this road the writer, in 1872, came to reach the classic site and study the spot around which cluster so many stirring memories. The leaders of the army of the league, having arranged their plans, marched out from the Castle of Ogaki at early morn on the fifteenth day of the Ninth month. They built a fire on a hill overlooking the narrow path, to guide them as they walked without keeping step. It was raining, and the armor and clothes of the soldiers were very wet. At five o'clock they reached the field, the Satsuma clan taking up their position at the foot of a hill facing east. Konishi, the Christian hero of Corea, commanded the left centre, Ishida the extreme left. Four famous commanders formed, with their corps, the right wing. Reserves were stationed on and about the hills facing north. The cavalry and infantry, according to the Guai Shi figures, numbered one hundred and twenty-eight thousand.

At early morn of the same day one of the pickets of Iyéyasă's outposts hastened to the tent of his general and reported that all the enemy had left the Castle of Ogaki. Other pickets, from other points, announced the same reports simultaneously. Iyéyasă, in high glee, exclaimed, “The enemy has indeed fallen into my hand." He ordered his generals to advance and take positions on the field, himself leading the centre. His force numbered seventy-five thousand.

This was the supreme moment of Iyéyasu's life. The picture as given us by native artist and tradition is that of a medium-sized and rotund man, of full, round, and merry face, who loved mirth at the right time and place, and even when others could not relish or see its appropriateness. Of indomitable will and energy, and having a genius for understanding men's natures, he astonished his enemies by celerity of movement and the promptitude with which he followed up his advantages. Nevertheless, he was fond of whims. One of these was to take a hot bath before beginning a battle; another was to issue ambiguous orders purposely when he wished to leave a subordinate to act according to his own judgment. On the present occasion, his whim was to go into battle with armor donned, but with no helmet on, knotting his handkerchief over his bare forehead. A dense fog hung like a pall over the battle-field, so that one could not see farther than a few feet.

The two armies, invisible, stood facing each other. However, Iyéyasu sent an officer with a body of men with white flags, who advanced six hundred feet in front of the main army, to prevent surprise. At eight o'clock the fog lifted and rolled away, and the two hosts de

scried each other. After a few moments' waiting, the drums and conchs of the centre of each army sounded, and a sharp fire of matchlocks and a shower of arrows opened the battle. The easterners at first wavered, and till noon the issue was doubtful. Cannon were used during the battle, but the bloodiest work was done with the sword and spear. One of the corps in the army of the league deserted and joined the side of Iyéyasu. At noon, the discipline and unity of the eastern army and the prowess and skill of Iyéyasŭ triumphed. Ordering his conch-blowers and drummers to beat a final charge, and the reserves having joined the main body, a charge was made along the whole line. The enemy, routed, broke and fled. Nearly all the wounded, and hundreds of unscathed on the battle-field, committed hara-kiri in order not to survive the disgrace. The pursuers cut off the heads of all overtaken, and the butchery was frightful. The grass was dyed red, and the moor became literally, not only an Aceldama, but a Golgotha. According to the Guai Shi's exaggerated figures, forty thousand heads were cut off. Of the Eastern army four thousand were slain, but no general was killed. The soldiers assembled, according to custom, after the battle in the centre of the field, to show their captives and heads. On this spot now stands a memorial mound of granite masonry within a raised earthen embankment, surrounded and approached from the road by rows of pine-trees. On the Kiōto side of the village, near the shrine of Hachiman, may be seen a kubidzuka (barrow, or pile of heads), the monument of this awful slaughter, and one of the many such evidences of former wars which careful travelers in Japan so often notice.

Iyéyasu went into the fight bare-headed. After the battle he sat down upon his camp-stool, and ordered his helmet to be brought. All wondered at this. Donning it with a smile, and fastening it securely, he said, quoting the old proverb, "After victory, knot the cords of your helmet." The hint was taken and acted upon. Neither rest nor negligence was allowed.

The Castle of Hikoné, on Lake Biwa, was immediately invested and captured. Özaka was entered in great triumph. Fushimi and Kiōto were held; Chōshiu and Satsuma yielded. Konishi and Ikéda were decapitated on the execution-ground in Kiōto. result was that all Japan submitted to the hero who, after victory, had knotted the cords of his helmet.

The final and speedy

XXVII.

THE PERFECTION OF DUARCHY AND FEUDALISM.

WE have traced the rise and fall of no fewer than six families that held governing power in their persons or in reality. These were in succession the Sugawara, Fujiwara, Taira, Minamoto, Hōjō, and Ashikaga. The last half of the sixteenth century witnessed the rise, not of great families, but of individuals, the mark of whose genius and energy is stamped upon Japanese history. These three individuals were Nobunaga, Hidéyoshi, and Iyéyasů. Who and what were they?

