Chapter VIII: Part 8

For there had been no peace since the fifth century. No emperor or regent or shogun had ever been able to impose his rule firmly upon the whole country. Somewhere or other, there were always wars of clan with clan. By the time of the sixteenth century personal safety could be found only under the protection of some military leader, able to exact his own terms for the favour of such protection. The question of the imperial succession,--which had almost wrecked the empire during the fourteenth century,--might be raised again at any time by some reckless faction, with the probable result of ruining civilization, and forcing the nation back to its primitive state of barbarism. Never did the future of Japan appear so dark as at the moment when Oda Nobunaga suddenly found himself the strongest man in the empire, and leader of the most formidable Japanese army that had ever obeyed a single head. This man, a descendant of Shinto priests, was above all things a patriot. He did not seek the title of shogun, and never received it. His hope was to save the country; and he saw that this could be done only by centralizing all feudal power under one control, and strenuously enforcing law. Looking about him for the ways and means of effecting [275] this centralization, he perceived that one of the very first obstacles to be removed was that created by the power of Buddhism militant,--the feudal Buddhism developed under the Hojo regency, and especially represented by the great Shin and Tendai sects. As both had already given aid to his enemies, it was easy to find a cause for quarrel; and he first proceeded against the Tendai. The campaign was conducted with ferocious vigour; the monastery-fortresses of Hiyei-san were stormed and razed, and all the priests, with all their adherents, put to the sword--no mercy being shown even to women and children. By nature Nobunaga was not cruel; but his policy was ruthless, and he knew when and why to strike hard. The power of the Tendai sect before this massacre may be imagined from the fact that three thousand monastery buildings were burnt at Hiyei-san. The Shin sect of the Hongwanji, with headquarters at Osaka, was scarcely less powerful; and its monastery, occupying the site of the present Osaka castle, was one of the strongest fortresses in the country. Nobunaga waited several years, merely to prepare for the attack. The soldier-priests defended themselves well; upwards of fifty thousand lives are said to have been lost in the siege; yet only the personal intervention of the Emperor prevented the storming of the stronghold, and the slaughter of every being within its walls. Through respect for the Emperor, Nobunaga agreed [276] to spare the lives of the Shin priests: they were only dispossessed and scattered, and their power forever broken. Buddhism having been thus effectually crippled, Nobunaga was able to turn his attention to the warring clans. Supported by the greatest generals that the nation ever produced,--Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu,--he proceeded to enforce pacification and order; and his grand purpose would probably have been soon accomplished, but for the revengeful treachery of a subordinate, who brought about his death in 1583.

Nobunaga, with Taira blood in his veins, had been essentially an aristocrat, inheriting all the aptitudes of his great race for administration, and versed in all the traditions of diplomacy. His avenger and successor, Hideyoshi, was a totally different type of soldier: a son of peasants, an untrained genius who had won his way to high command by shrewdness and courage, natural skill of arms, and immense inborn capacity for all the chess-play of war. With the great purpose of Nobunaga he had always been in sympathy; and he actually carried it out,--subduing the entire country, from north to south, in the name of the Emperor, by whom he was appointed Regent (Kwambaku). Thus universal peace was temporarily established. But the vast military powers which Hideyoshi had collected and disciplined, threatened to become refractory. He found employment for them by declaring unprovoked [277] war against Korea, whence he hoped to effect the conquest of China. The war with Korea opened in 1592, and dragged on unsatisfactorily until 1598, when Hideyoshi died. He had proved himself one of the greatest soldiers ever born, but not one of the best among rulers. Perhaps the issue of the war in Korea would have been more fortunate, if he could have ventured to conduct it himself. As a matter of fact, it merely exhausted the force of both countries; and Japan had little to show for her dearly bought victories abroad except the Mimidzuka or "Ear-Monument" at Nara,--marking the spot where thirty thousand pairs of foreign ears, cut from the pickled heads of slain, were buried in the grounds of the temple of Daibutsu....

Into the vacant place of power then stepped the most remarkable man that Japan ever produced,--Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Iyeyasu was of Minamoto descent, and an aristocrat to the marrow of his bones. As a soldier he was scarcely inferior to Hideyoshi, whom he once defeated,--but he was much more than a soldier, a far-sighted statesman, an incomparable diplomat, and something of a scholar. Cool, cautious, secretive,--distrustful, yet generous,--stern, yet humane,--by the range and the versatility of his genius he might be not unfavourably contrasted with Julius Caesar. All that Nobunaga and Hideyoshi had wished to do, and failed to [278] do, Iyeyasu speedily accomplished. After fulfilling Hideyoshi's dying injunction, not to leave the troops in Korea "to become ghosts haunting a foreign land,"--that is to say, in the condition of spirits without a cult,--Iyeyasu had to face a formidable league of lords resolved to dispute his claim to rule. The terrific battle of Sekigahara left him master of the country; and he at once took measures to consolidate his power, and to perfect, even to the least detail, all the machinery of military government. As shogun, he reorganized the daimiates, redistributed a majority of fiefs; among those whom he could trust, created new military grades, and ordered and so balanced the powers of the greater daimyo as to make it next to impossible for them to dare a revolt. Later on the daimyo were even required to furnish security for their good behaviour: they were obliged to pass a certain time of the year* in the shogun's capital, leaving their families as hostages during the rest of the year. The entire administration was readjusted upon a simple and sagacious plan; and the Laws of Iyeyasu prove him to have been an excellent legislator. For the first time in Japanese history the nation was integrated,--integrated, at least, in so far as the peculiar nature of the social unit rendered possible. The counsels [279] of the founder of Yedo were followed by his successors; and the Tokugawa shogunate, which lasted until 1867, gave the country fifteen military sovereigns. Under these, Japan enjoyed both peace and prosperity for the time of two hundred and fifty years; and her society was thus enabled to evolve to the full limit of its peculiar type. Industries and arts developed in new and wonderful ways; literature found august patronage. The national cult was carefully maintained; and all precautions were taken to prevent the occurrence of another such contest for the imperial succession as had nearly ruined the country in the fourteenth century.

