OFH Throwback - Episode #56 - Who Was Japan's Greatest Swordsman? (Part II)

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Hello and welcome to this throwback episode of Our Fake History.

Today I'm throwing you back to season three and episode number 56, Who Was Japan's Greatest Swordsman?

Part 2.

Now, I re-released part one of this series last week with an all-new introduction.

So, if you have not heard it yet, then please check back in the feed and give that a listen now.

Now, I think that part two of this series is the really fun part.

This episode is just filled with sword fighting tales.

It was really fun to listen back to.

Honestly, I think I might have been having too much fun when I made this particular episode all those years ago.

It's filled with sound effect jokes and all sorts of little quips.

Also, I'm kind of fast and loose with my grammar in this one.

I don't know, maybe I'm always like that, but I really noticed it when I was listening back.

But man, the stories I get to tell in this episode are so good.

I think it more than makes up for any of my clowning.

Now, this particular series led to one of the more unusual opportunities that I've had since I started making this podcast.

When you put this stuff out into the world, you never know who's listening.

It turns out the mayor of a small town in New Jersey named North Brunswick found this series online and became a fan.

In fact, the mayor was such a fan that he reached out to me directly and asked if I would appear on North Brunswick Cable Access Television.

Now, this happened during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We're talking May of 2020.

So I was invited to come on this televised Zoom call that was broadcast on New Jersey cable access television, where I gave tips on how to start your own podcast and discussed a bit about our fake history.

Now, what really made this surreal was that most of that broadcast was about the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

This was when we were still listing out the statistics of new infections every day that were affecting different areas.

And so before I got to come on and do my bid about podcasting, the local health officials came on the call and laid out all this essential COVID-19 data for the people of North Brunswick.

Honestly, it was a bit of a trip.

There were a few moments where I was like, I don't know if I should be here.

This is some pretty serious stuff.

I mean, the people of North Brunswick were really going through it during May of 2020.

And here I am being like, hey, kids, here's how you start a podcast.

But I will say, the mayor of North Brunswick and all the other municipal officials who I met during that experience were incredibly welcoming, incredibly lovely.

They really rolled out the red carpet for me.

And so since then, I've always kept the town of North Brunswick, New Jersey very close to my heart.

So if any of you listening right now are from North Brunswick, New Jersey, I just want to say hello.

I hope you're doing well.

I hope you're healthy.

Think about how far we've come since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Honestly, it can seem like the world is just getting worse, but maybe some things got a little bit better, right?

Before we dive into part two of this series, I also want to take a moment to talk about the episode art for this series.

The resident artist for Our Fake History is the great Frank Fiorentino.

Longtime listeners will recognize that name.

I think Frank really created some of his very best images for this particular series, especially his image for part two.

The image of Musashi in profile with the red sun echoing the sun and the Japanese flag behind him has gone on to be one of our best-selling images on t-shirts, mugs, and other swag in the TeePublic store.

I totally get it.

There's something about that image that is immediately iconic.

It's one of Frank's best works for this podcast.

In fact, it may be one of the few images that Frank has created for this podcast that has an echo in a later piece of episode art.

Seasons later, when we did the series on Yasuke, the so-called African samurai, Frank created an image of the subject where he too was in profile in front of a red Japanese sun.

I, for one, loved the symmetry of it.

That was a little Easter egg for the real our fake history heads out there.

All right, enough of my yammering.

Please enjoy episode number 56, Who Was Japan's Greatest Swordsman?

Part 2.

There's a story that once in Japan there lived a man named Tsukihara Bokoden who dedicated his entire life to studying the art of the sword.

He came from a wealthy family and was able to travel across the entire country with an entourage of friends and servants.

All the while, he was looking to learn as much as he could about the art of combat.

But the more he traveled and the more he learned, the more he came to realize that his great riches could not make him a better warrior.

If anything, his lavish entourage and fancy clothes were impeding him.

So So he simplified.

He went and prayed at the Kashima shrine, and sure enough, he was blessed with a vision.

The god of swords and thunder, Takamikazuchi Nokami, appeared to him and demonstrated in what must have been a terrifying display, a brand new style of fencing.

Bokuden named it the Kashima style, in honor of the shrine where he had had this holy vision.

But sometimes he liked to say that his style was really called winning without hands.

Bokuden would establish a brand new martial arts school where he would teach this unique style of fighting.

After a few years he gained a reputation for being one of Japan's greatest master.

But this did not stop local ruffians from turning up and challenging him to duels.

On one one particular occasion, a local tough came to his school and demanded to know what Bokudin called his newly developed sword-fighting style.

Bokudin replied that he called it the, quote, no-sword style.

The ruffian rudely laughed in his face and said, Ha!

