Nanking Massacre: Part 3 - Injustice

Well, that lost blog was a real downer, huh? But hey, at least now you get to hear about how all the Safe Zone members grew to be heroes and the Japanese had to pay massive reparations back to the Chinese citizens and were punished severely for their crimes, so at least that's something, right? At least that's what I thought. Prepare yourself for disappointment!

The defendants at the war crimes trial. Judge Judy
would have ripped them a new one.

What we were left with is a citizenship that has either escaped to the Safe Zone or been slaughtered, or worse. The city itself is in shambles as well, many buildings torched and left in rubble. The worst occurred over the first six weeks, but after that it began to slow down and the city started to rebuild itself. The Japanese established a self-governing body of Chinese officials, and while high taxes and pilfering still happened (it was an occupation of a country, after all) the more brutal crimes began to subside. Vendors popped up on the roads and people came out of hiding again, and for all I know it was probably sunnier. This is how it went until the Japanese lost the war and thus had to head back to their home territory, leaving China once again to its own devices.

But what to do about the soldiers that so devastated the Chinese? Well, it wasn't easy, and it certainly wasn't quick. The war crimes trial for them (International Military Tribunal for the Far East) was three times as long as the more popular Nuremberg Trails. Where Nuremberg really brought down the hammer, including searching for a number of Nazis that had fled Germany when the war started to go south, the IMTFE (or Tokyo Trials, as that's an awful acronym) left many without persecution.

The Japanese Emperor and all of the royal family was left intact. The Emperor's involvement does seem like a bit of a grey area, I'll admit. However, the royal family does include Prince Asaka, who did not even have to appear at the trial. That's shocking. There were heaps of evidence against him and he didn't even have to lie about it. He wasn't the only one, either; much of the Japanese bureaucracy was left intact, and it wasn't for lack of misdeeds. Considering one prisoner of war in every twenty five died under the Nazis, and one in every three for the Japanese, it's infuriating why they weren't cracked down on harder. This is largely due to the changes in China's government, Japan's place in the world as a country of strategic importance being close to the communists as the Cold War closed in, and other such large, sweeping political reasons that leave historical justice ultimately rather unsatisfying.

"This is the courtroom of the International Military Tribunal
for the Far East. The people are real. The cases are real.
The rulings are final!"

China's reaction to Japan was a little different from what most would have expected, as well. The People's Republic of China had just taken over and they were looking for international legitimacy. This meant forgiving Japan, which, as you would expect, didn't sit well with the people of Nanking. Considering what they just perpetrated on their soil, seeing their leader shaking hands with the Japanese head honcho not long afterwards and effectively saying "hey man, don't worry, it's cool" didn't fly. Worse yet, those same people didn't receive proper reparations as they for the most part seemingly didn't know they could or didn't really have the means to try for it. All those atrocities were kind of swept under the rug for the purposes of politics. Boy. My blog has become a real downer, but I'd like to see you try to brighten this mess up.

Oh, and those incredibly helpful foreigners that helped saved the lives of literally tens of thousands of people? Well! Apparently, karma was out taking a leak. Seeing as the communists (darn communists!) weren't particularly fond of the west, they turned their backs on them, saying they actually assisted the Japanese soldiers in clearing out their citizens. Of course, the citizens of Nanking thought of them as saviours, but that didn't fit with the narrative of the west being evil.

A man hanging a banner pleading for textbook reformation.
Canadians do that, but mostly it's students whining about
learning about the fur-trade for the tenth time.

One of the Americans was so traumatized by the events she later committed suicide. As for that one lovable Nazi (don't hear that everyday) he was denounced by the Nazi party as when he returned to Germany he spoke ill of Japan. His timing wasn't great; he came back during World War II, so this news didn't sit well with Germany's leaders. He went into poverty and had difficulties finding work, even struggling to feed his family. Since this is getting too depressing, here's a nice moment; the people of Nanking never forgot him, and once they got word of his plight, they sent him money and food that helped him and his own survive through those tough years.

In more recent history, Japan has developed their own form of "Holocaust denier" types, claiming that the entirety of the Nanking massacre was fabricated. Their claims are just as ridiculous and dubious as, well, those of Holocaust deniers. Regardless, they've had a lot of support; one man, speaking about the necessity of learning about Japan's history during World War II, was threatened and eventually shot. There have also been a fair number of cases of high ranking political officials casting doubt on the events of Nanking and otherwise. The school textbooks have remarkably light and favourable sections about it, at the very least at the time the book in which this information has come from was released.

