Sanada Maru - a family of strategists

Sakai Masato in the leading role as Sanada Nobushige (i.e. Yukimura)

The beginning of every year sees  a new year long historical drama series starting on the state sponsored TV channel NHK.

Although these annual series, collectively known as Taiga drama, are of variable quality, and tend not to be strictly historically accurate, they can offer interesting interpretations of the period they deal with, putting some imaginative flesh on the historical bones of the situation.   

This year, with Sanada Maru,  it is the turn of the Sanada family, whose best known member, Sanada Nobushige (more commonly known by his fictional name, Yukimura) is the star of this series. The title, Sanada Maru is the name of the defensive position or fort constructed by Sanada Nobushige for the defense of Osaka castle during the Winter campaign of 1614-15

Setting

The Sanada clan was a fairly small clan in the scheme of things, but is famous for its pivotal role in the Siege of Osaka (1615) which, despite the eventual Tokugawa victory, was a close run thing. Unlike some of the larger, more famous families, the Sanada, by and large, were content to look after their own affairs and attempt to maintain their own territory. They successfully defied the Tokugawa on several occasions and managed to thrive despite the difficult situation they found themselves in after the deaths of Takeda Katsuyori and Oda Nobunaga. All of this required some nifty footwork, and Sanada Masayuki (Nobushige’s father)’s ability to manipulate and respond to the changing political landscape is central to these early episodes.

The Sanada Family

The interaction between the two Sanada brothers, Nobushige and his older brother Nobuyuki, is one point of interest. Although it was Nobuyuki who would ultimately thrive, he is usually little mentioned in accounts of the Sanada family until after the pre-Sekigahara split (engineered by his father to ensure that one branch of the family would survive no matter who won the confrontation between Tokugawa Ieyasu and The Toyotomi loyalists.

Nobushige and Nobuyuki (Oizumi Yo)

Sanada Maru depicts them as being close, but of differing temperaments – the intuitive Nobushige and the careful, thoughtful Nobuyuki. ‘Put you two together and you’d make a complete person’, says their father.  Of course, it is Nobushige who will later go on to win fame as the successful defender of Osaka castle (in the winter campaign) against the forces of the Tokugawa coalition, and only narrowly missing taking Tokugawa Ieyasu’s life and changing the course of history.

Kusakari Masao as Sanada Masayuki

And what of Sanada Masayuki? Both in reality and as depicted in this drama, he was an unusual man. Overshadowed in the public mind by the deeds of his son, Nobushige, he seems to have possessed an unusual degree of strategic acumen, some of which appears to have been passed down to him and which he, in turn, passed on to his sons. (Although Nobuyuki is not famous for his military record, he proved a very effective administrator, being promoted into a higher level fief as a result of his efforts).

Why this is so fascinating is that the great tacticians and strategists of history are usually brilliant individuals, not the result of a process designed to teach them strategy. In Japan, as well, the majority of outstanding leaders did not succeed in passing their abilities on to their children, and those that rose to power often did so largely by their own efforts. Sengoku Japan shows us a whole host of leaders that emerged unexpectedly to become powerful players in the conflicts of the time, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin…but the Sanadas were, from the start, a different proposition.

Both China and Japan boasted schools of strategy, (or generalship, which might be a more accurate description – from what we can tell, much of their content involved lower levels of organisation of troop movements and logistics, rather than what we think of as battlefield tactics) but we have very little knowledge of how this was taught and how it was meant to be learned (not necessarily the same thing). A look into this process, fictional and impressionistic as it may be, gives us a chance to muse on how such knowledge was passed down – the apprenticeship of generalship.

Sanada Masayuki (National Diet Library)

As he appears on the small screen, Masayuki is shown as keeping his focus on aims while disregarding appearances.  Thick-skinned, he has an appreciation for the realities of war, and the lengths that are necessary to keep his family and followers safe, while maneuvering to establish a degree of independence. The drama shows rather well the dark arts of manipulation and treachery  that he is not afraid to use. He makes it clear that both reasoning and intuition are necessary for war. But despite his cold calculation, his warmth of character makes him very different from Kuroda Kanbei, the subject of the Taiga drama of 2014, and another of the premier gunshi of the era, and whose son, Kuroda Nagamasa, although a powerful and capable general, did not have his father’s gift for strategy.

