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Resistance would have been in vain. Thus fell another ancient institution, eight centuries old. The revolution was at an end. The shogunate and the feudal system had fallen, to rise no more. A single absolute lord ruled over Japan. As regards the cry of "expel the barbarians," which had first given rise to hostilities, it gradually died away as the revolution continued.
But it was under the Tokugawa Shogunate that such amusements and accomplishments became national. Then the tea-ceremonies were made a feature of female education throughout the country. Their elaborate character could be explained only by the help of many pictures; and it requires years of training and practice to graduate in the art of them.
The abdicating proclivities of the nation in pre-Meiji times are well shown by the official list of daimyos published by the Shogunate in 1862. To a list of 268 ruling daimyos is added a list of 104 "inkyo." In addition to what we may call political and family abdication, described above, is personal abdication, referred to on a previous page.
Throughout the Tokugawa Shogunate, except during its first few years, Japan had been closed to foreign intercourse, except for a strictly limited commerce with the Dutch.
In 1286, the Adachi clan, falling under suspicion of aiming at the shogunate, was extirpated. Yet again, three years subsequently to this latter tragedy, Yoshimi, a scion of Yoritomo's brother, the unfortunate Yoshinori, fell a victim to accusations of treachery, and it needed no great insight to appreciate that the Bakufu was becoming a house divided against itself.
During the first eleven years of his shogunate he exercised little real authority, the administration being conducted by Ieyasu himself from his nominal place of retirement in Sumpu. Thus, the period of Hidetada's independent sway extended over six years only.
The 91st article of his code puts the matter thus plainly, even as regarded the Shogunate: "When punishments and executions abound in the Empire, it is a proof that the military ruler is without virtue and degenerate." He devised particular enactments to protect the peasantry and the poor from the cruelty or the rapacity of powerful lords.
The improvements they introduced were almost entirely of a technical character. Another benefit derived by Japan from her contact with Korea at this time was the introduction of movable type. THE epochs of Japanese history from the eighth century until the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate are generally divided into the Nara, the Heian, the Kamakura, the Muromachi, and the Higashi-yama.
The first to hold this office in the form which it had at most times until the Restoration was Minamoto Yoritomo, on whom the title was conferred by the Mikado in 1192. But before long the Shogun became nearly as much of a figure-head as the Mikado. Custom confined the Shogunate to the Minamoto family, and the actual power was wielded by Regents in the name of the Shogun.
Until 1573 the misery continued; and the shogunate meanwhile degenerated into insignificance. Then a strong captain arose and ended the house of Ashikaga, and seized the reins of power. This usurper was Oda Nobunaga; and the usurpation was amply provoked. Had it not occurred, Japan might never have entered upon an era of peace. For there had been no peace since the fifth century.
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