You could never beat me using no sword.

I challenge you, old man.

Very well, said Bokudin.

But if we're going to fight, then let's head to a nearby island.

That way we won't disturb anyone with our battle.

The local tough agreed to this, and the two men got in a small rowboat and rowed out to a nearby island.

When they got to shore, the ruffian got out of the boat and drew his sword.

Bokuden then quickly pushed off again and started rowing away.

Once he was out of reach of his opponent, he yelled back, You have just been defeated by the no-sword style

Bokuden rowed back to town, and his opponent was left to die alone on the island.

After years of teaching, Bokuden eventually retired to a temple in the mountains, where he hoped to meditate and live out his final days in peace.

One day, while boiling some noodles, he was interrupted by none other than Miyamoto Musashi himself.

Musashi had climbed the mountain specifically to test himself against the old master, and here he was cooking.

Musashi drew both of his swords and attacked Bokoden using his now legendary two-sworded technique.

But the old man was still a master in his own right.

Grabbing the lid off of the pot he was using to cook his noodles, Bokoden parried Musashi's every attack.

The samurai kept coming, but Bokuden managed to block every blow with his trusty pot lid.

This went on until Musashi exhausted himself.

He eventually surrendered to the old master, bowing before him as truly the greatest fencer in all of Japan.

It was the one and only time that the great Miyamoto Musashi ever lost a duel.

Except, of course, for the fact that it never actually

happened.

Despite the fact that the potlid duel has been immortalized in Japanese folktales and on traditional prints from the era, there's actually no way this fight could have ever taken place.

You see, Tsukahara Bokoden died at least 13 years before Miyamoto Musashi was ever born.

An adult Musashi barging in on a cooking Bokoden is straight up impossible.

However, this kind of impossible story is par for the course when it comes to the legends of Japan's greatest swordsmen.

Accurate chronology simply doesn't matter when you could tell a great story about two of your country's finest fencers going head to head.

In a way, this little story functions kind of like a barroom fantasy match.

One of those hypotheticals like, who would have won if Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson could have fought each other when they were both in their prime.

In the world of Japanese swordplay, these kind of what-if scenarios quickly become folktales, which in turn end up infiltrating what people believe to be real history.

The life of Miyamoto Musashi is particularly rife with this type of myth-making.

Almost every detail about the great wandering samurai's life is debated by the experts.

When it's hard to say anything for sure, well, then why not print the legend?

However, if we blindly believe every legend about this swordsman, then we can very quickly lose touch with reality.

One minute you're dealing with a romantic but plausible story of Musashi fighting dozens of men at the same time, and the next he's traveling through time to fight great monsters from the past, or he's even flying through the air like Superman and battling evil whales living in the ocean.

In the world of Musashi myth, things can get pretty weird pretty quick.

There's no denying that Miyamoto Musashi was one of the greatest martial artists to ever live.

But how much of his life story should we really trust?

When the details of nearly all of his famous duels are contested by historians, it can be hard to know what to believe.

Just exactly how good was Japan's famous unwashed samurai?

Did he really best a master of every martial arts weapon in Japan?

What of Musashi's most famous duel?

Was it really a fair contest, or did Japan's greatest swordsman only win by virtue of a dirty trick?

And is it true that the guy actually died standing up?

All that and more on today's Our Fake History.

One, two, three, five

Episode number 56, Who Was Japan's Greatest Swordsman?

Part 2.

Hello, and welcome to Our Fake History.

My name is Sebastian Major, and this is the podcast where we explore historical myths and try and figure out what's fact, what's fiction, and what is such a good story that it simply must be told.

This week, we are wrapping up our look at one of the most mythologized samurai in Japanese history, inventor of the two-sworded fighting technique, Miyamoto Musashi.

Now, as you might have noticed, this is a two-part series, and this is part two.

So if you haven't heard the first installment, you may want to go back and give that a listen now.

In part one, I took you through the legends associated with Musashi's childhood and upbringing.

We did our best to find the truth in an origin story that seems eerily similar to the classic hero's journey archetype.

We looked at some of Musashi's famous early duels, including the three he fought against the Yoshioka family.

I also did my best to give you some important context about what was going on socially and politically in Japan during the late 15 and early 1600s.

This was the end of the Great Warring States period, which was a turning point for the country's samurai warrior class.

The samurai could now settle into a relatively peaceful and ceremonial existence working for a local lord, or they could hit the road, serve no master, and become a Ronin.

Musashi certainly made his choice.

What's been interesting while I've been doing my research for these episodes has been trying to square the historical facts facts that we have about Musashi's life and duels with the pop culture image that we have of the same figure.

