Gyotoku in the province of Shimousa was a salt-making town on Edo Bay, a busy port where ships carried salt to Edo.
At the Gyotoku post town was an inn called the Konaya. Its master, Bungobei, had a son named Inuta Kobungo. Kobungo was tall, very strong and a master sumo wrestler, but gentle at heart, devoted to his parents and caring toward his family. He held the jewel of brotherly love.
One day a small boat that had drifted down the Tone River washed up on the shore at Gyotoku. In the boat lay two young men, unconscious. They were Inuzuka Shino and Inukai Genpachi.
After a fierce fight on the roof of the Horyukaku tower at Koga, the two had fallen into the Tone River locked together and been carried down by the current. Kobungo carried them into the Konaya and nursed them devotedly.
When Shino and Genpachi came to, and talked with Kobungo, the three learned that each held a jewel bearing a character and had a peony birthmark. They realized they were "dog warriors" bound by the same fate.
But pursuers hunting Shino were closing in on the Konaya too. Moreover Yamabayashi Fusahachi, husband of Kobungo's sister Onui, set out for his own reasons to capture Shino. In fact Fusahachi was ready to die in Shino's place and deliberately let Kobungo cut him down. Then Daihachi, the little son of Fusahachi and Onui, touched by his father's blood, opened his hand to show the jewel of benevolence he held. Daihachi was none other than the later Inue Shinbei.
The meeting at the Konaya in Gyotoku was a great turning point in the gathering of the eight dog warriors.