Stills from Ninja Nation
The first people who came into contact with Japanese ninjas were nothing more than manga anime such as "Ninja Chaos", "Naruto", "Koga Ninja Hotsuta", games such as "Ninja Dragon Sword", and some even met ninjas through American works such as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".
Naruto
Ninjas, like samurai, are a special group in Japan, and ninjas are more mysterious than samurai. However, in history, especially before the Edo period, there were almost no records of "ninja", and after entering the Edo period, some words similar to "ninja" appeared one after another.
It can be seen that the "ninja" culture that we are familiar with now is not actually a historical ninja, but a "traditional Japanese culture" that Has been packaged by Japanese talents in modern times, which is far from the real ninja culture in Japan. To understand the real ninja, we have to put aside the illusions in the works of art of later generations and peek at them from some scattered historical materials.
During the Sengoku period, ninjas generally referred to as "Iga" and "Koga", and ninjas in different places were also called "Chaos Wave", "Su bo", "kusanagi", and "regulus". Medieval sources say that ninjas are generally called "ninjas" or "ninjas". In the "Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary" compiled by the Portuguese missionary in the Middle Ages, the word "xinobi" is interpreted as "a spy who sneaked into the local city or camp at night to steal intelligence during the war", and in the "Records of The Lee Dynasty", it is recorded that in May of the seventh year of Emperor Zhongzong, the Korean side imprisoned a guy named "Yoshiro", and this person was known as "Shi Laowei" in Hakata, Japan, who was good at disguise, evaded the garrison soldiers, and freely shuttled through the army, "Shi Laowei" is "Shi Laowei" is "Shi Lao Wei" The harmonic sound, that is, the ninja.
ninja
In the third year of the Japanese Motokame (1572), it was at the height of the "Nobunaga Encirclement Network". In September of that year, Takeda Shingen, the daimyō of the Eastern Kingdom, which ruled the Kai Kingdoms, Shinano Kingdoms, Suruga Kingdoms, and Nishiueno, also sent troops westward to attack Oda Nobunaga's ally Tokugawa Ieyasu, expanding towards the Togae Kingdom and the Mikawa Kingdom, capturing several Tokugawa castles in succession. However, after the three-sided battle, Takeda Shingen's health was not very good, and in December of that year, Takeda Shingen sent a letter to the Ermata Castle Keeper of the Toe Kingdom, the first of which was to instruct the keeper to be careful to guard against "Forbearance" ("Tono Document"). Matamata Castle was the castle under Takeda Shingen's western attack, originally this castle had always belonged to the Tokugawa family, so the ninjas of the Tokugawa family must be quite familiar with the structure of this castle, plus Framing Castle was located at the junction of the Takeda and Tokugawa conflicts, so Takeda Shingen was worried about the infiltration of ninjas into the castle.
On May 12, 1574, after the death of Takeda Shingen, the new Takeda family governor Takeda Katsurai sent troops to attack Takatenjin Castle, a vassal of the Tokugawa clan, which surrendered to the Takeda army on Takeda Shingen's journey to the west, and was later retaken by Tokugawa Ieyasu. On May 15, news of the Takeda family's renewed invasion of the Toe Kingdom reached Heian Kyo, and the next day Oda Nobunaga hurried back to Gifu Castle from Kyoto. Because Nobunaga was still under siege at this time and was not prepared to deal with the Takeda Army, he had to temporarily collect grain and grass at Gifu Castle to defend against Takeda Katsurai, the domain of the Tokugawa clan. On June 8, Oda Nobunaga's vassal Yokoi Shitai spotted an enemy ninja in Gifu Castle and beheaded the ninja (Yokoi Shoji), who was presumably sent by the Takeda family to scout the Oda army.
Shingen Takeda
On the eve of the fall of the Takeda clan in the 1582 year of Tenshō (1582), a large number of ninjas were still sent to the Hojo clan domain to harass them, and the Hojo clan's letter to the vassals mentioned that it was necessary to guard against a large number of "Suwa" ("Ancient Texts of The States") coming from Shinano Kingdom, and Thatsuwa was a ninja of Shinano Kingdom.
Of course, the role of ninjas is not limited to spies and spies, but also acts as mercenaries on the battlefield, serving as employers.