Interestingly, it is Kanbei’s sometime ward and vassal, Goto Motosugu, (who by some accounts bore an antipathy towards Kuroda Jnr.) who would be Sanada Nobushige’s staunchest ally in the defense of Osaka Castle. The Sanada family was also closely connected with that other famous gunshi, Yamamoto Kansuke, and Sanada Masayuki served alongside him as fellow members of Takeda Shingen’s general staff (Masayuki was the youngest of the three Sanada brothers serving Shingen). Kansuke himself, although a well-known figure to later generations, left so little concrete evidence of his life that many historians considered him a fictitious character greated by later chroniclers of the exploits of Shingen. It was only relatively recently that documents were discovered corroborating his existence.

With Sanada Maru, NHK has now based a Taiga drama on the lives of each of these three strategists; I'm hoping this will be the best.

For more on Sanada Nobushige: Wisdom from Samurai High School

For more on Kuroda Kanbei: see here for a little on what he was up to around the time of the Battle of Sekigahara plus the Musashi connection and here for a not very serious look at his management style

Spirit Forging II - Endurance, Misogi, and the Ichikukai

Practice at the Ichikukai Dojo, date unknown.
Courtesy of http://ichikukai.com/eindex.html

Another form of extreme training that I remembered having come across many years ago was a form of misogi involving continuous ringing of a bell. When I looked into it a bit further, I found that this, too came to be adopted as an adjunct to martial training prior to WWII; interestingly, it also has a connection to Yamaoka Tesshu, and seems closely related to his thoughts on training.

This type of training is chiefly represented by the Ichikukai dojo, which is still in existence, and is quite widely known for the role it played in the martial development of Tohei Koichi, the famous aikido master.

Ogura Tetsuju
Courtesy of http://ichikukai.com/eindex.html

Founded in 1922, by Ogura Tetsuju, a student of Tesshu (he was known as Watanabe Isaburo while training under Tesshu), Ichikukai teaches misogi and Zen. Ogura Tetsuju was a Zen priest, but the misogi he practised came not from his days with Tesshu, but from a fellow Zen practitioner, Mitamura Engyo (a scholar of literature). There was obviously something in this additional practice that appealed to Tetsuju, and one cannot help but thinking he found within it a corollary to the hard training he had endured in his youth under Tesshu. Despite the fact that misogi is a Shinto practice, there seems to have been no conflict between the simultaneous practice of both disciplines.

The particular type of misogi that Ogura taught, misogi no kokyu no ho, appears very simple. It combines continuous loud chanting coordinated with the rigorous ringing of a hand bell, all the while sitting in seiza. This requires the regulation of the practitioner’s breathing and body movements. This might be hard enough in itself, but the sessions at Ichikukai lasted for many hours a day, for three or four days straight. (The practice, in a far less severe form, has been incorporated into some Aikido dojos in the west).

Ogura introduced this to the university students who came to study Zen at the temple where he was living, someway outside Tokyo, with the challenge that this was practice not for the faint-hearted. The students took to it with the kind of ferocious enthusiasm common to young men and their previously failing rowing team quickly went on to victory. So enamoured were they of this practice, that they persuaded Ogura to relocate and open a dojo in Tokyo. This was what became the Ichikukai Dojo (the 1-9 society), so named because the original meetings were held on the 19^th of each month, or because the 19^th was the anniversary of Yamaoka Tesshu’s death (or perhaps both).

