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The new peerage was, in fact, designed not only to
supplant, but also to discredit, the old.

Thus, in the first place, the system was abolished under which all
uji having the title of omi were controlled by the o-omi, and all
having the title of muraji by the o-muraji; and in the second, though
the above eight sei were established, not every uji was necessarily
granted a title. Only the most important received that distinction,
and even these found themselves relegated to a comparatively low
place on the list. All the rest, however, were permitted to use their
old, but now depreciated kabane, and no change was made in the
traditional custom of entrusting the management of each uji's affairs
to its own Kami. But, in order to guard against the abuses of the
hereditary right, an uji no Kami ceased in certain cases to succeed
by birthright and became elective, the election requiring Imperial
endorsement.

The effect of these measures was almost revolutionary. They changed
the whole fabric of the Japanese polity. But in spite of all Temmu's
precautions to accomplish the centralization of power, success was
menaced by a factor which could scarcely have been controlled. The
arable lands in the home provinces at that time probably did not
exceed 130,000 acres, and the food stuffs produced cannot have
sufficed for more than a million persons. As for the forests, their
capacities were ill developed, and thus it fell out that the
sustenance fiefs granted to omi and muraji of the lower grades did
not exceed a few acres. Gradually, as families multiplied, the
conditions of life became too straightened in such circumstances, and
relief began to be sought in provincial appointments, which furnished
opportunities for getting possession of land. It was in this way that
local magnates had their origin and the seeds of genuine feudalism
were sown. Another direction in which success fell short of purpose
was in the matter of the hereditary guilds (be). The Daika reforms
had aimed at converting everyone in the empire into a veritable unit
of the nation, not a mere member of an uji or a tomobe. But it proved
impossible to carry out this system in the case of the tomobe (called
also kakibe), or labouring element of the uji, and the yakabe, or
domestic servants of a family. To these their old status had to be
left.

THE FORTY-FIRST SOVEREIGN, THE EMPRESS JITO (A.D. 690-697)

The Emperor Temmu died in 686, and the throne remained nominally
unoccupied until 690. A similar interregnum had separated the
accession of Tenchi from the death of his predecessor, the Empress
Saimei, and both events were due to a cognate cause. Tenchi did not
wish that his reforms should be directly associated with the Throne
until their success was assured; Temmu desired that the additions
made by him to the Daika system should be consolidated by the genius
of his wife before the sceptre passed finally into the hands of his
son. Jito had stood by her husband's side when, as Prince Oama, he
had barely escaped the menaces of the Omi Court, and there is reason
to think that she had subsequently shared his administrative
confidence as she had assisted at his military councils. The heir to
the throne, Prince Kusakabe, was then in his twenty-fifth year, but
he quietly endorsed the paternal behest that his mother should direct
State affairs. The arrangement was doubtless intended to be
temporary, but Kusakabe died three years later, and yielding to the
solicitations of her ministers, Jito then (690) finally ascended the
throne.

Her reign, however, was not entirely free from the family strife
which too often accompanied a change of sovereigns in Japan's early
days. In addition to his legitimate offspring, Kusakabe, the Emperor
Temmu left several sons by secondary consorts, and the eldest
survivor of these, Prince Otsu, listening to the counsels of the Omi
Court's partisans and prompted by his own well-deserved popularity
and military prowess, intrigued to seize the throne. He was executed
in his house, and his fate is memorable for two reasons: the first,
that his young wife, Princess Yamanobe, "hastened thither with her
hair dishevelled and her feet bare and joined him in death;" the
second, that all his followers, over thirty in number, were
pardoned--rare clemency in those days. Prince Otsu is said to have
inaugurated a pastime which afterwards became very popular--the
composition of Chinese verses.

SLAVES

The most important legislation of the Empress Jito's reign related to
slaves.* In the year of her accession (690), she issued an edict
ordering that interest on all debts contracted prior to, or during
the year (685) prior to Temmu's death should be cancelled. Temmu
himself had created the precedent for this. When stricken by mortal
illness, he had proclaimed remission of all obligations, "whether in
rice or in valuables," incurred on or before the last day of the
preceding year. But Jito's edict had a special feature. It provided
that anyone already in servitude on account of a debt should be
relieved from serving any longer on account of the interest. Thus it
is seen that the practice of pledging the service of one's body in
discharge of debt was in vogue at that epoch, and that it received
official recognition with the proviso that the obligation must not
extend to interest. Debts, therefore, had become instruments for
swelling the ranks of the slave class.

