Taira no Masakado - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

in the Heian period of Japan, who led one of the largest insurgent forces in the period against the central government of Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

History

Masakado was a member of the Kammu Taira clan

Taira clan

The was a major Japanese clan of samurai in historical Japan.In reference to Japanese history, along with Minamoto, Taira was a hereditary clan name bestowed by the emperors of the Heian Period to certain ex-members of the imperial family when they became subjects...

of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. He was the son of Taira no Yoshimochi, Chinjufu Shogun

Chinjufu Shogun

Chinjufu shōgun , often translated as "Commander-in-Chief of the Defense of the North," was a military post in classical and feudal Japan...

. His childhood name was Sōma Kojirō. Taira no Masakado was a powerful landowner in the Kantō region

Kanto region

The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa. Within its boundaries, slightly more than 40 percent of the land area is the Kantō Plain....

. He is regarded as the first bushi because he was the first to lead a self-governing party.

His life is detailed in the Shōmonki, a detailed book about his life believed to have been completed as early as the 940s by an anonymous author. Due to the religious and political nature of the account, it was most probably written by a monk or aristocrat closely connected to Masakado himself.
In 939 (Tengyō

Tengyo

was a after Jōhei and before Tenryaku. This period spanned the years from May 938 through April 947. The reigning emperors were and .-Change of era:* February 2, 938 : The new era name was created to mark an event or series of events...

2, 12th month) during the Heian period

Heian period

The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height...

of Japanese history

History of Japan

The history of Japan encompasses the history of the islands of Japan and the Japanese people, spanning the ancient history of the region to the modern history of Japan as a nation state. Following the last ice age, around 12,000 BC, the rich ecosystem of the Japanese Archipelago fostered human...

, Masakado led a minor rebellion which is also known as Jōhei Tengyo no ran. The armed struggle began when Masakado led an attack on an outpost of the central government in Hitachi Province

Hitachi Province

was an old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture. It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Iwashiro, Iwaki, Shimousa, and Shimotsuke Provinces....

, capturing the governor. In December of that year, he conquered Shimotsuke

Shimotsuke Province

is an old province of Japan in the area of Tochigi Prefecture in the Kanto region. It was sometimes called or .The ancient capital of the province was near the city of Tochigi, but in feudal times the main center of the province was near the modern capital, Utsunomiya.-History:Different parts of...

and Kōzuke Province

Kozuke Province

was an old province located in the Tōsandō of Japan, which today comprises Gunma Prefecture. It is nicknamed as or .The ancient provincial capital was near modern Maebashi. During the Sengoku period, Kōzuke was controlled variously by Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin, the late Hōjō clan, and...

s; and he claimed the title of Shinnō (New Emperor

Emperor

An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...

).

Masakado killed his uncle Kunika who was part Taira. The central government in Kyoto

Kyoto

responded by putting a bounty

Bounty (reward)

A bounty is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of money...

on his head, and fifty-nine days later his cousin Sadamori, whose father Masakado had attacked and killed, and Fujiwara

Fujiwara family

The Fujiwara clan , descending from the Nakatomi clan, was a powerful family of regents in Japan.The clan originated when the founder, Nakatomi no Kamatari , was rewarded by Emperor Tenji with the honorific "Fujiwara", which evolved as a surname for Kamatari and his descendants...

no Hidesato, killed him at the Battle of Kojima (Shimōsa Province) in 940 and took his head to the capital.

The head found its way to Shibasaki, a small fishing village on the edge of the ocean and the future site of Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

, which later became Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. It was buried. The kubizuka, or grave, which is located in the present day Ōtemachi

Otemachi

is a district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is located north of Tokyo Station and Marunouchi, east of the Imperial Palace, west of Nihonbashi and south of Kanda. It is the location of the former site of the village of Shibazaki, the most ancient part of Tokyo....

section of Tokyo, was on a hill rising out of Tokyo Bay

Tokyo Bay

is a bay in the southern Kantō region of Japan. Its old name was .-Geography:Tokyo Bay is surrounded by the Bōsō Peninsula to the east and the Miura Peninsula to the west. In a narrow sense, Tokyo Bay is the area north of the straight line formed by the on the Miura Peninsula on one end and on...

at the time. Through land reclamation over the centuries, the bay has receded some three kilometers to the south.

Deification

When Masakado was preparing for his revolt, a vast swarm of butterflies appeared in Kyoto

Kyoto

, a portent of the upcoming battle.
Over the centuries, Masakado became a demigod

Demigod

The term "demigod" , meaning "half-god", is commonly used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human; as such, demigods are human-god hybrids...

to the locals who were impressed by his stand against the central government, while at the same time feeling the need to appease his malevolent spirit. The fortunes of Edo and Tokyo seemed to wax and wane correspondingly with the respect paid to the shrine built to him at the kubizuka — neglect would be followed by natural disasters and other misfortunes. Hence, to this day, the shrine is well maintained, occupying some of the most expensive land in the world in Tokyo’s financial district facing the Imperial Palace.

Other shrines which he is deity

Deity

A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....

of include (located in Kanda

Kanda, Tokyo

See also Kanda, Fukuoka and the disambiguation page for Kanda. is a district in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It encompasses about thirty neighborhoods...

), and Tsukudo Jinja (which has multiple locations.)

His tomb (which contains only a monument to his head) is near exit C5 of Tokyo's Ōtemachi

Otemachi

subway station.

External links

http://www.mackinnon.org/masakado-home.html
http://english.tsukudo.jp/

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