A History of the Japanese People Part 28

The tendency of the j.a.panese has always been to accompany their feasting and merry-making with music, versifying, and dancing. At the time now under consideration there was the "winding-water fete"

(kyoku-sui no en), when princes, high officials, courtiers, and n.o.ble ladies seated themselves by the banks of a rivulet meandering gently through some fair park, and launched tiny cups of mulled wine upon the current, each composing a stanza as the little messenger reached him, or drinking its contents by way of penalty for lack of poetic inspiration. There were also the flower festivals--that for the plum blossoms, that for the iris, and that for the lotus, all of which were inst.i.tuted in this same Nara epoch--when the composition of couplets was quite as important as the viewing of the flowers. There was, further, the grand New Year's banquet in the Hall of Tranquillity at the Court, when all officials from the sixth grade downwards sang a stanza of loyal grat.i.tude, accompanying themselves on the lute (koto). It was an era of refined effeminate amus.e.m.e.nts.

Wrestling had now become the pursuit of professionals. Aristocrats engaged in no rougher pastime than equestrian archery, a species of football, hawking, and hunting. Everybody gambled. It was in vain that edicts were issued against dicing (chobo and sugoroku). The vice defied official restraint.

LITERATURE AND POETRY

Having no books of her own, j.a.pan naturally borrowed freely from the rich mine of Chinese literature. By the tutors of the Imperial family, at the colleges of the capital, and in the provincial schools the cla.s.sics const.i.tuted virtually the whole curriculum. The advantages of education were, however, enjoyed by a comparatively small element of the population. During the Nara epoch, it does not appear that there were more than five thousand students attending the schools and colleges at one time. The aim of instruction was to prepare men for official posts rather than to impart general culture or to encourage scientific research. Students were therefore selected from the aristocrats or the official cla.s.ses only. There were no printed books; everything had to be laboriously copied by hand, and thus the difficulties of learning were much enhanced. To be able to adapt the Chinese ideographs skilfully to the purposes of written j.a.panese was a feat achieved by comparatively few. What the task involved has been roughly described in the opening chapter of this volume, and with what measure of success it was achieved may be estimated from the preface to the Records (Kojiki), written by Ono Yasumaro, from the Chronicles (Nihon Shoki) and from the Daiho Ritsu-ryo, which three works may be called the sole surviving prose essays of the epoch.

Much richer, however, is the realm of poetry. It was during the Nara epoch that the first j.a.panese anthology, the Manyo-shu (Collection of a Myriad Leaves), was compiled. It remains to this day a revered cla.s.sic and "a whole mountain of commentary has been devoted to the elucidation of its obscurities." [Chamberlain.] In the Myriad Leaves are to be found poems dating nominally from the reigns of Yuryaku and Nintoku, as well as from the days of Shotoku Tais.h.i.+, but much more numerous are those of Jomei's era (629-641) and especially those of the Nara epoch. The compiler's name is not known certainly; he is believed to have been either Tachibana no Moroe or Otomo no Yakamochi. Old ma.n.u.scripts and popular memory were the sources, and the verselets total 4496, in twenty volumes. Some make love their theme; some deal with sorrow; some are allegorical; some draw their inspiration from nature's beauties, and some have miscellaneous motives. Hitomaru, who flourished during the reign of the Empress Jito (690-697), and several of whose verses are to be found in the Myriad Leaves, has been counted by all generations the greatest of j.a.panese poets. Not far below him in fame is Akahito, who wrote in the days of Shomu (724-749). To the same century--the eighth--as the Manyo-shu, belongs the Kiraifu-so, & volume containing 120 poems in Chinese style, composed by sixty-four poets during the reigns of Temmu, Jito, and Mommu, that is to say, between 673 and 707. Here again the compiler's name is unknown, but the date of compilation is clear, November, 751.

