In the year a.d. 1203, that is in the fourth year succeeding Yoritomo's death, Yoriiye was taken sick, and was unable to fulfil his duties even in the feeble manner which was customary. His mother consulted with Tokimasa, and they agreed that Yoriiye should abdicate and surrender the headship of the military administration to his brother Semman, who was twelve years of age, and his son Ichiman. Yoriiye seems to have resisted these suggestions, and even resorted to force to free himself from the influence of the Hōjō. But Tokimasa was too powerful to be so easily dispensed with. Yoriiye was compelled to yield, and he retired to a monastery and gave up his offices. Not content with this living retirement, Tokimasa contrived to have him assassinated. Semman, his brother, was appointed sei-i-tai-shōgun, and his name changed to Sanetomo. But Sanetomo did not long enjoy his promotion, because his nephew, the son of his murdered predecessor, deemed him responsible for his father's murder, and took occasion to assassinate him. Then in turn the nephew was put to death for this crime, and thus by the year a.d. 1219 the last of the descendants of the great Yoritomo had perished. In the meantime Tokimasa had, a.d. 1205, retired to a Buddhist monastery in his sixty-eighth year, and in a.d. 1216, when he was seventy-eight, he died. The court at Kamakura was now prepared to go on in [pg 153] its career of effeminacy after the pattern of that at Kyōto.
Mesago, the widow of Yoritomo and daughter of Tokimasa, although she too had taken refuge in a Buddhist nunnery, continued to exercise a ruling control in the affairs of the government. She solicited from the court at Kyōto the appointment of Yoritsuné, a boy of the Fujiwara family, only two years old, as sei-i-tai-shōgun in the place of the murdered Sanetomo. The petition was granted, and this child was entrusted to the care of the Hōjō, who, as regents[125] of the shōgun, exercised with unlimited sway the authority of this great office. The situation of affairs in Japan at this time was deplorable. Go-Toba and Tsuchi-mikado were both living in retirement as ex-emperors. Juntoku was the reigning emperor, who was under the influence and tutelage of the ex-Emperor Go-Toba. Fretting under the arrogance of the Hōjō, Go-Toba undertook to resist their claims. But Yoshitoku, the Hōjō regent at this time, quickly brought the Kyōto court to terms by the use of his military power. The ex-Emperor Go-Toba was compelled to become a monk, and was exiled to the island of Oki. The Emperor Juntoku was forced to abdicate, and was banished to Sado, and a grandson of the former Emperor Takakura placed on the throne. Even the ex-Emperor Tsuchi-mikado, who had not taken any part in the conspiracy, was sent off to the island of Shikoku. The lands that had belonged to the implicated nobles were confiscated and distributed [pg 154] by Yoshitoku among his own adherents. The power of the Hōjō family was thus raised to its supreme point. They ruled both at Kyōto and Kamakura with resistless authority. They exercised at both places this authority without demanding or receiving the appointment to any of the high positions which they might have claimed. They were only the regents of young and immature shōguns, who were the appointees of a court which had at its head an emperor without power or influence, and which was controlled by the creatures of their own designation. This lamentable state of things lasted for many years. The shōguns during all this time were children sent from Kyōto, sons of emperors or connections of the royal family. The Hōjō ruled them as well as the country. Whenever it seemed best, they relentlessly deposed them, and set up others in their places. In a.d. 1289 the Regent Sadatoki, it is said, became irritated with one of these semi-royal shōguns, named Koreyasu, and in order to show his contempt for him, had him put in a nori-mono[126] with his heels upward, and sent him under guard to Kyōto. Some of the Hōjō regents, however, were men of character and efficiency. Yasutoki, for instance, who became regent in a.d. 1225, was a man of notable executive ability, taking Yoritomo as his model. Besides being a soldier of tried capacity, he was a true friend of the farmer in his seasons of famine and trial, and a promoter of legal reforms and of the arts, which found a congenial home among the Japanese.
But this condition of affairs could not last always. The very same influences which put the real power into the hands of the regents were at work to render them unfit to continue to wield it. Abdication and effeminacy were gradually dragging down the Hōjō family to the same level as that of the shōguns and emperors. In a.d. 1256 Tokiyori, then only thirty years old, resigned the regency in favor of his son Tokimune, who was only six years. He himself retired to a monastery, from which he travelled as a visiting monk throughout the country. In the meantime his son was under the care of a tutor, Nagatoki, who, of course, was one of the Hōjō family. Thus it had come about that a tutor now controlled the regent; who was supposed to control the shōgun; who was supposed to be the vassal of the emperor; who in turn was generally a child under the control of a corrupt and venal court. Truly government in Japan had sunk to its lowest point, and it was time for heroic remedies!
