3 History

3.1 Origin of Samurai

Before the Heian period, the army in Japan was modeled after the Chinese army and under the direct command of the emperor. Except for slaves, every able-bodied men had the duty of enlisting for the army. These men had to supply themselves, and many men got lost or gave up returning and settled down on their way home. This was treated as a part of taxation and it could be substituted with other forms of tax such as bolts of cloth. These men were called Sakimori (防人), lit. defenders but they are not related to samurai.

In the early Heian, the late 8th and early 9th centuries, Emperor Kammu sought to consolidate and expand his rule in northern Honshu. The armies he sent to conquer the rebellious Emishi lacked motivation and discipline and were unable to prevail. He then introduced the title of Seiitaishogun (征夷大将軍) or shogun and began to rely on the powerful regional clans to conquer the Emishi. Skilled in mounted combat and archery, these clan warriors became the emperor's preferred tool for putting down rebellions.

During the Heian period, the emperor's army was disbanded and the emperor's power gradually declined. While the emperor was still the ruler, powerful clans around Kyoto assumed positions of ministers and their relatives bought their positions of magistrates to collect taxes. To repay their debts and amass wealth, they often imposed heavy taxes and many farmers were forced to leave their lands. Regional clans grew powerful by offering lower taxes to their subjects as well as freedom from conscription. These clans armed themselves to repel other clans and magistrates from collecting taxes. They would eventually form themselves into armed parties and became samurai.

The samurai came from guards of the imperial palace and private guards clans employed. They also acted as a police force in and around Kyoto. These forerunners of what we now know as samurai had ruler-sponsored equipment and were required to hone their martial skills. They were saburai, servants, yet their advantage of being the sole armed party increasingly became apparent. By promising protection and gaining political clout through political marriages they amassed power, eventually surpassing the ruling aristocrats.

Some clans originally were farmers that had been driven to arms to protect themselves from the imperially appointed magistrates sent to govern their lands and collect taxes. These clans formed alliances to protect themselves against more powerful clans. By the mid-Heian, they had adopted Japanese-style armor and weapons and laid the foundation of bushido, their famous ethical code.

3.2 Kamakura Shogunate and the Rise of Samurai

Originally these warriors were merely mercenaries in the employ of the emperor and noble clans(kuge). But slowly they gathered enough power to usurp the aristocracy and establish the first samurai-dominated government.

As regional clans gathered manpower and resources and struck alliances with each other, they formed a hierarchy centered around a toryo, or chief. This chief was typically a distant relative of the emperor and a lesser member of one of three noble families (the Fujiwara, Minamoto, or the Taira). Though originally sent to provincial areas for a fixed four year term as a magistrate, the toryo declined to return to the capital when their terms ended. Their sons inherited their positions and continued to lead the clans in putting down rebellions throughout Japan during the middle and later Heian.

Because of their rising military and economic power, the clans ultimately became a new force in the politics of the court. Their involvement in the Hogen Rebellion in the late Heian only consolidated their power and finally pit the rival Minamoto and the Taira against each other in the Heiji Rebellion of 1160. Emerging victorious, Taira no Kiyomori became an imperial advisor, the first warrior to attain such a position, and eventually seized control of the central government to establish the first samurai-dominated government and relegate the emperor to a mere figurehead. However, Taira clan was still very much aristocratic than later Minamoto. Instead of expanding or strengthening its military might, Taira clan had its women marry emperors and attempted to control through the emperor.

The Taira and the Minamoto once again clashed in 1180 beginning the Gempei War which ended in 1185. The victorious Minamoto no Yoritomo established the superiority of the samurai over aristocrats. In 1190 he visited Kyoto and in 1192 became Seii Taishogun, establishing the Kamakura Shogunate. Instead of basing its rule in Kyoto, he set up the Shogunate in the Kamakura, near his base of power.

