Jinjiro Kurita

Jinjiro Kurita was the successor to 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.

Early life

Born in 2747 on Luthien, the son of Minoru Kurita and a concubine, Jinjiro spent his early life at the center of political maneuvering. His mother, a concubine from the Rasalhague District known as "Heaven's Gate", had great ambition for her son, and managed to get him named heir when he was 10 years old. Minoru's official wife, however, had her pushed from the parapets of the Imperial City to her death. Jinjiro discovered his mother's broken body on the cobblestones the next morning, still alive, where she died in his arms.

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 Suns would be the only foe that could match the Combine, Minoru had given permission to his violently unstable by 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 regiments 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.

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 it's 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.

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 Buddhist priest. Sitting alone with the priest as they talked, a sharpshooter from the 7th Crucis Lancers shot the Minoru in the back, killing him.

When Jinjiro learned of the assassination, he calmly ordered that his forces "kill them all", resulting in 90 percent of the civilian population killed, in what will be later known as the Kentares Massacre. 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 pre-war borders as quickly as they'd come, virtually undoing all of Minoru's gains.

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. Later, he assigned his half-brother Zabu Kurita to head the PRE, the People's Reconstruction Effort, to take charge of economic, political, military, and scientific recovery efforts.

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. Through this, however, he maintained his military brilliance, achieving success in many raids against Davion and Steiner.

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 pure-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 hung himself with a noose fashioned from his own clothes, dying in July 2841.

Bibliography

• House Kurita (The Draconis Combine)