St. Francis Xavier.
Yet it must be stated that Xavier himself does not claim these miraculous powers. Indeed among the letters published by Father Horace Tursellini is one in which he thus speaks of himself: “God grant that as soon as possible we may learn the [pg 176] language of Japan in order to make known the divine mysteries; then we shall zealously prosecute our Christian work. For they speak and discourse much about us, but we are silent, ignorant of the language of the country. At present we are become a child again to learn the elements of the language.”
The desire for trade with the Portuguese seems to have been a principal reason for the ready reception of the missionaries. And when the Portuguese merchant ships resorted to Hirado, an island off the west coast of Kyūshū, instead of the less accessible Kagoshima, the Prince of Kagoshima turned against the missionaries and forbade them from preaching and proselyting. From Kagoshima Xavier went to Hirado, where he was received with a salvo of artillery from a Portuguese vessel then at anchor there. Here he made a short stay, preaching the gospel as usual and with the approval of the prince establishing a church. Leaving Kosmé de Torres at Hirado and taking with him Fernandez and the two Japanese assistants he touched at Hakata, famous as the place where the Mongol invaders were repulsed. Then he crossed over to the Main island and travelling by land along the Sanyōdō he entered Yamaguchi in the province of Nagato. His humble and forlorn appearance did not produce a favorable impression on the people of this city and he was driven out with obloquy. He set out for Kyōto with a party of Japanese merchants, and as it was winter and Xavier had to carry; on his back a box containing the vestments and vessels for the celebration of mass, the journey [pg 177] was trying and difficult. He arrived at Kyōto a.d. 1550 in the midst of great political troubles. A fire had destroyed a great part of what had been once a beautiful and luxurious city. Many of the principal citizens had abandoned it and taken up their residence with local princes in the provinces. Xavier could obtain a hearing neither from the emperor nor from the Ashikaga shōguns, who maintained a representative in the capital at this time. He preached in the street as he could obtain opportunity. But the atmosphere was everywhere unfavorable, and he resolved to abandon the field for the present. Accordingly he went back to Bungo, whence he sailed for China November 20, a.d. 1551, with the purpose of establishing a mission. He had spent two years and three months in Japan and left an impression which has never been effaced. He died on his way, at the little island of Sancian, December 2, a.d. 1552, aged forty-six. His body was carried to Malacca and afterward to Goa, where it was buried in the archiepiscopal cathedral.[149]
The departure and death of Xavier did not interrupt the work of the mission in Japan. Kosmé de Torres was left in charge and additional helpers, [pg 178] both priests and lay brothers, were sent to prosecute what had been so conspicuously begun. The political disturbances in Yamaguchi for a time interfered with the labors of the missionaries there. Bungo was the principal province where their encouragement had made their success most conspicuous. The prince had not indeed been baptized but he had permitted the fathers to preach and he had allowed converts to adopt the new religion, so that the work had assumed a promising appearance. The Prince of Ōmura became a convert and by his zeal in the destruction of idols and other extreme measures aroused the hostility of the Buddhist priesthood. In Kyōto the progress of the work encountered many vicissitudes. The political troubles arising out of the contests between Mōri of Chōshū and the rival house interfered with the propagation of Christianity both in Yamaguchi and Kyōto. Mōri himself, the most powerful prince of his time and who once held the control in ten provinces, was hostile to the Christians. By his influence the work in Kyōto was temporarily abandoned and the fathers resorted to Sakai, a seaport town not far from Ōsaka, where a branch mission was established.
It was in a.d. 1573 that Nagasaki became distinctively a Christian city. At that time the Portuguese were seeking various ports in which they could conduct a profitable trade, and they found that Nagasaki possessed a harbor in which their largest ships could ride at anchor. The merchants and Portuguese fathers therefore proposed to the Prince of Ōmura, in whose territory the port of [pg 179] Nagasaki was situated, to grant to them the town with jurisdiction over it. The prince at first refused, but finally by the intervention of the Prince of Arima the arrangement was made.[150] The transference to Nagasaki of the foreign trade at this early day made it a very prosperous place. The Prince of Ōmura had the town laid out in appropriate streets, and Christian churches were built often on the sites of Buddhist temples which were torn down to give place for them. It is said that in a.d. 1567 “there was hardly a person who was not a Christian.”
We shall have occasion often in the subsequent narrative to refer to the progress of Christianity in the empire. In the meantime we must trace the career of Nobunaga, who exerted a powerful effect on the affairs of his country and particularly upon the condition of both Buddhism and Christianity. He must be regarded always as one of the great men of Japan who at an opportune moment intervened to rescue its affairs from anarchy. He prepared the way for Hideyoshi and he, in turn, made it possible for Ieyasu to establish a peace which lasted without serious interruption for two hundred and fifty years.
