47 Ronin: justified avengers or murderers?

[Wave Tossed]

Yep, this is a separate 47 Ronin thread. The incident of the Ako ronin has become a very hot topic here recently. WHich is nice because for while, the Edo Period forum was becoming boring and far too sedate.

I think that most serious historians and Japanese history buffs would acknowledge that many of the legends surrounding Lord Asano Naganori, Lord Kira Yoshinaka, and the 47 Ako ronin are based on fiction rather than fact. Many of the fictional legends present Asano and his ex-retainers unrealistically as completely spotless paragons of virtue.

However, a different view has been emerging. That Kira was an upstanding hatamoto retainer, smeared unfairly througout history by propagandistic sources? That Asano was a womanizing, hot-tempered despot, and that Kira was murdered by a pack of ronin, making a false claim of vengeance.

So let me ask some questions: What really is the truth here?

Is it true that the legends surrounding the Ako ronin are mostly false accounts? Is it true that Kira was an innocent victim of bad press? Was Kira felled by a pack of murderers? Are all of those films/ novels/plays just agenda-fulfilling propaganda? Should the Japanese tourist bureaus cancel all those Dec. 14 festivals? Should Senkakuji Temple shut down its 47 Ronin exhibits and just go back to being a Buddhist temple?

Or is it true, that even with the fiction and exaggerations surrounding the incident of the 47 Ako ronin, that perhaps there might be something behind them, other than a tale of murderers?

I'm awaiting the train wreck!


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[Wave Tossed]

Adding a bit more insight to this topic is the following article:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/47ronin/47ronin_rev.htm

Henry Smith documents the problems with differentiating legends, speculations, historical theories, fictional accounts -- and the truth. What really is the truth? No one really knows for sure.
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[cbubacz]

Forgive my ignorance on the subject, as all I have are semi-fictional accoutns on the situation to draw from. However...

Personally, I believe the notion of revenge for one's "wronged lord" is a whole lot less believable than revenge for the abolishment of one's clan (and job and status and insurance of well being).

From the standpoint of the human condition, these ronin had to have been more effected )(in the logn term) by the loss of their clan than the dishonor of their lord. It might be semantics to suggest it, but if their clan were not abolished, would they still take the stance that vengeance was of paramoutn importance? I doubt it.

[Wave Tossed]

[wicked iemon]

I agree we never seem to get beyond Asano ,,anyway my problem with the vendetta is the alleged secrecy of it ...i think not given the fact the bakufu had a pretty intricate spysystem where every 4th person in Edo was a snitch (so they say )and givin at least two of the Ako men were pretty high profile being Yasubei and Oichie than add Kira being refused bodyguards by Yanisagawa and having to hire some from his son id venture the man had become an embarssement to the bakufu and they wanted him offed they could not do anything to him themselves having condemmed Asano and confiscating Ako it would have meant admiting they were wrong id go as far as to say they were more than happy to have the Ako men wack this living embarsssment ..and may even have helped by contributing funds to merchants who helped the Ako men to ensure Kitra was eliminated ...this is just a theory on my part but given the humane/dog laws and all the informerz i just cant see the 47 remaning inconito besides why did Kitra hire extra body gourds if he was not worried ?.

[Wave Tossed]

[AJBryant]

I have to admit that my willingness to read wears off after the third line.

There's a reason for punctuation and paragraphing. Makes things readable.


Tony
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[Tsubame1]

[Wave Tossed]

I just received a xerox copy of the chapter that Beatrice Bodart-Bailey wrote about the 47 ronin. Heron was very gracious to send it out and I truly appreciate this.

I'll probably make some more detailed observations later. However, as I was doing my first reading/skim over the chapter -- it seems that Bodart-Bailey is doing just what many other historians do. Which is to highlight the sources used to support a certain view. And discount those sources that do not support that view. I noticed that Bodart-Bailey dismisses accounts that describe Kira Yoshinaka's greed as "fiction." Whereas, she accepts as fact the account that Asano Naganori was a womanizer who rewarded/promoted retainers on the basis of their abilities to acquire women for Asano's use. Even when another historian refutes this account of Asano's alleged misdeeds, Bodart-Bailey claims that the refutation is "fiction."

This is really no different than what many of the 47 ronin supporters do: which is discount and dismiss those sources that don't agree with that particular viewpoint. There is a long history of Ako ronin supporters and Ako ronin revisionists refuting each others views.

