Morgan Episode 36 Samurai

In this transcription, the hosts of the podcast "Ill-Equipped History" discuss the topic of samurai in Japan. They talk about the origins of samurai, their training, and the values and beliefs associated with being a samurai. The hosts also mention conflicting information from different sources and give trigger warnings for discussions about suicide, which was a custom among samurai. They provide a list of sources they used for their research. recording. Oh, here comes Stinky. Come here. Let me get you all, let me get you all set up. There you go, my prince. Please give me, no, not for, not for puppers. All right. Start now. Gotta let you finish yawning. Welcome to Ill-Equipped History, where two best friends tell you stories from history that we're not equipped to do. I'm Morgan, joined by my lovely co-host, Emily. I don't really have anything to get us started with. Okay. Okay. You know, it's funny, I've actually, I've gotten myself a hard seltzer, a ranch water. And I got an, I got an orange in it. Look at that. I'm so fancy. You're, you're silting margarita. You're silting margarita. When we first, when we first started recording, Emily was like, listen, I've had three margaritas. On the margaritas, they have little light bulbs in them. They're good margaritas. Okay. Margaritas. Brooke, stop Betty coming through. Margaritas. Syrup. Yes. It's okay. Okay. Still love you, even though you talk funny. All right. All right. Let's get started into our skit for today. In the 19th century in Japan, a governor of a province is looking around serenely in his estate. And he says out to the governor panting. Your Lordship, another clan is on its way. It's coming to wage war. They're coming to take our lands. They've already invaded two other provinces. Perfect acting. Thank you. So, Emily, do you know what we're talking about today? Yes. We're talking about the history of the samurai in Japan. I was hit with inspiration climbing into my car to go to work one morning, and I was like, samurai, and then I did it. Fine. Yeah, sure. So, to start off, some of my sources kind of contradict each other a little bit. I'll try to mention it when I can. But, yeah, it was very kind of confusing to really get the facts a little bit because there are differing accounts. At one point, I'm going to go through more like the chronology of samurai in Japan, and I used two different websites, and they had like differing dates. And I'll mention that, too. It's only by a couple years, but still. So, I'll do my best to keep things consistent. I do want to say I'm going to go ahead and put out a trigger warning for this episode. There are going to be mentions of suicide because that was a custom of samurai. And I'm not going to go into like the gory details because they honestly made me nauseous when I was looking at it, but I am going to talk about the custom in general detail. Why they conducted this custom, what it meant, and very generally how they did it. So, just so you know, if you do not want to listen to that, it's not the whole episode. And I'll give another trigger warning before I start talking about it. But there will be – I think I keep everything condensed in this one block of time. So, once I give my trigger warning, you can skip forward a couple minutes and we'll be past it. And I don't think I bring it up again in my episode. So, sorry, Emily, you're going to be stuck listening to that for the whole time. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. So, I'm going to go ahead and talk about my sources really quick because I quote them a lot and I just want you all to know. I watched a documentary called Samurai, The Last Warrior. And there's these two historians that are in this documentary that I'm going to refer to a lot. Their names are – I bolded them. So, Stephen Turnbull and Dave Lowery. They were – they're historians that cover Japanese history and they talk a lot about samurai customs and just Japan history in general. There was also a PBS article I found called Japan Memoirs of a Secret Empire. There's a Columbia PBS I found, like from the University of Columbia, about different ages and eras throughout Japan. The History of Japan at www.japanguide.com. There's a website called maiko.com and it talks about different traditions of samurai and then japanesewiki.com I used. So, I try to stick with sources that were from Japan. And I think part of that – some of the sites I think were probably initially in Japanese and they were translated into English. And so, some things may not – I was trying to make things make sense, but that may be the source of why some things may not be completely accurate in the way I describe it. Because I'm getting a translated version of it and Japanese doesn't always translate cleanly into English. So, I'm going to do my best and also I'm going to do my best with pronunciations. I'm not Japanese, so I'm probably going to butcher everything horribly. So, we're really trying. Okay. So, what is a samurai and how did they get started? So, a samurai is an elite warrior who knows specialized fighting tactics. The samurai were trained with a bow and arrow, a spear, and a sword. Those are the main weapons of a samurai and I'll get more into detail about those later. So, there's one website that had different theories on how samurai emerged. The first one is the most common and this is the one that's most frequently cited as being why the samurai came into being. So, the website called it Kaihatsu Ryoshu of Shiodan Theory and Kaihatsu Ryoshu are landowners. So, they owned like parcels of land. I'm assuming like governors of provinces and towns where people would live and then they would like farm those lands. So, samurai came about in a similar way as knights in medieval Europe. There were people in communities who saw a need to defend their lands from invaders and barbarians and samurai evolved from a similar need. And this is according to historian Hiroyuki Miura. Additionally, samurai from this area originated in the eastern part of Japan, namely the Kanto area. According to Takashi Ishimoto, who's another historian, samurai were armed guards of sorts to protect the lands of nobles from rivals and political opponents. According to Ishimoto and other historians, when samurai began rising in prominence, they eliminated the antiquated political structure, which had been ruled by the wealthy, like the aristocrats and the religious leaders, and they brought Japan into the medieval age. And I'll get into a little bit more detail about that shift when I start talking about the history of Japan specifically. So, the first theory is that there's a need for defenders from invaders and they were assigned to the higher ups within those towns and provinces. The second theory is the samurai function theory. And these are endorsed by historians Shinichi Sato, Masataka Ueyakote, Yoshimu Toda, Masaki Takahashi, and others. So, essentially, samurai were important military strategists and officers hired by high-ranking families and local governments around the Kyoto region. And Kyoto is more central, I think. I'm not entirely sure. That's a different area. So, this was saying, basically, that there were military