Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/170

 barriers with guard-houses were established at important places to check the depredations of robbers, and in view of the fact that travellers not infrequently perished of hunger by the wayside, a law was enacted that rice for sale to wayfarers, must be stored at convenient places, and that the name of any man who sold as much as one hundred koku (five hundred and seventy-three bushels) in a year by this process should be reported to the Emperor for special reward; the management of everything relating to roads was entrusted to a department of civil affairs; a military board had charge of matters relating to post horses and oxen, and a maritime bureau exercised control over shipping as well as harbour improvement.

Large responsibilities, it will be observed, devolved upon the central Government under this system. That, indeed, was its object, for it marked the resumption of active administrative authority by the Emperor. But it was a system somewhat in advance of the temper of the time, and its success in operation was not commensurate with the intelligence of its conception.

When examining the historical records of early Japan, constructive evidence has already been found that the art of navigation did not emerge from a primitive state until mediæval times. Between the beginning of the seventh century and the close of the eighth, eleven voyages were undertaken by Japanese envoys to the Chinese