The court and its provincesand the central government. Depending on the size of a district, the number of the officials ranged
between two and eight, and these were assisted by an unspecified number of assistants and fol-
lowers (gunji- shitei).
The responsibilities of the gunji included collecting taxes, local jurisdiction, organizing statute
labor, and maintaining irrigation infrastructure. They were also responsible for oversight of gra-
naries that stocked rice for times of need (gisō), and for a system of loaning rice seed compulsorily
to cultivators at interest, collected after each harvest. This system, suiko, was later incorporated
into the field tax. Rent from paddies allotted to them on the basis of their rank and office (shiki-
den) formed their official income, but district officials supplemented this with private rice loans
(shi- suiko).
District officers were answerable to the province office, which was headed by provincial offi-
cials (kokushi) recruited from court nobility, dispatched to their assigned provinces for four years,
and obliged to return to the capital after their term of office.^10 Kokushi represented central power
over regional society—in contrast to the gunji, who were representatives of the local or regional
society, with strong tendencies toward autonomy based on traditional local structures. Sixty
provinces (kuni) were designated at the end of the seventh century, but the number fluctuated
over time. Depending on the size of a province, the provincial office was overseen by a governor
assisted by up to eight officers, who were in turn attended by subordinates (zōshikinin) recruited
in the province from the circles of district magistrate families. Their office incomes, paid from the
provincial treasury, were fixed according to their rank and their office. Governors were allowed
to exploit fallow land near the site of the provincial office and to lease it to farmers.
Governors were responsible for the treasury of their province, organizing household regis-
ters, tax- rolls, land- registers (denseki), and field- plans (denzu) with details about site, size, category
(kubunden, etc.), quality, and the tillers of every piece of land. Field maps formed the basis for the
field allotments carried out by the provincial administration and for leasing lands (called jōden)
not assigned as kubunden. Provincial officials were also charged with carrying out projects planned
by the central government. In practice, this involved duties not unlike those of the gunji on the
district level, including suiko loans to the farmers and even prayers for good weather. One of
their most important functions was—in cooperation with the gunji—the organization of projects
for installing and maintaining irrigation and drainage systems. Governors had also to take care of
the shrines in their provinces, which were generally under much less central control than Bud-
dhist temples.^11
The provincial office represented the highest jurisdictional authority for the population. The
governor was charged with overseeing the people’s moral conduct, and was expected to conduct
“benevolent rule” (zensei), “caressing the people” (bumin). On the other hand, sending a “letter of
praise for good government” (zenjō) or a “letter of grievance” (ureejō) to the central government
represented an institutionalized form by which the people of a province were able to submit
opinions regarding the governor’s behavior.^12 The full range of Confucian ethics of rulers was
mustered up for these documents.
In addition to these agriculture- centered functions, the governor was also the highest military
and police authority, the officers of which were mostly recruited from among gunji families and
followers. From these circles, candidates were selected for guardsman service at the court or in
houses of high- ranking court nobles and uneme serving as—generally lower- ranking—court
ladies.^13 Men and women of local magistrate origin in this way were supposed to fashion ties
between the court and the regional societies.
The headquarters of the provincial government were situated in a small residential town
(kokufu) with a grid- shaped layout similar to that of the capital. In addition to the administra-
tional offices, a provincial school (kokugaku) was established for the education of the regional