[*The period of obligatory residence in Yedo was not the same for all daimyo. In some cases the obligation seems to have extended to six months; in others, the requirement was to pass every alternate year in the capital.]

We have seen that the history of military rule in Japan embraces nearly the whole period of authentic history, down to modern times, and closes with the second period of national integration. The first period had been reached when the clans first accepted the leadership of the chief of the greatest clan,--thereafter revered as the Heavenly Sovereign, Supreme Pontiff, Supreme Arbiter, Supreme Commander, and Supreme Magistrate. How long a time was required for this primal integration, under a patriarchal monarchy, we cannot know; but we have learned that the later integration, under a duarchy, occupied considerably more than a thousand years.... Now the extraordinary fact to note is that, during all those centuries, the imperial [280] cult was carefully maintained by even the enemies of the Mikado; the only legitimate ruler being, in national belief, the Tenshi, "Son of Heaven,"--the Tenno, "Heavenly King." Through every period of disorder the Offspring of the Sun was the object of national worship, and his palace the temple of the national faith. Great captains might coerce the imperial will; but they styled themselves, none the less, the worshippers and slaves of the incarnate deity; and they would no more have thought of trying to occupy his throne, than they would have thought of trying to abolish all religion by decree. Once only, by the arbitrary folly of the Ashikaga shogun, the imperial cult had been seriously interfered with; and the social earthquake consequent upon that division of the imperial house, apprised the usurpers of the enormity of their blunder.... Only the integrity of the imperial succession, the uninterrupted maintenance of the imperial worship, made it possible even for Iyeyasu to clamp together the indissoluble units of society.

Herbert Spencer has taught the student of sociology to recognize that religious dynasties have extraordinary powers of longevity, because they possess extraordinary power to resist change; whereas military dynasties, depending for their perpetuity upon the individual character of their sovereigns, are particularly liable to disintegration. The immense duration of the Japanese imperial dynasty, as contrasted [281] with the history of the various shogunates and regencies representing a merely military domination, illustrates this teaching in a most remarkable way. Back through twenty-five hundred years we can follow the line of the imperial succession, till it vanishes out of sight into the mystery of the past. Here we have evidence of that extreme power of resisting all changes which is inherently characteristic of religious conservatism; on the other hand, the history of shogunates and regencies proves the tendency to disintegration of institutions having no religious foundation, and therefore no religious power of cohesion. The remarkable duration of the Fujiwara rule, as compared with others, may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the Fujiwara represented a religious, rather than a military, aristocracy. Even the marvellous military structure devised by Iyeyasu had begun to decay before alien aggression precipitated its inevitable collapse.

[283]

THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY

"Militant societies," says the author of the Principles of Sociology, "must have a patriotism which regards the triumph of their society as the supreme end of action; they must possess the loyalty whence flows obedience to authority,--and, that they may be obedient, they must have abundant faith." The history of the Japanese people strongly exemplifies these truths. Among no other people has loyalty ever assumed more impressive and extraordinary forms; and among no other people has obedience ever been nourished by a more abundant faith,--that faith derived from the cult of the ancestors.

The reader will understand how filial piety--the domestic religion of obedience--widens in range with social evolution, and eventually differentiates both into that political obedience required by the community, and that military obedience exacted by the war-lord,--obedience implying not only submission, but affectionate submission,--not merely the sense of obligation, but the sentiment of duty. In its origin such dutiful obedience is essentially religious; and, as expressed in loyalty, it retains the [284] religious character,--becomes the constant manifestation of a religion of self-sacrifice. Loyalty is developed early in the history of a militant people; and we find touching examples of it in the earliest Japanese chronicles. We find also terrible ones,--stories of self-immolation.