officers before and during the age of the samurai, but they were not considered samurai. Samurai was a lot more elite and they were specialized in a specific form of military art, which I'll go into a little bit more in just a second. And they were also coinciding with military officers who were of similar rank and status as samurai, but they were trained under a different system of martial arts called the ritsuryo system. And they could be in public or private militias while samurai were involved in the government or the military. So, they were more public warriors by the government and military officers could be in private militias. So, I think they kind of started at the same time and they have similar roots. They're just slightly different theories on one was more like defense and one was more like an academy of sorts, almost, I think. So, I hope that makes sense because I think that's the best way I can explain it. This is from a site that I think was translated and there were some things that were hard to kind of grasp. So, I hope I did a good enough job explaining that. So, thank you. So, the way that the samurai followed is called bushido. And it's a systemized thought, like kind of belief system that generally forms the basis of value and ethical standards of samurai hierarchy during feudal Japan. And that's a quote from the website that I got this from. So, it's a way of life for the samurai. And actually, in the documentary I watched, Do literally means the way. So, this is the way of the warrior. So, this ideology is believed to have first been named by the book Koyo Gunkan, A Record of the Military Exploits of the Takeda Family by Masanobu Kosaka. And this is another quote from the website because I did a really good job of saying this in a way I couldn't. Quote, it is not a way of thought or philosophy which is useful in actual battle, but is necessary in all ages due to its morality and respecting those of noble character. Bushido is a way of survival as an individual fighter which focuses on developing oneself and the family, bringing them an advantage by achieving military renown. And the website also states this is different from Bushido as a moral system. Quote, Bushido as a moral system is being loyal to one's lord, being dutiful to one's parents, controlling oneself strictly, being merciful to those of lower rank, having sympathy to the enemy, abstaining from selfish desire, respecting justice, and respecting honor more than wealth. So, that kind of way of life and thinking is actually still implemented in a lot of Japan today, the kind of values of the samurai. Training. So, samurai started training in childhood, especially individuals that belonged to samurai families, and I'll get more into that later. So, at five years old, training started with wooden swords. At seven years old, pupils were given wakizashi, which I think is like a legit sword. At nine years old, children were sent to live with and train with a sword master. And by 13 years old, a boy could be considered a samurai and could go on the battlefield. Yeah. Yeah. He would have a wooden sword at six years old, but still. Like, he would already, it was a complete way of life. And, like, basically from birth, they're being exposed to the values of the samurai, and they're like, all right, you're going to be training to be a samurai because that is your legacy and your honor. This is another quote. Samurai school was a unique combination of physical training, Chinese studies, poetry, and spiritual discipline. And Japan had a lot of influence from China. It's actually, I'm pretty sure that's how Japan became populated. It was people from China moving over to Japan. And so they had a lot of influence. I'll get more into that in a little bit as well. It wasn't until a while later, they started kind of splitting off a little bit. But I talked a little bit about it in the Wu Zetian episode, that the Chinese emperor, Japan had some influence from China. Anyway, so kendo, which is a sword fighting technique, is literally the way of the sword. And Bushido is literally the way of the warrior. So while boys were the only ones able to become samurai, girls also received this training and were equipped to defend their communities if needed. So, I mean, they still got the training, they still got the education, but they were not, most of the time, not able to become legitimate samurai. In my research, no. But in my research, there have been a few female samurai. And there was one I found called Tamoe Gozen. I definitely want to cover her at a later date, because she's a badass. And this episode is already going to be really long. So I don't go into detail with her now, but I definitely want to cover her later. Because I was going through her history, and I was like, oh my god, there's so much. And this is already a very long episode. So Tamoe Gozen is a female samurai. Okay, so I'm going to give the trigger warning here. Trigger warning for discussion of suicide. Skip for like two or three minutes, and then we won't talk about it again. Okay, so the A form of ritualistic suicide conducted by the samurai is called seppuku. It's also called herikiri. And I think herikiri is from the Chinese characters. I don't know which Chinese language, because there's several. Herikiri and seppuku, from all I could figure out, was pretty similar. I think seppuku is a specific form of ritualistic suicide, and herikiri is more of like the general. Because in a documentary I was watching, they were saying there are multiple ways to commit suicide. Seppuku specifically is where the abdomen is cut with a sword. And the reason they cut the abdomen was that there was a belief from the indigenous religion in Japan that the soul was in the abdomen, was in the belly. So they would cut to release the soul. The first form known of seppuku was performed by Minamoto no Tamatomo, who was a samurai in the late Heian period, which was right when samurai were first starting to, like that culture and that belief system was starting to spread throughout Japan. When seppuku began being practiced, it was done as a way to honorably die instead of being beheaded by the enemy. But also that, quote, a heroic act of seppuku is associated with a certain reverence, but seppuku itself was nothing more than an act of suicide and was not considered to be particularly honorable, end quote. So it was more like you did it to restore your honor, but if you just did it, that wasn't what was honorable. It was the situation that made it honorable. Yeah. Right. Right. Mm-hmm. Or have been alleged, like have been accused of doing, like the doc, I didn't write it in my notes, but Dave Lowery, who is a historian in the documentary I watch, said that like if someone accused you of wrongdoing, you would commit seppuku and like show your insides and say, look, I'm here. I did not do this wrong deed. So that wasn't very common, but it did happen. And I'll get into it in just a second, but it was also done to like honor the master. It's, yeah. So the site, the website I got this information from says that samurai would not immediately commit seppuku upon being captured by an enemy. Apparently a lot would escape and live undercover. So