MIDDLE PERIOD
towards a common issue, national unification and the restoration of the governing authority to the Emperor.
The first to appreciate the tendency of these philosophic revolutions was Arai Hakuseki, a minister of the sixth Shōgun, Iyenobu. He proposed to avert the danger by fortifying the autocracy of the Yedo administration. Following his counsels, the Shōgun began to exercise the right of appointing and removing all officials throughout the Empire, and changed the uniforms and titles of his own officials so as to transform the Yedo Court into a replica of that of Kyōtō. He styled himself "King" for the purpose of giving audience to a Korean ambassador, and he made arrangements to receive an Imperial Princess for his consort. These aggressions might have been carried so far as to radically alter the course of Japanese history had not the Shōgun died after three years of rule, had not his successor also died before emerging from childhood, and had not the eighth Shōgun, Yoshimune, read the signs of the times incorrectly. Arai and his almost equally sagacious coadjutor, Mabe Norifusa, were now dismissed from office, and a strictly conservative policy was inaugurated, lasting for thirty years (1716–1745). Yoshimune and his ministers, though not unconscious of the tide of change that was setting strongly throughout the national life, failed to analyse its causes and endeavoured to stem rather than to
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