Virtual Mogami 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #2 Risshaku-ji Temple

 

     Tafoni developed in tuff along the Koya River, a tributary of the Mogami River, in the Ou Mountains.  Rain water dissolved sodium sulfate and sodium chloride out of the tuff, shaping rocks like honeycombs.  People must have found them mysterious and holy even in the primitive age.  Priest An'e (794-868), who was from Ogata County, Kawachi Province, stayed in Ideha Province from 844 to 848.  Risshaku-ji Temple was founded at the foot of the hill which has the tafoni in 860.  An'e's teacher was Priest Ennin (794-864), after whose death Ennin's wooden statue was enshrined in the 9th century in a nearby cave, in which 5 people were buried.  Ennin was the 3rd head priest of Enryaku-ji Temple in Mt. Hiei, and An'e was the 4th.

     In Ideha Province, the areas around Akita Castle became unstable for some reason or another, and at last in 780, Abe Yakamaro, a general in Akita Castle, reported to Emperor Takatsugi (709-781) that the castle should be abandoned, which meant to retreat about 100 kilometers south again.

     In 791, Sakanoue Tamuramaro (758-811) was dispatched to the eastern provinces to prepare for the war against the aliens in the northeastern part of Honshu Island.  In 794, he invaded the region, with the military successes of beheading 457 and taking 150 captive. 

     In 801, Tamuramaro invaded the northeastern region again.  When Tamuramaro brought back two enemy chiefs, Aterui and More, to the capital in 802, the two were killed against Tamuramaro’s intention to have them keep working in a unified Japan as chiefs in the northeastern region.

     Tamuramaro's victory gave the hard-liners in the central government rather an impetus.

On January 11, 802, the central government ordered 4000 young people from Suruga, Sagami, Kai, Musashi, Kazusa, Shimousa, Hitachi, Shinano, Kozuke, and Shimotsuke Provinces to emigrate to the Tohoku Region as farmer-soldiers.  They might have moved north with their eyes glaring on colonial profit.

     They sent 4000 young men from the Kanto Region to the Tohoku Region.  That could bring about significant imbalances in the proportion of young women and men in the 2 regions.  Wartime sexual violence and the slave traffic was inevitable.

     On New Year's Day in 811, Emperor Takatsugi made an unprecedented New year's speech.  appealed to those who fled to barbarian territories to return.  If they returned, their taxes would be exempted for 3 years.  The northern foreigners who had surrendered to the central government were originally excused from taxes, and were given food and clothes for their local products.  The royal speech suggested some of them had been deprived of their privileges.

     After Tamuramaro's death on May 23rd, 811, the  central government realized they had no one to dare take risks for fighting in the north-east and changed their policy against or for northern foreigners, especially those of them who lived in Japanese territory, from suppression to assimilation.  On June 2nd, 812, they ordered communities of northern foreigners to choose their own chiefs.  On November 21, 813, they appointed a governor specialized in the problems of northern foreigners.  On the 24th, they ordered each province to have a vice governor to handle its problems with northern foreigners.

     On December 1st, 815, Emperor Saga (786-842) ordered that officers, officials, and people should not call surrendered northern foreigners in a derogatory term "Ifu" but should call them with their names and, if any, with their post names and ranks.  In other words, northern foreigners should be treated as humans.

     It wasn’t recorded how the communities of northern foreigners chose their own chiefs, but chief-ships became hereditary and that made powerful families more powerful.  Eventually, those powerful families in Ideha Province formed the Kiyohara Clan.

     No speech could stop colonists' greediness.  No assimilation policy could relieve or even reduce the pains of the conquered.  In 2 generations, their discontent exploded into rage.

     Due to the years of harsh administration by Yoshimine Chikashi, the officer of the Akita Castle, the dissatisfaction of subordinate foreigners reached its peak.  In March, 878, they rose up and raided Akita Castle, and Chikashi was unable to defend the castle and fled.  The subordinate foreigners set fire to the surrounding area, and the Governor of Ideha Province, Fujiwara Okiyo (817-891) also fled.

     In April, the Imperial Court received a courier from Chikashi and ordered Kozuke and Shimotsuke Provinces to conscript 1,000 soldiers each.  On the 19th, Tomo Sadamichi, the officer of Mogami County, was killed in battle.

     In May, the Imperial Court appointed Fujiwara Kajinaga as commandant and dispatched 1,000 cavalry and 2,000 infantry from Mutsu Province to suppress the rebel forces.  Fujiwara Noritsuna, Fun'ya Arifusa, and Ono Haruizumi also led 2,000 Ideha soldiers to join Kajinaga.  In June, the rebel forces attacked Akita Castle again in large numbers, and the central army suffered a crushing defeat.  Kajinaga fled back to Mutsu Province.  The castle was robbed of 300 pieces of armor, 700 koku of rice, 100 bedding, and 1,500 horses.  The rebellion expanded and 12 villages around Akita Castle,Kamitsuno, Hinai, Sugibuchi, Noshiro, Kahoku, Wakimoto, Hoguchi, Okawa, Tsutsumi, Aneto, Katagami, and Yakioka, came under the rebell's control.  In the northern part of Ideha Province, only the foreigners of 3 villages, Soekawa, Habetsu, and Sukegawa, belonged to the province.  Furthermore, the northern foreigners of Tsugaru and Toshima supported the uprising.