Of course, in the pre-war period, the combination of hard training and the kudos of practicing under one of Yamaoka Tesshu’s senior students, as well as the open nature of practices – one didn’t have to be a regular member of the dojo to practice – made it an attractive proposition for many serious martial arts students:

            Sensei explained that misogi practice with the suzu bell had been much, much harder at the dojo where he had trained, its special session lasting for three continuous days, with students getting little sleep and only a few raw vegetables for nutrition. In addition, misogi had been carried out by the senior members of the dojo, some of whom were assigned to be kagura, or assistants. The kagura stalked through the rows of seated bell ringers, battering those who lost their rhythm with lengths of bamboo. At the end of three days, Sensei recalled, his back was beaten to a bruised pulp, he could hardly speak beyond a hoarse whisper from the hours of chanting, and he was emotionally drained. But he described the gruelling episode as one in which he had experienced a dramatic breakthrough in his own maturation as a bugeisha.

            “Too tired just to use muscles, too tired to think to keep rhythm. Body finished, then spirit takes over. In misogi, you find spirit is stronger. It can take you farther then your mind or your body. After misogi, I saw that just living on the physical level, the mental level, that’s no good. Man, woman, we are meant to live on a spiritual level.”

            (Autumn Lightning: Education of an American Samurai, D. Lowry)

There is some evidence to suggest that the combination of the gung-ho attitude of the Tokyo University rowing club students who originally encouraged Ogura to open the Ichikukai in Tokyo and the influence of Zen changed the original practice to a fiercer, more outwardly forceful one. Tohei Koichi mentions in his writings how he was told after the war by an older generation practitioner of the Ichikukai that the way they practiced had changed, and the use of the stick to encourage practitioners certainly bears a similarity to Zen practices.

 

Inoue Masakane

Mitamura’s misogi was, in fact, a religious practice that came from the Misogi-kyo of Inoue Masakane (1790-1849), a ‘new’ school of Shinto, that emphasised chanting practices and breath control to achieve purification and connection with the gods. It also included three day training sessions, including lengthy chanting sessions, designed to lead to realisation of ‘true mind’ (makoto no kokoro) and gratitude to the kami (divine spirits). It was also believed that chanting and breathing practices were effective for dealing with personal problems and troubles, and that by aligning oneself with the divine, such problems could be solved. Descriptions of breathing in Masakane’s writing also supports Tohei Koichi’s viewpoint about the change in breathing practices.

In fact, Masakane taught that the breathing was a way to unite oneself with the gods[1], and that the words of the chant were kotodama; that is to say that they had particular power in and of themselves. This was quite unlike the misogi carried out in the Ichikukai; it may be fair, given the style in which it was practised to regard Ogura Tatsuju’s use of it as being an extension of his Zen instruction, rather than a continuation of Masakane’s original aims. Thus, despite its Shinto origins, it seems, in certain ways, quite similar to the training of Yamaoka Tesshu and Yamada Jirokichi, aimed at developing spirit, or mind, and divorced from its religious origins.

As noted previously, the ‘endurance’ style of training seems to have arisen at a time when shinai sparring was becoming the primary form of practice in swordsmanship. Martial artists seemed to have felt a need for some kind of additional training to replicate the intensity of life and death contests. These types of training were certainly intense, but they were not a part of older traditions of swordsmanship, as far as I am aware. Despite their appeal as ‘samurai’ style training, they were actually ‘post samurai’ for the most part; an attempt by martial artists to find further meaning in the arts they were committed to, and thus a part of the new budo disciplines, rather than the bugei they looked back to.

In the case of misogi, its popularity seems to have been part of a broader search for martial abilities that were present in some teachers (the founder of aikido, Ueshiba Morihei, for example) but weren’t being clearly passed down to students, or abilities that had been possessed by masters of the past but were lost to the present generation. (Yes, it’s true that Tohei visited Ichikukai before training with Ueshiba, but the subsequent adoption of misogi derived practices into his aikido teaching speaks to their perceived relevance).

While I wouldn’t argue that such training certainly required a fearsome intensity and commitment, and I am sure the men who undertook such training were not to be trifled with, I view such practices as somewhat removed from the training of bushi prior to the Meiji Period.

