The Mikado's Empire/Buku 1/Bab 13
XIII.
TORITOMO AND THE MINAMOTO FAMILY.
NEXT to portraying the beauties of nature, there is no class of sub- jects in which the native artists delight more than in the historical events related in their classics. Among these there are none treated with more frequency and spirit than the flight of Yoshitomo's concu- bine, Tokiwa, after the death of her lord at the hands of bribed trai- tors. After the fight with the Taira in Kioto, in 1159, he fled east- ward, and was killed in a bath-room by three hired assassins at Ut- sumi, in Owari. Tokiwa was a young peasant-girl of surpassing beau- ty, whom Yoshitomo had made his concubine, and who bore him three children. She fled, to escape the minions of Taira. Her flight was in winter, and snow lay on the ground. She knew neither where to go nor how to subsist ; but, clasping her babe to her bosom, her two little sons on her right, one holding his mother's hand, the other car- rying his father's sword, trudged on. That babe at her breast was Yoshitsune — a name that awakens in the breast of a Japanese youth emotions that kindle his enthusiasm to emulate a character that was the mirror of chivalrous valor and knightly conduct, and that saddens him at the thought of one who suffered cruel death at the hands of a jealous brother. Yoshitsune, the youngest son of Yoshitomo, lives, and will live, immortal in the minds of Japanese youth as the Bayard of Japan.
Kiyomori, intoxicated with success, conceived the plan of extermi- nating the Minamoto family root and branch. Not knowing where Tokiwa and her children had fled, he seized her mother, and had her brought to Kioto. In Japan,- as in China, filial piety is the highest duty of man, filial affection the strongest tie. Kiyomori well knew that Tokiwa's sense of a daughter's duty would prevail over that of a mother's love or womanly fear. He expected Tokiwa to come to Kioto to save her mother.
Meanwhile the daughter, nearly frozen and half starved, was met in her flight by a Taira soldier, who, pitying her and her children, gave
YORITOMO AND THE MINAMOTO FAMILY. 125
her shelter, and fed her with his own rations. Tokiwa heard of her mother's durance at Kioto. Then came the struggle between mater- nal and filial love. To enter the palace would be the salvation of her mother, but the death of her children. What should she do? Her wit showed her the way of escape. Her resolution was taken to go to the capital, and trust to her beauty to melt the heart of KiyomorL Thus she would save her mother and the lives of her sons.
Her success was complete. Appearing in the presence of the dreaded enemy of her children, Kiyomori was dazed by her beauty, and wished to make her his concubine. At first she utterly refused ; but her mother, weeping floods of tears, represented to her the mis- ery of disobedience, and the happiness in store for her, and Tokiwa was obliged to yield. She consented on condition of his sparing her offspring.
Kiyomori's retainers insisted that these young Minamotos should be put to death ; but by the pleadings of the beautiful mother, backed by the intercession of Kiyomori's aunt, their lives were spared. The babe grew to be a healthy, rosy-cheeked boy, small in stature, with a ruddy face and slightly protruding teeth. In spirit he was fiery and impetuous. All three of the boys, when grown, were sent to a monas- tery near Kioto, to be made priests : their fine black hair was shaved, and they put on the robes of Buddhist neophytes. Two of them re- mained so, but Yoshitsune gave little promise of becoming a grave and reverend bonze, who would honor his crape, and inspire respect by his bald crown and embroidered collar. He refused to have his hair shaved off, and in the monastery was irrepressibly merry, lively, and self-willed. The task of managing this young ox (Ushi-waka, he was then called) gave the holy brethren much trouble, and greatly scandalized their reverences. Yoshitsune, chafing at his dull life, and longing to take part in a more active one, and especially in the wars in the North, of which he could not but hear, determined to es- cape. How to do it was the question.
Among the outside lay-folk who visited the monastery for trade or business was an iron-merchant, who made frequent journeys from Kioto to the north of Hondo. In those days, as now, the mines of Oshiu were celebrated for yielding the best iron for swords and other cutting implements. This iron, being smelted from the magnetic ox- ide and reduced by the use of charcoal as fuel, gave a steel of singular purity and temper which has never been rivaled in modern times.
