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The Nara epoch had come to an end when in 794 the Emperor Kwammu transferred the capital to Kyōto. The new seat of government being then known as Hei-an Kyō, or Citadel of Tranquillity, the interval that separated its choice as capital from the establishment of feudal administration at Kamakura in 1186—an interval of nearly four centuries—is known in history as the Hei-an epoch. A few words may be said about the significance of the change of the seat of government from Nara to Kyōto. From ancient times it had been the custom for the emperor and the heir apparent to live apart, from which fact it resulted that when a sovereign died and his son succeeded to the throne, the latter usually transferred the capital to the site of his own palace. It sometimes happened also that the residence of the imperial court was altered as often as two or three times during the same reign. Rarely, however, did the court move out of the contiguous provinces known as the Go-kinai, the great majority of the seats of government being in the province of Yamato. So long as the government was comparatively simple, the transfer of its seat from place to place involved no serious effort. As, however, the business of administration became more complicated, and intercourse with China grew more intimate, the character of the palace assumed magnificence proportionate to the imperial ceremonies and national receptions that had to be held there. Hence the capital established at Nara by the Empress Gemmyō was on a scale of unprecedented magnitude and splendor. There seven sovereigns reigned in succession without any thought of moving elsewhere. But when the Emperor Kwammu assumed the reins of government, he found that Nara was not a convenient place for administrative purposes. He at first moved to Nagaoka in Yamashiro, but a brief residence there convinced him that his choice had not been well guided.

At last, in 794, a new capital was built, after the model of Nara, with some modifications introduced from the metropolis of the T'ang dynasty in China, at Uda in the same province. This was called Kyōto, which means capital. It measured from north to south 17,530 feet and from east to west 15,080 feet, the whole being surrounded by moats and palisades, and the imperial palace being situated in the center of the northern portion. From the southern palace gate (Shujaku-mon) to the southernmost city gate (Rajo-mon) a long street, 280 feet wide (called Shujaku-ōji, or the main Shujaku thoroughfare), extended in one straight line, separating the city into two parts, of which the eastern was designated Sakyō, or the left capital, and the western, Ukyō, or the right capital. The whole city, from east to west, was divided into nine districts (jo), and between the first and second districts lay the imperial palace.

An elaborate system of subdivision was adopted. The unit, or ko (house), was a space measuring 100 feet by 50. Eight of these units made a row (gyō); four rows, a street (chō); four streets, a ho; four ho, a bō, and four bō, a jo. The entire capital contained 1216 cho and 38,912 houses. The streets lay parallel and at right angles like the lines on a checkerboard. The imperial citadel measured 3840 feet from east to west, and 4600 feet from north to south. On each side were three gates, and in the middle stood the emperor's palace, surrounded by the buildings of the various administrative departments. This citadel was environed by double walls, and contained altogether seventeen large and five small edifices, every one of them picturesque and handsome.

Great and fine as was this metropolis, it suffered such ravages during the disturbances of succeeding centuries that the Kyōto of to-day, the "Sakyō," or Western Capital, is but a shadow of the left section of ancient times. Not even the imperial palace escaped these ravages. Again and again impaired or destroyed by conflagrations, it gradually assumed smaller and smaller dimensions until only a trace remained of the splendid edifice that had once stood in the center of the citadel. But the regularity of the streets could not be obliterated. That at least survives to tell the story of the plan on which the city was constructed. Indeed, Kyōto continued to be the seat of sovereigns for a long period, covering 1074 years, and until the capital was removed in 1869 to Tōkyō.

In the Hei-an epoch[1] were accentuated the virtues and vices of the Nara epoch. Buddhism now advanced to an even greater extent than it did then, the luxury and pomp of the court were never excelled before or since, and the control of the administrative machinery by the Fujiwara family became completed. The growth of the Buddhist church was in no small measure due to two remarkable priests, Saichō and Kūkai, both of whom studied in China the profoundest doctrines of Buddhism and gained for themselves a great reputation. Saichō founded the sect called Tendai, and built the celebrated temple Enryaku-ji, at Hiyei-zan, to guarantee the imperial palace against maleficent influences from the northeast. Kūkai founded the Shingon sect, and built the not less famous temple of Kongobu-ji, at Kōya-san. Other new sects were also founded by other priests. The earlier teaching of the identity of Buddha and the Shintō deities was further extended by Saichō and Kūkai, who taught that the Buddha was the one and only divine being, and that all the gods were manifestations of him. On that basis they established a new doctrine the tenets of which mingled Shintōism and Buddhism inextricably. It was owing to the spread of this doctrine that it became a not uncommon occurrence to find Buddhist relics in a Shintō shrine, or a Shintō image in a Buddhist temple, and the names of Shintō deities were confused with Buddhist titles. Buddhist priests wandered everywhere throughout the land preaching their doctrine and founding temples on choice sites, on high mountains or in deep dells.

