in other countries, these spirits have rarely been in a majority; they have merely been the “little leaven” that has now and then succeeded in “leavening the whole lump.”

The behaviour of certain of the Court nobles in these years of great national stress was not specially praiseworthy. Their weak and temporising attitude towards the haughty and imperious Kublai has already been adverted to. On this great question alone they seem to have been unanimous, for mutual jealousy, faction, and intrigue were by no means silenced by the impending menace of foreign invasion. To modern Western readers one standing and chronic cause for contention may very well appear to have been a very trivial one. But the Kugé of the time was just as proud of his literary and polite accomplishments as the Bushi was of his courage and skill in arms. Sufficient reference has already been made to the ludicrously absurd importance assigned to ability in turning out Japanese “poems” of thirty-one syllables at the Nara, and more especially the Kyoto, Court. Any great and renowned master in this craft—of course, always provided that he belonged to the privileged blue-blooded aristocratic ring—could set, if not the whole decalogue, at all events its seventh commandment, at defiance with full assurance of impunity. Before a deftly-turned Tanka, the tradition was that female coyness, if not chastity, was bound to yield as readily as the walls of Jericho fell flat before the blasts of the priestly trumpets and the shouts of the Israelitish people, while even the highest Ministers were apt to set infinitely more store by a reputation as an arbiter of taste in the world of belles-lettres and polite accomplishments than by renown as a great and successful administrator of the affairs of the nation. In the great Imperial poetical contests, which were held periodically, as many as 1,000 or 1,500 candidates for distinction occasionally appeared. In 951 a special “Poetry Bureau” had been established, for the management of these poetical tournaments; and the practice had become to deposit the finer pieces then presented in the archives of this institution. From time to time, by Imperial command, anthologies from these were selected and published. Subsequent to the publication of the Manyoshu, down to 1205, eight of these official collections had been issued. In 1223 and 1250, 1267, and 1280, further new volumes were compiled. Now, the question as to who was to have the supreme distinction of selecting and editing the pieces for the latter two, and especially for the last of these new anthologies of Japanese verse had been, and was, a burning one among the Court nobles of Kyoto. It is true that when the storm of Mongol invasion actually burst, the Kugé were fain to drop their miserable internal squabbles for the nonce, and to devote all their time and energies to praying to the gods, and to religious ceremonies and functions. But during the years while the tempest was plainly brewing they continued culpably heedless of everything except their own petty interests and differences.

If certain of the Kugés were bad, the greatest and wealthiest of the monasteries were worse. As a plain matter of fact, it was in seasons of dire national calamity that the priesthood had invariably found its greatest advantage; and this supreme menace of foreign invasion was destined to be a veritable mine of wealth and influence to it. In 1264 the Mudera monks had burned and sacked the temples of Hi-ei-zan; and two months later the holy rabble of Hi-ei-zan had done as much for Mudera; while in the same year the priests of Nara, “Divine Tree’’ and all, had poured into the capital and had kept it in a state of seething disorder for days. And all this for the most worldly and grossly material, if not for the very slightest, of reasons. In the Kwanto the priesthood, while greatly honoured and respected, was confined to a pretty strict discharge of its own special and appropriate functions by the Hojos and their councillors. But even there, of late years there had been serious religious disturbances. But these must be placed on an entirely different footing from those of the armed debates of Hi-ei-zan, Mudera, and the Nara temples. The Kwanto religious disturbances had been the outcome of an honest difference of opinion merely; for there is nothing to show that either Nichiren or his Zenshu opponents were insincere in their beliefs, or were wantonly endeavouring to derive worldly fame or to amass filthy lucre from the propagation of their cult and creed. In truth, the religious ferment in the Kwanto was really a great national gain. The services rendered by Nichiren have already been discussed. But his Zenshu adversaries, who had exercised a great and healthy and quickening influence over the Kama­kura Bushi for more than two generations, had an exceedingly meritorious record,—vastly different .from that of the Kyoto and Nara priests. All the Hojos had been, or were, devout and fervent adherents of this robust sect ; and often had some of its abbots as their most trusted and trusty councillors. What was perhaps especially fortunate at this time was that some of these were Chinamen, who had a hearty dislike for the Mongol conquerors of their native land. Doryu (1214-1278) had been in Kamakura for the last thirty-one years of his life; and the year following Doryu’s death, Sogen arrived from Southern China (1279), and at once received the full confidence of Hojo Tokimune. Thus the young Regent was fully informed about the course of events on the continent and about the certainty of another Mongol attempt on Japan.

