Japan and the Japanese

THE KEGENT GE-JAS. 127
and thirty-seven churches and of many houses which had belonged
to the Jesuits ; and, to appease the authorities, a new embarcation
of missionaries became necessary, limited, however, by reason of the
smallness of the vessel, to eleven persons.
In the midst of these alarms news arrived that the emperor had
been seized with a sudden and violent sickness, apparently a dysen-
him to
tery, which, after two months' struggles against it, brought
his end. He died in September, 1598, at the age of sixty-four,
retaining his absolute authority to the last. During his latter years
two thoughts seem principally to have engrossed him, the secur-
ing divine honors to himself, and the transmission of his authority
to his infant son, Fide Jori, not yet above three or four years old.
With the first object in view, though really (at least, so the mission-
aries concluded) without any religion at all, he had rebuilt, in a
magnificent manner, many temples and Buddhist monasteries destroyed
by Nobunanga, by himself, or by the accidents of war. He
also had erected, in a new quarter which he had added to Miako, a
splendid temple, which he caused to be consecrated to himself in
the character of the new Fuchiman, that being the title of a Kami
celebrated for his conquests, and regarded as the god of war.
To secure the succession of his infant son, the expiring emperor
established, on his death-bed, a council of regency, composed of
nine persons, at the head of which he placed Ge-jas or Giazu, king
of the Bandova, which, besides the five provinces of the Quanto,
in which wr ere the great cities of Seruga and Jedo, embraced, also,
three other kingdoms. Ge-jas had been king of Micava, a more
westerly province, which he had lost by adhering to the fortunes of
the third sou of Nobunanga, he being allied to that family by mar
riage. But afterwards, by some means, he had recovered the favo*
of Taiko-Sama, who had even bestowed upon him the newly-conquered
Bandova, and who, the better to secure his fidelity, had
caused his infant son and destined successor to be married to a
young grand-daughter of Ge-jas.
The strong castle of Osaka had been chosen by Taiko-Suma as
the residence of his son during his minority, and there he dwelt
with his baby wife, in charge of his mother, while the administration
of affairs passed into the hands of Ge-jas, who, as head of the
regency, governed with the title of Daysu-Sama.