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The intolerance, the intrigues, the savage persecutions carried on, all the treacheries and cruelties of the Jesuits, may simply be considered as the manifestations of such incapacity; while the repressive measures taken by Iyeyasu and his successors signify sociologically no more than the national perception of supreme danger.
There is also a holy place called the Satsuma Temple, which has a special interest; in it is a tablet in honour of Tadayoshi, the fifth son of Iyéyasu, whose title was Matsudaira Satsuma no Kami, and who died young. At his death, five of his retainers, with one Ogasasawara Kemmotsu at their head, disembowelled themselves, that they might follow their young master into the next world.
Iyeyasu determined to put an end to this custom of suicide, which is thus considered in the 76th article of his celebrated Legacy: "Although it is undoubtedly the ancient custom for a vassal to follow his Lord in death, there is not the slightest reason in the practice. He is the reverse of a faithful servant who disregards this prohibition.
These goshi, who were independent landowners, for the most part, formed a kind of yeomanry; but there were many points of difference between the social position of the goshi and that of the English yeomen. Besides reorganizing the military class, Iyeyasu created several new subclasses. The more important of these were the hatamoto and the gokenin.
All three were erected by the piety of one man, Sakuma Daizen no Suké, in the year A.D. 1631. Iyémitsu, the founder of the temple, was buried with his grandfather, Iyéyasu, at Nikkô; but both of these princes are honoured with shrines here.
These swords are handed down as heirlooms from father to son, and become almost a part of the wearer's own self. Iyéyasu, the founder of the last dynasty of Shoguns, wrote in his Legacy, a code of rules drawn up for the guidance of his successors and their advisers in the government, "The girded sword is the living soul of the Samurai.
It was only a graceful way of telling you that she had no mino to loan. She was too shy to say no to your request, and so handed you a mountain camellia. The cunning little witch has managed to say 'no' to you in the most graceful way imaginable." Here, where the castle stood, Iyeyasu started to build a city, at the suggestion of his superior Hideyoshi.
Loyal retainers esteemed it a duty to kill themselves after the death of their lord, in order to attend upon him during his ghostly journey. A thousand years of Buddhist teaching had not therefore sufficed to eradicate all primitive notions' of sacrificial duty. The practice continued into the time of the Tokugawa shogunate, when Iyeyasu made laws to check it.
Very possibly Iyeyasu, who never did anything by halves, was waiting until Christianity should find itself without one Japanese leader of ability. But still Iyeyasu waited. By 1614 Christianity had scarcely even an Okubo to lead the forlorn hope.
Iyeyasu took all care of him, but had no intention of suffering him to direct the government of the country, a task scarcely within the capacity of a lad of twenty-three.
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