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Thursday, December 3, 2009

The 47 Ronin: A Japanese Samurai Story

Forty-six warriors stealthily crept up to the mansion and scaled the walls. A drum sounded in the night, "boom, boom-boom." The ronin launched their attack.

The tale of the 47 Ronin is one of the most famous in Japanese history - and it is a true story.

Background to the Story of the 47 Ronin:

During the Tokugawa era in Japanese history, the country was ruled by the shogun, or highest military official, in the name of the emperor. Under him were a number of regional lords, the daimyo, each of whom employed a contingent of samurai warriors.

All of these military elites were expected to follow the code of bushido - the "way of the warrior." Among the demands of bushido were loyalty to one's master, and fearlessness in the face of death.

The 47 Ronin, or the Faithful Retainers:

In 1701, the emperor Higashiyama sent imperial envoys from his seat at Kyoto to the shogun's court at Edo (Tokyo). A high shogunate official, Kira Yoshinaka, served as master of ceremonies for the visit. Two young daimyo, Asano Naganori of Ako and Kamei Sama of Tsumano, were in the capital performing their alternate attendance duties, so the shogunate gave them the task of looking after the emperor's envoys.

Kira was assigned to train the daimyo in court etiquette. Asano and Kamei offered gifts to Kira, but the official considered them totally inadequate and was furious. He began to treat the two daimyo with contempt.

Kamei was so angry about the humiliating treatment he wanted to kill Kira, but Asano preached patience. Fearful for their lord, Kamei's retainers secretly paid Kira a large sum of money, and the official began to treat Kamei better. He continued to torment Asano, however, until the young daimyo could not endure it.

When Kira called Asano a "country bumpkin without manners" in the main hall, Asano drew his sword and attacked the official. Kira suffered only a shallow wound to his head, but shogunate law strictly forbade anyone from drawing a sword within Edo castle. The 34-year old Asano was ordered to commit seppuku.

After Asano's death, the shogunate confiscated his domain, leaving his family impoverished and his samurai reduced to the status of ronin.

Ordinarily, samurai were expected to follow their master into death rather than facing the dishonor of being a masterless samurai. Forty-seven of Asano's 320 warriors, however, decided to remain alive and seek revenge.

Led by Oishi Yoshio, the 47 Ronin swore a secret oath to kill Kira at any cost. Fearful of just such an event, Kira fortified his home and posted a large number of guards.

The Ako ronin bided their time, waiting for Kira's vigilance to relax.

To help put Kira off his guard, the ronin scattered to different domains, taking menial jobs as merchants or laborers. One of them married into the family that had built Kira's mansion, so that he could have access to the blueprints.

Oishi himself began to drink and spend heavily on prostitutes, doing a very convincing imitation of an utterly debased man. When a samurai from Satsuma recognized the drunk Oishi laying in the street, he mocked him and kicked him in the face, a mark of complete contempt.

Oishi divorced his wife and sent her and their younger children away, to protect them. His oldest son chose to stay.

The Ronin Take Revenge:

As snow sifted down on the evening of December 14, 1702, the forty-seven ronin met once more at Honjo, near Edo, prepared for their attack. One young ronin was assigned to go to Aso and tell their tale.

The forty-six first warned Kira's neighbors of their intentions, then surrounded the official's house armed with ladders, battering rams and swords.

Silently, some of the ronin scaled the walls of Kira's mansion, then overpowered and tied up the startled night watchmen. At the drummer's signal, the ronin attacked from the front and rear. Kira's samurai were caught asleep, and rushed out to fight shoeless in the snow.

Kira himself, wearing only undergarments, ran to hide in a storage shed. The ronin searched the house for an hour, finally discovering the official cowering in the shed amongst heaps of coal.

Recognizing him by the scar on his head left by Asano's blow, Oishi dropped to his knees and offered Kira the same wakizashi (short sword) that Asano had used to commit seppuku. He soon realized that Kira did not have the courage to kill himself honorably, however - the official showed no inclination to take the sword, and was shaking in terror. Oishi beheaded Kira.

The ronin reassembled in the mansion's courtyard. All forty-six were alive. They had killed as many as forty of Kira's samurai, at the cost of only four walking wounded.



At daybreak, the ronin walked through town to the Sengakuji Temple, where their lord was buried. The story of their revenge spread through town quickly, and crowds gathered to cheer them along the way.

