Another and still greater evil of the age was the clashing of interests between the different classes of people. Chinese civilisation could permeate only the powerful, the higher classes. Though the chieftains and lords, who had been mighty in the former regime, were bereft of their power by the appropriation of their lands and people, a new class of nobles soon arose in place of them, and among the latter the descendants of Nakatomi-no-Kamatari were the most prominent. This sagacious minister, of whom I have already spoken in the foregoing chapters, was rewarded, in consideration of his meritorious services in the destruction of the Soga, as well as in the execution of the most radical reform Japan has ever known, with the office of the most intimate advisory minister of the Emperor, and was granted the honourable family appellation of Fujiwara. His descendants, who have ramified into innumerable branches and include more than half of the court-nobles of the present day, enjoyed ever-increasing imperial favour generation after generation. What marked especially the sudden growth of the family position was the elevation of one of the grand-daughters of the minister to be the imperial consort of the Emperor Shomu. For several centuries prior to this, it had been the custom to choose the empress from the daughters of the families of the blood imperial. An offspring of a subject, however high her father's rank might be, was not recognised as qualified to that distinction. The privilege, which the Fujiwara family was now exceptionally honoured with, meant that only this family should have hereafter its place next to the imperial, so that none other would be allowed to vie with it any more. The Fujiwara became thus associated with the imperial family more and more closely, and affairs of state gradually came to be transacted as if they were the family business of the Fujiwara. The worst evil of this aggrandisement was only prevented by the incessant and inveterate internecine feuds within the clan itself, which eventually served to put a bridle on the audacity and ambition of any one of the members.