# Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature/Volume 2/Chapter 4

Chapter IV
WEAPONS AND OPERATIONS OF WAR
DURING THE MILITARY EPOCH
THE bow was always the chief weapon of the fighting man in Japan. "War" and "bow and arrow" (yumi-ya) are synonyms. Men spoke of Hachiman, the God of Battles, as Yumi-ya no Hachiman; the left hand received the name of yunde (yumi-no-te, or bow-hand), by which it is still commonly designated, and the general term for "soldier" was "bow-holder."
It is possible that a strain of romance runs through the traditions relating to the use of this weapon by the Japanese of old; but that fine skill was acquired, there can be no question. The first archer of national renown was Yoshiiye, whose fifth descendant, Yoritomo, founded the system of military feudalism and made Kamakura the administrative capital of the Empire. Yoshiiye's strategical abilities, displayed in a campaign against the autochthons of the north, won for him the title of Hachiman Taro (eldest son of the God of War). Such virtue resided in his bow, according to the belief of the men of his day, that ​the Emperor Shirakawa (1073-1086), by laying it beside his pillow, obtained respite from tormenting dreams. The Minamoto clan, of which Yoshiiye was the first great representative, gave Japan her most skilled archers. Tametomo, uncle of the founder of Kamakura, drew a bow so strong that in the Hogen conflict (1156), when two brothers advanced to attack him, he shot an arrow which passed through the body of the elder and afterward wounded the younger severely. Concerning the skill of this renowned archer a story has been handed down which may be called the parallel of the William Tell legend. Fighting under his father's banner, and finding himself opposed to his elder brother, Yoshitomo, he announced his intention of shooting a shaft which, without injuring Yoshitomo, would recall him to his father's cause. A comrade urged him to desist, lest he should err in his aim and wound his brother, but he ridiculed such an accident as impossible. Yoshitomo was standing near the gate of a beleaguered stronghold. The arrow pierced the crest of his helmet and buried itself in the portal of the gate. Tametomo being afterwards taken prisoner, his captors, thinking to end his exploits with the bow, extracted one of the sinews of his right arm and exiled him to the island O-Shima. But the cruel act, though it impaired his strength, enabled him ultimately to shoot a longer arrow, and it is related that in his last fight he sunk a boat with a single shaft. ​In estimating the credibility of this feat, it must be remembered that the bow of Japan was from six to eight feet long, and that the arrow measured from eleven to seventeen "fists," that is to say, from three to four feet. Some of the bows must have been very powerful. Their strength was measured by the number of ordinary men required to string them, as a "one-man-power bow," a "three-man-power bow," and even a "ten-man-power bow." Originally the weapon was of unvarnished box-wood or selkowa, but subsequently bamboo alone came to be employed, being covered with lacquer as a preservative. Binding with cord or rattan served to strengthen the bow, and for precision of flight the arrow had three feathers, an eagle's wing—the "true bird's pinion" (matori-ba)—being most esteemed for that purpose, and after it in order the wing of the copper pheasant, of the crane, of the adjutant, or of the snipe. The feathers were sometimes dyed, and skilled archers carved their names on a shaft to enlighten their foes. The iron arrow-head took various shapes: simply pointed for penetration; or barbed; or razor-forked, for striking the foe in the neck and cutting off his head, a feat said to have been actually accomplished.
These details make it easier to credit the recorded achievements of the Japanese bowman. When the first iron shield was brought from Korea in the reign of the Emperor Nintoku ​(313—399), a Japanese warrior, Tatebito, pierced it with an arrow. The Koreans did homage to him, and the Emperor conferred on him the name Ikuba (target). Passing from strength of bow to skill in archery, the Japanese preserve in perpetual recollection a challenge given by the Taira to the Minamoto in the last battle of the Red and White Flags. The Taira men placed a beautiful lady standing in the bow of one of their boats and suspended a sacred fan over her head, challenging the Minamoto to shoot at it. Nasu no Munetaka, forcing his horse girth-deep into the water, sent a shaft that struck the stem of the wind-swayed fan and cut it free. It is told also of Asamura, a bowman in the troops of Yoritsune (1239), that a pet bird having escaped from a cage, he shot a small arrow which winged it without inflicting any serious injury. Exploits of that kind were counted special tests of skill. In the days of the Emperor Toba (1108-1123) an osprey visited the Palace-lake daily and carried off a fish. The Emperor asked whether none of his archers could stay the bird's depredations without violating, within the Imperial precincts, the Buddhist law against taking life. Mutsuru, using an arrow with a forked head, cut off the osprey's feet as it was rising from the lake with a fish in its talons. The fish dropped into the water and the bird continued its flight. An incident of the same nature particularly characteristic of the era, occurred when Nitta ​Yoshisada's forces confronted the army of Ashikaga Takauji at Hyōgo, just before the fight that shattered the Imperialists. Shigeuji, one of Yoshisada's captains, shot an osprey through the wing as it soared with a fish in its claws, so that the bird fell alive into the Ashikaga camp. A cry of applause rose from both armies, and Takauji shouted an inquiry as to the archer's name. "I send it to you," replied Shigeuji, stringing an arrow on which his name was inscribed and discharging it at one of the enemy's watch-towers, three hundred and sixty paces distant. The shaft pierced the tower and wounded a soldier within.
As a final illustration of the power of the Japanese bow, a feat may be mentioned which had much vogue from the twelfth century until recent times. In Kyōtō there is a temple called the "hall of the thirty-three-pillar spans" (san-jusan-gen-do). On its west front is a veranda one hundred and twenty-eight yards long and sixteen feet high. Evidently to shoot an arrow the whole length of this corridor where so little elevation can be given to the shaft, requires a bow of great strength, to say nothing of truth of flight. In 1686 Wada Daihachi succeeded in sending 8,133 arrows from end to end of the corridor between sunset and sunset, an average of about five shafts per minute during twenty-four consecutive hours. The feat sounds incredible, but it was nearly equalled at a later date by Tsuruta Masatoki, an archer in the train of the feudal ​chief of Sakai. The scene of Masatoki's exploit was the Sanjusan-gen-do in Yedo, for in the Fukugawa suburb of the latter city a hall had been erected on exactly the same lines as those of the Kyōtō building, its sole purpose being archery. It was the custom to commence these trials of skill and endurance at sunset, and to continue the shooting all through the night by torchlight until an appointed hour on the following day. Masatoki fired the first shaft at seven p. m. on the 19th of May, 1852, and the last at three p. m. on the 20th. During that interval of twenty hours he discharged 10,050 arrows, and 5,383 flew true down the one hundred and twenty- eight yards of corridor. He discharged nine shafts per minute, approximately, and more than half of them were successful. Possibly it is not inaccurate to conclude that the Japanese of the Military epoch, if not the greatest archers in the world, were certainly second to none.