Perhaps the most famous modern depiction of Miyamoto Musashi comes from the Japanese director Hiroshi Inagaki.

In the mid-50s, Hiroshi directed three films known as the Samurai Trilogy that told the story of Miyamoto Musashi.

The films were critically loved and became landmarks in both Asian cinema and action cinema in general.

The first samurai movie actually won the 1955 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Quentin Tarantino has borrowed a ton from these movies, so check out Kill Bill, and basically you are re-watching some of the scenes from Samurai.

In these samurai movies, Miyamoto Musashi is portrayed as impetuous and brave, even cocky at times, but he's always shown as being deeply honorable.

For instance, in the third part of the trilogy, Musashi is wary of fights.

He needs to be actively baited into his most famous duel by his adversary.

During the duels, he always comports himself with dignity and never acts dishonorably.

Now, I watched these movies after having read about Musashi, and honestly, the samurai in those films didn't seem like the person who was described in the documents I was reading.

What strikes the modern reader about the historical Musashi was how little he was concerned with ceremony, appearances, or honor.

He was interested in winning.

In almost every one of his famous duels, he shows up late, catches his opponent off guard, and then murders him with one swift blow to the head.

Miyamoto Musashi duels are not the ballet-like dances we often get in martial arts films.

He usually just runs in and bludgeons his opponent with a heavy stick before beating a hasty retreat.

This is hardly our stereotypical idea of the sublime art of the samurai sword.

In his early days, Musashi is a pretty amoral character who's willing to to do anything for the win.

By modern standards, or even by later Japanese standards, Musashi's behavior doesn't seem to be particularly admirable.

I mean, remember that time he chopped the 13-year-old's head off?

Yeah, me too.

However, some have argued that to understand Musashi's morality, you need to understand the violent world that he lived in.

During the Sengoku era, warfare was nearly constant.

Just because one was not in the setting of a formal battle or a formal duel didn't mean that the war was not still being fought.

In this context, gaining an advantage or defeating an opponent was always justifiable, even if it meant foregoing ceremony, or at least so say a handful of experts.

You can understand why someone might not stand on ceremony if they felt like they were constantly in a life or death struggle.

However, this can get a little disorienting when you consider the role of ceremony and manners in Japanese society.

To put it succinctly, they're all about it.

Japanese culture is deeply steeped in tradition, ceremony, and a strict adherence to the rules of conduct.

Even in Musashi's more anarchic era, these rules still mattered.

So, I think it's pretty notable that one of Japan's most beloved folk heroes is a violent rule breaker who doesn't seem to care about manners.

Well, actually, now that I think of it, it's very Robin Hood.

So, with that said, I think it's still worthwhile to ask whether or not Miyamoto Musashi was a good guy.

Terms like the quote-unquote great great Miyamoto Musashi roll off the tongue so easily.

But we should ask, how great was this guy really?

Perhaps after a closer examination of his life, we'll have a better sense of who this scruffy samurai truly was.

So let's dive back into the life of Miyamoto Musashi and see what we can find out.

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When we last left Miyamoto Musashi, he had just defeated the men of the Yoshioka clan in three consecutive duels.

Or maybe it was only one duel.

It all depends on which source you believe.

What is clear is that after those victories, Musashi's dueling years really began in earnest.

It was during this 10-year period between the ages of 20 and 30 that Musashi really made a name for himself as Japan's most deadly fencer.

In his famous strategy guide, The Book of Five Rings, Musashi would claim that in these years he fought over 60 duels and never lost once.

Now, unfortunately, we don't know much about most of these duels.

Some sources provide the occasional name of a notable opponent or a mention that Musashi killed or maimed a certain person while on his warrior's journey.

But we only really have detailed accounts of a handful of these fights.

These more detailed anecdotes are usually pretty colorful, but they also tend to be fraught with contradictions and inconsistencies.

Take, for instance, the story of when Musashi first developed his famous two-sorted fencing technique.

In the last episode, I told you that Musashi first used his famous double-sworded style while fighting dozens of Yoshioka henchmen as he escaped from Kyoto.

Well, it turns out there is a competing anecdote out there for how Musashi developed this technique.

The story goes that while Musashi was wandering Japan, he came upon a small peasant village, where he was greeted and hosted by the mayor.

A wandering samurai of Musashi's distinction needed to be treated with respect after all.

After talking with the mayor, Musashi learned that the village had come into conflict with one of its neighbors.

A dispute had broken out after a river had been diverted to water some rice paddies.

Well, the other village was outraged over this, and they were now coming to attack the town where Musashi was staying.

The mayor told Musashi that even now as they spoke, there was a small group of peasants standing guard outside of their village, waiting for their angry neighbors.