Although the five years’ leaguer of Saianfu had come to an end in 1273, it was not till 1279 that the complete overthrow of the Sungs in Fukhien and Kwangtung was effected. During all this time vast Mongol armies were needed in Southern China. And meanwhile Kublai continued to be seriously threatened by the vast power of his relative Kaidu from Turkestan. All this had a good deal to do with the postponement of a second and stronger expedition against the Island Empire. Again, the Mongols had no fleet of their own. It is true that on the Yellow River Kublai had as many as 15,090 craft; but they were small. “Each of these vessels, taking one with another, will require 20 mariners, and will carry 15 horses with the men belonging to them, and their provisions, arms, and equipments” Plainly, such boats were unserviceable for an over sea expedition. As for Koryu, she was utterly exhausted; and Kublai had to acknowledge that much when his vassal, the Koryu King, protested in 1275 that it was entirely impossible for him to equip another fleet. But by 1279 things in the peninsula had mended somewhat; and in that year the King was summoned to Peking to discuss the project of another armament against Japan. The result was that His Majesty returned to superintend the construction of a new Koryu fleet of 1,000 vessels, to levy crews for them, and also a subsidiary land force of 20,700 men, while later on a Mongol army 50,000 strong was marched overland to the point of embarkation.

But all this was only a part of Kublai’s preparations. With the complete overthrow of the Sungs he had become master of the great maritime resources of Southern China. How formidable these really were will readily appear by a reference to Yule’s Marco Polo, Bk. III., Ch. 1 : “Each of their great ships requires at least 200 mariners; some of them 300.” An immense Armada of the great ships was meanwhile being mustered in Zayton Harbour (Chinchew) in Fukhien, opposite Formosa; and on these a force given at 100,000 men embarked. This fleet was to sail up the coast, and form a junction with the Koryu armament, somewhere between Quelpart and Kyushu.

Meanwhile, Kublai made still one more effort to attain his end by diplomacy. In the summer of 1280 yet another Mongol mission arrived at Hakata, where its members were detained while their dispatches were sent on and submitted to the Court and the Bakufu. These dispatches announced the complete overthrow of the Sungs and summoned Japan to enter into friendly intercourse with the Mongol (Yuen) dynasty. All the notice that the Bakufu took of this was to send down prompt orders to Hakata for the immediate execution of the venturesome envoys. Nothing remained for Kublai now but to push on his preparations for the conquest of Japan apace.

By the spring of the following year, the Koryu fleet was thoroughly equipped and manned; but the Zayton armament was not yet fully ready to put to sea. However, the Northerners did not wait for its arrival; but at once stood over from Masampo to Tsushima. On this occasion the little island by no means fell such an easy prey to the invader as it had done seven years before. According to the Korean accounts, the Mongols at first obtained a success over the Japanese here; but when the latter were reinforced, the allies were beaten off with considerable losses. “The allied forces then went into camp, where 3,000 Mongols died of fever. General Hong was very anxious to retreat, but General Kim said, ‘We started out with three months’ rations, and we have as yet been out but one month. We cannot go back now. When the 100,000 contingent arrives, we will attack the Japanese again.”

At last the approach of the van of the great Southern Armada was announced, and the Koryu expedition thereupon put to sea again, and sailed out to meet it off the island of Iki. Iki was attacked by the Northerners on June 10; and after reducing it. they made for various parts of the Chikuzen coast between Munakata and Hakosaki Haven, in which they seized the islets of Genkai and Noko and the spit of Shiga, on which last position the Japanese would appear to have kept up a series of most desperate and determined assaults. It was on June 23 that the Northerners effected their landing. What exactly took place between that date and the great tornado of August 14-15, fifty-two days later on, it is impossible to say, for contemporary accounts of the actual military operations are meagre and confusing.

