Following the defeat and death of Masakado in 940, the Taira line descending from Kammu continued to exercise a wide dominion over the eastern provinces. Sadamori, who had overthrown his cousin Masakado, was appointed governor of Mutsu and chinjufu General in 974, signifying his leadership of eastern warriors. Four of his sons received appointments as governor or vice-governor of aneastern province. His influence was further expanded by the adop tion of numerous grandsons and nephews. He and his clansmen are said to have treated the eastern provinces as their private domain.
The death of Masakado in 940 failed to bring peace in the east.
Governmental authorities there came under repeated attack, the sorely tried governor of Shimosa in 950 complaining, «Lawlessbands rage everywhere in the eastern provinces, looting and inflict ing injury, so that there is no peace day or night.»
Accompanied to their provinces by large retinues of grasping relatives, friends, and officials, the governors themselves sometimes contributed to the general turmoil of the countryside by their own rapacious behavior. One famous late-tenth-century case was so extreme that the district officials and cultivators of a province were forced to appeal for relief directly to the central government, citing some thirty illegal acts of the governor on which they sought justice. But violence and fightingremained small-scale, and no major armed defiance of governmen tal authority occurred anywhere in Japan throughout the heyday of the Fujiwara regency. Then in 1028, just months after Michinaga’s death, revolt broke out again in the east. This revolt, too, was led bya Taira, a son of a cousin of Masakado and Sadamori named Tada tsune (967-1031).
Vice-governor at one time of both Kazusa and Shimosa, Tadatsune seems to have become involved in the plunder of government tax receipts in those two provinces. The same area had been the scene of another attack on provincial authority a littlemore than two decades earlier. That attack on the Shimosa pro vincial headquarters in 1003 by Taira no Koreyoshi (d. 1022) had ended in Koreyoshi’s flight before a court-dispatched Suppression and Control Agent (oryoshi), but Koreyoshi was subsequentlygranted court rank and given appointment as chinjufu General, ap parently in response to generous gifts he made to the great Fujiwara leader Michinaga.
Tadatsune’s plundering was not so easily managed. He had inherited a vast domain in the east, the official levies on which he had refused to pay to the provincial authorities, and his large force of war riors quickly turned back the meager troops the provincial governor could call upon to demand payment.
In 1028 Tadatsune’s rebellion spread rapidly through Shimosa, Kazusa, and Awa (roughly Chiba Prefecture). Tadatsune occupiedthe government headquarters in Kazusa, then burned the Awa head quarters and killed the governor there. In 1030 he put such fear in the new governor of Awa that that unfortunate official fled theprovince, abandoning the provincial seal, enabling Tadatsune to req uisition supplies from the peasantry and obtain the tax-storehouse keys. His rebellion became as formidable as that of Masakado.
As usual, it was the stoppage of tax payments that moved the court to action. Dependent for military force on tsuwamono, thecourt dispatched against Tadatsune two warriors of the kebiishi of fice, the senior of whom was Taira no Naokata, a great-grandson ofSadamori. (See the Taira genealogy, Figure 9.7.) Naokata had ac tively sought the commission, as he hoped to eliminate Tadatsune asa rival for power among the Taira in the east, and to gain a conclu sive victory in the long-standing feud between their two families. The court, on its part, adopted the same tactic it had used in theMasakado and Koreyoshi uprisings, sending a Taira warrior to sup press an insurgent from a rival Taira family.
Notwithstanding the ur gency of the situation, it was nearly two months after Naokata was ordered to the attack before he sallied forth from the capital with acore force of some two hundred men under his command. His de parture had been delayed by the Fujiwara Minister of the RightSanesuke, who insisted that in a matter of such importance it was es sential that the expedition wait for a calendrically auspicious day onwhich to set out. The greater part of his force was recruited in eastern provinces. After two years of inconclusive fighting, the govern ment force had still not succeeded in suppressing Tadatsune.
The two principal commanders were cashiered and Minamoto noYori nobu (968-1048), then governor of Kai, was appointed in their place.
Although Minamoto penetration of the east had begun well before Yorinobu’s day, it was from his time that the clan began to establish its dominance in the region. Yorinobu was a «warrior of the capital,» a son of the Mitsunaka who had earlier served Michinaga.21 He andhis father were ideally situated to initiate the creation of the power ful, enduring retainership system of landholding tsuwamono that
eventually contributed to the establishment of the Kamakura bakufu in the time of Yorinobu’s sixth-generation descendant Yoritomo (see Figure 10.1). A chief goal of the tsuwamono was the protection of their land from taxation and governmental interference, protectionthat Mitsunaka and Yorinobu could help obtain because of their of ficial positions and high connections in the central government.
Both held military offices, and both served in the household of theregent. Those positions, their high birth, their appointment to lucrative gubernatorial posts in the provinces with the attendant oppor tunities that such appointments provided for developing a retinue of followers, and the broad, court-conferred military authority they were given, all encouraged the establishment of a vassalage systemunder them. The system was the ikusa, or, as it is now more fre quently called, the bushidan, the «warrior band.»
Like Naokata before him,Yorinobu delayed his departure for the east several months after his appointment to command the courtforces fighting Tadatsune, perhaps in response to messengers Tada tsune sent to the capital to plead the case that he was not in revolt against the government. The court’s decision went against him, and his messengers were arrested, putting him on notice that he could soon expect another major assault by court forces. By the late spring of 1031, Yorinobu had arrived in Kai with a son of Tadatsune, a monk, in his train. He was about to launch a campaign against Tadatsune when the rebel suddenly appeared before him. Tadatsune had taken Buddhist vows, changed his name to Joan, and with two sons and three roto, surrendered without a fight.
