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Introduction
I have been many years training in the Way
of strategy, called Ni Ten Ichi Ryu, and now I think I will explain it
in
Writing for the first time. It is now during
the first ten days of the tenth month in the twentieth year of Kanei (1645).
I Have climbed mountain Iwato of Higo
in Kyushu to pay homage to heaven, pray to Kwannon, (God/dess) of mercy
in Buddhism. – Slaegr ) and kneel
before Buddha. I am a warrior of Harima province, Shinmen Musashi No Kami
Fujiwara No Genshin, age sixty years.
From youth my heart has been inclined toward
the Way of strategy. My first duel was when I was thirteen, I struck
down a strategist of the Shinto school, one
Arima Kihei. When I was sixteen I struck down an able strategist
Tadashima Akiyama. When I was twenty-one I
went up to the capital and met all manner of strategists, never once
failing to win in many contests.
After that I went from province to province
dueling with strategist of various schools, and not once failed to win
even
though I had as many as sixty encounters.
This was between the ages of thirteen and twenty- eight or twenty-nine.
When I reached thirty I looked back on my
past. The previous victories were not due to my having mastered
strategy. Perhaps it was natural ability,
or the order of heaven, or that other schools’ strategy was inferior. After
that I studied morning and evening
searching for the principle, and came to realize the Way of strategy when
I was fifty.
Since then I have lived without following
any particular Way. Thus with the virtue of strategy I practice many arts
and abilities - all things with no
teacher. To write this book I did not use the law of Buddha or the teachings
of Confucius, neither old war chronicles
nor books on martial tactics. I take up my brush to explain the true spirit
of this Ichi school as it is mirrored
in the Way of heaven and Kwannon.
The time is the night of the tenth day of the tenth month, at the hour of the tiger (3-5 a.m.)
The Ground Book.
The Water Book.
The Fire Book.
The Wind Book.
The Void Book.
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