Musashi heard this and said, Look,

you need a defender, and I need food and a place to sleep.

I will be your champion as long as you put me up.

Call off your guards, I'll take it from here.

The mayor agreed and told his guards to head back to their homes.

This helpful samurai was going to be taking care of things from here.

Not long after taking his post just outside the village, a rabble of angry peasants armed with farming tools came marching towards Miyamoto Musashi.

Seeing the lone samurai guarding the village, twenty or so villagers began to charge at him.

Musashi, armed with only a wooden sword and a long wooden stick, managed to fight off this entire peasant gang.

We're told that, contrary to the Yoshioka story, it was during this fight with some two dozen peasants that Miyamoto Musashi learned that he could parry attacks with the stick while attacking with his wooden wooden sword.

And voila, the two-sorted technique was born.

So

is this the true story of how Musashi developed his signature style?

Well, there's really no way to know.

All we can say is that there are competing traditions.

Most martial arts experts, including the historian Kenji Tokitsu, think that both stories are fake history.

In Tokitsu's opinion, the two-sorted technique is a logical evolution of Musashi's father's fighting style.

Any fancy origin story is pure myth, in his opinion.

Nevertheless, the story of Musashi easily defeating a village full of peasants gives you a taste of what the traveling Musashi stories are like.

He rolls into town, he either finds some trouble or some trouble finds him, and then he wins a fight without barely lifting a finger.

But perhaps some of the most interesting anecdotes from this period in Musashi's life are when he fights opponents who don't even use swords.

In his mission to prove that he was not only the best swordsman, but also the best single fighter in general, Musashi sought out masters of all sorts of different weapons.

We're told that Musashi traveled to the city of Nara, where a group of monks at the Hosen temple had developed a famous fighting technique with a long spear.

Musashi arrived and challenged the best adept in the school to a duel.

We're told that Musashi fought the expert spearman twice and beat him both times.

However, he did not kill the monk.

Impressed by his ability, the monks hosted Musashi and promised to spread the word about his prowess.

We're also told that around the same time, Musashi faced off against a man who the sources only call Shishido.

Shishido was the master of a unique weapon called a Kusari Gama.

Now, I'm going to put a picture of this thing up on the website and on the Facebook page so you can really get a sense of it.

It was basically a long chain that had a sickle attached to one end and a heavy weight attached to the other.

The way that you used this weapon was that you would spin the weight and then try and throw it at your enemy.

This would either disarm them or tangle them up in the chain.

You would then pull them in close and go to work with the sickle.

Like Musashi, Shishido had also gained a reputation for never losing a duel.

He was incredible with this thing.

Now,

none of the sources say this explicitly, but I have a suspicion that this guy might have been a ninja.

Okay, now hear me out.

When I was doing my ninja research way back in the first season, this chain and sickle weapon came up.

Apparently, it had been designed by the warrior farmers who became the original ninjas.

It was a sort of deadly modification of a farming tool, right?

The sickle.

Let's also consider that the sources tell us that Shishido was heading to the province of Iga, the famous ninja homeland.

So, I know this is just a pet theory here, but Musashi's duel with Shishido may have been a ninja samurai showdown!

Sorry about that.

I couldn't resist.

Okay, so here's how we're told this whole thing went down.

Musashi had heard about Shishido's mastery of the chain and sickle, so he sought him out.

Shishido knew of Musashi's deadly reputation, but trusting in his own prowess as a fighter, he agreed to the duel.

The two men met on an isolated road just outside of Iga.

We're told that Shishido started the duel by spinning the weight at the end of his chain, but Musashi countered with an unusual guard stance.

He had both swords drawn, but this time he had his short sword over his head, and he started spinning it at the same speed that Shoshido was spinning his weight.

This freaked Shoshido right out, and the warrior started backing up from Musashi.

Seeing his chance, Musashi then threw his short sword at Shoshido and struck him in the chest.

This stunned Shoshido, who lost his rhythm with his spinning chain.

Musashi then moved in fast with his long sword, and with one mighty slash, he cut down his opponent.

If this truly had been a contest between ninja and samurai, then the score stood firmly at Samurai 1, ninja nothing.

This ability to use his two sworded style against opponents fighting with a variety of weapons only served to enhance Musashi's reputation.

As he would later confirm when he wrote the Book of Five Rings, he was more than a swordsman.

He was a strategist, first and foremost.

After this famous duel, Musashi would travel to the shogun's new capital of Edo.

You might know it today as Tokyo.

At this time, Edo was filled with samurai looking for employment and a chance to show off their prowess as warriors.

There, Musashi found a nearly endless supply of skilled samurai with whom he could test his skills.

We're told that in Edo, one of three things would happen to all of Musashi's opponents.

