Stones are thrown at the victim, and the perpetrator is made a hero.
How will Tsutae and Ikenori stand up against public opinion that distorts the truth?

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Tanuma Ochikazu finally passes away. Episode 28 of the historical drama “Berabou” begins with the sword attack incident, continuing from the previous episode. A few days later, Ochikazu passes away, surrounded by his father, Oji, who nurses him to death. Sano Masayoshi, who attacked Ochikazu, is also ordered to commit seppuku, a major incident that heralds the end of the Tanuma era. Later, as Tsutaju and others watch Ochikazu’s funeral procession through the city, a man dressed as a carpenter appears, shouting “Divine punishment!” and throwing stones. The crowd joins in, hurling stones at the coffin and palanquin, voicing their dissatisfaction with Tanuma’s politics. Meanwhile, Daresode rushes to protect the coffin, but the stones fly mercilessly, hitting him directly in the forehead. He is shown pleading with Tsutaju, who rescued him, “Avenge me!” The Tenmei famine, one of the three major famines in Edo, fueled growing discontent with Tanuma’s government and is said to have resulted in over 900,000 starving deaths nationwide. While many of these voices of resentment were directed at Tanuma and his son, neither the poor weather nor the eruption of Mount Asama, which caused the rice crop failure, were to blame. Furthermore, as Tsutaju suggested to Ichi in the previous episode, the shogunate’s policy of collecting rice in Osaka and sending it to Edo for sale at low prices led to a temporary stability in rice prices. While this could be seen as an achievement of Tanuma’s government, the general public instead believed that “the price of rice dropped because Sano killed Tanuma’s son,” and even worshipped Sano Masayoshi, who killed Ichi, as a hero, as “Sano Secho Daimyojin.” Seeing this, Tsutaju, a Tanuma lover, was troubled, thinking, “The one who was killed gets pelted with stones, while the one who did the killing gets worshipped…” To encourage Daresode, he tries to think of a way to avenge her, but now that Masayoshi has committed seppuku, there is no one to avenge her.

So Tsutaju comes up with the idea of ​​writing a yellow-covered book based on Ichi’s death, portraying Masayoshi as the villain. However, when he consults with book wholesaler Suharaya Ichibei, he is opposed, saying, “You shouldn’t make books about the government. Lord Tanuma is to blame for the fires in Mayayama and the stubborn drop in rice prices. Sano punished Lord Tanuma on behalf of the heavens. That’s how the world has plotted it.” He realizes that changing the minds of people suffering from hunger is not easy. Meanwhile, at the mansion of Tsuchiyama Sojiro, where Daresode has been kept as a potential buyer, she is clad in a white kimono, intently chanting a curse by beating straw. Seeing this, Tsutaju is helpless, unable to come up with a clever plan to save her. Meanwhile, Kitao Masatora visits Tsutaju and shows him the designs for a collection of hand towels. Seeing one of them, which shows a man peering through a gap in the noren curtain, he smiles and says, “Maybe this guy can do it. Maybe he can make that guy (Daresode) laugh again.” It will be interesting to see what kind of hint this gives Tsutaju and what secret plan he comes up with. Meanwhile, Tanuma Okitsugu realizes that Hitotsubashi Harusada is the mastermind behind the sword wound incident that led to his son’s death. To clear his son’s name, he decides to take over his son’s unfinished work and complete it as a form of revenge. It will be fascinating to see how this revenge turns out.