Taira no Nagahira (平永衡)
TAIRA no Nagahira (year of birth unknown - around 1056) was from a local ruling family in Igu county, Mutsu province and he called himself Juro Igu. He is said to have worked at Taga-jo Castle in Mutsu province as a Zaichokanjin (a local official in Heian and Kamakura periods) though he was a gunji (district manager). His father is unknown but an existing family tree implies that he was from a family of the Taira clan in Shimousa province and there is a view that he was in the family line of the Kaidou Taira clan (the Iwaki clan). His name only appears in "Mutsuwaki." FUJIWARA no Tsunekiyo was his brother-in-law and FUJIWARA no Kiyohira, who was the root of the Oshu-Fujiwara clan, was his nephew.
At first, he obeyed FUJIWARA no Naritou, who was Mutsu no kuni no kami (the governor of Mutsu province). Around 1051, a daughter of ABE no Yoritoki, (in historical sources she was referred to as '中加一乃末陪' [pronounciation unkonwn], and '有加一乃末陪,' Sadato ABE's younger sister and Tsunekiyo's wife, was her older sister) who was the head of the barbarians in control of the six counties in Oshu (Northern Honshu), became his wife. MINAMOTO no Yoriyoshi was appointed as Naritou's successor and he obeyed Yoriyoshi when he returned to the Imperial Court. Yoriyoshi provoked ABE no Yoritoki, which led to Abe's uprise to the battle known as the Zenkunen War (the Early Nine Years' War) in 1056. TAIRA no Nagahira and FUJIWARA no Tsunekiyo, who were in the south of Koromogawa, were fighting under Yoriyoshi but they were both suspected because they were son-in-laws of Yoshitoki. Also, at that time Nagahira wore a glittering silver warrior helmet, which people squealed to Yoriyoshi that it was a notice to the enemy so he was suspected of betrayal to the Abe clan and later killed. This triggered Tsunekiyo to belong to the Abe clan's camp and prolonged the Zenkunen War (the Early Nine Years' War).