Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (17) ——Fair and Even Cuts for and among Pirates (2)——

     Pirates’ being worried about their fairness or righteousness might sound funny, but some parts of Japanese piracy seemed to have developed from ancient Japanese maritime customs and practices. There seemed to have been maritime customs and practices that unmanned boats and washed-up goods should belong to those who lived there and found them, that is, sea people living around there. When young, I read an ancient pirate story. In the story, pirates captured all the crews and passengers of a boat and threw them into the sea. I found one part of the story very funny and even comical: One of the passengers, a priest, didn’t get drowned, and the pirates kept making the priest down into the sea with a stick. You can make a manned boat unmanned by removing its crews and passengers. That might be why, in a couple of pirate stories left, the pirates threw the crews and passengers into the sea. Meanwhile, you can get washed-up goods by making a boat run on the rocks, and that was not so difficult with lots of rapid straits and abundant reefs and rocks among the small islands between Aki and Iyo Provinces. The captain of the pirates in the story, incidentally, turned priest, impressed with the priest’s “immortality.” Another example of could-be expansion of ancient maritime customs and practices might have something to do with ordering boats to stop at certain religious spots. Boats sailing by off an important shrine used to be supposed to lower their sails to show their respects to the shrine. It means that they had to virtually stop sailing in front of the shrine. Mishima Shrine, the highest-ranking shrine in Iyo Province, is on one of islands which lie between Aki and Iyo Provinces in the Western Seto Inland Sea. Sea people living on those islands had good chances and reasons to stop any boat sailing through the area, and to demand offerings to the shrine, or some money for offerings. Shu-kou-ryo, literally charges for food and drink, which used to be charged to boats in medieval times might have started that way.

Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (16) ——Fair and Even Cuts for and among Pirates (1)——

     The powerful sea families in the Western Seto Inland Sea, who would later compose Murakami Clan, were not only looking for a solution to the pirate dilemmas by forming a network among pirates, but also groping their way to rake off fair and even profits from trading ships.  The way should look fair to the authorities, if not to the trading ships, and should seem somewhat even among pirates. In 1340, Ashikaga Takauji (1305-1358), the first shogun of Muromachi Shogunate, ordered Kumano sea people to guard trading boats which sailed between Kaminoseki in Suo Province, one of the westernmost ports of the Seto Inland Sea, and Amagasaki in Settsu Province, one of the easternmost ones. In return, he allowed them to levy guarding charges at Hyogo Island, about 1 mile west of Amagasaki. This made a good example for charging fair cuts; “guarding charge”. By the end of the Warring State Period in the 16th century, Murakami Clan came to put up and control various checkpoints in important ports, which used to be called fudaura in Japanese, and straits along the Western Seto Inland Sea. They collected some taxes, such as sekiyaku (checkpoint fees), uwanori-ryo (on-board fees), and as such. They called themselves seki or sekimori themselves, checkpoints or keepers of the checkpoints, and demanded fees forcibly and rightfully. However absurd it looked to sea travelers, that was sanctioned overtly in the medieval sea societies, and, above all, they had enough military power and maritime skillfulness over passing and making good use of sea rapids to impose the situation on the travelers. There were several kinds of checkpoint fees they levied: Ho-betsu-sen, a sail tax, was imposed according to how big each ship was. Da-betsu-sen, a freight tax, was imposed on goods. Uwanori-ryo, an on-board fee, was imposed as a piloting fee. Uwanori, to board on, means to hire a pirate to board on a ship, and that saved the ship from being attacked by his fellow pirates. Now, they found a solution to pirate dilemmas, and the very existence of other pirates became the foundation to claim guarding charges. Their networking worked.

Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (15) ——Kono Clan, a Supplier of Legends and a Religion (2)——

