Karō
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karō (家老, house elder) were top-ranking samurai officials and advisors in service to the daimyo of feudal Japan.
In the Edo period, the policy of sankin kōtai required each daimyo to place a karō in Edo and another in the home han (feudal domain). The karō in the han was called the jodai karō (城代), while the one in Edo was called the Edo karō (江戸家老).
An example of events involving a karō comes from one of the most famous of all samurai tales, Kanadehon Chushingura. The final Asano daimyo of the Ako han was Asano Naganori. While he was in Edo, he was sentenced to commit seppuku for the offense of drawing a sword against Kira Yoshinaka in Edo Castle. When the shogunate abolished the Ako han, all the Ako samurai became ronin. Oishi Kuranosuke, the jodai karō, led 46 other ronin in a vendetta against Kira. As a result of his leadership in the Forty-seven Ronin affair, Oishi went down in history as the most famous of all karō.
The shogunate post of rōjū (Elder) had many similarities to that of karō.