So who speaks the truth? Not really sure if anyone truly can know. Each person here on this forum will use their logic and form a point of view in deciding what actually happened on that fateful day (when Asano attacked Kira) and on that fateful night, 18 months later.
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[heron]

[heron]

I just got my first copy of Monumenta Japponica (thanks to Nagaeyari's tip about subscribing). There's a review of The Dog Shogun by Anne Walthall. It's not unsympathetic, but she draws attention to some of the same points Wave Tossed mentions, and ends by saying "In short, this volume needs to be read with a large measure of salt."

[wicked iemon]

Asano did attack an old geezer from behind and not only that could not even finish him off .How do you all feel about this ?

[Obenjo Kusanosuke]

[Wave Tossed]

[wicked iemon]

Can we say the actual vendetta was an act of bravery or the equivilant of a feudal drive by ?.Bravery maybe one way or another the only outcome would be death for the Ako men the flip side breaking into an old geezers house in the dead of night armed primarily with spears catching the coots retainers in a stupor and bum rushing them killing many in their sleep .Is the Ako vendetta a supreme act of sacrifice or a drive by of yore ?.

[ltdomer98]

[Wave Tossed]

[Tornadoes28]

Ok. I post my comments here instead.

Author Beatrice Bodart-Baily, in the book The Dog Shogun, provides and excellent examination surrounding the famous incident of the Forty-seven Loyal Ronin. The author examines how the incident, rather than glorifying the samurai, speaks much more of the decline of the warrior tradition. Here are some interesting points from the book regarding the 47 Ronin incident. Some of these points may seem pretty obvious and yet the loyalty and honor of the 47 Ronin are glorified even today.

- Asano Naganori showed concern neither for the reputation of his house nor the fate of his family and retainers when he attacked Kira. Asano should have known that attacking a Shogunal official in the Shogun's castle was a grave offence that likely would result in his death and the destruction of his house and confiscation of his domain thereby destroying the livelihood of his loyal retainers.

- Asano was a student of Confucian scholar Yamaga Soko, whose principal teaching was that in peacetime the samurai "should set a high example of devotion to duty." However, although apprenticed to Soko in the military arts, Asano showed a marked lack of samurai spirit as well as a lack of sword skill in his attack on Kira. Asano attacked Kira from behind while Kira was engaged in a discussion and Asano did not succeed in killing Kira. This showed neither courage nor ability.

- There is no evidence in legitimate historical documents that shows that Kira Yoshinaka was the villain so often portrayed that would justify an attack on him in the Shogun's castle. But Kira had to become the villain in order to make the story of the 47 Loyal Ronin what it was. Little is ever mentioned of Kira's 40 year service in a responsible government position, only that he was a greedy official who gravely insulted Asano. Both of which there is a lack of evidence to support.

- It has been argued by some that since the 47 Ronin knowingly violated the law of the Bakufu when they attacked Kira's mansion, it was absurd for the samurai to notify the authorities on completion of their crime with the message that they were now awaiting their orders rather than immediately committing seppuku. This leads some to suspect that the driving force was NOT the revenge of their dead lord but the hope that praise and admiration for this act of "loyalty" would secure them a pardon and reemployment elsewhere. If they had not expected to live, why did they not disembowel themselves immediately on completion of their revenge?

- With a year and a half between Asano Naganori's death and the slaying of Kira, some had wondered whether the revenge was really a priority of Oishi Kuranosuke, the chief retainer of Asano Naganori. Of course the story goes that it was all part of Kuranosuke's plan to lull Kira into complacency. Yet the point has been made of the elaborate preparations for the attack in the dead of the night, after Kira's staff was tired out by entertaining guests and when snow muffled the footsteps of the attackers. Some contemporaries such as Sato Naotaka and Dazai Shundai thought such trickery was unworthy of a samurai.

- Kira, according to his income, was a man of lowly hatamoto status. The fact that 16 of his retainers were killed in the attack, while only 4 attackers received relatively light wounds, indicated that this was an unequal battle. The large loss of life among the Kira retainers and servants could have been avoided in a spirited day-time attack on Kira on the open road by just a few men in traditional samurai fashion. In such an assault the attackers would, however, most likely have been cut down immediately afterwards and the chance of a pardon lost. The Bakufu's charge against the 47 Ronin after the incident explicitly mentions the use of projectile weapons which could mean anything from arrows and catapults to firearms. It may well also refer to spears. This clearly gave the attackers an advantage against the Kira retainers who were probably only armed with swords.