Over time, powerful samurai clans became warrior nobility (buke) who were only nominally under court aristocracy. When samurai begun to adopt aristocratic customs like calligraphy, poetry and music, some court aristocrats also began to adopt samurai skills. In spite of various machinations and brief periods of rule by various emperors, the real power was in the hands of the shogun and samurai.

3.3 Ashikaga Shogunate and the Feudal Period

Various samurai clans struggled for power over Kamakura and Ashikaga Shogunates.

Zen Buddhism spread among samurai in the 13 century and it helped to shape their standards of conduct, particularly overcoming fear of death and killing. Zen Buddhism in Japan took Sakyamuni as the principal image and taught to be a living buddha with enlightenment by Zen meditation training. While major schools of Buddhism among populace took Amitabha Tathagata, a buddha is said to be capable of taking believers to paradise after death.

In the 13 century, Yuan, a Chinese state of the Mongolian Empire, invaded Japan two times. Samurai unused to combating in group barely survived the first brief battle. However, they were prepared for the second invasion and samurai devastated large, but disorganized armies composed of Chinese, Korean and Mongolian. It is believed even without Kamikaze, they would have driven back these invaders. An innovation on Japanese sword was accomplished by a blacksmith called Masamune in the 14th century; the two-layer structure of soft and hard iron was adopted and the style spread rapidly with its amazing cutting power and endurance in continuous use. Since then, Japanese swords had been recognized as one of the invincible carry weapons during the pre-industrial era of East Asia. It was one of the top exported items, few even making its ways into as far as India.

The issues of inheritance firstly caused family infighting because primogeniture became common while division of succession was designated by law before the 14th century. To avoid infighting, continuous invasion against neighboring samurais' territories was rather favored and bickering among samurai was constant problems to Kamakura and Ashikaga Shogunate.

The Sengoku jidai ("warring-states period") was marked by the loosening of samurai culture, in a sense. Those born into other social strata could sometimes make names for themselves as warriors and thus become de facto samurai. In this turbulent period, bushido ethics became important factors to control and maintain public orders.

Japanese war tactics and technologies improved rapidly in 15th and 16th century. Use of large infantry troop called Ashigaru , which was formed by the humble warriors or populace, with Nagayari (長槍) or long lance was introduced and combined with cavalry in maneuvers. The numbers of people mobilized in warfare were generally in the thousands to the over hundred-thousands.

Harquebus or a matchlock gun was introduced by Lusitanians/Portuguese on a Chinese pirate ship in 1543. Japanese succeeded nationalization of it within a decade. Groups of mercenaries with harquebus and mass produced rifles played a critical role. By the end of feudal periods, several hundred thousands rifles existed in Japan and massive armies over 100,000 clashed in the battles. The largest and most powerful army in Europe, the Spanish armies, had only several thousand rifles and could only assemble an army of 30,000. Ninja also played critical roles engaged intelligence activity.

The social mobility of human resources was flexible, as the ancient regime collapsed and emerging samurai needed to maintain large military and administrative organizations in their areas of influence. Most of the samurai families that survived to the 19th century originated in this era. They declared themselves to be the blood of one of the four ancient noble clans, Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara and Tachibana. In most cases, however, it is hard to prove who their ancestors were.

3.4 Oda, Toyotomi and Tokugawa

Oda Nobunaga was the well-known lord of the Nagoya area (once called Ohwari) and an exceptional example of samurai of the Sengoku Period. He came within few years of, and laid down the path for his sucessors to acieve, the reunification of Japan under a new Bakufu (Shogunate).

He made innovations on organizations and war tactics, heavily used harquebus, developed commerce and industry and treasured innovations ; the consecutive victories enabled him to realize the termination of the Ashikaga Shogunate and disarmament of the military powers of the Buddhist monks, which had inflamed futile struggles among the populace for centuries. Attacking from a "sanctuary" of Buddhist temples, they were constant headaches to any warlords and even the emperor who tried to control their actions. He died in 1582 when one of his General's, Akechi Mitsuhide, fell down upon him with his army.

