A History of the Japanese People Part 41

MUNEMORI AND ANTOKU

The record of Munemori, whose leaders.h.i.+p proved fatal to the Taira cause, stamps him as something very rare among j.a.panese bus.h.i.+--a coward. He was the first to fly from every battle-field, and at Dan-no-ura he preferred surrender to death. Tradition alleges that in this final fight Munemori's reputed mother, Ni-i-no-ama, before throwing herself into the sea with the Emperor in her arms, confessed that Munemori was not her son. After she had borne s.h.i.+gemori she became enceinte and her husband, Kiyomori, looked eagerly for the birth of another boy. But a girl was born. Just at that time the wife of a man who combined the occupations of bonze and umbrella-maker, bore a son, and the two children were surrept.i.tiously exchanged. This story does not rest upon infallible testimony. Nor does another narrative, with regard to the motives which induced Kiyomori's widow to drown the young Emperor. Those motives are said to have been two.

One was to fix upon the Minamoto the heinous crime of having done a sovereign to death, so that some avenger might rise in future years; the other was to hide the fact that Antoku was in reality a girl whose s.e.x had been concealed in the interest of the child's maternal grandfather, Kiyomori.

YOs.h.i.+TSUNE'S FATE

Yos.h.i.+tsune's signal victories were at Ichi-no-tani and at Yas.h.i.+ma.

The fight at Dan-no-ura could not have made him famous, for its issue was determined by defection in the enemy's ranks, not by any strategical device or opportune coup on the side of the victors. Yet j.a.pan accords to Yos.h.i.+tsune the first place among her great captains.

Undoubtedly this estimate is influenced by sympathy. Pursued by the relentless anger of his own brother, whose cause he had so splendidly championed, he was forced to fly for refuge to the north, and was ultimately done to death. This most cruel return for glorious deeds has invested his memory with a mist of tears tending to obscure the true outlines of events, so that while Yoritomo is execrated as an inhuman, selfish tyrant, Yos.h.i.+tsune is wors.h.i.+pped as a faultless hero. Yet, when examined closely, the situation undergoes some modifications. Yoritomo's keen insight discerned in his half-brother's att.i.tude something more than mere rivalry. He discovered the possible establishment of special relations between the Imperial Court and a section of the Minamoto.

Yos.h.i.+tsune's failure to repair to Kamakura after the battle of Ichi-no-tani inspired Yoritomo's first doubts. j.a.panese annals offer no explanation of Yos.h.i.+tsune's procedure on that occasion. It would have been in the reasonable sequence of events that the military genius which planned and carried out the great coup at Ichi-no-tani should have been available at the subsequent council of strategists in Kamakura, and it would have been natural that the younger brother should have repaired, as did his elder brother, Noriyori, to the headquarters of the clan's chief. Yet Yos.h.i.+tsune remained at Kyoto, and that by so doing he should have suggested some suspicions to Yoritomo was unavoidable. The secret of the Court n.o.bles' ability to exclude the military magnates from any share in State administration was no secret in Yoritomo's eyes. He saw clearly that this differentiation had been effected by playing off one military party against the other, or by dividing the same party against itself; and he saw clearly that opportunities for such measures had been furnished by subjecting the military leaders to constant contact with the Court n.o.bility.

Therefore, he determined to keep two aims always in view. One was to establish a military and executive capital entirely apart from, and independent of, the Imperial and administrative metropolis; the other, to preserve the unity of the Minamoto clan in all circ.u.mstances. Both of these aims seemed to be threatened with failure when Yos.h.i.+tsune preferred the Court in Kyoto to the camp in Kamakura; still more so when he accepted from Go-s.h.i.+rakawa rank and office for which Yoritomo had not recommended him, and yet further when he obtained from the ex-Emperor a commission to lead the Minamoto armies westward without any reference to, and in despite of, the obvious intention of the Minamoto chief at Kamakura.

