The Hojo Tyranny
Under the rule of Yoritomo Japan had two capitals and two governments,
the mikado ruling at Kioto, the shogun at Kamakura, the magnificent city
which Yoritomo had founded. The great family of the Minamoto was now
supreme, all its rivals being destroyed. A special tax for the support
of the troops yielded a large revenue to the shoguns; courts were
established at Kamakura; the priests, who had made much trouble, were
di
was placed in each province beside the civil governor, and that military
government was founded which for nearly seven centuries robbed the
mikado of all but the semblance of power. Thus it came that the shogun,
or the tycoon as he afterwards named himself, appeared to be the emperor
of Japan.
We have told how Yoritomo, once a poor exile, became the lord of the
empire. After conquering all his enemies he visited Kioto, where he
astonished the court of the mikado by the splendor of his retinue and
the magnificence of his military shows, athletic games, and ceremonial
banquets. The two rulers exchanged the costliest presents, the emperor
conferred all authority upon the general, and when Yoritomo returned to
his capital city he held in his control the ruling power of the realm.
All generals were called shoguns, but he was the shogun, his title
being Sei-i Tai Shogun (Barbarian-subjugating Great General). Though
really a vassal of the emperor, he wielded the power of the emperor
himself, and from 1192 until 1868 the mikados were insignificant puppets
and the shoguns the real lords of the land. Such was the strange
progress of political evolution in Japan. The mikado was still emperor,
but the holders of this title lay buried in sloth or religious
fanaticism and let their subordinates rule.
And now we have another story to tell concerning this strange political
evolution. As the shoguns became paramount over the mikados, so did the
Hojo, the regents of the shoguns, become paramount over them, and for
nearly one hundred and fifty years these vassals of a vassal were the
virtual emperors of Japan. This condition of affairs gives a curious
complication to the history of that country.
In a previous tale it has been said that the father of Masago, the
beautiful wife of the exiled prince, was named Hojo Tokimasa. He was a
man of ability and was much esteemed and trusted by his son-in-law.
After the death of Yoritomo and the accession of his son, Tokimasa
became chief of the council of state, and brought up the young shogun in
idleness and dissipation, wielding the power in his name. When the boy
reached manhood and began to show ambition to rule, Tokimasa had him
exiled to a temple and soon after assassinated. His brother, then twelve
years old, succeeded as shogun. He cared nothing for power, but much for
enjoyment, and the Hojo let him live his life of pleasure while they
held the control of affairs. In the end he was murdered by the son of
the slain shogun, who was in his turn killed by a soldier, and thus the
family of Yoritomo became extinct.
From that time forward the Hojo continued preeminent. They were able
men, and governed the country well. The shoguns were chosen by them from
the Minamoto clan, boys being selected, some of them but two or three
years old, who were deposed as soon as they showed a desire to rule. The
same was the case with the mikados, who were also creatures of the Hojo
clan. One of them who had been deposed raised an army and fought for his
throne. He was defeated and exiled to a distant monastery. Others were
deposed, and neither mikados nor shoguns were permitted to reign except
as puppets in the hands of the powerful regents of the realm.
None of the Hojo ever claimed the office of shogun. They were content to
serve as the power behind the throne. As time went on, the usual result
of such a state of affairs showed itself. The able men of the Hojo
family were followed by weak and vicious ones. Their tyranny and
misgovernment grew unbearable. They gave themselves up to luxury and
debauchery, oppressed the people by taxes to obtain means for their
costly pleasures, and crushed beneath their oppressive rule the emperor,
the shogun, and the people alike. Their cup of vice and tyranny at
length overflowed. The day of retribution was at hand.
The son of the mikado Go-Daigo was the first to rebel. His plans were
discovered by spies, and his father ordered him to retire to a
monastery, in which, however, he continued to plot revenge. Go-Daigo
himself next struck for the power of which he possessed but the name.
Securing the aid of the Buddhist priests, he fortified Kasagi, a
stronghold in Yamato. He failed in his effort. In the following year
(1331) an army attacked and took Kasagi, and the emperor was taken
prisoner and banished to Oki.
Connected with his exile is a story of much dramatic interest. While
Go-Daigo was being borne in a palanquin to his place of banishment,
under a guard of soldiers, Kojima, a young noble of his party, attempted
his rescue. Gathering a party of followers, he occupied a pass in the
hills through which he expected that the train would make its way. But
another pass was taken, and he waited in vain.
Learning their mistake, his followers, disheartened by their failure,
deserted him. But the faithful vassal cautiously followed the train,
making various efforts to approach and whisper hope to the imperial
exile. He was prevented by the vigilance of the guard, and finally,
finding that either rescue or speech was hopeless, he hit upon a plan to
baffle the vigilance of the guards and let the emperor know that friends
were still at work in his behalf.
Under the shadows of night he secretly entered the garden of the inn
where the party was resting, and there scraped off the outer bark of a
cherry-tree, laying bare the smooth white layer within. On this he
wrote the following stanza:
"O Heaven, destroy not Kosen
While Hanrei still lives."