In three essential respects their method of shooting differed from that of Occidental bowmen. Instead of raising the point of the arrow in sighting, they lowered it, and instead of hooking the three first fingers round the string, they held it between the bent thumb and the index finger, a grasp which greatly facilitated smoothness of release. Finally, they discharged the arrow from the right side of the bow. The bow-arm remained slightly bent, even at the moment of release, so that no guard for the fore-arm ​was required, but the right gauntlet had slight padding to save the string-finger. The quiver, slung on the back, held from sixteen to thirty-six arrows, and the shafts were drawn from it over the left shoulder.
To complete this sketch it should be added that the bowman's art, as practised by the bushi (warrior), was of two general kinds, equestrian archery and foot archery, and of each there were three varieties. In equestrian archery the varieties were, shooting at three diamond-shaped targets set up at equal intervals in a row; shooting at a rush-woven hat placed on a post; and shooting with padded arrows at a dog. The costumes worn at each of these three exercises differed slightly, but the difference counted for much in a society austerely obedient to etiquette. It was necessary that the shafts should be discharged while the horse was in swift motion, but no inference of great skill may be drawn from that fact, for the Japanese pony was invariably trained to trot "disunited" without "breaking," and the motion being thus free from jolting, a rider experienced little difficulty in standing steadily in the capacious shoe-shaped stirrups while drawing his bow. Altogether this shooting at a fixed target, whether diamond-shaped or in the form of a hat, was reduced to a mechanical performance, the range being very short, the course invariable, the size of the enclosure uniform, and the horse perfectly trained,—a kind of social ​pageant, indeed, rather than a genuine military exercise. When dogs became the targets, skill of a more genuine type was required. This kind of archery had its origin in the hunting of wild cattle on the moors, but ultimately dogs were substituted, a hundred or fifty being let loose in an arena of fixed dimensions, where they were pursued by thirty-six archers on horseback. Here again the dominant idea was sport and spectacular effect. For really earnest archery it is necessary to turn to the unmounted bowman, but his method of practice need not be described further than to say that his favourite targets were a suspended ball, a stag made of grass, or strips of paper hanging from a stick.
In very ancient times the bow was supplemented by the sling, and in the ninth century a catapult came into use. But these implements never had wide vogue. A fire arrow was occasionally employed. Japanese soldiers used it in their Korean campaign in the sixth century, and after the introduction of fire-arms it was discharged from a barrel by means of gunpowder.
Sometimes, but very rarely, stone-throwing occupied the soldier's attention. Kiheiji, nicknamed Hatchō Tsubute (the eight-hundred-yard thrower), a follower of the great archer Tametomo, became famous for skill of that kind, but it is noteworthy that the Japanese were never infected by the passion of their neighbours, the Koreans, for stone-throwing as a mode of fighting.
​The sword has come to be regarded as essentially the weapon of the bushi, but in the early centuries it does not seem to have occupied as important a place for fighting purposes as the bow. The sacred sword which formed one of the three regalia of Japan, was a straight, two-edged weapon (tsurugi), but the distinctive Japanese sword, the well-known katana, is a single-edged blade, remarkable for its three exactly similar curves—edge, face-line, and back—its almost imperceptibly convexed cutting edge, its fine tempering, its incomparable sharpening, its beautiful and highly skilled forging, and its cunning distribution of weight, giving a maximum effect of stroke. If the Japanese had never produced anything but this sword, they would still deserve to be credited with a remarkable faculty for detecting the subtle causes of practical effects, and translating them with delicate accuracy into obdurate material. The tenth century saw this unequalled weapon carried to completion, and some have inferred that only from that era did the bushi begin to esteem his sword the greatest treasure he possessed, and to rely on it as his best instrument of attack and defence. But it is evident that the evolution of such a blade must have been due to an urgent and long-existing demand. The katana came in the sequel of innumerable efforts on the part of the sword-smith and generous encouragement on that of the soldier. Many pages of Japanese ​annals and household traditions are associated with its use. When in the West fencing is spoken of, men understand that they are referring to an art the principles of which have been reduced almost to an exact science. It has been proved possible to compile written accounts containing not only an intelligible but also an exhaustive account of all the methods and positions recognised by European masters of the rapier,—the attack, the parade, the opposition, the tierce, the prime, the quarte, and so on. But it was never admitted in Japan that the possibilities of katana fencing had been exhausted. In every age numbers of men devoted their whole lives to acquiring novel skill in swordmanship. Many of them invented systems of their own, which received special names and differed from one another in some subtle details unknown to any save the master himself and his favourite pupils. Not merely the method of handling the weapon had to be studied. Associated with sword-play was an art variously known as shinobi, yawara, and jiujutsu, names which imply the exertion of muscular force in such a manner as to produce a maximum effect with a minimum of apparent or real effort by directing an adversary's strength so as to render it auxiliary to one's own. The mere fact that gymnastics should be made an adjunct of fencing shows how greatly the methods of swordmanship in Japan differed from those in Europe. Whether in ​rapier practice or in broadsword play, as these things are understood in the Occident, it is difficult to conceive a fencer resorting to devices learned by studying the flight of a swallow, or the somersaults of a cat, or the leaping of a monkey. Upon such models, however, the Japanese expert often fashioned his style, and it was an essential element of his art not only that he should be competent to defend himself with any object that happened to be within reach, but also that without an orthodox weapon he should be capable of inflicting fatal injury on an assailant, or, at any rate, of disabling him. In the many records of great swordsmen that Japanese annals contain, instances are related of men seizing a piece of firewood, a brazier-iron, or a druggist's pestle as a weapon of offence, while, on the other side, an umbrella, an iron fan, or even a pot-lid served for protection. The iron fan, especially, was a favourite weapon with renowned experts. It owed its origin to a cruel trick by which two or three brave soldiers had been victimised. A bushi visiting a man whose enmity he did not suspect, and kneeling beyond the threshold of the apartment to make his bow, found his head caught in a vice, the sliding doors having been thrust suddenly against his neck from either side. By way of protection against treachery of that kind, an iron fan was clasped in the two hands upon which the visitor bowed his head, so that the ends of the fan pro​jected a little beyond the forehead on either side. There are several instances of victories won with a "war-fan" against a naked sword, and many examples of men killed by a blow from it. The bushi had to be prepared for every emergency. Were he caught weapon-less by a number of assailants, his art of yawara was supposed to supply him with expedients for emerging unscathed. Nothing counted but the issue. The methods of gaining victory or the circumstances attending defeat were scarcely taken into consideration. The true bushi had to rise superior to all contingencies. Out of this perpetual effort on the part of hundreds of experts to discover and perfect novel developments of swordsmanship, there grew a habit which held its vogue down to modern times; namely, that when a man had mastered one style of sword-play in the school of a teacher, he set himself to study all others, and for that purpose undertook a tour through- out the provinces, fencing whenever he found an expert, and in the event of defeat, constituting himself the victor's pupil. For the true bushi was expected to accept defeat as simply an evidence of his own inferiority, not at all as an event to be resented or avenged. Of course this rule of self-restraint did not obtain universal observance. Occasionally there were men who resorted to any villany in order to compass the destruction of a vanquisher. It is true that defeat often meant ruin. A fencing-master with ​a well-attended school and a substantial income from the lord of a fief, might find himself discredited for carrying on the former and deprived of the latter, in the sequel of an encounter with some itinerant expert. But that was not considered any excuse for showing resentment towards his conqueror.
