Taira Tadamori (1096-1153) and Pirates in Kyushu

     In the 12th century, the trade between Japan and the Sung Dynasty China came to a turning point.  In 1126, the Jingling Incident broke out:  Jurchen tribes occupied the northern half of China and established the Jin Dynasty.  The Sung Dynasty fled to the south, and ruled the southern half of China.  The incident brought 2 aftermaths to the southern half, or to the South-Sung society.

     First, after the occupation by Jurchen, thousands of imperial family members, bureaucrats, and even ordinary people were brought to the Jurchen homeland on foot.  Men were either bartered as slaves for horses or had to make their own living by cultivating fields.  Women, including imperial princesses, were either offered for public bidding or kept in a “laundry hall” as prostitutes.  Many of those who could escape the abduction fled to the south.  Accordingly, the forest resources in the south were exhausted to build palaces and houses, and woods were exported from Suo and other Provinces in Japan.

     Second, those from the north were not used to the subtropical climates in the south.  Diseases and epidemics broke out frequently, and that had medicine developed.  The development enabled the society to export the new medication to Japan, where, in the summertime, it was as hot as in the subtropics.

     For those 2 reasons, the trade between Japan and the Sung-Dynasty China became brisk and robust, and so did the piracy in the West Sea in Japan.  The pirates there were local powerful families.  Some of them acquired the privilege as priests or as royal or sacred purveyors, and did some unlawful deals as well as legal jobs to send tax rice and as such to Kyoto.  In worst cases, some of them even did some looting and homicide.

     On April 8, 1135, it was debated in the Imperial Court who they should dispatch to hunt down those pirates in the West; Taira Tadamori (1096-1153), or Minamoto Tameyoshi (1096-1156).  They preferred Tadamori’s maneuvering ability to the violent power of Tameyoshi and his men.  As early as in August, Tadamori returned to Kyoto in triumph, with Hidaka Zen Priest and 80 other pirates arrested.  His swift triumph caused a rumor that those arrested were not pirates but were framed as pirates.  They might have been, at least, those who were newly organized under Tadamori.