How Peace Changed the Samurai
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- čas přidán 18. 10. 2022
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This is a bit more of a discussion video where I open up the subject of the shifting face of the Samurai as they move into the peaceful years of the Edo period. Specifically, I am discussing the decline of their overall warrior spirit.
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Sources Used:
"The Hagakure" by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
"A History of Japan" by R.H.P. Mason and J.G. Caiger
"A History of the Samurai" by Jonathan López-Vera
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Music:
"Digital Secrets" by Unicorn Heads
Artwork and Images:
Classical art, which in most cases can be considered public domain.
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#Samurai #History #Japan
"Peace has cost you your strength. Victory has defeated you."
I find fascinating how Japan tried so hard to get out of the sengoku jidai and yet was so eager to romanticize and a return to. Almost like they preferred war over peace. They didn't like the Edo period and dove head first into the warring era of imperial Japan
A lot of it had to do with the fact a lot of clans did not like the Tokugawa Bakufu anyway so whatever chance they had to go to war for something legitimate then they would take that chance.
@@thedragonofechigo7878 correct only took 250 years of planned insurrection haha
War is a potent political tool when the nation is not at war or has recovered; likewise strict bureaucracies like Imperial Japan had to cultivate something familiar enough to the population to build support for conquest. On the personal level, people in peace time romanticize war and their place in it.
And that era ended with the atom bomb
@@theunknownpersonism USA FTW
The peace through isolation brought on by the Tokugawa Bakufu made it so that a warrior class was no longer needed, that's what made the Samurai lose touch with their past.
I do believe, however, that without isolationism the Edo period would've been a lot more chaotic and thus the Samurai might've even stuck around for longer. It was the 200 years of peace that turned out to be the downfall of the Samurai.
I always wondered what you did after the Soul Calibur series ended Nightmare, good on you becoming an expert on Mitsurugi's homeland!
Where do you find the artworks for your video? Do you know a good source/collection online?
true, the samurai legacy exists for the glory of the past. Although some bushis still had the armor of their ancestors in their homes.
The same happend with the knights in the West and they also had to transform themselves. From "sword nobility" to "service gentry"
To go from being trained for war then there's no war it mess with your head.
Especially if you're also raised to believe that the spirits of your warrior ancestors are constanly watching over you and judging your worth as a samurai.
Samurai were also highly educated, it was part of their duty to constantly learn new things as well as practice the arts like calligraphy. They weren't just war dogs as depicted by most modern media.
@@bushy9780 That wasn’t mandatory of being a samurai. Especially in periods of war.
That is the Age Old Question isn’t it. A Warrior wants to win but what happens after Victory and is a Warrior even needed in Peace.
On the other hand, peace can only be maintained under the guardianship of capable warriors. Without the presence of "sheepdogs," so to speak, all it takes is one ambitious opportunist to topple the peacetime order all over again.
@@Daniel_Lancelin Indeed but it seems that the Tokugawa for the most Part managed to prevent War after their Ascencion.
Ah yes, prevent wars by stamping out disgraced dissidents and covert heretics
A tad shame they did not finish every tozama clan off into an oblivious void to be finished by the lasting Tokugawa.
When comparing this to Western history I've noticed that when people have more time to safely stop and think (modernization and/or more peaceful times) they become much more critical of themselves and their culture. I believe that, just as much as the move away from the more courageous (albeit somewhat self destructive) and martial samurai spirit or Geist, is what caused people like Tsunetomo to regard their contemporaries with such contempt
The samurai peaked during the Sengoku Jidai.
Unfortunately after you peaked you can only go down.
I think Tsunetomo comes off as an arrogant dilettante at least in the case of the 47 Ronin. Kira understood full well that samurai of the Asano might go after him and his house was on highly protected at first. So a poorly planned rash raid might have been a spectacular failure. To me, Bushido (in reality, not some arm chairs warrior`s fantasy) is win. Do what ever it takes. And in this case waiting 2 years for the right time is Bushido. Recklessly charging into slaughter just because it is quick is Bullshitto.
How this comment is both thought-provoking and funny as shit, is *beyond* The Sixth Heaven.
