Gunbai: Ancient Japanese Warfare

Shichihode (七方出) - Ninja's Seven Disguises A group of travelling merchants during the Edo period; one of the famous Ninja's famous disguises. From a Hiroshige's Ukiyo-e Among the various arts and techniques a Shinobi  was supposed to learn, the Shichihode ( 七方出 ) was one of the most useful when it comes to infiltration and espionage. The Shichihode, which could be translated in " seven directions" ,   are useful disguises associated with particular professions or social class  used by various ninjas to travel unnoticed across the country in order to spy the others domains. The disguises are listed in the Shoninki ( 正忍記 ) , which was written in the late 17th century, when the Tokugawa Shogunate was in full control of the country and had a well developed spies network all across Japan; however, these disguises were likely  to be used in the previous centuries as well, especially during the Sengoku period, when war was at its peak. To better understand why...

Ninja (忍者) - An Introduction An actor playing a farmer; this might have been a very common disguised utilized by Ninja. From "A ctor Playing a Farmer - Utagawa Toyokuni III" Ninja ( 忍者 ) , also known as Shinobi ( 忍 び ) or Shinobi no mono ( 忍びの者 ) are among the most iconic characters in world culture, in a military history context as well inside a  pop-cultural  ones. There is no escape, everyone is aware of Ninja; but very few people know what Ninja actually were and were not. Today my aim is to introduce this "figure" with a lot of emphasis on debunking some common misconceptions that, despite the efforts of many historians and amateur history buff like me, still exist nowadays. It is not a novelty that such a mystique character as the Ninja would have developed a strong impact on people's imagination; Ninja were supposed to be magical even inside Japanese folklore. However, there are a lot of facts (that facts are not ) which people believe to ...