On the other hand, the law did not give itself any concern to punish lapses from the code of true manliness. Again and again crimes were perpetrated which in the West would be designated wilful and brutal murder. Yet the family or relatives of the victim seldom or never thought of invoking public justice upon the perpetrator. His punishment was undertaken by the nearest of kin to the murdered man. He became the object of a vendetta, and a wonderful measure of untiring patience and fierce resolve was often shown in hunting him down. The records teem with instances of men who spent long years tracking the assassin of a father or a brother from fief to fief and province to province, and wreaking vengeance on him eventually, sometimes by means as surreptitious as those he had himself employed to perpetrate his crime, but generally in fair combat. The principle of the vendetta had been inculcated by the teaching of Confucius. That philosopher laid down a rule that no man should live under the same sky with the slayer of his father. Apter disciples of such a creed could scarcely have been found than the Japanese. Even ​women undertook the duty of vengeance if there were no men in their family to discharge it. It was a duty that had the sanction of custom ranking as law. A bushi need only solicit the permission of his feudal chief to constitute himself an avenger of blood. He could count almost certainly on obtaining sanction, and thenceforth the consummation of his purpose was secure against official interruption or punishment. It frequently happened that having discovered his foe, he made application to the chief of the fief where the latter served to authorise a public duel, and in such a case lists were duly chosen, soldiers appointed to guard them, and all precautions adopted to secure fair play. The life of a nation governed by such customs could not fail to abound with strange and vivid episodes.
Japanese fencing, numerous as are the styles professed and practised by different schools, is altogether of the broad-sword type. As a rule, not invariable, however, the sword is grasped with both hands, the point upward and the hilt about three-quarters of an arm's-length from the body. The cuts are almost entirely downward or horizontal, the only upward cut employed being directed at the lower part of the adversary's fore-arm, and the only point a rapid lunge at the throat. Two swords are often used. Sometimes they are crossed, and in that position they occasionally pin an opponent's blade, creating a situation of great danger for him at the moment of ​release. Sometimes the left hand holds one sword in the position of the hanging guard, and the right manipulates the other on the offensive. The effect of a stroke does not depend altogether upon the momentum imparted to it, but owes much of its efficacy to a swift drawing motion given to the blade as it begins to bite.
There has naturally been much discussion as to the relative value of the Japanese and the European styles of fencing, but one thing is quite clear, namely, that a Japanese swordsman could not protect himself successfully against a skilfully wielded rapier. On the other hand, it would be very difficult to check the onset of a Japanese swordsman by means of a rapier. He would probably accomplish his cut, in spite of his adversary's parry or point. Sixteen varieties of cut are delivered with the Japanese sword, and each has its own name, as the "four-sides cut," the "clearer," the "wheel stroke," the "peak blow," the "torso severer," the "pear splitter," the "thunder stroke," the "scarf sweep," and so on; appellations rather fanciful than descriptive, but, of course, conveying an exact meaning to Japanese ears.
The sword has exercised a potent influence on the life of the Japanese nation. The distinction of wearing it, the rights that it conferred, the deeds wrought with it, the fame attaching to special skill in its use, the superstitions connected with it, the incredible value set upon a fine blade, ​the honours bestowed on an expert sword-smith, the household traditions that have grown up about celebrated weapons, the profound study needed to be a competent judge of a sword's qualities,—all these things conspired to give to the katana an importance beyond the limits of ordinary conception. Sword-smiths whose names have been handed down from generation to generation since the seventh century, when the art of forging became a great accomplishment, number thousands, and such was the credit attaching to skill that even an Emperor—Go-toba (1186 a. d.)—thought sword-making an occupation worthy of a sovereign. Already in the days of the Emperor Ichijo (987-1011), three thousand blades were recognised as fine, thirty of them as excellent, and four as superlative. Not until the time of the Taikō (sixteenth century), however, did any one acquire universal repute as an infallible judge, competent to identify the work of any of the great masters by examination of the blade alone, without looking at the name chiselled on the tang. Reliance could not, indeed, be placed on the name, since for every genuine blade by a great master, there existed scores of imitations, perfect in every detail that an ordinary eye could detect, including the simulated maker's name and mark. What was involved in identifying a blade may be inferred from that fact, and becomes still more apparent when it is noted that authoritative lists ​compiled in the seventeenth century to show the forgers classed as experts, contained 3,269 names. To distinguish between the products of such a multitude of masters must have required natural gifts of a high order, and though throughout the Military epoch,—that is to say, from the twelfth century to the end of the sixteenth,—the sword and everything pertaining to it were held in signal honour, the first expert whose judgment men accepted as infallible was Honami Kōsetsu, who flourished in the time of the Taikō. Scores had toiled along the same path before his day, but he first reached the goal, and his family's claim to have inherited his skill and the arcana of his science being conceded, the house of Honami with its twelve branches became from that time Japan's classical judges of sword-blades. Inasmuch as his sword ranked far above all his possessions in a samurai's esteem, there was a constant demand for keen eyes to sift the fine from the false. But even more important than the connoisseur was the sharpener. In other countries the wielder of a sword has always been expected to sharpen it himself. In Japan the sharpener was a special expert. In this art also the Honami family and its branches excelled.