From the fact that, while bequeathing to posterity only two national histories and a few provincial records (the Fudo-ki), the Nara epoch has left two anthologies, it will be inferred readily that the writing of poetry was a favourite pursuit in that age. Such, indeed, was the case. The taste developed almost into a mania. Guests bidden to a banquet were furnished with writing materials and invited to spend hours composing versicles on themes set by their hosts. But skill in writing verse was not merely a social gift; it came near to being a test of fitness for office.

"In their poetry above everything the j.a.panese have remained impervious to alien influences. It owes this conservation to its prosody. Without rhyme, without variety of metre, without elasticity of dimensions, it is also without known counterpart. To alter it in any way would be to deprive it of all distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics.

At some remote date a j.a.panese maker of songs seems to have discovered that a peculiar and very fascinating rhythm is produced by lines containing 5 syllables and 7 syllables alternately. That is j.a.panese poetry (uta or tanka). There are generally five lines: the first and third consisting of 5 syllables, the second, fourth and fifth of 7, making a total of 31 in all. The number of lines is not compulsory: sometimes they may reach to thirty, forty or even more, but the alternation of 5 and 7 syllables is compulsory. The most attenuated form of all is the hokku (or haikai) which consists of only three lines, namely, 17 syllables. Necessarily the ideas embodied in such a narrow vehicle must be fragmentary. Thus it results that j.a.panese poems are, for the most part, impressionist; they suggest a great deal more than they actually express. Here is an example:

Momiji-ha wo Kaze ni makasete Miru yori mo Hakanaki mono wa Inochi nari keri

This may be translated:

More fleeting than the glint of withered leaf wind-blown, the thing called life."*

*See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, article "j.a.pan."

The sketchy nature of j.a.panese poetry, especially in this five-line stanza, may be ill.u.s.trated further by two poems quoted by Prof. B. H.

Chamberlain in his "Things j.a.panese" (pp. 375-376),

The first:

Hototogisu Nakitsuru kata wo Nagamureba-- Tada ari-ake no Tsuki zo nokoreru

is literally translated by Professor Chamberlain as follows:

"When I gaze towards the place where the cuckoo has been singing, nought remains but the moon in the early dawn."

And the conventional and pictorial character of the literary form is ill.u.s.trated again in the lines:

s.h.i.+ra-k.u.mo ni Hane uchi-kawas.h.i.+ Tobu kari no Kazu sae miyuru Aki no yo no tsuki!

which the same eminent scholar translates: "The moon on an autumn night making visible the very number of the wild-geese that fly past with wings intercrossed in the white clouds." It is to be noted that this last is, to Occidental notions, a mere poetic phrase and not a unit.

Of course, the very exigencies of the case make the three-line stanza (or hokku), containing only 17 syllables, even more sketchy--hardly more indeed than a tour de force composed of a limited number of brush strokes! The Western critic, with his totally different literary conventions, has difficulty in bringing himself to regard j.a.panese verse as a literary form or in thinking of it otherwise than as an exercise in ingenuity, an Oriental puzzle; and this notion is heightened by the prevalence of the couplet-composing contests, which did much to heighten the artificiality of the genre.

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE s.e.xES

There was probably no more shocking s.e.xual vice or irregularity in the Nara epoch than there had been before nor than there was afterwards. The only evidence adduced to prove that there was anything of the sort is the fact that laws were promulgated looking to the restraint of illicit intercourse. These laws seem to have accomplished little or nothing and the existence of the laws argues rather a growing sense of the seriousness of the evil than any sudden increase in the prevalence of the evil itself. There can be no question, however, of the wide diffusion of concubinage in this period. Not morals nor repute nor public opinion, but the wealth and wishes of each man limited him in his amours of this sort. The essential of a virtuous woman was that she be faithful to her husband or lover; no such faithfulness was expected of him. And neither in the case of man nor woman did the conventions of the period depend at all on the nature of the relations.h.i.+p between the two. Wives no longer lived in their fathers' homes after marriage, but the newly-wedded husband built new rooms for his wife's especial use, so that, by a fiction such as the Oriental delights in and Occidental law is not entirely ignorant of, her home was still not his. Before betrothal, girls were not allowed to call themselves by a family name. At the betrothal her affianced first bound up in a fillet the hair that she had formerly worn loose around her face. Even more symbolical was the custom upon lovers' parting of tying to the woman's undergarment a string from the man's; this knot was to be unloosed only when they met again.

