Two lengthy wars followed the Tadatsune revolt at twenty-year intervals, keeping the east – in this case the far northeast end of Hon shu beyond the Kanto provinces – in a state of unrest for nearly sixty years. The two later eleventh-century wars are called the «Earlier Nine Years’War» (zen kunen no eki: 1051-62, or 1056-62 according to some) and the «Later Three Years’War» {go sannen no eki: 1083-87). There is disagreement between these traditional designations and the dates given, even when one allows for reckoning based on a count of calendar years.
Since early times a major concern of the court had been the sub jugation of the tribal people who occupied the far northeast. They were called Ezo (or in earlier times usually referred to as Emishi or Ebisu), names indicating that they were «eastern barbarians.» (On their names and characteristics, see Chapter 1.)
The vast, untamedterritory that they inhabited was divided into two very large provinces: Mutsu (present Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, and Aomori Pre fectures) on the east, and Dewa (present Yamagata and part of Akita Prefectures) on the west. The Ezo continued a dogged resistance for centuries, harassing the encroaching settlers and launching raids by mounted archers on the government’s palisades and administrative bases. The innumerable expeditions of conscript troops sent againstthe Ezo in the eighth century had few successes until the govern ment recruited skilled horsemen from the Kanto area and adopted some of the combat tactics of the enemy.
In 801, with the large ex peditionary force led by Sakanoue no Tamuramaro (758-811), theBarbarian-subduing Generalissimo (seii taishoguri), conquest was almost complete. The Mutsu Ezo, against whom the court had con centrated its efforts, soon ceased resisting.
The way was then open for officials appointed by the court to exploit the territory and its people. The biographer of Fujiwara noYa sunori (825-95), governor of Dewa, writing in 907, said: «The fields (of Dewa) are fertile, and there are many rare products. There is nolimit to the land a powerful official can acquire, on which he se cretly raises taxes and conscripts as much labor as he desires.»
The administration of Yoshimine no Chikanari, vice-governor of the Akita Fortress in Dewa was so oppressive that there was a revolt in 878 in a twelve-village area along the Noshiro River. The rebels were unable to coordinate their efforts, however, and the uprising was soon suppressed.
The cost of dispatching expeditionary forces to put down rebel lions of this kind and to maintain armies stationed in the area was prohibitive.
A different method of maintaining order in the con quered area was essential. To this endYasunori, the Dewa governor, introduced a compromise policy that proved effective in the long term. He disbanded the army that had been sent to control the
area, keeping only a small force of about a thousand tsuwamono di vided into three units strategically placed. The Ezo chief who had surrendered was charged with the responsibility of administering hispeople. «Using the barbarian to control barbarians,» the land was di vided into villages and districts, all with Ezo heads. The resultantlandscape of numerous independent units was similar to the depic tion of Japan in the first century as described in Han shu, the official Chinese history. Thanks to this policy, rebellions in the northeast gradually decreased.
A similar policy was in effect in Mutsu from the time of the Dewa uprising. The chieftain of the local Abe clan was appointed districtmagistrate in Mutsu in 878, and the Abe held this position for gen erations. During this time the Abe built at least twelve palisades(saku) at strategic points, and the area came to resemble a semi independent region. Even in 939, when the Dewa Ezo revolted again, peace was maintained in Mutsu.
The Abe lineage is unclear. According to the Mutsu waki, a chron icle of the Earlier Nine Years’ War compiled shortly after the event, the Abe were Ezo who had submitted to the court.
It was a rare exception to the court’s policy in Heian times to entrust the adminis tration of a region to a powerful local family. Once it was entrenched in an official position, it was difficult to check the family’s appetite to increase its influence and wealth. Before the middle of the eleventhcentury, the Abe chieftain, who had been entrusted with the administration of the «Back Six Districts» (Okurokuguri) north of Koromo gawa Fort (near the site of the modern city of Hiraizumi in southernIwate Prefecture), further extended the area under his control toward the south. Provoked by the chieftain’s disobedience and his re fusal to pay taxes and corvee dues, the governor of Mutsu and the vice-governor of Akita Fortress attacked him with a force of «several thousand» men, but suffered a crushing defeat.
The court thenturned to a famed and wealthy warrior, Minamoto noYorinobu’s eldest son, Yoriyoshi, who was dispatched to Mutsu in 1051 as gover nor of that province and General of the chinjufu. He led a force made up of eastern warriors recruited by court order, as well as warriors, also from the eastern provinces, who were his retainers.
Twenty years earlier, Yoriyoshi had aided his father in suppressingthe rebellion of Tadatsune. He then served at court, where his ex ceptional skill in archery made him a favorite hunting companion.
