Munenori Yagyu: The Story of a Swordman

by Dave Lowry, Yagyu Shinkage-ryu Practitioner

(This article first appeared in Black Belt magazine in January 1983)

Summer, 1600, the fourth year of Keicho, and Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the peasant general, the great unifier of Japan, was dead. During his reign, by his gifted foresight, sound governmental policy and-not unimportantly-his cunning treachery, the continual warfare that had sputtered for generations between rival daimyo had been brought to an end, leaving Japan to experience its most prosperous, peaceful era in many centuries.

Part of Hideyoshi's success was undoubtedly due to his willingness to share administrative authority with a go-tairo, a council of five regents selected from among outstandingly wealthy or powerful daimyo. Now, however, with Hideyoshi's death the peace was threatened, for almost immediately the council of regents split into two irreconcilable factions-those who supported a continuation of Toyotomi rule through his son Hideyori, and those who advocated naming the politically strongest member of the council itself, leyasu Tokugawa, as shogun.

All through a long summer the two sides wrestled in a subtle, vastly intricate struggle for control. Discreetly worded inquiries were sent to lesser but strategically vital daimyo in an effort to discern where their sympathies would lie at the outbreak of war. The replies were equally guarded as everyone joined the waiting, watching to see which group would gain the upper hand before revealing their own plans. It was as though the leaders of the two factions, Ieyasu Tokugawa and Mitsunari Ishida, were involved in a great version of the Oriental board game of go, played as always, with measured caution and infinite, finely tuned patience. (If all this seems familiar, it is because it was this Tokugawa/Toyotomi contest, with some convenient alterations thrown in by James Clavell, which formed the background for his novel Shogun.)

Ieyasu Tokugawa was definitely the underdog in the match. Through the strength of his personality and his reputation, he'd won many daimyo over to his side, but he was also fully aware that the daimyo were men of tradition and that instinctively, their support was for the rightful heir. Thus Tokugawa was faced with the tricky problem of having to depend upon allies of questionable loyalty. His rival, Mitsunari Ishida, on the other hand, had the support of more daimyo and the full weight of the Toyotomis' authority.

Finally, in August, the preparatory maneuvering and planning came to an end. A pro-Toyotomi regent, Kagekatsu Uyesugi, began raising an army in his home province, making it clear that his target was Tokugawa, whom he accused of treason. At the same time, Mitsunari Ishida tipped his hand, leading an army of samurai on the march with the intent of catching Tokugawa in a crushing pincer.

Ishida's plans were so well laid and timed that it must have looked as if Tokugawa was headed for certain defeat, and except for two crafty stratagems unleashed at exactly the right moments, he would have been. First of all, he gave every impression that he was ready, even eager, for a fight. Earlier in the summer he'd left his castle in Osaka, paused at another residence, Fushimi, and then diverted his men to the capital and his stronghold, at Edo, where he grouped his forces and waited. Back at Fushimi Castle, however, between himself and the advancing enemy, Tokugawa left a core of seasoned samurai led by his ablest general, to stall Ishida and break the pincer.

The castle at Fushimi was merely a stalling measure though, and Tokugawa was sure that eventually he'd be unable to avoid meeting Ishida and perhaps many of the other Toyotomi regents in battle. Furthermore, he had a good idea that the battlefield would be somewhere in Japan's Kinki district (the Osaka-Kyoto area), a region north of Nara that was full of discouragingly steep mountains, trackless forests, and kazure zato, tiny, isolated villages and fiefs that were ruled by the most independently minded of daimyo. Also hidden within the Kinki area were tribes of shinobi-nin, terrorists, spies and religious fanatics whose skills in the martial arts were legendary. Tokugawa knew that while their numbers were minimal, the aid of these unorthodox warriors would be essential if he had to fight in their homeland, but recruiting them would not be easy. Normally the rural Kinki daimyo and the clannish shinobi-nin were outside the ties that bound samurai and daimyo to the feudal government. They attended to their own business with little regard to much of national politics. In the battles that took place near them, they usually joined the side that appeared most likely to win or was related to them by family. Tokugawa had just such a connection; and that formed the second part of his strategy, for among his retainers was a young man whose father happened to be the most influential of all the Kinki lords. Tokugawa called the retainer before him and gave him his orders. He was to race as quickly as possible to his home in the mountains of Kinki and convince his father to persuade the local daimyo to side with Tokugawa in the coming battle. With the help of their guerrilla activity, he believed he could force Ishida's army in to a disadvantageous position and win the conclusive engagement.