Oishi rinsed the blood from Kira's head, and presented it at Asano's grave. The forty-six ronin then sat and waited to be arrested.

Hoping for a last-minute reprieve, the four daimyo who had custody of the ronin waited until nightfall, but there would be no pardon. The forty-six ronin, including Oishi and his 16-year-old son, committed seppuku.

The ronin were buried near their master at the Sengkuji Temple in Tokyo. Their graves instantly became a site of pilgrimage for admiring Japanese. One of the first people to visit was the samurai from Satsuma who had kicked Oishi in the street. He apologized, and then killed himself as well.

The fate of the forty-seventh ronin is not entirely clear. Most sources say that when he returned from telling the tale at the ronins' home domain of Aso, the shogun pardoned him due to his youth. He lived to a ripe old age, and then was buried alongside the others.

To help calm public outrage over the sentence handed down to the ronin, the shogun's government returned the title and one-tenth of Asano's lands to his eldest son.

The 47 Ronin in Popular Culture:

During the Tokugawa era, Japan was at peace. Since the samurai were a warrior class with little fighting to do, many Japanese feared that their honor and their spirit were fading away. The story of the Forty-seven Ronin gave people hope that some true samurai remained.

As a result, the story was adapted into countless kabuki plays, bunraku puppet shows, woodblock prints, and later films and television shows. Fictionalized versions of the story are known as Chushingura, and continue to be very popular to this day.

People from all over the world still travel to Sengkuji Temple to see the burial site of Asano and the Forty-seven Ronin. They can also view the original receipt given to the temple by the friends of Kira, when they came to claim his head for burial.

Sources:

De Bary, William Theodore, Carol Gluck and Arthur E. Tiedemann. Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. 2, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

Ikegami, Eiko. The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Marcon, Federico and Henry D. Smith II. "A Chushingura Palimpsest: Young Motoori Norinaga Hears the Story of the Ako Ronin from a Buddhist Priest," Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Winter, 2003) pp. 439-465.

Till, Barry. The 47 Ronin: A Story of Samurai Loyalty and Courage, Beverly Hills: Pomegranate Press, 2005.

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In Japan, under the feudal system, a Samurai who had renounced his clan or who had been discharged or ostracized and had become a wanderer without a lord was known as Ronin...

The History of The 47 Ronin


The true story of the 47 ronin (masterless samurai) of the province of Harima is probably the best-known story of the valor and ideals (the Code of Bushido) of Japan's famous samurai warriors. Our tale begins in 1701, a time of relative peace during the Tokugawa Shogunate. The Shogun Tsunayoshi lived and ruled from Edo, while the Emperor, who had little political power, lived in Kyoto. To show respect to the Emperor, Tsunayoshi sent gifts and envoys to Kyoto for the New Year's celebrations, and in return, the Emperor sent his own envoys to Edo in March. To receive the Imperial envoys, Tsunayoshi appointed two young daimyos (feudal provincial lords), Naganori Asano-Takuminokami, The Lord of the Castle of Ako in Harima Province, and Munehare Date, Lord of Sendai to act as hosts during the forthcoming visit of a member of the Imperial Court in Kyoto. Because the daimyos were inexperienced in entertaining high born guests, the Shogun appointed an elderly high official named Yoshinaka Kira-Kozukenosuke to assist them.

Kira, whom history describes as greedy and conceited, became very angry with Lord Asano for not presenting him with expensive gifts (to show appreciation, respect, etc.) and instead of helping Lord Asano became very abusive and insulting towards him. Kira, determined to get even, used every opportunity to publicly humiliate Asano. After two months of abuse, Asano's tolerance was gone.

On March 14, unable to take the insults from Kira anymore, Lord Asano drew his sword (itself a capital offense when done inside Edo Castle) and struck Kira wounding him slightly. For his offense, The Shogun Tsunayoshi ordered Lord Asano to immediately commit seppuku (ritual suicide). Kira, on the other hand, received no punishment; in fact, he became an object of sympathy and was allowed to continue his official duties.

The Shogun's failure to have Kira share in the responsibility angered the followers of Asano, who felt that Kira's improper actions were ignored and Asano's punishment too harsh.

By law, when a samurai lord committed seppuku, his castle was confiscated by the Shogun, his family was disinherited, and his 321 samurai retainers were ordered to disband, thus becoming Ronin or masterless warriors. Asano's samurai were unsure of how to act in the wake of this disaster. Some thought they should refuse to turn over the castle to the Shogun, some thought they should plot revenge and kill Kira, and others thought they should respect the law and surrender peacefully.

