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Notices of Japan, No. X.
JUNE,
syukya and Krista-muta; they brought fire-arms, and first made the Japanese ac- quainted with shooting-arms, and the preparation of shooting-powder."
The Japanese have preserved portraits (and curious specimens of the graphic art they are) of Mura-syukya and Krista-muta, who are supposed to be Antonio Mota and Francesco Zeimoto, the first Portuguese known to have landed in Japan. The Japanese were at this time a mercantile people, carrying on an active and lucrative commerce with, it is said, sixteen different countries. They gladly welcomed the strangers, who brought them new manufactures and new wares; they trafficked freely with them, and erelong even gave their daughters in mar. riage to such as settled amongst them. The Jesuit missionaries, who soon fol- lowed, were equally well received, and permitted to preach to the people without interruption. The extraordinary and rapid success of the Fathers has been al ready mentioned. Even at Miyako, in the vicinity of the datri, if not in it, they boasted neophytes. These bright prospects were blighted by the civil war, which had seened for a moment to promise the complete establishment of Christianity in Japan.
About the middle of the sixteenth century two brothers of the race of Yoritomo contended for the singounship; the princes of the empire took part on either side, or against both, striving to make themselves independent; and civil war raged throughout Japan. In the course of it, both the rival brothers perished, and the vassal princes now contended for the vacant dignity.
The ablest and nightiest amongst them was Nobunaga, prince of Owari, the champion of one of the rival brothers so long as he lived. After the death of the claiment he supported, he set up for himself. Powerfully aided by the courage and talents of a low-born man, named Hide-yosi, who had attached himself to his service, and gradually gained his confidence, the prince of Owari triumphed over his opponents, and become siogoun, the mikado confirming to him a dignity that he felt himself unable to withhold. The new siogoun recompensed Hide. yosi's services by investing him with a high military office, and showed himself a warm friend to the Christians and the missionaries.
In process of time, Nobunaga was murdered by an aspirant usurper, who thus possessed himself of the singounship. The murderer was shortly afterwards in his turn, murdered; and, amidst the confusion that ensued, Hide-yosi seized upon the generally coveted office. The mikado again, without hesitation, approved and confirmed Hide-yosi as siogoun, by his newly-assumed name of Taiko, or Taiko-sama, i. e. the lord Taiko,
Taiko retained upon the throne the energies and warlike spirit that had ena- bled him to ascend it; and he is still considered by the Japanese as nearly, if not quite, the greatest of their heroes. It was he who made the greatest progress in reducing the mikado to the mere shadow of a sovereign; with him originated the system, already described, as inthralling the princes of the empire; he subdued Corca, which had emancipated itself since its conquest by the empress Sin-gon. kwo-gon; and he had announced his intention of conquering China, when his career was arrested by death, at the age of sixty-three, in the year 1598. Taiko. sama's only son, Hide-yori was a child of six years old; and to him, upon his deathbed, he thought to secure the succession by marrying him to the grand- daughter of Iyeyas (or as some write it, Yeye-yasu), the powerful prince of Mikawa, his own especial friend and counsellor, whom he had rewarded with three