To his divinely descended lord, the retainer owed everything--in fact, not less than in theory: goods, household, liberty, and life. Any or all of these he was expected to yield up without a murmur, on demand, for the sake of the lord. And duty to the lord, like the duty to the family ancestor, did not cease with death. As the ghosts of parents were to be supplied with food by their living children, so the spirit of the lord was to be worshipfully served by those who, during his lifetime, owed him direct obedience. It could not be permitted that the spirit of--the ruler should enter unattended into the world of shadows: some, at least, of those who served him living were bound to follow him in death. Thus in early societies arose the custom of human sacrifices,--sacrifices at first obligatory, afterwards voluntary. In Japan, as stated in a former chapter, they remained an indispensable feature of great funerals, up to the first century, when images of baked clay were first substituted for the official victims. I have already mentioned how, after this abolition of obligatory [285] junshi, or following of one's lord in death, the practice of voluntary junshi continued up to the sixteenth century, when it actually became a military fashion. At the death of a daimyo it was then common for fifteen or twenty of his retainers to disembowel themselves. Iyeyasu determined to put an end to this custom of suicide, which is thus considered in the 76th article of his celebrated Legacy:--

"Although it is undoubtedly the ancient custom for a vassal to follow his Lord in death, there is not the slightest reason in the practice. Confucius has ridiculed the making of Yo [effigies buried with the dead]. These practices are strictly forbidden, more especially to primary retainers, but to secondary retainers likewise, even of the lowest rank. He is the reverse of a faithful servant who disregards this prohibition. His posterity shall be impoverished by the confiscation of his property, as a warning for those who disobey the laws."

Iyeyasu's command ended the practice of junshi among his own vassals; but it continued, or revived again, after his death. In 1664 the shogunate issued an edict proclaiming that the family of any person performing junshi should be punished; and the shogunate was in earnest. When this edict was disobeyed by one Uyemon no Hyoge, who disembowelled himself at the death of his lord, Okudaira Tadamasa, the government promptly confiscated the lands of the family of the suicide, executed two of [286] his sons, and sent the rest of the household into exile. Though cases of junshi have occurred even within this present era of Meiji, the determined attitude of the Tokugawa government so far checked the practice that even the most fervid loyalty latterly made its sacrifices through religion, as a rule. Instead of performing harakiri, the retainer shaved his head at the death of his lord, and became a Buddhist monk.

The custom of junshi represents but one aspect of Japanese loyalty: there were other customs equally, if not even more, significant,--for example, the custom of military suicide, not as junshi, but as a self-inflicted penalty exacted by the traditions of samurai discipline. Against harakiri, as punitive suicide, there was no legislative enactment, for obvious reasons. It would seem that this form of self-destruction was not known to the Japanese in early ages; it may have been introduced from China, with other military customs. The ancient Japanese usually performed suicide by strangulation, as the Nihongi bears witness. It was the military class that established the harakiri as a custom and privilege. Previously, the chiefs of a routed army, or the defenders of a castle taken by storm, would thus end themselves to avoid falling into the enemy's hands,--a custom which continued into the present era. About the close of the fifteenth century, the [287] military custom of permitting any samurai to perform harakiri, instead of subjecting him to the shame of execution, appears to have been generally established. Afterwards it became the recognized duty of a samurai to kill himself at the word of command. All samurai were subject to this disciplinary law, even lords of provinces; and in samurai families, children of both sexes were trained how to perform suicide whenever personal honour or the will of a liege-lord, might require it.... Women, I should observe, did not perform harakiri, but jigai,--that is to say, piercing the throat with a dagger so as to sever the arteries by a single thrust-and-cut movement.... The particulars of the harakiri ceremony have become so well known through Mitford's translation of Japanese texts on the subject, that I need not touch upon them. The important fact to remember is that honour and loyalty required the samurai man or woman to be ready at any moment to perform self-destruction by the sword. As for the warrior, any breach of trust (voluntary or involuntary), failure to execute a difficult mission, a clumsy mistake, and even a look of displeasure from one's liege, were sufficient reasons for harakiri, or, as the aristocrats preferred to call it, by the Chinese term, seppuku. Among the highest class of retainers, it was also a duty to make protest against misconduct on the part of their lord by performing seppuku, when all other means of bringing him to reason had [288] failed,--which heroic custom has been made the subject of several popular dramas founded upon fact. In the case of married women of the samurai class,--directly responsible to their husbands, not to the lord,--jigai was resorted to most often as a means of preserving honour in time of war, though it was sometimes performed merely as a sacrifice of loyalty to the spirit of the husband, after his untimely death.* [*The Japanese moralist Yekken wrote 'A woman has no feudal lord: she must reverence and obey her husband.'] In the case of girls it was not uncommon for other reasons,--samurai maidens often entering into the service of noble households, where the cruelty of intrigue might easily bring about a suicide, or where loyalty to the wife of the lord might exact it. For the samurai maiden in service was bound by loyalty to her mistress not less closely than the warrior to the lord; and the heroines of Japanese feudalism were many.

