February 4th - Forty-seven Ronin

On this day, in 1703, all but one of forty-seven ronin committed ritual suicide for the murder of a court official. The remaining ronin was sent to inform the authorities of the murder, and the forty-six ronin didn't really like him either.

A ronin is a masterless samurai. Normally, a samurai needs a master to keep him in line and to keep his accounts for him, a master is also handy for securing a personal loan, but if the master and samurai part ways then the samurai becomes aronin . This parting may be caused by a difference of opinion about the offside rule, or something slightly more dire like the death of the master, which can be very inconvenient.

In this case, the forty-seven men were samurai to a feudal lord who has a name filled with Japanese characters, which won't be repeated here due to a lack of effort on my part. The lordassaulted a court official and, for his crime, was forced to commit ritual suicide, which is just as deadly as your garden-variety suicide.

Why the lord assaulted the official is not known for sure. The official was meant to be giving instruction in the ways of the court but someone took something the wrong way and wouldn't apologise, and the next thing you know all parties are saying things they would later regret. The lord wasn't happy with simply saying regretful things so hekicked it up a notch and attacked the official. He failed to inflict a mortal wound.

For this assault he was forced to commit ritual suicide. This punishment was used to bring justice in crimes of honour and parking infringements. After the suicide the lord's family was ruined and hisronin were released back into the wild. They dispersed for over a year to quell anyone's suspicion of a revenge attack. Some of the ronin became tradesmen, some became monks, and the rest just hung around trying to not be suspicious.

If the Japanese are nothing else, they are bent on bloody revenge. The ronin plotted to avenge their master's death and murder the dastardly court official. They became workers in his house and one of them even married for the sake of getting the plans of the building. This isn't so bad; people marry for worse reasons every day. For two years they plotted and waited for the right moment to strike.

In a co-ordinated attack the ronin swarmed the house. The ronin's leader asked his ronin not to attack women and children, even though the ronin's code of Bushido allows for the killing of anyone within a sword's length. After a lengthy battle the court official was found and he was ordered to kill himself. He opted to have his head cut off instead, which was the lesser of two evils.

The ronin knew they would be ordered to kill themselves for this crime, and they were only too pleased to get on with it. It's a messy job butsomeone's got to do it.

In the topsy-turvy Japanese world the name of the disgraced lord was restored with this act of bloody vengeance. Let this be a lesson to you; it takes the murder and suicide of dozens of men to make up for one clumsy insult.