it's not like something they wanted to do. It's not something they were like, okay, now that I've been captured, I'm going to commit seppuku. It was more like I would rather do this than be killed by the enemy, but I'm going to try to escape. So if a samurai or his master lost a battle, the samurai had lost everything. They lost their dignity. He lost everything of meaning to him. So the samurai could potentially regain his honor by harakiri or committing seppuku. And this is super serious, like it was not a lighthearted affair at all. And the ideology of seppuku shifted after Hideyoshi Toyotomi united Japan, which I'll get into later, and samurai began being forced to commit seppuku as punishment. So like if you dishonored yourself, you would be forced to commit seppuku. So here's different motives that one would commit seppuku for. So there is oibara, which is following one's master into death. Sumebara, which was being forced as a result of one's professional responsibility or duty. Munenbara, or suicide and mortification, and I assume that's like if you've humiliated yourself. To avoid a humiliation of capture by an enemy, and this was limited to commanders specifically. If a commander was captured by an enemy. And the commanders would also commit seppuku to spare their own families and their soldiers from being killed. And then if a samurai prematurely attacked in battle, this was considered dishonorable. And Ieyasu Takugawa, who I'll talk about later, mandated this rule and that the offender's families and retainers would also be forced to commit suicide. If a samurai acted dishonorably by prematurely attacking in battle. Samurai began following their masters into death after Mishima Geki no Yodo committed seppuku after his master, Yoriyuki Hosokawa, died of natural causes. It started becoming more widespread during the Edo period, which was a time of peace. There wasn't really a lot of wars going on during the Edo period. And the specific practice of following the master into death was banned in 1665. Samurai, yeah. The website I got this from goes into more detail about different ways to commit seppuku, but they honestly made me feel really nauseous, so I'm not going to go into detail about that. But you can find the details on the website, and it is the, I believe it is the historyofjapanguide.com website. I believe that's where I got it from. Okay, let me go back to, I'm almost done talking about it. Let's see. So later on, as the custom kept going, an assistant was brought into the process. Because initially, the process of just cutting the abdomen was a very long, slow, painful death. And so what ended up shifting was that now there were assistants. And as soon as the samurai would cut their own abdomen, the assistant would decapitate them with a katana to spare them, to make the death very quick. And then the documentary mentions a man named Nita Yoshisada from the 14th century who allegedly committed suicide by cutting off his own head. But that has not been confirmed. I think it was Turnbull that was talking about it, and he said, like, the swords were sharp enough. Maybe it was possible. Like, if he just, like, did that to himself. I don't know. Because the katanas were extremely sharp. They're rumored to have cut through seven corpses at once. Yeah, extremely sharp. Okay, I just want to make sure that I'm not missing anything. Extremely sharp. Okay, I just got a couple more little points, and then I'll be done. I wouldn't go into so much detail if it wasn't so important to the samurai, like, culture. So seppuku was also a form of punishment, that is, an honorable way to die versus being beheaded or crucified, quote, which were considered dishonorable punishments, not besetting members of the samurai class. So seppuku as a whole, as punishment, was banned in 1873, and it was replaced by hanging as capital punishment, which I think is still how Japan doles out capital punishment. I'm not 100% sure. I think they still do hanging. I'm not 100% sure. I meant to look it up. And only samurai could commit seppuku. It was a right only specific to samurai. Soldiers and commoners were not allowed to commit seppuku. They could commit suicide, but not specifically seppuku. And that's all I have about seppuku. It's not very common, but it's still, yeah. All right. Samurai had their own specific form of horseback archery called yabusame. It's traditional Japanese samurai archery conducted on horseback. So this is kind of where I saw a discrepancy. From the documentary I was watching was saying that archery, like when samurai were first coming into being, their primary mode of warfare was on horseback with archery. And then another source I saw said that during the Kamakura period, which I'll get into, a shogun saw that his samurai were decreasing in their skill in archery, and he made sure that they were specifically trained in it, and it's actually still, the traditional method of it is still practiced today in rituals and ceremonies and stuff in Japan. So maybe it did become less common because horses were a lot more difficult to get around, and so maybe the art of archery on horseback, it declined as populations got bigger, and then the shogun, Minamoto no Yoritomo, wanted to make sure that they kept that practice alive. So that's my hypothesis. I don't know if that actually happened. So samurai had their own castles called shiro, and they were basically fortresses. And currently there are about 25,000 castles in Japan. A lot of them are ruins, but there's a lot of castles. I didn't put one in the pictures, but a big one that shows up repeatedly in my research, I don't talk about it a whole lot, it's called Osaka Castle, and it was one of the most heavily fortified castles in Japan, until a conqueror was able to manipulate his way past the front lines and defenses. Because it was under siege for a year, and they weren't able to break through. Is everything okay? Oh. Okay. I can't hear it, if that helps. Oh, wow. I can hear it now. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, they're absolutely gorgeous. I didn't write this down, but in the documentary they're talking about Osaka Castle, and they're talking about the walls fortifying the castle. It was nine miles around. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Each noble clan or family had a unique crest, and those were called kamon. And over time, samurai would put the emblems of their crest on their armor and katanas. And each family or clan had a unique kamon. