[Music] they're the special forces of feudal Japan Shadow Warriors who stop at nothing to get the job done the ninja were very much the unconventional warfare experts which any army needs the deadliest killers their genius is deception they're lethal in battle and specialists in cunning betray and strategy never trust a ninja even your own ninjas do not trust them they will lie and make things up and cheat Ambush infiltration assassination and Espionage their techniques are Timeless and live on in the methods of today's special forces speed aggression and surprise the way they move of silence
and stealth and in small teams it's still very much the same [Music] now they're facing the greatest fight in their history at stake is their very existence and they'll need everything they've got to survive this is the incredible story of the Ninjas of IgA and their extraordinary rise to become an indispensable part of the Japanese military machine [Music] it's 1562 and Japan is in the grip of a civil war War that's lasted over a 100 years Warlords and their militias roam the countryside in a rampage of Destruction it's tearing the country apart in the Wilds
of central Japan a year long campaign is culminating in a Siege and the prize for the attacker is cin nojo Castle determined to take it is an ambitious young warlord called Tokugawa yasu but he's facing a serious problem because inside the castle are his daughters and they'll be killed if he attacks years earlier he agreed to to send them to cjo in a peace deal it's standard procedure in a country where no one trusts anyone now he badly needs to go back on the deal with Warlords fighting against each other allegiances were quite often made
and broken at a moment's notice it was recognized very early on that a hostage system would help keep allegiances but as long as they behaved and followed the rules the families would be kept safe if they broke the rules the families would be executed and it was a great way of keeping control despite his massive Army yasu has had his hands tied for over a [Music] year he can't touch the castle but yasu is smart SM and he's contacted a uniquely gifted fighter a specialist called hatori [Music] Hanzo and Hanzo is known for one thing
unconventional warfare hatori Hanzo is the leader of the finest special forces in the Japanese world they are experts at a secret martial art called Shinobi much later they will be known as ninja ninja is actually a very modern term but back in the 1500s they were known as Shinobi n mono Shadow [Music] Warrior the ninja were renowned for never being spotted and being invisible and having magic powers the Shinobi Warrior of the 1500s is so skilled he is regarded almost as a supernatural being but just like Today's Special Forces he's developed a unique set of
tactics to solve problems on the battlefield conventional troops can't and the Ninja's particular Talent is for intelligence gathering and infiltration the samurai Army needed spies and it needed Commandos so ninja would develop these skills they spy and they do commando infiltration raids and these were needed for Frontline troops or for information gathering and there's another reason why hatori Hanzo and his ninja are so highly prized Japanese armies are run by an officer class of Samurai at the heart of their combat training is a strict code of gentlemanly honor and the one thing they won't touch
are dirty TR what we call Black Ops assassination murder and sabotage the ninja were very much the unconventional warfare experts which any army needs Samurai honor precluded them from doing certain tasks that they saw beneath them the ninja didn't follow the same code of honor and were able to effectively achieve what the samurai could not Hanzo and his ninja are the best in the business he even has a track record in one particular area of [Music] [Applause] Shinobi he's an old hand at penetrating castles and freeing hostages yasu doesn't take much persuading to sign the
ninja UP and there's just one order rescue my daughters now saw the immense capability of hatori Hanzo as the commander the general for the ninja and he brought him in as one of his generals and as one of his generals he was feared and he became known as devil [Music] Hanzo hator Hanzo now starts an intelligence gathering operation that will decide his strategy to do that he'll draw to the full on his Shinobi skills but the mission and his options are familiar to operatives everywhere tactics that are routine today were pioneered by the Shadow Warriors
500 years ago the ninjas have developed a series of tactics are almost Universal and they haven't really evolved or changed much there's little marginal improvements here and there and Technology comes into it in different weapon systems the essential elements are still very much the same speed aggression and surprise the way they move of silence and stealth and in small teams it's still very much the same one man who knows all about the problems facing hatori hanzo's ninjas at cin nojo is Jason Williams now living in Japan he fought for 5 years in Iraq and Afghanistan
with SAS and that presented intelligence gathering challenges that are very familiar to hatori Hanzo getting good information boils down to a handful of options you're usually going into an enemy complex or an enemy enemy building maybe enemy compound there are two ways of doing it you can do a long-term operation or you can do a short-term longterm means more of a Sleeper Cell approach You' be going in maybe a few few years before you even get any information out it's a very long-term operation and there's a lot more risk to the individual Who's involved and
