Kamiizumi Nobutsuna

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Kamiizumi Nobutsuna ( Japanese 上 泉 信 綱 ; * 1508 in the province of Kōzuke ; † February 3, 1577 ), also Kamiizumi Hidetsuna ( 上 泉 秀 綱 ) and Kamiizumi Ise-no-Kami Nobutsuna ( 上 泉 伊 勢 守 信 綱 , Ise-no- Kami describes his title as provincial governor of Ise ), was a Japanese swordsman.

Kamiizumi Hidetsuna was born the son of Kamiizumi Hidetsugu, lord of Ōgo Castle in Kōzuke Province . His family was a vassal of the Uesugi clan. In the late 1550s, the Takeda under Takeda Shingen allied themselves with the Hōjō against the Uesugi and completely conquered their territory - except for the Minowa Castle , which was held by the Nagano clan. After the head and lord of the castle Nagano Narimasa died in 1561 after a long siege , Takeda Shingen, after learning of his death, led an attack against the castle, with Kamiizumi Hidetsuna being a leader of the defenders. Although the castle and the Nagano clan fell, Kamiizumi Hidetsuna earned such great respect from Takeda Shingen that the latter allowed him to use his name 信 , read shin or nobu . Kamiizumi Hidetsuna was henceforth called Kamiizumi Nobutsuna. After the battle he went on a warrior pilgrimage to perfect his skills ( musha shūgyō ).

During his travels he was accompanied by his nephew Hikita Bungorō and Jingo Muneharu . On one of his trips he came to a village where a child was being held hostage by a bandit. Disguised as a monk and under the pretext of bringing the child and his kidnappers food, he distracted the latter, overpowered him and freed the child. This well-known incident was later incorporated into Akira Kurosawa's film The Seven Samurai .

In the Hōzōin monastery he met the young Yagyū Muneyoshi , who asked for a lesson in swordsmanship. Kamiizumi delegated this task to his nephew Hikita, who easily defeated the young Yagyū. He then asked to be accepted as a student of Kamiizumi. After a few years he received from his teacher a certificate of his ability in the Shinkage-ryū ("Reformed shadow school") of sword fighting and was appointed by him as heir and head of the school. After Kamiizumi's death, the school became known as Yagyū Shinkage-ryū , whose swordsmanship is still taught today (as with most Koryū primarily in Japan).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Turnbull: The Samurai Swordsman. Master of War . Tuttle Publishing, 2008, ISBN 4-8053-0956-3 , pp. 58–63 ( digitized from Google Books ).
  2. ↑ Turnbull, pp. 79-80

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kamiizumi, Nobutsuna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 上 泉 信 綱 (Japanese); Kamiizumi Ise-no-Kami Nobutsuna; 上 泉 伊 勢 守 信 綱 (Japanese); Kamiizumi Hidetsuna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese swordsman
DATE OF BIRTH 1508
PLACE OF BIRTH Kōzuke Province
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1577