Occasionally, in the midst of this corruption and inefficiency, an event occurs which stirs up the national enthusiasm and makes us feel that there is still left an element of heroism which will ultimately redeem the nation from impending ruin. Such was the Mongolian invasion of Japan in a.d. 1281. According to accounts given by Marco Polo, who evidently narrates the exaggerated gossip of the Chinese court,[127] Kublai Khan had at this time conquered the Sung dynasty in China and reigned with unexampled [pg 156] magnificence. He had heard of the wealth of Japan and deemed it an easy matter to add this island empire to his immense dominions. His first step was to despatch an embassy to the Japanese court to demand the subjection of the country to his authority. This embassy was referred to Kamakura, whence it was indignantly dismissed. Finally he sent an invading force in a large number of Chinese and Korean vessels who took possession of Tsushima, an island belonging to Japan and lying midway between Korea and Japan. Trusting to the effects of this success a new embassy was sent, which was brought before the Hōjō regent at Kamakura. The spot on the seashore is still pointed out where these imperious ambassadors were put to death, and thus a denial which could not be misunderstood was given to the demands of the Grand Khan. A great invading force, which the Japanese put at a hundred thousand men, was immediately sent in more than three hundred vessels, who landed upon the island of Kyūshū. This army was met and defeated[128] by Tokimune, and, a timely typhoon coming to their aid, the fleet of vessels was completely destroyed. Thus the only serious [pg 157] attempt at the invasion of Japan which has ever been made was completely frustrated.
But notwithstanding this heroic episode the affairs of Japan remained in the same deplorable condition. As a rule children continued to occupy the imperial throne and to abdicate whenever their Hōjō masters deemed it best. Children of the imperial house or of the family of Fujiwara were sent to Kamakura to become shōguns. And now at last the Hōjō regency had by successive steps come down to the same level, and children were made regents, whose actions and conduct were controlled by their inferiors.
In the midst of this state of things, which continued till a.d. 1318, Go-Daigo became emperor. Contrary to the ordinary usage, he was a man thirty-one years old, in the full maturity of his powers. He was by no means free from the vices to which his surroundings inevitably tended. He was fond of the gayety and pomp which the court had always cultivated. But he realized the depth of the degradation to which the present condition of affairs had dragged his country. A famine brought great suffering upon the people, and the efforts which the emperor made to assist them added to his popularity, and revealed to him the reverence in which the imperial throne was held. His son Moriyoshi, as early as a.d. 1307, was implicated in plans against the Hōjō, which they discovered, and in consequence compelled Go-Daigo to order his retirement into a monastery. Later Go-Daigo undertook to make a stand against the arrogance and intolerance of the Hōjō and induced the Buddhist monks to join him [pg 158] in fortifying Kasagi in the province of Yamato. But this effort of the emperor was fruitless. Kasagi was attacked and destroyed and the emperor taken prisoner. As a punishment for his attempt he was sent as an exile to the island of Oki. The Hōjō Regent Takatoki put Go-Kōgen on the throne as emperor. But Go-Daigo from his exile continued his exertions against the Hōjō, and assistance came to him from unexpected quarters. He effected his escape from the island and, having raised an army, marched upon Kyōto. Kusunoki Masashigé, who had given his aid to the emperor on former occasions, now exerted himself to good purpose. He is held in admiring remembrance to this day by his grateful country as the model of patriotic devotion, to whom his emperor was dearer than his life. Another character who stands out prominently in this trying time was Nitta Yoshisada. He was a descendant of Yoshiiye, who, for his achievements against the Emishi, had received the popular title of Hachiman-tarō. Nitta was a commander in the army of the Hōjō, which had been sent against Kusunoki Masashigé. But at the last moment he refused to fight against the army of the emperor and retired with his troops and went over to the side of Masashigé. He returned to his own province of Kōtsuke and raised an army to fight against the Hōjō. With this force he marched at once against Kamakura through the province of Sagami. His route lay along the beach. But at Inamura-ga-saki the high ground, which is impassable for troops, juts out so far into the water that Nitta was unable to lead them past the promontory. [pg 159] Alone he clambered up the mountain path and looked out upon the sea that lay in his way. He was bitterly disappointed that he could not bring his force in time to share in the attack upon the hateful Hōjō capital. He prayed to the Sea-god to withdraw the sea and allow him to pass with his troops. Then he flung his sword into the waves in token of his earnestness and of the dire necessity in which he found himself. Thereupon the tide retreated and left a space of a mile and a half, along which Nitta[129] marched upon Kamakura.
