The Castle Conundrum

「男にとって体の傷は勇気の証しいわば男の勲章だ」

『聖闘士星矢』

"Scars are proof of courage! Medals of manhood!"

"Saint Seiya"

Added my thoughts on the Tatarigoroshi chapter of Higurashi: When They Cry, as well as for the first of the console-exclusive arcs (Taraimawashi), so those interested can check the memo page for my playthrough of Higurashi: When They Cry.

After many military victories, warlord Oda Nobunaga is close to becoming the first to unify the whole of Japan under the rule of one single person, but there are still factions that resist him. Araki Murashige, who was once part of the Oda forces, however rebels against his former master, returning to his home base of Arioka Castle (Itami Castle) and siding with the Mouri forces and Honganji in their resistance against the Oda forces. This results in the Siege of Arioka Castle in 1578. The location of Arioka Castle, which includes the town itself within its walls, makes it a defensive stronghold and they manage to ward off an initial siege by the Oda forces, but as times passes by, nearby allied strongholds fall or switch sides to Oda, while reinforcements from the Mouri and Honganji forces barely make their way to Arioka, slowly isolating the castle from its allies. It's a stressful period for everyone within the castle grounds, from the warriors in the castle to the villagers in the castle town, so it is internal turmoil within the castle grounds that is worrying Murashige, as he fears that will demoralize the people. When several inexplicable events occur within the castle, like an impossible murder or a decapitated head suddenly contorting its face, Murashige realizes he has to find an explanation for this happenings quickly or it might eventually lead to the fall of Arioka Castle. While Murashige himself can't figure this out on his own, he knows a particularly clever person who probably can. For some months earlier, Murashige had Kuroda Kanbei imprisoned in his castle. Kanbei, an old acquaintance of Murashige, had come to Murashige to convince him to surrender to Oda, knowing very well that this disrespectful act would probably mean his own death, but to everyone's surprise Murashige did not order Kanbei's death, but had him put in the dungeon, a sentence more humiliating to Kanbei than a warrior's death. But now Murashige needs Kanbei's help, as his prisoner is also the smartest person he knows, and indeed, his prisoner can always eventually solve Murashige's impossible mysteries for him, but what good will that do as Oda's forces slowly creep closer to Arioka Castle in Yonezawa Honobu's 2021 novel Kokuroujou ("The Castle with the Dark Prison") which also has the English title The Arioka Citadel Case. 

Released in 2021, Yonezawa's historical mystery novel received incredible critical acclaim not only among mystery readers, but beyond that too. The Arioka Citadel Case not only managed to rank in first place in all of the major annual mystery rankings organized by various publishers, but also managed to rank high in several rankings for historical novels, it won the 12th Yamada Fuutarou Award and in 2022, it was announced that The Arioka Citadel Case was the 166th winner of the Naoki Prize, easily one of the most important literature awards in Japan. With all the praise it got, I knew I had to read this book eventually, though I have to admit I thought I'd be reading this much later. For one, it's a historical mystery, and I'm not that strong in Japan's Sengoku period. Did I ever write here about how we did all of Japan's history, from the earliest times until the post-war period in the first year of Japanese Studies at the university here, but that we did prehistoric Japan until the modern time in only one semester (13 weeks of class)? Suffice to say we only handled most pre-modern time periods only very, very briefly, so I really only remember the major events. When a commentator on the blog asked me whether I was going to read this book, I honestly thought no, not in the forseeable future, because I figured I might as well pick up the book a few years later, when the cheaper pocket paperback version is released. But then there's was a nice promotion sale going on because of the book winning the Naoki Prize, and moments later, I found myself reading the book.

And I have no regrets going in earlier than I had expected, because The Arioka Citadel Case was a fantastic read, I also understand completely why the book managed to garnish widespread acclaim, as it's definitely more than "only" a mystery novel. The historical aspects of the book are at least as important as the mystery plot, probably even more important, and the story paints a great portrait of Araki Murashige, lord of Arioka Castle who sees that his castle is slowly being isolated as allies fall or betray him and he tries to find a way to turn the situation again. People who know Japanese history of coruse already know what will happen with Murashige and Arioka Castle, as the book isn't trying to rewrite history, but The Arioka Citadel Case is absolutely brilliant at using this very specific, and unique historical setting to also present very captivating mystery plots. The idea alone that Murashige is trying to solve these mysteries because they're all surrounded by enemies and he feels compelled to keep the spirit of the people up and erasing any sources of fear by clearing up all these seemingly supernatural happenings that occur within the confined space of the castle grounds works just so well and just one example of the historical setting really being employed in fullest to also bring neat concepts to the mysteries. The book itself doesn't really explain much about the "bigger historical picture" save for some brief segments early on in the story, so initially I was also confused about how all the names that were dropped like Honganji were exactly connected, but after the prologue, the story focuses much more on the internal dynamics of Arioka Castle, so at that point, it becomes a lot easier to follow even for those without much knowledge of Japanese history.