All these acts could scarcely fail to be interpreted by Yoritomo as preluding the very results which he particularly desired to avert, namely, a house of Minamoto divided against itself and the re-establishment of Court influence over a strong military party in Kyoto. His apprehensions received confirmation from reports furnished by Kajiwara Kagetoki. Yoritomo trusted this man implicitly. Never forgetting that Kajiwara had saved his life in the affair of the hollow tree, he appointed him to the post of military governor and to the command of the army destined to drive the Taira from s.h.i.+koku after the battle of Ichi-no-tani. In that command Kajiwara had been superseded by Yos.h.i.+tsune, and had moreover been brought into ridicule in connexion not only with the s.h.i.+pbuilding incident but also, and in a far more flagrant manner, with the great fight at Yas.h.i.+ma. He seems from the first to have entertained doubts of Yos.h.i.+tsune's loyalty to Yoritomo, and his own bitter experiences may well have helped to convert those doubts into certainties. He warned Kamakura in very strong terms against the brilliant young general who was then the idol of Kyoto, and thus, when Yos.h.i.+tsune, in June, 1185, repaired to Kamakura to hand over the prisoners taken in the battle of Dan-no-ura and to pay his respects to Yoritomo, he was met at Kos.h.i.+goe, a village in the vicinity, by Hojo Tokimasa, who conveyed to him Yoritomo's veto against his entry to Kamakura. A letter addressed by Yos.h.i.+tsune to his brother on that occasion ran, in part, as follows:

Here am I, weeping crimson tears in vain at thy displeasure. Well was it said that good medicine tastes bitter in the mouth, and true words ring harsh in the ear. This is why the slanders that men speak of me remain unproved, why I am kept out of Kamakura unable to lay bare my heart. These many days 1 have lain here and could not gaze upon my brother's face. The bond of our blood-brotherhood is sundered.

But a short season after I was born, my honoured sire pa.s.sed to another world, and I was left fatherless. Clasped in my mother's bosom, I was carried down to Yamato, and since that day I have not known a moment free from care and danger. Though it was but to drag out a useless life, we wandered round the capital suffering hards.h.i.+p, hid in all manner of rustic spots, dwelt in remote and distant provinces, whose rough inhabitants did treat us with contumely. But at last I was summoned to a.s.sist in overthrowing the Taira house, and in this conflict I first laid Kiso Yos.h.i.+naka low. Then, so that I might demolish the Taira men, I spurred my steed on frowning precipices. Careless of death in the face of the foe, I braved the dangers of wind and wave, not recking that my body might sink to the bottom of the sea, and be devoured by monsters of the deep. My pillow was my harness, arms my trade. [Translated by W. G. Aston.]

This letter breathes the spirit of sincerity. But its perusal did not soften Yoritomo, if it ever reached his eyes. He steadily refused to cancel his veto, and after an abortive sojourn of twenty days at Kos.h.i.+goe, Yos.h.i.+tsune returned to Kyoto where his conduct won for him increasing popularity. Three months later, Yoritomo appointed him governor of Iyo. It is possible that had not the situation been complicated by a new factor, the feud between the brothers might have ended there. But Minamoto Yukiiye, learning of these strained relations, emerged from hiding and applied himself to win the friends.h.i.+p of Yos.h.i.+tsune, who received his advances graciously.

Yoritomo, much incensed at this development, sent the son of Kajiwara Kagetoki to Yos.h.i.+tsune with a mandate for Yukiiye's execution. Such a choice of messenger was ill calculated to promote concord.

Yos.h.i.+tsune, pleading illness, declined to receive the envoy, and it was determined at Kamakura that extreme measures must be employed.

Volunteers were called for to make away with Yos.h.i.+tsune, and, in response, a Nara bonze, Tosabo Shoshun, whose physical endowments had brought him into prominence at Kamakura, undertook the task on condition that a substantial reward be given him beforehand.

