Histoires de Ninja

Hanzô Hattori

Hanzō Hattori était le fils de Yasunaga Hattori. Né vassal du clan Matsudaira, puis du clan Tokugawa, Hanzō Hattori se révéla un des meilleurs serviteur de Ieyasu Tokugawa, l'un de ses plus loyaux. Il mena sa première bataille à 16 ans, combattit durant la Bataille d'Anegawa en 1570, puis la Bataille de Mikatagahara en 1572 - cependant sa victoire la plus mémorable reste celle qui suivit la mort de Nobunaga Oda en 1582.

A ce moment, Tokugawa Ieyasu et ses ninja étaient postés pres d'Ōsaka, et apprirent l'assassinat d'Oda juste à temps pour s'enfuir et éviter les troupes de Mitsuhide Akechi. Cependant, ils n'étaient pas encore en sûreté : Mikawa était encore loin et les hommes d'Akechi pouvaient bloquer les routes. Hanzō proposa alors l'idée d'aller vers Iga, où se trouvaient des samouraïs ralliés à sa cause. De plus, Ieyasu avait aidé les survivants de l'invasion de Nobunaga en 1580, et ceux qui s'en souvenaient seraient prets à aider le groupe. Tadakatsu Honda envoya Hanzō et, comme prévu, les hommes d'Iga consentirent à les aider, à les guider et même à leur offrir une escorte. Finalement, Ieyasu Tokugawa put rentrer sain et sauf à Mikawa. Par contre, Nobukimi Anayama, qui avait insisté pour prendre une autre route, prétextant que le jeune Hanzō Hattori n'avait aucune idée du détour qu'il leur imposait, n'eu pas cette chance. Attrapé par des hommes de son ancien daimyō Katsuyori Takeda, il fut décapité.

Hanzō Hattori eut pour successeur son fils, Masanari Hattori, qui fut nommé Iwami-no-Kami et gardien du Chateau d'Edo. La réputation de Hanzō Hattori en tant que meneur ninja commandant 200 hommes d'Iga a pris des proportions légendaires.

Kato Danzo

On sait très peu de choses sur ce ninja, sauf qu'il était un maître dans l'art de l'illusion.
Un document historique relate qu'il aurait avalé un taureau devant plus de 20 personnes.
Aujourd'hui, après des recherches, il est à croire que Danzo pratiquait surtout l'hypnose de masse. Les ninjas étudiaient la psychologie, et il n'était pas rare qu'ils l'utilisent sur les gens.

On dit que Danzo aurait pu servir le seigneur Uesugi Kenshin. mais son art de l'illusion était si mortel que uesugi décida de ne pas l'engager et de le tuer.
Kenshin ordonna à Danzo de s'introduire dans une maison, où il avait placé de nombreux gardes. Danzo s'aperçut toutefois de la supercherie et lança son shinobi shouzoku (son costume noir) par dessus le rempart du jardin, attaché avec une corde. Les gardes crurent qu'il s'agissait de Danzo et décochèrent leurs flèches; Danzo tira alors la corde à lui, et les gardes crurent qu'il avait réussi à ressauter par dessus les palissades. Il fut donc nommé après cela Tobi Kato, "Kato le volant".

Fuma Kotaro, aka Kazama
(c. 1550 – c. 1610)


Born in the Sagami Province, there is almost nothing known of Fuma Kotaro in his early and late life. All the details surround his activities as a ninja, or, as he is sometimes called, a suppa (meaning thief or brigand). He was the fifth generation jonin (leader) of the Fuma Ryu ninjas at Odawara, where they worked as guerilla fighters for the Hojo clan.

Sometime in the early 1570s, Kotaro was sent on a mission to assassinate Takeda Shingen, a rival daimyo to the Hojo clan. He managed a few sniper shots at the warlord and struck him at least one good blow. In 1573, Takeda would die of that wound while pressing an attack against his enemies.