Importantly, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (see below) and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who made Tokugawa Shogunate, were Nobunaga's loyal followers. Hideyoshi was brought up from a nameless peasant to one of top generals under Nobunaga and Ieyasu had shared childhood with Nobunaga. Hideyoshi defeated Mitsuhide within a month and was regarded as the rightful successor of Nobunaga by avenging the treachery of Mitsuhide.

These two were gifted with Nobunaga's previous achievements to build the unified Japan. So there was a saying: "The reunification is a rice cake; Oda made it. Hashiba shaped it. At last, only Ieyasu tastes it." (Hashiba is the family name that Toyotomi Hideyoshi used while he was a follower of Nobunaga.)

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who became a grand minister in 1586, himself the son of a poor peasant family, created a law that the samurai caste became codified as permanent and heritable, and that non-samurai were forbidden to carry weapons ending the social mobility of Japan up until that point and the dissolution of the dissolution of the Edo Shogunate by the Meiji revolutionaries.

It is important to note that distinction between samurai and non-samurai was so obscure that during the 16th century, most male adults in any social class (even small farmers) belonged to at least one military organization of their own and served in wars before and during Hideyoshi's rule. It can be said that an "all against all" situation continued for a century.

The authorized samurai families after the 17th century were the winners that chose to follow Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu. Large battles occurred during the times of change between regimes, and a number of defeated samurai were destroyed, went Ronin (Wave-Men; or masterless Samurai) or were absorbed into the general populace.

3.5 Tokugawa Shogunate

During the Tokugawa era, samurai increasingly became courtiers, bureaucrats, and administrators rather than warriors. The daisho, the paired long and short swords of the samurai (cf. ' katana' and wakizashi) became more of a symbolic emblem of power rather than a weapon used in daily life. They still had the legal right to cut down any commoner who did not show proper respect; in what extent this right was used, however, is unknown. When the central government forced daimyos to cut the size of their armies, unemployed ronin actually became a social problem.

Bushido was formalized by many samurai in this time of peace much like how Chivalry was formalized after knight as a warrior became obsolete in Europe. The conduct of samurai became a favorable model of a citizen in Edo with the emphasis on formalities. With time on their hands, samurai spent more time on the pursuit of other interests becoming scholars.

3.6 Samurai decline during the Meiji restoration

The last hurrah of original samurai was in 1867 when samurai from Choshu and Satsuma provinces defeated the shogunate forces in favor of the rule of the emperor. The two provinces were the lands of the daimyos that submitted to Ieyasu after the war of Sekigahara ( 1600).

Other sources claim that the last samurai were in 1877, during the Satsuma Rebellion in the Battle of Shiroyama .

The main players of the revolt came from lower class samurai in every province. Their ultimate political goal was the same: to maintain the independence of Japan against Western powers. But the two daimyo clashed first and these bloody conflicts lasted for years. At last, they realized that a large serious civil war must be avoided because that was just what the foreign powers waited for. So the last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned the governing to the emperor to avoid the war. Some resisted, believing this was a coup d'etat by Choshu and Satsuma and that the government was in their hands. Groups of Tohoku samurai organized an armed resistance but they were eventually defeated.

Emperor Meiji abolished the samurai's right to be the only armed force in favor of a more modern, western-style conscripted army. Samurai became Shizoku (士族) who retained some of their salaries but the right to wear a katana in public was eventually abolished along with the right to cut down commoners who paid them disrespect. The samurai finally came to a end after hundreds of years of enjoyment of their status, their powers, and their ability to shape the government of Japan. However, the rule of the state by the military class was not yet over.

3.7 Post Meiji Restoration

In defining how a modern Japanese should be, members of the Meiji government decided to follow the footsteps of United Kingdom and Germany. It would be based on the concept of "nobles oblige" and samurai would not be a political force much like that of Prussia.

The Imperial Japanese Armies were conscripted, but many samurai volunteered to be soldiers and many advanced to be trained as an officer. In fact much of the Imperial Army officer class was of samurai origin. These volunteers were highly motivated, disciplined and well trained. As such the Imperial Army defeated a rebellion of samurai in the Satsuma Rebellion.