Shoshun did not waste any time. On the eighth night after his departure from Kamakura, he, with sixty followers, attacked Yos.h.i.+tsune's mansion at Horikawa in Kyoto. By wholesale oaths, sworn in the most solemn manner, he had endeavoured to disarm the suspicions of his intended victim, and he so far succeeded that, when the attack was delivered, Yos.h.i.+tsune had only seven men to hold the mansion against sixty. But these seven were the trusty and stalwart comrades who had accompanied Yos.h.i.+tsune from Mutsu and had shared all the vicissitudes of his career. They held their a.s.sailants at bay until Yukiiye, roused by the tumult, came to the rescue, and the issue of Shoshun's essay was that his own head appeared on the pillory in Kyoto. Yos.h.i.+tsune was awakened and hastily armed on this occasion by his beautiful mistress, s.h.i.+zuka, who, originally a danseuse of Kyoto, followed him for love's sake in weal and in woe.

Tokiwa, Tomoe, Kesa, and s.h.i.+zuka--these four heroines will always occupy a prominent place in j.a.panese history of the twelfth century.

After this event there could be no concealments between the two brothers. With difficulty and not without some menaces, Yos.h.i.+tsune obtained from Go-s.h.i.+rakawa a formal commission to proceed against Yoritomo by force of arms. Matters now moved with great rapidity.

Yoritomo, always prescient, had fully foreseen the course of events.

Shoshun's abortive attack on the Horikawa mansion took place on November 10, 1185, and before the close of the month three strong columns of Kamakura troops were converging on Kyoto. In that interval, Yos.h.i.+tsune, failing to muster any considerable force in the capital or its environs, had decided to turn his back on Kyoto and proceed westward; he himself to Kyushu, and Yukiiye to s.h.i.+koku. They embarked on November 29th, but scarcely had they put to sea when they encountered a gale which shattered their squadron. Yos.h.i.+tsune and Yukiiye both landed on the Izumi coast, each ignorant of the other's fate. The latter was captured and beheaded a few months later, but the former made his way to Yamato and found hiding-places among the valleys and mountains of Yos.h.i.+no. The hero of Ichi-no-tani and Yas.h.i.+ma was now a proscribed fugitive. Go-s.h.i.+rakawa, whose fate was always to obey circ.u.mstances rather than to control them, had issued a new mandate on the arrival of Yoritomo's forces at Kyoto, and Kamakura was now authorized to exterminate Yos.h.i.+tsune with all his partisans, wherever they could be found.

Almost simultaneously with the capture of Yukiiye, whose fate excites no pity, the fair girl, s.h.i.+zuka, was apprehended and brought before Hojo Tokimasa, who governed Kyoto as Yoritomo's lieutenant. Little more than a year had elapsed since she first met Yos.h.i.+tsune after his return from Dan-no-ura, and her separation from him now had been insisted on by him as the only means of saving her life. Indifferent to her own fate, she quickly fell into the hands of Tokimasa's emissaries and was by them subjected to a fruitless examination, repeated with equally abortive results on her arrival at Kamakura.

There, in spite of her vehement resistance, she was constrained to dance before Yoritomo and his wife, Masa, but instead of confining herself to stereotyped formulae, she utilized the occasion to chant to the accompaniment of her dance a stanza of sorrow for separation from her lover. It is related that Yoritomo's wrath would have involved serious consequences for s.h.i.+zuka had not the lady Masa intervened. The beautiful danseuse, being enceinte at the time, was kept in prison until her confinement. She had the misfortune to give birth to a son, and the child was killed by Yoritomo's order, the mother being released. The slaughter of an innocent baby sounds very shocking in modern ears, but it is just to remember that the Kamakura chief and his three younger brothers would all have been executed by Kiyomori had not their escape been contrived by special agencies. The Confucian doctrine, which had pa.s.sed into the bus.h.i.+'s code, forbade a man to live under the same sky with his father's slayer. Deeds like the killing of Yos.h.i.+tsune's son were the natural consequence of that doctrine.

