Japanese Pirates in the Beginning of the Heian Period [1-4]

Now, we find daily necessities such as rice and regional goods including salt on board. If we are lucky enough, we can find a few valuable foreign-imported goods such as incense aboard. Are we ready to have pirates then? No, not yet. Even Captain Cook could not conduct piracy by himself. He had to have his minions. In other words, the Japanese ancient centralized bureaucratic rule needed to have been loosened enough to supply rowers and as such. Let me introduce 2 Chinese poems composed by Sugawara Michizane, one of the most famous Japanese poets in Japan. The two, along with the other 8, are supposed to have been composed in the winter of the year 886. The series of 10 Chinese poems all describe poor people under his ruling as a governor in Sanuki, one of the regions along the Seto Inland Sea, just east to Iyo:

To whom winter comes faster?

To repatriated tramps winter comes faster

They don’t have a clan to rely on

And are assigned along the names they give

But the land granted is too poor

Their bodies become thinner and thinner

Unless the governor rules them with mercy

More and more will certainly take flight

To whom winter comes faster?

To hired rowers winter comes faster

They don’t know how to farm

They are hired as a day laborer

And have little land to farm

They row only to be poorer

They don’t mind winds and waves

But only hope to be hired everyday