But the extermination had not yet been attained. The severity of the measures adopted in Nagasaki had indeed driven many into the surrounding provinces, so that every place of shelter was full. They awaited in terror the time when they too should be summoned to torture and death. Usually they had not long to wait, for the service of the Christian Enquiry was active and diligent. New refinements of cruelty were constantly invented and applied. The last and one of the most effectual is denominated by the foreign historians of these scenes the Torment of the Fosse. Mathia Tanner, S. J., in his History of the Martyrs of Japan, published in Prague, 1675, gives minute accounts of many martyrdoms. His descriptions are illustrated by sickening engravings of the tortures inflicted. Among these he gives one illustrating the suspension of a martyr in a pit on the 16th of August, 1633. The victim is swathed in a covering which confines all parts of the [pg 255] body except one hand with which he can make the signal of recantation. A post is planted by the side of the pit, with an arm projecting out over it. The martyr is then drawn up by a rope fastened to the feet and run over the arm of the post. He is then lowered into the pit to a depth of five or six feet and there suffered to hang. The suffering was excruciating. Blood exuded from the mouth and nose, and the sense of pressure on the brain was fearful. Yet with all this suffering the victim usually lived eight or nine days. Few could endure this torture, and it proved a most effectual method of bringing about recantations. Guysbert says that he had many friendly conversations with those who had experienced the torture of the Fosse. They solemnly assured him “that neither the pain caused by burning with fire, nor that caused by any other kind of torture, deserves to be compared with the agony produced in this way.” Not being able longer to endure the suffering, they had recanted and been set free. Yet it is told as a miraculous triumph of faith that a young girl was submitted to this torture, and lived fifteen days without recanting and at last died.
It is surely not unnatural that human nature should succumb to such torments. Even the well seasoned nerves of the Jesuit fathers were not always able to endure to the end. The enemies of the Jesuits delight in narrating the apostasy of Father Christopher Ferreyra, seventy years old, a Portuguese missionary and the provincial of the order. He was captured in Nagasaki, 1633, and was tortured [pg 256] by suspension in the Fosse. After five hours he gave the signal of recantation and was released. He was kept for some time in prison and compelled to give information concerning the members of his order in Japan. He was set at liberty and forced to marry, assuming the Japanese dress and a Japanese name. There was a report set on foot by the Jesuits that in his old age when on his death-bed he recovered his courage and declared himself a Christian, whereupon he was immediately carried off by the Japanese officers to the torture of the Fosse, where he perished a penitent martyr.
It was at this time that the method of trial called E-fumi,[214] or trampling on the cross, was instituted. At first pictures on paper were used, then slabs of wood were substituted as more durable, and finally in the year 1660 an engraver of Nagasaki, named Yusa, cast bronze plates from the metal obtained by despoiling the altars of the churches. These plates were about five inches long and four inches wide and one inch thick, and had on them a figure of Christ on the cross. We take from the French edition of Kæmpfer's History of Japan[215] an account of what he calls “this detestable solemnity.” It was conducted by an officer called the kirishitan bugyō, or Christian inquisitor, and began on the second day of the first month. In Nagasaki it was commenced [pg 257] at two different places at once, and was carried on from house to house until the whole city was finished. The officers of each street were required to be present. The metal plate on which was a figure of the Saviour upon the cross was laid upon the floor. Then the head of the house, his family, and servants of both sexes, old and young, and any lodgers that might be in the house, were called into the room. The secretary of the inquisitor thereupon made a list of the household and called upon them one by one to set their feet on the plate. Even young children not able to walk were carried by their mothers and made to step on the images with their feet. Then the head of the family put his seal to the list as a certificate to be laid before the governor that the inquisition had been performed in his house. If any refused thus to trample on the cross they were at once turned over to the proper officers to be tortured as the cases required.
This same method of trial was used in the provinces about Nagasaki, the governor lending to the officers the plate which they might use.
Without following the entire series of events which resulted in the extirpation of Christianity, it will be sufficient to give a brief narrative of the closing act in this fearful tragedy. It is just, however, to explain that the Shimabara rebellion was not due to the Christians alone, but that other causes contributed to and perhaps originated it. In view, however, of the cruel persecutions to which the Christians were subjected, it is not surprising that they should have been driven to engage in such a [pg 258] rebellion as that in Arima.[216] The wonder rather is that they were not often and in many places impelled to take up arms against the inhumanities of their rulers. The explanation of this absence of resistance will be found in the scattered condition of the Christian communities. Nowhere, unless it might be in Nagasaki, was the number of converts collected in one place at all considerable. They were everywhere overawed by the organized power of the government, and the experience of those who joined in this Arima insurrection did not encourage a repetition of its horrors.
