A Diplomat in Japan. Ernest Mason Satow
I shall say more of him later on. The cavalry escort consisted of a dozen men from the Military Train, a corps which went by the honorary title of "Pig-drivers," and at their head was a lieutenant, a good, harmless sort of fellow, whose only weakness was for fine uniforms and showy horses. Not being learned in the extremely complicated subject of military costume, full dress, half dress, and undress, I cannot say what it was that he had adopted for himself, but it was whispered about that he had been audacious enough to assume the insignia of a field-officer, which is undoubtedly a serious offence against discipline. However that may be, the blaze of gold which decorated his person was wonderful to behold, and on at least one occasion, when we were going in solemn procession to an audience of the Tycoon, caused him to be mistaken for the Envoy by the Japanese officials, who gave him the salutes that rightfully belonged to his less conspicuously adorned diplomatic chief. To determine whether the pleasure derived from this confusion of persons by the one outweighed the mortification which might not unnaturally have been felt by the other would have required a delicate moral balance, which was not available at the moment; but judging from the relative scale of the two men in other points of character, I am inclined to infer that the good preponderated largely over the evil, and that applying consequently the criterion so unfairly attributed to the utilitarians by their opponents, we must arrive at the provisional conclusion that the lieutenant's uniform was highly virtuous and worthy of the applause of mankind.
But it is time to quit this gossiping tone and speak of more serious matters.
CHAPTER III
POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN JAPAN
At this period the movement had already commenced that finally culminated in what may fitly be called the Revolution of 1868, by which the feudal system was destroyed and the old monarchical government revived. The tendency of the times was as yet scarcely perceived by foreigners, with but one or two exceptions. They generally supposed that political strife had broken out between the sovereign and a few unruly vassals dissatisfied with the treaties that permitted the sacred soil of Japan to be defiled by the footsteps of "barbarians," and secured all the profits of trade to the head of the State, the vassals being enabled to defy their suzerain owing to his own feebleness and the incapacity of his Ministers. It was still believed that the potentate in whose name the Treaties had been concluded was the Temporal Sovereign, and that the Mikado was little more than the head of the priesthood, or Spiritual Emperor. This theory of the Japanese Constitution was almost as old as the earliest knowledge of the country possessed by Europeans. Marco Polo, indeed, says nothing of its system of government in the two short chapters which he devotes to Zipangu, but the Jesuit missionaries who laboured in Japan during the 16th and 17th centuries uniformly held the Mikado to be a spiritual dignitary, and spoke of the Shôgun as the real ruler of the country, the temporal king, and even Emperor. Kaempfer, the best known and most often quoted of the authorities on Japan, writing at the beginning of the 18th century, calls the two potentates Ecclesiastical and Secular Emperors, and his example had, up to the time I am writing of, been followed by all his successors without exception. The truth is that the polity of the Japanese State had assumed already in the 12th century the form which it was still displaying at the beginning of the latter half of the 19th, and institutions which could boast of such a highly respectable antiquity might well be supposed to have taken a deep enough hold to be part and parcel of the national life.
The history of Japan has still to be written. Native chronicles of the Mikados and annals of leading families exist in abundance, but the Japanese mind is only just now beginning to emancipate itself from the thraldom of Chinese literary forms, while no European has yet attempted a task which requires a training different from that of most men who pursue an Eastern career. Until within the last two decades, the literature of Japan was almost entirely unknown to Europeans, and the existing keys to the language were ridiculously inadequate. The only historical works accessible to foreigners were the scanty Annales des Dairi, translated by Titsingh with the aid of native Dutch interpreters and edited by Klaproth with a degree of bold confidence that nothing but the position of a one-eyed man amongst the blind can give; and a set of chronological tables, translated by Hoffman for Siebold's Nippon. It is no wonder, therefore, if at the outset of Treaty relations, the foreign representatives were at a loss to appreciate the exact nature of the political questions that confronted them, and were unable to diagnose the condition of the patient whose previous history was unknown to them.
To trace in detail the development of the Japanese monarchy, from its beginnings as a pure theocracy of foreign invaders, attracting to itself the allegiance of a number of small tribal chieftains, the fusion of these tribes with their conquerors into one seemingly homogeneous race, the remodelling of the administration which followed upon the introduction of Chinese laws and philosophy, the supplanting of the native hero and native worship by the creed of Gautama, the rise of a military caste brought about by the constant warfare with the barbarous tribes in the east and north of the country, the rivalry of the Taira and Minamoto clans, both sprung from base-born younger sons of the Mikados, and the final suppression of the civil administration in the provinces by the distribution of the country amongst the followers of the Minamoto and their allies, would require a profound study of documents which no one has yet undertaken. With the appointment of Yoritomo to be Commander-in-Chief the feudal system was fully established. The ancient official hierarchy still existed at Kiôto, but in name only, exercising no influence whatever over the conduct of affairs, and in the 14th century its functions were already so far forgotten as to become the subject of antiquarian research. The civil and penal codes borrowed from the great Empire of Eastern Asia fell into disuse, and in part even the very traces of them perished. Martial law reigned throughout the land, half the people were converted into a huge garrison, which the other half toiled to feed and clothe. Reading and writing were the exclusive accomplishments of the Buddhist priesthood and of the impoverished nobles who formed the court of a Mikado shorn of all the usual attributes of a sovereign, and a deep sleep fell upon the literary genius of the nation. The absence of danger from foreign invasion rendered the necessity of a strong central administration unfelt, and Japan under the Shôguns assumed the aspect of Germany in the middle ages, the soil being divided between a multitude of petty potentates, independent in all but name, while their nominal head was little better than a puppet.
This state of things lasted till the second quarter of the 14th century, when an attempt was made under the Mikado Go-Daigo to re-establish the pristine rule of the legitimate sovereigns. A civil war ensued that lasted for over fifty years, until the Ashikaga family finally established themselves in the office of hereditary Shôguns. Before long they split up into two branches which quarrelled among themselves and gave opportunity for local chiefs to re-establish their independence. In the middle of the 16th century a soldier of fortune, Ota Nobunaga by name, profited by the central position of the provinces he had acquired with his sword to arrogate to himself the right of arbitrating between the warlike leaders who had risen in every direction. After his assassination a still greater warrior, known most commonly by the title of Taicosama, carried on the work of pacification: every princelet who opposed his authority was in turn subdued, and he might have become the founder of a new line of "maires du palais." He died, however, before time had sufficiently consolidated his position, leaving an inexperienced youth heir to his power, under the tutelage of guardians who speedily quarrelled. The most distinguished of these was Iyéyasu, who, besides the vast domains which he had acquired in the neighbourhood of Yedo, the modern Tôkiô, possessed all the qualities which fit a man to lead armies and rule kingdoms. He had been Taicosama's sole remaining competitor for power, and at the death of the latter naturally assumed the most prominent position in the country. A couple of years sufficed for the transference to him of all, and more than all, the authority wielded by his two predecessors. No combination against him had any chance of success. The decisive battle of Sekigahara in 1600 brought the whole nation to his feet, and he made full use of this opportunity to create checks upon the Daimiôs of whose fidelity he was not sufficiently assured, by grants of territories to his own friends and followers, a few of the older families alone being allowed to retain their ancient fiefs. Among these were Shimadzu in the south of Kiû-shiû, Môri in the extreme