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SHOWDOWN
IN OLD TOKYO : VENGEANCE OF THE 47 RONINS |
To
whose uniform does this captain of the 47 ronins' outfit remind you to?
(click here)
| Even the Shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, couldn't just get indifferent to the atmosphere the men that were to be famous as 'the 47 ronins of Edo' generated. After their Captain, the legendary Oishi Kuranosuke, led his men to surrender to the shogunal cops, the Shogun himself issued an edict that said "Whosoever attempts to avenge the death of Lord Kira Yoshihisa on any of the 47 ronins and/or their clansmen and families, will be sentenced to death." And Tokugawa Tsunayoshi meant what he said. The Uesugi clan, a family of warriors with a long and winding record of scary victories in 16th century, and was even as strong as Oda Nobunaga's people those days, was related by DNA to the Kira clan. They abandoned the plan for revenge after knowing that the Shogun would have really executed them if they persisted. |
 Lord Kira Yoshihisa |
 Lord Asano Naganori |
 Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi |
It all started in 1701. The Tokugawa shogunate was tranquil and well (click here for the Tokugawa clan's story and pictures). Every year, the Shogun went in all pomp to the Imperial Palace of Kyoto to refresh his allegiance, bearing the most expensive gifts that he could part with. A while after, the Emperor always sent one or two Imperial officers, sometimes a Prince, to the Shogun's dwelling in Edo (today's Tokyo), to renew his blessing on the military government that the Shogun led. That's how things worked in higher places in Japan those days. Arrival of someone -- anyone -- sent by the Emperor was the greatest occasion in the shogunal household; that was the only really important guest for the year. They couldn't afford to blow it up. So, for such occasions, the Shogun always gave an official mandate to a high-ranked samurai, a Captain or General, to see to it that everything was done according to the plan, and not deviating a single byte from the strictest Imperial rules. For the New Year of 1701, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi gave this honor to Captain Asano Naganori, a Lord with quite a chunk of land, and leader of more than 300 warriors. Asano tried to evade this honor. "I know nothing of Imperial ceremonies," he said. And he was right; he was a soldier, through and through. But the Shogun wouldn't hear any of refusal. It was an honor, for the gods' sake. So finally Asano relented. But he asked the Shogun to assign someone with the necessary knowledge of such things, to help him out. The Shogun said okay. And he told the Master of ceremonies, Lord Kira Yoshihisa, to lend a hand to Asano. Kira was such a civilian compared to Asano and other men in the shogunal army. He was used to supervise formal ceremonies. He wouldn't shame the Shogun in this significant day of receiving the Imperial envoy. |
The
47 samurai, their Lord Asano, and their common enemy Kira Yoshihisa
But Kira Yoshihisa was, like many of such persons, expecting this to be his very own important event, too. His mastery of the game was so in need, why lavish it on the barbaric soldier without any pay? So he waited for Asano Naganori to send him some gold or anything like that, and to beg for his invaluable advice in conducting the ceremony. Asano knew such a practice was rampant. He also knew Kira was reputedly corrupt. But he never thought of himself as a rich man, and more than that he believed it was simply Kira's duty to help him -- didn't the Shogun himself assign him to the task? So New Year's gift from the Asano clan to Kira Yoshihisa was nothing out of ordinary; it was limited to what was considered as 'goodwill present' of the time, a token of official friendship. Nothing was made of gold and nothing was of silk there. And this simple soldiery consideration led to, eventually, bloodbath. The ceremony when the Imperial envoy came to see Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi was not actually messy, but it was nonetheless rather out of order. Until the last second Asano Naganori hoped that Kira would show him how to do it, but the man didn't even show up. Kira only went to the Shogun's castle after the banquet was over. He just wanted to see how bad it was. Unfortunately, he met Asano Naganori at the corridor, and, when he chuckled as Asano asked him why he deserted him like that, the Captain couldn't control his anger and unsheathed his sword. |
The
way they stormed into the Kira estate
No, ladies and gentlemen, Kira Yoshihisa didn't die. Asano Naganori didn't intend to kill him, that's why. He would have been dead if Asano wanted him so. But this incident was a breach of conduct according to the shogunal rules -- vassals were not supposed to draw swords against each other. Asano Naganori gave himself up to the shogunal provost, and was sentenced to die. Yes, it was too much for such a crime. But that's what the rules said as a punishment for those who struck a colleague down with sharp objects in the shogunate. When the day came, Asano Naganori was dressing in white and slit his belly like a good warrior must when letting down his Lord. A sympathetic fellow-retainer, his buddy, helped as the sword-wielding assistant. If you ever saw the ritual of 'seppuku', you'd notice a man standing a bit behind the seated would-be-committing-suicide one. His job was to finish it off by cutting the head. This was done, usually, by the man's best friend, his most trusted subordinate, or his brother or cousin or dad or uncle -- only if there was nobody like that and he didn't care who did it, a stranger completely. (I got into this rap because too many people keep thinking that the man with the sword was an executioner.) Anyway, Lord Asano Naganori was no more now. The Shogun regretted the loss of a fine soldier, but it was beyond his power to let the man go -- the entire rules applied for 254 years of the Tokugawa shogunate were made by or based on the testament of the patriarch of the clan, the greatest Tokugawa of all times, Ieyasu. In the ancestor-worship mood Japan had always been (the Shinto faith itself is exactly this kind of thing), it was utterly impossible to deviate from the rules thus made. (Click here for story and pictures of Tokugawa Ieyasu). |