- Consideration should be also given to the public emphasis on loyalty and filial piety. The 47 Ronin certainly must have been aware that at times Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi would overturn decisions of his officials to heap praise and rewards on people who in his opinion had lived up to these ideals particularly well. The suggestion that the Ako samurai did not commit suicide but gave themselves up to the authorities in the hope of being singled out for such shogunal praise was not altogether unlikely at the time.

- When the loyalty of the 47 are referred to, it is of course the loyalty to their immediate lord, for Asano's retainers had disobeyed the laws of the bakufu in order to discharge their duties towards their lord.

The picture that emerges from the story of the 47 Loyal Ronin is that of desperate men trying to survive in the maelstrom of change. With an abrupt discrediting of traditional values, the 5th shogun attempted a major paradigm change. This must have produced feelings of helplessness and confusion in the minds of many samurai as they attempted to make their way in this changed environment with its fundamental revision of the traditional value system. The Ako samurai came to symbolize this suffering as men from a nostalgic past, as battlers against the harsh government of the day that was intent on destroying their cherished values. Their summary death ordered by an unpopular shogun permitted quick deification. To complete the process of creating larger-than-life-size images, any human foibles had to be shed. Every part of their action came to be uncritically accepted as serving a greater public good, and those that appealed to an examination of the facts were in turn accused of delusion.
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[Wave Tossed]

There are some problems with Bodart-Bailey's assessment. She (like most historians) has tendencies to accept without reservations the sources that support her position, and discount as "fiction" those sources that go against her position.

There are several original sources written by contemporary (at the time) Confucian scholars translated in SECRETS OF THE SAMURAI, ed. by Hiroaki Sato, that contradict many of the assumptions that Bodart-Bailey made, particularly about Kira's character/actions. One of the sources, Sato Naokata, was no fan at all of the Ako ronin and their attack. And yet even he castigates Kira's character, stating (translated) "[Kira] Kozukenosuke was born to be greedy, and he was detested by everyone for his arrogance, conceit, and evil mind." I have serious doubts that Kira was as innocent and blameless as Bodart-Bailey makes him out to be.
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[Tornadoes28]

Thank you Wave Tossed. I shall look further into the other sources you have provided. In spite of what Bailey wrote, I too certainly feel that Kira must have done something to insult Asano. Unless Asano went momentarily insane and was hearing voices, certainly something must have happened between Kira and Asano. I will reread the various threads again. Thanks.
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[Tatsunoshi]

[Tornadoes28]

I have reread the thread and I still feel that Bailey's points are strong.

No matter what Kira supposedly did to tick Asano off, he was a fool for losing it in the Shogun's castle. Plus, Asano was completely inept in his failed attack on Kira from behind.

Also, I think the point made about the 47 conducting a secret night attack against surprised Kira retainers was also valid. A more worthy attack for revenge would have been made by a smaller band out on the streets. Plus, the other point about had it truly been for revenge, the 47 should have immediately committed seppuku upon completion of their mission.

By the way, whatever happened to itdomer98? He just dropped off the face of the SA Forum earth a couple years ago.
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[JLBadgley]

Whether Kira was greedy or not is really beside ths point. Many people dislike George W. Bush, but does that make Saddam Hussein a just ruler? I think we have to be careful in that Asano's attack on Kira is not an indication of the latter's character for either good or ill; it is only an indication of Asano's feelings for him. He could have been a greedy bastard, but there were still more appropriate venues for Asano to carry out any vendetta (such as outside of the shogun's palace, where there wouldn't be so many witnesses to the event).

Although I've read many of the same sources, I'd never really considered how this could have been a plan by the Ako ronin to better their fortunes, which seems to be what is implied by Bodart-Bailey. This actually makes sense:

* Your lord has just screwed you and your families over and you are in a desparate situation.
* You want to survive and regain an honorable place in society.
* You know that the Shogun has a tendancy to reward people who exemplify his version of "samurai values".

I could see them resorting to an attack that they think, while risky, it could possibly lead to them being pardoned and therefore available to join the service of other lords and regain a position in society. Unfortunately for them, their choice was too extreme and earned them a death sentence instead.

However, since Japan loves tragic heroes (so much simpler that way), we get the romanticized version.

(Yoshitsune? Killed by his brother's order. Sugawara Michizane? Exiled, died, and became a ghost. Even Heike Monogatari is named for the losers.)

-Josh

[Tatsunoshi]

[Tornadoes28]