Samurai

The samurai (侍) were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court downsized the national army and delegated the security of the countryside to these privately trained warriors. Eventually, due to regressive tax policies, the samurai clans grew so wealthy and powerful that they became the de facto rulers of the country. In the aftermath of the Gempei War (1180-1185), Japan formally passed into military rule with the founding of the first shogunate.

The status of samurai became heredity by the mid-eleventh century. By the start of the Edo period, the shogun had disbanded the warrior-monk orders and peasant conscript system, leaving the samurai as the only men in the country permitted to carry weapons at all times. Because the Edo period was a time of peace, many samurai neglected their warrior training and focused on peacetime activities such as administration or art, but they were still required to wear their swords as a sign of their status.

In 1853, the United States forced Japan to open its borders to foreign trade under the threat of military action. Fearing an eventual invasion, the Japanese abandoned feudalism for capitalism so that they could industrialize and build a modern army to defend itself. The samurai were retainers to the daimyo, so when the daimyo class was abolished and power was re-centralized at the imperial court, the samurai class in turn became defunct. The introduction of modern firearms rendered the traditional weapons of the samurai obsolete, and as firearms are easy enough for peasant conscripts to master, Japan had no more need for a specialist warrior caste. By 1876 their special rights and privileges had all been abolished.