In the nineteenth year of Keicho (1614), the Osaka Winter Front broke out between the Tokugawa family and the Toyotomi family, and the general of the Osaka clan, Sanada Nobubu (Sanada Yukimura), who was born in Shinano Kuni Prefecture, was rumored to have a large number of ninjas under his command, and Ii Naotaka, one of the shogunate's troops at the time, issued an order to the family to strictly guard against ninjas setting fire in their own camp when marching. The Edo shogunate Noboru Noboru Yoshioka Domain lord Arima Naojun also mentioned in the military law formulated for his courtiers that during the battle, ninjas would sneak into the camp at night, cut the ropes tied to the horses, let the horses run around the camp, and when there was a riot in the camp because the horses were running around, the ninjas would take the opportunity to use long guns and iron cannons to conduct "night fights". A document of unknown age also mentions the need to be careful of arson and "night hanging", and arson, night begging, and night suspension are all common tactics used by ninjas when attacking enemy troops at night.
Ninjas of group action
In the Hojo Goyo Chronicle, the ninja who served as the leader of the army is called "Chaos Wave", and the book also gives examples of two ambush tactics, "Ninja" and "Grass", where "Ninja" and "Grass" refer to the name of the action, not the character pronoun, and like the "Ninja", "Kusanagi" also appears in the document. In the Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary, the Kyushu region called this ambush tactic "Fucao", and kanto called "grass" and "grass tune". This method of warfare should refer to ambushing soldiers in hidden places such as grass and then suddenly attacking the enemy, which is also a common method of warfare used by ninja mercenaries.
If you want to talk about the most famous ninja in Japan, it is definitely Naruto Uzumaki (funny), but in the manga "Naruto" with Naruto as the protagonist, there are many ninjas with prototypes. For example, the Yuyin Village Yamajima Hanzo, the prototype is Hattori Hanzo; Kiba Sanshinobu Zilaiya, Tsunade, and Daisnake Maru are from the picture book "Erlei Ya Haojie Tan" at the end of the Edo period; legend has it that the ninja monkey Flying Sasuke under Sanada Nobuharu was dismantled into three generations of Naruto Ape Flying Sun Chopper and Uchiha Sasuke, but probably because The Ape Flying Sasuke is so famous, the author later set the father of the Ape Flying Sun Chopper as Ape Flying Sasuke.
Sasuke The Ape in Sengoku Basara
In addition to Naruto, the novel Koga Ninja Is also quite famous. Koga and Iga, these two humble little places, after cultural packaging, can be said to be sacred places in the hearts of ninja fans in the world. The Koga Ninjutsu says that Tokugawa Ieyasu, in order to consider whether to let his grandson Takechiyo or Kuni chiyo succeed to the shogunate after Tokugawa Hidetada, ordered Iga and Koga to fight each other in ninjutsu on behalf of one side, and the children represented by the winning ninja could become heirs. It was later adapted into manga, anime, and movies, and became very popular in Japan. Historically, however, Koga and Iga were not feuds in the Koga Ninja Dharma, and the two sides actually cooperated as ninja groups until Hattori Hanzo, who was born in Iga, released Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi used Koga to spy on Tokugawa Ieyasu. Of course, in the Momoyama and Edo periods, a small number of these ninjas were reduced to the samurai class, and most of them became commoners.
The ninja in the artwork I quite like the shiraiya in Naruto, but in the early years of the history of the samurai is not a simple ninja, in the "Shiraiya Speak" he is a righteous thief like a rat monk, the body is the Miyoshi family ronin tail Shape Shuma, once learned the toad demon from the immortals from Myokayama, became a thief who was good at using ninjutsu.
Kiba Sannin in Naruto
In the picture book Erlei ya haojie tan (erlei is also pronounced the same as shiraku) at the end of the Edo shogunate, he is also a descendant of the Higo Kingdom, who grew up in the ninja-popular Shinano kingdom and learned toad demonism from the immortals of Myoko Mountain in Echigo Kingdom, his wife is a tedunter who is good at using slugs, and his nemesis is the ninja Great Snake Maru born of the great snake. This work is also the first time that "Kiba Sannin" has starred on the same stage.
What is unexpected is that this "Kiba Sanshin" actually has a Chinese "bloodline", the prototype of "Shiraiya" in Japanese art works, and it is said that a snitch who steals something in a Chinese Song Dynasty novel will write "I come also" on the wall after stealing things.
