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The measures against Choshu were now recommenced, but with complete unsuccess, and thus a final blow was given to the prestige of the Yedo Government. It was at this time that the fourteenth shogun, Iemochi, passed away and was succeeded by Yoshinobu, better known, as Keiki.
The philosophy imported from China, as shown again and again in that land of oft-changing dynasties, harmonizing with arbitrary government, accorded perfectly with the despotism of the Tokugawas, the "Tycoons" who in Yedo ruled from 1603 to 1868.
Public respect was steadily undermined by these displays of impecuniosity, and the feudatories in the west of the empire that is to say, the tozama daimyo, whose loyalty to the Bakufu was weak at the best found an opportunity to assert themselves against the Yedo administration, while the appreciation of commodities rendered the burden of living constantly more severe and thus helped to alienate the people.
An unsuccessful attempt was made in 1837, by an American merchantman, to return a party of Japanese who had been shipwrecked on our Western coast. In 1846, Commodore Biddle was deputed to open negotiations, and entered the Bay of Yedo with two ships of war. Receiving an unfavorable answer to his demands, he immediately sailed away.
In the midst of a nest of venerable trees in Takanawa, a suburb of Yedo, is hidden Sengakuji, or the Spring-hill Temple, renowned throughout the length and breadth of the land for its cemetery, which contains the graves of the Forty-seven. Rônins, famous in Japanese history, heroes of Japanese drama, the tale of whose deeds I am about to transcribe.
In their avarice they looked not to the future, but laid too heavy a burden on the peasants, so that they made an appeal to a higher power, endangering the honour of their lord's house. For this bad government the various officials are to be punished as above." In this wise was justice carried out at the palace at Yedo and at the Court-house at home.
The Tokugawa chief himself lost no time in putting his troops in motion for Yedo, where, at the head of some sixty thousand men, he arrived in August, 1600, his second in command being his third son, Hidetada. Thence he pushed rapidly northward with the intention of attacking Uesugi.
When they arrived at the town of Sasai, they sent a herald with the following message "Whereas Kôtsuké no Suké killed Sakai Iwami no Kami inside the castle of Yedo, and has fled to his own castle without leave, he is attainted of treason; and we, being connected with him by ties of blood and of friendship, have been charged to seize him."
The laying of disturbed spirits appears to form one of the regular functions of the Buddhist priests; at least, we find them playing a conspicuous part in almost every ghost-story. About thirty years ago there stood a house at Mitsumé, in the Honjô of Yedo, which was said to be nightly visited by ghosts, so that no man dared to live in it, and it remained untenanted on that account.
Ieyasu showed much earnestness in searching for and collecting ancient books. Before and after the war of Osaka, he ordered priests to copy old books and records preserved in Buddhist temples and noblemen's houses. Subsequently, during the Kwanei era 1621-1643 there was built within the castle of Yedo a library called Momijiyama Bunko where the books were stored.
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