of a
powerful feudal aristocracy, for the younger sons born to successive
sovereigns bear, for the most part, names indicative of territorial
lordship; but it seems justifiable to conclude that the first great
impetus to that kind of decentralization was given by Sujin's
despatch of the Shido shoguns.

*Hence the term "Aizu," form, signifies "to meet."

AGRICULTURE AND TAXATION

The digging of reservoirs and tunnels for irrigating rice-fields
received unprecedented attention in the reign of this Emperor, and
mention is for the first time made of taxes--tributes of "bow-notches
and of finger-tips," in other words, the produce of the chase and the
products of the loom. A census was taken for taxation purposes, but
unhappily the results are nowhere recorded. The Court gave itself
some concern about maritime transport also. A rescript ordered that
ships should be built by every province, but nothing is stated as to
their dimensions or nature. In this rescript it is mentioned that
"the people of the coast not having ships, suffer grievously by land
transport." What they suffered may be inferred from a description in
the Chronicles where we read that at the building of the tomb of a
princess, "the people, standing close to each other, passed the
stones from hand to hand, and thus transported them from Osaka to
Yamato."

FOREIGN INTERCOURSE

Korea, when Japanese history is first explicitly concerned with it,
was peopled by a number of semi-independent tribes, and the part of
the peninsula lying southward of the Han River--that is to say,
southward of the present Seoul--comprised three kingdoms. Of these
Ma-Han occupied the whole of the western half of the peninsula along
the coast of the Yellow Sea; while Sin-Han and Pyong-Han formed the
eastern half, lying along the shore of the Sea of Japan. The three
were collectively spoken of as Sam-Han (the three Han). But Japan's
relations with the peninsula did not always involve these major
divisions. Her annals speak of Shiragi (or Sinra), Kara, Kudara, and
Koma. Shiragi and Kara were principalities carved respectively out of
the southeast and south of Pyong-Han. Thus, they lay nearest to
Japan, the Korea Strait alone intervening, and the Korea Strait was
almost bridged by islands. Kudara constituted the modern Seoul and
its vicinity; Koma, (called also Korai and in Korea, Kokuli), the
modern Pyong-yang and its district. These two places were rendered
specially accessible by