sters insisted that, in the
document presented by the ambassador, Pohai must distinctly occupy
towards Japan the relation of vassal to suzerain, such having been
the invariable custom observed by Koma in former times. The
difficulty seems to have been met by substituting the name "Koma" for
"Pohai," thus, by implication, admitting that the new kingdom held
towards Japan the same status as that formerly held by Koma.
Throughout the whole of her subsequent intercourse with the Pohai
kingdom, intercourse which, though exceedingly fitful, lasted for
nearly a century and a half, Japan uniformly insisted upon the
maintenance of that attitude.

ENGRAVING: EMPEROR KWAMMU

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HEIAN EPOCH

THE FIFTIETH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR KWAMMU (A.D. 782-805)

JAPANESE history divides itself readily into epochs, and among them
not the least sharply defined is the period of 398 years separating
the transfer of the Imperial palace from Nara to Kyoto (794) and the
establishment of an administrative capital at Kamakura (1192). It is
called the Heian epoch, the term "Heian-jo" (Castle of Peace) having
been given to Kyoto soon after that city became the residence of the
Mikado. The first ruler in the epoch was Kwammu. This monarch, as
already shown, was specially selected by his father, Konin, at the
instance of Fujiwara Momokawa, who observed in the young prince
qualities essential to a ruler of men. Whether Kwammu's career as
Emperor reached the full standard of his promise as prince,
historians are not agreed.

Konin receives a larger meed of praise. His reforms of local abuses
showed at once courage and zeal But he did not reach the root of the
evil, nor did his son Kwammu, though in the matter of intention and
ardour there was nothing to choose between the two. The basic trouble
was arbitrary and unjust oppression of the lower classes by the
upper. These latter, probably educated in part by the be system,
which tended to reduce the worker with his hands to a position of
marked subservience, had learned to regard their own hereditary
privileges as practically unlimited, and to conclude that well nigh
any measure of forced labour was due to them from their inferiors.
Konin could not correct this conception, and neither could Kwammu.
Indeed, in the latter's case, the Throne was specially disqualified
as a source of remonstrance, for the sovereign himself had to make
extravagant demands upon the working classes on acco