Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/234

 regret it." To his son, Hidetada, he said: "Take care of the people. Strive to be virtuous. Never neglect to protect the country." The spirit of such injunctions is plain. It is true that this remarkable statesman increased the allowances for the maintenance of the Emperor and the Imperial Family, and did nothing to impair the stability of the Throne. But he emphatically asserted the absolute right of the Shōgun to exercise the executive authority independently of the sovereign, himself accepting, at the same time, the responsibility of preserving public peace and good order. Further a code of eighteen laws enacted by him for the control of the fiefs had his signature only, and did not bear the Sign Manual.

That the anti-monarchical tendencies of the bushi were recognised by some deep thinkers among themselves may be clearly gathered from the doctrine enunciated by Kumazawa Banzan, chief vassal of the Okayama fief, at the close of the seventeenth century. He taught that the mission of a lord was to develop the welfare of his people; that the Emperor was the true head of the nation, the Shōgun being only His Majesty's lieutenant; and that the samurai were mere bandits, regarding the sovereign as a wooden idol and the common people as dust. To find any one advocating such views in feudal Japan at the close of the seventeenth century seems as remarkable as the fact that Banzan was