Chiyome Mochizuki (1540-1582) was a Takeda noblewoman who created an all-female group of ninja.
Biography[]
Chiyome Mochizuki was wife of Nobumasa Mochizuki, a Takeda retainer who was lord of Mochizuki Castle in Shinano Province of central Japan. Her husband's uncle Shingen Takeda told her to create a group of kunoichi ninja to fight for the Takeda clan, and she made an all-female group of ninja. She also became a member of the Templar Order.
200-300 girls, formerly orphans, prostitutes, or victims of the Sengoku Jidai era, served Mochizuki. In 1573 her Templar group failed to prevent Assassin Order affiliates Tadakatsu Honda and Hanzo Hattori from entering Shingen's camp and assassinating him, and the Templars were weakened by inter-clan feuds.
Death[]
While her husband was out at war, Mochizuki was raising an army at home. Hanzo Hattori gained information on her from Chaya Shirojiro Kiyonobu that Chiyome rarely left her residence in Shinano, and she would know Hattori would come after her the second he entered the city. Her spies were able to locate Hanzo, but Hanzo succeeded in assassinating Mochizuki no matter what. In her last words, she condemned Hanzo for killing her and letting her students return to the gutter, but Hanzo remarked that she could have trained them better, and also about how she did not teach them survival skills. She bade him leave so that she could die in peace, and Hanzo acquiesced.