In the early Heian period state power declined, except in the capitals (kokufu) of the sixty-five (or sixty-six) provinces. While the central government declined, these provincial offices (kokuga) retained, and even increased, their power over local land and people as local elites took over their functions: the collection of taxes, the administration of land, and the promotion of agriculture. This chapter focuses on these changes that took place during the ninth and tenth centuries. The provincial governments turned out to be unique bargaining grounds for the division of resources between capital and countryside, and that function, combined with the functions of the governments as repositories and redistributors of wealth, ensured their survival well beyond the Heian period. In 731, a new system of policing provincial officers was put into operation, which the custodial aspects of office, forcing incoming governors to seek out and take charge of all government assets that were supposed to be on hand, particularly tax-grain.