Samurai, the word everyone may have heard of, although it seems to sound a bit like "martial arts practitioners" meaning, but the meaning of "Japanese samurai" seems to be far more than that, Japan's "samurai" seems not to be a profession, but a class similar to identity, but why are they called "samurai"?
In fact, the meaning of "samurai" at the beginning was "military attaché", and japan began to implement a legal system in the Heian period (China's Sui and Tang dynasties), and with the national law, there was naturally a relatively regular army. Before the Heian period, all free men except slaves had the responsibility and obligation to be recruited by the emperor, and this professional army had to supply and support themselves, so many people could not return to their hometowns, but chose to settle in the local area, which was called "defense", due to the irregularity of the anti-human soldiers, and brought a huge burden to the peasants, it was abolished by Emperor Huanwu in the early Heian period.
Emperor Hengwu set up a relatively regular army, but in ancient times, the feudal supreme ruler was often only able to cooperate with the Hao clan, and the same was true in Japan, the emperor asked for help from the local clan Hao clan, and the emperor offered to grant the title of "Shoi Shogun" to any local power that replaced him in his crusade against Kita Honshu (a place controlled by the local aborigines Ezo people who had not yet ruled by the Yamato regime). These skilled bow-horse clans soon became tools used by the emperor to suppress the resistance.
At this time, the military was no longer competent for everyone, and the full-time military system, the samurai system, also began to be popular in Japan. In addition, a bunch of clans also have their own controlled armed forces to defend the lord's manor, and the status of these people is naturally relatively high.
Yuan-Japanese War The Japanese samurai Sue-Yong charged under the rain of arrows and bullets of the Yuan Dynasty army. (Kamakura shogunate samurai Takezaki Yoshinaga's "Mongol RaidIng Words" painted in 1293)
It is worth noting that recruiting elite troops from the nobility is almost a practice in classical regimes, such as Hualang in Silla, the "Jingying" in the Ming Dynasty army, and the aristocratic officers in European countries... This is true, because in a strictly hierarchical society, military power must be monopolized by the ruling class so that the ruler can rest assured.
Due to the special circumstances of Japan, the samurai began to control the regime, the emperor gradually "virtualized", at the end of the 12th century, the samurai leader Genrai Dynasty served as the "Shogi Daimyō", founded the shogunate, and commanded the military and government of the world, marking the advent of the samurai era, that is, the "samurai" became the ruling class from the profession of "officer".
As we all know, the basic economic system of the feudal era was that the landlord class controlled land resources and controlled the peasants, and the Japanese samurai were actually somewhat similar to what China called the "landlord class", and the supreme ruler of Japan, the "shogun" (also the highest ranking samurai), was a large landlord (the same was true for the Chinese emperor).
Due to Japan's national conditions (there are many mountains, the country's different plates are relatively large, and the centralization is weak), there are many hao clans and daimyo in various places, and these people are divided into seals, and layer by layer, they form a group of samurai, who control land resources and become de facto landlords.
In fact, this is not only Japan, but also Europe, but Europe is not called "samurai", but "knight".
In theory, Japanese samurai must be both literate and martial, in addition to being good at Japanese swordsmanship, equestrianism, archery and other martial arts, they must also read, learn Chinese, practice calligraphy, and make articles; especially in the art of war and Tao Strategy. Character, integrity, and courage are also within the scope of evaluation.
Then if some samurai masters suffer and the samurai lose their masters, they become "ronin".
What is the biggest feature of "samurai"? Many people may say "samurai sword", "Bushido" or something, this is also true, in Japanese history, in addition to the princes and nobles, only samurai can wear long swords, the general common people are not entitled to use, and the so-called "Bushido" is actually the ruling class follows the "morality". But this is not actually the most fundamental feature of the samurai, the most fundamental feature of the "samurai"
: They are completely out of production.
Speaking of "ninjas", ninjas do not belong to the samurai class, but are only recruited under the daimyo, generally only civilian status, high-level ninjas are equivalent to corporals, so their social status is lower than that of samurai. Although there were some ninjas who actually had the status of sergeants, they were strictly only the secret agents of the shogunate or the leaders of ninja organizations.
But what? Everyone also knows that things are uncertain, if many flag people in the late Qing Dynasty in China also lived poorly, some Japanese samurai were also very miserable, and many middle- and lower-level samurai after the Edo period also had no food and clothing (there were many small and medium-sized landlords in China who went bankrupt), made a living by being village teachers, doctors, etc., and some were forced to run to become monks, of course, in theory, their social status was still very high. Because samurai were basically of aristocratic origin, in the Edo period, the samurai hierarchy was divided into sergeants and corporals, and the sergeants (superior samurai) included nobles with official positions and territories such as the great generals, daimyōs, banners, and clans, and were very similar to knights, while corporals (lower samurai) were the descendants of those who had fallen into the nobility (goshi), or the ronin who were dismissed from their positions by the clan to which they belonged, although they had aristocratic blood, they were no longer valued, no different from commoners.
In the Japanese drama "Sakamoto Ryoma", the difference between the "sergeant" and the "corporal" at that time was shown, the corporal only had the right to have a surname (civilians did not have a surname) and a status symbol such as a knife, and could not overstep the sergeant in the place of clothing and residence, such as the residence rank could only be "samurai house" instead of a high-level "samurai house", and usually could not make an umbrella or wear silk, etc., the income was not much more than enough, and the life would not be much better than that of ordinary people; because he could be promoted through military merit, The way out and status are still much higher than those of commoners, so there are still many corporals who are keen to devote themselves to the officialdom, and there are few examples of people who prefer to live in seclusion but do not want to go out.
After the Meiji Restoration, the class of samurai was abolished, and most of the powerful samurai were reduced to the rank of warrior, effectively equivalent to the so-called inferior nobility. However, due to historical and cultural influences, the identity of "samurai" is still recognized to a certain extent.