Japan. Various
control over administrative and financial affairs, the branches of the Fujiwara family often intrigued and fought among themselves to secure the great prize. Michinaga, youngest son of Kaneiye, was a man of remarkable strength of purpose and tact. He held the office of kwampaku during the reigns of three emperors, Ichijō, Sanjō, and Goichijō; his three daughters became the consorts of three successive sovereigns; he was grandfather of a reigning emperor and an heir apparent at the same time, and his power and affluence far surpassed those of the imperial house itself. To this great noble every official paid court, except Fujiwara-no-Sanesuke, who maintained his independence and was consequently relied on by the emperor. It is on record that Michinaga once composed a stanza the purport of which was that all the world seemed to have been created for his uses, and that every desire he felt was satisfied as completely as the full moon is perfectly rounded. In truth the power of the Fujiwara family culminated in his days. A contemporary writer described the conditions of the time in a work for which he found no title more appropriate than "the Story of Grandeur" ("Eigwa Monogatari"). With Michinaga the power of the Fujiwara may be said to have reached its zenith, for although his sons Yorimichi and Norimichi became kwampaku in succession and retained immense influence, the gradual decline of the family really began from that time.
Why the overwhelming power of the Fujiwara should have waned may only be understood as we observe the conditions of local administration. Within Kyōto reigned luxury and pomp, but without it, unrest and discontentment. The principal cause of this sharp contrast between the capital and country was the inevitable and utter failure of the system of equal land allotment upon which the great Taikwa reformation had been constructed. Uncultivated lands, however, were suffered to remain in the possession of local officials and farmers who reclaimed them. Originally the term of service for the governor of a province (kuni) was fixed at four years, but in the reign of the Empress Kōken it was extended to six. Reappointment was generally an object of keen desire to these officials. They employed every possible means to compass it, since to remain in administrative control of a province for a long period signified opportunities of appropriating extensive lands and ultimately acquiring large territorial possessions. In the case of the headman of a district (kōri), the office was originally held for life, but even that limit soon fell into neglect, and the post was handed down from father to son through many generations. To check the abuses arising out of such a state of affairs, itinerant inspectors were appointed in the reign of the Empress Gensho, who were chosen from among the ablest of the provincial governors. In a report addressed by one of them to the throne in 762, it is declared that "No such thing as justice is now executed by any provincial governor in the realm." From this time on, provincial governors not only continued to tread the old wonted paths, but their selfish arbitrariness became more unbridled in proportion as the prestige of the administration in the capital grew feebler and the official organization more lax.
Nor was the illegal practice of land-appropriation confined to rural districts, for even in the metropolis men began to obtain territorial possessions. As the living in Kyōto grew more and more luxurious, and it became difficult for the princes and higher officials to maintain their dignity by means of their regular salaries and allowances, which were paid in kind but seldom in land, they set themselves to reclaim extensive tracts of waste lands. Such lands were called shōyen, a term originally limited to lands granted to princes and ministers of state for the purpose of defraying expenditures incurred in connection with their positions, but now extended so as to apply also to land reclaimed and appropriated by these nobles. Even as early as the reigns of Kwammu and Saga the area of such estates was very great. The system of periodical redistribution had in the meantime fallen into desuetude. People were often forced to sell their lands or were evicted for their debts. It was in vain to prohibit by edict after edict the monopolization of land by the wealthy classes. Cunning people even evaded the public obligations devolving on landowners by nominally transferring their lands to powerful nobles or to temples, and themselves taking the position of stewards or superintendents. In that capacity they were called either "intendants" or "retainers," the ostensible holders of the land being known as "landlords." By degrees all the fertile districts and all the newly reclaimed lands were in that manner absorbed into the estates of the great nobles or of the temples, and since they were thus exempted from the control of the provincial governors as well as from the necessity of paying taxes, not only the power of the local authorities, but also the revenues of the central government gradually suffered diminution.
During the reign of the Emperor Kwammu the plan was inaugurated of reducing to the rank of subjects and giving family names to such of the imperial princes as were of inferior descent on the mother's side. Kwammu's son, Saga, who had so many children that the revenue of the imperial household did not suffice to maintain them, followed the precedent established by his father, giving the name Minamoto to several of his sons. Thenceforth the device passed into a custom, and imperial princes were frequently appointed to official positions in the central or local government under the family names of Minamoto or Taira. Those who obtained the posts of provincial governors acquired large influence in the districts administered by them, their descendants becoming military chiefs with great followings of relatives and retainers. The Minamoto clan comprised no less than fourteen families, among them the descendants of the Emperor Seiwa being the most numerous and important. It was from this clan that the great Yoritomo, the first feudal ruler of Japan, subsequently sprang. The Taira, on the other hand, consisted of four families, principally descendants of the Emperor Kwammu. To them belonged the notorious tyrant Kiyomori, of whose career we shall soon be told.
The significance of the rise of the two clans, Minamoto and Taira, lies in the fact that they succeeded in gradually controlling the military forces of the nation, on the one hand, and, on the other, holding a great share of the landed estates of the country. The process of land-appropriation was similar to the one already described. The manner in which the force of arms passed from the state into the hands of the private clans must now be explained. Under the elaborate system of the Taikō laws, garrisons of fixed strength were stationed in all the provinces, and in the metropolis were guards of five kinds. Men for service in the garrisons and guards were levied by conscription from among the people, those upon whom the lot fell being required to join the nearest garrison, while a part were sent to Kiushū to defend the western coast, and another part, to the guardposts in Kyōto. Equestrian archery, the use of the sword, and the manipulation of long spears, were the arts taught to the soldiers, and for the defense of the coasts catapults also were used. The entire military organization was imposing and complete, but its real value was questionable, from the beginning. The metropolitan troops grew more and more effeminate as years of peace succeeded each other. Nor were the provincial forces of more service. As time went by, bandits and marauders pillaged the provinces in the interior, while the coasts of Nankaidō and Chūgoku were infested by pirates. It was under these circumstances that, early in the ninth century, a new bureau called the kebūshi-chō with extensive police and administrative powers, was created in Kyōto, which soon began to dominate over other offices and whose branches were later established in every province for local purposes. A century later it was found necessary to appoint inspector-generals, ōryōshi, for the eastern provinces, which were particularly restless. In the hands of these new officials, then—the central and local kebüshi and the eastern ōryōshi—rested the real powers which neither rank nor title could resist. The new, vigorous clans of Minamoto and Taira eagerly sought after these offices, and succeeded more and more completely, as time went on, not only in controlling them, but also in acquiring a military influence far larger than they at first represented.
The illustrations or rather pictures made for the book "Heiji Monogatari," i.e., "Stories from the Year Heiji," are partially lost. The picture shown here is an illustration belonging to the chapter Sandjoden-Yakiuti (the destruction of the castle of Sandjoden by fire.) [At midnight of the ninth day of the twelfth month of the year Heiji (1159 AD) Fujiwara-no-Nobuyori surprised and attacked the castle Sandjoden (where the former Emperor Goshirakawa resided) with 500 cavalrymen under the General Minamoto-no-Yoshitomo. The Emperor in his fright attempted to escape, but Nobuyori, Yoshitomo, Mitsuyasu, Mitsumoto, and Suesane forced