Japan Part 11

The news of the attack upon Fus.h.i.+mi was brought to Ieyasu in s.h.i.+motsuke, and a council of his friends and retainers was held to determine what steps must be taken to meet the emergency. It was urged that the time had come when Ieyasu should meet his enemies, and settle by battle the questions which had risen between them. It was determined that all the scattered troops should be gathered together, and that they should march to Fus.h.i.+mi prepared to encounter the enemy in battle at whatever point they should meet them. The eldest son of Ieyasu, Hideyasu, was put in charge of Yedo and entrusted with the care of the surrounding provinces.

This was an important trust, because the powerful prince Uesugi lay to the north of him and would seize the first opportunity to attack him. To f.u.kus.h.i.+ma was given the command of the vanguard. The princ.i.p.al army was divided into two parts, one of which was to march along the Tokaido under the command of Ieyasu himself, the other was placed under the charge of Ieyasu's second son Hidetada, and was to take the route along the Nakasendo. The whole army consisted of 75,000 men, a number much smaller than the army of the league, but which had the advantage of being controlled by one mastering and experienced commander.

The armies met at Sekigahara,(194) a little village on the Nakasendo, October, A.D. 1600. One place on the neighboring hill is still pointed out whence Ieyasu witnessed the battle and issued his orders. Both sides fought with determined bravery, and the battle lasted the whole day.

Cannon and other firearms were to some extent made use of, but the old-fas.h.i.+oned weapons, the sword and the spear, were the terrible means by which the victory was decided. For a long time the battle raged without either party obtaining a decisive advantage. Notwithstanding his inferiority in numbers Ieyasu was completely victorious. The carnage was dreadful. The number of the confederate army said to have been killed was 40,000.(195) This seems like an impossible exaggeration, and the j.a.panese annalists are, like those of other nations, given to heightened statements. But that the loss of life on both sides was very great there can be no doubt.

Two ghastly mounds called Kubi-zuka, or head piles, are still shown where the heads of the decapitated confederates were buried. This battle must always stand with that at Dan-no-ura between the Minamoto and Taira families, as one of the decisive battles in the history of j.a.pan. By it was settled the fate of the country for two hundred and fifty years.

It was fortunate that the victor in this battle was a man who knew how to secure the advantages to be derived from a victory. It is said that at the close of this battle when he saw success perching on his banners, he repeated to those around him the old j.a.panese proverb: "After victory tighten the strings of your helmet."(196) The division of Hidetada joined him after the battle, and he promptly followed up his victory by seizing the castles on his way and taking possession of Kyoto and Osaka. The feudal princes who had stood aloof or opposed him nearly all came forward and submitted themselves to his authority. Uesugi and Satake in the north, who had been among his most active opponents, at once presented themselves to Hideyasu at Yedo and made their submission. Mori, the powerful lord of the western provinces, who had been most active in the confederation against him, sent congratulations on his victory, but they were coldly received. Finally he was pardoned, being however deprived of six out of his eight provinces. He was suffered to retain of all his rich inheritance only Suo and Nagato. Several of the leaders were captured, among whom were Mitsunari, Konis.h.i.+, and Otani, who being Christians deemed it unworthy their faith to commit _hara-kiri_. They were carried to Kyoto where they were beheaded and their heads exposed in the dry bed of the Kamo-gawa.

The work of reducing to order the island of Kyushu was entrusted to the veteran generals Kato Kiyomasa and Kuroda Yos.h.i.+taka. The former undertook the reduction of Hizen, and the latter that of Bungo, Buzen, and Chikuzen.

The house of s.h.i.+mazu, although it had taken sides against Ieyasu in the great contest, duly made its submission and was treated with great consideration. The whole of the territory a.s.signed to it by Hideyos.h.i.+ after the war of A.D. 1586 was restored to it, namely, the whole of the provinces of Satsuma and Osumi, and one half of the province of Hyuga. To Kato Kiyomasa(197) was given the province of Higo, which had, after the Korean war, been a.s.signed to Konis.h.i.+ in recognition of his services, but which was now taken from his family because he had been one of Ieyasu's active opponents. The Kuroda family received as its inheritance a portion of the province of Chikuzen with its capital at f.u.kuoka, which it held until the abolition of feudal tenures in 1871.

