A History of the Japanese People. Kikuchi Dairoku
the palace, but the originals were transferred to Kasanui in Yamato, where a shrine for the worship of the Sun goddess had been built. But though the pestilence was stayed, it brought an aftermath of lawlessness and produced much unrest in the regions remote from Yamato. Sujin therefore organized a great military movement, the campaign of the Shido shogun, or "Generalissimo of the four Circuits."*
*The term "do" indicates a group of provinces.
The leaders chosen for this task were all members of the Imperial family—a great-uncle, an uncle, a younger brother, and a first cousin of the Emperor—and the fields of operation assigned to them were: first, to the west along the northern shore of the Inland Sea; secondly, to the northwest into Tamba, Tango, and Tajima; thirdly, to the north along the sea of Japan, and finally to the east along the route now known as the Tokaido. No attempt is made by the writers of either the Records or the Chronicles to describe the preparations for this extensive campaign. Tradition seems to have preserved the bare fact only.
One interesting interlude is described, however. Before the first body of troops had passed beyond range of easy communication with Mizugaki in Yamato, where the Court resided, the prince in command heard a girl singing by the wayside, and the burden of her song seemed to imply that, while foes at home menaced the capital, foes abroad should not be attacked. The prince, halting his forces, returned to Mizugaki to take counsel, and the Emperor's aunt interpreted the song to signify that his Majesty's half-brother, Haniyasu, who governed the adjacent province of Yamato, was plotting treason. Then all the troops having been recalled, preparations to guard the capital were made, and soon afterwards, news came that Haniyasu, at the head of an army, was advancing from the direction of Yamashiro, while his wife, Ata, was leading another force from Osaka, the plan being to unite the two armies for the attack on Yamato. The Emperor's generals at once assumed the offensive. They moved first against Princess Ata, killed her and exterminated her forces; after which they dealt similarly with Haniyasu. This chapter of history illustrates the important part taken by women in affairs of State at that epoch, and incidentally confirms the fact that armour was worn by men in battle.
The four Imperial generals were now able to resume their temporarily interrupted campaigns. According to the Chronicles they completed the tasks assigned to them and returned to the capital within six months. But such chronology cannot be reconciled with facts. For it is related that the generals sent northward by the western seaboard and the eastern seaboard, respectively, came together at Aizu,* one reaching that place via Hitachi, the other via Echigo. Thus, it would result that Yamato armies at that remote epoch marched hundreds of miles through country in the face of an enemy within a few months. Further, to bring the aboriginal tribes into subjugation, an isolated campaign would have been quite inadequate. Some kind of permanent control was essential, and there is collateral evidence that the descendants of the four princely generals, during many generations, occupied the position of provincial magnates and exercised virtually despotic sway within the localities under their jurisdiction. Thus in the provinces of Omi, of Suruga, of Mutsu, of Iwashiro, of Iwaki, of Echigo, of Etchu, of Echizen, of Bizen, of Bitchu, of Bingo, of Harima, of Tamba, and elsewhere, there are found in later ages noble families all tracing their descent to one or another of the Shido shoguns despatched on the task of pacifying the country in the days of the Emperor Sujin. The genealogies which fill pages of the Records from the days of Jimmu downwards point clearly to the growth of a powerful feudal aristocracy, for the younger sons born to successive sovereigns bear, for the most part, names indicative of territorial lordship; but it seems justifiable to conclude that the first great impetus to that kind of decentralization was given by Sujin's despatch of the Shido shoguns.
*Hence the term "Aizu," form, signifies "to meet."