Yoshitsune begged the merchant to take him to Mutsu. He, be-
126 THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE.
ing afraid of offending the priest, would not at first consent. Yoshi- tsune persuaded him by saying that the priests would be only too glad to be rid of such a troublesome boy. The point was won, and Yoshitsune went off. The boy's surmises were correct. The priest thought it excellent riddance to very bad rubbish.
While in the East, they stopped some time in Kadzusa, then infest- ed with robbers. Here Yoshitsune gave signal proof of his mettle. Among other exploits, he, on one occasion, single-handed and un- armed, seized a bold robber, and, on another, assisted a rich man to defend his house, killing five of the ruffians with his own hand. Yorishige, his companion and bosom-friend, begged him not to in- dulge in any unnecessary displays of courage, lest the Taira would surely hear of him, and know he was a Minamoto, and so destroy him. They finally reached their destination, and Yoshitsune was taken to live with Hidehira, a nobleman of the Fujiwara, who was prince of Mutsu. Here he grew to manhood, spending his time most conge- nially, in the chase, in manly sports, and in military exercises. At the age of twenty-one, he had won a reputation as a soldier of peerless valor and consummate skill, and the exponent of the loftiest code of Japanese chivalry. He became to Yoritomo, his brother, as Ney to Napoleon. Nor can the splendor of the marshal's courage outshine that of the young Japanese shogun's.
Yoritomo, the third son of Yoshitomo, was born in the year 1146, and consequently was twelve years old when his brother Yoshitsune was a baby. After the defeat of his father, he, in the retreat, was separated from his companions, and finally fell into the hands of a Taira officer. On his way through a village called Awohaka, in Omi, a girl, the child of the daughter of the head-man whom Yoshitomo had once loved, hearing this, said, " I will follow my brother and die with him." Her people stopped her as she was about to follow Yoshitomo, but she afterward went out alone and drowned herself. The Taira officer brought his prize to Kioto, where his execution was ordered, and the day fixed ; but there, again, woman's tender heart and suppli- cations saved the life of one -destined for greater things. The boy's captor had asked him if he would like to live. He answered, " Yes ; both my father and brother are dead ; who but I can pray for their happiness in the next world ?" Struck by this filial answer, the officer went to Kiyomori's step-mother, who was a Buddhist nun, having be- come so after the death of her husband, Tadamori. Becoming inter- ested in him, her heart was deeply touched ; the chambers of her
YORITOMO AND THE MINAMOTO FAMILY. 127
memory were unlocked when the officer said, " Yoritomo resembles Prince Uma." She had borne one son of great promise, on whom she had lavished her affection, and who had been named Uma. The mother's bosom heaved under the robes of the nun, and, pitying Yori- tomo, she resolved to entreat Kiyomori to spare him. After import- unate pleadings, the reluctant son yielded to his mother's prayer, but condemned the youth to distant exile — a punishment one degree less than death, and Yoritomo was banished to the province of Idzu. He was advised by his former retainers to shave off his hair, enter a mon- astery, and become a priest ; but Morinaga, one of his faithful serv- ants, advised him to keep his hair, and with a brave heart await the future. Even the few that still called themselves vassals of Minamoto did not dare to hold any communication with him, as he was under the charge of two officers who were responsible to the Taira for the care of their ward. Yoritomo was a shrewd, self-reliant boy, gifted with high self-control, restraining his feelings so as to express neither joy nor grief nor anger in his face, patient, and capable of great en- durance, winning the love and respect of all. He was as "Prince Hal." He afterward became as " bluff King Harry," barring the lat- ter's bad eminence as a marrier of many wives.