It is true that feats of incredible endurance and intensity were performed during previous centuries, but to put this into some kind of perspective,  it is interesting to note how these were viwed at the time.

 

Wasa Daihachiro engaged in his record breaking feat

Perhaps no examples of martial endurance were more remarkable than the toshiya or feats of archery performed at Sansusangendo Temple in Kyoto. This temple features a particularly long veranda which became the venue for some quite distinctive archery contests. Although they consisted of various types, the endurance shooting is perhaps the most impressive. The record for this, set by Wasa Daihachiro in 1688 was for 8,133 hits out of 13,065 arrows shot in a 24 hour period. Although he took a break of several hours, and had to have blood let from his engorged right hand when he resumed shooting, this averages out to 9 arrows a minute for the entire period! Almost as impressive a record was set by 13 year old Noro Masaaki, competing in the ‘junior’ competition, who shot 11,715 arrows in 12 hours.

 

A more recent example of toshiya courtesy of the Sanjusangendo site.

However, Hinatsu Shigetaka, writing in the Honchō Bugei Shōden (1716), criticises the whole phenomenon as emphasizing strength and stamina at the expense of skill, and not being the true way of archery. Of course, looking at present day practices and criticising them in comparison with the past is a common enough phenomenon, but in this case, it is interesting to compare the views of a bushi writing in the heyday of the samurai, when warfare was still a common occurrence, and the bushi still viewed themselves primarily as fighting men.

 

Hojo Yasutoki from a woodblock print by Utagawa Yoshikazu

Hōjō Yasutoki (1183-1242) served as both a general and a leading member of the administration of his day (he was eventually to become regent); writing to a relative he recommended making a minimum of three ‘dry shots’ (suhiki) when not at war or actively practising. (He was, of course, addressing a fully trained bushi who had spent years training in archery and fighting in battles.) This may seem a surprisingly small number – certainly, it does not fit the image of men engaged in relentless practice. But we should remember that the warriors of this era had not only spent long hours developing their skills, but that they were also busy people who did not have the time to spend all day in training for an indefinite period.

Hojo Yasutoki from a woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

He goes on to stress the importance of the mental, not the physical element of practice.

“…Every time he releases an arrow, he must think that this very arrow is the last one and that, if it misses the target, in the absence of the second arrow, he will be shot by his enemy or torn to pieces by an animal.”

This is particualrly interesting in that it suggests that he covers both the mental and physical aspects of training, but in a way very different from the model offered by the misogi practices detailed above and the severe training described in the last post, in which repetition was felt to the point of exhaustion was felt to be the way to achieve a mental breakthrough.

---

[1] Practical Pursuits: Religion, Politics, and Personal Cultivation in Nineteenth-Century
Japanese Religions

  Janine Anderson Sawada 2004, University of Hawaii

Wisdom from Samurai High School

Sanada Yukimura gives advice to the young hero

This is a lighthearted but fun drama series from 2009. (Broadcast by NTV).  It stars Miura Haruma, who does a very good job, both as a goofy high school kid and as the samurai whose spirit possesses his body. It may not be to everybody's taste, of course, but if you like light comedy and bear in mind that it's aimed at teenagers, it's actually pretty good.

Every episode, the hero is taken over by the spirit of his ancestor at a critical point and goes into action. We get to see an idealized young samurai in modern times –  his disciplined outlook on life is contrasted strongly with his lackadaisical but likable modern descendant... of course everything works out happily in the end.

By putting a samurai into a modern day setting, it provides an interesting example of the way 'samurai' are seen in the present day. Not surprisingly, it is more nuanced than the typical view we are used to in the west. It is also, of course, idealized.

It also raised more serious points: one which I will discuss below is something often missed in western treatment of samurai and bugei, and one that has quite important ramifications to serious students of martial arts.

