the province of Wohari and Komaro, Imbe no Obito to the province of Mino, to levy offerings for the Gods.[1]
8th month, 5th day. Governors of the Eastern provinces were appointed. Then the Governors were addressed as follows:—"In accordance with the charge entrusted to Us by the Gods of Heaven, We propose at this present for the first time to regulate the myriad provinces.
When you proceed to your posts, prepare registers of all the free subjects of the State and of the people under the control of others, whether great or small. Take account also of the acreage[2] of cultivated land. As to the profits arising from the gardens and ponds, the water and land, deal with them in common with the people.[3] Moreover it is not competent for the provincial Governors, while in their provinces, to decide criminal cases, nor are they permitted by accepting bribes to bring the people to poverty and misery. When they come up to the capital they must not bring large numbers of the people in their train. They are only allowed to bring with them the Kuni no Miyakko and the district officials.[4] But when they travel on public business they may ride the horses of their department, and eat the food of their department. From the rank of Suke[5] upwards those who obey this law will surely be rewarded, while those who disobey it shall be liable to be (XXV. 8.) reduced in cap-rank. On all, from the rank of Hangwan[6]
- ↑ Shintō.
- ↑ 畆, which is here rendered acreage, is the Chinese mow, now fixed by treaty as equal to 73312 sq. yards. 田 is used here in the more general sense of cultivated land generally, not merely rice-fields. The Kana gloss tahatake appears to me to be put for 田 in this wider sense. Dr. Florenz interprets this expression differently. He takes hata or hatake to represent 畆, making the whole mean rice-land and dry fields—Reis- und Trockenfelder.
- ↑ Take them into your counsel.
- ↑ This is the way in which the commentators construe this passage. If there was any authority for doing so, I should like to take 領 as equivalent to 所領人 a few lines above, or to suppose that this phrase has been omitted. This would give the meaning, "the serfs of the Kuni no Miyakko and of the district." These local Governors usually were Kuni no Miyakko.
- ↑ Assistant to a Governor.
- ↑ The interlinear gloss is Matsurigotobito, i.e. Government-man. It is doubtful whether this and many more of these glosses are anything more than translations of the Chinese. The hangwan was a sort of aide of the chief local authority. Chancellor, perhaps nearly corresponds to it.
