Ashina Clan
Standing in governance of the castle town of Aizuwakamatsu, the Ashina Clan cannot be said to be any great power on the grand stage of Japan. They are still noble however, offering tribute to the Emperor and governing their earned lands as they see fit. While the clans' members and hirelings cannot total more than three hundred or so, they are responsible for more than ten thousand lives in the Aizu region.
Swordsmanship
What defines the Ashina clan is their incredible swordsmanship. Claiming descent from the great Taira clan of yore, the small clan has cultivated an incredible style of swordsmanship that allows them to strike down several men in single, powerful swings. This has lead to claims that the Ashina clan is blessed with supernatural strength, though this claim has been refuted that the power lies soley within the skill of their art.
Structure
Lead by the clan head, the Ashina clan is a typical samurai clan insofar that it is controlled patriarchally by the eldest living son of the previous leader. Ashina Moriakira is, as such, the clan head with his twin older cousins Ashina Ryomaro and Ashina Matajiro standing at his shoulders. Though these two are getting on in years, their counsel is invaluable to the relatively minor clan in these times of advantageous plenty.
Beneath these three men stand roughly one hundred samurai clansmen and their families. They perform duties of governance which include work as judges and statesmen, though much of the drudgery is handled by clan hirelings or family members for the purposes of tax collecting, letter writing, and other such tasks. The structure itself is not stratified into groups, as the clan is not large enough to require such demarcations.
History
Truthfully, the clan is in a period of decline despite their recent fortunes. Fourteen years ago, when Moriakira assumed his position as clan head, his younger brother Ashina Kiroko stood aside as a dissident. Tossing his blade aside and decrying his more traditional brother as a senseless stickler that would only lead their clan to ruin, he lead dozens of younger clansmen west into the mountains and has not been heard from since.
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