THE MILITARY EPOCH
The plain, simple diet of former days was exchanged for Chinese dishes. Takatoki himself affected the pomp and extravagance of a sovereign. He kept thirty-seven concubines, maintained a band of two thousand actors, and had a pack of five thousand fighting dogs.[1] Moreover, the prestige of the northern soldiers suffered a severe shock.
A wave of Mongol invasion, striking the shores of Kiushiu, involved battles on sea and on shore, and in the marine contests the southern soldiers showed themselves much better fighters than the northern. Now it was on the reputation of the northern soldiers, the Bando Bushi, that Kamakura's military prestige rested, and with the decline of that prestige the supremacy of the feudal capital began to be questioned. Yet another factor inimical to the interests of the Hōjō was a recrudescence of the military power of the monks. By Court and people alike the destruction of the Mongol armada was attributed, not to the bravery and skill of the troops, but to the intervention of heaven, and instead of rewarding the generals and soldiers that had fought so stoutly, the Court lavished vast sums on priests that had prayed and on temples where portents had been observed. Oppressed by the heavy taxes imposed for these purposes, the people lost confidence in the Hōjō, who had hitherto protected them against such abuses, and the monks,
- ↑ See Appendix, note 2.
13