To this propagandism music lent its aid, for the melody of the Buddhist chants touched the heart of the people. Devotees constantly grew in number. Many of the highest personages in the land spent great sums upon the building of temples; the consort of the Emperor Saga, for example, constructed Danrin-ji, and the Prime Minister Michinaga erected Hōjō-ji. Even in case of sickness, litanies and religious rites took the place of medicine before the science of the latter had been developed, and against all calamities of nature prayer was regarded as a talisman. It is easy to conceive that, under such circumstances, Buddhism came to exercise greater sway than even the ordinances of the sovereign himself. It should not be imagined, however, that Shintō was completely forgotten. Overshadowed by Buddhism as it was, it did not yet lose its sway. Thus we find the Emperor Saga dedicating a fane at the Kamo shrine, and the Emperor Seiwa establishing a place for the worship of Iwashimizu Hachiman at Otoko-yama. Imperial visits to these two shrines were not infrequent. Above all at the celebrated Shingu shrine in Ise, the Shintō rites were kept free from all admixture of extraneous creeds.

From the days of Kwammu downward, the sovereigns in succession encouraged learning. The university in Kyōto and the public schools in the provinces were in a flourishing condition, and many private schools sprang into existence. The patronage of great nobles was munificently exercised in the cause of education. Further, great numbers of students were engaged in compiling not only the history of the empire, but also many other works of a general character, so that learning occupied a high place in popular esteem. But unfortunately the scholarship of the age drifted into superficialities of style to the neglect of practical uses. Writers of verses applied themselves to imitating Chinese poets, and writers of prose thought only of constructing their phrases in such a manner that combinations of four ideograms should in regular alternation be followed by combinations of six—a form of composition known as the Shirokuheirei (four-and-six order). But despite this slavish adherence to valueless forms, a notable literary achievement has to be placed to the credit of the era; namely, the elaboration of the syllabaries, the hira-kana and the kata-kana. The first syllabary ever used in Japan had been the manyō-gana, in which the Chinese ideograms were used phonetically with little attention to their original meaning. But to write a Chinese ideogram for each syllable of a Japanese word involved much labor, since in many cases a single ideogram was composed of numerous strokes and dots. The difficulty was gradually lessened during the Nara epoch by the simplification of Chinese characters to such an extent that only a rudimentary skeleton of each ideogram was symbolically used to represent its sound. The syllables thus obtained were arranged in a table of fifty sounds, constituting the kata-kana. Thenceforth, instead of the pain of committing to memory thousands of ideograms, and employing them with no little toil, it became possible to record the most complex thoughts by the aid of fifty simple symbols. Nevertheless, since the nation had come to regard Chinese literature as the classics of learning, scholars were still compelled to use Chinese ideograms and to follow Chinese rules of composition, so that the cursive forms of the Chinese characters became the recognized script of educated men. These cursive characters possessed one advantage: they were capable of considerable abbreviation within certain limits. Naturally, the facility they offered in that respect was more and more utilized, until at length their forms were modified to comparative simplicity. When the great prelate Kūkai composed, for mnemonic purposes, the rhyming syllabary which comprised all the necessary sounds without repetition, the forms of the simplified characters may be considered to have finally crystallized into the syllabary known as the hira-kana.

The invention of these two systems of kana syllabaries gave a powerful impetus to the growth of prose writing. Many varieties of composition, fictions, diaries, travels, and fugitive sketches, were added to the literature of the time. But as men who aspired to the title of scholar continued to write in Chinese ideograms, the domain of Japanese prose was occupied, almost exclusively, by women. It is recorded of the Emperor Ichijō (987–1012 A. D.) that he boasted that, although his own abilities did not entitle him to wear the crown, his reign was not less rich in talented subjects than had been the reigns of even Daigo and Murakami, historically regarded as the best sovereigns of the whole imperial line. The boast was not unwarranted, for in that era flourished great writers of both sexes, the charm and grace of whose diction have been vainly imitated by later generations. Of these, Mura-saki-shikibu especially attracts attention, on account of her celebrated work, the "Genji-monogatari," a romance in fifty-four volumes. Sei-Shōnagon's name is remembered for her "Makura-no-sōshi," as peerless a production in literary sketches as was the "Genji-monogatari" in fiction.