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I keep on saying kamon, like Ramon, but that's not Japanese. Ramon. So now one of the most iconic parts of the samurai is their sword, the katana. So the samurai sword was considered the soul of the samurai. Only samurai could wield them. No one else could have a katana. And here's where I put before the katana were widespread, samurai primarily used bow and arrow. But over time, more foot soldiers and close combat was used, so the sword became more useful. Ieyasu Takagawa marked the sword was the soul of the samurai. We'll talk about him in a minute. Turnbull, who's one of the historians in the documentary I watched, named it as the most high-quality sword ever made. And one part of the design of it is that immediately upon unsheathing the sword, you could kill someone with it. And that's like part of its design. So originally, warriors in Japan used straight swords called tsurugi, and this is based on a Chinese design. But eventually a curved sword was developed. So it's wielded with two hands. And the back of the sword could be used as a shield. And the back of the sword was more springy and more flexible. And then the front end of the sword was offensive, and it was extremely sharp, and it was the hardest part of the sword. Lowry from the documentary noted that – oh, no, Turnbull, I'm sorry, says in the documentary it's basically two different swords in one. And it could be used very effectively for offense and defense. Lowry noted the curve was developed around the 1300s by metalworkers for two different reasons. One, the curved blade was stronger, and it was faster. And again, like with that unsheathing, like with the movement of the body, the sword could immediately be used upon you taking it out of the scabbard. Whereas with the long sword, you have to get the whole thing out, and then you have to do it. Whereas the katana – yeah. Yeah. She is. And again, this is also when samurai were fighting more on foot as horses were not as numerous as the population grew and armies grew. And in the documentary, they are saying that the terrain in Japan is so mountainous that it was hard to get horses everywhere that you needed them to be in very big numbers. So as armies grew – there was still cavalry, and there were still horseback archers, but there were also growing numbers of foot soldiers and samurai fighting on foot. Another very iconic piece of the samurai is their armor. This is very unique to Japan and samurai specifically. So the way that their armor was constructed is called lamella construction, and it's a lot of – in Europe, knights had, like, plate armor. So it was big sheets of, like, metal that were used defensively. Whereas in Japan, they used scales that were bound together. And it provided a lot of flexibility to the armor, one, for movement, but two, it would deflect weapons. So rather, like, the plates would, like, stop. The scales would make weapons bounce off of them. That included spears, arrows, katanas, regular swords. Like, it was better to deflect the energy going somewhere else than having it stop, like, in your shoulder. Yeah. And initially, samurai armor was very heavy when they were primarily on horseback because all they had to do was shoot bow and arrow. Like, they didn't have to run around and stuff. But as the need for movement on the ground became needed, samurai armor did get lighter and a lot more flexible. Helmets to samurai – they're designed to shield the neck. Most helmets have, like, a flap or a shield that goes around the neck. And actually, I have some pictures if you go back to the skit. If you scroll down to the bottom, there are some examples of modern-day samurai. And the one on the right has, like, the deflection for the neck. And another key piece of the samurai armor was a face mask. Originally, they were metal plates just to shield the face. But over time, they started getting more detailed. And they didn't say this in the documentary. They kind of implied it. But a lot of the face masks would have, like, a big grid and almost embody, like, a demon. And maybe it was to, like, inflict fear on your enemy. And, yeah, you can't really see it in the picture because they're a little blurry. But both of the face masks have, like, these grids on them. And some would have, like, whiskers. Some had, like, facial hair. A lot of them had noses. They got really, really detailed. And I'd be running the other way for sure. So samurai were not just limited to katanas or bows and arrows. They were also a weapon called a naginata. And it's a spear. And it also has a curved blade. At the end of the 16th century, samurai began proficiency with muskets. So firearms, and I'll get into everything. I'm getting more detailed at this later because I'm just getting the general samurai overview done before I go into more detail about the history of Japan and samurai. But in, like, the late 16th century, gunpowder and rifles were brought over. And so samurai began incorporating the use of firearms into their military tactics as well. From, like, the late 1500s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really not. And, like, I didn't even know that until I was watching the documentary. And there was a lot of reenactments playing in the documentary of, like, lines of samurai with rifles and, like, engaging in, like, armed combat through firearms. And then we talked a little bit about, like, the military as a whole in the army. So not everyone in a samurai army was a samurai. Samurai were elite. And a lot of them hired, like, foot soldiers to fight for them. So the soldiers were still very highly trained, but they were not the samurai class. And a lot of them were permanent hired soldiers. The leader of the army is called the daimyo. Or great name. It literally means great name in Japanese. And the daimyo is a leader of a clan or family. And they would also lead their militaries for, like, their clan. And then family members of the daimyo would be leaders of different factions of the battlefield. So, like, one would be in charge of, like, the samurai. One would be in charge of the archers. One would be in charge of the foot soldiers, et cetera. And we know a lot about what we know of warfare in Japan from a book called the Gonkimo. And it's a collection of stories of war between the 12th and 14th centuries. And essentially the expectation for samurai specifically is that they would find another samurai worth fighting on the battlefield. And they would fight to the death. This sometimes happened. If they weren't killed by a flying arrow in the middle of battle, which happened. Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess the historians were kind of suggesting that them fighting face-to-face on the battlefield didn't happen quite as often as an unlucky samurai being hit with an arrow. And then in the documentary Turnbull brought up ninjas who were elite assassins during the era of the samurai. They were even more elite and even more specialized than samurai. And then there's a group called Ronin. And they were samurai who had lost their masters and were seeking new armies to join. So, I assume these were not samurai who committed – I guess this was before it became custom for what I talked about earlier. And so, when their master had died or whatever happened, they would actually join, like, almost as mercenaries. They would, like, go and get hired by additional armies to fight on their side. There's style. So, it was custom for samurai to have top knots or komagi. And they shaved the tops of their heads. And you'll see that a lot in depictions of samurai. The tops of their heads are shaved. And that was to keep them cool when they wore their helmets. And then when they wore their helmets, they would have their hair, like, straight down on the sides. When they were not wearing their helmet, they would have the top knot. Their clothing, samurai children typically