Such was the condition of the Minamoto family. No longer in power and place, with an empress and ministers at court, but scat- tered, in poverty and exile, their lives scarcely their own. Yoritomo was fortunate in his courtship and marriage, the story of which is one of great romantic interest.* His wife, Masago, is one of the many fe-
- Yoritomo had inquired which of the daughters of Hojo Tokimasa was most
beautiful. He was told the eldest was most noted for personal charms, but the second, the child of a second wife, was homely. Yoritomo, afraid of a step-moth- er's jealousy (though fearing neither spear nor sword), deemed it prudent to pay his addresses to the homely daughter, and thus win the mother's favor also. He sent her a letter by the hand of Morinaga, his retainer, who, however, thought his master's affection for the plain girl would not last; so he destroyed his mas- ter's letter, and, writing another one to Masago, the eldest, sent it to her. It so happened that on the previous night the homely daughter dreamed that a pigeon came to her, carrying a golden box in her beak. On awaking, she told her dream to her sister, who was so interested in it that, after eager consideration, she re- solved "to buy her sister's dream," and, as a price, gave her toilet mirror to her sister, saying, as the Japanese always do on similar occasions, " The price I pay is little." The homely sister, perhaps thinking some of Masago's beauty might be reflected to hers, gladly bartered her unsubstantial happiness. Scarcely had she done this, than Yoritomo's (Morinaga's) letter came, asking her to be his bride. It turned out to be a true love-match. Masago was then twenty-one years of age — it being no ungallantry to state the age of a Japanese lady, living
128 THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE.
male characters famous in Japanese history. She contributed not a little to the success of her husband and the splendor of the Kamakura court, during her life, as wife and widow. She outlived her husband many years. Her father, Hojo Tokimasa, an able man, in whose veins ran imperial blood, made and fulfilled a solemn oath to assist Yori- tomo, and the Hojo family subsequently rose to be a leading one in Japan.
The tyranny and insolence of Kiyomori at Kioto had by this time (1180), one year before his death, become so galling and outrageous that one of the royal princes, determining to kill the usurper, con- spired with the Minamoto men to overthrow him. Letters were sent to the clansmen, and especially to Yoritomo, who wrote to Yoshitsune and to his friends to join him and take up arms. Among the for- mer retainers of his father and grandfather were many members of the Miura family. Morinaga personally secured the fealty of many men of mark in the Kuanto ; but among those who refused to rise against the Taira was one, Tsunetoshi, who laughed scornfully, and said, "For an exile to plot against the Heishi [Taira] is like a mouse plotting against a cat."
At the head of the peninsula of Idzu is a range of mountains, the outjutting spurs of the chain that trends upward to the table-lands of Shinano, and thus divides Eastern from Western Japan. This range is called Hakone, and is famous not only as classic ground in history, but also as a casket enshrining the choicest gems of nature. It is well known to the foreign residents, who resort hither in summer to enjoy the pure air of its altitudes. Its inspiring scenery embraces a lake of intensely cold pure water, and of great depth and elevation above the sea-level, groves of aromatic pines of colossal size, savage gorges, sublime mountain heights, overcrowned by cloud-excelling Fuji, foaming cataracts, and boiling springs of intermittent and rhythmic flow, surrounded by infernal vistas of melted sulphur enveloped in clouds of poisonous steam, or incrusted with myriad glistening crys- tals of the same mineral. Over these mountains there is a narrow pass, which is the key of the Kuanto. Near the pass, above the vil-
or dead. Masago's father, on hia way home from Kioto, not knowing of the be-
trothal of the young couple, promised Masago to Kane"taka, a Taira officer. On
coming home, he would not break his word, and so married her to Kane'taka.
But early on the wedding night Masago eloped with Yoritomo, who was at hand.
Kane'taka searched in vain for the pair. Tokimasa outwardly professed to be
very angry with Yoritomo, but really loved him.
