JAMES MURDOCH' HISTORY OF JAPAN FROM THE ORIGINS

TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE IN 1542 AD

 

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FALL OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU.

 

THE will of Saga II provided that future Emperors were to be taken alternately from the respective lines of his two sons, Fukakusa II and Kameyama, while the bulk of his landed property was to be assigned for the support of ex-Emperors. At the death of Saga II in 1272 both these sons of his were alive. Fukakusa II after a nominal reign of twelve years, had abdicated at the age of sixteen, and was now ex-Emperor, while Kameyama, then twenty-three years old, was on the throne, and for the next two years he directed affairs in person. He abdicated in 1274, in favour of his own son Uda II, then a boy of eight; and during this reign of twelve years Kameyama still continued to be the real Sovereign. In 1287, Uda II, in terms of his grandfather’s will, made way, not for a brother or a son of his own, but for his cousin, Fushimi, then thirteen years of age,—an event which threw the administration into the hands of Fushimi’s father, Fukakusa II, who had hitherto been eclipsed by his brother Kameyama.

Subsequent developments will be best elucidated by a genealogical chart, and a few dates and figures.

It will be observed that the five sovereigns between Kameyama and Daigo II were mere boys at their accession, the only exception being Nijo II, who was seventeen. As a matter of fact not one of these was allowed to administer the Empire while titular Sovereign, the direction of affairs being in the hands of one or other of the ex-Emperors. Furthermore, it will be noted that at one time, from 1298 to 1304, there were actually no fewer than five of these ex-Emperors alive! It was between these that disputes arose,—not between the Emperors, who were little better than pawns in the game, the nominal occupation of the throne by the son or grandson enabling the father or grandfather to exercise the Imperial authority. Then there was frequent discord over the management and disposal of the estates designated by Saga II’s will for the support of the ex-Emperor. Moreover, the fortunes of the Court nobles depended greatly upon their being attached to the service of the line in power; and so the Huge became split into two great antagonistic factions—and sometimes more—which kept up a bitter warfare of intrigue against each other. How the bitter­ness of their relations was still further intensified by literary squabbles has already been alluded to.

If it had been the custom for the Sovereign to remain in occupation of the throne for the term of his natural life after bis accession, occasions for disputes would have been minimised. But abdication at an early age was the invariable practice; and Saga II’s will had said nothing as to the length of the tenure of the Imperial dignity by future Emperors. Another fatal defect was that nothing about primogeniture was said in that most unlucky document; and hence even in one and the same line we meet with the appearance of rival candidates and their supporters! Two centuries before such a state of things would infallibly have occasioned a great succession war, and very possibly a whole series of such contests. Even now, although these perennial disputes were always temporarily composed without the effusion of blood, it was by the power of the sword that they were really settled, for in the last resort it was the Bakufu that pronounced judgement. The intervention of Kamakura was being continually solicited by one or other of the rival lines or their partisans; generally of course by the line that for the time being was subsisting on the scanty fare of expectation. Of course it is only too plain that Bakufu officials of the stamp of the Nagasakis must have been greatly delighted with such a situation, and have blessed the gods for inspiring Saga II. with such a happy idea as that “will” of his.

Naturally enough both lines endeavoured to profit as much by, and suffer as little as possible from, the effect of the provisions of Saga II’s well-meant and most affectionate legacy of mischief to his favourite sons and to the Empire at large. Evasions, or attempts at evasion, of the purport of the “will” were only to be expected. The first occurred in 1274 when Kameyama abdicated in favour of his own son, Uda II, instead of that of one of his nephews, the sons of his elder brother and predecessor, Fukakusa II. As has been said, Fukakusa’s turn came in 1287, when his own son Fushimi became Emperor; and in 1298 he made an effort to pay off his brother Kameyama in his own coin, by getting the Imperial succession transferred to a grandson of his own instead of to a grandson of Kameyama. Against this the Kameyama, or junior line, protested strongly, and after several appeals to Kamakura got the Bakufu to depose Fushimi II in 1301, and install Nijo II, a grandson of Kameyama’s, on the throne.

