Japan

JAPAN (ante). Native name Dai Nippon, or Nihon, from 72i, sun, lion. root or rising; first bestowed either by the Coreans or the inhabitants of the south-western provinces were first peopled—and found in the native literature as early as A.D. 670. The Japanese empire comprises Chishima (Kurile islands), Yezo (" Jesso"), Hondo (Main island), Kiushiu (nine provinces). Shikoku (four provinces), the Riu Kin (Loochoo) islands, and the islands lying off the western and eastern coasts, including the Bonin group—about 4,000 in all. From ancient times the empire has been divided into do, or circuits, after the Corean fashion, named as follows; "The home provinces," or Go Kinai, surrounding the miako,oreapital,Kioto; Tokaido, cast-sea circuit; Tozando, eastern-moun tain circuit; llokurikudo, northern-land circuit ; &mind.), mountain-back circuit; Sanyodo, mountain-front circuit; Nankaido, southern-sea circuit; Saikaido, western-sea circuit; Hokkaido, northern-sea circuit. These terms correspond to our eastern states, middle states, etc. In 1868 there were 84 shin, or provinces, and 717kori, or districts, each of the former having a purely native and apartly Chinese name,just as the eastern states are called "New England." Thus, Echizen 13 also called Esshiu, and Kaga, Kasbiu. lu 1875 the empire was divided into 38 kens, or prefectures, governed by rd. or prefects, appainted front Tokio; with 3 imperial cities, or fu—Tokio, Ozaka, and Kioto—governed by ehifi. or mayors. Yezo and Chishima are under the Kai Taku Shi, a special department. The official census of 1872. and again of 1874, gave Japan a population of nearly 334 millions. The actual area of cultivated lands is: rice fields, 5,585,000 acres; of ail other fields. 3,817.300 acres, on which the government tax collected was $46.537.265. The total value of produc tions from agriculture, forests, and fisheries was $276,303,903; of manufactures, includ ing tea, tobacco, and all natural productions requiring manipulation, $147,602,026; of mines and quarries, $4,762,387; grand total, $428.668,316. The foreign trade of Japan for the year ending Dec. 31. 1878 was: imports, $33,334,392; exports, $26,259,419; total, $59,593,811, of which $42,104,2:21 was shipped at Yokohama: 838 ships and 748,872 tons were distributed under the following flags: British, 487 ships and 417,691 tons; America, 180 ships and 212,266 tons; the others in order being German, French, Swedish, Danish, etc. In 1878, 2,477 Europeans and Americans resided in Japan; 1067 being British, 479 Americans. 300 Germans, 278 French, 105 Dutch, 95 Portuguese, and 209 of various countries, besides 3,028 Chinese. Since 1860 Japan has sold to foreign countries produce amounting to $300,109,872, and received in exchange foreign mer chandise amounting to $323,027,581. American imports consist chiefly of cotton and woolen goods, machinery, metals, armsand ammunition, "notions," and petroleum, the latter article amounting in 1878 to $1,850,881. Besides sailing vessels, two American steam lines ply between California and Japan. Nearly all the tea raised in Japan and exported is consumed in the United States. The chief exports are silk and silk-worms' eggs. tea, copper, tobacco, wax, camphor, coal, dried fish, rice, porcelain, lacquer, and other articles made by hand. The present internal and external condition of Japan can be best understood from a brief outline of the histpry of this island empire, whose devel opment since 18G8 has been one of the marvels of the century.—It is now well settled by students in comparative philology of the languages of Japan and Corea that the two tongues are closely affiliated, and that ethnically the Coreans are the nearest congeners of the Japanese. The ancient immigrants from the n. Asiatic mainland coming to the Japan archipelago found an aboriginal race, whose descendants are probably the Ainos of to-day, though in Kiushiu were some inhabitants of Malay extraction. The dominant race had their scat in Yarnato, one of the central prov inces near Kioto, and ruled the tribes subdued by them according to a rude feudal system, the suzerain of the tribe chiefs being the mikado. In the 5th c. the rudiments of Chinese-Corean civilization were introduced from Corea, with letters, literature, and the Confucian classics. In 552 A.D. Buddhist missionaries arrived from Corea. In the Sth c. the Chinese centralized system of government was copied by the Japanese, and ancient feudalism gave way to eight ministries or boards of government, the mikado sending out governors to the provinces from the miako or capital 'at Nara, and from 794 A.D. at Kioto. The dai jo kuan, or great council of the great government, superin tended the eight boards, and was presided over by the senior premier, or dal jo dai jin (great minister of the great government), with three junior prime ministers, or *a, a, and nett, dai jin. or left. right, and inner, the mikado being supreme over all. From the most ancient times the mikado has ever been the central figure in Japanese poli ties, and though rival