Editing Jinjiro Kurita

{{Update Needed|[[Handbook: House Kurita]]|[[First Succession War (sourcebook)]]}}
{{InfoBoxCharacter
| image               = 
| name                = Jinjiro Kurita
| birthdate           = 15 September [[2747]]<ref name=FSWp129>''First Succession War (sourcebook)'', p. 129, "Jinjiro Kurita profile"</ref>
| died                = 11 April [[2841]]<ref name=FSWp129/>
| othernames          = 
| affiliation         = [[House Kurita]]
| rank                = 
| title               = 
| position            = [[Coordinator of Worlds]]
| profession          = Noble
| parents             = [[Minoru Kurita (28th c.)|Minoru Kurita]] (father)<ref name=FSWp129/><br/>[[Heaven's Gate]] (mother)<ref name=FSWp129/> 
| siblings            = [[Zabu Kurita]] (half-brother)
| spouse              = 
| children            = 
}}

'''Jinjiro Kurita''' was the successor to [[Minoru Kurita (28th c.)|Minoru Kurita]] as [[Coordinator]] of the [[Draconis Combine]]. He is best known for launching the [[Kentares Massacre]] in retaliation for his father's assassination on [[Kentares IV]], in which 90 percent of the planet was slaughtered. Though he grew up to be a violent and unstable man, he was also a skilled military strategist.

==History==
=== Early life ===
Born in 2747 on [[Luthien]], Jinjiro was the son of Minoru Kurita and a concubine from the [[Rasalhague Military District|Rasalhague District]] known as [[Heaven's Gate]], spending much of his early life at the center of extensive political maneuvering. Despite the fact Minoru was married to [[Yvonne Toshi]], Heaven's Gate used every means at her disposal to ensure Minoru officially adopted Jinjiro and made him his heir. Finally succeeding by Jinjiro's tenth birthday despite the fact Yvonne was six month's pregnant with his half-brother [[Zabu Kurita|Zabu]], the Coordinator's wife had Heaven's Gate pushed off the parapets of the [[Imperial City]] late one night, with the young Jinjiro discovering the twisted form of his mother the next morning. Many attribute the trauma of this event, his mother reportedly surviving just long enough to die in his arms, as the trigger transforming a reportedly sensitive young boy into a violent and mentally unstable young man. Despite the question marks of his sanity, Jinjiro became a skilled military strategist upon which his father and the [[DCMS]] relied greatly. <ref name="HK-56">''House Kurita'', p. 56 "History - First Succession War - Heaven's Gate"</ref>

=== First Succession War ===
In December [[2786]], Minoru proclaimed himself [[First Lord]] of the [[Star League]] and declared open warfare against any who would oppose his claim, signaling the beginning of the [[First Succession War]]. Realizing even before the war began that the [[Federated Suns]] would be the only foe that could match the Combine, Minoru had given permission to his violently unstable but militarily brilliant son Jinjiro to plan for a major offensive against them. After first lulling the Davion forces into a false sense of security by staging undermanned raids and with the [[AFFS]] focusing on the Liao front, in [[2787]] the massed force of 50 DCMS [[regiment]]s struck across the entire length of the border with little warning. The suddenness of the attack broke and shattered a unified Davion defense as both Jinjiro and Minoru personally led thrusts deep into Federated Suns territory.<ref name="HK-55">''House Kurita'', pp. 55-57 "History - First Succession War - The Dragon Strikes"</ref>

The elite [[1st Sword of Light]] commanded by Jinjiro Kurita himself was the DCMS force attacking [[Franklin]].<ref name=HKTDC-53>''House Kurita (The Draconis Combine)'', p. 53 "History - The First Succession War - The Dragon Strikes"</ref>

=== Kentares IV ===
By [[2796]] while Jinjiro strongly favored continuing the offensive to prevent the Davion forces from regrouping, the now 91 year old Minoru chose to ignore this advice and called a three month halt to allow his forces to rest and to ensure that pockets of heavy resistance on previously captured worlds could be cleared up first. One such pocket on [[New Rhodes III]] prevented its use as a supply point for the final offensive, endangering the attacks on numerous world and leading to Minoru and the [[6th Sword of Light]] being sent to bolster the stalled invasion of [[Kentares IV]].<ref name="HK-57">''House Kurita'', p. 57 "History - First Succession War - Kentares IV"</ref>

