Jōhei Tengyō Rebellion

The Jōhei-Tengyō Rebellion (Jōhei Tengyō no Ran) is the collective name for two rebellions that broke out almost simultaneously from the 5th year of Jōhei (935) to the 4th year of Tengyō (941): the Taira no Masakado rebellion in the Kantō region and the Fujiwara no Sumitomo rebellion in the Inland Sea. It is an important event that modern historiography repeatedly returns to as a turning point symbolizing the collapse of Japan's ritsuryō state and the rise of the warrior class, and it also marks the dawn of an era in which the social and political role of swords began to be fundamentally transformed. Just as the phrase "Masakado in the east, Sumitomo in the west" was spoken on people's lips at the time, these two rebellions, though geographically distant, shine with a distinctive brilliance in Japanese history as twin incidents in which the contradictions of their era erupted at once.

The Collapse of the Ritsuryō System and the Rise of the Warriors: Swords from "Public Instruments" to "Private Instruments"

The ritsuryō system established in the Nara period was a centralized bureaucratic and military system with the emperor at its apex, and its soldiers consisted of gundan conscript soldiers drawn from the common people. However, as the 9th century progressed, the handen shūju land allotment system had become a mere formality and shōen estates continued to expand, and regional powerful families came to organize private armed groups. The warriors (mononofu) who emerged in this way, and the tachi they wore, began to function as a "symbol of private power" in place of the "public weapons" of the ritsuryō system. Under the ritsuryō system, swords were weapons of the imperial army managed by the court, but with the development of the shōen system a structure arose in which regional warrior bands privately possessed and forged swords. In time, swordsmiths of Ko-Bizen and Ko-Yamashiro began making swords under the patronage of powerful warriors, and this became the foundation for the development of Japan's distinctive sword culture. While the central nobility schemed in the capital, in the provinces warriors wielded their swords at their waists and expanded their spheres of control by force. The Jōhei-Tengyō Rebellion was the event in which this contradiction erupted all at once.

The Taira no Masakado Rebellion: The Dream of Eastern Independence and the Tachi of the "New Emperor"

Taira no Masakado (birth year unknown – 940) was a noble warrior descended from Emperor Kanmu. His father, Taira no Yoshimochi, served as Chinjufu Shōgun (Commander-in-Chief of the Defense of the North) and took root in the eastern provinces. Masakado, at around age fifteen, went up to the capital and served Fujiwara no Tadahira, and after returning to the east he plunged into a private feud with relatives over the question of inheriting his father's domains. As he intervened in the disputes of warriors across the Kantō region, his power grew. In the 5th year of Jōhei (935), a private feud began with his uncle Taira no Kunika and the clan of Minamoto no Mamoru, and before long he attacked, one after another, the provincial governors (kokushi) appointed by the court, subjugating the eight Bandō provinces, including Shimotsuke, Kōzuke, and Hitachi. In the 2nd year of Tengyō (939), Masakado at last declared himself "Shinnō" ("New Emperor") and proclaimed an independent regime in the east. This was the first declaration in Japanese history that openly challenged the authority of the court by force of arms, and an unprecedented event in which a warrior wearing a sword claimed authority equal to the emperor's. Masakado's act of styling himself "New Emperor" showed that the equation of sword = authority was taking root in the world of warriors. In the Heian period, the tachi held both "ceremonial authority" and "practical battle function," and ceremonial ornamental tachi (kazari-tachi), which nobles wore with formal dress, and practical tachi (jitsuyō-tachi), which warriors actually used in battle, coexisted. Masakado's proclamation of "Shinnō" was the historic moment when, for the first time, the power of the practical tachi was shown capable of surpassing the authority of the ceremonial tachi. In the 1st month of Tengyō 3 (940), the court appointed Fujiwara no Tadabumi as Seitō Taishōgun and proclaimed that rewards would be given to whoever killed Masakado. In the east, Taira no Sadamori and Fujiwara no Hidesato, Ōryōshi of Shimotsuke, raised troops and challenged Masakado. Hidesato was known by the nickname Tawara Tōta and was renowned as a master of the powerful bow. On the 14th day of the 2nd month of Tengyō 3 (25 March 940), Masakado was killed in a fierce battle in Sashima District, Shimōsa Province, and his head was carried to the capital. Masakado's head was put on display, but in later ages it was enshrined as the Kubizuka (head mound) in Ōtemachi, and even today it remains a place of renowned spiritual power that continues to draw worshippers.