Option one,

they would be defeated but would surrender before they were killed.

They would then be so shaken by the experience that they would humbly ask Musashi to give them advice.

Then, they would use this advice to found a brand new school of martial arts.

So, apparently in Japan, there are a bunch of martial arts schools whose founding legend has to do with a defeat at the hands of Miyamoto Musashi.

The guy was so impressive that even getting beat by him was kind of an honor.

Option two.

The opponent would be defeated, would live, but would be pretty badly badly injured.

The experience would be so humiliating that they would give up the samurai life for good and would become a monk.

And I kind of love the idea that Musashi dealt out beatings that were so devastating that they made people completely question their life choices.

And finally, option three,

they died.

The descriptions of these duels are so brief, and Musashi's dominance dominance is so total that it can be easy to get caught up in the legend of his invincibility.

However, if we take a close look at the most famous duel ever fought by Musashi, perhaps a more human picture will emerge.

So let's check that out.

The duel that has become most central to the myth of Miyamoto Musashi was his fight with Sasaki Kojiro.

This duel was the pinnacle of Musashi's fighting career and signaled an important turning point in his life.

His opponent was easily the most formidable of anyone he'd ever met in battle.

However, like Musashi himself, Kojiro's life is also shrouded in legend.

One source tells us that Sasaki Kojiro was trained by one of the most famous adepts of the short sword from the Sengoku period.

This was was a man named Toda Sagan.

The story goes that Kojiro was the sparring partner of this great master.

Apparently this particular shortsword master liked sparring with an opponent who used a long sword.

Something about it was good for the training.

This meant that Kojiro learned how to be particularly nimble with a long blade.

He basically had to learn how to use his long sword with the quickness and versatility with which one would wield a shorter and lighter weapon.

Just to make the story all that much more romantic, there's the fact that Todosengen was going blind during this time in his life.

Some have speculated that his unique short sword technique was created to compensate for his bad eyesight.

So, if we go with the legend, then Miyamoto Musashi's greatest opponent had been trained by a blind master.

It's almost too perfect.

Well, it turns out that it is a little too perfect.

Right off the top here, there are a number of contradictions in the record.

For instance, the same source that tells us that Kojiro was trained by the great blind master Toda Segen also tells us that he was 18 years old at the time of his duel with Musashi.

If this age is correct, then the timeline on all of this really does not add up.

You see, Todose

died sometime in the early 1590s.

The duel with Musashi happened in 1612.

This means that if Kojiro was 18 at the time of the duel, he would have been far too young to have ever trained with the old master.

So, either he was never trained by Segen, or he was much older than 18 at the time of the duel.

Some have speculated that Kojiro may have been old as 50 when he fought Musashi.

When you look at the details of his life, it does seem to make sense that he was at least middle-aged when the duel went down.

The most reliable source on Kojiro's life tells us that by 1610 he had already founded his own martial arts and fencing school known as the Ganrayu and it had become somewhat famous across Japan.

Interestingly enough, the term Ganryu translates to school of rock.

So, cello, we've got a fencing school.

That one was for the JB fans out there.

Kojiro had also built a reputation as a somewhat unstoppable swordfighter.

He had been the victor of many duels and was known for beating multiple opponents at the same time.

One anecdote tells us that he was once attacked by three men wielding Japanese battle fans, and only in Japan can a fan become a weapon.

Kojiro apparently easily dispatched these three rivals without breaking a sweat.

We're also told that he was recruited by Lord Hosakawa Tadayoki to be the Daimyo's personal weapons master.

All of this is to say that by the time Kojiro meets Musashi in this duel, he has a resume that seems a little too impressive for someone who's 18.

But I mean, crazier things have happened, right?

I mean, we have talked at length about Joan of Arc here.

Still, I think it's safe to assume that Kojiro was probably around Musashi's age, if not older, at the time of the duel.

Now, what doesn't seem to be disputed was Kojiro's unique swordfighting style.

As I mentioned, he used a particularly long katana known as a nodachi.

This was basically the biggest sword they made during this era of Japanese history.

He had created a signature move with the blade known as the swallow cut.

From what I can tell, this was a swift downward slash followed by an upward cut that was supposed to mimic the flicking movement of a swallow's tail.

Apparently, the move was devastating, and up to that point in Kojiro's career, no one had been able to defend against it.

Some sources even claim that the technique got its name because Kojiro was able to cut swallows in half as they flew by him in the air.

Now, that claim is pretty heavily disputed by the experts, but

still, pretty cool.

Another fun detail is that he apparently called his long sword the laundry pole, or the clothes-drying rod, depending on your translation, which I kind of love, because it's such a goofy and non-threatening name for a sword.

