Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 159

With whatever scepticism the details of the Empress Jingo's expedition be regarded, it appears to be certain that at a very early date, Japan effected lodgement on the south coast of Korea at Mimana, and established there a permanent station (chinju-fu) which was governed by one of her own officials. It is also apparent that, during several centuries, the eminent military strength of Yamato received practical recognition from the principalities into which the peninsula was divided; that they sent to the Court of Japan annual presents which partook of the nature of tribute, and that they treated her suggestions, for the most part, with deferential attention. This state of affairs received a rude shock in the days of Yuryaku, when that sovereign, in order to possess himself of the wife of a high official named Tasa, sent the latter to distant Mimana as governor, and seized the lady in his absence. Tasa revolted, and from that time Japan's position in the peninsula was compromised. The Koreans perceived that her strength might be paralyzed by the sins of her sovereigns and the disaffection of her soldiers. Shiragi (Sinra), whose frontier was conterminous with that of the Japanese settlement on the north, had always been restive in the proximity of a foreign aggressor. From the time of Yuryaku's accession she ceased to convey the usual tokens of respect to the Yamato Court, and, on the other hand, she cultivated the friendship of Koma as an ally in the day of retribution.

It may be broadly stated that Korea was then divided into three principalities: Shiragi in the south and east; Kudara in the centre and west, with its capital at the modern Seoul, and Koma in the north, having Pyong-yang for chief city. This last had recently pushed its frontier into Manchuria as far as the Liao River, and was already beginning to project its shadow over the southern regions of the peninsula, destined ultimately to fall altogether under its sway. In response to Shiragi's overtures, the King of Koma sent a body of troops to assist in protecting that principality against any retaliatory essay on the part of the Japanese in Mimana. But the men of Shiragi, betrayed into imagining that these soldiers were destined to be the van of an invading army, massacred them, and besought Japanese succour against Koma's vengeance. The Japanese acceded, and Shiragi was saved for a time, but at the cost of incurring, for herself and for Japan alike, the lasting enmity of Koma. Shiragi appears to have concluded, however, that she had more to fear from Koma than from Japan, for she still withheld her tribute to the latter, and invaded the territory of Kudara, which had always maintained most friendly relations with Yamato. The Emperor Yuryaku sent two expeditions to punish this contumacy, but the result being inconclusive, he resolved to take the exceptional step of personally leading an army to the peninsula.

This design, which, had it matured, might have radically changed the history of the Far East, was checked by an oracle, and Yuryaku appointed three of his powerful nobles to go in his stead. The Shiragi men fought with desperate tenacity. One wing of their army was broken, but the other held its ground, and two of the Japanese generals fell in essaying to dislodge it. Neither side could claim a decisive victory, but both were too much exhausted to renew the combat. This was not the limit of Japan's misfortunes. A feud broke out among the leaders of the expedition, and one of them, Oiwa, shot his comrade as they were en route for the Court of the Kudara monarch, who had invited them in the hope of composing their dissensions, since the existence of his own kingdom depended on Japan's intervention between Koma and Shiragi.

Owing to this feud among her generals, Japan's hold on Mimana became more precarious than ever while her prestige in the peninsula declined perceptibly. Nevertheless her great military name still retained much of its potency. Thus, ten years later (A.D. 477), when the King of Koma invaded Kudara and held the land at his mercy, he declined to follow his generals' counsels of extermination in deference to Kudara's long friendship with Yamato. It is related that, after this disaster, the Japanese Emperor gave the town of Ung-chhon (Japanese, Kumanari) to the remnant of the Kudara people, and the latter's capital was then transferred from its old site in the centre of the peninsula—a place no longer tenable—to the neighbourhood of Mimana. Thenceforth Yuryaku aided Kudara zealously. He not only despatched a force of five hundred men to guard the palace of the King, but also sent (480) a flotilla of war-vessels to attack Koma from the west coast. The issue of this attempt is not recorded, and the silence of the annals may be construed as indicating failure. Koma maintained at that epoch relations of intimate friendship with the powerful Chinese dynasty of the Eastern Wei, and Yuryaku's essays against such a combination were futile, though he prosecuted them with considerable vigour.

After his death the efficiency of Japan's operations in Korea was greatly impaired by factors hitherto happily unknown in her foreign affairs—treason and corruption. Lord Oiwa, whose shooting of his fellow general, Karako, has already been noted, retained his post as governor of Mimana for twenty-one years, and then (487), ambitious of wider sway, opened relations with Koma for the joint invasion of Kudara, in order that he himself might ascend the throne of the latter. A desperate struggle ensued. Several battles were fought, in all of which the victory is historically assigned to Oiwa, but if he really did achieve any success, it was purely ephemeral, for he ultimately abandoned the campaign and returned to Japan, giving another shock to his country's waning reputation in the peninsula. If the Yamato Court took any steps to punish this act of lawless ambition, there is no record in that sense. The event occurred in the last year of Kenso's reign, and neither that monarch nor his successor, Ninken, seems to have devoted any special attention to Korean affairs.