In March of 1581, the Hojo stronghold was attacked by the forces of Takeda Katsuyori. Takeda set up his base with a large mountain as its defense, and on the opposite side of the mountain from the Hojo forces. Kotaro and his Fuma ninjas were sent in to do the dirty work they did so well. Their first tactic was to produce straw men in full battle garb, and send them in on horses. The idea was to lure Takeda’s men into taking the “warriors” less seriously each time they approached, so that when the real men came in they would face less resistance. The idea worked and after a few charges of straw men the ninjas were able to ride in and ambush the guards, then dissolve away into shadows leaving death and worry behind. Takeda’s troops were thrown into an off-balanced terror. The ninjas performed a serious of night raids that first night, keeping the troops in a panic. They captured a few of Takeda’s men, stole their horses, burned and detonated parts of the camp, and entered the camp disguised as Takeda’s men. They continued this harrassment until the very night before the battle. Takeda’s forces suffered greatly with distrust and paranoia. When the two armies finally clashed, the Hojo clan rode to victory over Takeda’s men and the losing army was desperately weakened.

Over the next couple of decades, the Fuma ninjas became more a gang of thugs and pirates than ninjas. They harassed the efforts of Tokugawa Ieyasu by raiding his installations on the Inland Sea. In 1596, Tokugawa assigned the head of the Iga ninjas, Hattori Hanzo, the task of ending the Fuma menace. Hattori immediately called for the construction of a fleet of large vessels armed with heavy cannon. He knew that the Fumas traveled in few boats with little or no arms, and that they were fond of riding in funakainin (semi-submersible paddle boats, precursors of ryu-o-sen or dragon boats). When the fleet was completed, Hattori found the Fuma vessels off the Sou coast. They laid down a heavy cannon fire and destroyed all but one of the Fuma boats, which was disabled and on fire. Hattori was wary of a trap, so he ordered his boats in slowly to finish the lonely ship. As they were maneuvering, the tide changed and all of Hattori’s vessels were drawn into a small channel where the tide kept them pinned. As his vessels drew closer and closer to each other, the peril of collision with the flaming Fuma ships became imminent, and with it came explosion. Hattori ordered his crew to take evasive actions, but the helmsmen all yelled back that they had no rudders. He ordered all vessels to dump their gunpowder overboard, but there wasn’t time. Instead, all the men abandoned ship and dove into the water themselves. The Fumas had saturated the water with oil though, and when the ships collided the water’s surface became an inferno, killing Hattori and his men. Fuma Kotaro had defeated the greatest ninja known.

The secret of the Fuma’s victory was their funakainins. They were able to load these vessels with ballast and submerge their ships, enabling them to maneuver near Hattori’s vessels. Once near, the Fuma ninjas would slip out of the funakainin while underwater, making use of a snorkel, and disable the rudders of Hattori’s fleet. Even though there was limited air in a funakainin, there was enough for a speedy mission of death.

Fuma Kotaro then passed away into the mists of obscure history and no more is recorded of his deeds.

Momochi Sandayu Tensho, also known as Momochi Tanba no Kami and Momochi Tanba Yasumitsu
(c. 1525 – c. 1585)

Sandayu is known as one of the founders of Iga ryu ninjutsu, and trained many of the most famous ninjas of the day (among them are Hattori Hanzo and Ishikawa Goemon). He used many aliases and thus his history is as mysterious as a ninja leader’s history should be. He is thought to have had three homes, each with a different family. He is also thought to have gone by the name of Fujibayushi Nagato, thus making him master of the Koga ninjas as well as the Iga.

Momochi was the head of many households, but his main home was at Ryuguchi in Nabari City, Iga Province, where he was a leading man. He is also thought to have had a home in Takiguchi-Jo and to have had a home and ninja training camp in Hojiro in Ueno City.

Iga Province was said to be controlled by three ninja clans with Fujibayushi in the north, Hattori in the center, and Momochi in the south. It was in his camp at Hojiro that Momochi trained his famous Iga ninjas and controlled the southern end of the province. However, ninjas weren’t passive and as the Christian warlord Oda Nobunaga began his ascent to power, he found he was challenged by Momochi and his ninjas.