The Japanese Empire fought and won the Sino-Japanese War ( 1894) and the Russio-Japanese War ( 1904) and it could be reasoned that these volunteers and officers were behind these victories. Most soldiers of both Chinese and Russian armies could neither read nor write and after their officers were killed, these armies quickly disintegrated.

Many early exchange students were samurai, not because they were samurai, but many were literate and well educated scholars. Some of these exchange students started private schools for higher educations. Some samurai took pens instead of guns and became reporters and writers to set up newspaper companies. Other samurai entered governmental services as they were literate and well educated.

4 Culture

As de facto aristocrats for centuries, samurai developed their own cultures that changed the way Japanese acted.

A samurai was expected to read and write, as well as to know some mathematics. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a great samurai yet a peasant at start, could only read and write in hiragana and this was his biggest drawback. Some hint that this was what prevented him from becoming a shogun. Samurai were expected, though not required, to have interests in other arts such as dancing, Go, literature, poetry, and tea. Ota Dokan who first ruled Edo wrote how he was shamed to realize that even a commoner had more knowledge of poetry than him and this made him study harder.

Samurai culture ranged from a spartan Zen Buddhism influenced culture to an extravaganza Kano-style culture. Most samurai lived simply not due to preference, but necessity. As commerce developed in Edo period, samurai who were supplied with rice as income were faced with inflating prices of common goods. Some samurai did crafts and others farmed to make ends meet. These poor samurai still found money and time to teach their children to value education. By the middle of Edo period, samurai had to be ordered to practice their martial art skills. There were stories of samurai being threatened and forced to run away against well muscled workers, some were even beaten in a fight. As samurai were specialists in fighting, these troubles were never reported out of shame but were still documented.

With time on their hands, many samurai began studying such topics as archaeology, botany, and literature. Samurai introduced vegetables like the potato and sweet potato to farmers who remained apathetic to these imported vegetables. Samurai also transcribed and studied historic books and records. Kojiki as well as Chinese classics were studied. Samurai also started studying anatomy and medical science looking not for a better way to kill, but simply because they were interested. In the late Edo period, they translated a Dutch medical book.

4.1 Samurai Names

A samurai usually was named by combining one kanji from his father or grandfather and one new kanji. Many samurai had intentionally phonetically same names as a great ancestors to honor their greatness and hope this samurai would be as good. This name was applied after genpuku. He also had a childhood name. Most samurai had a second name and also used his title as a part of his name. Oda Nobunaga would be officially called "Oda Kouzukenosuke Owarinokami Nobunaga" (織田上総介尾張守信長) and he would be refered as "Oda Kouzukenosuke" or "Oda Owarinokami".

4.2 Marriage

A marriage of samurai was done by having a marriage arranged by someone with same or higher rank than those marrying. While for those samurai in upper ranks were a necessity as most had few opportunities to meet a female, this was still done as a formality for lower ranked samurai. Most samurai married women from a samurai family but for a lower ranked samurai, a marriage with commoner were permitted. In these marriages, a dowry was brought by women and this was used to start their new lives.

A samurai can have a mistress but she was strictly checked by higher ranked samurai on her background. In many cases, it was treated like a marriage and a kidnapping, common in many fictions, would have been a shame if not a crime. When she was a commoner, a messenger would be sent, with a betrothal money or a note for exemption of tax, and ask for her acceptance to her parents. Many parents gladly accepted, and if she gave a birth to a son, he could be a samurai.

A samurai can divorce his wife for a variety of reasons with an approval from a superior. A divorce was, while not nonexistent, a rare occasion. An important reason would be if she could not produce a son but an adoption could be arranged. A samurai can divorce for a personal reason, even that he simply did not like his wife, but this was generally avoided as this would embarrass the samurai who arranged this marriage. Women could also arrange a divorce, although it would generally take the form of samurai divorcing her. In a divorce, samurai had to return the betrothal money and this often prevented a divorce. Some rich merchants had their daughters marry samurai to erase a samurai's debt and advance their positions.