Over lonely mountain passes and through damp forests of pine and cryptomeria, the retainer galloped his horse, fully aware that his was a mission of crucial importance. In the future, the young man's accomplishments would make him famous, establishing a renowned style of swordsmanship, assuming the position of fencing instructor to shoguns, and contributing the discipline of Zen to the martial arts. But in the summer of 1600, all of that was still ahead and of little concern, for it might very well be said that the entire future of Japan rested on the ride of this lone Tokugawa retainer Munenori Yagyu.

Tajima no kami Munenori Yagyu was born in1571, in Yagyu-mura, the village named after his family. According to ancient-and somewhat less than wholly reliable-records, the Yagyu clan were descendants of the aristocratic poet of the Heian age, Michizane Sugawara. Whatever the precise nature of their roots, it is known that they were among the earliest inhabitants of a small hamlet north of Nara, which was named after them when the Yagyu were appointed guardians of the nearby Kasuga Shrine. Apparently, protection of the shrine was a task taken seriously, for as early as the 13th century the Yagyu family was producing warriors of formidable reputation.
It was over 200 years later, when the government of the Ashikaga shoguns crumbled, plunging the country into chaos, that villagers of Yagyu-mura found themselves caught up in the vicious warfare that was being waged for control of Japan. At that time, too, the Yagyu clan began its rise to prominence.

Against a string of invading armies trying to overrun their peaceful fief, Munenori Yagyu's grandfather Ieyoshi led a force of Kinki samurai and commoners who successfully defended their homeland over and over again. Of course, this was an era when the concept of the samurai (or bushi) as the sole representative of the warrior class was still be- ing developed. Typically, as was the case in the battles in the Kinki region, professional soldiers fought alongside farmers and craftsmen who, though lacking in quality armor and weaponry, were nonetheless efficient fighters.

Also participating in the warfare was Ieyoshi's son Muneyoshi, an especially gifted swordsman who, while still in his teens, undertook an intensive study of the Chujo-ryu of fencing. By the time he was 16 and fighting alongside his father's samurai, his abilities were already well known-so well known in fact, that they came to the attention of one of the country's most famous fencers at that time, Nobutsuna Kamizumi.

Kamizumi was on a pilgrimage of musha shugyo, a journey often taken by martial artists to test themselves against other exponents and to benefit from the teaching of masters at different dojo throughout the country, and his reputation was preceding him every step of the way. He had so perfected his mastery of the Kage, or "shadow" style of fencing, taught to him as a child by his father, that he'd been able to improve it further, calling his variation the Shinkage- (new shadow) ryu. It was his Shinkage methods that Kamizumi was in the process of further refining when he met Muneyoshi Yagyu.

That Muneyoshi would face Nobutsuna Kamizumi was almost inevitable. Both had acquired considerable fame for their performances in battles and duels, leading to speculation as to which of the two was better: a question, it ap- peared, to be answered in a dramatic showdown arranged to take place within the walls of the Hozoin Temple in 1562. Their contest, however, was anticlimactic. Not only was the famous Yagyu beaten soundly and easily, but his defeat was at the sword of one of Kamizumi's students, who effortlessly smashed Yagyu's weapon aside in a second and brought his own practice sword down with a driving force that ended a hairs-breath from Yagyu's head!

The humiliating defeat could have been bitter for Muneyoshi Yagyu had he been a man of lesser quality. But instead of making excuses or sullen complaints, he recognized Kamizumi as a matchless teacher and immediately requested that he be allowed to become a student of the Shinkage-ryu. Nobutsuna Kamizumi, sensing that the young samurai from Yagyu was of a make above the common type of swordslingers who made challenges merely to derive a name for themselves, accepted Muneyoshi as his pupil.

