Ninja (10 page)

What can break the deadlock?

The answer is Prince Morinaga, whom we left escaping into the backwoods from Yoshino. He and his warriors attack the shogun's troops from the rear, cut off all paths of retreat, seize their armor, and leave them to run wild in tattered straw coats and plant leaves. So thanks to Kusunoki's brilliant defense, he and the Southern Court survive to continue their resistance to Kyoto and the Northern Court, helping to restore Go-Daigo as emperor.

Can the unconventional, nighttime attacks in these campaigns really count as ninja operations? Not quite. There were too many warriors. But the right elements are there for the emergence of the fully fledged ninja: lightly armed soldiers, opportunities taken to fight in stormy weather, night operations, wild landscapes, secrecy, deception, hilltop fortresses and fortified villages, the impossibility of using cavalry and traditional samurai methods. It was the early campaigns in the war between the Northern and Southern Courts—focusing on Go-Daigo's courtly mountaintop redoubt of Yoshino—that showed the way forward for those who would create a ninja homeland.

Go-Daigo did not remain emperor for long. In late 1334, a year after the successful defense of Chihaya, the shogun, Takauji, made false charges that Morinaga was planning to overthrow his father, and forced Go-Daigo to hand him over. Morinaga was then sent to Takauji's brother Tadayoshi in Kamakura and imprisoned in a cave for eight months. In July 1335, when a rebellion forced Tadayoshi to retreat from Kamakura, Tadayoshi had Morinaga beheaded.

The following year, a rebellion against Go-Daigo threatened Kyoto. Go-Daigo wanted to confront them in battle. Kusunoki, certain of defeat, advised evacuation to prepare for battle later in the summer, when the rebel soldiers would have been keen to get home for the harvest. Go-Daigo would not hear of it. Kusunoki accepted the decision, a perfect example of a samurai embracing death on behalf of his lord, who was in this case also his emperor. He did this willingly, he told his ten-year-old son, because he knew that one day the boy would take up the cause.

The two sides met on the site of present-day K
o
be, beside a small, dried-up river, the Minato, after which the battle is named. It was high summer, July 5. Kusunoki was vastly outnumbered on land, and threatened also by a naval force. Attacked on all sides, he fought for six hours until he could fight no longer. Finally, severely wounded, with seven hundred of his men dead and the day lost, he committed
seppuku
, in the proper samurai fashion, winning himself an almost unparalleled reputation as the ideal of gallantry and loyalty.

So ended the attempt by the emperor to restore ancient powers to imperial rule. Go-Daigo fled again, back to his Southern Court capital of Yoshino, now restored, and the war between the courts continued for half a century after Go-Daigo's death in 1339, his heir (another son) and grandson still vainly trying to reassert imperial power as of old, with the real power being exercised by the new shogunal family, the Ashikaga, from Kyoto. In the end, in 1392, the not-so-old pattern was restored: the shogun claiming executive authority in the name of the semidivine, pampered, but impotent emperor.

But this merely papered over the cracks in a society that was divided against itself in many ways, including those at the top: The shogun's supporters themselves quarreled and were divided three ways, while everyone else was further fractured if you take into account the bandits, the “light-feet” soldiery, the increasingly independent warlords, and the warrior monks in their fortified monasteries, among others. In the words of Pierre Souyri, “the most dangerous enemy was the neighbour who had his eye on one's land or the cousin who rejected the superiority of the leader.” As one war-loving Ashikaga vassal put it, “If you want to build yourself a fief, take the neighbouring estate!” He might have added, “If you want to feed your army, loot the countryside!” That's what happened, frequently. In 1336 the peasants of Mino Province in central Honsh
u
complained to their landlord, the local monastery: “During the war the armies of both Kyoto and Kamakura invaded the estate and took everything from the houses. We do not know how to express our misfortune. The war started last winter, but this year the violence was such that nothing remains on the estate. Everything has been taken. . . . Our distress is so great that no complaint can do it justice.”

What could a poor man, or village, or collection of villages do? The only thing possible was self-help, which was exactly what the provincials of Iga and next-door K
o
ga set about doing.

