Short History Of... - The Samurai

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

After a bloody battle on September 22nd, 1877, Saigo Takamori and his loyal warriors pause on a hillside overlooking Kagoshima. They’ll never surrender, but they’re wounded, exhausted, and massively outnumbered, and Saigo already knows how this will end. Because his noble Samurai army aren’t just fighting the Emperor’s gun-wielding forces. They’re fighting progress itself. And that’s a battle they cannot win. But were the Samurai really a class of elite martial artists, driven by unbreakable codes of chivalry and loyalty? Or, behind the propaganda, just a self-important militia of romanticised thugs? This is a Short History of the Samurai.  Written by Joe Viner. With thanks to Jonathan Clements, historian, and author of A Brief History of the Samurai. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's September the 22nd, 1877. Darkness has fallen over the coastal town of Kagoshima, in the southwestern province of Satsuma, Japan. The night is cool, following a rain shower, in contrast to the stifling heat of the day. The breeze carries with it a faint scent of pine needles and, fainter yet, gunpowder. Across the bay, illuminated by a ribbon of moonlight stitched across the water, the smouldering volcano, Sakurajima, stands in ghostly silhouette against the inky black sky. ghostly silhouette against the inky black sky. A thick plume of smoke billows from its crater, serving as a constant reminder to the local

people of the fragility of life as they know it. Tonight they need no reminding. Six months earlier, a government official named Saigo Takamori recruited men from Satsuma and other southern provinces to launch a rebellion. Their enemy is the Emperor. He has been attempting to modernize Japan, but this has involved steadily dismantling the warrior class to which Saigo belongs. to which Saigo belongs. Saigo and his followers are samurai, elite swordsmen of noble heritage,

known to espouse a strict code of honor both on and off the battlefield. For a thousand years, they have been the dominant political force in Japanese society. But now, these rebels truly are the last of their kind. Today in the volcano's shadow, the insurgents, wielding swords, did battle against 35,000 Imperial troops armed with rifles. Tonight outnumbered and outgunned, Saigo and his few remaining men have retreated to the slopes of a hill

overlooking Kagoshima town. They take advantage of the pause between bombardments to repair their bamboo defences and tend to the wounded, but they know they're fighting a losing battle. While his advisors debate tactics, Saigo himself walks quietly to the edge of the camp and peers over the top of the rudimentary battlements. Below, the enemy garrison stretches into the distance, an impenetrable wall of manpower and modern artillery. With just a few hundred samurai against the swarming Imperial soldiers. Resistance is beginning to look suicidal. Surrender surely is the only option. Saigo's grip tightens around the hilt of his blade. Before they know it, it'll be morning. He has a decision to make.

Welcome to Short History Of, the show that transports you back in time to witness history's most incredible moments and remarkable people. In this episode, we'll take a trip to the land of the rising sun to meet an elite group of legendary warriors whose exploits helped forge the very soul of Japan. But who exactly were these mysterious men and women? And are they really deserving of the acclaim and even reverence that they have received since their demise? This is a short history of the samurai. Amid crackling gunfire and exploding shells, Saigo Takamori stands on that moonlit hillside, faced with a choice of inglorious surrender or inevitable death. As battle recommences, his troops are mown down by gatling guns as wave after wave of

samurai soldiers, trained in the art of kendo or the way of the sword, are slaughtered by civilian conscripts equipped with new-fangled weaponry. A terrible truth begins to dawn on Saigo. The samurai are not at war with the emperor's army, but with an enemy that is even more resolute and ruthless. They are at war with progress. But to understand how this mighty warrior class ended up here, teetering on the brink of oblivion,

we first have to understand where they came from. And for that, we need to travel back to Japan in the Middle Ages. Due to the lack of official records from this time, it can sometimes be hard to separate truth from legend when dealing with the early history of the samurai. One thing we know for sure, however, is that their rise was not the result of a sudden revolution, but instead, in the words of historian Carl Friday, a matter of incremental evolution occurring in fits and starts. By the 9th century AD, Japan is ruled by an increasingly insular aristocracy.

From their extravagant palace in modern-day Kyoto, the imperial family spends most of its time indoors, engaged in leisure activities and artistic pursuits, with much less attention afforded to the business of governing. Practical matters like tax collecting and empire expansion are left in the hands of the military. And over the years, the Japanese armed forces have been undergoing some pretty drastic changes. For example, in the mid-eighth century, the court abolishes the conscript system, ending the reliance on peasant soldiers.