Yorinobu, in his report on the campaign addressed to the guardiandeity of his clan, boasted that he had achieved victory «without caus ing the people to flee or laying waste the land, without beatingdrums or unfurling banners, without drawing bows or loosing ar rows, neither hiding nor attacking.» «Just by being there,» he crowed, «I captured the enemy.»
Although Yoshinobu claimed that his reputation as a warrior was reason enough for Tadatsune to surrender, there seem to have been other considerations as well. In submitting, Tadatsune may have been honoring the obligation of a personal-service bond made withYoshinobu some two decades earlier (to be discussed later). How ever, exhaustion may have been a consideration in the surrender: the provinces of Awa, Kazusa, and Shimosa were by that time devastated from the protracted fighting: in Kazusa, it was reported, there was almost no paddy left in cultivation.
This may be why Tadatsune, while holding off the attacks of Naokata, had tried to negotiate with the court and then had taken religious vows as a signal that he did not wish to continue his resistance.
En route to the capital in the custody of Yorinobu, Tadatsune be came ill and died. However, his surrender to Yorinobu secured the survival of his family: his sons became retainers of Yorinobu, and in the twelfth century, his descendants, by then known as the Chiba, played a major role in the rise of Yorinobu’s descendant Yoritomo.
The explanation thatTadatsune submitted toYorinobu in 1031 because he was under a personal obligation to him derives from an in cident described in the Konjaku monogatari-shu. About twenty years earlier, whenYorinobu was vice-governor of Hitachi and attempting to exercise his influence in the neighboring provinces of Kazusa and Shim5sa, Tadatsune, who held lands in Shimosa, was flouting his obligation to forward taxes to the provincial headquarters.
In the Konjaku story, he boasted: «My influence is extremely far-reaching. In Kazusa and Shimosa, I do as I please. I do not pay public duties, nor do I give heed to the governor of Hitachi.» Yorinobu found this behavior intolerable and resolved to chastise Tadatsune. He made common cause with a local strongman, Taira no Koremoto, who hadold scores to settle with his rival clansman. Yorinobu with two thousand horsemen and Koremoto with three thousand (certainly in flated numbers) advanced quickly on Tadatsune’s base. In the face of this overwhelming force, Tadatsune surrendered without a fight, proffering his name tag (myobu) and a written message of apology for his deeds.
Name tags, inscribed with a man’s name, official title,and rank, were conventionally presented by a subordinate taking ser vice with a superior, as when someone became a functionary in anoble household, or a disciple pledged himself to a master, or a war rior became a follower of a military lord. Men who presented name tags were known as «house men» (keniri) of the recipients of the tags. In the Konjaku story, the tag was presumably offered in token of Tadatsune’s submission toYorinobu.
Although the Konjaku story may contain fictional elements, the resolution of the conflict by the presentation of a name tag points to a conspicuous feature of the emerging warrior society. In the Heianperiod, house men were initially of diverse types. They might them selves be nobles or warriors, and they could also include kin of the house. They were like the lads (rdto) in being personal retainers of the lord, but superior in status because of their greater autonomy:they did not usually live in the lord’s house or vicinity, but main tained a separate existence. The scope of the term’s usage narrowed in the late Heian period, coming then to refer primarily to warriorretainers, a nomenclatural development that was eventually incor porated in the name used of the shogunal retainers of the Kamakura bakufu, the gokenin.
Yorinobu may have delayed his departure from the capital in 1031because Tadatsune was his kenin and he wished to afford him addi tional time to negotiate with the court. Yorinobu’s personal loyalties may have taken precedence over service to the state, an indication of the increasing strength of the bushidan relationships, according tosome scholars. However, Yorinobu’s appointment to replace Nao kata as commander of the expedition against Tadatsune probably came after it became known in Kyoto that Tadatsune was seeking a way to surrender, and that this outcome was being resisted byNaokata, who wanted his destruction. As the court hoped, Yori nobu’s old relationship with Tadatsune enabled him to bring about Tadatsune’s surrender and an end to the destructive struggle that had continued for almost four years.
Tadatsune’s submission toYorinobu was a shock to theTaira, who had long acted as if they owned the Kanto. From this time on they fomented no further rebellions in the east. Instead, many became followers of the Minamoto, with their own groups allying with othermilitary groups under the head of the Minamoto family. The pres tige that came toYorinobu for his «victory» over Tadatsune, together with his noble ancestry, attracted other warrior groups in the east toally themselves with his bushidan organization. The Minamoto became increasingly influential in the remainder of the eleventh cen tury, particularly in the time of Yorinobu’s son,Yoriyoshi (988-1075).
Although Yorinobu had effectively carried out his mission, the court, which had little regard for warriors, useful though they were, was slow to reward him. A year later he was appointed governor of Mino, his second-choice position.
In 1046, as governor of Kawachi, the elderly Yorinobu began the worship at Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine of the martial Hachiman as tutelary god of the Genji. Since 859, when religious practices were imported from the Hachiman Shrine at Usa in Kyushu, therehad been some aristocratic support of the shrine. However, Yori nobu was the first to claim the deity as a patron. He explained hisdecision as an act of reverence toward his ancestors and their mar velous history of defending the country, tracing his lineage back twenty-two generations to the legendary emperor Ojin, said to haveparticipated in the conquest of Silla while still in the womb of Empress Jingu.Ojin was considered an avatar of the bodhisattva Hachiman, god of archery. Shrines to Hachiman soon sprang up through out the country wherever there were Minamoto to invoke his name.
Yorinobu’s son Yoriyoshi attributed his success in the Earlier Nine Years’ War to Hachiman and in 1063 secretly erected a shrine toHachiman at Yui-no-go in Sagami, moved to Kamakura by Yori tomo in 1191.