To say sooth, the field of activity of those untiring priests was not restricted to those eastern provinces, which are denoted by the general appellation of "Kwanto", but was extended into the far northern provinces of Mutsu and Dewa. This region at the extremity of Honto was long ago created as provinces, but had lagged far behind the rest of Japan in respect of civilisation. A considerable number of the Ainu were still lingering in the northern part of the two provinces. Fujiwara-no-Hidehira, the generalissimo of the region, who harboured Yoshitsune, the younger brother and victim of Yoritomo, is said to have been of Ainu blood. His sphere of influence reached Shirakawa on the south, which was considered at that time the boundary between civilised and barbarous Japan. The time had arrived, however, when this barrier was at last to be done away with. When a quarrel arose between the two brothers, Yoritomo and Yoshitsune, after the annihilation of the Taira, and the latter sought refuge with Hidehira, Yoritomo thought of marching into Mutsu. This expedition was undertaken in the year 1189, after the death of Hidehira. His sons were easily defeated. The land taken from them was distributed by Yoritomo among his soldiers, who followed him from the Kwanto and fought under his banner. The vast region, by coming thus under the military authority of the Kamakura Shogunate, was for the first time, taken into Japan proper. It was on account of this extension of political Japan over the whole of Honto, that the new sects had a chance to penetrate into those provinces. We have seen that religion was the first and the most forcible exponent of the new age. If the Shogunate of Kamakura had remained in power longer than it did, other factors of the new civilisation might have developed quite afresh around the Shogunate. Art and literature of another type than that which flourished at Kyoto might have blossomed forth. The time was, however, not yet ripe for the total regeneration of Japan. The conventionalism of the Kyoto civilisation more and more influenced the Shogunate, which was still too young and had nothing solid of its own civilisation capable of resisting the infiltration of the old. Besides, several difficulties which lay in the way of the Shogunate cooperated in bringing about its fall in the year of 1332. Japan had to go on in a half regenerated state for some time. CHAPTER VIII THE WELDING OF THE NATION THE POLITICAL DISINTEGRATION OF THE COUNTRY