Ieyasu was a peaceful and moderate character, and in the settlement of the disturbances which had marked his advent to power, he is notable for having pursued a course of great kindness and consideration. With the exception of the cases already mentioned there were no executions for political offences. It was his desire and ambition to establish a system of government which should be continuous and not liable, like those of n.o.bunaga and Taiko Sama, to be overturned at the death of him who had founded it. By the gift of Taiko Sama he had already in his possession a large part of the Kwanto. And by the result of the war which had ended at Sekigahara, he had come into possession of a great number of other fiefs, with which he could reward those who had been faithful to him. It was the difficult and delicate part of his work to distribute judiciously among his supporters and retainers the confiscated estates. To realize how completely the feudal system as reformed by Ieyasu was bound to him and const.i.tuted to support and perpetuate his family, it is only necessary to examine such a list of the daimyos(198) as is given in Appert's _Ancien j.a.pon_.(199) Out of the two hundred and sixty-three daimyos there enumerated, one hundred and fifty-eight are either va.s.sals or branches of the Tokugawa family. But while he thus carefully provided the supports for his own family, he spared many of the old and well-rooted houses, which had incorporated themselves into the history of the country. He built his structure on the old and tried foundation stones. With far-sighted statesmans.h.i.+p he recognized that every new form of government, to be permanent, must be a development from that which precedes it, and must include within itself whatever is lasting in the nature of its forerunner.

The dual form of government had for many centuries existed in j.a.pan, and the customs and habits of thinking, and the modes of administering justice and of controlling the conduct of men had become adapted to this system.

It was therefore natural that Ieyasu should turn his attention to reforming and perfecting such a form of government. A scheme of this kind seemed best adapted to a country in which there existed on the one hand an emperor of divine origin, honored of all men, but who by long neglect had become unfit to govern, and in whom was lodged only the source of honor; and on the other hand an executive department on which devolved the practical duty of governing, organizing, maintaining, and defending.

Though he was compelled to look back through centuries of misrule, and through long periods of war and usurpation, he could see straight to Yoritomo, the first of the shoguns, and could trace from him a clear descent in the Minamoto family. To this task, therefore, he set himself: to maintain the empire in all its heaven-descended purity and to create a line of hereditary shoguns who should const.i.tute its executive department.

In pursuance of this plan, he sent his son Hidetada to the emperor to make a full report of everything that had been done in the settlement of the affairs of the country. The emperor was graciously pleased to approve his acts and to bestow upon him, A.D. 1603, the hereditary t.i.tle of Sei-i-tai-shogun. This was the t.i.tle borne by Yoritomo when he was the real ruler of the country. Since that time there had been a long line of shoguns, the last of whom was As.h.i.+kaga Yos.h.i.+aki, whom n.o.bunaga deposed in 1573, and who had died 1597. With this new appointment began a line of Tokugawa shoguns that ended only with the restoration in 1868.

Ieyasu's most radical change in the system of government consisted in the establishment of the seat of his executive department at Yedo. Since A.D.

794 Kyoto had been the capital where successive emperors had reigned, and where n.o.bunaga and Hideyos.h.i.+ exercised executive control. Kamakura had been the seat of Yoritomo and his successors. But Ieyasu saw advantages in establis.h.i.+ng himself in a new field, to which the traditions of idleness and effeminacy had not attached themselves, and where the a.s.sociations of his own warlike career would act as a stimulus to his contemporaries and successors. He remained at Fus.h.i.+mi until necessary repairs could be made to the Castle of Yedo(200) and the roads between it and the capital put in order. The place which henceforth was to be the princ.i.p.al capital of the country first comes into notice, as we have before mentioned, as a castle built by Ota Dokwan in A.D. 1456. He had been placed here by the authorities of Kamakura to watch the movements of the restless princes of the north. Recognizing the strength and convenience of the high grounds on the border of Yedo bay, he built a castle which, through many transformations and enlargements, finally developed into the great feudal capital of the Tokugawa shoguns. It was here that Ieyasu, after the fall of Odawara, by the advice of Hideyos.h.i.+,(201) established himself for the government of the provinces of the Kwanto which had been given to him.