THE SHOSO-IN

At Nara, in Yamato province, near the temple of Todai-ji, a store house built of wood and called the Shoso-in was constructed in the Nara epoch, and it still stands housing a remarkable collection of furniture and ornaments from the Imperial palace. There is some question whether this collection is truly typical of the period, or even of the palace of the period; but the presence of many utensils from China, some from India (often with traces of Greek influence), and a few from Persia certainly shows the degree of cosmopolitan culture and elegance there was in the palace at Nara. At the present day, strangers may visit the collection only by special permission and only on two days each year; and the museum has always had a mingled imperial and sacred character. When the power of the shogunate was at its height, the Shoso-in was never opened except by orders of the Emperor. Among the contents of this museum are: polished mirrors with repousse backs, kept in cases lined with brocaded silk; bronze vases; bronze censers; hicense-boxes made of Paulownia wood or of Chinese ware; two-edged swords, which were tied to the girdle, instead of being thrust through it; narrow leather belts with silver or jade decoration; bamboo flutes; lacquer writing-cases, etc.

ENGRAVING: OUTLINE SKETCH OF THE SHOSO-IN AT NARA

REFORM OF LOCAL ADMINISTRATIONS

To the Emperor Konin belongs the credit of correcting some flagrant abuses in provincial administration. There was an inconvenient outcome of the religious mania which pervaded the upper cla.s.ses during the reigns of Shomu and Koken. To meet the expense of building temples and casting images, men of substance in the provinces were urged to make contributions of money, cereals, or land, and in return for this liberality they were granted official posts. It resulted that no less than thirty-one supernumerary provincial governors were borne on the roll at one time, and since all these regarded office as a means of recouping the cost of nomination, taxpayers and persons liable to the corvee fared ill. In 774, Koken issued an edict that provincial governors who had held office for five years or upwards should be dismissed at once, those of shorter terms being allowed to complete five years and then removed.

Another evil, inaugurated during the reign of Shomu, when faith in the potency of supernatural influences obsessed men's minds, was severely dealt with by Konin. Office-seekers resorted to the device of contriving conflagrations of official property, rewarding the incendiaries with the plunder, and circulating rumours that these calamities were visitations of heaven to punish the malpractices of the provincial governors in whose jurisdictions they occurred. It is on record that, in several cases, these stories led to the dismissal of governors and their replacement by their traducers. Konin decreed that such crimes should be punished by the death of all concerned.

These reforms, supplemented by the removal of many superfluous officials, earned for Konin such popularity that for the first time in j.a.pan's history, the sovereign's birthday became a festival*, thereafter celebrated through all ages.

*Called Tenchosetsu.

THE MILITARY SYSTEM

It has been shown that compulsory military service was introduced in 689, during the reign of the Empress Jito, one-fourth of all the able-bodied men in each province being required to serve a fixed time with the colours. It has also been noted that under the Daiho legislation the number was increased to one-third. This meant that no distinction existed between soldier and peasant. The plan worked ill.

No sufficient provision of officers being made, the troops remained without training, and it frequently happened that, instead of military exercises, they were required to labour for the enrichment of a provincial governor.

