"Revenge" is a common theme in many dramas and movies. In old Japan, especially among the samurai, if someone wronged you, your family, or your lord, you were expected to take revenge for that wrong.
This is a fascinating story of revenge, and shows that the blood of a samurai runs thick in the veins of his children.
It happened in August of 1783, during the reign of the 10th Shogun, Ieshige, in Seki-juku, Mie Prefecture, along the old Tokaido. A young girl tried to take revenge on the renegade samurai who killed her father.
The story begins in 1765, in Kurume, Kyushu. Maki Tozaemon was a sword instructor for the Arima Domain in Kurume, Kyushu. One day, Maki and his peer, Ono Motonari, got into an argument, and Ono drew his sword and cut Maki down. Ono realized that he had committed murder, and that he would be forced to commit seppuku for his crime. Fearing for his life, he fled Kyushu and came to the modern day Mie Prefecture region, where he changed his name to Kobayashi Gundayu, and served the Kameyama Domain in Mie Prefecture.
Determined to avenge her husband, Maki Tozaemon's young wife secretly followed Ono via Osaka and Kyoto to Kameyama, but she was pregnant at the time and was ready to give birth when she arrived at the Seki-juku post town along the Tokaido highway. She stopped at an inn called Yamadaya in Seki-juku, just over the Suzuka Pass, and explained the purpose of her quest to the kindly innkeeper and his wife. Unfortunately, she was so exhausted by the ordeal that she died while giving birth to a girl, who was then protected and raised by the owners of Yamadaya.
Shobei, the owner of Yamadaya, was moved by the story he heard from the afflicted woman, and after her death, out of a sense of chivalry, he decided to raise the girl, named Koman, until she was able to fulfill her mother's dying wish to avenge her murdered husband.
He then organised to have Koman trained at the dojo of Sakakibara Gonpachiro, a master of swordsmanship in Kameyama. The master too learned of Koman's situation and was impressed by her desire for revenge, teaching her the swordsmanship necessary to defeat her family's arch enemy.
Ono (now known as Kobayashi), who had killed her father, had no idea that he was the target of revenge. He believed he had gotten away with murder!
Koman had been watching Kobayashi for six years, training rigorously at the dojo. Then, one day in August in 1783, Koman met and confronted Kobayashi Gundayu on the streets of Kameyama Castle Town, in front of the castle gates.
The story goes that like a true samurai, she introduced herself and explained why she was facing Kobayashi, and challenged him to a duel of revenge. They drew their swords. Kobayashi was large and experienced. He was sure he could not lose to a 17-year-old girl. She was smaller and less experienced than Kobayashi. After a quick clash of swords, Kobayashi fell, cut down by Koman's sword. Koman was victorious!
The story of the young woman who avenged her late father soon spread throughout Japan. Many travellers on the Tokaido chose to stay at the Yamadaya, and as a result, the inn became very successful. The Yadaya is now the Aizuya, a traditional restaurant along one of the most beautiful old Edo period townscapes remaining along the Tokaido.
Koman died in 1803 at the age of 38. Her grave and monument are located next to the main hall of Fukuzo-ji Temple at Seki-juku. The large "Gravestone of Seki no Koman" is the monument, and the Jizo statue standing quietly to the left is Koman's grave.
