Читать книгу The Making of Modern Japan - John Harington Gubbins - Страница 7

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The rule of Hidéyoshi was followed by that of a new line of Shōguns. The circumstances under which it was established are well known. At the death of Hidéyoshi in 1598 the government of the country was, during the minority of his son Hidéyori, entrusted to five feudal nobles who acted as regents. Of these, the most prominent was Tokugawa Iyéyasu, who had married Hidéyoshi’s daughter, and whose feudal territories consisted of the eight provinces in the east of the main island known as the Kwantō. Disputes soon arose between the regents, and an appeal to arms resulted in the decisive victory of Iyéyasu at Séki-ga-hara, near Lake Biwa. This was in October, 1600. In 1603 he was appointed Shōgun, and twelve years later the death, in what is known as the Ōsaka summer campaign, of Hidéyori, the only personage who could challenge his supremacy, left him without any dangerous rival. Now for the first time in Japanese history the authority of the Shōgunate extended throughout the whole of Japan. The prestige of the previous ruler had been as great, and his reputation in the field higher, but he was not, like his successor, of Minamoto stock, nor could he trace his descent from an Emperor; there were remote districts in the country where his influence had not penetrated, out-of-the-way places where his writ had never run. In founding a fresh line of Shōguns the new ruler had other circumstances in his favour. The country was tired of civil war and exhausted; the fighting power and resources of turbulent chiefs had been weakened by long-continued hostilities; and much of the work of pacification had been already done.

Although the Tokugawa Shōgunate was, in its main outlines, the repetition of a government which had existed before, it differed in some important respects from previous administrations.

The third Shōgun, the ruler responsible for the closing of the country, put the finishing touches to the new system of government; but it owed more to the genius of his grandfather, the founder of the line, who framed it, supervised its operation and left posthumous instructions, known as “The Hundred Articles,” to ensure its observance by his successors. Japanese writers agree in stating that “The Hundred Articles” give a general idea of the system of government established by Iyéyasu. But it is a very general idea, a mere outline of things, that we are thus enabled to glean. To fill in the details of the picture it is necessary to draw on other sources of information.

The difference between the rule of Iyéyasu and that of previous Shōguns lay in the more complete subjection of the Imperial Court, in the wider range of his authority, which surpassed that of his two immediate predecessors, and in the highly organized and stable character of the administration he established. The changes he effected in the government of the country may be conveniently considered under the following heads, it being borne in mind that they were the work of several years, and that many were made after his early abdication in 1605, when he was governing the country, in the name of his son, the second Shōgun:—

1.Redistribution of feudal territories.2.Position of feudal nobility.3.Reorganization of central administration.4.Relations between the Court and Shōgunate, and between the Court and Court nobles and the feudal nobility.

1. The new Shōgun in establishing his rule followed the example of his predecessors. Maps which give the distribution of feudal territories before and after the year 1600, and again after the fall of Ōsaka in 1615, show the sweeping character of the changes he carried out on both occasions. As a result of these changes, the most extensive fiefs at the outset of Tokugawa rule were those held by the three Tokugawa Houses in the provinces of Kii, Owari and Hitachi (Mito), to which may be added those in the possession of the Daimiōs of Satsuma, Hizen, Chōshiū, Aki, Tosa, Kaga, Échizen, Sendai and Mutsu.

2. Before the establishment of the Tokugawa Shōgunate the feudal nobles were divided into three classes—lords of provinces, lords of territories and lords of castles. In the organization of the feudal nobility, as remodelled by Iyéyasu, this old division was retained, but he created the three princely Houses of Owari, Kii and Mito (Hitachi), called collectively the Gosanké, and placed them at the head of the new order of precedence. It was from the two first-mentioned Houses, together with the Gosankiō, a family group of later institution, that, failing a direct heir, subsequent Shōguns were chosen. To the representative of the third House—that of Mito—the position of Adviser to the Shōgunate was assigned, and he was supposed to have a determining voice in the selection of a new Shōgun when this became necessary. Another important change was the separation of the feudal nobility into two broad classes—the Fudai daimiōs, or hereditary vassals, who had submitted to the new ruler before the fall of Ōsaka, and the Tozama daimiōs, who had acknowledged his supremacy later. The former class alone had the privilege of being employed in the Councils of State and the higher administrative posts. Two new feudal groups also made their appearance—the Hatamoto, or Bannermen, who filled the less important administrative posts, besides supplying the personnel of the various departments of State, and whose fiefs in some cases rivalled in extent those of the smaller daimiōs; and the Gokénin, a kind of landed gentry.