Like well deserved. 👍
Bullshitto😂
It was after 1868 in the Meiji period that the number of people who practiced martial arts and dojos decreased.
Therefore, in the mid-Meiji period, teachers published several martial arts books. One of them is the martial arts book Jujutsu ken bozukai hiketsu. Rather than saying that Japan has restored authority to the emperor, it is because the shogunate system delays the modernization of Japan. Countries that do not modernize become colonies.
Records of samurai after the Edo period.
Spanish trader Bernardino de Avila Giron (- 1619)
"I say again that they are very warlike and use very cruel and cutting weapons, made of such refined steel that they cut through iron with ease."
"The quality of its steel shatters European steel with the first blow."
Dutch missionary Arnoldus Montanus (1625-1683)
"Their arms, besides Guns, Bows and Arrows, are Faulchions(katana) and Daggers(wakizashi), which they begin to wear and exercise at twelve years of age !
Their Faulchions or Scimeters are so well wrought and excellently temper'd, that they will cut our European Blades asunder".
Chinese Ming Dynasty Poet Qu Dajun (1630-1696) "When the Japanese move with all their might, they move like the wind. They always enter enemy territory in small numbers, and even a large number of soldiers cannot resist. Their katana usage is to defend with the long katana and stab the enemy to death with the short katana.
They will be treated no matter how many people there are. It is a special technique only for those of the Japanese archipelago.”
其人率横行疾斗。飘忽如风。常以单刀陷阵。五兵莫御。其用刀也。长以度形。短以趯越。蹲以为步。退以为伐。臂以承腕。挑以藏撇。豕突蟹奔。万人辟易。真岛中之绝技也
British physician and diplomat Sir Rutherford Alcock (1809 - 1897).
"but of saber wounds I never saw any so horrible. One man had his skull shorn clean through from the back and half the head sliced off to the spine, while his limbs his only hung together by shreds." "They have attained the climax of dexterity. The sword is always carried at the side, and adepts in the use of it wound the moment it is drawn."
"The fatal stroke, upwards, is given in the act of drawing. Hence, placing the hand on the hilt is equivalent to presenting a cocked revolver, and if the assailant is not disabled in the act it is too late for defense."
Scottish botanist Robert Fortune (1812 - 1880)
"The Daimios are constantly training their soldiers in all the arts of Japanese warfare. On this occasion, when passing near a Daimio's residence in the city, I heard the clattering of arms, as of men engaged in fencing ; and many times, during my stay in Yedo, I have heard the same sounds."
As Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy, Sir Edward Reed (1830-1906)
"samurai class were at once the soldiers and the scholars of the country."
Russian soldiers could not beat Japanese soldiers trained in judo in close combat. The USSR studied judo and developed sambo.
Thomas Cowen” At some of the forts men fought at close quarters, bayonet to bayonet, and it was once again shown that, though the Russians have the advantage of size and weight, they are no match for the quicker and more skilful Japanese”
The Samurai existed as a means to grasp and hold power. The shift in the Edo period towards Samurai as bureaucrats fulfilled the same goal - to grasp and hold power. The means had shifted, the goal remained the same.
Kinsei Daimyo of the Edo period were allowed to practice multural arts and be engaged in political affairs more than they ever had time to during the Sengoku-jidai although that's probably more the 3rd-6th generation Daimyo in the early to mid Edo period.
Awesome video as always man.
I'd also like to say I do appreciate how later generations of clans that survived the Sengoku emulate the designs of the armour that thier ancestors wore on the battlefield.
It's sort of like an homage in my opinion to honor those who paved way from a war torn and hotly contested era that was the Sengoku to finally govern and promote peace within their domains.
The movie "Twilight Samurai" is a good example of this. Such a masterpiece.
100% agree, all aspects of that film were great. it's one of my all-time favorite movies. ultimately a sad story, but i don't think any samurai tale is sadder than "when the last sword is drawn". to this day i can't watch it without feeling pain in my heart.
On the question of whether the loss of martial character, for lack of a better phrase, among samurai was inevitable or a failure to maintain group characteristics, I think we make a mistake by placing samurai at the center of the story. Instead societies, when no longer defined by conflict, will always convert or discard their military populations. A fighting person not approved by an authority is a criminal, as many of them became.
