Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (5) ——The Trials and Errors by the Kamakura Shogunate (4)——

What is the difference between Japanese ancient piracy and its medieval one? Why couldn’t Hojo Clan make a pirate king as Taira Clan did? In Ancient times, in Taira’s times, those who organized sea people to do piracy were, as Fujiwara Yasunori (825-895), a competent governor at the time, put it on piracy, “Most leaders are not local registered people, but dropouts (from the hierarchic center, the Heian-Kyo Capital). Some are young members of good family who have pursued means of support. Some others are officers’ valets who have married local women. They have made the remote provinces their hometowns,” and those leaders could be easily organized or overpowered by more powerful central clans or families such as Taira Clan. However, in medieval times, those who organized sea people to do piracy were the local powerful families who had lived along the Seto Inland Sea for generations, or some sea people who had become powerful themselves. They did not care for the central powers either of the Heian-kyo Capital or of Kamakura. They did not obey those samurais sent from East provinces by Kamakura Shogunate, and, after all, even some of the Eastern samurais found their interests in colluding with those pirates. All in all, local forces, both provincial and manorial, were becoming more and more independent from the central power politics.