Full use, too, was made by the new ruler of the custom of retaining hostages from the feudatories as a guarantee of loyalty, a practice expanded under the second and third Shōguns into the system known as San-kin Kō-tai. This provided for the residence of daimiōs in alternate years at Yedo and in their fiefs, some members of their families being permanently detained in the Tokugawa capital, which owed its selection as the seat of government to its favourable location for the commerce of that day at the head of the bay of the same name. The system of State services (Kokuyéki), moreover, to which all daimiōs were liable, was a rich source of revenue to the Shōgunate, while at the same time it strengthened the authority of the Yedo Government. By these expedients, and by the encouragement of ostentation in every form, the feudal nobles were kept in strict subjection, the steady drain on their finances making it difficult for them to escape from a condition of impecuniosity. The expense of their annual journeys to and from the Capital alone constituted a severe tax on their resources, and was the main cause of the financial distress which existed at a later date in many of the daimiates. Further and quite independent proof of the unquestioned supremacy of the new Shōgun is supplied by the bestowal of his early family name of Matsudaira not only on all the heads of feudal families connected with his own, but on many of the leading lords of provinces. Amongst other recipients of this questionable privilege—which set the seal on the submission of the feudal nobility—were the daimiōs of Satsuma, Chōshiū, Hizen, Tosa and Awa, whose retainers took a prominent part in the Restoration of 1868–69. In these latter cases, however, the old surnames were used alternately with the new designations.

3. The main features of Tokugawa administration, as established by its founder and modified by his immediate successors, remained practically unchanged for two and a half centuries. Its form was a centralized bureaucracy based on feudalism. The general direction of affairs was in the hands of an upper and a lower Council of State, the members of which were chosen from Fudai daimiōs of varying distinction. There was usually an inner circle of statesmen, with whom both initiative and decision rested, while the lesser ranks of officials were recruited chiefly from the Hatamoto. Decisions on grave matters of State in times of emergency were referred, when necessary, to the Gosanké and other leading daimiōs, whose participation in these deliberations was, however, often more nominal than real. A leading part in administration was also played by the Jisha-bugiō, or Superintendents of Buddhist and Shintō temples. In spite of the religious sound of their titles, these executive officers had an important voice in State business of all kinds. There was also the Hiō-jō-sho. This was an institution resembling that originally created by the Kamakura Shōguns. Established at a time when no clear distinction existed between executive and judicial matters, it seems to have combined the functions of a Supreme Administrative Board and a Superior Court of Justice. It took cognizance of all sorts of questions, both executive and judicial, and, under the latter head, of both civil and criminal cases, which were decided by a special office known as the Ketsudan-sho, or Court of Decisions. The matters which came before this Board ranged from disputes regarding land, agriculture and taxation to questions concerning the boundaries of fiefs and provinces; from complaints of the conduct of the feudal nobility and Shōgunate officials to appeals from the decisions of local authorities. The members of the Council of State had the right to attend the sittings of the Board, being encouraged to make surprise visits in order to ensure the rendering of impartial justice; and for the same reason, apparently, in the earlier days of the Shōgunate, the attendance of the Shōgun himself was not unusual. A similar Board at Ōsaka dealt with questions referred to it from the provinces west of Kiōto, and with appeals from the decisions of local authorities in the districts in question.

Provincial administration varied according to the locality concerned. What were known as the Shōgun’s domains—amounting in extent to nearly one-third of the total area of the country—were administered by Governors (Daikwan) appointed by the Shōgunate, this system prevailing also in many of the Fudai daimiates and in certain coast towns. The feudal territories in the rest of the country, with the exception named, were governed by the clan rulers. A general supervision of affairs throughout the country was also exercised by a special class of officials called Métsuké. Their varied functions comprised those of travelling inspectors and circuit judges; they were appointed to enquire into the administration of feudal territories; and they were frequently employed as deputies or assistants to governors, delegates and commissioners, when their duty was to watch and report on the conduct of their superiors. Hence the description of them as spies by foreign writers on Japan—a description which was often correct. The system of local government was based on groups of five households, or families, each under the direction of a headman, and was the development of an earlier form of tribal, or patriarchal, government introduced from China at the time of the Great Reform. The headman of each group was subject, in towns, to the control of the senior alderman of the ward, and, in villages, to that of the mayor. The duties of these local officials, whose posts were often hereditary, were to make known the orders of the Central Government, or feudal authorities, as the case might be, to administer justice and to collect taxes.

