e Yoshimitsu
led after his resignation of the shogun's office. Pleasure trips
engrossed his attention--trips to Ise, to Yamato, to Hyogo, to
Wakasa, and so forth. He set the example of luxury, and it found
followers on the part of all who aimed at being counted fashionable,
with the inevitable result that the producing classes were taxed
beyond endurance. It has to be noted, too, that although Yoshimitsu
lived in nominal retirement at his Kita-yama palace, he really
continued to administer the affairs of the empire.

INTERNATIONAL HUMILIATION

It is not for arrogance, or yet for extravagance, that Japanese
historians chiefly reproach Yoshimitsu. His unpardonable sin in their
eyes is that he humiliated his country. From the accession of the
Ming dynasty (1368) China made friendly overtures to Japan,
especially desiring the latter to check the raids of her corsairs
who, as in the days of the Hojo after the repulse of the Mongol
armada, so also in the times of the Ashikaga, were a constant menace
to the coastwise population of the neighbouring continent. Upon the
attitude of the shogun towards these remonstrances and overtures
depended the prosecution of commerce with the Middle Kingdom, and the
profits accruing from that commerce were too considerable to be
neglected by a ruler like Yoshimitsu, whose extravagance required
constant accessions of revenue. Moreover, the Muromachi shogun was a
disciple and patron of the Zen sect of Buddhism, and the priests of
that sect always advocated peaceful intercourse with China, the
source of philosophic and literary learning.

All these considerations induced the Ashikaga chief not only to issue
orders for the restraint of the corsairs, but also to receive from
the Chinese Court despatches in which he was plainly designated the
king of a country tributary to China, and to make answer in language
unequivocally endorsing the propriety of such terminology. In one
despatch, dated February, 1403, Yoshimitsu described himself as a
"subject of Ming" and, "prostrate, begged to present twenty horses,
ten thousand catties of sulphur, thirty-two pieces of agate, three
gold-foil folding screens, one thousand lances, one hundred swords, a
suit of armour, and an ink-stone." It is recorded that he even
humbled himself so far as to ask for supplies of Chinese coins, and
certainly these comparatively pure copper tokens remained largely in
circulation in Japan down to Tokugawa times, under the name