JAPAN
of persons making it may be gathered from the writings of Chōnen, a Bonze, who, in company with five acolytes, travelled to the Court of a Sung emperor, in the year 984 a. d.: "I turn my face to the setting sun, and journey westward over a hundred thousand li (thirty-three thousand miles) of boundless billows, I watch for the monsoon and return eastward, climbing over thousands of thousands of wave-mountain peaks. Towards the end of summer, I raise my anchor at Chêh-Kiang, and, in the early spring, I reach the suburbs of my metropolis." Thus the journey occupied six months even in Chōnen's day. What time and toil must it have involved nine centuries earlier! The Japanese appear to have essayed it only thrice during the three opening centuries of the Christian era: first in the year 57 a. d., when envoys, visiting the Chinese court, received from the ruler of the Middle Kingdom a gold seal and a ribbon; secondly in 107 a. d., when a hundred and sixty slaves were presented for the Chinese monarch's acceptance; and thirdly in 238 a. d. These facts are quoted from Chinese history. In Japanese annals the third embassy takes the form of an armed invasion of Korea, and constitutes one of the most celebrated as well as one of the most disputed incidents of Japan's story. A female chieftain, the Empress Jingo, is represented as having organised the expedition in obedience to divine orders. Her flotilla, led by a fierce deity and protected by a
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