YORITOMO AND THE MINAMOTO FAMILY. 131
lage of Yumoto, is Ishi Bashi Yama (Stone-bridge Mountain), and here Yoritomo's second battle was fought, and his first defeat experi- enced. " Every time his bowstring twanged an enemy fell," but final- ly he was obliged to flee. He barely escaped with his life, and fort- unately eluded pursuit, secreting himself in a hollow log, having first sent his father-in-law to call out all his retainers and meet again. He afterward hid in the priest's wardrobe, in one of the rooms of a tem- ple. Finally, reaching the sea-shore, he took ship and sailed across the bay to Awa. "At this time the sea and land were covered with his enemies." Fortune favored the brave. Yoritoino, defeated, but not discouraged, while on the water met a company of soldiers, all equipped, belonging to the Miura clan, who became his friends, and offered to assist him. Landing in Awa, he sent out letters to all the Minamoto adherents to bring soldiers and join him. He met with encouraging and substantial response, for many hated Kiyomori and the Taira ; and as Yoritomo's father and grandfather had given pro- tection and secured quiet in the Kuanto, the prestige of the Minamoto party still remained. The local military chieftains had fought under Yoritomo's father, and were now glad to join the son of their old leader. He chose Kamakura as a place of retreat and permanent resi- dence, it having been an old seat of the Minamoto family. Yoriyoshi had, in 1063, built the shrine of Hachiman at Tsurugaoka, near the village, in gratitude for his victories. Yoritomo now organized his troops, appointed his officers, and made arrangements to establish a fixed commissariat. The latter was a comparatively easy thing to do in a fertile country covered with irrigated rice-fields and girdled with teeming seas, and where the daily food of soldier, as of laborer, was rice and fish. Marching up around the country at the head of the Bay of Yedo through Kadzusa, Shimosa, Musashi, and Sagami, cross- ing, on his way, the Sumida River, which flows through the modern Tokio, many men of rank, with their followers and horses, joined him. His father-in-law also brought an army from Kai. In a few months he had raised large forces, with many noted generals. He awakened new life in the Minamoto clan, and completely turned the tide of success. Many courtiers from Kioto, disappointed in their schemes at court, or in any way chagrined at the Taira, flocked to Yoritomo as his power rose, and thus brought to him a fund of expe- rience and ability which he was not slow to utilize for his own bene- fit. Meanwhile the Taira had not been idle. A large army was dis- patched to the East, reaching the Fuji River, in Suruga, about the
132 THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE.
same time that the Minamoto, headed by Yoritomo, appeared on the other side. The Taira were surprised to see such a host in arms. Both armies encamped on opposite banks, and glared at each other, eager for the fight, but neither attempting to cross the torrent. This is not to be wondered at. The Fujikawa bears the just reputation of being the swiftest stream in Japan. It rises in the northern part of Kai, on the precipitous side of the group of mountains called Yatsu dake, or "eight peaks," and, winding around the western base of the lordly Fuji, collecting into its own volume a host of impetuous tributaries born from the snows of lofty summits, it traverses the rich province of Suruga in steep gradient, plunging across the Tokaido, in arrowy celerity and volcanic force, into the sea near the lordly mount- ain which it encircles. To cross it at any time in good boats is a feat requiring coolness and skill ; in a flood, impossibility ; in the face of a hostile attack, sure annihilation. Though supremely eager to measure swords, neither party cared to cross to the attack, and the wager of battle was postponed. Both armies retired, the Taira retreating first. It is said that one of the Taira men, foreseeing that the tide would turn in favor of Yoritomo, went to the river flats at night, and scared up the flocks of wild fowl ; and the Taira, hearing the great noise, im- agined the Minamoto host was attacking them, and fled, panic-stricken. Yoritomo returned to Kamakura, and began in earnest to found a city that ultimately rivaled Kioto in magnificence, as it excelled it in pow- er. He gathered together and set to work an army of laborers, car- penters, and armorers. In a few months a city sprung up where once had been only timbered hills and valleys, matted with the perennial luxuriance of reeds or scrub bamboo, starred and fragrant with the tall lilies that still abound. The town lay in a valley surrounded by hills on every side, opening only on the glorious sea. The wall of hills was soon breached by cuttings which served as gate-ways, giving easy access to friends, and safe defense against enemies. While the laborers delved and graded, the carpenters plied axe, hooked adze, and chisel, and the sword-makers and armorers sounded a war chorus on their anvils by day, and lighted up the hills by their forges at night. The streets marked out were soon lined with shops ; and merchants came to sell, bringing gold, copper, and iron, silk, cotton, and hemp, and raw material for food and clothing, war and display. Store- houses of rice were built and filled ; boats were constructed and launched ; temples were erected. In process of time, the wealth of the Kuanto centred at Kamakura. While the old Taira chief lay dy-
YORITOMO AND TIIE MINAMOTO FAMILY. 133
ing in Kioto, praying for Yoritomo's head to be laid on his new tomb, this same head, safely settled on vigorous shoulders, was devising the schemes, and seeing them executed, of fixing the Minamoto power permanently at Kamakura, and of wiping the name of Taira from the earth.