During these days the Southern Armada evidently kept on arriving in successive squadrons. That these various squadrons formed units of two great divisions appears very probable. Two Admirals-in-Chief held command; according to some accounts their dissension was a factor that greatly contributed to the ultimate failure of the expedition; according to others, the Admiral of the leading division became ill, and returned, and when the Admiral of the rear division did arrive he found matters in a precarious, if not actually des­perate, condition. Be that as it may, Hirado was evidently seized by one or other of the Southern squadrons; and a huge force of Chinese troops was disembarked at various points in Northern Hizen. The object of this is pretty plain. Here the Japanese had raised no specially strong defences; while the whole circuit of Hakozaki Haven, from Imatsu right round the bay, had been strongly fortified by forced labour since 1275. Behind their stone ramparts there, the islanders hung on doggedly and tenaciously in spite of all the fire of the trebuchets and similar artillery mounted on the Mongol fleet. From Northern Hizen an invading force might turn the strong Japanese works fringing Hakozaki Bay provided it overbore the resistance of the Japanese levies thrown forward to bar its advance. One great difficulty here is the total absence of dates. When these troops landed, and how long the Kyushu men held them in check, we simply do not know. But two points are sufficiently clear, and these are, first, that these Southerners were effectually held in check till the great tornado burst; and secondly that it was these Southerners who furnished by far the greater portion of the victims who were shortly afterwards immolated to expiate the overweening ambition of Kublai, and the patriotic resent­ment of Japan. And these hapless Southerners were mostly pure Chinese, who until a few years—in the case of some of them, indeed, a few months—before had been fighting the Mon­gols to the death! Naturally, their hearts could never have been in the task of this Japanese expedition at all. It is highly probable that their enthusiasm in the Mongol cause was no more intense than that of the Polish regiments was for Russia in the war of 1904-5. That they were of much less fighting value than the 46,000 or 47,000 Mongols on board the Koryu Meet in Hakozaki Haven scarcely admits of dispute. What is at all events clear is that down to August 14 they did not succeed in turning the Japanese position from Imatsu northwards. The main Japanese defence was undoubtedly at Hakata, and behind the long stone wall fringing Hakozaki Haven. But it must not be overlooked that this was only a mere section of a Jong curve, extending at least from Munakata into Northern Hizen which had not only to be held, but to be held effectually. That the invaders actually succeeded in breaking through this long defensive line during the fifty-two days before the great tornado does not appear. On the other hand the Japanese losses, whether in repelling attacks or delivering assaults—more especially on Shiga spit—were undoubtedly heavy.

Meanwhile, to the great surprise of the Mongols, the Japanese had actually begun to assume the offensive on the water. That they had been assiduous in equipping strong flotillas for operations on the coast and in the Inland Sea has been already stated; and this “mosquito” fleet presently began to give a very good account of itself. Some of its units were splendidly handled by such daring and intrepid captains as the brothers Ogano, and the two Konos, Michiari and Michitoki. The latter fell early in the struggle, but Kono Michiari kept on worrying the invaders till the end. Michiari came of a race of capable and gallant sea-captains; it was to the skill and seamanship of his grandfather Kono Michinobu that Yoshitsune owed no small part of his success in the extraordinarily brilliant Yashima-Dan-no-ura campaign of 1185. These four captains all distinguished themselves by their more or less successful efforts in cutting out and firing isolated Mongol ships; and finally compelled sections of the invading fleet to draw up alongside of each other, lash themselves together with cables, and lay planks from one deck to another so as to receive prompt reinforcements to deal with Japanese boarding parties.

Meantime the islanders not only hung on to their entrenchments successfully, but actually kept on fiercely assailing the Mongol camp on Shiga spit. At last, according to some ac­counts, the Mongols, finding they could make no headway at Hakozaki weighed and retired to the island of Taka in Northern Hizen. But this statement must be taken with caution; it is probable that it was the Southerners who really occupied Takashima.

The Southern Armada is said to have numbered as many as 3,500 vessels. Seeing that a Koryu fleet of 1,000 ships was sufficient for the transport of 20,700 Koreans and 50,000 Mongols, a portion of whom must have been cavalry, and that 100,000 men was the extreme strength of the Zayton armament, and that the Zayton ships were then by far the largest afloat anywhere, it is difficult to understand why as many as 3,500 craft should have been necessary to bring up the Southern Chinese. But a reference to Marco Polo, Bk. 3, Chap. 1, may help to elucidate matters somewhat. “Every great ship has certain large barks or tenders attached to it, carrying 50 or 60 mariners apiece. Each ship has two or three of these barks, but one is bigger than the others. There are also some ten small boats for the service of each great ship.... And the large tenders have their boats in like manner.’’ Thus, although there may very well have been as many as 3,500 craft employed in work on the Japanese coast, the “great ships” of the Armada need not have numbered than 300 or 400.

