Ieyasu rewarded the ninja by granting them a special status as a security detail in his capital Edo (Bertrand 2006 Man, 2013). The information they gathered proved vital for his victories on October 21, 1600, ninja helped win the victory that allowed Ieyasu to become the first shogun to fully unify Japan and found a shogunate that would last until Commodore Matthew Perry’s visit in 1858. Ninja had pivotal roles in several fateful points in Ieyasu’s campaign. Ieyasu relied heavily on ninja during his final years of unification for reconnaissance and espionage. Of course, Oda also hired other ninja families to turn against their neighbors in Iga (Man, 2013). Although the ninjas of Iga held off Oda’s armies for a time using their ninjutsu, eventually they succumbed to Oda’s superior resources. Iga also stood between Oda and the lands of his archrival, Mori Motonari. The effectiveness of the ninja and the independence of the ninja villages led Oda and his son Nobuo to eventually march on Iga province, the heart of the shinobi villages. However, the experience taught Oda the value of ninja, and he began to use them to gather information about his enemies. The ninja killed himself and Oda had his body displayed in the local marketplace to discourage further assassination attempts (Bertrand, 2006). The ninja attempted to kill him in his sleep, but the ninja was captured by Oda’s bodyguards. Oda started employing shinobi after he barely escaped an assassination attempt in 1573. That left Ieyasu to finish the job and found a 250 year period of peace and isolation. Oda began the effort but died before he could finish it.
Shinobi reached their apex of ability during the time of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, two daimyo who eventually united Japan under a single shogunate. The family originated from Iga province (Man, 2013). Ninja don’t become part of the official record until 1488 when government annuals mention the Kawai family’s involvement in a siege. In Japan, the first appearance of a ninja strike dates to the mid-10th century. China had their own version as early as the 600s and perhaps long before. However, ninja existed long before the province of Iga with its own hidden villages. Ironically, the successfulness of the ninja led to their downfall. This period of constant warfare erupted as the shogun and emperor lost their grip on power. Ninja enjoyed their height of activity during between the 15th and 16th centuries when Japan was in its Age of the Warring States (1480-1600), a period of conflict between the various samurai families as they vied for power. Nothing is mystical about the true tradition and correct way of ninjutsu Because of this, the words nin ja (or nin sha) and shinobi were used interchangeably (Bertrand, 2006 Man, 2013). Ren zhe means “one who endures or hides” in Chinese, but in Japanese, the phrase shinobo mono means the same. In Japanese, this is pronounced as nin sha. The Chinese word, ren zhe 忍者, didn’t appear in Japan until the 15th century (Bertrand, 2006). Japanese kanji comes from Chinese writing and typically has 2 different pronunciations, the Japanese and the Chinese. The words come from the same Chinese word, which traces to the 7th century. Throughout this article, I’ll use the words shinobi and ninja interchangeably. But you may find the reality of the ninja just as interesting as Naruto’s world. It’s fiction, and fiction makes reality its own. It gets some things right, but it gets far more wrong.
Sadly, Naruto plays fast and loose with the history of the shinobi. For many anime fans, Naruto introduced the world of the shinobi, or the more familiar word ninja.
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