Perhaps this quote is typical of the way in which samurai are viewed (in a non-academic context, of course):

The fighter is to be always single-minded with one object in view: to fight, looking neither backward nor sidewise. To go straight forward in order to crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him.
(D.T. Suzuki, Zen and Culture, p. 62)

Although he was talking generally about the attraction of Zen for the warrior class, the limitations of this point of view were raised nicely by a flashback scene in Episode 2, where the samurai youth is talking to his lord, Sanada Yukimura.

The conversation runs something like this...

'Are you ready for your first battle?'

'Yes! I plan to cut through the outer defenses and go directly for the enemy general to take his head.'

'Well said. It is a fine plan for someone 17 years old.'

This is the crux of it – this attitude of rushing straight in and carrying the day with your determination is vital, but it is not everything.

The bugei do vary in their treatment of the psychology of combat, but there is a tendency to treat them monolithically.  Even within a single style, there are differences in stages of teaching during which different approaches are appropriate. Although much writing (especially, but not limited to, that which is connected to Zen) tends to emphasize the power of determination, this is not necessarily equally stressed at all points of training.

In the late Edo period, there seems to have been a consistent effort to stress the development of this aspect of swordsmanship. For various reasons not wholly related to combat, this aspect was further emphasised during the Meiji and Taisho periods, and aspects of this are still visible in modern day kendo.

The older bugei were not so simplistic. This is especially evident in the teachings (and writings) that are closer to the warring states period. Not only were different attitudes emphasised at different stages of training, but the aims of training differed within and between ryu-ha. Those destined to be leaders would be taught tactics and strategy at a greater level of detail than simple warriors, with much of the higher level material being based on the physical skills that had been mastered in training with weapons. Some ryu-ha, such as the Shinkage ryu, seem to have had quite a strong strategic component, and were patronised by higher ranking warriors. There were also ryu-ha of strategy, which dealt specifically with managing troops. I suspect that, beyond this, there were family teachings and traditions, probably mainly oral, that were passed from generation to generation. There is some evidence of this in the Tokugawa family, with the instructions Tokugawa Ieyasu passed on to his successors; the Sanada family is also an example in which a high level of tactical ability was evident in several generations of the family (with two successive generations bringing the Tokugawa war machine to a halt).

Different writings may be seemingly contradictory, but this is not always the case. The courage and dynamism expressed in sentiments such as those expressed in the Suzuki quote may be very attractive, and certainly are impressive as isolated quotes. However the real strength of the bugei, in my opinion, is that they contain but are not limited to this approach. They are able to harness and build on this fierce attacking energy, but not be controlled by it.

To return to Samurai High School, Sanada Yukimura continues to advise his young vassal:

'In war, things do not always go as expected... a warrior who is certain of victory is arrogant. He only sees what is straight ahead. We must look to the left... to the right... and above us.'

Still, it is hard not to admire the teenage samurai's admonishment to his enemies before he ploughs into school bullies and local hoods:

'I cannot help but pity your miserable existence!'

What the Sengoku Warlords can teach you!

Oda Nobunaga berates his followers in typical style

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Sengoku busho – generals, daimyo, and battle commanders of various stripes – are well-known and popular figures from history, and the lessons their lives and actions contain are sometimes taken as models in the self-help/business field. Sometimes, this is done quite seriously, and sometimes in a more light-hearted way.

Typical of the latter is this article I came across in a women’s magazine, which presents an upbeat look at management using some of these famous figures as examples.

It’s no surprise to find that it treats them a little cavalierly, and it was obviously more concerned with teaching business skills than historical accuracy. Nevertheless, it makes for quite an interesting read, and I spent a good few hours of my New Year holiday translating it. The accompanying illustrations are from the original article, and are good examples of typical (and easily recognizable) depictions of the generals in question.

Below is a summary to give a flavor of the analysis that was presented, so read on, and find out why a good leader delegates power, rather than keeping it all to him/her self…

Takeda Shingen "Men are your castles, men are your walls. Friendship is your ally, enmity your foe."