     In May, the Imperial Court appointed Fujiwara Yasunori (825-895) as the Governor of Ideha Province to carry out subjugation operations.

     Fujiwara Yasunori (825-895.4.21) had governed his provinces wisely. First, in Bizen and Bicchu Provinces in succession, he suppressed pirates.  Yasunori categorized pirates into two classes.  First, “Most leaders are not local registered people, but dropouts from Kyoto.  Some are young members of good families who have pursued means of support.  Some others are officers’ valets who have married local women.  They have made the remote provinces their hometowns.”  The other class was made up of “those who don’t have atrocious minds but have been goaded by hunger and frost.”  Yasunori’s angle on the social polarization among pirates might have enabled his good governance and suppression over rebellions.

     Yasunori requested the appointment of Ono Harukaze, and in June, Harukaze was appointed as the General of Mutsu and Ideha Provinces.  He went to Ideha Province with Mutsusuke Sakagami Yoshkage, great-grandson of Tamuramaro.  3 northern foreigners came to their camp and demanded that the area north of the Omono River be designated as "their own territory" beyond the direct control of the Imperial Court.

     Yasunori ordered Fun'ya Arifusa and Minamibuchi Akisato, a commandant of Kozuke Province, to prepare 600 Kozuke soldiers and 300 subordinate foreigners.  Furthermore, since Yasunori had only a small number of troops, he requested permission from the Imperial Court to mobilize 2,000 soldiers from Hitachi and Musashi Provinces.  After completing these military measures, he tried to placate the northern foreigners by delivering concealed tax rice.

     Rumors of Yasunori's generous and gentle policies spread and the hostility of northern foreigners subsided.  In August, northern foreigners came to Akita Castle one group after another and surrendered.  Yasunori allowed them to come.  In January, 879, however, the Imperial Court ordered a forced subjugation, and, in response, Yasunori reported on the current situation in Ideha Province.  He had the opinion that the best policy was to implement a lenient policy and to encourage the return of the subjugated foreigners who had fled due to the harsh governance.  The Imperial Court accepted the opinion and, in March, dissolved the subjugation army.

     A ceasefire was accepted, and Omono River became a cease-fire line.

     There must have been the leaders who organized a wide range of northern foreigners, and who submitted their demands in writing to the Imperial Court.  In those days, it meant they were able to write Classical Chinese.  These leaders' names was not recorded.  They learned a lesson from Aterui's misfortune.  In 915, a large eruption of the Lake Towada volcano occurred in the northernmost of Honshu, the largest natural disaster in 2000 years, but this eruption and the wide range of natural disasters that must have followed the eruption were not documented by the Imperial Court.  The request of northern foreigners was granted, and the north of the Omono River became an area controlled by the northern foreigners.  The Imperial Court was unable to intervene nor was able to even collect information.

     In 801, Hotta Fortress was built in the upper reaches of Omono River.  Even though it was used as an extremely large-scale fortress in Senboku County, no records remain of the fortress.  Who controlled the fortress, independent of the central management?

     In the Wamyo Ruijusho, namely Japanese Names for Things Classified and Annotated,  which was a Japanese dictionary compiled in 938, lists Japanese place names from south to north.  In the Japan Sea side, no place names are recorded as north of Omono River.

     The record of the rebellions is based on the Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku.  Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku, literally the True Record of Three Reigns of Japan, is a history text officially mandated by Emperor Uda (867-931) to compile.  It was compiled by Fujiwara Tokihira (871-909), Sugawara Michizane (845-903), Okura Yoshiyuki (832-921), and Mimune Masahira (853-926), and covers the years from August 27th, 858, to August 26th, 887, corresponding to three imperial reigns: Seiwa (850-881), Yozei (868-949), and Koko (830-887).  The compilation was completed in 901.  According to the compilers, some parts were omitted because their materials were missing.  Although, for example, there were many victims on the side of the Imperial Court, their names were not all recorded.  Presumably, they might have covered up some inconvenient and unfavorable facts, especially those inconvenient and unfavorable to those in the positions of power, frankly speaking, the Fujiwara Clan.  Was only Yoshimine Chikashi to be blamed?  Wasn't Fujiwara Okiyo responsible?  Weren't there any more Fujiwara Clan members in Ideha Province?

     From the end of the 9th century to the 10th century, Akita Junirin kilns and Aomori Goshogawara kilns appeared one after another in the areas where the northern foreigners ruled.  Iron mills also appeared in the Noshiro area.  Therefore, northern foreigners did not need to obtain pottery or iron from the Imperial Court.

      Around 1,000 B.C., Primorsky was already in the Iron Age.  It isn't surprising if the northern foreigners introduced iron manufacturing across the Sea of Japan.  In addition, the Mokusawa Iron Manufacturing Site in Tsugaru is estimated to date back to the 10th century, but its excavation suggests that the site had been built above the older iron manufacturing site.  That means their operation can date back to the 9th century, when the northern foreigners forced back the Japanese Imperial Army.

     In those days, Kannon-do Hall of Risshaku-ji Temple was built to syncretize the local holy place into Buddhism.  It is unknown whether the offspring of the militiamen who had been ordered to help take control of and populate Ideha Province were majority there or not, but, with that type of syncretism efforts, the southern part of Ideha Province kept being stabilized and the area provided the logistic support, sending soldiers, military provisions, and weapons.

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