daiho

It has been shown that compulsory military service was introduced in 689, during the reign of the Empress Jito, one-fourth of all the able-bodied men in each province being required to serve a fixed time with the colours. It has also been noted that under the Daiho legislation the number was increased to one-third. This meant that no distinction existed between soldier and peasant.

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

He established a legislative office where all titles to shoen had to be examined and recorded, the Daiho system of State ownership being restored, so that all rights of private property required official sanction, the Court also becoming the judge in all disputes as to validity of tenure. These orders came like a clap of thunder in a blue sky. Yorimichi, the kwampaku, was a conspicuous example.

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

What has been set down above constitutes only a petty fraction of the Daiho legislation, but it will suffice to furnish an idea of Japanese civilization in the eighth century of the Christian era a civilization which shared with that of China the credit of being the most advanced in the world at that time.

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

What rendered this legislation essentially necessary was that the Daiho code of the eighth century and all the laws founded on it were inspired primarily by the purpose of centralizing the administrative power and establishing the Throne's title of ownership in all the land throughout the realm, a system diametrically opposed to the spirit of feudalism.

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