Shingen excelled in ‘people management’, utilizing a pyramid management model. This allowed control of a wide-ranging territory. With Shingen at the top, his immediate subordinates, in turn delegated responsibility to those familiar with each particular area, who were trusted to work out solutions individually. Giving responsibility encouraged positive action ‘on the ground’.

The system was reinforced by meetings to keep everyone informed of developments.

Even those who had proved themselves on the battlefield were observed carefully when placed in a position of responsibility. The skills required on the battlefield and those needed for organizing people were not the same, And Shingen was aware of the possibility of resentment resulting from placing those with no familiarity of a situation in charge of those who were familiar with it.

Shingen would personally watch over his subordinates development until he judged they were ready.

Shingen tended not to place blame or enforce his own solutions on problems. There is an interesting anecdote in connection with his flood control project. In one fiercely flowing stream, the water crashed and swirled around one large rock. Shingen mused aloud, “I wonder who that reminds me of…?” The rough warriors accompanying him were surprised but were forced to look at their own behaviour. In this way, he was able to encourage self-reflection among his subordinates.

Uesugi Kenshin “Fate is in the heavens. This is a holy war! The time to advance is now.”

His great rival, Uesugi Kenshin, was very different, and suffered from an inability to share ideas.  For Kenshin, the timing in battle was a divine revelation from Bishamonten. Secluding himself in a temple, he would wait for inspiration to strike. He would give the order to advance suddenly, and then would gallop through his troops, arbitrarily dividing them into groups. Although this was in accord with his plan, it remained unclear to his subordinates. (Shades of Sun Tzu here).

Kenshin also failed to establish clear aims. Having been appointed to the role of controlling the region by the bakufu, and being charged with punishing those who disturbed the peace, he repeatedly stated that his campaigns were not aimed at the acquisition of territory. To his followers, who made their careers by taking enemy lands by force, there seemed no clear motivation for his wars – and morale clearly suffered.

Kuroda Jyosui (Kanbei) “Was that all you could do?”

Kuroda Jyosui was able, but cold towards his subordinates, failing to recognize their achievements. There is a story that after the battle of Sekigahara, his son was praised personally by Tokugawa Ieyasu for his deed on the battlefield. When he told his father of this sometime later, Jyosui snapped, “You should have struck him down with your empty left hand.” 　(I looked further into this and found that his son said that Lord Ieyasu had taken his right hand and praised him. Jyosui replied “What was your left hand doing then?” with the implication being that he should have taken the chance to cut him down – Jyosui thought that he, rather than Ieyasu, should have been Hideyoshi’s successor, but it was not to be.)

Oda Nobunaga “If the bird won’t sing, kill it!”

(Nobunaga is usually given good press, despite some reservations about his manner, but this article doesn’t find much to emulate in his management techniques, commenting on his unwillingness to delegate, and the way he ridiculed his employees. And, of course, we know what happened to him!)

Although this was not a current magazine, it seems that something has been in the air in the past decade.

Lest you think this is an isolated example, how about this, from the website of the Japan Management Association:

During the Warring States period, some 400 years ago, each feudal lord had his 
own distinctive banner. Shingen Takeda's furinkazan and the bi of Kenshin Uesugi,
 who held power around my hometown, are still famous today. These banners raised
 morale during battle, helped to distinguish friend from foe, and provided rallying 
points as tens of thousands clashed in confusion on the field. Though banner
 designs varied from stylized kanji characters to flashy colors combinations, it
 can be said that each represented the enthusiasm and aspirations of the lord and
 samurai that rallied round.

Etsuhiko Shoyama
 President and
 Chief Executive Officer, Hitachi, Ltd.
 Director, Japan Management Association

(http://www.jma.or.jp/jmanews/2005february.html)

And then there’s this – an NTT campaign from late 2012, where even Sen no Rikyu gets to make an appearance.

But I digress – we have moved on from lessons learned to pure advertising. Nevertheless, it points towards the continuing popularity, and the instant recognizability, of these figures in mainstream Japanese culture. If anyone has any more examples, I would be interested in seeing them.