Even more energy was expended on the production of verses than on prose writing. In the last part of the ninth century after almost a century of the sway of Chinese poetry, the tide flowed once more in the direction of Japanese verses, and they soon engrossed the minds of the noble classes. Beginning with the "Kokinshū," poems compiled by imperial order by Ki-no-Tsurayuki, himself a celebrated poet, no less than seven poetical compilations were made by order of the sovereigns during the rest of the Hei-an epoch, to which were still later added others to the number of twenty-one. The art of versification made a wonderful progress, but the rustic vigor and grandeur of the poems of the "Manyō-shū" gave place to tricks of phraseology and flowers of speech in the later poetry. Nor were poems with many stanzas approved any longer, for it became the pride of the later poets to embody clever wit and hidden charm in the space of thirty-one syllables. Thus poetry was stunted, and literary terms and the speech of everyday life unnecessarily separated each from the other.

As was so clearly reflected in poetry, the rude and unpolished but frugal and industrious habits of the Nara age disappeared as the Hei-an epoch grew older. Instead of vigor and simple strength, luxury and effeminate gaud became the fashion. Society grew more and more enervated and self-indulgent. The metropolis was the center of magnificence and the focus of pleasure. Reference has already been made to the spaciousness and grandeur of the imperial palace. The princes and great nobles were scarcely less superbly housed, every aristocratic dwelling consisting of a number of artistically arranged buildings. There had also grown up among nobles and men of affluence the habit of choosing in the suburbs some spot noted for scenic charms, and there building for themselves retreats on which all the artistic and decorative resources of the time were lavished. As for the imperial palace, however, from the time when it was destroyed by a conflagration (960 A. D.), it suffered a steady diminution in size and splendor, whereas the mansions of the ministers of the crown grew constantly larger and more magnificent, their inmates wearing gorgeous garments of rich brocades and elaborately embroidered silks. Officials, courtiers, and their families emulated one another in the richness of their apparel. When they went abroad, they rode in carriages resplendent with gold and silver. By and by, the active discharge of official and administrative functions began to be despised by the higher classes, military training and the rude exercises of arms falling into especial disfavor. Thus it fell out that the nobles of the court, having abundant leisure, were enabled to devote their time to literary culture, the elaboration of etiquette, and the pursuit of luxurious pleasures. In the imperial court, at pleasant times in the fair seasons, on fine spring mornings or under the soft moonlight of autumn, gatherings were held at which the guests vied with one another in making music and composing poetry. There were also specially appointed festive occasions: as, for example, entertainments in April (third month of the old calendar) when wine-cups were floated down stream; or in February (first month of the old calendar) when young pines growing on the hills or in the fields were pulled up by the roots; or in the fall, to view the changing tints of the maples; the most aristocratic of all these festivities being one in which three picturesquely-decorated boats were launched upon some river or lake and filled exclusively with persons who excelled in some one of the "three accomplishments," namely, Chinese poetry, Japanese poetry, or music. In the reign of the Emperor Uda five fête days were established: New Year's Day, the third of the third month, the fifth of the fifth month, the seventh of the seventh month, and the ninth of the ninth month; to which were also added the festival of the "late moonlight" (13th of the ninth month), and the festival of "the last chysanthemums."

Of games played in-doors checkers (go) and a kind of dice (sugo-roku) were much in vogue; while the favorite outdoor sports were foot-ball, polo, and hawking, together with horse-racing and equestrian archery. At wine-feasts, various kinds of songs, some classical, some popular, were chanted with dancing, and Chinese and Japanese stanzas were composed and sung. From the end of the eleventh century personal adornment was carried so far that even men began to imitate women in the matter of painting their eye-brows and blackening their teeth, much as though they sought to disguise themselves in the likeness of the puppets set up at the festival of the third month. Not inaptly did the wits of the time dub these mummers "lunar courtiers," or "elegants from cloud-land." On such occasions of festival and sport, men and women of noble rank mixed freely, and laxity of morals ensued. The ceremony of marriage had been duly established, but wives still continued to live in their own houses, where they received the visits of their husbands. In short, the gratification of the senses was the first object of the time, and if men thought of anything more serious, it was only the building and endowment of a temple where prayers might be said and litanies sung for the prosperity of themselves and their children in this world and their happiness in a future state.

