imous and trustful but of
aggressive tendencies.

IMPORTATION OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Although Japan's military influence on the neighbouring continent
waned perceptibly from the reign of Kimmei (540-571) onwards, a
stream of Chinese civilization flowed steadily into the Island Empire
from the west, partly coming direct from the fountain head; partly
filtering, in a more or less impure form, through Korean channels.
Many of the propagandists of this civilization remained permanently
in Japan, where they received a courteous welcome, being promoted to
positions of trust and admitted to the ranks of the nobility. Thus a
book (the Seishi-roku), published in 814, which has been aptly termed
the "peerage of Japan," shows that, at that time, nearly one-third of
the Japanese nobility traced their descent to Chinese or Korean
ancestors in something like equal proportions. The numbers are,
China, 162 families; Kudara, 104; Koma, 50; Mimana, 9; Shiragi, 9;
doubtful, 47. Total, 381 Chinese and Korean families out of a grand
aggregate of 1177. But many of the visitors returned home after
having sojourned for a time as teachers of literature, art, or
industrial science.

This system of brief residence for purposes of instruction seems to
have been inaugurated during the reign of Keitai, in the year 513,
when Tan Yang-i, a Chinese expounder of the five classics, was
brought to Yamato by envoys from Kudara as a gift valued enough to
purchase political intervention for the restoration of lost
territory; and when, three years later, a second embassy from the
same place, coming to render thanks for effective assistance in the
matter of the territory, asked that Tan might be allowed to return in
exchange for another Chinese pundit, Ko An-mu. The incident suggests
how great was the value attached to erudition even in those remote
days. Yet this promising precedent was not followed for nearly forty
years, partly owing to the unsettled nature of Japan's relations.
with Korea.

After the advent of Buddhism (552), however, Chinese culture found
new expansion eastward. In 554, there arrived from Kudara another
Chinese literatus, and, by desire of the Emperor, Kimmei, a party of
experts followed shortly afterwards, including a man learned in the
calendar, a professor of divination, a physician, two herbalists, and
four musicians. The record says that these men, who, with the
exception of the Chinese doctor of literature, were all Koreans,