Sengaku-ji

This guide to Sengaku-ji in Tokyo starts at the well where, as legend has it, forty-seven ronin washed the blood from a severed head one snowy night before laying it at their master's grave. It traces the story back two years, to Lord Asano's public humiliation inside Edo Castle by the court official Kira, and the shogun's order that sent Asano to end his own life while Kira walked free. Oishi Kuranosuke led the ronin, spending nearly two years playing the fool in public to lull Kira's spies before the men made their move.