Something I find fascinating is how the Edo period allowed for vassalage to be converted to martial society through schools of jiu-jitsu and kobudo, many of which survive to the modern day or influenced modern martial arts. During a period of warfare, there was an opportunity for these arts to gain necessity, but they would not exist at their level of sophistication without peace. I likewise doubt that, as people died left and right during the Sengoku period, there was any time to conceive of martial character, as Yamamoto Tsunetomo formulated. So, a lot of this is the result of romanticization and temporal distance, much as the samurai and bushido serve a modern purpose in Japanese national identity.
Thanks for the great video as well, since this cultural shift is obscured now as it all becomes part of the pre-modern past.
"....War is hell. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell. War is cruelty...". William Tecumseh Sherman.
At some point the continuous war had to end, it was a necessity for the survival of the country. Strangers in different lands now posed a threat in both culture and technology. There is a moral-singularity about the nature of conflict, there exists the Ally and the Enemy,. and of course there is Life and Death. Peace and individual Freedom are morally ambiguous and treacherous battlegrounds, more difficult in there is no simple "enemy", and morality is an infinite variations of tone, Right Action is lost in the fog of complexity. Bushido in its truest sense is the warrior's path to the Self, for it is one's own desires, fears, and unconscious re-actions that are the greatest and truest enemy, and it is in Peace and Personal Freedom where this battleground emerges. Is it any wonder that some individuals would "imagine" a simpler and more violent time where the moral equations stood out in greater relief and had less to do with the deeper and more difficult battle of oneself.
the film "13 Assassins" came to mind after i watched this video.
Would it be accurate to say that the concept of Bushido is a romanticized idea of Samurai made from cherry picking specific events and ideology from prominent historical figures that doesn't reflect how samurai in the past truly acted?
That sounds pretty accurate to me! I made a whole video on the Bushido Myth.
wake up babe the shogunate just posted
Great discussion.
Thank you for the video 👊🏻
The veneration of past warrior's and deeds is not unique to Japan, or the samurai class. There seems to always be two distinct factions. One that celebrates the martial skill, leadership, and heroic actions of past warriors. The other highlight's the horror and depravity that occur in actual combat, and the lasting effects on those who took part in actual battles.
The further the members of the Samurai class were removed from the participation in past battles the more likely they were to become enamoured with those idealized warriors and deeds. Romanticizing images of the past is part of the human experience. The uniqueness of Japan was the speed of transformation initially, and then a long period of stasis that led to necessary changes in what it meant to be a Samurai. There is much to unpack and understand on how this historical period created the image of what an idealized Samurai should be.
We need a video on Admiral Yi Sun-shen, the man who single handedly saved a nation and the best example of what we think of when we hear "Samurai."
Great video. Really interesting topic
This is where a lot of traditional oriental martial arts arts as we know them originate from, samurai attempted to preserve the martial skills used in the sengoku jidai and these became more ritualised and made more of an art form, and then when Japan was opened up to the west these arts were further diluted and commercialised. I feel a nation must always have a trained army, and a lot of the exploits and honour attained during the sengoku period should have been maintained during peace time, I think nationally organised war games would’ve been a good way to keep samurai switched on and honed on their warrior ways, a warrior class with no purpose may as well not exist, which is why it is important for samurai to find a purpose to train toward, and that could have been maintaining military skill and training to be prepared to serve the shogun if ever needed, rather than let the bushi slip into obscurity.
Probably the first ad I haven’t skipped in a video
"Peace is what all true warriors strive for."_Zelda CDI. the mark of a warrior is not seeking out war and battle but ending it, I feel these Samurai are just people bored of their nice life, read too many war stories and wannabe great heroes like their role models. No different than how people in 1st world countries act now.
In which the movie Hara Kiri is commenting. But seriously, I think this is the reason why Hideyoshi who at the time he thought he conquered and united Japan, he knew the "leftover" warrior Samurai will cause him trouble, thus he wanted to get rid of them by sending them off to Korea... problem was that, they proved that they were pretty good at fighting in Korea.
