Aware of this double meaning (and that those he's speaking to know that he used Kuwabatake as a pseudo-surname), he slyly quips: "Though I'm closer to forty, actually". Although 三十郎 Sanjuro is a proper given name (and therefore could very well be the rōnin's true name), when spoken out loud it can also be interpreted as 三十老 Sanjuro (note the different last kanji 老), which means "thirty years old" (三十 sanju = thirty, 老 ro = years-old)). When asked his name, he sees a mulberry field and states his name is 桑畑三十郎 (Kuwabatake Sanjuro?) 桑畑 (mulberry bush?). He first convinces the weaker Seibei to hire him as a swordsman by effortlessly killing three of Ushitora's men. But after sizing up the situation, the stranger says he intends to stay as the town would be better off with both sides dead. The silk merchant and mayor back Seibei while the sake brewer is allied with Ushitora. He tells the rōnin that the two warring clans are led by Ushitora and Seibei. The stranger heads to the town where he meets the owner of a small Izakaya who advises him to leave. While stopping at a farmhouse, he overhears an elderly couple lamenting that their only son has given up farm labouring in order to run off and join the rogues who have descended on a nearby town that has become divided by a gang war.
In 1860, during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate, a masterless samurai wanders through a desolate Japanese countryside.
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