The relationship proved a good one. Muneyoshi Yagyu rapidly advanced his skills under Kamizumi's guidance, eventually earning a certificate of mastery and becoming his teacher's finest protégé. In time, he returned to his family's fief, assuming control of the Yagyu clan's affairs and teaching his version of the New Shadow style, which came to be known, naturally, as the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu.

So it was into a rather renowned family and a heritage closely intertwined with kenjutsu, the art of the sword, that Munenori Yagyu was born, the youngest of 11 children. With four older brothers, it's surprising that Munenori got any attention at all from his father. Yet as fate had it, the same year Munenori was born, his father and Yoshikatsu, his eldest brother, were fighting in a battle near Nara and during the conflict Yoshikatsu was permanently crippled, preventing him from seriously practicing kenjutsu again. Traditionally, it was Yoshikatsu who was supposed to inherit the leadership of the Yagyu clan and the title of headmaster of their fencing school. But while he was an able fencer in spite of his handicap, and in fact was initiated into the okuden (secret principles) of the Shinkage-ryu, his father decided to name another of his sons as future heir to the school. The next two Yagyu boys in line for the position both elected to enter the Buddhist priesthood rather than follow he dangerous path of the samurai, and the third apparently lacked sufficient talent in fencing, because Muneyoshi began to train his youngest son in the techniques of the ryu, with the intention of naming him as his successor.

According to tales told around Yagyu village, Munenori was a most adept pupil, with a bursting enthusiasm for learning swordcraft. One story about him tells of an exercise he developed to improve his footwork and timing. Taking several lengths of twine, he tied small stones to one end and then fixed the other to the overhanging branches of a copse of cedar trees near his home. Tugging on the suspended stones sent the branches bouncing and when all of them were in motion, Munenori took a stance in their midst, wooden sword in hand. He whirled among the bobbing stones, slashing and cutting, trying to touch as many of the moving objects as possible without losing his balance or control.

Another story of Munenori's childhood concerns his determination to harden himself for the physical rigors demanded in kenjutsu. It occurred in the wintertime, when Yagyu-mura was knee-deep in mountain snow and most of the villagers stayed huddled inside around their kotatsu, the fireplace pits that were a popular place in the otherwise unheated Japanese home. Munenori, though, regarded the snow as a convenient training aid. Naked except for a loincloth, he would churn through the drifts, sword swinging vigorously, using the mass of the snow as a means of strengthening his legs.

Trying this kind of practice in public today would likely get one arraigned on a variety of interesting charges, but in Munenori's own time his activities were considered normal exercises for the development of a swordsman who would have to withstand severe and deadly tests in his life. In addition to his private practice, Munenori also took daily lessons in his father's dojo, not only in swordsmanship, but in the arts of the spear, halberd, and staff, as well as in two specialties of the Yagyu-ryu, the methods of fighting with the heavy iron-ribbed lessen, or fan carried by the samurai, and the techniques of kumiuchi, the unarmed forms of grappling from which jujutsu was to evolve later.

The kumiuchi of the Yagyu-ryu, nearly as respected as its sword techniques, served a very useful purpose in 1594, when the head of the family of Tokugawa invited Muneyoshi Yagyu and his 24-year-old son Munenori to demonstrate their art at Tokugawa's mansion in Kyoto. Iyeasu Tokugawa, always the wise strategist, was already plotting for the day when Hideyoshi Toyotomi would be gone and the leadership of Japan would be up for grabs. It's entirely possible, in fact, that his principal reason for inviting the Yagyu swordsmen to his home and courting their favor was the future possibility that they would be a handy instrument in a struggle for power in that part of the country. Be that as it may, it must have soon become a matter of a secondary importance to Tokugawa that evening in his garden, for at the end of the demonstration he was face to face with the legendary Muneyoshi Yagyu, sword in hand.

The encounter came as a result of a question Tokugawa asked of the Yagyu headmaster. On sections of tatami mat- ting laid on the ground in front of the dais where Ieyasu Tokugawa and his chief officers sat, Muneyoshi and Mune- nori had already performed a selection of the distinctive kata of the Yagyu school. All of the audience were seasoned warriors, all had trained most of their lives in kenjutsu, and all of them were difficult to impress. Even so, they leaned forward as the exhibition continued, eyes narrowing in pleasure and concentration as father and son leaped at one another, swords flashing, pirouetting, charging and evading with perfect timing and control.