All told, the war with China caused the deaths of four million people, only 400,000 of them were soldiers. If you factor disease and starvation in there (Japan's area bombing and occasionally dropping plague germs from planes certainly factors into this) the losses total as high as 19 million. But it seems kind of glossed over, doesn't it? It's between World War I and it's highly anticipated sequel, it's been far too easy to forget.
______________________________________

The information for this blog was taken from Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking. I'd recommend it if you're ever in too good a mood and feel like you should be brought down.

Nanking Massacre: Part 2 - Atrocities

This blog won't be an easy one to write. I've covered some pretty dark stuff, that's for certain, but nothing quite like this before. It poses some unique problems. This entire segment will be about a horrific massacre of an innocent, peaceful city. I've been able to joke around about some truly awful things, but a mass murder that rightfully draws comparisons to the Holocaust isn't something that should be approached facetiously. Worse yet, the degree in which many people still decline to acknowledge what happened in Nanking makes the issue still current, so while saying "too soon" might be off, there have been recent events that have reopened the wound. So, to my avid readers (realistically just my father) this one won't be as fun loving, save for my photo captions - I can't break my mould. In the same breath, I won't go too into detail as many of the stories are too awful for the intents and purposes of this blog. I'll also keep the pictures P.G., but remember - if you search for more information on this independently, brace yourself, because there are things you will not want to see.

Prince Asaka, presumably
before releasing
"When Doves Cry."

Anyways.

The Chinese city of Nanking surrenders to the Japanese in the late months of 1937. The general at the time, Iwane Matsui, wished to take the city but to leave it virtually untouched. He demanded violence only be subjected to those that rebelled against the takeover, and that looting be off-limits. Those that broke those rules would be punished for their actions. This seemed all well and good until Matsui came down with tuberculosis, placing a member of the Imperial royal family in charge - one Prince Asaka Yasuhiko. (Note: it may be Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, and it seems to be written multiple ways due to Japanese naming conventions I do not understand; the same goes for Matsui. From this point on I will refer to them as Matsui and Asaka, as that seems to be most common.) Asaka saw the situation differently; taking that many prisoners (many of them soldiers) would mean feeding and keeping watch over them, which would be an economic strain to the army. Because of this, and with the running feeling of contempt towards the Chinese population, he then put out the order to kill all the captives. It's a matter of some debate whether he directly sent out that order or not, but it did come from a higher up with his seal. Regardless of whether or not the order came from his hand, he certainly did nothing to stop it.

From here, one of the worst, most savage massacres of a large population in history occurred at the hands of the Japanese army. The remaining soldiers, of which there were likely about 90,000 or so, were systematically taken aside and executed. Men were killed in droves in this manner, taken away in groups to limit the chance of an uprising. Many thought they were simply being transported elsewhere until they would see the piles of corpses to which they were being led.

The citizens fared no better. Civilians were killed in the streets and tossed into the adjacent river. Women, children, the elderly - no single person was off limits, and would be killed where they stood. The soldiers would move from house to house, eliminating entire families of Chinese.

The article about the "sword competition". It's like they
knew what Hitler was going to do and tried to match
him on the villany scale.

The women fared the worst; they would be raped regardless of age, sometimes being passed around to up to twenty men. Crimes of that nature would occur openly, and while it was technically against the orders that were sent down, it was shockingly common. It became such an issue that they set up a system of "comfort women" houses, essentially a government sanctioned ring of prostitution, to slow the number of rapes that were occurring. It would be decades before anyone would speak up about this because of the shame that would be wrought on the individual women that had survived the ordeal; Chinese culture placed a strong emphasis on the purity of women, and admitting they were defiled in this manner would be a terrible ordeal in and of itself. The Japanese government would deny that the prostitution ring existed, but documents addressing it from high-ranking officials confirmed its presence.

However, it wasn't only the women that would find hardships. Death from execution is far from the worst that could happen; many of the citizens had to endure much worse. Many were buried alive, mutilated for sport, burned to death, frozen in the river, or ripped apart by dogs. Famously, an article details a competition between two men over who could kill one hundred prisoners with a sword first. While many of the details are simply too grisly to discuss here, I'll leave you with this: one confession from a Japanese soldier is as follows. I warn you, it's not for the faint of heart.