And it was without doubt this earlier experience which led him to select Yedo as the centre of his feudal government. The reputation which this eastern region bore for roughness and want of culture, as compared with the capital of the emperor at Kyoto, seemed to him an advantage rather than an objection. He could here build up a system of government free from the faults and weaknesses which had become inseparable from the old seats of power. After the repairs and enlargements had been completed he took up his residence there. Besides this castle, Ieyasu had for his private residence, especially after his retirement from the shogunate, an establishment at Sumpu, now called s.h.i.+zuoka. Here he was visited by English and Dutch envoys in reference to the terms of allowing trade, and here, after the manner of his country, he maintained his hold upon the administration of affairs, notwithstanding his formal retirement.

A continued source of disquietude and danger to the empire, or at least to the plans of Ieyasu for a dynasty of Tokugawa shoguns, lay in Hideyori, the son and heir of Taiko Sama. He was born in 1592, and was therefore at this time, 1614, in his twenty-third year. As long as he lived he would be naturally and inevitably the centre to which all the disaffected elements of the country would gravitate. The failure of Ieyasu to support the cause of his old master's son would always prove a source of weakness to him, especially in a country where fidelity to parents and superiors was held in such high esteem. He determined, therefore, to bring to a conclusion these threatening troubles which had so long been hanging over him.

Accordingly, on the ground that Hideyori was plotting with his enemies against the peace of the state, he set out from Sumpu, where he was then residing as retired shogun, with an army of seventy thousand men. Hideyori and his mother had for a long time resided at the castle of Osaka, and against this Ieyasu directed his large army. It was bravely and skilfully defended, and without the help of artillery, which at this early day was rarely used in sieges, a long time elapsed before any decided advantage was gained. At last the defenders were tempted beyond the protection of their fortifications, and a battle was fought June 3, 1615. It is described by the Jesuit fathers, two of whom witnessed it, as being sanguinary beyond the example of the b.l.o.o.d.y battles of the j.a.panese civil wars. It resulted in the complete overthrow of Hideyori's adherents, and the destruction of the castle by fire. Both Hideyori and his mother were said to have perished in the conflagration. Reports were current that they had, however, escaped and taken refuge in some friendly locality. But no trace of them was ever found, and it was taken for granted that this was the end of Hideyori and his party.

Before ending this chapter, which is designed to record the establishment of the Tokugawa shoguns, reference should be made to the settlement of the questions left in dispute by Taiko Sama respecting Korea. There remained after the war, with all its attendant atrocities and sufferings, a feeling of intense bitterness towards the j.a.panese on the part both of the Koreans and Chinese. The absence of any sufficient cause for the invasion, and the avowed purpose of Taiko Sama to extend his conquests to China had awakened against him and his armies a hatred which generations could not wipe out.

Soon after the recall of the j.a.panese troops which followed the death of Taiko Sama, Ieyasu opened negotiations with Korea through the daimyo of Tsus.h.i.+ma. He caused the government to be informed that any friendly overtures on its part would be received in a like spirit. The king of Korea accordingly despatched an emba.s.sy with an autograph letter, addressed to the "King of j.a.pan." A translation of this letter will be found in Mr. Aston's last paper(202) on Hideyos.h.i.+'s invasion of Korea.

Among other things it says: "The sovereign and subjects of this country were profoundly grieved, and felt that they could not live under the same heaven with your country.... However your country has now reformed the errors of the past dynasty and practises the former friendly relations. If this be so, is it not a blessing to the people of both countries? We have therefore sent you the present emba.s.sy in token of friends.h.i.+p. The enclosed paper contains a list of some poor productions of our country. Be pleased to understand this." This letter was dated in the year 1607. A friendly answer was returned to it, and from this time it may be understood that the relations between the two countries were placed on a satisfactory basis. These steps were taken on the part of Korea with the knowledge and approval of China, which now claimed to hold a protectorate over the peninsula of Korea. The same negotiations therefore which resulted in peaceful relations with Korea brought about a condition of amity with China which was not disturbed until very recent times.