Through sheer volume of troops the Combine forces began to regain control of the planet, forcing the Davion defenders to a single continent. Outside the town of New Snowfield, Minoru was so taken with the scenery that he left his ''[[BattleMaster]]'' and traveled on foot, accompanied by a small number of troops and a Buddhist priest. Sitting alone with the priest as they talked, a sharpshooter from the [[7th Crucis Lancers|Seventh Crucis Lancers]] shot Minoru in the back, killing him.<ref name="HK-57"/>

Jinjiro learned of the assassination by [[Talon Sergeant]] [[Richard Tobiason]], the only officer brave enough in his staff to bring him that information. As he listened, Jinjiro remained calm, however and his only response was to call his aide, [[General]] [[Dazai Sorai]]. Jinjiro left the office alone and ordered Talon Sergeant Tobiason be promoted to [[Colonel]] and to have someone to clean up the mess in his office. What was found was the  disemboweled body of General Sorai, whose head lay on the floor nearby. Jinjiro, enraged by General Sorai's lack of courage to report the news of Minoru's death had ordered him to commit ''[[seppuku]]'', and had given himself the honor of the beheading stroke.<ref name="HKDCM-56">''House Kurita'', p. 56 "History - THE MASSACRE"</ref>

Jinjiro boarded a [[JumpShip]] accompanied by a regiment of the Sword of Light. When he arrived on Kentares, there was more bad news as a Davion force from across the front on [[Sonnia]] had rescued the remainder of the 7th Crucis Lancers<ref name="HKDCM-56"/>. Once hearing this, he calmly ordered that his forces "kill them all". When one ranking officer tried to ask for explanations, Jinjiro ordered the [[Otomo]] killing him. DCMS killings resulted in 90 percent of the civilian population being killed, amounting to some 52 million men, women and children, in what would later be known as the [[Kentares Massacre]]. When the Buddist Priest that had been with Minoru when he was killed tried to try to stop the genocide, Jinjiro stabbed him and left his body to rot with the rest of the victims of his rage.<ref name="HKDCM-56"/> While Jinjiro's actions damaged the honor and morale of the DCMS, it enraged the entire Federated Suns to vengeance. The revitalized AFFS forces pushed the Kurita invaders back to the prewar borders as quickly as they'd come, virtually undoing all of Minoru's gains.<ref name="HK-58">''House Kurita'', p. 58 "History - First Succession War - The Massacre"</ref> <ref name="HK-59">''House Kurita'', p. 59 "History - First Succession War - Rising Suns - Military Realities"</ref> <ref name="HK-60">''House Kurita'', pp. 60-61 "History - First Succession War - Collapse"</ref>

When Jinjiro had satisfied his revenge enough, he left Kentares in February 2797, he left behind a silent world plunged in grief.<ref name="HKDCM-56"/>

Once [[AFFS]] forces began counterattacking, enraged by the massacre and their successes started to mount, Jinjiro was totally unable to come up with a brilliant strategy and fell back on the Kuritans' traditional defensive strategy, which consisted in wave attacks and fighting to the last man. This quickly proved an inadequate tactic.<ref name="HKDCM-57">''House Kurita - The Draconis Combine'', p. 57 "RISING SUNS"</ref>

=== Raiding Years ===
Jinjiro realized that not attacking the [[Lyran Commonwealth]] earlier had been a mistake. But seeing their problems in the Davion front and with most of their forces committed to trying to hold onto gains in the Federated Suns, the Combine could launch only sporadic invasions and raids against the Commonwealth, which nevertheless got their planets like [[The Edge]] and were able to cripple many Steiner industries with their raids.<ref name="HK-57b">''House Kurita - The Draconis Combine'', p. 57 "MILITARY REALITIES"</ref>
 
By [[2808]], the forces of the Federated Suns had pushed the DCMS back to the border between the Crucis and Draconis Marches and though Jinjiro had attempted every possible means to motivate his men, including execution and torture, he was unable to reignite the spark that had inspired them in the early days of the offensive.<ref name="HK-58b">''House Kurita - The Draconis Combine'', p. 58 "COLLAPSE"</ref>