"Few know that soldiers impaled babies on bayonets and tossed them still alive in pots of boiling water. They gang-raped women from the ages of twelve to eighty and then killed them when they could no longer satisfy sexual requirements. I beheaded people, starved them to death, burned them, and buried them alive, over two hundred in all. It is terrible that I could turn into an animal and do these things. There are really no words to explain what I was doing. I was truly a devil."

The death toll skyrocketed in the first six weeks, the most brutal of the killings. The numbers fluctuate, but the best estimates factoring everything in come to around 250,000-400,000 people killed in the city of Nanking alone. Bear in mind that the population of the city was roughly 500,000-600,000 by the time the citizens that had the fortune of getting away had left and by the time the Japanese arrived. These deaths weren't from area bombings or other methods of indiscriminate killing - these were individual and personal, one person killing another. The city itself lay in ruins as well, with $836,000,000 in public property damage and another $136,000,000 in private property. 

John Rabe: One of two Nazis history is
OK with. The other is the guy from
Schindler's List.

What prevented the total destruction of the city of Nanking was a small group of foreigners that were residing in Nanking. A little over two dozen from Europe and America, they set up a safe zone that were off-limits to the Japanese soldiers. They were led by the most unlikely of heroes; John Rabe, a high ranking Nazi. Every last one of them worked tirelessly, bringing members into the safe zone and sending away Japanese that did not respect the boundaries. They did not have weapons, but would scare them off by their status or through physically grabbing soldiers and sending them away. Attacking these individuals would have led to an international incident, so they managed to hold back the army until things began to settle. While the Japanese were not particularly intimidated by the Americans, they were frequently dissuaded by two Nazis (especially John Rabe) that would flash their Swastika badge at every opportunity. Fearful of allied Nazi reprisal, the Japanese held their distance. The zone accommodated 200-300,000 people, saving them from the tortures and brutality of the Japanese army. It's truly a story of incredible heroism, with such a massive number of lives saved by the efforts of so few. 

If this story has your blood boiling, well, I wish I could say it gets better. The response, from seemingly every party, including a number of Japanese officials, the Chinese government, and many others pours salt on the wound. That, however, will be saved for the final installment.

Nanking Massacre: Part 1 - Marching Towards a Slaughter

Chiang Kai-Shek, then the Chairman
of China's government. The problem with
detailing massacres is the pictures are
rather horrible, so... here's just a picture
of a man.

History is chock-full of human misery. At least to some degree it's the byproduct of massive movements; revolutions, rebellions (whether they are toppling something evil or not), even technological or economic surges tend to have more than a pinch of sadness mixed into the soup. Take one look at the industrial revolution and you'll probably find that those factory workers weren't in the highest of spirits. Look into the Great Leap Forward and Stalin's Five Year Plans and you'll find them paved with suffering. Even the Canadian Pacific Railway meant moving through hordes of mosquitoes (although that one might be a push). The most obvious example I haven't mentioned yet is warfare. It's just about the worst thing humanity puts itself through, and gosh darn it do we do it often. Worse yet, there are far too many examples of when countries are going toe to toe with bitter hatreds between them, and those hatreds culminate into the worst, most heinous acts against their fellow man. Nanking is the tragic story of Chinese citizens that felt the brunt of wartime aggression meeting its maximum in the most foul and horrible ways imaginable.

The atrocities that were committed in Nanking cannot be explained by simply stating "well, these things happen in war." The number of civilian deaths and crimes committed on them doesn't allow for that simplistic of reasoning. There's something more there, because this doesn't happen in the average war. The roots of it go way back just before Canada was even a country. Japan had just gone through an extended period of isolation, setting themselves far behind the rest of the developed world technologically. Feeling snubbed, the modern, social world still remembered that the land of Japan was brimming with resources and potential, but were being squandered by closing their borders to the outside. America, in the most typically American fashion, decided that they had had enough and sailed right into their harbours with their giant, imposing, technologically advanced fleet of ships with Matthew Perry at the helm (his name isn't important, but... Matthew Perry). The purpose wasn't to destroy Japan, but to force them into trade agreements. Ultimately they were successful, but it caused the Japanese citizenship to have some qualms with how their leaders dealt with the situation; essentially, they were displeased by the way they were bowing down to these foreigners and giving in so readily. The result was a massive uprising that displaced their leaders, setting up a new government. 