The ruinous effects of this invasion, however, were never overcome in Korea itself. Her cities had been destroyed, her industries blotted out, and her fertile fields rendered desolate. Once she had been the fruitful tree from which j.a.pan was glad to gather her arts and civilization, but now she was only a branchless trunk which the fires of war had charred and left standing.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Tokugawa Crest.

CHAPTER XI. CHRISTIANITY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

To the readers of the story of j.a.pan the most interesting episode is that of the introduction and subsequent extirpation of Christianity. We have therefore given an account of the first arrival of the Jesuit missionaries with the sainted Xavier at their head, and we have seen their labors crowned with a very wide success. During the times of n.o.bunaga and Hideyos.h.i.+ the question had a.s.sumed something of a political aspect. In several of the provinces of Kyushu the princes had become converts and had freely used their influence, and sometimes their authority, to extend Christianity among their subjects. In Kyoto and Yamaguchi, in Osaka and Sakai, as well as in Kyushu, the Jesuit fathers had founded flouris.h.i.+ng churches and exerted a wide influence. They had established colleges where the candidates for the church could be educated and trained. They had organized hospitals and asylums at Nagasaki and elsewhere, where those needing aid could be received and treated.

It is true that the progress of the work had met with a severe setback in A.D. 1587, when Taiko Sama issued an edict expelling all foreign religious teachers from j.a.pan. In pursuance of this edict nine foreigners who had evaded expulsion were burnt at Nagasaki. The reason for this decisive action on the part of Taiko Sama is usually attributed to the suspicion which had been awakened in him by the loose and unguarded talk of a Portuguese sea captain.(203) But other causes undoubtedly contributed to produce in him this intolerant frame of mind. Indeed, the idea of toleration as applied to religious belief had not yet been admitted even in Europe. At this very time Philip II., who had united in his own person the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, was endeavoring to compel, by force of arms, the Netherlands to accept his religious belief, and was engaged throughout all his immense dominions in the task of reducing men's minds to a hideous uniformity.

Even in several of the provinces of j.a.pan where the Jesuits had attained the ascendancy, the most forcible measures had been taken by the Christian princes to compel all their subjects to follow their own example and adopt the Christian faith. Takeyama, whom the Jesuit fathers designate as Justo Ucondono, carried out in his territory at Akas.h.i.+ a system of bitter persecution. He gave his subjects the option of becoming Christians or leaving his territory. Konis.h.i.+ Yukinaga, who received part of the province of Higo as his fief after the Korean war enforced with great persistency the acceptance of the Christian faith, and robbed the Buddhist priests of their temples and their lands. The princes of Omura and Arima, and to a certain extent the princes of Bungo, followed the advice of the Jesuit fathers in using their authority to advance the cause of Christianity. The fathers could scarcely complain of having the system of intolerance practised upon them, which, when circ.u.mstances were favorable, they had advised to be applied to their opponents. It was this impossibility of securing peace and harmony, and the suspicion of the territorial ambition of Spain and Portugal, which drove Taiko Sama to the conclusion that the foreign religious teachers and the faith which they had so successfully propagated, were a source of imminent danger to his country. To him it was purely a political question. He had no deep religious impressions which had led him to prefer the precepts of the old j.a.panese faith to those of Christianity. These systems could not apparently live together, and it seemed to him the safest and most sensible way to extinguish the weaker and most dangerous before it became too strong. Hence he began that policy of repression and expulsion which his successor reluctantly took up.

During the first years of Ieyasu's supremacy the Christians were not disturbed. He was too much occupied with the establishment of the new executive department which he had planned. In 1606 the Portuguese resident bishop, Father Louis Cerqueria, was received by Ieyasu at Kyoto. The fathers speak of this audience with great hopefulness, and did not seem to be aware that the court which most of the Christian princes were at that time paying to Hideyori was likely to prejudice Ieyasu against them. Again in 1607 Ieyasu, who was then at Kofu in the province of Kai awaiting the completion of his castle at Yedo, expressed a desire to see the Provincial. Accordingly when he waited on Ieyasu he was received very cordially. The Christian fathers were much encouraged by these indications of the favor of Ieyasu. But whatever they may have been, they cannot be interpreted as showing any intention on his part to promote their religious proselytism. Even in the very midst of these a.s.sumed favors he issued in 1606 what may be called a warning proclamation,(204) announcing that he had learned with pain that, contrary to Taiko Sama's edict, many had embraced the Christian religion. He warned all officers of his court to see that the edict was strictly enforced. He declared that it was for the good of the state that none should embrace the new doctrine; and that such as had already done so must change immediately.