The officers of the Tokugawa clan were speechless with admiration. But their leader, typical of a man of his profound insight, believed he'd seen more than just a fine example of swordsmanship. He felt, watching the performance, that the elder Yagyu had been able to foresee almost magically the direction and force of his son's attacks and to counter them even as they were begun. He posed a question to Muneyoshi that he hoped might test his suspicions.

"Yagyu-san. As you've said, your style of fencing depends upon correctly timed body movement, so that an opponent's sword is countered with an attack of your own. But how would an unarmed Yagyu fencer fare against a swordwielding assailant?"

Muneyoshi had a dutiful veneration of Ieyasu Tokugawa no doubt, and regarded him as a superior. He was also a shrewd man, however, as quick-witted as his host, and he knew that if the Yayu Shinkage-ryu were ever to be distinguished from the scores of other schools vying for attention, the moment had come. He bowed until his forehead touched the matting.
"If your lordship will attack me, I will show him."

The bold reply was a gamble that worked. Ieyasu Tokugawa rose, stepped down from the dais and selected a bokken from a rack of weapons nearby. Clad in a fine silk hakama and kamishimo (a vest with stiff, wing-like shoulders) that he wore over his kimono, he assumed a fighting posture against the more simply dressed Yagyu master who, for all his skill, was nevertheless in the eyes of the Tokugawa clan merely a minor lord of a backwater hamlet.

Of all the spectators, only young Munenori was certain of the outcome. He'd seen his father in action too many times to doubt. Before his calm gaze, Tokugawa advanced towards Muneyoshi Yagyu, a well-muscled and utterly fearless samurai versus a man 20 years his senior, who stood expressionless, his empty hands extending outwards at the level of his waist.

Tokugawa struck in a blur. His hips snapped down, sinking his body along with the blow that seemed surely to have connected, but Muneyoshi Yagyu was not under the wooden blade. He'd turned his body fractionally, reversing the motion and hurling Tokugawa backwards, the practice sword flying with equal force in the opposite direction. The garden was a suspended tableau. The Tokugawa officers were frozen in place on the platform, unbelieving. Munenori, on the other edge of the tatami, was similarly still. Between him and the dais, sprawled on the mats, Lord Tokugawa eyed the man who stood unruffled above him. Then he nodded solemnly. "Suki desu!" ("l like it!")

On the spot, Tokugawa requested Muneyoshi Yagyu to become the Tokugawa's private fencing instructor. For a swordsman, the position was the best occupation imaginable, a guarantee of advancement to the rank of hatamoto (principal retainer), a salary assuring wealth, and considerable influence in political and social circles. Muneyoshi was honored, but he declined, then suggested politely that his son might be suitable for the job. Once again, Tokugawa had reason to be impressed with the wisdom of the Yagyu-ryu's headmaster. By nominating his son for the position, he'd insured Munenori's future in the perilous days he suspected were ahead. In his 60s, Muneyoshi would soon be retiring from teaching, but by placing his son so closely to the Tokugawa clan, he could be sure that the fortunes of the house of Yagyu remained intact.

In agreement, Munenori Yagyu was given the task of training leyasu Tokugawa and his family in swordsmanship. In return, Tokugawa gratefully presented Muneyoshi with a written pledge that he would abide by the rules of the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu and that he would always take care of the members of the Yagyu clan.

And so, from such a past, Munenori Yagyu came to be a teacher and trusted retainer of Ieyasu Tokugawa; and thus, in the summer of 1600, he came to be riding over the Tokkaido Road, racing for Yagyu-mura to a conference with his father that would aid his lord in winning the battle for the title of Shogun.

Contrary to the Chinese saying that "in the third generation comes destruction," Munenori was of a character equally as strong as his father's and grandfather's. He and Muneyoshi convinced the lords of the Kinki district to ally themselves with Tokugawa. In covert meetings with groups of ninja and guerrilla warfare specialists living near Yagyu village, deals were made with those fighters, and a contingent of them left to assist the Tokugawa samurai who were guarding the Fushimi Castle as a stalling measure against Mitsunari Ishida.

