We’re gonna talk about the 8 major wars of the Heian Period.
Heian actually means peace, but I ain’t talking about peace.
What, you think I sit down to pee?
No, I talk about war.
What’s interesting is that these wars will show you the evolution of Japan’s warrior
class throughout the Heian era.
So, get ready, type “Show me, daddy” in the comments, and let me walk you down this
road of blood and betrayal.
Our first stop is the 38 Years War (773 - 811), or the Emishi wars,
or How the Japanese Manifest Destinied the Natives From Behind.
The Emishi lived in the northeast.
The Japanese called them barbarians because they didn’t have civilized things like big
temples and huge egos.
The Japanese court didn’t start with violence, you save the best for last.
They built settlements further and further into Emishi territory.
The more they built, the more annoyed the Emishi got.
Emishi raids became more frequent until in 773, the Japanese court finally declared war.
From 773 to 811, the court would send a bunch of war expeditions.
The Japanese had a national army made of mostly infantry, with some mounted archers sprinkled
in for flavor.
Blood flavor.
The Emishi only used horse archers, but they were more kickass Mongol-level horse archers,
while the Japanese’s were more like me when I took a friend out for an archery class and
smacked her face with my bow.
I know, I felt so bad that I shot her in the leg to ease her sore cheeks.
One Japanese general wrote,
“Horse-and-bow warfare is learned from birth by the barbarians;
ten of our subjects cannot equal one of them.”
Still the Japanese army’s numbers were just World War Z level.
The Emishi resorted to guerilla tactics.
They were mobile, and could choose where to attack, forcing the Japanese to defend everywhere.
The Emishi also had some fierce generals like Aterui (阿弖流爲), who managed to beat
a Japanese force of 50,000 with just 1000 men.
After almost 4 decades of war, the Japanese declared victory and ended it.
But it was more of a paper victory.
Things continued as it had before, except the soil was a bit redder.
The Emishi continued living in a region that was pretty much independent from the Japanese
court.
The Emishi wars had a big impact on Japan’s military.
Before the wars, Japan had a national army.
Farmers were called to serve a few times a year, then they went back to their farms.
Emperor Kanmu got rid of that whole business, partly because they kinda sucked in the war.
After the Emishi horsemen gave Japan a kick in the teeth, the Japanese were like,
“Huh, horse archers are bomb dot com, Imma get me some of those.”
And they did.
In the Heian Period, Japan slowly moved towards smaller armies made of horse archers.
Next up we have number two: Masakado’s Rebellion (939 - 940).
Misfit Accidentally Creates a State.
With the national army cancelled, warrior gangs popped up in the provinces.
Landowners needed protection.
The Minamoto (源) and Taira (平) clans found their niche and built up their street cred
as warriors.
Taira no Masakado (平将門) was a Taira.
He dabbled with a career in the capital, failed, and went back home to his province of Shimosa.
Masakado had a squabble with his father-in-law, also a Taira.
Unfortunately, father-in-law had a lot of allies and they all went after him.
The family squabble got out of control and stumbled into rebellion when Masakado’s
troops massacred a bunch of people in the headquarters of Hitachi Province.
The court was pissed that someone would attack the home of the Hitachi Magic Wand massager
and declared him an enemy of the state.
Masakado turned out to be an exemplary enemy of the state.
He invaded all of the provinces of the Kanto region, giving him the power of many Pokemon.
He called it a separate state and declared himself the New Emperor.
Well the new emperor had a short reign because the court put out a warrant for his head.
Warlords went after him, killed him, and brought his head to the capital.
Masakado became a folk hero, a rebel for the people who fought against a corrupt government.
Mysterious stories spread about him, like he had a curse against the country, and oh
some people saw his severed head flying about.
With Masakado’s Rebellion, we saw the Heian court appoint individual warlords to gather
and lead troops against an enemy of the state.
No need for the government to supply the troops, that was the job of the warlord.
This was how the Taira and Minamoto clans gained fame and political influence.
The samurai were coming to Japan, and they weren’t leaving.
Some historians call Taira no Masakado the first samurai.
Number three.
Sumitomo’s Revolt (939).
A Freaking Samurai Pirate.
Fujiwara no Sumitomo’s (藤原純友) Revolt happened at the same time as Masakado’s,
but in the west.
While Masakado had his band of horse archers, Sumitomo had his band of pirates that ravaged
the Inland Sea and distributed movies illegally.
They were a menace.
Sumitomo was not a nice guy, cuz he was a pirate!