Nobunaga was one of many clan-leaders who, by genius and daring, rose above the crowd, and planned to bring all the others in subjection to himself, that he might rule them in the mikado's name. From having been called Baka Dono (Lord Fool) by his enemies, he rose to be Nai Dai Jin, and swayed power equal to a shōgun, but he never received that name or honor; for not being a Minamoto, he was ineligible. But for this inviolable precedent, Nobunaga might have become Sei-i Tai Shogun, and founded a family line as proud and powerful as that of the Tokugawas of later time.

Who was Hideyoshi? This question was often asked, in his own time, by men who felt only too keenly what he was. This man, who manufactured his own ancestry on paper, was a parvenu from the peasant class, who, from grooming his master's horses in the stable, continued his master's work, as shogun, in the field, and, trampling on all precedent, amazed the Fujiwara peers by getting the office of kuambaků.

Who was Iyéyasă? Neither of his two predecessors had Minamoto blood. Iyéyasů, though at first an obscure captain under Nobunaga, was of true Genji stock. The blood of mikados, and of the great conquerors of Eastern Japan, was in his veins. He was destined to eclipse even the splendor of his forefathers. He was eligible, by right of descent, to become Sei-i Tai Shōgun, or chief of all the daimiōs.

The family of Tokugawa took its name from a place and river in Shimotsŭké, near Ashikaga and Nitta- which are geographical as

well as personal names— claimed descent from the mikado Seiwa through the Minamoto Yoshiiyé, thence through that of Nitta Yoshisada. Tokugawa Shiro, the father of Iyéyasă, lived in the village of Matsudaira, in Mikawa. Iyéyasŭ always signed the documents sent to foreigners, Minamoto no Iyéyasă.

As it is the custom in Japan, as in Europe, to name families after places, the name of this obscure village, Matsudaira, was also taken as a family name by nearly all vassals, who held their lands by direct grant from Iyéyasă. In 1867, no fewer than fifty-four daimios were holding the name Matsudaira. The title of the daimiō in whose capital the writer lived in 1871, was Matsudaira Echizen no Kami.

Crest of the Tokugawa Family.

The Tokugawa crest was a circle inclosing three leaves of the awoi (a species of mallow, found in Central Japan) joined at the tips, the stalks touching the circle. This gilded trefoil gleamed on the Government buildings and property of the shōgun, and on the official documents, boats, robes, flags, and tombs. On Kaempfer's and Hildreth's books there is printed under it the misleading legend, "Insignia Imperatoris Japonici." The trefoil flag fluttered in the breeze when Commodore Perry made his treaty under its shadow. To this day many foreigners suppose it to be the national flag of Japan. It was simply the family crest of the chief daimiō in Japan.

The imperial court, yearning for peace, and finding in Iyéyasŭ the person to keep the empire in order, command universal obedience, and

satisfy the blood requirements of precedent to the office, created him Sei-i Tai Shōgun, and it was left to Minamoto Tokugawa Iyéyasă to achieve the perfection of duarchy and Japanese feudalism.

Let us see how he arranged the chess-board of the empire. There were his twelve children, a number of powerful princes of large landed possessions whom he had not conquered, but conciliated; the lesser daimiōs, who had joined him in his career; his own retainers of every grade; and a vast and miscellaneous array of petty feudal superiors, having grants of land and retinues of from three to one hundred followers. The long hereditary occupation of certain lands had given the holders a right which even Iyéyasă could not dispute. Out of such complexity and chaos, how was such a motley array of proud and turbulent men to be reduced to discipline and obedience? Upon such a palimpsest, how was an accurate map to be drawn, or a durable legible record to be written? Iyéyasŭ had force, resources, and patience. He was master of the arts of conciliation and of letting alone. He could wait for time to do its work. He would give men the opportunity of being conquered by their own good sense. Of lyéyasu's twelve children, three daughters married the daimiōs of Mimasaka, Sagami, and Hida. Of his nine sons, Nobuyasŭ died before his father became shōgun. Hidéyasŭ, his second son, had been adopted by the taiko, but a son was born to the latter. Iyéyasŭ then gave his son the province of Echizen. Hence the Echizen clansmen, as relatives of the shōgunal family, were ever their stanchest supporters, even until the cannon fired at Fushimi in 1868. Their crest was the same trefoil as that of their suzerain. When Hidéyasŭ was enfeoffed with Echizen, many prominent men and heads of old families, supposing that he would, of course, succeed his father in office, followed him to his domain, and lived there. Hence in Fukui, the capital of Echizen, in which I lived during the year 1871, I became acquainted. with the descendants of many proud families, whose ancestors had nursed a profound disappointment for over two centuries; for Iyéyasă chose his third son, Hidétada, who had married a daughter of the taiko, to succeed him in the shōgunate.

Tadayashi, fifth son of Iyéyasu, whose title was Matsudaira Satsuma no Kami, died young. At his death five of his retainers disemboweled themselves, that they might follow their young master into the happy land. This is said to be the last instance of the ancient custom of jun-shi (dying with the master), such as we have noticed in a former chapter. During the early and mediaval centuries occur authentic in