In the early ages it appears to have been the custom for the wives of officials condemned to death to kill themselves the ancient chronicles are full of examples. But this custom is perhaps to be partly accounted for by the ancient law, which held the household of the offender equally responsible with him for the offence, independently of the facts in the case. However, it was certainly also common enough for a bereaved wife to perform suicide, not through despair, but through the wish to follow her [289] husband into the other world, and there to wait upon him as in life. Instances of female suicide, representing the old ideal of duty to a dead husband, have occurred in recent times. Such suicides are usually performed according to the feudal rules,--the woman robing herself in white for the occasion. At the time of the late war with China there occurred in Tokyo one remarkable suicide of this kind; the victim being the wife of Lieutenant Asada, who had fallen in battle. She was only twenty-one. On hearing of her husband's death, she at once began to make preparations for her own,--writing letters of farewell to her relatives, putting her affairs in order, and carefully cleaning the house, according to old-time rule. Thereafter she donned her death-robe; laid mattings down opposite to the alcove in the guest-room; placed her husband's portrait in the alcove, and set offerings before it. When everything had been arranged, she seated herself before the portrait, took up her dagger, and with a single skilful thrust divided the arteries of her throat.

Besides the duty of suicide for the sake of preserving honour, there was also, for the samurai woman, the duty of suicide as a moral protest. I have already said that among the highest class of retainers it was thought a moral duty to perform harakiri as a remonstrance against shameless conduct on the part of one's lord, when all other means of persuasion [290] had been tried in vain. Among samurai women--taught to consider their husbands as their lords, in the feudal meaning of the term--it was held a moral obligation to perform jigai, by way of protest, against disgraceful behaviour upon the part of a husband who would not listen to advice or reproof. The ideal of wifely duty which impelled such sacrifice still survives; and more than one recent example might be cited of a generous life thus laid down in rebuke of some moral wrong. Perhaps the most touching instance occurred in 1892, at the time of the district elections in Nagano prefecture. A rich voter named Ishijima, after having publicly pledged himself to aid in the election of a certain candidate, transferred his support to the rival candidate. On learning of this breach of promise, the wife of Ishijima, robed herself in white, and performed jigai after the old samurai manner. The grave of this brave woman is still decorated with flowers by the people of the district; and incense is burned before her tomb.

To kill oneself at command--a duty which no loyal samurai would have dreamed of calling in question--appears to us much less difficult than another duty, also fully accepted: the sacrifice of children, wife, and household for the sake of the lord. Much of Japanese popular tragedy is devoted to incidents of such sacrifice made by retainers or [291] dependents of daimyo,--men or women who gave their children to death in order to save the children of their masters.* [*See, for a good example, the translation of the drama Terakoya, published, with admirable illustrations, by T. Hasegawa (Tokyo).] Nor have we any reason to suppose that the facts have been exaggerated in these dramatic compositions, most of which are based upon feudal history. The incidents, of course, have been rearranged and expanded to meet theatrical requirements; but the general pictures thus given of the ancient society are probably even less grim than the vanished reality. The people still love these tragedies; and the foreign critic of their dramatic literature is wont to point out only the blood-spots, and to comment upon them as evidence of a public taste for gory spectacles,--as proof of some innate ferocity in the race. Rather, I think, is this love of the old tragedy proof of what foreign critics try always to ignore as--much as possible,--the deeply religious character of the people. These plays continue to give delight,--not because of their horror, but because of their moral teaching,--because of their exposition of the duty of sacrifice and courage, the religion of loyalty. They represent the martyrdoms of feudal society for its noblest ideals.

All down through that society, in varying forms, the same spirit--of loyalty had its manifestations. As the samurai to his liege-lord, so the apprentice was bound to the patron, and the clerk to the [292] merchant. Everywhere there was trust, because everywhere there existed the like sentiment of mutual duty between servant and master. Each industry and occupation had its religion of loyalty,--requiring, on the one side, absolute obedience and sacrifice at need; and on the other, kindliness and aid. And the rule of the dead was over all.

Not less ancient than the duty of dying for parent or lord was the social obligation to avenge the killing of either. Even before the beginnings of settled society, this duty is recognized. The oldest chronicles of Japan teem with instances of obligatory vengeance. Confucian ethics more than affirmed the obligation,--forbidding a man to live "under the same heaven" with the slayer of his lord, or parent, or brother; and fixing all the degrees of kinship, or other relationship, within which the duty of vengeance was to be considered imperative. Confucian ethics, it will be remembered, became at an early date the ethics of the Japanese ruling-classes, and so remained down to recent times. The whole Confucian system, as I have remarked elsewhere, was founded upon ancestor-worship, and represented scarcely more than an amplification and elaboration of filial piety: it was therefore in complete accord with Japanese moral experience. As the military power developed in Japan, the Chinese code of vengeance became universally accepted; and it was sustained [293] by law as well as by custom in later ages. Iyeyasu himself maintained it--exacting only that preliminary notice of an intended vendetta should be given in writing to the district criminal court. The text of his article on the subject is interesting:--

"In respect to avenging injury done to master or father, it is acknowledged by the Wise and Virtuous [Confucius] that you and the injurer cannot live together under the canopy of heaven. A person harbouring such vengeance shall give notice in writing to the criminal court; and although no check or hindrance may be offered to the carrying out of his design within the period allowed for that purpose, it is forbidden that the chastisement of an enemy be attended with riot. Fellows who neglect to give notice of their intended revenge are like wolves of pretext:* their punishment or pardon should depend upon the circumstances of the case."

