Kyoto’s 1,150-Year-Old Plague Response
In the summer of 869, a plague was moving through Heian-kyō and nobody knew how to stop it. Fujiwara-era court […]
Kumamoto Castle: Kiyomasa, Saigō, 2016 Earthquake
After the Imperial army broke the 53-day siege of Kumamoto Castle in April 1877 and Saigō Takamori began his long
Sanada Yukimura: Japan’s Number-One Warrior
The thing to get straight about Sanada Yukimura is that he never called himself Sanada Yukimura. His name, in every
Himeji: Japans Only Original Castle That Never Burned
On the morning of 4 July 1945, a single incendiary bomb fell onto the sixth floor of Himeji Castle’s main
Shingen: The Warlord Whose Death Was Hidden Three Years
Takeda Shingen was the only man in the warring-states period who beat Tokugawa Ieyasu badly enough that the future shogun
Chadō: The Way of Tea That Killed Its Master
On the twenty-eighth day of the second month of 1591, 21 April by the modern Gregorian calendar, a seventy-year-old fish-merchant’s
Matsumoto: The Black Crow Castle Saved Twice by Its Town
The reason Matsumoto Castle is still standing is that, in November 1872, a local man named Ichikawa Ryōzō bought it
The God of War Who Sent Salt to His Enemy
In the autumn of 1567 the Hōjō of Sagami imposed a salt embargo on the Takeda of Kai. Kai is
Japan Has Two Swords Hung Upside-Down From Each Other
A Japanese tachi and a Japanese katana look, to an untrained eye, like the same sword. They are not. They
The Man Who Killed Nobunaga: Akechi Mitsuhide
Akechi Mitsuhide held sovereign power over Japan for eleven days. Some chroniclers generously say thirteen. Either way, it is the