Читать книгу The Making of Modern Japan - John Harington Gubbins - Страница 6

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The fortunes of the first line of Kamakura Shōguns, so called from the seat of government being at that place, gave no indication of the permanence of duarchy, though it may have encouraged belief in the truth of the Japanese proverb that great men have no heirs. Neither of Yoritomo’s sons who succeeded him as Shōgun showing any capacity for government, the direction of affairs fell into the hands of members of the Hōjō family, who, by a further extension of the principle of ruling by proxy, were content to allow others to figure as Shōguns, while they held the real power with the title of regents (Shikken). Some of these puppet Shōguns were chosen from the Fujiwara family, which had governed the country for more than three centuries. Others were scions of the Imperial House. This connection of the Shōgunate with the Imperial dynasty, though only temporary, is a point to be noted, since under other circumstances it would suggest a devolution rather than a usurpation of sovereign rights.

It was in the thirteenth century, during the rule of the Hōjō regent Tokimuné, that the Mongol invasions took place. The reigning Mikado was a youth of nineteen; the Shōgun an infant of four. The six centuries which had elapsed since the Great Reform had witnessed notable changes in the countries which were Japan’s nearest neighbours. In China the Mongol dynasty was established. In Korea the four states into which the peninsula had originally been divided had disappeared one after the other. In their place was a new kingdom, then called for the first time by its modern name. The new kingdom did not retain its independence long. It was attacked and overthrown by the armies of Kublai Khan, the third Mongol Emperor. By the middle of the thirteenth century the King of Korea had acknowledged the suzerainty of China. Kublai Khan then turned his attention to Japan.

It was customary in those times for congratulatory missions to be sent by one country to another when a new dynasty was established or a new reign began, the presents exchanged on these occasions being usually termed gifts by the country offering them, and tribute by that which received them. The relations between Japan and the new Kingdom of Korea had been on the whole friendly, though disturbed from time to time by the piratical forays which seem to have been of frequent occurrence. But after Korea had lost her independence she was obliged to throw in her lot with China. When, therefore, in 1268, Kublai Khan sent an envoy to Japan to ask why since the beginning of his reign no congratulatory mission had reached Peking from the Japanese Court, the messenger naturally went by way of Korea, and was escorted by a suite of Koreans. The ports in the province of Chikuzen, on the north of Kiūshiū, the southernmost of the Japanese islands, were the places through which communications between Japan and the mainland were then carried on; and it was at Dazaifu in that province, the centre of local administration, that the envoy delivered his letter. This was in effect a demand for tribute, and the Regent’s refusal even to answer the communication was met by the despatch in the summer of 1275 of a Mongol force, accompanied by a Korean contingent. Having first occupied the islands of Tsushima and Iki, which form convenient stepping-stones between Korea and Japan, the invaders landed in Kiūshiū in the north-west of the province already mentioned. After a few days’ fighting they were forced to re-embark. In their retreat they encountered a violent storm, and only the shattered remnants of the Armada returned to tell the tale. A second invasion, six years later, planned on a far larger scale, and supported, as before, by Korean auxiliaries, met with a similar fate. On this occasion severer fighting occurred. The positions captured at the place of landing in the province of Hizen were held by the invaders for some weeks. Thence, however, they could make no headway. When they at length withdrew in disorder a violent storm again came to the aid of the defenders and overwhelmed the hostile fleets. The preparations begun by Kublai Khan for a third invasion were abandoned at his death a few years later. From that time Japan was left undisturbed.

The circumstances attending the fall of the Hōjō regents in 1333, and their replacement by the Ashikaga line of Shōguns, are noteworthy for the light they throw on the state of the country, and the unstable and, indeed, ludicrous conditions under which the government was carried on. It seemed for a moment as if the authority of the Court was about to be revived. But with the overthrow of the regents the movement in this direction stopped. The military class was naturally reluctant to surrender the power which had come into its hands; the position of the Mikado was also weakened by a dispute regarding his rights to the Throne. He had just returned from banishment, and had been at once reinstated as Emperor. But during his absence another Emperor had been placed on the Throne, and there were those who thought the latter had a right to remain. In the previous century it had been arranged, in accordance with the will of a deceased Emperor, that the Throne should be occupied alternately by descendants of the senior and junior branches of the Imperial House. This rule had been followed in filling the vacancy caused by the banishment of the previous Mikado, and the branch of the Imperial House which suffered by his reinstatement refused to accept the decision. Each claimant to the Throne found partizans amongst the feudal chieftains. Thus were formed two rival Courts, the Northern and the Southern, which disputed the Crown for nearly sixty years. The contest ended in the triumph in 1393 of the Northern Court. Having the support of the powerful Ashikaga family, it had early in the course of the struggle asserted its superiority, the Ashikaga leader becoming Shōgun in 1338.