The three processes of producing a blade were almost equally important,—the forging, the tempering, and the sharpening. The forging was of course the most arduous. Various ceremonies attended it. The smith had to be a man of pure ​life and high morality. He approached his task with veneration, offering prayer to the gods, and using charms to exclude evil influences. Sometimes he employed steel only; sometimes steel and iron in combination. In either case the forging followed the same process. The object was to obtain a fabric consisting of an infinite number of the finest threads of metal woven into a perfectly homogeneous tissue. To that end the smith began by welding together several strips of steel so as to form a rectangular ingot, some six inches long, two inches wide, and half an inch thick. This he heated, and having cut it partially across the middle, he folded it back upon itself, and then forged it out to its original size. Having repeated this process from twelve to eighteen times, he welded several of such ingots together, and then subjected the compound mass, half a dozen times, to the same treatment that each of the component parts had received, until finally there resulted a bar composed of some millions of laminæ of steel, which was now beaten out into the shape of the intended blade. If an iron backing was required, the forger added it, either by enveloping the steel between two flanges of iron, or the iron between two flanges of steel. In this intricate process the hammer of the forger obeyed the idiosyncrasies of his style, and these were transmitted to the metal, leaving indications which to the eye of the skilled connoisseur conveyed intelligence such as one ​derives in every-day life from the calligraphy of a manuscript or the brush-lines of a picture. Sometimes the forger's fashion showed itself in a manner perceptible to any observer, the fibre of the steel when it emerged from his hands, being dis- posed in a pattern like the grain of wood. In the very finest class no iron was introduced, but three varieties of steel were combined in such a manner that they occupied in the blade the exact positions where their several qualities were most useful. After the forging followed the tempering, an art in itself; sometimes practised by nobles and princes, and once by an Emperor (Go-toba). A clayey composition—for which each master had a special recipe—was applied to the whole blade except the edge, which was then heated by passing it several times through a bright charcoal fire. A certain temperature, estimated by the master's eye, having been developed, the blade—its edge alone still exposed—was plunged into water, of which also the temperature had to be exactly regulated. The polishing and sharpening were the final operations. The object here was not merely to produce a cutting edge. What had to be done was to polish the blade in two principal planes—the edge-plane and the body-plane—inclined at an angle to each other, and in a minor plane—that of the point—inclined at a different angle to the other two. That does not, perhaps, seem very complicated. But a ​closer scrutiny must be made. The back of a Japanese sword is slightly curved, and the edge is not equidistant from it throughout, approaching it more closely at the point than at the hilt. Now it is essential that the edge be ground so that its rate of approach to the back shall be absolutely uniform from hilt to point-plane, and, further, that the line of intersection of the edge- plane and the back-plane shall be equidistant throughout from the back and the edge. Finally, the edge-plane has to be slightly convex so that the edge may receive the fullest support from the metal above it. Considering these operations, there is no difficulty in understanding that the polishing and sharpening of a sword required weeks of labour, and that only a few experts in each generation attained perfection. By these, as well as by famous sword-smiths, high rank and large emoluments were obtainable, though it is not on record that noted forgers of sword-blades ever amassed riches. They invariably showed the trait common to all Japanese artists, contempt for money. Certain of the blades they forged were counted priceless. A masterpiece by Masamune or some other of the seventeen Meijin (celebrities) had a value above all estimate. But the blades of lesser craftsmen might be procured for sums varying from eighty-five gold dollars to four or five thousand. The men that could accurately identify these gems had almost as much ​honour as their makers, and often the name of a sword-smith who had not marked his work, was fixed by a connoisseur of a later generation and inlaid in gold upon the tang.
Of course the Japanese sword had its own vocabulary. An expert speaking of its qualities, of the shape of its line of tempering, of the complexion of the metal, or the dappling of the surface, and of numerous other points perceptible to trained eyes only, used language which conveyed no meaning to the uninitiated. It was so with everything Japanese. Arts and crafts, customs and cults, placed under the microscope of centuries of loving observation, developed features sometimes full of subtle charm, sometimes almost ludicrously disproportionate to the esteem in which they were held, and the plastic language of the country made it possible to construct for all these features a terminology copious and precise to a degree almost beyond the conception of the Anglo-Saxon, the facts of whose daily doings and experiences so enormously outnumber their lexicographical representatives. Thus there are no less than twenty-two expressions—possibly more—for the different curves, sinuosities and scallopings shown by the line of tempering, though, as has been shown above, the form given to this line is purely a matter of the temperer's caprice and has nothing to do with the quality of the blade.
The sword had its superstitions. It was in​vested with subjective qualities. As Excalibur, flashing over the mere, summoned from its depths a mystic arm, so the sword of Japan was supposed to be capable of bringing to its owner one of eight things, good fortune, revenue, wealth, virtue, longevity, reputation, sickness, and poverty. A classic of the seventeenth century denounces such theories as irrational, and substitutes for them a creed equally superstitious and more illogical. "A sword," it says, "has no responsibility. The fortunes of the owner are of his own carving. The fortunate sword will sooner or later pass out of the possession of an evil owner. Otherwise a famous blade would indeed be valueless. For if it were possible for a knave to procure wealth, dignity or renown by possessing a fine sword, the noble weapon would become the mere tool of a malefactor." Thus some form of faith in the sword's occult potency survived all the attacks of reason. Great families treasured an ancestral blade as a talisman, and even furnished a vicarious demonstration of its potency by abandoning themselves on its loss to a mood of helplessness. There consequently flourished a class of experts professing the art of kenso, or ensiognomy (if it be permissible to coin a word). Concerning this art, the classic quoted above says: "The countenance of a blade cannot be read unless its other qualities have been determined in the main, and just as the expert should ​not limit his examination to merely identifying the name of the maker, so the connoisseur of the countenance should not be content to consider the lucky or unlucky attributes only. The two estimates should go hand in hand. A sword being the product of the five elements, wood, fire, metal, and water, a fortunate blade cannot be forged at will, whatever guerdon be given to the sword-smith. There are good and bad men as also there are good and bad swords. If a master be virtuous, his servant will tread the path of right. If a captain be craven and incompetent, a brave soldier cannot serve under him. It is impossible for an evil-hearted man to retain possession of a famous sword." The quality of the blade reflects the character of the owner. In the age when this dictum was penned, and in previous centuries, few would have been found to dispute it, except on the ground that it underrated the sword's esoteric influences. Many men declined to use a blade decorated with Buddhist symbols; as Namu Amida Butsu (hear, oh! Amida Buddha), Hachiman Dai-Bosatsu (great Bodhisatva, God of War), various Sanscrit texts, the lotus flower, and so on. By association with a creed that forbade the taking of life, these symbols seemed unfitted to figure on a blade. On the other hand, it was contended that the sword being an instrument for preserving peace as well as for killing a foe, its connection with the ​religion of tranquillity was not incongruous. Either belief illustrates the mood of the soldier towards his sword. A famous blade served as a second conscience to its owner; he sought to live up to the attributes it was supposed to possess; and when a sovereign or a feudal chief bestowed on a subject or a vassal a sword that bore the name of a great maker and had been cherished through generations in the house of the donor, the gift carried with it a sacred trust and an inspiration that nerved the recipient to noble deeds. Such esoterics could not survive in the cold atmosphere of nineteenth-century criticism, but it may well be doubted whether their influence upon the Japanese did not make for good.