Exact details of the matter are obscure and conflicting; but it seems that it was at this time that Hojo Sadatoki decided that the tenure of the throne was to extend to ten years, unless previously determined by the death of the occupant.

Nijo II died in 1308, and he was duly succeeded by a representative of the Fukakusa II or senior branch, in the person of Hanazono, who abdicated at the end of the ten years term. The new Sovereign, Daigo II, of the Kameyama, or Junior branch, was the brother of Nijo II; and was the first Emperor for long who had really attained to manhood before his accession. At that date, 1318, he was thirty-one years of age. Yet, even so, he was not permitted to direct affairs in person at first; for the first four years of his reign it was his father Uda II who ruled. At this point there was another irregularity. A Crown Prince was designated; and this Crown Prince, who should have been taken from the Senior line, was a son of Nijo II, and consequently a nephew of Daigo II. This Crown Prince Kuninage, died in 1326, and Daigo II wished to have him replaced by his own son, Prince Takanaga. which would have been a still more glaring infraction of Saga II’s “will.” Now a year or two before this the Hino plot against the Hojos had been discovered and dealt with; and Daigo II had been suspected of complicity in that intrigue, and had found it advisable to disavow all knowledge of it and to protest his good will towards Kamakura. But the Bakufu remained suspicious; and now in 1326 it refused to fall in with Daigo II’s views, and had Kazuhito, a son of Fushimi II of the Elder line, nominated Heir Prince.

This decision of the Bakufu was strictly correct, if regard was to be had to the terms of Saga II’s will. But Daigo II knew something of the history of the Imperial line and of the Empire over which his ancestors had not merely reigned, but ruled till times not so very remote! Besides, one of the three counsellors who commanded his deepest confidence was the very first and greatest living authority on the history of Japan. This was one of the three later “Fusa” (Nochi no Sambo), as Yoshida Sadafusa, Madenokoji Nobufusa, and Kitabatake Chikafusa were called. The last of these, Kitabatake, is really one of the great characters in the history of his country, for he played a leading part in the annals of his own time, where he was illustrious on the battle-field as well as at the council­board; while his writings were destined to exercise a profound influence upon the political thought and theory of Japan at various times, and especially in the nineteenth century. Kitabatake had evidently not forgotten the words of Shotoku Taishi: “In a country there are not two lords; the people have not two masters. The Sovereign is the master of the people of the whole country. The officials to whom he gives charge are all his vassals. How can they, as well as the Government, presume to levy taxes on the people?” The actual conditions at that time were a negation of any such political philosophy. No doubt many causes had been at work to bring about the decay of the power and prestige of the Sovereign; but one of the greatest and most immediate had been the will of Saga II. That unfortunate and fatal document must henceforth he set aside at all hazards; and the succession to the throne confined to a single line. To surrender it to the Senior line, as would have to be done in 1328 or 1329, would be to surrender it to a boy, for the Prince-Imperial would be no more than fifteen years at that time and the Insci system would have to be reverted to again. The only thing was for Daigo II to endeavour to cling to power as long as life lasted, or at all events as long as he could; and meanwhile to concert measures for the overthrow of the Hojos and the domination of the military caste. The prospects of doing so seemed neither desperate nor even remote, for meanwhile it became plainer and plainer that the Kamakura Bakufu was engaged in digging its own grave.

In the Kwanto things were indeed going from bad to worse with startling rapidity. In 1326 Hojo Takatoki, then twenty-three years of age, became ill and “entered religion.’’ He transferred the Regency to his own younger brother Yasuie, and to Kanazawa Sadaaki; but they threw up their offices in a few weeks, since they found that Nagasaki Takasuke, who was the real governing power, would consult them in nothing. Thereupon Akabashi Moritoki and Hojo Koresada were made joint Shikken, but Nagasaki’s influence continued supreme, for his ascendancy over Takatoki was complete.

