Chapter 4: The Attack
Chapter 4: The Attack
Autumn came. The leaves turned yellow and gold, and fell from the trees. Oishi sent messages to the ronin, and one by one they began to arrive in Edo. They travelled at different times, and went to different ‘safe houses’ in the city. Oishi made the journey in November 1702. When he arrived in Edo, he called a meeting in a room above a noisy restaurant.
‘Now you must decide, for the last time,’ he told his men. ‘Do you want revenge for Lord Asano, or not? Some of you, I know, have young children, or very old parents. Do those men want to leave the league? You can go with honour.’
Eight men left. There were now forty-seven ronin in the league. There were young men and old men - the youngest was Chikara, now aged sixteen, and the oldest was seventy-six. There were brothers, and some fathers and sons, like Oishi and Chikara.
In the weeks before the attack, many of the ronin wrote letters home to their wives and families - to say their last goodbyes.
They began to get ready. One ronin had a ground plan of Kira’s mansion, and Oishi studied this very carefully. There were high walls around the house - 132 metres on the long side and 61 metres on the short side. There were two gates, one in the east wall and one in the west wall. Inside the walls, there was a long building, with courtyards and gardens all around it.
‘We need to go in at both gates at the same time,’ said Oishi. ‘We must have two groups of men, one to attack the front gate and one to attack the back gate.’
‘Yes,’ Yoshida said. ‘And we must stop any servant from leaving the mansion. We don’t want them to run across the river to the Uesugi and call for help.’
There were high walls around the mansion.
‘How many people are living in Kira’s mansion?’ asked Hayami. ‘And how many of them are samurai?’
‘There are more than a hundred and twenty people inside those walls,’ said Okuda. ‘Perhaps about fifty of them are guards… We don’t know how many samurai.’
‘What about our weapons?’ asked Oishi, looking at Horibe.
‘The weapons are ready,’ Horibe said. ‘Everybody has their swords. We have spears for everybody too, and many bows and arrows. And we have armour.’
‘Good,’ said Oishi. ‘So now we wait for the right time, when Kira is at home.’
The right time came on December 14, 1702, a dark night with snow falling from the sky. The people of Edo slept quietly, warm in their houses, but the ronin put on their armour, took their weapons, and waited for midnight.
Before they left, Oishi spoke to his men.
‘At last we can finish our work for Lord Asano, and take revenge for his death, now nearly two years ago. We are here to kill Lord Kira Yoshinaka. We must fight his guards and his samurai, yes, and kill them, but do not kill women and children. We are not here to do that. And remember, you all have a whistle. When you find Lord Kira, blow your whistle.’
Then the forty-seven ronin went silently through the snow to Lord Kira’s mansion. Oishi and Hara took their group to the front gate, and Yoshida with Oishi’s son Chikara took their group of men to the back gate.
Outside the mansion they put signs in the streets:
WE, THE RONIN FROM AKO CASTLE, ARE TAKING OUR REVENGE ON KIRA YOSHINAKA TONIGHT, FOR THE DEATH OF OUR DAIMYO, LORD ASANO NAGANORI. WE ARE NOT NIGHT THIEVES AND DO NOT PLAN TO ATTACK OTHER PEOPLE. YOU ARE SAFE IN YOUR HOUSES.
Later, when the neighbours came out into the streets, they saw the signs, and went back into their houses. They did not like Lord Kira, and so did nothing to help him.
At the front gate, four men climbed over the wall, and went silently into the guardroom. They fought the guards and tied them up. Then they broke down the gate from the inside, and Oishi and his men came into the courtyard. At the same time, at the back gate, Yoshida and Chikara and their men climbed over the wall into the back courtyard. They tied up the guards there; then waited quietly in the snow.
Before the attack began, Oishi sent four men up onto the walls with bows and arrows. The great mansion was still dark and silent, and Oishi whispered his orders.
‘Lord Kira’s servants are going to try and run away to get help,’ he said. ‘Watch carefully, and shoot them down at once. Nobody must leave!’
Now everything was ready, and Oishi beat his drum loudly. The sound of the drum told the men at both gates to start the attack at the same moment. The ronin ran through the courtyards and gardens, and broke into the house at the front and the back.
By now, everybody in the mansion was awake, and Lord Kira’s men, still in their nightclothes, came running with swords and spears and knives. Suddenly, the night was full of noise - men shouting, the sound of sword against sword, the cries of women and children…
In the great front room of the mansion, the fighting was very fierce. Three of Kira’s samurai, all famous swordsmen, fought for a long time, and Oishi’s men could not get past them into the rooms behind. But the ronin fought hard too, and in the end Hara and two other ronin killed the three samurai. Then Oishi’s men moved on into the next rooms.
At the other end of the long mansion, the fighting was also fierce. One of Kira’s samurai attacked Yoshida, and jumped in under Yoshida’s sword arm with his knife. Yoshida fell back, but Horibe was right behind the samurai, and cut him down with his long sword. Then the two ronin moved on into the next room.
Soon there was fighting in every room. Lord Kira’s men fought bravely, but the ronin were fierce and deadly. Many men died, and some were hurt, but not one of the ronin died that night.
In every room Oishi and his men looked for Lord Kira, but he was never there. At last the two groups of ronin met in the middle of the mansion, and the fighting came to a stop. Seventeen of Kira’s guards and samurai were dead, and the others ran away. Women and children sat in the corners of rooms, crying.
Oishi called out to Yoshida, ‘Kira? Where is he?’
‘I don’t know,’ called Yoshida. ‘He wasn’t in the rooms at the back of the house when we came through.’
‘What about the family living rooms?’ called Horibe. ‘Let’s look in there again.’
‘We can’t lose Kira now!’ shouted Okuda. ‘Come on!’
The ronin began to feel afraid. Where was Lord Kira? Was he still in the mansion somewhere? Or did he escape when the fighting began? They ran through the family rooms, looking everywhere. In Kira’s sleeping-room Oishi put his hand on the bed-clothes.
‘They’re warm!’ he shouted. ‘The bed-clothes are still warm - he was here not long ago! Find him!’