The Arioka Citadel Case takes on the form of a interconnected short story collection, with Murashige facing several inexplicable events during the one-year siege of Arioka Castle which require the mind of his prisoner Kanbei to solve. I won't be explaining all of the four major mysteries in this review, but to give an idea of what's in this book: in the winter Murashige learns of the betrayal of Abe Niemon, who opened up his fort to the Oda forces. As was custom in those times, Murashige had actually been in charge of Niemon's very young son Jinen, keeping him as a hostage: these high-ranking hostages were generally treated well as longwith all the proper etiquette that came with their social status as their family remained the loyal allies they were supposed to be, but death was inevitable if there'd be betrayal. To young Jinen's surprise however, Murashige doesn't order for his execution upon learning of Niemon's betrayal, but orders him imprisoned. Because there's no suitable prison for him yet, he orders one to be built immediately, with Jinen locked up on a storage room for the night. The storage room looks out on an unfinished garden, but a guard is placed on the other side of the garden, while there are also guards placed around the corner of the corridor of the storage room, meaning all entrances to the room are watched. Yet the boy cries out in the night, and when the guards run to the room, they find Jinen on the floor in front of the room, bleeding from his chest. The warriors immediately recognize the wound as an arrow wound, though the arrow can't be found. And more puzzling is that nobody could've shot him: Jinen was supposed to be inside the room, but even then, all three places where any assailant could stand were watched, and the unfinished garden was covered by a carpet of fresh snow, and no footprints can be found there. Even the guard outside in the garden, the only one seemingly capable of firing an arrow at Jinen, is incapable of doing so, as he's not actually an educated warrior and has never mastered the art of bow and arrow, meaning he could never make the shot across the garden. 

This is of course in essence just an impossible murder scenario, with a no-footprints-in-the-snow trope, a missing weapon and a crime scene that was observed from all possible angles of entry. But the mystery makes good use of the historical setting and the mindset of the people. For example, one of the more interesting parts is that everyone is surprised that Murashige didn't just execute Jinen, and even Jinen himself pleads with Murashige, wanting a honorable death rather than being imprisoned. Of course, this also means the mystery looks at the possibility whether Jinen didn't kill himself to make up for his father's betrayal, but it's an idea that is unique to this time peeriod and these warriors of course. Even Murashige's guards can't be trusted completely as they too thought Jinen, an underage boy, should be executed, but there are neat little historical ideas woven into the mystery too, like the guard outside the garden hailing from a lower social status who thus never mastered archery, while some of Murashige's warriors who do know archery seemingly couldn't have found position without being noticed (and also being incapable of removing the arrow afterwards). The solution is probably not incredibly surprising for the experienced detective reader, but I like how Yonezawa used the historical setting to sell the impossibility to the reader. 

I think my favorite idea in this book came from the second mystery. An enemy camp has set-up camp in nearby swamp grounds, hoping to go unnoticed, but Murashige leads two allied troops, the Takatsuki and the Saga troops, placed at Arioka Castle in a nightly surprise attack to catch two birds with one stone: the camp is dangerously nearby near their flanks, but these two troops didn't have much chance to earn glory for themselves on the battleground yet, and both the Takatsuki and Saga men were getting frustrated at just being stationed inside the castle doing nothing. The surprise assault is a success, with many enemies slain and the rest fleeing. As per custom, the warriors decapitate all the defeated enemies and present the heads to Murashige, who will award those who managed to kill high-ranking enemy officers, marked by their helmets, During the party after the attack however, Murashige is informed by a soldier who only managed to get away from the enemy camp late due to an injury that he overheard some of the surviving enemy soldiers say that their commander, Ootsu Denjurou was slain too. However, nobody in Arioka Castle knows what Ootsu Denjurou looks like. The Saga and Takatsuki commanders each brought back the heads of two high ranking officers, all with ornate helments, but which of these four heads is that of Ootsu Denjurou, and which faction, the Saga or the Takatsuki, will gain more glory for their part in the assault? Things become even more mysterious when one of the four decapitated heads suddenly grimaces, striking fear in the soldiers.

Now this is a mystery that really makes use of the historical setting! In a time where we all have internet, social media and Wikipedia, it's almost unimaginable people wouldn't know how an enemy commander would look like, but of course, it makes absolutely sense in the Sengoku period. Because the attack was a nightly assault, the commander wasn't be able to get fully suited up in armor, so now Murashige is left with a handful of decapitated heads, but no way to look up the face of Ootsu Denjurou!  You can't google his face, so you'd have to find (a trustworthy) person who could positively identify them, but in this case, the enemy has already retreated, and with Arioka Castle mostly isolated, it'd be nuts to go around sending for people in the hopes they find someone who happens to have seen Denjurou before. I think readers can fairly easily guess what's going on here, but I love the logic applied in this mystery to prove which of the slain men was Denjurou, as it's so simple, but makes so much sense, and only in this particular time and place.

There are about two more core mysteries that occur in The Arioka Citadel Case, but I'll not be discussing them in detail here as these mysteries are closely related and lead directly into the finale of the novel. What I can say is that like the previous mysteries, the book manages to combine the mystery with the historical setting perfectly, providing not only means of murders unique to the time, but also motives behind the crimes. The motives for the mysterious that occur in Arioka Castle during the one-year siege make only sense in this specific setting: not only just in the Sengoku period, but precisely because they are all inside a castle that is under threat of the Oda forces for such a long time. The Arioka Citadel Case is a historical mystery not only because of the use of props, but because it uses characters that are clearly rooted in this specific time and situation and I can't even think of other mystery novels that have similar ideas. 

Yonezawa Honobu's Kokuroujou or The Arioka Citadel Case is therefore really a must-read. While the historical setting might take some time to get used to, depending on your own historical knowledge, the book soon becomes a memorable experience, that is as much a mystery novel as a historical novel. Yet these two sides of the book have fantastic synergy, each strengthening the other part, resulting in a work full of mysteries that you can only find here, because every event, even character and every action is so tightly tied to the one-year siege of Arioka Castle. It's one of the books I at one hand can see being translated in English due to the critical acclaim it got in Japan, but at the other hand, the book is definitely made better due to the historical context and I have no idea how well historical novels set in Japan do outside Japan. Probably not really. I think an anime would be feasible though, especially as it's work by the creator of Hyouka...

Original Japanese title(s): 米澤穂信『黒牢城』