With DCMS forces faltering and defenses crumpling in the face of the Davion offensive, Jinjiro began to strip troops from the Combine's interior and stationed them on the original Kurita-Davion border to provide a line of defense while trusted officers from his personal staff continued to attempt to create some semblance of fighting units out of the rabble.<ref name="HK-58b"/> This many defeats had been taken very hard by the DCMS commanding officers with skyrocketing increase of ''seppuku'' by the military hierarchy that was leaving it full of holes. To plug up the gaps, Coordinator Jinjiro issued an edict forbidding any officer to commit ''seppuku'' until such time as he could be spared.<ref name="HK-58b">''House Kurita - The Draconis Combine'', p. 58 "COLLAPSE"</ref>

=== Reconstruction ===
As the First Succession War ground to a halt in [[2821]], Jinjiro ordered a census be taken of the Draconis Combine. He also began purging the DCMS, and the civilian government, of ineffective personnel. Only a very small number of executions was done, as in most cases demotion to base rank and file was done. On the other side, those few who had actually pleased the Coordinator were promoted, most going to the military academies to train the coming crop of officers<ref name="HK-59b">''House Kurita - The Draconis Combine'', p. 59 "PURGING"</ref>. After creating the PRE, the [[People's Reconstruction Effort]], Jinjiro assigned his half-brother [[Zabu Kurita]] as its head and to take charge of economic, political, military, and scientific recovery efforts.<ref name="HK-61">''House Kurita'', p. 61 "History - First Succession War - Blown back to the Stone Age - Purge"</ref> <ref name="HK-62">''House Kurita'', p. 58 "History - Second Succession War"</ref>

=== Deterioration ===
By late [[2824]], Jinjiro's mental health had taken a turn for the worse. He was lucid and in control only part of the time, his aides locking him into his own Throne Room during his fits of madness. A doctor's secret examination revealed that he would become incurably insane sometime within the next decade. By the end of 2835 he had palace guards accompany him everywhere in case of a psychotic episode. He was reportedly very concerned when the [[Minnesota Tribe]] struck several Combine systems, believing they were a precursor of returning SLDF Exodus forces. Through this, however, he maintained his military brilliance, achieving success in many raids with his [[Chain Gang Missions]] against Davion and Steiner, triggering the [[Second Succession War]]. <ref name="HK-63">''House Kurita'', p. 63 "History - Second Succession War - Gearing Up"</ref> <ref name="HKp64">''House Kurita (The Draconis Combine)'', p. 64, "Jinjiro's last years"</ref>

=== Death ===
On February 14, [[2837]], a mysterious gift was delivered to Jinjiro's private rooms. How it made it through security would never be known, but the gift - an angelic full-featured doll dressed in the [[Star League]]'s officer uniform - drove him completely and irrevocably insane. It took his guards two hours to finally subdue him, and he spent the rest of his life heavily sedated or screaming madly in a padded room. He eventually hanged himself with a noose fashioned from his own clothes, dying in July [[2841]].<ref name="HKp64">''House Kurita (The Draconis Combine)'', p. 64, "Jinjiro's last years"</ref>

== BattleMechs ==
Jinjiro was known to have piloted a ''[[Thug]]'', at least briefly, during his drive deeper and deeper in the Federated Suns, the 'Mech ultimately being captured by the [[Kestrel Crucis March Militia]] as a trophy.<ref name=FMFS-115>''Field Manual: Federated Suns'', p. 115 "AFFC Rosters - AFFC March Militia - Crucis March Militia - Kestrel Crucis March Militia"</ref>

== Quotes ==
{{Quote|''Why break the peace? Because the First War solved nothing. Our fate has yet to play itself out. Our destiny as rulers of the known universe is unfilled.''|From [[ComStar]] Interview #32 with Coordinator Jinjiro Kurita, April [[2825]]<ref name="HK(TDC)p61">''House Kurita (The Draconis Combine)'', p. 61, "Gearing Up"</ref>}}

{{Quote|''My simple demand, submit and I'll spare your worlds, From the Dragon's Claw''|Coordinator Jinjiro Kurita, haiku sent to the rulers of the other four Successor Houses, [[2829]]<ref name=SSWp12>''Second Succession War'', p. 12: "Crucible"</ref>}}

== References ==
<references />

== Bibliography ==
* ''[[Field Manual: Federated Suns]]''
* ''[[House Kurita (The Draconis Combine)]]''
* ''[[Second Succession War (sourcebook)|Second Succession War]]''


[[Category:Draconis Combine Characters|Kurita, Jinjiro]]
[[Category:Coordinators|Kurita, Jinjiro]]
[[Category:Notable Thug Pilots]]