gnificant, and the event clearly
illustrates the policy of the Central Government--a policy already
noted in connexion with the revolt of Masakado--namely, that any
emergency dealt with prior to the receipt of an Imperial rescript
must be regarded as private, whatever its nature, and therefore
beyond the purview of the law.

A more effective method of decentralization could not have been
devised. It was inevitable that, under such a system, the provincial
magnates should settle matters to their own liking without reference
to Kyoto, and that, the better to enforce their will, they should
equip themselves with armed retinues. In truth, it is not too much to
say that, from the tenth century, Japan outside the capital became an
arena of excursions and alarms, the preservation of peace being
wholly dependent on the ambitions of local magnates.

A history of all these happenings would be intolerably long and
tedious. Therefore only those that have a national bearing will be
here set down. Prominent among such is the struggle between the Taira
and the Minamoto in the Kwanto. The origin of these two families has
already been recounted. Some historians have sought to differentiate
the metropolitan section of the Minamoto from the provincial
section--that is to say, the men of luxury and literature who
frequented the capital, from the men of sword and bow who ruled in
the provinces. Such differentiation is of little practical value.
Similar lines of demarcation might be drawn in the case of the Taira
and Fujiwara themselves. If there were great captains in each of
these famous families, there were also great courtiers. To the former
category belonged Taira Tadatsune. For generations his family had
ruled in the province of Shimosa and had commanded the allegiance of
all the bushi of the region. Tadatsune held at one time the post of
vice-governor of the neighbouring province of Kazusa, where he
acquired large manors (shoen). In the year 1028, he seized the chief
town of the latter province, and pushing on into Awa, killed the
governor and obtained complete control of the province.* The Court,
on receiving news of these events, ordered Minamoto Yorinobu,
governor of Kai, and several other provincial governors to attack the
Taira chief.

*Murdoch, in his History of Japan, says that in three years
Tadatsune's aggressions "reduced the Kwanto to a tangled wilderness.
Thus, in the province of Shimosa, in 1027, there had been as muc