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command and to administer the Minamoto power throughout Japan. He established his leading retainers in the best strategic positions throughout the country, who acted as military Governors, and reported to Kamakura as the centre of military government. This system of administration introduced by Yoritomo was the foundation of that feudalism which prevailed in Japan for a period of more than seven centuries.

In the 3rd year of Kenkyu (1192) the Emperor was pleased to again appoint Yoritomo the ‘Sei-i Taishogun,’ or Commander-in-Chief, against the barbarians. The office of the ‘Sei-i Taishogun’ was first instituted by the fiftieth Emperor, Kwammu (782–805), who appointed Sakanoue-no-Tamuramaro to suppress the insurrection of the Aino tribes, who inhabited the northern part of the main island of Japan at that time. Again, in the reign of the fifty-second Emperor, Saga (810–823), Bunya-no-Watamaro was nominated to the same office for the same purpose. These are the only two instances which occurred before Yoritomo held the office, so the ‘Sei-i Taishogun’ was not therefore a hereditary office, but instituted temporarily when necessary to direct attack against the barbarians or to suppress the Ainos in their occasional insurrections. As the latter were completely subdued, however, before the time of Yoritomo, it had lost that significance, but was used in the sense of official designation of the chief controller of the military government, and was as such made hereditary to his successors. This word ‘Taishogun,’ contracted to its abbreviated form of ‘Shogun,’ began to be used in the time of Yoritomo to designate the holder of this position, and marks the real beginning of the Shogunate.

The feudal system of government was first established by Yoritomo, as has already been observed, and completed by Ashikaga Takauji, the first Shogun of the Ashikaga Shogunate (1338–1573), and finally perfected by Tokugawa Iyeyasu, the first Shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1867). From those military Governors distributed by Yoritomo rose the later feudal lords, or ‘Daimyos,’ who rendered homage to their chief, or the Shogun. The Shogun held the position of Governor-General, who was appointed, and to whom the exercise of the sovereign power was granted, by the Emperor, and who enjoyed the office as a hereditary gift. When a Shogun died, he was succeeded by one of his sons, or his nearest kinsman, and the latter was appointed as Shogun by the contemporaneous Emperor, always with a definite ceremony. But as the strongest and most powerful of all the military class always assumed the supremacy over the rest,