The Iga ninjas had been working secretly to affect the future of Japan. Oda Nobunaga, in his efforts to gain control of the warring nation, had felt the military power of the Iga ninjas. He knew of the success of their operations, and saw the Iga ninjas gaining in popularity. However, the Iga ninjas had exposed themselves, having shed their secrecy to affect change in Japan. Determined to defeat them, in 1579 he sent his son Oda Nobuo into Iga on a mission to destroy all ninjas. It was a battle between the most powerful force in Japan and the most powerful ninja family. The Iga region is humid and mountainous, and the ninja lair was so far and deep into the region as to make it virtually inaccessible. In addition, Nobuo saw the ninja hideouts as being so remote as to make them politically and militarily insignificant. Oda Nobua suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Iga ninjas.

Mortified at having lost face to the ninja clan, Nobunaga launched an extermination campaign in 1581, known as the battle of Tensho Iga no Ran. He sent in 10,000 soldiers to annihilate the Iga ninjas. The sheer number of attackers and their use of fire to burn their foes into the open was more than the Iga ninjas could handle. The ninjas fought as hard as they could, and wounded Nobunaga with a cannon shot, but ultimately the ninjas lost. The Iga ryu were decimated. Those who didn’t die fled instead. Momochi Sandayu managed to cheat death. The survivors scattered to the wind. Many of the remaining Iga joined forces with Tokugawa Ieyasu.

After the invasion, Momochi went east to the Kii Province, where he took up a disguise as a farmer until he heard word of Nobunaga’s death on June 10, 1582. Upon his return to the Iga region, he found the Iga ninjas so terribly fractured that there was no brining the Momochi supporters together with the Hattori supporters. There was infighting between the two groups and the situation grew dire. It led to a duel to the death between the two jonin – master versus student. The duel ended with youth beating experience. After his victory, Hattori had his master and his lodging burned and his remains buried. In the 1960s Momochi’s grave was discovered on a hill near the Nabari village, on the old family grounds, at the foot of Oka-One Mountain.

During his life, Momochi was the founder of the Iga Ryu, as well as the soke (leader) of the Momochi Ryu, Koto Ryu, and the Gyokko Ryu. He fought with unorthodox styles designed to make his opponents think he was unskilled. When fighting he would reflect light into opponents’ eyes, strike them in a pressure point, then maneuver in for a kill or a lock. If in fact he was also Fujibayushi Nagato, he would have been soke of the Koga ninjas, and thus responsible for even more famous ninja deeds.

The name of Momochi Sandayu does not appear on any historical documents, but it is known that the Momichi families did participate in the battle of Tensho Iga no Ran in 1581.

Quotes attributed to Momochi Sandayu

“Ninjutsu is not something which should be used for personal desires. It is something which should be used when no other choice is available, for the sake of one’s country, for the sake of one’s lord, or to escape personal danger. If one deliberately uses it for the sake of personal desires, the techniques will indeed fail totally.”

“Beware of those who would seek to divide, for all of us have more that is alike than not. Those who would seek to divide have darkness in their heart.”

Togakure Daisuke, also known as Nishina Daisuke
(c. 1161 – c. 1200)

Nishina Yukihiro was a high-ranking samurai in the service of Lord Minamoto Yoshinaka. In 1161, Yukihiro had a son named Nishina Daisuke, who was a samurai by birth. Daisuke was born in the village of Togakure (now Togakushi), which is near a Buddhist temple on Mount Hiei-zan known for teaching purity through hardship and self-trial. In his early years, Daisuke went to this temple to train, become educated, and learn the ways of shugendo. It is very likely that Daisuke trained alongside of Minamoto, who was a mere seven years his senior. When Minamoto’s training was complete, he adopted the name of Kiso Yoshinaka.

In 1180, Nishina Daisuke the samurai was in the service of Yoshinaka. The Minamoto clan was called into the Genpei War, tasked with raising an army against the Tairo (a class of ex-Imperials) clans. Yoshinaka met with quick success. He then chose to conquer his father’s one-time domain, but instead made a truce with his cousin who was already in charge of the domain. This meant accepting his cousin as head of the Minamoto clan. Unwilling to live like that, he decided to beat his cousin to Kyoto, defeat the Taira on his own, and take control of the clan for himself.

