years of the fourth shogun's sway, and to infuse the duties of
government with an atmosphere of diligence and uprightness.

THE ECHIGO COMPLICATION

For several years prior to the accession of Tsunayoshi, the province
of Echigo had been disturbed by an intrigue in the family of
Matsudaira Mitsunaga. It is unnecessary to enter into further
details. The incident was typical of the conditions existing in many
of the barons' households, and the history of Japan furnishes
numerous parallel cases. But connected with this particular example
is the remarkable fact that the shogun himself finally undertook in
the hall of justice to decide the issue, and that the rendering of
justice by the chief of the Bakufu became thenceforth a not
infrequently practised habit. Instructed by his prime minister, the
shogun swept aside all the obstacles placed in the path of justice by
corruption and prejudice; sentenced the principal intriguer to death;
confiscated the Mitsunaga family's estate of 250,000 koku on the
ground of its chief's incompetence, and severely punished all the
Bakufu officials who had been parties to the plot.

THE ATAKA MARU

Another act of Tsunayoshi stands to the credit of his acumen.
Although the third shogun, Iemitsu, had vetoed the building of any
vessels exceeding five hundred koku capacity, his object being to
prevent oversea enterprise, he caused to be constructed for the use
of the Bakufu a great ship called the Ataka Maru, which required a
crew several hundred strong and involved a yearly outlay figuring in
the official accounts at one hundred thousand koku. One of
Tsunayoshi's first orders was that this huge vessel should be broken
up, and when his ministers remonstrated on the ground that she would
be invaluable in case of emergency, he replied that if an
insurrection could not be suppressed without such extraordinary
instruments, the Bakufu might step down at once from the seats of
power. "As for me," he added, "I have no desire to preserve such an
evidence of constant apprehension and at such a charge on the coffers
of the State."

ENCOURAGEMENT OF VIRTUE

Tsunayoshi also instructed his officials to search throughout the
empire for persons of conspicuous filial piety and women of noted
chastity. To these he caused to be distributed presents of money or
pensions, and he directed the litterateurs of the Hayashi family to
write the biographies of the recipients of such rewards. In fact, the
early yea