In 1637, Ieyasu's grandson and successor, Iemitsu, used several hundred ninja from the Iga clan to help the Shogunate army capture and slaughter some 40,000 Japanese Christians who had taken refuge in a castle in Shimbara. This was to be the last major military action in which ninja played a vital role.
The ninja-turned-Shogunate-security agents and their descendants continued to dominate the police force in Edo (Tokyo) and other Japanese cities down to the 19th century, using their techniques and tactics to identify and capture criminals and enemies of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without the intrigue and military competition that existed between Japan's some 270 clan lords (daimyo) and the Shogun before the establishment of the Tokugawa period, the fortunes of the “outside” ninja families declined rapidly.
Ninja who were not able to make the transition from secret agents to policeman or government security agents sometimes became outlaws and master criminals. The famous robber Goemon Ishikawa, often referred to as the “Robin Hood” of Japan, had been a ninja lieutenant in the Momochi clan. He was finally captured by Shogunate agents and executed by being boiled alive in a huge cauldron.
Following the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, the government-sponsored ninja schools were closed down, but several ninja masters continued to practice and teach privately over the next several decades. By the mid-1900s there were only a few descendants of these families who remembered the old skills, and attempted to carry on some of their traditions as peaceful martial arts. The history and traditions of the ninja are commemorated in a Ninja Museum in Iga-Ueno in present-day Mie Prefecture.
THE REBIRTH OF THE NINJA
Soon after the end of World War II, Japanese moviemakers began to tap the rich body of historical fact and fiction relating to the ninja, creating a new awareness and appreciation among the current generation of Japanese for the skills and feats of these feudal secret agents.
Hundreds of thousands of Westerners who spent time in Japan were also spellbound by the movie and TV versions of the remarkable ninja, with their semi-magical powers and derring-do that would put even the most capable Western agent, including James Bond, to shame.
This interest eventually spread to the American movie and television industries, and ninja films became very popular as entertainment around the world. There were some, however, whose interest in the deadly arts of the ninja was for a far more serious purpose.
The author of this book, my colleague and good friend, the late Donn Draeger, was an internationally known authority on Asian martial arts, the author of many books on the subject and a renowned martial arts teacher.
In this book, Draeger describes not only the feudal environment in which the Japanese ninja flourished, their weapons, techniques, ruses, disguises, and various other skills, he also recounts many of their most famous exploits, allowing the reader to vicariously enter the world of the ninja themselves—as well as that of their victims!
The book not only teaches one a great deal about the psychology and dedication of present-day Japanese, it also gives one valuable insights into the attitudes and behavior of the world's current terrorists, assassins, saboteurs and secret agents.
For those who are not interested in the political and military applications of ninjutsu, the book is filled with the type of intrigue and adventure that makes it read like bestselling fiction.
OSAKA CASTLE
Formidable and magnificent, its outer walls measured eight miles in circumference. The core of such a fortress was surrounded by a maze of concentric walls, which were under constant surveillance. Well-armed sentries were posted on the walls, alert and tuned to all possibilities of danger. The hours of darkness were most dangerous and all warriors became especially watchful for the dreaded ninja.
PROLOGUE
Becoming A Ninja
Take a giant mental step back into history. Imagine yourself to be a feudal-age Japanese warrior (bushi), serving a daimyo (clan lord) in the 16th century, a time when all of Japan was in the throes of domestic warfare. Influential clan lords vie with one another in constant attempts to secure positions of military supremacy.
As a fully trained, professional fighting man who specializes in methods of hand-to-hand combat, you have had occasion to take to the field of battle many times in the service of your lord. Each time you resolutely faced death with a state of mental calmness not only expected of a man of your honorable profession but required by the samurai warrior's sacred ethical code.
Numerous enemy warriors had found your razor-sharp sword always ready, your swordsmanship terrifyingly efficient. Never had you experienced uncertainty as to the outcome of such combat. Always your fighting spirit had seen you through these moments of blood and iron, and the fame of your martial exploits had already made you a well-known hero and legend in your time.
You are well known as a warrior who fears no man, and the reality of your being alive after more than a decade of fighting attests to the fact that you have never been defeated.
Tonight you are assigned guard duty at your lord's castle. Now, as you stand watch you are fully confident that you will be master of any emergency that might arise. It is your first duty to acquit yourself in such a way as to ensure the safety of your lord. You must also bring credit to him, for the warrior's code requires such loyalty and devotion to him. You are fully prepared to die if necessary to preserve his honor.
But somehow, tonight, your emotional mood is different. As you stand in the chilly blackness of the early spring night, atop the castle's outer rampart, you feel a certain brittle tenseness and a strange and indescribable uneasiness welling up within you.
This feeling is completely new to you. You are puzzled. Your eyes strain to see into the night—there is only blackness—for the thin slice of the crescent-shaped moon gives little comfort by way of light for your lonely patrol.
Your ears are tuned to catch the slightest sound of danger—but you hear none—only natural sounds in the spring night. A gentle breeze riffles the surface of the murky waters that fill the moat below you. Reflected on the water's broken surface pattern is the dim light of the moon.
As you peer over the edge of the rampart, the huge stone wall seems to disappear beneath your feet into blackness some sixty feet to the water below. You know that wall very well— it is said to be unclimbable—so surely no threat can come from below.
You continue to stare down at the moat, trying to pierce the gloom, for the feeling of tension and uneasiness seems to be produced by your awareness of something—or somebody—lurking down there.
Your warrior-trained nerves are as tight as a drawn bowstring, and you try desperately to catch the slightest suggestion of unusual movement or sound. There is nothing to be seen or heard, yet the feeling of very tense uneasiness continues, and begins to grow.
You walk along the rampart to a new position, hoping to lose the strange emotion that accompanies you in the lonely night. Then suddenly it tells you the most shameful thing a warrior can learn about himself. You are afraid! Your tenseness, your uneasiness, they are but manifestations of fear— pure and simple fear. For the first time in your life you are afraid!
Your mind flashes back to the many times in the past when you faced an enemy. Why were those times so different from now? Facing an enemy who can be seen, his next action anticipated, and your trained reflexes triggered into an appropriate response by his slightest suki (opening), is one thing. But here tonight there is no visible enemy, and that is an entirely different matter.
Now it is suddenly clear to you—the reason for your fear— your shameful fear. Tonight the fierce commandant of the guard, whom it is said will someday be replaced by you, a brave and loyal warrior, had warned all sentries about the increased activities of the dreaded masters of the art of invisibility—the ninja, as these