Why Did Lower-Ranked Nobles Aim to Become Local Officials?
When you hear the term "local official" — or kokushi, provincial governor — you might picture someone banished from the glamorous life of the capital.
But the salary data from the period tells a very different story. The lower an official's court rank, the more they actually earned by working in the provinces rather than in the capital. Using salary comparison data by court rank and office for ritsuryō officials, this page explores why lower-ranked nobles were so strongly drawn to provincial governor posts.
Salary Comparison by Court Rank
The table below compares the salaries of ritsuryō officials across three categories: officials working in the capital, officials posted to the Dazaifu, and local officials posted elsewhere in the provinces. All figures are in bundles of rice.
Use the buttons below to switch between the raw bundle figures and a modern yen estimate, calculated on the same basis as the Estimated Annual Income of Heian Nobles page.
Source: Takashima, Masanori (2020). "On Income Disparity in the Nara Period," Keizai Kenkyū (The Economic Review), Vol. 71, No. 1, Table 3.
The modern yen figures are a rough estimate, calculated on the same basis as the Estimated Annual Income of Heian Nobles page (1 koku = 20 bundles of rice; rice at ¥400/kg, so 1 koku ≈ ¥60,000, meaning 1 bundle ≈ ¥3,000). Please treat these as a rough point of comparison rather than a measure of actual purchasing power.
For Senior First through Senior Third Rank, the "Capital Officials" column includes shikifu — tax revenue tied to the office itself, used to cover its running costs, which cannot be considered purely personal disposable income. The raw bundle figures follow Table 3 exactly as published, but the modern yen conversion subtracts the shikifu portion using the same approach as the Estimated Annual Income of Heian Nobles page, so the totals shown here match that page's figures.
What the Data Shows
Upper nobility (Senior 1st–Junior 3rd Rank) At the ranks held by the highest nobility — Chancellor- and Minister-level officials — capital salaries overwhelmingly exceed those of local officials, averaging about 13 times higher. Nobles at this level rarely actually served as local officials, which is why almost no local-post data exists for these ranks. For the highest nobility, simply staying in the capital was the most profitable option.
Middle-ranking nobility (Senior 4th–Junior 5th Rank) Here the picture starts to change. On average, Dazaifu officials (15,518 bundles) actually earned more than capital officials (10,350 bundles) — a posting to the Dazaifu, a key hub for diplomacy and military affairs, was a genuinely attractive option at this rank. Local officials outside the Dazaifu (6,215–6,063 bundles), on the other hand, earned less than capital officials, showing just how much pay could vary depending on the posting.
Sixth Rank and below (lower nobles and jigebito) This trend is most pronounced at Sixth Rank and below. Capital officials at this level earned an average of just 281 bundles, while Dazaifu officials earned 1,166 bundles (about 4.1 times as much), and local officials outside the Dazaifu still earned 524–498 bundles (about 1.9 times as much). For officials of Sixth Rank and below — known as jigebito — a provincial posting paid far better than grinding away in a junior post in the capital.
What this data shows is that, for lower-ranked nobles, a posting as a local official — a kokushi — was a far more lucrative and attractive prospect than remaining a junior official in the capital.
In later periods, hands-on provincial governors came to be known as zuryō, well known for amassing wealth in the provinces they governed — and this underlying difference in salary structure likely explains why. For lower nobles with no real hope of advancement in the capital, becoming a kokushi was a genuine chance to change their fortunes.
References
Takashima, Masanori (2020). "On Income Disparity in the Nara Period," Keizai Kenkyū (The Economic Review), Vol. 71, No. 1, pp. 63–82. Table 3 was used as a reference.
Takashima, Masanori (2023). Chingin no Nihonshi (A History of Wages in Japan).