The employment of a Fujiwara in this expedition was probably purely perfunctory. So far as we know, this family, which had by this time risen to a position of great influence, was in no respect military, and the appointment of Umakai as chief of the forces sent against the Ainos was due to the political prominence of his family. For many centuries the relations of the Fujiwara family to the imperial house was most intimate. Indeed the late Viscount Mori,(104) in his introduction to _Education in Japan_, speaks of this relation as a “proprietorship.” “The throne for a time became virtually the property of one family, who exclusively controlled it.” This family was that of Fujiwara,(105) to which reference has already been made. The founder of this house, Kamatari, was a man of great talent and administrative ability, and his immediate successors were worthy of their ancestor’s fame, and in succession filled the office of _daijin._ In this way the office came to be regarded as hereditary in the Fujiwara family. The office of _kuambaku_, also from about A.D. 880, became hereditary in the Fujiwara house. Owing to the great age and prominence of the family, it became customary to marry the emperors and princes of the imperial house to ladies taken from it, so that after a time the mothers and wives of the princes of the imperial house were without exception descendants of the Fujiwara, and the offices of the court were in the hands of this family. In this condition of things the abdication of emperors, before they had reigned long enough to learn the duties of their position, became the common practice. This vicious custom was encouraged by the Fujiwara, because it placed greater authority in their hands, and left them to conduct the administration without troublesome interference. The Emperor Seiwa (A.D. 859-880) commenced to reign when he was nine years of age, and abdicated when he was twenty-six.(106) Shujaku (A.D. 931-952) became emperor when he was eight years of age and abdicated at the age of twenty-three. Toba became emperor (A.D. 1108) at five years of age, and resigned at the age of twenty. Rokujō was made emperor (A.D. 1166) at the age of two and resigned at the age of four. Takakura, who succeeded Rokujō (A.D. 1169), was eight years of age and abdicated at the age of nineteen. It often happened that there were living at the same time several retired emperors, besides the actual emperor.(107) Thus, in the period when Ichijō began his reign at the age of seven (A.D. 987), there were three retired emperors still living, viz.: Reizei, who began to reign (A.D. 968) at eighteen, and retired at twenty; Enyū, who began to reign (A.D. 970) at eleven, and retired at twenty-six; Kwazan, who began to reign (A.D. 985) at seventeen, and retired at nineteen. At a period somewhat later than the one now under consideration, during the reign of Go-Nijō, who had just been made emperor (A.D. 1301) at