Instead, they introduce smaller, more mobile units of specially trained mercenaries. And over the next few centuries, these mercenaries will be engaged in an ongoing conflict along the northern border of the Japanese peninsula with a group of indigenous people called the Emishi. with a group of indigenous people called the Emishi. The Emishi are a distinct ethnic group native to northern Japan, whereas the majority of the Japanese population, the aristocracy included, are descendants of the Yayoi people who migrated from Korea and China around 300 BC to 300 AD. Jonathan Clements is a historian and author of A Brief History of the Samurai.

The history of Japan is one of civilization, shall we call it, advancing gradually along from the south to the north. And it's very easy to forget that in the Heian period, so in the late 8th, early 9th century, what we now call northern Honshu, what we now call the northern part of the largest island in Japan, was still a wilderness. It was still terra nullius as far as the Japanese were concerned, but it was inhabited. There were aboriginals who lived there called the Emishi. And in fact, Japanese history has been for the last 2000 years, a tale of the Japanese as they define themselves, rolling steadily northward and the Emishi being

slowly pushed backwards. Up to this point, the Japanese military has been heavily influenced by that of neighbouring China. This includes the use of crossbows, heavy metal armour and straight double-edged swords. But the Emishi's guerrilla tactics forced the Japanese to adapt. For example, the Amishi are skilled horsemen and archers, enabling them to outmaneuver the Japanese, whose cumbersome equipment is ill-suited to the forests of northern Honshu. So the Japanese trade their crossbows for longbows. They learn to shoot arrows from horseback. They exchange the straight sword for a single-edged curved blade, the katana, which is easier

to unsheath while riding. Metal armour, they realise, is too heavy and prone to rust, so they replace it with leather. And they incorporate their shields into this armour in the form of boxy shoulder flaps that move to one side when firing an arrow. Even their hairstyle changes. They begin wearing top knots with shaved sides to better secure their helmets. These helmets take on an idiosyncratic look, with flared side panels and strong rounded tops. This ensures Emishi arrows will deflect off them as they charge into battle, their heads lowered. In other words, Japanese soldiers are beginning to resemble what

we recognize today as samurai. But when did these warriors become known as samurai? Medieval Japan is a strictly hierarchical society. The aristocracy alone is divided into 30 ranks, with the top four ranks consisting of princes and lords. Among other things, your rank determines what size fan you can use to keep yourself cool in hot weather, as well as your position within the government. This upper echelon represents just one-tenth of one percent of the population of Japan. While they live in luxurious comfort in the capital, life out in the sticks can be grim

and squalid. For the military generals in the north, many of whom are themselves descended from court nobility, being stuck in the far- many of whom are themselves descended from court nobility, being stuck in the far-flung provinces becomes a problem. Despite the wealth they've accumulated from their vast land holdings, their power counts for nothing unless, that is, they find a way to return to Kyoto and regain access to the royal court. There's probably room for about 5,000 people in the centre of power,

and that is a little enclave, a little bastion of high culture, surrounded by people who are frankly still living in the Bronze Age. And so if you can fight your way in, or buy your way in somehow, get back to the imperial palace, become one of the nobility, you get to live a relatively luxurious life. But if you're stuck outside that citadel, your life is miserable. And so these people start to come back to the capital. Once they make it back to Kyoto, the gentry do everything they can to move up the political hierarchy. It's a dog-eat-dog world of snobbery and conflicting interests, It's a dog-eat-dog world of snobbery and conflicting interests, with fights breaking out in the streets of the capital. To protect himself, every ambitious young nobleman assembles an entourage of trustworthy henchmen.

These henchmen are drawn from the elite warrior class, formed over the centuries of fighting the Amishi in the north. Some of the nobles in Kyoto, fighting for their power positions, angling to try and get their daughterishi in the north. Some of the nobles in Kyoto fighting for their power positions, angling to try and get their daughter married to the emperor, trying to become court nobility, started to use these warriors as hired thugs. They started to hire them as bodyguards. They started to invite entourages down from the north and say, could you maybe stay at my house for a while? And if we get into a fight with someone else's entourage,

at least I know I've got some good muscle. And so in order to make it really, really clear that these people that they were hiring were safe, that they weren't going to seize control for themselves, say, they called them those who serve, which is where we get the term samurai. But those who serve won't be servants for long. But those who serve won't be servants for long. It's the late 12th century, and in Kyoto tensions are running high. In medieval Japan there's a custom of emperors abdicating while still young.