Maybe this is the reason after the Tokugawa shogunate was created. In Iemitsu period, most of the famous Samurai warrior clans who are not close to Tokugawa got disbanded
Personally I think Sake smell like Kerosene, I prefer their modern Plum wine instead
I love plum wine!
@@TheShogunate The best with Plum Wine is that it doesn't taste the "alcohol bitter", it almost like drinking sweet juice with a little bit of a "kick"
@@TheShogunate do you know the name of the art piece of the armored samurai in your thumbnail?
When your entire caste has been living off a generations long civil war for longer than anyone can remember
Peace is gonna make you anxious at least.
I think, sometimes, that we tend to over-romanticize samurai culture and we forget how brutal that culture was. This is done also with the western phenomenon of chivalry. Knights often brutally executed their lord's commands upon the peasantry and were often indistinguishable from bandits - at least in their conduct, if not in their accoutrements. I think the samurai were much in the same way and, like their European counterparts, had to step aside (or fade away) for the evolution of philosophy and technology that shaped the West and would come to eventually shape Japan itself.
I feel that European knights actually have the opposite problem these days; they're often depicted as clumsy, arrogant brutes in useless heavy armor, completely ignoring that they were raised since birth to embody a strict standard of ethics and martial professionalism moreso than anyone else in society at the time. Yes, there were corrupt nobles and robber-barons at various points in history, but the darker elements of medieval Europe such as these are often greatly exaggerated in modern media for dramatic effect.
@@Daniel_Lancelin What I'd like to learn about is the lighter half/aspect in ancient warriors, particularly individuals who can be considered genuine paragons. So far, in regards to noble knights, the closest example I found was Balian of Ibelin for staying at Jerusalem to protect the people despite having a deal with Saladin to leave with his family. With samurai, the closest I found was Akira Kurosawa basing the Seven Samurai off of accounts of ronin defending villages in exchange for lodging (a fair deal).
I mean, there has to be some individuals who had basic humanity like compassion and dislike of violence.
@@cadethumann8605 There is a wonderful true story of a Christian samurai who kept his word and SURRENDERED a castle - the irony - and embodied the samurai spirit in such an honorable manor that the enemy lord allowed him to live (rather than cut off his head). Stephen Turnbull writes of him...man I can't remember the samurai's name for the life of me.
@@Daniel_Lancelin I agree that much of western masculinity, not just knights, have come under unprecedented attack recently. But I think we may be speaking at cross purposes here. I'm driving at the chasm that exists between the ideal and the reality. For example, much of the codified bushido way that we normies (non-historians) are familiar with comes from literature written in the Edo period or later. Hence, there was a disconnect between the ideals of honorable conduct and the stark realities of warfare. It is not the bushido way to use fire against tour enemies and yet fire was a most useful and often used tool to win a seige. Certainly there are always exceptions to the rule but the rule is there for a very good reason, I think.
@@Daniel_Lancelin And perhaps there is something of a touchstone here for both of us. I think romanticism AND cynicism are both equally harmful to the understanding of history.
The bigger problem of the samurai class is the lack of understanding in regards to the rising power of the merchant class. The habbit of looking down on merchants and assuming the caste system would keep them above the merchant class put many samurai in a weak position when they found themselves in debt due to not having conflict to profit from.
This is made worse when you consider thelat while the merchsnt class had nowhere to go but up in the world, the samurai class was at the top of japan and sadly had nowhere to go but down given they no longer had as big of a role to fill. Perhaps if the mainland was viewed as s threat and required Japan to keep a better dtanding army such as durring the mongol invasion they would have done better.
you make an important point about the merchant class, nicely done
@@cheezyridr thank you. Sorry for the rampant typos. I hate phone typing.
I have a question that you might be able to answer... What was the opinion of samurais on competing with martial arts? I know at some points samurais would do sumo, i guess they peobably had some sort of kenjutsu competitions too? Were there samurais that were against doing "tournaments"? How common was it?
I asl because its relatively common for traditional martial arts to say they dont have tournaments because its not something martial artists from the past would do
That's actually a very interesting subject that I'd love to learn more about as well!!
