Japanese Samurai Warriors

Welcome to part three of the series on the most interesting and famous soldiers of ancient history, where we will be looking at the Japanese Samurai warrior. Whereas the other soldiers we’ve talked about so far tended to be significant for the power and military success they provided for their nations, the Samurai are important for a different reason. The Samurai warrior class ruled Japan for over 650 years from 1192 to 1867 from behind the scenes.

Part 1 - Greek Hoplite

Part 2 - Roman Legionnaire

Part 4 - Swiss Pikeman

The beginnings of the samurai warrior class come from the 8^th century AD. During this time, many warriors and warrior families (clans) rose up on the outskirts of the Japan. These warriors were recruited by both the Japanese Emperor, and the nobles in the capital. The Emperor began to use these professional horse-back warriors to supress rebellions, and, more importantly, battle the nomadic Emishi peoples. Since these warriors were much more effective than the conscripted armies of poorly-trained peasants, the Emperor disbanded all his armies, and started to rely COMPLETELY on the military prowess of these pre-samurai mercenaries. The nobles, on the other hand, began to use these warriors to police the lands that were given to them by the Empire, making sure that taxes were collected, and then delivered to them in the capital.

Eventually, this led to two major problems. First, these warriors and warrior families began to attain very large portions of land all over the Empire. Since money did not yet exist, the only valuables were rice and land, thus forcing the nobles to pay the warriors for their work by giving them large portions of land. Although it is disputed when exactly these warriors turned into “samurai”, the main theory points to the late 10^th century AD – a point at which the warriors amassed so much regional power, that the word samurai no longer meant “one who serves”, but was attached to any member of these warrior clans.

The second problem that manifested itself from the 8^th to 11^th century AD was that the Emperor, and by extension his Empire, lost all of their actual power. Since they began to rely completely on these mercenary-type warriors, and did not have any standing armies or soldiers themselves, the Emperor’s power became purely ceremonial.

These two problems were then also worsened by a third – as nobles continued to heavily tax their lands, and warrior families continued to attain more land and power, the regions of Japan outside the capital slowly slipped out of the control of the Empire. Rebellions broke out, many peasants built their own warrior clans, and the Empire’s power became restricted only to the capital.

By the 12^th century, two major warrior clans rose up as the dominant powers in regional Japan. At this point, the samurai had become an established class in the Japanese hierarchy – a class with much prestige, power, rules, and traditions. While the Emperor still ruled the capital, and was recognized as the holy leader of the entire Empire, the real power outside the capital lay divided between the Taira and Minamoto warrior clans.

At first, these two clans warred against each other, as each supported a different heir to the throne of Japan. The Taira were originally victorious, and in the mid-12^th century the man they supported rose to become the new Emperor. This marked the first step towards the samurai gaining true control of the Empire. The Emperor relied so much on the Taira that he had to grant them a lot of power.

When the Minamoto clan resumed the war and defeated the Taira, things became even worse. The leader of the Minamoto clan, Yorimoto, was not willing to bow down to the Emperor, as he knew that he and his warriors held the true power in Japan. Being the Emperor meant nothing without military power. For this reason, Yorimoto established the first shogunate in 1192, and became the first military dictator of Japan – the Shogun.

The shogunate acted as a sort of parallel government to the Imperial court. While the Emperor and the court became to symbolize only ceremonial power, the Shogun and his shogunate became the true leaders of Japan, controlling all the land, money, goods, and above all military and bureaucratic authority. This marked the period of time between 1192 to 1867, when the Shoguns and by extension the samurai were the true leaders of Japan, playing the strings behind puppet Emperors with no real power.

Bushido is the code of conduct by which Samurai warriors lived their lives. Somewhat similar to the code of chivalry of Medieval European knights, Bushido stressed honor, duty, loyalty, fighting skills, and frugality. Bushido developed from the 9^th to 12^th centuries AD, during the same time that the samurai first officially came into being, and became engrained in Japanese society as an elite class of warriors.

