Heian Japan, Centers and Peripheries

13. Lordship Interdicted: Taira no Tadatsune and the Limited Horizons of Warrior Ambition

13 d Karl Friday Lordship Interdicted Taira no Tadatsune and the Limited Horizons of Warrior Ambition I n 1028—the very middle of the self-professed era of “peaceful tranquility” —the central aristocracy’s self-complacence was ripped by reports that Taira no Tadatsune (967–1031), a maternal grandson of the infamous Taira no Masakado (?–940), had attacked and ravaged the provincial government compound (kokuga) in Awa. This incident, and the events that followed, rank among the most dramatic episodes in the early history of Japan’s warrior order. Masakado’s insurrection, some seven decades earlier, had climaxed with the protagonist ’s claiming for himself the title New Emperor. Tadatsune’s reach did not extend so far, but his grasp held the provinces of the Bōsō peninsula—Kazusa, Shimōsa, and Awa—for the better part of three years, and left much of the region in ruin (map 13.1). His timing was also intriguing, coinciding with both the apex of the Fujiwara regency in the capital and with what some historians have identified as an era of transition between old and new forms of property holding in the countryside.1 It is small wonder, then, that historians have long cited the “Taira no Tadatsune Rebellion” as a signal moment in Heian history. For the most part, it has been presented as an early—albeit incongruously unsuccessful—harbinger of things to come, a portent of the Genpei War of the 1180s, the Jōkyū War of 1221, and the Nanbokuchō wars of the late fourteenth century that, step by step, ushered in the medieval era of localism and warrior rule. Closer analysis indicates, however, that Tadatsune’s career and circumstances were more typical of his class, and his fate more emblematic of the structure and inherent stability of the Heian polity, than the drama surrounding his insurrection might suggest.2 The following study examines the events of 1028–1031 in detail, with a special eye toward the light they shed on the relationship between the capital and the countryside that held in the mid-Heian period. Warrior Society in the East Life in the eastern provinces during the mid-Heian period was increasingly dominated by a competition for wealth and influence between multiple groups, including provincial-resident elites, provincial officials, and the temples, princes, and officials (shoin, shogū, ōshinke) of the court.3 At the axis of this competition were 330 | Karl Friday the middle-ranked court nobles whose careers centered on appointments to provincial government offices. To ensure a continued succession of posts, such career provincial officials (zuryō) forged alliances with the lofty aristocrats (kugyō) above them. At the same time, many zuryō found that they could use the power and perquisites of their offices, and the strength of their court connections, to establish landed bases in their provinces of appointment and to continue to exploit the resources of these provinces even after their terms of office expired. Central government complaints of problems caused in the hinterlands by “officials who have finished their terms of office and by sons and younger brothers of princes and court officials” appear as early as 797.4 Such figures, we are told, were “settling down in their [former] areas of jurisdiction, where they hindered agriculture, Map 13.1. Bōsō peninsula Lordship Interdicted | 331 gathered up the peasantry like fishermen harvesting fish, and constructed plans for their own evil gains.”5 This trend was both widespread and enduring. The practice of nobles “settling down” in the provinces is a well-known phenomenon of the Heian period, but expressed in these terms the concept is a bit misleading, for few central aristocrats actually abandoned life in the capital for a provincial existence. Typical exurban provincial officials concluded marriage and other alliances with local figures and held packages of lands scattered about the countryside, which provided them with income. At the same time, they maintained extensive contact with political affairs in the capital and often kept homes there. Some individuals and branches of families became more thoroughly committed to a provincial existence than others, but most were still careful to keep their ties to the capital alive. They could not afford to do otherwise, for to cut oneself off completely from the court was to sever oneself from the source of official appointments and personal connections—and thereby end all hope of maintaining one’s social and political position. To provincial governors...