Japanese Bushido, which has a history of more than a thousand years, is the moral code and spiritual pillar of the Samurai in the feudal period of the Japanese nation, originated in the Kamakura shogunate era established by the Genrai Dynasty, and formed the original core ideas of loyalty, righteousness, benevolence, courage, and sincerity, with the realization of personal values as the basis of the realization of personal values and their own abilities.
When people think of Bushido, they always think of fierce impressions such as "cruelty" and "shangwu", which have developed into factors that brought Japan into militarism through the fusion of the spirit of the times in various periods of Japan for hundreds of years. But if we dig deeper, we know that Bushido played an extremely important role in the rise and development of Japan.
I. Spiritual Origin, the samurai fight for the lord, from birth to death to implement the belief in bushido
Bushido first arose in The Fujiwara regime of Japan, the formation of the samurai and the collapse of the emperor's power and the development of the manor system, the rise of local forces due to the annexation of land struggles, the manor owners to defend their own land training a batch of armed forces, generally known as "Lang Zhong".
The emergence of this force gradually formed an armed group larger than the scope of the manor, countless samurai gathered and organized into a samurai regiment, they resolutely carried out orders, clear master-slave relationship, samurai bravery and dedication on the battlefield, is the basic spirit of the samurai, and gradually formed the concept of "samurai habits" and "bow and arrow way".
Although this spirit has long been present, it was only written after the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Bushido is similar to Western chivalry in that it builds the concept of survival for thugs, elevating them from hired thugs to warriors who fight for honor. Bushido requires virtues such as integrity, perseverance, honesty, etiquette, loyalty, etc., and on the one hand, it also restrains these martial people.
Since loyalty to the mission can earn honor, the samurai will defend their honor at the cost of their lives, even if they are surrounded by enemies, they will rise up to kill the enemy, which is a sign of loyalty.
"Day and night are the death and life of the day, and breathing is the death and life of the moment, it is just a common thing"
The samurai who are influenced by the spirit of Bushido do not regard personal life and death as important when they carry out all actions, but life and death are not the main thing, the most important thing is to exert their own value, even if they die, they must act and move forward heroically. Bushido is not an unreasonable demand for samurai to die, but to use one's own wisdom to exert courage, and suicidal behavior should not be done arbitrarily.
For example, in the Battle of Sekigahara launched by Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1600 AD, Tokugawa Ieyasu's Fushimi Castle had only more than a thousand samurai defenders, while the other side led tens of thousands of troops to attack, and under the absolute loyalty of more than a hundred samurai to Tokugawa Ieyasu, they swore to defend all of them to the death, bought to the escape time for Tokugawa Ieyasu, and made a contribution to the establishment of the shogunate by Tokugawa Ieyasu, which is called heroic.
Bushido in this period followed absolute allegiance to the lord and conquered the land for the lord. Loyalty is paramount, and the lord rewards the samurai with loyalty at the cost of his life, and the samurai can only save their families by handing over their lives to the lord, and they also cultivate the loyalty of their descendants to the lord in the samurai family.
The way the samurai expressed their loyalty was by fighting for the lord. As the thugs of the lord, the samurai wielded a sword to kill the enemy for profit, wandering on the tip of the sword, making a living by force, and the wealth of the family and personal life and death depended on their own blade, and the sword was also regarded as the soul of the samurai.
Samurai are often compared to cherry blossoms because their characteristics are very similar to those of cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms are regarded as the national flower of Japan and are cultivated on a large area on Japanese soil.
During the cherry blossom season, people will put down their work to enjoy the cherry blossoms, and they think that the most beautiful cherry blossoms are not in full bloom, but in withering. The cherry blossoms bloom for only one week from bloom to fall, but when they wither, even the cherry blossoms that spread over the mountains will all wither.
It is this state of mind that the samurai end their lives after exerting their ultimate value in a brief period of brilliance. Failed samurai committed suicide by cutting their stomachs, and their suicides were not due to humiliation, but to spiritual satisfaction. After their wishes are fulfilled and their goals have been fulfilled, they should end their lives and no longer dwell on the world.
The glorious liberation of the abdomen as a samurai appeared in the late Heian period. The asana position is divided into a standing or sitting posture, and the method is generally a word and a cross, and the samurai are full of admiration for this behavior.
