Struggles over Manor Ownership and Stubborn Local Powerful Families

     After the Ota Manor was donated to Kongobu-ji Temple, Mount Koya, the temple dispatched Father Bana (?-?) to the manor.  He was such competent manor manager that he had classified all the rice paddy fields by taxation category by 1190; which fields were tax free and what taxes were levied on other fields.  For example, Tachibana Kanetaka (?-?) owned 300 ares of tax-free rice paddy fields and 3000 ares of tax-reduced rice paddy fields.

     Based on Bana’s report, the temple denounced Kanetaka and Mitsuie for their illegal appropriation of manor rice paddy fields.  Although Kanetaka and Mitsuie (?-?) had been working for the Minamoto Clan as members of the Imperial Palace Garrison, the Cloistered Emperor office accused them.  Eventually, Kanetaka and Mitsuie wrote a pledge to Bana in 1192.

     However, the Tachibana Family’s downfall didn’t stop there.  By 1192, the Minamoto Clan had suppressed major rebellions and had established the Kamakura Shogunate.  In June, 1195, the shogunate censured Kanetaka and Mitsuie for their illegal extension.  In 1197, their jobs and titles as local officials were confiscated.  On October 20 in the same year, Miyoshi Yasunobu (1140-1221) was sent to the manor as an estate steward samurai. On 22 in the same month, Mitsuie sent a letter of apology to Kongobu-ji Temple, Mount Koya.  In 1198, the Tachibana Family’s ownership of their rice paddy fields was recognized as ever.  Later, the names of Tachibana Mitsuie and Kanehira (Kanetaka’s son?) were only found as neighborhood chief samurais.

     However, again, in June, 1293, less than a couple of decades after the Mongol invasions of Japan and just 40 years before the fall of the Kamakura Shogunate, Tachibana Mitsuhiro was denounced for his tax evasion.  Whether he paid it or not wasn’t clear.  How stubborn the Tachibana Family was!