“The tramp of warriors sounded like a thousand convulsions of the earth. ” “The shouts of warriors, the whistling of arrows, the thunder of the feet of foot soldiers and the hooves of chargers did not cease. ”
According to historical chronicles, that was the sound of Japan during much of the five hundred years from 1100 to 1600, a period whose essence can be captured in the single Japanese word arasoi, “strife. ”
It was a period of almost continual warfare between powerful clans (uji) and warrior families (buke); a time of desperate marches, pitched battles and long campaigns. It was an era which saw the roads frequently clogged with columns of troops, at times stretching miles in length—the
generals (taisho) and captains (sho) and behind them the mounted and walking warriors. Among them were the archers, masters of the longbow; and the swordsmen whose long-sword even today is considered the finest fighting blade ever produced by man. With them were the spearmen, the specialists in the halberd, and the experts in the many other weapons of war. These were the most complete fighters ever to walk the earth, the supreme warriors, the stern, quiet men who in years to come would be known by the one word which has become synonymous with martial expertness—samurai.
Before the sword became so closely identified with the samurai, the bow was his principal weapon. The most renowned archers belonged to the immensely powerful Minamoto clan. It was said that Yoshiie of the Minamoto (1041-1108) “shot arrows from horseback like a god… He galloped like the wind. ” Tametomo* Minamoto was such a strong archer that, attacked by two men in battle and finding himself with but one arrow remaining, he shot it completely through the first man and into the second.
To dissuade the Japanese warrior families from military incursions into their country, Korean emissaries brought one of their famous iron war shields to the court of Japanese Emperor Nintoku. A samurai bowman named Tatebito respectfully asked if he might test the invincible shield. He pierced it with his first arrow.
Power is important, but accuracy matters too. A valuable bird belonging to the shogun Yoritsune escaped from its cage. A bowman quickly fired an arrow which gently grazed the bird, bringing it fluttering to earth without even one damaged feather.
Mongol invaders who twice returned home after being repelled by armies of samurai recited tales of the wonderful warriors who “struck like bolts of lightning. ” A Chinese historian who witnessed a battle recorded that the samurai brandished their swords with such miraculous speed that all that could be seen was a “blur of white steel. ”
The samurai were members of the Japanese professional warrior class, whose history spanned the thousand years between the ninth and nineteenth century and which ruled Japan during much of that time.
* In Fighting to Win, Japanese names are given in their Western form—first name first, then the family name.
service of the illustrious families of Japanese history, including the Fujiwara, Taira, Minamoto, Hojo, Ashikaga and Tokugawa.
Of the samurai generals, five stood above the rest. Masashige Kusu-noki was the most revered samurai in Japanese history, a national hero whose name even today is synonymous with unswerving loyalty and bravery. Nobunaga Oda was a sixteenth-century samurai whose motto was “all the country under military control. ” He used his samurai forces to unify Japan militarily. Yoshitsune Minamoto was a brilliant twelfth-century general and master swordsman whose tactic of surprise attack helped to defeat the forces of the powerful Taira clan. Yoshitsune’s retainer, Benkei, is renowned for his skill not with the sword or the bow but with the naginata, the curved blade on a pole, or halberd, which was popular among many samurai of the time. So confident was Benkei of his skill that he wrote a battlefield lament ending,
“Oh how I long For a foe worthy of my hand. ”
The greatest rags-to-riches story in the annals of Japanese history is that of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, a peasant who became a samurai under Nobunaga, eventually commanded an army of two hundred thousand men and became the beneficent ruler of Japan in 1582. The crafty leyasu Tokugawa (Toranaga in the novel Shogun) was the fifth great samurai general. Ieyasu was a ruthless warrior whose decisive victory in 1600 at the battle of Sekigahara, in which two hundred and thirty thou-sand men crossed swords, put a permanent end to the large-scale warring among the clans.
The lowest-ranking member of the samurai class was the ashigaru, or “foot soldier. ” Like all samurai, the ashigaru was entitled to wear the daisho, or “two swords”—the long sword and the short sword—but he was denied many of the privileges of the higher-ranking and more skilled samurai—the bushi.
When we think of samurai, it is the bushi we have in mind—the elite fighters who devoted themselves to refining warfare to its highest level, the level of art. Of the bushi, the most highly developed warriors, the elite of the elite, were the meijin, the masters.
The role of the samurai warrior was to fight—with supreme self-confidence, courage, bravery and superb skill with weapons. He pledged himself to the service of a warrior chieftain (bushi no toryo) or lord, daimyo,
who held power in his local province. Since the Japanese extended families of feudal times tended to be located together in the same geographical area, the local chieftain was likely to be related to the bushi by blood or marriage, although this was not always the case.
The bonds of allegiance between the bushi and his lord were to be lifelong. These bonds were held together by mutual respect and were cemented by a demanding code of personal behavior which became known as bushido. For centuries, bushido was a set of unwritten rules of conduct impressed on the samurai in his training. It was put into writing by Soko Yamaga (1622-85), a samurai teacher of the military arts and a scholar as well, in his essay “Shido. ”
In addition to Yamaga’s essay, another famous expression of bushido is Hagakure, a book that is cited in Fighting to Win. Hagakure literally means “hidden in leaves, ” denoting the samurai ethic of modesty, of not blowing your own horn. Written between 1710 and 1716 by Tsunetomo Yamamoto, a retired samurai of the Nabeshima clan, Hagakure is a compilation of the thoughts and observations of a devout bushi.
The principle of duty (giri) was the cornerstone of bushido. The word “duty” evoked powerful motives in the samurai, just as it does in the Japanese of today. For the samurai, duty was an obligation that had to be met, even if it was unpleasant or painful or if it brought certain death.
Self-control was an important feature of bushido. The samurai’s body, mind, emotions and spirit were to be under his control.
Commitment to immediate action, action carried out right now, without waiting or hesitating, formed another basis of bushido.
The samurai lived in a society of deviousness and intrigue, in which cheating was rampant. Bushido was to keep the bushi above such treachery. It was said, “A bushi has no second word, ” and “A bushi never lies. ” Because of their honesty, samurai were often specially selected by merchants and landowners as couriers, to carry large sums of money.
Bushido also emphasized the need for constant self-improvement. For the samurai to rest on his laurels and to continue without correcting errors and mistakes was incompatible with bushido.
As a part of this urge to improve, the samurai borrowed whatever he could find of value — weapons, techniques, knowledge — wherever he could find them. When he discovered a useful insight in a Chinese or Indian Buddhist classic, he incorporated it into his life. When he was beaten by an opponent he treated his defeat as an indication that the victor had something to teach him. In 1543, when two Portuguese sailors showed Lord Tokitaka the first firearm (teppo) any Japanese had ever seen, Tokitaka thought it was “the wonder of wonders. ” Typical of the samurai and the Japanese, his initial reaction of awe was followed by the request to be taught.
Through an interpreter, Tokitaka said to the sailors, “Incapable though I am, I should like to learn about it. ” The appellation “copycat nation” that has been applied to Japan is a disparaging way of describing this admirable trait of pragmatic openness to new learning and fresh approaches.
The ideal samurai bushi was a well-rounded individual—a man of war who was also a man of learning. Bushi were anything but simpleminded toughs.
On the contrary, they were well-educated men who belonged to the highest class of Japanese society, the cultured elite who contributed directly to the advancement of the fine arts of theater, poetry, calligraphy and painting. The slogan bunbu ryodo, the “united ways of the pen and sword, ” refers to the samurai gdaj of developing martial and literary abilities.
Courtesy: David J Rogers – Fighting To Win – Samurai Techniques For Your Work And Life
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