Forty-Seven Rōnin Incident Begins

April 1700

In Edo Castle, Lord Asano Naganori drew his sword on the court official Kira Yoshinaka for a perceived insult and was ordered to commit seppuku the same day. His forty-seven retainers, now masterless rōnin, spent the next year planning their revenge. The affair would become Japan's defining parable of loyalty, honor, and law in collision.