need to be guarded against 'foreign bodies'. The one-great Da-Tsuni
would still be in power, and the Toh-Yota would still be hewing timber
amid the lake-strewn hills on the northern marches. The supreme
authority of the Shogun could only be maintained if the holder of that
office displayed resolute, forceful leadership combined with an
unswerving regard for tradition and an iron will. But it was equally
true that those who did not pause to consider the possible consequences
of an irreversible decision did not, as a rule, remain in power for
long. Action begat reaction. It was a fundamental law. The stone in
the water. The Shogun might be revered as a figurehead by the mass of
his lower-ranking subjects but to his fellow domain-lords he was first
among equals, not an untouchable god-emperor. Despotic behaviour was
no longer tolerated. Nowadays, the art of government consisted in
striking the right balance. And despite the stark philosophy of
bushido, the choice, more often than not, was no longer simply between
right and wrong, but between the lesser of two evils.
As Shogun, Yoritomo's decisions were influenced by an unceasing flow of
information brought to his trusted advisers by a large network of
government spies. He knew that the outward calm imposed by the code of
bushido, the formal etiquette of court procedures and the restrictive
ordinances issued by the governing council of ministers formed a screen
that concealed a brooding pit of vipers, restless with dreams of power,
their forked tongues charged with venomous rumours, forever hatching
murderous conspiracies.
Once, loyalty had been given unstintingly, without question. But those
were the lean, hard days, when the survival of Ne-Issan was at stake.
The establishment of the first Shogunate by the Da-Tsuni, the leaders
of the 'Seventh Wave', was a model of purity. Their overthrow had been
followed by two centuries of turbulence; periods of uneasy peace
interspersed with bloody civil wars. The rise to power of the Toh-Yota
had restored the previous authority of the Shogunate, bringing firm
government and more than three-quarters of a century of relative peace
and prosperity.
But even peace had its dangers. It had enabled the domain-lords to
grow richer and ever more powerful.
The annual taxes they were required to pay into the coffers of the
Shogunate had also increased the already considerable wealth of the
Toh-Yota family, but now loyalty, like everything else, had its
price.
For prosperity brought not only a change in a society's material
wealth, it also changed its values. It awakened the desire for
progress, and progress was a two-edged sword that, in the wrong hands,
could destroy Ne-Issan just as the world of their ancestors had been
destroyed.
