IV. THE DICTATORS
The “shoguns”—The Kamakura “Bakufu”—The Hojo Regency—Kublai Khan’s invasion—The Ashikaga Shogunate—The three buccaneers
Tempted by this situation, a class of military dictators arose, who assumed full authority over various sections of the archipelago, and recognized the emperor merely as the divine façade of Japan, to be maintained at a minimum of expense. The peasants, no longer protected from bandits by imperial armies or police, paid taxes to the shoguns, or generals, instead of to the emperor, for only the shoguns were able to safeguard them from robbery.36 The feudal system triumphed in Japan for the same reason that it had triumphed in Europe: local sources of authority grew in power as a central and distant government failed to maintain security and order.
About the year 1192 a member of the Minamoto clan, Yoritomo, gathered about him an army of soldiers and vassals, and established an independent authority which, from its seat, acquired the name of the “Kamakura Bakufu.” The very word bakufu meant a military office, and indicated bluntly the nature of the new regime. The great Yoritomo died suddenly in 1198,* and was succeeded by his weakling sons; for, says a Japanese proverb, “the great man has no seed.”38 A rival family set up in 1199 the “Hojo Regency,” which for 134 years ruled the shoguns who ruled the emperors. Kublai Khan took advantage of this trinitarian government to attempt the conquest of Japan, for clever Koreans, fearful of it, had described it to him as desirably rich. Kublai ordered from his ship-builders so vast a fleet that Chinese poets represented the hills as mourning for their denuded forests.39 The Japanese, in heroic retrospect, reckoned the vessels at 70,000, but less patriotic historians are content with 3,500 ships and 100,000 men. This gigantic armada appeared off the coast of Japan late in the year 1291. The brave islanders sailed out to meet it in an improvised and comparatively tiny fleet; but, as in the case of a smaller but more famous Armada,† a “Great Wind,” renowned in thankful memory, arose, smashed the ships of the mighty Khan upon the rocks, drowned 70,000 of his sailors, and saved the others for a life of slavery in Japan.
The turn of the Hojos came in 1333. For they, too, had been poisoned by power, and hereditary rule had passed in time from scoundrels and geniuses to cowards and fools. Takatoki, last of the line, had a passion for dogs; he accepted them in lieu of taxes, and collected from four to five thousand of them; he kept them in kennels with gold and silver decorations, fed them on fish and fowl, and had them carried in palanquins to take the air. The contemporary emperor, Go Daigo, saw in the degeneration of his keepers an opportunity to reassert the imperial power. The Minamoto and Ashikaga clans rallied to him, and led his forces, after many defeats, to victory over the Regency. Takatoki and 870 of his vassals and generals retired to a temple, drank a last cup of sake, and committed hara-kiri. “This,” said one of them as he pulled out his intestines with his own hand, “gives a fine relish to the wine.”40
Ashikaga Takauji turned against the Emperor whom he had helped to restore, fought with successful stratagem and treachery the armies sent to subdue him, replaced Go Daigo with the puppet emperor Kogon, and set up at Kyoto that Ashikaga Shogunate which was to rule Japan through 250 years of chaos and intermittent civil war. It must be admitted that part of this disorder was due to the nobler side of the Ashikaga dictators—their love and patronage of art. Yoshimitsu, tired of strife, turned his hand to painting, and became not the least artist of his time; Yoshimasa befriended many painters, subsidized a dozen arts, and grew into so refined a connoisseur that the pieces selected by him and his associates are the most coveted prizes of collectors today.41 Meanwhile, however, the prosaic tasks of organization were neglected, and neither the rich shogunsnor the impoverished emperors seemed able to maintain public security or peace.
It was this very chaos and looseness of life, and the call of the nation for leaders who would give it order, that produced a trio of buccaneers famous in Japanese history. In their youth, says tradition, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu resolved together to restore unity to their country, and each took a solemn oath that he would obey as vassal whichever of the others should win the imperial consent to administer Japan.42 Nobunaga tried first, and failed; Hideyoshi tried second, and died just short of success; Iyeyasu bided his time, tried last of all, founded the Tokugawa Shogunate, and inaugurated one of the longest periods of peace, and one of the richest epochs of art, in human history.