Kanadehon Chushingura is a puppet play and kabuki drama based on the Ako incident of 1701 to 1702. Wary of the shogunate, it moves the setting to the early Muromachi period and renames Asano Takumi-no-kami as En'ya Hangan, Kira Kozuke-no-suke as Ko no Moronao, and Oishi Kuranosuke as Oboshi Yuranosuke. The stage too is not Edo Castle but the Ashikaga residence in Kamakura.
When Ashikaga Tadayoshi came to worship at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in Kamakura, En'ya Hangan, ordered to serve as his host, was treated harshly at every turn by the steward Ko no Moronao, his instructor. In truth Moronao had fallen for Hangan's beautiful wife, Kaoyo Gozen, sent her a love letter and been rebuffed, and he bore a grudge.
One day, in the corridor of the Pine Room of the Ashikaga residence, Moronao heaped abuse on Hangan: "You're like a carp in a well. Raised in a narrow well, you know nothing of the wide world. You carp of a samurai!"
Hangan held back and held back, but at last his patience snapped; he drew his sword and slashed at Moronao. But Kakogawa Honzo, who was there, seized him from behind, and he only wounded Moronao's forehead and shoulder and could not kill him.
＊
In history, on the fourteenth of the third month of 1701, in the Pine Corridor of the main keep of Edo Castle, Asano Takumi-no-kami Naganori, who was hosting the imperial envoys, slashed at Kira Kozuke-no-suke Yoshinaka, head of the masters of ceremony. He is said to have cried, "Remember my grudge of late?" Why he drew his sword is still a mystery.
The fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, was furious that a sword had been drawn inside the castle on the important day of welcoming the imperial envoys. Asano Takumi-no-kami was ordered to commit seppuku that same day, and the Asano house of Ako was abolished. Kira, meanwhile, was not punished. The unfairness of this ruling led to the later raid.