Whatever may have been the actual vicissitudes of the seven weeks’ fighting before the great tornado of August 14-15, it is plain that the invaders had so far won no great strategic advantage and made but little headway in breaking down the stubborn Japanese defence. Then on August 15 all hopes of a successful issue to the expedition had to be abandoned by such of the invaders as survived the terrible cata­strophe of that eventful day. Here, again, as regards exact details we must be content to remain more or less hopelessly in the dark. As regards the awful hurricane that then burst, some accounts say it blew from the north, others from the north-west, and yet others from the west. All agree that its direction was inshore; and from all of them we can infer that it was the Southerners who were the chief victims of its fury. The Koryu contingent proper, we are told, got back with a loss of 8,000 men (forty per cent.); and there is no special reason why the Northern Mongols on the Koryu vessels should have suffered more severely. The Korean accounts have been thus epitomised. “A storm arose from the west, and all the vessels made for the entrance of the harbour together. The tide was running in very strong and the ships were carried along irresistibly in its grip. As they converged to a focus at the mouth of the harbour a terrible catastrophe occurred. The vessels were jammed together in the offing, and the bodies of men and broken timbers of the vessels were heaped together in a solid mass so that a person could walk across from one point of land to another on the mass of wreckage. The wrecked vessels carried the 100,000 men from Kiang-nam (i.e. South of the Yang-tse Kiang.)” The “harbour” here probably means Imari Gulf in Northern Hizen, the entrance to which is protected by Takashima.

A certain number of the Chinese established themselves on this island; and here they were presently assailed by Shoni Kagesuke, who either put them to the sword or took them prisoners. Some accounts say that 3,000 prisoners were taken to Hakata, and all massacred there except three who were spared for the purpose of carrying an account of the fate of the expedition back to China. The large force of Southerners landed at various points in Hizen, to turn the left flank of the Japanese at Hakozaki, presently also fell a prey to the islanders. According to the Chinese annals 10,000 or 12,000 of these were made slaves.

Great and thorough as had been the failure of this second attempt on Japan, Kublai was not at all disposed to let the matter rest there; and he at once began to concert measures for a third great armament. But the Mongols began to murmur. The strength and efficiency of Mongol hosts lay principally in their cavalry; and in these over-sea expeditions the Mongol cavalry had been really and truly confined to the role of “horse-marines!” And the Mongol horsemen were thoroughly tired of that sort of service. On the advice of a certain Korean, Kublai then resolved to send none but Koreans and Southern Chinese; and forwarded instructions to the Koryu King to begin to muster men and supplies. But Koryu was exhausted, and Kublai's Ministers protested strongly against the project, so it bad to be postponed, and when Nayan’s great revolt occurred in 1286 Kublai’s attention was fully engaged with affairs at home for the nonce.