All these circumstances should be viewed only in conjunction with the progress of the political power of the Fujiwara family. The great deeds of Kamatari and the scarcely less distinguished services of his son Fuhito established the renown of the family, and in the marriage of the Emperor Shōmu with a daughter of Fuhito we have the first instance of a procedure which afterward became common, namely the elevation of a subject to the position of imperial consort. A daughter of another Fujiwara, Fuyutsugu, became the consort of the Emperor Nimmyō, and bore him a son who afterward ascended the throne as Montoku. Thus Fuyutsugu became the reigning sovereign's grandfather on the mother's side, and the Fujiwara family occupied a position of transcendent power. This emperor married the daughter of Yoshifusa, his mother's elder brother, and had by her a son, who when only eight months old, was declared heir apparent, and ascended the throne in his ninth year under the name of Seiwa, so that in two succeeding generations one of the sovereign's grandfathers was a Fujiwara. Nor had there been another instance of the scepter coming into the hands of such a young ruler. From Yoshifusa, also, began the custom of appointing a Fujiwara to the post of dajō daijin (chief minister of state), a post which not only was the highest and most respected under the sovereign, but also as a rule had been reserved for an imperial prince of unusual virtue and ability. Failing such a candidate, it had even been left vacant. Furthermore, owing to the extreme youth of the Emperor Seiwa, his grandfather Yoshifusa was appointed regent. The title of regent (sesshō) dates from that time. The imperial authority now passed virtually into the hands of the Fujiwara family. Seiwa abdicated after a reign of twenty-one years, and was succeeded by Yōzei, then in his tenth year only, Mototsune, adopted son of Yoshifusa, holding the offices of chief minister of state and regent. As the emperor grew older, he became addicted to pleasure and gave evidence of vicious tendencies.

Mototsune, having taken counsel of all the ministers, deposed the sovereign and placed Kōkō on the throne in his stead. This was the first instance of an emperor being dethroned by a subject, but evil as such an act was in itself, its motive in the case of Mototsune being untainted by selfish ambition, he has not incurred censure either from the men of his time or from historians. The Emperor Kōkō, being fifty-six years of age when he ascended the throne, Mototsune resigned the regency, but the sovereign was pleased to make a special rule that all affairs of state should be conveyed to himself through the ex-regent. The latter's office was consequently called kwampaku (signifying one who receives reports prior to their transmission to the sovereign), and it became thenceforth customary to confer this post on a statesman who had resigned the regency. In effect, the sesshō, or regent, was supposed to manage the administration during the minority of an emperor, while the kwampaku discharged the same functions after the sovereign had attained his majority. The difference became nominal when the descendants of Yoshifusa and Mototsune made these two posts permanent and hereditary in their line. It seemed, indeed, as though all the highest offices of state had become the exclusive perquisite of that omnipotent family, no others being eligible except princes of the blood. No less marked were the marital relations between the imperial house and the Fujiwara, for only a daughter of the latter could become the sovereign's consort, so that every sovereign had a Fujiwara for his mother.