[*Or "hypocritical wolves."--that is to say brutal murderers seeking to excuse their crime on the pretext justifiable vengeance. (The translation is by Lowder.)]

Kindred, as well as parents; teachers, as well as lords, were to be revenged. A considerable proportion of popular romance and drama is devoted to the subject of vengeance taken by women; and, as a matter of fact, women, and even children, sometimes became avengers when there were no men of a wronged family left to perform the duty. Apprentices avenged their masters; and even sworn friends were bound to avenge each other.

[294] Why the duty of vengeance was not confined to the circle of natural kinship is explicable, of course, by the peculiar organization of society. We have seen that the patriarchal family was a religious corporation; and that the family-bond was not the bond of natural affection, but the bond of the cult. We have also seen that the relation of the household to the community, and of the community to the clan, and of the clan to the tribe, was equally a religious relation. As a necessary consequence, the earlier customs of vengeance were regulated by the bond of the family, communal, or tribal cult, as well as by the bond of blood; and with the introduction of Chinese ethics, and the development of militant conditions, the idea of revenge as duty took a wider range. The son or the brother by adoption was in respect of obligation the same as the son or brother by blood; and the teacher stood to his pupil in the relation of father to child. To strike one's natural parent was a crime punishable by death: to strike one's teacher was, before the law, an equal offence. This notion of the teacher's claim to filial reverence was of Chinese importation: an extension of the duty of filial piety to "the father of the mind." There were other such extensions; and the origin of all, Chinese or Japanese, may be traced alike to ancestor-worship.

Now, what has never been properly insisted upon, in any of the books treating of ancient [295] Japanese customs, is the originally religious significance of the kataki-uchi. That a religious origin can be found for all customs of vendetta established in early societies is, of course, well known; but a peculiar interest attaches to the Japanese vendetta in view of the fact that it conserved its religious character unchanged down to the present era. The kataki-uchi was essentially an act of propitiation, as is proved by the rite with which it terminated,--the placing of the enemy's head upon the tomb of the person avenged, as an offering of atonement. And one of the most impressive features of this rite, as formerly practised, was the delivery of an address to the ghost of the person avenged. Sometimes the address was only spoken; sometimes it was also written, and the manuscript left upon the tomb.

There is probably none of my readers unacquainted with Mitford's ever-delightful Tales of Old Japan, and his translation of the true story of the "Forty-Seven Ronins." But I doubt whether many persons have noticed the significance of the washing of Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke's severed head, or the significance of the address inscribed to their dead lord by the brave men who had so long waited and watched for the chance to avenge him. This address, of which I quote Mitford's translation, was laid upon the tomb of the Lord Asano. It is still preserved at the temple called Sengakuji:--

[296] "The fifteenth year of Genroku [17031, the twelfth month, the fifteenth day.--We have come this day to do homage here: forty-seven men in all, from Oishi Kuranosuke down to the foot-soldier Terasaka Kichiyemon,--all cheerfully about to lay down our lives on your behalf. We reverently announce this to the honoured spirit of our dead master. On the fourteenth day of the third month of last year, our honoured master was pleased to attack Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke, for what reason we know not. Our honoured master put an end to his own life; but Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke lived. Although we fear that after the decree issued by the Government, this plot of ours will be displeasing to our honoured master, still we, who have eaten of your food, could not without blushing repeat the verse, "Thou shalt not live under the same heaven, nor tread the same earth with the enemy of thy father or lord," nor could we have dared to leave hell [Hades] and present ourselves before you in Paradise, unless we had carried out the vengeance which you began. Every day that we waited seemed as three autumns to us. Verily we have trodden the snow for one day, nay, for two days, and have tasted food but once. The old and decrepit, the sick and the ailing, have come forth gladly to lay down their lives. Men might laugh at us, as at grasshoppers trusting in the strength of their arms, and thus shame our honoured lord; but we could not halt in our deed of vengeance. Having taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my Lord Kotsuke-no-Suke hither to your tomb. This dirk, by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you, as a [297] sign, to take the dirk, and, striking the head of your enemy with it a second time, to dispel your hatred forever. This is the respectful statement of forty-seven men."

It will be observed that the Lord Asano is addressed as if he were present and visible. The head of the enemy has been carefully washed, according to the rule concerning the presentation of heads to a living superior. It is laid upon the tomb together with the nine-inch sword, or dagger, originally used by the Lord Asano in performing harakiri at Government command, and afterwards used by Oishi Kuranosuke in cutting off the head of Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke;--and the spirit of the Lord Asano is requested to take up the weapon and to strike the head, so that the pain of ghostly anger may be dissipated forever. Then, having been themselves all sentenced to perform harakiri, the forty-seven retainers join their lord in death, and are buried in front of his tomb. Before their graves the smoke of incense, offered by admiring visitors, has been ascending daily for two hundred years.*

[*It has been long the custom also for visitors to leave their cards upon the tombs of the Forty-seven Ronin. When I last visited Sengakuji, the ground about the tombs was white with visiting-cards.]