Yoshinaka and Nishina fought their way to Kyoto. The Taira retreated out of the city before them and took their child Emperor with them. The other Emperor, Go-Shirakawa, was restored to his throne and bestowed honors upon Yoshinaka. The Emperor sent Yoshinaka in pursuit of the Taira. When he finally returned to Kyoto, he learned that his cousin had gained the favor of the Emperor. Furious, Yoshinaka pillaged the city, imprisoned the Emperor, and forced the Emperor to grant him the title of shogun. The Minamoto clan rallied against Yoshinaka and in 1184 they managed to kill him.

Nishina Daisuke and his father had been at Yoshinaka’s last battle (Awaza no Kassan). His father died, but he lived. He was honor-bound to commit seppuku for having failed to save his lord. Instead, he fled to mountain wilderness near Kyoto and thus lost his samurai status and all of his honor.

Daisuke made his way to the Iga Region and there, in 1184, had a clandestine meeting with someone named Doshi. According to some accounts, Daisuke met with a yamabushi warrior monk named Kain Doshi, who had fled to Japan from the political and military upheaval in China. According to other accounts, Daisuke met with the third Soke of Hakkun Ryu (head of a ninja family) named Kagakure Doshi, about whom it has been suggested he was the uncle of Daisuke. Whichever is true (and maybe they both are, just with a name error), Daisuke studied with the mystic, learning new concepts of warfare and personal power based on Chinese and Tibetan ideas about the natural order of the universe. He was taught the practical applications of the balance of the elements in diet, in combat, in thought and emotion, and in utilizing the forces and cycles of nature to his advantage. Far away from the limiting system of samurai conduct that he had never thought to question, he discovered a completely new way of channeling his will. He became Togakure Daisuke, assuming the name of his village, and laying the roots for Togakure Ryu Ninjutsu. Togakure is credited with being the founder and first Soke (headmaster of the style) of the Togakure Ryu.

Also training with Togakure and Doshi was another samurai who fought alongside of Togakure at the battle of Awaza no Kassan: Shima Kosanta Minamoto no Kanesada. Shima had been wounded in the battle. Togakure and Shima had been friends and so rather than let his friend perish, he took him into Iga during his flight. Shima would become the second Soke, and his son Togakure Goro (named after his friend) would be the third Soke and is said to be the one who formalized the style into what it is today.

Mochizuki Chiyome, also known as Lady Chiyome
(c. 1540 – c. 1580)

Mochizuki Moritoki was a samurai from Shinano Province and lord of Mochizuki castle. In the early 1550s, the daimyo Takeda Shingen conquered Shinano, expelled Murakami Yoshiharu and Ogasawara Nagatoki and brought the Mochizuki clan under his rule. Yoshiharu and Ogasawara turned to the daimyo Uesugi Kenshin for aid. Uesugi brought his armies to the province and over the course of many years his men clashed with the men of Takeda on the plain of Kawanakajima in northern Shinano. The most ferocious battle was fought on September 10, 1561, in which Mochizuki Moritoki was mortally wounded. Takeda placed his nephew, Nobumasa, in charge of the Mochizuki clan, but he was defeated in battle and so too was his son. With the death of Nobumasa’s son, the Mochizuki clan’s 600 year history essentially came to an end.

Lady Chiyome had been the wife of Moritoki. She was originally from the Koga region and had connections with ninja clans there. Female ninjas were not unheard of, but they were a rare breed of strong-willed women who were willing to fight as men for their families and beliefs. After the death of her husband, Chiyome was approached by Takeda and challenged with the idea of creating a force of female ninjas that were different from those already known. Takeda wanted a force of spies, informants, and messengers who could access an enemy’s fortresses and thoughts. He asked Lady Chiyome to begin the kunoichi (meaning “deadly flower”).

The operation was established in the village of Nazu in the Shinano Province as Lady Chiyome began rounding up potential candidates for training. Her main choices were hard luck cases: runaways, prostitutes, impoverished, orphans, etc. She was considered to be doing charitable work by collecting these poor souls and she developed a reputation for turning out women of merit, when in fact she was creating subversive female ninjas. Lady Chiyome was quick to remind the girls of their difficult histories if they agitated against her and needed bringing to heel.