wore very colorful patterned clothing. And it got more subdued as samurai got older. They wore a kimono as their daily clothing. And their swords tucked into an obi on their left side. And an obi is like a belt. I think it's like a fabric belt that's, like, tied in the back. No, they did not wear swords while indoors. But they did have a weapon on them at all times. Like, probably a dagger, like, tucked in somewhere. Because you never know. Yeah. And then outside, they wore a kamishomo over the kimono, which had two parts. So, there's a sleeveless jacket. And then there were pants with wide legs. And they were called hakama. So, they would wear those on top of the kimono. And then if they were traveling, they would wear another coat over the kimono. So, those were all, like, custom clothing for samurai. And then samurai belonged to a class called shimen. And they were the top elite class of Japan. They wore two swords and had a family name and first name. So, most samurai have, like, and I think it's custom in Japan to say the family name first. And then, like, their given name second. I've noticed in my sources, it kind of, like, flips them around a little bit. I'm reporting it as I saw it in my source. But it could be flipped around depending on where I got it from. So, I'm sorry. And shoguns and daimyo, lords. And shoguns are basically military dictators. And I'll get more into those in a second. But they were also considered shimen. Because most of them were samurai as well. And like I said earlier, the morals and ethics of the samurai still persist to this day, with honor and shame being prominent elements in modern society in Japan. All right. So, let's see. What page am I on? Okay. I'm about halfway done. There's a lot of stuff about samurai. I was not expecting. So, a lot of this next stuff I got from the documentary I watched. This is more of a cultural background. Like, kind of explaining the environment and the political structure at the time. So, Japan historically has been very isolated from other civilizations. One, it's an island. So, it's going to be pretty isolated. And it's also, like, super mountainous. And I think I watched something, and this is not in my sources, and I'm not using this as an official thing in my research, but I think I saw a video that said, like, the northern part of Japan wasn't even explored until, like, planes were invented. Because it was so mountainous, no one could get, like, over there. Yeah. I could be wrong. That's from a video I watched, like, years ago, and I don't remember if that's completely true, but it was very isolated. And just because it's so mountainous, and it's a very large series of islands, there's a lot of very isolated communities in Japan. So, there wasn't a lot of trade in between different provinces and communities. And agriculture is very difficult. The documentary said, like, 20% of the land in Japan is farmable. It's not a lot at all. And it's very hard to, like, it gets really hot in the summers, and absolutely blistering cold in the winters. There's monsoons that can create, like, big tidal waves, and, like, earthquakes. There's so many earthquakes. So, it's really hard to have, like, a really stable crop there. But one thing that they're able to grow very consistently is rice. Rice is extremely important to a Japanese way of life. It is a cultural staple. It's a food staple. The documentary called it the lifeblood of Japan. Literally, wars happened over rice. Turnbull said, quote, there is therefore a great competition for land in order to gain access to other people's farming communities. Like, if you conquered a province, a province, you could gain access to their farming, their agriculture, get their rice. So, the Yamato family became the ruling family in the 7th century. I didn't really see a whole lot before this. This is already really early in our story, before the samurai came into power. The first, they said the first emperor stepped into power. The emperor became essentially high priest of the Shinto religion, and the Shinto religion is an indigenous religion. There's a lot of focus on, like, nature, the gods in nature. I'll explain this now, because this is going to be important as we move forward. So, the emperor, I think, most importantly, throughout most of this episode and this story, is more of a religious figure. There are other people that are doing the actual, like, ruling. And I'll get more into it a little bit later, but the emperor doesn't seem to have a lot of political power in and of itself. It's more like he is the high priest of the sun goddess. Mainly. And the Yamato family, who came into power, they claimed they were direct descendants of the sun goddess. And this became an imperial standard. Samurai were expected to maintain and respect, so they continued to acknowledge that the emperor was descended from the sun goddess and his family. So, Shinto and Buddhism, which was also brought over in the 7th century, were the two major religions in Japan for a very long time, and they helped define the samurai way of life. So, with these in mind, according to Turnbull, samurai literally means one who serves, or a servant. And samurai had masters who they served. According to one of those theories that we talked about, they were military officers that were appointed by higher-ups, in, like, high government officials. And they also acted as guards to the emperor. They were an elite guard, like special forces. Special forces. I can never say that right the first time. So, Lowry said at some points in Japanese history, you had to be born into a samurai class to have the opportunity to be a samurai, and at other points in history, you could climb the ranks from peasantry. So, it depended. He said usually in times of warfare, you could climb the ranks from being a peasant, and in times of peace, you had to be born into it. Oh, I thought I wrote that down. Oh my goodness. I had it down somewhere, and I guess I deleted it like an idiot. Give me a second. Okay. No, that's not it. Yes. Yes. So, about 700 years. That's a very long time. Thank you for that. I had it, and then I deleted it. And talking about the rise from peasantry, Lowry specifically named Hideyoshi Toyotomi, who I'll talk about later, who became a shogun, and he was born as a peasant. So, he was able to rise the ranks into basically the highest position you could hold as a samurai. And there were different government structures before the age of the samurai. Government was very aristocratic, like I mentioned, and used a lot of family ties and bloodlines to dictate positions of power. And then it kind of stayed similar to that, but there was a lot more conquering during the age of the samurai. And Turnbull states in a documentary that for the first 200 years of the samurai's existence, they were the enforcers of imperial family governance, of what was similar to the Chinese bureaucratic form of government. And we actually talked about what the Chinese form of government was in the Wu Zetian episode, and this is about the same time frame, like the early 7th century. It's still kind of maintained that form of government up until the 1100s. Turnbull called them the, quote, teeth and claws of