The appearance of the great Armada ought not to have taken the Japanese people by surprise, for as early as March 1280 Tokimune had issued a proclamation stating in the clearest language that the Mongols would certainly attack the Empire again in the May of the following year (1281). Yet. when belated intelligence of the fall of Tsushima reached Kyoto, the consternation of the Court and the citizens was extreme; and the panic soon spread to the populace of the surrounding provinces. One cause of this was a baseless rumour that the invaders had landed in Nagato, had overborne all resistance, and were advancing hot foot upon the capital. But the chief cause was sheer, crass, unreasoning superstition; scaremongers were busy seeing baneful signs and omens in the heavens and elsewhere—even in their rice-pots. During the war of 1904-5, all this was impossible in Japan; mainly be­cause the purely secular schoolmaster had been abroad in the land for more than a generation before that great struggle. But in 1281 such popular education as there was, was entirely and completely in sacerdotal hands; and to the more unworthy members,—whether in intelligence or moral spirit,—of a special caste that has always common and corporate interests of its own to serve, the great foe has always been not superstition, but science and reasoned and reasonable knowledge. In short, it was to the interests of the priests to exert themselves not to allay, but to intensify the panic and commotion. One result of all this was that all work and business were suspended, and the transportation of rice and other supplies to the army in Kyushu temporarily interrupted, while even the capital itself began to suffer from the dearth of supplies in its two great markets. As has been already said, the trustworthy Kwanto records close with 1266. Such contemporary chronicles as we have were mainly compiled in Kyoto. If these devoted a tithe of the attention they have given to religious functions and ceremonies and observances to the real, practical, stressful, gallant hand-to-hand work meanwhile being transacted on the Chikuzen and Hizen sea-board, how truly grateful we should be! But of the heroes who were doing the real work; of the men who were “withal keeping (the equivalent for) their powder dry,” we hear very little indeed from these most courtly and ghostly-minded of “Dryasdusts.” It is abundantly plain that the whole nation, from the ex-Emperors downwards, passed most of the time during the great crisis on its knees before the gods imploring them for the overthrow of the invader. “Throughout the length and breadth of the land could be heard the tapping and roll of temple drums, the tinkling of sacred bells, the rustle of the sleeves of vestal dancers, and the litanies of priests; while in thousands of temples the wood fire used in the goma rite was kept burning, and the smoke of incense ascended perpetually.”

All these ghostly serviced had to be paid for, of course; and, as it at once became a generally accepted article of faith that the great tornado had been expressly sent in gracious answer to their orisons, the priests promptly maintained that their merits in saving the national independence had been even greater than those of the warriors who had fought with merely carnal weapons. And to judge from the measure of recompense awarded to the ecclesiastics and to the soldiers respectively, it is tolerably clear that this claim was admitted by Court and Bakufu alike. “The danger is past, and the god is forgotten.” But, according to the general view, the danger was by no means past. Twenty years later, in 1300 or 1301, the appearance of a mysterious fleet of 200 sail off Koshi-kijima in Satsuma threw the Empire into great consternation; and the priests in many temples were then instructed to con­duct services for the overthrow of the invader. And during these intermediate years there had been a continued series of alarms. During most of the time the Kyushu troops, or certain portions of them, had been kept under arms, while early in the last decade of the thirteenth century the excitement seems to have been almost as great as it had been in 1274 or 1281. The Bakufu had then ascertained that by Kublai’s orders preparations were actually being made in Korea for another Japanese expedition. Kublai died in 1294; and his successor Timur at once ordered these preparations to be abandoned. He also sent priests as envoys to Japan, for when the mission of 1284 had been massacred, the priest accompanying it had alone been spared. One of these priests, at first confined in prison in Tzu, was ultimately naturalised as a Japanese, and obtained very high Church preferment, first in Kamakura and afterwards in Kyoto. It was in 1299 that this Ichi-nei arrived in Japan; but even he could not disarm the suspicion of the islanders for a long time. Down to the end of the first decade of the fourteenth century at least, the Kyushu men were kept harassed by Bakufu injunctions to keep on the alert and be fully prepared to deal with foreign invasion.

The ablest of modern Japanese historians has said not only wittily, but wisely and with perfect truth, that the “Great Wind” of August 14-15, 1281 did a good deal more than wreck and ruin the Mongol Armada merely. Before two generations had passed, it had become abundantly clear that it had really shaken the fabric of Hojo greatness very rudely indeed. The important question of rewarding meritorious services in repelling the invaders had to be faced; and this was truly a difficult problem to deal with. For the last few centuries Japanese wars had all been civil wars; and in these the confiscated possessions of the vanquished had provided ample recompense for the victors. But the repulse of the Mongols had not put a single extra yard of soil at the disposal of the Bakufu; and as it had been finder the strain of keeping the military forces of the nation in general, and of Kyushu in particular, on a war footing for long years, its resources had been greatly exhausted. The claims of the religieux whose prayers had been so efficacious, and whose orisons were still necessary, were first dealt with, and, all things considered, treated with great liberality. Temple domains that had been forfeited were in many cases restored; mortgaged temple estates were relieved from their burdens, and grants of additional lands made. In not a few cases this bore hardly on military men who had become possessed of former temple lands sometimes fairly and justly enough, for at this time the commissioners were very rigorous in their land-survey and in their inspection and interpretation of title-deeds and mortgages. When the monasteries and shrines were finally settled with, it was found that there was little left for the military men, some of whom had meanwhile been despoiled of their holdings, or part of them, for the benefit of the Church.

