Japanese Pirates in the Beginning of the Heian Period [0]

When you talk about the history of the Heian period, you can not avoid talking about pirates. Pirates in Japan were very active twice at the beginning of the Heian period: first, in the middle of the 9th century, and, second, in the middle of 10th century. The two confrontations against the state forced the central government to realize the critical situation, to face it, and to stabilize it. The second series of incidents, including Fujiwara Sumitomo’s rebellion, have been widely studied. They were not only active but also well-organized enough to attack local governments’ offices around the Seto Inland Sea and even Dazai-fu, a special regional agency of the central government which handled diplomacy and defense in Kyushu, the westernmost main island in Japan, that is, the closest main island to Korea and China. The first pirate uprisings, on the other hand, have come to be regarded as pre-stages or signs of the second, as the researches over the second have, ironically enough, have progressed and deepened. Pirates in the middle of the 9th century, however, must have had their own historical and regional characteristics, and should be analyzed independently. Why, in the first place, were Pirates Crackdown Orders declared? What were their articles like? How were those articles organized and composed in one order? How were those orders carried out? These are the questions which have been paid little attention to. The existence of pirates itself has never been questioned, even less has their relationship with the pirates from Shinra, one of the three countries in the Korean Peninsula at the time, been. I would like to pick up the frequent divisions of counties and the increase of county officials around the Seto Inland Sea in the middle of the 9th century first. Shinra pirates started looting and plundering regions along the Japan Sea coast and their outer islands in the second half of the 9th century. What is the relation between those Shinra pirates and “pirate problems” in Japan?