6

HOW TO BE A SHADOW WARRIOR, PART 3: MAGIC

If there is an unlucky aspect to the direction or date of your mission, you should back out and choose another day or time for departure.

Ninja instructional poem

NOW
WE
TURN
TO
AN
ASPECT
OF
LIFE
THAT
SURVIVES
ONLY
IN
vestigial form in the West: the world of superstition and magic. If I see a ladder, I walk under it, just to prove I am not so superstitious as to believe that it will bring me bad luck. So far, so good, touch wood. Millions take their horoscopes seriously. I don't, because I'm a Taurus, which means I'm a skeptic. But this is nothing compared with times when astrology and astronomy were flip sides of the same subject, and when so-called medical treatments were based on unproven beliefs about “humors.” Mumbo jumbo ruled supreme because there was nothing else to go on. So it was in seventeenth-century Japan, and a ninja was supposed to have an intimate knowledge of those physical signs that provided insight into character and destiny, most of which now seem as ludicrous as phrenology. For example:

•  If you are a leader with a large head, you will not be poor, but also you will not live long.

•  These traits give lifelong bad luck: small and elongated head, knees shake when sitting, small waist like a bee, and downturned corners of the mouth.

•  A short torso means an early death or an evil nature.

•  If the torso is shorter than the legs, you are poor and mean, or sickly, or will move to another province.

•  If a woman laughs at others while covering her mouth with her hand, and scratching her eyebrows, and looking at them sideways, she is a prostitute.

•  Women with tiny bodies are servants.

•  People with flared nostrils are mean and shabby.

•  The signs of a long, prosperous life include a fully fleshed top of the head, a mouth like a halo, looking like a mountain when sitting, and smelling like orchids.

•  If a woman has shaking knees and rubs her face while bowing, she is adulterous.

Natori proceeds with a detailed list of the signs indicating good and bad luck, wealth and poverty, long and short lives, wisdom and stupidity, and many other qualities as revealed in the main parts of the body: head, eyebrows (thin and flat are good, long, linear ones a sign of wisdom), eyes (a bad downward slant indicates a quick divorce), nose (a mole on the top means you will have many sons; horizontal wrinkles indicate an accident with a horse and carriage), ears, mouth, teeth, tongue (if you can touch your nose with your tongue, you will ascend the throne or become a lord), and hands. He ends by listing twenty-three signs of negativity on the palms and analyzing the meanings of moles according to color and position.

This is all considered vital knowledge for ninjas, but Natori has the sense to warn against being too rigorous. Reading character in this way is difficult, he says, and not always accurate. (Indeed! If you apply his information on teeth, royalty [which rates thirty-eight teeth], nobility [thirty-six], and wisdom [thirty-four] must be nonexistent, given that humans have thirty-two teeth at most.) Besides, if you try too hard to read an opponent's character and guess his intention, you may end up staring to the point of discourtesy. Only with great care will you be able to use the information for your ninja activities.

It's fine to help yourself with esoteric knowledge, if you can. But you can do so actively, with—and this is his chapter title—“Charms and Secret Rituals That Protect You from Being Targeted by the Enemy's Agents.” It's easy to sneer. But remember that at this time in the West (the late seventeenth century), women were still being burned for witchcraft, and few dared assert that belief in witches was one vast, murderous delusion. Almost everyone, everywhere, believed in the spirit world, and thought that with the right acts and incantations you could persuade spirits to act on your behalf, freeing you of disease or casting spells on others. The belief is still alive today—that's why religious people say their prayers and adherents of Shugend
o
send requests to heaven in the smoke of their fires.

Natori reveals five powerful spells, the number five having special significance deriving from Chinese beliefs and practices. There are five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), five emotions, five senses, five stages of life, five seasons, and many other sets of five, which passed into Buddhism, and thus to Japan and ninja teaching.