a lot more stress on them by the time he's approached by yasu Hanzo has already put in a Sleeper Cell of ninjas who have been undercover posing as civilians living near the castle it's a classic Shinobi tactic when hostilities start hotting up the Lord of cjo starts hiring local men not realizing who they are and the ninja Sleeper Cell walks right into the castle unopposed when their lord would start to invade the ninja would get hired into his retinue this meant that the ninja was on the inside of the enemy as well as us using
his spies on the inside just like Special Forces today Hanzo sends Commandos on a reconnaissance mission to assess the target's defenses you set up what we call a CTR close Target reky you get as much information about the complex and around that area as possible and then once you've done that you can either go inside or you can withdraw history hit is an award-winning streaming platform built by history fans for history fans enjoy our Rich library of documentaries covering key events and locations of the medieval period history hits medieval offering features leading historians such as
Dan Jones Elena yanega and Cat jman not only that but we have a rich library of audio documentaries covering every period of History through our network of podcasts sign up now for a free trial and Chronicle fans get 50% off their first 3 months just be sure to use the code Chronicle at checkout now that Hanzo has twins sources of information about the target he can build his strategy he decides to climb the walls of the castle alone while his Commando support will wait for a signal then he'll go on into the complex in a
Solo snatch operation as soon as the princesses are safe the sleeper agents on the inside will signal for the attack to start with forces on the inside and outside it will be a Piner operation and Hanzo is ready to [Music] go it is now vital to ensure the timing is right and all conditions favor the ninja now normally a ninja did not infiltrate in the full moon he'd wait till 8 days after after the moon or 8 days before the moon so it was darker and he'd wear dark clothes using tried and tested ninja techniques
Hanzo now Rises up the castle walls he'd use iron spikes and he'd Place spikes in the castle wall and he'd climb all the the way up to the top once at the top the ninja starts to soore through the walls using special Shinobi tools this is a type of Saw called Aiko it was used for making larger holes in clay or wooden WS usually so a ninja could climb through in ancient Japan it was standard kit for breaking into houses and then on the inside of the clay walls they'd have a crisscross of bamboo he'd
cut out a section he'd go inside but scaling walls in total silence and secrecy is the easy part hanza must now move unseen through a castle full of soldiers waiting for him now once he tied he'd wait he would be waiting for the people to come along with torches on patrol hanzo's ninja skills allow him to elude detection completely but he can't afford to relax he knows the enemy will have prepared for him he has to be careful cuz their dark Patrol comes past these are the people without torches they would be looking for ninjas
sleeper agents meet Hanzo to direct him to the Royal Apartments after that he's on his own the ninja must now overcome centuries and make his way deep into the castle complex once again he turns to Classic Shinobi techniques to fail his [Music] enemies with the guards dispatched Hanzo must seiz the hostages as planned the ninja double agents signal to hanzo's Commandos and yasu Samurai by starting fires on the inside of the castle the Commandos penetrate the defenses as yasu's conventional forces overwhelm the [Music] castle [Music] the hostages are smuggled out in the [Music] Mayhem this
operation is a classic example of ninja technique being able to infiltrate the enemy's positions influence what went on and to attack from within classic [Music] Shinobi hanzo's success not only confirms his reputation but that of his fearsome Homeland now acknowledged as the region with the best ninja in Japan it's a place of Mists on a high mountain Plateau cut off from the rest of the country its people are different Fierce Mountain folk with proud independent Spirits its name is eaga ninja were mainly hired from eaga eager people were known as the best Ninja they would
go across all of Japan and they would present themselves to their Lords and say I a ninja I am from EGA I'm trained in the Arts of ninjutsu then the Lord would hire them the ninja or Shinobi skills practiced by the men of IgA have been developed over centuries of warfare they draw together the extreme physical power of the martial artist the swordsmanship of the Samurai warrior with tactical expertise from ancient China and the writings of the Chinese Master military strategist [Music] sunu and it's in the rural Hinterlands and Highland Villages where Shinobi is perfected
living in IGA means surviving a harsh Mountain climate and by the time a ninja starts his training he's already tough but to be allowed to become a Shinobi Warrior he must go through a series of brutal tests the ninja needed to survive in a huge variety of environments whether on operations or intelligence Gatherings and they trained for that by enduring exposure and low temperatures at high altitude like Special Forces today constant training in Mountain survival is at the core of the making of an effective operative all the soldiers have to go through a process uh
