When Yoshitsune at last reached Hiraizumi in Oshu after many hardships, Fujiwara no Hidehira welcomed him warmly and gave him a house, Takadachi, beside the Koromo River. But Hidehira soon died of illness. He left his son Yasuhira and the others a last command: "Make Lord Yoshitsune your general and stand ready against Yoritomo."
But Yasuhira, giving in to pressure from Yoritomo, went against his father's command, and in the intercalary fourth month of 1189 attacked Takadachi with several hundred riders. Yoshitsune had only a dozen or so men.
Benkei said, "Now is my last service," put on armor laced with black cord, took up his great halberd, and stood before the house. He cut down the swarming enemy one after another, and though struck by arrows he did not give a single step. The arrows standing in his armor were past counting, as if he wore a straw raincoat inside out. At last Benkei, leaning on his halberd like a staff, stood like a temple guardian king and moved no more. The enemy were too afraid to come near, but when they looked closely, Benkei had died on his feet. This is "Benkei's standing death."
Meanwhile Yoshitsune went into the chapel and chanted the Lotus Sutra. When he had finished, he stabbed his wife and young child, and then took his own life with his sword. He was thirty-one. The house was set on fire.
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Five hundred years later, in 1689, Matsuo Basho climbed to Takadachi. Below him flowed the Koromo and Kitakami rivers, and summer grasses grew thick everywhere. Recalling Du Fu's lines, "The state is broken, mountains and rivers remain; spring in the city, grass and trees grow deep," Basho spread his hat on the ground and sat, shedding tears, forgetting the passing of time.
"Summer grasses: all that remains of warriors' dreams."
People grieved Yoshitsune's death, and legends arose that he had really survived and crossed to Ezo, and even to the continent. The word hogan-biiki, siding with the underdog, was born of sympathy for this tragic hero.