47 Rōnin: The Ruthless Samurai That Defied The Shōgun | Ancient Black Ops

They were the elite special forces of medieval Japan governed by an

ancient

code The Way of the Samurai is death They have no other skill to sell except their ability to kill people They are obsessed with death at the heart of their world It is the deadliest sword ever fact when you take a japanese sword you really feel that it is almost alive your mission protect the honor of your clan there is no alternative absolutely impossible not to take revenge absolutely impossible the 47 roning were doing exactly what they had to do this is the true story of the 47 ronin one epic story of revenge in

ancient

Japan the last and greatest of the Samurai Black Ops is 1703 the city of Edo in Japan is a teeming metropolis is the capital of a major eastern power and the seat of a military dictatorship in In one of its posh suburbs, a senior government official has been enjoying a party for the cream of Edo society.

Lord Kira Yoshinaka has served the Shogun, Absolute Ruler of Japan, his entire life. He is an influential bureaucrat and has cleverly ensured that he and his family enjoy the protection of his master. King is an older man, he is a hatamoto, a high ranking Knight, we would say he is well married and his daughter has married extremely well and well connected, lives by the rules of Conformity and has made a name for himself with the Court's philosophy of obedience and adaptation if you know your place and perform where you are supposed to perform, the world will be a harmonious place, everything will work, everyone must be linked in this strong and very powerful hierarchy, everyone must do what they are told, but getting to the top he has made many formidable enemies a group has been worrying him for some time but this night he is relaxing a little he has had encouraging information the group seems to have disbanded turns out to be a fatal mistake because what I don't know is that 47

samurai

commandos are approaching his mansion and have the objective of finding him and killing him in the greatest secret.

A band of outlaws have resurrected an almost forgotten form of warfare and now they are hell-bent on unleashing terrible revenge when they Appeared in Edo, it was a huge shock and they were using every weapon, sword, spear, bow, everything and they knew how to use them, and Until now Lord Kira and his family are completely unaware of the danger they are in and are about to come. Face to face with a force that would become one of Japan's greatest legends, the 47 Ronin, just a few years earlier, the possibility of a violent attack against a high-ranking politician in Japan's ancient court would have been unthinkable.

Life at the Edo court in 1701 is extremely refined. Courtesy and correct behavior are everything, it might be a military dictatorship, but this is no place for the straight forward soldier type, it is a world that is the ultimate in perfect manners, artistic beauty and highly polished courtly etiquette, everything is so rigidly defined that the wrong shoelaces will get you in trouble everyone laughs behind their hands because you wear green on a Sunday there are all these kinds of rules that no one bothers to explain in this delicate world a high-born prince arrives with a serious attitude problem Since an Asano Naganori nobleman is required by law to spend 6 months a year at the Shogun's court to prove his loyalty, he has to fit in, keep his emotions in check and play the game, the problem is that he simply isn't cut out for it. work, you have these very intricate rituals and Kira is there, explain to people that you have to move there so you have to wait you have to nod you have to bow you have to walk backwards no no now then everything is incredibly delicate and intricate one wrong move everyone is going to laugh Aso's country house is far away Far from the refined Heirs of Edo, he is a man of the countryside and the highlands and his people are not the city type, above all, he belongs to a special class in Japan, a that defines the nation's military pride and tradition more than any other.

Aano is a

samurai

samurai. They were essentially a hereditary warrior class that was best known for ruling Japan for about 6 to 700 years until they were wiped out in the wake of modernization in the late 19th century. They are identified by their hairstyles. They carry two swords, so their clothing definitely. distinguishes fantasy myths ancient beginnings elevate your historical exploration to unparalleled heights with a historical success subscription. Don't miss our latest releases where classicist Nasle Haynes travels to Corfu to unravel the story of the Gorgon Medusa, one of the most iconic but misinterpreted. Figures from Greek mythology join Jasmine Elma as she dives into something people have been obsessed with throughout history history dragons where they come from what exactly a dragon is finally Dan Snow explores the ancient history of the Isles of the Fools and discover cemeteries built over thousands of years discover hundreds of hours of award-winning documentaries and historically successful Adree podcasts sign up for a special offer via the link in the description for when Asano arrives at court Japan has been at peace for 100 years, it's been a long time It's been a long time since anyone has seen real conflict, but the samurai are still special and everyone at the Edo court is well aware of their fierce military traditions.