@@TheShogunate if you ever mke a video bout it, i bet the martial arts world will probably take alot of interest in your chnnel for a while, and if there is something missing from mrtial arts youtube is the honest opinion of someone who knows about history and philosofy of samurais and can teach it in a fun way instead of just dry translations
This took my interest as well, its a really good question.
Will you talk about the samurai during the Boshin war? I find it quite interesting.
Yes I will!
Lived in Iwakuni for a while. I would go to the annual Sake festival in Saijo, Higashi Hiroshima for years. Now back in the States. How I miss it!
Hey Shogunate!
Very intersting
Could you cover about what women did in feudal times? I think it's important to discuss what the other half of society contributed.
great video again....I'm sure many Samurai would rather live in peace than go to battle....nobody wants war and everybody wants to live....I just wonder now that Japan is open will you go there and shoot some videos?
Planning a trip right now! My only issue is time constraints with my current schedule :(
Hmm, what I will prefer my son to be. A brave and skilled warior fighting in constant and brutal warfare or containt burocrate living in luxury.
More sake and sushi, please!
Still loving the videos, would like to register my interest for Kamakura period content *if a hojo clan emoji existed it would be spammed here*
Dam were heading towards the edo period already
Yeppp
Hard times make strong people, strong people make good times, good times make weak people, weak people make hard times and the cycle continues.
My problem with this quote: who are the weak people? What makes them weak and responsible for the hard times? Who is one to judge others as weak and responsible for the hard times?
Many people under peacetime try to contribute to society and make it even better. I'd argue that most people remain hard-working and even ambitious. It's when things like slip ups, incompetent leaders, or even outside forces make things difficult.
And hard times don't always create strong people that will pull society back to the light. Many that try to reclaim former glory end up making things more difficult. Just look at a number of u.s. presidents that try to fix things. Or look at ancient Rome, where no one was able to resuscitate its golden age and it ended up falling into a dark age.
I find that this thinking oversimplifies human struggle.
@@cadethumann8605 The weak people are people that are spiritually weak, that lack virtuous traits like delayed gratification, discernment, acceptance, resoluteness,etc. Whether or not bushido is real or not, the tenets prescribed wherein constitute what it means to be a person of strong character. The west has stoicism and chivalry, but the common thread is the same.
This may be painful to hear, but our modern society full of decadence and convenience has made a majority of us weak people, objectively. It is also safe to say that hard times are indeed around the corner.
For the record, I believe Bushido was a real thing, maybe not a formal law or doctrine but a common zeitgeist among the samurai. There are several sources that point to the existence of individual tenets of bushido at the very least, and they were most likely spread from father to son (or teacher to student).
@@bushy9780 By that logic, Samurai were no better. Do you understand all sorts of atrocities they committed? Killing innocent commoners (not just in war, but also in day to day life should a Samurai perceive an insult, called Kirisute Gomen), forcing themselves on women, destroying villages just for being on opposite sides (nevermind that the civilians just wanted to be left alone), looking down on those of lower caste, backstabbing each other, and heavens know what other screwed up stuff. Plus, since they were obligated to serve under a lord, that meant they had to do whatever he said, even if it was questionable. And if a samurai disagreed, he would have had to kill himself if he was to retain his honor. Physically, the Samurai were strong. But by your logic about personality and character, I wouldn't hold them as paragons of strong men.
We have been in hard times for a while. The wars, the economy, the struggling mental health of people, the virus, and many other issues. Despite that, we still work hard and try to maintain those characteristics you speak of. Are there f-ed up people who are hateful, lazy, ungrateful, and/or other things? Yes. And they are an absolute pain (even worse when they have power or influence). But there are many of us folks that strive to be good despite hardships. Don't you lecture us how weak we are. Again, who are you to judge?
@@bushy9780 Mind you, the atrocities samurai committed can also apply to other medieval warriors like knights or norsemen/vikings. They may have been less brutal than certain groups. But a lesser evil is still evil. I'd also clarify that there likely were individuals who were genuinely decent folk and thus could be considered paragons of strength of character. But it does not erase the fact that samurai were not exactly ideal people.
