Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/47

 directly or indirectly in the civil wars which disturbed Japan during the sixteenth century, had neither time nor resources to cultivate such dilettanteism as the Cha-no-Yu. The philosophy of the cult aimed essentially at educating a spirit of tranquillity and refinement, whereas the all-engrossing business of the era was war. Shonzui's journey to China may be regarded as a result of the only interval of peace which the Empire had enjoyed during nearly two centuries. For when the Ming dynasty assumed the reins of power in the Middle Kingdom, the Korean and Chinese coasts were ravaged by Japanese corsairs, who had become such a terror to the people that their names were used by mothers as a bogey to alarm bad children. These pirates came from the island of Kiushū, where, owing to the complete disorganisation of the executive, men were temporarily freed from all legal restraint. At the end of the fourteenth century, however, Yoshimitsu, the greatest of the Ashikaga Shōguns, succeeded in reconciling the two rival Japanese dynasties, and in the brief period of peace that ensued, the complaints of China and Korea were favourably considered by the Japanese Government. Vigorous steps were taken to suppress the pirates, and numerous captives whom they had carried off were restored to their native countries. China's gratitude for this neighbourly act was very marked. It is recorded that there grew up between the two Empires a friendly intercourse, and that the polity, the arts, and the sciences of the Ming rulers came to be regarded with sincere admiration by the Japanese. Yoshimitsu died in 1409, and not long afterwards the Empire was again torn by disputes about the succession to the Imperial Throne and the ShogunateShōgunate [sic], as