#The Dawn of the Warrior

Contents

Fiction-Only. This document presents the timeline of the warrior's rise in late Heian in prose. The war principle (human political conflict) is the central principle of this document.

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#Opening Fragment — The Hoofbeats Climb Up

The nobles of the capital despised the smell of the soil of the distant frontier. But from one day on, that smell of soil began to enter inside the palace gate together with armor.

"Knock the dirt off your shoes before you enter," the gatekeeper said.

The young warrior stopped his feet. Beneath the armor, the horse's sweat was cooling. "I fought three times along the way. Twice with bandits, once with something that imitated a person. There was no time to knock off the dirt."

The noble within frowned. "Even so, there are rules inside the palace."

The warrior bowed his head. "That is why I was summoned. In the place the rules do not reach, to keep the rules."

Those words were insolent, but not wrong. The warrior was not from the start the master of the age. He was first a hand that had been summoned. When the nobles no longer wished to dirty their own hands, the bow and the sword of the frontier climbed up to the capital.

#Scent — From the Frontier to the Capital

One spring day in the 10th century, on a manor in Shimousa in the eastern provinces, a warrior takes up his bow. He calls himself "New Emperor (新皇)." His name is Taira no Masakado. The bow he raised would be cut down in under a year, yet the very fact that the bow was raised put the first crack in Heian's balance.

A hundred and fifty years later, in those same eastern provinces, a warrior pacified the mountains of Tohoku. "Hachiman Taro" — Minamoto no Yoshiie. His military merit was known across the realm, but the court's reward was meager. The anger of the buke accumulated.

A hundred years more passed, and in 1156 the Hogen Rebellion broke out in the capital. The imperial house split in two, the Fujiwara split in two, and it was the buke who handed down the decision. "The sword entered the capital" — Heian's balance had broken.

Thirty years after the balance broke, everything ends. In 1185, when the Heike clan sank into the sea at Dan-no-ura, the four hundred years of Heian sank with them.

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#Timeline — The 200 Years of the Warrior's Rise

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#Features of the Heian Warrior

It was a figure different from the later Japanese samurai — the swordsmanship schools like the Katori Shinto-ryu and the Shinkage-ryu, the dojo, the menkyo-kaiden licensure, and the Bushido of single combat. The main vocation of the Heian warrior is the bow and the horse.

#The Way of the Bow and Horse (弓馬)

"The way of the bow and the horse." The standard training of the Heian warrior is kyuba (弓馬) — the art of handling the bow on horseback. This volume's mechanics call this, in game terms, yabusame (流鏑馬). The sword is secondary. The blade was a last resort after dismounting, or for ceremony.

#Single Combat (一騎打ち)

The start of battle was the calling of names (名乗り). Two warriors drew near and shouted their house, name, and official rank — "who killed whom" had to be clear for honor to hold. After that, a one-on-one duel. Squad tactics were weak — because one man's deeds of valor had to become one man's honor.

#The O-yoroi (大鎧)

Vast and splendid armor. Excellent for defense against arrows, but heavy for movement on foot. It was an aesthetic entirely different from the later Sengoku tosei-gusoku (当世具足). A rough splendor, woven of red thread and blue thread over black lacquer, is the feature of Heian armor.

For detailed rules, see fc04-05-01-samurai.md.

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#The War Principle (Canon)

This principle is the core principle not only of this volume fc04 but of the entire fc series (see co-99-04-fc-register.md).

War was raised by humans. The struggle for power within the Fujiwara house, the splintering of the imperial house, the desire of the buke for elevated status — all are human motives. Yoma did not incite the warriors, and yoma did not directly lead the armies.

But the result is different. After the war ended, the dead became onryo. The Heike clan that sank on the shore of Dan-no-ura carried on into the onryo of the Seto Inland Sea and the legend of the Heike crab (平家蟹), and this spiritual reverberation is treated in the later volumes (fc02·fc05·fc06).

When treated in this volume:

• The war itself = human political conflict. No yoma NPCs allowed.
• The result of the war = the rise of onryo. Treated in fc04-02-02.
• The spiritual reverberation of the war = carries on into later scenarios. See the fc04-99-00 closing words.

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#The Figures of Late Heian (Briefly, Besides the 5 Figures)

Among this volume's five figures, only Kiyomori is included. The other warriors who appear on this timeline are treated only briefly, as follows.

#Taira no Masakado (?~940)

From the eastern provinces. The first rebel, beginning with a kinship dispute and arriving at proclaiming himself "New Emperor." He raised arms in 939 and was put down in 940. After his death, a legend arose that his exposed head flew off toward the eastern provinces, and this head carries on into the tradition of the Masakado-zuka (将門塚) in Otemachi, Tokyo — one of the archetypes of Heian onryo culture.

#Minamoto no Yoshiie (1039~1106)

"Hachiman Taro." A hero of the pacification of Tohoku. A son of Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and a main-line Kawachi Genji figure. His deeds of valor became a model for the later buke, but the court of his day appraised him stingily. His descendants would destroy the Heike a hundred years later.

#Taira no Shigemori (1138~1179)

Kiyomori's heir. He was appraised as the most temperate figure among the Heike clan. After his death (1179), the Heike rapidly declined — The Tale of the Heike depicted him as "the last conscience of the Heike."

#Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147~1199)

He survived the Heiji Rebellion because he was young. He raised arms in 1180, destroyed the Heike in 1185, and opened the Kamakura shogunate in 1192 — a figure who stands at once at the end of Heian and the beginning of Kamakura. This volume treats only up to 1185, Dan-no-ura, so he appears briefly.

#Minamoto no Yoshitsune · Musashibo Benkei

Yoritomo's younger brother and his trusted retainer. The deciders of the fall of the Heike. But the two are treated in this volume only at the length of about a paragraph — the full-scale sheets are in the fc03-99-01-kenshi-roster.md swordmaster roster (Yoshitsune) and the co-09-09-minamoto-specter.md heroic-spirit scenario. Also, in the co-04-08-22-heroic-spirit-catalog.md heroic-spirit catalog, Benkei is registered as a 6th-dan heroic spirit.

This volume fc04 is their "living era" — the period when the figures who return as heroic spirits in later scenarios are still alive.

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#Tone

"The age of the warrior has begun."

Behind Heian's elegance there was upheaval. The political drama made by Kiyomori, Yoshitsune, Yoritomo, and others was as fierce as any monogatari and as sorrowful as any waka. Between the end of peace and the beginning of war lies this timeline.

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#References

#co — Classes · Scenarios

• co-04-character/co-04-07-classes/co-04-07-01-samurai.md — samurai
• co-09-adventures/co-09-09-minamoto-specter.md — the Yoshitsune heroic-spirit scenario (the later reappearance of a Heian figure)
• co-04-character/co-04-08-samples/co-04-08-22-heroic-spirit-catalog.md — heroic-spirit catalog (Benkei, 6th dan)

#Within fc04

• fc04-01-01-era.md — historical background
• fc04-01-02-kuge-buke.md — kuge/buke
• fc04-03-05-kiyomori.md — Kiyomori

#Other fc volumes

• fc02-01-02-war.md — Sengoku warfare (for contrast)
• fc03-99-01-kenshi-roster.md — swordmaster roster (Yoshitsune · Benkei)

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The warrior's dawn broke before the hoofbeats, amid the unease of the capital.