generals, ambitious premiers, and usurping military officials, called shoguns, or, since 1854, tycoons, have held at times immense power, and though to foreign eyes they have seemed to be " emperors," yet there never was lint oA.eniperor in Japan, and he was the mikado. The tycoon was never 'in rank or fact anything but a military commander. There have been four lines or families of shoguns (•• tycoons"), the Minamoto (1192-1219), the Hojo (1219-1333), the Ashikaga (1333-1573), the Tokugawa (1603-1868); but there has been only one dynasty of mikados—an impe rial family having no names except the personal cognomen of each ruler. The line of mikados is the oldest dynasty in the world, the present sovereign, Mutsuhito, being the 133d of the line. The term mikado means great gate (similar to the terms sublime porte, pharaoh, etc.) or august place. In the 133 names on the list, none is repeated, though the same mikado has in several instances reigned twice. Nine of the line were females. Succession to the throne is not always to the eldest son, but to the nominee of the mikado among or nearest relatives, or of the imperial household. The cadet families and offspring of the mikado not eligible to the throne form the court nobility called the kuge. Among the most ancient families were the Taira, Minamoto, and Fujiwara, whose descendants are still numerous. The two former increased to mil itary clans, which, after two centuries of aspiring rivalry, finally came to blows in Kioto i in 1156. At first the Taira (or lief) family was in the ascendant, but in 1184 the Mina. mom (o• Gen), after repeated land battles, nearly annihilated the Taira in a great naval battle off Shimonoseki (see SHIMONOSEKI). Yoritomo, the head of the Minamoto, rebuilt Eamakura, a town near the modern Yokohama, in great splendor, and in 1192 received from the mikado the title of sei-i tai shogun—great rebel, subduing general. After the desinenee of the Minamoto family in 1219, the Hojo family held the military power, which had now become a usurpation, the mikado having the name but not the actuality of power. The feudal system, which had been growing into form under Yoritomo, received immense development under the Asliikagas (who succeeded the Hojo), since they made the military magistracies, first established by Yoritomo, hereditary in the families of their own nominees. Nobunaga overthrew the Ashikagas, and partially subdued the empire, Which had been long in a state of anarchy, in the name of the mikado. Nobu naga's work was taken up and finished by Ilid•*.oshi, who, after unifying all Japan,

which had been split, into feudal fractions, parceled out his fiefs to military chieftains, without regard to the sovereign, by titles granted in his own name. In 1580, having attained to the office of dai jo dai jin, he retired in 1591 in favor of his son, and hence was called the taik5 (great emeritus), or popularly, Taiko-sama. He sent an army of inva sion to Corea (see ConEA). which was withdrawn at his death in 1597. Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line, succeeded Hideyoshi after the decisive battle of Sekign hara, and followed out the precedent of Taiko-sama in bestowing lids in his own name. ,F.Ince he ruled the country with a firm hand, and all men saw in him "the man on horseback" that could keep in check by his iron hand the turbulent daimios, the mikado bestowed on him the title of sei-i tai shogun in 1603. seat of government at Yedo, this once obscure village became a colossal city within twogenera tions. Kioto touts the city of the mikado, the throne, and the imperial court. Yedo was the city of camps. Eioto was the source of all power; Yedd was the place of its exe cution. Fifteen Tokugawa shoguns ruled from 1603 to 1868. The first shogun ever styled " tycoon" in official documents was Iyesada (1853-58), under whom the treaty with the United States was made. The wondrous growth of events whose fruits have been the revolution of 1868, and the radical alteration of the foreign policy of the empire, lied its roots in the revival of the study of the ancient history, language, and religion, begin. ning over 160 years ago. The incoercible reverence of the people for the mikado, the long-slumbering hatred of the usurping Tokugawas among the subject daimios, the open. ing of the eyes of scholars to the fact that the Yedo military rulers were usurpers, and that they had further insulted the mikado by signing a treaty in which " the land of the gods" was opened to foreigners, and the hateful title of tycoon (anciently a title of the mikado) officially used by the servant of the sovereign, roused the nation to a pitch of wrath that finally broke out in the coup d'etat in Kioto, Jan. 3, 1868, and the battle of Fushimi, Jan. 27. By these two measures the office of shogun was abolished, the Toku gawas took their true places as vassals, and the ancient government, in vogue from the 8th to the 12th c., was restored, the mikado hieing sole ruler, aided by the dai jo kuan and the eight boards of government. The national