Meanwhile Takatoki’s conduct was getting more and more deplorable. Monk as he had become, he still had between thirty and forty concubines; and what time was not devoted to these was mainly given up to music and dancing and dog­fights. Takatoki summoned dengaku players in crowds from all parts of the country, placed them under the care of his officers, and made them entertain guests with their performances. After any brilliant performance, the spectators headed by Takatoki himself often took off their robes and threw them to the actors, and sometimes the hall was filled with piles of garments. These were later redeemed by money­presents; and huge sums were squandered in this way. Nor were Takatoki’s kennels less expensive. He had a mania for dogfights; and certain regular days of the month were fixed for these encounters. Daimyo who wished to curry favour would send up presents of a score of the largest and fiercest hounds they could collect. These animals were fed on fish and birds and decked with collars of gold and silver; and when the champion in a fight was led through the streets people were expected to doff their head-gear and even to kneel down in reverence! And Takatoki’s “state” withal was that of an Emperor; and his attitude towards even great Bakufu vassals was haughty as that of a Sovereign to his subjects. Latterly he seems to have resented Nagasaki’s ascendancy over him; at the end of 1330 he commissioned one of Nagasaki’s own relatives to kill him. Nagasaki quickly got to know of this, and Takatoki then threw all the blame upon his tool, who was sent into exile, as were the whole of his followers.

News of this dissension must have been welcome in Kyoto, where the Bakufu just a few months before had seemed to be on the point of unearthing the great Imperialistic plot. As it was, three priests had been arrested on suspicion and conveyed to Kamakura; while the Hino brother released in 1325 was now taken down to the Kwanto and killed, and orders sent tv Homma, the Governor of Sado, to execute the Hitio imprisoned there. Later writers have alleged that it was the Elder line or their partisans that set the Bakufu to work on this occasion; but in support of this contention there is no satisfactory contemporary evidence. That the Jimyo-in party should be eager to have their turn, now that Daigo II’s term of ten years had more than passed, was only natural; and that Nagasaki would not be offended at being approached by them in a suitable manner is only too plain. But that is all that can be said; and what is certain is that of the arch­conspirators, like Kitabatake, Kamakura had no suspicion whatsoever.

Now just at this time (1330-1) a great pestilence broke out, and the priests were very busy. An Emperor who had showed such a solicitude for his poorer subjects in the famine of 1321 as Daigo II had done might reasonably be expected to pay frequent visits to the great monasteries to stimulate the monks to exert themselves to appease the wrath of Heaven, and obtain relief from this great national scourge. Hence his visits to Nara and to Hi-ei-zan might have seemed to be not so much harmless as highly praiseworthy. Now. after the miscarriage of 1320. two of Daigo II’s sons had been sent to Hi-ei-san,—and in 1329 the elder of these became Abbot of the huge and warlike monastery. This in plain language meant that Daigo II had now a large if but imperfectly disciplined and not very efficient military force at his disposal in the immediate vicinity of the capital. He had a similar one in Nara, while he appears to have come to an understanding with the monks of Koya-san, which put the services of many of their parishioners, whether clients or “protectors,” at his service. Around and especially behind this great Shingon mountain fane lay tracts of wild country where many of the inhabitants had never accepted the Minamoto or Hojo domination as anything better than an unfortunate necessity. In Iga, Ise, and Kumano were many descendants of Kiyomori’s clansmen now living in abject poverty, but still mindful of the fact that theirs had once been the most powerful house in the Empire. Then there were others whose ancestors had suffered in the great proscriptions of 1221. And besides these there was quite a number of smaller gentry, some of them holding considerable manors, who were not Bakufu vassals, and who had no favours to expect from Kamakura. The most important of these was Kusunoki Masashige. a descendant of Tachibana Moroe; and Kusunoki was quite prepared to take all the risks and responsibilities of leadership in his district when the Banner of Brocade should be unfurled.