which would involve test their individual Fitness in Lone isolated marches uh in mountainous terrain then their personal skills would be tested to the utmost they'd be isolated in a combat survival environment where they'd be uh exposed in a Wilderness with minimum supplies as part of his training the ninja must learn to live off the land for an indefinite period the ninja were experts in optimizing their diet so they could resist a cold and hunger they developed a special ration pack and just one would keep them going for up to three days a lot of the
Ninjas art is really about survival and endur it isn't just physical demands that the traine ninja has to learn to cope with the entire point of a ninja's training was about endurance he had to endure mental problems he would be in the enemy's land and he had to train himself to not break under pressure the people of IgA mostly worship nature spirits and follow Shintoism a religious practice focused on the natural world for an undercover ninja becoming one with nature is a perfect training for blending in with the environment a ninja is a specialist of
blending with the surrounding is the ultimate expression of what in way Shintoism it's all about it's about achieving Atmos harmony with the environment so a ninja would disappear to the eyes of the common viewer because he managed to become almost sort of seamlessly connected to the nature around it just like the ninja in 16th century Japan Today's Special Forces like the Navy SEALS or the SAS have an advanced training in camouflage and concealment the ability to blend in with your surroundings is an essential skill if you're in any uh Natural Area in Countryside you're always
aware of how people are are looking at you or where they're going to be looking at you from the SAS like the ninja have a sense of concealment drilled into them so it becomes instinctive when operating covertly shape shine Shadow and silhouette are a constant concern there's the shape there's not many round shapes in nature all perfectly straight lines then there's shine uh the bridge of your nose your forehead any metal on your weapon you want to eliminate any Shadow coming from yourself if you're on a ridge line you should avoid silhouetting yourself be mindful
of your foot forall leave no sign don't cause disturbances you know if there's a branch on the floor don't snap it or brush up against tree branches over several centuries the ninja rise to become an indispensable part of the Japanese military machine as intelligence gatherers and operational agents like the best security and special forces of the modern era they are never satisfied constantly upping their game and devising new strategies and techniques to get Advantage but now 17 years after The Siege at konojo Castle the eager ninja face their biggest danger yet it's a gigantic Army
rolling through the country crushing all it encounters and it's led by a cruel Overlord known for his love of extreme violence he's a genocidal megalomaniac with a reputation unmatched in all of Japan's bloody history odor noaga is bent on one thing absolute power nobunaga's plan was to unify all of Japan and that was his one goal so nobody was spared from his forces or his army this is what he was going to do oh noaga is single-minded cold calculating and disciplined and he crushes all resistance with utter ruthlessness the trouble is the eager don't bow
down to anyone in the late 1500s the ninjas had a serious problem no Baga needed complete and total obedience and they refused to give it to opposing forces are on a collision course neither is used to giving way and a devastating confrontation is inevitable the only solution noaga had was to invade and he did so with a Vengeance to tame the ninjas of eaga Nobunaga sends in his toughest Samurai crack troops hardened by Decades of bloodletting the orders are to spare no one but he makes one fatal error he appoints a general who is completely
unsuited to the job that General is his son Noble katsu nobukatsu has no experience not just that he's impetuous and undisciplined it's about the worst combination of qualities a military leader could have and he makes a host of Errors one of the worst is to underestimate his enemy he thinks the code of honor of his Samurai gentleman cannot fail against people he dismisses as a bunch of eager peasants right from the beginning Noak katsu made some basic mistakes he utilized Warfare in a samurai mentality he didn't recognize that you needed special forces his biggest mistake
was not using ninja of his own without intelligence from Ninja spies nabuk katsu charges blindly into enemy territory from that three fatal flaws in his strategy emerge he didn't prepare properly he didn't get the LIE of the land and he chose a direct route without doing any [Music] reconnaissance it's a serious blunder nobukatsu is entering unknown territory and what he doesn't know is that IGA is unlike any other place in Japan Iger has a river running through the middle called the hatori and on certain days the whole valley is thick with a Mist sometimes IGA
can seem like a hidden world shrouded in mist and fog nobukatsu Samurai now enter narrow Gorges with no idea of what's waiting for them suddenly in front of them is the last person nobukatsu and his troops want to see it's hatori the devil Hanzo just at that moment the weather closes in fog suddenly filled the valley and this is where the ninja do what they do best they got down close and personal they attack from the side from the back infiltrating the ranks of the Samurai causing chaos so much chaos in fact that the samurai
