Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th by William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich

Shogun. It was considered an honor of course, but also a way of keeping an eye on the underlings.
    “This daimyo arrives at the court, accompanied by his knights, forty-seven samurai. He makes a shambles of things with his behavior from the first day. He understands nothing of what the Japanese court considers to be the higher arts of a cultured man. It might seem strange to us, but here you have these tough samurai warriors, and I do mean tough. Good lord, man to man, they’d have cut any of our medieval knights to ribbons. Yet they place great stock in being cultured, being able to arrange flowers, to come up with an appropriate poem while watching cherry blossoms fall, to properly serve tea.
    “Frankly, we aren’t all that different, sir, though, the way we greet each other, the expectations for an officer in combat to show total indifference to danger, the way a cultured man offers another a drink and a cigar, the old rituals of the regimental mess that you once knew. It is a way of marking a man and his social class.”
    Winston grunted and nodded in agreement, a crease of a smile lighting his features with old memories of long ago in Africa and India.
    “So the humiliation gets worse by the day,” Cecil continues, “and then enters the Court Chamberlain, the master of ceremonies we would call him.”
    “And he won’t help,” Winston interjects.
    Cecil nodded. He could see that Winston was getting involved in the story.
    “Won’t help unless a bribe is paid. The daimyo is from a poor province, but beyond the issue of money, his pride forbids him from lowering himself thus, to pay a bribe to a simpering court official.”
    “I think I can see where this is going,” Winston interjected, pausing then to prepare and light a cigar, thus giving time for Cecil to continue.
    “Matters reach a head when the daimyo is humiliated once too often in front of the Emperor, the entire court laughing behind their sleeves when he fumbles a ceremony. Drawing his blade, he turns on the Chamberlain, who flees; the Emperor’s guards jump upon the outraged daimyo and disarm him.
    “Well now, he has violated a sacred court law. It does not matter the provocation, he has drawn a blade in the presence of the Emperor and there is only one recourse left. Dishonored, he must commit seppuku.”
    “You mean hara-kiri? Is it true they actually cut their stomachs open?” Winston asked, and Cecil could sense an almost schoolboy curiosity about the details.
    “In the full ceremony, yes,” Cecil replied, “but usually there is just a ritual cut, or for the braver, a thrust of the blade into the stomach, and then a second beheads the poor devil. So thus it is done. The offending daimyo dies, and in the West that is where the story would die as well.”
    “Obviously this leads us back to the matter at hand, this coup attempt,” Winston said.
    And Cecil realized that though Winston did love a good story, he also wanted the point to be made as quickly as possible, so he nodded.
    “It makes a powerful point. The forty-seven samurai who had come with their now dead daimyo are disgraced as well. In their world, they had failed to protect their lord. No other house will take them in, even if they sought that, but they did not. They became ronin. A ronin is a samurai who has no lord to serve. Without a lord he has no colors to wear, he is something of a societal outcast, in fact he is seen as on the borderline of the law, for many ronin turn to robbery and murder.
    “The Emperor, upon the punishment death of the rather tragic daimyo, passes a decree that the matter is settled once and forever. Law had been broken in the court, penalty exacted, case is closed.
    “The forty-seven samurai, who were the daimyo’s retainers, are now completely disgraced by the Emperor’s decree. In their culture, it is they who are at fault.”
    “How so? The bloody fool should have paid the bribe and be done with it, or got someone of influence to put