4.3 Succession

The eldest son of the previous leader became the next leader of the clan. If the eldest son had passed away before the succession, the eldest son of the eldest son became the next leader of the clan. If the eldest son did not have children, the second son became the next leader. These rules were sometimes bent with the wish of the former leader. When the next leader was too young or inexperienced, brothers and retainers of a previous leader acted as leader until the clan could be handed over. Dividing a domain had been popular in Kamakura and Ashikaga period but declined later as it often made the clan weaker.

Many samurai changed their name not because they didn't like it, but because they were adopted into other clans. This was done for many reasons. The first and foremost reason is that many clans wanted a successor with high abilities and skills even if it meant throwing out sons of the previous leader. If that successor happened to be from a higher clan, so much better. While this had to be approved by shogunate or daimyo in Edo period, there were many instances. When the previous leader died without a son but with a daughter, it was common to adopt samurai from other clans into a clan and have him marry the daughter.

Samurai had a lot of children and faced with disease and wars, this often caused succession problems. These sometime led to a decline or even a disintegration and eventual destruction of the entire clan. Several steps were taken to avoid this problem. The adoption was one step and other was called Koukaku lit. decline in rank, where a son was given a new clan name and became a retainer and a vassal of their elder brother. Some samurai even became a merchants or farmers because of Koukaku.

5 Philosophy

Philosophies of Buddhism and Zen, to the lesser extent Confucianism influenced the samurai culture as well as Shinto. The meditation became an important teaching by offering a process to calm one's mind. Buddhism concept of reincarnation and rebirth led samurai to abandon torture and needless killing. Some samurai resigned from samurai and became Buddhist monks after realizing how fruitless their killings were.

Bushido, codified during Edo period, was the way of samurai yet its deceptive simplicity led to countless arguments over its interpretation. Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo is a manual of instruction into the way of the samurai. Even as it was published, it raised number of reviews that criticized strict and impersonal interpretations. If the lord is wrong, for example if he ordered massacre of civilians, should he observe Loyalty to massacre as ordered or should he observe Rectitude to let civilians escape unharmed? If a man had sick parents but committed an unamendable mistake, should he protect his Honor by committing Seppuku or should he show Courage by living with dishonor and care for his parents?

The incident of 47 Ronin caused debates about the righteousness of their actions and how bushido should be applied. They had defied shogun in ways by taking matters into their own hands but it was an act of Loyalty and Rectitude as well. Finally, their acts were agreed to be Rectitude but not Loyalty to the shogun. This made them criminals with conscience and eligible for seppuku.

Explanations of shudo in Hagakure was highly controversial even at the time when such practices were common. It illuminates one of the samurai's practices of platonic love that were sometimes homosexual relationships between samurai. Even though this was not considered a crime at that time and was not exactly prohibited by religions, a notion that some samurai advanced by being sexually attractive was enough to raise an uproar. Samurai were not prostitutes and they advanced by having abilities and skills, not sleeping together.

The most famous book of kenjutsu, or sword fighting, dates from this period ( Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings, 1643). But larger part of the book is focused on mentalities of fighting. Many kenjutsu book from Edo period also focused on spiritual aspects as well to cope with demands that a practice of kenjutsu to build characters.

6 Samurai in Fiction

Jidaigeki lit. historical drama had been a staple on movies and TV from the beginning. It usually futured a samurai with a kenjutsu who stood up against evil samurai and merchants. Mito Komon (水戸黄門), a fictitious stories of Tokugawa Mitsukuni's travel, is a popular TV drama where Mitsukuni travels disguised as a retired rich merchant with two unarmed samurai also disguised as his companions. He finds trouble where ever he goes, and after gathering evidences, he has his samurai knock around unrepenting evil samurai and merchants. He then reveals his identity which, if he wished to, can destory the entire clan and evils has no option but surrender and hope that his punishments would not extend to their families.

