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The men of Mutsu fought stoutly, but after a campaign of some two months, Yasuhira, finding himself in a hopeless position, opened negotiations for surrender. His overtures being incontinently rejected, he appreciated the truth, namely, that Yoritomo was bent upon exterminating the Fujiwara of the north and taking possession of their vast estates.
After having reviewed all these phases, we shall then extend, in accord with Yoritomo, the last blade of this rudimentary fan, and we shall find judgment. "This one is the index to that quality of mind called conviction. "This mental operation consists in drawing together many ideas that their relative characteristics may be determined.
"Where life manifests itself," says Yoritomo, "antagonism always springs up." "In the eternal struggle between the individual and social soul, each of which, in its turn, is victorious or vanquished, a truce is declared only if self-control is allied to common sense, in order to maintain the equilibrium between individual sentiment, natural to each one of us, and the ideas of mankind as a whole.
Now this is how the Etas came to be under the jurisdiction of Danzayémon: When Minamoto no Yoritomo was yet a child, his father, Minamoto no Yoshitomo, fought with Taira no Kiyomori, and was killed by treachery: so his family was ruined; and Yoshitomo's concubine, whose name was Tokiwa, took her children and fled from the house, to save her own and their lives.
He took the little fellow's hand in his and led him from one to another while his relatives stood in a beaming row. Children are called "treasure-flowers" in Japan, and are petted and spoiled quite as much as American children. "What a cunning little baby brother, Mr. Ito," said Nancy. "What is his name?" "Kenkyo," answered Yoritomo.
"There is, between common sense and impulse," says Yoritomo, "the difference that one would find between two coats, one of which was bought ready-made, while the other, after being cut according to the proportions of the one who is to wear it, was sewed by a workman to whom all the resources of his art are known."
In the war that soon arose between Yoritomo and the Taira the youthful Bayard served his brother well. Kiyomori, in sparing the sons of the Minamoto chief, had left alive the two ablest of all who bore that name.
Yoritomo left in his rear Ito Sukechika, who had slain his infant son and sworn his own destruction, and he had in his front a Taira force of three thousand under Oba Kagechika. It is true that many Taira magnates of the Kwanto were pledged to draw the sword in the Minamoto cause. They had found the selfish tyranny of Kiyomori not at all to their taste or their profit.
Yoritomo seems to have believed that the Taira had owed their downfall largely to divine wrath, in that they had warred against the monasteries and confiscated manors belonging to shrines and temples. He himself adopted the policy of extending the utmost consideration to religion, whether Shinto or Buddhism, and to its devotees and their possessions.
And now, imbued with the principles which in his day might be taken to represent what we to-day call advanced ideas, Yoritomo continues: "Common sense can, then, without renouncing its devotion to truth, take various forms or shades, for the truth of yesterday is not always the truth of to-day.
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