One interesting problem with regard to the Japanese sword seems unlikely to be definitely settled, namely, its origin. An authority whose dictum ought to carry great weight dismisses the question curtly by saying that "the swords of Japan are the highly perfected working out of a general Indo-Persian type," and Japanese historians assert that the one-edged sword, the katana, for which their country is famous, was forged for the first time in the seventh century by dividing the old two-edged Chinese sword, the ken (or tsurugi). Concerning the former view, it must be confessed that the alleged resemblance between a Japanese sword and all recognised types of the Persian cimeter defies ordinary ​observation. Concerning the latter, though it may well be that the straight two-edged sword of ancient Japan was derived from China or Korea, the theory that the single-edged blade was obtained by splitting the double-edged cannot be reconciled with archaeological evidence. Certain facts pertinent to this matter are tolerably well assured. The oldest swords of Japan, the bronze blades found in primeval burial mounds, bear no resemblance whatever to the straight two-edged ken, but are essentially of the classical Grecian type, a close approximation to the well-known leaf shape with central ridge. In the dolmens, on the other hand,—that is to say, in the sepulchres of the Japanese during the iron age which succeeded the bronze era—none of these leaf-shaped bronze blades is found: only single-edged straight swords occur which differ from the orthodox katana solely in being altogether without curvature, and in sometimes having a ring cast on the end of the handle. There is strong reason to think that the two-edged ken came to Japan in the train of Buddhism, and if so, the sequence of facts is this: first, bronze leaf-shaped double-edged blades, which remained in use up to the third or fourth century before Christ; then a single-edged iron blade, almost identical with the modern katana, except that it was without curve, which continued to be the soldier's weapon up to the sixth century; then a double-edged sword, imported simultaneously with ​Buddhism and invariably adopted as the Buddhist type, but never universally used throughout Japan; and finally, in the seventh century, an improved form of the iron single-edged blade which had preceded the Buddhist ken. According to this analysis, strictly consistent with the best evidence available, the katana came to Japan with the dolmen-builders, of whom we have already spoken in a previous chapter, and is therefore to be regarded as essentially the sword of the progenitors of a section of the present Japanese race.
A Japanese soldier carried at least two swords, a long and a short, or, in his own language, "a great and a small" (dai-shō). Their scabbards of lacquered wood were thrust into his girdle—not slung from it—and fastened in their place by cords of plaited silk. Sometimes he increased the number of weapons to three, four, or even five before going into battle, and the array was supplemented by a dagger concealed in the bosom. Only men of the military class had the right to wear two swords. A farmer or an artisan, when starting on a journey, or with special permission, might carry a short sword (waki-zashi), but any abuse of that exception involved severe punishment. This custom of wearing two swords is peculiar to Japan. The short sword was not employed in actual combat. Its use was to cut off an enemy's head after overthrowing him, and it also served the defeated ​soldier in his last resort, suicide. In general the long sword did not measure more than three feet, including the hilt, but some were five feet long and some even seven, these huge weapons being specially affected by swashbucklers and vagabond soldiers. Considering that the scabbard, being fastened to the girdle, had no play, the feat of drawing a nagatachi, as the very long sword was called, demanded special aptitude; yet there were men who achieved it in a sitting posture. A Chinese historian, referring to the Japanese invasion of Korea at the close of the sixteenth century, says of the samurai in action that "he brandished a five-foot blade with such rapidity that nothing could be seen except a white sheen of steel, the soldier himself being altogether invisible." The unsheathing of the sword was always counted an act of extreme gravity. It signified deadly intention, and when once the blade had been exposed, to return it unused to the scabbard insulted the weapon and convicted its wearer of unsoldierlike precipitancy. Etiquette required that the long sword should be removed from the girdle before entering the apartment of a superior or a friend, but the waki-zashi remained in its place.
The samurai of old Japan cannot be dissociated from his sword. He himself called it his soul. Therefore it has been spoken of here at some length. But the average foreigner takes little interest in the story of the blade or the traditions ​and superstitions connected with it. For him the attractive part is the furniture of the weapon; the chiselling of the guard as well as of the adjuncts of the hilt, and the remarkable skill with which various metals are combined for the decoration of these objects. There has been no finer work of its kind in the world. The attention it attracts in Europe and America is still very inadequate. A happy description calls the furniture of the sword the jewelry of the samurai. He did not deck himself with rings, or studs, or chains, or gemmed buckles, or any of the gewgaws affected in other countries. But upon the mountings of his sword, and, in a lesser degree, upon the ornamentation of his armour, he lavished loving care. From the fourteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth, a great number of artists devoted themselves wholly to work of that kind, and it is a matter of lasting regret that their excellent skill was not employed to produce objects capable of appealing to a wider range of taste. This subject will be discussed in another place, but it may be noted here that if the shadow of the sword falls darkly over the life of mediæval Japan, much must be forgiven it for the sake of its strongly incentive influence upon the applied art of the nation. When the motive forces of Japanese artistic progress are catalogued, the majority are found to emanate from Buddhism, but militarism stands second on the list, and by no means a remote second. Each feudal principality was a ​competing centre of art influence, and the sword of every samurai advertised the standard that had been reached by the glyptic experts in his chief's dominions.
Spear and halberd were among the weapons of the ancient Japanese as well as sword and bow. The oldest form of spear (hoko) was derived from China. Its handle measured about six feet and its blade eight inches, the latter being sometimes leaf-shaped, sometimes wave-edged like a Malay kris. At the point of junction of blade and hilt a sickle-shaped horn projected on one side or on both, showing that the prime object of the weapon was to thrust back an enemy. In fact the hoko served almost exclusively for guarding palisades and gates. In the fourteenth century a true lance (yari) came into use. Its length varied greatly and it had a hog-backed blade, about five inches long, tempered so finely as almost to rival the sword in quality. This too was a Chinese type, and, like the hoko, its first employment did not extend beyond operations of defence, but in the latter part of the Military epoch it acquired greater importance. The halberd also came from China. The term "halberd" is a defective translation, for the Japanese nagi-nata (literally, long sword) was not a pole terminating in a battle-axe and spear-head as the English name implies. It was a cimeter-like blade, some three feet in length, fixed on a slightly longer haft. Originally the warlike monks alone em​ployed this weapon, hut from the twelfth century, when the Minamoto and the Taira clans began their long struggle, the nagi-nata found much favour among military men, its combined powers of cutting and thrusting being fully recognised. History has established the truth that the effective use of the point in sword-play is an evidence of advanced skill and superior civilisation. The Japanese bore witness to the fact by their fondness for the nagi-nata. Yet it never competed seriously with the single-edged katana, and it ultimately became the weapon of women and priests only. That, however, was not an unimportant role, for the priesthood wielded at one time great military power, and the wife or daughter of a samurai was always expected to prove her courage and martial capacity at any crisis in the career of her husband or father. In her hands the nagi-nata often accomplished signal deeds, and even in the present day there are few more graceful or interesting spectacles to be seen in Japan than the manipulation of this formidable weapon by a highly trained female fencer.