Meanwhile, Yos.h.i.+tsune had been pa.s.sing from one place of concealment to another in the three contiguous provinces of Izumi, Yamato, and Kii. He escaped deadly peril in the Yos.h.i.+no region through the devotion of Sato Tadan.o.bu, whose brother, Tsugin.o.bu, had died to save Yos.h.i.+tsune's life in the battle of Yas.h.i.+ma. Attacked by the monks of Zo-o-do in overwhelming force, Yos.h.i.+tsune had prepared to meet death when Tadan.o.bu offered to personify him and hold the position while Yos.h.i.+tsune escaped. With much difficulty Yos.h.i.+tsune was induced to consent. Tadan.o.bu not only succeeded in covering the retreat of his chief, but also managed himself to escape to Kyoto where, being discovered, he died by his own hand. Finally, in the spring of 1187, Yos.h.i.+tsune and his followers, disguised as mendicant friars, made their way up the west coast, and, after hairbreadth escapes, found asylum in the domain of Fujiwara Hidehira, who had protected Yos.h.i.+tsune in his youth. Hidehira owned and administered the whole of the two provinces of Mutsu and Dewa, which in those days covered some thirty thousand square miles and could easily furnish an army of a hundred thousand men.

The att.i.tude of this great fief had always been an object of keen solicitude to Yoritomo. At one time there were rumours that Hidehira intended to throw in his lot with Yos.h.i.+naka; at another, that he was about to join hands with the Taira. Yoritomo could never be certain that if the Kwanto were denuded of troops for some westward expedition, an overwhelming attack might not be delivered against Kamakura from the north. Thus, when he learned that Yos.h.i.+tsune had escaped to Mutsu, all his apprehensions were roused. By that time Hidehira had died, in his ninety-first year, but he had committed to his son, Yasuhira, the duty of guarding Yos.h.i.+tsune. Hence, when, in the spring of 1188, Kamakura became aware of Yos.h.i.+tsune's presence in Mutsu, two consecutive messages were sent thither, one from Yoritomo, the other from the Court, ordering Yos.h.i.+tsune's execution. Yasuhira paid no attention, and Go-s.h.i.+rakawa commissioned Yoritomo to punish the northern chief's contumacy. Yasuhira now became alarmed. He sent a large force to attack Yos.h.i.+tsune at Koromo-gawa. Benkei and the little band of comrades who had followed Yos.h.i.+tsune's fortunes continuously during eight years, died to a man fighting for him, and Yos.h.i.+tsune, having killed his wife and children, committed suicide.

His head was sent to Kamakura.

But this did not satisfy Yoritomo. He wanted something more than Yos.h.i.+tsune's head; he wanted the great northern fief, and he had no idea of losing his opportunity. Three armies soon marched northward.

They are said to have aggregated 284,000 of all arms. One moved up the western littoral; another up the eastern, and the third, under Yoritomo himself, marched by the inland route. The men of Mutsu fought stoutly, but after a campaign of some two months, Yasuhira, finding himself in a hopeless position, opened negotiations for surrender. His overtures being incontinently rejected, he appreciated the truth, namely, that Yoritomo was bent upon exterminating the Fujiwara of the north and taking possession of their vast estates.

Then Yasuhira fled to Ezo, where, shortly afterwards, one of his own soldiers a.s.sa.s.sinated him and carried his head to Yoritomo, who, instead of rewarding the man, beheaded him for treachery. Thus, from 1189, Yoritomo's sway may be said to have extended throughout the length and breadth of j.a.pan. In the storehouses of the Fujiwara, who, since the days of Kiyohira had ruled for a hundred years in the north, there were found piles of gold, silver, and precious stuffs with which Yoritomo recompensed his troops.

