Ideal warriors without fear and reproach, ready to sacrifice their lives every minute for the sake of their master. Philosophers, poets and aesthetes. Noble knights who honor the bushido code and perform hara-kiri if their honor is tarnished. This is how culturologists describe the Japanese samurai. However, this was not always the case. Samurai were once called ordinary servants. And even the first warriors were not so perfect. Cowardly, deceitful and most often illiterate. At the risk of provoking an explosion of indignation among the true adherents of Japanese values, we will nevertheless try to debunk the myths about the samurai.
"Saburau", service people
So, all these beautiful legends about the glorious samurai are a lie (as well as the legends about noble European knights!). The reality studied on the basis of historical documents is extremely prosaic.
Where did the word "samurai" come from? The first mentions of them are found in the scrolls of the 7th - 8th centuries, which speaks of the people of "saburau" - "served" someone. Samurai were not originally warriors at all. The Japanese war machine relied on a recruitment of ordinary peasants. But those from military service were mowed down by hook or by crook. Therefore, in peacetime, the peace of the citizens and the safety of the emperor were ensured by aristocrats, with whom there were servants called samurai. But their duties included for the most part household work and meeting the needs of the master.
Chronic feuds forced many rulers to think about creating their own professional army. The first to do this were the northerners, who were in a state of latent conflict with the barbarians who lived on the neighboring islands. It was there that the samurai began to form as a class of professional warriors.
For the first time samurai showed themselves in this capacity in the XII century. After that, not a single civil strife and not a single military conflict could do without them. It is noteworthy that until the middle of the 19th century, when the samurai ceased to exist as a class, these warriors only once took part in repelling an external threat - during the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. And even then the army of Kublai Khan was defeated, in general, not by them, but by a sudden typhoon, which they called "the wind of the gods", which in Japanese sounds like "kamikaze".
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Feeling the taste of an easy victory, the Japanese (already in the 17th century) decided to try their luck on the mainland, wanting to capture Korea, but were brutally defeated by the local militia. At this, the international military exploits of the samurai ended, and they
returned to their usual intra-clan fuss.
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At first, there was no clear distinction between samurai and representatives of other classes in Japan. Anyone could become a soldier of fortune, including a peasant. In the 15th century, such newcomers were called ashigaru (literally "light legs"), and they were armed only with bamboo lances. They were used mainly as cannon fodder, so the lives of most ashigaru were very short. But those who managed to survive became samurai, and one of them, being the son of a woodcutter by birth, managed to become the de facto ruler of Japan. His name was Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
It was he who made the first attempt to turn the samurai into a closed class. According to his decree (late 16th century), belonging to the military class became hereditary. On pain of death, he forbade the carrying of weapons to all residents of the country, except for the samurai. Completed the formation of the Tokugawa Ieyasu caste, allowing samurai not to pay taxes, endowing them with judicial power and distributing government ranks.
"Bushido" and "Hagakure"
It is interesting that it was by this time that fragmented Japan had united, and the wars in the country ended. Therefore, the samurai actually had no one to fight with. It is surprising that less than 20 years of peaceful life has passed when the combat training of these professional soldiers dropped, as they say, to zero. The documents of that time are full of complaints from various government officials that the samurai subordinate to them do not know how to handle weapons, do not know the elementary rules of military art and are completely undisciplined.
It was at this time, in order to somehow prevent the rapid decomposition of the military class, and the myth of the samurai began to be created - in the form in which it has come down to our days. The famous code of samurai honor of bushido also appeared, based on the literary works of Daidoji Yuzan "The initial foundations of martial arts" and "Hidden in the foliage (" Hagakure ") by Zeta Jin'emon Yamamoto. As a matter of fact, it was on the basis of these (in places contradictory, in places absurd) works that the image of the ideal samurai was created. After all, no one seriously thought that after reading a set of rules written in bombastic language, every samurai would immediately rush to execute them. As a result, the image remained the image, but in reality other events took place.
What is an honest samurai
All major battles in Japan were won most often as a result of betrayal on one side or another, often mutual. After all, the winner received a solid cash prize. They not only turned a blind eye to betrayal, but even encouraged it. Sometimes the clan could split in half and fight against each other for different masters, in order to ultimately receive the reward - money (as, for example, did the Satsuma families of Shimazu, Ouchi and Shibuya in the XIV-XV centuries). This is somewhat contrary to the idea that samurai served unselfishly, simply out of a sense of duty. And some commanders of that time (and later ones too) considered betrayal as an element of military strategy.
The idea of the bravery of the samurai is also greatly exaggerated.
Sometimes they fled from the battlefield, barely seeing the superior forces of the enemy. This was the case during the Korean War. Often, a detachment of poorly armed local guerrillas easily put a large Japanese force to flight.
Well, the trademark sepukku (ritual suicide) was an ordinary thing for samurai, but not because they preferred death to dishonor. It's just that all the inhabitants of Japan have a peculiar attitude towards death. Buddhists quite often committed ritual suicide in other countries.
But Japan became famous precisely because of the romantic image, because the samurai ripped open his stomach with a special blade, according to all the rules, in an appropriate setting. And numerous facts that sometimes entire villages committed suicide in protest, for example, against tax increases, remained behind the scenes.
What about hokku and katanas?
By the way, about the beautiful. The first samurai were completely illiterate, because they spent all their time on the war and rarely lived to be 30 years old. In a peaceful period, they could try themselves in the role of artists and poets. There were nuggets whose elegant hokku survived to this day. But such, of course, there were only a few. For the most part, samurai were rude soldiers who loved sake and geisha.
The aesthetics of sword control is also highly controversial. The katanas, which are legendary in the West, are actually a beautiful myth. It took a lot of time and money to make a good blade. In the conditions of constant wars, the samurai were content with consumer goods, which quickly broke down. Katanas that have survived to this day show the poor quality of their forging. Only unique specimens, which cost a lot of money at all times, belonged to large feudal lords and were never used in battle.
Father of kamikaze and true samurai
As a consolation, it is worth noting: there were still real heroes among these uncouth warriors. You can recall a story that happened in the middle of the last century. Vice Admiral of the defeated Japanese fleet, Takijiro Onishi, founded and led a kamikaze squadron, declaring horror to the allied armies. These fearless suicides rammed enemy ships, died themselves, but suffered irreparable losses to the enemy.
True, even such dedication did not save Japan from defeat in World War II.
But samurai don't give up! The morning after the signing of the surrender, Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi (already the day before declared by the victor countries a war criminal to be tried by an international tribunal) cleanly shaved, performed ablution, signed all the necessary death orders, prepared a samurai sword, dressed in snow-white clothes and hachimaki with black hieroglyphs, tied his calves (to fall on his face, as befits a samurai!) with a tight kimono sash, put his thoughts in order and made a sepukku.
Before that, I wrote to the tank:
Washed and clear Now the moon is shining.
The storm's wrath was over.
It's all done now
And I can sleep for millions of years.
Takijiro Onishi was 54 years old. He gave 37 of them to the imperial fleet. Banzai to the hero and true samurai!