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.

Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (4) ——The Trials and Errors by the Kamakura Shogunate (3)——

In 1318, the Kamakura Shogunate sent delegates to 12 provinces around the Seto Inland Sea and along the Pacific Ocean as their 4th step; Harima, Bizen, Bicchu, Bingo, Aki, Suo, Awaji, Awa, Sanuki, Iyo, Tosa, and Kii. The delegation stayed there until the next year, 1319, and, during their sojourn, they helped provincial commander samurais to charge deed documents to manorial steward samurais, and tried to put all the forces together to chase and arrest pirates. However, the very fact that the delegates demanded written documents from subordinate samurais implies that those samurais were in cahoot with pirates. One example of this step was Ijichi Nagakiyo, who was a magistrate in the Rokuhara office of Kamakura Shogunate, and two others. All the three were sent to Bingo Province as a delegation. They tried to arrest pirates at the Onomichi Bay in Ota Manor, the lord of which was Koya-san Temples, but could not accomplish the task due to the protest by the temples. The acting provincial commander samurai, Marukiyo, helped the process. After the departure of the three, he invaded Onomichi Bay, burned more than 1,000 houses there, and carried out all the properties and belongings on 10 big boats which had been prepared to arrest pirates. Marukiyo was a man of very contradicting deeds. He also salaried well-known pirates in the Seto Inland Sea areas, such as Shinkaku, Takao, Yoshimura, and etc. He also didn’t hesitate to accept bribes. For Marukiyo, those who were working and fighting for Koya-san Temples were pirates, while, for the temples, Marukiyo himself was a chief of pirates. In 1319, the delegation was replaced with a honorable respected samurais in each province. The new delegates mobilized not only subordinate samurais but also people in concerned manors, placed marine guard checkpoints, and started coast guarding by themselves. The checkpoints’ vestiges have been identified at Akashi and Nageishi in Harima Province, at Kamekubi on Kurahashi Island in Aki Province, in Suo Province, and at Kutsuna in Iyo Province. The fifth step, which was taken in 1324, was far firmer. The Kamakura Shogunate, or more precisely Hojo Regency Regime, proposed to central noble clans that provincial commander samurais should request manor owners and administrators to turn in pirates. If not, the samurais should invade the concerned manor, appoint an arbitrary samurai as a manorial steward, and, at worst, condemn the manor.

panese Pirates’ Medieval Times (3) ——The Trials and Errors by the Kamakura Shogunate (2)——

Here, we are going to see 5 steps taken by the Kamakura Shogunate to suppress pirates around the Seto Inland Sea. First, in 1231, they started to urge provincial commander samurais to order manorial steward samurais to mobilize soldiers and boats and to arrest pirates. These orders were repeatedly issued. However, toward the middle of the 13th century, the number of piracies reported increased, and the problems of those who pretend not to see or know piracies were raised. In the meantime, in 1274, Kublai Khan (1215-1294, reigning 1260-1294), a grandson of Ghengis Khan, the fifth Khagan of Mongol Empire, and the first Emperor of Yuan Dynasty in China, attempted to invade Japanese islands. After Kublai’s unsuccessful attempt, the Kamakura Shogunate’s Hojo Regency Regime pursued two-track countermeasures agains Kublai’s further attempts; the defense against foreign countries and the punitive expeditions against them. In 1275, the regime ordered samurais in today’s Kyushu to report the number of boats, and the names and ages of rowers and steerers in their possessions. The latter punitive expeditions turned out to be financially impossible at all, but the registration process itself worked as the direct control over sea people, and thus as the second-step measure against pirates. Their third step was taken in 1301. All the boats became supposed to be engraved with its owner’s name and whereabouts so deeply as not to be erased easily. It was a kind of total boat survey, but it also shows that piracies had come to thrive so largely that the regency regime had to resort to a centralized detailed measure. Actually speaking, in 1309, pirates in Kumano, the south-east part of Kii Peninsula, rose up in revolt, and it took armies from 15 provinces to put them down. As a result, protecting coast lines became common duties for samurais in Sanyo and Nankai Regions, which included the provinces around the Seto Inland sea, on Shikoku Island, and Kii Peninsula, since 1312.

Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (2) ——The Trials and Errors by the Kamakura Shogunate (1)——

Even after the establishment of the Kamakura Shogunate in 1185, central noble clans such as Saionji, a branch clan of Fujiwara’s, kept attempting to profit from the sea people around the Seto Inland Sea as a provincial governor or as a lord of manors. Meanwhile, the sea people had to face new land forces, the shogunate itself (or Hojo Clan particularly, who dominated the shogunate as regents) and the eastern samurais sent by the shogunate. Hojo Clan showed a great interest in the Seto Inland Sea areas, and consistently attempted to suppress pirates there. The suppression, however, was hardly effectual. That was partly because those who were supposed to suppress pirates, namely provincial commander samurais and manorial steward samurais, were colluding with pirates. The commander and steward samurais were groping for the way to control sea people, and the shogunate could hardly perceive what were happening at the bottom of the societies around the Seto Inland Sea.

Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (1) ——Introduction——

Taira Kiyomori (1118-1181), the second Japanese pirate king, learned a lesson from the failure of Fujiwara Sumitomo (?-941), the first Japanese pirate king. Sumitomo was so independent from the central power that he allowed the central noble clans to exploit local powerful families with promotion as lures. Kiyomori, in contrast, was successful in establishing himself as a member of the Cabinet in 1160, and, later, as a Prime Minister in 1167. Taira Clan was, however, too much involved in the central power struggles. At their height of their power and hegemony, they were losing the support and mandate from local powerful families or samurais, and lost recognition as a master samurai to Minamoto Clan, who later established the Kamakura Shogunate in 1185. What about sea people? Did they learn some lesson through successes and failures of Ancient Japanese piracy? We can hardly say they did. It almost took them the first half of Medieval times to accumulate enough experience to get along not only with land samurais but also with each other and to control the Seto Inland Sea.

The Transformation of Pirates at the End of the Ancient Japan (3)

Then, there cam Taira Kiyomori. In his days, we can find few articles on piracy. He placed his west base around Miya-jima Island, and built a beautiful palace-like sea shrine on the island itself, Itsuku-shima Shrine, which is one of the World Heritage sites today. His east port near the Heian-kyo Capital was based O-wada Port in today’s Kobe. He repeatedly “payed homage” at the shrine from the capital via the port. He found no pirates along the sea in his prime. That means he had conquered all the pirates there. Does that mean we had no pirates at all then? Some other central noble clans and big temples used to have manors or “donated” estates along the Seto Inland Sea those days, but many of them were complaining of fewer annual tributes being sent to the capital. For them, Taira Kiyomori was the one and biggest pirate.