TRUST BROTHERS

“The samurai themselves, as we said it right in the first episode, you know, they are always actively and deliberately encouraging myth making. And the rise and fall of someone like Lord Kiso, you know, it did dramatize for them how precarious life was. Did it happen? It should have done if it didn't because a dramatic suicide is a good suicide and a good suicide is a memorable suicide.”

“Yoshitsune is informed, oh, there's no way that any horseman can, can ride down these cliffs. And he asks the local who's told him this, you know, well, can deer get down this cliff face? And he's told, yeah, the deer, they can get through. Why then, Yaschitzina exclaimed, it sounds like a veritable riding ground. If deer can get through, so can horses.”

“But the light was failing, and thin ice spread across the surrounding paddies. And Kiso's horse plunges up to its waist in mud, and it's immovable. No stirrup, no whip could move it. And Kiso looks back. He's very worried for Eme. And as he does so, his helmet tilts back. It kind of rocks back off his forehead. And at once, an enemy archer's arrow embeds itself there, splats straight into his forehead.”

“Yoritomo is establishing a military autocracy, autocracy, kind of veiled in the robes of the old imperial state. The emperor is still on the throne, but he's now completely neutralized. And the regime that Yoritomo establishes is very clearly a new beginning for Japan, and it is called by people a Bakufu, which is literally a government run from the headquarters of a general. I mean, he he is the guy who really establishes samurai rule, and it will endure for century after century after century.”

“Yoritomo, I think, is is not a man who is in any way swayed by emotion or sentiment. And he recognizes that Yoshitsune now is the only person who could conceivably rival him as the master of Japan. Yoshitsune has this reputation. He has the loyalty of all these men. Yoritomo hasn't fought, you know, a battle in this war. And so Yoritomo can recognize that if he is going to be completely secure, he has to get rid of his younger brother.”

“There is an intriguing detail from archaeology, admittedly from centuries after Tomoe lived. So there was, in 2022, there was excavation of a site of a battle that had been fought in 1580, and that covered the remains of a 105 individual warriors who had perished in this fight. And of those a 105, 35 had been women. So I think the evidence for there having been female samurai is much stronger than, say, the evidence for there having been female Vikings.”

“Tomoe recognizes that this is the end game, and so she charges this samurai captain, the guy who's famed for his strength. And we're told, she caught him in an iron grip, forced his head down to her pommel, kept it pinned there, twisted it round, cut it off, and tossed it away. And then she abandoned her arms and armor and fled toward the East.”

“Kumagai wrestles the Taira down onto the ground, and he tears off his adversary's helmet. And we're told, he beheld a youth in his sixteenth or seventeenth year, his face lightly powdered, his teeth blackened about the same age as his own son. Kumagai is so distraught at what he's done and at the way that he's brought death to this, brilliant young man that he ends up becoming a monk. He chucks in the samurai business completely.”

“Antoku's grandmother folds the little boy in her arms, and then she speaks probably the most famous last words in the entire history of the samurai, incredibly celebrated in Japan. And she tells the boy, down there beneath the waves, another capital. So another Kyoto awaits us. And then she jumps with him into the sea, and they sink.”

“Finally, the story goes, only Benkei, this colossal warrior monk, is left. And he pauses the besieging force of samurai, so intimidated by him that they withdraw. Benkei leans on his great naginata, his his halberd, and none of the the the enemy samurai dare to approach him. And all is still for several minutes, and then a gust of wind blows, and very, very slowly, Benkei keels over. And the samurai come forward to inspect him, and they realize that he's been dead for a while and only held up by the, all the, the arrows that have struck him through and are feathering him.”