Toyotomi Hideyoshi—The Third Pirate King of Japan (0-3)

The first type was Kawanouchi Sea Guards, who were based around the mouth of Ota River, which flowed into Hiroshima Bay, Aki Province. They were under the direct supervision of the head family of the Mori Clan. They were a kind of major-command sea forces. The second was the sea guards who were based in Mihara, at the mouth of Nuta River, which ran along the border between Aki and Bingo Provinces. They were supervised by Kobayakawa Takakage (1533-1597), the third son of Mori Motonari. They might be named branch-family sea forces. The third was genuine pirates based in the Geiyo Archipelago, including the Murakami Clan(s), the most notorious pirates in medieval times. They were maneuvering between the Mori, Ouchi, and Kono Clans, who were based in Aki, Nagato, and Iyo Provinces respectively around the archipelago along the Western Seto Inland Sea. The gangs of pirates were, to make matters more complicated, independent from one another, and were each bargaining with the clans for better rewards.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi—The Third Pirate King of Japan (0-2)

     When Hideyoshi unified the Japanese Archipelago, he unified not only land of the islands but also waters around the islands.  Before his unification, there were various types of sea forces on the waters.  One extreme type of those sea forces was Kuki Yoshitaka (1542-1600).  He called himself a pirate warlord.  Another extreme examples of those sea forces were sea guards.  Most of those who were called sea guards were direct vassals of land warlords.  Other neutral sea forces concluded various relations with geopolitically corresponding land warlords.  Some were almost independent, and played power games with and against surrounding land warlords.  That kind of independency was less likely to be seen in Eastern Provinces.  In other words, the sea forces in the west were more like pirates, while those in the east were more like sea guards.  In the west, the Seto Inland Sea was the main artery, and most of the sea was controlled by the Mori Clan at the end of the Warring States Period.  In the east, the Hojo Clan became the champion in the Kanto Plain, with their sea forces clashing against the other sea forces of the Imagawa, Takeda, Miura, and Satomi Clans.

     Ikko-ikki Uprisings and Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) made their biggest clash against each other around Ishiyama Hongan-ji Temple in Settsu Province from 1570 to 1580.  Mori Terumoto (1553-1625) sent his sea forces there to break Oda’s blockade and supply the temple.  The sea forces were commanding the Seto Inland Sea at that time.  Although they were lumped together as Mori Sea Forces, a range of sea forces were involved in fact.  They were each based in different sea areas, and had different origins and histories.  Some were organized by, or comprised with, land samurais to guard their ports.  Others had been pirates for generations even from ancient times.  Let me describe 3 typical cases now as it is difficult to depict all their histories readily.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi—The Third Pirate King of Japan (0-1)

     Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) was the third pirate king of Japan after the first, Fujiwara Sumitomo (?-941), and the second, Taira Kiyomori (1118-1181).  Hideyoshi succeeded Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), who had forced Ashikaga Yoshiaki (1537-1597), the 15th and last shogun of the Muromachi Shogunate, to leave Kyoto.  Hideyoshi’s son, Hideyori (1593-1615), was killed by Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), who started the Edo Shogunate.  Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu, half working together and half conflicting one another, brought the end to the Warring States Period, which had started in the middle of the 15th century.  In the process of the national unification, Hideyoshi also unified pirates and sea forces, and even sent them to Korea.  That is to say, he became the biggest Wokou.  However, Ieyasu’s grandson, Iemitsu (1604-1651), drastically changed the national foreign policy, and adopted national isolation.  We are going to see how Hideyoshi’s unified sea forces were organized, and how they were dissolved.

The Water Transportation in the Kanto Plain and the "Piracy" there (9)

     Let’s go back to Kanto Plain.  Ushiku Lake of Kinu river system is rich with folklore of kappas.  For example, a man caught a harmful kappa, tied it to a pine tree.  As it mended its way, he set it free.  Later on, the kappa helped him mow weeds.

     Those kappa stories suggest that kappa folklore has various types of origins.  Some of them obviously represent river people and even river pirates who were harmful to other local land people.  It is interesting that, as sea pirates flourished more in Western Provinces than in Eastern Provinces, so the Western kappas sound more like gangs of river pirates when Eastern kappas sound more like petty thieves.

The Water Transportation in the Kanto Plain and the "Piracy" there (8)

     Although we don’t have enough records or written documents to talk about river pirates, I believe we can find some tips in kappa folklore.  So, let me stray from the main subject here.  Although kappas' appearances vary from region to region, the most common feature includes a plate (sara), or a flat hairless region, on the top of the head, and a shell.  The first feature reminds us of that of ochimusha.   Ochimusha is a defeated warrior that fled the enemy.  The iconography usually represents ochimusha with the crown of his head shaved and the rest of the hair long and loose, a dissolved chonmage.  The feature of ochimusha's head resembles that of kappa with a plate.  If ochimusha wears a worn-out armor, his body will look like the second feature of kappa, a shell.

     In Northern Kyushu, a kappa tale tells us:  The Taira Clan lost in the battle of Dan-no-ura.  Some remnants fled from the Minamoto Clan in disarray across Kyushu.  They were pursued and killed one by one.  Their souls were said to have become kappas.  They ransacked fields and dragged people, cows, and horses into rivers.

     The area along Chikugo River, which runs in Northern Kyushu, is rich with folklore and even written records of troubles between local people and kappas, and troubles even among kappa groups.

     Kyushu has another interesting folklore story:  In the 4th century, 9,000 kappas arrived at Harima River in Yatsushiro from Yangzi River in China, and settled in the river.