What if instead of Excalibur, King Arthur unsheathed the great laundry pole?

There's just something so specific and weird about that little detail that it's just got to be true.

Now, the circumstances of how this duel was arranged are also highly contested.

In some versions of the story, it's Kojiro who sought out Musashi.

That's certainly the way that it's been portrayed in fiction.

In the trilogy of samurai films that I mentioned earlier, Kojiro is portrayed as arrogant and jealous of Musashi's great skill.

He goes out of his way to track down Musashi, kill a number of samurai who are friendly with him, and bait the swordsman into a fight.

The truth, on the other hand, might be something quite different.

The best-known source on this duel tells us that it was actually Musashi who sought out Kojiro.

This source tells us that Musashi had heard of Kojiro's prowess with the blade and wished to test himself against him.

Knowing that Kojiro was connected with Lord Hosakawa, he used an intermediary to formally petition the Lord to give his blessing for a duel between the two men.

The Lord agreed, but insisted that the duel take place on a small island in the south of Japan.

At the time, this little island was known as Mukojima.

However, these days it's better known as Ganryu Jima in memory of Sasaki Kojiro.

Remember, he founded the Ganrayu school, so it's now the Ganryu Island.

Anyway, after Lord Hosikawa gave his assent, Kojiro agreed, and a time and date were set for the contest.

The two men also agreed that this would be a duel to the death.

As for what went down on the island that day

well, like all things Musashi, there are a number of differing accounts.

So let's start with the best known version of events.

This is the version that appears in the source known as the Netenki.

It was the main source that later Japanese fiction writers used when writing Musashi novels.

So let's just call it the quote unquote legendary source.

So according to the legendary source, the two men agreed that they would duel at 8 a.m.

on the island of Mukojima.

All onlookers had been forbidden from the island by Lord Hosakawa.

It would just be the two men, the servants that brought them there, and a referee.

Remember, Kojiro had a whole school full of students who would have been eager to defend their master if things started to go bad for him.

It was agreed that Kojiro would take one of Lord Hosakawa's boats to the island, and Musashi would take a boat provided by a man named Okanaga, who had been his intermediary with the Lord during this entire process.

However, the night before the duel, Musashi suddenly went missing.

Rumors started flying around that he had chickened out and had ran once he realized how impressive Kojiro actually was.

However, this was all just part of Musashi's elaborate strategy.

Later that night, Okanaga, Musashi's very embarrassed and very worried friend, got a letter from the swordsman saying, Don't worry, the duel was still on, but he just wasn't going to be taking Okanaga's boat to the island the next day.

Musashi explained in the letter that he thought that this put his friend in an awkward position.

If Musashi won and Kojiro died, then his friend might be understood as an accomplice to murder and a potential enemy to the Lord.

But this was just an excuse.

The real reason for this was just to put everyone off balance.

This was his classic technique of getting in the head of his opponent.

According to Musashi biographer Kenji Tokitsu, Musashi was already fighting the duel.

He had been fighting the duel the minute it had been agreed to.

So on the day of the fight, 8 a.m.

rolls around and Musashi is nowhere to be found.

A messenger was sent to the house where he was staying and it turns out the guy was still in bed.

He then leisurely pulled himself out of his bunk and asked his hosts if they had an extra oar for a rowboat kicking around.

They said yes and they gave it to Musashi.

Musashi then sat down and set about carving the oar into a large wooden sword that he was going to use for the duel.

Once he completed this, he got in a boat that was rowed by one of his host servants and set out for the island.

By the time Musashi turned up, it was getting close to 11 a.m.

So he was nearly three hours late.

He slowly got out of the boat and stood ankle-deep in the water.

Sasaki Kojiro was fuming by this point.

We're told that he ran to the water's edge and shouted, quote, I got here early.

Why are you so late?

Did you get scared?

End quote.

To this, Musashi said nothing.

Then, in anger, Kojiro unsheathed his sword and threw the scabbard into the water.

At that, Musashi just smiled and said,

Kojiro, you are lost, for if you expected to be the winner, why would you throw your scabbard in the water?

End quote.

Now completely overcome with anger, Kojiro charged at Musashi.

He swung his sword down in an attack that was meant to split Musashi's head in two.

But Musashi dodged the attack.

The blade only just managed to cut Musashi's distinctive samurai topknot clear off of his head.

Moving fast, Musashi countered with an attack of his own.

With one swift move, he brought his crudely carved wooden sword crashing down between the eyes of Sasaki Kojiro.

Kojiro fell to the ground.

Not wasting the opportunity, Musashi delivered a few extra devastating blows to his opponent's rib cage just to make sure that he was dead.