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For one year nothing was going on. Kira Yoshihisa got healed, but he couldn't go out without a fan in front of his face -- it was so grotesquely disfigured, and there was no such a thing as Michael Jackson yet. The Asano estate was confiscated, according to the rules. The people who worked there were involuntarily leisured. Actually the Shogun's messenger who was sent to inform the Asano clan about all this was prepared to die; he expected them to strike him off the horse instantly and he would never ever see his home again (messengers from a higher-ranked samurai never got off the horse, you know; they read the edict or delivered the message out loud while standing on the stirrups). But what he met there was 300 soldiers who didn't even say anything at all. They disbanded even when he still looked on. The Asano castle was vacant, all the Asano retainers dispersed to their own hometowns. A new Lord came there to occupy the place shortly afterwards. It was the custom of Shoguns to give confiscated estates as rewards to other vassals. Yet, that was only what the world detected on the surface. Among the 300 men, there were 48 former samurai of the house of Asano who had vowed vengeance. Of these, Asano Captain Oishi Kuranosuke, 24 years old, was the strategician of the pack. He and his buddies laid low for a year, so nobody suspected anything. The shogunal ninjas (click here for story and pictures of the best Tokugawa ninja) came and went away with unvaried reports: out of the 48, only one was seething with rage all year thru; while 47 men were socially and martially harmless total blokes. Oishi even got caught getting drunk with streetwise pleasure-girls once; everybody saw that he couldn't draw his sword out of the scabbard when someone challenged him to a duel -- the sword was all eaten up by rust. The man who challenged him to the duel was one of his own ex-colleague, a former Asano vassal. This man genuinely got mad at the way Oishi seemed to live on, and he urged the Captain to revenge the death of their master. Oishi didn't trust him enough. So even to him he pulled on the gauze of living in abandon. Far away from the scene, Oishi Kuranosuke's mother committed suicide. She left a letter for his son, delivered via the man's wife (Oishi got a baby boy, too, that year). "I have to do this," she said, "lest you would hesitate to fulfill your overdued duty to our late Lord Asano Naganori, just because you must look after your old mom." Ms. Oishi senior, too, has been remembered lovingly until today as one heck of a mother. |
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1702 came on the calendar. Oishi Kuranosuke and his 46 men had managed to get through the previous haranguing year as masterless samurai, faithful still to the dead Lord. Now was the time. They went to the capital city one by one via different routes and disguises. One night, they stormed through the Kira clan's homebase (every Lord must stay in Edo, no matter where they came from -- that, too, was the rule) in a ninja-like mode. Kira Yoshihisa was offered to commit suicide, but the man was so darn scared that he refused. So he died a criminal's death -- by executioner. The next day, each one of the 47 warriors gave himself up to the shogunal cops. Only one of them did so via representation, because he must go to their hometown to relay news of the night's deed to their families. He promised the Shogunal Tribune that he would come in person a.s.a.p. And all of the 46 ronins took their own lives by 'seppuku', like their late Lord Asano Naganori. A few days later, the 47th man showed up, but he was told to go home and forget the whole thing; Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi had declared that the case was closed the day the ronins died. This man lived on until old age -- around 80, I think -- but he was buried at the side of his comrades' graves, for he, too, was one of them. The 48th ronin killed himself in the same ritual of 'seppuku', in front of the grave of Oishi Kuranosuke, whose sense of honor he once doubted in public. |
 Cosplayers in a parade dressed like the 47 ronins, in 2004 |
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The entire realm of the Tokugawa shogunate mourned the 47+ ronins. Without anyone's asking them to, the people around the area of the graves kept them clean and gave fresh flowers everyday. The shogunate crumbled to dust, the old monarchy delegated its powers, the times have changed now away from the ghosts of 1700's. But the memory about the ronins has been living on through all those. You would see flowers in the sun for them at the graves this morning. |
| Why is the 47 ronins' revenge applauded so much for hundreds of years until this minute? Click here for the answer. |