began to cut each other down not knowing who the enemy was it's an ambush that's textbook ninja drawing the samurai into unfamiliar terrain and destroying them with tactics that completely unprepared [Music] for it has disastrous consequences for the Invaders nobuk katu's bodyguards are cut to pieces now the general must stand alone against the ninja and account for himself [Applause] and in that chaos Noak katsu made a run for it and he was the only one to survive a complete Massacre the defeat sends shock waves through the country the almost total annihilation of nobunaga's finest Samurai
goes down as one of the Ninja's greatest triumphs but it will also unleash forces that will test the men of eager as never before within days the ninja spy n nwork reports Nobunaga mustering the biggest army Japan has ever seen columns are streaming from every region with one order destroy eager the ninja know they can't defeat so huge an army and there is only one solution Nobunaga must be assassinated there's only one Shinobi Warrior who can do the job born into a powerful eager Clan the ninja Ishikawa goon has every reason to want to kill
Nobunaga [Music] [Music] personally his whole family was murdered by nobunaga's forces and getting revenge has been his life's ambition the job of killing Nobunaga will go down as the toughest assignment ever faced by a Ninja [Music] Assassin the warlord is constantly surrounded by a crack force of bodyguards and employs ninja Killers himself from the eager's rivals he has a highly skilled network of spies Adept at infiltrating and extracting information throughout Japan Nobunaga knows that the eaga are almost certainly plotting to kill him and he's convinced he's ready for them but the eager spy Network manages
to secure some crucial information the only time Nobunaga lets his guard down is when he's in his heavily fortified Castle gan's only chance is to infiltrate the castle and using double agents on the inside assassinate the warlord himself in the Royal Apartments ninja Black Ops techniques are at the height of development and their Armory boasts a massive array of weapons and Technology unmatched anywhere Gman now has everything put at his disposal ninja had something called The Art of fire and they used gunpowder for everything from signaling to explosions and lighting effects and there were Masters
at Vanishing behind smoke screens but Goan knows that Nobunaga is fully aware of the Ninja's specialist tools and tactics to kill the overlord he's going to have to surprise Nobunaga and think laterally he decides to use poison but it has to be done in a truly novel way there's different ways to use poison you can either go in a house of someone's guest and you can poison the people there one manual tells us to use strick and they would mix it with cakes and they would give it to people that way com knows poisoned cakes
won't work Nobunaga keeps a retinue of food tasters precisely to protect him from this threat the ninja needs something more cunning they did something called well poisoning they take the poisonous part of a puffer fish and they mix it with excrement or um lead and Arsenic and they would drop this into the enemy's well once again nobunaga's tasters would detect poisoned water well before it reached the overlord's lips goyon realizes he must deliver the toxin to Nobunaga personally and he'll only get one shot he turns to a substance that remains today one of the most
toxic in the world it's called wolf Spain a couple of drops will kill an adult in minutes there is no antidote victims die rising in agony now Goan must craft his method of delivery and he only has the tools and materials of his remote Mountain Community fortunately the ninja are Masters at repurposing everyday items into weapons one of the things that the ninja were very good at was adaptation and using anything at their disposal as a weapon now the word weapon can tend to get people quite narrow-minded but the ninja thought of weapons as more
as tools and that allowed them to be very adaptable and very flexible ninjas were recruited from relatively low income part of the population they were accustomed to use very basic tools connected to agricultural activities so most of the weapons resemble tools that you would have find you know in a garden or something like that a traditional sickle in the hands of a ninja for instance has multiple uses in a combat situation this is called a Karama eager Farmers cut hair with it but the ninja used it as a weapon in two ways first the ninja
would throw the iron weight at the end of the chain so it wrapped around the legs of the enemy when he fell the ninja would attack him with the blade very effective goon's plan is now ready he's going to put the wolf's Bane into nobunaga's mouth in a way no one's ever thought of but before he goes into action there's one more vital element for the Ninja's attack in the chaos of battle fear is the greatest enemy and the ninja learned from a very early stage that fear is something to be embraced and so quite
often before an operation they would begin a meditation they would meditate on the fact that they had no home no family no friends no country all they had was themselves their weapons and their spirit and this was so that they could act completely without [Music] distraction goon turns to his spiritual training of Shintoism to prepare his mind for the assignment he uses an ancient practice that hones concentration and produces complete psychological Detachment from Fear it's called kui Kiri kuji Kiri is one of the Ninja spiritual Arts a ninja would summon nine concepts with his hands
