Читать книгу Ninjutsu - Donn F. Draeger - Страница 6

INTRODUCTION

The Consummate Secret Agent

by Boyé Lafayette De Mente

The activities of spies, espionage agents, assassins, terrorists and counterterrorist forces are now regular news throughout most of the “civilized” world. These agents of death and destruction often utilize scientific technology that makes some of their feats seem almost supernatural.

Many of the professionals in this nefarious and inhuman business learned some of their methods from studying the strategy, tactics and weapons of Japan's infamous feudal-age ninja who practiced the arts of ninjutsu. and were probably the best trained, most ingenious and deadliest undercover agents of all time.

The roots of ninjutsu have been traced to the Chinese military classic Sun Tzu, written by the famed strategist Sun Tzu who lived around 400 B.C. The work was introduced into Japan in the 6th-century-A.D., where it was carefully studied by the Imperial Court and various clan leaders vying for power.

Buddhism was introduced in Japan at about the same time, resulting in a conflict between those who wanted to make Buddhism the state religion and the defenders of Shintoism, the native religion.

The predecessors of Japan's ninja were so-called rebels favoring the adoption of Buddhism who fled into the mountains near Kyoto as early as the 7th-century-A.D. to escape religious persecution and death at the hands of Imperial forces.

These rebel groups came to be known as yamabushi or “mountain ascetics,” who sought enlightenment through pragmatic mysticism. To protect themselves, they combined the study and practice of martial arts and military strategy with psychological warfare and occult powers.

A noted Yamabushi leader began trying to implement a compromise between the backers of Buddhism and the Shintoists, resulting in the Imperial Court sending warriors to invade the mountain domains of the rebels. The attempt to wipe them out failed.

The threat from the Imperial Court continued, however, and over the centuries the yamabushi developed extraordinary survival and fighting skills that made them formidable enemies. By the beginning of Japan's feudal age in 1192, a number of family-clans descended from these rebels had become professional guerrillas and secret agents for hire, and were often retained by the various provincial lords (daimyo) in their inter-clan struggles for supremacy.

Between 1192 and 1333 A.D., a total of 25 ninja “schools” developed, each with its own distinctive techniques and specialties. Ninja training camps flourished throughout the country. During most of this period two of Japan's provinces (now called prefectures) were dominated by ninja clans.

There were more than 50 families in the Koga “school” of ninja in Koga province (now Shiga Prefecture), but only three ninja families, the Hattori, the Momochi and the Fujibayashi, controlled Iga province (now Mie Prefecture). These three were the most famous of feudal Japan's ninja families, the largest of which had over 1,000 members.

THE GREATEST NINJA BATTLE

The largest recorded gathering of ninja took place on November 3, 1581 when Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful clan leader of the time, led an army of 40,000 warriors against approximately 4,000 Iga ninja in the mountains of Iga province. Only a few of the Iga ninja escaped with their lives.

A short time later, Oda was assassinated by one of his own aides. Oda's leading general, Ieyasu Tokugawa, immediately began moving to consolidate power in his own hands. He retained the famous ninja leader Hattori and his men to escort him back to his headquarters Okazaki. Later Ieyasu employed the Hattori ninja as his personal bodyguard, giving them the cover of gardeners on the castle grounds.

In a further move to protect himself and the Shogunate he founded, Ieyasu employed large numbers of the Koga ninja clan in his own secret service. Shortly after this he also brought ninja from other family-clans into the new Shogunate security forces.

As part of his far-reaching plan to solidify and perpetuate the Tokugawa Shogunate, Ieyasu then banned all ninja training camps except those that were to serve the Shogunate, and even prohibited the mention of the deadly secret agents in any public reference.

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.