The samurai-themed works of film director Akira Kurosawa are among the most praised of the genre, influencing many filmmakers across the world with his techniques and storytelling. Notable works of his include The Seven Samurai, in which a besieged farming village hires a collection of wandering samurai to defend them from bandits; Yojimbo, where a former samurai involves himself in a town's gang war by working for both sides; and The Hidden Fortress, in which two foolish peasants find themselves helping a legendary general escort a princess to safety. The latter was one of the primary inspirations for George Lucas's Star Wars, which also borrows a number of aspects from the samurai, such as in the Jedi Knights of the series.

Samurai films and westerns share a number of similarities, and the two have influenced each other over the years. Kurosawa was inspired by the works of director John Ford, and in turn Kurosawa's works have been remade into westerns, such as The Seven Samurai into The Magnificent Seven and Yojimbo into A Fistful of Dollars.

Another fictitious television series, Abarembo Shogun, featured Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa shogun. Samurai at all levels from the shogun down to the lowest rank, as well as ronin, featured prominently in this show.

Shogun is the first novel in James Clavell's Asian Saga. It is set in feudal Japan somewhere around the year 1600 and gives a highly fictionalized account of the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu to the Shogunate, seen through the eyes of an English sailor whose fictional heroics are loosely based on William Adams' exploits.

A Hollywood movie, The Last Samurai, containing a mixture of fact and fiction, was released in 2003 to generally good reviews in North America. The film's plot is loosely based on the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigo Takamori, and also on the story of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the Boshin War. The life style and the war tactics shown in the movie The Last Samurai are those of out-country samurai of the Sengoku jidai, precisely of the era before 1543; not those in the 19th century. An actual battle of that period was only a little different from that of American or European army, the only difference being a katana to be waved for soldiers to charge instead of a saber.

Kill Bill by Quentin Tarantino can be described as a glorification of the samuari sword, katana.

The samurai have also appeared frequently in Japanese comics ( manga) and animation ( anime). Most common are historical works where the protagonist is either a samurai or former samurai (or another rank/position) who possesses considerable martial skill. Two of the most famous examples are Lone Wolf and Cub, where the former proxy executioner for the Shogun and his toddler son become hired killers after being betrayed by other samurai and nobles; and Rurouni Kenshin, where a former assassin, after helping end the Bakumatsu era and bringing about the Meiji era, finds himself protecting newfound friends and fighting off old enemies while upholding his oath to never kill again through the use of a reversed-bladed sword. Samurai-like characters are not just restricted to historical settings, a number of works set in the modern age and even the future include characters who live, train, and fight like samurai. Notable examples include Goemon Ishikawa XIII from the Lupin III series of comics, television series, and movies; and Motoko Aoyama from the romantic comedy Love Hina.

Samurai are also heroes and enemies in many games where they would either be greatest friends or worst nightmares. These samurai would use mostly katana and are devastating foot soldiers. An example is Age of Empires series.

The concept of a samurai, as opposed to that of a knight, has lead to a major gap in how a fighter or a hero should be especially in a Role-playing game between Japan and rest of the world. A samurai does not have to be tall and heavily muscled to be strong. He can be barely five feet tall, seemingly weak and handicapped. He can even be "she". This means equating size with power and strength does not appeal to the Japanese aesthetic.

7 Further reading

• Eiko Ikegami: The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1995. BooksEnthsiast.com.
• Hiroaki Sato: Legends of the Samurai
• Stephen Turnbull: The Book of the Samurai
• Stephen Turnbull: The Samurai (more historical detail)

8 External links

• Samurai Archives in http://www.samurai-archives.com/
• The Beautiful Way of the Samurai an essay on the educational practices of the samurai, which involved love affairs between older and younger samurai.
• Gusokuyagura A site with pictures of armors that samurai used.

9 See also

• List of samurai
• Samurai (hacking)
• Samurai Source
• The Precepts of Kato Kiyomasa
• The Last Samurai(A movie)

Japanese culture Japanese history Positions of authority Titles

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