government by subordinate officials, and in the clans by retainers of inferior standing. The question of dual government, which has led to this long digression, was more or less of a puzzle to foreigners from the time when Jesuit missionaries first mistook Shōguns for Mikados; and it was not until after the negotiation of the first treaties with Western Powers that it was discovered that the title of Tycoon given to the Japanese ruler in these documents had been adopted for the occasion, in accordance with a precedent created many years before, in order to conceal the fact that the Shōgun, though ruler, was not the Sovereign. CHAPTER II Establishment of Feudalism and Duarchy—The Shōgunate and the Throne—Early Foreign Relations—Christian Persecution and Closure of Country. The fortunes of the first line of Kamakura Shōguns, so called from the seat of government being at that place, gave no indication of the permanence of duarchy, though it may have encouraged belief in the truth of the Japanese proverb that great men have no heirs. Neither of Yoritomo’s sons who succeeded him as Shōgun showing any capacity for government, the direction of affairs fell into the hands of members of the Hōjō family, who, by a further extension of the principle of ruling by proxy, were content to allow others to figure as Shōguns, while they held the real power with the title of regents (_Shikken_). Some of these puppet Shōguns were chosen from the Fujiwara family, which had governed the country for more than three centuries. Others were scions of the Imperial House. This connection of the Shōgunate with the Imperial dynasty, though only temporary, is a point to be noted, since under other circumstances it would suggest a devolution rather than a usurpation of sovereign rights. It was in the thirteenth century, during the rule of the Hōjō regent Tokimuné, that the Mongol invasions took place. The reigning Mikado was a youth of nineteen; the Shōgun an infant of four. The six centuries which had elapsed since the Great Reform had witnessed notable changes in the countries which were Japan’s nearest neighbours. In China the Mongol dynasty was established. In Korea the four states into which the peninsula had originally been divided had disappeared one after the other. In their place was a new kingdom, then called for the first time by its modern name. The new kingdom did not retain its independence long. It was attacked and overthrown by the armies of Kublai Khan, the third Mongol Emperor. By the middle of the thirteenth century the King of Korea had acknowledged the suzerainty of China. Kublai Khan then turned his attention to Japan.