to make his mind strong they power energy Harmony healing intuition awareness Force creation [Music] Zen goon has submitted himself utterly to the protection of his spiritual guides and his mind is in Peak Readiness now he must go in win in classic style Gorman makes himself virtually invisible as he closes in on nobunaga's apartments double agents working on the warlord's staff have given him the information he needs to navigate his way to the Target once inside the apartment complex he Maneuvers himself to a space above the Royal bed chamber ninja agents in the castle have drilled
a tiny hole in the ceiling and positioned the Royal bed so that the target's head is directly beneath it [Laughter] now the ninja applies the wolf's ban to the string but just as he's delivering the lethal dose Nobunaga wakes Goa knows he's failed no no now we must go now and now must escape the only way he can when a ninja wanted to Escape he could do a few things normally they would have caltrops now caltrops are small balls of iron with spikes moving out and he'd position these in certain places where he knew the
enemy would chase him so those pursuers would stand on it falling over kman has slowed his pursuers but he's still not safe if the samurai bodyguards catch up with him he's dead now he has to reach for another tool in the Ninja system it's time for the Shen n would use shuriken like this when they were on the run from the enemy they're secretly held and used in an extreme situation they throw them at the enemy like [Music] this Gman may have failed but the assassination attempt is a textbook example of Shinobi Ingenuity adapting simple
everyday objects to lethal effect Nobunaga now goes on the war path against the ninjas of IgA with violent determination he takes personal command of his massive Army and launches it against the whole region unlike his son nobukatsu he uses ninjas who are hanzo's deadliest Rivals he gives only one order spare no one noaga was completely coldblooded he ordered his soldiers to kill everyone in eager women children or monks they were all slaughtered regardless The Killing made the EA ninja scatter across Japan it's a bloodletting that remains notorious in Japanese history to this day nothing is
left of the old eager Villages no Naga had destroyed their homes destroyed their families this made them drop in social class they had been displaced this changed the history of the eeka people Forever The Once proud ninjas of eager are now scattered and in Flight while nobunaga's troops scour the hills to hunt them down all looks lost for them with no land no status and no money all they can do is hope to scrape a living as peasants in some other region where no one will know them then just as all seems lost some extraordinary
news comes through in a palace coup the cruel Overlord Oda noaga has been assassinated at Kyoto noaga had just become the ultimate power in Japan and he sent his troops out to the provinces to spread the word while noaga was distracted one of his close generals took advantage of that and assassinated noaga to take power for himself it's good news for the ninjas of eager but it also plunges Japan into Political chaos nobunaga's Killers now turn on the overlords allies summary executions of all the senior figures associated with the old regime begin immediately one high-ranking
warlord in particular is suddenly in serious trouble he's none other than tokogawa yasu he has risen to become a close strategic Ally of Nobunaga and by chance happened to be visiting him now yasu is far from home and on the wrong side while a revolution erupts around him the road home is teaming with his enemies and he's trapped when OD noaga was assassinated tokuga ASU found himself in a really dangerous situation he had to get home he had to get back to his lands however which was the best way to go how could he do
this the only way yasu can get home is to take a perilous journey across the mountains of eager it's a golden opportunity for Hanzo who immediately uses his contacts and his dispossessed ninja force to help his old friend IGA is hanzo's home territory the eiga people still there didn't trust yasu but Hanzo persuaded them to protect him and help him across the [Music] mountains Hanzo had great Authority with his people and used his connections and influence in EGA as yasu Hanzo and their men flee across the mountains word gets back to the new regime a
hunter killer unit of Samurai pursue the ninjas believing they can stop the escaping force and seize Yas this time it's the ninja who will face an ambush [Applause] oh it's a narrow Escape for tokogawa yasu but the making of hatori Hanzo and his ninjas now because of this tooa yasu was extr extremely grateful they had saved his life so he hired up to aund of their men to help guard him at Edo Castle modern day [Music] Tokyo with Nobunaga dead the number of military campaigns and Waring factions starts to dwindle yasu's political career finally takes
him to the very top and he assumes complete control of the United and peaceful Japan his Triumph inaugurates a golden era for Japan and a 265 year dynasty of Shoguns and with them all the way are the ninja and the descendants of the greatest of them all hatori the devil [Music] Hanzo [Music] n that
