One spring day in 1701 there was an altercation in Edo Castle. Perceiving insult, a local lord drew his sword, an act considered a capital offense. Ordered to commit suicide he did so, leaving his clan leaderless. On a snowy day at the end of 1702, these ronin (masterless samurai), some 45 of them, marched on the mansion of the man they held responsible, decapitated him and offered his head at the grave of their leader. The Tokugawa government demanded their own mass suicide and this was accomplished in the early spring of 1703, nearly two years after the original offense.
Though instances of extreme fidelity were not wanting in Japan at that time, this one appealed. The incident was re-created on the stage less than two weeks after the mass suicide and, though this performance was closed by the authorities after only three performances, others succeeded it.
"Chushingura," properly shorn of contemporary trappings, became a stage hit and shortly it was serving as an inspiration for fashion and popular light reading, and as a subject for the prevalent woodblock prints of the period. It seems to have seized the popular imagination and is still the most popular and lasting of Japanese plays.