Not much need be said about the bushi's armour. Speaking broadly, it may be described as plate armour, but the essential difference between it and the Norman type was that whereas the latter took its shape from the costume of the period, the former bore no resemblance, and never was designated to bear any resemblance, to ordinary garments. Hence the only changes that ​occurred in Japanese armour from generation to generation had their origin in improved methods of construction. In general appearance it differed from the panoply of all other nations. To its essential parts we may with propriety apply the European terms helmet, corselet, taches, epaulières, brassarts, cuissarts, and greaves. But individually and in combination these parts were not at all like the originals of the Occidental terms. Perhaps the easiest way to describe the difference is to say that whereas a Norman Knight seemed to be clad in a suit of metal clothes, a Japanese bushi looked as if he wore protective curtains. The Japanese armour was, in fact, suspended from the person rather than fitted to it. It had only one element counter-parted in the European suit, namely, a tabard, which, in the case of men of rank, was made of the richest brocade. Iron or leather were the chief materials, and as the laminæ were strung together with a vast number of coloured cords—silk or leather—an appearance of considerable brilliancy was produced. Ornamentation did not stop there. Plating and inlaying with gold and silver were freely resorted to, and exquisitely finished decoration in chiselled, inlaid, and repoussé work was profusely applied to the helmet and its appendages, the corselet, the epaulières, and the brassarts. On the whole, however, despite the highly artistic character of its ornamentation, the loose, pendulous nature of ​Japanese armour detracted greatly from its work-manlike aspect, especially when the hōro was added,—a curious appendage in the shape of a curtain of fine transparent silk, which was either stretched in front between the horns of the helmet and the top of the bow or worn on the shoulders and back, to turn the point of an arrow. A true bushi observed the strict rules of etiquette with regard even to the garments worn under his armour, and it was part of his soldierly capacity to be able to bear the great weight of the whole without any loss of activity, though the feat would be impossible to any untrained man of modern days. Common soldiers, of course, who went on foot, wore much scantier protection. A comparatively light helmet and corselet generally constituted their panoply.
The Japanese never had a war-horse worthy of the name. The little misshapen ponies which carried them to battle showed some qualities of hardiness and endurance, but were so deficient in stature and massiveness that when mounted by a man in voluminous armour, they looked pain- fully puny. Nothing is known of the early Japanese saddle, but at the beginning of historic times it approximated closely to the Chinese type. By and by, however, a purely Japanese shape was designed. It consisted of a wooden frame so constructed that a padded numnah could be fastened to it. Galled backs or withers were unknown with such a saddle; it fitted any horse. ​The stirrup, originally a simple affair resembling that of China and Europe, afterwards took the form of a solid half shoe-sole with toe turned up. Both the stirrup and the saddle-frame were often of exquisite workmanship; covered with the richest gold lacquer (aventurine or with ornamentation in relief), or inlaid with gold, silver, or mother-of-pearl. In the latter half of the Military epoch chain armour was adopted for the horse, and his head was protected by a monster-faced mask of iron.
Flags were used in battle as well as on ceremonial occasions. Allusion has already been made to the red and white flags of the Taira and the Minamoto. There were also streamers emblazoned with various legends, or with figures of the sun, the moon, a dragon, a tiger, a hawk, a bear, and so on. The Minamoto men often carried a flag with the design of a dove, since that bird was the messenger of their tutelary deity, the god of battles. A common custom, also, was to have a small flag thrust into the girdle. It would seem that the use of flags was derived from China, but the Japanese never imitated the extravagant profusion of the Chinese practice.
SAMURAI OF KAMAKURA PERIOD.
(Hunting Costume.)
Tactics were of the crudest description in the first part of the Military epoch, and discipline can scarcely be said to have existed at all. An army consisted of a congeries of little bands each under the orders of a chief who considered himself independent, and instead of subordinating his movements to a general plan, struck a blow however he pleased, thinking much more of his own reputation as a warrior than of the interests of the cause for which he fought. From time immemorial a romantic value has attached in Japan to the "first" of anything: the "first snow" of the winter; the "first water" drawn from the well on New Year's Day; the "first ​blossom" of the spring; the "first note of the nightingale." So in war, the "first to ride up to the foe," or the "wielder of the first spear," was held in high honour, and the bushi strove for that distinction as his principal duty. It necessarily resulted, too, not only from the nature of the weapons employed, but also from the immense labour devoted by the true bushi to perfecting himself in their use, that displays of individual prowess were deemed the chief object in a battle. Some tactical formations borrowed from China were, indeed, familiar to the Japanese, but the intelligent use of these and their modification to suit the circumstances of the time belonged to the Ashikaga epoch and to the great generals of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Prior to that time a battle resembled a monster fencing match. Men fought as individuals, not as units of a tactical formation, and the engagement consisted of a number of personal duels, all in simultaneous progress. It was the bushi's habit to proclaim his name and titles in the presence of the enemy, sometimes adding from his own record or his father's any details that might tend to dispirit his foes. Then some one advancing to cross weapons with him, would perform the same ceremony of self-introduction, and if either found anything to upbraid in the other's antecedents or family history, he did not fail to make loud reference to it, such a device being counted efficacious as a means of disturbing the hearer's sang-froid. The duel​lists could reckon on finishing their fight undisturbed, but the victor frequently had to endure the combined assault of a number of the vanquished's comrades or retainers. Of course a skilled swordsman did not necessarily seek a single combat: he was ready to ride into the thick of the foe without discrimination, and a group of common soldiers never hesitated to make a united attack upon a mounted officer when they found him disengaged. But the general feature of a battle was individual contests, and when the fighting ceased, each bushi proceeded to the tent of the commander-in-chief and submitted for inspection the heads of those he had killed.