The long night of exile, of defeat, and defensive waiting of the Minarnoto had broken, and their day had dawned with sudden and unexpected splendor. Henceforward they took the initiative. While Yoritomo carried on the enterprises of peace and the operations of war from his sustained stronghold, his uncle, Yukiiye, his cousin, Yoshinaka, and his brother, Yoshitsune, led the armies in the field.
Meanwhile, in 1181, Kiyomori fell sick at Kioto. He had been a monk, as well as a prime minister. His death was not that of a saint. He did not pray for his enemies. The Nihon Guai Shi thus describes the scene in the chamber where the chief of the Taira lay dying : In the Second leap-month, his sickness having increased, his family and high officers assembled round his bedside, and asked him what he would say. Sighing deeply, he said, " He that is born must necessa- rily die, and not I alone. Since the period of Heiji (1159), I have served the imperial house. I have ruled under heaven (the empire) absolutely. I have attained the highest rank possible to a subject. I am the grandfather of the emperor on his mother's side. Is there still a regret ? My regret is only that I am dying, and have not yet seen the head of Yoritomo of the Minamoto. After my decease, do not make offerings to Buddha on my behalf ; do not read the sacred books. Only cut off the head of Yoritomo of the Minamoto, and hang it on my tomb. Let all my sons and grandsons, retainers and servants, each and every one, follow out my commands, and on no ac- count neglect them." So saying, Kiyomori died at the age of sixty- four. His tomb, near Hiogo, is marked by an upright monolith and railing of granite. Munemori, his son, became head of the Taira house. Strange words from a death-bed; yet such as these were more than once used by dying Japanese warriors. Yoritomo's head was on his body when, eighteen years afterward, in 1199, he died peacefully in his bed.
Nevertheless, while in Kamakura, his bed-chamber was nightly guard- ed by chosen warriors, lest treachery might cut off the hopes of the Minamoto. The flames of war were now lighted throughout the whole empire. From Kamakura forces were sent into the provinces of Hitachi, in the East, and of Echizen and Kaga, North and West,
134 THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE.
destroying the authority of the Kioto bureaucracy. Victory and in- crease made the army of the rising clan invincible. After numerous bloody skirmishes, the victors advanced through Omi, and swooped on the chief prize, and Kioto, the coveted capital, was in their hands. The captors of the city were Yukiiye and Yoshinaka, the uncle and cousin of Yoritomo respectively. The Taira, with the young mikado, Antoku, and his wife, Kiyomori's daughter, fled. Gotoba, his broth- er, was proclaimed mikado in his stead, and the estates and treasures of the Taira were confiscated, and divided among the victors.
Yoshinaka was called the Asahi shogun (Morning-sun General), on account of the suddenness and brilliancy of his rising. Being now in command of a victorious army at the capital, swollen with pride, and intoxicated with sudden success, and with the actual power then in his hands, he seems to have lost his head. He was elevated to high rank, and given the title and office of governor of Echigo ; but hav- ing been bred in the country, he could not endure the cap and dress of ceremony, and was the subject of ridicule to the people of Kioto. He became jealous of his superior, Yoritomo, who was in Kamakura, two hundred miles away. He acted in such an arbitrary and over- bearing spirit that the wrath of the cloistered emperor Goshirakawa was roused against him. Being able to command no military forces, he incited the monks of the immense monasteries of Hiyeizan and Miidera, near the city, to obstruct his authority. Before they could execute any schemes, Yoshinaka, with a military force, seized them, put the ex-mikado in prison, beheaded the abbots, and deprived the high officers of state of their honors and titles. He then wrested from the court the title of Sei-i Shogun (Barbarian-subjugating Gen- eral). His exercise of power was of brief duration, for Yoshitsune was invested with the command of the forces in the West, and, sent against him, he was defeated and killed,* and the ex-mikado was re-
- The details of this struggle are graphically portrayed in the Nikon Guai Shi.
