| Please note: This article is about the first son of the Mirumoto Daimyō Mirumoto Masashige. For other uses of the term, please see Ichiro (disambiguation). |
| Ichirō (II) | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born: | Unknown |
| Died: | - |
| Parents: | Mirumoto Masashige (adopted) |
| People | |
Mirumoto Ichirō was the adopted son [1] of the Mirumoto Daimyō Mirumoto Masashige. [2]
Peasant[]
Dragon Clan's fertility had been in decline for a long time and for unknown reasons. Peasants and samurai alike were having fewer children. As a result, to keep their numbers up, samurai families had been quietly adopting peasant children judged to have “sufficient spiritual merit. Ichirō, who was peasant-born, was adopted by Mirumoto Masashige. [3]
Dragon Clan[]
Ichirō was a passionate young man who grew up believing he was the biological son of Mirumoto Masashige and believing firmly in the karmic right of samurai to rule over heimin. Once Ichirō reached his gempuku, Masashige confessed the truth. When Ichirō learned of his origins he denounced his father as a hypocrite. Masashige criticized the Perfect Land Sect on the one hand and, on the other, adopt a peasant as his own son, a practice considered to undermine the hierarchy of the Celestial Order. Ichirō abandoned his position and became a rōnin. [4]
Rōnin[]
Mirumoto Ichirō vanished in 1120, and appeared three years later [2] in White Flower Village, [5] a hidden village within the Dragon lands as the strong right arm of Hige, the leader of the Perfect Land Sect. [2] Ichirō loved his father deep down and might reconcile if Masashige was also willing to bend. [6]
Meeting Mitsu[]
Ichirō, Satto, and three peasant followers of the sect, Torao, Hoshu, and Yuki, where at an abandoned monastery inside the edge of Dragon lands when they eventually met Togashi Mitsu, the Dragon Clan's heir, under the nickname of Minoru, accompanied by Akio and Kane. The newcomers accepted to pass the winter with them within the monastery. [7]
Conclave of the Brotherhood[]
In 1124 the Brotherhood of Shinsei held their annual conclave at the Mountain Song Temple under the hospitality of Masashige, being its main agenda item a vote on whether to formally bestow the label of False Path on the Perfect Land Sect, with the risk to fall into a violent schism. Ichirō attended the conclave and there he revealed not only his own identity and his father's hypocrisy, but the sheer scale of peasant adoption among the Dragon Clan. He recited the names of samurai he knew had heimin blood within the last three generations. [8]
Shinsei's Reincarnation[]
During the conclave some incidents happened, and eventually it was exposed that a peasant woman named Senzai was the reincarnation of Shinsei, the Little Teacher. She told to the conclave the Perfect Land did not exist, and the words of the kie had no power to free souls from the wheel of rebirth. Bur his moral message was correct: the samurai of Rokugan had indeed lost their way, and the Empire as a whole; all of Rokugani society was out of balance. The very concept of the Celestial Order had been warped over time, becoming a too-rigid system used to justify the oppression of those below for the gratification of those above. The effects of her declaration would ripple far beyond the conclave itself over time. Some Perfect Land communities broke up, others vowed to create the Perfect Land in the Mortal Realm, by righting what had gone wrong. [9]
See also[]
External Links[]
- Ichirō (Seekers of Wisdom)
References
- ↑ Imperfect Land, p. 3
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Snow and Sun, by Marie Brennan
- ↑ Imperfect Land, p. 12
- ↑ Imperfect Land, pp. 12, 27
- ↑ Like Seeds on the Wind, by Marie Brennan
- ↑ Imperfect Land, p. 14
- ↑ Questionable Shelter, by Marie Brennan
- ↑ Imperfect Land, pp. 2-3, 12, 31
- ↑ Imperfect Land, pp. 23-25
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