Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/195

Rh most notable of these attacks were in the periods Bunyei (1264–1275) and Kōan (1278–1288). At this time the Great Yuan Emperor [Kublai Khan] had conquered by force of arms the four hundred provinces of China. Heaven and earth were oppressed by his power. Hard would it have been for a small country like our own to repel him, and that it was able easily and without effort to destroy the armies of Great Yuan was due to naught else but the divine blessing.

"The plan of this expedition was as follows: General Wan, the leader of the Yuan force, having estimated the area of the five metropolitan provinces of Japan at 3700 ri square, calculated that to fill this space with soldiers so as to leave no part of it unoccupied would require an army of 3,700,000 men. So he set forth from the various ports and bays with his troops embarked in a fleet of more than 70,000 great ships. Our Government, having had previous information of this design, ordered preparations to be made. The forces of Shikoku and Kiushiu were directed to assemble in all haste at Hakata, in Tsukushi; those of the western provinces of the main island hurried to the capital; while the men of Tōsandō and of the northern provinces occupied the port of Tsuruga, in Echizen.

"Thereupon the warships of Great Yuan, 70,000 in number, arrived together at the port of Hakata on the third day of the eighth month of the second year of Bunyei (1265). Their great vessels were lashed together, and gangways laid across from one to another. Every division was surrounded by screens of oilcloth; their weapons were set up in regular array. From the Gotō Islands eastward as far as Hakata the sea was enclosed on all sides for 400 ri, a of and sudden became dry land.