A Tandai had been installed in Kyushu in 127.5; and now the administration of the great southern island was assimilated to that of the Rokuhara, the three Shu go, Shoni, Otomo, and Shimadzu, being appointed assessors. For years they had to struggle with the reward question to very little purpose. Presently we find Kamakura again refusing to entertain claims or petitions or suits for recompense there, and referring them all back to Kyushu; and finally, near the end of the century, declaring the whole question to be closed. All this caused profound dissatisfaction with the Bakufu in many quarters in Kyushu; where, meanwhile, the local landowners were harassed with the burden of keeping the coast defences in repair, and their vassals frequently under arms at Hakata and other points remote from their own estates. Nor was this all. The conduct of the Hojo Tandai and his favourites was the reverse of satisfactory in some respects, especially in the administration of law. Besides, they began to abuse their position in order to amass manors and other kinds of wealth. Hojo Tokimune had died at the age of 34 in 1284; and with his death the Bakufu entered upon its downward course. Some of the Hojos in Nagato, in Shikoku, in Harima, and in Echigo presently began to give rise to complaints similar to those made by the Kyushu gentry, although it is fair to say that there were still many upright and able administrators among these. For the best part of a generation after 1281, the nation continued to be haunted with the dread possibility of another Mongol invasion; and the sense of the absolute need of concord and unity to meet such a contingency probably did much to constrain the military class to bear hardships and occasional injustices with an unusual degree of patience.

The seventh Hojo Regent, Sadatoki, was a boy of fourteen when he succeeded his father Tokimune, in 1284. The true history of Sadatoki and his times can perhaps never be written; such contemporary records as remain are fragmentary and silent on points of vital interest to the modern historian, while most subsequent accounts can be shown to be so inaccurate in other sections of the narrative where original authorities are available for checking them that we cannot place any great confidence in their assertions. This is all the more to be regretted inasmuch as the period from 1284 to 1311 is an important one.

However, in the midst of much that is obscure, two points are tolerably clear. In the first place the Bakufu machine was no longer the wonderful efficient instrument of administration it had been in the days of Oe Hiromoto and Miyoshi Yasunobu. And in the second, the Hojos were no longer the happy and united house they once had been. Even in 1272. one of the Rokuhara Tandai and several of his relatives and partisans in Kamakura had been executed for plotting against Tokimune and the Bakufu. Now. just after the death of Tokimune in 1284, the Southern Rokuhara Tandai. Tokikuni, was suddenly recalled, exiled to Hitachi, and soon after put to death there. And before the death of Sadatoki in 1311, there had been several fatal internecine brawls between certain of his Hojo relations, occasioned by the competition for power and place.

Again, among the Bakufu councillors, some of whom were now mere nonentities, were certain who were playing for their own hands. In 1285 the most influential men in Kamakura were Adachi Yasumori and Taira Yoritsuna. The former was Sadatoki’s maternal grandfather; the latter was his Shithuji or Naikwanryo, which may be translated either as First Minister or Major Homo of the Regent. The rivalry between these two was intense. Just at this time, Adachi’s son Munekage adopted the family name of Minamoto instead of Fujiwara which his house had hitherto borne. His grandfather had been a relative of Yoritomo; and Taira Yoritsuma now insinuated that the Adachis were aiming at nothing less than the Shogunate. The accusation was listened to; and the result was the all but complete extirpation of the Adachi clan. Eight years later Taira Yoritsuna’s own fate overtook him. His own eldest son accused him of aiming at the regency; and, together with his second son and over forty retainers, Yoritsuna was made away with. Three years later, there was yet another similar tragedy in Kamakura, the victim on this occasion being Yoshimi, a descendant of Yoritomo’s brother Noriyori. Although the direct line of Yoritomo had long been extinct, the name of the Minamoto septs was legion; and many of them were beginning to chafe at having to bend to the will of the Hojos, who had originally been mere Minamoto vassals.

