Treatise 75: Food and Goods I

¶The state takes the people as its foundation, and government consists in nurturing the people. For this reason it enriches their lives with food, makes their needs convenient with goods and wealth, and only afterwards imparts the teaching of rectified virtue, so that they come to know the way of sustaining one another. Whether customs are honest and generous, whether the strength of the realm is great, none of it fails to derive from this. Of old, when the Heavenly Ancestor dwelt in the Plain of High Heaven, she planted the grains and raised silkworms and cocoons; the source of clothing and food begins here. When the Imperial Grandchild came to govern the Land of Abundant Rice Ears (Mizuho), he first presented the new grain in the sacred precinct (Yuniwa) and performed the rites of offering; the law of tribute and levies begins here. When the Great Founder (Emperor Jinmu) set out to extend the imperial enterprise, he stored and prepared provisions, soothed and gathered the warriors and the people, and at last pacified all within the seas in a single campaign. He then enshrined the sacred regalia and observed the rites with reverence. Thus the Ōnie festival (Daijōsai) came at last to be the great ceremony of the state. It was by regarding the people's food as weighty that he preserved the heavenly throne, and this is how filial devotion to the Heavenly Ancestor is rendered; the teaching of rectified virtue, too, rests on this. After that there were many labors in concern for the people, not one alone: Emperor Sujin prayed to the deities of Heaven and Earth for the lives of the people; Emperor Suinin devoted great effort to the construction of irrigation channels (kōkyoku); Emperor Seimu set boundaries by mountains and rivers and laid out the paths between the fields (senpaku). When Empress Jingū pacified the Three Han and made them an outer treasury, the use of valuables as currency, one supposes, came into being. At that time the court was actively administering the four quarters and armies were frequently in motion, yet provisions never once ran short. As for the systems of tribute, levies and labor service, however, the old histories do not record them in detail. Only with regard to the laws by which land was fixed and the people settled is there still something to consider. After the Great Founder (Emperor Jinmu), it appears, the imperial household already had the system of the Miyake (royal granaries) and the Tabe (field workers) for the supply of the sovereign's table. Outside the court, Kuni-no-miyatsuko and Agatanushi were established and entrusted with land and people; within it, the Omi, the Muraji and the Tomo-no-miyatsuko were set up to govern the various occupational groups in their several divisions. The groups were all rooted in the land and supported themselves by cultivation. When the realm was at peace, everyone inside and outside the court was a farmer; when there was trouble, all became soldiers, so that there was no burden of granting stipends to maintain troops. Moreover, officials and people belonged to one another through the generations, and the bonds of gratitude and duty were firm. This, it would seem, is why food was sufficient, the soldiery strong, and the power of the state grew greater day by day. From the time after Emperor Kinmei, the Buddhist Law gradually flourished and idle wanderers increased with each passing day. Customs fell into decay, and high and low alike contended for profit. The Soga clan, for instance, knew no satiety, like a ravine or a gorge (Note: so in the source), and in the end went so far as to covet the altars of the state (shashoku). Chūsō (Emperor Tenji) put to death the original evil one and assisted the government of the Taika reform; he abolished the Kuni-no-miyatsuko and the Shinabe, entered the households of the whole realm in registers, revised the land system and the rules of the land tax, and instituted the system of fief households (fuko) and stipend grants (jikiroku). Through the Taihō and Yōrō eras, with gains and losses weighed, the permanent code of law was at last completed. The policies of enriching the people's livelihood and making their needs convenient were all put into effect, and the teaching of rectified virtue was likewise lodged within them. Afterwards, one wise sovereign after another arose, compiled and revised the Kyaku and the Shiki (supplementary regulations and enforcement rules), and from time to time reformed and extended them so as to suit what was appropriate. These were laws and institutions that should have been free of abuse for a hundred generations. Yet from the Jōgan era onward the discipline of the court slackened day by day, the finances of the state grew more straitened day by day, and in the end the realm was reduced to destitution and disorder. How did this come about? Could it be that the so-called Kyaku of Jōgan and Shiki of Engi were likewise empty texts, laws that were not carried out? Miyoshi-no-Kiyoyuki