With that, the great Sasaki Kojiro was no more.

Musashi then turned to the referee, bowed, and then quickly hurried to his boat.

He pushed off and told his rowers to pull hard for shore.

Before anyone really knew what had happened, Musashi was gone, and one of the greatest swordsmen of the era was dead on the sand.

At least, so goes the legend.

Now as I mentioned before, many experts are rather skeptical of this version of events.

First, many have questioned the practicality of fighting with an oar, let alone carving a fresh sword out of an oar right before you fight.

But that detail appears in pretty much every account, so it might have gone down that way.

Others have challenged the arriving late story.

Some have argued that the intense current in that area may have been the reason for the delay of the boat.

Or Musashi may have timed his arrival and departure perfectly to be aided and not hindered by this notoriously strong current.

But the most divergent version of the story comes from a source that is found in the Numata family archives.

The Japanese historian Harada Mukashi has pointed out that this account was probably written by an eyewitness.

In this version of events, Musashi still wins the duel, but does so in a completely dishonorable way.

We're not just talking tricky strategy dishonorable, but total ambush dishonorable.

This account tells us that Sasaki Kojiro came to the island without any of his disciples, but Musashi came with backup.

Apparently, a number of Musashi's students from his School of Two Swords snuck onto the island.

We're then told that this entire gang ambushes Kojiro and kills him.

Musashi is then forced to flee the province and has to petition a neighboring daimyo to put him under armed guard, lest he be killed by assassins angry over the ambush.

After closely studying this source and other sources from the early 1700s that seem to corroborate it, the historian Harada Mukashi came up with the following hypothesis.

He thinks that there's a chance that the whole duel was fixed from the very beginning.

The historian agrees with the general premise that a feud had developed between Kojiro and Musashi.

However, he speculates that the Lord Hosakawa saw an opportunity to use this feud as a way to strike a blow against the Sasaki clan.

According to Harada Mukashi, the Sasaki clan were powerful vassals who had traditionally held power in the region.

Governing the Sasaki had been a unique challenge for Lord Hosakawa, since he had been given power over that region after the Battle of Sekigahara.

Remember, that was the big epoch-ending battle that we talked about in the last episode.

The theory goes that Hosakawa set up the duel and then stacked the deck against Sasaki Kojiro by allowing Musashi to bring backup.

With Kojiro dead, the Sasaki would be weakened, and Hosakawa could claim that he had nothing to do with it.

Conspiracy!

The historian Hirata Mukashi goes on to point out that the island where this battle was fought is now named after Sasaki Kojiro and his Ganryu school, not Miyamoto Musashi.

If this was the site of such a great victory for Musashi, then why not name the island after him?

Well, Mukashi suggests that the locals knew that it wasn't a fair fight, and so they named the island after the one honorable combatant.

Finally, this duel also plays an important role in the story of Miyamoto Musashi as a Buddhist saint.

The story goes that in the moment that he killed Sasaki Kojiro, he experienced something known as Satori.

In the Buddhist religion, this is sort of step one on the path towards complete enlightenment.

We're told that when Musashi realized that he had killed such a great artist with the blade, he began to re-evaluate his violent ways.

From then on in, he refused to fight another duel to the death.

He also started to deepen the philosophical side of his sword fighting theory and started to live as a more devout Buddhist.

The historian Harada Mukashi picks up on this thread and speculates that the reason that Miyamoto Musashi looked back on this duel with so much regret had nothing to do with a magical moment of Buddhist enlightenment.

Instead, he claims that Musashi regretted it because he cheated, and this blackened his reputation as Japan's greatest swordsman.

So, this is an interesting theory, and one that completely messes with Musashi's image as the ultimate lone wolf.

However, it's important to point out that this interpretation of events is just a hypothesis.

Historians Harada Mukashi and Kenji Tokitsu have both pointed out that the documents that this theory is based on are pretty reliable,

but they've also conceded that the mass of contradictions in every account make it impossible to say anything for sure.

Musashi may have pulled the three-hour psychout move and then bonked Kojiro on the head with an oar and ended it just like that.

Or, perhaps he was involved in something more unsavory than that.

At the very least, the hypothesis should be considered.

Nevertheless, the reality of what exactly went down on that island may always remain a mystery.

After Musashi's duel with Sasaki Kojiro, his story certainly does not end, but it does become less fantastic.

In the book of Five Rings, Musashi would comment that up until the duel with Kojiro, he didn't truly understand strategy.

He felt like his art was sloppy and violent.

It was only after this life-changing event that he set about truly honing his craft.

It was in this period that his school of two swords was more deeply developed.

It was not long before Japan was plunged into yet another war, and Musashi, like most warriors of his day, was once again on on the battlefield.