This allows them to enjoy all the lavish benefits of retirement without any of the tedious responsibilities of leadership. However, unwilling to cede power completely, these retired emperors continue to exert an influence over the incumbent monarch from behind the scenes. What becomes filled with competing pretenders to the Chrysanthemum throne, all backed by rival retired emperors, who employ members of various samurai families to do their dirty work. By this stage, two such families, or clans, have emerged as dominant, the Taira and the Minamoto. At first, both samurai clans are mere pawns in the strategic machinations of the imperial family. But over time, the balance of power begins to shift until it's unclear who

is controlling whom. It's an intricate and perilous game of chess. For years, the samurai have been serving the nobility, gaining a foothold within various courtly factions. Now it becomes a question of backing the right imperial candidate and waiting for the moment to strike. In 1180, that moment arrives. Tensions between the Taira and Minamoto clans have been escalating for years. An attempted Minamoto uprising in 1159, known as the Heiji Insurrection, is quashed by the Taira, who are rewarded with prestigious titles at court. The defeated Minamoto leaders are exiled or executed. The defeated Minamoto leaders are exiled or executed The leader of the Taira clan, a cunning man named Taira no Kiyomori

Quickly cements his authority by marrying his daughter to the incumbent emperor, Takakura Shortly thereafter the couple have a baby boy Kiyomori wastes no time He deposes Takakura and installs his infant grandson, Antoku, as emperor. Finally, the Taira have one of their own on the throne. But it won't last long. The Minamoto have strengthened under their new leader, Minamoto no Yoritomo. Outraged by Kiyomori's brazen power grab, the Minamoto assemble an army and march on Kyoto. So begins the Genpei War, the first great conflict between

rival samurai clans. After a series of bloody battles that sweep the country, the Minamoto finally gain the capital. Meanwhile, the Taira, battered and bruised, are forced to retreat to their heartland in the west. But this isn't enough for the Minamoto generals. They will not rest until their enemies are vanquished. are vanquished. In the year 1185, both sides assemble fleets and meet at Tano-Yura at the gates of the inland sea. The last remaining Taira have taken to their ships, where they now train their bows on the horizon and wait.

Before long the Minamoto fleet looms in the distance. A drum sounds. A volley of arrows blots out the sun. The battle has commenced. Aboard the Minamoto ships, the generals scan the enemy lines for signs of the Imperial family. They're searching specifically for the ultimate prize, the eight-year-old Emperor Antoku. Meanwhile, Antoku and his elderly grandmother, Tokuko, are huddled below deck with the rest of the Taira women and children. They have been assured by the Taira leadership that their knowledge of these waters will

give them an advantage over the Minamoto. But even they cannot hide the fear in their eyes. It's becoming clear that they will lose this fight. As the arrows rain down upon them, as the Minamoto draw even closer, Tokuko is confronted with an impossible decision. Faced with a gruesome and ignoble death at the hands of the enemy, she leads Antoku to the ship's deck.

She stares down into the surging waves, red with blood, and picks up her terrified grandson. She takes him in her arms and she says, beneath the waves lies our capital. And she jumps in the sea, and they all jump in the sea after them. And so they all drown, and the Minamoto are victorious. But it's this huge tragedy. Even the poets who are on the Minamoto side are kind of imagining these kind of empty ships ranged across the sea, just, you know, falling apart and sinking and on fire. And what an absolute pointless waste of time this was. But now the Minamoto are in charge, and so they get to call the shots and have the emperor. And as a result of this, their legend kind of rose up that the spirits of the Taira were

living at the bottom of the sea. And fishermen started to find crabs that seemed to have the image of a samurai's face, kind of a warrior mask face on their carapace. And so they throw them back in the sea. And what this did is it created a sort of little mini evolutionary loop. If you were a crab that had a face a bit like a samurai on your back, you stood a better chance of surviving. If you Google Heike crabs, you will see these incredible samurai-like images on the back of these crabs that you

can still pull out of the sea today down in South Japan. But it isn't just local crustaceans who immortalise the memory of the Taira. The events of the Genpei War are recorded in an epic account called the Heike Monogotari. It's from the pages of this chronicle that much of the popular mythology surrounding the samurai has been lifted.