His talents apparently caught the eye of Taira no Naokata (leader of the first force sent against Tadatsune), who offered Yoriyoshi his daughter’s hand in marriage. It was through Naokata’s gift of land around Kamakura in Sagami – land Naokata had acquired while leading the expeditionary force – that the Minamoto first established themselves in Sagami, which was to become their stronghold.
When Yoriyoshi and his force reached Mutsu, the Abe chief, Yori toki, took advantage of a general amnesty that was proclaimed tosubmit to the powerful new governor without a fight.30 Peace con tinued until the last year of Yoriyoshi’s tenure in 1056, when fightingerupted, supposedly initiated by Yoritoki’s son Sadato (1019-62) be cause of a personal affront, but perhaps actually provoked by Yoriyoshi himself.
The court responded by again issuing an imperial order calling for the suppression of the Abe, raising troops for that purpose, and reappointing Yoriyoshi governor of Mutsu. In the course of Yoriyoshi’s offensive, Yoritoki was killed in 1057 at Torinomi Stockade by assimilated Ezo who had been recruited by Yoriyoshi.
Sadato tenaciously continued his resistance and, two months later, defeated Yoriyoshi’s undermanned force. It was not until 1062, when Yoriyoshi succeeded in obtaining the help of the Kiyohara, a powerful, partially assimilated Ezo family that controlledDewa, that he was able at last to prevail against the Abe. In the sum mer of that year, Kiyohara no Takenori arrived in Mutsu with an army of «more than ten thousand men,» divided into seven units,each commanded by a family member. By fall this force and Yoriyoshi’s «three thousand»-man army had taken the last Abe strong hold at Kuriyagawa (on the site of the modern city of Morioka in Iwate Prefecture) and killed Sadato, bringing an end to the Earlier Nine Years’War.
Yoriyoshi’s term as governor of Mutsu had expired before the end of the war and, in the view of the court, he fought the final battles as a private warrior. Nonetheless he was promoted to the Fourth Rank and appointed governor of Iyo. His sonYoshiie (1039-1106) became Fifth Rank and governor of Dewa. Even when rank meant little more than title, it served to impress local tsuwamono. The Fifth Rank was sought after by warriors; it brought eligibility for appointment as governor or chinjufu shogun and could, on occasion, be purchased. The real victor in the war was Kiyohara no Takenori, whose large force, and also whose knowledge of conditions in the northeast, were probably crucial to Yoriyoshi’s success.
The court placed the Back Six Districts of Mutsu under Takenori’s control, gave him Fifth Rank, and appointed him to the old and prestige-laden title Generalof the chinjufu, the first man of local extraction to receive this dis tinction. Together with his original Semboku domain in Dewa (the eastern part of Akita Prefecture) adjoining the west boundary of Mutsu, that expansion of Kiyohara power gave the family control of both Mutsu and Dewa.
It had been policy from Nara times to relocate Ezo who surrendered to Dazaifu. The court followed precedent, deciding not to execute the surviving Abe leaders but to remove them to Iyo on Shi koku and Dazaifu. As a result of this dispersion, Abe descendants proliferated in other parts of the country and became powerholders in the medieval period. Like Taira no Masakado, who came to be worshipped as a deity after his failed insurrection, the Abe also achieved a belated fame.
Although disdained by the court, the Abeleft a legacy of two centuries of strong leadership and cultural at tainment in the remote northeast. Several Abe had been «frontierlecturers» (sakai no koshi), monks with religious duties in Ezo terri tory. Two fanciful anecdotes are sometimes cited as evidence of theAbe’s ability to compose poetry. At the Battle of Koromo River a po etic exchange with Sadato moved Yoshiie not to release his notched arrow at the fleeing Sadatd, according to the Kokon chomonju (^254).
In the Heike monogatari, Sadato’s brother, the captive Muneto, com posed a poetic response to jeering crowds in the capital.
The cul ture that took root during the long peace before the Earlier Nine Years’ War was a forerunner of the twelfth-century efflorescence of Hiraizumi, seat of the so-called Oshu Fujiwara.
The Kiyohara are thought to have been descendants of Kiyohara noYoshimochi, who accompanied Fujiwara noYasunori to Dewa in 879 at the time of the Emishi insurrection. That line of the Kiyoharatraced its ancestry to Emperor Temmu’s son, Prince Toneri. Al though there is no reliable evidence on the point, it is unlikely that the court would have given the title of General of the chinjufu to the head of the Dewa Ezo in 1062 if he had not been able to trace his lineage to the Kyoto nobility.