ABSTRACT

FEUDALISM IMPROVES THE STATE OF THE NATION.--Since the founding of our Empire the monarchical system had been adopted, but under it the national fortunes made little progress. With the introduction of Chinese institutions in the age of Taika and Taiho, governors in the provinces were merely officials of the Central Government, like the present prefectural governors, and invested with the power of life and death. A local governor watched every smile or frown of the Central Government, and, moreover, as the term of office was limited, they were more likely to think of feathering their own nests than improving the lot of the people. The best that could be said of some was that they were not actively corrupt, but passed their time in amusing themselves, while the baser sort built up a fortune on bribery and injustice against the time when they would have to return to Kyoto. Under such a system as this, given a wise emperor and able ministers to control prefectural and provincial governors, a good administration would have followed, but unless the country were always so blessed, corruption was bound to follow. The old Government of Korea show this fact clearly. Though this monarchical system was broken up by the rise of the Minamoto and the Taira families and feudalism began to appear, yet the only effect of this semi-feudal system was that the local magnates drove away the Government officials, made themselves lords, and divided up the country into several thousand manors. As it was not a matured feudal system under which feudal lords stood independent of each other and controlled by a Central Government, there was no competition among the local powers. There was little stimulus in the life of the people, and hence culture progressed insignificantly. Toward the end of the age of the Ashikaga these magnates, in their efforts to satisfy their own interests, drove the submissive people very hard, and about the beginning of the 15th century the people of Japan fell into great misery. Necessity is the mother of invention, and to the nation thus fallen into this extreme misery came almost unconsciously a great awakening. Submissive folks who could not bear any longer to be treated as slaves fled to other provinces and deserted their land. Men of a higher spirit who preferred death to their present misery turned nobushi (field warrior), who worked in the fields but were mainly bandits.