its master, then the desire awakens to take the place of the master, when it is found that he is not so strong as he looks to be. Moreover in any country, in whatever condition, war cannot be carried on without a great number of participants, while it must be directed by a single head. War, therefore, tends on the one hand to create a dictator, and on the other hand to precipitate the democratisation of a country. None would be so ignorant for long as to discharge gladly an imposed duty without enjoying their right to compensation for service rendered. The time must come when these military leaders should supersede the ultracivilised Kyoto nobles, and hold the reins of government themselves. The transference of political power from the higher to the lower stratum was unavoidable. These generals, howsoever inferior they might be in rank compared with the court nobles of the Fujiwara, were still to be classed among the nobles, and it was yet a very far cry to the time when the common people could have some share in the politics of their own country. CHAPTER VII THE MILITARY REGIME; THE TAIRA AND THE MINAMOTO; THE SHOGUNATE OF KAMAKURA For some time the military class had been rocking the prestige of the court nobles, and at last superseded them by overturning their rotten edifice. It was first by the wars of the so-called "Nine Years" and "Three Years," both waged in northern Japan in the latter half of the eleventh century by Yoriyoshi and Yoshiiye, the famous generals of the Minamoto family, that the military class began to grow markedly powerful and independent. Nearly a century passed, and then Yoritomo, one of the great-great-grandsons of Yoshiiye, was able to set up his military government, the Shogunate, at Kamakura in the province of Sagami. Previous to the Kamakura Shogunate, there was an interim between it and the old regime, the semi-military government of the Taira family. The family of the Taira sprang, like that of the Minamoto, from a scion of the imperial family, and, like the latter, had been engaged from the first in the craft of war. Of the two, the Taira first succeeded in courting the favour of the Fujiwara nobles, and the members of the former family were appointed to less dangerous and more lucrative posts than the Minamoto. As Japan at that time kept on gravitating toward the west of Kyoto, it was natural that the influence of the Taira should have been extended in the western provinces. Some of the noted warriors belonging to this clan were now and then charged with the governorship of the eastern provinces, and therefore their descendants were widely scattered in those quarters also. In the east, however, the influence of the Minamoto family was paramount, for noted warriors of this family were more frequently employed than the Taira in the region against the Ainu. In both of these families, the moral link between several branches