AGRICULTURE AND TAXATION
The digging of reservoirs and tunnels for irrigating rice-fields received unprecedented attention in the reign of this Emperor, and mention is for the first time made of taxes—tributes of "bow-notches and of finger-tips," in other words, the produce of the chase and the products of the loom. A census was taken for taxation purposes, but unhappily the results are nowhere recorded. The Court gave itself some concern about maritime transport also. A rescript ordered that ships should be built by every province, but nothing is stated as to their dimensions or nature. In this rescript it is mentioned that "the people of the coast not having ships, suffer grievously by land transport." What they suffered may be inferred from a description in the Chronicles where we read that at the building of the tomb of a princess, "the people, standing close to each other, passed the stones from hand to hand, and thus transported them from Osaka to Yamato."
FOREIGN INTERCOURSE
Korea, when Japanese history is first explicitly concerned with it, was peopled by a number of semi-independent tribes, and the part of the peninsula lying southward of the Han River—that is to say, southward of the present Seoul—comprised three kingdoms. Of these Ma-Han occupied the whole of the western half of the peninsula along the coast of the Yellow Sea; while Sin-Han and Pyong-Han formed the eastern half, lying along the shore of the Sea of Japan. The three were collectively spoken of as Sam-Han (the three Han). But Japan's relations with the peninsula did not always involve these major divisions. Her annals speak of Shiragi (or Sinra), Kara, Kudara, and Koma. Shiragi and Kara were principalities carved respectively out of the southeast and south of Pyong-Han. Thus, they lay nearest to Japan, the Korea Strait alone intervening, and the Korea Strait was almost bridged by islands. Kudara constituted the modern Seoul and its vicinity; Koma, (called also Korai and in Korea, Kokuli), the modern Pyong-yang and its district. These two places were rendered specially accessible by the rivers Han and Tadong which flowed through them to the Yellow Sea; but of course in this respect they could not compare with Shiragi (Sinra) and Kara, of which latter place the Japanese usually spoke as Mimana.
There can scarcely be any doubt that the Korean peninsula was largely permeated with Chinese influences from a very early date, but the processes which produced that result need not be detailed here. It has been also shown above that, in the era prior to Jimmu, indications are found of intercourse between Japan and Korea, and even that Susanoo and his son held sway in Shiragi. But the first direct reference made by Japanese annals to Korea occurs in the reign of Sujin, 33 B.C. when an envoy from Kara arrived at the Mizugaki Court, praying that a Japanese general might be sent to compose a quarrel which had long raged between Kara and Shiragi, and to take the former under Japan's protection. It appears that this envoy had travelled by a very circuitous route. He originally made the port of Anato (modern Nagato), but Prince Itsutsu, who ruled there, claimed to be the sole monarch of Japan and refused to allow the envoy to proceed, so that the latter had to travel north and enter Japan via Kehi-no-ura (now Tsuruga.)
Incidentally this narrative corroborates a statement made in Chinese history (compiled in the Later Han era, A.D. 25–220) to the effect that many Japanese provinces claimed to be under hereditary rulers who exercised sovereign rights. Such, doubtless, was the attitude assumed by several of the Imperial descendants who had obtained provincial estates. The Emperor Sujin received the envoy courteously and seemed disposed to grant his request, but his Majesty's death (30 B.C.) intervened, and not until two years later was the envoy able to return. His mission had proved abortive, but the Emperor Suinin, Sujin's successor, gave him some red-silk fabrics to carry home and conferred on his country the name Mimana, in memory of Sujin, whose appellation during life had been Mimaki.
These details furnish an index to the relations that existed in that era between the neighbouring states of the Far East. The special interest of the incident lies, however, in the fact that it furnishes the first opportunity of comparing Japanese history with Korean. The latter has two claims to credence. The first is that it assigns no incredible ages to the sovereigns whose reigns it records. According to Japanese annals there were only seven accessions to the throne of Yamato during the first four centuries of the Christian era. According to Korean annals, the three peninsular principalities had sixteen, seventeen, and sixteen accessions, respectively, in the same interval. The second claim is that, during the same four centuries, the histories of China and Korea agree in ten dates and differ in two only.* On the whole, therefore, Korean annals deserve to be credited. But whereas Japanese history represents warfare as existing between Kara and Shiragi in