One must have lived in Japan, and have been able to feel the true spirit of the old Japanese life, in order to comprehend the whole of this romance of loyalty; but I think that whoever carefully reads Mr. Mitford's version of it, and his translation of the [298] authentic documents relating to it, will confess himself moved. That address especially touches,--because of the affection and the faith to which it testifies, and the sense of duty beyond this life. However much revenge must be condemned by our modern ethics, there is a noble side to many of the old Japanese stories of loyal vengeance; and these stories affect us by the expression of what has nothing to do with vulgar revenge,--by their exposition of gratitude, self-denial, courage in facing death, and faith in the unseen. And this means, of course, that we are, consciously or unconsciously, impressed by their religious quality. Mere individual revenge--the postponed retaliation for some personal injury--repels our moral feeling: we have learned to regard the emotion inspiring such revenge as simply brutal --something shared by man with lower forms of animal life. But in the story of a homicide exacted by the sentiment of duty or gratitude to a dead master, there may be circumstances which can make appeal to our higher moral sympathies,--to our sense of the force and beauty of unselfishness, unswerving fidelity, unchanging affection. And the story of the Forty-Seven Ronin is one of this class....

Yet it must be borne in mind that the old Japanese religion of loyalty, which found its supreme manifestation in those three terrible customs of [299] junshi, harakiri, and kataki-uchi, was narrow in its range. It was limited by the very constitution of society. Though the nation was ruled, through all its groups, by notions of duty everywhere similar in character, the circle of that duty, for each individual, did not extend beyond the clan-group to which he belonged. For his own lord the retainer was always ready to die; but he did not feel equally bound to sacrifice himself for the military government, unless he happened to belong to the special military following of the Shogun. His fatherland, his country, his world, extended only to the boundary of his chief's domain. Outside of that domain he could be only a wanderer,--a ronin, or "wave-man," as the masterless samurai was termed. Under such conditions that larger loyalty which identifies itself with love of king and country,--which is patriotism in the modern, not in the narrower antique sense,--could not fully evolve. Some common peril, some danger to the whole race--such as the attempted Tartar conquest of Japan--might temporarily arouse the true sentiment of patriotism; but otherwise that sentiment had little opportunity for development. The Ise cult represented, indeed, the religion of the nation, as distinguished from the clan or tribal worship; but each man had been taught to believe that his first duty was to his lord. One cannot efficiently serve two masters; and feudal government practically [300] suppressed any tendencies in that direction. The lordship so completely owned the individual, body and soul, that the idea of any duty to the nation, outside of the duty to the chief, had neither time nor chance to define itself in the mind of the vassal. To the ordinary samurai, for example, an imperial order would not have been law: he recognized no law above the law of his daimyo. As for the daimyo, he might either disobey or obey an imperial command according to circumstances: his direct superior was the shogun; and he was obliged to make for himself a politic distinction between the Heavenly Sovereign as deity, and the Heavenly Sovereign as a human personality. Before the ultimate centralization of the military power, there were many instances of lords sacrificing themselves for their emperor; but there were even more cases of open rebellion by lords against the imperial will. Under the Tokugawa rule, the question of obeying or resisting an imperial command would have depended upon the attitude of the shogun; and no daimyo would have risked such obedience to the court at Kyoto as might have signified disobedience to the court at Yedo. Not at least until the shogunate had fallen into decay. In Iyemitsu's time the daimyo were strictly forbidden to approach the imperial palace on their way to Yedo,--even in response to an imperial command; and they were also forbidden to make any direct appeal to the [301] Mikado. The policy of the shogunate was to prevent all direct communication between the Kyoto court and the daimyo. This policy paralyzed intrigue for two hundred years; but it prevented the development of patriotism.

And for that very reason, when Japan at last found herself face to face with the unexpected peril of Western aggression, the abolition of the dairmates was felt to be a matter of paramount importance. The supreme danger required that the social units should be fused into one coherent mass, capable of uniform action,--that the clan and tribal groupings should be permanently dissolved,--that all authority should immediately be centred in the representative of the national religion,--that the duty of obedience to the Heavenly Sovereign should replace, at once and forever, the feudal duty of obedience to the territorial lord. The religion of loyalty, evolved by a thousand years of war, could not be cast away--properly utilized, it would prove a national heritage of incalculable worth,--a moral power capable of miracles if directed by one wise will to a single wise end. Destroyed by reconstruction it could not be; but it could be diverted and transformed. Diverted, therefore, to nobler ends --expanded to larger needs,--it became the new national sentiment of trust and duty: the modern sense of patriotism. What wonders it has wrought, within the space of thirty years, the world is now obliged to confess: what [302] more it may be able to accomplish remains to be seen. One thing at least is certain,---that the future of Japan must depend upon the maintenance of this new religion of loyalty, evolved, through the old, from the ancient religion of the dead.

