The Remarkable History of the Yagyu Clan

About the Book

This is the true story of the eventful history of the famous Yagyū clan—a story that began during the early heady days of the Genkō Rebellion (1331–33), when emperor Go-Daigo sought to restore power to the throne with the support of the Yagyū and other loyal clans. It follows their campaigns on behalf of Go-Daigo's southern court during the Northern and Southern Courts period (1334–1392), and their long and hard struggle to retain their independence when the country rapidly descended into anarchy in the wake of the Ōnin Rebellion (1467–77).

This first full Yagyū history in the English language recounts how, through a succession of misfortunes beyond their control, the Yagyū clan first lost its independence, then its castle and domains, until finally its members were thrown upon the mercy of a local temple. Yet it was in the very depth of those bleak and desperate years, that its leader, Yagyū Muneyoshi, discovered his true strength and began his clan's remarkable recover—a recovery crowned with the ascendancy of his son, Munenori, to the exalted rank of Daimyō, or feudal lord.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the two Chinese characters that make up the name of Yagyū stand for the willow tree and life, or the giving of birth, for both seem to sum up perfectly the particular characteristics that helped propel this ancient clan to such exalted heights. Like the pliable willow tree, it was their resilience in the face of irresistible forces that enabled the Yagyū to outweather the raging storms of fortune and remain standing, alive and well, their spirit intact. In doing so, the Yagyū gave birth to an art of fencing that has survived for more than five centuries. Among the countless schools of swordsmanship brought forth by Japan's feudal era the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū still stands out for its sheer continuity.

Though dramatized in its settings and descriptions, all names, characters, places, dates, and historic incidents mentioned in this work are based on real-life persons, places, and events. Similarly, all block quotations are taken from their original sources.

About the Author

William de Lange was born in 1964 in Naarden, the Netherlands to Dutch and English parents. During the early nineties he studied Japanese language and culture at the universities of Leiden in the Netherlands and Waseda in Japan. Living and writing in Japan for most of the remaining decade, he studied the art of Japanese fencing under Akita Moriji sensei, eighth dan master of the Shinkage school of swordsmanship. He currently lives in the Netherlands, where he spends his time writing and translating books on a variety of Japanese subjects.

He is the author of The Real Musashi series, the three-part history Famous Samurai,  and Through the Eye of the Needle: The First Dutch Expedition to Reach Japan (previously published as Pars Japonica). He is currently writing Samurai Battles: The Long Road to Unification.

For more on books by William de Lange at:  www.williamdelange.com

First ePub edition, 2019

For more on books by William de Lange visit:

www.williamdelange.com

First edition, 2019

Published by TOYO PRess

Visit us at: www.toyopress.com

Copyright © 2019 by William de Lange

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

ISBN  978-94-92722-188

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Introduction

It is perhaps no coincidence that the two Chinese characters that make up the name of Yagyū stand for the willow tree and life, or the giving of birth, for both seem to sum up perfectly the particular characteristics that helped propel this ancient clan to such exalted heights. Like the pliable willow tree, their resilience in the face of irresistible forces enabled the Yagyū to outweather the raging storms of fortune and remain standing, alive and well, their spirit intact. In doing so, the Yagyū gave birth to an art of fencing that has survived for more than a half a millennium. Consequently, among the countless schools of swordsmanship brought forth by Japan’s feudal era, the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū stands out for its sheer continuity.

The epic history of the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū hinges on two events, both of them chance encounters. The first was the meeting of Yagyū Muneyoshi and the legendary Kamiizumi Nobutsuna, founder of the Shinkage-ryū. The second was his introduction to Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa Shōgunate. The first was instrumental in the development of the Yagyū’s style of fencing; the second proved pivotal in their success. It was through Tokugawa Ieyasu that Muneyoshi’s son, Munenori, was promoted to the powerful position of Daimyō—the first and only swordsman in Japanese history to do so. Had Muneyoshi not had his two remarkable encounters, it is unlikely that the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū would have flourished as it did.

Opportunities lie on everyone’s road. Yet that road may be long and hard. So, at least, it was with the Yagyū. During the five centuries before Muneyoshi’s encounters, his clan experienced the whole gamut of hardships. They were the kind of hardships only a country at war could create: loss of kinship; loss of honor, loss of hope, loss of life. The low point in the Yagyū’s long history came toward the middle of the sixteenth century when in the course of a few decades they first lost their independence, then their castle, then their domains, until finally they were thrown on the mercy of a local temple. Looking back we can now see the obvious—it was the bleak, not the prosperous years that proved seminal. For it was during those years, years in which they were deprived of their worldly possessions, stripped of their rank and status, thrown back on their own devices, that these sturdy men were forced to reach deep within themselves to find their true strength: their ability with the katana.