Ota Nobunaga was descended from the Taira family through Ota Chikazane, a great-grandson of Taira Kiyomori. The father of Chikazane had perished in the wars between the Taira and Minamoto families, and his mother had married as her second husband the chief man in the village of Tsuda in the province of Ōmi. The step-child was adopted by [pg 180] a Shintō priest of the village of Ota in the province of Echizen, and received the name of Ota Chikazane. When he grew up, he became a Shintō priest and married and became the father of a line of priests. One of this succession was Ota Nobuhide, who seems to have reverted from the priestly character back to the warlike habits of his ancestors. In the general scramble for land, which characterized that period, Nobuhide acquired by force of arms considerable possessions in the province of Owari, which at his death in a.d. 1549 he left to his son Ota Nobunaga. This son grew up to be a man of large stature, but slender and delicate in frame. He was brave beyond the usual reckless bravery of his countrymen. He was by character and training fitted for command, and in the multifarious career of his busy life, in expeditions, battles, and sieges, he showed himself the consummate general. Like many other men of genius he was not equally as skilful in civil as military affairs. He was ambitious to reduce the disorders of his country, and he was able to see in a great measure the success of his schemes. But he failed in leaving when he died any security for the preservation and continuance of that peace and unity which he had conquered.
At the time Nobunaga became prominent, the Emperor Go-Nara had died and Ōgimachi in a.d. 1560 had just succeeded to the throne as the one hundred and fifth emperor. Ashikaga Yoshifusa had become shōgun in a.d. 1547 as a boy eleven years old, and was at this time a young man, who as usual devoted himself to pleasure while the affairs of government were conducted by others. Both emperor [pg 181] and shōgun were almost powerless in the empire, the real power being held by the local princes. In many cases they had largely increased their holdings by conquest, and were almost entirely independent of the central authority. For more than a century this independence had been growing, and at the time of Nobunaga there was little pretence of deferring to the shōgun in any matter growing out of the relations of one prince to the other, and none at all in reference to the internal government of the territories within their jurisdiction. The principal local rulers at this time were the following: Imagaya Yoshimoto controlled the three provinces of Suruga, Tōtōmi, and Mikawa; Hōjō Ujiyasu from the town of Odowara ruled the Kwanto, including the provinces of Sagami, Musashi, Awa, Kazusa, Shimosa, Hitachi, Kōtsuke, and Shimotsuke; Takeda Shingen ruled the province of Kai and the greater part of the mountainous province of Shinano; Uesugi Kenshin held under his control the northwestern provinces of Echizen, Echigo, Etchū, and Noto; Mōri Motonari after a severe contest had obtained control of almost all the sixteen provinces which composed the Chūgoku or central country; the island of Kyūshū had been the scene of frequent civil wars and was now divided between the houses of Shimazu of Satsuma, Ōtomo of Bungo, and Ryōzoji of Hizen; and finally the island of Shikoku was under the control of Chōsokabe Motochika.[151] Besides these principal rulers, [pg 182] there were many smaller holders who occupied fiefs subordinate to the great lords, and paid for their protection and their suzerainty in tribute and military service. In the letters of the Jesuit missionaries of this period the great lords are denominated kings, but neither according to the theory of the Japanese government, nor the actual condition of these rulers can the name be considered appropriate. The term daimyō[152] came into its full and modern use only when Ieyasu reorganized and consolidated the feudal system of the empire. But even at the period of Nobunaga the name was employed to indicate the owners of land. We prefer to continue down to the time of the Tokugawa shōguns the use of the terms prince and principality for the semi-independent rulers and their territories.
The holdings which Ota Nobunaga inherited from his father consisted only of four small properties in the province of Owari. Acting according to the fashion of the times he gradually extended his authority, until by a.d. 1559 we find him supreme in Owari with his chief castle at Kiyosu near to the city of Nagoya. His leading retainers and generals were Shibata Genroku and Sakuma Yemon, to whom must be added Hideyoshi,[153] who gradually and [pg 183] rapidly rose from obscurity to be the main reliance of his prince. Nobunaga was a skilful general, and whenever an interval occurred in his expeditions against his hostile neighbors he employed the time in carefully drilling his troops, and preparing them for their next movements. He found in Hideyoshi an incomparable strategist, whose plans, artifices, and intrigues were original and effective, and were worth more to his master than thousands of troops.