Hattori Hanzo was born in 1542 in Iga Kingdom, which is now the western part of Mie Prefecture, Japan, and because the soil of the area was very unsuitable for farming, many people helped other daimyōs to collect intelligence and assassinate to survive, and gradually formed the profession of "ninja".
Hattori Hanzo
Introduction to ninjas
In the movie animation, Japanese ninjutsu is mainly based on Iga and Koga, in fact, not only that, there are ninjas or mercenary groups in villages everywhere, and from the current point of view, ninjas do not have special functions or magic, but are similar to special forces or secret service agencies.
Hattori Hanzo's father, Hattori Hoshinaga, was one of the three Iga Uenins, the other two of which were Hyakuchi and Fujibayashi. Ninjas are divided into Upper Ninja, Naka Ninja, and Lower Ninja, also known as Think Tank Ninja, who plans actions and deploys; Naka Ninja is the captain of the actual command, and Shimo Ninja is equivalent to the current special forces, who once assisted Tokugawa Ieyasu in attacking Pelican Castle. He was granted the status of a samurai. Hattori Hanzo himself is a brave general with a spear of good beginnings, in addition to leading the regular army to kill the enemy, he also leads the ninjas in his family to carry out special missions, and the leaders of the group are called Hanzo, but his original name is Hattori Masanari! Because the activities of the ninjas were extremely confidential, there were very few historical materials left in later generations, and they carried out espionage, assassinations, and siege wars when they mixed into enemy cities to set fires and disturb them.
Japanese Ninja
The boy burst into tears
In 1579, Oda Nobunaga ordered Tokugawa Ieyasu to execute his eldest son, Tokugawa Nobuyasu, because he suspected that Tokugawa Nobunaga was in charge of the Takeda family, masanori, which was a time when the samurai cut off the abdomen in order to alleviate the pain, and the head of the abdomen cut off by another person, usually a close minister and confidant. When Tokugawa Shinyasu cut his belly, he shouted, "Hanzo! Mistakes! Hattori Masanari couldn't bear to swing his knife at him, and he fell to his knees and cried bitterly, but instead the coroner Tenkata Michigan drew his sword to make a mistake. When Tokugawa Ieyasu heard about it, he was touched by Hattori Masanari's benevolence and kindness. It is very cruel but necessary to mention that the mistake is mentioned here, because after cutting the abdomen, there will be a lot of blood loss, and it will not die immediately, the pain is extremely painful, and the final cause of death is excessive blood loss, and the Japanese Admiral during World War II, Jiro Onishi, once committed suicide by cutting his abdomen without mistakes, and it took 15 hours before he died.
Tokugawa Nobuyasu in film and television works
GuardIng Tokugawa Ieyasu
The most famous recorded is the Crossing Iga Incident: in 1582, when the Honnoji Rebellion broke out, Tokugawa Ieyasu was traveling to, and when he learned of Oda Nobunaga's death, the place was controlled by Mitsuhide, and Tokugawa Ieyasu was surrounded by only a few guards and was in danger. It was up to Hattori Masanari to lead two hundred Iga ninjas and a hundred Koga ninjas along the road, because Iga and Koga were not feuds, but purely clans in the village, serving different daimyōs, often in confrontation, and there would be cooperative relations. The ninjas under his command returned to the territory smoothly. The reason for this treatment is that, a year before this incident, Oda Nobunaga sent his son Oda Nobunaga to besiege Iga, resulting in the destruction of the village, and the Tokugawa family secretly took in the ninjas who were outlaws.
The place where the Iga Concentric Group lived in Edo
Iga Concentric Group
In 1584, Hattori Masanari led a hundred ninjas to participate in the Battle of Komakiyama Nagakute, spying in advance on the intention of the Hashiba army to surprise the attack, so that the Tokugawa army could take precautions early and eventually win the victory. In 1590, he followed Tokugawa Ieyasu in attacking Odawara Castle, and made meritorious achievements in some special tasks such as sneak attacks and arson, and obtained the territory of 8,000 stones.
Later, he reorganized the lost ninjas and founded the Iga Concentric Group, which was responsible for guarding Edo Castle and providing disaster relief and protection during the wind and rainy seasons, and the west gate of Edo was also known as the "Hanzomon Gate". After Hattori Masanari's death, his eldest son Masamune continued to be the commander, but unfortunately, he was a mediocre, engaged in the wife of his subordinates, and did not obey the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu, so the Iga Concentric Group launched a mutiny, and the Hattori family was deprived of military power, and since then the Hattori family has officially withered away.
Character summary. Readers may be a little disappointed that he does not have the novels, video games of flying along the wall or stealth, doppelgangers, which are all invented by later generations. In the Sengoku period, it was still the samurai as the protagonist, and other special identities were only foils and auxiliaries, and in addition, ninja activities have always been secretive, serving as assistants, and rarely being alone.