Yonin (遥任)
遥任 (yonin) (the expression of 遙任 was also used sometimes) indicates that the person who was appointed to a kokushi (governor) of a province did not live in the province. It was also called yoju (遥授 or 遙授 in Chinese characters). Yonin kokushi received his income, salary, and taxes from his deputy called mokudai who was sent to the province.
History
The yonin practice existed from around the Nara period, but was used only rarely at that time. This was because, during the Nara period, control based upon the Ritsuryo system (a system of centralized government based on the ritsuryo code) functioned effectively and, to extend the control based on the Ritsuryo system over every part of the country, it was necessary for the kokushi to move to the assigned province to maintain direct control.
However, entering the Heian period, the following custom began to be employed: When there was a Sangi (councilor) while being a legislator, was awarded with a small number of shikifu (or fuko) (families that the Sangi could control), he was appointed to kokushi as well, with his yonin approved, (called sangikenkokusei - literally, the system in which a Sangi was allowed to assume a kokushi as well). In the Tencho period (824 -834), Kazusa Province, Hitachi Province and Kozuke Province were assigned to shinno-ninkoku (see below). A shinno-ninkoku indicates a province where, to assign a governmental position to each of the shinno (princes) whose number had increased, the post of the provincial government head (kokushi) was allocated to a shinno. Because it never happened that a shinno moved to the province to whose kokushu he was appointed, it can be said that the Imperial court publicly approved the yonin system.
In the ninth or tenth century, powerful farmers called fugo appeared and continued to increase their strength in various areas of the country. At that time, it became difficult to maintain control over each person like in the Ritsuryo system (a system of centralized government based on the ritsuryo code), based on a family registration system and Handen Shuju ho (the law of periodic reallocations of rice land), and therefore, kokushi (provincial governors) reorganized Koden (fields administered directly by a ruler) into myoden (rice field lots in charge of a nominal holder) and came to entrust the work of managing myoden and collecting taxes from there to powerful farmers (called tato). Such a control system was called myotaisei or ochotaisei, and with this system, kokushi able to secure a certain amount of tax income.
Against this background, the Imperial court started entrusting tax collection and military affairs to kokushi. This system is sometimes called Kokushi ukeoi sei (literally, a system entrusted to kokushi). Given wide-ranging rights, kokushi came to control his assigned province through the local powerful persons he employed or his deputy (called mokudai) that he sent to the province. Then the necessity of his moving to the assigned province became weak, and there appeared many kokushi, one after another, who did not actually move to their assigned provinces actually. This was the yonin during the Heian period, and the number of yonin-kokushi increased with the times. In such a situation, Emperor Daigo issued in 913 a law to control yonin-kokushi, but could not gain any substantial results.
By the middle era of the Heian period, yonin had become a usual practice. Then, the head of kokushi who actually moved to their assigned province became called zuryo. Originally, the highest position of kokushi was kokushu, but when kokushu did not live in his assigned province, a person at the rank of suke, jo or sakan (these ranks were in this order, with suke the highest) was appointed to zuryo.
After that, until the Muromachi period when kokushi was virtually extinct, the yonin of kokushi did not stop and became ordinary practice.