In September 1331 it was learned that the Bakufu had decided to effect the transfer of the throne to the Prince-Imperial, who, it will be remembered, belonged to the Senior line. Thereupon Daigo II, taking with him the Imperial Seal, escaped by night and took refuge in the Temple of Mount Kasagi (on the borders of Yamato and Yamashiro), which had been fortified and was presently garrisoned. The Bakufu troops, fancying the Emperor was in Hi-ei-zan, attacked the great monastery; but the Prince Abbot and his brother made good their escape, the latter joining his father in Mount Kasagi, while the former proceeded to join Kusunoki, who had meanwhile fortified himself in the almost impregnable Castle of Akasaka in Kawachi, some twenty miles or so to the south. This latter proved a very hard nut to crack, indeed; for several weeks it held out most gallantly against a huge investing force—75,000 strong, according to the Taihei-ki—and when the Kamakura men at last did carry it by a great effort, they found that both Kusunoki and the Prince Abbot had previously succeeded in stealing through their lines.

Kasagi meanwhile had fallen some time before this, and Daigo II was now a prisoner in the Rokuhara, while all who had accompanied him were also in the hands of the Bakufu. In April next year, 1332, the deposed Sovereign was banished to the island of Oki, and two of his sons exiled to Tosa and Sanuki respectively. The last of these presently eluded his warders, and soon became a storm-centre in Shikoku, while Daigo II made good his escape from Oki almost exactly a year after he had been sent there. And meanwhile during this time many things had happened.

The Prince Abbot, who now assumed the lay-name of Morinaga, was wonderfully successful in his appeal to the population behind Koya-san, and it presently needed a large Bakufu force to disperse his following in Yoshino. Even so, he himself remained at large; and so was still dangerous. But this was not the worst of it. In June 1332 Kusunoki had actually become strong enough to attempt to capture Kyoto by a coup de main. He was repulsed, indeed; but the net effect of the bold venture was to bring new adherents to his standard, and to embolden other secret sympathisers with the Imperialistic cause to declare themselves openly. For example, in August of the same year Akamatsu Enshin began the contest in his native province of Harima. In the same month Kusunoki established himself in the Castle of Chihaya on Mount Kongo, while one of his lieutenants reoccupied the old position of Akasaka. Akasaka again fell in March 1333, but before Chihaya the huge beleaguering force met with nothing but disaster upon disaster and Chihaya remained unreduced till the end. Its gallant and determined defence was of inestimable service to the Imperialistic cause for many reasons. The concentration of 100,000 men,—(this is an exaggerated number no doubt),—stripped the outlying provinces of Bakufu troops, and so encouraged Imperialistic partisans to show their hand there. In Ivo, two chiefs had risen; Kikuchi attacked the Hojo Tandai in Kyushu, and although he failed and fell he produced a great moral effect upon his more powerful neighbours, who began to see what was possible. Then in far distant Mutsu, at the other end of the Empire, Yuki had risen. But this was not all. Akamatsu had meanwhile reduced Harima, and advanced into Settsu; and learning that most of the Hokuhara troops were More Chihaya he made a sudden dash upon the capital. After fierce fighting he was driven out of it, as were the monks of Hi-ei-zan a little later; but episodes like these served to indicate that Kamakura was no longer what it had been a century before.

Then just at this time (April or May 1333), Daigo II escaped from Oki in a fishing-boat and landed in Hoki; and the whole of the west of the main island was at once ablaze. A former Hojo partisan, Nawa Nagatoshi, received the Emperor in his castle of Funanoe Sen, and beat off the Sasakis sent to reduce it and recapture the Sovereign. The Nagato Tandai had been trying to put down the “revolt” in Ivo, with but scant success; and he was now recalled by intelligence of an attack from Iwami upon his own province of Nagato. Meanwhile nearly the whole of the rest of the Sanyodo and Sanindo declared for the Emperor; and a strong force was soon thrown against the capital from Tamba. But warned by Akamatsu’s attempt, the Bakufu commanders had massed large bodies of troops in Kyoto; and the Tamba expedition met with a serious check. Thus in the course of a few weeks there had been no fewer than three Imperialistic assaults upon the capital, and they had all miscarried. Yet in a few more weeks Daigo II was destined to be in secure possession of Kyoto; and that too almost without striking another blow.