YORITOMO'S SYSTEM

The system of government established by Yeritomo towards the close of the twelfth century and kept in continuous operation thereafter until the middle of the nineteenth, was known as the Bakufu, a word literally signifying "camp office," and intended to convey the fact that the affairs of the empire were in the hands of the military.

None of the great j.a.panese captains prior to Yoritomo recognized that if their authority was to be permanent, it must be exercised independently of the Court and must be derived from some source outside the Court. The Taira chief, in the zenith of his career, had sufficient strength to do as Yoritomo did, and at one moment, that is to say, when he established his headquarters at f.u.kuhara, he appears to have had a partial inspiration. But he never recognized that whatever share he obtained in the administration of State affairs was derived solely from the nature of the office conferred on him by the Court, and could never exceed the functions of that office or survive its loss. The Fujiwara were astuter politicians. By their plan of hereditary offices and by their device of supplying maidens of their own blood to be Imperial consorts, they created a system having some elements of permanency and some measure of independence.

ENGRAVING: HACHIMAN SHRINE AT KAMAKURA

But it was reserved for Yoritomo to appreciate the problem in all its bearings and to solve it radically. The selection of Kamakura for capital was the first step towards solution. Kamakura certainly has topographical advantages. It is surrounded by mountains except on one face, which is washed by the sea. But this feature does not seem to have counted so much in Yoritomo's eyes as the fact that his father, Yos.h.i.+tomo, had chosen Kamakura as a place of residence when he exercised military sway in the Kwanto, and Yoritomo wished to preserve the tradition of Minamoto power. He wished, also, to select a site so far from Kyoto that the debilitating and demoralizing influence of the Imperial metropolitan society might be powerless to reach the military capital. Kamakura was then only a fis.h.i.+ng hamlet, but at the zenith of its prosperity it had grown to be a city of at least a quarter of a million of inhabitants. During a period of one hundred and fifty years it remained the centre of military society and the focus of a civilization radically different from that of Kyoto. The Taira had invited their own ruin by a.s.similating the ways of the Fujiwara and of the courtiers; the Minamoto aimed at preserving and developing at Kamakura the special characteristics of the buke.

POLICY TOWARDS RELIGION

Yoritomo seems to have believed that the Taira had owed their downfall largely to divine wrath, in that they had warred against the monasteries and confiscated manors belonging to shrines and temples.

He himself adopted the policy of extending the utmost consideration to religion, whether s.h.i.+nto or Buddhism, and to its devotees and their possessions. At Kamakura, though it has well-nigh reverted to its original rank as a fis.h.i.+ng hamlet, there exist to-day eloquent evidences of the Minamoto chief's reverent mood; among them being the temple of Hachiman; a colossal bronze image of Buddha which, in majesty of conception and execution, is not surpa.s.sed by any idol in the world;* a temple of Kwannon, and several other religious edifices, though the tomb of Yoritomo himself is "a modest little monument covered with creepers."

*This image was not actually erected by Yoritomo, but the project is attributed to him.

YORITOMO'S MEMORIAL

It has been stated above that, after the retreat of the Taira from f.u.kuhara, in 1183, Go-s.h.i.+rakawa sent an envoy to Kamakura inviting Yoritomo's presence in Kyoto. Restrained, however, by a sense of insecurity,* the Minamoto chief declined to leave Kamakura, and sent in his stead a memorial to the Throne. This doc.u.ment commenced with a statement that the ruin of the Taira had been due not to human prowess but to divine anger against the plunderers of sacred lands.

Therefore, all manors thus improperly acquired should be at once restored to their original owners. Pa.s.sing on to the case of estates taken by the Taira from princes, Court n.o.bles, officials, and private individuals, Yoritomo urged that only by full rest.i.tution of this property could a sense of security be imparted to the people. "If any of these manors be now granted to us, the indignation roused by the Taira's doings will be transferred simultaneously with the estates.

