Why does Goryoukaku take the shape of a star?
The answer is: for war.
It was based on the design of the bastion fort,
which was invented in Europe while Japan was in the Muromachi period.
The place we're standing on is the bastion.
From this location, for instance,
we have a clear view of that bridge and the stone wall behind it,
along with the bridge and the bastion wall.
The bastion wall on the right, as well.
We can strike approaching enemies from the side and eliminate them.
I see.
By deploying troops in each bastion,
we can attack our foes in any direction, without any blind spots.
The shape of the fortress is specialized for war.
But we can't use it like this.
We need trenches.
Indeed.
Those who have experienced the new age of war understand such things.
While we wait for Sofia and her men to arrive,
we will search for the gold and prepare for combat.
Golden Kamuy
Episode Fifty-Nine Our Kamuy
I found something!
A rock, huh?
I'm exhausted.
I'm pretty sure they hid it in the moat, not a building.
But the old man said, "Dig here, doggy."
You've got something that makes you think it's here, right?
You're still hiding things from us at this point?
I'm not one of your soldiers, you know!
I found a lot of sandbags in a storehouse.
Huh?
They're here!
God
The character for god on my tattoo.
When we laid out the code, it landed right on the storehouses here.
There must be something buried here.
Another rock, huh?
Does the god character really mean anything?
No idea...
God
But the fact is,
there's no other character with a similar reading, like shin or jin.
3:30 AM
It's not a rock!
I found something!
Just this box?
There must be more buried below it, obviously! You idiot!
Open it up already! Hurry!
What's this? Soil? Sand?
Cietoi.
Powdered diatomaceous earth.
That can't be all that's here!
What's this?
Paper?
An animal stomach.
We use them for holding oils and other things.
So they've done everything they can to make sure the contents stayed dry.
A book?
What does it say?
Let the old men read it!
What's this?
Land deeds.
About the time our deal with the Russian navy broke down,
a government called the "Ezo Republic" existed in Hakodate.
They needed money to fight.
So we met with a Nispa named Enomoto Takeaki from the Ezo Republic,
and traded gold for a treaty recognizing Ainu land rights.
Land deeds bought with the gold?
Where's the land? How big is it?
Look at this.
Vast tracts of land, spread all throughout Hokkaido.
There's no way Hijikata Toshizou wouldn't know about this.
I didn't, actually.
About the time this treaty was made, I was busy fighting.
I spent very little time at Goryoukaku.
Just as we were about to hand over the gold, the Hakodate War came to an end,
and the Ezo Republic ceased to exist.
But Enomoto-san worked with the
Meiji government to ensure the treaty with the Ainu would remain enforced.
The Meiji government wanted the gold too, so they agreed.
They assumed, foolishly, that they could abrogate it later.
But Enomoto-san had actually had the ambassadors
Netherlands
France
England
of six countries be present for its signing.
America
Italy
Prussia
It was clearly made out to be an international treaty,
one that could not be easily abandoned.
Perhaps this was his way of repaying the Ainu for their support of him,
or perhaps he knew the war was lost,
and only wanted to make one last problem for the government.
The deed book contains a detailed record of its own history,
and entrusts the landowners, the Ainu, to decide how the land is used.
The Meiji government wouldn't want this getting out.
Wait, does this mean the gold is gone?!
Wonderful.
My daughter will live as an Ainu, and this is the greatest gift I can give her.
I thought that this was all we could do, too.
That the only thing we could do with the gold was buy forested land.
That this was the only way to protect the Ainu without fighting.
If we protect the forests, we can protect the kamuy.
Our culture can't exist without the kamuy.
The thing I had finally figured out, what I could do for the Ainu...
The old Ainu had already accomplished it!
The golden kamuy that I was told would bring disaster...
was the kamuy we really needed!
I'm so disappointed I can't even stand.
But why'd Wilk hide the deed book here?
He could've taken it with him.
Perhaps someone was after it.
Kiroranke, maybe?