Down to 1293, Sadatoki remained under the tutelage of his first Minister Taira Yoritsuna. During the ensuing eight years (1293-1301) he seems to have taken the work of his office seriously. It is probable that he was a man of clear head and strong will, and that he really set great store upon having the administration honestly and efficiently conducted. But on the other hand details were irksome to him; to “toil terribly” in the fashion of Yasutoki and Tokiyori was to him merely a counsel of perfection, unless indeed in connection with questions of cardinal importance. Accordingly a brief eight years of the strenuous life proved more than ample for him; and in 1301, at the early age of one-and-thirty, he shaved his head and “entered religion.” His cousin (and later on son-in-law) Morotoki, a young man of twenty-six, then became nominal Shikken, and he is usually counted as the eighth of the Hojo Regents (1301-1311). But as a matter of fact. Moritoki died a few months before Sadatoki; and during his regency some of his relatives were from time to time associated with him in his office, while Sadatoki continued to be consulted on all important issues.

Tn 1303, two years after Sadatoki had become a priest, his eldest son Takatoki was born to him by the daughter of a younger brother of that Adachi Yasumori who had perished in 1285. Meanwhile the confidence of Sadatoki had been won by Nagasaki Enki, a nephew of Taira Yoritsuna; and before his death in 1311 Sadatoki entrusted these two men with the care of Takatoki, it being understood that the boy was to become Shikken on reaching years of discretion. During the next five years as many as four Hoj0 relatives were at one time or another titular Regents; but the real power was in the hands of Takatoki’s guardians, and more particularly in those of Nagasaki Enki. Then when Takatoki was made Regent in 1316 at the age of thirteen, this unscrupulous, avaricious, and utterly corrupt lay-bonze became virtually supreme in Kamakura. By this cunning old man Takatoki’s education was not so much neglected as conducted in a manner that could not possibly have been worse, for the prime object plainly was not to fit, but utterly to unfit the youth for the discharge of the onerous duties of his office and position. At the same time there was no great need for Nagasaki to cudgel his priestly brains to devise means for attaining his object, for that could easily be compassed by the commonplace and hackneyed device of ambitious Japanese underlings, who find their own account in unduly magnifying their master. He could most plausibly insist that the lineal Head of the great House of Hojo that had saved the national existence of the Empire thirty years before, and which had regulated the succession to the Imperial seat for nearly a century, should be treated in a manner consonant with his dignity. Now, since 1219 there had been a succession of Kyoto civilian Shoguns in Kamakura, all of them without exception being mere gilded figure-heads and political ineffectualities. But they had all unknown to themselves contrived to do much to prepare the way for the fall of the Hojos, for thanks to them and their attendants Kyoto standards of judging things had become dominant in the Kwanto. Sadatoki’s way of living had been almost as magnificent as that of his nominal lord; and hence when Nagasaki insisted that Takatoki should be reared like a young Shogun, there were no murmurers.

The Bakufu now proceeded gaily and rapidly along that downward course on which it had entered a generation before. The tendency of things presently became so obvious that in 1318 we find the Emperor Hanazono passing Bome very caustic remarks upon the shortcomings of the Kwanto administration; and the Court nobles openly congratulating themselves upon the approaching end of their long eclipse by upstart military swaggerers. The chief hope of the Court party lay in the possibility of serious dissensions among the military men themselves. During the last twenty or thirty years the Hojo and their officers in Kyushu had given serious offence to non Bakufu vassals like the Kimotsuki of Osumi and others; and many non-Bakufu vassals in other parts of the Empire had had only too good cause to complain of aggression and spoliation by Hojo chicanery.