The disadvantages of such a mode of fighting were demonstrated for the first time when the Mongols invaded Japan in 1274. The Japanese had six years to prepare for the invasion, and they knew approximately the point at which it would impinge. What they did was to crown the heights along the shore with parapets of loose stones, and wherever the configuration of the ground did not afford the necessary elevation, they raised embankments to support the parapet. The latter varied in height from two feet to six, so as to afford shelter without impeding archery. Its trace showed no idea of flank defence, shelter being the sole object. When the flotilla of the invaders appeared, no attempt was made to oppose their landing: the moment of supreme danger ​for an army carried over sea to the attack of a foreign country was suffered to pass unutilised. In fact, the Japanese had not even a rudimentary knowledge of the science of coast defence. The Mongols and their Korean allies stepped ashore safely, marshalled their ranks and advanced in phalanx, protecting themselves effectually with their pavises. They do not appear to have been much distressed by either the cross-bows or the ordinary bows of the defenders, but they covered their own advance with a host of archers shooting clouds of poisoned arrows. The Japanese never at any time of their history used poisoned arrows: they despised them as depraved and inhuman weapons. The Mongolian shafts harassed them terribly. Still they adhered to the prescribed etiquette. A humming arrow was shot by way of warning. The Mongols greeted it with a shout of derision. Then some of the best fighters among the Japanese advanced in their usual dignified leisurely manner and formulated the traditional challenge. But the Mongol phalanx, instead of sending out a single warrior to answer the defiance, opened their ranks, enclosed the challenger, and cut him to pieces. The invaders moved in unchanging formation, obeying signals from their commanding officer, who watched their evolutions from an eminence. The Japanese soon ceased to sacrifice themselves piecemeal. A hundred horsemen dashed simultaneously at the phalanx. Ninety​nine were slain, and the leader alone returned alive. Finally the whole Japanese force attacked in unison, and the Mongols withdrew to their ships, covering their retreat with guns, then entirely novel to the Japanese. A storm saved the country on that occasion, and when the Mongols came again, seven years later, they met with a different reception. Although their numerical strength had enormously increased, they never succeeded in effecting a landing. The Japanese dashed at their fleet time and again, until the Mongols huddled together and assumed the defensive. The boats of the combatants differed greatly. The invaders had large, decked vessels, with very high prows, a clumsy capstan perched at the stern, and oars passing through holes in the sides. They were also provided with a kind of artillery which is said to have discharged iron balls with a thunder-like detonation, striking down scores of Japanese, breaching their flimsy parapets, and setting their watch-towers on fire. The rowers were protected by bulwarks of timber and matting, and at the prow there was an arrangement of shields over which arrows could be discharged. The Japanese, on the contrary, had very small, open boats without any protection for the rowers, who worked in a group at the stern and were cruelly exposed at the time of retreat. But the bushi themselves plied the oars, and in these little craft handfuls of intrepid men rushed again and again to the assault of the ​enemy's fleet. In fact, the tactics of the Japanese had undergone a complete change in the interval between the two Mongol invasions. On the first occasion no attempt was made to oppose the landing of the enemy, and in the engagements that ensued on shore the Japanese frittered away their strength by pursuing the disjointed methods of fighting peculiar to their own military canons. On the second occasion, the Mongols, despite their artillery, their catapults, and their great host, never succeeded in setting foot upon land. Held at bay by a series of continuous and desperate attacks, insignificant as displays of national force, but of deadly efficacy and most harassing character, the huge flotilla found nothing better than to lie huddled together, the big ships protecting the small, and the whole incapable of offensive action. No tricks of manœuvre came into play. The Japanese simply laid boat alongside boat, and committed the rest to sword and halberd. It was a method very effective against the comparatively inexpert and clumsily equipped Mongols and Chinese, accustomed to fight in phalanx only. From the moment that a skilled Japanese swordsman or halberdier gained a footing on a ship crowded with soldiers of the kind that fought for Kublai Khan, swift carnage followed inevitably. Yet certainly the highest order of valour presided at these onsets when one or two little boats, their occupants armed with bow, hal​berd, and sword only, rowed out to attack a fleet of fifteen hundred war-junks provided with culverins and catapults. Pictorial scrolls painted by Tosa artists of the era show some of these boats, dashing seaward on their reckless errand, and append the names of the soldiers seated in them, as well as the issue of each venture. In no case can more than ten fighting men be counted in one boat. Their wooden shields, when they carry such defences, hang over the gunwales; at the bow kneels the banner-bearer, raising aloft a long pennant, and in the stern half-a-dozen men, sometimes wearing corselets but generally without any protection whatever, bare-armed and bare-shouldered, despite the enemy's poisoned arrows, strain desperately at the oars. To their insignificant dimensions and the rapidity of their movements these boats evidently owed their frequent immunity from the balls of iron and stone discharged by the Mongol fleet. It is the only historical instance of victory's resting with sword, spear, and bow against gunpowder and bullet. It also illustrates the devoted courage as well as the versatility of the Japanese bushi. He appreciated that he must modify his methods, and not only abandon the old etiquette of the battle on shore, but also play the part of assailant, at any risk, in order to prevent the landing of a powerful foe.
Although the advantages of preventing an enemy from massing his strength were thus recog​nised, the Japanese themselves did not generally obey the principle of the phalanx, though they sometimes copied its formation. Individual prowess continued to be the prominent factor in battles down to a comparatively recent period. The great captains Takeda Shingen and Uyesugi Kenshin, who flourished during the first half of the sixteenth century, are supposed to have been Japan's pioneer tacticians. They certainly appreciated the value of a formation in which the action of the individual should be subordinated to the unity of the whole. But when it is remembered that fire-arms had already been in the hands of the Japanese for many years, and that they had means of acquainting themselves with the tactics of Europe through their intercourse with the Dutch, it is remarkable that the changes attributed to Takeda and Uyesugi were not more drastic. Speaking broadly, what they did was to organise a column with the musketeers and archers in front; the spearmen, halberdiers, and swordsmen in the second line; the cavalry in the third line; the commanding officer in the rear, and the drums and standards in the centre. The spearmen were marshalled according to the length of their weapons, the long spears in front, the short in the rear. Incidentally the power of the Japanese bow is illustrated by the fact that when the range proved too great for the fire-arms of the time, the musketeers stood aside and the archers took their place. At close quarters the spears ​became highly effective weapons, and in the days of Hideyoshi, the Taikō, combined flank and front attacks by bands of spearmen were used by that resourceful commander. The importance of a strong reserve also received recognition, and in theory, at all events, a tolerably intelligent system of tactics was adopted. But individual skill continued to dominate the situation. A master of the sword or the halberd towered so far above his less expert fellows that he refused to act in unison with them, and it was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that the doctrine of strictly disciplined action obtained practical vogue. Yamaga Soko is said to have been the successful inculcator of this principle. From his time the most approved tactical formation was known as the Yamaga-riu (Yamaga style), though it showed no innovation other than strict subordination of each unit to the general plan. Yamaga is now remembered rather as the military instructor of Oishi Kuranosuke, the leader of the Forty-seven Ronin, than as the founder of a new school of tactics. Perhaps the former is his better title to renown, for his military genius was never subjected to a practical test.