But stealing the book wouldn't...
Wilk's code led me to the deed book.
But there was nothing in our discussion about protecting forests.
Did the Ainu make the land treaty to protect their forests in the first place?
Leaving behind the Kamuy wouldn't make the Ezo Republic more powerful.
Don't you think Wilk left this behind because he wanted
the land's resources to be developed?
Asirpa...
What Wilk said... What Yulbars said...
Forget it all.
Sofia.
There's nothing left for us here.
We have two hours until Lieutenant Tsurumi and his men arrive.
We need to get out of here now!
We need to tell the ones working on our defenses!
Hurry! Kantarou, head to the east entrance!
I'm crying so much I can't see.
I can't walk.
Hang in there, Shiraishi.
Hijikata Nispa. I'll take the book.
Hijikata Nispa?
Only half was used!
It says that 37,125 kilograms of gold were given to Enomoto Takeaki.
Nopperabo told me there was 75,000 kilograms.
So a bit over half of it's still out there?
Half the gold's still out there somewhere!
Calm down, Shiraishi!
Get to the trenches!
Lieutenant Tsurumi's men?
But it's too soon!
Look out at the sea.
Something's in the sky.
Military air balloons!
They're watching us?
So that was gunfire from a ship?!
They came in their destroyers!
The minute Lieutenant Tsurumi began to crack the code,
he also contacted Ominato naval base in Aomori,
where Koito's father was located,
Ominato
so that he could quickly get to the gold no matter where it was.
Sapporo
Sugimoto Route (Hakodate Line)
He went from Sapporo Station to Muroran station,
Muroran
Tsurumi Muroran Line)
and took a destroyer waiting at the port to Hakodate port!
Hakodate
Ominato
Yes!
Good morning!
Golden Kamuy
What's he doing?
Kadokura! Take care of the rest!
Where's he going?
Somebody's here.
Don't shoot! I want to talk to Lieutenant Tsurumi.
Did he go to surrender on his own?
Of course not!
Probably not.
Anyway, it's too late to retreat.
We'll have to fight as best we can.
Let's go, Kirawus.
Is their plan to use those big cannons to flatten Goryoukaku?
We need to get out of here.
They're lying in wait to attack anyone who runs from the cannons.
This place has three exits,
and I'm sure they have lots of soldiers hidden beyond the bridges.
Only 16 army soldiers can ride along on a destroyer.
Even if they brought all four destroyers that we saw at Abashiri,
that's 64 people.
They may not have many stationed except at the exits!
All the more reason to leave now, then.
No, wait!
Wilk said the prisoners would get half the gold!
Let's figure out if the other half is in Goryoukaku before we run!
Indeed... after all these complicated riddles,
he can't have hidden it somewhere else in Hokkaido.
I can't die before I see the gold for myself!
Calm down, Shiraishi!
The cannon fire stopped.
There was no gold.
I wondered what the famous Nagakura Shinpachi was going to say.
Do you expect me to say, "Oh, too bad, then," and just go home?
I can simply use my destroyers' cannons to blow you all to pieces,
sweep aside the pile of gore,
and see for myself whether it's there.
We found the deed to land in Hokkaido, which the Ainu bought with gold.
The result of a treaty between the Ainu and Ezo Republic.
If you were an intelligence officer, you should know something about this.
Ministry of Finance Home Ministry
About how the Meiji government
seemed to have a lot of extra money after the Battle of Hakodate.
Or something that didn't make sense about the huge cost of the
Russo-Japanese War.
The deed book says that the Ainu have the right to use
their land as they see fit.
It has the rights to a huge expanse of Hokkaido land.
The forests can be turned into fertile land, perfect for farming,
and vast mineral resources sleep beneath them...
And the name on the deed?
None.
It simply says the Ainu have the right to use the land, and no one else.
But it's worth something to you, as well.
The 7th has many Ainu soldiers, like Ariko Ipopte, right?