@@cadethumann8605 we can be objectively judged, and we can use these moral philosophies, or codes, to judge ourselves and each other.
I think it is a faulty belief, rooted in nihilism and liberalism, that all morality is subjective.
I see a fair bit of selfishness, narcissism, materialism and degeneracy on a frequent basis. Because we have abandoned many of the time tested moral philosophies like bushido, chivalry, and religion, I believe we are going to see more and more of this.
The end of the samurai as a class was ultimately a progressive development. Striving for a martial culture and mindset had brought misery and devastation to the country for over a century, and wishing to return to that time for some vague notion of "warrior spirit" or "a higher ideal", in the face of all the peasants and lower classes who suffered for that glory, who *didn't* become memorable historical figures but died miserably, is monstrous. I'm against class division and privilege in general, doubly so when it is a warrior class most often known for being akin to mafia thugs against the peasantry. Peace and liberalism in general tends to be better than a nostalgic return to military might; though obviously, the romantic image of the samurai remains, and it might be best to question why they are idealized so, despite several great feats, when we examine the consequences of the samurai class' existence.
Depends on what you mean by "progressive development". It is "progressive" and revolutionary ideologies like communism, socialism, fascism, national socialism and recently neoliberalism and globalism that brought a lot more misery, devastation, death, and poverty to our world on a global scale than some local or regional warrior class. And nowadays, neoliberalism and progressive liberalism are everything but peaceful (the wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria being a good example). Also, many peasants actually gained a lot during the Muromachi and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. A lot of farmers obtained freedom and even climbed the social ladder, becoming samurai themselves along with their families after showing prowess as ashigaru. Most artisans and merchants lived good or at least sustainable lives in the castle towns (the joukamachi 城下町) under the protection of their daimyo where economy and culture prospered. Don't leave out such important factors when you decide to judge the past.
@@Perceval777 I wasn't trying to leave all that out? I just don't have much free time to center absolutely everything that could be considered regarding the historical impact of the samurai. I appreciate you adding to all this however. We could get into a whole other discussion around communism, a frankly worthy struggle and something I politically align with, and fascism, which you accidentally identified as revolutionary when it is the opposite, but that would be going off track.
I stand by my previous points, however. The samurai and the entire era of samurai was based on a rigid, feudal class structure, and though the Edo period did not abolish feudal relations, an era of peace and the end of the brutal civil war, which would almost definitionally de facto abolish an entrenched warrior class, is on the whole positive. Ideological notions about what it meant to lead a good life wouldn't have to depend on fighting, killing, and dying on the battlefield. Militant dictatorial might would not be the single greatest factor in the determination of political success and so on. No transition is perfect, and the remaining class divisions continued to immiserate the lower classes, but in the absence of a truly revolutionary force to fight on their behalf, better that the civil war does not take more lives, and that the samurai lose their power.
@@HeronHero I agree that the Edo period as a period of peace was far better in general in many ways than the Sengoku period of constant strife. I'll go off track from here and the Shogunate has the full right to delete my comment, but still. Unlike Franco's regime in Spain and the Japanese militarism, fascism began as a revolutionary progressive anti-conservative worker movement in Italy, a revolution from the bottom, from the lower classes of society, just like national socialism later in Germany. There is no conservative anti-"progressive" aristocracy in these movements. Goering was the only top-level Nazi from an aristocratic family, everyone else were workers and farmers. Mussolini started off as a socialist and preserved the monarchy only to use it as a tool for his own PR while claiming to represent "the little man". And communism applied in its form of state socialism murdered millions of people in the USSR and China. Stalin outright killed the hard-working Russian farmers, starved the Ukrainian villagers to death, and made workers live in disgusting unhygienic ugly dormitories with no privacy, with shared toilets, bathrooms, etc. That's a hell of a great way to help and empower the lower classes, man... Mussolini's fascism is actually pretty mild, moderate and tame compared to this nightmare. That's just not up for debate, it's objectively horrible, hell on earth. I am very sorry that you prefer to align with this inhumane ideology which only pretends to be compassionate on the surface, I sincerely hope you realize how wrong it is someday and move on to something better.