The rule of the Ashikaga Shōguns lasted until the middle of the sixteenth century, though for several years before it ended the control of affairs was exercised by others in their name. During this period, which was favourable to the growth of art and literature, the seat of government kept changing from Kamakura to the Capital and back again. The former city shared the fate of the dynasty, and after its destruction was never rebuilt.

A break then occurred in the sequence of Shōguns. The chief power passed into the hands of two military leaders, Nobunaga and Hidéyoshi, neither of whom founded a dynasty or bore the title of Shōgun. By their efforts the country was gradually freed from the anarchy which had ensued during the last years of Ashikaga administration. Though here and there throughout the country there remained districts whose feudal lords insisted on settling their quarrels themselves, a more stable condition of things was introduced, and the work of the founder of the next and last line of Shōguns was greatly facilitated.

Europe had long before heard of Japan through the writings of the Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, who had visited the Court of Kublai Khan and there learned the failure of the Mongol invasions. It was not, however, till the middle of the sixteenth century, during the ascendancy of the first of the two military leaders above mentioned, that intercourse with European countries was established. The Portuguese were the first to come, and for this reason. Portugal was then at the height of her greatness as a maritime power; and by the Bulls of Pope Alexander VI, which divided the new lands discovered in Asia and America between her and Spain, those in Asia had fallen to her share. Some uncertainty exists as to the exact date at which the new Western intercourse began, and as to the identity of the first arrivals. Most authorities, however, agree in thinking that the first European discoverers of Japan were three Portuguese adventurers who, in the course of a voyage from Siam to China in the summer or autumn of 1542, were driven by a storm on the coast of Tanégashima, a small island lying midway between the southern point of the province of Satsuma and Loochoo. The adventurers who landed were successful in disposing of the cargo of their vessel, destined originally for Chinese ports. Their knowledge of firearms made a favourable impression, and the beginnings were thus laid of a trade with the Portuguese possessions and settlements in the East and with the mother country in Europe. Of greater interest and importance, however, than this early trade is the fact that to Portuguese enterprise Christianity owed its first introduction into Japan.

Seven years after the arrival of these involuntary traders, who had spread the news of the strange country they had discovered, one of the numerous Portuguese trading vessels which were thus attracted to Japan landed at Kagoshima, the capital of the Satsuma province, three missionaries—Xavier, Torres and Fernandez. Thenceforth, until the closing of the country to all but the Chinese and Dutch, it was the propagation of the Christian faith, not the progress of trade, which was the important factor in Japan’s foreign relations.

The coming of the first missionaries took place at a time when the widespread disorder which marked the closing years of the Ashikaga administration was at its height. Though Nobunaga was rapidly acquiring for himself a commanding position, the nation had not yet felt the full weight of the hand which twenty years later was to take the first steps towards the pacification of the country. The confusion of affairs assisted the spread of the new religion, the opposition offered by some of the leading daimiōs, such as the princes of Satsuma and Chōshiū, being counterbalanced by the eagerness of others to profit by the foreign trade which came with the missionaries; while Buddhist hostility lost much of its sting after the power of the militant priesthood had been crippled by Nobunaga.

The latter’s successor, Hidéyoshi, whom the Japanese regard as their greatest military genius, shared neither his sympathy with Christianity nor his dislike of Buddhism. To matters of religion he seemed to be indifferent, his one aim being apparently to make himself master of Japan. In a series of campaigns conducted in different parts of the country he overcame the resistance of one feudal chief after another, the last to submit to his authority being the Daimiō of Satsuma. His ascendancy deprived Christianity of the advantage it had previously derived from the unsettled condition of the country. His aim accomplished, Hidéyoshi changed his attitude suddenly, and in 1587 issued an edict against Christianity. As a result of this edict the missionaries were expelled from the Capital and the Christian church there was pulled down. Though the Christian persecution dates from that time, it was not prosecuted at first with much energy. Doubtless Hidéyoshi was aware of the connection between Christianity and foreign trade, and in his desire to profit by the latter was content not to push matters to extremities. There may also be some truth in the suggestion of the joint authors of A History of Japan (1542–61) that he was unwilling to incur the resentment of the numerous daimiōs in the south of Japan who had welcomed the new religion. Be this as it may, the initial stages of the persecution did not apparently affect missionary activity very seriously. We do not hear of any falling off in the number of converts, which is said to have attained about this time a total little short of a million.

