Although this multiple episode story is mostly true, it is also largely unprovable and dependent on men who tended to rewrite their life story every time they told it. So, I will start this story with:

Once Upon A Time

In the early 1910’s, there was a boy who was fascinated by the tairiku ronin, the Japanese adventurers who, often relying on extra-territorial legal rights, raw courage, and a world so violent and strange that it reads like Cormac McCarthy’s “border trilogy:” where trees were festooned with corpses and a blind, degenerate Tibetan ruled Mongolia, where bandits became generals and even rulers of provinces, where a psychopathic Baltic-German Cossack with Japanese among his troops ran amok over Mongolia, striving to create a Buddhist paradise, killing so many that some Mongols still worship him as a God of War, and where a Japanese woman became a pirate queen (This is true! Her exploits, which included taking over an ocean liner, were reported in the Japanese newspapers).

The boy started collecting scrap metal and at an early age, became enrolled in Toyama Mitsuru’s Genyōsha (Dark Ocean Society). He raised enough money that at about seventeen years old, he bought passage to China and was taken under the wing of Banzai Rihachirō, of the Kwantung Army. who ensured he trained in Chinese language, firearms, kendō, jūdō and horseback riding, as well as connecting him with the important intelligence officers and political operatives in Northern China. Banzai sent him, still a teenager on a mission to northern China where his group was all killed by horse-bandits, he alone surviving, and they offered him a choice of joining the gang or dying. Within a few years, he was their leader: people were often killed, and he was courageous as well. He spent time in a Taoist monastery, learned some form of kung fu, continued to ride with bandits, most of whom assuming the Little White Dragon was Chinese, and eventually, allied himself with the warlord Zhang Tsolin. He was referred to as King of the Northern Bandits.

This man, Kohinata  Hakurō, provided espionage, and went on more missions on behalf of the Japanese. He was instrumental in getting the information to the Japanese consul that Deguchi Onisaburō, Ueshiba Morihei (later the founder of aikidō) and the rest of their entourage were about to be executed by Zhang Tsolin’s troops, thereby saving their lives, an ignominious end to their grandiose plan to take over Mongolia. It should be noted that, contrary to myth, the majority of Deguchi and Ueshiba’s companions were operatives of one or more of the messianic idealist right-wing underground groups that wanted to united all of East Asia (a first step) in one country, stretching from Korea and Manchuria, encompassing Northern China, Mongolia all the way to Khazahkstan, all under the benign rule of the Emperor of Japan. Ueshiba felt a profound debt to Kohinata. It is likely that they were friends: perhaps the kind of friends where each admires the other for what each is not. Kohinata was, at Ueshiba’s invitation, a member of the post-war Aikikai’s Board of Directors. It is notable, in a way, that each of these men ended up with multi-volume manga written about them, while they were still alive.

Kohinata later ended up in Shanghai, working the angles between the Triads, the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists, still serving the Japanese, in what was a four-way low-grade war in the back alleys of Shanghai

He was captured by the Communists, but rather than being executed, under the flimsiest of explanations, he was repatriated to Japan (suggesting that the Reds, too, found this man to be useful – years later, he went back to China, having been recruited by the USA to liaison with old acquaintances/enemies to facilitate Kissinger’s trip to open relations between America and China.)

In any event, upon his return, Kohinata became a figure in the shadows, leading a very powerful right wing group, the Nihon Seiensha (The Japan Youth Association), with a membership of several thousands, closely connected to the Sumiyoshi-kai, Japanese second largest yakuza gang.

Japan After Defeat

Japan was prostrate after the Second World War. Despite the comparatively benign occupation by the American troops, thousands starved to death, and people were struggling in desperate poverty. Those who might lead postwar Japan were almost all the very same people who had engineered the invasion of Asia. To be sure, many of those on the frontlines, whether in the military, terrorism or those giving direct orders to massacre civilians or prisoners-of-war, were executed or imprisoned, but those one “tier” behind those lines were merely stripped of their powers.

They were saved, however, by the Communists. Although not the monolith it was often made out to be, communism, this idealistic, never-once-worked-in-any-society-but-it-sounds-like-it-should!-and-we-will-kill-you-in-vast-numbers-if-you-don’t-acquiesce-or-even-if-you-do, was sweeping country after country in the late 1940’s, early 1950’s. American policy was no longer directed to suppress the fascistic militaristic Emperor-besotted architects of the 2nd World War; they were now seen as a necessary counterweight to the Communists, who had just taken Chinese and half of Korea, and whose unions and political power in Japan were waxing ever stronger. And thus, the American’s restored their recent enemies to power. And thus was born the Jimintō, the Liberal Democrat Party, which was certainly not liberal, and certainly not democratic. And the men who led it were, one way or another, that second or third tier of pragmatic men who ran the country leading up to and during the 2nd World War. What they had learned was to tone down their blatant nationalistic political rhetoric, and the instantiation of the Emperor as the terrestrial embodiment of all the kami, etc. Of course, they soon broke up into factions, most notably that Ikeda Hayato & that of Kishi Nobusuke. Kohinata became a member of Ikeda’s private intelligence service.