the imperial family. But eventually, yes, I mean, samurai were not, you don't fuck around with samurai. Eventually, the samurai came to realize, huh, you know what, we could do better. Yes. Okay, so now I'm getting more into, I'm finally getting to everything that I said I was going to talk about later. So this is the chronology of samurai in Japan. So I'm going to start pretty early on with the Nara and Heian periods, between 710 and 1192. So the original capital, original, I don't know if there's anything before this, of Japan, was Kyoto, or at the time it was called Heian, and that was established in 794 CE. The culture was shifting from more Chinese-dominated customs to reflect the existing native beliefs and practices. It was becoming, quote, more Japanized. They're like, hey, like, we're going to come up with our own systems of government. So provinces around Japan were not protected from invaders, and their political practices were not regulated, and the central government did not do enough to protect the people. So samurai emerged to do all these things. In the 12th century, the Minamoto and Taira families rose to prominence within, like, the imperial system and gained political and military power. So the Taira family had, like, political, like, court power, and then the Minamoto family had, like, court power, and then the Minamoto family had military power. And the emperor was Taira Kiyomori, and he ruled from 1168 to 1170, so only, like, 10 years. So when Kiyomori died, the Minamoto and Taira families battled it out to see who was going to take over control. So Kiyomori had left behind a... No, never mind. Scratch that. I'm getting ahead of myself. Make sure I'm not skipping over anything, yeah. So the Minamotos won the civil war. They reigned supreme, and they took over politically in an era known as the Kamakura period, with Minamoto Yoritomo being appointed shogun in 1192. And the battle that happened is called the Genpei War, and it was between 1180 and 1185. And I say this because this is one of where, like, the inconsistencies between my sources are. So one, the website afe.easiacolumbia.edu has the Kamakura period starting in 1185. The website japanguy.com has the Kamakura period starting in 1192. So it's more like, do you start it when the battle was won, or do you start it when the guy started taking over as shogun? So it's a seven-year difference. I think in the grand scheme of things, like, you know, it's a close enough time period. So this is during the medieval period of Japan. Minamoto is a shogun in Kamakura. So like I said earlier, the emperor is like the religious figurehead. The shogun became the military power, and they were essentially, like, they called the shots. They were the ruling class, the shogun. They had the political power. They were essentially emperor in all but name. And that was kind of confusing me, because that wasn't explicitly stated in anything I was researching. It was kind of something I, like, figured out for myself. Like, why does the emperor keep coming up in this when there's, like, the shogun? But it's because the emperor is a different entity and doesn't really have a lot of political power in and of itself. Yeah, basically. So like I said, there is an existing power structure in Kyoto still, while Minamoto was a shogun in Kamakura. And it's called a Kamakura period because when the Minamoto family won the war, they established their own capital in Kamakura. So they're in Kamakura, and then the emperor is still in Kyoto. So Minamoto Yoshitsune, he was a traditional samurai and an excellent tactician. And he helped fight against the Taira. And there is a sea battle at Dan-o-Ura, which is an island. And this is crazy. I'm going to have to try to find a picture of it. The defeated warriors there of the Taira family who died at sea are said to now live in the crabs there. And the shells show the faces of dead warriors. Hang on. Let me find a picture because I showed a picture of one in the documentary, and it was the wildest shit I've ever seen. Like, there's no way this can be real. This is a similar picture. I don't think it's the exact same picture, but it's a similar picture that was in the documentary. I'm going to post it in my notes. I just posted it. So if you scroll below the last two pictures of samurais, below that. So if you scroll below the last two pictures of samurais, below that. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that shit wild? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it said that the fallen soldiers and warriors of the Taira family still live in the crabs, and, like, the spirits of them inhabit the crabs. Yeah. They showed a picture of it in the documentary. I was like, there's no fucking way. That's not real. And, I mean, by all accounts, yeah. They're also called, according to Google, they're called Heikegani. And they're named after the once-powerful Taira clan, which dominated in Japan, commonly known as the Heike. Yeah, it's crazy. Okay. I'll post a picture so you guys can see. So around this time, samurai were, quote-unquote, peacekeepers during this transition, and they helped seize property from the aristocratic nobles. So this further weakened the previous government under the emperor, and the samurai military essentially took over Japan. Minamoto, the emperor, or the shogun, sorry, died in 1199, and there was a battle between Kamakura and Kyoto. Kamakura won, and they finally became the supreme ruling powers, with the imperial family and power structure in Kyoto dissolving, essentially. So from what I could figure out, they were still an emperor, but this is where they truly lost any kind of political relevance they had. So this is going to be a callback to another episode that we did. So in the 13th century, the Mongols had taken over China and were setting their sights to invade Japan. In 1274, most of the invading forces decimated by storms. And the samurai were able to barely hold off the Mongols who had made it to shore. Yeah, it happened again in 1281, and storms still decimated the Mongol invasion. They were going to, but they had too much shit going on in their own area that they never made the trip over to Japan. But they had all intents to before shit went down. So, and that's actually where we get the term kamikaze, because kamikaze means divine winds. And the Japanese were like, the divine winds have helped save us from the Mongol invaders. But because of these repeated attempts of invasion by the Mongols, the Kamakura government spent all of their money preparing for invasions when none came. So they're spending all of this money to like keep, like fortify their defenses and train their warriors, but they're not bringing in any money. And now their soldiers can't be paid. And now their soldiers can't be paid. Because there's no money. So in 1333, the emperor by birthright, Godaigo, restored the imperial power in Kyoto and triumphed over the Kamakura government. Yep, so it's back in the emperor's hands. For now. So the next period of time is the Muromachi period, or I've also seen it called the Ashikaga period. And that's between 1336 or 1338, again, different sources, to 1573. So about a little less than 200 years. So the