The attack was spirited and was made from three directions simultaneously. It was resisted with determined valor on the part of the Hōjō. The city was finally set on fire by Nitta, and in a few hours was reduced to ashes. Thus the power and the arrogant tyranny of the Hōjō family were sealed. It had lasted from the death of Yoritomo, a.d. 1199, to the destruction of Kamakura, a.d. 1333, in all one hundred and thirty-four years. It was a rough and tempestuous time and the Hōjō have left a name in their country of unexampled cruelty and rapacity. The most unpardonable crime of which they were guilty was that of raising their sacrilegious hands against the emperor and making war against the imperial standard. For this they must rest under the charge of treason, and no merits however great or commanding can ever excuse them in the eyes of their patriotic countrymen.
The restoration of Go-Daigo to the imperial throne, [pg 160] under so popular an uprising, seemed to betoken a return to the old and simple system of Japanese government. The intervention of a shōgun between the emperor and his people, which had lasted from the time of Yoritomo, was contrary to the precedents which had prevailed from the Emperor Jimmu down to that time. It was the hope and wish of the best friends of the government at this time to go back to the original precedents and govern the country directly from Kyōto with the power and authority derived from the emperor. But the emperor was not equal to so radical a change from the methods which had prevailed for more than a century. He gave great offence by the manner in which he distributed the forfeited fiefs among those who had aided his restoration. To Ashikaga Taka-uji he awarded by far the greatest prize, while to Kusunoki and Nitta, who had in the popular estimation done much more for him, he allotted comparatively small rewards. Among the soldiers, who in the long civil wars had lost the ability to devote themselves to peaceful industries, this disappointment was most conspicuous. They had expected to be rewarded with lands and subordinate places, which would enable them to live in that feudal comfort to which they deemed their exertions had entitled them.
At this time a feud broke out between Ashikaga Taka-uji and Nitta. The former had accused Nitta of unfaithfulness to his emperor and Nitta was able to disprove the charge. He received the imperial commission to punish Ashikaga and marched with his army upon him in the province of Tōtōmi. In [pg 161] the battles (a.d. 1336) which ensued, the forces of Ashikaga were completely victorious. The emperor and his court were obliged to flee from Kyōto and took up their residence in a Buddhist temple at Yoshino in the mountainous district south of Kyōto. This was the same monastery where Yoshitsuné and Benkei had taken refuge previous to their escape into Mutsu. Almost every tree and every rock in the picturesque grounds of this romantic spot[130] bear some evidence of the one or other of these memorable refugees. The southern dynasty lasted in all fifty-seven years, down to a.d. 1374, and although it was compelled to starve out a miserable existence in exile from the capital, it is yet looked upon by historians as the legitimate branch; while the northern dynasty, which enjoyed the luxury of a palace and of the capital, is condemned as illegitimate.
This period of exile witnessed many notable events in the bloody history of the country. Ashikaga Taka-uji was of course the ruling spirit while he lived. He proclaimed that Go-Daigo had forfeited the throne and put Kōmyō Tennō, a brother of Kōgen Tennō upon it in his stead. The insignia of the imperial power were in the possession of Go-Daigo, but Kōmyō, being supported by the battalions of Ashikaga, cared little for these empty baubles. The bloody sequence of affairs brought with it the death of the heroic Kusunoki Masashige. He with Nitta and other patriots had undertaken to support Go-Daigo. It is said that contrary to his military judgment he attacked the forces of Ashikaga, which were vastly [pg 162] superior in number. The battle took place a.d. 1336, on the Minato-gawa, near the present site of Hyōgo. The Ashikaga forces had cut off Kusunoki with a small band of devoted followers from the main army. Seeing that his situation was hopeless and that his brave troops must be destroyed, with one hundred and fifty men—all that were left of his little army—he retired to a farmer's house near by and there they all committed hara-kiri.[131] Kusunoki Masashige, when about to commit suicide, said to his son Masatsura: “For the sake of keeping yourself out of danger's way or of reaping some temporal advantage, on no account are you to submit to Taka-uji. By so doing you would bring reproach on our name. While there is a man left who belongs to us let our flag be hoisted over the battlements of Mount Konzo, as a sign that we are still ready to fight in the emperor's cause.”