ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Japanese cryptology from the 1500s to Meiji

Ok kiddo, so back in the old days in Japan, people used secret codes to talk to each other in secret. This is called cryptology. They did this so that other people who didn't know the code couldn't understand what they were saying.

In the 1500s, a really smart guy named Oda Nobunaga used a secret code called a cipher to send secret messages to his army during battles. This code looked like a bunch of jumbled letters and numbers, but only his army knew how to read it.

Then, in the 1600s, some other really smart guys named Tokugawa Ieyasu and Yasukiyo used another kind of code called steganography. This means they hid secret messages inside of other messages, like putting a secret message in a picture or a poem. It was like a secret game of hide-and-seek!

And finally, in the 1800s, during the Meiji period, the Japanese government started using telegraph machines to send messages across long distances. They made a secret code for the telegraph called the Kana Code, which used Japanese characters instead of letters and numbers.

So, in a nutshell, Japanese cryptology from the 1500s to Meiji was all about using secret codes to talk in secret and keep important information safe from people who weren't supposed to know it. Was that helpful, kiddo?