Any ruling class has its guiding ideology or ruling ideology for exercising political rule, and the samurai class in Japan is no exception. For nearly seven hundred years of Japanese shogunate politics, the samurai were its ruling class, and its ruling ideology was Bushido. The ruling ideology of the samurai class is Bushido. At this point, we have to say first, what is a samurai?
Japanese Samurai
Samurai originated in the Heian period, during which Time Japan was already in trouble and chaos, which caused a series of social problems, and in the treatment of these problems, they eventually went to armed forces, giving birth to the emergence of samurai. In the 8th century, Japan gradually formed a privatized manor and manor economy unique to Japan, and the emergence of private property was naturally accompanied by land annexation and concentration, and class contradictions became more and more acute.
In this case, the Japanese manor owners began to cultivate their own private armies to compete for resources by force, and the private soldiers and their groups formed by the manor owners and violent means to solve the dispute were the samurai and the samurai order. At that time, Japan's prefectural military system had collapsed, and there was a vacuum in the national armed forces, resulting in political instability and chaos, and repeated uprisings and rebellions, and the imperial court could not cope with them, but turned to the lords of the manor and their private soldiers for help, and handed over the responsibility of serving as the pillar of the national armed forces to the local magnates.
Japanese Court
Since then, private soldiers have occupied the backbone and main force of the military armed forces of the Japanese imperial court, and have been quite effective in suppressing armed uprisings and maintaining social order. In the process, the imperial court believed that their rule must rely on private groups, which provided an opportunity for private groups to continue to develop and grow. In the political struggles of the time, the imperial court was in sharp opposition between the emperor and the Fujiwara clan, and both sides drew in the local lords and their private groups to help them in the political struggle. In this political environment, the power of the manor owners and private groups further influenced the political sphere.
Later, the private soldiers who supported the Fujiwara clan gradually formed the Genji Samurai Group, and the private soldiers who supported the Emperor became the Heishi Samurai Group, and finally broke out the "Genpei War" that affected the direction of Japanese history. As a result of the victory of the Genji Samurai Clique, the Genji samurai formed a samurai regime that ruled Japan for 700 years, and Japan's public court became a minor part of Japanese history.
The emperor at that time
The structure of the original samurai groups, which emerged from such social backgrounds, became the core of the operation of the future samurai regime in Japan, the master-slave relationship. At that time, the manor owners guaranteed the control of their families over their soldiers in order to protect their own interests, and their families were armed as "masters", and the peasants under the control of the manor were also armed, called "Lang Cong", and this "master-lang cong" hierarchical relationship structure gradually became "the most important element of the samurai order" in the future. ”
This relationship is based on interests as the basic link and is a combination of interests. The owner of the family provides land and personal protection for Lang Cong, in exchange for Lang Cong's loyalty, so that Lang Cong can fight for the interests of the family owner. This is a relationship of favor and retribution, if the lord is unable to meet the needs of the subordinate, the slave will leave the lord, and if the slave does not assume the obligation of the lord, all the rights granted by the lord will be terminated and deprived.
Therefore, the master-slave relationship can also be interpreted as a coexistence relationship, and all the rights and interests of the lord and the slave are premised on the prosperity of the samurai order. The lord relies on the servant to expand his rights and wealth in the fight, thereby increasing the reward for the servant and strengthening the loyalty of the slave to himself, and the slave relies on the hard fight to get more rewards and appreciation of the lord, and gradually improves his rights and economic status.
This relationship has far-reaching effects, and Japanese scholars believe that Japanese Bushido is born from this relationship, and some Japanese scholars have concluded: "The morality of the samurai master-subordinate relationship is produced as Bushido." During the subsequent period of the samurai regime, this master-slave relationship was continuously strengthened and became the core center of the samurai regime system. This relationship was used by the Founder of the Kamakura shogunate, genrai Dynasty, to form the imperial family system in the samurai regime.
Source Lai Dynasty
During the shogunate era, Bushido, as the guiding ideology of samurai militaristic politics, was in an absolutely superior position in ideology, and he negated the civil government of the public imperial court and advocated militarism and the supremacy of force. Throughout Japanese history, the samurai have governed the country as a ruling class for nearly 700 years, and Bushido is the ruling ideology of the Japanese samurai regime and has always occupied the position of Japanese ideology.
