CHAPTER II
THE KANGAKUSHA (Chinese Scholars)
Towards the end of the Muromachi period, learning in Japan had reached its lowest ebb. Hideyoshi, at the height of his power and fame, was an ignorant man, as letters written by him remain to testify, and he had great difficulty in finding scholars competent to conduct the negotiations with China and Corea which arose out of his invasion of the latter country. He was, however, a friend of learning. His successor Iyeyasu (1603–1632) fully recognised the necessity of wider knowledge for building up the new social and political fabric which he created. His patronage of printing has been already mentioned. He also established schools, and devoted much attention to the collection and preservation of printed books and manuscripts. A special department was provided by him, where he employed a staff of monks in copying out the family records of the Daimios.
Among the scholars who enjoyed Iyeyasu's patronage the most eminent was Fujiwara Seikwa, a native of Harima, where he was born in 1560. Himself a poet, he was a descendant of Fujiwara Sadaiye, a well-known Tanka-writer of the thirteenth century. As a boy he gave great promise of talent. He received the Buddhist tonsure, but soon recognised the emptiness of Buddhism,
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