And so the Heike Monogatari is the subject of some of the great battles that were celebrated by the samurai. And for 200 years afterwards, it kind of set a sort of fictional idea for later generations of samurai of how you were supposed to behave on the battlefield. And so this itself started to generate its own memes. For example, one of the things that's grown up out of the fighting on the frontier is that the samurai need to tally who they kill. So originally what they would do is they would just cut someone's head off. There's a verb in Japanese, kubine jikiru, which is normally translated as beheading, but actually what it means is grabbing and twisting and cutting, because you're grabbing someone probably by the ruff of their helmet and sawing their head off,

so you can carry it around in a little bag and then show it to your general at the end of the battle and go, look, I've got 37 here, so I'm on a good tally. In fact, the death toll grew so high that people started having to cut off smaller body parts. So in fact, they would cut off ears or noses. The battlefield is the stage upon which the samurai can make a name for themselves. Military promotions are awarded only to the bravest,

and as such, samurai warfare becomes a conspicuously performative affair. They start to decorate their armor with unique logos, so other samurai can identify them by sight. The famous warrior Yoshitsunai, for example, wears a helmet adorned with rabbit ears, a rather unthreatening look for such a fearsome fighter, perhaps lolling his opponents into a false sense of security. The trouble is, if your fellow samurai can see you charging into battle, they can also see you running away from it. Retreat, therefore, is out of the question. Victory or death are the only options.

And from this, another custom arises. Sapuku, or ritual suicide, also known as harakiri. If a samurai finds himself on the losing side, rather than face the shame of capture, he will choose instead to end his own life. But merely slitting your throat isn't enough. This is seen as the easy way out. In order to die a hero's death, the samurai must kill himself in the most painful way possible, by stabbing himself in the belly, drawing the blade across and then upward, quite literally disemboweling himself. Now, I personally have a theory about this, which is that it actually is a way of taking the easiest way possible. Because your own lieutenants cannot kill their lord and master unless it's a mercy.

So what you do as their lord and master is you kill yourself in the most painful way possible. You open up your own stomach so that you basically, it could take you up to three days to die in excruciating pain. And by doing that, your minions are within their rights, out of loyalty to you to end your suffering by cutting off your head. The world of the samurai is brutal and fiercely competitive. It's also largely male-oriented. But there are exceptions. And this introduces a fascinating element of samurai history.

Onabugesha, or female samurai. One figure in particular stands out within the chronicles. Her name is Tomoe Gozen. During the Genpei War, Tomoe rises through the ranks to become a general of the Minamoto army. Arguably her greatest achievement comes in 1184. The Minamoto are fighting with the rival Mushashi clan

at the Battle of Owazu. It's a tough fight, largely because of the Mushashi's prize warrior, a hulking samurai called Honda Nomuro Shigai. When he comes up against Tomoe in battle,

he laughs at the notion that he could be defeated by a woman. But he's underestimated his foe. With a swift flick of her naginata, a longsword designed especially for the Onabugesha, Tomoe decapitates Moroshigai and rides off with his head laughing. and rides off with his head laughing. A passage about Tomoe in the Heike Monogatari describes her as incredibly beautiful, a strong archer, a spirited soldier on horseback or foot,

fit to confront a demon or a god. She was worth a thousand warriors. Indeed, archaeological discoveries at the sites of famous battles provide an historical basis for such claims. There is archaeological evidence. Sometimes when you're digging up a samurai battlefield, you will find the remains of women in armour. It's not a huge number, but it's enough to make you think that women fighting among the samurai was not quite as unusual as the written evidence tells us.

At the site of the Battle of Senbon Matsubaru, fought in 1580, 35 out of 105 bodies were female. This was a male-dominated world, but the Onabugesha may have been more commonplace than we thought. In any case, by the late 13th century, the samurai have finally established political dominance. After the Genpei War, the general of the Minamoto army, Yoritomo, is appointed Shogun, which is the name given to the supreme commander-in-chief of all Japan. This era is known as the Kamokara Shogunate. It's essentially a military dictatorship. The emperor remains in place as a mere figurehead, rich but effectively powerless, while the shogun rules from Kyoto.

