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The Japanese Samurai WarriorDiscover the amazing world of Japanese Movies...Samurai HistoryThe last showing of the original samurai was in 1867 when samurai from Choshu and Satsuma provinces defeated the Shogunate forces in favor of the rule of the emperor. The two provinces were the lands of the daimyo that submitted to Ieyasu after the Battle of Sekigahara (1600). Other sources claim that the last samurai conflict was in 1877, during the Satsuma Rebellion in the Battle of Shiroyama. This conflict had its genesis in the previous uprising to defeat the Tokugawa Shogunate, leading to the Meiji Restoration. The newly formed government instituted radical changes, aimed at reducing the power of the feudal domains, including Satsuma, and the dissolution of samurai status. This lead to the ultimately premature uprising, lead by Saigo Takamori. Emperor Meiji abolished the samurai's right to be the only armed force in favor of a more modern, western-style, conscripted army. Samurai became Shizoku who retained some of their salaries, but the right to wear a katana in public was eventually abolished along with the right to cut down commoners who paid them disrespect. The samurai finally came to an end after hundreds of years of enjoyment of their status, their powers, and their ability to shape the government of Japan. However, the rule of the state by the military class was not yet over. In defining how a modern Japan should be, members of the Meiji government decided to follow the footsteps of United Kingdom and Germany, basing the country on the concept of "noblesse oblige" and samurai would not be a political force much like that of Prussia. With the Meiji reforms in the late 19th century, the samurai class was abolished, and a western-style national army was established. The Imperial Japanese Armies were conscripted, but many samurai volunteered to be soldiers and many advanced to be trained as officers. Much of the Imperial Army officer class was of samurai origin and they were highly motivated, disciplined and exceptionally trained. Many early exchange students were samurai, not directly because they were samurai, but because many samurai were literate and well-educated scholars. Some of these exchange students started private schools for higher educations, while many samurai took pens instead of guns and became reporters and writers, setting up newspaper companies. Other samurai entered governmental services as they were literate and well educated. Samurai CodeAs de facto aristocrats for centuries, samurai developed their own cultures that influenced Japanese culture as a whole. A samurai was expected to read and write, as well as to know some mathematics.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a great samurai yet originally a peasant, could only
read and write in hiragana and this was a significant drawback for him.
Samurai were expected, though not required, to have interests in other
arts such as dancing, Go, literature, poetry, and tea. Ota Dokan who first
ruled Edo wrote how he was shamed to realize that even a commoner had
more knowledge of poetry than he, and this made him abdicate. Another name for the bonds was bido (the beautiful way). The devotion that two samurai would have for each other would be almost as great as that which they had for their daimyo. Indeed, according to contemporary accounts, the choice between his lover and his master could become a philosophical problem for samurai. Hagakure and other samurai manuals gave specific instructions in the way that this tradition was to be carried out and respected. After the Meiji Restoration and the introduction of a more westernised lifestyle, as bushido died out the masculine esthetic was replaced by the European feminine one, bringing with it the end of shudo. (Watanabe and Iwata, 1989) This article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License. |
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