What would you do if your clan was at the top of the military food chain, then some
young whippersnapper clan comes along and takes your place?
The Taira-Minamoto rivalry is famous for being a rivalry between the Taira and the Minamoto.
In the Nara Period, the Japanese Imperial Family was growing as fast as the panda population
doesn’t.
The Royal Family had so many members that it was becoming a problem.
Each son, daughter, or disappointment in the Imperial Family had to be paid an allowance,
just because they had royal blood.
It was a huge drain on the government bank account.
Money didn’t grow on trees, especially when you had emperors like Emperor Saga (嵯峨天皇),
who had 49 children.
That’s 49 mouths to feed with silver spoons.
That’s why Emperor Saga decided to do a thing.
It would save money and probably reduce the risk of succession disputes too.
He kicked most of his children out of the house,
the Imperial House.
That’s right, he demoted most of his children.
He stripped them of their royalty and made them normal nobles.
They were no longer part of the Imperial Family, and were no longer in line for the throne.
To these demoted children, he gave the surname of Minamoto (源).
It meant “origin,” to let you know that they had the same origin as the Imperial House
(but they’re not part of it, got that? Not part of it.).
Emperors after Saga did the same to their children, also giving them the name Minamoto.
The Taira (平) name had a similar beginning.
It was first given to a few demoted grandsons of Emperor Kanmu, then to demoted descendants
of a few other emperors after him.
We also call the Minamoto Genji (源氏), it’s just a different reading of the same
character.
The Japanese can read the same characters in different ways as a strategy to confuse
foreigners and make them feel unwelcomed.
The Minamoto had 17 major family lines.
The most successful was the Seiwa Genji, descendants of the Emperor Seiwa.
When I say Minamoto from now on, I mean this Seiwa branch.
The Taira are also called the Heishi (平氏).
There were 4 major lines of the Taira.
The most successful was the Kanmu Heishi, descendants of Emperor Kanmu.
When I say Taira from now on, I mean this Kanmu line.
So how did these two clans, descendants of royal rejects, become the two most powerful
military clans of the Heian era?
Well, you have to understand how the Heian government conducted war back in those days.
Japan didn’t have a national army because they got rid of it.
After that bright idea, the Heian court was like,
“Well we still gotta have war, right?
We can’t not have war as a country.”
So how do you gather an army big enough to ruin someone’s day?
They brainstormed a few ideas.
The most obvious method was to have governors raise armies.
Each province had a governor.
The problem was, most provincial governors didn’t live in their provinces.
Yeah, they each governed a province, but their asses were in the capital.
Who’d wanna live all the way out in a province?
The capital had much better parties and districts of crimson illumination.
Remember, this was before phones.
How do you manage a province when you’re not there?
Ever had managers who lived on the other side of the country?
They have no idea that you’re coming to work at 11 and leaving at 3, do they?
But I know.
A remote governor did have an agent who lived in the province to manage the day-to-day affairs
like squeezing tax money from helpless farmers.
Farmers milked the cows, governors milked the farmers.
The province’s local officials saw their governor and his agent as outsiders.
It was a hostile and toxic work environment, and good luck getting everyone to work together,
especially in war.
To be fair, the local officials did have a point.
Governors were usually outsiders.
They looked upwards to the capital instead of downwards to their provinces.
The interests of the province and its governor often didn’t align.
So scratch that option.
Another option to raise troops was through elite landowners.
Private lands called shoen multiplied in the Heian Period, and so did private land owners.
The strongest landowners included Fujiwara elites, the Imperial Family, temples, shrines,
among others.
The court decided against employing these landowners to raise armies.
There must not have been that many warriors within these private lands.
And raising and coordinating an army through all these different landowners would have
been a nightmare.
There was another option.
Pick a famous guy and have him do everything.
This was the option the court picked.
It’s also the option John Connor picked.
Whenever they needed to bash someone’s head in, the court decided it was much easier to
choose a capable warrior and have him rally and lead troops to the field.
To give him needed resources, the court would appoint him governor of a province.
