leading scholars of the day rushed to add their own interpretation of the events. These comments were far from being universally positive, because accusations of cowardice were levelled against the Forty-seven Ronin right from the start. Why had they not challenged Kira to a fair fight, or even attempted to cut him down out in the open? Had they chosen the latter course they would almost certainly have been killed themselves immediately afterwards with no chance of a pardon, but that was seen by many as being the noble course. Instead they carried out an underhand and cowardly raid in which seventeen other innocent men needlessly lost their lives. They were therefore nothing but a gang of murderers. Later generations, of course, took a very different view and came to idolize the Forty-seven Ronin, so that by the year 1900 more than fifty full-length dramas of varying quality had been produced, and forty films have appeared since 1910.
It could have all been so different, and it is just possible that we could now be reading an exciting retelling of the bravery of Lord Kira’s samurai who died after a cowardly night raid. But could this self-indulgent master of etiquette ever be portrayed as the tragic protagonist? Kira Yoshihisa remained passive during Asano’s unexpected assault, and during the raid he revealed himself only after nearly all of his defenders had been murdered. There was no gallantry on display here, and certainly no kabuki play would ever commemorate his deeds—the populace of gaudy Edo Japan sought the more tangible heroism of a bygone era. Kira Yoshihisa represented the ordered, dispassionate, bureaucratic and very boring world of the Shogun’s administrative staff, not the adrenaline-fueled province of the samurai swordsmen. To experience this world the public had to overlook deception and cold-blooded murder. In promulgating the myth of the Forty-seven Ronin, overlook it they did.
So enjoy this thrilling story, a tale that is usually regarded as the classic example of a Japanese vendetta, remembering that in reality it was nothing of the kind, its illegality and the questionable motivation making it an anomaly among the scores of other revenge killings that took place during the Edo Period. Militarily, the Ronin achieved their objective: to place the severed head of Kira Yoshihisa before the tomb of Asano Naganori. Vengeance was indeed taken, but not to avenge Asano’s death—rather for Kira’s unknown insult that he’d suffered and had failed to repay. Asano’s two errant strokes within the Corridor of Pines preceded a deluge of cuts that would settle the score for good. Lord Kira and his men were sent to their almost unknown graves; the Forty-seven Ronin were sent to glory.
Stephen Turnbull
University of Leeds
Preface
Japan was a country IN TURMOIL at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was a time of pageantry and corruption in the Shogun’s court in Edo (now Tokyo) and of riotous gaiety in the pleasure quarters of ancient Kyoto, shuttered away from the world of social restraint. The arts flourished; the popular theater was born. Because the merchant class was rising in power it was also the beginning of the end of privilege for the professional warriors, or samurai, who felt their loss keenly, especially since they held the business of money-making in contempt.
In the midst of such bewildering change, eruptions of violence were not unknown. They came most often in the form of rice riots by the farmers who were taxed beyond endurance by the Shogun, the military ruler of all Japan. That they did not occur more often among the samurai was a tribute to the thoroughness of their training and their remarkable self-discipline.
But even a samurai could be pushed too far. Especially a rash young lord forced into contact with the effete and degenerate ways of the court.
It happened in 1701 in Edo. In a moment of anger and frustration, Lord Asano of Ako lashed out at a corrupt court official and set in motion a chain of events that terminated in one of the bloodiest vendettas in Japan’s feudal history. These events shocked the country and brought the Shogun himself to a legal and moral impasse. When it was all over, Japan had a new set of heroes—the Forty-seven Ronin, or ex-samurai, of Ako.
The historical facts of their deed are plain; the details are hazy. Celebrated in song, story, drama, and motion pictures, many widely differing versions have been produced.
This novel is intended to give an account in English of what might have happened in those colorful days when Japan was secluded from the rest of the world and the old traditions still governed the lives of men.
— John Allyn
Chapter One
MARCH 13, 1701.
The sun completed its route over the Pacific and began to set, the waters reddening around the islands of Japan. To the southwest, on a path near the Inland Sea, a tall man on an unkempt stallion shielded his eyes from the glare as he rode tight-lipped through the pines.
His name was Oishi; he was the chief retainer of the Asano clan, the rulers of this hilly domain. He was returning to the castle at Ako after an all-day horseback tour of the castle town with his master’s little daughter, who rode beside him on a pony with a tangled mane.
They made a strange pair. Oishi was a handsome man in his early forties with a high-domed forehead, a square jaw, and an air of quiet authority. His topknot, pleated hakama skirt, and two swords identified him as a samurai, a member of the warrior class. The child was petite and vivacious, bright as a butterfly in kimono and obi. Yet, in spite of their differences, each was comfortable in the other’s presence. The girl was freed from the strict discipline her parents imposed on her; Oishi was freer with a child, especially someone else’s, to relax his official manner and even joke a little.
At the moment, as their shabby horses jogged homeward, there was less conversation between them than usual. Oishi was appalled at what he had seen in the town, and the little girl respected his silence.
All his life Oishi had heard the Buddhist edicts against violence and cruelty, but in practice they had always been tempered with common sense. Sometimes one had to kill to defend oneself against an enemy, or, in the case of animals, to get food. Personally, he had always deplored the cruelty in tournaments where dogs were brought down by spears or arrows and he had no objection to such sport being abolished. But the Shogun’s new Life Preservation Laws went much too far. Animals were now apparently more privileged than humans and this topsy-turvy manner of thinking had brought the whole country to the brink of economic chaos.
In the town Oishi had seen once thriving farmers begging for jobs because they were not allowed to fight back against the pests that destroyed their crops. Foxes, badgers, birds, and insects ran rampant in the fields while those who had planted the seed stood by helplessly.
Oishi knew that poultry was secretly being sold in the back rooms of some otherwise respectable shops, but on the whole violations of the law were few. Not only was the administrative machinery of the Shogun’s government extremely effective in catching lawbreakers, but the penalty for injuring any living thing was severe. For taking the life of an animal, the punishment was the execution of the “criminal” himself.
There were others who were as badly off as the farmers. The occupations of hunter, trapper, and tanner had become obsolete and these men, too, were crowding the towns, seeking some way to support their families. To their consternation, they found that jobs were scarce and food prices high, boosted out of reach of the common people by the scant supply of farm products. The only commodity seemingly available at a low price was a young girl to sleep with, due to the growing number of farmers’ daughters who had been sold into the brothels to tide their families over the bad times.
As always, Oishi had skirted the so-called pleasure quarters when touring the town with Lord Asano’s daughter, but now the houses of prostitution were increasing so fast
