28. The True Way of Miyamoto Musashi

The Sengoku Period, or Warring States Era, of Japan began in 1467 with the Onin War. Feudal Japan was characterized by violence between warring states, where kinsmen cut each other down in bids for territorial superiority. Independent warlords among the domains unleashed their samurai and fighting men on each other in anarchic attempts to gain dominance. Rivalries ebbed and flowed. Alliances formed and were shattered. Allegiance among warlords was only to self, cooperation existed only when it benefitted the warlords. For the peasant class life was hell, which resulted in regular instances of ikki, or peasant class uprisings. Power began to consolidate in the mid-16th century when a group of warlords had singled themselves out as primary dominators in their regions, having bested their rivals. These “great power” warlords boasted superior militant groups, greater territorial expansion, and grew their base through the exploitation of their weaker neighbors. But when great powers exist, great conflict arises. From the conflicts of these superior warlords came the unification campaigns of Sengoku Japan. Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu were the three great warlords at the center of Japan’s unification. Nobunaga died in 1582 before Japan could be truly unified and the rogue warlords brought to heel. His successor Hideyoshi accomplished unification in 1590, though resistance had not been entirely eradicated. It was Tokugawa Ieyasu, after Hideyoshi’s death in 1598, that made Japan whole in 1600 after the Battle of Sekigahara. A battle which brought about Japan’s final Shogunate, and in which this episode’s subject participated at the age of only sixteen. Miyamoto Musashi, born Miyamoto Bennosuke, met with difficulty at a young age and some details of the legendary swordsman remain unclear. However, one defining theme is evident even in his earliest years: that Miyamoto’s life was to be one characterized by violence.

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Sources: BRINKLEY, Frank, and Dairoku KIKUCHI. A History of the Japanese People from the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era ... By Capt. F. Brinkley ... with the Collaboration of Baron Kikuchi ... With 150 Illustrations ... and Maps. New York & London, 1915.

Miyamoto, Musashi, and William Scott Wilson. The Book of Five Rings. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2012.

Miyamoto, Musashi, Lawrence A. Kane, and Kris Wilder. Musashis Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone): Half Crazy, Half Genius, Finding Modern Meaning in the Sword Saints Last Words. Burien, WA: Stickman Publications, 2015.

TC 2-91.4 Intelligence Support to Urban Operations, TC 2-91.4 Intelligence Support to Urban Operations § (2015). https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/tc2_91x4 FINAL.pdf.

Wilson, William Scott. The Lone Samurai: the Life of Miyamoto Musashi. Boston: Shambhala, 2013.

Yoshikawa, Eiji, Charles S. Terry, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Eiji Yoshikawa. Musashi. New

York: Kodansha, 2012.