[303]

THE JESUIT PERIL

The second half of the sixteenth century is the most interesting period in Japanese history--for three reasons. First, because it witnessed the apparition of those mighty captains, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu,--types of men that a race seems to evolve for supreme emergencies only,--types requiring for their production not merely the highest aptitudes of numberless generations, but likewise an extraordinary combination of circumstances. Secondly, this period is all-important because it saw the first complete integration of the ancient social system,--the definitive union of all the clan-lordships under a central military government. And lastly, the period is of special interest because the incident of the first attempt to christianize Japan--the story of the rise and fall of the Jesuit power--properly belongs to it.

The sociological significance of this episode is instructive. Excepting, perhaps, the division of the imperial house against itself in the twelfth century, the greatest danger that ever threatened Japanese national integrity was the introduction of Christianity [304] by the Portuguese Jesuits. The nation saved itself only by ruthless measures, at the cost of incalculable suffering and of myriads of lives.

It was during the period of great disorder preceding Nobunaga's effort to centralize authority, that this unfamiliar disturbing factor was introduced by Xavier and his followers. Xavier landed at Kagoshima in 1549; and by 1581 the Jesuits had upwards of two hundred churches in the country. This fact alone sufficiently indicates the rapidity with which the new religion spread; and it seemed destined to extend over the entire empire. In 1585 a Japanese religious embassy was received at Rome; and by that date no less than eleven daimyo,--or "kings," as the Jesuits not inaptly termed them--had become converted. Among these were several very powerful lords. The new creed had made rapid way among the common people also: it was becoming "popular," in the strict meaning of the word.

When Nobunaga rose to power, he favoured the Jesuits in many ways--not because of any sympathy with their creed, for he never dreamed of becoming a Christian, but because he thought that their influence would be of service to him in his campaign against Buddhism. Like the Jesuits themselves, Nobunaga had no scruple about means in his pursuit of ends. More ruthless than William the Conqueror, he did not hesitate to put to death [305] his own brother and his own father-in-law, when they dared to oppose his will. The aid and protection which he extended to the foreign priests, for merely political reasons, enabled them to develop their power to a degree which soon gave him cause for repentance. Mr. Gubbins, in his "Review of the Introduction of Christianity into China and Japan," quotes from a Japanese work, called Ibuki Mogusa, an interesting extract on the subject:--

"Nobunaga now began to regret his previous policy in permitting the introduction of Christianity. He accordingly assembled his retainers, and said to them:--'The conduct of these missionaries in persuading people to join them by giving money, does not please me. How would it be, think you, if we were to demolish Nambanji [The "Temple of the Southern Savages"--so the Portuguese church was called]?' To this Mayeda Tokuzenin replied. 'It is now too late to demolish the Temple of the Namban. To endeavour to arrest the power of this religion now is like trying to arrest the current of the ocean. Nobles, both great and small, have become adherents of it. If you would exterminate this religion now, there is fear that disturbance should be created among your own retainers. I am therefore of opinion that you should abandon your intention of destroying Nambanji.' Nobunaga in consequence regretted exceedingly his previous action in regard to the Christian religion, and set about thinking how he could root it out."

The assassination of Nobunaga in 1586 may have prolonged the period of toleration. His successor [306] Hideyoshi, who judged the influence of the foreign priests dangerous, was for the moment occupied with the great problem of centralizing the military power, so as to give peace to the country. But the furious intolerance of the Jesuits in the southern provinces had already made them many enemies, eager to avenge the cruelties of the new creed. We read in the histories of the missions about converted daimyo burning thousands of Buddhist temples, destroying countless works of art, and slaughtering Buddhist priests;--and we find the Jesuit writers praising these crusades as evidence of holy zeal. At first the foreign faith had been only persuasive; afterwards, gathering power under Nobunaga's encouragement, it became coercive and ferocious. A reaction against it set in about a year after Nobunaga's death. In 1587 Hideyoshi destroyed the mission churches in Kyoto, Osaka, and Sakai, and drove the Jesuits from the capital; and in the following year he ordered them to assemble at the port of Hirado, and prepare to leave the country. They felt themselves strong enough to disobey: instead of leaving Japan, they scattered through the country, placing themselves under the protection of various Christian daimyo. Hideyoshi probably thought it impolitic to push matters further: the priests kept quiet, and ceased to preach publicly; and their self-effacement served them well until 1591. In that year the advent of [307] certain Spanish Franciscans changed the state of affairs. These Franciscans arrived in the train of an embassy from the Philippines, and obtained leave to stay in the country on condition that they were not to preach Christianity. They broke their pledge, abandoned all prudence, and aroused the wrath of Hideyoshi. He resolved to make an example; and in 1597 he had six Franciscans, three Jesuits, and several other Christians taken to Nagasaki and there crucified. The attitude of the great Taiko toward the foreign creed had the effect of quickening the reaction against it,--a reaction which had already begun to show itself in various provinces. But Hideyoshi's death in 1598 enabled the Jesuits to hope for better fortune. His successor, the cold and cautious Iyeyasu, allowed them to hope, and even to reestablish themselves in Kyoto, Osaka, and elsewhere. He was preparing for the great contest which was to be decided by the battle of Sekigahara;--he knew that the Christian element was divided,--some of its leaders being on his own side, and some on the side of his enemies;--and the time would have been ill chosen for any repressive policy. But in 1606, after having solidly established his power, Iyeyasu for the first time showed himself decidedly opposed to Christianity by issuing an edict forbidding further mission work, and proclaiming that those who had adopted the foreign religion must abandon it. Nevertheless the propaganda [308] went on--conducted no longer by Jesuits only, but also by Dominicans and Franciscans. The number of Christians then in the empire is said, with gross exaggeration, to have been nearly two millions. But Iyeyasu neither took, nor caused to be taken, any severe measures of repression until 1614,--from which date the great persecution may be said to have begun. Previously there had been local persecutions only, conducted by independent daimyo,--not by the central government. The local persecutions in Kyushu, for example, would seem to have been natural consequences of the intolerance of the Jesuits in the days of their power, when converted daimyo burned Buddhist temples and massacred Buddhist priests; and these persecutions were most pitiless in those very districts such as Bungo, Omura, and Higo --where the native religion had been most fiercely persecuted at Jesuit instigation. But from 1614--at which date there remained only eight, out of the total sixty-four provinces of Japan, into which Christianity had not been introduced--the suppression of the foreign creed became a government matter; and the persecution was conducted systematically and uninterruptedly until every outward trace of Christianity had disappeared.