Asano included. The Way of the Samurai is death and that was the way to face the battle to say that you have no ties to this world, you are only going to kill people, you have no other ability to sell except your ability to kill people, so that It becomes a death cult for them, they are obsessed with death, above all, the samurai are not afraid. The height of excellence for any warrior is bravery and the samurai take it to the extreme. Being a samurai is about mastering your body, your emotions, your skills and then honing them to the point that it is that total mastery that determines your ability to perform in battle, but in Japan in the 1700s, a samurai like Aano had a problem: they are an elite class of skilled soldiers in a country that has abolished war.

There is simply nothing people like Aano can do. The Shogun had issued a decree saying that there will be no more wars. stop spending money on castles when there is no fighting to be done and in fact in 1703 it is exactly 100 years after the last real battle of the samurai, everyone sitting there is the great-grandsons of the original samurai victors and they are arguing about How a samurai should behave and no one really knows that 18th century samurai or tudos may have never seen real war, but they still have all the pride you would expect from a group backed by an ancient military tradition and in the Aso estate.

The path of the samurai or bushy meant perfecting your horsemanship and keeping your fighting skills up to par in the shogun's palace. They were all effusive samurai. They had kept their fighting skills alive in the Hundred Years of Peace, but they were not what the samurai country was. If they were much stronger than those who had been weakened by years of court life, the Edo court is a world away from Aso's rural estate and he simply does not fit in there, but it is not because he is a rural gentleman. , he also has a Wild Streak asano is a problem asano is a problem child and there is some kind of Shogun or report and he doesn't say anything negative about asano but he does say that he liked to drink and he says that he likes ladies and that's something like that. he implied that he was a bit of a wasal and not real high ranking material.

The Shogun requires years to carry out certain official duties, but the prince does not have much idea of ​​proper court procedures, so the Shogun appoints the bureaucrat Lord. Kira to show him how to behave properly in court Kira is the ultimate Insider and Asano is a complete Outsider. It's a disaster waiting to happen. Kira has no real power. The only power he can wield is being fooled with people and fortunately, for him, there are many opportunities because he is in charge of explaining to these peasants who come out of nowhere how they are supposed to act in the shogun's palace and Kira is Make sure to show your student how much they have to learn.

Asan's pride in the land and the pleasure of showing it during long, tedious lessons on correct behavior. Two personalities are immediately on a collision course that will have devastating consequences. Something, do something in a short time. Kira's insulting attitude toward her student pushes Aano to the limit of his endurance. They really treated him like a redneck uh and in the end he felt so insulted that he just couldn't take it anymore, he just pulled out his sword and slashed at Aira Aira, of course, that was absolutely forbidden, it would be like pulling out your gun at Buckingham Palace . just don't do it Aso's attack on Lord Kira is a shocking event and the entire Edo Society is stunned, no one has done something like this before in the shogun's palace, it would have been bad enough if he had simply drawn his sword, but wounding a government minister was unforgivable asano has really crossed the line it doesn't take long for the Shogun to decide what to do with this troublesome young prince the only thing they could really do as punishment was order asano to commit suicide the Shogun's decision is unequivocal asano has to die preferably as soon as possible as a samurai he has been allowed a unique form of execution The honorable way for asano to accept his fate is to die by his own hand but it has to be done in a very specific way established by law and tradition, it is required exceptional bravery to carry it out, it is called seppuku seppuku means cutting the belly and is an incredibly painful way to die, as far as a samurai can endure the greatest pain. way to die, it will take you 2 or 3 days to slowly bleed to death, you will be in agony and that's why they did it because anyone can step on your own throat, anyone can jump off a cliff, that's what civilians would do, but a samurai You have to make the boldest choice Sabuku originated in the heat of samurai war Slitting your throat or disemboweling yourself was a way to show that you were not afraid of a painful death It was the ultimate challenge if you knew you were being defeated while the battle rages All around them the castle is on fire, if they were being defeated they would simply accept their fate, pull out a knife and cut open their bellies, this would let them bleed out and die, but this was done by their own hands.

