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Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

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of Japan. With the destruction of the Iga and Kôga territories by Oda<br />

Nobunaga in 1581, many of the local warriors fled to daimyo in eastern<br />

Japan, thus further spreading the knowledge of ninjutsu.<br />

<strong>The</strong> daimyo most closely connected with the use of ninja was Tokugawa<br />

Ieyasu, first shôgun of the Tokugawa bakufu established in 1603.<br />

<strong>The</strong> connection dated back two generations, to the time when his grandfather,<br />

Matsudaira Kiyoyasu, employed several hundred Iga ninja under Hattori<br />

Hanzô Yasunaga. When Akechi Mitsuhide’s troops assassinated Oda<br />

A nineteenth-century<br />

Japanese woodcut<br />

depicting a samurai<br />

initiated in ninjutsu,<br />

the martial art of<br />

invisibility, Ninja<br />

Museum, Ueno,<br />

Japan. <strong>The</strong> initiates<br />

are also known as<br />

ninja. (Werner<br />

Forman/Art<br />

Resource, NY)<br />

Ninjutsu 357

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