Chapter 1: The Death of Asano

Chapter 1: The Death of Asano

‘Good morning, Lord Asano.’

The speaker was Lord Kira Yoshinaka, a tall man, in black. He stood in the middle of a room in the Shogun’s palace. He watched Lord Asano, and waited.

Lord Asano Naganori was a younger man, thirty-four years to Lord Kira’s sixty years. He walked slowly across the room from the door, and stopped in front of Kira.

‘Lord Kira,’ he said coldly. ‘Good morning.’ And then he bowed, just a small bow of the head.

Lord Kira bowed too, an even smaller bow. He smiled, but his eyes were cold.

‘Are you ready for your next lesson, Lord Asano?’ he said. ‘You have much to learn about palace ceremony, and you are a very slow student. Shall we begin?’

Lord Asano bowed again, but did not speak. His mouth was a thin, hard line. Every day Kira called him ‘slow’, or ‘stupid’, or ‘difficult’, and he did not like it.

In the Shogun’s palace at Edo in the year 1701, ceremony was very important. The right words, at the right time of day. The right bow, small or deep, for different people. The right clothes, at different hours of the day. The right presents, for the right people… This was the way of life in the Shogun’s palace, and Lord Kira was the teacher of ceremony - for this Shogun, and for many Shoguns before him. After forty years as a teacher, Kira knew everything about the ceremony of the palace.

But Lord Asano knew nothing. He was a daimyo from the country, from Ako Castle, a place seventeen days’ journey by horse to the south-west of Edo. The daimyo were powerful men in Japan at this time, and were rulers in their own part of the country. But daimyo must also serve the Shogun, and every year the Shogun called two of them to his palace at Edo.

‘Every day is the same,’ said Asano angrily, at his house in Edo that evening. ‘Every day I must do this ceremony, or that ceremony, I must stand here, or there, bow to this person, or that person. And I must do six months of this! Every day Kira calls me bad names! I make mistakes because he is a bad teacher!’

Hayami, one of Asano’s samurai, helped him with his ceremonial clothes. Hayami was very good with the bow and arrow, but not so good with words.

‘Lord, I heard something about Kira,’ he said.

‘What?’ said Asano.

‘He likes presents, and money. The other daimyo gives him presents or money, and then Kira is happy, and the lessons go well. Why don’t you give him a present?’

‘No!’ shouted Asano. ‘I am Lord Asano of Ako, and I do not give presents to the Shogun’s servants! His job is to teach me ceremony, not to ask for presents!’

Hayami said nothing more, but he was afraid for his master. Every day Asano came back from the palace with an angry face, and angry words.

‘How is this going to end?’ Hayami said to Kataoka, another of Asano’s samurai. ‘Four more months of this. What can I do? We need Oishi here. Lord Asano doesn’t listen to me, but he listens to Oishi sometimes.’

But Oishi Yoshio was at Ako Castle, a long way away. He was the captain of Lord Asano’s three hundred samurai. When Lord Asano came to Edo, most of his samurai came with him, but Oishi stayed behind at Ako to take care of everything there.

It ended suddenly on a spring day in 1701.

The day began well, with a blue sky and the song of birds in the palace gardens. Lord Asano arrived at the palace, put on his ceremonial clothes, and went for his lesson with Lord Kira.

Perhaps Kira was tired that day. Perhaps he was angry because there were no presents from Lord Asano. Perhaps he just did not like the young lord from Ako.

‘You must wait,’ he told Asano. ‘I have another, more important meeting first.’ He turned his back on Lord Asano. ‘What a stupid man!’ Kira said. Usually, he said things like this in a quiet voice, but today he did not speak quietly, and everybody in the great palace room could hear him. ‘I hear Asano’s wife is stupid too, and his children,’ Lord Kira said to the room.

Something broke inside Lord Asano. ‘Lord Kira, stop a moment,’ he cried.

‘Well, what is it?’ said Kira, turning back to Asano.

People remembered this moment for many years. Asano drew his sword, and attacked Lord Kira. With a cry, Kira put his hand to his head, but he did not fall. Asano lifted his sword again, but now there were palace guards around him. They: pulled him to the floor, and held his sword arm. Lord Kira ran away. There was a deep cut on his face.

The Shogun’s palace was a place of ceremony, not a place for fighting. It was a terrible thing to do - to draw a sword and attack someone inside the palace.

The attack happened at about midday. At one o’clock the guards took Asano to the house of another daimyo. At four o’clock an order came from the Shogun. ‘Lord Asano must die, but because he is a daimyo, he can die the samurai way, with honour. He can commit seppuku.’

And so it happened. At six o’clock that same day Lord Asano of Ako committed seppuku. He took out his long knife, and cut into his stomach from left to right.

Outside the palace Lord Asano’s samurai, Kataoka, knew nothing of this. He waited for his master to leave the palace at the end of the day, but Asano never came. At last another daimyo told Kataoka the terrible news.

Kataoka ran back to Asano’s house in Edo, and called for Hayami and the other samurai. ‘Our lord is dead,’ he cried. ‘Get the horses ready! We must ride to Ako at once!’