China's military marching. Another riveting picture.
Trust me, you would prefer this to the alternative.

From there, the new Japan awakened, and this time they meant business. Well... not just because of the commerce deal, but that's another matter. They were united under the banner of Japan and the Emperor, seeking to rise to power once more. They learned the technology that had long since surpassed them, studied the military tactics of other countries (they were most impressed by Germany's), and all the while their whole culture became very warlike. Propaganda abounded, and schools had a distinctly military feel to them. There was also a distinct feeling of superiority, and the belief that they were the greatest of the Asian nations, and thus felt a contempt for the countries around them. What helped both stroke the ego of the Japanese and fanned the flames of hatred towards the Chinese was the fact that Japan became exceptionally rich during World War I through dealing weaponry and supplies, but ran into post-war difficulties through tariffs imposed upon them. Suddenly, they were faced with the decision of trying to push into world markets and emigrating out (avenues that were largely shut down by other countries) or taking more territory by force. 

They had what it takes to do it; individual dedication, the weaponry for their soldiers, a strict devotion to their leader, and on top of that, the change in government also reignited the samurai ethic of Bushido. It is that samurai code that made them such a difficult foe in World War II; surrender was exceptionally rare, and they saw their lives as meaningless unless their actions supported the Emperor. To demonstrate with statistics: Allied soldiers surrendered at a rate of one prisoner for every three dead. The Japanese, however, had a rate of one for every 120. So with all their determination, their first step was to set their sights on their very large neighbour. The desire to acquire more territory is what led them to attack China, which meant doing their best to incite an incident to give them an excuse to go to war. They devised a plot in which they bombed their own train and made it look like it was the Chinese who had attacked. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the world did not take kindly to their actions, and Japan left the League of Nations in 1933 to stake their claim in mainland Asia.

The building to building fighting in the Chinese cities.
Those practiced in Call of Duty felt they were better
prepared, but realized shortly after it didn't exist yet.

The Japanese felt they were going to storm through China without much difficulty, planning to have the massive country under their control in what some estimated as a three month stretch of fighting. However, it didn't pan out that way; the Chinese defended their city of Shanghai with the savage vigour of those that, well, are defending their very homes and livelihood. The fighting stretched out to street-by-street battles, plunging both countries into an exhausting, expensive and brutal war. The Japanese emerged victorious, but after suffering a number of losses and spending much more time than they had anticipated. It was with that anger and frustrating they marched upon Nanking.

The defense on the way to the city was poor. The Chinese had no air support, lacked communication (largely because the soldiers often spoke different languages) and many were just drafted, poorly trained, and sick. They were forced to retreat, and even then many died in what quickly turned into a rout as falling back proved difficult as well. From there, the city fell in just four days after having been sufficiently bombed in air raids.

As for the Nanking citizenship, half of the population had already left the city - typically those that had the wealth or the health to do so. With many of the outlying areas moving in, the city's population before the arrival of the Japanese but after many had ran reached somewhere around 600,000, with 90,000 soldiers captured as well. It was those unfortunate people that chose to remain in the city that would find the worst of fates at the hands of the invading Japanese soldiers, some 50,000 of them.

From there, the Japanese army went on to commit six weeks of some of the worst war crimes you'll ever hear. It was 1937, just prior to the second World War.

The Atomic Bomb: Part 2 - The Bomb in Use

"Hooray," thought the Americans. "We have the bomb! So... now what?"

What happens when you detonate a nuke underwater.
The centre is a massive column of water. They sought to test
"what happens when we blow up a bomb under the ocean?"
and came up with "it explodes". 

Bombing Germany was no longer necessary. They had just surrendered a few months prior to the full development and trial of the nuke, and unless the Americans wanted to prove a point, they weren't planning on using it on them anytime soon (unless in an unlikely Zombie Hitler scenario). So that leaves Japan, the never surrender, everything for the Emperor fighters that in spite of everything around them refuse to back down. The scientists were fifty-fifty with the rather obvious moral implications. Dropping a bomb on a Japanese city is no longer attacking soldiers - it's all civilian casualties, and a massive number of them in one fell swoop. However, to perpetuate the war for however long the Japanese were planning on holding out for (which may well have been to the very last able bodied soldier went down) would have meant losing a great number of American soldiers and postponed the end of the horrors of war. That might not play well with a public (and army) that is weary of battle and believes they have an option to eliminate the enemy without the loss of their own. It's a loaded question with no easy answer - but that's not what we're here to discuss.

