d the
Settsu-shoku--Settsu being the name of the province in which the town
stood--and in Chikuzen province there was the Dazai-fu (Great
Administrative Office), which had charge of foreign relations in
addition to being the seat of the governor-generalship of the whole
island of Kyushu. In spite of its importance as an administrative
post, the Dazai-fu, owing to its distance from the capital, came to
be regarded as a place of exile for high officials who had fallen out
of Imperial favour.

The empire was divided into provinces (kuni) of four classes--great,
superior, medium, and inferior,--and each province was subdivided
into districts (kori) of five classes--great, superior, medium,
inferior, and small. The term "province" had existed from remote
antiquity, but it represented at the outset a comparatively small
area, for in the time of the Emperor Keitai (A.D. 507-531), there
were 144 kuni. This number was largely reduced in the sequel of
surveys and re-adjustments of boundaries during the Daika era
(645-650), and after the Daiho reforms (701-704) it stood at
fifty-eight, but subsequently, at an uncertain date, it grew to
sixty-six and remained permanently thus. The kori (district) of the
Daika and Daiho reforms had originally been called agata (literally
"arable land"), and had been subdivided into inaki (granary) and mura
(village). A miyatsuko had administered the affairs of the kuni,
holding the office by hereditary right, and the agata of which there
were about 590, a frequently changing total as well as the inaki and
the mura had been under officials called nushi. But according to the
Daika and Daiho systems, each kuni was placed under a governor
(kokushi), chosen on account of competence and appointed for a term
of four years; each district (kori) was administered by a cho
(chief).

MILITARY INSTITUTIONS

In the capital there were three bodies of guards; namely, the emon-fu
(gate guards); the sa-eji-fu and the u-eji-fu (Left and Right
watches). There was also the sa-ma-ryo and the u-ma-ryo (cavalry of
the Left and of the Right), and the sa-hyogo-ryo and the u-hyogo-ryo
(Left and Right Departments of Supply). These divisions into "left"
and "right," and the precedence given to the left, were derived from
China, but it has to be observed in Japan's case that the metropolis
itself was similarly divided into left and right quarters. Outside
the capital each province had an army corps (gundan), and one-third