Ichiriki Chaya

It is located at the southeast corner of Shijō Street and Hanami Lane, its entrance right at the heart of the Gion Kobu district.

It is said that the establishment was originally called yorozuya (万屋, general store), but in the play Kanadehon Chūshingura (仮名手本忠臣蔵) (a telling of the story of the forty-seven rōnin, based on events at the house), the name was changed by splitting the character into 一 and 力, disguising the name.

[2] A group of samurai became masterless (rōnin) following the ritual suicide of their daimyō, who was sentenced to death for the crime of drawing a sword and injuring a man in the Imperial Palace.

Thus, in an effort to dissuade the suspecting parties and Imperial spies, they sent Kuranosuke to Kyoto, who spent many nights at the Ichiriki earning a reputation as a gambler and a drunkard.

Because the Ichiriki provided the cover to mount an attack, the samurai were eventually successful in killing Yoshinaka, but were then forced to commit suicide themselves.

As modernisation spread through Japan during the final years of the Edo period, unrest also spread within the country, with the age of the shōgun coming to an end; a number of murders of foreigners had led to tension rising between Japan and the Western powers, and this international pressure led many to question the legitimacy of the shōgun's rule.