Years later, Apollo Creed called out the
Russians in a similar fashion. Living
in America...

The much better route would have been negotiating an unconditional surrender. There was just one burning word in there that the Japanese couldn't accept; "unconditional". They wished to oversee their own war crimes trial, to keep their Emperor, and avoid occupation. The Americans disagreed with the terms, and the "Little Boy" was placed in a B-29 bomber and dropped over Hiroshima. Exploding well above the ground, a ten thousand degree blast levelled a whole quarter mile with a shockwave that pushed out much further. 80,000 die in something that has never been seen in war before; that many losses from one person flying one bomb with one plane - it wasn't an army and there were no risks, but that level of destruction was now on the table at a moment's notice. Even then, the Japanese would not surrender and the "Fat Man" bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. 70,000 were killed. 

This is all common knowledge. What isn't as well known is that Nagasaki wasn't the original target; Kokura was meant to be the victim of the Fat Man but a cloudy day prevented it. Clear skies in Nagasaki is what doomed those people to a fiery death, the blast strong enough to sometimes leave haunting shadowy imprints from where their bodies absorbed the heat. The Japanese Army still did not wish to surrender, but deferred to the Emperor's wishes to finally give in. President Truman says it was unconditional in a speech to the public, but that isn't entirely true - they accepted the condition of keeping their Emperor in which the Japanese held so dear.

The arms race officially begins once Stalin sees pictures of the devastation wrought at Hiroshima. Stalin was not surprised at the knowledge that the Americans had the bomb as he had not one but two men on the inside at Los Alamos. Klaus Fuchs was a communist that sent information back to Stalin. One could say he was Klaus to Fuchs-ing up the operation until the Americans focussed on Stalin the flow of information to the Soviets. (YES!) A second soviet in disguise, Theodore Hall, was also found to be sending information. He must have had a Hall of a time explaining that one. (DOUBLE YES!)

"Sweet Enola Gay, son!"
It was said the bomb was detonated from the height of the man's
shorts on the left.

The post-bombing world effectively started the Cold War, full of proxy battles, Doomsday Clocks, and a whole bunch of movies about Vietnam (Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now 2: Apocalypse Yesterday). Russia was eager to get the bomb and had their own team working on it, and the Americans were eager to perfect it. The Los Alamos lab grew rapidly and tests become far more common. The first mass produced bomb is created, and suddenly you have something capable of dealing out massive quantities of death indiscriminately and all the time it takes to make them is about a week (or half a fortnight). 

To make matters worse, and when the Cold War really kicks off, is when Russia produces their first atomic bomb. Suddenly, they're on the same level as the U.S. again, capable of destroying them just as surely as the States could destroy the Soviets. Nuclear arsenals mount for decades, and fear becomes the predominant emotion of the civilian population as the idea that their lives could be snuffed out at any given moment. That prospect is not only a possibility but a very real and not unlikely one. 

Plus, in the early '70s, Canada heroically defeated the Soviet Union in hockey, which left them really cheesed off. 

The Samurai: Part 3 - Fading Out

The end of the samurai came through two means: a long stretch of peacetime that rendered the warriors mostly obsolete due to a lack of purpose, and a sudden wave of modernization that left them officially obsolete due to a lack of technology.

The period of peace came after a religious extermination, and one that you would likely not expect. No, it wasn't Buddhism, Confucianism or some weird game-show based religion that I can only assume has sprung up recently, but Christianity that was once a growing part of Japan before being entirely stomped out. Christians came to Japan sometime in the 15th century, building churches and handing out bibles like shame-based candy. All the while a few of the converts were picking up very Western names in light of their recent religious transition and mixing it with their families, quite clearly of two differing cultures, resulting in names like Damien Kuroda for example. Suddenly, after strictly Japanese names since their foundation you'll find the occasional "Bartholomew" thrown in the history books. It's important to know they still only carry "Bort" licence plates. 

Christians being killed... somewhere. They're in there.
I promise.

