CHAPTER XXIX

THE BUDDHISM OF THE TOKUGAWA PERIOD

AFTER Ieyasu's victory at Sekigahara (October 21, 1600) over Ishida Kazushige and the daimyos who supported the claims of the family of Hideyoshi, Japan became, for the first time for many centuries, practically united under one head, and was at last in a position to feel herself a national unit. It is true that the Imperial House still continued, as before, to sit on the throne in Kyoto; but its position was a shadowy one, and the new Dictator made provision for its remaining such; for, in readjusting the finances of the country, an annual income of 150,000 koku of rice was deemed sufficient to meet all the expenses of the Imperial establishments, and even that modest sum came, not from any special appropriation, but out of the liberal income of four million koku, which the Shogunate appropriated to itself. The Imperial House thus became the pensioner of the Tokugawas, and it is a matter for wonder and admiration how, under most adverse circumstances, the Court at Kyoto contrived to retain for itself even the modicum of power and influence that remained in its hands. Those who believe in a Divine Providence which shapes the destinies of nations, will readily see in

it a gracious Design watching over the line of the lawful Sovereigns until the right moment should arrive for the Imperial House to resume its rightful place as the active head of the nation.

The Pax Tokugawica, which Ieyasu inaugurated, rested on very solid foundations, for it was supported by all the best elements of the Japanese social system.

It rested, of course, mainly on the power of the sword. The Hojo Regents had demonstrated the potential importance of a comparatively small principality carefully administered on strictly military lines. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu trod in the footsteps of the Kamakura Regents, and, during the early days of the Shogunate, the samurai of the Tokugawa clans maintained the superiority of their military traditions. "After a victory," said Ieyasu on the bloody day of Sekigahara, "tighten the strings of your helmet;" and the maxim was acted upon by his descendants. The new capital at Yedo was the symbol of the new power, which could here expand itself, without a rival, as freely as the Hojo had done at Kamakura. It was the rallying-point for the Tokugawa clansmen and partisans, who were constantly brought together, and taught to appreciate the strength that lay in their unity of obedience and discipline: it was the ruin of the distant daimyos from Kyushu and the South, whose attendance was required for half the year at the Court of the new Dictator. It reduced the Imperial Power to a shadow and a sentiment, for there was no use in raising the standard of loyalist revolt, or in occupying the city of Kyoto, so long as the military forces of the country were centred in and directed from the recently strengthened Castle of Yedo.