Brooklyn Museum - The Actor Ichikawa Yaozo III as Takebayashi Tadashichi from Chusingura - Katsukawa Shunei

was a

Samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

in the early

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He was involved in the revenge of the Forty-seven ''rōnin'' incident (also known as the Akō incident) as one of the ''

rōnin A ''rōnin'' ( ; ja, 浪人, , meaning 'drifter' or 'wanderer') was a samurai without a lord or master during the feudal period of Japan (1185–1868). A samurai became masterless upon the death of his master or after the loss of his master's ...

''. Takashige was originally a subordinate of the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

Asano Naganori was the ''daimyō'' of the Akō Domain in Japan (1675–1701). His title was ''Takumi no Kami'' (). He is known as the person who triggered a series of incidents retold in a story known as ''Chūshingura'' (involving the forty-seven rōnin), o ...

, master of

Akō Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Harima Province in what is now the southwestern portion of modern-day Hyōgo Prefecture. It was centered around Akō Castle, which is located in what is now the ...

Early life

Takashige was born in Akō in 1672. His family was originally from

Hangzhou Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whi ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

, China. His only brother was Takebayashi Tadataka. His grandfather Watanabe Kotonori was a

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

soldier. After he was captured by the Japanese forces during the

Japanese invasions of Korea Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, Kotonori settled down in the

Hiroshima domain The was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1601 to 1871. The Hiroshima Domain was based at Hiroshima Castle in Aki Province, in the modern city of Hiroshima, located in the Chūgoku region of the island of Ho ...

where he served the

Mōri clan The Mōri clan (毛利氏 ''Mōri-shi'') was a Japanese samurai clan descended from Ōe no Hiromoto. Ōe no Hiromoto was descended from the Fujiwara clan. The family's most illustrious member, Mōri Motonari, greatly expanded the clan's power ...

as a physician. Later, the family moved to Akō domain. Takashige's surname Takebayashi ({{lang, ja, 武林) is an alternative and indigenous name of Hangzhou.

Samurai

The master of Akō domain Asano Naganori was involved in a quarrel with another ''daimyō'' Kira Yoshihisa when they were having an audience with the Tokugawa ''shōgun''. Naganori injured Yoshihisa with his

katana A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the ''tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge fa ...

. This was seen as an irreverence by the shogunate. Naganori received the penalty of

Seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

and died. The incident left Takashige unemployed with great shame. After accepting

Ōishi Yoshio was the chamberlain (karō) of the Akō Domain in Harima Province (now Hyōgo Prefecture), Japan (1679 - 1701). He is known as the leader of the Forty-seven Rōnin in their 1702 revenge vendetta and thus the hero of the ''Chūshingura''. He is ...

's invitation, Takashige joined the squad of vendetta that sought the head of Kira Yoshihisa. Takeshige was affiliated with the front door squad and broke into Yoshihisa's house. Later he found an old man with white hair hiding. They identified the scar of this man as the scar left by Naganori. Takashige finished Yoshihisa's life with his katana after Hazama Mitsuoki stabbed the victim with a spear. The head of Yoshihisa was decapitated. Takashige and the other ronins presented his head in front of the tomb of Naganori in order to declare their success to their master. Takashige received the seppuku sentence in the year of 1703. He was 32 years old when he died. Samurai Suicides by seppuku 1672 births 1703 deaths