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Updated: June 24, 2025
This state of affairs received a rude shock in the days of Yuryaku, when that sovereign, in order to possess himself of the wife of a high official named Tasa, sent the latter to distant Mimana as governor, and seized the lady in his absence. Tasa revolted, and from that time Japan's position in the peninsula was compromised.
This plot was frustrated by Oto's wife, Kusu, a woman too patriotic to connive at treason in any circumstances. She killed her husband, and the Court of Yamato was informed of these events. From that time, however, Japan's hold upon the peninsula was shaken. Yuryaku sent four expeditions thither, but they accomplished nothing permanent.
The reign of Yuryaku is partially saved from the reproach of selfish despotism by the encouragement given to the arts and crafts.
For this lack of heirs the responsibility ultimately rested with Yuryaku. In his fierce ambition to sweep away every obstacle, actual or potential, that barred his ascent to the throne, he inveigled Prince Oshiwa, eldest son of the Emperor Richu, to accompany him on a hunting expedition, and slew him mercilessly on the moor of Kaya.
A few years later , we find mention of two carpenters,* Tsuguno and Mita, who, especially the latter, were famous experts in Korean architecture, and who received orders from Yuryaku to erect high buildings. *It should be remembered that as all Japanese edifices were made of timber, the carpenter and the architect were one and the same.
The Throne itself shared it. Yuryaku, having expressed a desire to see the incarnated form of the Kami of Mimoro Mountain, was shown a serpent seventy feet long. In the same year a group of snakes harrassed a man who was reclaiming a marsh, so that he had to take arms against them and enter into a compact of limitations and of shrine building.
It has already been related that the members of the Hata-uji, which had been constituted originally with artisans from China, gradually became dispersed throughout the provinces and were suffering some hardships when Yuryaku issued orders for their reassembly and reorganization.
The first mention of it occurs in A.D. 400 when Richu condemned the muraji, Hamako, to be thus branded, but whether the practice originated then or dated from an earlier period, the annals do not show. The Emperor Richu deemed that such notoriety was sufficient penalty for high treason, but Yuryaku inflicted tattooing on a man whose dog had killed one of his Majesty's fowls.
But it is alleged* that medicines for internal and external use were in existence and that recourse to thermal springs was commonly practised from remote times. *By the Nihon Bummei Shiryaku. While Yuryaku was on the throne, Korea and China sent pictorial experts to Japan. The Korean was named Isuraka, and the Chinese, Shinki.
During the reign of Yuryaku the office of o-muraji was bestowed upon Moroya, then chief of this uji, and the influence he wielded may be inferred from the language of an Imperial rescript where it is said that "the tami-be of the o-muraji fill the country." His son, Kanamura, succeeded him.
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