The power of the puissant family met a temporary check under the Emperor Uda (893–898), who selected Sugawara-no-Michizane as minister. Michizane was a descendant of Nomi-no-Sukune, and did not belong to the Fujiwara family. Reputed for high literary, calligraphic, and artistic skill, he also possessed a profound knowledge of politics. It was his fortune to manage all administrative affairs jointly with the young and keen Tokihira, son of Fujiwara Mototsune. The Emperor Uda, who took the tonsure soon afterward, left instructions to his successor Daigo, then a boy of thirteen, to consult Michizane in all important affairs of the state. Tokihira filled the office of minister of the left (the highest administrative post after that of chief minister of state then vacant), and Michizane was minister of the right. With the exception of Michizane and Kibi-no-Makibi, no man of the middle class had ever held such an important office. The ex-emperor would have had Michizane raised still higher, and urged the reigning sovereign in that sense. But this design precipitated Tokihira's resolve to contrive the downfall of a man whose great reputation with the nation and marked favor at court dimmed the prestige of the Fujiwara family. Michizane was also an object of keen jealousy to Minamoto-no-Hikaru, a son of the Emperor Nimmyō, who held the office of dainagon (vice-minister), as well as to Fujiwara-no-Sadakuni, who like Hikaru, was incomparably superior to Michizane in lineage, but inferior to him in official position. These men conspired against Michizane, and conveyed to the sovereign a false charge that the minister of the right was plotting to depose him and place his younger brother, Michizane's son-in-law, Prince Tokiyo, on the throne. Daigo believed the accusation, and reduced Michizane to the head of the Kiushū local government, a position which it had become customary to fill with disgraced officials of the imperial court. The order amounted in effect to a sentence of exile. The ex-emperor did everything in his power to save Michizane, but in vain. Hikaru succeeded to the office of minister of the right. In all this affair the members of the Fujiwara family left nothing undone to sweep away every obstacle to their own supremacy. Treating as opponents all that did not take active part with them, they contrived to have them involved in the disgrace of Michizane. The exiled minister died after two years of banishment. His popularity had been so great that the nation was filled with grief for his unmerited sufferings, and when, after his decease, the partisans of Tokihira died one after another, and a series of calamities occurred in the capital, people did not hesitate to regard these evils as retribution inflicted by Heaven for the injustice that had been wrought. Subsequently Michizane received the posthumous honor of the first class of the first rank and the post of chief minister of state, and posterity built a shrine in Kitano to his memory, where he is worshiped to this day as the tutelary saint of learning, under the canonized name of Kitano-no-Tenjin.

After the exile of Michizane, the power of the Fujiwara family grew steadily. During a period of about a century and a half after that event, the administration was virtually in their hands. Fujiwara-no-Tadahira occupied the post of chief minister of state, while his sons, Saneyori and Morosuke, held the offices of minister of the left and minister of the right respectively, the three highest posts in the administration being thus filled simultaneously by a father and his two sons. Among the descendants of these three nobles, those of the last-named, Morosuke, attained the greatest prosperity. It has been already noted that the Fujiwara ministers always contrived to have the sovereign choose his consort from among their daughters. Nay more, when a son was born of such a union, they had him brought up in their own house, and when he ascended the throne, the Fujiwara minister who was his grandfather became either regent or kwampaku, was recognized as the head of the Fujiwara family, and received a large grant of state land. Under these circumstances the choice of an imperial consort or the nomination of an heir apparent being synonymous with the acquisition of complete control over administrative and financial affairs, the branches of the Fujiwara family often intrigued and fought among themselves to secure the great prize. Michinaga, youngest son of Kaneiye, was a man of remarkable strength of purpose and tact. He held the office of kwampaku during the reigns of three emperors, Ichijō, Sanjō, and Goichijō; his three daughters became the consorts of three successive sovereigns; he was grandfather of a reigning emperor and an heir apparent at the same time, and his power and affluence far surpassed those of the imperial house itself. To this great noble every official paid court, except Fujiwara-no-Sanesuke, who maintained his independence and was consequently relied on by the emperor. It is on record that Michinaga once composed a stanza the purport of which was that all the world seemed to have been created for his uses, and that every desire he felt was satisfied as completely as the full moon is perfectly rounded. In truth the power of the Fujiwara family culminated in his days. A contemporary writer described the conditions of the time in a work for which he found no title more appropriate than "the Story of Grandeur" ("Eigwa Monogatari"). With Michinaga the power of the Fujiwara may be said to have reached its zenith, for although his sons Yorimichi and Norimichi became kwampaku in succession and retained immense influence, the gradual decline of the family really began from that time.

Why the overwhelming power of the Fujiwara should have waned may only be understood as we observe the conditions of local administration. Within Kyōto reigned luxury and pomp, but without it, unrest and discontentment. The principal cause of this sharp contrast between the capital and country was the inevitable and utter failure of the system of equal land allotment upon which the great Taikwa reformation had been constructed. Uncultivated lands, however, were suffered to remain in the possession of local officials and farmers who reclaimed them. Originally the term of service for the governor of a province (kuni) was fixed at four years, but in the reign of the Empress Kōken it was extended to six. Reappointment was generally an object of keen desire to these officials. They employed every possible means to compass it, since to remain in administrative control of a province for a long period signified opportunities of appropriating extensive lands and ultimately acquiring large territorial possessions. In the case of the headman of a district (kōri), the office was originally held for life, but even that limit soon fell into neglect, and the post was handed down from father to son through many generations. To check the abuses arising out of such a state of affairs, itinerant inspectors were appointed in the reign of the Empress Gensho, who were chosen from among the ablest of the provincial governors. In a report addressed by one of them to the throne in 762, it is declared that "No such thing as justice is now executed by any provincial governor in the realm." From this time on, provincial governors not only continued to tread the old wonted paths, but their selfish arbitrariness became more unbridled in proportion as the prestige of the administration in the capital grew feebler and the official organization more lax.

