United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
No exact particulars of the organization of these forces are on record, but it would seem that the unit was a battalion divided into twenty-five companies, each company consisting of five sections of five men per section, a company being under the command of an officer whose rank was miyatsuko. *"August being," a term of respect applied to the descendants of the Kami.
Thus, in Article IV, it is stated that "when the people behave with propriety the government of the State proceeds of itself;" Article V speaks of "complaints preferred by the people;" Article VI refers to "the overthrow of the State" and "the destruction of the people;" Article VII emphasises "the eternity of the State;" that "the sovereign is the master of the people of the whole country;" that "the officials to whom he gives charge are all his vassals," and that these officials, whether miyatsuko or provincial authorities, must not "presume, as well as the Government, to levy taxes on the people."
A miyatsuko, by name Kawakatsu, had the courage to kill the designing preacher of this extravagance, and the moral epidemic was thus stayed. AFTER the fall of the Soga and the abdication of the Empress Kogyoku, her son, Prince Naka, would have been the natural successor, and such was her own expressed wish.
They were, however, few in number, whereas the miyatsuko were numerous, and this comparison probably furnishes a tolerably just basis for estimating the respective prevalence of the prefectural and the feudal systems.
Moreover, the appointments were given, as far as possible, to the former miyatsuko or mikotomochi. An ordinance was now issued for placing a petition-box in the Court and hanging a bell near it. The box was intended to serve as a receptacle for complaints and representations. Anyone had a right to present such documents.
A miyatsuko had administered the affairs of the kuni, holding the office by hereditary right, and the agata of which there were about 590, a frequently changing total as well as the inaki and the mura had been under officials called nushi.
In short, the method of government inaugurated at the foundation of the empire appears to have been essentially feudal in practice, though theoretically no such term was recognized; and at a later period apparently about the time of Nintoku when the power of the hereditary miyatsuko threatened to grow inconveniently formidable, the device of reasserting the Throne's authority by appointing temporary provincial governors was resorted to, so that the prefectural organization came into existence side by side with the feudal, and the administration preserved this dual form until the middle of the seventh century.
The last months of Shotoku's life were devoted to compiling, in concert with the o-omi Umako, "a history of the Emperors; a history of the country, and the original record of the omi, the muraji, the tomo no miyatsuko, the kuni no miyatsuko, the 180 be, and the free subjects." This, the first Japanese historical work, was completed in the year 620.
Ye high functionaries who have charge of public affairs, let it be your task to make clear rewards and punishments. XII. Let not the provincial authorities or the kuni no miyatsuko levy exactions on the people. In a country there are not two lords; the people have not two masters. The sovereign is the master of the people of the whole country.
Word Of The Day