Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1889-07-11
A BANQUET OF DEATH
One of the Most Thrilling Episodes Re
corded in .Jananese Historx

One of the Most Thrilling Episodes Re-
corded in Japanese History.
During the civil war in Japan that
broke out upon the death of the Sho-
gun (military Emperor) Nobunago, in
the closing years of the sixteenth cent
ury, occurred the following incident.
Shlbata, brother-in-law to the dead
Shotgun, had espoused the cause of the
iatter's son. Nobutaku. against the de-
signs of the inscriptions Hideyoshi,
the Japanese Napoleon BOnaparte OF
that age. The fortunes of war turned
against Nobutaku. and his gallant
General. Shibata, was compelled to re-
treat through the mountains into his
own province, and shut himself up
with some five hundred of his faithful
vassals in his ancestral castle at
Fukui. Hideyoshi, breathing out
vengeance against the enemy who had
SO long defied him. followed in hur-
ried pursuit, and, pitching his camp
on Atago mountain before the castle
of Shibata, vowed never to remove t
hence until he had the head of his foe.
Day after day the siege was pressed
closer and closer, and Shibata and his
brave little garrison found it more and
more difficult to repulse the furious
assaults of their enemies, who out
numbered them twenty to one. To the
danger from the foe without the walls
was soon added the horrible prospect
of starvation within. Finally, finding
his case altogether hopeless, Shibata
called together the surviving remnant
of his little band and thus addressed
them:
'.My beloved followers, it often be-
hoOves the warrior to choose between
death with glory and life with igno-
miny; between honorable self-destruc-
ton and captivity in the hands of an
insolent foe. Our fortunes have
brought us to the necessity of making
such a choice. Only three things are
possible-to remain here and starve
like dogs, to sally out to battle and
court death from hostile weapons, or
to destroy ourselves as becomes brave
soldiers who would die by their own
swords rather than by those of the
enemy"
With one accord the retainers raised
their voice for hara-Giri, or suicide.
That night Shibata had splendid
banquet prepared from the provisions
still left. and he ordered the men to
saturate the woodwork of the castle
with oil. and to heap up piles of COM
bustible material in the lower rooms.
When all was in readiness the women
within the castle were called, and Shi-
bata said to his wife: You and the
other women may now quietly pass
through the gates. and under cover of
the night, it is possible you can escape
detection by our foes. We shall re-
main here to die. as becomes the lords
and retainers of the house of Shibata "
Then the sister of Nobunago, with a
spirit that was as brave as that of her
husband, speaking for herself and the
other women, said to her lord: 81,
too. am sprung from lineage no less
noble than that of my husband. Why,
then, should he deny to me and my
women the honor he and his retainers
have planned for themselves? A thou
sand times to be preferred is the priv
ilege of dying at the hands of those
that love us, than the possibility of
falling into the power of Hideyoshi's
butchers"
= AT midnight the sentinels were called
off from the walls. and all assembled in
a large upper room of the castle. Here
was served the banquet that had been
prepared. The doomed little company
ate, and drank, and danced, and sang
songs of defiance to their foes. At a
signal from Shibata, the servants be-
low fired the castle in a score of
places, and at the same instant the |
warriors sprang to their feet, and the |
women. chanting their death-song.
received the dirks of their husbands
and fathers into their hearts. Then. |
while the lights from their burning |
castle, that turned the night into day,
revealed to Shibata and his retainers
the camp of the besieging army on the
wooded heights of Atago. they raised
their voices together in one wild cry of
defiant hate to the foe whose anticipat-
ed vengeance they had baked. This
was the last sound that Hideyoshi and
his astonished soldiers heard from the
castle, for each of the little band.
kneeling on the floor in grim and ter
rible silence, died the coveted death
of the vanquished warrior-that of the
dreadful hara-kiri.-N. Y. Ledger.