Toshinaka had married the lady Fujiwara, daughter of the court noble, Motofusa. When the Kamakura arrny was approaching Kioto, and quite near the city, he left his troops, and called at the palace to take leave of his wife. A long while having elapsed before he appeared, and every moment being critical, two of his samurai, grieved at his unseasonable delay, remonstrated with him, and then committed suicide. This hastened his movements. He attempted to carry off the cloistered emperor, but was repulsed by Yoshitsune" in person, and fled. His horse, falling into a quagmire in a rice-field, fell, and he, turning around to look at Kuip-hini, his faithful vassal, was hit by an arrow in the forehead and fell dead. He was thirty-one years old. Kane'hira, having but eight arrows left in his quiver, shot down eight of the enemy's horsemen ; and then, hearing a cry
TORITOMO AND THE MINAMOTO FAMILY. 135
leased, and the reigning emperor set free from the terrorism under which he had been put.
Meanwhile the Taira men, in their fortified palace at Fukuwara, were planning to recover their lost power, and assembling a great army in the South and West. The Minamoto, on the other hand, were expending all their energies to destroy them. The bitter ani- mosity of the two great families had reached such a pitch that the extermination of one or the other seemed inevitable. In 1184, Yoshi- tsune laid siege to the Fukuwara palace, and, after a short time, set it on fire. The son of Kiyomori and his chief followers fled to Sanuki, in Shikoku. Thither, as with the winged feet of an avenger, Yoshi- tsune followed, besieged them at the castle of Yashima, burned it, and drove his enemies, like scattered sheep, to the Straits of Shimo- noseki.
Both armies now prepared a fleet of junks, for the contest was to be upon the water. In the Fourth month of the year 1185, all was ready for the struggle. The battle was fought at Dan no ura, near the modern town of Shimonoseki, where, in 1863, the combined squadrons of England, France, Holland, and the United States bom- barded the batteries of the Choshiu clansmen. In the latter instance the foreigner demonstrated the superiority of his artillery and disci- pline, and, for the sake of trade and gain, wreaked his vengeance as savage and unjust as any that stains the record of native war.
In 1185, nearly seven centuries before, the contest was between men of a common country. It was the slaughter of brother by broth- er. The guerdon of ambition was supremacy. The Taira clan were at bay, driven, pursued, and hunted to the sea-shore. Like a wound- ed stag that turns upon its pursuers, the clan were about to give final battle ; by its wager they were to decide their future destiny — a grave in a bloody sea, or peace under victory. They had collected five hun-
among the enemy that his lord was dead, said, " My business is done," and, put-
ting his sword in his mouth, fell skillfully from his horse so that the blade should
pierce him, and died. His beautiful sister, Tomoye, was a concubine of Yoshi-
naka ; and being of great personal strength, constantly followed her lord in bat-
tle, sheathed in armor and riding a swift horse. In this last battle she fought in
the van, and, among other exploits, cut off the head of Iye"yoshi, one of Yoshi-
tsune^s best men. When her lord fled, she asked to be allowed to die with him.
He refused to allow her, and, in spite of her tears, persisted in his refusal. Doff-
ing her armor, she reached Shinano by private paths, and thence retired into
Echigo, shaved off her hair, became a nun, and spent the remainder of her life
praying for the eternal happiness of Yoshinaka.
136
THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE.
dred vessels. They hurried on board their aged fathers and mothers,
their wives and children. Among them were gentle ladies from the
palace, whose silken robes seemed sadly out of place in the crowded
junks. There were mothers, with babes at breast, and little children,
too young to know the awful passions that kindle man against man.
Among the crowd were the widow and daughter of Kiyomori, the
former a nun, the latter the empress-dowager, with the dethroned mi-
kado, a child six years old. With them were the sacred insignia of
imperial power, the sword and ball.
The Minamoto host was almost entirely composed of men, unin- cumbered with women or families. They had seven hundred junks.