@@Perceval777 lmao ok dude. The failures of communism's past do need to be grappled with, and there are plenty of books from communists which more appropriately deal with that than a CZcams comment could, but the theories around historical materialism, class conflict, imperialism, the falling rate of profit, and so on have all been borne out as correct. Communism is often weighed far more by its failures than its successes where attempted, such as the Black Panther Party's various social programs or Indonesia's numerous social gains when the left was empowered. I certainly can't see a defense of capitalism in this day and age, when border conflicts, a worsening ecosystem due to the profit motive being unable to protect the environment, and extraordinary wealth gaps being both commonplace and exactly the sort of things predicted would happen as far back as Marx. An unwillingness to engage with ideas beyond capitalism as "evil" betrays either a lack of political imagination to make such an alternative better than past iterations, or allowing oneself to have completely swallowed capital's ideology.
There was no exit strategy for the samurai. They were forbidden to engage in business nor relinquish their status to pursue artisanship or to work the land. They were consigned to poverty by design. In the end, anything that would not change dies.
True, the samurai legacy exists for the glory of the past. Although some bushis still had the armor of their ancestors in their homes.
The Edo period focused more on returning to artistic progress as in the Heian period.
Most great warrior cultures declined gradually over time, The Spartans, Vikings, Mamluks, Janissary, and Samurai.
i'm going to go with natural evolution, for a host of reasons too numerous to list here. your metaphorical question, i don't think it has to be metaphorical. the boshin war was... in a way, all about that very question. some were able to adapt in spectacular fashion, like saigo takamori. others were hardliners one way or the other, like kondo isami or on the other side of the coin, sakamoto ryoma. it was a really crappy time to be a samurai, especially if you were of low rank.
Can you make a Serie about the Era of Tomoe Gizens tales? ( don't know haw this period get called)
You say Peace was the beginning of end of the Samurai. I say the Imjin War was the beginning of the end of the Samurai. As the wat raged on. The Samurai, a social class based most on Martial prowess in war, didn't want to fight anymore, it first became obvious with the " Flee-on-sight' order placed on Admiral Yi.
Should I watch this historic movie? Is samurai carpenters if so I'm jelus
Found it. "/
Konishi Yukinaga and Ishida Mitsunari would have been perfect for Japan if the West had won in Sekigahara. Both of them were immensely talented administrators and bureaucrats, one being Christian and the other a logistical mastermind. In times of peace, they would have thrived alongside Japan
There has never been a bad peace and a good war. Yes, SOME samurai values are admirable and worth keeping. However, world was (and is) better off without the actual samurai around.
One simple explanation: You don't need an entire special class of elite warriors when you can just give guns to peasants.
You basically described "Ashigarus" lol.
🤠👍🏿
The Baifuku lasted 200 years too long. Ya, family on the wrong side at Seikigahara 😂. Also Sake oishi!
The Tokugawa bakufu allowed the samurai to prosper as sensei and the beginning of several martial arts schools to prosper and begin.
Col
You can't build a society without a social compact. I would argue that before the Edo period Japan's social class that called the shots (the samurai) had no compact, even within their own class. So many backstabbings! Of course there was no stability.
Made them lazier 😢and bumlike before the guns of Tom cruise 🚢 buddies finished them 😢off. An unused katana goes rusty
When the Edo period began The samurai had all the power and all the money. By the end the samurai were poor, and the merchant class were rich. This is just a theory that I have from my research. I could be completely wrong? Another mistake was having the peasants tied to their land, and they were unable to immigrate to another area for suitable farming. That created many famine‘s, which again slowly weakened the power of the samurai. This is all my opinion. Is subject to change with more information added. So if you would like to add a comment and change my viewpoint? I’m very open minded.
I dunno,in some ways the samurai way has survived somewhat through the act of killing yourself if you fail I.e. when you have some kind of thing go haywire and next thing people who were involved go hang themselves IS one of the last holdouts of samurai culture.
Regardless, the armour, clothing, even facial hair was much better during the genpei, sengoku jidai compared to the edo era. Era samurai look weak, meek and miserable.