The girls that came out of her training appeared to be miko, or shrine attendants, who served at the Shinto Buddhist shrines all across the land. With this disguise, they were able to travel freely without arousing suspicion. The girls received proper religious training as part of their overall training in order to make this disguise complete.

Lady Chiyome trained her ninjas differently than male ninjas were taught. She trained her students to take into account their smaller statures and lesser bodily strength. However, their apparent weaknesses were used to catch foes unaware and therefore were used as a strength. She also taught her ninjas to use weapons that appeared to be common items rather than weapons and that could easily be concealed on their bodies. There was a heavy focus on one-on-one fighting rather that group tactics. Also, by training her girls as mikos, she didn’t need to teach much of the normal stealth that a male ninja would learn, for they were already able to travel with ease. With time, the kunoichi forces would learn a variety of disguises and eventually the women were able to pass themselves off as artisans, performers, paupers, prostitutes, and even geisha. The network that Chiyome established would give Takeda a great advantage that kept him ahead of his enemies.

Lady Chiyome vanished into the mists of history, but it is said that she passed leadership of her kunoichi to Koskei Anayama who worked closely with Momichi Sandayu and his Iga ninjas.

Ishikawa Goemon
(c. 1558 - August 23, 1594)

Disreputable and unclaimed, Goemon was a ninja who used his ninja powers for stealing. Although he is said to have shared his looted wealth with the peasants who needed it, none of the ninja families would call him one of their own. He comes from unknown origins, but it is widely thought that he was a genin agent (one of the lowest ranks of ninja) of the Iga Ryu ninjutsu. Goemon’s name doesn’t appear in the written records of the Iga Ryu ninjutsu.

By some accounts, Goemon was born as Sanada Kuranoshin. He was a shiftless youth and during his first robbery he killed a man. Unable to turn back to a life of lawfulness, he instead changed his name to Ishikawa Goemon and became a highwayman. Eventually he found himself raiding the row houses in Kyoto and robbing people for their gold and silver.

There is a tale of Goemon that says he was assigned to train as a ninja in his early life. After some training he found himself in the presence of the ninja manual. Unable to control his selfish desires, he stole the book and taught himself all the forbidden ninja ways. He then took to a life of masterful crime.

His most legendary tale was his attempted assassination of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the ruler of Japan. After hiding for hours near the main gate of the Nanzen-ji Temple in Kyoto, Goemon was able to infiltrate Hideyoshi’s stronghold, Fushimi castle, by killing a few guards and slipping silently around others. As Goemon approached the sleeping warlord, he accidentally knocked a bell off a table, sending the nearby samurai to interfere with his plans. When captured, Goemon confronted Hideyoshi by exclaiming “It is you who are the robber who stole the whole country!”

Goemon was captured that night and he and his infant son were sentenced to be boiled in oil until dead. Hideyoshi’s men placed a massive iron cauldron in a riverside location called “Sanjogawara”. Just before being forced into the boiling oil, Goemon orated a poem of his own composition: “Ishikawa may perish on the sands along the banks of this river, yet the seeds of thievery for this world shall never pass!”

The criminal ninja didn’t want his son to perish too, so, as legend has it, he held his son up out of the boiling oil for as long as he could. As Goemon was cooking, other ninjas were fighting their way in to complete his mission of assassination. When they found Goemon, he was dead, but his arms were still aloft, thus saving his son.

Kumogakure Hoshi, also known as Heinaizaemon Ienaga Iga
(c. 1510 - c. 1550)

Kumogakure Hoshi was born in the early 1500s as Heinaizaemon Ienaga Iga. He grew up with close connections to the Iga Ryu and eventually reached prominence in that group (according to some he was the founder of the Iga Ryu). In 1532 he established Kumogakure Ryu Ninjutsu, or the “hiding in the clouds” school. He served as the first Soke (headmaster of the style) from 1532 until 1534.

