Naito Masaatsu is lord of the Yunagaya Domain, an area with only 15,000 citizens which also happens to control a valuable gold mine. When a scheme is hatched by Matsudaira Nobutoki, a member of the shogun’s elder council, to take over the mine by forcing Naito to complete his “Sankin-kotai” journey to Edo within an impossible time frame, Naito enacts a daring plan to take a shortcut through the mountains in order to make the 8-day journey in only 4.