2. The second period begins in the seventh century, when the Japanese,
copying the Chinese model, adopted a system of centralization. The
country was divided into provinces and was ruled through boards or
ministries at the capital, with governors sent out from Ki[=o]to for
stated periods, directly from the emperor. During this time literature
was chiefly the work of the Buddhist priests and of the women of the
imperial court.
While armies in the field brought into subjection the outlying tribes
and certain noble families rose to prominence at the court, there was
being formed that remarkable class of men called the Samurai, or
servants of the Mikado, which for more than ten centuries has exercised
a profound influence upon the development of Japan.
In China, the pen and the sword have been kept apart; the civilian and
the soldier, the man of letters and the man of arms, have been distinct
and separate. This was also true in old Loo Choo (now Riu Kiu), that
part of Japan most like China. In Japan, however, the pen and the sword,
letters and arms, the civilian and the soldier, have intermingled. The
unique product of this union is seen in the Samurai, or servant of the
Mikado. Military-literati, are unknown in China, but in Japan they
carried the sword and the pen in the same girdle.
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