This proclamation of Ieyasu did not, however, prevent the Catholics at Nagasaki from celebrating in a gorgeous manner the beatification(205) of Ignatius Loyola, the founder and first General of the Society of Jesus.

The bishop officiated in pontifical robes, and the members of the society, together with the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians, made a solemn procession through the city. This celebration was in distinct contravention of the orders which had been issued against such public displays. It was made more emphatic by being also held on the same day in the province of Arima, whose daimyo was an ardent advocate of the Christian doctrine. These open and determined infractions of the directions of the government provoked Ieyasu to take severe measures. He began by punis.h.i.+ng some of the native Christians connected with his own court, who were charged with bribery and intrigue in behalf of the daimyo of Arima. A number of these accused Christians were banished and their estates confiscated.

In the meantime both the English and Dutch had appeared on the scene, as will be more fully detailed in the next chapter. Their object was solely trade, and as the Portuguese monopoly hitherto had been mainly secured by the Jesuit fathers, it was natural for the new-comers to represent the motive of these fathers in an unfavorable and suspicious light. "Indeed,"

as Hildreth(206) says, "they had only to confirm the truth of what the Portuguese and Spanish said of each other to excite in the minds of the j.a.panese rulers the gravest distrust as to the designs of the priests of both nations."(207)

Whether it is true as charged that the minds of the j.a.panese rulers had been poisoned against the Jesuit fathers by misrepresentation and falsehood, it may be impossible to determine definitely; but it is fair to infer that the cruel and intolerant policy of the Spanish and Portuguese would be fully set forth and the danger to the j.a.panese empire from the machinations of the foreign religious teachers held up in the worst light.

During the latter years of Ieyasu's life, after he had settled the affairs of the empire and put the shogunate upon a permanent basis, we see growing evidence of his prejudice against Christianity. That he had such prejudice in a very p.r.o.nounced form is clear from his reference to the "false and corrupt school" in chapter x.x.xi. of the _Legacy_. And he had inherited from Taiko Sama the conviction that the spread of this foreign faith was a menace to the peace of the empire. The instructions(208) which were issued to the members of the Society of Jesus, however, forbade any father to meddle in secular affairs or to interfere in any way with the political concerns of the government in which they were laboring. That there were occasional instances of the disregard of this regulation by the enthusiastic members of the order may be supposed, but it will be unjust and unfounded to attribute to this society a settled policy of interference in the affairs of the nations where they were employed as missionaries.

Ieyasu, evidently having made up his mind that for the safety of the empire Christianity must be extirpated, in 1614 issued an edict(209) that the members of all religious orders, whether European or j.a.panese, should be sent out of the country; that the churches which had been erected in various localities should be pulled down, and that the native adherents of the faith should be compelled to renounce it. In part execution of this edict all the members of the Society of Jesus, native and foreign, were ordered to be sent to Nagasaki. Native Christians were sent to Tsugaru, the northern extremity of the Main island. Takeyama, who had already been banished by Taiko Sama to the province of Kaga, was ordered to leave the country. He was sent in a Chinese s.h.i.+p to Manila, where he soon after died. In order to repress any disturbance that might arise from the execution of this edict, ten thousand troops were sent to Kyushu, where the converts were much the most numerous, and where the daimyos in many cases either openly protected or indirectly favored the new faith.

