Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/151

 to undertake similar tasks, so that the close of the sixteenth century saw the nation much distressed. Another act which added to the weight of taxation was the issue of an order for re-surveying all the land throughout the Empire, the surveyors being required to use a pole exactly six feet (one ken) in length, whereas the pole previously in use had varied from six feet three inches to six feet five inches. It is supposed that these additional inches were intended to be a space for the grasp of the measuring official, but evidently they opened the door to many abuses. A tan measured with a six-foot five-inch pole is sixteen per cent larger than a tan measured with a six-foot pole, and the taxable measure of produce being the same in either case, no little importance attached to the nature of the pole employed. The result of the Taikō's fiscal enactments and his re-surveys was that the nominal yield of rice throughout the Empire increased from eighteen and three-fourths million koku to twenty-six and a fourth millions,—a figure only twelve millions less than the crop of the present time. The exemptions fixed by him partook of the same severity. In ancient days the land tax had been remitted if the crop fell to fifty per cent of the annual average yield. Hideyoshi did not sanction remission until the yield fell to one-twentieth of the average. A saving feature of his legislation in the eyes of the people was that he put an end to the exemption from taxation hitherto enjoyed by the Court nobles and the military