He was telling the enemy I am still a warrior, you will never take me away. I have my honor. Asano may be dead, but the consequences reverberate far and wide. His country headquarters are in AKO, 400 miles away. It is a large castle and a substantial estate with hundreds of loyalists. Samurai who has served the Aso family for generations when the terrible news of the crime, the misfortune and the death of a healthy man is read, the truth begins to sink in, they knew what was going to happen, that the castle would be taken and the lands taken, they would not have them. jobs would have no leader so their lives would be destroyed almost 400 samurai formerly under aso's command now have nowhere to go they have lost their jobs and face a dramatic fall in status the term for a leaderless samurai is a ronin or a wanderer if you're a samurai and you lose your job, there's no minor trade, no one hires, no one wants a samurai from a failed domain, you set adrift, you're Flom and jets, some, you're rorin, you're a wave man who probably just You saw. a wire skill that was the ability to hit people and kill them, losing your master is the worst thing that can happen to a samurai and many never recover from the catastrophic loss of status, they would really become traveling mercenary soldiers, so they were searched.

As troublemakers, the Ronin in Edo, which is now Tokyo, caused a lot of trouble. You know, they fought, fought and probably drank asano. They may not have left Hes, but there are people who are loyal to him and one in particular is an important servant of the family. named Oishi Yoshio is a faithful guardian known as Sano since childhood Oi was probably responsible for Aano's education Asano is in modern Paran the son of a broken home his father dies when he was eight or nine years old he was raised by the samurai when a sonor misbehaves when causing this problem.

I'm sure Oisi thinks this is my fault. I have to deal with this somehow with nowhere to turn. The Ronin make Oishi their leader. They are cornered and want action. They want Oishi to emerge. with a plan, in addition to losing their jobs, they are outraged because they think the execution was unjust, in particular, they are angry because Kira has not been arrested before their eyes and Aso's death has all the characteristics of an illegal murder, it's like If your master has been killed and for a samurai that means only one thing: a samurai who doesn't take revenge is not a real samurai, they would laugh at him, so what happens is that if a member of your family, usually a highest ranking member, die, it's your duty, if not law, is that you have to go and kill his murderer, so sometimes samurai couldn't even inherit their lands unless they avenged their father's death. , this could take years of tracking down the killer until he is foundyou killed and when you did it.

He would bring the head home as proof that he committed Revenge, the Ronin now demands a Death or Glory Revenge attack immediately, even if it is suicidally dangerous, but Oishi knows that is exactly what Kira and the Shogun expect, so who advises caution, wants the Ronin. to put his faith in the shogun's justice Oishi is actually one of the pacifists he is a dove he said he says well we better do what we are told there is a group of other samurai of a say no we are going to lay siege to the castle let's begin a siege Let's start a fight, let's attack Kira right now.

Oishi is the one who says: No, we must obey the Shogun, we must do whatever. True, although apparently calm, Oishi is as outraged as the Ronin, but he wants justice more than revenge, he hopes that Kira is punished, that would at least mean some kind of justice and then comes the news that Oishi didn't expect Kira to be completely exonerated. It is only when Kira gets her way and when it becomes clear that there is no hope for them that this Vendetta officially begins, their fates are now sealed and for Oishi there can only be one course of action, there was only one thing they could do, absolutely impossible, no.

Taking revenge is absolutely impossible. Oishi wants revenge but knows that the full frontal assault favored by the young Ronin will be nothing more than a gesture, he wants Kira dead and his vision depends on organization and stealth, if it works it will be a proper samurai revenge, but it will also be a tremendously difficult task. Kira always travels with a large force of bodyguards. The only way to hit him will be at home, but she is heavily defended and is in a high security district surrounded by government buildings. Not only will the attack have to be coordinated from her base 400 miles away, it's already starting to seem like an impossible job to make matters worse.

Kira's agents track Oishi's every move as Kira anxiously waits to see what he and his Ronin will do next: will they launch a symbolic attack or accept his fall and live out his days as the despised Ronin Oishi decides to play a long game and wait and while wait is going to represent an elaborate deception, their plan was to show the government that they were not going to take revenge, which is very difficult because at that time Japan was a police state, the shogun's government had spies everywhere, there were secret police in everywhere and anything Ron did would have been immediately reported to the Shogun, they would have known about it and would have been arrested immediately. mislead Kira and the shogun's spies Oishi pretends to do what Kira expected him to do and gives up, he even pretends to let his life pass him by and goes to gisha houses where he gets drunk, so Ronan began to drink and order his life dissolute, which is smart, very smart because they weren't that kind of people to start with a complete change of character and sure enough, Kira's spies faithfully report that Oishi appears to be a broken man, gradually Kira and his agents come to believe that Oishi is finished off and his men have dispersed with Kira's suspicions dispelled.