This subject might be dismissed by saying that, prior to the second half of the seventeenth century, the samurai was everything, the system nothing from a tactical point of view, and that strategy was chiefly a matter of deceptions, surprises, and ambushes. But it must not be sup​posed that there were no "classical principles." The student of European military history searches in vain for the "rules and maxims of war," so often invoked by glib critics, but the student of Japanese history is more successful. Here, as in virtually every field of things Japanese, retrospect discovers the ubiquitous Chinaman. Sung and 'Ng (called in Japan "Son" and "Go"), Chinese generals of the third century after Christ, were the Jomini and the Hamley of their eras, and their treatises continued to be the classics of Far-Eastern captains through all generations. Yoshitsune, in the twelfth century, deceived a loving girl in order to obtain a copy of Sung's work which her father had in his possession, and Yamaga, in the seventeenth century, when he set himself to compose a book on tactics, derived his materials almost entirely from the monographs of the two Chinese generals. There is proof that these treatises came into the hands of the Japanese in the eighth century, when the celebrated Kibi no Mabi went to study civilisation in the Middle Kingdom, just as his successors of the nineteenth century went to study Occidental civilisation in Europe and America. Thenceforth "Son" and "Go" became household words among Japanese soldiers. Their volumes were to the samurai what the Mâhâyana Sutra was to the Buddhist. They were believed to have collected whatever of good had preceded them, and to have forecast whatever of good the ​future might produce. Something of that credit they certainly deserved, for their principles are not yet out of date: "An army undertaking an offensive campaign must be twice as numerous as the enemy. A force investing a fortress should be numerically ten times the garrison. Troops for escalade should muster five for every one of their foes. When the adversary holds high ground, turn his flank; do not deliver a frontal attack. When he has a mountain or a river behind him, cut his lines of communication. If he deliberately assumes a position from which victory is his only escape, hold him there but do not molest him. If you can surround him, leave one route open for his escape. Be warned of an ambush when you see birds soaring in alarm, and if animals break cover in your direction, look out for an onset. When you have to cross a river, post your advance-guard and your rear-guard at a distance from the banks and never approach with the bulk of your troops. When the enemy has to cross a river, let him get well engaged in the operation before you strike at him. If a marsh has to be traversed, make celerity your first object. Pass no copse, enter no ravine, nor approach any thicket until your scouts have explored it fully." Such precepts are multiplied, and there is much about stratagems, deceptions, and, above all, the employment of spies. But when they discuss tactical formations, these ancient authors do not ​seem to have contemplated anything like rapid, well-ordered changes of mobile, highly trained masses of men from one formation to another, or their quick transfer from point to point of a battle-field. The basis of their tactics is the Book of Changes. Here again is encountered the superstition that underlies nearly all Chinese and Japanese institutions,—the superstition that took captive even the great mind of Confucius. The male and the female principles; the sympathetic elements; the diagrams; cosmos growing out of chaos; chaos re-absorbing cosmos—on such phantasies did they found their tactical system. The result was a phalanx of complicated organisation, difficult to manœuvre and liable to be easily thrown into confusion. Yet, when Yamaga in the seventeenth century interpreted these ancient Chinese treatises, he detected in them suggestions for a very shrewd use of the principle of echelon, and applied it to devise formations which combined much of the frontal expansion of the line with the solidity of the column. More than that cannot be claimed for Japanese military genius. The Japanese samurai was the best fighting unit in the Orient; probably one of the best fighting units the world ever produced. It was, perhaps, because of that excellence that his captains remained mediocre tacticians.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 22.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 23.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 24.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 25.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 26.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 27.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 28.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 29.
* ↑ See Appendix, note 30.
* ↑ ​Note 22.—The length of the bow and arrow were determined with reference to the capacity of the archer. In the case of the bow, the unit of measurement was the distance between the tips of the thumb and the little finger with the hand fully stretched. Fifteen of these units gave the dimensions of the bow. Hence, with a six-inch stretch, the bow would be seven feet six inches long. The unit for the arrow was a hand's breadth, and from twelve to fifteen units gave the length,—i. e. from three feet to three feet nine inches.
* ↑ ​Note 23.—Seventeen masters are universally recognised as the greatest that ever forged a blade. They are Amakuni of Yamato province, and his pupil Amaga; Shinsoku, priest of the Shrine of Usa in Buzen; Yasatsune and Sanemori, also of Buzen; Munechika of Kyōtō, commonly called Sanjo no Kokaji (the little smith of Sanjo); Miike Denta Mitsuyo of Chikugo; Maikusa Yukishige of Oshiu; Genshōbō Jōshin, a Buddhist prelate of Hiko-san in Bungo; Ki-no-Shindayu Yukihira of the same province; Gyobu-no-Jo Norimune of Bizen; Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kunitsuna and Yoshimune of Kyoto; Yoshihiro of Yetchiu and Goro Nyudo Masamune of Soshiu. The last of these ranks highest.
* ↑ ​Note 24.—The method by which this result was obtained is explained in the chapter on Applied Art.
* ↑ ​Note 25.—The clay was first plastered over the whole blade, and then removed along the edge by means of a bamboo ​stick. Thus the upper margin of the tempered section showed a more or less irregular line, which, like the marks of the forger's hammer, furnished a means of identification. The presence of this line of demarkation has betrayed many persons into the erroneous supposition that the edge of a Japanese sword is welded to the body of the blade.
* ↑ ​Note 26.—For fuller information on all these points see an admirable essay by Mr. Ed. Gilbertson, in the fourth volume of the Japan Society's Transactions, and another by Professor Hütterott in the Proceedings of the German Asiatic Society for 1885.
* ↑ ​Note 27.—First among the swords of Japan ranked the sacred blade which formed one of the Imperial Regalia. Then came the Hirugoza (daily companion), the Hateki (foe-smiter), and the Shugo (guardian) of the Emperor; followed by the "Beard-cutter" (hige-kiri) and the "Knee-severer" (hiza-kiri) of the Minamoto, so called because, after cutting off a head, one divided the beard also, the other gashed the knees, of the decapitated man; then the "Little Crow" (ko-garasu) and the "Out flasher" (nuki-maru) of the Taira, and then innumerable other celebrated blades preserved in the families of feudal nobles.
* ↑ ​Note 28.—Religious influence often showed itself in the legends on flags. A common inscription was Namu Amida Butsu (hear! Oh, Amida Buddha) or Hachiman Daibosatsu, a compound of Shintô with Buddhist tenets; or Namu Horengekyo, the formula of the Nichiren sect. The celebrated soldier Katō Kiyomasa always used this last legend for his pennon.
* ↑ ​Note 29.—A tent was simply a space enclosed with strips of cloth or silk, on which was blazoned the crest of the commander. It had no covering.
* ↑ ​Note 30.—These two last principles are based on the idea of not driving the foe to desperation. There is reason to think that when the Japanese invested the Chinese forces in Ping-yang, in 1894, they acted upon the advice of the third-century strategists, for they deliberately left a road of escape for the enemy, who took it.
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