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Kiyotsura abused Haseo as a pundit inferior to any of his predecessors. Michizane ridiculed Fumio's panegyric of Kiyotsura, The pupils of these men endorsed their teachers' verdicts. Ajnong them all, Tachibana Hiromi occupied the most important position until the day of his downfall. He practically managed the affairs of the Court under Yozei, Koko, and Uda.
At the same time, it is only just to note that he found ready coadjutors among the jealous schoolmen of the time. Rival colleges, rival academies, and rival literati quarrelled with all the rancour of medieval Europe. The great luminaries of the era were Sugawara Michizane, Ki no Haseo, Koze no Fumio, Miyoshi Kiyotsura, and Tachibana Hiromi. There was little mutual recognition of talent.
This was an almost inevitable result of the exceptional facilities given to petitioners under the Daika and Daiho systems. Miyoshi Kiyotsura urged that all petitioning and all resulting inquiries by specially appointed officials should be interdicted, except in matters relating to political crime, and that all offenders should be handed over to the duly constituted administrators of justice.
The famous report of Miyoshi Kiyotsura, to which we have so often alluded, spoke in no measured terms of the greed and vice of the Buddhist priests. And the character of these hireling shepherds goes far to explain the gross superstition of the tune. Near the end of the ninth century one Emperor made a gift of 500,000 yen for prayers that seemed to have saved the life of a favourite minister.
Kibi no Makibi and Sugawara no Michizane were the only two Japanese subjects that attained to be ministers of State solely in recognition of their learning, but several littérateurs reached high office, as chief chamberlain, councillor of State, minister of Education, and so forth. Miyoshi Kiyotsura ranks next to Michizane among the scholars of that age.
Miyoshi Kiyotsura says that instead of being "metropolitan tigers" to guard the palace, they were "rural wolves" to despoil the provinces. This celebrated document consisted of twelve articles and contained five thousand ideographs, so that nothing was wanting in the matter of voluminousness. The writer did not confine himself to enumerating abuses: he also suggested remedies.
They note that Daigo's treatment of his father, Uda, on the celebrated occasion of the latter's visit to the palace to intercede for Michizane, was markedly unfilial; that his Majesty believed and acted upon slanders which touched the honour of his father no less than that of his well-proved servant, and that he made no resolute effort to correct the abuses of his time, even when they had been clearly pointed out by Miyoshi Kiyotsura.
A rumour was busily circulated that this meant a plot for the dethronement of Daigo in favour of Tokiyo. Miyoshi Kiyotsura, an eminent scholar, acting subtly at the instance of the Fujiwara, addressed a seemingly friendly letter to Michizane, warning him that his career had become dangerously rapid and explaining that the stars presaged a revolution in the following year.
The great scholar, Miyoshi Kiyotsura, responded with ability so conspicuous that posterity has been disposed to question the justice of the charges against him in connexion with Michizane's fate. He set out by stating that, in the early times, the national sentiment had been kind and simple; the people loyal to the Throne and obedient to parents; the taxes moderate.
For generations the Fujiwara family had virtually usurped the governing power; had dethroned Emperors and chosen Empresses; had consulted their own will alone in the administrations of justice and in the appointment and removal of officials. Yet of these things Miyoshi Kiyotsura says nothing whatever.
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