The two chief commanders of the Bakufu armies lately dispatched from Kamakura to hold Kyoto, had been Nagoshi Takaie and Ashikaga Takauji. The former had just fallen in battle against Akamatsu; and so Ashikaga Takauji had been left in supreme and undivided command. Now Nagoshi was a Hojo, but Ashikaga was not. His family had occasionally intermarried with the Hojos; and his own wife was a sister of Akabashi Moritoki, the acting Shikken. But he himself was of pure Seiwa-Genji, or warlike Minamoto stock; although he came of a somewhat junior branch of it. But enough has been said to indicate that while the claims of primogeniture were not entirely ignored in Japan, they were frequently overridden by other considerations. The line of Yoritomo had long been extinct; that of his father Yoshitomo only survived in the Yoshimi family, descendants of Noriyori, one chief of which had been executed in 1296. Of collateral branches of the stock, there were Tada, Ota, Toki, Yamana Satomi, Nitta, Hosokawa, all senior to that of the Ashikaga; but at this time all these were comparatively insignificant except the Nitta. Both Nitta and Ashikaga were descended from that son of Yoshiie’s, Yoshikuni, who had been banished to Shimo-tsuke in 1150, for the then terrible offence of being disrespectful to a Fujiwara. When Yoritomo rose, in 1180, the Ashikaga chieftain, who was his own brother-in-law, joined him at once; but the Nittas at first were hostile, and, although there was no actual fighting, their ultimate adhesion was a sullen and ungraceful one, for it was prompted not by affection but by fear. Hence among the Minamoto clansmen at large who cherished the hope of again seeing a great chieftain of their own in Yoritomo’s seal, the Ashikaga, although junior to the Nitta, stood highest in prestige; all the more so as they held broader acres and had for long been figures of mark in Kamakura society, in which the Nittas rarely mingled. At this date (1333) Ashikaga Takauji, just become the head of the house by the death of his father Sadauji, was twenty-eight years of age, while his brother, Tadayoshi, was two years younger. Both were highly accomplished in letters as well as in arms; and both were exceedingly popular among their fellow warriors in the Kwanto, by whom they were generally regarded as the most promising officers in the service of the Bakufu.

Shortly after the beginning of June 1333, Ashikaga Takauji left the capital at the head of a strong expedition directed against Daigo II, in Hoki, His progress was slow, and a few days later he had got no further than Shinomura, in Tamba just a little beyond the Yamashiro border. Here suddenly, on June 10, he changed his flag, carried all his troops over to the Imperialist side; and then wheeled round upon Kyoto. The Hojos in the Rokuhara fought with courage; but at last, seeing that prospects of relief were hopeless, they stole out of Kyoto by night, taking with them the titular sovereign Kogon and the two ex-Emperors, meaning to make a dash for Kamakura. At Bamba they were either intercepted or overtaken; and here the two Tandai and over 400 of their followers fell, while the three Imperial personages were captured and reconducted to Kyoto. In the successful attack on the Rokuhara, Akamatsu Enshin’s men had borne the brunt of the struggle.

