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| Kira's residence |
31p
That painful story has been handed down over the years.
Kouzukenosuke often went out to the tea ceremony. However, he
was very careful of enemies. So he decided to change his name, the
figure of Kago's name(palanquin) and his attendants names. Also
there were more than hundreds of samurai at the Kira's residence
of Honjyo. Some of these samurais followed Yoshichika who was
adopted into the Kira family from the Uesugi family, and others were
the samurai of the Kira family.
On December 2th, Kuranosuke gathered his comrades together
under the pretext of holding the Tanomoshikou(the union that they
pooled their money from each other and gave money out) at the
restaurant in front of the Fukagawa Hachiman shrine.
Kuranosuke showed the Shuisho(prospectus) was ready to break
into Kira's residence "message of Asano-Takuminokami'sretainers"
and Shinmon-seishi(written pledge that was sworn by god).
32p
The comrades who went inside and guarded the outside of the
residence had decided that their purpose was to kill Kozukenosuke,
whatever the consequences. They had planned the attack and had
the mental attitude to carry it out. They did not mind sacrificing
their lines to kill Kozukenosuke.
They discussed the revenge in detail with comrades and decided
the next matters. The night before the act of revenge, all of them
were to firstly gather at three places and then they were to lastly
gather at Horibe-Yasubei's house. The time of revenge was set at
4 o'clock a.m. and their passwords were "Mountain" and "River."
Their trade mark was to wear all brack with the only white being
the sleeves.
The next day, Otaka-Gengo heard "The tea party will be held in
Kira's residence on December 5th." He could get the information
out of his tea-ceremony teacher, Souhen Yamada, because he was
on good terms with his teacher. They foresaw that as Kouzukenosuke
would be in his residence early in the morning on 6th of December,
they made this the time for the plan for revenge. But this tea party
was postponed and the retaliation was also postponed.
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