discussed this at the time and said: "In the Tenpyō age, Buddhism was honored and temples and pagodas were lavishly built, and the expenditure of the realm reached five parts in ten. At the transfer of the capital in Enryaku, the palace buildings were greatly refurbished, and three parts in five more were spent. The Jōwa age was especially fond of extravagance, and spent one half. The calamities of Jōgan, too, consumed half of one part. Thus the present age does not amount to even a tenth of the former ages." If it was truly as this statement says, then the state's impoverishment is long-standing indeed. Yet, looking at the matter now, the ills of the realm are not confined to this. What Kiyoyuki discussed and proposed, such as the ruin of the land system, the annexation of land by powerful and strong families, the reckless and excessive issue of tax-exemption certificates (kenpu), and the shrinking of the taxable adult males (katei), were indeed the great abuses of that time. And the arrogance of the houses of the palace guards (shukuei), the lawless excesses of the Buddhist clergy, and the encroachment of influential houses on districts and villages likewise began to emerge here. This is why the state grew ever poorer, but tracing it to its root, all of it came from the Fujiwara clan monopolizing government and devoting itself solely to the pursuit of private interest, so that the laws of the court were loosened and slackened. Why then did Kiyoyuki not say a single word on this? Probably because their power was then at its height and splendor, and was not something that speech could overcome. After this, generation after generation the Fujiwara held the handle of authority (the real power of government) and, arrogant and extravagant, gave no thought to governing; they poured out the wealth of all within the seas to supply the needs of Buddhist temples and imperial consorts. Pagodas and halls were made magnificent, and garments and playthings reached the height of splendor; the enormity of the expense was almost greater than that of the Tenpyō and Jōwa ages. How could the realm not be reduced to destitution and disorder? Moreover, the reason the Fujiwara came to overflow with riches also has its cause. From the Engi era on, the land system had already broken down, and powerful and strong families vied in seizing the sovereign's land, entrusting it to the influential and eminent and establishing it as estates (shōen), until the realm was brought to such a state that lands which paid no tax outnumbered the public fields, and households that bore no levies outnumbered the public people. The Fujiwara took advantage of this very abuse: they widely occupied estates, exhausted the fertile lands of the realm, appropriated their tribute for private use, and so satisfied their desires. This is how they came to the utmost extravagance and excess. Nevertheless, those (who established the estates) entrusted their holdings to the estates in order to monopolize the advantages of the land themselves; taking advantage of the fact that the eminent and powerful did not understand conditions below, they seized, encroached and deceived, richly enriching themselves, stored military provisions, took up the arts of bow and horse as their profession, and gradually built up a position of regional strongholds. The Fujiwara nonetheless sat haughtily above them, regarding themselves as nourished and made replete by these men, and did not know that the great foundation of the state had already tilted. Therefore, when calamity and disorder once arose within, the realm at once collapsed and burst in all four directions and could not be gathered up again. This is how treacherous heroes took it as their resource and accomplished hegemony. Thereupon the great tide of events changed completely; the surviving laws of the former kings were reduced entirely to ashes, and the people of the realm could no longer receive their benefit. The Kenmu Restoration merely recovered the territory, and at once gave itself to ease and idleness. What it planned and instituted amounted to no more than following the frivolous and extravagant habits of a declining age. As for the means of correcting words and prohibiting wrongs, of enriching the people's lives and making their needs convenient, it set these aside and did not take them up. It had already failed to win the hearts of the people of the realm, and the power over the land was lost accordingly. That the work of restoring antiquity was never completed: can one grieve over it enough? Now, on the basis of the old histories, we set out the general outline of the economic administration of the divine sages, and, drawing on the provisions of the codes and the Kyaku and Shiki, we record its changes. All matters bearing on finance are divided and grouped by category, with the estates appended, so that the changes from ancient times to the present may be seen. Accordingly, I have composed the Treatise on Food and Goods (Shokka-shi).