The Remarkable History of the Yagyu Clan by William de Lange

Author:William de Lange [Lange, William de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Miyamoto Musashi
Publisher: Floating World Editions

Kuroda Nagamasa

Having reached adulthood, it was time for Munenori to go on his first musha shugyō. In the fall of 1591, as the first leaves were falling, father and son left the modest comforts of their dwelling at the Enjō temple and set out north along the Yagyū Kaidō, first to Kizu, and from there to Kyoto, Osaka, and Himeji.

For the young Munenori each day on the road was a treat. He could ride Ookage and put his techniques to the test in taryū shiai at the dōjō of other domains, or deepen his understanding of his art in quiet meditation during their stay at temples along the way. For him every day brought a new challenge, a new insight. For Muneyoshi it was a way to forget. On the road with his son, riding along some forgotten country lane among the mountains, it seemed nothing had changed, that all was right with the world, that he might still return along the Yagyū Kaidō to find his castle intact.

It was on their return from Himeji, while staying in the capital, that the two men were invited to perform an enbu of the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū at the residence of Kuroda Nagamasa. It was Muneyoshi’s ties to Kamiizumi Nobutsuna that had secured them the invitation, for Nagamasa had been an avid student of the northern giant. Nobutsuna2 was no longer alive; he had passed away when Shinzaemon was just six years old. Yet Nagamasa had continued to sponsor his Shinkage school of swordsmanship and had made Hikida Bungorō shihan to the Kuroda clan at their headquarters in Nakatsu, on the southern island of Kyushu. Through Bungorō, Nagamasa knew that Nobutsuna had stayed at Yagyū castle, and he wanted to see for himself what this fusion of the Yagyū and Shinkage schools of swordsmanship was all about.

Called the Nyosuitei, the Kuroda yashiki stood less than a mile north of Nijō castle, and only a few blocks away from the Jūrakudai, the huge palace where the great Taikō Hideyoshi held court. Having lived for almost ten years in the cramped space of their small dwelling at the Nijō temple, Munenori marveled at the lavishness of the Nyosuitei. There were dozens of rooms, each with fresh tatami mats throughout, neatly stuccoed walls, and sliding doors decorated with monochromes of rustic landscapes. At the center of the compound, framed on all sides by a wide veranda, was a small garden dominated a by beautiful copper maple tree that seemed to glow in the bright shaft of autumn sunlight piercing the inner court.

Muneyoshi, too, was impressed, but for different reasons. The Nyosuitei yashiki might be lavish, but not when one had seen the boundless opulence in which many of the warlords of his time lived. Compared to the decadence of Matsunaga Hisahide’s palaces, the Nyosuitei was a paragon of Japanese sobriety. It reassured him. The only color that reminded him of the riches the Kuroda must have amassed through their incessant campaigning was the maple leaves’ gold-like hue.

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