Entitled: "Hei shinno masakado"; shows the warrior Taira Masakado, who called himself Emperor, holding a banner with an image of a horse. Taira no Masakado (died in the second lunar month of 940) was a samurai in the Heian period of Japan, who led a rebellion against the central government of Kyoto. The Taira Masakado Insurrection of 939-940 (known in Japanese as "Johei - Tengyo no ran", after the calendar eras in which it occurred) ranks among the most dramatic episodes in the early history of the samurai. Coinciding with earthquakes, rainbows and lunar eclipses in the capital; uprisings in the north; and pirate disturbances in the west; it threw the court and the capital into a panic, and climaxed, according to most versions of the story, with the protagonist's claiming for himself the title, "New Emperor." Woodcut by Toyokuni Utagawa, circa 1826-30.