Oishi has another problem: how to physically get his men from AKO to the capital without being seen seems like a nearly impossible task, so in a classic Special Forces deception maneuver, he instructs his men to go down. They cover themselves and live ordinary lives like sleepers, they all disappeared, secretly scattered with the wind. More than 2 years pass and gradually the Edo court forgets the terrible affair of aano naganori as the winter of 1703 approaches and the nights grow darker. Oishi senses that his plan is ready, he spreads the word to the scattered sleeper units to head to Edo secretly.

It's time to kill Kira as if he were on the eve of a powerful battle. Each man dresses with meticulous care and ritual. Precision for the samurai who go to battle for their Lord and at the heart of the ronin preparations is the sword, a weapon of devastating ferocity and the samurai are the only class in Japanese society that are allowed to carry them at all. over centuries of development. The samurai or bushy sword has been sharpened to a pinnacle of unrivaled perfection. anywhere the Japanese sword is one of the wonders of the world it is the best metal work ever done at any time in history anywhere the Japanese sword is the life of the Bushi that was his status his culture and his life and its power because Throughout Japanese history, the bushy and the sword have had complete control over the country using techniques unknown outside of Japan.

Blacksmiths combine razor sharpness with almost indestructible hardness. They take the sword concept to another level. Swords are designed to be made from composite ingots of Steel, so you have very hard steel for the edge, softer iron for the core, medium hard steel for the sights and back and those different iron ingots are fused together. and then they are hammered into the entire sheet to obtain this artificially made compound. steel structure the curved shape of the samurai sword ensures that each blow automatically incorporates a cutting action that dramatically increases its destructive power it is a wonder of the samurai world a unique part of your armory and central to who you are when you pick up a japanese sword you really can feel it, it's not just a piece of metal, it actually feels almost alive and you can feel the energy that has gone into turning it into the skill, the design, the shape, the sword is a weapon, it is an absolutely lethal weapon. , but it is a masterpiece. of technology and art, but it is not just the technology that makes the sword such a powerful part of the samurai identity.

Taking care of it and ensuring its optimal effectiveness through constant sharpening and polishing is essential for samurai training. Not so much a weapon as a Martial Way of Life Japanese swords require a certain degree of care to remain particularly sharp. Polishing your sword or always keeping it very sharp is very similar to the type of physical and mental training that as a samurai you must perform in order to achieve stillness of mind and maximum strength of your body, but Oishi knows that not even the best sword will protect his men against the state forces in Edo.

You will need the largest armory you can gather and for that you dig. deep in the samurai battle past in the thick of battle, um, they were much more likely to use spears, bows and arrows, axes, whatever they had on hand, the Ronin returned to their roots and adopted techniques and weapons long forgotten from the medieval battlefield. They carried themselves in an incredibly practical manner and behaved like real samurai, as people would have behaved in the Middle Ages. They were armed with strange weapons. They had clubs with spears. They had axes to break down doors. They were incredibly practical tools.

Weapons, the Ronin will need something else if they are to prevail in a full-scale assault. The traditional armor is world class and combines lightness and flexibility with the ability to withstand anything the battle can throw at it if they can seize any Oishi and his men will be well served by their grandfathers' armor. It's primarily made of steel with silk braiding that holds it all together and is then coated in lacquer to protect it from the elements. Makes it a very mobile suit of armor. great dexterity and so the speed of movement is not limited the arm on the outside is excellent but on the inside it is very vulnerable and the same with the areas around the lower part of the body now the strong mass of the body part is is excellent and Of course, it's also designed in such a way that you still have plenty of movement left and right and back and forth.

It's a fantastic balancing act: you have protection on one side and mobility on the other, but when choosing your armor, the Ronin have a problem after years of peace, few have any and buying new armor, even if they can afford it, will be a great security gift, so many of the Ronin have to improvise. Their armor was made from pieces of remains they found from firefighters. helmets and uh uh and kind of rags and pieces of leather stuck together, why do they do that? Because if you walk into the armor store and say: I would like 47 samurai armor, please, a flag will go up, someone is going to be worried because the Ronin have done everything they can to prepare for battle a band of fighters like Japan has never seen before. has seen and a mission like no other and then Oishi has a breakthrough, his own intelligence sources have managed to obtain detailed information about Kira.