The Incident

The year is 1961. The Ikeda faction was in charge. Negotiations had been initiated to establish a treaty between South Korea and Japan, (日韓基本条約).  There had long been a sovereignty issue regarding Takeshima (which the Koreans knew as Dokdo). These islets were disputed territory for many decades, taken by Japan formally in 1905 as terra nullius. At the time, the Japanese claimed they wanted these unsettled islets for hunting (seals) and fishing, but the Koreans saw it as one more encroachment into their borders by the rapacious colonialists of Japan. Since 1952, the Koreans had control of the islets, when Korea, supported by the USA, took them over, and Japan was powerless to do anything about it.

Kohinata, through his sources, became aware that the Kishi faction, now out of power, was secretly negotiating with the Koreans, giving them much more favorable conditions regarding a future treaty, thereby undermining the Ikeda government. Part of their offer concerned seabed rights around Takeshima and future profit sharing, much of which would go, of course, into the pockets of the politicians. Kohinata got word that there was a clandestine meeting between the Kishi faction, and Korean representatives at the Ike no Bo Mangetsu-jo (池之坊満月城), a historic ryokan in the precincts of Arima Onsen, on the sea-coast between Korea and Japan. Tensions were already high because forces of the South Korean dictator, Syngman Rhee, had seized some Japanese fishermen, alleging they had entered Korean territorial waters. [By the way, the reader may wonder where I got all this information – it from Kohinata Hakuro’s own account as recorded in the 1988 book Nihon-gun no Kinkai: Bazoku-ō Kohinata Shirō no Sengo Hiroku by Seki Kōzō. But you should be aware that there is no independent source of some of this information other than Kohinata’s own account). 

In any event, Kohinata, either through a subtle prompt (“That’s a disturbing situation. Something should be done about that”) or a specific request by the Ikeda faction, raided the inn in order to expose the Japanese “negotiators,” and hopefully, disrupt whatever agreements were in the process of being hammered out. [I must add a caveat. The following account is Kohinata’s: here no independent evidence for what he says.]

Kohinata is described as either flinging open or kicking down the doors where the meeting was taking place, accompanied by Ueshiba Morihei & Ueshiba Kisshōmaru, (!!!!!)  all three of them dressed in full kimono and hakama. Please note that Ueshiba was over seventy years old, long in the era where many imagine him to be a saint-like pacifist. In perhaps the most interesting sentence in this account, Kisshōmaru is described as 血気盛んな活動家だった “a hot-blooded activist.”

When I read that line, I shouted out loud! Admittedly, Kohinata, though certainly an incredible adventurer, may also have been a bit of a Baron Munchausen, shading and reworking his stories in theatrical ways, but there is little doubt that Ueshiba, father and son, accompanied him. And consider the possibility that he is 100% accurate! The 2nd Dōshu was regarded as a mild-mannered man, many stating that they felt he was more suited for the business career he was intending to follow before he had to take over the Aikikai. Over and over I’ve heard that, compared to such stalwarts as Yukawa, Shirata, Saitō and Tohei, he “wasn’t much of a martial artist.” If, in fact, he was a “hot-blooded” activist, he was also the greatest – dare I say it – “ninja” of the 20th century. To have been able to so completely hide such a character and cause while being in the public eye, is simply remarkable. I always liked Nidai Dōshu: therefore, I hope this is true, because it would be a level of mastery of self beyond all but the greatest spies. [BY THE WAY: I’ve also wondered if the third man was actually Shioda Gōzō, who definitely was a “hot-blooded political activist,” and Kohinata simply got things confused.  But no one ever contradicted him, including Shioda, who tended to quite happily tell all sorts of adventures himself. His life story, at least in broadstrokes, was several open books. And anyway, I far prefer the idea that it was Ueshiba Kisshōmaru, and that, through this and other actions, he had full favor in his father’s eyes].

In any event, the account says that the two Ueshiba’s were there to provide strong-arm intimidation (they were very likely known to the people in the room). Among them were:

  • Former Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke (岸信介).
  • The right-wing gangster uber-boss, Kodama Yoshio (児玉誉士夫), closely allied with the Kishi faction, who had close ties with the Korean spy service and gangs.
  • Miura Yoshikazu (三浦義一) and Yatsugi Kazuo (矢次一夫), both associated with nationalist/intelligence circles. [Note: even today, the boundaries of intelligence services in Japan are porous. They have a lot more connections with nationalist groups and even freelancers, much like those of the Dark Ocean and Black Dragon River Societies of the Meiji and Taisho period.]
  • Several Korean representatives.

