A Brief History of Japan. Jonathan Clements

on Confucianism, Shōtoku insisted that courtiers avoid open conflict, adhere to their job descriptions, and offer true and full obedience to imperial commands. “In a country, there are not two lords,” he writes sternly; “the people have not two masters. The sovereign is the master of the people of the whole country.” This might have set the tone for the rule of an absolute monarch, although Shōtoku immediately undermined himself by also insisting on the power of consultation and consensus. “Decisions on important matters should not be made by one person alone. They should be discussed with many.” Although it might have seemed like a contradiction, Shōtoku’s maxims, taken as a whole, would eventually come to imply that the emperor was a divine, inscrutable, and symbolic head of state whose assent—tacit or otherwise—was required for all decisions to be made by his court, but whose ministers were no longer necessarily hereditary nobles. Shōtoku introduced a Chinese-influenced sense of decorum, demanding that all entrants to the palace should drop to their knees and press their hands to the ground before walking on.

      Several parts of Shōtoku’s constitution were overwritten by the clearer wording of later decrees, but even in modern Japan, legal scholars have been heard to argue that if his words have not been contradicted by a later revision, they still stand after nearly fourteen centuries.

      Some words endure even more obviously. Until the regency of Shōtoku, the sovereign had been known as a king, great lord, or similar title. Following on from his constitution’s insistence that the ruler was the symbol of heaven, Shōtoku began using the term tennō, “heavenly sovereign,” usually translated as “emperor.” All previous sovereigns were upgraded retroactively.

      Shōtoku also wedged Buddhism firmly into the state organization by demanding that officials recognize the “three treasures”—not the mirror, sword, and jewel of ancient legend, but the Buddha, the law, and the [Shintō] priesthood, establishing a tripartite appeal to divine authority. Shōtoku promoted further contacts with Chinese Buddhists, inaugurating several major temples and offering tax breaks to selected artists who were able to paint devotional icons. Empress Suiko, as his mouthpiece, commanded her subjects to make large images of the Buddha in copper or embroidery, but also decreed that the gods of “heaven and earth” should not be neglected. She might have been a figurehead, but Empress Suiko still enjoyed some power, and took the opportunity to remind her subjects of the country’s ancient collaboration between male and female powers. It was Buddhism, however, that attracted the attention of neighboring states—the sections of the Nihongi referring to her reign and Shōtoku’s regency are riddled with references to grand embassies from China and Korea arriving with golden gifts and holy scriptures and being greeted by fleets of sailboats and brightly adorned troops of cavalry.

      Shōtoku’s constitution would form the basis of future consultations on the way to run the country; it was accompanied by a number of other reforms that added to its effect. One was the adoption of the Chinese calendar, which divided time into twelve-year cycles multiplied by five elements to create units of sixty years. A further “long count” in Chinese history held that every twenty-one cycles—which is to say, once every 1,260 years—there would be an event of earth-shattering transformation. Clearly, later chroniclers decided that Shōtoku’s reforms were just such a momentous event, establishing 601 CE as the “year zero” in Japanese counting, but also spurring authors to presume that the last momentous event must have been 1,260 years earlier. This, perhaps, explains why Japanese annals begin with the seemingly arbitrary date of 660 BCE, implying that Shōtoku’s regency was the best thing that had happened to Japan since the mythical time of the first, legendary Emperor Jinmu. A prophet might foretell that something similarly momentous would happen to Japan 1,260 years later, around 1861 CE—and by chance, such a prediction would only be a few years out.

      One of the first acts of Shōtoku’s new nation was to pack an ambassador off to the Chinese to ask them to stop calling his people “dwarves.” The idea of a land of Wa, the prince thought, was insulting and belittling, and he would really much prefer it if the Chinese started referring to them with a little more respect.

      An embassy sent to China decided to put this into effect in 607 by pointedly ignoring a previous missive that had hailed the ruler of Wa. Instead, it extended an ill-advised greeting from “the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun rises…to the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun sets.” This scandalized the Chinese, not only for the implication that the island nation was somehow rising and ahead of China, but for the claim that the ruler of the islands was an emperor of equivalent standing to theirs.

      Considering Japan’s position on the eastern horizon relative to China, and the country’s claim as the chosen home of the descendants of Amaterasu, Prince Shōtoku’s ambassadors regarded the “land where the sun rises” as a far more suitable name for their country—in Japanese, “Nippon.” In modern Mandarin, this is pronounced “Riben,” but in Tang-dynasty Chinese, it would have sounded more like “Yatbun.” A thousand years later, misheard as “Cipangu”—put through a Portuguese mangle into Spanish as “Japón”—it would give us the name by which we know the country today. From this point on, the land was called Japan.

      CHAPTER 3

      THE SHINING PRINCE:

       MEDIEVAL JAPAN

      The guest protocols of China were elaborate and complex. All foreign visitors, even kings, were obliged to perform a series of actions designed to show that the sovereign of China was the ruler of the world, and they his loyal subjects. The Japanese—a thousand miles from home, from a land that was little more than a fairy tale—were no exception. The gifts they presented would be vetted by imperial flunkies, and anything deemed offensive or worthless to the Xuanzong emperor would be tossed aside in advance.

      As was customary, Xuanzong would receive his visitors in the small hours of the morning. In the heat of the Chang-an summer, this was probably a mercy, but Ōtomo no Furumaro, the vice-ambassador from faraway Japan, was less keen when the event occurred on New Year’s Day.

      Awake before dawn, his breath freezing in the air, he made his way with his entourage to the majestic Daming Palace in the north of the great city of Chang-an, entering through the southern gate and crossing the vast square of the outer court. Hanyuan Hall towered above him to the north, sitting atop a mountain of twinned “dragon-tail” staircases. It was designed to impart the feeling that visitors were literally ascending into the sky to commune with the ruler of the world.

      The assembled dignitaries waited in silence in the cold. In earlier generations, some might have chatted or joked, sneaking warm buns out of their sleeves, or shaken their limbs to keep warm. But the officers of court ceremony had become increasingly strict, and threatened to punish any who deviated from the correct ritual. Even when Xuanzong was not present, protocol demanded they should act as if his spirit was among them.

      Just to make their position abundantly clear, foreign diplomats were housed for the ceremonies in tents pitched in the courtyard, surrounded by the pomp of the Chinese court—antiquated war chariots; ranks of Chinese guardsmen with fearsome halberds; lines of bells, drums, and chimes. The Xuanzong emperor would arrive in a palanquin, clad in striking scarlet robes with his face partly obscured by the curtain of beads that hung from his crown, while his court musicians played the Music of Grand Harmony.

      The music stopped when he sat on his throne. A new melody would start up—the Music of Leisure and Harmony—signaling that the dukes, princes, and kings of subordinate countries should take their positions. A herald then commanded them to fall to the floor and kowtow twice to the emperor. They were obliged to perform such obeisances every time they received anything from the emperor, be it a kind word or a cup of wine brought by scurrying servants.

      Ōtomo no Furumaro had been briefed about all of this and was ready to play the game, although as he arrived that cold winter day, he was scandalized by what he saw. An ambassador from a Korean state was in the prime position, directly beside the emperor’s throne. In the quiet of the courtyard, while they waited for the emperor’s arrival, Ōtomo whispered in disapproval at General Wu Huaishi, who had the misfortune to be standing nearby.

      “Silla pays tribute to Japan,”