In the seventh year of Tenshō (1579), Oda Nobunaga mobilized a large number of Gyeonggi Nono's troops to surround the rebellious Settsu-ku Oka castle and The Miki Castle of the Harima Kingdom, but there were a group of people who did not participate in Nobunaga's counter-rebellion, most of whom were Oda Nobunaga's second son and the vassals of Kita Nobunaga (Oda Nobunaga), who led the Southern Ise Kingdom. Nobuo, who was twenty-two years old at the time and a half-brother who was one year younger than Oda Nobunaga, stopped his plans to go to set out in the Settsu Kingdom and instead sent troops to attack Iga Kingdom, a neighbor of the Ise Kingdom, setting off the "Tenshō Iga Rebellion".
Oda Nobuo in Ninja Kingdom
Iga Kingdom was originally the domain of the Muromachi shogun Ashikaga clan of the Shuryū Renmu clan, but in the Warring States chaos, can it be explained that an old shogunate was a guardian position? In the twelfth year of The Eternal Force (1569), when Oda Nobunaga invaded the Kita Hataga clan of the Ise Kingdom, the head of the Iga Kingdom's guardian, Hitoshi Masamune, surrendered Oda Nobunaga through Takikawa Kazuyoshi and gained the ability to block it. However, in the early years of The Great, the Iga Kingdom formed the "Zongguo Yiyi" autonomous group, and the power of this group in the Iga Kingdom was far greater than that of the Renmu family, and it is stated in the "Seshu Military Chronicle" that "sixty-six servants of the four counties of the Iga Kingdom are united in guarding the cities." Kitahata Nobuo's Iga invasion most likely intended to occupy the autonomous state surrounded by the Oda family' domain, eliminate the autonomous Ichigo group, and bring the Iga kingdom into a domain.
On September 17, Kitaha Nobuo led an army of more than 10,000 men to invade Iga Kingdom from nagōguchi in the south and Nagoguchi in the north, only to be counterattacked by the "ninja nation" ShōgunIchi, who fled into the wilderness, and even the old family member Uezaburō Saeburo was killed. Oda Nobunaga was furious when he learned of this, and scolded Kitahata Nobuo, of course, not only because Kitahata Nobuo lost the battle, but also because he was going to join the Settsu Kingdom, which delayed the military plane. Oda Nobunaga also taught Kitahata Nobuo to remember the importance of various things, the first was the world, the second was to serve his father, the third was to lead the army to assist his brother Oda Nobunaga in Arioka Castle, and finally it was Nobuo's turn to do his own private affairs.
Oda Nobunaga
Of course, although Kitahata Nobuo is now in sight, there is a saying that it is a good saying that it depends on the owner to beat the dog, right? Not to mention that the Iga Kingdom's sons were Oda Nobunaga's sons.
Nobuo Kitahata may not be able to fight, but this boy is definitely a leader in the competition. Two years later, on September 3, 1581, in the ninth year of Tenshō (1581), Oda Nobunaga had dealt with the rebellion of the various kingdoms and ishiyama Honganji Temple. Under Oda Nobunaga's arrangement, the Iga invasion was in full swing, with 10,000 troops led by Kitahata Nobuo invading Iga Domain, 12,000 troops led by Niwa Nagahide in Uzumakiguchi, 7,000 troops of the Kamataguchi Pusei clan, 3,000 troops led by Tsurui Shunkei on the Yamato side, and 2,000 troops led by Hori Hidemasa on the Shigaraki side...
Tenshō Iga Rebellion
It was only then that the Iga kunibu realized the horrors of the Oda regime, and their resistance could be said to be like an avalanche. After the invasion of the Oda Army, Maruyama Castle was quickly captured by the Oda Army, and on September 29, Hiziyama Castle was attacked by the Oda Army, and none of the 2,600 defenders survived, and after the last stronghold of Kashiwara Castle was captured by the Oda Army, the Ichijin had to flee into the Kasuga Mountains between the Iga Kingdom and the Yamato Kingdom, and Tsutsui Shunkei then sent people into the mountains to search for the Iga remnants, killing and injuring countless people.
After the pacification of the Iga Kingdom, Oda Nobunaga gave three of the four Iga counties to Kitahata Nobuo and one to Oda Nobunaga, and it can be seen that even if Kitahata Nobunaga had lost the battle to occupy it, Oda Nobunaga still hurt his son.