The code was summed up by seven virtues – Rectitude, Courage, Benevolence, Respect, Honesty, Loyalty, and Honor. If a Samurai betrayed these virtues, then he would typically commit suicide.

Seppuku was the term for the ritualistic suicide performed by a Samurai warrior. Seppuku was performed in three main cases: when the Samurai was willing to kill himself instead of being captured by his enemies; when a Samurai has committed a grave offense, such as disobeying an order; or when a Samurai brought shame to himself. In this sense, Seppuku could be both voluntary, and involuntary.

Seppuku was performed by the Samurai himself, with either a Wakizashi short sword, or a Tanto knife-like weapon, whichever the Samurai had in his possession. The actual suicide consisted of cutting through one’s lower abdomen one or multiple times.

Samurai trained endlessly from a young age. Typically speaking, lower-class samurai received training from family members, while others trained at special schools. In the first few centuries of their existence, the samurai trained more on the use of bows and horse-back riding. While they still trained to use their swords, this would not become the key part of samurai training until later centuries, where ranged combat from horse-back became less important. Martial arts were another big part of samurai training, and their emergence and development is often cited as the result of the samurai’s relentless strives towards combat perfection.

Weapons

The main piece of equipment of a samurai warrior was of course the Katana. A Katana is a relatively light, curved sword with a single edge, with a blade length of 60 to 73 centimeters, a circular or square guard, and a long grip which could be used with both one and two hands. The Katana could be used for both cutting and thrusting attacks.

In many cases, the Katana was replaced by a different weapon. This usually depended purely on the preference of each particular samurai. Among these were pole weapons, as well as staff weapons, and even clubs. Pole-type weapons were arguably the most popular of these, like the Yari, a long spear-like weapon, or the Naginata, which looked like a spear but instead of a pointed end had a curved, Katana-like blade.

The second weapon used by all samurai was the bow, called Yumi. The Yumi was the world’s largest bow, typically over 2 meters in length. Bow practice was a core tradition of the samurai, and it remained the most popular ranged weapon throughout Japanese history. In later centuries, some samurai replaced the bow with guns, but their use was generally not very popular, as they were seen as dishonorable weapons due to their easy use, high damage, and foreign nature.

Each samurai also had one “ritual” weapon, either the Wakizashi or the Tanto. The Wakizashi was basically a shorter version of the Katana, while the Tanto was a knife-like weapon. Each samurai wore EITHER a Wakizashi or a Tanto, and they were never used as a fighting weapon, but rather as a sign that the wearer was a member of the samurai class. Their only real physical use was to commit seppuku.

While samurai armor varied in look and type of materials over its long history, the most standard armor was made from small pieces of leather, woven together by rivets and silk cloth. These pieces were put together in layers, and covered by lacquer (a liquid which dried into a hard, protective layer) to protect from the humid Japanese environment. While in later centuries some armor was made from metals, the only part of the samurai’s armor that was always metal was the helmet. The reason why the Japanese preferred leather was because it was incredibly light-weight, making it ideal for both horseback, and for melee combat. The armor itself consisted of many different parts, covering each samurai warrior from head to toe, including foot, and shoulder protection.

Outside of battle, samurai typically wore kimonos, and had their swords attached to a belt.

It was not until the mid-19th century that Japan finally realized how behind it was in technology from the rest of the world. Suffering a humiliating defeat from the US navy, and being forced to sign trade agreements with many Western nations, Japan began to see the need to adopt the Westerners' technological advancements. The samurai was deemed obsolete, and power slowly shifted back to the Emperor. Japan began to adapt the modern armies and institutions of the West.

The main legacy of samurai warriors is that Japan was under their direct control through the Shogunate. Unlike other nations of the world, where military dictatorships would often be overthrown, or grow into democracies, Japan was ruled by the iron fist of military men for over 650 years. The cultural legacy of the samurai is also very noteworthy; their traditions remain a key part of the culture of Japan to this very day, revered as honor-bound, fearless, loyal and just warriors. The samurai themselves serve as the cultural icon of Japan and its long, interesting history.