rich but effectively powerless, while the shogun rules from Kyoto. A nationwide network of feudal lords known as daimyos oversees the provinces. It's a system that will endure for the next 700 years. But for now, the Kamakura shogunate is about to face its first real challenge, and it comes in the form of a foreign invader. First under Genghis Khan, and later under Kublai Khan, the Mongol Empire has become extraordinarily large and powerful. It extends as far west as modern-day Hungary, and as far east as Korea, and they have no intention of stopping there. Emissaries have failed to convince the Japanese to bow to Mongol authority, so Kublai Khan

has opted for Plan B, take Japan by force. In 1274, a huge fleet of 900 Mongol ships arrives at Hakata Bay in the south of Japan. The samurai are there to meet them, setting up defenses along the shoreline. But fighting Mongols is a different proposition entirely to fighting each other. The Mongols, it seems, do not follow the same battlefield etiquette as the Samurai. When the Samurai appoints a champion to step forward and challenge a worthy opponent to an honorable duel, the Mongols, scoffing at such formality, simply respond with a volley of flaming arrows.

Clearly, this is a very different kind of war. And with a much larger force at their disposal, it's only a matter of time before the Mongols overpower the samurai defences. So the samurai are not ready for this at all. But they're fighting on the beaches, literally, and they're holding off the Mongols. And the Mongols, because they have this huge fleet, they're lashing their fleet together offshore in this bay. And fatefully, and this is a very famous story because the Japanese never tire of telling it, this huge fleet they're lashing their fleet together offshore in this bay and faithfully and this is a very famous story because the japanese never tire of telling it a storm arises

a massive typhoon arises and as anyone who sails will know if you're in a ship you've got to get away from the shore because the fetch of the waves is so much higher in storm when you're closer to land so you've got to get out of harbor. They couldn't get out. And so the ships start smashing into each other and the whole thing is sunk by this typhoon. A few of them get away and they go back to China and they report that they had some, you know, misfortunes. But as far as the samurai are concerned, you know, they go to bed one night, they wake up the next morning and the bay is full of driftwood and the Mongols have gone. And they believe that this is a divine intervention. They believe that the gods themselves have intervened on their behalf,

which is why they call it the divine wind, kamikaze. Of course, the kamikaze will play an important role in a later chapter of Japanese history. For now, though, it's helping the samurai keep the Mongol invaders from their shores. Incredibly, this divine wind returns in 1281, when an even larger Mongol fleet arrives at Hakata Bay. A typhoon strikes, wiping out the invading army and killing approximately 100,000 Mongol soldiers. This is an important moment in Japanese history because it gives the Japanese ruling class this sense that they have divine protection and that at their most troubled time, at their very worst, the gods will step in and save them. This great victory reaffirms the samurai's belief in their divine right to rule. It also leaves them in no doubt about their ability

to conquer any foe, no matter how unfavorable the odds. For the next 200 years following the Mongol invasions, Japan remains untroubled by foreign threats. There are internal conflicts. In 1336, the Kamakura Shogun falls and is replaced by a general from the Ashikaga clan, but the country does not witness any major new hostilities until 1467 and the outbreak of the Onin War. Problems arise around the issue of who will succeed the present Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa. of who will succeed the present shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa. Without a clear-cut heir, various rival lords contending for power converge on Kyoto. The battle is intensely fought, and before long the city is reduced to rubble. In the words of one distraught Yoshimasa official, the once glittering capital has become a lair of foxes and wolves.

It's a fitting metaphor. In the decades that follow, Japan will descend into clan warfare. This is known as the Sengoku period, or the period of warring states. With the shogun's power completely undermined by the Onin War, regional daimyos assemble armies of samurai and begin grappling for control of the countryside. The situation is worsened by a series of terrible winters, leaving rural areas decimated by famine. Conditions are desperate, and this desperation fuels the violence.

As a result of all of this, as a result of these climatic changes and of the struggle between the samurai, you have this prolonged period of civil war, which the Japanese called Sengoku period. You have rebels fighting the emperor, claiming that they are the new emperor. You also have foreigners arriving, which creates huge difficulties. The Chinese are having their own problems and the Indian dynasty is falling apart, but you start to get foreigners showing up. In 1543, the Portuguese land on an island called Tanegashima, and they've brought with them firearms. And the Japanese have some concept of gunpowder, they get that from the