This war saw the Tokugawa completely eliminate the last challengers to their complete domination of Japan.

After this conflict, Musashi seems to have tried to clean himself up and make himself into a respectable samurai.

He taught martial arts and even became fully employed as a retainer to a daimyo.

It was in this period that most experts think that the guy probably took a bath.

It was also in these years that Musashi really started to come into his own as a painter.

Seriously, his nature paintings are actually quite beautiful.

And if you were curious what Musashi looked like as an older man, his self-portrait is probably the most accurate depiction of him out there, and I'll be putting that up on the website and on the Facebook if you want to take a look.

In these days, Musashi tried to swear off duels to the death, but daring samurai just seemed to keep coming out of the woodwork and challenging him.

Musashi never refused, and as always, he never lost.

He killed at least two of these young samurai in his middle age.

He never stopped being dangerous.

He also never lost his wanderlust.

Despite being sworn as a retainer, Musashi soon bored of the sedentary life and once again took to wandering the Japanese countryside.

Except now in his fifties, this pilgrimage was far more spiritual than martial in nature.

By 1643, Musashi was starting to grow sick.

Sensing that his time was running short, he retreated to a cave named Raegondo, lived as a hermit, and proceeded to write his masterpiece.

In these final months of his life, he composed not only the Book of Five Rings, but also a number of other treatises on philosophy and martial arts.

To give you a flavor for it, here's one of my personal favorite passages from the Book of Five Rings.

Musashi writes, quote,

The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means.

Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike, or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement.

It is essential to attain this.

If you think of only hitting, springing, striking, or touching the enemy, you will not be able to actually cut him.

End quote.

Ooh, I love that.

With every action, even defensive actions, bring yourself closer to your goal.

But I also find myself drawn to moments where Musashi gets away from swordplay and examines the nature of the mind in general, like when he says, quote, the important thing is to polish wisdom and the mind in great detail.

If you sharpen wisdom, you will understand what is just and unjust in society, and also the good good and the evil of this world.

Then you will come to know all kinds of arts, and you will tread different ways.

In this manner, no one in this world will succeed in deceiving you.

It is after this stage that you will arrive at the wisdom of strategy.

Oh,

oh man, that's the good stuff.

Sharpen the mind and no one will deceive you.

That should be the new tagline for this show.

Now, not long after the completion of these works, Musashi became so sick that he had to leave his home in the caves.

He gave his works to his most trusted disciple and took to bed.

But of course, Miyamoto Musashi wasn't about to die lying down.

His legend simply would not abide such a humble end.

No, we're told that in his final moments Musashi was helped to his feet.

He dressed himself in a silk kimono, put on his belt, and fastened his sword to it.

Then he took a knee, holding his sword in one hand and a cane in the other.

He apparently died holding this badass pose.

The guy wanted to go out with his hand on his sword, and that was exactly what he did.

Now, there are a million reasons to doubt this story.

Historians have found letters from Musashi's contemporaries that tell us that Musashi spent his last days sick in bed.

There's also the fact that it might be impossible to die while successfully holding the take-a-knee pose.

In the end, Musashi may not have been the paradigm of honor and samurai virtue that he's sometimes portrayed as.

His exploits were certainly exaggerated, and his most famous victory may very well have been a dishonorable ambush.

Nonetheless, if even some of what is written about Musashi is true, he must have been a truly incredible warrior.

Perhaps even more importantly, the wisdom contained in his writing is timeless.

So even though Musashi may not have been a perfect hero or even a particularly admirable man, I still can't help but want to believe that the guy died with a sword in his hand and his head in the air like a boss.

Okay,

that's all for this week.

Thanks again for listening.

Join us again in two weeks' time when when we will explore yet another historical myth.

And yes, it will be two weeks.

This year, I'm not going to be taking the holidays off.

The release schedule has fallen in such a way that, sure enough, we will be able to get one out in two weeks.

So look forward to that.

Before we go this week, I'd like to give a special shout out to Craig Harris, Eric Simon, Justin Harvey, John Rimmer, Christina Doling, Kenneth Bergeron, and Michael Mates.

And Michael, that shout-out is coming care of your lovely Kellyanne.

So you two, I hope you two make it.

All right.

All right.

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Go to facebook.com slash our fake history and like the page.

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So if you've emailed me and you haven't gotten an email back, don't worry.

I really like to talk to you guys, and and I will get to your emails.

I was just seeing one just now as I was putting together these final messages, so I better get to it.

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If you want to hear more from Dirty Church, go to dirtychurch.bandcamp.com.

All the other music that you heard on the show today was written and recorded by me.

My name is Sebastian Major, and remember, just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't real.

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