A History of the Japanese People. Kikuchi Dairoku
course with regard to Paikche. This plot was frustrated by Oto's wife, Kusu, a woman too patriotic to connive at treason in any circumstances. She killed her husband, and the Court of Yamato was informed of these events.
From that time, however, Japan's hold upon the peninsula was shaken. Yuryaku sent four expeditions thither, but they accomplished nothing permanent. The power of Koma in the north increased steadily, and it had the support of China. Yuryaku's attempts to establish close relations with the latter—the Sung were then on the throne—seem to have been inspired by a desire to isolate Korea. He failed, and ultimately Kudara was overrun by Koma, as will be seen by and by. It is scarcely too much to say that Japan lost her paramount status in Korea because of Yuryaku's illicit passion for the wife of one of his subjects.
CHRONOLOGY
The first absolute agreement between the dates given in Japanese history and those given in Korean occurs in this reign, namely, the year A.D. 475. The severest critics therefore consent to admit the trustworthiness of the Japanese annals from the third quarter of the fifth century.
TREASURIES
In the record of Richu's reign, brief mention has been made of the establishment of a Government treasury. In early days, when religious rites and administrative functions were not differentiated, articles needed for both purposes were kept in the same store, under the charge of the Imibe-uji. But as the Court grew richer, owing to receipt of domestic taxes and foreign "tribute," the necessity of establishing separate treasuries, was felt and a "domestic store" (Uchi-kura) was formed during Richu's reign, the Koreans, Achi and Wani, being appointed to keep the accounts. In Yuryaku's time a third treasury had to be added, owing to greatly increased production of textile fabrics and other manufactures. This was called the Okura, a term still applied to the Imperial treasury, and there were thus three stores, Okura, Uchi-kura, and Imi-kura. Soga no Machi was placed in supreme charge of all three, and the power of the Soga family grew proportionately.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
It is observable that at this epoch the sovereigns of Japan had not yet begun to affect the sacred seclusion which, in later ages, became characteristic of them. It is true that, after ascending the throne, they no longer led their troops in war, though they did so as Imperial princes. But in other respects they lived the lives of ordinary men—joining in the chase, taking part in banquets, and mixing freely with the people. As illustrating this last fact a strange incident may be cited. One day the Emperor Yuryaku visited the place where some carpenters were at work and observed that one of them, Mane, in shaping timber with an axe, used a stone for ruler but never touched it with the axe. "Dost thou never make a mistake and strike the stone?" asked the monarch. "I never make a mistake," replied the carpenter. Then, to disturb the man's sang-froid, Yuryaku caused the ladies-in-waiting (uneme) to dance, wearing only waist-cloths. Mane watched the spectacle for a while, and on resuming his work, his accuracy of aim was momentarily at fault. The Emperor rebuked him for having made an unwarranted boast and handed him over to the monono-be for execution. After the unfortunate man had been led away, one of his comrades chanted an impromptu couplet lamenting his fate, whereat the Emperor, relenting, bade a messenger gallop off on "a black horse of Kai" to stay the execution. The mandate of mercy arrived just in time, and when Mane's bonds were loosed, he, too, improvised a verse:
"Black as the night
"Was the horse of Kai.
"Had they waited to
"Saddle him, my life were lost
"O, horse of Kai!"
The whole incident is full of instruction. A sovereign concerning himself about trivialities as petty as this pretext on which he sends a man to death; the shameful indignity put upon the ladies-in-waiting to minister to a momentary whim; the composition of poetry by common carpenters, and the ride for life on a horse which there is not time to saddle. It is an instructive picture of the ways of Yuryaku's Court.
In truth, this couplet-composing proclivity is one of the strangest features of the Yamato race as portrayed in the pages of the Records and the Chronicles. From the time when the fierce Kami, Susanoo, put his thoughts into verse as he sought for a place to celebrate his marriage, great crises and little crises in the careers of men and women respectively inspire couplets. We find an Emperor addressing an ode to a dragon-fly which avenges him on a gad-fly; we find a prince reciting impromptu stanzas while he lays siege to the place whither his brother has fled for refuge; we find a heartbroken lady singing a verselet as for the last time she ties the garters of her lord going to his death, and we find a sovereign corresponding in verse with his consort whose consent to his own dishonour he seeks to win.
Yet in the lives of all these men and women of old, there are not many other traces of corresponding refinement or romance. We are constrained to conjecture that many of the verses quoted in the Records and the Chronicles were fitted in after ages to the events they commemorate. Another striking feature in the lives of these early sovereigns is that while on the one hand their residences are spoken of as muro, a term generally applied to dwellings partially underground, on the other, we find more than one reference to high towers. Thus Yuryaku is shown as "ordering commissioners to erect a lofty pavilion in which he assumes the Imperial dignity," and the Emperor Nintoku is represented as "ascending a lofty tower and looking far and wide" on the occasion of his celebrated sympathy with the people's poverty.
ENGRAVING: ANCIENT ACROBATIC PERFORMANCE
ENGRAVING: DAIRISAMA (KINO) AND OKUSAMA (QUEEN) OF THE FEAST OF THE DOLLS
CHAPTER XIII
THE PROTOHISTORIC SOVEREIGNS (Continued)
The 22nd Sovereign, Seinei A.D. 480–484
" 23rd " Kenso " 485–487
" 24th " Ninken " 488–498
" 25th " Muretsu " 499–506
" 26th " Keitai " 507–531
" 27th " Ankan " 534–535
" 28th " Senkwa " 536–539
DISPUTE ABOUT THE SUCCESSION
THE Emperor Yuryaku's evil act in robbing Tasa of his wife, Waka, entailed serious consequences. He selected to succeed to the throne his son Seinei, by Princess Kara, who belonged to the Katsuragi branch of the great Takenouchi family. But Princess Waka conspired to secure the dignity for the younger of her own two sons, Iwaki and Hoshikawa, who were both older than Seinei. She urged Hoshikawa to assert his claim by seizing the Imperial treasury, and she herself with Prince Iwaki and others accompanied him thither. They underestimated the power of the Katsuragi family. Siege was laid to the treasury and all its inmates were burned, with the exception of one minor official to whom mercy was extended and who, in token of gratitude, presented twenty-five acres of rice-land to the o-muraji, Lord Otomo, commander of the investing force.
THE FUGITIVE PRINCES
The Emperor Seinei had no offspring, and for a time it seemed that the succession in the direct line would be interrupted. For this lack of heirs the responsibility ultimately rested with Yuryaku. In his fierce ambition to sweep away every obstacle, actual or potential, that barred his ascent to the throne, he inveigled Prince Oshiwa, eldest son of the Emperor Richu, to accompany him on a hunting expedition, and slew him mercilessly on the moor of Kaya. Oshiwa had two sons, Oke and Woke, mere children at the time of their father's murder. They fled, under the care of Omi, a muraji, who, with his son, Adahiko, secreted them in the remote province of Inaba. Omi ultimately committed suicide in order to avoid the risk of capture and interrogation under torture, and the two little princes, still accompanied by Adahiko, calling themselves "the urchins of Tamba," became menials in the service of the obito of the Shijimi granaries in the province of Harima.
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