The Fujiwara no Sumitomo Rebellion: Setouchi Pirates and the Attack on Provincial Offices

Fujiwara no Sumitomo (birth year unknown – 941) had originally been appointed as jō (provincial secretary) of Iyo Province (present-day Ehime Prefecture) and assigned to suppress pirates in the Inland Sea. In the course of this work, he came to know the organization and reality of the pirate bands thoroughly, and before long he became the leader of a pirate band himself. Sumitomo, based at Hiburijima in Iyo, commanded over a thousand ships and attacked, one after another, the provincial offices of Iyo and Sanuki, the mint (Jusenshi) in Suō, and so on, and even took Dazaifu (present-day Fukuoka Prefecture). In the 12th month of Tengyō 2 (939), Fujiwara no Fumimoto, a subordinate of Sumitomo, attacked the assistant governors of Bizen and Harima at Suki post station in Settsu Province, and this formalized the rebellion. In the 5th month of Tengyō 4 (941), government forces led by the pursuit commissioner Ono no Yoshifuru and the deputy Minamoto no Tsunemoto destroyed Sumitomo's fleet in Hakata Bay. Sumitomo, who had fled to Iyo, was captured by the Keigoshi Tachibana no Tōyasu in the 6th month and died in prison (though some accounts say he was killed).

The Historical Turning Point the Jōhei-Tengyō Rebellion Gave to Sword Culture: The Dawn of the Age of the Warriors

When the Jōhei-Tengyō Rebellion was suppressed, the court relied not on aristocratic bureaucrats but on warriors and armed bands. Because Taira no Sadamori, Fujiwara no Hidesato, and Minamoto no Tsunemoto suppressed the rebellion, the military capability of the warriors was in effect officially recognized, and from then on the court continued to depend on warriors for the maintenance of public order. The impact this structural change had on Japan's sword culture is immeasurable. With the collapse of the ritsuryō system's "public military system," the making, possession, and carrying of swords came to be positioned as both a privilege and an obligation of the warrior class. In particular, as a system took hold in which the warrior bands of the eastern and western provinces privately formed ties with swordsmiths, the swordsmith groups of Ko-Bizen, Ko-Yamashiro, and Ko-Yamato developed dramatically under the patronage of warriors. The seeds of the technological evolution from the elegantly decorated tachi of the Heian period to the practical Japanese sword with deep curvature (sori) of the Kamakura period were sown in the age of this rebellion. The Jōhei-Tengyō Rebellion, as the starting point of the process by which the Japanese sword was transformed from a "weapon of ritual" into the "soul of the warrior," left a firm mark in sword history. After this rebellion, the Minamoto and Taira, the two great warrior clans, emerged as the core of military power, and the source of the great torrent of history that continued into the Genpei War more than two centuries later originates here, which is also a deeply meaningful historical fact from the perspective of sword history. Furthermore, regarding Fujiwara no Hidesato, who defeated Taira no Masakado, the otogizōshi "Tawara Tōta Monogatari," widely read in the medieval period, has been transmitted, depicting Hidesato's martial exploits such as his slaying of the giant centipede. The "value of the tachi" in this era went beyond its function as a mere weapon, and from contemporary texts and tales one can read that possessing a famous sword was an important symbol that made visible a warrior's rank, lineage, and authority. The Jōhei-Tengyō Rebellion, as the primordial event in which such warrior values first leapt onto the stage of history, is an important turning point that will forever be referred to in the spiritual history of the Japanese sword. Furthermore, after the second half of the 10th century, a structure took hold in which guilds of swordsmiths formed direct relations of patronage and being patronized with powerful warriors in various regions. Smiths (kaji) were granted a special social status as the "source of military strength" of the warriors, and the cultural soil from which the later Goban-kaji (the court smiths' rotation) system and the legends of "famous smiths and famous swords" were formed was nurtured in this age.