Between The Cedars
The Archives
The Yari: The Spear That Decided Japan’s Battles
The yari, not the sword, was the weapon that decided Japan’s Sengoku battles. A look at the samurai spear, ashigaru formations, and the famous Tonbokiri.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in 1543 in Mikawa province, the son of a minor warlord caught between greater powers, and spent his boyhood as a political hostage, first nearly in Oda hands and then for years under the Imagawa clan. That long captivity taught him the…
Abe No Seimi
Abe no Seimei was the most renowned onmyōji in Japanese history, a master of onmyōdō, the court discipline that bound together astronomy, the calendar, divination, and exorcism. He served the Heian imperial court across several reigns as its foremost diviner and…
The Battle of Nagashino
Only one daimyo ever looked like a real threat to Oda Nobunaga’s ambition to unify the country: Takeda Shingen of Kai. Shingen had already swallowed the provinces around his own, and Kyoto sat in his sights past all of them. To his southwest lay Mikawa, Tokugawa…