And thus it is not in their eventual success itself that we should seek the true lesson of their history, nor in the opportunities that fate meted out. Rather, it is in the remarkable resilience and the ever-abiding sense of purpose with which this small but indomitable tribe of Japanese clansmen dealt with the cruel reversals of fate, the humbling defeats, the seemingly endless setbacks. Indeed, it may well have been the severity of the raging tempest that made the Yagyū cling to their hard-found refuge with such tenacity. Ultimately, it was their unshaken belief in their ability with the katana that sustained them and to which they owed their eventual success. It is from that belief—the belief in one’s own talent—that we can still derive true lessons on how to deal with the challenges that life throws at all of us.

Chapter 1

The name of Yagyū first appears in the historical annals during the Heian period. At that time the Japanese realm was governed by the Fujiwara, an influential clan who derived their power from the imperial court. In name, the realm was ruled by the emperor, whose seat of government was Heian-kyō. Real power, however, lay with the kanpaku, the imperial regent, whose office was a hereditary right of the Fujiwara patriarch. The wealth of the Fujiwara derived from the vast estates they owned in the fertile belt of provinces surrounding the capital. It was in 885 AD, that, according to the Gyokuei shūi, the ancient records of the Yagyū clan, the estates of Ōyagyū and Koyagū in the province of Yamato were granted to the kanpaku Fujiwara Mototsune (836–91).

For the next one-and-a-half century the Yagyū estates remained in the possession of the Fujiwara. Then, in 1038, they were donated to the Kasuga Taisha¹, an ancient shrine on Nara’s eastern outskirts patronized by the Fujiwara since the early eighth century. Government of the estates was put in the hands of shrine officials. The smaller Yagyū estate of Koyagyū was left in the care of a court official by the name of Sugawara Daizen Nagaie, the founding father of the Yagyū clan.

With the decline of the Fujiwara and the rise of the military class in the wake of the Hōgen Insurrection in the middle of the twelfth century Nagaie’s descendants were faced with a stark choice: remain loyal to their former masters and perish, or choose the way of the warrior and survive. They chose to fight. Abandoning the name of Sugawara, they assumed the name of Yagyū, after the estate they had managed over many generations and now considered their own. Henceforth it was the beautiful hills and valleys of the Kasagi Mountains from which the Yagyū derived their identity and sense of belonging. Noble blood still coursed through their veins, yet it was Kasagi’s mountain waters that nourished and purified their spirits.

With military life came military responsibilities, and in a feudal world the chief responsibility of landed warriors was the protection of their domains. The Yagyū were a small clan, and to ensure their tenuous hold over what was theirs they were forced to submit to the authority of the Minamoto, an eastern clan that emerged victorious from their five-year-long power struggle with the Taira².

Sensitized by heritage to the tastes and sensibilities of the court the Yagyū abhorred the crude and uncivilized ways of the Minamoto and their allies, who hailed from the Kantō and had little affinity for what went on in the Home Provinces—the provinces around the capital. Things did not improve on Yoritomo’s death, when the Bakufu became increasingly torn by internal strife and de facto power was seized by members of the Hōjō clan. Copying the Fujiwara regents they ruled by proxy in the capacity of shikken or regent to the infant Shōgun. As a result, the Yagyū were often at loggerheads with the new military regime, which had their headquarters in far-away Kamakura and seemed to know and care little about things that preoccupied warrior clans back in Yamato Province. Being of aristocratic descent the Yagyū loathed the way in which the Kamakura Bakufu had forced the court to cow-tow to its whims and wishes.

During the Jōkyū Rebellion of 1221, the first attempt of the court to reassert its authority, the Yagyū remained neutral. It was a shrewd move, which ensured the clan’s survival, for the rebellion was crushed within a month. Emperor Go-Toba was exiled to Oki Island, where he died in obscurity. For more than a century the Yagyū persevered in their neutral stance, until Emperor Go-Daigo (1288–1339) made another bid to restore power to the throne.

As early as 1324 Go-Daigo had begun to entertain contacts with elements within the Bakufu sympathetic to the throne. Within months his plans were exposed. The Hōjō response was unequivocal. They put to death all the warriors who had answered to the emperor’s call to arms. Afraid to touch Go-Daigo himself, they had all his counselors arrested, though most were released within the year.