By the 16th century, bushido thought had undergone some changes. As a scholar and Confucian scholar of the Edo period, Yamaga Suyuki wrote a large number of works advocating the return to Confucius and Mencius, promoting the spirit of Bushido of the noble king and the theory of Japan's centrality. He combined Confucian thought with "martial habits" to propose the theory of shido, transforming the samurai code of conduct and Confucianism into a more theoretical bushido.
And Shintoism has also become one of the important ideas of military thinking. Shintoism lacks benevolence, tolerance, and is imbued with militaristic ideals of belligerence and self-interest. Militarists began to appear in the ruling class, who used shidoism and Shintoism to "enslave" the military and preach the ambition of "Japan's center and conquer the world", and it was really sad that Bushido became the ideological concept of Japan's foreign aggression.
Second, bushido's destiny is to become a militarist theory, and the unjust acts of japan's foreign aggression in modern times have brought disasters to neighboring countries
Militarism and Bushido cannot be separated, and since the establishment of the Meiji government, Bushido has been associated with militarism as a noble spirit in Japan. In modern Bushido, from loyalty to the lord of his respective territories, he became the highest symbol of the country, the emperor.
The Emperor declared that the moral code of the people of the whole country was based on Bushido, and even more so, he indoctrinated the soldiers in the army to become tools of war and incited the idea of foreign aggression of the people.
In order to make the emperor more sacred in the hearts of the people, the imperial family also transformed the preaching of Shintoism, declaring that the emperor is the representative of God in the human world, and the whole country has expressed blind loyalty to the emperor.
"The so-called emperor is the spiritual pillar that integrates the vitality of japanese life, sincerity, and moral conviction."
The Imperial Family also established the "Yasukuni Shrine" for soldiers who died in the honor of the Emperor, according to statistics when Japan surrendered in World War II. The yasukuni shrine has reached 2.46 million. This spirit, known as the Yamato Soul, has always had an indelible impact on the spirit of future generations of citizens.
Before World War II, Japanese schools took Bushido as the first discipline, emphasizing loyalty and patriotism, and the country took the imperial family as the sect and the world as everyone. This blinding idea of the family state made the people see foreign aggression as a state war, and Bushido became ignorant for a time.
The idea of heavy death and light life has been inherited by modern soldiers and behaved even more wildly, who use captives as targets of assassination in war and kill as a way to express victory, which can be said to be extremely cruel.
Even after the defeat, the soldiers thought that they would rather die than surrender, and there was a horrific scene of mass suicide, and the reason for this scene was the distorted Bushido at that time.
Although the spirit of Bushido is righteousness, courtesy, benevolence, courage, sincerity, and loyalty, it has become cruel and ruthless. The Nanjing Massacre became the darkest moment in the history of modern civilization, and when you think of the Kamikaze Task Force, everyone except Japan shudders at the brutality of Bushido.
Third, the spirit of Bushido, as a treasure of Japan's spirit, has made the current Japanese society still flourish and shine
The continuous wars of aggression in modern times have benefited Japan a lot, and Bushido has also become more religious in the hearts of the Japanese people, fueling aggressive ambitions. The reparations and land received during the war greatly strengthened Japan's economy and laid the foundation for post-war economic recovery.
Several positive aspects of Bushido are indeed worthy of the inheritance and development of contemporary people who take its essence and discard its dross.
Righteousness refers to requiring the samurai to follow righteousness and morality; courage refers to the tenacity and indomitability of the samurai and high martial arts; benevolence refers to the samurai who is not only a samurai who knows martial arts, but also has tolerance and love; etiquette refers to grace and shows concern for others; sincerity means honesty; self-denial requires the samurai to restrain selfish desires and not be dominated by desire; loyalty to one's own lord is also the most important creed.
Modern Japanese society's inheritance of Bushido is mainly manifested in "loyalty", they combine national interests with personal interests, their own interests are under the state, embodied in business management and policy formulation, so that Japanese society becomes a community of interests, national unity, and the goal of a rich country.
"Zhong" also excavates people's initiative and creative ability, and uses their limited lives to create unlimited wealth for the country.
As a traditional culture of Japanese history, Bushido has had a profound impact on Japanese society, both in ancient times and in modern times, and modern Japan is still shining after a hundred years of baptism, guiding the Japanese people forward.
Similarly, as the foundation of modern Japanese militarism, its negative impact can still not be ignored, and it is necessary to remove the dross, and only by correctly criticizing it can we effectively prevent the recurrence of the tragedy.
bibliography
The Analects of Ye Yin
"Research on the Empire of Japan"
Bushido