They knew where his house was, they had spied the land, they knew the layout of the building and then there is another problem before Oishi's men can get close to Kira's house, they have to get through a huge perimeter wall heavily defended by a Japanese. A house like that has a very strong wall and a fairly high wall, you are talking about very heavy defenses, it is not like a modern house, it has no windows or glass windows, so it is a mini castle and even if they can overcome the wall, the Ronin. He won't have the advantage of a surprise attack for long to move around Kira's house undetected.

It will be almost impossible. The samurai house is designed to detect intruders. They didn't have electronic burglar alarms, but they did have other ways to detect intruders on the floor or on the road. The mats that tatami mats are placed in the house are designed to detect footsteps and then there is another problem. The house is full of secret hiding places to buy time for Kira to escape. It makes a quick operation even more difficult for Oishi's men. and time is critical because there is a massive garrison of the shogun's army nearby, any delay and the Ronin will be eliminated very quickly and Kira has his own security force permanently stationed within the house compound, and once inside the house of Kira, the Ronin will have minutes to find, capture and execute Kira before backup troops arrive everything is starting to look like a long shot at best the wait time is up the 47 Ronin must enter they have waited two years to do it uh it's a perfect

black

op that they go in at night it's snowing it's raining now it's a race against time Oishi knows that as he gets closer to his goal, the shogun's army will be summoned against him and his little boy. group of men, the chances of them being killed before reaching Kira are extremely high, Oishi.

He now orders his men into action, units advancing through side streets and undergrowth, getting into position to take the complex and prevent the neighbors from raising the alarm. When the attack begins, two units announce that the Ronin are on official business and surprisingly It works when they started the attack on the compound, uh, part of the ronin's job was to knock on the neighbors' doors and say don't panic, there's nothing to worry about, go back to bed, it's just a vendetta because vendettas They're actually legal, but there's a very strict set of regulations about what they do.

What I wanted the neighbors to do was say, "Okay, the Shogun approves, we'll go back to bed." Oishi's next challenge is to take his men to the complex in a double strategy: one Strike Force scales the perimeter walls while a second unit takes the guards at the doors they made people climb the walls there would be guards inside and there was a fight in the courtyard with the guards. The Ronin who scaled the walls must now open the doors but the guards refuse to hand over the keys. all adding time and attracting attention the attack is already losing vital momentum there is only one option you have to break the locks all the force of the roning inside the complex Kira's own soldiers must now be immobilized and locked in their barracks they enter with these iron clamps They push on the doors to keep the soldiers in the barracks, so they have neutralized a large part of Kira's soldiers.

Now the Ronin need to take the house from the inside. Kira is asleep along with her family, only speed, cruelty and stealth will get the attackers through. Kira's personal bodyguards will fight with all their might to repel the attackers while Kira fights to escape. The Ronin begin a frantic wave that sweeps through the massive complex, knowing that at any moment the might of the Japanese National Army could be summoned against them. The Japanese house has very little furniture, everything is stored in closets with sliding doors, so they would have had to make their way through the house and open all the closets to see where it was hiding.

With the clock almost up, the Ronin appear to have missed the target in a desperate measure. A group of attackers are sent to check one last possible hiding place, they did not find it, so they had to go out and look around in the gardens and it is in the gardens where Kira is found and took advantage of the moment when Oishi and his Ronin have been waiting. for two long years it has come Kira has the option to take the honorable path and commit zuku but he is too cowardly he must die a shameful death but simply killing Kira is not enough, they have to try and account for the death and Once again , Oishi resorts to the traditional convention ofsamurai The samurai are a cult of headhunters.

They are rewarded for the types of heads they recover, the position and prestige of the head or the number of heads. Their entire honor system is based on quality. of the decapitated head they return home with and according to the samurai code there is only one person who can reward them their Master asano if you want to talk about going medieval that is exactly what the 47 Ronin did they walked five miles to leave their Head to the Tomb of Aso, that is an incredible thing for the Samurai now that the Ronin have restored the honor of their master and have followed the path of the true samurai like no one has done for almost 100 years, they have no place in the realm of the living and they are resigned to meeting asano in death they turn themselves in to the authorities and within days they are all dead by sauko these men had kept their martial skills alive for 100 years when they didn't really need them for battle they were not corrupted by the court life and They were probably really tough peasants who simply wouldn't take that kind of treatment as an insult and resisted it as Edo recovers from the extraordinary attack, the 47 Ronin become instant celebrities even if the Shogun's repressive regime forbids open discussion of the terrible events of today.

Lord Oishi and his followers are still celebrated as symbols of utmost loyalty and are honored as heroes in Japan by