So Kohinata enters, flanked by the Ueshibas shouting at the top of his lungs. Assuming the meeting concerned Takeshima, he condemned as traitorous any attempt to relinquish Japanese control of the islands. Accounts vary, but the subject of Kohinata’s wrath either slunk or scuttled away. Nonetheless, this was merely a beau geste, because the meetings continued in secret, leading, eventually, to the treaty in 1965, under Ikeda’s successor, Satō Eisaku.

Kodama was a pragmatic man, sometimes referred to as a classic Japanese rightest who allied himself with corporations and gangsters alike. Kohinata and the Ueshibas exemplify the other wing, the impulsive dangerous idealists, assuming that their actions, ignited by pure will and intuition, would be pure in nature.  It seems likely to me that Kodama may have been intimidated in the moment (though he was an old street fighter and political thug), but he would surely have explained to the others, later, that Kohinata and his minions (ironic, but accurate to think of the Ueshibas in these terms in this instance) were the type of men who made a lot of noise, didn’t plan things through, and were often as satisfied by their gesture than the completion of any plan.

Those who idealize Ueshiba Morihei may be disturbed by this story, either because, based on their political leanings, it doesn’t put Ueshiba in a good light, or because it exemplifies the idiocy of loud political theater, something so prevalent in America these days. Some may wonder why I write about it at all.

Well, first of all, it’s fascinating: particularly the detail about Ueshiba Kisshōmaru. Knowing the man, having taken ukemi and experienced kindness from him, it is simply delicious to imagine this slender nondescript man able to carry out the role of an intimidating leg-breaker along with his father. But beyond that, if you want to understand a martial art, the character of the founder as well as the environment into which the art was born are extremely relevant. The “environment” very definitely includes politics. The history of Chinese martial arts is impossible to understand without understanding the role of secret societies in China at the time. Capoeira can only be understood when one has some sense of East African warfare, the ludic nature of almost all African-rooted art forms, and the experience of being first slaves and then placed in an underclass in Brazil.

Similarly, to comprehend the development of aikidō and beyond that, most 20th century Japanese martial arts, one must understand the political world in which Ueshiba and his ilk functioned, currying favor and achieving patronage among high- level politicians, generals, even the Imperial Court, Ueshiba repeatedly allied himself with the theatrical, the impulsive, the brilliant and the fierce, those who loved the grand gesture. Without that beau geste, how could Takeda Sokaku be accepted among many of the highest level martial men of the period and openly deride them while slinging them left and right; how could Deguchi Onisaburo imagine conquering Mongolia and becoming their new Dalai Lama; how could Japanese military men could honestly believe that the “Japanese Spirit” was enough to defeat the greater population, industrial base and population of the United States?

Where else do we see the grand gesture? Not only in paying back a four decades old debt by acting as a 70+ year old strong-arm in a potential political brawl, but generally speaking, in the nature of his martial art as well. What Ueshiba learned from Takeda Sokaku, more often than not, required “folding” the attacker into a space smaller than they could support themselves. However, Ueshiba, using his powerful body and developed center, preferred something different: throwing his attackers in huge arcs, with a sweep of his mighty arm. In the Chinese formulation of Heaven-Earth-Man, “Man” is a microcosm of the powers of “Heaven” and “Earth.” And so with Ueshiba: the grand sweep of his arm was a microcosm of his actions in the real world: dressing up traditionally and bursting through a door to confront politicians with righteous rage, a microcosm of a whole country that intended to sweep across Asia, powered by superior will and the Emperor’s desire to rule the world in harmony, all under one roof. No wonder such groups as the Nakano Spy School and the Kenpetai had Ueshiba and/or his students as instructors. His martial art had the same merits and flaws as the grand gestures that led their country, briefly, to rule a quarter of the world, all too soon, over-extended and ungrounded, to fall.

For what it is worth, it is due to his son, Kisshōmaru, who had his father’s back during this and maybe other grand gestures, who brought things back to earth and in the process, changed his father’s Shintō ritualization of Daitō-ryū into something that has influenced millions far beyond the precincts of any dōjō. It was the 2nd Dōshu who took his father’s claim to be an avatar empowered to reconcile the abstract cosmic realms of Heaven and Earth, and reworked them as a martial art that embodied reconciliation among humans. Rather than subjects to an avatar who might drag one into one or another hair-brained scheme, be it conquering Mongolia, offering to provide body-guards to support a coup d’etat that entailed Japanese planes bombing the Diet, or crashing through the door of an inn to confront politicians, we have the son, that alleged hot-blooded activist, who really established “the art of peace.”

Many of these figures will appear again in my upcoming novel, The Tiger’s Cub, the sequel to Little Bird & The Tiger. LB&T focuses on the first era of the tairiku ronin, the 1890’s. The sequel will take place in 1920-1930.

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