The fate of the missions, therefore, was really settled by Iyeyasu and his immediate successors; [309] and it is the part taken by Iyeyasu that especially demands attention. Of the three great captains, all had, sooner or later, become suspicious of the foreign propaganda; but only Iyeyasu could find both the time and the ability to deal with the social problem which it had aroused. Even Hideyoshi had been afraid to complicate existing political troubles by any rigorous measures of an extensive character. Iyeyasu long hesitated. The reasons for his hesitation were doubtless complex, and chiefly diplomatic. He was the last of men to act hastily, or suffer himself to be influenced by prejudice of any sort; and to suppose him timid would be contrary to all that we know of his character. He must have recognized, of course, that to extirpate a religion which could claim, even in exaggeration, more than a million of adherents, was no light undertaking, and would involve an immense amount of suffering. To cause needless misery was not in his nature: he had always proved himself humane, and a friend of the common people. But he was first of all a statesman and patriot; and the main question for him must have been the probable relation of the foreign creed to political and social conditions in Japan. This question required long and patient investigation; and he appears to have given it all possible attention. At last he decided that Roman Christianity constituted a grave political danger and that its extirpation would be an unavoidable necessity. [310] The fact that the severe measures which he and his successors enforced against Christianity--measures steadily maintained for upwards of two hundred years--failed to completely eradicate the creed, proves how deeply the roots had struck. Superficially, all trace of Christianity vanished to Japanese eyes; but in 1865 there were discovered near Nagasaki some communities which had secretly preserved among themselves traditions of the Roman forms of worship, and still made use of Portuguese and Latin words relating to religious matters.

To rightly estimate the decision of Iyeyasu--one of the shrewdest, and also one of the most humane statesmen that ever lived,--it is necessary to consider, from a Japanese point of view, the nature of the evidence upon which he was impelled to act. Of Jesuit intrigues in Japan he must have had ample knowledge--several of them having been directed against himself;--but he would have been more likely to consider the ultimate object and probable result of such intrigues, than the mere fact of their occurrence. Religious intrigues were common among the Buddhists, and would scarcely attract the notice of the military government except when they interfered with state policy or public order. But religious intrigues having for their object the overthrow of government, and a sectarian domination of the country, would be gravely considered. [311] Nobunaga had taught Buddhism a severe lesson about the danger of such intriguing. Iyeyasu decided that the Jesuit intrigues had a political object of the most ambitious kind; but he was more patient than Nobunaga. By 1603 he, had every district of Japan under his yoke; but he did not issue his final edict until eleven years later. It plainly declared that the foreign priests were plotting to get control of the government, and to obtain possession of the country:--

"The Kirishitan band have come to Japan, not only sending their merchant-vessels to exchange commodities, but also longing to disseminate an evil law, to overthrow right doctrine, so that they may change the government of the country, and obtain possession of the land. This is the germ of great disaster, and must be crushed.....

"Japan is the country of the gods and of the Buddha: it honours the gods, and reveres the Buddha.... The faction of the Bateren* disbelieve in the Way of the Gods, and blaspheme the true Law, --violate right-doing, and injure the good.... They truly are the enemies of the gods and of the Buddha.... If this be not speedily prohibited, the safety of the state will, assuredly hereafter be imperilled; and if those who are charged with ordering its affairs do not put a stop to the evil, they will expose themselves to Heaven's rebuke.

[*Bateren, a corruption of the Portuguese padre, is still the term used for Roman Catholic priests, of any denomination.]

"These [missionaries] must be instantly swept out, so that not an inch of soil remains to them in Japan on which [312] to plant their feet; and if they refuse to obey this command, they shall suffer the penalty.... Let Heaven and the Four Seas hear this. Obey!"*

[*The entire proclamation, which is of considerable length, has been translated by Satow, and may be found in Vol. VI, part I, of the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.]