A noticeable feature of Tokugawa administration was the duplication of offices. In this a resemblance may be traced to similar customs in other Oriental countries such as Thibet, Siam and Nepal, the tendency which inspired the practice being possibly one of the causes of the partiality of the nation for dual government. The employment of Métsuké in many cases as supplementary officials has already been mentioned. The custom was widespread, extending through all grades of the official class, and survived in Loochoo until the annexation of that principality in 1879. A curious proof of its prevalence was furnished at the time of the negotiation by Great Britain of the Treaty of 1858. Struck by the double title of the British negotiator, Lord Elgin and Kincardine, and arguing from their own methods of procedure, the Japanese officials concluded that two envoys had been sent, and when, in the course of the negotiations, no second envoy appeared, they took occasion to enquire after the missing Kincardine.

4. In his dealings with the Imperial Court at Kiōto the new Shōgun was content, so far as outward formalities were concerned, to follow the example of previous administrations, introducing, nevertheless, under cover of conformity with ancient usage, many important changes. The empty dignities of the Court were maintained with some increase of ceremonial etiquette, though without the lavish display which had reconciled the Throne to the rule of his predecessor. He was at the same time careful to curtail whatever vestiges of Imperial authority still remained. The measures taken for this purpose included the appointment of a Resident (Shoshidai) in Kiōto, and a Governor (Jōdai) in Ōsaka; the confinement of the reigning Emperor and cloistered ex-monarch (or ex-monarchs, for there were not infrequently several abdicated sovereigns at the same time) to their palaces; and the cessation of Imperial “progresses”—the name given to Imperial visits to shrines; the isolation of the Court by the interdict placed on the visits of feudal nobles to the Capital, even sight-seeing being only permitted to them within certain specified limits, and on condition of applying for permission for this purpose; the isolation of the Kugé, or Court nobility, by the prohibition of marriages and all monetary transactions between them and feudal families; and the reorganization of the official establishment of the Court, so as to bring it more completely under the control of the Shōgunate. Iyéyasu also arranged the betrothal of his granddaughter to the heir-apparent, an alliance not without precedent in the past, and he enforced a stricter supervision over the Imperial Household, the movements of Court ladies, and the daily routine of the palace.

Some idea of the condition of subservience to which the Throne was reduced, and of the arrogant position assumed by the new ruler, may be gathered from a perusal of the “Law of the Court and Shōgunate,” which, taken in conjunction with the “Law of the Imperial Court” and the “Hundred Articles,” throws some light on the new order of things. One of the provisions of the law in question transferred from the Court to the Shōgunate the protection of the Throne against evil spirits by abolishing the long-established Riōbu Shintō processions in the Capital, and by formally recognizing the Shintō deity, from whom this protection was supposed to emanate, as the tutelary deity of the Tokugawa family. The Shōgun was thus made responsible for the spiritual guardianship of the Throne, the material protection over which he already exercised in his capacity of supreme military ruler.

Though nothing of the substance of power was left to the Crown, the mere fact that authority was exercised in its name led to much friction in the relations between Kiōto and Yedo, and created an atmosphere of make-believe in which everything moved. The Crown still retained the nominal privilege of conferring the much-coveted Court titles. Its nominal approval was also necessary to the investiture of a new Shōgun, as well as to other important measures of State. It claimed the right, moreover, to be consulted in regard to ceremonial observances of all kinds, to questions of marriage, adoption, abdication and succession. Naturally, therefore, the large number of questions calling for discussion between the Court of the Mikado in the Capital and the Yedo Government gave rise to a voluminous correspondence, the official importance of which, however, was diminished by the presence of the Shōgun’s Resident at Kiōto. In the singular official relations recorded in this correspondence there is evidence of a settled policy on the part of the Shōgunate to divert the attention of the Throne from serious affairs and keep it occupied with the details of complicated ceremonial, and, on the other hand, of constant, though fruitless, attempts on the part of the Court to encroach on what had become the prerogatives of the Shōgun.

One or two instances, taken at random from the history of the Tokugawa period, will illustrate how the dual system of government worked in practice; what little latitude was left to the Throne even in matters which might be regarded as lying within its direct control; and how, whenever friction arose, the Shōgunate invariably had its own way.

The first trial of strength between Kiōto and Yedo occurred soon after Iyéyasu’s death, when his son Hidétada was Shōgun. The trouble arose out of some irregularities which had occurred in the Imperial Household. The Tokugawa administration was still in its infancy, and the Court nobles showed a disposition to dispute its authority, some of them being indiscreet enough to speak of the Yedo authorities as being Eastern barbarians. The Shōgun adopted a high-handed attitude. He threatened to break off the match between his daughter and the Emperor, which had already received the Imperial sanction, and he went so far as to intimate that the Emperor might be required to abdicate. His attitude had the desired effect. The Court hastened to admit itself in the wrong, and the affair ended in the banishment of three of the Court nobles.