The system, being thus discredited, fell into abeyance in the year 739, but that it was not abolished is shown by the fact that, in 780, we find the privy council memorializing the Throne in a sense unfavourable to the drafting of peasants into the ranks. The memorial alleged that the men lacked training; that they were physically unfit; that they busied themselves devising pretexts for evasion; that their chief function was to perform fatigue-duty for local governors, and that to send such men into the field of battle would be to throw away their lives fruitlessly. The council recommended that indiscriminate conscription of peasants should be replaced by a system of selection, the choice being limited to men with some previous training; that the number taken should be in proportion to the size of the province, and that those not physically robust should be left to till the land. These recommendations were approved. They const.i.tuted the first step towards complete abolishment of compulsory service and towards the glorifying of the profession of arms above that of agriculture. Experience quickly proved, however, that some more efficient management was necessary in the maritime provinces, and in 792, Kwammu being then on the throne, an edict abolished the provincial troops in all regions except those which, by their proximity to the continent of Asia, were exposed to danger, namely, Dazai-fu in Kyushu, and in Mutsu, Dewa, and Sado in the north. Some specially organized force was needed also for extraordinary service and for guarding official storehouses, offices, and places where post-bells (suzu) were kept. To that end the system previously practised during the reign of Shomu (724-749) was reverted to; that is to say, the most robust among the sons and younger brothers of provincial governors and local officials were enrolled in corps of strength varying with the duties to be performed. These were called kondei or kenji. We learn from the edict that the abuse of employing soldiers as labourers was still practised, but of course this did not apply to the kondei.

The tendency of the time was against imposing military service on the lower cla.s.ses. During the period 810-820, the forces under the Dazai-fu jurisdiction, that is to say, in the six provinces of Chikuzen, Chikugo, Hizen, Higo, Buzen, and Bungo, were reduced from 17,100 to 9000. Dazai-fu and Mutsu being littoral regions, the conscription system still existed there, but in Mutsu there were not only heis.h.i.+, that is to say, local militiamen of the ordinary type and kenji or kondei, but also chimpei, or guards who were required to serve at a distance from home. Small farmers, upon whom this duty devolved, had no choice but to take their wives and children with them, the family subsisting on the pittance given as rations eked out by money realized from sales of chattels and garments. Thus, on the expiration of their service they returned to their native place in a wholly dest.i.tute condition, and sometimes perished of hunger on the way. In consideration of the hards.h.i.+ps of such a system, it was abolished, and thus the distinction between the soldier and the peasant received further accentuation.

There is no record as to the exact dimensions of j.a.pan's standing army in the ninth century, but if we observe that troops were raised in the eight littoral provinces only--six in the south and two in the north--and in the island of Sado, and that the total number in the six southern provinces was only nine thousand, it would seem reasonable to conclude that the aggregate did not exceed thirty thousand. There were also the kondei (or kenji), but these, since they served solely as guards or for special purposes, can scarcely be counted a part of the standing army. The inference is that whatever the Yamato race may have been when it set out upon its original career of conquest, or when, in later eras, it sent great armies to the Asiatic continent, the close of the fifth cycle after the coming of Buddhism found the country reduced to a condition of comparative military weakness. As to that, however, clearer judgment may be formed in the context of the campaign--to be now spoken of--conducted by the Yamato against the Yemis.h.i.+ tribes throughout a great part of the eighth century and the early years of the ninth.

REVOLT OF THE YEMIs.h.i.+

It has been shown that the close of the third decade of the eighth century saw the capital established at Nara amid conditions of great refinement, and saw the Court and the aristocracy absorbed in religious observances, while the provincial governments were, in many cases, corrupt and inefficient. In the year 724, Nara received news of an event which ill.u.s.trated the danger of such a state of affairs.

The Yemis.h.i.+ of the east had risen in arms and killed Koyamaro, warden of Mutsu. At that time the term "Mutsu" represented a much wider area than the modern region of the same name: it comprised the five provinces now distinguished as Iwaki, Iwas.h.i.+ro, Rikuzen, Rikuchu, and Mutsu--in other words, the whole of the northeastern and northern littoral of the main island. Similarly, the provinces now called Ugo and Uzen, which form the northwestern littoral, were comprised in the single term "Dewa." Nature has separated these two regions, Mutsu and Dewa, by a formidable chain of mountains, const.i.tuting the backbone of northern j.a.pan. Within Dewa, Mutsu, and the island of Yezo, the aboriginal Yemis.h.i.+ had been held since Yamato-dake's signal campaign in the second century A.D., and though not so effectually quelled as to preclude all danger of insurrection, their potentialities caused little uneasiness to the Central Government.