To change men's misery to happiness is to remove their resentment and repining. Finally," the memorial continued, "if there be any Taira partisans who desire to submit, they should be liberally treated even though their offences deserve capital punishment. I myself was formerly an offender,** but having had the good fortune to be pardoned, I have been enabled to subdue the insurgents. Thus, even men who have been disloyal on the present occasion may serve a loyal purpose at some future time."

*Kamakura was always exposed to pressure from the north. It had long been proverbial that white the eight provinces of the Kwanto could defy the whole empire, 0-U (Oshu and Ushu-Mutsu and Dewa) could defy the eight provinces.

**In allusion to the fact that owing to the Emperor's presence in the camp of the Taira during the emeule, the Minamoto occupied the position of rebels.

On receipt of this memorial, Go-s.h.i.+rakawa ordered that the manors held by the Taira in the Tokai-do and Tosan-do should all be restored to their original owners, the duty of adjudicating in each case being delegated to Yoritomo. How much of this admirably conceived doc.u.ment was inspired by political ac.u.men we may not venture to judge, but it is proper to note that the principles enunciated in the memorial found expression in the practice of Yoritomo himself. He always extended clemency to a defeated enemy if he deemed the latter's submission to be sincere, and throughout his whole career he showed a strong respect for justice. The men of his time ultimately gave him credit for sincerity, and his memorial won universal approval and popularity.

POLITY OF THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU

Under the Dadka (A.D. 645) system, various administrative organs were created in accordance with Tang models, and a polity at once imposing and elaborate came into existence. But when the capital was overtaken by an era of literary effeminacy and luxurious abandonment, the Imperial exchequer fell into such a state of exhaustion that administrative posts began to be treated as State a.s.sets and bought and sold like commercial chattels, the discharge of the functions connected with them becoming illusory, and the constant tendency being in the direction of multiplication of offices with a corresponding increase of red tape. Yoritomo and his councillors appreciated the evils of such a system and were careful not to imitate it at Kamakura. They took brevity and simplicity for guiding principles, and constructed a polity in marked contrast with that of Kyoto.

At the head of the whole stood the shogun, or commander-in-chief of the entire body of bus.h.i.+, and then followed three sections. They were, first, the Samurai-dokoro, which term, according to its literal rendering, signified "samurai place" and may be appropriately designated "Central Staff Office." Established in 1180, its functions were to promote or degrade military men; to form a council of war; to direct police duties so far as they concerned bus.h.i.+', to punish crime, and to select men for guards and escorts. The president (betto) obviously occupied a post of prime importance, as he practically controlled all the retainers (keniri) of the Minamoto clan and its allied houses. Its first occupant was Wada Yos.h.i.+mori, representative of a famous family in the Kwanto, who had greatly distinguished himself in the Gen-Hei War. He held the post until the year 1213, when, taking up arms against Hojo Yos.h.i.+toki, he was defeated and killed. Thereafter, it being deemed inadvisable that the functions of such an important office should be delegated independently, they were made supplementary to those of the military regent (s.h.i.+kken), to be presently spoken of.

MAN-DOKORO

The second of the three great sections of the Bakufu polity was the Mandokoro (literally, "place of administration"), which, at the time of its establishment in 1184, was designated k.u.mon-jo, the change of name to Man-dokoro being made after Yoritomo's first visit to Kyoto (1190), when he was nominated gon-dainagon as well as general of the Right division of the guards (u-kon-e taisho). In fact, the office Man-dokoro had long existed in the establishment of the civil regent (kwampaku) at the Imperial capital, and a concession to Kyoto usages in the matter of nomenclature appealed to Yoritomo's taste for simplicity. The Man-dokoro had to discharge the duties and general business of the Bakufu. Its president was called betto; its vice-president, rei; there were secretaries, a manager (s.h.i.+tsuji), whose functions were mainly financial, and certain minor officials.

Oye no Hiromoto was the first president, and the office of s.h.i.+tsuji became hereditary in the Nikaido family.

