Japanese Pirates in the Beginning of the Heian Period [1-2]

Was private trade nil at the beginning of the Heian period? By no means! The government order in 756 itself implies there had already emerged forwarders fully enough to carry all the tax rice from the Seto inland Sea regions presumably between the harvest and the start of the rainy season of a year at the longest. According to the order issued in 796, traders from Kaya Port (in today’s Fukuoka Prefecture), Kunisaki Port and Sakato Port (both in today’s Oita Prefecture) had been supposed to get a pass at Dazai-fu and show it at Moji Checkpoint along a narrow channel between Kyushu and Honshu islands on their way to Kyoto. As late as by the year 746, however, some forwarders had come to be found shipping their regional goods to Kyoto without calling at Moji. In 796, at last, the central government gave up, and approved the traffic deregulation. Traders could now directly sail to Nambe, the largest sea port at the mouth of a river from Kyoto to be checked by a regional officer there. Commercial shipping was not only between the capital and regions. Before 716, for example, private sailing had been forbidden between Bungo, the easternmost region on Kyushu Island, and Iyo, the westernmost region on Shikoku Island, and there used to be forts on each side to force the rule on traders. An order in 716, however, allowed a ship to sail between the 2 regions if a higher-ranked nobleman (higher than the 5th in the ranking system at that time) was on board. This was another example of water traffic deregulations. These deregulations imply that even some high-ranked noblemen found their interests in freer water transportation.