When one government official overheard Sumitomo’s plan to invade the provinces around the Inland
Sea, the official packed up his things and family in boxes and headed towards the capital
to sound the alarm.
Unfortunately, Sumitomo sniffed out the rat and caught up with the group.
He cut off the official’s ears and nose, killed his children, and captured his wife.
Cuz he was a pirate!
They said he had 1000 ships to raid the shores of the Inland Sea.
Cuz he was a pirate!
In 939, the Heian capital was caught in a sandwich of rebels, Masakado’s horse archer
bun to the east and Sumitomo’s ship archer bun to the west, an Impossible Burger of Death.
The court wasn’t a fan of death burgers, so they gave Sumitomo an official court rank,
hoping to keep him happy while they dealt with Masakado.
It worked.
Sumitomo the pirate chief paused his attacks to bask in the awareness that he was part
of the Heian nobility.
The court dealt with Masakado, then again came after Sumitomo.
For a few months, he arrr’ed against the forces of multiple provinces.
It was impressive, but in one final battle on the high seas, it was clear that Sumitomo
was done for.
His friends and family jumped overboard.
The victors killed Sumitomo, then engaged in their favorite pastime of chopping off
the loser’s head and presenting it to the capital.
The two rebellions showed the power of individual warlords to rally support among the locals.
The warrior class was leveling up.
We also see the beginnings of a military system where the court would call on someone from
a warrior clan whenever they needed to bash someone’s head in.
Four.
Tadatsune’s Rebellion (1028).
All Your Farmland, Gone.
Taira no Tadatsune (平忠常) was annoying,
like people who don’t click like on YouTube videos.
He pranced around abusing peasants and evading taxes.
It was irritating to the Heian government.
But when he set fire to a provincial headquarters and burned the governor alive, the court shifted
from irritated to miffed.
Rumors that they were planning to pew pew this Tadatsune troublemaker echoed through
the halls of the court.
Military men stepped on each other to nominate themselves for the honor of defeating this
terrible threat to the state.
By this time, the practice of the government appointing a warlord to gather and lead armies
was common.
Becoming a warlord was a great career booster.
They chose another Taira to defeat Taira no Tadatsune.
The armies came down on Tadatsune and it seemed like he regretted his previous jerky behavior
because he sent a conciliatory gift to the court and even became a monk.
Tadatsune was signalling that he really didn’t want to rebel, he was just protesting high
taxes, because that’s what monks do?
To be fair to Tadatsune, Japan was suffering from drought and disease.
It was hard for people to pay taxes.
To be unfair to him, dude lit up the governor like a marshmallow.
The war was terrible for the environment.
It was so not a green war.
Fields of burnt farmland lay in its wake.
That plus some unfortunate drought and disease triggered a food crisis.
It led the government to allow landowners to buy up new private lands, called shoen,
and remake them into farmland.
Tax money from shoen went to the landowner, not the central government.
And again, these military landowners in the provinces leveled up.
Tadatsune surrendered when the court appointed a mentor of his to defeat him.
He travelled to the capital to accept punishment, but got sick and died on the way.
Five, the Former Nine Years’ War (1051 - 1063).
Minamoto Goes Platinum.
This war was the Minamoto clan’s breakout hit.
The Abe clan was supposed to look after the Emishi districts in Mutsu Province and collect
their taxes.
The Abe grew sour of this deal and stopped the flow of that precious tax money to the
capital.
The Heian capital wanted its money and sent Minamoto no Yoriyoshi to destroy the Abe,
which he did.
Yoriyoshi and especially his son, Yoshiie, became rock stars.
Afterwards, the court offered Yoriyoshi the governorship of Iyo Province.
But Yoriyoshi was a man who treated you right.
He cleverly refused the governorship unless the court also gave rewards to 10 of his loyal
lieutenants.
That gained him some fiercely loyal followers that would benefit the Minamoto for years
to come.
Takeaways from this war?
The bow was the main weapon on the field.
Army sizes were pretty small, in the low thousands, so individual skill with the bow made more
of a difference.
Singers sang of Minamoto no Yoshiie’s archery skills.
Each horse archer commanded a handful of foot soldiers.
We’re starting to see large troop strategies
go away in favor of small group or individual tactics.
Six. The Latter Three Years’ War (1083 - 1087).
I Got 48 Heads!
Like a naive kid at a tense dinner table, Minamoto no Yoshiie put himself in the middle
of a fight between two factions, regretted it, then beheaded one of them.
