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He met the crisis with the utmost coolness, and made such skilful dispositions for defence that, after three days' fighting, in which the Japanese lost heavily, Hakata remained uncaptured.
The metropolis being Kyoto, with its population of some 900,000, Hyogo was the most important harbour for the trade, and after it came Hakata,* in Chikuzen; Bonotsu, in Satsuma; Obi, in Hyuga, and Anotsu, in Ise. The customs duties at Hyogo alone are said to have amounted to the equivalent of £15,000, or $75,000, annually. *Hakata's place was subsequently taken by Hirado.
Thus, when the American commodore returned in the following February with ten ships and crews numbering two thousand, he easily obtained a treaty by which Japan promised kind treatment to shipwrecked sailors; permission to foreign vessels to obtain stores and provisions within her territory, and an engagement that American vessels might anchor in the ports of Shimoda and Hakata.
Ten days after their first appearance off Tsushima, the Toi effected a landing in Chikuzen and marched towards Hakata, plundering, burning, massacring old folks and children, making prisoners of adults, and slaughtering cattle and horses for food.
After the abolition of embassies to China, at the close of the ninth century, oversea trade declined for a time. But the inhabitants of Tsukushi and Naniwa, which were favourably located for voyages, continued to visit China and Korea, whence they are reported to have obtained articles of value. Other ports frequented by foreign-going ships were Kanzaki, Eguchi, Kaya, Otsu, and Hakata.
The statistics of 1595 showed that there were then in Japan 137 Jesuit fathers with 300,000 native converts, including seventeen feudal chiefs and not a few bonzes. For ten years after the issue of his anti-Christian decree at Hakata, Hideyoshi maintained a tolerant demeanour. But in 1597, his forbearance was changed to a mood of uncompromising severity.
What in thunder do they mean by sending him away so far as Nobeoka when the fellow prefers to remain in his old position? Even Dazai-no- Gonnosutsu did not have to go farther than about Hakata; even Matagoro Kawai stopped at Sagara. I shall not feel satisfied unless I see Red Shirt and tell him I refuse the raise. I dressed again and went to his house.
"This was in 1586, on the eve of his great military enterprise, the invasion of Kyushu. . . He carried that difficult campaign to completion by the middle of 1587, and throughout its course he maintained a uniformly friendly demeanour toward the Jesuits. But suddenly, when on the return journey he reached Hakata in the north of the island, his policy underwent a radical metamorphosis.
But before launching this formidable host, Kublai made a final effort to compass his end without fighting. In 1280, he sent another embassy to Japan, announcing the complete overthrow of the Sung dynasty, and summoning the Island Empire to enter into friendly relations. Kamakura's answer was to order the execution of the envoys at the place where they had landed, Hakata in Chikuzen.
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