Lord Shimura was a Japanese daimyo and the Lord of Tsushima during the late 13th century.
Biography[]
Lord Shimura was born into the Shimura clan, the ruling samurai clan of Tsushima. He was raised as a strict adherent to the traditional samurai values that dominate dJapanese society, and he lost his father and brothers to Tokiasa Yarikawa during the Yarikawa Rebellion. Shimura thus became the new leader of his clan and the island of Tsushima, and his sister married Kazumasa Sakai of the Sakai clan. After Kazumasa was slain during the pacification of Iki, Shimura took Kazumasa's son Jin Sakai under his wing as a ward of his clan. In 1274, Shimura and Jin charged into battle against the Mongol invaders at Komoda Beach, but the majority of the island's 80 samurai were slain by Khotun Khan's army. Shimura was captured by the Mongols and held captive at Castle Kaneda, and he refused to surrender the island to the Mongols. Khotun taunted Shimura with the news that Jin had been killing without honor as a stealthy assassin, and Sakai later rescued Shimura from the castle before recapturing it from the Mongols. Shimura, out of gratitude, put in a request to adopt Jin as his own son and heir. However, Shimura was alienated by Sakai's dishonorable tactics during the Battle of Castle Shimura, including Sakai's beheading of a Mongol general and his decision to poison the Mongols rather than allow for Shimura to order another costly attack on the keep. Shimura later pressured Jin to scapegoat his friend Yuna for the dishonorable tactics used in the castle's recapture lest the Shogun execute Jin instead. Jin refused, forcing Shimura to put Jin in a cell to be shipped to Honshu for trial. Jin later escaped to continue his war of resistance against the Mongols, while Shimura took command of new recruits sent by the shogun to retake the island. Jin later secretly left a letter in Shimura's castle requesting his aid for the final battle with the Mongols, with Shimura and his samurai indirectly aiding Jin as he slew Khotun Khan and ended the Mongol occupation. While Shimura and Jin defended their actions udring the war, Shimura was forced to tell Jin that the shogun demanded Jin's head for his actions in the war, and that he was to kill his own would-be adoptive son. Jin defeated Shimura in a duel, but he refused to grant him a warrior's death and kill the last of his family. Shimura warned his nephew that he would be hunted for the rest of his days, but Jin departed, and the peasants of Tsushima hailed the "Ghost of Tsushima" as a hero.