But even among the Bakufu vassals proper, there was a rapidly gathering and spreading sense of discontent. In the last two decades of the thirteenth century many had fallen into such straits that they could neither pay their taxes nor discharge their other obligations to the authorities. The general excuse for this was that they had been hopelessly impoverished by the burdens of national defence. Such indeed might have been the case in Kyushu and the West; but in the Kwanto at least the great cause was simply the extravagance occasioned by the “fast” and fashionable life of Kamakura. To enable them to ruffle it there, needy Samurai mortgaged their holdings to wealthy neighbours, to Kamakura merchants and money-lenders and even to farmers who had saved money, As the interest ranged from sixty to ninety-six per cent., the whole income of the estate often went to the mortgagee; and foreclosure suits were incessant. After a great deal of patch­work legislation, in which laws were now and then revoked after a few weeks’ trial, the Bakufu finally had resort to the desperate expedient of a Tokusci in 1297. By this so-called Act of Benevolent Government, suits for the recovery of interest were forbidden, mortgages cancelled, and the future sale or mortgage of Samurai holdings interdicted. There were certain saving provisions in the enactment; but as its general effect was to strike at the root of all credit, it soon proved economically and socially disastrous. It mortally offended the capitalists, among whom there were Samurai; and it made the raising of* money more difficult to needy borrowers. Jn a short time the poorer Samurai were more deeply involved in debt than ever; for extant legal documents conclusively show that subterfuges for evading the law were readily devised. The only hope of relief for this huge and ever-swelling mass of Samurai penury and indebtedness lay in 'being on the victorious side in a great civil war. when there would be confiscated manors to dispose of.

In the endeavour to alleviate the economic distress of its vassals, the Bakufu, between 1284 and 1297, had stultified itself by the issue of many temporising regulations, which being often at serious conflict with each other had introduced a fatal element of uncertainty into the exact state of the law. A similar flaw is only too apparent in its legislation in connection with several other matters, Most Japanese historical text-books allude to the great crop of law-suits that sprang up in the years following the repulse of the Mongols. The chief reason is not far to seek; it lay in the incompetence of the Kamakura legislators. In the early days of the Bakufu, judgements were often written on a single sheet of paper and they rarely extended beyond a compass of five or six pages. Now they often cover scores of sheets; and, with their auxiliary documents and what not, occasionally assume the proportions of respectable volumes! Presently we hear of suits having been instituted, and petitions filed, years before they were decided or dealt with. And even when judgement was finally given, it was sometimes found to be no real decision at all. It was “ambiguous”; and left the litigants exactly where they were before the suit was instituted, in every respect except that they were both so much the poorer by the amount of the bribes they had surreptitiously forwarded to the judge. It was the result of one of many cases of this description that precipitated the impending fall of the Hojo and the Kamakura Bakufu.

The Ando family, descended from Abe Yoritoki, was settled at Tsugaru, and for the last hundred years an Ando had been Yezo Kwanryo; in other words, Bakufu Lieutenant to deal with the Ainu in what is now the Hokkaido. About 1319 or 1320 a succession dispute broke out in the Ando family; and both parties appealed to Kamakura. There Nagasaki Takasuke had succeeded his father, Nagasaki Enki, in power, and in ascendancy over his friend and playmate, Hojo Takatoki. One great article of Takasuke’s creed was to “take his good thing wherever he found it”; and accordingly he most impartially and large-heartedly accepted the kind offerings of all parties to this Ando family succession dispute. In due course of time, after a decent and proper volume of water had been allowed to run under the bridges, a decision was at last “handed down” to these rustic litigants. The respective merits of the cases, as measured by the value of their “thank­offerings,” were so nearly equal that the only possible judgement was an “ambiguous” one. Thereupon the disputants proceeded to settle the matter by force of arms; and at last 1he Bakufu had to dispatch a considerable force to restore order in Mutsu, where Ando Goro was getting the upper hand, This chieftain thereupon summoned a large body of Ainu auxiliaries from Yezo, and with these and his own clansmen he effectually held the Hojo army in check. The Bakufu tried to keep all this as quiet as possible; but the news leaked out, and produced a profound impression, especially in Kyoto. The Court nobles were jubilant; for the episode served to reassure them that in their anticipation of the speedy fall of the Bakufu the thought was something more than the mere child of the wish. Certain of them soon began to plot; but it was not till 1324 that the Hojos got to know of this. In that year it was discovered one Hino brother had actually been in Kamakura on a secret mission tampering with the discontented element there; and that another had been engaged in similar work in the Home Provinces and Kyoto, where two Minamoto captains from Mino. Toki, and Tajimi had been won over. These latter had to commit suicide; and one of the Hinos was banished to Sado, the Emperor’s intercession proving sufficient to secure the release of the other.

The elements for an explosion which might blow the Hojos if not the Bakufu, to the moon, had been accumulating for long; and it was rapidly becoming a mere question of applying the match. As it was the Emperor Daigo I who fired the mine, it now becomes necessary for us to direct our attention to the antecedent course of events in Kyoto.