Pirate activities in and around the Inland Sea had been a steadily growing nuisance since the middle of the ninth century. By the second quarter of the tenth, they had become a problem of serious proportions. Sumitomo seems to have exploited a combination of local connections and illustrious pedigree to make an already difficult situation far worse. Government efforts to control him met with mixed success at best until the summer of 941, when forces under Ono Yoshifuru and Okura Harusane caught the pirate leader and most of his fleet in Hakata Bay, on the northwest coast of Kyushu, fresh from an unusually destructive raid on Dazaifu. In the ensuing battle, several hundred pirates were killed, and over 800 of their boats captured. Sumitomo himself was able to escape, only to be apprehended