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!