There had been a revolution in that empire about twenty-six years before, which made some breaches in the hereditary line; and Regoge, successor to Nena, although of the royal family, was a distant relation.  There were two violent parties in the empire, which began in the time of the revolution above mentioned; and, at the death of the Empress Nena, were in the highest degree of animosity, each charging the other with a design of introducing new gods, and changing the civil constitution.  The names of these two parties were Husiges and Yortes.[205] The latter were those whom Nena, the late empress, most favoured towards the end of her reign, and by whose advice she governed.

The Husige faction, enraged at their loss of power, made private applications to Regoge during the life of the empress; which prevailed so far, that, upon her death, the new emperor wholly disgraced the Yortes, and employed only the Husiges in all his affairs.  The Japanese author highly blames his Imperial Majesty’s proceeding in this affair; because, it was allowed on all hands, that he had then a happy opportunity of reconciling parties for ever by a moderating scheme.  But he, on the contrary, began his reign by openly disgracing the principal and most popular Yortes, some of which had been chiefly instrumental in raising him to the throne.  By this mistaken step he occasioned a rebellion; which, although it were soon quelled by some very surprising turns of fortune, yet the fear, whether real or pretended, of new attempts, engaged him in such immense charges, that, instead of clearing any part of that prodigious debt left on his kingdom by the former war, which might have been done by any tolerable management, in twelve years of the most profound peace; he left his empire loaden with a vast addition to the old encumbrance.

This prince, before he succeeded to the empire of Japan, was king of Tedsu,[206] a dominion seated on the continent, to the west side of Japan.  Tedsu was the place of his birth, and more beloved by him than his new empire; for there he spent some months almost every year, and thither was supposed to have conveyed great sums of money, saved out of his Imperial revenues.

There were two maritime towns of great importance bordering upon Tedsu:[207] Of these he purchased a litigated title; and, to support it, was forced not only to entrench deeply on his Japanese revenues, but to engage in alliances very dangerous to the Japanese empire.[208]

Japan was at that time a limited monarchy, which some authors are of opinion was introduced there by a detachment from the numerous army of Brennus, who ravaged a great part of Asia; and, those of them who fixed in Japan, left behind them that kind of military institution, which the northern people, in ensuing ages, carried through most parts of Europe; the generals becoming kings, the great officers a senate of nobles, with a representative from every centenary of private soldiers; and, in the assent of the majority in these two bodies, confirmed by the general, the legislature consisted.