Of the first, which provides protection, he says: Cut some heavy paper into a twenty-one-centimeter square, write the spell on it, and paste it in the corner where you sleep. You should also carry a copy with you and perform cold-water ablutions. The second makes people stick together or split up, depending on how you write the spell. You can use it to cement friendships or cause a falling-out. The third, fourth, and fifth protect you from wounds. Write them in vermilion ink mixed with your blood on a silk cloth embroidered with gold, and wear it on your chest. “Then even if you fight against a mountain of swords, you will not be hurt. Fear not!”

Well, perhaps. Natori adds a note of skepticism. “Some people say that those who rely on charms and spells and use this kind of sorcery are no different from women and children.” So don't rely on spells alone. They are like good armor: useful but not infallible.

7

BUILDING THE NINJA HEARTLAND

Even if a ninja does not have impressive physical abilities, remember the most vital thing is to have acute observation.

Ninja instructional poem

THE
CAMPAIGNS
OF
THE
SOUTHERN
AND
NORTHERN
COURTS
happened close to what would become the ninja homeland, and they introduced many of the elements that would make up the ninja ethos. One of these was the growth of lower-class, peasant violence. When this started in the late thirteenth century, it was a novelty. Traditionally, while warriors fought, peasants were supposed to remain humble tillers of the soil. Since time immemorial peasants had been as compliant as sheep, concerned only with avoiding disease, bad weather, and the tax man, leaving samurai armies to march across farmland and extort taxes without fear of reprisal. But peasants are not infinitely patient. Those who lived near main roads, for example, objected to the way campaigning armies flattened crops, stole food, and destroyed houses. Villagers took to confronting generals, negotiating to supply food and horses in exchange for considerate treatment.

It worked. Villages turned themselves into communes, known as
s
o
.
The oldest known
s
o
dates from 1262, when the people of a village called Okitsushima on Lake Biwa got into a dispute with their lord over fishing rights. Under the aegis of the village council, which controlled the worship of the Shinto spirits, they drew up a secret document by which they agreed to oppose their lord, and “those who break this agreement will be expelled from their land.” In 1298, villagers threatened to direct the anger of the gods on to the lord, in forms both known (such as illnesses and accidents) and unknown (monsters and ghosts). Apparently resistance worked. At the same village in 1342, a similar protest forced the lord to apologize and make amends.

Landowners also looked after their own interests. Sometime in the 1330s, sixty-seven small landholders who doubled as warriors formed themselves into a self-help group, or league, known as an
ikki.
Under the terms of their constitution, a majority had to agree that service was necessary before they joined up as a group, and all swore to look after the families of those killed. This was nothing more than a straw or rice husk in the wind, but the
ikki
and similar organization planted the seed of an idea that low-ranking warriors-cum-landowners need not always remain sheep but could take control of their own lives if they acted collectively.
¹

As the country descended into near anarchy—trade guilds turning to violence, tenants ousting landlords, provincial warriors seizing power from the shogun's officials, families destroying themselves in disputes over succession, not to mention the pirates terrorizing the coasts—peasants fought for their own interests. One way was to run away from a lord and become an
ashigaru
(light feet), so called because they habitually joined up, fought, deserted, looted, and rejoined when it suited them. These low-class characters, usually armed with just a single sword or spear or halberd, were the equivalent of cannon fodder, but they also had a use as ninjas in all but name and expertise, sneaking into enemy camps, taking prisoners, or setting fire to watchtowers under cover of darkness. During wartime they performed all the subservient but vital roles needed in the ranks—making up squads specializing in bows, guns, spears, and swords, or working as grooms, cooks, signalers, and standard-bearers. Between wars, if they had not returned to a farming life, they formed armed gangs. By the mid-fifteenth century, they were a well-established military essential and an equally well-established menace. “Proper” soldiers and upper-class types looked upon the rise of the
ashigaru
as the end of civilization as they knew it. “These men, who have recently been used by the armies, are excessively dangerous rascals.” So wrote the aristocratic scholar and statesman Ichij
o
Kanera in the late fifteenth century. “They tear down or set fire to any place in or out of the city where they know they will not be caught by their enemies. They do not spare either private dwelling or monastic buildings. They search only for loot, and they are nothing but daylight robbers. They are a new evil and should be done away with. They are a disgrace to our country.”