For nearly half a century the Jesuits had the field of missionary enterprise in Japan to themselves. To this fact was largely due the spread of the new religion. In 1591, however, the state of things was altered by the arrival of members of other religious orders, who came in the train of a Spanish ambassador from the Philippines. This intrusion—which later on received the formal sanction of the Pope—was resented by the Jesuits; and the position of the Christian Church, already weakened by persecution, was not improved by the quarrels which soon broke out between them and the new-comers. What would have been the outcome of this change in the situation, if Hidéyoshi’s attention had not been directed elsewhere, it is impossible to say. At this moment, however, his ambition found a new outlet. Supreme now at home, he conceived the idea of gaining fresh glory by conquests abroad. With this object, he embarked on an invasion of Korea, intending ultimately to extend his operations to China. His pretext, it is said, for invading the neighbouring peninsula, like that of Kublai Khan in the case of Japan, was that Korea had refused or neglected to send the usual periodical missions. According to another, and perhaps more correct account, he demanded that Korea should assist him in the invasion of China in the same way as she had two centuries before aided the Mongols in their invasion of Japan, a request which, it is said, was scornfully refused.

The Korean campaign, in the course of which a Christian daimiō—Konishi, the owner of an extensive fief in the province of Higo—greatly distinguished himself, began in the spring of 1592, the last land engagement being fought in the autumn of 1598. The war thus lasted nearly seven years. The preparations made by Hidéyoshi were on an extensive scale. The army of invasion numbered, if the statistics of that time can be trusted, nearly 200,000 fighting men. As reinforcements were sent from time to time from Japan, the number of troops employed from first to last in the course of the war must have reached a very high total. Hidéyoshi did not lead his army in person, but directed the general plan of operations from Japan. The Japanese were at first successful on land everywhere, though at sea they met with some serious reverses. The Koreans were driven out of their capital, and the invaders overran more than half of the country. Then, however, the Emperor of China intervened in the struggle. Chinese armies entered Korea, and the tide of victory turned against Japan. The retreat of the invaders towards the coast was followed by overtures of peace, which resulted in the suspension of hostilities in 1594. But the negotiations, in which China took a leading part, broke down, and three years later a second Japanese army landed in Korea. On this occasion the Japanese forces met with more stubborn resistance. Chinese armies again came to the help of Korea, and when Hidéyoshi died in 1598 the Japanese Government was only too willing to make peace. The results of the war for Korea were disastrous. The complete devastation wrought wherever the Japanese armies had penetrated left traces which have never been entirely effaced. Nor did Japan come out of the struggle with any profit. When the final accounts were balanced all she had to show for her lavish expenditure in lives and money was the establishment in Japan of a colony of Korean potters, who were the first to make the well-known Satsuma faience, and the doubtful privilege of keeping a small trading post at the southern end of the Korean peninsula.

For some years after the Korean war had been brought to an end by the death of Hidéyoshi the position of the Christian Church showed little change. It was not until 1614, by which time a new line of Shōguns was ruling the country, that rigorous measures were adopted against the new religion. The edict which then appeared ordered the immediate expulsion of all missionaries, and its issue was followed by a fierce outbreak of persecution in all parts of Japan where converts or missionaries were to be found.

Evidence of the contradictory state of things then existing is furnished by the fact that in that very year an Embassy to the Pope and to the King of Spain was sent by the Japanese Daimiō of Sendai, whose fief was in the north-east of Japan.

Meanwhile, in 1609, Dutch traders had established themselves in the island of Hirado, where they were joined four years later by English traders representing the East India Company. The latter had not the resources necessary for so distant an undertaking, nor was the English navy strong enough to support the Company’s enterprise against the Dutch, who were then wresting from the Portuguese the supremacy in Eastern waters. At the end of ten years, therefore, the trading station was abandoned.

The Christian persecution continued with varying intensity for more than twenty years, culminating in the insurrection of Shimabara in 1638. With the bloody suppression of that rising, due as much to local misgovernment as to religious causes, the curtain falls on the early history of Christianity in Japan. Two years earlier, in 1636, an edict issued by the third Shōgun, Iyémitsu, forbade all Japanese to go abroad, reduced the tonnage of native vessels so as to render them unfit for ocean voyages, and closed the country to all foreigners except the Chinese and Dutch. The Portuguese were chiefly affected by this measure, for the English had abandoned their trading enterprise in Hirado in 1623, and in the following year the rupture of relations with Spain had put an end to the residence of Spanish subjects, thus justifying Xavier’s warning that the King of Spain should be careful how he interfered with Japan, in case he burnt his fingers. The Dutch owed their escape from expulsion to the fact that the Japanese did not regard them as being Christians at all, because of their openly expressed hostility to the form of Christianity professed by the missionaries. In neither case was the lot of the two favoured nationalities at all enviable. In 1641 the Dutch were removed from Hirado and interned in Déshima, an artificial island quarter of the town of Nagasaki; and some fifty years later the Chinese, who had traded at that port in comparative liberty from a date which is uncertain, were confined in an enclosure close to the Dutch settlement. Here, paying dearly as State prisoners for the commercial privileges they enjoyed, these traders carried on a precarious and gradually dwindling commerce until Japan was opened for the second time to foreign intercourse in the middle of the nineteenth century.