But the cautious and artful emperor, who, however he might give way to sudden fits of violence and caprice, was a perfect master of all the arts of dissimulation, knowing, as well as Bonaparte, if not better, how to wait till the pear was ripe, was not yet wholly prepared to break with the converted kings and nobles, whom he found, perhaps, as well as the humbler converts, more attached to their faith than he had supposed. There were too many inflammable materials in his yet unconsolidated empire for him to run the risk of provoking a rebellion; and, besides, there still remained to be subdued eight independent provinces in the east and north of Nippon, including a kingdom of five provinces, in which were situated the great cities of Suruga and Yedo. The conquest of this kingdom was speedily achieved, partly by arts and partly by arms. A new palace was erected for the Dairi, in place of the old one, which had been burnt during the late troubles at Miyako. A splendid temple had also been built near that city, in which it was suspected that the emperor intended to cause himself to be worshipped, as his predecessor had done; when, in August, 1588, Father Valignani, appointed ambassador to the emperor and kings of Japan, from the Portuguese viceroy of Goa, arrived at Macao, on his way to Nagasaki, having in his company the returning ambassadors to the Pope, who had touched at Goa on their way home, and who had stopped there a whole year before proceeding for Japan.[50] CHAPTER XII _Recapitulation—Extent of the Japanese Empire—Valignani arrives at Nagasaki—Progress hitherto of the Catholic Faith—The Emperor’s Projects against China—Valignani’s Visit to the Emperor at Miyako—Ukondono—The returned Japanese Ambassadors—Audience given to Valignani—The Viceroy’s Letter—The Interpreter Rodriguez—A. D. 1588-1593._ The Japanese islands had been found by Xavier and his successors divided into numerous principalities, which, though they acknowledged a nominal subordination to one imperial head, were substantially independent, and engaged in perpetual wars with each other. The superior abilities of two successive military usurpers,—Nobunaga, who ruled from 1567 to 1582, and Hashiba Hideyoshi, who took first the title of Kwambacudono, and subsequently that of Taikō-Sama—had consolidated these numerous states into a real empire, embracing then as now the three principal islands of Nippon, Shimo (or Kiūshiū), and Shikoku, with many smaller ones, and some claims also of authority over parts, at least, of the large northerly island of Matsumaye, or Yezo, the latter the aboriginal name.