The Shogun Who Made Killing a Duck a Crime
live on: to continue to exist after the person or thing that made it is gone
In 1683, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the fifth shogun of Japan, lost his only son. The four year-old boy got sick and died, and after him no more children came.
Tsunayoshi turned his attention to the protection of all living things. These were the strictest laws of their kind in the world, covering birds, dogs, cats, horses, and even shellfish and insects. To kill an animal was now a serious crime, and the punishments became strange and cruel. Selling living creatures was also banned, and a man who sold insects was jailed on the day the order came. Ten people of samurai rank were ordered to kill themselves for shooting birds.
In 1706, a servant named Shobei was sweeping a garden, and a duck was fighting a chicken over food. Shobei pushed the duck away with his broom, too hard, and it died. He was banished to a far island. Two officials looked at the dead duck and said it had choked on its food, and they were banished too.
For the stray dogs of the city, Tsunayoshi built huge kennels. About 100,000 dogs lived there, and they ate white rice, bean paste, and fish, all paid for by the public. Behind his back, Tsunayoshi was mocked as the Dog Shogun.
Ten days after he died in 1709, the government cancelled almost all of his laws. A few lived on, but the one that mattered most had nothing to do with animals. In 1690 the man who had lost his only son had made it a crime for any man to abandon a child.
Sample sentences
My grandmother died years ago, but her recipes live on in our kitchen.
He never became famous, and yet his songs live on in the work of younger musicians.
My old boss left in 2015, but his rules still live on.
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Shorui Awaremi no Rei (Japanese Wikipedia)