Both fleets were gayly fluttering with flags and streamers. The Taira pen- nant was red, the Minamo- to white, with two black bars near the top. The junks, though clumsy, were excellent vessels for fighting purposes — fully equal to the old war-gal- leys of Actium.
On one side were brave men flushed with victory, with passions kindled by hate and the memory of awful wrongs. On the other side were brave men nerved with the cour- age of despair, resolved to die only in honor, scorning life and country, wounds and death.
The battle began. With impetuosity and despair, the Taira drove their junks hard against the Minamoto, and gained a temporary ad- vantage by the suddenness of their onset. Seeing this, Yoshitsune, ever fearless, cried out and encouraged his soldiers. Then came a lull in the combat. Wada, a noted archer of the Minamoto, shot an arrow, and struck the junk of a Taira leader. " Shoot it back !" cried the chief. An archer immediately plucked it out of the gunwale, and, fitting it to his bow before the gaze of the crews of the hostile fleet, let fly. The arrow sped. It grazed the helmet of one, and pierced
A Japanese War-jnuk of the Twelfth Century.
(Vignette illustration on the national bank-notes.)
YORITOMO AND TI1E MINAMOTO FAMILY. 137
another warrior. The Minamoto were ashamed. "Shoot it back!" thundered Yoshitsune. The archer, plucking it out and coolly ex- amining it, said, " It is short and weak." Drawing from his quiver an arrow of fourteen fists' length, and fitting it to the string, he shot it. The five-feet length of shaft leaped through the air, and, piercing the armor and flesh of the Taira bowman who reshot the first arrow, fell, spent, into the sea beyond. Elated with the lucky stroke, Yoshitsune emptied his quiver, shooting with such celerity and skill that many Taira fell. The Minamoto, encouraged, and roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, redoubled their exertions with oar and arrow, and the tide of victory turned. The white flag triumphed. Yet the Taira might have won the day had not treachery aided the foe. The pages of Japanese history teem with instances of the destruction of friends by traitors. Perhaps the annals of no other country are richer in the recitals of results gained by treachery. The Arnold of the Taira army was Shigeyoshi, friend to Yoshitsun6. He had agreed upon a signal, by which the prize could be seen, and when seen could be sur- rounded and captured. Yoshitsune, eagerly scanning the Taira fleet, finally caught sight of the preconcerted signal, and ordered the cap- tains of a number of his junks to surround the particular one of the Taira. In a trice the junks of the white pennant shot along-side the devoted ship, and her decks were boarded by armed men. Seeing this, a Taira man leaped from his own boat to kill Yoshitsune in close combat. Yoshitsune jumped into another junk. His enemy, thus foiled, drowned himself. In the hand-to-hand fight with swords, To- momori and six other Taira leaders were slain.
Seeing the hopeless state of affairs, and resolving not to be capt- ured alive, the nun, Kiyomori's widow, holding her grandson, the child emperor, in her arms, leaped into the sea. Taigo, the emperor's mother, vainly tried to save her child. Both were drowned. Mune- mori, head of the Taira house, and many nobles, gentlemen, and ladies, were made prisoners.
The combat deepened. The Minamoto loved fighting. The Taira scorned to surrender. Revenge lent its maddening intoxication. Life, robbed of all its charms, gladly welcomed glorious death. The whizzing of arrows, the clash of two-handed swords, the clanging of armor, the sweep of churning oars, the crash of colliding junks, the wild song of the rowers, the shouts of the warriors, made the storm- chorus of battle. One after another the Taira ships, crushed by the prows of their opponents, or scuttled by the iron bolt-heads of the
138 THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE.
Minamoto archers, sunk beneath the bubbling waters, leaving red whirl- pools of blood. Those that were boarded were swept with sword and spear of their human freight. The dead bodies clogged the decks, on which the mimic tides of blood ebbed and flowed and splashed with the motion of the waves, while the scuppers ran red like the spouts of an abattoir. The warriors who leaped into the sea became tar- gets for the avenger's arrows. Noble and peasant, woman and babe, rower and archer, lifting imploring arms, or sullenly spurning mercy, perished by hundreds.
