se who cut their belly to follow their lord on his
decease has become very great. For the future, to those retainers who
may be animated by such an idea, their respective lords should
intimate, constantly and in very strong terms, their disapproval of
the custom. If, notwithstanding this warning, any instance of the
practice should occur, it will be deemed that the deceased lord was
to blame for unreadiness. Henceforward, moreover, his son and
successor will be held blameworthy for incompetence, as not having
prevented the suicides."*

*From a paper read by Mr. Consul-General J. C. Hall and recorded in
the "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan" for 1911.

RELEASE OF HOSTAGES

Another memorable step was taken during the administrative period of
Ietsuna. It had been the custom to require that all the great nobles
should send a number of their chief retainers or the latter's
fathers, brothers, and sons to Yedo, where they were held as hostages
for the peaceful conduct of their feudal chiefs. But when the system
of sankin kotai had been in operation for some time, and when the
power of the Tokugawa Bakufu had been fully consolidated, this
practice of exacting hostages became superfluous and vexatious. It
was therefore abandoned in the year 1665 and the hostages were all
suffered to leave Yedo.

THE MING DYNASTY

The fall of the Ming dynasty in China took place in the thirteenth
year of Ietsuna's succession, and for a moment it seemed that Japan
might possibly take the field against the conquering Tatars. A
Chinese immigrant who had settled in the island of Hirado, in Hizen,
married the daughter of a Japanese farmer, and had a son by her. The
immigrant's name was Cheng Chi-lung, and when the partisans of the
Ming dynasty made their last stand at Foochaw, they chose Cheng for
general, through him soliciting aid from the Yedo Bakufu. Their
request was earnestly discussed in Yedo, and it is possible that had
the Ming officers held out a little longer, Japan might have sent an
expedition across the sea. Cheng Chi-lung's son, Cheng Cheng-kung,
resisted to the last, and when he fell fighting at Macao, his
Japanese mother committed suicide. Other fugitives from China,
notably an able scholar named Chu Chi-yu, settled in Japan at this
time, and contributed not a little to the promotion of art and
literature.

YEDO

The influence of the sankin kotai system upon the prosperity of Yedo,
as well as upon the efficiency