Another and more serious quarrel occurred not long afterwards in the reign of the same Emperor and during the rule of the third Shōgun, to whom many of the later interpolations in the early Tokugawa laws are generally ascribed. The cause of the dispute was a trivial matter—the promotion by the Emperor, irregularly as the Shōgunate claimed, of certain members of the Buddhist clergy connected with the Court. This time it had a serious ending. The Emperor, mortified by what he regarded as vexatious interference with his authority, resigned the Imperial dignity, being succeeded on the Throne by his daughter, the child of the Tokugawa princess already mentioned.

A third instance, convenient for our purpose, is typical of the complications caused both in the matter of succession to the Throne, and in appointments to the office of Shōgun, by the difficulty of reconciling the custom of adoption with the dictates of filial piety, as laid down in Confucian doctrine. The time was the end of the eighteenth century. There were then a boy-Emperor eight years of age and a boy-Shōgun a few years older. Each had been adopted by his predecessor, who in each case had died shortly afterwards, the young Emperor’s succession to the Throne antedating the appointment of the young Shōgun by some six years. It was necessary to appoint a guardian for the young Shōgun, and some members of the Yedo ministry wished to appoint to this post the father, who belonged to the Hitotsubashi branch of the Tokugawa family. This course received the support of the boy-Shōgun, who, to show his filial respect, desired to instal his father with the title of ex-Shōgun (Taigiōsho) in the palace at Yedo set apart for the Shōgun’s heir. The proposal was resisted by the other Ministers on the ground that it was against precedent and would disturb public morals, in which ceremonial propriety played, as we know, so important a part. In the event of the adoptive parent dying in the lifetime of the real father—which in this case actually happened—the latter might, it was said, claim to be received in the former’s place into the adoptive family, a contingency which would lead to inconvenience and confusion. While the dispute was going on matters were complicated by the receipt of a similar request from the boy-Emperor in Kiōto, who desired that his father might be honoured by being given the title of ex-Emperor. There were precedents for the favour requested in the latter instance, and it would probably have been granted had the Government not felt that the concession would weaken their position in regard to the young Shōgun. Both requests were consequently refused; whereupon stormy scenes, we are told, occurred at the Yedo palace, in the course of which the Shōgun drew his sword on one of the offending Councillors, and an angry correspondence continued for two or three years between Kiōto and Yedo. In the end neither request was granted, and the Ministers whose counsel prevailed had at least the satisfaction of feeling that the apprehended danger to public morals had been averted.

Before closing this chapter it may be convenient to dwell for a moment on two points—the terms used to designate the Sovereign in Japan and the titles of daimiōs.

That the impersonality shrouding everything Japanese, to which reference has already been made, should show itself in the terms used to designate the Sovereign is not surprising. Nor is it in any way strange that these should include such expressions as “The Palace,” “The Palace Interior” and “The Household,” for sovereigns are commonly spoken of in this way, the habit having its origin in respect. What is curious is that in the case of a sovereign venerated from the first as a God, and so closely associated with the native faith, the terms by which he is known to his subjects should, with one exception, be borrowed from China, and that this one exception, the name “Mikado,” which means “Honourable Gate,” should be the term least used.

The titles borne by the feudal nobility were of two kinds—territorial titles, and the official titles conferred by the Court. The territorial title of a daimiō consisted originally of the word Kami joined to the name of the province in which his territories lay. The title of a daimiō, therefore, in early days had direct reference to the province in which his fief was situated. In the course of time, however, though this territorial title remained in general use, it by no means followed that there was any connection between the particular province mentioned and the territory actually possessed by a daimiō. This change in the significance of the title was due to several causes: to the partition amongst several daimiōs of lands originally held by a single individual, to the removal of a daimiō to another fief, to which he often carried his old title, and to the formation of cadet houses, which sometimes retained the title of the senior branch. The multiplication of similar titles led to much confusion, and in the later days of the Shōgunate, by way of remedying this inconvenience, a daimiō on appointment to the Council of State was obliged to change his title, if it were one already borne by an older member.

The history of the other, or official, titles is this. When the government of the country passed out of the hands of the Kugé or Court nobles, into those of the military class, the official posts previously held by the former were filled by members of the feudal nobility, who accordingly assumed the official titles attached to those posts. In the course of time, as successive changes in the details of administration occurred, the duties of these posts became merely nominal, until at last the titles, some of which had become hereditary, came to be merely honourable distinctions, having no connection with the discharge of official duties. There were in Iyéyasu’s time about sixty of these official titles, which were, nominally, in the gift of the Crown. Until the end of the Shōgunate there was much competition for these titles, which were the cause of constant intrigue between the Imperial Court and the Yedo Government.