Not everyone in Japan was all fine and dandy with the transition, however. The shogunate (essentially the military general) deemed it a slow colonial invasion and feared the eventual takeover of Japan by the Roman Catholic Church. Suddenly a threat, he ordered the abolishment of Christianity, killing some and forcing the rest to renounce their religion. As a means of assuring they weren't doing so in name only, the suspected Christians would have to walk over a picture of a saint in order to show a lack of devotion. The end result was an annihilation of the religion in Japan, completely forcing out the followers - although it can be assumed there may be a few closet Christians with particularly sinful feet here and there.

With the Christians gone, Japan entered into a state of peace - a really, really long state of peace. Further assuring it would stay that way, they also closed off their borders to the outside world, save for a few select ships coming from China and Korea and, oddly enough, the Netherlands - because really, who could hate the Dutch? The peace and isolation lasted around two hundred years, right up until about the 1850s when things started to go awry. Think about that for a moment; samurai were hanging around and Japan is in a period of isolation just prior to Canada becoming a country. So during this period of peace, we have to remember what this article is about in the first place - the samurai, the now highly ranked warrior class that has no notable wars left to fight. The civil wars are over, rebellions are few, and the borders are shut off. So what do they do? Well, they didn't really do all that much, at least in the way of traditional samurai training. They began to lose a taste of what a samurai was meant to be; martial arts training started to wane, and they began to look much closer to merchants and other citizens rather than the supreme warriors of old. They took up other skills as fighting war no longer in great demand. 

Either one of the shoguns during the final periods of
isolation, or a picture of one of the villains from
Samurai Jack. I can't remember which.

Traditionalists started to see this as a problem, much as tired old men (and myself) complain about the youth of today with their newfangled clothing and hairstyles. As more of a reaction to the changes and crazy social progressions of those wild early-1800s Japanese kids, Bushido started to develop as a concept. While it may seem like Bushido, the idea of the chivalry-esque warrior code of the samurai, should be something that dates back to ancient times, it's more of a push-back to the falling out of the samurai as they began to grow defunct. Bushido was a way of gently reminding the public that samurai aren't meant to learn to sing and dance, save for battle-cries and something akin to a "dance of death". As I understand it, Bushido is now used as some sort of modern business technique based on samurai culture, which seems like somewhat of a perversion of the ideals in and of itself unless meetings end in stunning one on one combat. 

Commodore Perry: his friends always said
he was "more of a Joey".

It's important to note that at this time samurai still very much existed, held the same degree of power and were still warriors even if only mostly in name. What truly ended the samurai was Matthew Perry. Well, Commodore Matthew Perry, although he may have viewed his shipmates as friends. Eventually, the world got pretty well fed up with Japan and their refusal to come for tea (in Britain), come for tea (in Canada, but early Canada, so it's still pretty much British) or eat a burger (in America). Staying consistent with American ideals that ring true even today, the U.S. stepped in and saved the Japanese from themselves, bringing their much, much, much larger ships to the shores of Japan and basically letting them know that they've grown bigger and stronger after they've broken apart - much the same as a high-schooler would describe how great their life has been to their ex after seeing him or her again sometime after a breakup. The only difference is American was about to step in and change the lives of the Japanese forever.

With the addition of new technology, western influences and really just vast, sweeping changes as a whole, samurai were slowly pushed out. What place on the battlefield does a sword-weilding man in armour play in modern (or at least relatively modern) warfare? Well, in a lot of movies they would fare quite well, but in real life people can aim.

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The information from "The Samurai" series came from the book A Brief History of the Samurai by Jonathan Clements.
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The Samurai: Part 2 - Battles

If the previous entry was about who the samurai were, this is about who they fought, why they fought them and if they managed to live or die in the process. The samurai fought on their home turf amongst themselves or invaders, as well as on the Asian mainland, having somewhat mixed results along the way. While you might think of the samurai as some indomitable fighting force, you'll find that their win/loss record would plant them somewhere in the middle table in some sort of medieval fighting league.

In battles with Korea, after the Christians came and
shared some of their technology, Samurai had guns.
Samurai with guns! What the heck is that?!

