duing them taxes the resources of the Yamato to
the fullest. Some annalists are disposed to seek an explanation of
this discrepancy in climatic and topographical difficulties. Kosami,
in his despatch referring to the Koromo-gawa campaign, explains that
12,440 men had to be constantly employed in transporting provisions
and that the quantity carried by them in twenty-four days did not
exceed eleven days' rations for the troops. The hardship of
campaigning in a country where means of communication were so
defective is easily conjectured, and it has also to be noted that
during only a brief period in summer did the climate of Mutsu permit
taking the field. But these conditions existed equally in the eras of
Yamato-dake and Hirafu. Whatever obstacles they presented in the
eighth century must have been equally potent in the second and in the
seventh.

Two explanations are offered. They are more or less conjectural. One
is that the Yemishi of Mutsu were led by chieftains of Yamato origin,
men who had migrated to the northeast in search of fortune or
impelled by disaffection. It seems scarcely credible, however, that a
fact so special would have eluded historical reference, whereas only
one passing allusion is made to it and that, too, in a book not fully
credible. The other explanation is that the Yemishi were in league
with hordes of Tatars who had crossed from the mainland of Asia, or
travelled south by the islands of Saghalien and Yezo. The main
evidence in support of this theory is furnished by the names of the
insurgent leaders Akuro-o, Akagashira, and Akahige. Ideographists
point out that the character aku is frequently pronounced o, and with
that reading the name "Akuro-o" becomes "Oro-o," which was the term
used for "Russian." As for "Akagashira" and "Akahige," they frankly
signify "red head" and "red beard," common Japanese names for
foreigners. In a shrine at Suzuka-yama in Ise, to which point the
insurgents pushed southward before Tamuramaro took the field, there
used to be preserved a box, obviously of foreign construction, said
to have been left there by the "Eastern Barbarians;" and in the
Tsugaru district of the modern Mutsu province, relics exist of an
extensive fortress presenting features not Japanese, which is
conjectured to have been the basis of the Tatar invaders. But all
these inferences rest on little more than hypothesis.

RISE OF MILITARY HOUSES

What is certain, however, is that a collateral res