Nothing notable took place until 509, when Keitai was on the throne. In that year, a section of the Kudara people, who, in 477, had been driven from their country by the Koma invaders and had taken refuge within the Japanese dominion of Mimana, were restored to their homes with Japanese co-operation and with renewal of the friendly relations which had long existed between the Courts of Yamato and Kudara. Three years later (512), Kudara preferred a singular request. She asked that four regions, forming an integral part of the Yamato domain of Mimana, should be handed over to her, apparently as an act of pure benevolence. Japan consented. There is no explanation of her complaisance except that she deemed it wise policy to strengthen Kudara against the growing might of Shiragi, Yamato's perennial foe. The two officials by whose advice the throne made this sacrifice were the o-muraji, Kanamura, and the governor of Mimana, an omi called Oshiyama. They went down in the pages of history as corrupt statesmen who, in consideration of bribes from the Kudara Court, surrendered territory which Japan had won by force of arms and held for five centuries.

In the following year (513) the Kudara Court again utilized the services of Oshiyama to procure possession of another district, Imun (Japanese, Komom), which lay on the northeast frontier of Mimana. Kudara falsely represented that this region had been wrested from her by Habe, one of the petty principalities in the peninsula, and the Yamato Court, acting at the counsels of the same o-muraji (Kanamura) who had previously espoused Kudara's cause, credited Kudara's story. This proved an ill-judged policy. It is true that Japan's prestige in the peninsula received signal recognition on the occasion of promulgating the Imperial decree which sanctioned the transfer of the disputed territory. All the parties to the dispute, Kudara, Shiragi, and Habe, were required to send envoys to the Yamato Court for the purpose of hearing the rescript read, and thus Japan's pre-eminence was constructively acknowledged. But her order provoked keen resentment in Shiragi and Habe. The general whom she sent with five hundred warships to escort the Kudara envoys was ignominiously defeated by the men of Habe, while Shiragi seized the opportunity to invade Mimana and to occupy a large area of its territory.

For several years the Yamato Court made no attempt to re-assert itself, but in 527 an expedition of unprecedented magnitude was organized. It consisted of sixty thousand soldiers under the command of Keno no Omi, and its object was to chastise Shiragi and to re-establish Mimana in its original integrity. But here an unforeseeable obstacle presented itself. For all communication with the Korean peninsula, Tsukushi (Kyushu) was an indispensable basis, and it happened that, just at this time, Kyushu had for ruler (miyatsuko) a nobleman called Iwai, who is said to have long entertained treasonable designs. A knowledge of his mood was conveyed to Shiragi, and tempting proposals were made to him from that place conditionally on his frustrating the expedition under Keno no Omi. Iwai thereupon occupied the four provinces of Higo, Hizen, Bungo, and Buzen, thus effectually placing his hand on the neck of the communications with Korea and preventing the embarkation of Keno no Omi's army. He established a pseudo-Court in Tsukushi and there gave audience to tribute-bearing envoys from Koma, Kudara and Shiragi.

For the space of a twelvemonth this rebel remained master of the situation, but, in A.D. 528, the o-muraji, Arakahi, crushed him after a desperate conflict in the province of Chikugo.* Iwai effected his escape to Buzen and died by his own hand in a secluded valley. Although, however, this formidable rebellion was thus successfully quelled, the great expedition did not mature. Keno, its intended leader, did indeed proceed to Mimana and assume there the duties of governor, but he proved at once arrogant and incompetent, employing to an extravagant degree the ordeal of boiling water, so that many innocent people suffered fatally, and putting to death children of mixed Korean and Japanese parentage instead of encouraging unions which would have tended to bring the two countries closer together.

*In the Chikugo Fudoki a minute description is given of Iwai's sepulchre, built during his lifetime but presumably never occupied by his body. The remarkable feature of the tomb was a number of stone images, several representing grave-guards, and one group being apparently designed to represent the judicial trial of a poacher.

In all her relations with Korea at this epoch, Japan showed more loyalty than sagacity. She was invariably ready to accede to proposals from her old friend, Kudara, and the latter, taking astute advantage of this mood, secured her endorsement of territorial transfers which brought to the Yamato Court nothing but the enmity of Kudara's rivals. By these errors of statesmanship and by the misgovernment of officials like Keno, conditions were created which, as will be seen hereafter, proved ultimately fatal to Japan's sway in the peninsula. Meanwhile, every student of Japanese ancient annals cannot but be struck by the large space devoted to recording her relations with Korea. As the eminent historian, Rai Sanyo, said in later times, her soldiers were wearied by constant campaigns oversea, and her agriculturists were exhausted by frequent requisitions for supplies. During the epoch of Jingo and Ojin, Japan was palpably inferior to her peninsular neighbour in civilization, in wealth, and in population. But in one respect the superiority was largely on her side; namely, in the quality of her soldiers. Therefore, she utilized her military strength for campaigns which cost comparatively little and produced much. The peninsula, at that time, verified the term commonly applied to it, Uchi-tsurmiyake, or the "Granary of the Home-land." But as the material development of Japan and her civilization progressed, she stood constantly to lose more and gain less by despatching expeditions to a land which squandered much of its resources on internecine quarrels and was deteriorating by comparison. The task of maintaining Mimana and succouring Kudara then became an obligation of prestige which gradually ceased to interest the nation.