Many of the elements of the style are said to have come about by shipboard training. One specialty of the style was use of the kamayari, which was, as the name implies, a sickle at the end of a spear and it was designed for climbing the sides of ships, but it could also be used to trap blades and control incoming swords. Another specialty was leaping while fighting. It is said that ninjas trained in this style could leap as much as eight feet into the air. The style also relied upon the use of head butts, known as kikakuken or “demon’s horn strike,” forearm striking, known as kote uchi, and double blocks and strikes. These ninjas further trained in survival techniques, such as making fire in wet weather, and parts of their training could be likened to the taijutsu and philosophies of escape and evasion techniques in Togakure Ryu. One final element that made this style unique is that its ninja would occasionally wear demon masks.

From the Kumogakure Ryu we have the expression “like a shadow behind the moon appearing after the clouds.”

Ukifune Jinnai, also known as Kempati Dzinnai
(c. 1555 – c. 1590)

Ukifune is famous for two reasons: he was a dwarf and he assassinated daimyo Uesugi Kenshin. Ukifune is rumored to have stood 2’ 11” high, or just under one meter. The legend that surrounds him is that on April 14, 1578 he hid in a toilet until Uesugi sat above him, at which point he brought a spear up and into the warlord’s rectum leading to Uesugi’s death. It is further rumored that the ninja prepared himself for the task by sleeping many nights in an earthenware jug

As the story goes, Oda Nobunaga and Uesugi Kenshin were both using teams of ninjas to assassinate each other and to sabotage each other’s strongholds. Oda sent a ninja team led by Ukifune Kenpachi, a master of fukiya (or blowguns), into Uesugi’s stronghold to slay him. Uesugi had a ninja guardian named Kasumi Danjo, an expert in the art of deception, watching over the stronghold. Kenpachi had a stratagem and on the night of April 14, 1578 he snuck his team into the stronghold and led the guardian ninjas all the way into Uesugi’s private rooms. Once in those rooms, they ambushed the guardians with a volley of poisoned fukibari (or blow darts) and killed their four pursuers. Kenpachi continued his mission and made it into the sleeping quarters of Uesugi. As he crept up to the bed of the sleeping daimyo, he was grabbed from behind and had his neck snapped. The other three ninjas were quickly defeated in their surprise. Kasumi Danjo hadn’t died from the fukibari ambush after all; he merely feigned death and managed to slay the infiltrators. However, what Kasumi and Uesugi didn’t know, though, was that alongside of the group of assassins was sent a lone assassin: Ukifune Jinnai.

While Kenpachi had the guardians distracted, Jinnai made his way to his own destination. He crept into Uesugi’s lavatory and down into his toilet, using a snorkel for air. The next morning, the warlord came in and as he was excreting he received a spear thrust into his rectum. The warlord howled with agony, for the wound didn’t kill him instantly. As Uesugi was bent in hideous pain, the ninja emerged from the excrement and found his way out of the stronghold to his hidden cache of clean clothes and to report a successful mission. Upon retelling the tale to his boss, Oda Nobunaga is rumored to have exclaimed, “Now the empire is mine.” Uesugi died four days after receiving his wound, leaving Oda one less serious challenger to the throne.

Gamon Doshi, aussi connu sous le nom de Fujiwara Tikata (aussi orthographié parfois Fujivara Tikata)

Il ya peu de faits connus sur la vie de Gamon Doshi. Il voyagea de Chine au Japon où il rencontra le Général Ikai avec qui il s'entraîne et de qui il apprend les méthodes de guerre, de combat, de stratégie et de technologie militaire.
Il apprit également l'art du koshijutsu (frappe des muscles et points nerveux) et du hityo no kakuregata (méthode de camouflage de l'oiseau volant). Gamon transmit lui-même ces techniques à son disciple, Garyu Doshi.

Doshi signifie "moraliste" et se retrouve dans de nombreux noms ninja: Kakuun Doshi, Karakure Doshi etc.

Can you traduce please??? because i speak english like a spanish cow!!!!

argh, bon laisse moi le temps, je mettrai la traduction un de ces jours

non t'embête pas je rigole!!!!