No records remain of these secret dealings, but they were of invaluable aid to Tokugawa in his bid for the shogunate. Neither is there evidence that Munenori contacted his brother, though he must have; and as later in- cidents proved, their meeting also bettered Tokugawa's chances of success. Munetoshi. The Yagyu son who'd been judged by his father to be incapable of heading the ryu, had meantime become a high-ranking advisor to Hideaki Kobayakawa, an ally of Mitsunari Ishida's.

With all the players drawing together on the stage, events progressed rapidly, though not exactly according to the plans of Ishida and his pro-Toyotomi supporters. The pincer designed to catch Tokugawa was spoiled when Fushimi Castle failed to fall. Augmented by Kinki ninja, Tokugawa's samurai held up Ishida day after day. When he finally overran the castle and started a forced march to get his half of the pincer in place, it was too late: Kagekatsu Uyesugi, the other half of the trap, had lost confidence. He held his troops back, waiting to see what would happen. Ishida, deprived of the pincer, then shifted his army to the opening of a U-shaped valley called Sekigahara, where he was joined by all his allies. While his combined forces, totaling 90,000, were now outnumbered by Tokugawa's 100,000 samurai, his move was ingenious. When Tokugawa attacked, he'd be led into the valley and outflanked, to be slaughtered by Ishida's troops charging in from both sides.

The rains began on the night of September 14. With a rumble, the sky leaked a steady downpour. In their tents, samurai checked the fittings of their armor and worried about the mud that would make fighting even more exhaust- ing. Lower-ranked foot soldiers, with nothing to protect them from the rain but their lances, huddled miserably, wondering if battle could be any worse than shivering in the cold wet. By morning, the rain had lessened to a drizzle, invisible in a dense fog that lowered at dawn. With their soaked armor creaking, Tokugawa's troops marched towards Sekigahara.

The battle started when Ishida and Tokugawa samurai stumbled across each other in the fog. Sekigahara may now be described in the history books as the "Gettysburg of Japan," but for the participants, it must have been simply a confusing mess. Literally scores of generals were directing their men, and even in the best conditions things would have gone awry. As it was, units of the same army found themselves advancing on one another, others were lost completely, and some, restrained by leaders like Uyesugi who were unsure, never got into the action at all. Ranks of musketeers, cursing the dampness that fouled their guns, mingled with spear-men and swordsmen, all of them scrambling for position on a field that was chopped to a gummy slime by cavalry horses. Add to this the stupefying noise of shouted orders, the screams of the wounded and the roar of the matchlocks, all complicated by the fog, and one has a fair idea of what it was like.

In spite of the gigantic confusion, it still seemed as if Ishida would prevail. Tokugawa had funneled his samurai into the opening of the valley and Ishida drew back, waiting for his ally, Hideaki Kobayakawa, to charge in to crush the Tokuoawa. when once again his efforts runined. Through Munenori Yagyu's coaxing, his brother Munetoshi persuaded his lord to change sides at the crucial moment. Instead of attacking Tokugawa, Kobayakawa joined him, and together they rushed Ishida's headquarters. Ieyasu Tokugawa's craftiness, his careful planning, and his trust in his Yagyu retainers won him the battle.

By the end of the day Ishida was dead; his Toyotomi allies were scattered in headlong retreat and demoralized. The victory at Sekigahara was the final step in Tokugawa's scheme for political dominance, and before the bodies had even been removed from the battle site, there was talk that he would be appointed Seii Taishogun, the military ruler of Japan.

Munenori received the news of the battle at his family's palatial mountain home in Yagyu village. With the amado screens slid back to reveal the groves of maple that surrounded the home, he sat alone in deep contemplation of what Tokugawa's victory meant for the future of the ryu. He had much for which to plan. For Japan, Sekigahara marked the beginning of a long era of unification and prosperity under Tokugawa rule. For Munenori Yagyu and his Shinkage-ryu, it was the beginning of an ascendancy to fame unequaled in the annals of Japanese swordsmanship.