The first battles for the samurai were against the Emishi, a civilization of people in northeastern Japan that were known for being hairier - the book I read on this really stressed that for whatever reason - than what we would normally perceive the Japanese to be. This occurred during the early years of the samurai, at a time where, as I mentioned in the previous blog, they were described as the uneducated, more brutish forces on the outskirts of Japan rather than the relative sophistication of the capital. Essentially, the samurai were the warriors sent out to do the dirty work; quell rebellions, stomp out the unruly, and all in all bring more power to the centralized Japan they weren't really that much a part of. The samurai were ultimately successful, as you may have guessed due to the tremendous lack of thick-furred Japanese men in modern day.

Having the island pretty much to themselves, the samurai were still very much alive and just as much in need of something to fight. This becomes somewhat of a common theme for the samurai, as they quickly learned that when there is no army left to conquer on their lands, they must turn on each other. Infighting over lineage, while certainly not unique to Japan, becomes an important aspect of samurai life. I mentioned before that much of Japan had a "might makes right" ideal, and because of this the samurai found their way to greater and greater importance. Having the military as such an integral piece in gaining power and control in the country, the samurai rose up the ranks to the point of being nobility in Japanese society. Bred as warriors from birth, being a samurai was a highly ranked and respected position, and also largely hereditary.

A picture of the crab/Samurai cross. If I got one of those
at Red Lobster I'd be pretty freaked out too.

A particularly important civil war was between two large clans vying for supremacy; the Minamoto and the Taira. The Taira, losing the war and pushed to the brink of extinction and living on ships off the coast of Japan, were completely eliminated by the Minamoto. Women threw themselves off the boats, dying rather than being captured, with the soldiers either falling in battle or committing seppuku. What happened afterwards was a rather strange occurrence of natural selection. The area in which the Taira were obliterated was a section of Japan fished frequently for crabs. The fisherman, terrified of being haunted by samurai dead (which, admittedly, does sound horrifying) found a species of crab that has a variable pattern on their back which on occasionally looks like a human face. Thinking one less crab in the pile was a fair trade for not living in perpetual fear, they would throw the face-crabs back in the waters. Naturally, those crabs grew with great abundance and their genes were passed on much more quickly than the faceless ones. Skip ahead to modern day, and we have an area of Japan where a clan of great historical significance was slaughtered populated with crabs bearing faces similar to people. Freaky. Also hardly significant to samurai battles, but hey, history is history.

The samurai were not only used to kill each other, however. They also made attempts to take over territory on the Asian mainland, attacking Korea and China. They actually made great headway into Korea, briefly succeeding in an occupation of the territory, but eventually losing out due to the combined efforts of two large and angry countries defending against one that is separated by water. A key part of the defense was Korea's naval might attacking Japanese ships between their travels to and from. The separation in land that proved the failure of the Japanese assault later saved them against invaders, as water in medieval times, and realistically pretty well up to modern day, was notoriously dangerous to cross - for example, the Carthaginians, the Titanic, and the happenings of Piranha 3D/Piranha 3DD. 

A wind so strong it just had to be divine.

The Japanese also on occasion had to consider defence, as well. The Mongols, a powerhouse due to the leadership of Genghis Khan, was lining up to take a swing at Japan. Coming at the Japanese with a massive number of ships, they thought the isolated island seemed to be a nice vacation spot post-raiding. Their first battles were a shock to the samurai; the Japanese warriors, coming out to meet the Mongols with their traditional style of announcing their name and challenging them to one on one combat found themselves littered with arrows. Suddenly the situation looked a little bleak; a massive invasion force that just didn't feel like playing by the rules. While it's impossible to say what the outcome may have been (although looking at the track record of the Mongols at the time, Japan's fate wasn't in the best of shape) the samurai were saved by an incredibly fortunate occurrence; the sudden onslaught on the Mongol ships from the Kamikaze. Now, as much as I would absolutely love to say that a massive fleet of suicidal aircraft descended upon them, the word Kamikaze (translated as "divine wind") was originally about a massive typhoon that obliterated the fleet and saved the island from the invaders. The Mongols rebuilt and attacked again, but a second typhoon delivered the same fate. The Japanese soon brought religious proportions to the storms, hence the name "divine wind".