Go-Daigo did not give up on his plan. In spite of the danger, he continued to plot against the Bakufu, visiting the religious centers of power that could help him in his bid to restore power to his throne—Kyoto’s Hiei Enryaku temple and Nara’s Tōdai temple, both of which had large standing armies of warrior monks, the so-called sōhei.

The Yagyū at this time were led by Yagyū Nagayoshi, eleventh descendant of their founding father, Sugawara Daizen Nagaie. Having gone from court officials to feudal warriors, the Yagyū had never forgotten where their true allegiance lay. Nor had they forgotten the brutal and unforgiving way in which the loyal warriors who had chosen the side of Emperor Go-Toba had been destroyed, their relatives persecuted or driven mad in exile. Determined that Go-Daigo would not share Go-Toba’s fate, the Yagyū chose to act. And it is here—in using their talent with the sword to achieve political change—that the history of the Yagyū as a clan of warriors truly begins.

Go-Daigo

Yagyū Nagayoshi was irked. For months now he had been petitioning the officials of the imperial court for an audience with His Highness. Yet from day one his requests had fallen on deaf ears. He knew the reason. Though of noble stock, the Yagyū were just a minor clan. In the eyes of the lofty court officials, he was just another warrior, too lowly to be in the presence of His Imperial Highness. Now the inevitable had happened: the emperor had fled the capital.

Thinking about it angered Nagayoshi even more. Only seven years had passed since Emperor Go-Daigo had tried to overthrow the powerful Hōjō. Within months the Hōjō had uncovered the plot. They had arrested the ringleaders and put to death all the warriors who had risen in arms.

Only one reason could have forced the emperor to forsake the imperial palace: the Hōjō had again got wind of something. Nagayoshi knew what it was—he had known for more than a year now. Only the previous year Go-Daigo had visited the Kasuga Taisha. Officially it had been just another visit, one in a long succession of ceremonies that filled the days of His Imperial Highness. As always, it had been a grand affair. The Yagyū had been among the dozens of patrons who had gathered on the shrine’s wide forecourt. It had been a splendid sight indeed. They had been dressed in their white ceremonial garb and had bowed in reverence as Go-Daigo burned incense at the shrine’s altar and clapped his hands three times to send his prayers to the heavens. All knew the content of those prayers: to restore imperial powers. He still wanted to topple the Hōjō, and he still hoped to unite the warrior clans behind his cause.

Dark forces threatened Go-Daigo. There was nothing the Hōjō wouldn’t do to hang on to power. They had already arrested the emperor’s counselor Hino Toshimoto. He had been seized in clear daylight, in the grounds of the imperial palace. Only the heavens knew what they would do to him. The last time around, they had exiled Toshimoto’s brother to Sado Island. This time they wouldn’t be so lenient. It was only a matter of time, too, before they would turn on the emperor himself.

Nagayoshi cursed; he couldn’t believe the stupidity of it all. Not that he was against a restoration of imperial powers. Far from it; it was a noble cause indeed. But to attempt it from within the imperial palace had been pure folly. The time was gone that the emperor could count on the kuge, the realm’s ancient nobility. Their power had long gone. This was the age of the warriors. Many of them were loyal to the throne. But they would never risk defending the imperial palace. The Hōjō were far too powerful for that. This needed time, careful planning, decisive attacks on the Bakufu’s centers of power, followed by quick retreats. They might feel like bee stings at first, but once they covered the whole body, its occupant was bound to die.

What Go-Daigo needed now—what he had needed all along—was a safe base from which to operate, like the ancient emperor of Song China, when the northern tribes had raided Kaifeng. And what better place than the impenetrable mountains around the ancient capital of Nara? There he could rely on the many local warrior clans loyal to the court, as well as the ancient monasteries with their large standing armies of sōhei. It might not suit His Highness’ dignity, yet it was the only way.

Mount Kasagi

It was on a windswept Saturday, September 28, 1331, two days after Nagayoshi learned of the emperor’s escape, that his younger brother, Gensen, a monk attached to the Tōdai temple, came storming into the Yagyū manor at the head of the Yagyū Valley, and shouted: ‘Tennō Heika Nara ni araserareru!’ (His Highness the Emperor is in Nara!)

Gensen could hardly contain himself as he revealed the stunning news. Tense with excitement, his usual stutter, which could be bad at the best of times, reasserted itself with a vengeance as he began to stumble over his own words: ‘His Highness is at the Tōdai-ji. He arrived l-last n-night at the temple’s Southeast Cloister, under the c-cover of darkness. And c-can you b-believe it? He was dressed as a w-woman, for fear of being d-discovered! He has been forced to leave the palace in a hurry, without even the time to call his servants! Even his palanquin was c-carried by court officials!’