In accordance with this edict, as many as three hundred persons are said to have been s.h.i.+pped from j.a.pan October 25, 1614. All the resident Jesuits were included in this number, excepting eighteen fathers and nine brothers, who concealed themselves and thus escaped the search. Following this deportation of converts the most persistent efforts continued to be made to force the native Christians to renounce their faith. The accounts given, both by the foreign and by the j.a.panese writers, of the persecutions which now broke upon the heads of the Christians are beyond description horrible. A special service was established by the government which was called the Christian Enquiry,(210) the object of which was to search out Christians in every quarter and drive them to a renunciation of their faith. Both the foreign priests who had remained in the country in spite of the edict and the native converts were hunted down and punished with the most appalling tortures. Rewards were offered for information involving Christians of every position and rank, even of parents against their children and of children against their parents. At what time this practice began it is difficult to say, but that rewards were used at an early period is evident from the re-issue of an edict in 1655, in which it is stated(211) that formerly a reward of 200 pieces of silver was paid for denouncing a father (_bateren_) and 100 for denouncing a brother (_iruman_); but from this time the rewards should be: for denouncing a father, 300 pieces; a brother, 200 pieces; and a catechist, 50 pieces. In 1711 this tariff was raised, for denouncing a father to 500 pieces, a brother to 300 pieces, and a catechist to 100 pieces; also for denouncing a person who, having recanted, returned to the faith, 300 pieces. These edicts against Christianity were displayed on the edict-boards as late as the year 1868.

The persecution began in its worst form about 1616. This was the year in which Ieyasu died, but his son and successor carried out the terrible programme with heartless thoroughness. It has never been surpa.s.sed for cruelty and brutality on the part of the persecutors, or for courage and constancy on the part of those who suffered. The letters of the Jesuit fathers are full of descriptions of the shocking trials to which the Christians were subjected. The tortures inflicted are almost beyond belief. Mr. Gubbins, in the paper(212) to which reference has already been made, says: "We read of Christians being executed in a barbarous manner in sight of each other, of their being hurled from the tops of precipices, of their being buried alive, of their being torn asunder by oxen, of their being tied up in rice-bags, which were heaped up together, and of the pile thus formed being set on fire. Others were tortured before death by the insertion of sharp spikes under the nails of their hands and feet, while some poor wretches by a refinement of horrid cruelty were shut up in cages and there left to starve with food before their eyes. Let it not be supposed that we have drawn on the Jesuit accounts solely for this information. An examination of the j.a.panese records will show that the case is not overstated."(213)

The region around Nagasaki was most fully impregnated with the new doctrine, and it was here that the persecution was by far the most severe.

This was now an imperial city, governed directly by officers from the government of Yedo. The governor is called Kanwayts...o...b.. Warenius, relying on Caron and Guysbert, but I have been unable to identify him by his true j.a.panese name. Beginning from 1616 there was a continuous succession of persecutions. In 1622 one hundred and thirty men, women, and children were put to death, among whom were two Spanish priests, and Spinola an Italian.

The next year one hundred more were put to death. The heroism of these martyrs awakened the greatest enthusiasm among the Christians. In the darkness of the night following the execution many of them crept to the place where their friends had been burnt and tenderly plucked some charred fragments of their bodies, which they carried away and cherished as precious relics. To prevent the recurrence of such practices the officers directed that the bodies of those burnt should be completely consumed and the ashes thrown into the sea. Guysbert in his account mentions that among those executed at Hirado was a man who had been in the employ of the Dutch factory and his wife. They had two little boys whom the factor offered to take and have brought up by the Dutch. But the parents declined, saying that they preferred to have the boys die with them. A plan was devised by which the heads of households were required to certify that none of their families were Christians, and that no priests or converts were harbored by them.

All this terrible exercise of power and the constantly recurring scenes of suffering were more than the governor could endure, and so we find him at last complaining that he could not sleep and that his health was impaired.

At his earnest pet.i.tion he was relieved and a new governor appointed in 1626. He signalized his entrance upon his duties by condemning thirteen Christians to be burnt, viz.: Bishop Franciscus Parquerus, a Portuguese, seventy years old; Balthazar de Tores, a Dominican, fifty-seven years old, together with five Portuguese and five j.a.panese laymen. When it came to the crisis the five Portuguese renounced their faith and escaped death. On the twelfth of July nine more were executed, five by burning and four by beheading. On the twenty-ninth of July a priest was caught and executed who had concealed himself in a camp of lepers, and who had hoped in that way to escape detection.