The Water Transportation in the Kanto Plain and the "Piracy" there (7)

     The Yanada Family might have started as a small-scale powerful family based in Yanada Holy Manor and moved to the Sekiyado and Mizuumi area, though they had their legendary history which connected them to an ancient central noble family.  It is unknown if they escaped due to the defeat of their possible boss, the Fujiwara Family, or they were headhunted because of their own competence in water management engineering.  Time went by, and, in Medieval japan, the transportation of commodities thrived.  In Kanto Plain, they were merchandised through inland waterways, or through rivers and lakes.  Living in the junction area between the 2 river systems enabled the family become more powerful, as powerful as to support Kanto Deputy Shogunate in Koga, which was just about 8 kilometers north either from Sekiyado or Mizuumi.

     As we know what pirates did in the Seto Inland Sea,  we can easily notice what the Yanada Family was doing was very similar to what pirates did on the sea.  We may be able to safely define the family as river pirates.  It is almost certain that there were other smaller-scale river pirates in the 2 river systems in the Kanto Plain.  There are, for example, still 45 more place names which include the phrase “seki” (a checkpoint) in them in the Kanto Plain, like Iseki, Ozeki, Sekito etc.  What those river pirates did at those checkpoints were the Medieval version of what Katori Shrine did in ancient times, but it is not clear how many of the place names have ancient origins, and still how many of them were riverine checkpoints in ancient times.  We need to find more written documents and records, and, maybe, do even excavation and exploration to talk about the river pirates in Kanto.

The Water Transportation in the Kanto Plain and the "Piracy" there (6)

     Almost a millennium ago, the Boso Peninsula was still almost an island, and the most part of the Kanto Plain was marshland.  In the eastern part of the marshland, there ran Tone and Watarase Rivers, meeting and branching one another here and there from time to time, into Edo Bay.  In the western part of the marshland, there flew Kinu River into Katori Sea, forming a large flood plain.  The watershed between the 2 parts of the marshland was so low that they used to be connected to each other through a wetland or a river.  Let me call the 2 parts Tone-Watarase river system and Kinu river system.

     Sekiyado Castle was in Tone-Watarase river system, and Mizuumi Castle was in Kinu river system.  It is presumed that, sometime in the medieval times, the direct water transportation between the 2 river systems became virtually impossible.  They had to transship their cargo from boats to horses and vice versa at Sekiyado and Mizuumi.

     Sekiyado Castle had such structure as if to block a branch river of Tone-Watarase river system.  The castle was so important that Hojo Ujiyasu (1515-1571) appreciated it, “To occupy the castle is as valuable as to win one province.”  As its name suggests, there must have been a checkpoint (“seki”) to guard and exploit merchants and inns (“yado”) for their convenience.

     Mizuumi Castle, on the other hand, was along the lakeside of Kinu river system.  “Mizuumi” literally means a lake.  The castle was surrounded with Lake Mizuumi in the east and the south, and with Lake Kusakabe in the north-west.  It was on a bank-like low hill.  The west side of the castle used to be called Yanahara, and there had been a port town with 3 temples even before the Yanada Family’s ruling.  In other words, the castle was built to guard and exploit the port town.

The Water Transportation in the Kanto Plain and the "Piracy" there (5)

     Anyway, the Yanada Family was from Yanada Holy Manor, and called themselves Yanada.  The family must have been good at cultivating wetland into fields and maintaining those wet fields, or drainage.  Sometime in the Kamakura Period (1185-1333), they moved to Shimokobe Manor in Katsushika County, Shimousa Province.  “Shimokobe” literally meant a lower-stream riverbank, and the name indicates that the place used to be at the estuary of Tone and Watarase Rivers into Edo Bay.  In the area before the establishment of the manor, natural levees had been formed, and people had started living on them.  By the Kamakura Period, people had built man-made banks, and made hamlets and fields.  The Shimokobe Family became the developer lord of the manor.  As the family’s power weakened, the Hojo Regency made them their vassal and gained control of the manor.  It is recorded that, in 1253, the Kamakura Shogunate government, which was actually being controled by the Hojo Regency, repaired the banks there.

     After the collapse of the Kamakura Shogunate, Yanada Mitsusuke (1395-1438) established the family’s control over Shimokobe Manor, based in Mizuumi Castle.  The control included toll and tax collection at the most important river checkpoints in the Kanto Plain.  That is, the family snatched the power which Katori Shrine might have enjoyed in ancient times, only in the area though.  In that way, the semi-governmental piracy Katori Shrine used to wield could have been decentralized around the plain.

     The Yanada Family owned Mizuumi and Sekiyado Castles in Shimokobe Manor for generations. The two castles were only about 4 kilometers away from each other.  The area was a junction between the 2 river systems which flowed to 2 major inland seas of the region, Edo Bay and Katori Sea.

The Water Transportation in the Kanto Plain and the "Piracy" there (4)

     The Minamotos and the Fujiwaras in Ashikaga were not on bad terms at first.  The Minamoto provided mediation and legal support in the central government, and the Fujiwaras in Ashikaga provided profit.  They developed the land in Yanada County together, which lay south to Ashikaga Manor.  The land was contributed to Ise Shrine as Yanada Holy Manor in 1143.  However, in the process of the contribution, Minamoto Yoshikuni chose one priest in the shrine as a meditator, Arakida Motosada (?-?), while Fujiwara Ietsuna (?-?) chose another, Arakida Toshimitsu (?-?).  It was brought to court who would be a contributor through whose mediation.

     In 1144, Retired-Emperor Toba (1103-1156) gave a verdict to qualify Yoshikuni as a contributor, and Motosada as a mediator.  The imperial certification was issued in 1165.  In the meanwhile, in 1150, Yoshikuni was ordered to confine himself because of his violence and brutality.  He confined himself to Ashikaga Manor and concentrated on the management of the manor.  That raised more tension between the two.