Nagayoshi frowned. ‘Who else was with him?’

‘Just a handful of n-nobles—the Great Counselor, Kintoshi, the Middle Counselor, Madenokōji Fujifusa, and the Rokujo Lesser Marshal, Minamoto no Tadaaki. And they t-too were all in p-plain clothes!’

‘What happened next?’

‘His Highness spent the whole n-night in frantic talks with the temple’s abbot, Shōjin, discussing a safe place to go into hiding. He c-cannot stay in Nara. Too many monks there are on the hand of the Hōjō. Indeed, even some of the cloisters of the Tōdai temple are in c-cahoots with the Bakufu. If their sōhei get wind of his presence, they will not hesitate to hand him over. He has to get away and he has to get away quick! Somewhere d-down south, among the Yoshino Mountains, is safest. But once there he will be very remote from his supporters: the chieftains from the Home Provinces; the m-monasteries of Nara and Kyoto with their vast garrisons of sōhei. The mountains should only be a last resort—if everything else f-fails…’

Gensen gasped for air as he tried to fill in his brother on all the details. He had run all the way from Nara, some eight miles along the narrow Yagyū Kaidō, the old road that connected Nara to Kasagi and the high road from Kizu to Ueno. No one knew this path like the Yagyū. They, after all, had given the path its name when way back they had commissioned its construction. Winding its way through beautiful countryside northeast of Nara, the cobbled path was often chosen by pilgrims on their way to the temple town. At almost every turn was some statue of Kannon, some engraving of Jizō, carved out of large rocks along the roadside or hewn deep into the rock face of the mountains. Though hallowed, the Yagyū Kaidō could also be treacherous, especially in the current rainy season, when devastating typhoons swept inland from the Pacific. Then torrential rains turned the sloping sections into dangerous rapids that lent the road its second name: Takisaka Michi, or Waterfall Slope Path. If the rain persisted its slopes turned into mudslides that carried everything and anything before it. Many had set out along the path never to arrive at the other end, and every spring large groups of laborers spent long weeks repairing the damaged sections.

For a while Nagayoshi pondered the enormity of the situation. Then he spoke, deliberately, as always: ‘We will escort his Highness along the Yagyū Kaidō to Kasagi-dera.’

Nagayoshi tried to sound upbeat, but inside he felt numb. For months he had been trying to get through to some court official to warn them. None of them had listened. Now his worst fears had materialized. Kasagi temple was the best choice under the circumstances. Crowning the crest of Mount Kasagi, the old Shingon temple was a branch temple of the Tōdai-ji. It was only a few miles north of the Yagyū domain and well situated, with lots of natural protection. Yet without reinforcements, even Mount Kasagi could not save Go-Daigo in the long run. The Bakufu would not tarry in sending down troops, most of them from the Kantō. They had a week—perhaps two—to dig themselves in and prepare for the inevitable.

Nagayoshi poured his brother and himself some hot sake as he reflected on this sudden change of events. How odd were the tricks that the gods played on mortal men. It seemed almost ironic that, all of a sudden, the fate of His Highness should now come to rest on the shoulders of men like him.

To Safety

It was late Sunday evening as the small group escorting the imperial palanquin reached the foot of Mount Kasagi. All in all there were some two dozen men. Among them were a number of monks who had joined the emperor’s entourage at the Tōdai temple. To Nagayoshi’s regret they were not the kind of warrior monks used to mountain life like his brother, but frail men, their thin wrists only trained to wield the writing brush. Yet all except the aged abbot and nobles took their turn in carrying the imperial palanquin, proudly bearing their precious cargo until the skin on their shoulders had all but gone.

By now they had reached the end of their tether. The whole day had been an uphill battle. Leaving Nara before dawn they had run into trouble as soon as they hit the mountains. Earlier typhoons had washed away whole tracts where the path followed and crossed the Nōto River, including the small bridge, forcing them to make a detour of several hours through dense forest. In summer it would have taken them less than two hours to reach Kasagi; now it had taken them almost twenty.

There was still a steep climb ahead, up to the temple. From where they stood a narrow path wound itself up the mountain for two miles to a height of six hundred feet. As children, Nagayoshi and Gensen had often competed who got to the temple gate first. They felt no competition now, just an urgent sense to reach the summit. Never had the ascent been so taxing; it felt as if they gained a pound with every step.