Please, spare the lives of everyone in exchange for the deed book.
Hijikata Toshizou is driven by one thing: battle.
As the second in command of the Shinsengumi,
he's looking for a place to have one last grand battle and die.
He was lucky enough to survive the hopeless Battle of Hakodate.
But now he's eager to find a place to die.
I promise I'll go back to Goryoukaku and persuade him to surrender.
Nagakura-san, please, get off the ground.
You're hoping to use the deed book to get me to stop firing the cannons,
then go back to Goryoukaku and fight alongside Hijikata Toshizou, right?
You cunning old man.
You, Nagakura Shinpachi, are more eager to have one last fight than anyone!
You're a survivor of those crazy Shinsengumi!
Stop with the bad acting.
I'm good at seeing through people's lies.
Then did you figure out how much of what I said was true?
Lieutenant Tsurumi's men who couldn't fit on the destroyers
will be coming here by train, right?
They should be here any minute.
The cannon fire's stopped.
Why don't we at least get the young lady out of here?
She can take the deed book, too.
Sounds good to me.
That book's not going to do me a damn bit of good.
Don't you all agree?
We've finally made it all this way,
and the gold might be beneath our feet!
I can't just give up!
I'll stay here too.
I want to be useful to everyone, and I have to see this to the end.
Young lady.
If it looks bad, I'll get Asirpa-san somewhere safe.
Hijikata-san!
Nagakura-san let himself be caught!
He told me to "take care of the rest"!
It might be thanks to him that the attacks stopped.
Anyway, I'll follow the plan.
Okay, hurry and go.
Please, stay safe.
Let's go, Kirawus! Mansur!
If you sent Kadokura on that suicide mission,
then it means we're staying here to fight, right?
Why?
Asirpa, staying will teach you what your father felt.
A wind of fortune brought to us by a very lucky man
is about to bring us victory.
Wow, lots of flies today.
Those aren't flies, Kadokura!
The soldiers who came by train!
A minute later and we'd have been completely surrounded.
So it was thanks to you that the cannons stopped.
I don't know how long it will last.
But I've left a seed that will make Lieutenant Tsurumi hesitate about
doing any large-scale attacks.
We brought Onuma dumplings, the famous snack from Onuma Park Station.
A deed book?
You believe this?
It's a bluff!
We can't be so sure.
The Meiji government should have been flat broke after the Battle of Hakodate,
but they immediately began the grand redevelopment of Tokyo, the new capital.
A water and sewage system. The large-scale railways. The brick town of Ginza.
And the huge beer factories built in Yokohama, Sapporo,
Tokyo, and Osaka, one after another.
They say the liquor tax alone was enough to pay for the Sino-Japanese War.
The Russo-Japanese War was
also supposedly paid for with huge loans from foreign countries.
But who knows if that's true.
Before the war, not a single country expected Japan to win.
But there's no way General Okuda wouldn't have known about it.
Does this mean his goal was to get rid of this unfortunate contract with the Ainu,
and he simply used the gold as bait for us?
Well, I'll see for myself if the deed book is even real.
I'll give Hijikata Toshizou the fight he wants.
It's time for the Battle of Goryoukaku.
Dig around here.
Why here?
Kadokura's tattoos had an important clue that led us here.
It was so long ago that even I'd forgotten about it.
They can't see us from those balloons, right?
The pine trees hide us perfectly.
Hurry!
A lid?
Open it, now! Now!
A well for horses.
I'm probably the only man alive today who remembers it.
It's dangerous! Calm down!
Calm down, Shiraishi! You're crazy!
Asirpa-san, let's go down together.
Yeah.
Well?
There are bags everywhere!
Let's open one in front of everyone!
Okay, pull it up, Ushiyama!
Gold!
I told you, that's dangerous!
Just wait up there, fool!
Ow...
Asirpa-san...
Looks like we found the gold, huh?
Next Time The Battle of Goryoukaku
Next Time: The Battle of Goryoukaku!