This most unexpected development was undoubtedly a terrible blow to the fortunes of the Hojos; but it need not have proved immediately fatal, provided the Kwanto stood staunchly by them. But the Kwanto itself was by this time in open and armed revolt. Tn the previous chapter some allusion was made to the elements of discontent and disaffection that had been gathering there for long. And if possible to strain the situation still further, the maintenance of the huge forces operating against Chihaya and elsewhere in the Home Provinces had made increased taxation a necessity, and the exactions of the revenue officers had brought the patience of their victims to an end. Furthermore a Hojo victory in this struggle could bring no adequate rewards to the ordinary officers and soldiers. The Imperialists, with the exception of certain of their faction of the Court nobles, and a few “bonnet-lairds,” were nearly all landless men of broken fortunes, with little beyond their heads to lose. Such ‘‘rewards” as would be available would surely be appropriated by the Hojos themselves, who were already the greatest land­holders in the Empire. On the other hand, if the Hojos were overthrown, there would be abundance of confiscated manors to dispose of. Even before the news of Takauji’s defection arrived this reasoning seems to have been common in the Kwanto.

Within ten days from the date of that defection the Kwanto was in a blaze of insurrection. On or about June 20, Nitta Yoshisada raised his flag in the Imperialist cause on his estates in Kozuke, and within a week his few hundred followers had swelled to a great army. Kamakura at once put every man it could under arms; and if some accounts are to be believed, as many as 100,000 troops were mustered. Portions of these were thrown northward into Musashi, and here one great action was fought on the banks of the Tamagawa, and many smaller engagements elsewhere. The hopeless feature in the case was that the Kamakura men kept deserting to the enemy in large bodies; while at the same time the “rebel” host was being swelled by large forces (under Yuki) from Mutsu, and by the accession of Samurai of the Boshu peninsula as well as of Musashi and Shimosa. By July 1 the Kamakura hosts had been driven back behind what is now the Tokaido railway line; and during the next three or four days there was the fiercest of fighting around and in Kamakura itself. The city fell on July 4 or 5, just a fortnight after Nitta had raised his standard. On this occasion, Takatoki and nearly three hundred of his kinsmen and followers committed harakiri. But Takatoki’s son Tokiyuki escaped, as did several other of the “doomed” clan; while Kamakura, which had been given to the flames, presently rose from its ashes to become the capital of the Kwan to under a new system.

Meanwhile Takauji had been in communication with the three Kyushu Shugo, Shoni, Otomo, and Shimadzu, and they turned against the Tandai, Hojo Hidetoki, and easily accomplished what Kikuchi had attempted in vain a few months before. About the same time the Nagato Tandai begged for his life; and he is said to have been the only Hojo among the great provincial officers who was spared. The commanders of the huge force that had been vainly investing Kusunoki in Chihaya for months were equally unfortunate. When news came of the fall of the Rokuhara, they abandoned the leaguer of Chihaya and retired to Nara, where they remained not knowing what course to take, whether to return to Kamakura or not. If they could have trusted their men they would have tried to recapture the capital; but all the probabilities were that most of the force, instead of assailing Takauji, would go over to him without so much as striking a blow. Presently it was learned there was no longer any Kamakura to fall back upon; so it was no wonder that the leaders surrendered themselves as prisoners of war to Takauji’s emissaries when they appeared in their camp. Later on fifteen of the chief officers of this Hojo army were taken to Amida-ga-mine at the dead of night and beheaded there.

If we confine our view to the mere surface of things the fall of the Hojos may very well strike us as having been so portentously sudden as to be almost cataclysmic. In April 1332 Daigo II was an exile in Oki, while his Ministers had either been executed or at least stripped of their positions and estates. The Hojo had installed an Emperor of their own in Kyoto; and according to the will of Saga II the title of this Sovereign (Kogon (1331-1333) was not only perfectly legitimate but absolutely unimpeachable. A strong faction of Court nobles supported, and gladly took office under him. From the Straits of Tsugaru to Satsuma, the whole Empire seemed to be lying peacefully and resigned in the “loof” of the Hojo hand. Fifteen months later Kamakura was little better than a mass of smouldering ashes, the Hojo chiefs had mostly “passed to the Yellow Streams,’’ while such of them as had not become disembodied spirits were sharing the lairs of the wild beasts in the forests and mountain fastnesses.