Tsunemoto, was at feud with
the governor, Prince Okiyo, and Masakado espoused the latter's cause.

Had it rested with Kyoto to subdue this revolt, Masakado might have
attained his goal. But chance and the curious spirit of the time
fought for the Court. A trifling breach of etiquette on the part of
Masakado--not pausing to bind up his hair before receiving a
visitor--forfeited the co-operation of a great soldier, Fujiwara
Hidesato, (afterwards known as Tawara Toda), and the latter, joining
forces with Taira Sadamori, whose father Masakado had killed,
attacked the rebels in a moment of elated carelessness, shattered
them completely, and sent Masakado's head to the capital. The whole
affair teaches that the Fujiwara aristocrats, ruling in Kyoto, had
neither power nor inclination to meddle with provincial
administration, and that the districts distant from the metropolis
wore practically under the sway of military magnates in whose eyes
might constituted right. This was especially notable in the case of
the Kwanto, that is to say the eight provinces surrounding the
present Tokyo Bay, extending north to the Nikko Mountains. Musashi,
indeed, was so infested with law-breakers that, from the days of the
Emperor Seiwa (859-876), it became customary to appoint one kebiishi
in each of its districts, whereas elsewhere the establishment was one
to each province. The kebiishi represented the really puissant arm of
the law, the provincial governors, originally so powerful, having now
degenerated into weaklings.

THE REVOLT OF FUJIWARA SUMITOMO

Another event, characteristic of the time, occurred in Nankai-do (the
four provinces of the island of Shikoku) contemporaneously with the
revolt of Masakado. During the Shohei era (931-937) the ravages of
pirates became so frequent in those waters that Fujiwara no Sumitomo
was specially despatched from Kyoto to restrain them. This he
effected without difficulty. But instead of returning to the capital,
he collected a number of armed men together with a squadron of
vessels, and conducted a campaign of spoliation and outrage in the
waters of the Inland Sea as well as the channels of Kii and Bungo.
Masakado's death, in 939, relieved the Court from the pressure in the
east, and an expedition was despatched against Sumitomo under the
command of Ono no Yoshifuru, general of the guards.

Yoshifuru mustered only two hundred ships whereas Sumitomo had
fifteen hundred. The issue might have been fo