Nor was the illegal practice of land-appropriation confined to rural districts, for even in the metropolis men began to obtain territorial possessions. As the living in Kyōto grew more and more luxurious, and it became difficult for the princes and higher officials to maintain their dignity by means of their regular salaries and allowances, which were paid in kind but seldom in land, they set themselves to reclaim extensive tracts of waste lands. Such lands were called shōyen, a term originally limited to lands granted to princes and ministers of state for the purpose of defraying expenditures incurred in connection with their positions, but now extended so as to apply also to land reclaimed and appropriated by these nobles. Even as early as the reigns of Kwammu and Saga the area of such estates was very great. The system of periodical redistribution had in the meantime fallen into desuetude. People were often forced to sell their lands or were evicted for their debts. It was in vain to prohibit by edict after edict the monopolization of land by the wealthy classes. Cunning people even evaded the public obligations devolving on landowners by nominally transferring their lands to powerful nobles or to temples, and themselves taking the position of stewards or superintendents. In that capacity they were called either "intendants" or "retainers," the ostensible holders of the land being known as "landlords." By degrees all the fertile districts and all the newly reclaimed lands were in that manner absorbed into the estates of the great nobles or of the temples, and since they were thus exempted from the control of the provincial governors as well as from the necessity of paying taxes, not only the power of the local authorities, but also the revenues of the central government gradually suffered diminution.

During the reign of the Emperor Kwammu the plan was inaugurated of reducing to the rank of subjects and giving family names to such of the imperial princes as were of inferior descent on the mother's side. Kwammu's son, Saga, who had so many children that the revenue of the imperial household did not suffice to maintain them, followed the precedent established by his father, giving the name Minamoto to several of his sons. Thenceforth the device passed into a custom, and imperial princes were frequently appointed to official positions in the central or local government under the family names of Minamoto or Taira. Those who obtained the posts of provincial governors acquired large influence in the districts administered by them, their descendants becoming military chiefs with great followings of relatives and retainers. The Minamoto clan comprised no less than fourteen families, among them the descendants of the Emperor Seiwa being the most numerous and important. It was from this clan that the great Yoritomo, the first feudal ruler of Japan, subsequently sprang. The Taira, on the other hand, consisted of four families, principally descendants of the Emperor Kwammu. To them belonged the notorious tyrant Kiyomori, of whose career we shall soon be told.

The significance of the rise of the two clans, Minamoto and Taira, lies in the fact that they succeeded in gradually controlling the military forces of the nation, on the one hand, and, on the other, holding a great share of the landed estates of the country. The process of land-appropriation was similar to the one already described. The manner in which the force of arms passed from the state into the hands of the private clans must now be explained. Under the elaborate system of the Taikō laws, garrisons of fixed strength were stationed in all the provinces, and in the metropolis were guards of five kinds. Men for service in the garrisons and guards were levied by conscription from among the people, those upon whom the lot fell being required to join the nearest garrison, while a part were sent to Kiushū to defend the western coast, and another part, to the guardposts in Kyōto. Equestrian archery, the use of the sword, and the manipulation of long spears, were the arts taught to the soldiers, and for the defense of the coasts catapults also were used. The entire military organization was imposing and complete, but its real value was questionable, from the beginning. The metropolitan troops grew more and more effeminate as years of peace succeeded each other. Nor were the provincial forces of more service. As time went by, bandits and marauders pillaged the provinces in the interior, while the coasts of Nankaidō and Chūgoku were infested by pirates. It was under these circumstances that, early in the ninth century, a new bureau called the kebūshi-chō with extensive police and administrative powers, was created in Kyōto, which soon began to dominate over other offices and whose branches were later established in every province for local purposes. A century later it was found necessary to appoint inspector-generals, ōryōshi, for the eastern provinces, which were particularly restless. In the hands of these new officials, then—the central and local kebüshi and the eastern ōryōshi—rested the real powers which neither rank nor title could resist. The new, vigorous clans of Minamoto and Taira eagerly sought after these offices, and succeeded more and more completely, as time went on, not only in controlling them, but also in acquiring a military influence far larger than they at first represented.