by Umawatari Bogyu, Lord of Hitachi and Grand Chamberlain to His Most Excellent Highness the Shogun

As a person of no consequence, to have received a commission from His Most Excellent Highness the Shogun Lord Tokugawa Hidetada to compile this book, it was as if the sun in heaven had set in one’s dustbin. That His Most Excellent Highness should then see fit to write a foreword to this miserable wretch’s unworthy work is to be likened to a dragon shedding its scales above a dung-heap. Compared to the exquisiteness of His Most Excellent Highness’s delicate calligraphy, the scribbling from the ink-brush of this person of no regard may be likened to a dog leaving scratch marks on a garden fence. For this wormlike creature to expound upon military matters from within the shadow cast by the martial glory of His Most Excellent Highness is to liken the divine fury of the Four Guardian Kings of Heaven to a sardine gnashing its teeth. To compare my pitiful and inadequate observations on the business of government to those of His Most Excellent Highness would be to liken the fierce breaths of a warhorse to a night-soil collector’s nag breaking wind.

I therefore submit the following unworthy observations in an attitude of profound respect, immense gratitude and utter humility.