B.C. 87. 11th year, Summer, 4th month, 28th day. The generals of the four roads reported to the Emperor the circumstances of their pacification of the savages. This year strange tribes came in great numbers and there was tranquillity throughout the land.
B.C. 86. 12th year, Spring, 3rd month, 11th day. The following decree was issued:—"Ever since we received the Celestial Dignity and undertook the guardianship of the ancestral shrines, Our light has been subject to obscuration, and Our influence has been wanting in placidity. Consequently there has been disaccord in the action of the male and female principles of nature, heat and cold have mixed their due order, epidemic disease has been rife, and calamities have befallen (V. 15.) the people. But now in order to be absolved from Our offences and to rectify Our errors, we have reverently worshipped the Gods of Heaven and Earth. We have also dispensed Our instructions and thus pacified the savage tribes, and by force of arms have chastised those who refused submission. In this way authority has been maintained, while below there are no retired people.[1] Education[2] is widespread; the multitude take delight in their industries;[3] strange tribes come employing several interpreters; the countries beyond the sea offer allegiance. At this time We think it fit to make a new recension of the people, and to acquaint them with grades of seniority, and the order of forced labour."
Autumn, 9th month, 16th day. A census of the people was begun and taxes were imposed anew. These are called the men's bow-end tax and the women's finger-end tax.[4] Therefore the Gods of Heaven and Earth were harmonious. The wind
- ↑ By "retired people" are probably meant those who have concealed themselves in order to escape from oppression. The phrase occurs in the "Confucian Analects" (Legge, p. 200), where, however, it is used of a voluntary retirement from the world.
- ↑ The "education" is not juvenile education, but the education of the people by the good example of the monarch, with, perhaps, an occasional discourse from the throne.
- ↑ From "authority" to "industries" is copied from a Chinese History of the Han Dynasty. The whole decree is utterly impossible as a document of Japanese History at this period. It is as Chinese as it can be.
- ↑ That is, a tax of animals' skins and game to be paid by the men, and of textile fabrics to be levied on women. See Ch. K., p. 182.
