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As rulers and warriors we remember such Negroes as Queen Nefertari and Amenhotep III among many others in Egypt; Candace and Ergamenes in Ethiopia; Mansa Musa, Sonni Ali, and Mohammed Askai in the Sudan; Diaz in Brazil, Toussaint L'Ouverture in Hayti, Hannivalov in Russia, Sakanouye Tamuramaro in Japan, the elder Dumas in France, Cazembe and Chaka among the Bantu, and Menelik, of Abyssinia; the numberless black leaders of India, and the mulatto strain of Alexander Hamilton.
Heijo might have bowed to Nakanari's fate, but Kusu's sentence of degradation and exile overtaxed his patience. He raised an army and attempted to move to the eastern provinces. In Mino, his route was intercepted by a force under Tamuramaro, and the ex-Emperor's troops being shattered, no recourse offered except to retreat to Nara. Those who had rallied to the ex-Emperor's standard were banished.
Tradition has assigned supernatural capacities to Tamuramaro, and certainly in respect of personal prowess no less than strategical talent he was highly gifted. In June, 794, he invaded Mutsu at the head of a great army and, by a series of rapidly delivered blows, effectually crushed the aborigines, taking 457 heads, 100 prisoners, and 85 horses, and destroying the strongholds of 75 tribes.
For such is the traditional description of Tamuramaro. These became the nucleus of a military class which ultimately monopolized the profession of arms. During the eighth century relations of friendship were once more established with Koma.
Before they could consummate this programme, however, Saga secured the assistance of Tamuramaro, famous as the conqueror of the Yemishi, and by his aid Fujiwara Nakanari was seized and thrown into prison, the lady Kusu being deprived of her rank as consort and condemned to be banished from Court.
Thus, although Kwammu's warnings and exhortations were earnest, and his dismissals and degradations of provincial officials frequent, he failed to achieve anything radical. The reign of Kwammu is remarkable for two things: the conquest of the eastern Yemishi by Tamuramaro and the transfer of the capital from Nara to Kyoto.
For Tamuramaro was a direct descendant of that Achi no Omi who, as already related, crossed from China during the Han dynasty and became naturalized in Japan. His father, Karitamaro, distinguished himself by reporting the Dokyo intrigue, in the year 770, and received the post of chief of the palace guards, in which corps his son, Tamuramaro, thereafter served.
In a shrine at Suzuka-yama in Ise, to which point the insurgents pushed southward before Tamuramaro took the field, there used to be preserved a box, obviously of foreign construction, said to have been left there by the "Eastern Barbarians;" and in the Tsugaru district of the modern Mutsu province, relics exist of an extensive fortress presenting features not Japanese, which is conjectured to have been the basis of the Tatar invaders.
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