Oishi Kuranosuke, Asano's Chief Councilor, listened to the varying opinions and finally decided on a plan. He would petition the Shogun to reestablish the House of Asano with Lord Asano's younger brother, Daigaku, as it's head. If that failed the samurai of Lord Asano would refuse to turn over the castle and defend it to the death.

In the next few days, as the Shogun's agents were on the road enroute to the Ako, all of the Asano samurai which were opposed to the petition deserted the castle, leaving only 60 loyal samurai behind. Before the shogun's men could reach the castle, Daigaku Asano sent a letter to Oishi, asking him to obey the orders of the Shogun and hand the castle over.

Oishi and the 59 other samurai accepted Daigaku's request as binding on them as the word of Lord Asano himself, but before they quit the castle they made plans to avenge their Lord Asano's disgrace by killing Kira, whose un-samurai like character had brought their lord and house to such a tragic end. Only this would restore Asano's rightful honor.

The men split up to conceal their plans from Kira, who naturally suspected that Asano's retainers would try to get revenge against him. Oishi went to Yamashina, a suburb of Kyoto, where he earned a reputation as a drunken gambler, a ruse that successfully deceived the Shogun's police and Kira's many spies.

The Shogun, still concerned that the affair might not be ended, ordered the arrest of Daigaku Asano and sentenced him to confinement in the main villa of the Asano family, thus ending any remaining hope that the House of Asano might be reestablished.

For nearly two years they waited, disguised as merchants, street vendors and even drunks to get information on Kira and to be close to him should an opportunity arise to storm Kira's mansion. Finally, Kira and his allies finally relaxed their suspicions of Oishi and his men.

At a secret meeting, Oishi and the other 59 ronin decided that the time had come to move against Kira. But Oishi would allow only 46 of the men to participate with him in the attempt. He sent the other 13 back home to their families.

One by one Oishi and his men infiltrated Edo, and on a snowy winter night of December 14, 1702 the 47 ronin attacked the mansion of Kira while he was having a tea party. The 47 ronin divided into two bands and stormed the mansion from the front and rear gates. In the great battle that followed, the 47 ronin entered into battle against Kira's 61 armed guards. At the end of the 1 1/2 hour battle, Asano's ronin had either subdued or killed all of Kira's men without any losses of their own.

After a thorough search, Kira was found hiding in an outhouse. The ronin brought Kira to the courtyard and offered him the same chance their Lord Asano was given to honorably commit seppuku. Kira could not commit seppuku, so the ronin beheaded him. Then, to symbolize the completion of their mission, the 47 returned to Asano's grave at Sengaku-ji Temple and set Kira's head before it, thus declaring their Lord's honor redeemed.

Prepared to die for their deed, Oishi sent two delegates to the Magistrate of Edo, informing him of what had been done and telling the official that they would be waiting at the Sengaku-ji Temple, awaiting orders from the Shogun.

The Shogun Tsunayoshi, instead of being angry, was deeply impressed with the loyalty demonstrated by the 47 ronin. This made Tsunayoshi decision all the more difficult. Although clearly sympathetic to their heroic act, he was nonetheless faced with a dilemma. Should he spare the 47 ronin in recognition of their great display of bushido and their defense of their Lord Asano's honor, or should they be punished according to the law. If he overlooked their crime for sentimental reasons would that belittle their honor and weaken the samurai code? After 47 days of deliberation, Tsunayoshi ordered that Oishi and 45 of his men were to execute themselves not as criminals but as honored warriors. The youngest of the ronin, who had been sent to Ako with the news of Kira's death was spared from the sentence.

On February 4, 1703, the 46 ronin were divided into four groups and handed over to four different daimyo, who were ordered to supervise and witness their deaths. Oishi and the other 45 ronin all committed seppuku simultaneously, dignifying themselves in their valiant sacrifice. Upon their deaths, the 46 ronin were buried side by side next to their master at Sengaku-ji Temple.

Today, the memory of the 47 ronin is celebrated in a play called Chusingura which moves the audience to tears and excitement as it develops the theme of the magnificent sacrifice of the 47 ronin. Additionally, each year thousands of Japanese visit the gravesite of the 46 ronin at Sengaku-ji Temple to pay homage to the honor and loyalty of the 47 ronin and their dedication to the code of bushido.

by STEVIE @ 9:02 PM.