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*Early Japanese history furnishes several examples showing that wives often accompanied their husbands on campaigns. These things happened in the year 603, and for the next five years all relations with Korea seem to have been severed. Then a brief paragraph in the Chronicles records that "many persons from Shiragi came to settle in Japan."

Again, that Koreans came freely to Japan and settled there is attested by the case of a son of the King of Shiragi who, coming to the Tajima region, took a Japanese wife and established himself there, founding a distinguished family.

In response to Shiragi's overtures, the King of Koma sent a body of troops to assist in protecting that principality against any retaliatory essay on the part of the Japanese in Mimana. But the men of Shiragi, betrayed into imagining that these soldiers were destined to be the van of an invading army, massacred them, and besought Japanese succour against Koma's vengeance.

The Japanese acceded, and Shiragi was saved for a time, but at the cost of incurring, for herself and for Japan alike, the lasting enmity of Koma. Shiragi appears to have concluded, however, that she had more to fear from Koma than from Japan, for she still withheld her tribute to the latter, and invaded the territory of Kudara, which had always maintained most friendly relations with Yamato.

Thou must make war on Shiragi and establish Mimana as a feudal dependency, renewing a relationship like that of husband and wife, just as it was in former days. If this be done, in my grave I shall rest content." Twelve years passed before Bidatsu took any step to comply with this dying injunction.

But after the despatch of these plenipotentiaries, the war-party in Japan had gained the ascendancy, and just as the plenipotentiaries, accompanied by tribute-bearing envoys from Shiragi and Mimana, were about to embark for Japan, they were astounded by the apparition of a great flotilla carrying thousands of armed men.

It has been shown how, in A.D. 562, the Japanese settlement in Mimana was exterminated; how the Emperor Kimmei's dying behest to his successor was that this disgrace must be removed; how subsequent attempts to carry out his testament ended in failure, owing largely to Japan's weak habit of trusting the promises of Shiragi, and how, in 618, the Sui Emperor, Yang, at the head of a great army, failed to make any impression on Korea.

Many of the propagandists of this civilization remained permanently in Japan, where they received a courteous welcome, being promoted to positions of trust and admitted to the ranks of the nobility. The numbers are, China, 162 families; Kudara, 104; Koma, 50; Mimana, 9; Shiragi, 9; doubtful, 47. Total, 381 Chinese and Korean families out of a grand aggregate of 1177.

A feud broke out among the leaders of the expedition, and one of them, Oiwa, shot his comrade as they were en route for the Court of the Kudara monarch, who had invited them in the hope of composing their dissensions, since the existence of his own kingdom depended on Japan's intervention between Koma and Shiragi.

The art of applying glaze to ceramic manufactures was not discovered until a much later period. In the year 463, Yuryaku, desiring to possess himself of the wife of a high official, Tasa, sent him to be governor of Mimana, and in his absence debauched the lady. Tasa, learning how he had been dishonoured, raised the standard of revolt and sought aid of the Shiragi people.