The next morning the soldiers noticed the writing on the tree. Curious
to learn its meaning, but unable to read, they showed it to their
prisoner, who, being familiar with the quotation, caught, with an
impulse of joy, its concealed significance. Kosen was an ancient king of
China who had been deposed and made prisoner, but was afterwards
restored to power by his faithful follower Hanrei. Glad to learn that
loyal friends were seeking his release, the emperor went to his lonely
exile with renewed hope. Kojima afterwards died on the battle-field
during the war for the restoration of the exiled mikado.
But another valiant soldier was soon in the field in the interest of the
exile. Nitta Yoshisada, a captain of the Hojo forces, had been sent to
besiege Kusunoki, a vassal of the mikado, who held a stronghold for his
imperial lord. Nitta, roused by conscience to a sense of his true duty,
refused to fight against the emperor, deserted from the army, and,
obtaining a commission from Go-Daigo's son, who was concealed in the
mountains, he returned to his native place, raised the standard of
revolt against the Hojo, and soon found himself at the head of a
considerable force.
In thirteen days after raising the banner of revolt in favor of the
mikado he reached the vicinity of Kamakura, acting under the advice of
his brother, who counselled him to beard the lion in his den. The
tyranny of the Hojo had spread far and wide the spirit of rebellion, and
thousands flocked to the standard of the young general,--a long white
pennant, near whose top were two bars of black, and under them a circle
bisected with a zone of black.
On the eve of the day fixed for the attack on the city, Nitta stood on
the sea-shore in front of his army, before him the ocean with blue
islands visible afar, behind him lofty mountain peaks, chief among them
the lordly Fusiyama. Here, removing his helmet, he uttered the following
words:
"Our heavenly son [the mikado] has been deposed by his traitorous
subject, and is now an exile afar in the west. I have not been able to
look on this act unmoved, and have come to punish the traitors in yonder
city by the aid of these loyal troops. I humbly pray you, O god of the
ocean waves, to look into the purposes of my heart. If you favor me and
my cause, then bid the tide to ebb and open a path beside the sea."
With these words he drew his sword and cast it with all his strength
into the water. For a moment the golden hilt gleamed in the rays of the
setting sun, and then the blade sank from sight. But with the dawn of
the next day the soldiers saw with delight that there had been a great
ebb in the tide, and that the dry strand offered a wide high-road past
the rocky girdle that enclosed Kamakura. With triumphant shouts they
marched along this ocean path, following a leader whom they now believed
to be the chosen avenger of the gods.
From two other sides the city of the shogun was attacked. The defence
was as fierce as the assault, but everywhere victory rested upon the
white banner of loyalty. Nitta's army pressed resistlessly forward, and
the Hojo found themselves defeated and their army destroyed. Fire
completed what the sword had begun, destructive flames attacked the
frame dwellings of the city, and in a few hours the great capital of the
shoguns and their powerful regents was a waste of ashes.
Many of the vassals of the Hojo killed themselves rather than surrender,
among them a noble named Ando, whose niece was Nitta's wife. She wrote
him a letter begging him to surrender.
"My niece is the daughter of a samurai house," the old man indignantly
exclaimed. "How can she make so shameless a request? And why did Nitta,
who is himself a samurai, permit her to do so?" Wrapping the letter
around his sword, he plunged the blade into his body and fell dead.
While Nitta was winning this signal victory, others were in arms for the
mikado elsewhere, and everywhere the Hojo power went down. The people in
all sections of the empire rose against the agents of the tyrants and
put them to death, many thousands of the Hojo clan being slain and their
power utterly destroyed. They had ruled Japan from the death of
Yoritomo, in 1199, to 1333. They have since been execrated in Japan, the
feeling of the people being displayed in their naming one of the
destructive insects of the island the Hojo bug. Yet among the Hojo were
many able rulers, and under them the empire was kept in peace and order
for over a century, while art and literature flourished and many of the
noblest monuments of Japanese architecture arose.
Go-Daigo was now recalled from exile and replaced on the imperial
throne. For the first time for centuries the mikado had come to his own
and held the power of the empire in his hands. With judgment and
discretion he might have restored the old government of Japan.
But he lacked those important qualities, and quickly lost the power he
had won. After a passing gleam of its old splendor the mikadoate sank
into eclipse again.
Go-Daigo was ruined by listening to a flatterer, whom he raised to the
highest power, while he rewarded those who had rescued him with
unimportant domains. A fierce war followed, in which Ashikaga, the
flatterer, was the victor, defeating and destroying his foes. Go-Daigo
had pronounced him a rebel. In return he was himself deposed, and a new
emperor, whom the usurper could control, was raised to the vacant
throne. For three years only had the mikado remained supreme. Then for a
long period the Ashikagas held the reins of power, and a tyranny like
that of the Hojo existed in the land.
More
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