Ochi Mochitada fought against Fujiwara Sumitomo (?-941), the first pirate king in Japan, and conferred as a local noble man in 948. Later, at the end of the Heian Period, Ochi Chikakiyo moved to Kono County in the same province, and started calling themselves Kono Clan. His father, Chikatsune did not have a successor son, and adopted Chikakiyo. Chikakiyo, who was appointed as a temporary assistant governor in 1160, did not have his successor son either, and, this time, his wife, Chikatsune’s daughter, stayed in Mishima Shrine, the highest-ranking shrine in Iyo Province, day and night. At the 6th night, a god appeared as a big snake, and she got impregnated with a boy. The boy, Kono Michikiyo (?-1181), later inherited the clan. As the Chinese character for “michi” can also mean to intercourse, all his successors had “Michi” in their names. Michikiyo had scale-like parts on both jowls. Was this a real story or a forth legend? Let’s get back to the ancient times again, and we can find a fifth scrap of a legend. Ochi Tamaoki was a supporter of En Oduno, a legendary founder of Shugendo, a religious sect which combined Japanese folk mountain worship with Taoism and Buddhism. The two visited Mishima Shrine together. A sixth scratch legend says that Kono Clan was descendants of Xu Fu (255 BC-?). In 210 BC, during Qin Dynasty, Xu Fu went on his second voyage to search for medicine of immortality in the east, only never to return. Some, both in China and in Japan, believe he landed in Japan. One of his supposed landing spot was Kumano. You can easily guess that the legendary story was brought to Kono Clan by Kumano sea people. All the legends were gathered and assembled after Kono Michiyoshi’s death in 1394. The times had been entering a new age. In 1392, Southern Court gave up to Northern Court, and Muromachi Shogunate unified the nation. The unification, however, was a soft one and every samurai clan had to fight hard to stand out, or even just to survive. In such an era, Kono Clan was a loser to Southern Court, and Southern Court was a loser to Northern Court. As a double loser, the clan was searching for their survival strategy. Meanwhile, the powerful families living on the islands, or rather living on the sea, between Aki and Iyo Provinces were searching for a way to face Kobayakawa Clan and for the solutions to their pirate dilemma. They chose a weaker clan, Kono Clan, to counterbalance Kobayakawa, and Kono Clan, instead, had to supply legends. As Kono Clan was ruling Iyo Province, they could share the same religion, beliefs in Mishima Shrine. Kono Clan became the third pirate king, but their ruling power was a soft one, something like the one emperors used to have over shogunates.

Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (14) ——Kono Clan, a Supplier of Legends and a Religion (1)——

Kono Michitaka (?-1379) surrendered to Southern Court in 1365, and escaped to Kyushu, counting on Prince Kanenaga (?-1383), who had been sent there as a western general of the court in 1342. However, interestingly enough, it was Kono Clan who later provided legends and a religion to the sea people, or more precisely to the powerful families, in the Western Seto Inland Sea to bundle them up. Kono Clan used to be called Ochi Clan as they lived in Ochi County, Iyo Province, or rather Ochi County came to be named so as Ochi Clan came to live there. According to one legend, their ancestor, Ochi Miko, was a grandson of Emperor Korei, a legendary 7th-generation emperor. Miko’s mother, Waki Hime, had been picked up from a boat from Yue Province, China, by a fisherman named Goro Tayu. A Chinese character “yue” can be used as one of several ways to represent Japanese “ochi.” Another more fantastic legend tells us that Masumi, who was a master of archery, fought against invaders from Baekje (18 BC-660 AD), Korea, by order of Emperor Suiko (554-628). They came with an ironman as their general. Masumi only just killed him by shooting his only weak point, the bottom of his foot. Some invaders surrendered to Masumi, and became fishermen in the Western Seto Inland Sea. So, all the fishermen there obeyed Kono Clan. A third legend gives us another international account of the clan’s character. Ochi Morioki took part in Battle of Baekgang in 663, and had got a boy, Tamazumi, by a Chinese woman there. He also had an elder boy, Tamaoki, in Japan. Tamazumi later came to Japan, his father’s homeland, from Yue Province, China, and met Tamaoki in Namba, the nearest sea port from the Heian-kyo Capital.

Japanese Pirates’ Medieval Times (13) ——The Rise of Sea People (4)——

As Medieval times passed down, more and more commodities were getting traded through the Seto Inland Sea, and more and more sea people who lived there were getting involved in the trading. Even in fisheries, where sea people made most of their livelihood, net fishing became widespread, and, as a result, their societies became more stratified. The stratified societies, then, produced powerful families who were called “mure-gimi” in Japanese, literally “number of powerfuls”. The Japanese phrase “mure-gimi” is supposed to have become their name later as a kind of clan name, Murakami. Those powerful sea families learned 2 lessons through their experience as they fought with Kumano sea people. First, they should be networked, maybe under a religion or a legend, so as to avoid the pirate dilemma. Second, they needed to establish certain bases to claim just and reasonable pay as pirates.