Chinese, but the Portuguese introduced them to the concept of the matchlock musket. And in fact, the word for musket in Japanese for a while is tanegashima, named for the island where they first got them from the Portuguese. They start buying them from the Portuguese, they start making their own, and these transform the nature of samurai conflict. Much of the annoyance of the samurai, because for a samurai, it's a 10-year project to train a warrior you've got to learn how to use a bow properly you've got to learn how to use a sword properly it turns out that you can pick some idiot off the street and teach him how to use a musket in three days and so this completely proletarianizes the the samurai armies it's a great equalizer on the

battlefield up until the late 16th century the major cause of death on any samurai battlefield The samurai have clashed with modernity, and they don't like it. It will be the start of a long and fateful war of ideas, tradition versus modernization, that will play a huge role in the samurai's ultimate undoing. But for now, the main threat facing the samurai is self-destruction. As squabbles erupt into bloody skirmishes, the leaders of the warring clans look for any advantage they can get. Spying on your enemy becomes a means of gathering vital intelligence, and this necessitates a more subtle form of conflict.

The samurai are not especially known for their subtlety, but during the Sengoku period, a new type of warrior emerges. A soldier whose arsenal contains discretion, stealth and speed. These warriors are called Shinobi, but today we know them by a different name, Ninja. Rival samurai factions send their respective Shinobi on secretive missions to carry out reconnaissance or to assassinate rival warlords. Usually carried out at night, these missions see the ninja scale the sides of buildings in order to kill enemy samurai while they sleep. Such devious tactics are considered beneath the etiquette-obsessed samurai,

so the ninja are generally drawn from the lower classes, which is why so much mystery and uncertainty surrounds their story. The ninja presence in the Sengoku period paints a picture of this time as one of terror and uncertainty. The need for someone to step up and unify the provinces is more urgent than ever. need for someone to step up and unify the provinces is more urgent than ever. In the end, it takes three such people. Their names are Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, the three great unifiers of Japan. In 1568, the strong-minded warlord Nobunaga assembles an army, containing both Hideyoshi and Ieyasu as lieutenants.

They set about subduing the other daimyos and unifying them into a nationwide coalition. Upon Nobunaga's death, Toyotomi Hideyoshi takes over as leader, but ill health soon strikes him down as well. This leaves Ieyasu, a man famed for his patience and wisdom, to step from the wings and take center stage. But Ieyasu's leadership faces opposition from Toyotomi loyalist forces. But Yayasu's leadership faces opposition from Toyotomi loyalist forces. At the Battle of Sekigahara on October 21, 1600, both sides meet in a valley in central Japan. With around 60,000 troops in each camp, it's one of the largest and most important battles in Japanese history. The first musket shots are fired early, at around 8am, when the autumnal fog still shrouds much of the battlefield.

Soon, it's hard to tell what's fog and what's smoke, but the screams are unmistakable. They're the screams of dying men. The battle lasts only a day, but by the end of it, 40,000 soldiers are dead. The army of Tokugawa Ieyasu emerges victorious. So marks the start of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and with it, a long-lasting period of peace. And so it's with Sekigahara and the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate that the Tokugawa become in charge of Japan for the next 250 years. And so this is a real transformation to the Japanese, because they've literally been fighting for centuries, and suddenly there's no more wars to fight. And the samurai at this point are about 10% of the population. They are this ridiculously privileged military aristocracy that has no one

left to fight, but still has this kind of death cult, still has this perpetual training regime, still has this idea they should be on a permanent war footing. Over the course of the next 250 years, the samurai turn into armchair generals. They debate endlessly about matters of loyalty. Some of them become virtually bankrupt because their whole economy rests on fighting wars that they're no longer fighting. And Japan is kind of kept in this time warp, basically, in this kind of voluntary time warp, as if it's still the year 1600. They lock away the guns and they emphasise the sword once more because they really never light the muskets

anyway. Crucially, the Tokugawa shogunate prohibits foreigners from entering the country, ending foreign trade and banning contact of any kind with the outside world. Japan shuts itself away from the march of history, locking itself in a time capsule that won't be opened for another 250 years. Without any wars to fight, the ruling samurai elite need something to occupy their minds. They begin documenting their exploits, debating samurai values and codifying them in books. They elevate warfare into a martial art, fit to be studied as well as practiced. This leads to a proliferation of schools where students can learn the art of Kenjutsu and

Kendo. The way of the sword, a kind of fencing with bamboo poles. Sword masters begin writing lengthy meditations on the art form, like Miyamoto Musashi and his Book of the Five Rings, which is still in circulation today. And when new stories seem to raise issues of samurai loyalty, they become the topic of endless debate. Take for example the story of the 47 ronin. It's the year 1701.