*The senmin, or slave class, was divided into two groups, namely,
public slaves (kwanko ryoko, and ko-nuhi), and private slaves (kenin
and shi-nuhi).

But while sanctioning this evil custom, the tendency of the law was
to minimize its results. In another edict of the same reign it was
laid down that, when a younger brother of the common people
(hyakusei) was sold by his elder brother, the former should still be
classed as a freeman (ryomin), but a child sold by its father became
a serf (senmin); that service rendered to one of the senmin class by
a freeman in payment of a debt must not affect the status of the
freeman, and that the children of freemen so serving, even though
born of a union with a slave, should be reckoned as freemen. It has
been shown already that degradation to slavery was a common
punishment or expiation of a crime, and the annals of the period
under consideration indicate that men and women of the slave class
were bought and sold like any other chattels. Documents certainly not
of more recent date than the ninth century, show particulars of some
of these transactions. One runs as follows:

Men (nu) 3
Women (hi) 3
--
Total 6

2 at 10000 bundles of rice each
2 at 800 bundles of rice each.
1 at 700 bundles of rice.
1 at 600 bundles of rice.
-----
Total 4900 bundles

1 man (nu) named Kokatsu; age 34; with a mole under the left eye
Price 1000 bundles of rice.
The above are slaves of Kannawo Oba of Okambe in Yamagata district.

Comparison of several similar vouchers indicates that the usual price
of an able-bodied slave was one thousand bundles of rice, and as one
bundle gave five sho of unhulled rice, one thousand bundles
represented fifty koku, which, in the modern market, would sell for
about six hundred yen. It is not to be inferred, however, that the
sale of freemen into slavery was sanctioned by law. During the reign
of the Emperor Temmu, a farmer of Shimotsuke province wished to sell
his child on account of a bad harvest, but his application for
permission was refused, though forwarded by the provincial governor.
In fact, sales or purchases of the junior members of a family by the
seniors were not publicly permitted, although such transactions
evidently took place. Even the manumission of a slave required
official sanction. Thus it is recorded that, in the reign of the
Empress Jito, Komaro, an asomi, asked and obtained the Court's
permission to grant their freedom to six hundred slaves in his
possession. Another rule enacted in Jito's time was that the slaves
of an uji, when once manumitted, could not be again placed on the
slaves' register at the request of a subsequent uji no Kami. Finally
this same sovereign enacted that yellow-coloured garments should be
worn by freemen and black by slaves. History shows that the sale and
purchase of human beings in Japan, subject to the above limitations,
was not finally forbidden until the year 1699.

THE MILITARY SYSTEM

It has been seen that the Emperors Kotoku and Temmu attached much
importance to the development of military efficiency and that they
issued orders with reference to the training of provincials, the
armed equipment of the people, the storage of weapons of war, and the
maintenance of men-at-arms by officials. Compulsory service, however,
does not appear to have been inaugurated until the reign of the
Empress Jito, when (689) her Majesty instructed the local governors
that one-fourth of the able-bodied men in each province should be
trained every year in warlike exercises. This was the beginning of
the conscription system in Japan.

THE ORDER OF SUCCESSION OF THE THRONE

That the throne should be occupied by members of the Imperial family
only had been a recognized principle of the Japanese polity from
remotest epochs. But there had been an early departure from the rule
of primogeniture, and since the time of Nintoku the eligibility of
brothers also had been acknowledged in practice. To this latitude of
choice many disturbances were attributable, notably the fell Jinshin
struggle, and the terrors of that year were still fresh in men's
minds when, during Jito's reign, the deaths of two Crown Princes in
succession brought up the dangerous problem again for solution. The
princes were Kusakabe and Takaichi. The former had been nominated by
his father, Temmu, but was instructed to leave the reins of power in
the hands of his mother, Jito, for a time. He died in the year 689,
while Jito was still regent, and Takaichi, another of Temmu's sons,
who had distinguished himself as commander of a division of troops in
the Jinshin campaign, was made Prince Imperial.