Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (Hakkenden) opens in Awa, today southern Chiba, with Takida Castle, Tateyama Castle and Mount Tomi in Chiba, then Koga Castle and Gyōtoku.
A lord's careless joke to his dog brings down a curse, and eight dog warriors are born from a princess's scattered prayer beads. The route follows the opening tale from the old castles of Awa to Princess Fuse's mountain, then the first dog warriors' duel at Koga and rescue at Gyōtoku.
The novel's Tateyama and Hōryūkaku are not the same as the real sites, so most pins are approximate.
The legend of Benkei, Japan's warrior monk, runs from Gojō Bridge and Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto to the Ataka Barrier in Ishikawa and the Koromogawa battle site at Hiraizumi.
Benkei is said to have lost a duel to the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune on a Kyoto bridge, then served him to the end. The route follows that story through five places, from the duel to the famous "Standing Death of Benkei". Most tales come from later writings, and no records from Benkei's own time survive.
Minamoto no Yoshitsune's life runs from Kurama temple in Kyoto through the Genpei War battles of Ichi-no-Tani in Kobe, Yashima in Takamatsu and Dan-no-ura near Shimonoseki, to his last stand at Takadachi in Hiraizumi.
The route follows the famous general from a boy among the monks to a hero turned out by his own brother at Koshigoe. Battle sites are approximate; the temple, the Koshigoe temple and the Hiraizumi chapel can be visited.
Oda Nobunaga's rise runs from Kiyosu Castle and the Okehazama battlefield through Gifu, Mount Hiei, Nagashino and Azuchi to Honnō-ji in Kyoto.
The seven stops follow his campaigns in order, from a family struggle in Owari to the 1582 day Akechi Mitsuhide turned on him. Several are castle ruins or rebuilt replicas, and the Honnō-ji pin marks the rebuilt temple.
The Battle of Kulikovo, fought on 8 September 1380 at Kulikovo Field near the Don, made Grand Prince Dmitry of Moscow famous as Donskoy, "of the Don". The route follows him from Trinity Lavra and Kolomna to the battlefield, Old Simonov and the Moscow Kremlin.
It covers the muster against Mamai's army, the crossing in fog, the ambush regiment, the burial of the fallen and Moscow's burning in 1382. Battlefield pins are approximate because sources give no exact spot.
Russia's best-loved bogatyr was a peasant's son who could not walk until he was 33. Then he set out for Kiev, defended a city, killed a whistling monster in the forest and became the chief hero of Prince Vladimir's court.
The route follows the epic songs known as byliny, from his village near Murom to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, where the relics of a real monk, Ilya Pechersky, are said by some to be the hero's. Legend and history are marked apart: the pins show where tradition puts the story, not proof that it happened.
Between 1180 and 1185 Japan's two great warrior clans, Taira and Minamoto, fought over the realm, and the war ended with a child emperor, a fleet and the tide at Dan-no-ura. It was the war that led to the first shogun.
This route visits seven battlefield sites in date order, from the bridge at Uji to the Kanmon Straits. Documented events are kept apart from the Heike Monogatari's legends, which the text attributes to the tale. Most battle areas are approximate.