The beginning of the revolt is traced to the misgovernment of the daimyō of Arima. The original daimyō had been transferred by the shōgun to another province, and when he removed from Arima he left nearly all his old retainers behind him. The newly instituted daimyō, on the contrary, who came to occupy the vacated province brought with him a full complement of his own followers. To make room for these new retainers the old ones were displaced [pg 259] placed from their dwellings and holdings, and compelled to become farmers or to take up any other occupation which they could find. Like the samurai of other parts of Japan who had been unaccustomed to any calling except that of arms, these displaced retainers proved very unsuccessful farmers, and were of course very much dissatisfied with the new course of things. The daimyō was a cruel and inconsiderate man, who made small account of the hardships and complaints of the samurai farmers. The taxes were made heavier than they could pay, and when they failed to bring in the required amount of rice, he ordered them to be dressed in straw rain-coats which were tied around their neck and arms. Their hands were fastened behind their backs, and in this helpless condition the rain-coats were set on fire. Many were fatally burned, and some to escape the burning threw themselves into the water and were drowned.
This senseless cruelty awakened an intense feeling of hatred against the daimyō. And when his son who succeeded him was disposed to continue the same tyrannical policy, the farmers rose in insurrection against their lord. The peasants of the island of Amakusa, which lies directly opposite to the province of Arima, also joined in this rising, owing to their discontent against the daimyō of Karatsu.
The Christians, who had so long groaned under the persecutions of their rulers, seized this opportunity to rise, and joined the farmers. They declared that the time had now come for them to avenge the innocent blood of Christians and priests who had perished throughout the empire. The rising of the [pg 260] Christians began at the village of Oyei in Amakusa, October, 1637. The excitement was intense, and in a few days it is said that eight thousand three hundred men and one thousand women were assembled at this village. They chose as their chief Shirō Tokisada, the son of the head man of the village of Hara, who proposed to march immediately upon Nagasaki and open negotiations with foreign nations, and if possible obtain from them the help of troops. He was an enthusiast and without experience in war. The leading spirit in the insurrection seems to have been a rônin[217] named Ashizuka, who recommended that the insurgents should cross over to Shimabara. But Shirō and his enthusiastic followers resolved to attack the castle of Tomioka situated on the north-west coast of Amakusa. They were, however, unable to make any impression upon it, and were obliged to withdraw. Ashizuka and a few followers succeeded in breaking into the castle of Shimabara and seizing the arms and ammunition and provisions which were stored there. The government rice stores were seized both on the mainland and on the island of Amakusa. All the insurgents, including men, women, and children, then gathered into a deserted castle at Hara, which was capable of holding 40,000 to 50,000 persons. It was supposed to be impregnable, and was put in order and provisioned for a long siege. The number gathered here is estimated by the Japanese writers at 40,200, but this number without doubt is an exaggeration.
The local rulers finding themselves unable to cope with the rebellion, and seeing its proportions swelling every day, appealed to Yedo for help. The shōgun at this time was Iemitsu, the son of the preceding shōgun, and grandson of Ieyasu. He possessed many of the good qualities of his grandfather, and is looked upon, with the exception of Ieyasu, as the greatest of the Tokugawa line. He had imbibed all the prejudices of his predecessors against foreigners and against the religion of the foreigners. He feared that this rebellion was begun at their instigation, and would be carried on with their encouragement and help. He prepared therefore for a sharp and desperate struggle, which he was determined should be carried out to the bitter end.
Itakura Naizen was sent down as commander-in-chief, and given full powers. Under his direction the siege of the castle, in which the rebels were gathered, was commenced on the 31st of December, 1637. The daimyōs of Kyūshū, on the demand of the government, sent additional troops, so that the besieging army amounted to 160,000 men. Yet with all this force, urged on by an ambition to end this rebellion, no serious effect had yet been produced on the castle. The attacks which had been made had produced no breach in its walls. We have no information concerning the progress of affairs among the inmates. It must be remembered that a part of the rebels were samurai farmers, who were inured to arms, and who knew perfectly that neither consideration nor mercy would be shown them or their families in case the castle were taken. [pg 262] The remainder of the besieged force were the Christian insurgents, who had been driven to this rebellion by their cruel persecution. Nothing could be worse than what they had already endured, and they had no expectation that if they were beaten in this contest any pity would be shown to them. Despair made the attitude of both divisions of the rebels one of determined resistance, and their obstinacy led the besiegers to put forth every effort.