impetus to that kind of decentralization was given by Sujin's despatch of the Shido shoguns. *Hence the term "Aizu," form, signifies "to meet." AGRICULTURE AND TAXATION The digging of reservoirs and tunnels for irrigating rice-fields received unprecedented attention in the reign of this Emperor, and mention is for the first time made of taxes--tributes of "bow-notches and of finger-tips," in other words, the produce of the chase and the products of the loom. A census was taken for taxation purposes, but unhappily the results are nowhere recorded. The Court gave itself some concern about maritime transport also. A rescript ordered that ships should be built by every province, but nothing is stated as to their dimensions or nature. In this rescript it is mentioned that "the people of the coast not having ships, suffer grievously by land transport." What they suffered may be inferred from a description in the Chronicles where we read that at the building of the tomb of a princess, "the people, standing close to each other, passed the stones from hand to hand, and thus transported them from Osaka to Yamato." FOREIGN INTERCOURSE Korea, when Japanese history is first explicitly concerned with it, was peopled by a number of semi-independent tribes, and the part of the peninsula lying southward of the Han River--that is to say, southward of the present Seoul--comprised three kingdoms. Of these Ma-Han occupied the whole of the western half of the peninsula along the coast of the Yellow Sea; while Sin-Han and Pyong-Han formed the eastern half, lying along the shore of the Sea of Japan. The three were collectively spoken of as Sam-Han (the three Han). But Japan's relations with the peninsula did not always involve these major divisions. Her annals speak of Shiragi (or Sinra), Kara, Kudara, and Koma. Shiragi and Kara were principalities carved respectively out of the southeast and south of Pyong-Han. Thus, they lay nearest to Japan, the Korea Strait alone intervening, and the Korea Strait was almost bridged by islands. Kudara constituted the modern Seoul and its vicinity; Koma, (called also Korai and in Korea, Kokuli), the modern Pyong-yang and its district. These two places were rendered specially accessible by the rivers Han and Tadong which flowed through them to the Yellow Sea; but of course in this respect they could not compare with Shiragi (Sinra) and Kara, of which latter place the Japanese usually spoke as Mimana.