The governor exerted himself to bring about recantations on the part of those who had professed themselves Christians. He promised special favors to such as would renounce their faith, and in many cases went far beyond promises to secure the result. He set a day when all the apostates dressed in their best clothes should present themselves at his office. Fifteen hundred appeared on this occasion, and were treated with the greatest kindness and consideration. But the officers began to see that putting Christians to death would not prevent others from embracing the same doctrine. There grew up such an enthusiasm among the faithful that they sought rather than avoided the crown of martyrdom. As Guysbert points out, the knowledge of the Christian religion possessed by these converts must have been exceedingly small; they knew the Lord's prayer and the _Ave Maria_, and a few other prayers of the Church, but they had not the Scriptures to read, and many of them could not have read them even if they had been translated into their own language. And yet these humble and ignorant people withstood death, and tortures far worse than death, with a heroism worthy of all praise.

On the eighth of February, 1627, twelve persons were captured in a hiding-place about a mile from Nagasaki; they were first branded with a hot iron on the forehead, and then on each cheek; then because they would not recant they were burnt to death. Subsequently forty more were captured, among whom were a father and mother with their three young children. The children were frightened at the dreadful preparations, and would have recanted, but their parents refused to permit them to take advantage of the offers of clemency. After the branding and beating, those who were not yet driven to recant were sent off to the boiling springs of Onsen in Arima. Here they were tortured by having the boiling water of the springs poured upon them, and by being compelled to breathe the suffocating sulphurous air which these springs emitted.

On the fourteenth of the following May, nine martyrs suffered all the torments which could be contrived and finally were drowned. August seventeenth five Christians were burnt and eighteen otherwise put to death, of whom one was a Franciscan monk and the rest were natives.

October twenty-sixth three j.a.panese magnates who had joined Hideyori against Ieyasu were discovered to be Christians, and were s.h.i.+pped off to Macao. In the following year, 1628, it is said that three hundred and forty-eight persons were tortured for their faith, including torture by the boiling springs, beating with clubs, and burning. It had been reduced to such a science that when they saw a subject becoming weak and likely to die, they suspended their torments until he revived. Whenever a priest was captured in any household the whole family by whom he had been concealed were put to death.

Another new governor was sent to Nagasaki on the 27th of July, 1629. He came with the high purpose of rooting out every vestige of Christianity.

He set about his work in the most systematic manner. Nagasaki, it must be understood, is laid out in streets which can be closed up by gates. Each street had its head man, and every five houses in each street were under the special charge of a separate overseer. These overseers were responsible as to what occurred and who were concealed in each of the houses under his charge. The gates were all closed at night and opened again in the morning.

The governor went through these streets house by house, and examined every person in every house. If the occupants were not Christians, or if they renounced their Christianity, they were allowed to go undisturbed; but if any one persisted in the new doctrine he was sent off to be tortured by hot water at the boiling springs. This torture was now improved by requiring the victim to have his back slit open and the boiling water poured directly on the raw flesh. He used the most monstrous means to force the people to renounce their faith. He compelled naked women to go through the streets on their hands and knees, and many recanted rather than suffer such an ordeal. Other cases are recorded too horrible to be related, and which only the ingenuity of h.e.l.l could have devised. That any should have persisted after such inhuman persecutions seems to be almost beyond belief. Guysbert says that in 1626 Nagasaki had forty thousand Christians, and in 1629 not one was left who acknowledged himself a believer. The governor was proud that he had virtually exterminated Christianity.