A regional lord, Asano Naganori, has travelled to Edo, modern-day Tokyo, to sit in attendance with the shogun. Asano is from the provinces and is ignorant of court etiquette. As a result, he is treated with mocking contempt by the shogun's official tasked with training him, a man named Yoshinaka. Unable to withstand this ridicule, Asano attacks Yoshinaka, cutting his forehead with his sword. Although the wound isn't fatal, Asano has breached samurai law and is forced to commit ritual suicide. Custom dictates that a samurai should follow his master into death rather than suffer the indignity of being a masterless samurai, otherwise known as a ronin. 253 of Asano's 300 retainers do so. But 47 decide to stay alive and take revenge on the man responsible for their master's death.

To throw Yoshinaka off the scent, the 47 ronins scatter throughout the land, taking menial jobs as farmhands. They start drinking heavily, disguising themselves as drunken louts. One year later, their moment arrives. On a winter's night in the town of Honjo, the 47 ronin come together to prepare for the attack. Some barely recognize each other, so effective are their disguises. But the desire for revenge burns bright in their bloodshot eyes. The snow falls softly as the ronin creep towards Yoshinaka's mansion in Edo. Silently, as coordinated as a ballet, the ronin scale the walls of the house.

Two of them quickly overpower the night watchman, covering his mouth as they slit his throat. They give the signal for the others to enter the house, which they do, taking Yoshinaka's guards by surprise. While the ronin fight with the guards, one ronin, Oishi, the leader, catches sight of a man rushing outside and hiding behind a pile of coal. Even in the dark garden, Oishi can see the scar on Yoshinaka's forehead, a scar that cost its maker his life. He drags Yoshinaka from his hiding place and presents him with a sword to commit harakiri. place and presents him with a sword to commit harakiri but yoshinaka refuses and so with a grimace of disdain oishi raises his katana and slices off yoshinaka's head their mission complete the ronin all of whom have survived go straight to the central square where they kneel, lay down their weapons, and present themselves for arrest.

The shogun's government sentences them all to death by ritual suicide. They are laid to rest alongside their master. The 47 ronin are heralded as paragons of samurai loyalty. And these virtues are played up by the ruling elites, as illustrative of the samurai class as a whole. But historians now believe that much of what is associated with the samurai, loyalty to one's master, chivalry and courage in battle, is in no small part the product of propaganda. Because what you have in the Tokugawa period is a privileged aristocracy that starts off

about 10 and it drops to about 5% by the end of the period. They've got nowhere to go. They've got nothing to do. They're leeching off the people who are doing all the real work, and they're desperately trying to justify themselves. And so one of the things that they're trying to do is to set themselves up as a genuine aristocracy, as people who are better than the people who are below them and therefore should be treasured and respected and obeyed. Because I think you can see a lot of those samurai virtues are much good to samurai, but they're very good for keeping samurai in charge by stopping the rest of the population from being disobedient and so on.

The shogun samurai literally have power over life and death. They patrol the streets like military policemen, permitted to enforce the law with deadly violence. But in the mid-19th century, the Shogun, who derives much of his authority from the past, is about to be undermined by a vision of the future. It's 1852. Japanese fishermen at Edo Bay are hauling in their nets

when they notice strange ripples on the surface of the water. Moments later, a distant humming sound makes them look up. And there, on the horizon, are four black ships with great plumes of smoke rising from their decks. At first, the fishermen think the ships are on fire. Then, as they approach, they see that the smoke is clearly produced by giant chimneys. But this is no vision of the apocalypse. These are steam-powered frigates sent from the United States, led by Commodore Matthew Perry of the Navy. He has come to open up Japan. It's like flying saucers have come down and landed

on Japan. The American, the black ships, Commodore Perry's black ships that arrive in Japan are from 200 years in Japan's future. And the Shogun is powerless to do anything about it. And this creates this huge crisis in Japan, once again, between people arguing about what constitutes loyalty. Some people are saying, well, the Shogun is just an idiot, we should get a new Shogun. And some people are saying, well, the very idea of a Shogun is a stupid idea, so we should abolish the whole institution. Powerless to resist the American imposition of trade treaties, the Shogun begins to look weak.