In 1192 AD, at the end of the Heian period in Japan, the Genrai Dynasty was given the title of "Shoi Shogun", and the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate marked the legal status of the Samurai regime in Japan by the Emperor, and the political structure of Japan also became "Gongwu Dualism", and moved from "Gongwu Dualism" to "Samurai Monolithic Politics".
warrior
The rights of the public were constantly suppressed and deprived, and the public court became a secondary part of Japanese history, and the military base camp of the shoguns was the real central organ. The Japanese imperial court inherited the civil political system of civilian rule and practiced civilian rule, while the samurai regime was completely military rule by military force.
The samurai are the warriors, the sword is the means of their rule, the samurai are the rulers, and Bushido and militarism are their ruling ideas. A powerful, powerful and powerful public court that overthrew the samurai regime was obviously something that the samurai rulers did not want to see, so from the day the samurai regime was established, the samurai class continued to expand its armaments, consolidate its power, and maintain a strong military force in order to form an absolute deterrent to the public court.
Shogunate power and the emperor
The so-called "only hear the general's order, not the son of heaven's edict." "The samurai rulers have always had little interest in civil politics, and they prefer to use force to resolve political disputes, and the samurai rulers have continuously deprived the public of their political rights through the force in their hands, emptying the public political institutions, eliminating the influence of the civilian government, and comprehensively implementing the rule of force.
Forcing the public court to submit to the willpower of the samurai regime, the samurai arbitrarily dismissed the officials of the public court, approved and even deposed the emperor on behalf of the emperor, established the samurai's own local rule system, exercised local functions and powers, the public court was snubbed and useless, and the public court was always monitored and controlled by the shogunate.
In this form, in which the general and his samurai regime exercised the right to rule the whole country, guaranteed political rights by force, and immediately sent troops to suppress those who resisted, "force became the only criterion for judging right and wrong." "The emperor has become a puppet, and the emperor's ministers and ministers cannot grasp political power, let alone military power.
In the decline of the public court, the samurai militarist regime as the true ruler pursued the principle of military supremacy and promoted militarized rule in all fields of Japanese society, and for the sake of its stability of military rule, the samurai regime extracted the samurai laws applicable to the Japanese samurai regime from the virtues of Bushido.
During the Kamakura shogunate period, the earliest "samurai family training" "Hojo Shigeki family training" was formed in the samurai society, in which the samurai were required to constantly hone their military qualities as virtues, introduced religious doctrines, required the samurai not to be afraid of death, described the samurai's loyalty and duty to the lord as a personal spiritual practice with a religious nature, and emphasized that the samurai could only be the final completion of the practice if they died on the battlefield for the lord.
If Hojo Shigeki's family discipline was merely a moral imperative within his family, then in subsequent history, in the political reforms led by the Hojo clan, the Kamakura shogunate's official promulgation of the Nagasada Style was "a samurai legal norm that is common to samurai politics and samurai society, and is above the laws of the public imperial court." ”
Kamakura shogunate period
Since then, the life of the samurai has become legally binding, and the authority of Bushido thought, the authority of the samurai regime, the authority, and the personal behavior and obligations of the samurai have been legally interpreted and mandatory, and the entry on the master-slave relationship is that the master-slave relationship is formally incorporated into the legal category, so that the group changes from a relationship to a legal provision that everyone cannot violate. The relationship between the monarch and subordinate within the samurai regime was further strengthened, and the provisions on the personal virtues of the samurai were also legalized and institutionalized.
The later Muromachi shogunate and the Tokugawa shogunate had a set of samurai legal norms that applied to their own rule and were not subject to the control of public law, and the basic content and requirements of the laws of the Muromachi shogunate and the Tokugawa shogunate were completely developed on the basis of the "Nagasada Style". The Muromachi shogunate promulgated the Kenbu Shimu (建武式目), a samurai law in the laws of the Samurai regime in Japan, which continued to enrich the samurai rule in the form of legal provisions while inheriting the entries of the Nagasada Shimu.