The Kiyohara clan had a civil war and Yoshiie picked a side.
The court wouldn’t grant him a warrant to attack his enemy, but he attacked anyways.
After a 2 month siege of a Kiyohara stockade, they broke.
Yoshiie cut off the heads of the Kiyohara and their allies.
That’s 48 heads!
He took the 48 heads to the capital saying he killed the rebels and asked for a retroactive
warrant.
And a reward, ahem.
The Heian court refused, saying it was a private matter, not a state matter.
It is written that Yoshiie angrily threw the 48 heads to the ground when he heard this.
The court was all,
“Dude you just murdered a bunch of people and got away with it.
Who do you think you are, a Japanese noble?
Oh, you are?
Well, we really don’t wanna give you a reward, so we’re just gonna strip you of your position
as governor of Mutsu Province.”
As you can see, the war did hurt Yoshiie and the Minamoto clan politically, but it also
gained him respect as a great warrior.
And really, what more do you need?
After his death, he became the ancestral god of the Minamoto.
He was called Hachimantaro, or Child of Hachiman.
Hachiman is the Shinto god of war, or warriors.
Again, we see more focus on individual warriors in battle.
There were many tales of individuals being heroic.
One guy continued fighting after taking an arrow in the eye.
He used to be an adventurer like you.
Yoshiie set up cushions for people to sit in his company.
There were cushions for the brave and cushions for the cowards.
Where you sit depended on how you acted in battle.
Seven. The Hogen Rebellion (1156).
Battle Royale.
It was a battle between two factions.
The Fujiwara Regency faction wanted to continue ruling by being regents to a figurehead emperor.
The Imperial faction wanted the power to stay within the Imperial Family.
There were Taira and Minamoto warriors fighting for both factions.
Brother against brother, father against son, uncle against nephew.
It was over in one battle.
The Imperials had a bigger army and just demolished the other side.
The winning army had about 2000 men, pretty small for such a momentous battle.
The Hogen Rebellion was a sign of where the country was heading.
With war as an option to resolve conflicts, it was the beginning of the end for the civilian
government.
And the beginning of the beginning for half of the anime industry.
The other half involves tentacles.
Two famous warriors emerged out of the Hogen Rebellion:
Taira no Kiyomori and Minamoto no Yoshitomo.
Yoshitomo had to slay his own father, who was on the losing side of the war.
And although Yoshitomo led the army, Kiyomori received better rewards from the court.
He grew bitter towards Kiyomori and a bloody rivalry began
between the Taira and Minamoto clans.
Check out my videos about the Hogen Rebellion.
Eight. The Heiji Rebellion (1159).
I Guess the Genpei War is Coming.
The bad blood between Minamoto no Yoshitomo and Taira no Kiyomori splattered onto the
streets in the year 1159.
One day, Kiyomori went on a pilgrimage to some shrine, leaving the capital.
Yoshitomo and one Fujiwara no Nobuyori burned the palace and captured
the Emperor Nijo and his father, Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa.
They forced the emperor to make Nobuyori the chancellor.
No one fought back.
The emperor did have friends inside the palace, but turned out they were just acquaintances.
When Kiyomori heard about the kidnapping, he returned with an army.
He couldn’t attack without a warrant from the emperor, who was out of reach at the time,
so he used his political wiles.
Just between you and me, I think the emperor would have forgiven him for attacking without
a warrant, but whatever.
Kiyomori secretly plotted with the emperor’s allies in court while publicly telling the
traitors that he was open to peace.
It worked.
The emperor’s friends inside helped him and his father escape, but they still wouldn’t
show up to his birthday party.
When the emperor got out, he immediately granted the arrest warrant that Kiyomori wanted so
much, while mumbling something about rule followers.
Kiyomori defeated the rebels.
Fujiwara no Nobuyori tried to escape, but fell from his horse.
He pleaded for mercy, and received a merciful beheading.
Minamoto no Yoshitomo escaped, but one of his followers pulled a Tyrion and killed Yoshitomo
in the bathroom.
The victorious Taira no Kiyomori became a boss in court and pretty much controlled everything.
Two of Yoshitomo’s sons died in the failed coup, but Kiyomori pulled an anti-Tywin and
spared Yoshitomo’s remaining very young sons.
That decision would come back to bite him in the rear armor flap.
It set the stage for the coming Genpei War, which we’ll discuss in a later video.
Three of Yoshitomo’s sons would be key players in the war:
Yoritomo, Noriyori, and baby Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
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