But there was no paltering with the situation which arose in 724.

Recourse was immediately had to the Fujiwara, whose position at the Imperial Court was paramount, and Umakai, grandson of the renowned Kamatari, set out at the head of thirty thousand men, levied from the eight Bands provinces, by which term Sagami, Musas.h.i.+, Awa, Kazusa, s.h.i.+mosa, Hitachi, Kotsuke, and s.h.i.+motsuke were designated. The expanded system of conscription established under the Daiho code was then in force, and thus a large body of troops could easily be a.s.sembled. Umakai's army did not experience any serious resistance.

But neither did it achieve anything signal. Marching by two routes, it converged on the castle of Taga, a fortress just constructed by Ono Azumahito, the lord warden of the Eastern Marches. The plan pursued by the Yamato commanders was to build castles and barriers along the course of rivers giving access to the interior, as well as along the coast line. Taga Castle was the first of such works, and, by the year 767, the programme had been carried in Mutsu as far as the upper reaches of the Kitakami River,* and in Dewa as far as Akita.

*A monument still stands on the site of the old Taga Castle. It was put up in A.D. 762, and it records that the castle stood fifty miles from the island of Yezo.

History has nothing further to tell about the Yemis.h.i.+ until the year 774, when they again took up arms, captured one (Mono) of the j.a.panese forts and drove out its garrison. Again the eight Bando provinces were ordered to send levies, and at the head of the army thus raised a j.a.panese general penetrated far into Mutsu and destroyed the Yemis.h.i.+'s chief stronghold. This success was followed by an aggressive policy on the part of the lord-warden, Ki no Hirozumi. He extended the chain of forts to Kabe in Dewa, and to Isawa in Mutsu. This was in 780. But there ensued a strong movement of reprisal on the part of the Yemis.h.i.+. Led by Iharu no Atamaro, they overwhelmed Hirozumi's army, killed the lord-warden himself, and pushed on to Taga Castle, which they burned, destroying vast stores of arms and provisions. It was precisely at this time that the State council, as related above, memorialized the Throne, denouncing the incompetency of the provincial conscripts and complaining that the provincial authorities, instead of training the soldiers, used them for forced labour. The overthrow of the army in Mutsu and the destruction of Taga Castle justified this memorial.

The Court appointed Fujiwara Tsugunawa to take command of a punitive expedition, and once again Bando levies converged on the site of the dismantled castle of Taga. But beyond that point no advance was essayed, in spite of bitter reproaches from Nara. "In summer," wrote the Emperor (Konin), "you plead that the gra.s.s is too dry; in winter you allege that bran is too scant. You discourse adroitly but you get no nearer to the foe." Konin's death followed shortly afterwards, but his successor, Kwammu, zealously undertook the pursuit of the campaign. Notice was sent (783) to the provincial authorities directing them to make preparations and to instruct the people that an armed expedition was inevitable. News had just been received of fresh outrages in Dewa. The Yemis.h.i.+ had completely dispersed and despoiled the inhabitants of two districts, so that it was found necessary to allot lands to them elsewhere and to erect houses for their shelter.

The Emperor said in his decree that the barbarian tribes, when pursued, fled like birds; when unmolested, gathered like ants; that the conscripts from the Bando provinces were reported to be weak and unfit for campaigning, and that those skilled in archery and physically robust stood aloof from military service, forgetting that they all owed a common duty to their country and their sovereign.