Ashikaga samurai family took over the Kamakura government in 1333. So I guess like the emperor reinstated like his political power, but then the Ashikaga family were still like shogun and all of that. But they proved they were not as effective in maintaining control of the surrounding provinces. Also, in 1543, the Portuguese brought guns to Tanegashima. So now Japan has guns. During the 1400s and 1500s, the shoguns in Kyoto basically lost all their power there. I was reading through it. There's a lot of back and forth between like the emperor and the shogunate. And it was a lot. And it was hard to keep track of, so I'm not going into it. You can look more into it if you want to during the Muromachi period. So samurai came in and helped establish power to the shogun in Kyoto. So samurai came in and helped establish power to the shogun in Kyoto. And samurai became more powerful politically. And then the samurai who had control over provinces in Japan became known as daimyo, which I've mentioned before. But daimyo, they're essentially barons of the provinces. They, during this era, started becoming more sovereign and basically ruled over their territories. So even the shogun didn't have as much power over the provinces as the daimyo did, even though the daimyo weren't ranked as high as the shogun. Right. Yes, exactly. And this also led to more fighting between the provinces and more totalitarian rule by the daimyo rather than the central government. So there's just a lot of stuff going on. Enter another name. I know it's a lot of names in Japanese. It's hard to keep track of. We're going over 700 years of Japanese history. Very brief history, by the way. And I know I'm not going to include absolutely every single thing that happened because, oh, my gosh, there's so much. I'm trying to really keep it specific to the samurai because, oh, my gosh, there's so much. Yes. So enter a man named Oda Nobunaga. He was another samurai. He was able to capture Kyoto in 1568 and overthrew the existing government in 1573. And he eventually was he didn't do it himself, but it set the paving stones to unite Japan from all the different provinces and the different emperors and all the back and forth and all that stuff. In 1575, the documentary talked about the Battle of Nagashino. And this is when they were talking more about, like, the use of rifles. So the Takeda clan had their mounted samurai, and they were charging against Oda Nobunaga. And he had, like, 1,000 rifles, and he handed it out to his, like, most trusted foot soldiers. And the way that the Takeda clan, like, did their initial charge is they would basically just, like, plow over, like, any kind of front line that the opposing army had. But because Nobunaga had a bunch of rifles, you know, I mean, they still made it. Apparently, the battle continued for nine hours afterwards. But it kind of leveled the playing field a little bit more. And they were able to have a more traditional battle. Because, I mean, like, at that time muskets, it took forever to re-fire. So it's basically, like, you shoot one time, shoot as many people as you can, and then you fight, like, traditionally with bows and arrows and swords and whatnot and spears. And then Nobunaga eventually won this fight. So now we're going to the Azuchi-Moyoyama period. So Nobunaga took power in Kyoto, because he took it over, but he was killed in 1582. So one of his generals, who we mentioned before, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he was able to kind of retaliate against the enemy who had killed Nobunaga. And he kind of conquered Japan in the process. Yeah. And he was the one to finally unite Japan in 1590. So he basically united Japan by conquering Japan, from what I gathered. Nothing explicitly says that, but that's kind of the vibe I got. Oh my god. No one plays nice. They're just fighting all the time. So during the conquest, and this probably led to his ability to conquer, Hideyoshi confiscated all the swords and ordered all samurais to live in castle towns. So before this, samurai mostly lived—they were elites, but they also had their own farmland, they had their own crops and stuff. But now he's like, no, y'all can no longer be farmers. You have to live in the castles. So this was to increase divide in social classes. So now the samurai are even more elite, and there's even more of a difference between the samurai and the common people. And that gave—that allowed the government to have more control, according to the website I got this from. So Hideyoshi eventually went off to conquer China, and he was killed in 1598. So only eight—or, yeah, like barely ten years after he became shogun. And he left behind a five-year-old son, and his friend, question mark? Ieyasu Tokugawa took his place as shogun. So Ieyasu had connections to Hideyoshi and Nobunaga, and he was descended from the Minamoto line, though we talked about that initially started everything. So he was like, here I am. I am taking over now. And the documenter called him maybe the most famous samurai, but according to Turnbull, he called him the most successful samurai. And according to him, he, quote, reestablished the shogunate. So he is the one that was like, okay, the military powers are back. The dictator—the military dictatorship is back. And it was under his rule that this happened. So now we're getting into the Edo period, between 1600 or 1603, depending on the source, to 1868. So almost 300 years. So after winning the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Ieyasu was named a shogun by the emperor and moved to Edo, which is now Tokyo. So the shoguns from the Takagawa clan ruled for 250 years. Yeah, up until about the end of imperial Japan, almost. So the Takagawa family took total control over all areas of society and established castes. So there were class systems, and now there's caste systems. And we've talked about caste systems before. So the castes were divided into samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants, with samurai at the top. And you could not move out of your class. You had to stay within that class. And then there's also a fifth caste of, like, if you weren't any of those, you were, like, outcasts, essentially. Yeah. It was, because we talked about it when we talked about Hinduism in, like, episode two, way, way back. They had a caste system, too, of, like, Brahmin, and I can't remember them all right now off the top of my head. But I was always an untouchable. Every time. It always worked out that way. Every time. It always worked out that way. I never had any rights. So, yeah. Now there's a caste system, and this is where it's, like, okay, now you inherit the title of samurai. You're born into the family. Ieyasu, specifically, he kind of dispensed, like, he took existing land and redistributed it to the daimyo, and more daimyo. So, he was establishing more daimyo around Japan, but he also made them spend every other year in Edo. So, it was, like, every other year, they had to live in Edo for a year. This had a lot of financial impact on the daimyo, and it kind of ensured Ieyasu's rule because, with, one, their time split between two places and, two, the financial strain, the daimyo couldn't really, like, unite