Clamor for his removal begins to sound from the southern provinces of Satsuma and Choshu. These are the states where the losers of the Battle of Sekigahara were banished to. Their samurai have been nursing that grievance against the shogunate for many years, and now it seems the day of reckoning has come. And it's here that we reunite with a familiar figure, a slightly younger Saigo Takamori. Saigo is from Satsuma. He's an instrumental figure in the revolt which now topples Tokugawa's shogunate, returning Japan to imperial rule under the Meiji Emperor. Today this is known as the Boshin War or the Japanese Revolution of 1868.

It's sometimes referred to as the Bloodless Revolution. Only around 8,000 of 69,000 soldiers were killed. A relatively small percentage, though it can hardly be said to have been bloodless. Whatever the case may be, the restoration of the emperor does not have the effect Saigo and his followers desired. He thought he was bringing the samurai back to power, whereas actually he was a very useful stooge in basically ending the samurai. Because once the Satsuma and Choshu nobles had got in power, they dismantled the samurai system completely. They made it illegal to have a samurai haircut. They made people give up their swords. They abolished the rice stipend, which was how the samurai lived,

so everyone had to go off and get a new job. Saigo Takamori was just completely edged out of a new order and ended up going home in a sulk in the 1870s and starting up a bunch of suspicious sword schools where he started training revolutionaries. suspicious sword schools where he started training revolutionaries. After training up his army of embittered samurai, Saigo launches the Satsuma Rebellion. He announces his intention of marching on Tokyo, but his attempt fails dismally. Saigo and his men are driven back by the emperor's conscript forces, until there is nowhere left to run. The last of the samurai are cornered on a hillside in Kagoshima, where we left them at the start of this story. From the hillside, the samurai can see the muzzle flashes of the Imperial Army lighting

up the valley. Saigo Takamori surveys the battlefield, strewn with bodies, and thinks back on the span of samurai history, the many occasions his ancestors chose to die on their feet rather than live on their knees. He asks himself, what was it all for? With no hope of victory, fighting on seems like an act of foolishness. To continue to hold values that have no place in this strange modern world, surely that amounts to madness. But perhaps this commitment to a cause, no matter how futile, is what being a samurai has always been about. And with that thought, Saigo and his men charge into the barrage of enemy bullets. Soon Saigo will be mortally wounded by a gunshot.

He will commit harakiri, dying a warrior's death. The last samurai is no more. The Satsuma rebellion marks the end of the samurai era, but the memory of these legendary warriors lives on into the 20th century and beyond. In 1900, a writer called Nitobei Inazo writes a book in English, popularizing the legend of the samurai and their military exploits. The book's name is Bushido, or The Way of the Warrior. Bushido lays out seven core samurai virtues justice courage mercy respect honor honesty and loyalty then in the 1930s and 40s the samurai code becomes a useful indoctrination tool for the Japanese government conscripts sent off

to fight in the Pacific theater of World War II, are encouraged to emulate their samurai forebears and sacrifice everything for their country. Towards the end of the war, when resources and manpower are dwindling, the military takes the suicidal rhetoric of the samurai and weaponizes it. Kamikaze pilots, the name taken from the divine wind that finished off the Mongol invaders back in 1281, begin flying their planes into American ships on suicide missions. By 1945, more than 3,800 kamikaze pilots have died, taking dozens of US and allied ships with them. But it's not just in warfare that we see the legacy of the samurai today. Culturally, they have inspired countless books, comics, television shows and films.

And not just in Japan. Who could forget Tom Cruise's 2003 epic, inspired by the life of Seigo Takamori, the last samurai? Today, historians disagree over how we should think of the samurai. Were they truly a class of elite martial artists, forever observing stringent codes of chivalry and loyalty? Or were the samurai essentially a bunch of romanticized thugs, belligerent and self-important? The truth, perhaps, is somewhere in the middle. In any case, the tales of samurai daring and courage will continue to be told. They'll continue to transport us to another world, whether or not

this world existed in reality, quite as it does in our imaginations. Next time, on Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of William Wallace. To some a hero, to others the most evil man, the most dangerous man in this period. So the period of instability between Scotland and England, that this figure is there fighting the cause for Scotland.

But yet in England it's seen as a danger. But, you know, it's a success that he achieved, the kind of figure that he was. It's why in Scotland he becomes such a folk hero and is so important to Scotland's national history. That's next time on Short History Of. Follow us on Twitter for updates. Tweet us with suggestions for Short History Of topics.