Becoming Sakimori

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Becoming Sakimori

By: Charz

Dec 19 2011

Tags: Ai Shimizu, Amanohara, Baekje, Battle of Hakusukinoe, Fukuoka, Ibaraki, Kahoru Sasajima, Kudara, Man'yōshū, Meiji Restoration, Mukden, Naniwa, Port Arthur, Raimuiro Senkitan, Rasputin, Ritsuryō, Russo-Japanese War, Sakimori, Sakimori System, Sayaka Aoki, Tsubasa Otomiya, Tsukushi, Yuka Aimoto, Ōtomo no Yakamochi

Category: Mode, Raimuiro Senkitan

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Raimuiro Senkitan seiyus from AkibaTV in 2004

Raimu-tai (らいむ隊) LIVE ~ 凛花(Cold Flowers)

A person decided to survive,
A person decided to go to death,
Do you leave their hands ?

Sakimori System

The sakimori (防人), the 7th and 8th century frontier guards who were conscripts, usually of humble origin, were for period drafted exclusively from Japan eastern provinces (including Hitachi, the old name for Ibaraki). They were sent to live for 3 years in Kyushu, mostly to Tsukushi, what is now Fukuoka Prefecture, and to the Islands of Oki and Tsushima, where they did their military service and grew their own food.

In the year 633, the Yamato Court sent a naval fleet carrying an army of 27,000 men to assist the Korean Kingdom of Kudara in fighting off the invading forces of Tang China. The Japanese and its allies were soundly defeated in what is known in Japanese as the Battle of Hakusukinoe. After this fiasco, the Japanese government feared that in retaliation there would be an attack by continental ( Chinese or Silla Korean) forces upon Japan.

In preparation for this onslaught, the Yamato Court, which had just been reorganizing under the Taika Reform into a system resembling that of Tang China ( the Ritsuryo System), the government ordered, that men between the ages of 21 and 60 be conscripted and sent to Kyushu to protect the frontier.

The Sakimori system, which actually remained in operation for a period of 163 years ( until 826), imposed great hardships on the conscripted men and on their families.

Surprisingly, the great legacy of frontier guards is their poetry, and the poetic genre they inspired! It happened to be that in the year 755, in the sakimori system`s hayday, Otomo no Yakamochi, the poet and one of the compilers of Japan`s first and what many believe greatest anthology of poems, the Manyoshu ( about 759), was living as an official of the Office of Military affairs in Naniwa, the conscripts from Eastern Japan`s destination. Before they got on their ships to Kyushu, many wrote poems, possibly under the encouragement of Yakamochi. Anyway, about one hundred poems designated as Sakimori no Uta (防人の詩, song of the frontier guards) made their way into the Manyoshu.

The Enduring Legacy of the Sakimori, Tsukublog, March 21, 2010

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