The Tensho Iga War is the real history of how the ninja died — and why dying made them immortal. In the autumn of 1581, Oda Nobunaga sent more than forty thousand soldiers against Iga, a self-governing valley of farmer-spies with no lord, ten soldiers for every defender. Within weeks, the homeland of the shinobi was ash.

In this video, you stand inside the valley as it happens: the sworn league that governed Iga like a republic, the 1579 invasion by Nobunaga's own son that farmers crushed in the mountain passes, the letter in which Nobunaga threatened to disown his heir, the last stand at Hijiyama, and the strangest twist in ninja history — eight months later, the survivors of the massacre guided Tokugawa Ieyasu through their burned homeland and became the shogun's palace guard for 250 years. Throughout, we draw the line plainly: the Shincho koki and surviving letters are record; the Iranki's death tolls, Momochi Sandayu, and the final musket shot at Nobunaga are later memory and legend. That separation is this channel's promise.

The men who saved Ieyasu had just watched Nobunaga's ally class burn their homes — so was the Iga crossing revenge by other means, or simply a contract honored? Which reason could YOU have lived with?

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