D. Taranczewski
the capital. Consequently, local officials, including district magistrates, village overseers, and the
permanent functionaries in the provincial government (zaichō kanjin), fell behind. Provinces were
turning into mere sources of income for members of the central elite, with governors remaining
in the capital and sending proxies (mokudai) out to the province. As a result, governors were
abdicating one of their core functions, their role in the promotion of agricultural activities, which
had been the ethical basis justifying the rule of the centralized state. Local and regional elites
stepped forward to take their place.^34
From the middle of the ninth century, new economic elites came onto the stage of provincial
society. In the documents, they appear as fugō (“rich powerful families”) or fugō rōnin (“rich
powerful families without a registered place of residence”) in the cases of those active over larger
geographic areas. These new figures accumulated movable wealth through usury, loaning seed
rice to pauperized farmers at annual interest rates of 50 percent and more. They invested seed
rice, agrarian equipment and facilities (often called shitaku – “private houses”) for the exploita-
tion of arable land and for bringing land lying fallow back under the plough. They had the neces-
sary know- how in agriculture, as well as in organizing the paid labor of furōnin—tax evaders who
had left their registered places of residence—and often took advantage of forced labor by farmers
who had fallen into debt slavery.^35
The fugō coordinated their activities closely with the district administration, which itself had
long experience in the same fields of activity. Similar forms of entrepreneurship came into play
in the emerging shōen, where the actors were known as tato (“[owner of] a rice field enclosure”).^36
The new elites were profiting from the difficult position of the provincial administration, which
needed to find a compromise between their interest in high tax yields from the land still under
public control (kōryō) and the central elites’ legitimate claim on stable revenue, which increas-
ingly derived from shōen or similar land.
In combination, the foregoing developments reorganized the levy of taxes into a system of
tax farming or revenue leasing. Governors determined the area of taxable rice land (kōden –
“public rice fields”), dividing publicly administered fields into lots, which they allotted to regional
and local elites. The latter, now designated as fumyō (“person burdened [with the duty of collect-
ing taxes]”), were held responsible for ensuring that their assigned fields were kept under plough,
and taxes were paid. In return, they were permitted to retain a portion of the crops as income.
Newly reclaimed land was integrated into this system only as far as necessary in order to gain
legal title to it.^37
The structure of peasant farms was also changing. Farmers gained relatively stable possession of
the fields they cultivated, but only as a matter of practice, and without legal title. The homesteads
(entakuchi) on which farmers had enjoyed strong rights under the ritsuryō system now became subject
to alienation for this very reason. Homesteads, including dry fields and even rice fields (those created
from dry arable land) opened an approach to private control over arable land.^38
An influx of central elites into the provinces transformed these social changes into a new
trend. While, strictly speaking, provincial officials were not permitted to remain in their prov-
inces of appointment beyond the end of their terms of office, holders of lower court ranks faced
a reality in which their chances for a career at court were rapidly diminishing. Many, therefore,
began pinning their hopes on an alternative life in the countryside. Some found new positions in
the provinces, particularly in military service or in land reclamation projects similar to those
being conducted by the fugō.
The immigrants maintained personal connections with court circles, and served as guardsmen
in the imperial palace and in residences of the court nobility. At the same time, they put down
roots in provincial society by means of their economic activities, by forming regional alliances,
and by marrying daughters of provincial nobles of the gunji class or of lower- ranking permanent