nemandawara jo 2014

Nemandawara-Joa samurai slaughter from ‘Bayko Baron’

• Toranaga Isi has been tasked to take the castle

• His first attempt at negotiation having failed…

• … Toranaga must besiege the place – but that won’t take long with the new-fangled cannon the Portuguese have given him

• Built largely of wood the keep will not resist for long

• Word arrives that the famed Takeda cavalry are on the way to break the siege

• Toranaga lines up his men, they are ashigaru, inferior to true samurai – but they are also teppu-tai (matchlock men)

• The Takeda arrive

• Seeing the inferiority of their enemy they launch into an immediate charge

• Across the field the ashigaru sweat and wait as the ground thunders under them

• Their terror disappears in a sheet of acrid smoke

As the smoke settles the ashigaru watch their enemy and their fears run for their lives – the code of bushido has finally met the

Age of Gunpowder

• Crisis over the cannon go back into action

… and shortly Nemandawara begins to burn

• Refusing to be burned to death the castellan – Hideaki – leads his men in a last banzai charge

Taken alive before he can commit seppuku, Hideaki takes his place in the final ceremony – the headcount. While Toranaga congratulates himself that the endless

in-fighting is now over.