But the extermination had not yet been attained. The severity of the measures adopted in Nagasaki had indeed driven many into the surrounding provinces, so that every place of shelter was full. They awaited in terror the time when they too should be summoned to torture and death. Usually they had not long to wait, for the service of the Christian Enquiry was active and diligent. New refinements of cruelty were constantly invented and applied. The last and one of the most effectual is denominated by the foreign historians of these scenes the _Torment of the Fosse_. Mathia Tanner, S. J., in his _History of the Martyrs of j.a.pan_, published in Prague, 1675, gives minute accounts of many martyrdoms. His descriptions are ill.u.s.trated by sickening engravings of the tortures inflicted. Among these he gives one ill.u.s.trating the suspension of a martyr in a pit on the 16th of August, 1633. The victim is swathed in a covering which confines all parts of the body except one hand with which he can make the signal of recantation. A post is planted by the side of the pit, with an arm projecting out over it. The martyr is then drawn up by a rope fastened to the feet and run over the arm of the post. He is then lowered into the pit to a depth of five or six feet and there suffered to hang. The suffering was excruciating. Blood exuded from the mouth and nose, and the sense of pressure on the brain was fearful. Yet with all this suffering the victim usually lived eight or nine days. Few could endure this torture, and it proved a most effectual method of bringing about recantations. Guysbert says that he had many friendly conversations with those who had experienced the torture of the _Fosse_. They solemnly a.s.sured him "that neither the pain caused by burning with fire, nor that caused by any other kind of torture, deserves to be compared with the agony produced in this way." Not being able longer to endure the suffering, they had recanted and been set free. Yet it is told as a miraculous triumph of faith that a young girl was submitted to this torture, and lived fifteen days without recanting and at last died.

It is surely not unnatural that human nature should succ.u.mb to such torments. Even the well seasoned nerves of the Jesuit fathers were not always able to endure to the end. The enemies of the Jesuits delight in narrating the apostasy of Father Christopher Ferreyra, seventy years old, a Portuguese missionary and the provincial of the order. He was captured in Nagasaki, 1633, and was tortured by suspension in the _Fosse_. After five hours he gave the signal of recantation and was released. He was kept for some time in prison and compelled to give information concerning the members of his order in j.a.pan. He was set at liberty and forced to marry, a.s.suming the j.a.panese dress and a j.a.panese name. There was a report set on foot by the Jesuits that in his old age when on his death-bed he recovered his courage and declared himself a Christian, whereupon he was immediately carried off by the j.a.panese officers to the torture of the _Fosse_, where he perished a penitent martyr.

It was at this time that the method of trial called _E-fumi_,(214) or trampling on the cross, was inst.i.tuted. At first pictures on paper were used, then slabs of wood were subst.i.tuted as more durable, and finally in the year 1660 an engraver of Nagasaki, named Yusa, cast bronze plates from the metal obtained by despoiling the altars of the churches. These plates were about five inches long and four inches wide and one inch thick, and had on them a figure of Christ on the cross. We take from the French edition of Kaempfer's _History of j.a.pan_(215) an account of what he calls "this detestable solemnity." It was conducted by an officer called the _kiris.h.i.+tan bugyo_, or Christian inquisitor, and began on the second day of the first month. In Nagasaki it was commenced at two different places at once, and was carried on from house to house until the whole city was finished. The officers of each street were required to be present. The metal plate on which was a figure of the Saviour upon the cross was laid upon the floor. Then the head of the house, his family, and servants of both s.e.xes, old and young, and any lodgers that might be in the house, were called into the room. The secretary of the inquisitor thereupon made a list of the household and called upon them one by one to set their feet on the plate. Even young children not able to walk were carried by their mothers and made to step on the images with their feet. Then the head of the family put his seal to the list as a certificate to be laid before the governor that the inquisition had been performed in his house. If any refused thus to trample on the cross they were at once turned over to the proper officers to be tortured as the cases required.

This same method of trial was used in the provinces about Nagasaki, the governor lending to the officers the plate which they might use.

Without following the entire series of events which resulted in the extirpation of Christianity, it will be sufficient to give a brief narrative of the closing act in this fearful tragedy. It is just, however, to explain that the s.h.i.+mabara rebellion was not due to the Christians alone, but that other causes contributed to and perhaps originated it. In view, however, of the cruel persecutions to which the Christians were subjected, it is not surprising that they should have been driven to engage in such a rebellion as that in Arima.(216) The wonder rather is that they were not often and in many places impelled to take up arms against the inhumanities of their rulers. The explanation of this absence of resistance will be found in the scattered condition of the Christian communities. Nowhere, unless it might be in Nagasaki, was the number of converts collected in one place at all considerable. They were everywhere overawed by the organized power of the government, and the experience of those who joined in this Arima insurrection did not encourage a repet.i.tion of its horrors.