All felt a sense of deep relief when, close to midnight, they finally passed under the temple’s imposing gate. There was no grandeur to the procession; all were covered in mud up to their waist, their shoulders bleeding, their clothes stained and torn. Yet at the same time, there was a profound dignity in the motley crew as they lowered the palanquin in front of the temple’s forecourt and deeply bowed in reverence as the emperor alighted from his palanquin and expressed his gratitude. Then they slowly raised their heads and watched in silence as he entered the temple’s octagonal Hall of Wisdom, followed by the abbot Shōjin and the two court officials carrying the realm’s three sacred treasures: the sword Kusanagi, the mirror Yata no Kagami, and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama. Since time immemorial, only the true line of the imperial house had possessed these regalia, and only the true imperial house had embodied their three primary virtues: valor, wisdom, and benevolence.

A loud cheer went up among the men as Gensen raised the brocade imperial banner over the temple’s gate, where it defiantly fluttered in the gathering storm. So far the gods had been on their side. For no sooner had the emperor entered the Main Hall than the heavens opened and a torrential rain soaked the men to their skins. Had it struck that morning they would never have reached their goal. Now, the emperor was safe. Yet for how long? Another, far fiercer storm was brewing—one that would last a lifetime and ravage the realm.

Sōhei

From ancient times the Yagyū had been closely connected to Kasagi-dera. At least one son out of every generation had been singled out to serve at the ancient temple, which was as old as the Yagyū clan itself. There were only two brothers in this generation, and thus it fell to Gensen to serve at the temple—and not just as a monk. Kasagi temple³ was one of the Shingon sect’s chief bastions.  The reasons were obvious. Situated atop Mount Kasagi, close by the Kizu River, the temple was a fortress with formidable natural defenses. It had long been the training grounds of the sect’s many sōhei, and never before had a besieging army been able to capture the stronghold.

Gensen had entered the temple at the age of four, spending his youth in studying the Buddhist scriptures and practicing with the yari. He had grown into a formidable warrior, as skilled with the yari as his brother with the katana. A tall and imposing man, he had made it to the temple’s Teacher of Discipline.

Now it was his task to serve and protect the man his brother had tried in vain to reach. Never before had he been in the presence of such an exalted being. At first, he dared hardly look when, on some errand, he entered the Hall of Wisdom. As Teacher of Discipline it was his task to see to the emperor’s needs, but with absolute discretion. Yet every now and then he got a glimpse of this god-like figure, steeped deep in thought over some text or dictating to one of his courtiers. He reminded Gensen of a Chinese sage he had once seen on an old mainland scroll at the Tōdai temple. His long, raven-black hair was tied back from his high forehead, and from his round chin, a long beard tapered into a pointed tuft that danced comically up and down before a heavy chest on the few occasions he spoke.

And that voice! It had a high, effeminate pitch, wholly out of keeping with his stout physique. He seemed to talk in riddles, for his convoluted sentences were so full of Chinese expression, that it seemed he was indeed a Chinese sage. It was only because Gensen had spent his youth pouring over Buddhist scriptures, all written in kanbun, an annotated form of Chinese, that the warrior-monk could make some sense of the emperor’s words.

Gensen could not get his head around the idea that he was in the emperor’s presence. Suddenly the barriers that once separated this divine being from the common man had fallen away: no longer was he hidden from their gaze by thin bamboo blinds; no longer did they have to speak through court interpreters. Yet within a few days, Gensen knew enough to understand that the emperor shared a number of human traits with those around him—for one, he was clearly a man in despair.

Honjōbō

Go-Daigo had good reason to worry. The Bakufu had sent word to all its allies to suppress the rebellion. In the province of Ōmi, only a day’s travel by foot from Kasagi, governor Sasaki Tokinobu was raising a large army. Farther afield, in Musashi and Sagami, others were doing likewise. Already the Bakufu had moved against Mount Hiei, where Go-Daigo’s son, Prince Morinaga, was leading the Tendai monks in revolt. He had gained their support by a ruse. On his flight from the capital, Go-Daigo had sent one of his counselors, Lord Kazan’in Morokata, up the mountain in the imperial carriage wearing his personal dragon robes to trick the monks into joining his cause.

The gravity of his predicament was reinforced when Nagayoshi, on guard at the temple’s main gate, spotted a small band of men climbing up toward them. They were dressed in monks’ clothes and some of them were clearly wounded and had to be supported by their companions. They were led by a towering man with the physique of a kongōrikishi, the huge wooden statues standing guard at Nara’s Tōdai temple. Having reached the gate, he spoke with a deep bellowing voice, as he called up to Nagayoshi, ‘I am Honjōbō and I have come from Nara’s Hannya temple. The others have come from Mount Hiei. Nara is already swarming with Bakufu troops. They are clearly