So what happened to the samurai? They seemed to be in power for so long, how could they possibly fall apart as they did? Well, tune in for the next blog while I detail the fall of the samurai.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "The surface of the sea was thick with scarlet banners and scarlet pennants cast away, like scattered red leaves after an autumn storm on the Tatsuta river. The once-white waves that crashed upon the shore were dyed crimson. Masterless, abandoned ships drifted on the wind and tide, melancholy and directionless."  A description of the massacre of the Taira out at sea. It was described in newspapers as "kind of a downer."
2. "[The Mongol ships] were impaled on the rocks, dashed against the cliffs, or tossed on land like corks from the spray... they sank by the hundreds. The corpses were piled on the shore, or floated on the water so thickly that it seemed almost possible to walk thereon." Seriously, all of their literature must have been just unbearably depressing.

The Samurai: Part 1 - The Who and When

I write these blogs with the intention of giving brief, to-the-point histories of subjects I find interesting without having the intense length and depth of books or, to be honest, a lot of wikipedia articles. The inherent issues that come from that are so much gets lost along the way; the samurai existed in all their glory from (very roughly) the 700s to the mid 1800s, and that stretch of time is going to see a vast array of changes in their styles and practices. It also can really bog you down in time periods, names, political climates and any assortment of high school test-esque information that may one day save you in Trivial Pursuit, but likely never again. Therefore, I acknowledge that this entry on the samurai is going to very, very lightly touch on the idea of the samurai, but... such is life.

A samurai demonstrating his
"sparse fern camouflage" clothing
option.

Early (and by early I mean 700 A.D. kind of early) Japan was centralized in the capital, the place where the money and power resided most heavily with the provinces on the outskirts hanging off the coattails. The warrior caste represented these differences as well; the warriors in the capital saw themselves as these educated, reformed and refined soldiers while looking down on the lowly brawlers of the outer provinces. This is likely when the term samurai began to take hold, and contrary to what you may believe, it means something a lot closer to servant than soldier. The samurai were the warriors outside of the capital, closer to the drunken pub brawler you see after Newcastle loses rather than the image of the top of the line warrior the word conjures up - at least that's what the capital's soldiers felt about them. I'd like to note that this is just how they originated - the samurai later became a ruling elite class of nobles while still maintaining their warrior nature. It was a clearcut case of "might makes right" in ancient Japan.

Absolutely terrifying, except for what
appears to be a lemon wedge on his head.

The manner in which they fought was what really defined a samurai, though, not their origins or the location of their battles. Their fighting style and unwritten code (yes, unwritten, unless you're considering Bushido, but more on that later) was rather defined and seemingly followed by pretty well all of the truest of samurai. Individuality was a central tenant; there was plenty of grandstanding, forcing the onlookers of both sides to know who was doing the actual fighting so they could make a name for themselves. When yelling wasn't doing the trick, they would wear brightly coloured armour to signify who they were and once again make them more immediately recognizable, similar to the character creation premise of Soul Calibur down the historical line. In addition to the armour, they would also craft a number of fearsome and unique headpieces to be all the more memorable.

A photo - yes, a photo - of some samurai.
The man on the left and the two on the right
are part of the "Fashion Police Clan", posing
after having successfully captured an enemy.

Much of samurai warfare was based around becoming the biggest name you could be, and one such way you could find notoriety was, well, killing those who had a greater notoriety than you. While today a way to prove you're victorious in a competition is a medal or some other form of recognition (or in the case of Starcraft a league promotion - I can brag to all my friends that I was once in Masters, and brag I shall) they went with the much simpler solution of simply removing the head of those they've defeated and keeping that, instead. If you thought you were going to lose, and you make the rather reasonable decision to run rather than have a critical piece of anatomy severed from the rest of you, your distinctive, brightly coloured armour is going to look all the more foolish as you get the heck out of there. Oh, and if they catch up to you and take you as a prisoner? The reason seppuku arose (the manner in which samurai commit suicide) was because offing oneself was a much, much less painless way in losing your life than at the hands of your captors. While seppuku started as a rather small group of samurai who practiced it - although I'll note that it doesn't really seem like the kind of thing you can pass down from generation to generation - it later became integrated in most samurai as a way of accepting defeat upon the loss of their lord they're meant to protect, or when in the face of certain defeat. Despite the fact that it at first sounds like a coward's way out to kill yourself instead of going down fighting, it was seen as an honourable act. While the Samurai Jack movie is yet to be created, I really hope he chooses the 'fight to the end' option rather than an incredibly depressing seppuku ending.

In the next part of the series, I will discuss how the samurai were used in wars and how they matched up against other civilizations. Mongols, Koreans and Chinese? I'm talking about you!