BUDO FOR BUDOKA

  Baba Nobuharu, also known as Baba Nobufusa (born 1514/15 A.D and died 1575 A.D) was one of the much trusted 24 Generals of the great Takeda Shingen and is often mentioned in the Takeda clan’s Koyo Gunkan, diaries of war matters as a major personal advisor to Shingen. He loyally served three generations of the Takeda clan in his 40 years service. Baba played a major role in the five battles fought between the Takeda and their rivals the Uesugi clan between 1553~1564, known as the Kawanakajima Campaign. Baba led the attack on the Uesugi’s strategically important Katsurayama Castle in March of 1557, when baba and his men stormed the castle, killing most of the garrison inside and burning the castle while their families committed mass suicide. He was awarded the position of castellan of Matsumoto Castle from 1550, while it was still known as Fukashi Castle, and was responsible for enlarging it considerably. Following the Battle of Mikatagahara in 1573, in which Tokugawa Ieyasu suffer...

Sakamoto Ryōma was born on January 3, 1836, the second son of a low-ranking gōshi or “country samurai” in the remote province of Tosa (now Kōchi Prefecture) on the island of Shikoku. His family was an established branch of the wealthy Saitani clan that controlled a mercantile fortune from brewing and fabric, and so were well off despite the low stipend they received as gōshi. Ryōma began to learn swordsmanship at the age of 14 under the tutelage of Hineno Benji, a local samurai. Just a few years after, in the spring of 1853, he set off for the bustling city of Edo (now Tokyo) to refine his skills further. There, he trained under the swordsman Chiba Sadakichi in the Hokushin-ittō school of the discipline. This was the momentous year that Commodore Matthew Perry and the “black ships” of the US Navy steamed into Edo Bay demanding that the shogunate open up to foreign trade. In 1854, Ryōma returned to Tosa, but the prospect of further study lured him back to Edo in 1856. He is said to have...