or come up with, like, a plan or funds for, like, an uprising. So, it was very calculated on Ieyasu's part, and it's also allowed Edo, which would eventually become Tokyo, to boom in population and become a major cultural center in Japan because, you know, there are samurai living in Edo, like, a lot of them, and so a lot of artisans and merchants were coming in to, like, help, like, provide commerce. Yeah, exactly, sell their goods to the samurai there. By 1700, there were over a million people living in Edo. Yeah. Yes. It's crazy. So, starting around 1615, Japan was in a time of, quote, unquote, peace, and that was more just because they were, like, crushed to the point where they couldn't really do anything about it, but because of this, samurai, they started branching out from just, like, their militaristic way of life, like, training by the sword, dying by the sword. They started becoming more, you know, diverse in their interests. They started getting into art, into literature, philosophy, and according to the website, I got this from the famous tea ceremony in merch from this time, like, the traditional tea ceremony. It's very, like, it's a very beautiful ceremony, but it's, like, a very, like, specific way, ritualistic way of doing a tea ceremony, but this emerged during this time. Towards the end of the Edo period, there was a lot less satisfaction with the existing government. Taxes started getting higher and higher. A bunch of natural disasters happened, like, there was droughts, there was storms, earthquakes. Again, there's so many earthquakes in Japan all the time. Like, the caste system started to fall apart a little bit, and riots started happening more, and that caused financial crises and financial strain on the government and the daimyo, so there's just a lot of things kind of snowballing. And over time, again, like, merchants started becoming more wealthy, especially, like, in Edo, and it started upsetting that power balance, because originally the merchants were on, like, almost the bottom of the caste system, but now they are more wealthy than the samurai, and the samurai no longer have a means of gaining wealth anymore, because there's no more battles, there's no more war. You know, they don't really have a means. Yeah, and there's no one to fight. And also, this was just kind of a note that I saw, but Japan was, like, very isolated during this time, and they forbade trade with any other countries, with very, very few, very specific exceptions, so there was, like, more of a monoculture. Like, everything was very, very isolated during this time, until 1868. So that's when everything's starting to change. So now we're getting into the—we're almost done. We're getting to the end here, with the Meiji period, between 1868 and 1912. We're not going to get all the way to 1912, but this is when this next kind of period starts. So Turnbull, in the documentary, mentions a man during this time who he believes is the last of the samurai, a man named Saigo Takamori. He was named the greatest warrior in Japan in the late 1800s. He organized the Satsuma Rebellion when there was a lot of changes going on in the imperial structure, and Saigo led an uprising against this. He lost the battle. He committed the thing we talked about early on. So I think, by all accounts, that was the last time that happened, and he was the last samurai. The existing government during the Edo period eventually collapsed, and then Emperor Meiji was reinstated. So he was the descendant, and he was finally legitimized as emperor, and he actually gained political ruling power in Japan. And this is when he—because before, the emperor had stayed in Kyoto. The entire time, the emperor was in Kyoto, but now he moved to what is now Tokyo, which is the current capital of Japan. There's a lot of big changes happening in Japan. Japan signed a bunch of treaties with Western entities and countries, and the government sought to implement democracy. There's wanting to implement equality throughout Japan. So now the caste system is completely breaking down, and the samurai no longer have any privileges they've been used to for hundreds of years. And by all intents and purposes, the samurai class no longer exists. There are still—at this time, people are still trained in the way of the samurai, but they're kind of irrelevant at this point. And in 1867, the government of Japan looked to the West for inspirations for their systems of government, and they also changed the way the military was structured. So, Lowry in the documentary noted that the army was comprised of the former commodore class, while the navy was made of the former samurai and descendants of samurai. And they later evolved the air force and kamikaze pilots. So they still kind of had that way of thinking. And then the last note, both historians in the documentary, Lowry and Turnbull, note that the way the samurai still lives on, more so in a way of living, versus fighting in battles, essentially. Yeah. No, but they mention a lot of loyalty to jobs, loyalty to brands, loyalty to your boss. That's still very prevalent in Japan. Complete dedication to your craft, whatever that is. Mostly just work, but whatever it is, a lot of refinement and dedication to that. So, that is a very brief, truncated history of samurai. Thank you. Thank you. It took several days to research. I know I didn't get everything. If you're a samurai expert, you don't have to yell at me. I know I didn't get everything. Again, this is a very brief history. I can't wait to cover... Gozen. Yes. And I may do even more of a deep dive into different customs of samurai, just to provide context to her story. I was talking with Kyle about this, and he was like, well, what does it take to be a samurai? And I tried looking it up, and I couldn't find anything specific. So maybe there wasn't one specific way. You start training really early. You get trained in the way of the sword and the way of the warrior. And that's about as specific as I could find. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, it's crazy. And being able to use it well, to at least maim people. No way. How is that? Yep. Yep. Oh, bless him. Sorry not sorry. Yeah. They need to learn how to lose and handle disappointment. It's fine. Oh, wow. Mm-hmm. Oh. Oh. And friendships, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh, I still remember that time me and you and an ex of mine were playing Monopoly, and he literally flipped the port. Like, it's a game. Like, I lost, too. You don't see me flipping boards. I'll play with you. I know I'll lose, but I'll still play. I'm a good sport. You know what? That sounds fun. All right. It's getting late, so I figure we should do our socials. Illequipped history podcast. At Illequipped history. Patreon.com slash Illequipped history. At Illequipped history. Illequipped history. Illequipped history. At Illequipped history. Illequipped history at gmail.com. All right. Yes, leave a review, tell us how funny we are. We scream at each other. We scream at each other. We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! We're like, ah! Too greedy. Too greedy. Too greedy. Too greedy. Too greedy. Too greedy. Too greedy. Too greedy. Too greedy.