Therefore, his Majesty directed that the sons and younger brothers of all local officials or provincial magnates should be examined with a view to the selection of those suited for military service, who should be enrolled and drilled, to the number of not less than five hundred and not more than two thousand per province according to its size. Thus, the eight Bando provinces must have furnished a force of from four to sixteen thousand men, all belonging to the aristocratic cla.s.s. These formed the nucleus of the army. They were supplemented by 52,800 men, infantry and cavalry, collected from the provinces along the Eastern Sea (Tokai) and the Eastern Mountains (Tosan). so that the total force must have aggregated sixty thousand. The command in chief was conferred on Ki no Kosami, thirteenth in descent from the renowned Takenouchi-no-Sukune, who had been second in command of the Fujiwara Tsugunawa expedition nine years previously. A sword was conferred on him by the Emperor, and he received authority to act on his own discretion without seeking instructions from the Throne.

Meanwhile, the province of Mutsu had been ordered to send 35,000 koku (175,000 bushels) of hulled rice to Taga Castle, and the other provinces adjacent were required to store 23,000 koku (115,000 bushels) of hos.h.i.+-i (rice boiled and dried) and salt at the same place. The troops were to be ma.s.sed at Taga, and all the provisions and munitions were collected there by April, 789. These figures are suggestive of the light in which the Government regarded the affair.

Kosami moved out of Taga at the appointed time and pushed northward.

But with every forward movement the difficulties multiplied. Snow in those regions lies many feet deep until the end of May, and the thaw ensuing brings down from the mountains heavy floods which convert the rivers into raging torrents and the roads into quagmires. On reaching the bank of the Koromo River, forty-five miles north of Taga, the troops halted. Their delay provoked much censure in the capital where the climatic conditions do not appear to have been fully understood or the transport difficulties appreciated. Urged by the Court to push on rapidly, Kosami resumed his march in June; failed to preserve efficient connexion between the parts of his army; had his van ambushed; fled precipitately himself, and suffered a heavy defeat, though only 2500 of his big army had come into action. His casualties were 25 killed, 245 wounded, and 1036 drowned. A truce was effected and the forces withdrew to Taga, while, as for Kosami, though he attempted to deceive the Court by a bombastic despatch, he was recalled and degraded together with all the senior officers of his army.

It would seem as though this disaster to one comparatively small section of a force aggregating from fifty to sixty thousand men need not have finally interrupted the campaign, especially when the enemy consisted of semi-civilized aborigines. The Government thought differently, however. There was no idea of abandoning the struggle, but the programme for its renewal a.s.sumed large dimensions, and events in the capital were not propitious for immediate action. The training of picked soldiers commenced at once, and the provision of arms and horses. Kosami's discomfiture took place in 789, and during the next two years orders were issued for the manufacture of 2000 suits of leather armour and 3000 of iron armour; the making of 34,500 arms, and the preparation of 1 10,000 bushels of hos.h.i.+-i. To the command-in-chief the Emperor (Kwammu) appointed Saka-no-ye no Tamuramaro.

This selection ill.u.s.trates a conclusion already proved by the annals, namely, that racial prejudice had no weight in ancient j.a.pan. For Tamuramaro was a direct descendant of that Achi no Omi who, as already related, crossed from China during the Han dynasty and became naturalized in j.a.pan. His father, Karitamaro, distinguished himself by reporting the Dokyo intrigue, in the year 770, and received the post of chief of the palace guards, in which corps his son, Tamuramaro, thereafter served. Tradition has a.s.signed supernatural capacities to Tamuramaro, and certainly in respect of personal prowess no less than strategical talent he was highly gifted. In June, 794, he invaded Mutsu at the head of a great army and, by a series of rapidly delivered blows, effectually crushed the aborigines, taking 457 heads, 100 prisoners, and 85 horses, and destroying the strongholds of 75 tribes. Thereafter, until the year of his death (811), he effectually held in check the spirit of revolt, crus.h.i.+ng two other insurrections--in 801 and 804--and virtually annihilating the insurgents. He transferred the garrison headquarters from Taga to Isawa, where he erected a castle, organizing a body of four thousand militia (tonden-hei) to guard it; and in the following year (803), he built the castle of s.h.i.+ba at a point still further north.

NATIONALITY OF THE INSURGENTS