That May morning looked upon a blue sea laughing with unnum- bered ripples, and glinting with the steel of warriors decked in all the glory of battle-array, and flaunting with the gay pennants of the fleet which it seemed proud to bear. At night, heaving crimson like the vat of a dyer, defiled by floating corpses, and spewing its foul cor- ruption for miles along the strand, it bore awful though transient witness to the hate of man.
The Taira, driven off the face of the earth, were buried with war's red burial beneath the sea, that soon forgot its stain, and laughed again in purity of golden gleam and deep-blue wave. The humble fisherman casting his nets, or trudging along the shore, in astonish- ment saw the delicate corpses of the court lady and the tiny babe, and the sun-bronzed bodies of rowers, cast upon the shore. The child who waded in the surf to pick up shells was frightened at the wave- rolled carcass of the dead warrior, from whose breast the feathered ar- row or the broken spear-stock protruded. The peasant, for many a day after, burned or consigned to the burial flames many a fair child whose silken dress and light skin told of higher birth and gentler blood than their own rude brood.
Among a superstitious people dwelling by and on the sea, such an awful ingulfing of human life made a profound impression. The presence of so many thousand souls of dead heroes was overpowering. For years, nay, for centuries afterward, the ghosts of the Taira found naught but unrest in the sea in which their mortal bodies sunk. The sailor by day hurried with bated breath past the scene of slaughter and unsubstantial life. , The mariner by night, unable to anchor, and driven by wind, spent the hours of darkness in prayer, while his vivid imagination converted the dancing phosphorescence into the white hosts of the Taira dead. Even to-day the Choshiu peasant fancies he sees the ghostly armies baling out the sea with bottomless dippers, condemned thus to cleanse the ocean of the stain of centuries ago.
YORITOMO AND THE M1NAMOTO FAMILY. 139
A few of the Taira escaped and fled to Kiushiu. There, secluded in the fastnesses of deep valleys and high mountains, their descend- ants, who have kept themselves apart from their countrymen for near- ly seven hundred years, a few hundred in number, still live in poverty and pride. Their lurking-place was discovered only within the last century. Of the women spared from the massacre, some married their conquerors, some killed themselves, and others kept life in their defiled bodies by plying the trade in which beauty ever finds ready customers. At the present day, in Shimonoseki,* the courtesans de- scended from the Taira ladies claim, and are accorded, special privi- leges.
The vengeance of the Minamoto did not stop at the sea. They searched every hill and valley to exterminate every male of the doom- ed clan. In Kioto many boys and infant sons of the Taira family were living. All that were found were put to death. The Herod of Kamakura sent his father-in-law to attend to the bloody business.
In the Fourth month the army of Kamakura returned to Kioto, en- joying a public triumph, with their spoils and prisoners, retainers of the Taira. They had also recovered the sacred emblems. For days the streets of the capital were gay with processions and festivals, and the coffers of the temples were enriched with the pious offerings of the victors, and their walls with votive tablets of gratitude.
Munemori was sent to Kamakura, where he saw the man whose head his father had charged him on his death-bed to cut off and hang on his tomb. His own head was shortly afterward severed from his body by the guards who were conducting him to Kioto.
- Shimonoseki is a town of great commercial importance, from its position at
the entrance of the Inland Sea. It consists chiefly of one long street of two miles, at the base of a range of low steep hills. It lies four miles from the west- ern entrance of Hayato no se"to, or strait of Shimonoseki. The strait is from two thousand to five thousand feet wide, and about seven miles long. Mutsur^ Island (incorrectly printed as "Rockuren" on foreign charts) lies near the en- trance. On Hiku Island, and at the eastern end of the strait, are light-houses equipped according to modern scientific requirements. Four beacons, also, light the passage at night. The current is very strong. A submarine telegraphic ca- ble now connects the electric wires of Nagasaki, from Siberia to St. Petersburg; and of Shanghae (China) to London and New York, with those of Tokio and Ha- kodate. On a ledge of rocks in the channel is a monument in honor of Antoku, the young emperor who perished here in the arms of his grandmother, Tokiko, the Nil no ama, a title composed of Nii, noble of the second rank, and oma, nun, equal to "the noble nun of the second rank."