The virtues of Bushido or the spirit of the samurai are derived from war, so Bushido is the way of war, and it serves as the ruling ideology of the samurai regime and the ideological source of militarism. "It drives the samurai to take loyalty and obedience to the lord as the primary duty, and it is a typical way of killing people to fight and kill and attack the city for the lord."
Bushido advocates killing, and in the book "Ye Yin", it tells the story of a man named YoshizoEmon, in order to "test" his bravery to prove that he did not live up to his samurai family, at the request of his father, "began to kill dogs at the age of 5, and executed death row prisoners at the age of 15", this bloody killing "trial" still serves the war, is an inhuman advocacy, and continues to malignant expansion in the course of Japanese history.
Bushido advocates war and loyalty, requires the samurai not to forget to hone their martial arts at all times, as a warrior and subordinate status, to kill or kill to repay the master's favor, marked by the promulgation of the "Yongzhen Style", the samurai regime constantly advocates Bushido in its own laws, beautifying death, emphasizing that the samurai should not be greedy for life and afraid of death, taking the death of the lord as glory, requiring the samurai to be proud of their military achievements and death, everything revolves around war and killing, and all rights and glory must be obtained by war.
During the Muromachi shogunate period, frequent wars represented not only large-scale destruction, but also the great development of Bushido, due to the peculiarities of the era of frequent wars. The "martial courage" and "loyalty" in Bushido have been deepened and emphasized again and again, and the samurai of this period are keen to make achievements on the battlefield and take it as the highest goal of life.
During the Tokugawa shogunate
After the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan ushered in a period of relative peace and stability, of course, due to the marginalization of the public imperial court, during the Tokugawa shogunate period of "stopping the army", even if the samurai were no longer based on the creed of the battlefield, they also became rulers and politicians, and the so-called Tokugawa shogunate "the way of the government".
However, the main virtues of Bushido have not changed, and its laws still require that the samurai still be loyal to the lord and fulfill their obligations in life, and in peacetime, they should be honored by the proper handling of their own duties and absolute obedience to the affairs of the lord, and still emphasize the creed and way of doing things in life that they should fulfill their duties and make meritorious achievements.
The Muromachi shogunate was an unprecedented chaotic era in Japan, but its role in promoting the development of japanese samurai militarism was indeed considerable, and the military-based concept of nationhood, political ideology, political system, political operation, and development methods developed in an all-round way during this period.
During the Muromachi shogunate period, the absolute dominance of the samurai regime was formally established, and militaristic rule was brought to the extreme in the chaos of war, and its political organization, political mechanism, and power distribution model became the tradition of samurai militaristic politics, and became a model for the Japanese political system and operation before the end of World War II. The Muromachi shogunate's 260 years of frenzied slaughter not only brought war and destruction, but also a stage of great development of Japan's samurai politics in 700 years, and its impact was extremely far-reaching.
Ideologically, the content of Bushido was further enriched and the content was more perfect, and during this period it continued to serve as the ruling ideology of the shogunate, and the content of Bushido was also incorporated into the Samurai Constitution, which became the constitution followed by Japanese samurai politics, and in the process of its continuous promotion, it gradually became the core value system and moral concept of Japanese national thought.
Politically, the Muromachi shogunate formally established the dominance of the samurai regime, established a perfect samurai political system, the samurai forces penetrated into all aspects of Japan, established the historical trend of Japan, the Muromachi shogunate sought interests through war expansion, and the core idea of force supremacy militarism was continuously strengthened by later generations, and finally formed the basic national policy of Japan to pursue national interests by force until the end of World War II, which became the ideological basis for Japan's foreign expansion.
The system of government during the Muromachi shogunate was not only inherited by the Later Tokugawa shogunate, but also continued until the end of World War II, and many of the prime ministers of the Japanese government were warlords with military power.
Economically, the "Half-Economy Law" promulgated by the Muromachi shogunate formally stipulated half of the land income of the whole country as war funds in the form of law, and during the Muromachi shogunate, in order to cope with the frequent needs of war and support the arms race, Japan's economy completely served the war, and thus formed a practice, and after the modern capitalist revolution, Japan's primary national policy was still "rich country and strong army", and strong army was the basic national policy. This shows how far-reaching the influence of the Muromachi shogunate on Japan was.