oth at Kyoto and Kamakura with resistless authority.
They exercised at both places this authority without demanding or
receiving the appointment to any of the high positions which they might
have claimed. They were only the regents of young and immature shoguns,
who were the appointees of a court which had at its head an emperor
without power or influence, and which was controlled by the creatures of
their own designation. This lamentable state of things lasted for many
years. The shoguns during all this time were children sent from Kyoto,
sons of emperors or connections of the royal family. The Hojo ruled them
as well as the country. Whenever it seemed best, they relentlessly deposed
them, and set up others in their places. In A.D. 1289 the Regent Sadatoki,
it is said, became irritated with one of these semi-royal shoguns, named
Koreyasu, and in order to show his contempt for him, had him put in a
_nori-mono_(126) with his heels upward, and sent him under guard to Kyoto.
Some of the Hojo regents, however, were men of character and efficiency.
Yasutoki, for instance, who became regent in A.D. 1225, was a man of
notable executive ability, taking Yoritomo as his model. Besides being a
soldier of tried capacity, he was a true friend of the farmer in his
seasons of famine and trial, and a promoter of legal reforms and of the
arts, which found a congenial home among the Japanese.

But this condition of affairs could not last always. The very same
influences which put the real power into the hands of the regents were at
work to render them unfit to continue to wield it. Abdication and
effeminacy were gradually dragging down the Hojo family to the same level
as that of the shoguns and emperors. In A.D. 1256 Tokiyori, then only
thirty years old, resigned the regency in favor of his son Tokimune, who
was only six years. He himself retired to a monastery, from which he
travelled as a visiting monk throughout the country. In the meantime his
son was under the care of a tutor, Nagatoki, who, of course, was one of
the Hojo family. Thus it had come about that a tutor now controlled the
regent; who was supposed to control the shogun; who was supposed to be the
vassal of the emperor; who in turn was generally a child under the control
of a corrupt and venal court. Truly government in Japan had sunk to its
lowest point, and it was time for heroic remedies!

Occasionally, in the midst of this corruption and inefficiency, an event
occurs