capital was changed to Yedo, henceforward named Tokio, and officially and popularly so-called (except in unrevised cyclopmdias and foreign documents, in which precedent and not faet•is followed). Finding it impos sible to drive out the foreigners, as many of the patriots desired, the new government ratified the treaties, and thenceforward followed in quick succession those radical changes in the national policy which make Japan the Wonder of nations. The feudal system. after seven centuries' existence, was abolished in Aug., 1871. and the daimios made to reside as pensioners in Tokio. The mikado appeared in public as the active patron of the dock-yards, light-houses, hospitals, schools, colleges, railways, and telegraphs, which were rapidly established. An embassy headed by the u dai jin Iwakura and four cab inet ministers, with over fifty attaches, started on a tour around the world, accredited to the treaty powers, with the special object of getting the extra-territoriality clause removed from the treaties, and to study the methods and resources of modern civ ilization. The embassy was absent nearly two years, and cost Japan $750,000. In 1872 Japan gave the death-blow to the "coolie" trade by releasing the Macao China men from the Peruvian ship Maria Luz. Two legations and three consulates were established abroad. These diplomatic foreign establishments of Japan now number about twenty. The newspaper press was established, there being now over 200 printed in the empire. The national banking and postal system were founded on the American model; 200 national banks exist in Japan from the flu Kiu islands to Yezo. In 1877, 38,321,971 letters, postal cards, and newspapers were carried in the Japanese mails. Japan is now a member of the international postal union, and her stamps and cards are exchangeable iu all countries of that union. The post-offices for foreigners at her treaty ports are also under her charge. Postal savings-banks are numerous and well patronized. A mercantile marine training school and a marine board of examination and license of competent masters, engineers, and pilots is connected with the postal department, which owns a line fleet of steamers. The mercantile marine of Japan con sists of about 100 steamers and 5,000 junks. The national navy consists of 5 ironclads built in England, and 10 wooden vessels, with a number of dispatch boats, etc. The naval department is equipped in first-class style for theoretical and practical work, with colleges, schools, bureaus of hydroa-raphy,,dock-yards, stations, etc. The naval force, including marines, numbers 7.000 men. The army, on a peace footing consists of 31,680 men, and on a war footing, 50.250, of all arms of the service. The soldiery and peas antry, who since the middle ages had been separated, were amalgamated by the military law of Dec. 28, 1872, by which 6,000,000 males are enrolled as possible soldiers. The mili tary resources of the mikado's government have three times been put to the test by revolts in Kiushiu headed by men dissatisfied with the policy of the government. The great Satsuma rebellion led by Saigo Takainori, which began Feb. 1, 1877, was put down only after seven months of hard lighting; 39,760 rebel troops were engaged, of whom 3,533 were killed, and 4,344 wounded; the imperialists losing probably 10,000 in killed anti wounded, out of a force engaged of over 50,000. This civil war greatly added to the national debt, which now amounts to $349,826,662, a large part of which accrued by the assumption of the daindo's debts, and by the cashing of the hereditary pensions of the samurai or gentry. In almost ail the features of modern national life and civiliza tion, Japan is, in outward form at least, rapidly coining abreast with most of the Chris tian nations. The presence, operation, and wonderful success of Christianity in its three forms, Greek. Roman, and Protestant, in Japan. together with the moral reforms instigated and carried out by the governmeat and individuals, bid fair to infuse within the ribs of outer appearance the real life and soul of genuine Christian civilization. For further details, and the exposition of ideas, facts, and principles as embodied in the lives of men and the history of places, see the various titles in this work which refer to Japanese subjects. Besides the standard works on Japan written before the recent opening of the country-to foreign life, see Japan, by Walter Dickson: History of Japan, by F. O. Adams; The ITikado'i Empire, by W. E. Griffis; Progressive Japan, by gen. Legendre. On Japanese art, see Jarves's A Glimpse at the Art of Japan; Art and Art Industries of Japan, by sir It. Alcock; A Grammar of Japanese Ornaments. The best works on the language are: R. Brown's Colloquial Japanese; Astor's Grain lima of the lVi-itten Language; Satou's Knalloa Hen; 13rincl:ley's Self-Instruction for Japanese; Hoffman's Japanese Grammar. C. Hepburn, LL.D.. Japanese English and English-Japanese, and pocket edition of same; _English Japanese Dictionary— by Ernest Satou and M. Ishibashi.