michizane's

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.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

In the next generation the Emperor Daigo exiled Sugawara Michizane to Kyusml, where the exile died in two years. Soon afterwards the Emperor fell sick; and this, the disaster of 930 when a thunderstorm killed many nobles in the Imperial palace, and the sudden death of Michizane's accusers and of the Crown Prince were explained as due to the ill-will of the injured man's spirit.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

His unjust fate and the idea that he suffered for his sovereign appealed powerfully to popular imagination. Moreover, lightning struck the palace in Kyoto, and the three principal contrivers of Michizane's disgrace, Fujiwara Tokihira, Fujiwara Sugane, and Minamoto Hikaru, all expired within a few years' interval.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Her father-in-law has been for a long time a recipient of Michizané's bounties, but since his banishment circumstances have forced her husband to follow the service of the enemy of his family's benefactor. He himself could not be untrue to his own cruel master; but his son could serve the cause of the grandsire's lord.

Inazo Nitobe - Bushido, the Soul of Japan

From one point of view, Michizane's overthrow by Fujiwara Tokihira may be regarded as a collision between the Confucian doctrines which informed the polity of the Daika epoch and the power of aristocratic heredity.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

At the same time, Minamoto Hikaru, son of the Emperor Nimmyo; Fujiwara Sadakuni, father-in-law of Daigo, and several others who were jealous of Michizane's preferment or of his scholarship, separately or jointly memorialized the Throne, impeaching Michizane as a traitor who plotted against his sovereign.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

At that epoch a wide-spread belief existed in the powers of disembodied spirits for evil or for good. Such a creed grew logically out of the cult of ancestor worship. It began to be whispered abroad that Michizane's spirit was taking vengeance upon his enemies. The Emperor was the first to act upon this superstition.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

There is reason to think that this suggestion came from Michizane's enemies who wished to remove him from a scene where his presence threatened to become embarrassing. The course Michizane adopted at this crisis showed moral courage, whatever may be thought of its expediency. He memorialized the Throne in the sense that the dangers of the journey were not compensated by its results.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

He restored Michizane's titles, raised him to the first grade of the second rank, and caused all the documents relating to his exile to be burned. Retribution did not stop there.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Michizane's twenty-three children were banished to five places, and he himself, having only a nominal post, did not receive emoluments sufficient to support him in comfort.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era