That way, they had a military leader who had influence in the provinces, the loyalty of
local warriors, and the huge resources of a province at his disposal.
The Minamoto climbed to the top first.
Their breakout hit dropped during the Zenkunen no Eki (前九年の役), or the Former Nine
Years’ War.
The Abe clan was supposed to watch over the pacified Emishi in the northeast
and collect taxes from these barbarians, but the Abe started causing trouble and not
sending tax money to the capital.
The court sent a Minamoto to raise troops and handle things.
Minamoto no Yoriyoshi (源頼義) and his eldest son Yoshiie (義家) rode into battle
and just demolished the Abe.
The Minamoto went platinum, their fame spread far and wide.
Writers fawned over Yoshiie’s crazy archery and horse-ridings skills.
They didn’t praise his skill with swords or spears.
This was common.
It was all about the bow and horse for the samurai.
Swords were flaccid weapons on horseback, and even the spear was secondary.
The bow was the samurai’s main weapon.
That’s right, I spit on swords, spit.
This Minamoto no Yoshiie (源義家) would kick ass in future wars and eventually got
so famous that he would become a kami of the Minamoto clan, the clan’s ancestral god.
They called him Hachimantaro, or the Child of Hachiman.
Hachiman was the god of war, or the god of warriors.
The Minamoto would fight for the Imperial court against anti-government rebels, becoming
known as the greatest warriors in the land.
They had a sort of alliance with the Fujiwara clan.
If you didn’t know, the Fujiwara clan famously married their daughters into the Imperial
Family, allowing them control over the Heian court for 200 years.
Whenever the Fujiwara needed warrior stuff done, they would ask the Minamoto to go do
warrior stuff.
The Minamoto stayed at the top of the charts for more than 100 years.
The clan was at its peak when Minamoto no Yoshiie was the leader.
After Yoshiie died in the 1100s, they just spiraled downwards,
which brings us to the Taira clan.
At the time, the Taira were nothing special.
Lucky for them, the Minamoto had a good thing going and were about to screw it up.
One of Yoshiie’s sons decided to kill some government officials and start a rebellion.
The court sent the relatively unknown Taira no Masamori (平正盛) to execute the Minamoto
rebel, which he did.
Masamori was an indie figure, someone whose name you’d drop in conversation to increase
your hipster cred.
The Minamoto suffered some bloody family squabbles.
Yoshiie’s heir was murdered and the Heian court blamed another Minamoto and executed
him.
His father got angry and rebelled, but was arrested and exiled.
Then Minamoto no Tameyoshi became the head of the Minamoto clan at 14 years old.
Tameyoshi was kind of a screwup, always getting in trouble with the court and never amounting
to much.
He even lost his government position and didn’t regain a new position until almost 10 years
later.
With the sorry state of the Minamoto, Retired Emperor Shirakawa
turned more and more to the Taira for his warring needs.
Taira no Masamori did so well in executing that rebelling Minamoto guy.
Masamori and his son Tadamori (平忠盛) turned out to be great warriors themselves
and racked up a bunch of military wins.
And so the Taira won the retired emperors to their side, and the Minamoto had the Fujiwara
on their side.
The two samurai clans became rivals.
The Minamoto had most of their influence in the east, in the Kanto region.
They took pride in being great horseback warriors.
The Taira had a more seafaring culture.
They had a strong navy and their influence was in the west and in port towns.
The Taira actually built a profitable trade empire through their ships.
The Taira and Minamoto gained influence not just in the battlefield, but also in the halls
of the Japanese court.
The Heian government became dominated by four clans:
the Fujiwara, Tachibana, Minamoto, and Taira.
Through a few wars, the Taira eliminated important Minamoto figures and eventually overshadowed
the Minamoto.
Taira no Kiyomori (平清盛) ruled the Heian court with an iron grip.
He became so strong that when Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa went against him,
he placed Go-Shirakawa under house arrest.
In the provinces, the Minamoto clan slowly regained its power and in 1180, rebelled against
the Taira in the Genpei War.
We’ll talk about the Genpei War someday.
Someday.
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