It will be seen that the betto of the Man-dokoro corresponded to the regent in the Kyoto polity, the only difference being that the former officiated in military government, the latter in civil. The betto of the Man-dokoro was, in fact, designated by the alternative name of s.h.i.+kken (literally, "holder of authority") Thus there were two regents, one in Kyoto, one in Kamakura. In succession to Oye no Hiromoto, the military regency fell to Hojo Tokimasa, and subsequently to his son Yos.h.i.+toki, who, as shown above, held the post of betto of the Samurai-dokoro. In short, both offices became hereditary in the Hojo family, who thus acquired virtually all the power of the Bakufu. The s.h.i.+kken, standing at the head of the Samurai-dokoro and the Man-dokoro simultaneously, came to wield such authority that even the appointment of the shogun depended upon his will, and though a subject of the Emperor, he administered functions far exceeding those of the Imperial Court. In the year 1225, a reorganization of the Man-dokoro was effected. An administrative council was added (Hyojoshu), the councillors, fifteen or sixteen in number, being composed, in about equal parts, of men of science and members of the great clans. The regent (s.h.i.+kken) presided ex-officio.

MONJU-DOKORO

The third of the Bakufu offices was the Monju-dokoro, or "place for recording judicial inquiries;" in other words, a high court of justice and State legislature. Suits at law were heard there and were either decided finally or transferred to other offices for approval.

This office was established in 1184. Its president was called s.h.i.+tsuji (manager), indicating that he ranked equally with the Man-dokoro official having the same appellation. The first occupant of the post was Miyos.h.i.+ Yasun.o.bu. He not only presided over the Monju-dokoro in a judicial capacity but also attended the meetings of the Man-dokoro council (Hyojoshu) ex-officio.

This Miyos.h.i.+ Yasun.o.bu,* as well as the representative of the Nikaido who occupied the post of s.h.i.+tsuji in the Man-dokoro; the Oye family, who furnished the president of the latter, and the Nakahara, who served as the secretaries, were all men of erudition whom Yoritomo invited from Kyoto to fill posts in his administrative system at Kamakura. In these unquiet and aristocratically exclusive times, official promotion in the Imperial capital had largely ceased to be within reach of scholastic attainments, and Yoritomo saw an opportunity to attract to Kamakura men of learning and of competence.

He offered to them careers which were not open in Kyoto, and their ready response to his invitations was a princ.i.p.al cause of the success and efficacy that attended the operation of the Bakufu system in the early days.

*Miyos.h.i.+ Yasun.o.bu held the office of chugu no sakan in Kyoto. He was personally known to Yoritomo, and he was instrumental in securing the services of the astute Oye no Hiromoto, whose younger brother, Chikayos.h.i.+, was governor of Aki at the time of receiving Yoritomo's invitation. His descendants received the uji of Nagai and Mori; those of Yasun.o.bu, the uji of Ota and Machine, and those of Chikayos.h.i.+, the uji of Settsu and Otomo.

HIGH CONSTABLES AND LAND-STEWARDS

The most far-reaching change effected by Yoritomo was prompted by Oye no Hiromoto, at the close of 1185, when, Yos.h.i.+tsune and Yukiiye having gone westward from Kyoto, the Kamakura chief entertained an apprehension that they might succeed in raising a revolt in the Sanyo-do, in s.h.i.+koku, and in Kyushu. He sought advice from the high officials of the Bakufu as to the best preventive measures, and Oye no Hiromoto presented a memorial urging that the Emperor's sanction be obtained for appointing in each province a high constable (shugo) and a land-steward (jito), these officials being nominated from Kamakura, while Yoritomo himself became chief land-steward (so-jito) and subsequently lord high constable (so-tsuihos.h.i.+) for the sixty-six provinces. The object of these appointments was to insure that the control of local affairs should be everywhere in the hands of the Bakufu, whose nominees would thus be in a position to check all hostile movements or preparations.